Puritan Sermons 1

PURITAN SERMONS
1659-1689
BEING
THE MORNING EXERCISES
\
]
AT
CRIPPLEGATE, ST. GILES IN THE FIELDS,

AND IN SOUTHWARK
BY
SEVENTY-FIVE MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL
IN OR NEAR LONDON
with Notes and Translations by James Nichols
IN SIX VOLUMES
VOLUME 1
The Morning Exercise at Cripplegate:
or Several Cases of Conscience Practically Resolved,
with Part of the Supplement
RICHARD OWEN ROBERTS, PUBLISHERS

Wheaton, Illinois
1981
THE MOENING EXEKCISE

AT CEIPPLEGATB:
o,
SEVERAL CASES OF CONSCIENCE

PRACTICALLY RESOLVED,
BY SUNDRY MINISTERS,
BEMRMBBR, HDOLXL
Commending ourselves to every man' conscience in the sight of God._2 Corinthians IT. S.
Unwuique et liber tua corucientia f et ad hune Kbntm dueutiendum et emmdandw
omnet aiii inventi twit.BEB.NAHDUS De Interiore Dome, c. xxviL p. 1078
In his own conscience every man finds * most important book, for the elucidation and
amendment of which all other books have been invented."EDIT.
OvSttt yap o&rou ovre tffri <potpot, ovrt otu>ot, &t % ffwetru % roucmura rats tiuurntv .-PoLTBii Fragmenta, p. 1029.
No witness is so much to be dreaded, and no accuser so terrible, aa that wakeful conscience which hat its residence in every human spirit."EDIT.
TO MY
MOST UNFEIGNEDLY BELOVED PARISHIONERS

OF ST. GILES, CEIPPLBGATB.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
THESE sermons, both preached and printed, are the mere product of love to your souls. I never yet, that I remember, went
through the parish without some, though not suitably compassionate, heart-aching yearnings towards my charge, to thiuk (and
that I could think of it according to the worth of souls!) how
many thousands here are posting to eternity, that within a few
years will be in heaven or hell, and I know not how so much as to
ask them whither they are going. While God continues me your
watchman, I shall affectionately desire and solicitously endeavour
to keep myself "pure from the blood of all men;" (Acts xx. 26;)
and that not only for the saving of my own eoul, by delivering my
message, but that you also may be saved by entertaining it. I am
willing, therefore, to commend unto you some legible provocations
to serious piety; and therefore have procured a contribution of
help, that "in the multitude of" spiritual "counsellors" your
souls may have " safety." (Prov. xi. 14.) In short, my brethren,
give me leave to say, that if I had but the apostle's graces to help
me in the manner, I can without boasting at present use the
matter of his spiritually-passionate expressions, that "I greatly
long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray,
that your love" to truth and holiness "may abound yet more and
more in" saving "knowledge and in all" sound "judgment; that
ye may" practically "approve things that are excellent; and that
ye may be sincerely" gracious, and universally "without offence,
till the day of Christ;" that you may be "filled with the fruits of
righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise
of God." (Phil. i. 811.) These, my beloved, are and shall be,
through grace, the constant desires and restless endeavours of
Your most affectionate soul-servant,
SAMUEL ANNESLEY.
November 14*A, 1661.
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THIS celebrated collection of useful and orthodox theology consists
of six volumes of practical as well as doctrinal discourses, preached
by some of the most eminent divines of the seventeenth century,
and published at irregular intervals between the years 1660 and
1691. Under the title of " MORNING EXERCISES " are comprised,
1. The four volumes of sermons preached at Cripplegate, and published
separately:The first volume in 1661: its title is, The Morning Exercise
at Cripplegate: or several Cases of Conscience practically resolved by sundry
Ministers :"The second in 1674: it i called * A Supplement to the Morning
Exercise at Cripplegate: or several more Cases of Conscience practically
resolved," &c.:The third in 1682, being A Continuation of MorningExercise Questions and Cases of Conscience," &c.:And, in 1690, Casuistical
Morning Exercises: the fourth volume," &c. To each of the four were prefixed an able preface and introductory sermon by the very learned and amiable
SAMUEL ANNESIEY, LL.D.
2. "The Morning Exercise methodized; or certain chief Heads and Points
of the Christian Religion opened and improved in divers Sermons," &c.
preached at St. Giles in the Fields in 1659, and published in 1660. For this
volume, which is itself a brief Body of Divinity, the REV. THOMAS CASK, A.M.,
wrote a preface, and the first sermon, which is called "the Introduction."
3. " The Morning Exercise against Popery: or the principal Errors of the
Church of Rome detected and confuted, in a Morning Lecture preached lately
in Southwark," &c.; published in 1675. The editor of this volume was the
REV. NATHANABL VINCENT, A.M.; and by competent judges it has always been
deemed a standard book on that great controversy which is recently revived.
The first sermon in this valuable course was delivered by the RBV. MATTHEW
POOLE, A.M., celebrated as the judicious and erudite author of Synopsis
Criticorum, and of other theological works of great merit.
From the preceding enumeration it will be perceived, that " The

Morning Exercise methodized " was the first of the volumes that
was published in this series. In DR. CALAMY'S "Account" of the
REV. THOMAS CASE, its excellent editor, it is related: " He first set
up the Morning Exercise; which, to the benefit of multitudes,
hath been kept up in this city, from place to place, ever since,
except when the rigour of the times prevented." After his
decease, DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, having long been its " main
support, took the care of it upon himself." In the REV. SAMUEL
PALMER'S " Nonconformists' Memorial," (vol. i. p. 126,) is given
the following more ample history of its rise and success:
" Its origin, according to Mr. Neal, was this: ' Most of the citizens in London having some relation or friend in the army of the Earl of Essex, so many
bills were sent up to the pulpit every Lord's day for their preservation, that
the ministers had not time to notice them in prayer, or even to read them. It
was therefore agreed to set apart an hour at seven o'clock every morning, half
of it to be spent in prayer for the welfare of the public, as well as particular
cases, and the other in exhortations to the people. Mr. Case began it in his
Vlt
church in Milk-street, from whence it was removed to the other distant

churches in rotation, a month at each. A number of the most eminent ministers conducted this service, in turn; and it was attended by great crowds of
people. After the heat of the war was over, it became what was called a Casuistical Lecture, and continued till the Restoration. The sermons were published
in six volumes in. quarto/ (NEAL'S Hist. Purit. vol. i. p. 797,4to.) These
Lectures treat on a variety of useful subjects, practical as well as doctrinal, in
answer to questions proposed, and some of them on cases of conscience ; but
they are all founded on texts of scripture, in the form of sermons. They are
now little known, but are more valuable than is generally supposed. The
authors were the most eminent preachers of their day. It is worthy of notice,
that hi one of the volumes, (which are not numbered, nor uniform,) there is a
discourse by Mr. Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who then
ranked with the Nonconformists. It is in answer to the question,* Wherein
lies that exact righteousness which is required between man and man?'
Matt. vii. 12. (See No. X. in the volume of which the Preface is dated
November 14th, 1661, 4th edit.) Most of these Lectures are much longer
than could have been delivered in half an hour. It appears that they were
held every morning for one month only ; and from the Preface to the volume
dated 1689, the time was afterwards contracted to a fortnight. Most of these
were delivered at Cripplegate church, some at St. Giles's, and a volume against
Popery in Southwark. Mr. Neal observes, that this Lecture was afterwards
revived in a different form, and continued in his day. It was kept up long
afterwards, at several places in the summer, a week at each place; but Utterly
the time was exchanged for the evening."
Two of the volumes here described were published prior to the

year 1662; consequently all the authors of the sermons in those
volumes were CONFORMISTS up to that timej and though the
majority of them afterwards became, for conscience* sake, NONCONFORMISTS, yet this circumstance, instead of detracting from
their moral and intellectual worth, has served, through intervening
years, to enhance their character, in public estimation, as divines
of great talents, erudition, and piety.
In this new edition of the " MORNING EXERCISES/' I found
it necessary to obtain a pure text, by a careful collation of the
various impressions; between the first and last of which, I found
considerable discrepancy. In the first edition of each volume, the
typographical execution is generally the least faulty; yet the
second and following impressions deserve a preference on another
account,because many of the venerable authors lived long
enough to introduce into their discourses important additions, or
to impart to their style a few last touches of refinement, or of
judicious emendation. The reader will learn the nature of tbese
variations, by consulting pages 243, 434457, and 668, 685, in
this volume.
I have made no alteration in the language of the writers, and
have not ventured to amend tbe structure of their sentences. For
a few of these productions, indeed, much indulgence may be
claimed from the considerate reader, as they have evidently been
printed from rough notes used in the pulpit, without any subsequent attempt at transcription or revision.
My attention has been principally directed to the adoption of a
viii
regular and uniform mode of punctuation j which is the source of
much clearness in every species of literary composition, and affords
most important aid in comprehending the design of an author.
Wherever I have discovered the relative " which" employed as a
personal pronoun, I have usually changed it into "that," " who," or
" whom," except in citations from scripture, in which this anomaly
has obtained a kind of sacred sanction through long and prescriptive usage. The omission of the relative pronoun after its antecedent was also a common practice in those days, and tended much
to obscure the sense of several interesting passages. In this case
I have commonly introduced the relative, but always within brackets j [a method] which I have likewise pursued in other instances
where the obvious meaning of the clause seemed imperiously to
demand the insertion of an explanatory term, but never without
[thus] distinctly marking it as my own addition. It is necessary
for me further to intimate, that, in a few instances, (though fewer
than in any books of that age which have come under my notice,)
the verb and its nominative case or cases did not stand in exact
agreement with each other: this defect I have always endeavoured
to remedy. The casual discordance between the verb and its
adjuncts seems to be more frequently traceable to the negligence
of the printers, especially in the later editions, than to the carelessness of the writers; whose current language, though extremely
varied, (each of them possessing prevailing traits peculiar to himself,) may be pronounced as being, on the whole, very correct and
appropriate.
Three or four of these divines appear to have quoted from
memory those passages of scripture which they adduce in support
of their doctrines. For example: in sermon xv. page 309, this is
the manner in which the author has cited Ezek. xxii. 14: " Can
thy heart hold, and thine hands be strong, when I shall visit, when
I shall deal with you ? saith the Lord." But the rendering of the
verse by our English translators, is this: " Can thy heart endure,
or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with
thee ? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it." In all cases of
this description, (and they have not been numerous,) I have strictly
adhered to the phraseology of the authorized version, except when
it was obvious that the author had purposely given his own translation of a particular clause or sentence, to amplify its signification,
or to render it still more terse and emphatic. In elucidation of
this practice, the reader is referred to page 617; where I retain the
phrase " labour after" which is Dr. Annesley's rendering of &cex>,
in Philip, iii. 12, though " follow after," is the version of our translators ;and to page 315, where Ezek.xxii. 14 is again cited by the
Rev. E. Pledger j but as he evidently intended the citation to be
paraphrastic, it is retained, as he wrote it, thus: " Take it in God*s
own challenge, Ezek. xxii. 14: in verse 13, God complains [that]
the sinner had given him a blow; but then, saith God, ' Caust
thou indeed make thy part good ? Can thy heart hold out ? Can
thy hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee ?'"
THE EDITOR'S .
I subjoin a List of tuck word* a are slightly changed far other,

their immediate cognates in meaning and derivation .
Acre, accrue; attaque, attack ; acceptable, accountable. BatUique, basilic ; beholding, beholden; base, bass. Charet, chariot; course, coane; eofteefo,
conceal. Dispoiled, despoiled; discustom, disaccustom; deeds, dazzles;
duciays, decoys; drouth, drought; to dead, to deaden; drove, drove. Excentrical, eccentrical; cxsultancy, exultancy. JFbtTfcur, failure. Herricane, hurricane. Intention, intension; (as intenseness or intensity;) intayled, entailed;
imbargtte, embark ; inricht, enriched. Like, likely ; likest, likeliest; lithargy,
lethargy. Malepart, malapert; metal, mettle. Nepe-tidei, neap-tides. Onslait,
onslaught. Postulous, pustulous; Philistims, Philistines ; petarht, petards;
phancie, fancy; preheminency, pre-eminency; partaked, partook; phanatic,
fanatic. Reliques, relics; reflect, reflex; rere-ward, rearward; runnagadoes,
renegadoes. Secondary, secondary; twinge, swing ; schreeking, shrieking;
skar, scar; streights, straits; splitted, split; sizes, assizes ; suddain, sudden;
shiptorackt, shipwrecked; surveighs, surveys; rare, surely. Travel, travail;
traffiques, traffics; tragcs-comedy, tragi-comedy; tentations, temptations; throws,
throes. Upholsters, upholsterers. Wranckle, rankle; wracks, racks.
Here also is subjoined a Collection of the principal words which,

for various reasons, I have retained, though they are rarely used by
modern writers:
Adhibit, acceptation, (acceptance,) appale. Bemisted, benevolous, boggle.
Crebrous, candent, countable, catch, (ketch,) cautelous, consequent, (as a
noun,) to crack, (to brag,) consultedly, to contrary, (to contradict,) caption,
complacential. Diaper, (as a verb,) dreggy, discurrency, delices, de-ebriated,
diflbnn. Elenchs, (sophisms,) entreatment, eftsoons, endamage, extern, emphase. Flapped, fastuous, feathery. Gangrenate, to greaten. Incarnative, to
item, inordinacy, incidency, immoderacy, indulgence, inexpleble, intern, ingenerate. Kindle-coal (mischief-makers). Lostness, lither, love-worthy, loatbness. Moistness, mighty useful, marvellous circumspect, to mind, (to remind,)
mockage, (mockery,) miserablest, mischieving, mediatory, mutuatious,
momentany. Nescience. Oversense, otherwhere, obumbrate, obligement,
otherguess. Preesentiate, proclive, parle, propriety, (property, and sometimes
proprietorship,) pertinacy, patent, (open,) to patter-over prayers, pot-gun,
principled (verbal adjective). Quietation. Respondence, to rate, (to scold,)
reddition, (explanation,) ruffling. Smatch, supinity, spiritful, scape, spritefully, sullages. Truck, to temperate, tempestivity, tang. Universalest,
undoubtful. Vagous, velitation, velleity. Yelk.
Lest the reader, after inspecting the words in these Lists, should
erroneously infer that they afford a fair specimen of the sermons,
he ought to be informed that the obsolete spelling occurs only in
three or four of them, and that the authors were generally excellent orthoepists, and masters of a good though diversified style,
and a manly elocution.
But the most arduous and toilsome task which I have undertaken,
is the translation of numerous biblical, classical, and metaphysical
citations from Greek and Latin books, which occur, almost without
exception, in every sermon, and often in every page, and which
usually afford a most gratifying exhibition of the fine taste and
sound judgment of the different authors in this beneficial manner
of applying the results of their profound researches and extensive
reading. In the first sermon more than seventy passages of this
THE EDITOR'S PREPACK.
kind are rendered into popular English, for the benefit of those
readers who prefer that some pains should he taken by an editor,
rather than by themselves, in ascertaining the titles of the various
books, and the meaning of the valuable extracts which, in the form
of notes, are adduced from them in support of important propositions. Indeed, the most playful of the classical allusions are more
useful than a cursory observer would imagine, evincing, as they do,
an extensive and accurate acquaintance with the motives and feelings of our common species in their multiform developments.
The versions of other men I have uniformly preferred to my own,
whenever I could find them sufficiently simple and expressive;
though it will soon be perceived, that my small library is not particularly rich in this interesting department of literature. Beyond
the bare duties of an editor and translator I have seldom wandered;
and the small number of notes which I have interspersed through
the work, relate to critical matters, and not at all to those which
are doctrinal. Of this description are the two long notes in pages
33 and 37. In the laborious course of preparing copy, I have been
much impeded by the very imperfect mode of citation adopted ;
some of the sermons specifying neither book, chapter, section, nor
edition. Sometimes the very names of the writers are not mentioned ; at other times, they are given only in such brief monosyllables as the following : Bress., Cham., Tir., Gib., Brad., Rut., Kon.,
Brach., Say., Ber.; so that to decipher the men whom these abbreviations (and others still more puzzling) were intended to designate,
to discover the original sources of the recondite passages which
were left without descriptionând critically to examine them in
juxta-position with others,were duties the performance of which
to my own satisfaction required far more leisure, and the exercise of
greater qualifications than I ever possessed. It is easy to account
for the curt mode of reference to which the reverend authors
resorted, and even for its occasional omission, when it is recollected
that they lived in an age when the Greek and Latin languages were
understood by the greater portion of those who were either the regular attendants on their ministry, or who perused their discourses ;
to them, therefore, the names and productions of all these Classic
writers, ancient Fathers, Schoolmen, and Casuists, were familiar;
and they consequently needed only this imperfect method of
intimation, rather than of formal quotation. Under these circumstances of difficulty in the execution of my purpose, I may,
tiierefore, without the appearance of presumption, be allowed to
bespeak the equitable judgment of every real scholar j who, while
best qualified to appreciate the care and labour involved in the
attempt to render faithfully, into intelligible English, abrupt clauses

and insulated sentences, is the only man that can be expected to
make adequate allowance for the stray imperfections which his more
enlarged course of reading enables him incidentally to detect, but
v liicli his candour will not suffer him invidiously to censure.
46, HOXTON-SQUAIIE,
JAMES NiCHOLS.
January 5th, 1844.
CONTENTS.
MORNING EXERCISE AT CRIPPLEGATE.

SERMON I.
BY THE REV. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL.D.
HOW MAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?
Paf.
And herein do I exercise myself, to hare always a conscience void of offence toward
God, and toward men.--Acts xxiv. 16 ................................................
II.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM GREENHILL, A.M.
WHAT MUST AND CAN PERSONS DO TOWARD THEIR OWN CONVERSION?
Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.-Ezekiel xviii. 32............................. 88
III.
BY THE REV. BENJAMIN NEEDLER, B. C. L.,
AND SOMETIME FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.
HOW MAT BELOVED LUSTS BE DISCOVERED AND MORTIFIED?
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole
body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,
and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not thai thy whole body should be cast into hellMatthew
v. 29,30 ........................... ................................... ....................... 60
IV.
BY THE REV. JOHN SHEFFIELD, M.A.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE?
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the
heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall
away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves
the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.Hebrews vi. 46 ... 71
V.
BY THE REV. JOHN GIBBON, B. L>.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW MAT WE BE 80 SPIRITUAL, AS TO CHECK SIN IN THE FIRST RISINGS

OP IT?
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh..Galatians v. 16 ...
87
XIT
CONTENTS
SERMON XVII,
BY THE REV. THOMAS MALLERY, D.D.
HOW MAT WB HAVB SUITABLE CONCEPTIONS Of GOD IN DUTT?
Pag.
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak
unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.Genesis xviii. 27................. 360
XVIIL
BY THE REV. THOMAS LYE, A.M.
BOW ARK WE TO LIVE BT FAITH ON DITINB PROVIDENCE?
Trust in him at all times, ye people.-Psalm IxiL 8....................................... 369
XIX.
BY THE REV. THOMAS MANTON, D.D.
HOW MAT WB CUBE DISTRACTIONS IN HOLT DUTIES?
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart
ie far from me.Matthew XT. 7,8 ...................................................... 400
XX.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM COOPER, A.M.
HOW MUST WB IN AIL THEWS THANKS?
In every thing give thanks : for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you.) Thessalonians v. 18..... ......................................................... 415
XXI.
BY THE REV. MR. SIMMONS.
HOW MAT WB GET BID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH, AND KNOW WHBN OVA ACTIVITY
IN DUTT IS FROM THB SPIRIT OF GOD?
Quicken thou me in thy way..Psalm cxix. 37............................................. 434
XXII.
BY THE REV. HENRY WILKINSON, SEN., D.D.,
MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
WHEREIN ARE WE ENDANGERED BT CBXNGS LAWFUL?
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until
the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them
all Likewise also as it was in the day* of Lot; they did eat, they drank,
they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that
Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed
them allLuke xvii. 2729............................................................ 468
CONTENTS.
XT
SERMON XXIII.
BV THE REV. THOMAS WATSON, A.M.,
OF EMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW MUST WE MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS?

FX
Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ?-Luke ii. 49................ 46?
XXIV.
BY THE REV. HENRY HURST, A.M.,
FELLOW OF MERTOX COLLEGE, OXFORD*
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS TOWS DO HOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE

RELIGION.
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? I will pay my
vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people..Psalm cxvi. 12,14. 479
XXV.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM WHITAKER, A.M.,
FELLOW OF EMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
But Christ is all and in all.-Colossians iii. 11. .. ......................... ............... 500
XXVI.
BY THE REV. JOHN JACKSON, A.M.,
OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW SHALL THOSE MERCHANTS KEEP UP THE LIFE O7 RELIGION, WHO, WHILE
AT HOME, ENJOYED ALL GOSPEL ORDINANCES, AND, WHEN ABROAD, ARE HOT
ONLY DESTITUTE OF THEM, BUT EXPOSED TO PERSECUTION?
Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tent of Kedar ?
Psalmcxx.6. ............................................................................. .. 617
XXVII.
BY THE REV. ANDREW BROMHALL.
BOW IS HYPOCRISY DISCOVERABLE AND CURABLE?
First of all, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which i hypocrisy.

LukexiL 1. ........................................................... ..................... 636
XXVIII.
BY THE REV. DAVID CLARKSON, B.D.,
FELLOW OF CLARE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THE INFLUENCE OF THE ORDINANCES MAY ABIDE
UPON THEM?
Lord Ood of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep tills foot ever in
the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their
heart unto thee.1 Chronicles ix. 18................................................. 653
CONTENTS.
SUPPLEMENT TO THE MOBNING EXERCISE

AT CKIPPLEGATE.
SERMON I.
BY THE REV. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL.D.
BOW MAT WB ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?
Page.
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandmentMatthew xxii. 37, 38....................................................... 572
II.
BY THE REV. JOHN MILWARD, A.M.,
FELLOW OF COBPIT8-CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD.
HOW OUGHT WB TO LOVE OUB NEIGHBOURS AS OUE8ELVES?
Thou shalt lore thy neighbour as thyselfMatthew xxii. 39............................ 621
III.
BY THE REV. THEOPHILUS GALE, A.M.,
FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.
WHEREIN THE LOVE OF THE WORLD 18 INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOVE 0* GOD.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him.1 John ii 15......................... 642
IV.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM JENKIN, A.M.
NOW IS THB TIME: OB, INSTRUCTIONS FOB THE PRESENT IMPROVING THE SEASON
OF GRACE.
We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the
grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and
in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted
time; behold, now is the day of salvation..2 Corinthians vi. 1,2................ 665
THE HORNING EXERCISE.

:
SERMON I.
Bt THE BEV. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL.D.

I
i
1
HOW MAY WB BE t)NI VERBALLY AMD EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?
And herein do 1 exercise myself, to Katie always a conscience void of offence
'
toward God, and toward men.Acts xxiv. 16.
THIS sermon is but preliminary to some select cases of conscience :

and in this text you have a notable anatomy of conscience ; wherein are
these six things singularly considerable :
1 . Here is the index to the book of conscience ; the eye to the portraiture of a Christian, that, according to your several standings, looks
upon the business, the time, the manner, and the cause of this account.
(1.) Ev TOUT. Herein In this, that is, in this business.* As if he
had said* " Here I am arraigned as a malefactor, charged with sedition,
schism, and heresy : IN THIS my conscience acquits me. Herein do I
exercise" &c. Again,
(2.) Herein In or at this time.f As if he had said, " It is but five
days ago, since I was flapped^ in the mouth for this defence ; and I see
those present, that so rashly and illegally censured me ; yet now, before
more equal judges, I bring the same defence. Herein I exercise myself"
&c. Again,
(3.) Herein In this manner. As if he had said, " ' My manner of
life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at
Jerusalem, know all the Jews ; which knew me from the beginning, if
they would testify, that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived.'
(Acts xxvi. 4, 5.) And I am not conscious to myself of any crime in
respect of their law, either in my Judaism, or Christianity :" || or thus,
(4.) HereinAs if he had said, " * I have hope towards God, that
there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust ;*
1
.
I
I
1
1
and THEREFORE ^[ ' with me it is a very small thing that I should be

judged of you, or of man's judgment : yea, I judge not mine own self,
for I know nothing by myself ; yet am I not hereby justified : but he
that judgeth me is the Lord;' (1 Cor. iv. 3, 4;) and therefore, having
* In hoc. VULGATE and EHASMUS.
t Interea.BEÂ. Id est, E>
> DE DIEU.
t Flapped is a good old English word, and not to be altered
into the modem phrase, " slapped in the mouth."EDIT.
Sic.ETHIOFIC.
Id eet, Ev Tovrtf , DE DIEU.
11 Traixus in Acts xxiii. 1.
H Propierea. SYRIAC and AEABIC. . DE DIEU on verse 15.
ERMON \.
HOW MAY WE BE UNIVERSALLY
an eye to the resurrection and last judgment,* I exercise myself to

have," &c.
2. Here is tb.e eci with the quality included; Atrxco, " I exercise,"f X am
musing, and exercising ray mind; I am learning and busying my thoughts.
The word also notes industry and endeavour, pains and labour. As
if he had aid, "This is my meditation, my study, my work and
employment, to get, to keep, and use, a conscience void of offence," &c.

3. Consider the subject of this exercise : AUTO*, " Myself." It was
himself, not only his hearers. He took on him the care of all the churches;
but he would not have it charged upon him, that he kept others' vineyards and neglected his own; (Cant. i. 6;) he would be sure so to
exercise himself, that he might not by any means, " when he had preached
to others, himself be a castaway." (I Cor. ix. 27.)
4. Consider the object of this exercise: and that is * Conscience."
And pray consider the manner of expressing himself: uSuveiSijew e%em
"To have a conscience;" to be owner of a good conscience.\\ All men
have a conscience, but we may say of most, " Conscience hath them."
They have a conscience, as they have a fever, or a disease ; conscience
is troublesome, and disquiets them; they cannot sin so freely as if they
had no inward gripes; and therefore they had rather be rid of their
consciences, than be thus troubled with.them. But now the apostle3ie
would have a conscience to commune with, he would do nothing but
what he is willing his depnty-judge should approve of.
5. Consider the quality of the subject; -, " void of offence:"
that is, without any thing which will not endure the scrutiny of both
divine and human judgment.^ The distribution notes the entirenees,
exactness, and excellency of his gospel-carriage, in his religion towards
God, and in his conversation among men.** He made it his business
to live purely before God, and righteously among men.ft
6. Consider the continuance of this exercise; < , "Always."
It is not only by fits and starts, when in some good mood, or under some
pangs of conviction; it is not only when arrested by sickness, or
affrighted by the apprehension of death; but always, at all times.
The words thus opened, the general CASE that lies upon me to resolve
is this:
CASK.
How may we be universally and exactly conscientious f
Universally, in respect of things; exactly, in respect of manner.
To answer this, (so far as I can crowd it into a sermon,) I shall present you with these four things:I. What conscience is. II. What its
objects. III. What its offices. IV. What are the kinds of consciences.
* Propter hoc, id est, Propier hanc fiduciam.GBOTIITS. "On account of this
trust 01 confidence."EDIT.
Meditor, and sometimes the same with treufciw.
BUD JBUS.
Operam do, elaborate continue, orno, colo.STEPHANI Lexicon.
AffKftv utitur Paulus significations conjugations Hebrasa Hithpahel.BEZA.
" But, the proper signification of being retained, (a verb of which Paul makes
frequent use in his Epistles,) I prefer to receive it, as we do many other words in these
sacred books, in the signification of the Hebrew conjugation Hithpahel."EDIT.
It RUTHERFORD against Liberty of Conscience, p. 1.
If VATABLUS in loc.
** rt\ta yap aperrj.CHH.YSOSTOM tn loc.
ft CALVIN in loc,
-W
est, Ata vfomos .PIBCATOR.
AND KXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?
Wherein various directions are necessary, for remedies and rules; which,
when laid together, will resolve the case.
THE DESCRIPTION.
1. Conscience w man's judgment of himself,* that is, of his estate

and actions,^ as they are subjected unto the judgment of God.I
therefore close with this description, to wave the determination of that
school-dispute, whether it be an act, or an habit, whether of the understanding, || or will,^f or both ;** whether it be a distinct faculty, ft or
power.jj how far born with us, and how far acquired. I willingly
let pass all|||| that doth not further the design I drive at, namely, an
universal and exact conscientiousness.
For conscience the Hebrews ordinarily make use of two words, namely,
* AMESIUS De Consdentia, lib. i. c. i. p. 1.
t VOETII Selectee Disput. pars
Mi. p. 827.
DURANDUS, lib. ii. dint. 39, p. 441; AauiKAS, Prim. Qua. 79,
art. 13, p> 147.
SANDERSOHUS De Obligatione Consdentia, praeL i. sect xviL
p. 21.
|| Plerique referunt ad intellectum.BALDUINI Cos. Conscient. lib. i.
c. iii. p. .
* Ibidem.
** BRESSERUS De Conscientia, lib. i. c. vi. p. 23.
* MR. BERNARD'S " Treatise of Conscience," p. 4.
upon Conscience,
P 87.
SAKDERSONUS, ibid, p. 23.
|||| Imprimis observandum est, tantam
esse virium mentis fnempe potentiarum, habituum, et actvum) inter se natures cognationem tamque arctam quoad usum et exercitium conjunctionem sive connexionem, ut non
solum Vocabulorum appeliationes, ted et reales singulorum proprieties et officia, reliquis
promueue et indiscriminafim aitribui soleant; idque non in exoterids tantitm poetarum,
oratorum, aliorumque humanioris literature authorum, (quibus licentius loqui permissum est,) sed et in dogmatids phtlo&ophorum et scholasticorum scriptis.Idem, eodem, p. 9.
" To remove, therefore, all ambiguity, it is in the first place observable, that there is such
an affinity, by nature, of the endowments of the mind, (namely, of potentias, habits, and
acts,) and so near a conjunction, so close a connexion, according to the use and exercise
of diem; that not only the appellations of words, but the offices and proprieties of every
one of them, are promiscuously and without any distinction attributed to one another; and
THAT not only in the rhetorical expressions of the poets and orators, and others the professors of human literature, to whom a liberty was permitted; but even in the dogmatical
positions of the philosophers and schoolmen themselves, who were denied that happy elegancy."BISHOP SANDERSON'S translation of his own Latin, 1659. And in the last
paragraph of that lecture, Absolvi tandem, certl obscurius quam out voluissem, aut debitissem, si res aliter tulisset. Profecto mirieata est et perplexa omnis (quod viri grows
simi jam olim conquesti aunt} de aninue intellective potentiis et facultattbus disquisitio,
cj[o. Qua capere se putant, et quidem suo modo capiunt illiteratissimi quique homuncione ; hose ipsa non capiunt aoutissimi philosophi. Qua in re neque sails admirari Dei
Optimi Maximi infinitam sapientiam, retundentis hoc pacto humanam superbiam, et
representantis mortalibus, velut in specula, inanem illam \&, qua sibi videntur
aliquid esse, cum nihil sint, misere deoipientes cor suum.pp. 35, 36. " I have now
finished what I conceived necessary to be spoken concerning the nature of conscience: in
which I have been longer, (I fear,) but certainly more obscure, than either I would or
ought to be, if the subject could otherwise have borne it But, truly, all disputation
concerning the faculties and potentias of the intellective noul is intricate and perplexed;
as most learned men have already complained of it. Those things which are before our
feet and eyes, which of themselves do jump into our thoughts and senses; those things
which are not unknown to the cobbler and the weaver; things which the most illiterate
men do think they understand, and indeed in some measure do understand them ; the
same things are not understood by the greatest of the philosophers; and the most refined
wits are here at a stand. In which I cannot sufficiently admire the infinite wisdom of
the Almighty, by this means beating down all human pride, and presenting to mortals
(as in a mirror) that empty , seeming wisdom, by which they would appear
to be something when they are indeed nothing, miserably deceiving their own hearts;
(Gal. vi. 3 ;) that so men might learn metiri se modulo ac pede suo,' to measure themselves by their own last and their own module,1 and not to be wiser than becometh them,
but to be wise unto sobriety, (Rom. xii. 3,) acknowledging their own foolishness, that to
God alone may be the glory of his wisdom."Idem, ibidem.
SERMON I.
HOW MAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY
"heart" and "spirit." HEART,' in Pro*, iv. 23 ij^ cor tuuat.

" KEEP thy heart" (that is,keep thy conscience) "with all diligence;" and
BO in the New Testament: " If <, our heart" (that is, if our conscience) "condemn us." (1 John Hi. 20.) SPIRIT, in Prov. xviii. 14 : rm,
"A wounded spirit" (that is, a wounded conscience) "who can bear?"
And so in the New Testament: " What man knoweth the things of a man,
save rveufia, the spirit of man" (that is, the conscience of man) " that is
in him ? " (1 Cor. ii. 11.) But in English (as also in the Greek, <rwe<S)]<rif,
and Latin, conseientia, whence we borrow it) it is called CONSCIENCE,
" knowledge with another;" which excellently sets forth the scriptural
nature of it: as, " My witness is in heaven;" (Job xvi. 19;) and, " I say
the truth, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost."
(Rom. ix. 1.) In both places, it is as though he had said, " God witness
eth with my conscience."* Conscience is placed in the middle, under
God, and above man.f I will close this with Brochmand's description
of conscience, to be " a kind of silent reasoning of the mind, whose
definitive sentence is received by some affection of the heart, whereby
those things which are judged to be good and right are approved of with
delight, but those things which are evil and naught are disapproved
with grief and sorrow. God hath placed this in all men, partly to be a
judgment and testimony of that integrity to which man was at first
created, and of that corruption that followed sin; partly that God may
have a tribunal erected in the breasts of men to accuse delinquents, and
to excuse those that do what is good and right." J
II. The OBJECT of conscience is very various.Conscience hath great
employment, and much business with the whole man, and with all his
actions. It is like those living creatures in the Revelation, " all over eyes."
It looks to the understanding, whether our wisdom be carnal or gracious;
(2 Cor. i. 12;) to the will, whether it go beyond, or fall short, in ability
of good performances; (Rom. vii. 18;) to the affections, whether the
entertainment or refusal of the gospel be the matter of greatest- joy or
sorrow. (Rom. ix. 1, 2.) It pries into all our actions both towards God
and man. TOWARDS GOD : whether, in general, our estate be good;
(Heb. ix. 14;) in special, whether our service be inward and spiritual,
(2 Tim. i. 3,) or only outward and formal. (Heb. ix. 9.) More particularly,
it surveys all our duties, whether we pray in faith; (Heb. x. 22;) whether
we hear with profit; (1 Tim. iii. 9 ;) whether, through our baptism, we
can go unto God as unto an oracle ;|| (1 Peter iii. 21 j) whether in the Lord's
supper we have singular communion with Christ; (1 Cor. x. 15, 16;) in
short, whether we do and will stick close to religion; (1 Peter iii. 15,16;) as
* SANDEH.SON. ibidem, et postea aparsim,
f PERKINS, voL ii. lib. L wp. 11.
$ BHOCHMANDUS, torn. i. art. 1, c. iii. q. 2, p. 7.
MB. BEBNABD of Con
science," p. 56, et seqg.
II Interprets LXXIl, vocabulo repwrew tituntur, guando
in Vetere Testament Israelite diountur interroyare Domini. Baptismus est irepwTTJ/KO, retpowio bonce coatoientia, et etiam interrogatio apud Deum ; qttia oudet cum
jiducia Deum accedere et interrogate ; hoc est, cum eo collogui, eumyue rogare pro se et
/.GEBHABDI Loci Communes, torn. iv. De Sacramento, sec. 88, p. 180. " The
Septuagint employs the word eittpwrsiv,' to ask ox inquire,' whenever the Israelites are
said to ask at die mouth of the Lord. Baptism is evtptar-, the answer of a good conscience, and also an inquiring toward God; because this good conscience dares to
approach to God with confidence, and to entreat Him ; that is, it ventures to speak with
him, and to entreat with him in behalf of itself and others."EDIT.
AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?
knowing, that if conscience do not steer right, religion will be shipwrecked. (1 Tim. i. 19.) Thus duties toward* God are the great object
of conscience; bat duties toward man are the secondaryt "and like unto
it." TOWARDS MAN in our whole conversation; (Acts xxiii. 1;)
particularly, that we be obedient to rulers; (Bom. ziii. 5;) and that
which is, in one place, charged upon us for conscience* sake, is in another
place commanded for the Lord's sake: (1 Peter ii. 13:) in short, that we
be just in all our dealings, (Heb. xiii. 18,) avoiding all justly offensive
things, (1 Cor. x. 29,) words, (1 Kings ii. 44,) thoughts; (Psalm Ixxiii.
15, 16;) that we express singular charity, (I Tim. i. 5,) especially to
souls, (Bom. ix. 1, 2,) and this in prayer, (2 Tim. i. 3, 4,) when we can
do nothing else: and conscience doth not only do all this at present
urging to duty, or shooting or tingling under the commission of sin; but
it foresees things future, provoking to good, and cautioning against evil;
and also looks back upon things past with joy or torment; so that it is
easier to reckon what is not the object of conscience, than what is. In
a word, Every thing of duty and sin is the object of conscienceIll. The OFFICES of conscience are likewise various.In general, the
proper office of conscience is, discursively to apply that light which is in
the mind unto particular actions or cases. The light which is in the
mind is either the light of nature, or the light of Divine revelation.
1. By "the light of nature," I understand those common notions which
are written in the hearts of men, which, as a brand plucked out of the
common burning, are the relics of the image of God after the fall. Not
only scripture but experience evidenceth, that those who are practical
atheists, " that say unto God, Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways," (Job xxi. 14, 15,) yet cannot get rid of his deputy,
their conscience. They carry a spy, a register, a monitor in their bosom,
that doth accuse and trouble them; they cannot sin in quiet.* Those
that are withoutor rejectthe sun-shine of scripture, yet they cannot
blow out God's candle of conscience. (Prov. xx. 27.) 2. By " Divine
revelation," I mean both the standing rule of scripture, (Isai. viii. 20,)
and God's extraordinary discoveries of himself, whether by dreams or
visions, or prophecies, or other spiritual communications: (Num. xii.
68; Heb. i. 1:) all which, though (if they be from God) they are
according to scripture; (1 John iv. 1 ;) yet the former are afforded upon
particular providences; (2 Chron. xx. 14; 1 Kings xiii. 20, 21; Num. xxiv.
per totum;) and the last are the universal privileges of particular
favourites. (2 Cor. xii. 24.) But it is the office of conscience to
apply all these; and that it doeth, by the discourse of a practical
syllogism.f For instance:
Whosoever believeth,' (John in. 36,) that is, accepteth of Christ as
Lord and Saviour, (I Cor. xii. 3,) 'shall be saved.'
* Quod gi in oorpore hoc pstmodum importunA cogitation* verto in mente t et muttotiee
gravius torqiteor in recardatione quam prius capttufueram operi perpetrations.BERNARDUS [Claravallenns] De interior* Domo, sen De ConsdentiA adificanda, c. xxx.
p. 1074. u Those things which I have been doing with this my body, afterwards become
the subjects of my meditation, on which my mind ponders with deep thoughtfulness; and
the mental torture which I endure in my recollections is frequently more intense than the
pleasure which I derived from the perpetration."EDIT.
t SAYRUS, Clav. Re.
lib. L c. iii. p. 4.
ff
SERMON I,
"But" (may the gracioue person say) "I accept of Christ as Lord
and Saviour. (John xx. 28.)
"Therefore shall I be eared."
Or thus; 'Whosoever is unfeignedly willing to have his actions
brought to the scripture touchstone to be tried whether they be right for
the matter, and to the scripture balance to be weighed whether they are
weight for the manner, his deeds are wrought in God; that is, he is in
a state of grace, he acteth by the gracious assistance of the Spirit of
God: (John iii. 20, 21 :)
" But" (may the trembling soul say) " I desire nothing more than to
bring myself and all my actions to a scripture trial; (Psalm czzxiz. 23,
24:)
"Therefore" (he may conclude) "I am in a state of grace, &c.
(Psalm xxvi. 1, 2.)"
Once more: " Whosoever committeth sin,' that is, makes a trade of
sin, is of the devil,' that is, is the child of the devil (I John iii. 8 i)
"But",i(may every unregenerate person say, Bom. vi. 20,) "I make
a trade of sin; that is, when I am a-sinning I am in my element; I am
where I would be; there is no work so pleasing to me:
" Therefore, I am the child of the devil; that is, I am in a state of
damnation. (Rom. vi. 16.)"
In the major, or first proposition, you have the DICTATE of conscience : * in the minor, or second proposition, you have the TESTIMONY
of conscience: and, in the conclusion, you have the JUDGMENT of conscience. | 1. In the first the power of conscience is very great, so great
that it can do any thing but make evil good ; for it can make an indifferent action good or evil; and it can make a good action evil: [j
therefore in things necessary it doth so bind, that no human laws can
loosen; (Acts iv, 19;) ^[ and thereupon we are said to be downright debtors,
(Bom. i. 14,) engaged servants, (Bom. vi. 16,) spiritually bound, (Acts
* Habitualis cognilio menti impressa, varii, ab authoribus nuncupatur, ut conscientia,
conscientia diclamen, lex naturalis, scintilla rationis, -, f-c.ESTIUS in
Secundum Ijbrum Sententiarum, distinct, xxxix. sec. 2, p. 427- " An habitual conception or apprehension which is impressed on the mind receives various appellations from
different authors, as conscience, the dictate of conscience, the law of nature, a spark or
slight glimmering of reason, unsullied mental integrity."EDIT.
Conscientia,
respectu propositionis, dicitur lumen et lex ; respectu assumptionis et conclusionis, testis ;
sed, respectu assumptionis, aptissima vocalur index vel liber ; et, respectu conclusionis,
maxima proprie judex.AMESJUS De Conscientia, lib. i. c. 1, sec. 9, p. 3. " In reference
to the major proposition the conscience is called a light and a law; with respect to the
assumption (or the minor proposition in an enthymeme) and to the conclusion, it is called
witness: but with this further distinction, in regard to the assumption or minor it is with
much correctness designated as an index or a book , and in regard to the conclusion or
inference it is most appropriately styled a judge."EDIT.
+ Propositionem dictat
. Assumptio per appropriafiotiem vocatur . Conclusio est ipsa .
Ibidem, sec. 10. " 2,, conscious uprightness, dictates the proposition. The
assumption, or minor, is by appropriation denominated awfiSrjais, conscience. The conclusion is the real judgment." See the note at the close of this Sermon.EDIT.
Ibidem, Theses Theol. De Conscientia, sec. 18, p. 44.
|| See ART IN n Lexicon
Philologicum under the word Conscientia.
"ft Vix orediderim aputt sefuisse Staple*
tonum cum hac effutiret. Forum conscientia dixit esse longe majorem partem clavium..
CHAMIERI Panstratia Catholica, tarn. ii. lib. xi. c. 9, sec. 23, p. 205. " I can scarcely
believe Stapleton to have been in possession of his right senses when he gave utterance to
this nonsense. He has declared the forum of the conscience to be by far the largest part
of the arena in which the power of the keys may be exercised/ EDIT.
xx. 22,) lovingly constrained, (2 Cor. . 14,) graciously necessitated;

(1 Cor. ix. 16 5) yea, in a word, we can do no other (unless we will offer
violence to our consciences) than do what God chargeth upon us as duty.
(Acts iv. 20.) Thus far the DICTATE of conscience. 2. In the TESTIMONY of conscience, conscience examines, sifts, and tries our actions.
This in scripture is called a "returning into a man's own heart,"
(1 Kings viii. 47,)* a thinking of our ways, (Psalm cxix. 59,) a speaking to our heart, (Hosea vii. 2,) a laying things to heart, (Jer. xii. 11,) f
a setting our heart upon a business, (Haggai i. 5,) $ an examination and
trial of ourselves. (2 Cor. xiii. 5.) 3. And thence the CONCLUSION is
inferred from the premisses, according to our apprehension of the rule
and account of our actions. Yet this is worthy of special observation,
that though both the premisses be undeniably true, yet there is nothing
more ordinary, than for not only wicked but gracious persons (though
upon different grounds) to deny the conclusion: (Bom. ii. 18, 21, 22:)
and the truth is, without the Spirit's assistance, by way of conviction to the wicked, and relief to the godly, neither of them will prove
any better logicians than still to deny the conclusion. Graceless persons
they will not conclude against themselves: for, (1.) They will not weigh
the cogency jof any scriptural argument. (John iii. 20.) (2.) They have
sucked-in other self-flattering conclusions: (Deut. xxix. 19:) and, (3.)
They are willing to put a cheat upon themselves: (James i. 22:) || so
these will not conclude against themselves. And, on the other hand,
gracious persons dare not conclude themselves so happy as the scripture
represents them: (1.) Through the prevalency of temptations, Satan
frights them from their comforts: (Rev. xii. 10:) ^f (2.) Through the
abounding of grace, (Psalm cxxvi. 1,) they think it is too good to be
true; especially considering, (3.) Their sense of unworthiness. (Luke vii.
6, 9.) " What! THEY pass a sentence of absolution upon their souls!
of approbation upon their actions! No; they dare not!" Through overmodesty they will belie the very Spirit of grace. In short, the only remedy
I shall commend to both sorts is this; namely, Beg of God to persuade
thy heart to close with convincing truth. As if you should say,
" Lord, thou hast told me in thy word, that if I come unto Christ, I
shall in no wise be ca&t out; (John vi. 37;) and, if I love God, I may
thereby be sure that God loves me: (I John iv. 19 :)
" But, Lovd, so far as I am able by searching to know my own heart,
I desire nothing more than to come to Christ, (Jer. iii. 22,) to receive
Christ, (John i. 11,) to be one with Christ, (Gal. ii. 20,) to be conformable to Christ. (Heb. ii. 11.) And, Lord, I dare say, with Peter, "Thou
that knowest all things knowest that I love thee.' (John xxi. 17.) If
* Et reversi fuerint ad cor suum.Ex Hebrao. The Hebrew has, " Bring back to
their heart "EDIT. f aV^JJ Oti) Ponens super cor.
J There it is, 3 mb lo*tt>
O331V?J> Partite cor vestrum super vias vestras. "Put or apply your heart to your
ways."EDIT.
[In this passage] there in both wiipafere, (as if he had said,
" Make as strict a scrutiny into your own hearts, as the devil will do when he tempt
you,") and , " Be as loath to be mistaken in your graces, as an usurer in hie
coin."
|| \<, Faka argumentation* uti, et subdola supputatione fattere $
[" to employ false argumentation, and to deceive through a roguish and cunning mode of
reckoning;"] as those in Matt, vii. 2123.BROCHMANDUS in loo.
It The
devil accuseth them to themselves, as well as unto God, day and night
SERMON I.
HOW- MAY WK BE UNIVERSALLY
prizing thee above all thing in the world, if fettles longing for farther
acquaintance and more inward communion, if pantings after the secrets
of thy presence, and fear of nothing more than to offend thee, be
infallible evidences of sincere love, then I dare appeal unto thee, that I
love thee t (Pealm Ixxiii. 25; cxix. 20 $ cvi, 4 ; xxv. 14; cxix. 120:)
" Therefore, Lord, persuade my soul thankfully to acknowledge* that
it is in a safe condition."
On the contrary, thus:
" Lord, thou hast told me, that if I live after the flesh, I shall die
(Bom. viii. 13;)
" But my heart and life undeniably evidence, that I mind nothing but
carnality:
" Therefore, Lord, convince me, that there is but a step, but a breath,
between me and everlasting death. (Job xxi. 13; Psalm czlvi. 4.)"
Thus, Christians, do but suffer and help your conscience to do its
office, and " then shall you have rejoicing in yourselves alone, and not
in another:" (Gal. vi. 4 :) that is, you will find cause of rejoicing in the
testimony of your own conscience; and not in others thinking you to he
better than you are, nor in your thinking yourselves to be better than
others. Thus you have the OFFICES of conscience. I come in the last
place to speak of [the kinds of conscience.]
IV. The KINDS of conscience, I know, are commonly reduced to these
four; namely, good and quiet, good and troubled; evil and quiet, evil
and troubled.*
But, intending the resolution of the case before me, in speaking to
conscience under the several kinds of it, I shall speak to eight kinds of
consciences. The TWO FIRST (namely, the sleepy and the seared
conscience) are peculiar to the worst of men. The FOUR NEXT
(namely, the erring, doubting, scrupulous, and trembling consciences) are
almost indifferent to good and bad; only the two former have a greater
bias to bad; and the two latter have a greater tendency to good. But
the TWO LAST kinds (namely, the good and honest, and the good and
quiet consciences) are peculiar to God's choicest favourites. In treating
of these, I shall endeavour to acquaint you with the nature of eaehfi
how to cure the evil, and how to obtain the good; and hereby the application will be entwisted with the explication throughout my discourse.
I.
THE SLEEPY CONSCIENCE,
I. The first, and one of the worst kinds of consciences in the world^
is the sleepy conscience.Such is the conscience of every unconverted
* BERNARDUS De Conscientia adificanda, p. 1107.
+ But here I must say
with Augustine: Non possum ut vole escplieare quod sentio: to/men quid molfar dicere,
peto ut, non-expeetatis verbis meis, sagacissima si potestis intelKgatis. Odi definite ;
nam faoilius est mihi mdere in alterius definition* quod non projbem, guam quicquam.
bene definiendo explicare.AUGUSTINUS De Ordine, torn. i. lib. ii. cap. 1, 2, p. 671.
" In explaining my own sentiments, I find a difficulty in rising to the elevation of my
wishes. Yet my request is, that, my expressions being quite unpremeditated, you will
expend your utmost sagacity in understanding what I shall endeavour to utter.I dislike
the task of defining; for it is much easier for me to perceive, in the definition of any*
ether person, that of which I cannot approve, than to explain something by a happy
definition of my own invention."EDIT.
person, that is not yet under horror. Their spirit, that is, their conscience, is asleep; (Bom. zi. 8 ;)* that as bodily sleep bindeth up all
the senses and animal spirits, so this spiritual (or rather nnspiritual)
sleepiness bindeth up the soul from all sense f of the evil of sin, and
want of grace; and therefore, in conversion, Christ doth awaken the
conscience. (Eph. v. 14.) The disciples of Christ have their spirits
waking, when their bodies are slumbering; that is, they have a gracious
habit of watchfulness, when they are overtaken with some carnal acts of
sleepiness. (Matt. xxvi. 41.) Christ complains of unkindness, tbat bis
spouse sleeps in the morning, when he knocks for early entertainment;
(Cant. v. 2 ;) but the unconverted let Christ stand knocking all the day,
till supper-time: (Rev. iii. 20:) they will spend their day with their
lusts; and if Christ will knock and wait till the day of their life be
almost spent, then they will pretend to open. But how long must God
call? "How long wilt thou sleep, 0 sluggard? when wilt thou arise
out of thy sleep?" and they will answer: "Yet a little sleep, a little
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." (Prov. vi. 9, 10.)$ The
plain truth is, though wicked men cannot quite stifle their consciences,
yet their consciences do but as it were talk in their sleep; and they
take no more notice of them than they do of their dreams.

CAUSES.
CAUSES of a sleepy conscience are, beside the sluggishness of our
depraved natures,
1. A spiritual intoxication.All unconverted persons are drunk with
the love of sin; and therein behave themselves like Solomon's drunkard,
that lies down to sleep in the heart of the sea, or upon the top of a
mast, (Prov. xxiii. 34, 35,) )| in the very midst of the greatest soul-danger.
He doeth that daily which Jonah did once,run away from God, and
then composeth himself to sleep, when God is pursuing him with
judgments; (Jonah i. 5;) and dreams of nothing but impunity and
happiness. Love of sin is the devil's opium, whereby he casts the
conscience into a dead sleep, that no arm but [tbat] of Omnipotency can
waken it. He meets with something in the world, which he likes better
than the holy ways of God; and therefore will not seek God. God's
ways are always grievous to him. " He hath said in his heart, I shall not
* *. ' Efyeufc y , quasi carawirxpcw CA RAR
{ foe. " The spirit of slumberThis is a Hebrew form of speech, as if, by an enallage,
a benumbed and sleepy spirit."EDIT.
f Privatio omnis sensus et judicii.
ILLYRICUS in pradicto loco. "A deprivation of all feeling and judgment"EDIT.
$ Concessio iranica, ethopatiam habens pigrorum elegantissimamJUNIUS in foe.
*' This is an ironical concession, exhibiting a very elegant ethoposia, or the invention of 'a
speech to suit the known habits' of lazy persons."EDI .
Videmus conscientiam
veluti veterno out lethargo aliquamdiv sepultam, $c.EPISCOPII Institut. Theol. lib. i.
cap. 3, p. 11. " We occasionally see a conscience as if it had been a long time buried in
a lethargy or deep sleep."EDIT.
|| Jacet in corona charchesii, id est, galea ubi
maxima sentitur marts agitatio.JUNIUS in foe. " He lies on the summit of the topgallant mast; that is, on the very apex, where every agitation of the sea is most severely
felt, and the rolling motion is longer vibratory."EDIT. Or as the Vulgate version,
which may serve for a paraphrase, Quasi sopitus gubernator, amisso clavo; id est, usu
rationisTIRINUS. Like a pilot who is fast asleep, having lost bis rudder, that is,
the use of his reason."EDIT.
10
SERMON I.
be moved. God hath forgotten: he bideth his face; he ill never see
it." He contemns God, and saith in his heart, " Thou wilt not require
it." (Psalm x. 4, 5, 11, 13.)* They wink, and then conclude God
doth not see them.
2. Carnal conceit* of grace and heaven.At the best, human wisdom
is their highest guide, their great and supreme oracle. In their
mis-shapen apprehensions of their need of mercy, they are willing to be
flattered, that it may be had without such severities in religion, f as they
are unwilling to undertake. Why should they be wiser than' their
neighbours? All men are not fools. Men as wise and as learned
neither press nor practise such strictness: and do you think they have
not a care of their souls ? They do not doubt but they shall do as well
as the best! Though, poor souls, they know that " wide is the gate,
and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way
that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matt. vii. 13,
14.) Mark that,"that find it." He doth not say,J that enter into
it, but that find it. Those that do not walk in the way of holiness,
it is impossible they should ever find it. The gate doth not lead to the
way, but the way to the gate. Do not think to get to heaven first, and
learn heaveuly-mindedness after; yea, heaven must now suffer violence;
(Matt. xi. 12;) striving is the condition of entering. (Luke xiii. 24.)[|
Bouse up, therefore, and shake off your worldly wisdom,^" your ignorant
self-love, your abuse of mercies, your contempt of God, and your
forgetfulness of death and judgment.
" But how shall we do this ?"

CURS.
1. The first remedy I shall commend, is consideration.Let the sub

ject of thy consideration be what thou wilt, (only I could wish it may
relate to eternity, whither thon art posting,) and I shall not doubt of the
success. Let me, for once, insert a relation I heard between the preaching and the transcribing of this sermon:The father of a prodigal left
* Jmtitiam, ut ille apud Platonem Thrasymachus, appellat yewtuav (, ele*
gantem stuldtiam. They sleep, and then aiunt deum dormire aut oblitum esse eorum
qiiafiant in tern, $c.Ay GUSTISI STEUCHI EUGUBINI Enarratio in loo. " They
resemble that Thrasymachus in Plato, who calls justice only elegant folly or genteel
tTwmiiy. They sleep, and then assert that God is asleep, or that he is forgetful of those
things which are done in the earth," &c.EDIT.
f Quam minutatim et pedetentim
declinet a Deo: et ita in profundum descended, ut super earn urgens puteus os suum,
mundi prosperitas alludit et illudit, cum laudatur peccator in desideriis anima sua, cum
peceantium favor, et peceare nolentium pavor, nolens et dolens, arridet ei, $e.-BERUARDUS, Liber de ConscientiA, p. 1109. " How gradually, as if step by step, does the
soul of man decline from God ! and he plunges into the abyss before him; so that, like a
well brim full, pressing upon his lips and offering its waters for his ready acceptance, the
prosperity of this world becomes pleasantly allusory, but deceptive and illusory; while the
sinner i flattered when gratifying the desires of his heart, and while he derives as much
satisfaction from the applause of his companions in iniquity, as from the dread, mingled
with regret, which his conduct produces, and which is reluctantly manifested by those
who refuse to transgress."EDIT.
Non dicit, Pauci ingrediuntur, quod d\fficiltimum; sed, Pauci inveniunt. ARE us in loc.
Vide Authorem imperfecti
opera Homil. xviii. p. 72.
II Vide STELLA in loe.
If See ABERNETHY'
Physic for the Soul," c. vii. p. 92, &c.
11
it, as hie death-bed charge unto hie only , to spend a qnarter of an

hour every day in retired thinking; but left him at liberty to think of
what he would; [he] only engaged him to spend a quarter of an hour in
thinking. The sou, having this liberty to please himself in the subject,
sets himself to the performance of his promise. His thoughts one day
recall his past pleasures, another contrive his future delights; but at
length his thoughts became inquisitive,what might be his father's end
in proposing this task ? He thought his father was a wise and good
man ; therefore, surely, he intended and hoped that he would some time
or other think of religion. When this leavened his thoughts, they multiplied abundantly, neither could he contain them in so short a confinement, but was that night sleepless, and afterwards restless, till he became
seriously religious. 0 that I could persuade you to go and do likewise!
2. Observe what means thou shunnest as too startling, and make use of
them for thy awakening.This, with the blessing of God, will savingly
awaken thee. 0 how often hath thy conscience whimpered, and thou
hast hushed it to sleep again! What doth thy sleepy conscience most
dread? an awakening ministry?
So far cross thy conscience as to
attend no other. Instead of lullaby notions, improve cutting convictions. (Titus i. 13.)*
IT. THE SEARED CONSCIENCE.
II. The second kind of conscience proposed ie the seared conscience.

Such is theirs who have given up their names to Christ, but lift up their
heel against him; of which the apostle speaks: " Having their consciences seared with an hot iron," (1 Tim. iv. 2,) that is, having a corrupt
and putrefied conscience, f that have the devil's brand-mark upon it.J
Plainly, a seared conscience is a rotten, venomous, ulcerate, pestilent,
filthy, gangrenate conscience; that doth not perform any of its offices, but
is even past feeling; that is (or might have been) in Christ's Hospital,
under cure of soul-distempers; but, through indulging of sin, not being
able to endure the sharp convictions, bitter reproofs, and close exhortations of the word, he deadens his conscience unto an insensible sense* , Redarguito pnecisi.BE z A. Generalis cujusdam reliffiosi ordinis, qui ut suos hortaretur, ne minus conscienties studerent quam scientia, difit majores
suos se vitamque suam. direxisseCONSCI-ENTIA : nunc autem abbreviatum uteri verbum
istud, ae mutilatum prima syltaba, viz., succedente UK SCI-EKTIA; verendum deincepe
ne et hoc verbum mutiletur prima syllabi, adeoque relinguatur sola ENTIA rationis
circa qua versatur saps, speculativa tantum scientia, ac nuda speculationes.BHESSERUS De Conscientia, lib. i. cap. 1, sect. 57, p. 28. " Rebuke or convince them with
keenness." " The General of a certain religious Order, with the intent to urge those under
his care to devote as much attention in their studies to CONSCIENCE as to SCIENCE,
said,' Our ancestors directed themselves and their lives by CON-SCIENCE. But, in these
our days, that good word seems to have suffered abbreviation, and to be deprived of its
first syllable, so that only SCI-ENCE is its successor. My great fear now is, that hereafter
this abbreviated word should also lose its first syllable, and nothing remain of it but
ENCE or ENTIA, the entity or existence of reason, upon which much scientific conjecture,
and many naked speculations, are often expended.' "EDIT.
+ Corruptam et
putrefactam atque putredinem cum foetore semper emittentem.ANSELMUS in loo.
" A conscience corrupted, and putrefied, always emitting, with a fetid stench, its offensive
corruption.".
Cauterio diaboli penetratam esse, ut indelebiliter eandem
retineant conscientiam, .CAJETANITS in loc. "A conscience cauterized with the
devil's brand, the mark of which has penetrated so deeply as to enable them indelibly to
retain the same conscience."EDIT.
ABERNETHY, ibid. cap. viii. p. 105.
12
SERMON 1.
leesnese. (Jer. xlir. 16, &c.) To this rank of profligate einners, I refer
all those that frequent, as well as those that reject, ordinances; that
make a profession, as veil as those that hate the profession, of religion;
yet have a reserve of sin, which they will not part with. Searing (you
know) is of that part which needs cure.
CAUSE;.
The CAUSES of a seared conscience are, conscience-wasting tins on
man'* part procuring it, and divine withdrawing from the sinner on God*
part inflicting it.As there are some bodily diseases that follow bodily
wickedness,* so this soul-disease is the peculiar punishment of sins against
knowledge. Metbinks that text is dreadful: " As they did not like to
retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind,"
&c. (Rom. i. 28; see also verses 21, 24, 26.) It is observable, the
oftener they rebelled against the light, the more severely God punished
them, with that (which they counted) impunity, f namely, he gave them
up to their swing, J 1. Of natural lust, 2. Unnatural, and, 3. Of all
unrighteousness. Custom of sinning takes away conscience of sinning.
CURE.
For cure: Seriously set yourselves against those peculiar ways of sinning which have brought you to this.You know them. There is not
any one that hath a seared conscience, but he doth (or easily may) know
bow it came so. Your work (in some respect) is not so large as in
[the] case of the sleepy conscience; it is but one or two sorts of sins
that are eminently mischievous to your souls in this case. Though a

seared conscience is worse than a sleepy conscience, yet as it is. more
easily discernible, so it is but reasonable you should more speedily and
vigorously set upon the cure. Take heed of accounting any sin small, >
lest at last you account not any sin great, I will commend one text
to you, and close this particular: "In thy filthiness is lewdncss;

because I have purged tbee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be
* Morbus venereus.
f Ecce quoliens vindicat Deus, el ex eadem v'mdicta plura
et graviora peccata conswgunt.BEDA in loc. " Behold how frequently God takes
vengeance! and from the very punishment arise sins more in number and yet more
grievous."EDIT.
Tradidit Deus, substruction*gratia, traditione inpotestatem
Satarue, ta vow, in mentem reprobam, active et passive intelligendo, fyc. And
all this to be such a recompense of their error, fa e8, quam oportuit, id est, guam ex
ordine justitue turn Deus ipsis defeat retribuere.PARE ITS in loc. " By the withdrawal
of grace, and by delivering them unto the power of Satan, God gave them over to a
repiobate mind, which is to be understood both actively and passively, &c. And all this
to be such a recompense of their error as was fitting and necessary; that is. such as God
ought, in the order of his justice, retributively to inflict upon them."EDIT.
Cum
eaperit qnis dicere, Quit est si verbulum hoc unicum loeutus fuero 9 Ex hoc, Quid trf,
quid iUud9 sensim incipit quis pedetentim in majora et graviorq prolabi, et sic deinceps
in perfectam insensibilitatem deeidit. Curate levia, quoad levia aunt: et virtutes et
peccata a parvis incipiunt, $c.DOROTHEUS in Bibliotheca Patrum, torn. iv. p. 769.
" When a man once begins to inquire, ' What harm have I done in uttering this single,
little word ?' he will soon ask, ' Of what consequence is this thing or the other ?' Every
one who act thus, has gradually and almost imperceptibly commenced a downward
course, from what he deemed to be small and trivial matters, towards those which are
till greater and more momentous; and thus, at length, he falls into a state of perfect
insensibility. Be careful about small things, in reference to their being but small: for
both virtues and vices have their different sources in tilings that are little," &c.EDIT.
13
purged from thy filtbineee any more, till I have caused my fury to rest
upon thee. I the Lord hare spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will .
do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent/'
&c. (Ezek. xxiv. 13, 14.) Sirs, God hath been your Physician, hath
used variety of remedies.* If nothing will prevail, but you will industriously singe your consciences to make them senseless, as sure as God is
true he will make you sensible of your sin by everlasting bnrnings.f
I forbear enlargement, because in the following Gases about the mortification of beloved lusts, about relapses, and how to check the first rising
of sin, you will have suitable directions to make your brawny consciences
tender. I proceed therefore to those kinds of consciences; none else will
1$ speak to; namely,
III. THE ERRING CONSCIENCE.
III. An erring conscience is that which judgeth otherwise than the

thing .Conscience is sometimes deceived through ignorance of what
is right, || by apprehending a false rule for a true, an error for the will of
God: sometimes, through ignorance of the fact, by misapplying a right

rule to a wrong action. Conscience, evil informed, takes human traditions and false doctrines, proposed under the show of Divine authority, to
be the will of God. A famous instance you have of this in Jeroboam's
case: ^f He fears that if the people should go up to sacrifice at Jerusalem,
then he should lose his kingdom; this puts him upon inquiry, whether
there should not be a double sanctuary, as well as a double kingdom.
Hereupon a council is called; flattering prophets come; they have
dreams and visions, worthy of their affections, suitable to their purpose.
A decree is made, as if it declared: " It is sufficient that you have
hitherto gone up to Jerusalem. Now behold your gods! These calves
are like the cherubim of the sanctuary, which are as ministering spirits
before the face of God." (That these calves had the shape of the cherubims, you may gather by comparing of scriptures: that which is called
the face of an ox in one place, Ezek. i. 10, is called the face of a cherub
in the other, Ezek. x. 14; i. 7.) This seems to the people a satisfying
warrant for them readily to follow the king's commandment. (Hosea
v. 11.) I might add another instance, of the good old prophet, who
was plausibly seduced to his bodily destruction. (1 Kings xiii. 8, 18,
19, 24, 26.) Now it is a great question (among the papists especially)
whether and how far an erring conscience binds? One of their
most learned casuists that I meet with peremptorily determines, that
" the law of an erring conscience is not dispensable by God himself." **
* Instar medM, qui putridie nan parcit carnibvt. Nan parcit, ut parcat t orttdeli*
at, ut misereatur.- in too. " He resembles a physician, who, in trying to
effect a cure, evinces no tenderness toward the putrid flesh: he does not spare it, that he
may spare his patient: he is cruel, in order that he may show mercy."EDIT.
t " Till I have caused my fury to rest"That is, Non ttabeat quod ampKut /octal, c.
SAXCTIUS in loc. "God has nothing more which He can do for him."EDIT.
$ In the first edition the pronoun I seems to have been here improperly omitted.EDIT.
AMESIUS De Coneeientia, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 8.
|| DICKSOV'S Therapeutic*
Sacra, lib. i. cap. i. sect. 18, p. 3.
U & Pro*. Cath. dissert iii. sect, xxvii.
p. 244.
** Ne quidem a Deo, multo minus ab homine.BftESSERUS De COnictentia, lib. v. cap. xxii. sect, ccsii. p. 555.
14
SERMON I.
Others, that " it is good to follow an erring conscience, when it hath the
credit of a good conscience, and is agreeable to reason*" * Others, that
" a right and an erroneous conscience both bind, though in a different
respect; fa right conscience, as it is conformable to the law of God;
an erring conscience, as it is thought to be the law of God; a right
conscience binds simply, an erroneous upon a supposition." Some distinguish ignorance into vincible and invincible, and say, that " when an
erroneous conscience, through invincible ignorance, judgeth that to be
honest which is not so, yet that judgment is the next rule which the will
is to follow." Others distinguish (where all men are not able to discern
the difference) between binding and obliging. But, in short, they
generally determine the question in the affirmative; though some grant,
that though we must do nothing against a true conscience, yet we must
depose an erroneous one, and go contrary to it." || And others,
" though we must do nothing against conscience in any case, yet we
must not follow conscience in every case." ^f The plain truth is, error
cannot bind us to follow it;** an erring conscience may so bind, that it
may be a sin to go against it; but it can never so bind, as it may be a
virtue to follow it. To follow an erring conscience, is for the blind
sinner to follow his blind conscience, till both fall into the ditch.ff The
violation of conscience is always evil, and the following of an erring conscience is evil; but there is a middle way that is safe and good; namely;
the informing of conscience better by God's word, and following of it
accordingly.
CAUSES.
The CAUSES of an erring conscience (besides original sin, the effect

whereof is blindness in the understanding, and the just judgment of
God upon persons for not entertaining, obeying, and loving " the truth
as it is in Jesus," besides these, the causes) are reducible to these three
heads:
1. Negligence of learning the will of God, through slothfulnets and
love of ease, and low esteem of the ways of God.I need name but one
scripture for both proof and illustration of this particular. " The fool
foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. Better is a handful
with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of
spirit." (Eccles. iv. 5, 6.) As if he said, " He is a fool that puts himself
into a posture of idleness, |||| that composeth himself to do nothing, that
* Ut igitur bonum nit agere secundum consctentiam errantem voluntarit et vitiosey
oporiet exisiimafionem conscieiitia bonam esse, et cum recta ratione congruentem.
AZOB.II Moral. Instit. lib. ii. p. 104.
-f SAYRUS, Clav. Reg, lib. i. cap. iv.
sec. xili. p. 8.
Quando conscieniia erronea ex inmncibili ignorantia judicat
illiquid hmestum esse, quod honestum nan est, tune actus voluntatis, qui conformis est
tali judicio, bonus et honestus est, etiamsi contingat objectum esse turpe: ita passim
theologi ; et probatur, quia tune est conformis sua regulte, nam illudjudicium estproxima
regula quam sequi debet voluntas.EEC AN us, torn. i. Theol, Sckol. part ii. tract i.
cap. iv. q. 7, p. 219.
Neminem obligat, tamen ligat,DUB. AND us, lib. ii.
diet. 39, q. 6, sec. vii. p. 443.
|| SYLVESTRAN us in Prim. Lib. Sentent. p. 239.
If Nihil licet contra conscientiam agere in aliquo casu, nee tamen tfnetur quilibet sequi
eonscientiam suam in quolibet casu.GUIL. PAB.ISIENSIS De Vitiis et Peccatis, p. 20.
** HARRIS'S " Works," part iv. p. 28.
ft ROBINSOK'S " Observations," c. xlvii.
p. 246.
BBESSERUS, lib. v. cap. xxiii. p. 556, sparsim.
Discendi
negligentia, orta ex pigritia.Ibid. sect. 31?
1111 "English Annotations."
15
think it better to be without good things, than be at some trouble in

getting them."*
2. Pride, whereby a man is ashamed to consult others, and to be taught
by Mem.fThose that are sincerely conscientious are not free from a

kind of proud modesty, in being shy of making inquiry into practical
cases ; there is something of pride in their baehfulnese to discover their
ignorance, in asking of questions for conscience' sake.
But those that
are ungodly arrogate so much to their own judgment, that (to speak their
own boasting) they know as much as any man can teach them. But, as
wise as they are, a wiser than they calls them " fools," % (Prov. xxviii. 26,)
and their folly misleads them.
3. Passion, or inordinate affection about that whereof we are ignorant.^
This warpeth our consideration ; for " he that seeks truth with a bias,
will run counter when he comes near it, and [will] not find it, though he
come within kenning of it." j)
CORE.
You may gather the REMEDIES from the opposite to these three
causes of error. 1. Be industriously diligent to know your duty. 2. Be
humbly willing to receive instruction. And, 3. Let not your affections
outrun your judgment.
But there is one rule I shall commend, which if yon will conscientiously improve, you shall never be much hurt by an erring con*
science; and I dare appeal to your own consciences that it is your
indispensable duty; you must use it; and it is so plain and easy, you
may use it:
Do what you know, and God will teach you what to do,Do what you
know to be your present duty, and God will acquaint you with your
future duty as it comes to be present. Make it your business to avoid
known omissions, and God will keep you from feared commissions. This
rule is of great moment, and therefore I will charge it upon you by
express scripture. "Show me thy ways, Lord;" that is, those ways
wherein I cannot err.<[[ " Teach me thy paths ;" that is, that narrow path
which is too commonly unknown,9"* those commands that are most strict
and difficult. "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me;" that is, teach me
evidently, that I may not be deceived; so teach me, that I may not only
know thy will, but do it.ft Here is his prayer. But what grounds hath
he to expect audience? "For thou art the God of my salvation" As if
he had said, " Thou, Lord, wilt save nje, and therefore do not refuse to
teach me." " On thee do I wait all the day ;" (Psalm xxv. 4, 5;) that is,
the whole day, and every day. Other arguments are couched in the
* PJEMBLE in loo.
t Pudeat ignorantem alioe eonsulere, et ab ns doceri..
BRESSERUS, ibid.
J Qui suo fidit animo stultus est.MERCERUS in loo.
% BRESSERUS, ibid., &c.
|| ARCHBISHOP LAUD, in the "Epistle Dedicatory
before the Relation of the Conference."
H Mandata tua ostende, gua me no
permittant errare, Sec.REMIGIUS in loc.
** Semita dicta quasi semi-via, quia
angusto calle dirigitur, nee vulgo nota est, ted occulto itinere ambulator.BRUNO in
loo. in Bibliotheca Patrum, torn. xi. p. 96. " It is called semita, as if it were semi-via,
' only half a road,' because the sole mode of being directed in it is by a little path, not
commonly known, and your retired course along it is a kind of concealed journey."EDIT.
ft REMIGIUS ubi supra.
ARNOBIUS in ko.
18
SERMON I.
HOW MAY WB BE UNIVERSALLY
many deal with their doubts, as cripples with their sores, which might
easily be healed, but they make them a legging argument. So the formal hypocrites have always their doubts and fears (like the lapwing's
cry, far enough from her nest) about things general, or of lesser moment,
which they might easily answer, and employ themselves in things more
profitable. Shall I tell you how ? You cannot expect I should resolve
the almost infinite particulars of doubtful cases; * but I will propose two
remedies, which, with the blessing of God upon the conscientious improvement, will give you light for smoke, in things both sacred and civil;
CURE.
1. About lesser matters, this rule commonly holds goods namely, in
things doubtful, take the safest courseÎn things doubtful, ordinarily
one way is clear; take that. For example: I question whether such a
recreation be lawful; but I am sure it is not unlawful to let it alone;
therefore, to prevent the after-reckonings of conscience, I will not meddle
with it. But this rule will not reach all cases:| therefore,
2. Bring the case to a point, wherein the stress of your doubt lies.
But, (1.) Be sure it be a case of conscience, not of interest or prejudice;

but a case of conscience, such as you are unreservedly willing to be
resolved in, that you can in prayer (as it were) bring God a blank to
write what he pleaseth. And, (2.) Pare off all those whibbling demurs,
and carnal reasonings, which may puzzle, but can never satisfy you.
These things premised, (3.) Write down your case as nakedly as you
can, with the grounds of your hesitation. In your writing, make two
columns; on the one side write those reasons you judge cogent FORon
the other side the reasons you judge of moment AGAINSTthat whereof
you doubt. Compare these together, and poise them impartially: you
will find that your perplexed thoughts have another aspect when written
than when floating, and that your own ink will ordinarily kill this
tetter; plainly, yourselves will be able to resolve your own doubts: but
if not, this will ripen the boil, where it doth not break and heal it; you
will be ready for advice. \\ In your consulting of others, do it with
expressions equivalent to those of the Jews to Jeremy, but with more
sincere affections: " Pray for us unto the Lord thy God: that the Lord
thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that
we may do. The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us,^[ if we
* Quot madia possit decider* coruoientia dubia? Resp. Tot modis posse, quot sunt
genera quastionum.AZOH.II Institut. Moral, lib. ii. c. xviii. p. 135. " QUESTION. In
how many ways can a doubtful conscience occur ? ANSWER. It is possible in as many
modes as there are kinds of questions."EDIT.
f In dubio practico eligenda eat
via tulior ex praeepto scilicet natural*. Est certa et reverb communis.BHESSERUS,
ibid., lib. iv. c. vi. sect xlv. p. 371.
It is generally taken to be safest to take that
way, (in things controverted,) wherein differing parties agree, but that it is not always a
good rule." See ARCHBISHOP LAUD'S "Conference," p. 288, et seqq. In multis
parficularibus nan tenetur homopartem tutiorem sequi.-SAYEUS, Clav. Reg. lib. L c.
xiii. sect ix. p. 31. " In many particulars, a man is not bound to follow that part which
is the safest"EDI .
An old English word, in meaning tantamount to whiffling,
trifling."EDIT.
|| FfcfeSAYRi Clav. Reg.ibidem^ct. vi.vii.
If Expressius est juramentum quo diciiur, Testis est Deus, quam quo dicitur, Juro; quid illud
explicat raiionem juramenii, $c.ESTIUS in he. "That form of swearing which says,
God is witness, is much clearer and more explicit than the one of simple assertion, / swear ;
because the former explains the reason of the oath," &c.EDIT.
19
do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God
shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil," (that
is, seem it never so disadvantageous or dangerous to us,) " we will obey
the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be
well with us, when we obey the voice of the Lord our God." (Jer. xlii.
2, 3, 5, 6.) But because we have none [who] can give infallible decision, therefore refer your case to those that are likely to give a different
resolution; and thereby you will see how much is to be allowed to
human passion. Bequest them to write the grounds of their determina-
tion ; then compare these together, especially the scriptures and reasons.
If you cannot out of these collect a satisfying resolution, yet the case
will be brought into a narrower compass; be unwearied therefore to take
the same course again; apply yourselves to the same persons, or others.
One case thud thoroughly resolved, will be singularly useful for the scattering of all future doubts in all other cases. And though this may
prove a business of time, yet suspend your acting till you are satisfied.*
Though the duty in question be of greatest moment, yet while you can
approve your heart unto God that it is neither love of sin nor ease, it is
neither slighting of Christ nor duty, but a restless inquisitiveness to
know God's mind in the case, your suspense (at the worst) will be reckoned among your infirmities, and be compassionately overlooked. Can
there be any thing of greater moment, than to doubt of Christ's resurrection? Yet while Thomas doubted merely for want of evidence, Christ
graciously condescends in a non-such manner to give him satisfaction.
(John xx. 25, 27.) To conclude this: "Whereto ye have already
attained, walk" by rule exactly: "and if in any thing yon be" doubt-
fully "minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." (Phil. iii. 15, 16.)
V. THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE.
V. a scrupulous conscience is that which doth determine a thing to be

lawful, yet scarcely to be done, test it should be unlawful.There is some
anxiety, relnctancy, and fear in the determination.f A scruple in the
mind is as gravel in the shoe,$it vexeth the conscience, as that hurts
the foot. A scruple is a hovering kind of fearfulness, arising from light
arguments that hinder or disturb the soul in performances of duties.
* Contra iegem charitatit in Devon font is otti, cum dubium ontmum habeat, nihiioaunut operator. Aetut, ad tui oonitatem, reotam cognitionem rei agenda requirit et
pottvlat,AZOB.II Inttit. Moral, lib. it c. xviii. p. 135. " That man act contrary to
the law of charity (or love) toward God, who, while his mind is held in doubt and suspense,
Ventures nevertheless to enter upon any performance. In order to its purity and goodness,
an action requires and demands, from him who does it, a correct knowledge of that which
is to be performed."EDIT.
f Statuit rem aliquam esse licitam, ted ideu in
effeotum minus deducendam, quia scrupulus aliqvis, gui anxiam reddat conseientiam, ne
forsitan ret ista tit illicita.KONIG De Conscientia, p. 14.
$ Scrvpuiue, diminufivum a SCRUPUS, lapillut ett out in caleeo. Hine metaphorict signiflcat timilem
qfflictionem anima ten contctentia. (1 Sam. xxv. 31.) Non erit inscrupulum eordit,
&&B&E88ERU8 De Contoientia, lib. vi. c. i. p. 562. "The meaning of tcruple, a
diminutive of the Latin serupus, is ' a very small stone,* or piece of gravel, that is in die
shoe. Hence its metaphorical use is to signify an affliction of the mind or conscience,
having some similarity to the pain endured by a man who walks with gravel between the
sole of his sandal and his foot Thus, in 1 Sam. xxv. 31,This shall be no grief to thee,
nor offence of heart to my lord,' that is, There shall be no pain arising from an upbraiding
conscience," &c.EDIT.
AMESIUS, ibidem, p. 16.
20
SERMON I.
The difference between a doubting conscience and a scrupulous conscience, is this: A doubting conscience assents to neither part of the
question; a scrupulous conscience consents, bat with some vexation.
CAUSES.
I shall name but two CAUSES, forbearing to mention our ignorance and
pride, which have a great influence upon all kinds of error, doubts, and
scruples.
1. The first cause of scrupulousness is natural;* namely, a cold complexion, which is always timorous. Those that are phlegmatic and
melancholy are naturally fearful; and the reason is, that, through the
defect of natural heat, the spirits about the heart are as it were congealed,
and the heart itself is straitened; whence, by way of sympathy, the
imagination hath sad apprehensions of things, and such persons are
pusillanimous and fearful.
2. The second and the chief cause is temptations.Satan, if he cannot
keep the heart a secure prisoner, he will do his utmost to overwhelm it
with fears and jealousies; and he suits his temptations according to our
temper.f He doth not tempt the riotous with rewards, nor the glutton
to the glory of abstinence. He doth not tempt the coward to strive for
victories, nor the passionate to fearfulness. He doth not tempt the melancholy to security, nor the phlegmatic to great achievements. A due
consideration therefore of our natural temper would mend our spiritual.
CURE.
The first REMEDY shall commend to you is this, namely : I. Be not
discouraged with your scruples.Pray, keep off from the other extreme,
do not indulge them; they naturally tend to much spiritual damage.
(1.) They are occasions of sin. (2.) They render the ways of God more
strait, horrid, and impossible. (3.) They retard the work of grace.
(4.) They hinder cheerfulness in the service of God. (5.) They quench
the Spirit. (6.) They unfit us for any duty. These may all serve for
arguments to strive against them. But yet, be not discouraged; for God
is pleased through overpowering grace to make good use of them:
(1.) To further mortification. (2.) To restrain us from worldly vanities.
(3.) To abate pride, and promote humility. (4.) To 'make us more
* Scrupulus vel melancholia vel Suowri? enatus.Koxio De ConscienM, p. 16. Item

ex agritudine et infirmitafe, ex nonnullis causis qua cerebrum exaiecant, ut sunt jejunium,
viffilice, $c.SAYKII Clav. Reg. lib. i. c. xiv. p. 42. " A scruple arises either from
melancholy or timidity." " It also has its origin in sickness and weakness, from some
causes which have a tendency to dry up the brain, such as fasting, watching," &c.EDIT.
f Singulis hominibus Kits convenientibus msidiatur ; negue enim facile captivarety si
out luxurwsis pramto, aut avaris scoria proponent; si aui voraces de abstinentia gloria*
out abstinentes de gula imbeeUlitate pukaret s ergo in tentationis ardore collide sinyuiis
insidians vicinos moribus laqueoi afoconrfif.GHEGORII Mor. lib. xxix. xiv. p. 161. b.
" Around every man he lays an ambuscade of such vices as are agreeable and convenient
to his propensities. For he would have little success, and would take but few captives, if
he either proposed rich and munificent rewards to those whose delight is in luxury and
riot, or if he hoped to allure the avaricious with the ofter of fornication; if he either
assailed gluttons with motives founded on the glory of abstinence, or the abstemious with
the notorious imbecility which is consequent upon the immoderate indulgence of appetite.
In the heat of temptation, therefore, craftily lying in wait for every man, he places along
his path such gins and toils for the feet as are nearest and most agreeable to the existing
habits and manners of each individual."EDIT.
AH EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?
21
watchful. (5.) To make us strive to be more piritnal. (6.) To (little

less than) force us to live more upon Christ. But you most take the
other rale, if you would have these benefits.
2. Do what possibly you eon to yet rid ofyow scruples ;* but if you
cannot yet rid of them% act against them.It is not only lawful but
necessary to go against a scrupulous conscience, or you will never have
either grace or peace. Should a Christian forbear praying, or receiving
the sacrament, every time his scrupulous conscience tells him, he had
better wholly omit the duty, then perform it in such a manner ; you
would soon find, to your sorrow, the mischief of your scruples; but
grace will not leave him to his scrupulous humour. Be resolute therefore, and tell the devil, that as you do not perform your duty at his
command, so neither will you omit it at his bidding. Do by religious
duties, as they that are afraid to go by water, or to go over a narrow
bridge,they cease to fear when they have gone often over: so, by the
performance of duties, your scrupulous fears will vanish. Act against
your scruples, (I.) Positively; by disputing them down, and opposing
their reasons. (2.) Negatively; by slighting of them, and not hearkening to them. In short, in all necessary known* duties, always do what
you can, when you cannot do what you would.
VI. THE TREMBLING CONSCIENCE.
TI. The trembling conscience is that which is disquieted f and distressed with the apprehended hazard of the souFe condition, that doth
nothing but accuse, and condemn, and affright the soul.This, of any,
needs least enlargement; for every one that feels it, is rhetorical enough
in expressing it
CAUSE.
There is a twin cause of a trembling conscience; namely, sense of sin,

(Psalm li. 3; xl. 12,) and fear of wrath. (Psalm xxxviii. 28; Ixxxviii.
3, &c.) " Never sin like mine ! never heart like mine! never case like
mine!" Such are the constant complaints of a troubled spirit. I
meddle not now with that horror of conscience that follows profligate
wretches ; I shall speak something of it toward the close, nothing now.
CURE.
For CURE, I can give but hints. Never keep the devil's counsel.
Break through all carnal reasonings, to acquaint yourselves with some
faithful spiritual physician, or experienced Christian, that may show yon
the methods of divine grace, and what others have successfully done
that have been just in your condition. (1 Cor. x. 13.) This premised,
* Vide BRESSEBUS, lib. vi. c. ii.v.
f Dorotheas compares our consciences to
those pits that Abraham digged, and the Philistines stopped them with earth. (Gen.
xxvi. 15.) Ob peeeatum ut in aqua eeenosi et turbida, nemo potest in e& outturn uum
amtemplari.,DOROTHEUS in Biblioth. Patrum, torn. iv. p. 769. " As no one can
contemplate his own countenance in water which is muddy and turbid, so no one can see
himself aright if his conscience be obscured by sin."EDIT.

Nemo ate et
extra se curret: nullus sui asylum habet.JonA-s. EUSEB. NIEREMBEHGIUS De
Arte VoL lib. ii. p. 158. " No one runs from himself and beyond himself! No man.
has a sanctuary in which he may be screened from himself."EDIT.
22
8URMON I,
HOW MAY WB BE VNITKRSALLY
1. Notwithstanding (yea, in the midst of) your saddest complaints,

bless God for an awakened conscience while there is hope of cure.It is
a good rule: " Be not too quick in administering comforts;" but we
cannot be too quick in provoking to thankfulness. (Read 1 These v. 18,
with the verses next before and after.) If you can at present be thank,
ful that yon are out of hell, you shall ere long be thankful for assurance
of heaven. This rule may seem strange; but, upon experience, its practice will discover its excellency.
2. Observe, it is God's usual method to bring the soul, through these
perplexities, to the most solid spiritual peace.Augustine excellently
expressed hie spiritual conflict, how God followed him with severe mercy,
till he made him instant for thorough holiness. God kept him trembling,
that he might leave dallying in soul-concernments.* Believe it, Christian,
God is now storing thee with experiences, which will be a useful treasury
throughout thy life. Therefore,
3. Do but hold on in the vigorous use of all means of grace, (1 Cor. xv,
58,)f and reckon God's Keeping thee from turning thy back upon his:
ways when thou hast no comfort in them, the secret supports he gives
which thou takest no notice of; count these for evidences, that the Spirit
is at work in thy heart; and for pledges, that he will perfect his own
work.For instance: Count thy growing importunity in prayer, or sorrowful complaint for the want of it, a gracious answer of that prayer
which thoti thinkest is disregarded. Count thy watching for a word to
direct and support thee, a notable efficacy of that word which thou
conntest doeth thee no good. Count thy restless dissatisfaction with
every thing on this side God, to be a love-token from God, to assure thee
that God will be thy satisfying portion; and, in the interim, ask those
* Instabas tu in occultis meis, Domlne,$ever&miser'icordi6.,Jlagellaingemman$ timori
et pudoris, ne rursus cessarem. Dicebam enim apud me intus . Ecce modojiat / modi
fiat I Et cum verbo jam ibam in placitum ; jam pene faciebam et non faciebam, <$c.
Sentiebam me ab iniquitatibus teneri, et jactabam voces miserabiles: Quamdiu, quamdiu
eras et eras 9 quart non moda, guard non hoc hora, finis turpitudints meae?AvGV$TINI Confessiones, lib. viii. c. xi. xii. "Thou, Lord, didst urgently pursue me, in my
hidden parts, with thy severe mercy, brandishing thy whip, and repeating the strokes of
both fear and shame, lest I should once more become a loiterer. For I spoke inwardly
to myself, thus :' Behold, let it [my deliverance] be effected just now! let it be forthwith
effected !' And as soon as I had pronounced the words, I began to yield compliance
with the determination; already I almost obtained my wishes, and yet did not actually
obtain them," &c, " I felt that I was fast bound with the fetters of iniquity, and,
through misery, I raised to thee this piteous cry:' How long, how long shall it be but
to-morrow and to*morrow Why should there not now, why not in this very hour, be an
end of my guilt and turpitude ? '".
f ffihil iibi utiliusfore soias, quam,
ut cum prof unda quadam acforti resignatione teipsum Deo humililer resignes in omnibus, gup tibi evenerint. Sive dulcia eafuermt, sine amara, sive deleetent, sive vrucient,
ita itt dicere possis; Deus adorande, etiamsi in hoc vita isl&que pressura ad esetremwm
tf>que judicii diempermanendummihiforet, te tamen haudquaquam deserere vellem, sed
constanter perpetuoque tibi adharerem, 4"THAUÊRUS in Historia Vita, p. 16,
" Know thou, that no course can be more useful for thee than that of humbly resigning
thyself to God in all things which may befall thee; doing this with a resignation which
may be at once profound and courageous; whether such occurrences be pleasant or disagreeable to thee, whether they afford delight or impart torture : so that, under all these
circumstances, thou mayest be able to avow: adorable Lord Ood! though I might be
doomed to remain in this life, and under the existing pressure of my condition, until the
day of judgment, yet would I not on any account desert thee, but I would constantly and
perpetually cleave to thee," &c.EDIT.
23
well-grown Christiana that are now in the spiritually-sensible embraces of

Divine love, whether they are not glad that God formerly took that
course with them, which he now takes with thee, to bring them to these
joys. Be encouraged therefore; though thou hast a sorrowful seedtime, thou shalt have a joyful harvest. (Psalm cxxvi. 5, 6.)
Thus having spoken of those kinds of conscience that are either evil
or troublesome, and how to cure them; I now come to thone desirable
kinds of conscience, that, next to Deity and heavenly glory, admit no
hyperbole in their commendation; namely, the good HONEST conscience,
and the good PEACEABLE conscience, and how to obtain them.
VII.
THE GOOD HONEST CONSCIENCE.
VII. That conscience it good, in respect of it INTEGRITY, which give

a right judgment of every thing according to the word of God.I grant,
that the law of nature binds, (Bom. ii. 14,) ecclesiastical laws bind,
(Matt, xxiii. 2, 3,) and political laws bind; (Rom. xiii. 5 ;) but " the
word of God is the principal rule,* which precisely binds the conscience
in regard of its Author." " There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save
and to destroy.'* (James iv. 12.) *' Fear not them which kill the body,
and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt. x. 28.)

Till. THE GOOD QUIET CONSCIENCE.
Till. That conscience i a good PEACEABLE conscience that excuseth,

absolveth, and comforteth as it ought. (1 Cor. iv. 4; Heb. x. 2; 2 Cor.
i. 12.)That conscience that is pacified by the blood of Christ, (Heb.
ix. 14,) that doth, as Moulinf relates of a dying man, to whom some
say the devil appeared, and showed him a parchment, that was very
long, wherein was written, on every side, the sins of the poor sick man,
which were many in number; and that there were also written the idle
words he had spoken, which made up three quarters of the words that
he had spoken in his life, and his actions digested according to the commandments : whereupon Satan said, " Seest thou ? behold thy virtues!
see here what thine examination shall be!" Whereunto the poor sinner
answered: " It is true, Satan; but thou hast not set down all; for thou
shouldest have added and set down here below, The blood of Jesus
Christ cleameth its from all our sins; and this also should not have been
forgotten, That whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have
everlasting life ! " But how shall we get such consciences ? Christians,
be but persuaded to practise these (or such) directions, and your consciences will certainly be right, and seasonably be comfortable:
1. Take heed of every in, (2 Cor. viii. 21,) count no sin small.
(Matt. v. 21> 22, 27, 28.)Screw up your obedience to every command
to the highest. (Matt. xxii. 37, 38.) Ferret out every sin to the most
secret corruption. (Rom. vii. 7.) When you have set your watch against
the first risings of sin, beware of the borders of sin, shun the very
appearance of evil. (1 These, v. 22.) Venture not upon occasions or
* Norma principalistima, S[o.- -KoNio, pp. 3,4.
of a Communicant," p. 37.
f MOVLIK, " The Comfort
24
SERMON I.
HOW HAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY
temptations to sin ; (Prov. iv. 15, 27 ;)* those that dare venture upon
occasions, as children upon the ice, (Prov. vii. 8 ; Num. xxv. 2,) shall find
there is always danger, never any good. Morality itself will teach you this
lesson,to keep clear of evil, if ever you would either be good, or enjoy it.f
But seeing as, on the one hand, there cannot be truth of grace, and truce
with sin ; so, on the other hand, while grace is imperfect, sin will have
(and makes us feel it hath) a being. " There is not a just man upon
earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." (Eccles. vii. 20.) Therefore,
2. Forthwith get upon the healing duty of repentance ; and, upon every
flip into ein, renew it, speedily renew f . J0 that I could snatch you out
of your state of impenitency, and persuade you to daily actual repentance !
To those that are resolved to delay their repentance, I have sometimes
given counsel suitable to such resolutions ; namely, " The next sickness
that seizeth upon you, chide it away, tell your disease you cannot awhile
to be sick ; say to it as Felix to Paul,|| ( Go thy way for this time; when
I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.' (Acts xxiv. 25.) If death
summon thee, tell it, you will not obey its summons, you have other
business to do than to die ; you have estates unsettled, and children
unprovided for ; and you would repent too. before you die, but you cannot
yet awhile. If this will not serve, but die you must, charge your souls,
before they go out of your bodies, not to come near the prison of impenitent persons ; charge your friends to lock up your bodies so safe, or bury
them so deep, that all the angels in heaven may not be able to drag them
to judgment." But, alas, my brethren ! do you not think this wild counsel ? and well you may. Tet unless you could do something equivalent
to what this counsel amounts to, you are mad to defer your repentance.
What ! cannot I keep pain from my body, nor the use of reason in my
soul, one minute ? and shall I continue in my impenitency, that will damn
me the very moment of my death ? I beseech you, therefore, for your
own souls' sake, that you may not be guilty of the worst self-murder,
that is, soul-murder, speedily set upon repentance. And those of you
that have repented, let your repentance daily supplant sin, by taking it
by the heel certainly to lame it, though you cannot take it by the head
utterly to kill it. Though we cannot be innocent,^]" let us be penitent,
* Faeili agitur quod libenter eMtft/Mr. .BERNARDUS de Interiore Domo, p. 1082.
" We perform that readily to which we give willing audience."EDIT.
f Ovrc
oiKia \(\5, owrt \, ovre ytvovs, ovre opxfls>
, ), tvSiav wapextt , - wpay \ vornpav, &C. PLUTABCHDS !, . 417. 'Neither
rich furniture and movables, abundance of gold, a descent from an illustrious family, nor
greatness of authority, not eloquence and aU the charms of forcible speech, can communicate to human life such calmness and serenity as that which arise from a mind free
from guilt, and preserved untainted not only from actions, but also from purposes, that are
wicked."MORGAN'S Translation of Plutarch's treatise Qn Tranquillity of Mind,
altered.
+ Peccator omnium notarum citm sim, nee vlli rei nisi pamitentia natus.
TEHTULLIANUS De Pcenitentia, cap.xiLp. 121. "Since I am actually a sinnerunder

the brand of every transgression, I am born solely for the exercise of repentance."EDIT.
In the sense of " I am not able for a time to find leisure for being sick." Awhile in
this construction admits of a verbpl meaning. EDIT.
|| In all preceding editions,
this clause reads most erroneously, " As Paul to Felix."EDIT.
"D 2 -,
ewaivfTOf, Qeif Kt $, - , &c.
Mryct KOKtos ?,
. GREGORIUS NAZIANZEKUS, torn. i. orat XT. pp. 225, 236. "The

chief part of wisdom is a praiseworthy life, that God has purified, and that remains free
from defilement. This is the grand remedy for wickedness, the expeller of error."EDIT.
25
and be very careful never to return to ins repented of.* That yon may
be serious in both these,
3. Compote thyself to live as under Goafs eye, live as in the more
than sensible presence of the jealous God.Remember, all things are
naked and bare before him 5 you cannot deceive him, for he is Infinite
Wisdom; you cannot -fly from him, for he is every where; you cannot
bribe him, for he is Righteousness itself. Keep, therefore, fresh apprehensions of God in your thoughts; speak, as knowing God hears you;
walk, as knowing God is nearer to you than you are to yourselves, f
" The Lord is with you, while you are with him:" (2 Chron. zv. 2:)
that is, You shall enjoy his favourable presence, while yon live in his awful
presence. There is one Psalm, which it were well if Christians would do
by it, as Pythagoras by his Golden Precepts,Every morning and evening
repeat it. It is David's appeal of a good conscience unto God, against
the malicious suspicions and calumnies of men, in Psalm ezxxix. (Do
you but thus prasentiate || God unto yourselves, and God will attest your
integrity,) Terse 1. Lord, thou hast searched me, and known meAs
though he had said, " Lord, thou art. the heart-searching God, who perfectly knows all the thoughts, counsels, studies, endeavours, and actions of
all men, and therefore mine." Verse 2. Thou knowest my down-sitting and
mine up-rising, thou understandest my thought afar offAs if he had
said, " Thou knowest my rest and motion, and my plodding thoughts of
both."^[ Verse 3. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art
acquainted with all my waysAs if he had said, " Thou fannest and winnowest me," that is, " Thou discussest and triest me to the utmost."**
Verse 4. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, , Lord, thou
Knowest it altogetherAs if he had said, " I cannot speak a word, though
never so secret, obscure, or subtle, but thou knowest what, and why, and
with what mind it was uttered."ff Verse 5. Thou hast beset me behind
and before, and laid thine hand upon meAs if he had said, " Thou
keepest me within the compass of thy knowledge, like a man that will
not let his servant go out of his sight. I cannot break away from thee."
Verse 6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot
attain unto itAs if he had said, " The knowledge of thy great and glorious Majesty and Infiniteness is utterly past all human comprehension."
Verse 7. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from
thy presence ?As if he had said, " Whither can I flee from thee, whose
* Confessio peecati professio est desinendi, <<;.HILARIUS in Psalm, cxxxvii. p. 595.
" The confession of sin is an open profession of its abandonment"EDIT.
Talem
te pr&para, ut tecum adsit Dew: sit in ore: sit in corde: temper tecum eat: tecum
redeat: nee reeedat a te: nunquam itte te dimittet, nisi prior ilium dimiseria. Ubicunque
fuerit, nunquam solus esse poteristsi Deux tecum erit.BEHNABDUS DeinterioreDomo,
cap. v. p. 1065, et cap. Ixvi. p. 1091. " Let the preparation of thyself be such aa will
qualify thee for the presence of God. Let God be in thy mouth, let Him be in thy heart.
When thou goest forth, let Him accompany tbee; and let Him not be absent on thy return;
and never suffer Him to depart from thee. He will never discard thee, unless thou shalt
previously dismiss him from being thy guest In what place soever thou mayest be, thou
never canst be alone, if Ood be with thee."EDIT.
t Refert Galenus recitasse te
tub initium etfinem cujusque diei.ELICHMANNUS, EpHoyus Editoris, p. 15. M Galen
relates that he repeated those Golden Verses at the commencement and at the close of each
day."EDIT.
MOLLERUS in loc.
H An expressive word, fully conveying
the meaning of the modern circumlocution, "to realise the presence of Ood."EDIT.
II ESTIUS in loo.
* * AINSWOKTH in he.
ft TIIUNUS in loc.
26
8BRMOM I,
HOW MAT WB QK UNIVERSALLY
essence, presence, and power, is every where ?" Terse 8. If I ascend up

into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art
there-As if he had said, " There ia no height above thee, there is no
depth below thee."* Verse 9. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost part of the teaAs if he had said, " If I had
wings to fly as swift as the morning light,f from the east to the west, that
I could in a moment get to the furthest parts of the world/' Terse 10.
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me
As if he had said, " Thence shall thy hand lead me back, and hold me fast
like a fugitive."^ Terse I I . If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me ;
even the night shall be light about meAs if he had said, " Though darkness hinders man's sight, it doth not thine." In a word, look which way
you will, there is no hiding-place from God. " For his eyes are upon the
ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. There is no darkness, nor
shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves."
(Job xxxiv. 21,22.) Therefore, Christians, do nothing but what you are
willing God should take notice of; and judge in yourselves whether this,
be not the way to have a good and quiet conscience
4. Be serious and frequent in the examination of your heart and life*
This is so necessary to the getting and keeping of a right and peaceable conscience, that it is impossible to have either without it. There
are some duties and graces, like those parts of the body that may supply
the defect of other parts; or like some drugs in physic, which when
they cannot be had, some of the like nature may serve: but this is like
those the defect whereof nothing else can supply. The Heathens have
groped out this rule by the glow-worm light of nature. Pythagoras
gives it as a precept; and Seneca backs it by examples of Sextius, ||
* NvJla altitudo te altior: nullum profundum teprofundiusHIEHONTMUS in he.
Aurora, solispr&nuncia, momenta Mum hemisphesriumperoadit,MENOCHiusin/oc..
" Aurora, the harbinger and herald of the sun, in a moment pervades the entire hemisphere
with her light."EDIT.
$ Deducat; tenebit ut solent teneri fugitivi.SAYB.US.
vaptSriv, n 8* e/wfa; ri Stay ert\ttr1h)i: Aurea Pracepta,
v. 42, p. 9.
"Each night, ere needful slumber seals thine eyes,
Home to thy soul let these reflections rise;
How has this day my duty seen expressed ?
What have I done, omitted, or transgress'd."FITZOEHALB'S Translation^
|| Somnus quam tranquillus, alfus, ac liber, cum out laudatusest animus, out admonitus,
et speculator sui censorque secrelus cognoscit de moribus suis I
Utor hoe potesiate, it
quotidie apud me causam dico. Cum sublatum conspectu lumen est, et conticuit uaor
moris jam mei conscia, toium diem mecum serutor, facto, ac dicta mea remetior, nihil mihi
ipse abscondo, nihil transeo: quare enim qvicquam ex erroribus meis timeam, cum
passim dieere Vide ne istud amplius facias, nuno tibi ignosco, $c.SEXECA De Ira, lib.
iii. c. xxxvi. p. 599. " How tranquil, sound, and uninterrupted is one's sleep, when the
heart is either praised or admonished, and when the secret inspector and censor of itself
takes proper cognizance of its own morals and habits ! This mental process I call into
constant exercise, and daily hold a little court within, for the hearing and determining of
causes. In the evening as soon as the light has been withdrawn from my view, and my
wife, now well-acquainted with my practice, has ceased to converse with me, I enter on an
inward scrutiny into the whole of the past day: I recall to mind my words and actions, and
ponder upon each of them. I conceal nothing from myself: I do not allow any thing to
be lightly passed over. Wherefore, then, should I indulge in fears concerning my errors,
when I am enabled thus to interrogate them, and to deliver to my heart a strict charge ?
.Beware of this offence, and never again commit it! This time I forgive thee. In
that dispute thou didst exhibit symptoms of a pugnacious disposition; never hereafter,
engage in a contest with men who are ignorant and inexperienced."EDIT.
AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS
27
who every night, before he composed himself to sleep, asked himself t

'What evil hast thou this day healed? What vice hast thou resisted?
Wherein art thou better?" 0 how sweet is that sleep which follows
such a recognition of himself, who made every night a scrutiny into the
words and deeds of the whole day ! He would neither pass by, nor hide,
any thing from himself. He so ripped up his faults, that he would not
pardon them to himself, without a self-charge not to repeat them /
Have you gone thus far ? Certainly, my brethren, not to out-etrip THEM
is inexcusable, " It is a shame to see the carelessness of most, that are
better acquainted with any thing than themselves. There are many that
know the histories of a thousand years past, and yet cannot tell you the
particulars of their own lives; men well-acquainted with the mysteries
of arts and nature, but utterly ignorant of the secrets of their own souls.
How few are there amongst us that can say, with David! have
thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.' (Psalm
cxix. 59.) Nay, we have a thousand matters to think on all the day
long, the night too, the week, the year. But who questions with his
own heart, 'What am I? What do I? How live I? Is the course I
follow good and lawful? Is that which I omit, my duty, or not? Is
God my Mend? Am I his? What hope have I of heaven? Say, I
die to-morrow, to-day, this very hour, where is my assurance [that] I
shall be saved ? What apology can make against the accusations of
Satan and my conscience ? Will Christ be mine advocate, when I shall
stand in judgment ? Have I grace, or have I none ? Do I grow in grace,
or do I decay ? Am I better this year than I was the last ? What sins
have I conquered now, that held me in combat then ? What graces have
I obtained now, that I had not then ?"** Christians, do you do thus ?
If you do, that is not enough, unless you do it frequently, daily. Every
evening ere you sleep, review your carriage in the day, what you have
done, or spoken, or thought, that is but so much as indecent ;f whether
your hearts have been intent upon religion, and indifferent to the world.
Briefly, have special care of two portions of your time, namely, morning and evening ; the morning, to fore-think what ought to be done ;
and the evening, to examine whether you have done what you ought.
5. Be much in prayer, in all manner of prayer, but especially in secret
prayer. (Psalm cix. 4 ; Eph. vi. 18 ; Matt. vi. 6.) Do not nonsuit
yourselves by the love of sin, and you shall certainly be heard when
you pray for grace. (Heb, iv. 16.) Believe it, Christian, it is not thine
inevitable weakness, nor thy sensible dulness, nor thy lamented rovings,
nor thy opposed distractions, nor thy mistaken unbelief; (2 Cor. xii. 10 ;
Mark xiv. 38 40 ; Psalm Ixxxvi. 1 1 ; Gen. xv. 2,3; I John v. 10 ;) it is
* PEMBLE, p, 514.
+ npo rip wearawretts fawutpuwrQtu vpocrqim TO
ccurrov wo njs iotas Mopotar KM ytyovt - TO Sfw, - rw omryoptvficra*?, ij -yoj ( ran , wept wpmrct/xw , &.BASILIUS,
torn. ii. p. 514. "Before a man retires to rest, it is requisite for him to institute
searching inquiry into bis inward convictions about every thing which he keeps in concealment within his own heart ; and if he find that he ha either done some improper act,
that he has used artful evasions in warding off reproaches, that his conversation has
exceeded the bounds of decency, or that he has exhibited a degree of carelessness in his
public or private devotions." &c. EDIT.
$ Caocn Syntagma, p. 1212, e
aliie.
28
8ERMON .
BOW MAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY
not any nor all these can shut oat thy prayers, if thou dost not "regard
iniquity in thy heart/* (Psalm Ixvi. 18.) Therefore be encouraged; it
is the voice of your Beloved that saith, " Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Hitherto have ye asked nothing " (to what you might ask) " in my name:
ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John xvi. 23, 24.)
But this and the two next rules will be spoken to in the following cases j
I shall therefore but little more than name them.
6. Let every action have reference unto your whole life, and not unto a
ytart only.*Propose some end to yourselves in everything,)* and let all
your lesser and subordinate ends be plainly reducible unto the great end
of your living. The emphasis of the apostle's exhortation is very great s
Exercise thyself unto godliness." (I Tim. iv. 7.) As if he had said, Be
as diligent in religion as thou wouldest have thy children that go to
school to be in learning. Or thus: Let thy whole life be a preparation
for heaven, like the wrestlers' or combatants' preparation for victory. $
Or thus; Strip thyself of all incumbrances, that thou mayest attend unto
piety. Pleasures may tickle thee for a while; but they have an heartaching farewell. Thou mayest call thy riches goods; but within a few
days, what good will they do thee ? Men may flatter thee for thy great"
ness; but with.God thy account will be the greater. Therefore always
mind that which will always be advantage.
7. Live more upon Christ than upon inherent grace.Do not venture
upon sin because Christ hath purchased a pardon; that is a most horrible
and impious abuse of Christ. For this very reason, there was. no sacrifice
under the law for any wilful wickedness, lest people might think they knew
the price of sin, as those do that truck with popish indulgences and pardons. But, that none may be overwhelmed with the over-sense of their
unworthinesa, be it known to you, " we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous;" (I John ii. 1 ;) and our salvation is better*
safer, more for God's glory and our comfort, in his hand than in ours.
8. Be, every way, nothing in your own eye*.It is the humble soul
that thrives exceedingly. " And, alas! what have we to be proud of ?
Look we either at our constitution, or conversation; our conception sinful
* EPISCOPII Institut. Theolog. lib. i. c.!. p. 3.
f Si aliquem exeuntem dbmo
interrogaveris i Quo to 9 quid cogitas 9 respondent tibi . Non, Mehercule, seio, sed
aliquos videbo, ahquid agam. Inconsultus illis vawtsque cursus est; qualis formicis per
arbusta repentibus ; qua in summum cacumen, deinde in imum inanes aguntur. Deinde
domum cum supervacu& redeuntes lassitudine, jurant nescisse seipsos, quare exierint..
SENECA De Tranquillitate Animi, c. xii. p. 685. " If you ask one .of these busy idlers,
when he is stepping out of his own house,' Whither are you running ? About what are
you thinking ?' he will frankly reply: In truth I know not. But I am resolved to see
somebody, and to do something or other. Their erratic course has no fixed purpose in
view, and is, consequently, fruitless. It resembles the pathway along which the loaded
ants are creeping through the uneven woodlands : sometimes they reach the tops of the
loftiest hillocks, whence, unable to retain either their balance or their burden, they are
often precipitated into the lowest depths. When at length these men return home, they
suffer from weariness needlessly incurred, and stoutly aver that they have not themselves
known why they quitted the threshold in the morning.'1EDIT.
5e
atavrov -arpos etwregiww. (? est proprie exerceri in gymnade.GROTIUS i loo,
"The proper signification of is, to take exercise, as wrestlers do, in the
palaestra."EDIT.
Descendenda coelum ascenditur.DaEXEUus de Pradio.
"By self-abasement we climb to heaven."EDIT.
2d
1
our birth penal, our life toilsome, and our death we know not what. '*
But all this is nothing to the state of oar soul. A Stoicf could give thitr
rule, that " if any one tell you of another's speaking evil of thee, do not
excuse thyself, but say, 'He did not know me, or else he would have spoken
worse.' " A convert, when he once comes to be sensible of sin, sees more
cause to be weary of his life, than proud of his graces. To rise and fall,
confess sin and commit it; to see others outrun us, that set out after us;
to recover that time for communion with God which we trifle away in
unobserved impertinences;surely for such persons to be low and vile
in their own eyes, deserves not to be called " humility," though the contrary be worse than devilish pride. Be persuaded therefore to believe
yourselves of yourselves, in the use of Agur's (some suppose Solomon's)
words of himself: " Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not
the understanding of a man." (Prov. xxx. 2.) As if he had said, " I do
not make use of my reason." Verse 3: "I have not the knowledge of the
holy." As if he had said, " My knowledge of holy mysteries is very little;
in comparison of my ignorance, nothing." Be as willing that others should
peak ill of you, as you are to speak ill of yourselves: and be as unwilling
that others should commend you, as you are to commend yourselves.^
9. Entertain good thoughts of God, (Psalm Ixxiii. 1,) whatever he doeth
with you, whatever he requires of you, whatever he lays upon you.We
never arrive to any considerable holiness or peace till we lose ourselves
in Deity; || till our understandings be filled with admiration; till our
wills be, in a sober sense, divine; till our affections be, in a spiritual
* Unde superbit homo, cujus conceptio culpa, nasei pcena, labor vita, neeette mori,
yuando, vel qvomodo, vel ubi, nescire 9BERN AKDUS de interiors Dom. c. 53. Mallem
nan esse quam talis esse.Ibid, c. 83. "I should prefer non-existence itself rather than
to be only such a creature as this."EDIT. Accuso me, rum excuse, nee iacirco Justus
sum f quoniam si alter ita mea accusaret, sicut ego meipsum accuse, patienter sustinere
nan possem.Ibid. c. 34, &c. p. 1078. " I accuse myself, and offer no excuses: yet I am
not on that account righteous; because were another person so to accuse and blame those
things which are in me as I am accustomed to blame myself, I should not be able to endure
his accusations with patience."EDIT.
f EPICTETUS, c. 48. SIMPLICII Comment, p. 276.
Multos vidisse qtti potuerint perferre multa ineommoda in corpora
etfortuni ; qui autem potuerit eontemnere laude tuat neminem..LUTHERI Comment,
in Galatasy ex olio, torn. iv. p. 149. " Of those who could bear innumerable inconveniences in their own bodies and in their worldly circumstances, it has been my lot to see
many ; but I never yet met with one who was capable of undervaluing or despising the
fulsome praise that was lavished on himself."EDIT.
TIJI wept row Seovs
cv<rcciaf Kvpurrarov eitetvo rra>, op9as *< wtpi XW, us ovrw,
tioucowrw ; * ta , wcifarflat
currois, KM IKCI? cv train rots , , ets wo TTJS ? *
ciriTtXov/tcvou. ' -yap oirre -wore rois Beats, ovre eyKaAcorci; s , &.C.
EPICTETUS, c. 38; SIMPLICIUS, p. 212. " Be assured, that the essential property
of piety towards the gods is, to form right opinions concerning them, as existing, and as
governing the universe with goodness and justice. And fix yourself in this resolution,.
to obey diem, and yield to them, and willingly to follow them in all events, as produced
by the most perfect understanding. For thus you will never find fault with the gods, nor
accuse them as neglecting you."MBS. CARTER'S Translation.
11 Hoc ett totalem
Dei volvntate conformitatem et consonantiam haberej nimirum, not totos ei ojfferendo,
ut gvodcungue, quandocunque, quomodocunque ipse votuerit, de nobis faciat ao statuat;
idque tine ull& excepttone et cantradiclione, et niftil prorsus nobis reservando.RODERICIUS, Eeero. Perfee. pars i. tr. viiL c. 14, p. 365. " This is to have a complete
conformity and harmony with the will of God; namely, By offering our entire selves to
Him; so that whatsoever, whensoever, and howsoever God may will concerning us, THAT
He may perform and appoint; and all this without any exception or contradiction on our
part, and with a total absence of mental reservation."EDIT.
30
SERMON I.
HOW HAT WB BE UNIVERSALLY
sense, transported. When -we can at once unriddle God's methods of

grace, and make good constructions of God's methods of providence,
making a spiritual improvement of both, then we are not far from being
universally and exactly conscientious.There is yet one thing wanting;
and that is implied in this, but it must be eminently expressed:
10. Do all you do out of love to God.Spiritual love-sickness is the
soul's healthfullest constitution. When love to God is both cause, means,
motive, and end of all our activity in the business of religion, then the
soul is upon the wing towards its rest. "Then is our love to other
things regular, when the alone goodness of God moves us to love them ;
as the alone respect to health makes me use physic. The means hath no
proper goodness distinct from the goodness of the end; those means
which were profitable, though they remain unchanged in themselves, yet
they become unprofitable by the alone change of the end. For instance:
health being recovered, physic is unprofitable, which, while we were
infirm, was profitable. So we are not to love any means without relation
to the end, because it is contrary to the purity of that love which we owe
to God; for we ought so to love God, that with him or under him we
love nothing else, but all things only in him, because otherwise we do not
love him with our whole heart. For instance: In men's loving their
wives, and wives their husbands; in parents' loving their children, and
children their parents; it is a rare pitch to love all these in God; that is,
to advance our love to God by them, and so far as any of them draw off
our love to God, to say to them, as Christ to Peter, ' Get thee behind
me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me.' Love is extended to good: the
more good therefore any thing is, the more it is to be beloved." * ** But
thou, 0 Lord my God," saith Bradwardine, " art the good of every good;
good above all things that are good; a good most infinitely infinite!
How much therefore should I rationally love thee, should not my love be
proportionably infinite ? I would I could so love thee: but how shall I,
that am so very little and finite, love thee infinitely ? And yet without
so loving thee, how will there be kept any due proportion in loving thee,
who dost infinitely exceed all other lovely things ? I ought to love thee
infinitely as to the manner, though I cannot as to the act, of my love:
that is, I ought to love thee finally for thyself, or else I may love thee in
some sort infinitely as to the act, both intensively and extensively. In
tome sort intensively: that is, more intensely, more firmly, more strongly
than any finite good, because I love them but for thee. In some sort
extensively: by comparing all things, how many or how great soever,
with thee, and loving thee before and above all, that I had rather all
things in the world, and myself too, to have no being, than once to offend
thee. But, Lord, thou lovest thy friends in an unspeakable manner more
* Ita sola bonitas Dei movet ad amorem charitatis ergo, proximum, sola ratio sanilatis
movet ad utendum potione medico. Omnia qua voluntati objiciuntur sint aut finis out
media ; heee ob solum finem appeti. Media qua, media, dicunt ionium relalionem ad
finem, rum autem fundamentum ipsius; turn quia contraria est puriiaii amoris, quo Deo
inhterere debemus. Ita enim, ut passim apud solidiores vita spiritualis magistros videre
est, amare debemus Deum, ut cum illo, etiam sub illo, nihil altud amemus ; sed omnia
duntaaat in illo: quia alias non amamus ilium ex toto corde, sed aliud quidpiam ab illo
occupat oor nostrum.GIBIEUF De Lib. Dei et Great, lib. i. c. xi. p. 66.
AND EXACTLY CONSCIEMTIOTJB
31
than they can love thee. 0 therefore, thou great Lord, thou great Good,
that filleet heaven and earth why doat thou not fill my very little soul?
my soul, that art so little, BO miserable, why dost thou not open
all thy little doors; why dost thou not extend thy utmost capacity, that
thou mayest be wholly possessed, wholly satiated, wholly ravished with
the sweetness of so great love ? especially seeing thou art so very little;
yet nothing less will satisfy thee. 0, therefore, my most loving God, I
beseech thee, tell me what may most effectually draw out my love to tbee,
considering what prevention of love, what privative, positive good things
I receive from thee, infinite in greatness, infinite in multitude t It is a
wonder that any one can think of these things, and not be wholly swallowed up of love, wholly turned into love. But I see, Lord> it is easier
to speak these things, and to write them down, than to do them. Thou
therefore, most good and most powerful Lord, to whom nothing is difficult, give, I beseech thee, that I may more easily do these things in my
heart, than utter them with my mouth! Open, I beseech thee, thy most
bountiful hand, and enable me that nothing may be more easy, nothing
more sweet, nothing more delightful, than most effectually and most
affectionately to fulfil that which I speak about loving of thee. Lord,
give me leave a little to presume above my hope, and to plead with
thee about thy magnificent goodness. Human friendship will not give
the repulse to a poor, wanting, begging friend; 0, therefore, most
liberal Lord, help me that I may love thee!"* Christians, it is worth
while to make it your business to climb up to this love-ecstasy. This
yon will find to be a completing rule, an effectual meant, and a singular
eterctse of exact and conscientious walking.
I shall briefly name (I intended largely to have pressed) two arguments
or motives to persuade the use of these directions:
1. Tan cannot possibly get rid of your conscience :f therefore be per*
* Tu autem, Domine Deus meus, e omnis boni bonum, tuper omnta bona bonus, bonum
inJMtissimi inftnitum. Quomodo tantttm plus amabo te, quam tu aauu me, quantum tu
es melior me 9 Debeo amare tefinaliter propter te, et omnta alia propter te. Tu autem
nan a/mat me propter me, nee etetera propter me. Debeo etiam amare te infinite quodammodo
intensivl supra quodcumque bonum fihitum ; tu autem nan no anuu me. Debeo quoque
amare teinftnite quodammodo extensivi, volendo scilicet potius quotounque et quantaeunque
bona alia, etiam et meipsum nan etse quam te, vel quam te semel offendere ; tu verb non tie
anuu me, quia non debeo sic amort, $c.BRADw AHDINUS De Causa Dei,lib. ii. c. zxxiv.
p. 62? et seqq,
f Vis ejus quanta sit, non est obscurum, $c. Nee vi extinguitur
neefraude, odea alti inharet animo. Tutisaimus licet homo sit, tomen aeourus non est.
Ipsos tenebros nequitia, imo tufa omnta timet: multosfortuna liberal paena, metu neminem.
Exemplo sunt potentissimi imperatores, et qui arcani licentiam nacfi, sine arbitris, sine
testibus, $c.Enscopius, Instil. Theol. lib. i. c. iii. pp. 10,11. " The vastness of the
power possessed by conscience is a feet not veiled in obscurity. Its force is manifest in the
effects which it produces: It binds, imposes obligations, acts the part of an accuser, bears
witness, absolves or condemns, in such a manner as if it acted within man in the capacity
of God's vicegerent And these effects or goads cannot be shaken off even by those who
strive hard to eradicate from their minds every notion concerning God which they have
imbibed. Whether with or without their own consent, they are agitated and disturbed with
sad cogitations and gnawing remorse, induced either by their absolute denial of God's
existence and supremacy, by their daring effrontery against the Deity, or by the heartless
worship which they reluctantly pay to the Divine Majesty. Conscience cannot be ejected,
either by force or by fraud, so deeply has it seated itself within the human breast 1 Though
the man be quite safe, yet he feels himself to be insecure. Even hi solitude he is full of
anxiety and perturbation, and his whole frame is seized with trembling. Wickedness is
afraid even when concealed in the shade, or covered with darkness; nay, it even fears all things
32
SERMON t.
HOW MAY WE B8 UNIVERSALLY
waded to get tt good one.There is nothing more common than for

cricked men to do what they can to extinguish conscience. They flatter
it with carnal reasoning; they bribe it with mock devotions; they
wound it with heinous provocations; they sear it with customary wickedness ; they trample it under foot by sinning in despite of it; they run
away from it, and will not endure to hear it, by diversions: and yet they
can sooner turn their souls out of their bodies, than conscience out of
their souls; yea, amongst all these indignities, it is as fresh and active, as
if it were not thus abused. It doth but watch its opportunity, when it
will be heard, when it will make that which was done perhaps forty years
ago, as if it had been but yesterday. What ails the great emperors of
the world,* "that cause their terror in the land of the living?" What
ails them to tremble with inward contrition ? Is it a vain fear ? Why
then do they not shake it off? Is it the fear of men? No: they are
above human punishments. Is it the fear of shame ? No: the sin
perhaps was secret; at least man knows not the inward consternation of
their spirits. What is the matter ? 0! they are haunted by the fury
of their own consciences. Would wicked men but blab the gripes they
sometimes feel, even then when they out-face a ministerial or friendly
reproof, there would need no more to be said to evidence, that a conscience you will have, which will, first or last, do its office.
2. Tour own conscience will be your best friend, or your greatest
enemy, (of any creature,) unto eternity.There is no greater riches, no
greater pleasure, no greater safety, than a good conscienee.f Let the
pressures of the body, the hurry of the world, the affrightments of Satan,
be never so great, they cannot reach the conscience. A good conscience
singularly cheers the dying body, joyfully accompanies unto God the
departed soul, triumphingly presents both soul and body unto the desired
tribunal. There is no more profitable means, nor surer testimony, nor
that are in perfect safety. Concerning its own security, it betrays many misgivings.
prosperous outward condition delivers many exalted miscreants from merited punishment,
but none from inward dread. Of this we have instances in emperors, who have attained
to the greatest height of power, and who, finding out the impunity which privacy affords,
have committed acts of lewdness in secret, without any check from frowning witnesses, or
upbraiding censors," &c.EDIT. Ipsa conscientiapropriis stimulis agitatur afque compungitur, et sui ipsa efficitur accusatrix et testis.OB.IOINES , lib. ii. c. xi.
p. 707. " Conscience is driven about and goaded by its own stings; and it is constituted
the grand accuser, as well as the chief witness against itself."EDIT.
* Jnsigne visum est earum Casaris literarum initium ; nam his verbie exorsus est:.
Quid scribam vobis, P. C., aut quo modo scribam, aut quid omnino non scribam hoe
tempere, dii me deteque pejus perdant quam perire quotidia sentio, si scio, Adeo facinora alque fiagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant. Tiberium non for tuna,
non solitudines protegebant.TACITI Annales, lib. vi. c. vi. p. 149. "The letter sent
by Tiberius on this occasion, is too remarkable to be here omitted. His words were as
follows: ' What to write, Conscript Fathers, in what terms to express myself, or what
to retrain from writing,is a matter of such perplexity, that if I know how to decide,
may the just gods, and the goddesses of vengeance, doom me to die in pangs worse than
those under which I linger every day !' We have here the features of the inward man.
His crimes retaliated upon him with the keenest retribution: so true is the saying of the
great philosopher, the oracle of annent wisdom, (Socrates,) that' if the minds of tyrants
were laid open to our view, we should see them gashed and mangled with the whips and
stings of horror and remorse.' Of this truth Tiberius is a melancholy instance. Neither
the imperial dignity, nor the gloom of solitude, nor the rodcs of Caprea, could shield him
from himself. He hved on the rack of guilt, and his wounded spirit groaned in agony."
MUHPHY'S Translation.
f Vide BEUNAHDUM De Inter. Domo, c. xxiL p. 1070.
AND EXACTLY COHSCIBHTIOUS f
33
eminent conveyer of eternal happiness, than a good conscience. And, on

the contrary, there is no greater torment than [that] of an evil conscience:
though its gentler checks may be disregarded, its louder clamours will
make you tremble. sirs! what will you do, when conscience shall
upbraid you with your abuse of mercies, iucorrigibleness under judgments, contempt of Christ, and hatred of holiness ? You cannot now
endure to hear what conscience hath to say; how will you endure it unto
eternity ? If one that killed his own father, could not, in some Egyptians' account, be more cruelly punished, than by being compelled to
behold the murdered body for three days; * what a torment will it be, to
be forced to behold every sin, with every aggravation, unto eternity ?
Here, in bodily sickness, there are some intervals to revive the spirits; but
* Parricidium vindicator* Pelusii, profiagitii dignitate, nullum hactenus fortune \ngeniuffl perfectum duxerunt; non culeum, rum vivicomburium: savins quid cogitarunt,
fia, scilicet, matris naturae ferulam conscientiam: ad summa atrocitatis exemplum docti,
novam savitiam didicerunt, parricidam sancientes triduo cogi specfare occisi cadaver, ut
puniretur enormissimo omnium supplicio, admonitione facinoris. JOHANNES
EusEBitrs NIEREMBEHOIUS Du Arte Vol. lib. ii. p. 159. "When the Pelusiot were
preparing to punish a parricide by law according to the extreme heinousness of his offence,
they began to reflect that no torture commensurate with the enormity of the crime had been
previously invented. Neither the culeus, nor the burning of the culprit alive, was deemed
to be an adequate punishment. They therefore proceeded to consult together concerning
some infliction which might operate on the criminal himself as a severe and salutary scourge:
and this at length they discovered in CONSCIENCE,.that corrective ferule employed by
our pious mother Nature. Having thus been themselves instructed, through an instance of
consummate atrocity which had recently been brought under their notice, they taught other
nations a new form of cruelty, by passing a decree,that every parricide should for three
day be compelled to live in sight of his murdered parent's body ; that be might be chastised by a method which was of all others the most uncommon, and which inflicted on hie
ill-suppressed natural feelings the most tremendous punishment, while his example was
admonitory to others, warning them against the perpetration of such an act of flagitious
wickedness." The remarkable punishment of culeus, which the Egyptian senators are here
said to have rejected, is believed to have been of eastern origin, before it was employed
with some circumstantial modifications by the Romans, and engrafted on their legislation.
Mention is made of it by Plautus, Seneca, Cicero, Livy, Juvenal, Valerius Maximue,
Apuleius, Plutarch, Orosius, Lactantius, and others. The parricide was sewed up in a
large and strong leathern sack, having four living creatures for his companions,an ass, a
viper, a cock, and a dog ; and was then thrown into the sea. According to an old Scholiast,
after the sack had been sewed up, the whole of the outside was rendered air-and-watertight by being besmeared over with pitch and bitumen,a service eagerly performed by the*
populace, to demonstrate their abhorrence of the detestable offence. In Cicero's Oration for
Sextos Roscius of Ameria, who was arraigned at the bar and tried as a parricide, occurs a
fine passage on this subject; which has been the occasion of much perplexity to the critics,
but of which the circumstance respecting its bituminous covering affords a most satisfactory
explanation. The following eloquent lines form a part of that paragraph:" the singular
wisdom of our ancestors, in naming and passing a law, which decrees that a parricide should
be sewed up alive in a culeus, and in that condition be hurled into the flood! Do not
they seem, by this punishment, to have cast him out at once from every part of universal
nature ? Have they not thus suddenly debarred from him the tree use and enjoyment of
air, light, water, and earth 9 so that the wretch who could kill HIM from whom he had
derived his own existence, should be deprived of all those elements out of which, it is affirmed,
every thing has been created i In fine, there is nothing possessed of the least usefulness,
or that belongs alike to all men, of which the parricide is allowed to retain the smallest
particle. For, what is so common as breath to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to
those who are buffeted with its waves, or even the rocky shore to those who are shipwrecked ?
But the murderer of a parent [in his culeus] lives, while he may, in such a condition as
leaves him incapable of obtaining a single breath from the air of heaven; hie death is such
that the earth may not even touch his bones; his conflict with the waves is such as prevents him from receiving their ablutions; and when at length he is dashed on shore a
lifeless corpse, on the very rocks he cannot find a quiet resting-place."EDIT.
34
SERMON t.
HOW MAY WE BK UNIVERSALLY
hereafter there will not be a moment's intermission of unexpressible

horror unto eternity. The conscience shall roar under infinite wrath,
and the sinner shall be kept from annihilation under it by infinite power.
Thus I have in a weak manner performed my promise in speaking to
several kinds of consciences, with remedies and rules which, laid together,
will (I think) amount to sufficient instructions, How we may be univer*ally and exactly conscientious. Namely,!. Get your consciences awakened from their natural lethargy. (1 Cor. xv. 34.) 2. Preserve them
tender from acquired searedness. (Heb. iii. 13.) 3. Rectify their errors,
as you would get cure of blindness. (Eph. iv. 18.) 4. Resolve their
doubts, as you would a claim to your lands. (Bom. xiv. 5.) 5. Break
from your scruples, as from thieves on the road. (Isai. xxxv. 3, 4.) 6.
Lay your head in Christ's bosom, to cure your trembling. (leai. xl. 11.)
And then, 7, 8, For the integrity and quiet of your consciences, observe
the rules proposed, as punctually as you would physicians' bills in a
tedious sickness. (1.) Avoid sinning, as you would a train of gunpowder.
(Job xviii. 15.) (2.) Be as quick in your repentance, as in the cure of a
pleurisy. (Zeph. ii. 2.) (3.) Live under the apprehended presence of the
jealous God. (Ezek. xi. 5.) (4.) Examine your hearts, as princes sift out
treason. (Lam. iii. 40.) (5.) Pray for suitable grace, as starving persons
cry for food. (Psalm cxliii. 7, 8.) (6.) Let every action be as an arrow
shot at a mark. (1 Cor. x. 31 .) (7.) Think of God as of a wise physician.
(Job xl. 2.) (8.) Be as vile in your own esteem, as you are in the eyes of a
captious enemy. (Eph. iii. 8.) (9.) Live upon Christ, as the child in the
womb lives upon the mother. (Gal. ii. 20.) (10.) Love God (as near as
possibly yon can) as God loves you. (Psalm xviii. 1, 2.)
But if these rules, though thus contracted, be too many, and too long,
to be always remembered, that yon may not be overcharged with that
which should never be forgotten, I shall commend to you some spirituallychymical extractions, and (if I might so express it) spirits of directions,
that may be to your souls, in your pilgrimage toward heaven, as your
ship-provisions in a sea- voyage, generally sufficient, when others cannot
be had. Plainly practise these memorials of direction in all your conscientious walking :
1. Consult duty, not event. There is nothing in the world for us to
do, but to mind our duty. Curious speculations,* that tend not to holiness, may be reckoned among your superfluities : but misgiving predictions of what may or will befall you in the discharge of your duty, may
be reckoned among your grosser iniquities : and to venture upon sin to
avoid danger, is to sink the ship for fear of pirates, and must be reckoned amongst your greatest follies, your worst of sins. Is not their
reason (questionless their conscience is) dangerously distempered, that
* To apu ro evrmtf ? tu tnum^ns etwoujijew, wcffoiifffw rris ymtfftiest ro {qy, *\, vtpt trXetorov -woMjerrrou ' ow
voiSos, faff w , yovtis, wpos Qeov ayatrijs, -njs tv Sucou<xrwi)*> ?. CLEMEN8 AlEXANDRiNus, Slromaton lib. vi. p. 664. " Not l\fe
itself, but a virtuous life, will be in the highest request, by him who believes existence in
this condition to be quite essential for the accumulation of useful information, and the
acquisition of knowledge ; and he will therefore esteem love to God, and righteousness of
life, in preference to his natural affection for children, wife, or parents."EDIT.
AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS ?
35
practically argue ?" This way of duty may probably procure man's displeasure ; and therefore, to prevent that, I will take the course which
will certainly procure God's displeasure/' Besides, by-ways will not lead
you to the place yon aim at.* But, on the contrary, keep your consciences from being violated, and you cannot be miserable. how calm
and quiet, as well as holy and heavenly, would our lives be, had we
learned but this single lesson,to be careful for nothing, but to know
and do our duty, and to leave all effects, consequents, and events to God!
The troth is, it is a daring boldness for silly dust to prescribe to Infinite
Wisdom, and to let go our work to meddle with God's. He hath
managed the concernments of the world, and of every individual person
in it, without giving occasion to any one to complain, for above this
five thousand years; and doth He now need your counsel ? Therefore
let it be your only business to mind duty. " Ay, but how shall I know
my duty ?" Take a second memorial:
2. What advice you would give to another, take yourselves.^The worst
of men are apt enough to lay such burdens on other men's shoulders,
(Matt, xxiii. 4,) which if they would take them upon their own, they
would be rare Christians. For instance: The very outcry of those that
revile godliness, who deal by the miscarriages of professors, as the Levite
by his concubine,quarter them, and divulge them; even they expect, that
those who make a strict profession of religion should be beyond exception blameless; and they, even they, scorn those that make any defection
from their professed strictness. And, on the other side, those that are
holy,they expect that even graceless persons should bear reproof,
receive instruction, and change the course of their lives. In middle cases,
then, between these extremes, what exactness will serious Christians require,
where the bias of their own corruptions doth not misguide them ? David
was twice surprised to pass sentence against himself by remote parables;
(2 Sam. xii. 57; xiv. 4, 14;) wherein he mistrusted not himself to
be concerned. Wherein this rule is too short, add a third :
3. Do nothing on which you cannot pray for a blessing.Where
prayer doth not lead, repentance must follow; and it is a desperate
adventure to sin upon hopes of repentance. Every action, and cessation too, of ft Christian that is good and not to be refused, " is sanctified by the word and prayer." (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5.) It becomes not a
* OvSe re{v<y r<p $(, rw
wrar * a8e\Ti\pM KM roa aSvmroit tvixeipowrtv. fbnrtp mm ro woSt trwiuurrptffreu, ovrv rovs el titufairtu ffw
? avrais.Pi A&CHUS Tltpi , pp. 471,466. " For we do not reckon
him unfortunate, who will shoot with a ploughshare, and let slip an ox at a hare; nor is
he born under an unlucky influence, who cannot catch a buck with a sling or drag-net;
for it was the weakness and perverseness of his mind which inflamed him on to impossible
things. As, therefore, the shoe turns about with the foot, and doth not deviate from its
motion; so according as the affections of the mind are, they render the life conformable
to themselves."MOHGAN'S Translation.
* Tticw rc0n)Kci, ij ywn; ovSea
tori 6s owe of enrol, *>. * rivos &, vft/s, ,

ye*, 0> ? 5e , rt , wept * oKouffOrrcT.EPICTETtrs,
EtusMrtdion, c. zxxhi. SIMPLICIUS, p. 158. " Is the child or wife of another dead ?
there is no one who would not say, ' This is a human accident.' But, if any one's own
child happen te die, it is presently,' Alas ! how wretched ani I! But it should be remembered, how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others."MRS.
CABTEK'S Translation.
36
SERMON I.
BOW HAY WE BE UNIVERSALLY
Christian to do any thing so trivial, (Eph . 14,) that he cannot

pray over it; * and if he would but bestow a serious ejaculatory prayer
upon every occurrent action, he would find that such a prayer would cut
off all things sinful, demur all things doubtful, and encourage all things
lawful. Therefore, do nothing but what you can preface with prayer.
But these rules are all defective; I will therefore close with an example
that is infinitely above defects:
4. Think, and speak, and do what you are persuaded Christ himself
would do in your case, were he upon the earth.The Heathenthey
proposed unto themselves the best examples they had,f and therefore
let us follow the best of ours. (Micah iv. 5.) There are many rare
examples in scripture : (Heb. xiii. 7:) but we may say of them, as it is
said of most of David's worthies, whose highest commendation was with
this diminution:" They attained not unto the first three." (2 Sam.
xxiii. 19, 23.) I propose therefore neither great nor small, but the
" King of saints." (Eev. xv. 3.) It becomes a Christian rather to be an
example, than to follow one. (1 Peter ii. 12, 15 ; 1 These, i. 7.) But by
imitating of Christ, you will come as near as it is possible " to the first
three;" for your fellowship shall be "with the Father, and with his
Son Jesus Christ," (1 John i. 3,) "through the Spirit of Holiness," who
alone can teach you what it is to abide in Christ, (I John ii. 27,) who
was, and is, and ever will be our absolute copy. (Heb. xiii. 8.) 0
Christians! how did Christ pray, and redeem time for prayer ? (Mark i.
35; vi. 46; Luke vi. 12; John xi. 42.) How did Christ preach, (out
of whose mouth proceeded no other but gracious words, Luke iv. 22,)
that his enemies could not but admire him? (John vii. 46.) At what
rate did Christ value the world, who did and taught to renounce it?
(Mark x. 2127.) What time did Christ spend in impertinent die*
course, who made "their hearts burn within them" whom he occasionally fell in company with? (Luke xxiv. 1732.) How did Christ go up
and down doing good to man, (Acts x. 38,) and always those things that
were pleasing to God ? (John viii. 29.)
Beloved, I commend to you these four memorials, to be as so many
scarlet threads,(Joshua ii. 18, 21,)upon every finger of the right
hand, one; that you may never put forth your hand to action but these
memorials may be in your eye: 1. Mind duty. (Acts ix. 6.) 2. What is
another's duty in your case, is yours. (Bom. ii. 21.) 3. What you
cannot say, " The blessing of the Lord be upon it!" do not meddle
with it. (Psalm cxxix. 8.) But, above all, 4. As soon forget your
Christian name, (the name of a Christian,) as forget to eye Christ;
(Psalm cxxiii. 2;) and, whatever entertainment yon meet with from
the profane world, (John xv. 18, &c.,) remember your Exemplar, and
* avOpuma )> , re ffvvtiSos avrot, vrpos rw
Gtov ev ry / aairmi.ATHANASII Quastiones ad Antiochum, quest Ixxvii. p. 361.
"Thus the man who commits sin, destroys that freedom of access to God, and that
inward consciousness of Divine favour, which he formerly enjoyed when engaged in prayer
to Him."EDIT.
run jwXXtts \(, tppoaA.c , iroiiprcp
f rovrtf 3 Zipw* c/Mrcffoiri
EPICTETUS, Enchiridion, c. Ii SIMPLICIUS, p. 282. "When you are going to

confer with any one, and particularly those in a superior station, represent to yourself how
Socrates, or Zeno, would behave in such a case; and you will not be at a loss to make a
proper use of whatever may occur."MR?. CARTER'S Translation.
37
"follow hie steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in hie
mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered,
he threatened not; bat committed himself to him that judgeth righteously," (1 Peter ii. 2123.)
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.
Synteresy, or synteresis, is a word not unknown to our English lexicographers, both ancient and modern, who, almost without exception, hare defined
it to be "a remorse, prick, or sting of conscience;" and some of them, in
marvellous contradiction of themselves, immediately add the word synteretica,
with this correct meaning: " That part of physic which gives rules for the
preservation of health'* Those of them who trace etymologies, uniformly
derive the word from , *' with," and , " to conserve." This curious
instance of cross-purpose between the derivation and the meaning, is attributable to the mental process of misappropriation,the very common verb repa,
Tfpta, (,) " to pierce, harass, or torment," being confounded with ,

"to preserve;" in brief, the mistake has had its origin in the substitution of
(e) epsilon for () eta.

The only quotation in Johnson's Dictionary, in support of a remorse of
conscience, is one from Dr. Seth Ward, which, on the very faee of it, will
appear, to the most cursory reader, to be contradictory of that unlucky signification. That passage is here subjoined; " Though the principles of synteresis, the seeds of piety and virtue, scattered and disseminated in the soul, to
bring forth tbe fruit of virtue and felicity, may be trampled on and kept
under, cropped and snibbed, by the bestial part; yet they will sometimes be
starting out, sprouting, and putting forth themselves." In that age, the
principal writers of bishop Ward's school were warm advocates for baptismal
regeneration; and it was not unusual for them to apply synteresis to the
unobliterated grace of baptism, the influence of which, as explained by them,
had not been sinned away by repeated acts of transgression, and the virtue of
which still manifested its existence by lively internal struggles in favour of
righteous principles and correct conduct.
But all Dialecticians are aware, that the Schoolmen generally describe it to
be an original gift of God, a mental light conferred on every man that cometh
into the world. Blount, who undoubtedly possessed a large portion of the
varied qualifications requisite for a good lexicographer, defines SYNTERESIB, in
his Glossographia, to be "the pure part of conscience ; or a natural quality
engrafted in the soul, which inwardly informs a man whether he do well or ill."
The famous Martinius, and our own Holyoke, give us this definition of it:
" It may be called conservation or preservation, from (&, to preserve.
Hence that part of the soul which resists sins, which always evinces a desire
to preserve itself unspotted from vice, and which continually exclaims against
and reprehends the perpetration of criminal acts, is denominated synteresis."
In his celebrated '< Cases of Conscience," bishop Sanderson observes on this
subject: ** If a man should say, * My conscience doth suggest unto me, that
this theft is not to be committed ;' or, * My conscience crieth out unto me,
that it ought not to be committed;' the knowledge of this conclusion is properly , or conscience, as it is distinct from , or a guiltiest
conservation of one's self.The word synteresis, which is a guiltless conservation
of one's self, is often used for syneidesis or conscience, but improperly. In
practice, synteresis is the habit of the first principle about good and evil, from
whence conclusions are deduced, out of which proceedeth conscience."
38
SERMON .
WHAT MUST AND CAN PERSONS DO
'First Lecture," sec. xii. p. 15 In a subsequent passage, bishop Sanderson

translates syntereeis, "the unstained conservation of the mind."
The verb mnmjpeto is also employed in the New Testament, by three of the
Evangelists; (Matt. ix. 17 ; Mark vi. 20; Luke ii. 1;) and in each of the
passages our learned translators have given this good word its highest con*
eervative character and signification.
As in the note from Ames, in page 6, and in that which precedes it from
Estius, I have rendered synteresis, through an allowable circumlocution, in the
one instance, unsullied mental integrity, and in the other, conscious uprightness^
both of them opposed to the erroneous meaning contained in our English
dictionaries; it became requisite for me to show cause why such a marked
discrepancy exists; and this duty, in defence of my translation, I have now
briefly performed. I might indeed have made a parade of great names; but
every one who is competent to form a judgment on the matter will be content
with the name, and the decisive language, of the most accomplished Protestant
casuist of the seventeenth century, the amiable and learned bishop Sanderson.
EUIT.
SERMON II.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM GREENHILL, A.M.
WHAT MTJ8T AMD CAN PERSONS DO TOWARDS THEIR OWN

CONVERSION,
Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye,Ezek, xviii. 32,
THE words are part of that serious exhortation, began in verse 30 j
"Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions;" continued
in verse 31:" Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye
have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit j" and
concluded in this verse: " Wherefore turn yourselves," &c.
In the former part of the verse, the Lord saith, " I have no pleasure
in the death of him that dieth." " I had rather men should come to
the knowledge of the truth, and be saved, than die in their sins, and
perish through their impenitency, * Wherefore/ or 'therefore,* Hum,
yourselves,'" &c.
The exhortation in these words is backed with ft reason of great
(yea, the greatest) strength, namely, life: "Turn, and live;" that is,
Ye shall live comfortably here, and happily for ever hereafter*
There be four propositions deducible from these words t
1. That man is turned from God. 2. That it is man's duty to turn
unto God again. 3. That the Lord's willingness that men should
rather live than die, should be a strong argument to move them to turn,
4. That those who do turn shall live.
I shall wave all those great truths, and come to that which the words
seem to import; namely, a power in man to turn himself. It is a good
rule which Glassins, in his " Philology," * gives us: that active verbs
are given to those things which do not, properly and by immediate influx,
do that which they signify; sed certd tantum ratione concurrunt [" but
* Lib. iii. p. 200.
TOWARDS THEIR OWN CONVERSION?
39
which, in a certain degree, only concur in their being done"]. God

said to Moees, 'Lift thou np thy rod, and stretch out thy hand over the
sea, and divide it." (Exod. xiv. 16.) Moees had not power to divide
the eea; hut, because there was a certain concurrence of Moses's using
the rod according to divine direction, therefore it is attributed unto
Moses; whereas it was the work of God alone; for it is said, verse 21,
" The Lord caused the sea to go back.'* So in the work of conversion,
because man doeth something about it, therefore he is said to turn
himself, although the action be peculiar to the Lord. Ephraim saitb,
" Turn thou me, and I shall be turned." (Jer. xzxi. 18.)
The query here is, " What CAN or OUGHT persons to do towards their
own conversion?"
Something first ia to be spoken of man's power, or CAN ; and then
something of what man OUGHT to do.
I. For the first of these: There is a threefold power considerable,
an active, a passive, and an obediential, power.
1. An active power; as in fire there is such a power to warm; in
a good tree there is such a power to bring forth good fruit.This kind
of power is denied to be in.man: "How can ye, being evil, speak good
things?" (Matt. zii. 34.) If they cannot speak good things, much less
can they (to good things,
g. A passive powers as in wax to receive the impression of the seal;
and in wood to receive the engravings of the carver.This power is
not found in man: Paul saith expressly, " The natural man " (or soully
man) , "receives not the things of the Spirit of God:" and
, " neither can he." (I Cor. il. 14.) A stiff, dead hand receives
nothing, neither can it.
3. An obediential powers which consists in a capability to receive
what form or impression soever the mighty God by his power shall
put upon a creature.Such a power is in a stony heart to become flesh ;
it is capable to be made fleshy when God puts forth his power. This is
the power granted by divines to be in men; and it is a very low power.
The sacred writ is plentiful in setting out the impotency of man. It
tells us, that he "is not subject to the law of God, neither can be;"
(Rom. viii. 7;) that he "cannot please God;" (Bom. viil. 8;) that he
cannot come to Christ; (John vi. 44;) that he can do nothing without
Christ; (John xv. 5;) that he cannot believe; (John xii. 39; v. 44;)
that he cannot love God; (1 John iv. 20;) that he cannot do good;
(Jer. xiii. 23;) [that he cannot] yield good fruit; (Matt. vii. 17;)
that he cannot think a good thought. (2 Cor. iii. 5.)
Man's liberty or power is referrible to natural, moral, or spiritual
thing*. To the first, he hath great strength : To the second, some: To
the third, none, A man freely doeth natural and moral things; he can
live soberly, and chastely, quoad extemoe actus, " as to outward acts;"
he may abstain from gross sins, theft, murder, drunkenness, &c,; he
may come to the congregations freely, hear the word, and not stop his
ears as the deaf adder doth; but as to spiritual acts, qua tale ["aa
such"], he is impotent.
40
SERMON II.
WHAT MUST AMD CAN PERSONS DO
For the better understanding of the query, "What persons can do

towards their own conversion," I shall lay down several theses or conclusions, which I shall make good by scripture as I proceed.
CONCLUSION i. All dispositions and inclinations to spiritual good
which man had at first in his creation, are lost and ruined by the
fall. " The carnal mind is enmity against God." (Bom. viii. 7.) It
is so far from having inclination to God, or the things of God, that it
is not only an enemy, but enmity against God. And the Lord saith,
" I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed : how then art
thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?"
(Jer. ii, 21.) They had lost their original sap, and were degenerated
into a wild vine, and could not bring forth good clusters.
CON. ii. Man being altogether averse from good, the servant of sin
and death, sold under sin, Satan's captive, and dead in sin, is not able, by
his own strength and power, to convert or prepare himself thereunto.
(Rom. iii. 10, 12 ; viii. 2 ; vii. 14 ; 2 Tim. ii. 26 ; Col. ii. 13 ; Rom. v. 6.)
There must be the Father's giving and drawing, his gift and power,
otherwise there is no coming to Christ. (John vi. 44, 45.) Men are
without Christ in their natural conditions ; (Eph, ii. 12 ;) they are dead
to his life and righteousness.
CON. in. The Lord calls for human endeavours} and would have men
do more than they do. To those who had the talents he saith, " Occupy
till I come:" * (Luke xix. 13:) Be pragmatical; bestir yourselves, and
improve your talents, so that at my return I may find you gainers ; and
he that hid hie talent in a napkin is branded for a " wicked servant,"
(verse 22,) and for a " wicked and slothful servant." (Matt. xxv. 26.)
CON. iv. Men may do more than they do. "There is none that
stirreth up himself to take hold of thee." (Tsai. Ixiv. 7.) They did not
shake off lukewarmness and laziness, and rouse up themselves to take
hold of God by faith and prayer. It is the complaint of Christ that he
was hungry, and they gave him no meat ; thirsty, &c. They might have
done those things, and bestowed their estates upon Christ's members,
as well as others. It is evident men may do more than they do, for
that they do not that in their healths which they do in time of their
affliction ; then they will "early" seek God. (Hosea v. 15.) Weak ones
do more than stronger ; many of weak parts act beyond those of larger
abilities. Many complain in their sickness, that they have lost time, and
not done what they might. Where is the man that dares plead it before
the Lord, that he hath done all he could ? Because men do not what they
might, the Lord may not only deny grace unto them doing something,
yea, doing much, but justly condemn them because they did not what
was in their power, f It is a common saying among Papists, Jesuits,
Arrainians, and others, Facienti quod in se est, gratiam non deneaat Deus.
* < . This signifies, Negotiari in aliqua re ad lucrum.
"Trade in something which may produce profit."EDIT.
t Nos negamus ulloa
unquant fuisse bene utentes bono naturae propter JDeum, itaque nos dubitamiis essg
aliquod meritum congrui. CHAMIERI Panstratia Catholica, torn. iii. 1. 14. c. 4.
" We deny that there have ever been any men who employed aright, according to godliness,
the good which they had by nature ; and we therefore doubt concerning the existence of
merit of congruity."EDIT.
TOWARDS THKIR OWN CONVERSION ?
41
[" God denies not grace to him who does that which it is in his power
to do."] This is no sound foundation, for it supposeth some men do act
to the uttermost of their power. But whoever yet did all that was in
his power? Whoever went so far, as that he might not have gone one
step farther ? Did ever any read, hear, or pray so much, hut he might
have read, heard, and prayed more ? Jehoram might have waited on the
Lord longer. (2 Kings vi. 33.)
CON. v. Human endeavours are not required to co-operate with Goo"
grace, and so make it effectual; but hi grace makes their endeavour
effectual when he pleaeeth.Physical means make not God's power
effectual; but his power makes them effectual; and so it is in men's
endeavours. " It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
hut of God that showeth mercy." (Bom. he. 16.)

CON. vi. All that men do before conversion is not in vain, fruitless,
and to no purpose.When Rehoboam and the princes humbled them
selves at the preaching of Shemaiah, they were reprieved and delivered
from destruction. (2 Chron. xii. 12.) Ahab's humiliation did adjourn
the judgment. (I Kings xxi. 27, 29.) The Ninevites found favour with
God upon their fasting and repentance. (Jonah iii. 810.)
CON. vn. All the actings and endeavours of men, whatsoever they
be, are not formaliter dispositions and preparations to conversion, so that
conversion must necessarily follow upon them ; for there is no necessary
connexion between the actings of men and divine grace.The Lord hath
nowhere said, " If you act so far, or be so disposed, qualified, or prepared, I will convert you." If God's grace did depend upon men's
actings, then those that are most civil and moral must be taken, and
those who are profane and rebellious must be left; but Pharisees were
excluded, when publicans and harlots were admitted. Great sinners

sometimes are brought in, who did nothing towards their conversion,
when those that did much are shut out. Mary Magdalene, a great and
infamous sinner, is taken, when the foolish virgins were refused. They
were virgins, free from the spots and pollutions of the world; they had
lamps, professions; they did much, they went out to meet the Bridegroom, they gat oil into their lamps, they went to the door, and they
cried, " Lord, Lord, open to us!" and there was no opening to them.
What preparations had Paul to this work of conversion ? He was " a

blasphemer, and a persecutor, and an injurious person;" these were his
dispositions, and * preparatory works [which] he had towards his conversion. (1 Tim. i. 13.)f
CON. vin. Those that live under the means of grace, the administrations of law and gospel, have some operations and gifts of the Spirit^
(which some call " common, preventing, and exciting grace,") whereby they
are enabled to do many things towards and in order to conversion.The
scribe that was teachable, and answered Christ discreetly, was " not far
from the kingdom of God." (Mark xii. 32, 34.) He was nearer unto it
than those [who] had not the means. The preaching of the gospel is to
* The words, "hie dispositions and" are omitted in the fourth edition.EDIT.
f Hac sunt opera praeparataria, quibus se effort Paulas.JUNIUS in locum. " These
are the preparatory works of which Paul boaeteth."EDIT.
42
SERMON II.
WHAT MU8T AND CAN PERSONS DO
make the converted meet for glory, and the unconverted meet for grace,
to prepare and. 'bring them to regeneration, "I have begotten you
through " the preaching of " the gospel," saith Paul to the Corinthians.
(1 Cor. iv. 15.) The preaching of it wrought much in them, before conversion itself was -wrought. Balaam, living under the law, and amongst
or nigh the people of God, was much enlightened, and greatly convinced;
insomuch that he desired to " die the death of the righteous/*
CON. ix. No acting of men, or qualifications in men, are causes of
conversion, do merit it, or make them congruous for it.They are not
antecedent causes, or so much as causa sine quibus non / [" causes without which a thing cannot he effected ;"] but the Lord doth^ according to
his prerogative, work sometimes where they are not, as, " When thou wast
in thy blood, I said unto thee, Live." (Ezek. xvi. 6.) There was no cause
condition, or qualification in them to beget affection, or move the Lord
to do aught for them. It was the time of his love, and he said, " Live."
CON. x. Whatever the endeavours and dispositions of men be, they are
only by way of order, before conversion.They are only antecedaneoua
thereunto on man's part, not necessary on God's part, who can, and oft
doth, work where there be no such previous acts or dispositions, as in
the dry bones in Ezekiel; they had no disposition or power in them to
rattle and come together; neither had the dead womb of Sarah any
power or virtue in it to conceive.
CON. xi. Acts of men towards conversion are not to be rested in, as
any satisfaction for sin, as making the person acceptable to God, or as
inducements of God towards conversion.But we must acknowledge ourselves "unprofitable servants/' when we have done all that is commanded us. (Luke xvii. 10.)*
CON. xn. Man's quickening, believing, repenting, or turning, are not
acts of man in part, and partly of God; but they are wholly of God and
from God."You hath he quickened." (Eph. ii. 1.) They were
" dead," and could not quicken themselves; it was he, the Lord. So,
" No man can come to me, except the Father draw him." (John vi. 44.)
This drawing, or causing the soui to believe in Christ, is wholly the
Father's work. And Ephraim saith, " Turn thou me, and I shall beturned." (Jer. xxxi. 18.) He could not turn himself: if the Lord had
not done it, it would never have been done. Paul saith, " It is not in
him that wills," &c., "but in God," &c. (Rom. ix. 16.) The will and
deed are of him, not of man. (Phil. ii. 13.) It is the Lord who is Causa
totius entis ["the Cause of all being"]. "Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights."
(James i. 17.) It is not a perfect gift if man contribute to it.f The
* Qui nobit ipsi$ nihil a Deo meriti gumus, yuibus Deus nullam gralican, nutlarn
mereedem debet; scilicet a jure nobiseum ago* jtucta condiiionem seroorum.LUCAS
BRUGENSIS in locum. " We are those who have merited for ourselves nothing from
God, and to whom Ood owes no (gratiam) favour, no reward; that is, if of right God
act toward us according to the condition of servants."EDIT.
} Nisi donum Dei
esset ipsa ad Deum nostra conversw, non ei diceretur, Deus virtutum, converte no.
AUGUSTINUS De Gratia et libero Arbitrio. " Unless our very conversion to God were
his gift, we could not address to Him this request: ' Convert us, (or, Turn us again,)
God of hosts.'" (Psalm Ixxx. 7.)EDIT.
TOWARDS THEIR OWN CONVERSION
43
saying of the father is sound: Velle habemuss sed bent veUe, et in parte
et in toto, eft a gratia. [" We have the power simply to will; but to
will aright, both in part and in whole, ie entirely of grace."]
AUGUSTINE.
CON, XHI. Man, in the first act of conversion, ie merely passive,
Those who believe are " born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, bnt of God;" (John i. 13;) nothing of man's
will comes in. Not ultimum dictamen intellect^ [" not the last dictate of
the understanding "] did set the will on work here, but the Lord " begat
them of his own will." (James i. 18.) So that man's will is not emiviva
et semimortua, but penitua extincta ad bonum spirituale, [is not " halfalive and half-dead; but, with regard to all spiritual good, it is completely dead and extinguished,"] and so ad hoc, " to this" of conversion,
as the vital faculty is gone in a dead man.
CON. xiv. Man's will, being first converted to God, and by God
himself, converts itself also unto God, (acta agit;) [" it acts again what
had been already done;"] as a child's hand tn writing being acted by
the master's hand, it writes.Hence man may be said to turn himself;
for, the will being healed and made good, of unwilling willing, it hath an
intrinsical principle of willing good, and so dominion over its own acts,
whereby it turneth itself to God. Where there is the Father's drawing
first, there is presently the soul's coming.
These conclusions being hud down, I shall show you what men can do
towards their conversion: but first I must inform yon, that conversion
may be taken two ways :>
1. Strictly for the infusion of grace into the heart and will of man,
whereby he is regenerate, and his will made good. Here man and his
will being merely passive, (for in this act voluntas nee est libera nee
voluntaria,) [" the will is neither free nor voluntary,"] he can do nothing
towards his own conversion in this sense.
2. It may be taken pro tola eerie auxiliorum quibus ad earn movemur;
" for all helps and means which further us that way;" and in this sense
it is affirmed, that men may do much towards their conversion; they
may materially dispose themselves thereunto.
1. They may do as much as Heathens have done, or would have done had
they lived under the same means, and had such motives, as they have.
The Lord tells Ezekiel, that, if he had sent him to a people " of a strange
speech, and of a hard language," (that was, to the Gentiles,) " they would
have hearkened unto him;" (Ezek. iii. 6 ;) they would have received him,
and obeyed his doctrine. It is certified from the mouth of Christ, that,
" if the mighty works done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done in
Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented;" (Matt. xi. 21;) and that
" the men of Nineveh should rise in judgment with the then present
generation, and condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of
Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas was there." (Matt. xii. 41.)
If one sermon of Jonas, who was one of the lesser prophets, prevailed so
much with Heathens, why should not many sermons of Christ, who is
the chief of all the prophets, prevail as much, if not more, with Christians? Fee torpori nostro! ["Alas for our torpor!"] What will
44
SERMON II.
become of us? Bahab showed kindness to the people of God, and

that was antecedaneous to her conversion. Herod heard the word
gladly; (Mark vi. 20;) and Pharaoh desired the prayers of Moses and
Aaron. (Exod. viii. 28.)
2. They may tit under a powerful ministry, coming with reverence
before God, not offering the sacrifice of fools, but [way] hear the truth
without being " contentious against it," as they were, Rom. ii. 8.They
may let the truth have a full stroke at them and their corruptions. They
may "receive the love of the truth ;" (2 These, ii. 10;) and not "hold
it in unrighteousness;" (Rom. i. 18;) so that they will not suffer it to
have influence into their affections, and to break out into action.
3. They may hearken to the voice of God's judgment* and rode, when
they are abroad upon themselves and others.No man should despise
the chastisement of the Lord; but every one should hear the voice of
the rod, and who hath appointed it. The prophet Isaiah tells us, that
" the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness, when the judgments of the Lord are in the earth." (Isai. xxvi. 9.) His judgments
are the best schoolmasters, and teach many good lessons.* Waldua was
taught, by the hand of God upon one of his sociates, to become a new
man. When Manasseh was in affliction, "he besought the Lord, and
humbled himself greatly." (2 Chron. xxxiii. 12.) Fexatio dat tntellectum; [" Vexation imparts understanding;"] when the Lord doth box
and buffet us with his judgments, our understandings are opened, and
fear falls upon us :f and though this fear be servile at first, yet it may
end filial; the spirit of bondage may become the Spirit of adoption.
4. They may observe the difference [wAieA] is made in men's lite
after conversion, from that which was before.Conversion is a strange
work, it makes a man another man 4 They, in Peter, thought it a
strange thing that men left their old courses. (1 Peter iv. 4.) In conversion, wolves are made lambs, and persecutors, preachers. How was it,
that when Paul preached, " all that heard him were amazed, and said;
Is not this he that destroyed them who called on this name in Jerusalem,
and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto
the chief priests 1" (Acts ix. 21.) True, it was he unconverted [who] did
so, not he converted; now he was another, a new man; now be was a
Christian, and had other principles and practices than before ; there was
a great change wrought in him, and so in Mary Magdalene. Observation
of such examples has its use and energy: for examples are strong
traces to draw men from wicked practices. " Why compellest thou the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews ?" said Paul to Peter. (Gal. ii. 14.)
Peter's example was the compulsion. There is a kind of compulsion in
examples, not violent, but alluring and attracting. The example of the
believing wife may win the unbelieving husband. (1 Peter iii. 1.) A
* Discile justifiam moniti, et nan lemnere numen.VIRGILII jEneis, vi. 620.
" Be just, ye mortals ! by these torments awed,
These dreadful torments, not to scorn a god ! "PITT.
Sf r vijxtos cyvta.HOMERI Ilias, xvii. 32. " To be taught by sufferings only,
is the part of fools."COWPER.
J Ego non cum ego. " I am no longer my
former self."EDIT.
Pracepta docent et ducunt, exempla trahunt. " Precept*
teach and lead men; examples draw and attract."EDIT.
45
prudent, gracious -wife gains much upon a graceless husband, by her

modesty and obedience.
5. They may see what equity there is, that they should serve the Lord,
being hie creatures and servants; and not only serve him, but so serve
him as they have served their sinful lusts, and something more, seeing
they depend on him. : " I speak after the manner of
men/' saith Paul; It is rational, just, and equal, that " as ye have
yielded your members servants to uncleanness, &c., so now yield them
servants to righteousness, unto holiness:" (Bom. vi. 19:) it is reason,
justice, and equity that you should do so. Should not men take as
much pains for heaven, as for hell, for their souls as for their bodies, for
the Lord Christ as for creatures? Should they not be as diligent to
weaken their lusts as they have been to strengthen them ? Should they
not be at as much cost to maintain the pure worship of God, as the
inventions and traditions of men ? It is a complaint of the Lord:
" Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? and your
labour for that which satisfieth not?" (Isai. Iv. 2.) They might have
spent their money, labour, time, and strength, and as much for true
bread which would have fed their souls, as they did for that which was
as no bread, but rather husks for swine. (Luke xv. 16.)
6. They may remove and abate sin in part, which is done by the contrary.Knowledge removes ignorance, as light doth darkness; grief
abates pleasure, and fear boldness in sinning; patience keeps under
passion, and fasting tames unruly lusts. When the strength of a fever
is abated by physical means, a man is disposed towards health; and
when a man hath gotten moralities, (which he may do,) and by them
made an abatement of his sins and lusts, he is materially disposed to
grace; as the ground when ploughed is for seed, though the seed be
not yet sown.

7. They may do MATERIALLY what converts do.There is no act, considered in its mere nature and kind, which a true Christian may perform,
but one unconverted may perform also, and have many like dispositions1"
unto those [which] they have. They may love God: it is clear, they
loved God who loved "pleasures more than God." (2 Tim. iii. 4.) They
may have faith: Simon Magus believed. (Acts viii. 13.)
They may hate
sin in others, if not in themselves: Absalom hated Amnon's uncleanness.
(2 Sam. xiii. 22.)
They may delight in God, and in his ways. (Isai.
Iviii. 2.) They may have a zeal for God, and such a zeal as may prevail
more with them than temporal things: the Jews were so zealous of the
law, and for the traditions of the elders, that they would have ventured
their lives for them.- (Bom. z. 2 :) so Paul before his conversion, how
zealous was he! (Acts zzii. 3, 4; Gal. i. 14.)
To come more particularly and closely to the question: Though conversion be wrought in an instant, yet men have some previous dispositions thereunto, who live under the sound of the gospel; and obtain
such knowledge as worketh in them several things, which I shall show
unto you from Acts ii. 37, 38: " Now when they heard this, they were
* In all editions except the first, the clause reads thus: "and may have like disposition."DIT.
46
SERMON II.
WHAT MOST AND CAN PERSONS DO
pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles,
Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them,
Repent, and be baptized every one of you," &c. Many preparative dispositions or qualifications they bad unto repentance or conversion, but they
had not yet repented; for Peter saith, notwithstanding these, " Repent."
1. Men may be convinced of sin, 09 these were.They found they
had transgressed the law of God, and were guilty before him ; for they
were pricked in their hearts. Men may have strong convictions of sin,
and not [be] converted from sin.
2. They may mourn for sin, and grieve that they have done such and
such things.These men had crucified the Lord Christ, put an innocent
person to death, saw themselves in an ill condition, and thereupon
mourned and grieved sorely, as the word " pricked" intimates: * they
had such grief as pained and afflicted their hearts.
There is a how set
upon Ahab's humiliation by the Lord himself: " Seest thou how Ahab
humbleth himself?" (1 Kings xxi. 29.)
3. They may be filled with fear, and dread the threatenings and
punishments of God due to sin.This was the case here: They had provoked the Lord against their souls, felt their consciences condemning of
them, apprehended the judgments of God near unto them, and so were
possessed with much fear lest the Lord should destroy them ; and therefore say, "'Men and brethren, what shall we do?' We know not
whither to go, where to hide ourselves, or what to do, that we may
escape the things we have deserved and fear."
4. They may confess their sin, renounce it, and reform much.These
auditors of Peter, being pricked in their hearts, said, "' What shall we
do ?' We have sinned, and that greatly; we confess and acknowledge
it before God and you; it was a cursed act of ours, and we abhor it;
we will never do so hereafter."
They were sick of sin, and vomited it up,
as they in Peter; (2 Peter ii. 22;) and would change their minds and
manners, and walk in any way the apostles should direct them. The
merchant " sold all that he had " for the " pearl," before he " bought it."
(Matt. xiii. 46.) This setting all is made, by some interpreters, to be his
restraint from all inward sin, and his conformity to all outward duties.
This was much, and yet not more than unconverted persons may attain
unto. Herod reformed many things. The foolish virgins went far, as
was said before : They were virgins, free from spot and pollution; they
had lamps, visible professions; "they went forth to meet the bridegroom:" they had some faith in him, and affection to him, else they
would not have gone forth.
5. They may justify the law and the Lord, should he condemn them,
[and]
deal severely with them." What shall we do?" say these persons.
" We are guilty. We have broken the law, which is holy, righteous,
and good; and so is God likewise, who is the author thereof. If therefore we be condemned, and must bear the curse and punishment of the
law, we must both justify the Lord and it." Men may accept the punishment of their iniquity, and justify the inflicters thereof. Man hath no
* KwrovytJfw acutwn anim* dolorem ^..PiecATOB. "It signifies acute
sorrow of spirit"EDIT.
TOWARDS THEtft OWN CONVERSION?
47
cause to complain of the punishment of his sins. It is brought in by

way of objurgation: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man
for the punishment of hie sins?" (Lam. iii. 39.) He may complain of
his sins, not of his punishment. Many malefactors, after sentence passed
on them, do justify both judge and law.
6. Men may seriously consider the nature of their sin, what circumstances it is clothed with; what aggravation it admits; what crimson
and scarlet is in its what light, love, mercies, means, engagements it is
against."What shall we do?" say these troubled souls. "We have

sinned against the light of nature, the law of Moses, our own consciences,
the love of God and Christ towards sinners, in that we have crucified
Christ, ' a man approved of God,' who, we knew, had done many ' miracles and wonders and signs,' (Acts ii. 22,) and deserved not death!
'what shall we do,' our sins are so dreadful?"
It is in men's power to lay to heart what wrong an infinite, blessed,
holy God hath by their sins, what mercies they keep from them, how
greatly they defile them, what miseries and mischiefs they bring upon
them, what a weight of wrath hangs over their heads for them! They
may consider what checks of conscience they have stifled, what motions
of the Spirit they have withstood, what precious seasons of grace they
have neglected and slighted; what pains they have taken to satisfy a
lust, how dear it hath cost them; how careless they have been of their
souls, what a separation their sins have made between God and them!
They may mind and meditate on it, that man's life is short; (" The pleasures of sin [are] but for a season;") that there is absolute necessity of
turning to God; (" Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;") that
turning is acceptable to God, else he would not call for it, nor make such
gracious promises to it, as are in holy writ.
7. They may come to it, to see no help in themselves or in any
creature whatsoever."What shall we do?" say these wounded men.
"We cannot help ourselves. We have no plasters that will stick, no
medicines which will heal. We are wounded in our consciences; and as
our hands, so theirs, are too short to help us. It is not in human
power to bind up our breaches. 'What shall we do?'" Men may see
themselves helpless; that they are without strength, shut up under sin,
guilt, and unbelief, children of wrath, and in a lost condition, the law
cursing them and sentencing them to suffer.
8. They may arrive to a resolution of doing or suffering any thing to
be saved." ' What shall we do ?' We are resolved, if we may find
mercy and live, to do whatever shall be commanded, to suffer whatever
shall be imposed." The pride of their spirits is broken, their hearts
become teachable and tractable, and their resolutions high for any thing
to be done or suffered. So was it with the jailer. (Acts xvi. 30.) When
men are in storms at sea, or on their sick beds at home, they resolve,
if God will spare them, to do or suffer any thing for God and his ways,
and their own salvation.
9. They may conceive fair hopes of mercy.The Lord Christ being
held out in the gospel, and freely offered to sinners, this breeds hope
in them, a general and preparatory hope.
"'What shall we do?'
48
SERMON II.
You told us that ' God had raised up that Jesus [whom] we crucified,
and made him Lord and Christ;' and that ' whosoever should call upon
his name should be saved;' therefore we hope there is mercy for us."
Thus bad they a hope kindled in them; and Peter, in the two next
verses, strengthens their hope, saying, " Repent, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your
children," &c. (Acts ii. 38, 39.)
10. They may thirst offer, and pray for, the mercy hoped for,Such
a qualification was in these men. " ' What shall we do ?' You men of
God, we are athirst, and do entreat you to tell us where we may have
water to quench our heat, mercy to pardon our sins, balm to cure our
wounds." The publican in Luke hath left us his short, pithy, and
affectionate prayer to imitate, being in this case and state. "Lord,"
saith he, "be merciful to me a sinner!" (Luke xviii. 13.) He was
sensible of his sin and of his want of righteousness; he had hope of
mercy; and thereupon came to the temple to pray, and prayed earnestly
for mercy,and conversion is none of the least mercies of God, or least
needful for a sinner.
11. Men being come thug far, they are to wait upon God for doing
the work.When the pots were filled with water, the water was not
made wine till Christ put forth his mighty power. Neither were the
men who lay at the pool of Bethesda cured till the angel came down and
stirred the waters. So a man in this case is to wait until the Spirit
of the Lord come in, et omnipotent suavitate, ["by his omnipotent
sweetness,"] or victrici delectatione, ["by his victorious and delightful
solace,"] overcome his will, and set it for the Lord and spiritual things.
When this is [done], the work is done, and done without violence to the
will; for it is an omnipotent presence prevails with the will, and it is
immediately made willing in the day of this power.
By these forementioned things men are in a proximity or nextness to
conversion, but not converted. It must be an higher power than our
own which lifts us up into an higher nature, or state, than we are in at
present. Though men may do much upon moral persuasions; yet not so
much as to make themselves converts or spiritual, of animal or natural.
Previous actions and preparative dispositions may make a man a picture
of a convert, not a true or living convert.
II. Having shown what persons CAN and may do towards their
conversion, it remains to declare what they OUGHT to do.
The word "must" or "ought," the signification of 8ei in Greek,
imports two things:
1. Necessity. "There must be heresies." (1 Cor. xi. 19.) It is no
man's duty to broach or bring in heresies, but they must be; it is
necessary for. the discovery of men " approved."
2. Duty. " God is a Spirit," and must be worshipped " in spirit and
in truth." (John iv. 24.) It is men's duty so to do. It was the
pharisees' and scribes' duty to " pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin,"
&c.; therefore saith Christ, " These things ought ye to have done."
(Matt, xxiii. 23.)
49
Now, then, what persons can do they ought to do.

First. There ie a necessity of it.We must do what we can, else we
are slothful and unfaithful, and our damnation will be just. One thing
is necessary; namely, to turn unto Ood, that our souls may be saved.
Here it wiU hold good, " Turn or burn." If it be necessary to prevent
burning in everlasting flames, it is necessary to turn, and so to do the
utmost we can towards the same.
Secondly. It is our duty." Strive to enter in at the strait gate,"
saith Christ. He commands it, and lays this injunction upon all,
Ayeev(c<rde, " Strain, be in an agony;" as Christ was in the work of
man's redemption, so let men be in the works of their conversion, put
forth themselves as they did in the Olympic Games. The wrestlers and
runners exerted all their might to obtain; and so must men about the
work of their conversion. The Lord, who hath no pleasure in the death
of a sinner, saith, " Turn yourselves, and live." There is life in turning;
and what should not men do to preserve or obtain life ?
The Lord hath two great ends in saying thus: " Turn yourselves, and
live ye," although he know man is not able to do it:
1. That we may see how corrupt and impotent our nature is, and so
[that he may] break the strength of human confidence thereby, and
bring vs to be sensible of, and thoroughly to bewail, our condition.It
is not so as some think and speak; namely, that " whatever Ood commands, man hath power to do." * What man ever kept the law since
the fall of Adam ? And is not the law given by way of command ?
If man could keep the law, we might be justified and have life by &
(Rom. viii. 3; Gal. iii. 21.) But the law can neither do the one nor the
other; and why ? Because man hath not power or strength to keep it.f
2. To put us upon looking out for help from whence the command
eometh.Hence is it that what the Lord commandeth us to do in one
place, he promiseth to give in another. " Circumcise the foreskin of
your heart;" (Deut. x. 16;) and God saith, "The Lord thy God will
circumcise thine heart." (Deut. xxx. 6.) In the former verse to the
text, they are commanded to make themselves new hearts and new
spirits, which they could not do; therefore, in Ezek. xxxvi. 26, the
Lord promiseth to " give and put" the same in them. " Repent, and
turn yourselves from your idols;" (Ezek. xiv. 6;) and, " I will put my
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes." (Ezek.
xxxvi. 27.) The Spirit [which] God would put in should turn them
from their idols and own ways, and cause them to walk in his ways.
" The Lord doth therefore command such things, that, our desires and
endeavours being quickened, he may reach forth help unto us." $
Therefore let us apply ourselves to all these means and ways, by which
the Lord worketh conversion. Let us make use of all the ways forenamed ; and especially hear the word preached, and pray, " Turn us,
Lord, and we shall be turned." And see to it that we use the means
* Quicquid nobis pracipttwr a Deo, ad illttd faciendum sufficientem potentiam ftabemus.
f Dixit Pelagiut, quod homo solius Kberi arbitrn viribta potest perficere Dei mandate.
BRADWAHDIXUS De Can& Dei, lib. ii. c. 4. " Pelagfas declared, that >lely by the
power of hi free-will man is capable of perfectly performing the commands of God."
EDIT.
t Ideo dot praceptum, ut excitet desideriwn et praetet aiunKum.LEO.
50
SERMON III. BOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS
in good earnest. We may do more (as hath been showed) than we do.
It is the counsel of him who was wiser than other men, that whatever
oar " hands do find to do/' we should " do it with our might;" (Eccles.
ix. 10;) that is, with our whole might. God must have the heart,
the whole heart, and the fervency of it. " Be fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord.0 (Horn. xii. 11.) Laziness and lukewarmness will not pro
mote the work; fervour and diligence may further it much. See Prov.
ii. 36; and remember what the Lord Christ hath said, " Ask, and it
shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you." (Luke xi. 9.)
SERMON III.
BY THE REV. BENJAMIN NEEDLER, B.C.L.,
AND SOMETIME FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.
HOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS BE DISCOVERED AND MORTIFIED?
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for
it is profitable for thee that one of thy member should perish, and
not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that
thy whole body should be cast into hell.Matt. v. 29, 30,
MY text is a part of Christ's Sermon on the Mount. I shall not hold

you long in the context or portal, but only pass through unto the words
that I have read.
In the verse before, our Saviour tells us, that " whosoever looketh on
a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in
his heart." This was spoken in opposition to the scribes and pharisees;
and may be urged against many carnal protestants, that have but gross
conceits concerning the law of God; and in particular, that the outward
act of uncleanness only is the breach of the seventh commandment:
" Thou shalt not commit adultery." Now, our Saviour corrects this
mistake: that " whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart;" not will do it, but
he hath done it already. There is a speedy passage from the eye to the
heart: and because the eye and the hand are many times used as principal incitements to this sin, our Saviour gives his disciples and us this
serious and holy advice, in the words that I have read: " If thy right
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee," &c.
The words contain a double exhortation, together with a double reason
and enforcement.
1. A double exhortation : " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out,
and cast it from thee: if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast
it from thee."
BE DISCOVERED AMD MORTIFIED?
51
2. A double return and enforcement: " For it is profitable for thee

that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body
should be cast into hell:" and so again, verse 30.
In the handling of these words, I shall first speak to them by way of
EXPLICATION, and then by way of OBSERVATION.
I. For the EXPLICATION of them, I would entreat yon to take into
your thoughts these particulars:
1. We must inquire into the meaning of these two expressions, the
" right eye," and the " right hand/1 Most expositors by far carry it,
that these words are to be expounded improperly and figuratively: and
here I shall not acquaint you, how popish writers abound in their own
sense concerning these words. There are sweet truths, that, kindly and
freely, without straining, may be deduced from this scripture. Like the
bee, I would not tear the flower t light on.
There are two interpretations given of this pkce that I shall take
notice of:
(1.) There are some, that by "right eye** and " right hand" understand our nearest and dearest comforts which we have in this world,
which must be parted with for Christ's sake, yet not absolutely, but
upon this consideration, if they offend: " If thy right eye offend thee,
pluck it out, and cast it from thee: If thy right hand offend thee,
cut it off, and cast it from thee." Now this is bona expoeitio, " a good
exposition,'* as our divines distinguish; but not recta eaepositio, " a right
exposition ;** agreeable to the analogy of faith* but not suitable to the
scope and design of our Saviour in this place. Therefore,
(2.) There are others, that by " right eye " and " right hand " understand beloved lusts, as hard to be parted with as right hands or right
eyes. Our Saviour mentions the right eye and the right hand, because
they are most prized, as having more than ordinary of spirits and natural
heat, and so more fit for action: I am sure this may be said concerning
the right hand.
Indeed, I conceive it a hard matter to prove, that by divine appointment one hand should be more useful than the other: but as God hath
given us two eyes, and two ears, so two hands, to use both indifferently,
and that, if need required, the one might supply the loss of the other.
If any, methinks the left hand should be preferred; because it is nearest
the heart, the fountain of life and activity. But Christ takes them as
he finds them, as he doth in many other cases; and, as we have ordered
the matter, the right hand is more active and strong than the other, and
so more precious. But, to our purpose t
Some, I say, by the " right eye,'* and the " right hand,'* understand
our beloved lusts. It is the usage of the Spirit of God in the scriptures,
in a figurative way to express corruption by the parts and members of our
bodies. So St. Paul: "I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin which is in my members.*' (Bom. vii. 23.) And the same apostle:
" Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection," &c. (Col. iii. 5.) As the members of
52
SERMON III.
BOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS
the natural body need castigation, (" I keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection," 1 Cor. ix. 27,) eo the members of the sinful body
need mortification: and here, in the text, sin is expressed by the right
eye and the right hand.
2. If thy right eye offend theeIn the Greek it is <? <,
" scandalize thee," hinder thee in a way of duty. For you must note,
that obedience and holiness are often in scripture represented unto us
by "a way." To give you one place for all: " Blessed are the undefiled in
the way, who walk in the law of the Lord:" (Psalm cxix. I:) and men
are said to be offended, when something causes them to stumble, or fall
in this way. Sin is, as it were, a block or a stone, at which men stumble
and fall. " Let him which thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."
3. Pluck it out, and cast it from thee ; cut it off, and cast it from
theeA metaphor taken from surgeons, whose manner it is, when the
whole body is endangered by any part, to cut it off, ne pare sincera
trahatw [" lest the sound part be drawn after that which is corrupt"].
But before I leave these expressions, take notice of the emphasis that is
in them, in these particulars:
(1.) It is not said, " Suffer thy right eye to be plucked out, or thy
right hand to be cut off:" but, " Thou thyself pluck it out, and cast it
from thee ; cut it off, and east it from thee." To note two things:
(i.) That we ourselves must engage in the mortifying of our lusts.
Sinners, with their own hands, must pull out their own eyes. It is not
enough to cry unto God for help, and, in the mean time, to be careless
and idle, as if nothing were to be done on our part. Mortification is A
work incumbent upon us, although we are empowered thereunto by the
Spirit: " If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye
shall live." (Rom. viii. 13.) We must mortify, although by the Spirit.
The duty is ours, though the strength be God's. So here: " If thy
right eye offend thee, thou thyself pluck it out, and cast it from thee."
(ii.) That we mast be a willing people in this, as in all other duties.
A Christian dieth to sin, is not put to death.
(2.) It is not said, " If thine eye offend thee, observe it more than ordinarily, look narrowly to it," but, " pluck it out;" to note, that nothing
less is like to do our souls good, than the mortifying, the killing, the
cutting off of our corruptions.Let a man's hand be cutoff; it is a dead
member immediately. It is not so with plants when they are cut off
from their roots; they will grow and sprout again: and so it is with the
most inferior sort of sensitive creatures; for instance, cut worms into
several pieces, every part will live, and stir; hence the learned call them
insecta. When the head of a fowl is separated from its body, it will live
and flutter for some time. But this cannot be said of the most noble
sort of creatures. This is a sure rule in nature: Unitas et indivisibilitas
est comes perfections; multitude et divisioiliia, imperfections: "Union
is a sign of perfection, divisibility of imperfection." The more perfect
any being is, the more united it is to itself, and the less any part of it
can live nisi in toto, " but in the whole." So that this phrase is a great
elegancy, to note the killing of our beloved lusts: " If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee/' &c.
BE DISCOVERED AND MORTIFIED?
53
(3.) it is not only said, " Pluck it out/' but, " Cast it from thee;" to
note, that it is not enough for a man to leave his ein for the present, but
he must renounce it for ever.We must not part with sin, as with a
friend, with a purpose to see it again, and to have the same familiarity
with it as before, or possibly greater. Amantium iree amorie redintegratio
eat: " The falling-cut of lovers is the renewing of love." We must not
only shake hands with it, but shake our hands of it, as Paul did shake
the viper off his hand into the fire: " Pluck it out, and cast it from thee."
Thus much for the explication of the words, for I shall have occasion
only to deal with the former part of these two verses at this time.
II. I am to give you the OBSERVATIONS. I shall speak but a few

words to some of them, that I may reserve myself for that which I
mainly intend.
OBSERVATION i. That the eye and the hand are excellent and useful
farts of the body of man.You see here our Saviour singles out these,
from all other parts, as being very precious: " If thy right eye offend
thee," &c. " If thy right hand offend thee," &c.
1. As for the eye, our Saviour tells us, that it is " the light of the
body:" "The light of the body is the eye." (Matt. vi. 22.) What is
the world without the sun, but a dark, melancholy dungeon ? What is
"a man without eyes, but monstrous and deformed," monstrum horrendum, informe, cut lumen ademptum? The two eyes are two luminaries, that God hath set up in the microcosm, " man's little world."
When God would express his tender love unto his people, he calls them
** the apple of bis eye."
" He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of
his eye:" (Zech. ii. 8:) and the like phrase St. Paul makes use of,
when he speaks of the love of the Galatians unto himself: " I bear you
record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your
own eyes, and have given them to me." (Gal. iv. 15.) I have read of the
emperor Adrian, that, with an arrow, by accident, put out one of his servants eyes. He commands him to be brought to him, and bids him ask
what he would, that he might make him amends. The poor man was
silent. He pressed him again. He told the emperor, he would ask nothing, but he wished that he had the eye which he had lost; intimating,
that an emperor was not able to make satisfaction for the loss of an eye.
0 be very watchful over this excellent part! Make a covenant with
your eyes. (Job xxxi. 1.) Shut your eyes from seeing evil. (Isai. xxxiii.
15.) Set no wicked thing before your eyes. (Psalm ci. 3.) As the apostle
saith in another case, " Doth not even nature teach you ?" God hath
made a covering for the eye, that opens and shuts with a great deal of
easiness, to teach us, that it is expedient sometimes that the eye be
closed, and not holden open to every object.
2. As for the hand, it is the prime part for action. Aristotle calls it
, " an instrument of instruments." Without this, there
could be no cities, no towns, no merchandise, no husbandry, no manufactures. Without this, man would differ but a little from " the beasts
that perish;" for, what would his reason stand him in stead, if he had
not an hand to improve it? The naturalists observe, that man could
54
SERMON til.
HOW HAT BELOVED LUSTS
neither do nor say, without this useful end necessary part; for if a man
did not eat with hie hands, he must, as a brute, feed with hie mouth; and
by that means the lips would become BO thick, that he would not be able
to speak with any distinctness; and, indeed, we find by experience, that
they that have thick lips have an imperfection in their speech.
0 improve this excellent part for God! A good life is expressed in
scripture by "a clean hand:" "Cleanse yonr hands, ye sinners; and
purify yonr hearts, ye double-minded." (James iv. 8.) It is the greatest
absurdity imaginable to plead a good heart, as many do, and yet have a
foul and wicked hand > this is as if a man should say, " Here is a tree
that bears ill fruit, but it hath an excellent root."
OBS. if. That offence are from ourselves: or the cause of stumbling
and falling is from ourselves; some hat or other, some right-eye sin, or
ome right-hand tin. " If thy right eye offend thee," &c.Sin unmor*
tified will very much endanger a man's falling. Truly, if you would not
have yonr right eye, or your right hand, offend yon, you must offend
them : " Flnck it out, and cast it from thee; cut it off, and cast it from
thee." If yon would see clearly in God's way, ye must pluck out your
right eye; if yon would walk evenly in God's path, you must cnt off your
right foot.
OBS, in. That sin is, properly and to all intent* and purposes, our
own. " If thy right eye offend," &c. " If thy right hand offend," &c.
The apostle, writing to the Coloasiane, speaks thus: " Mortify therefor*
yonr members which are upon the earth; fornication, nncleanness, inordinate affection," &c. (Col. iii, 5.) These sins were their members.
The whole body of sin is ours; and the members of that body are ours.
There is a great difference between our natural body and our sinful body;
our natural body is ours quoad usum, " with reference to our use;" but it
is God's quoad creationem, " with reference to its creation." The body of
man was originally and fundamentally created. Now there is a twofold
creation:
1. When a being is made of nothing; this is called by the learned,
ereatio immediata, " an immediate creation."
2. When a being is made of something, but that something is materia

inhabilis, " matter altogether indisposed for the producing of that effect;."
and so "is little, if any thing, more than nothing with reference unto
that which is made;" materia est aliquid in e, nihil tamen respect
opifidi. Thus when God made the woman of a rib, when Christ turned
water into wine, when God made man of the dust of the earth, it was a
creation; and this is called by the learned, ereatio mediata, " a mediate
creation:" and our natural body still, in a way of generation, is God'a
creature, but our sinful body is our creature. Hence the apostle:
" Mortify your members which are on the earth;" and our Saviour in
the text: " If thy right eye offend thee," &c. So that sin is, properly
and to all intents and purposes, our own.
OBS. IT. That although all sine are our own, yet there are some sin
that in a more especial manner may be called our; namely, our right-eye
sine, and our right-hand sin. Or, if you will: every man hath hi pro*
per, particular iniquity, his beloved sin, " If thy right eye offend thee,
55
pluck it out, and caet it from thee: if thy right hand offend thee, cut it
off, and cast it from thee."And the handling of this doctrine will suit
the case that is my task this morning; namely, "How may beloved
lasts be discovered and mortified?"
In the prosecution of this observation, I shall follow, by God's assistance, this method:
I. I shall inquire, why sin is expressed sometimes in scripture by the
parts and members of our body; as in this place by the " right eye,"
and the right hand."
II. I shall show you, that our right-eye sins, and our right-hand sins,
our beloved lusts, may in a more special manner be called ours; or, that
every man hath his proper, his particular, iniquity.
III. I shall inquire, how this comes to pass, that particular persons
have their proper and particular sins.
IV. The use and application.
I. I am to inquire, why sin in scripture is expressed by the parts end
members of our body, and particularly here by the "right eye" and the
"right hand."
1. You must note, that the whole mass of corruption in scripture is
called by the name of "the old man," and "the body of sin :" " Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed." (Bom. vi. 6.) It is called " the old man." In
every young man there is an old man. And it is called " the body of
sin." Now, if sin in the lump and bulk be a body, then particular sins
may fitly be termed the parts and members of this body.
2. Sin may be thus expressed; because as the natural body makes use
of its several parts for the managing and carrying on of those works that
are natural^ eg corruption makes use of several lusts for the effecting and
promoting of those works that are sinful.
3. According to their notion that hold the soul by creation, as I conceive, sin is conveyed into the soul at first by means of the body. Certainly the soul of man is pure and undefiled as it comes out of the hand
of God. I do humbly propose to men of learning, whether that rule,
Corporeum non agit in incorporeum, or that "a body cannot defile a
spirit," is not further to be taken into consideration. We find by experience, that as the soul communicates its affections unto the body, the
body hath life, and sense, and motion from the soul, that of itself is a*
lifeless lump of clay; so the body again hath a very great influence on
the soul, and can and doth communicate its distempers unto it. For
instance: Those that have sanguine bodies are inclined to luet; those
that are choleric, unto rashness and passion; those that are melancholy
unto suspicion and tenaciousness; those that are phlegmatic, unto dulness and cowardice. So that sin may be in the body dispositive, before it
be enlivened by the soul, though not formaliter. My meaning is, the
body may have a disposition to defile the soul, before it is united unto
the soul; and if so, no wonder if sin be expressed by the parts and
members of our body.
4. Corruption looks at, and shows itself by, the sinful actions of the
* This line i unaccountably omitted in the fourth edition.EDIT.
56
SERMON III. HOW MAT BELOVED LVSTS
body; and therefore may have its denomination t>y the parts of it.
Hence it is that the apostle, when he had concluded that the Jew and
the Gentile were both under sin, to make this manifest he tells the
Romans how sin discovered itself in the outward man : " Their throat is
an open sepulchre; with their tongues have they need deceit; the poison
of asps is under their lips/' &c. (Rom. iii. 13, &c.) We read in scripture of the sins of the flesh, as well as of the spirit: " Having therefore
these promise?, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiuess
of the flesh and spirit." (2 Cor. vii. 1.) The sins of the spirit, like so many
plague-sores, break out into the flesh. Wicked men are all over bespotted
and be-leopar'd* with sin: lying is a spot in the tongue, pride is a spot in
the eye, wrath a spot on the brow, bribery a spot in the hand, idolatry a
spot on the knee; yea, they are called " spots and blemishes;" (2 Peter
ii. 13;) not spotted, but "spots." Sin itself is a spot, and, like fire, it
turns the subject it hath to deal with into its own nature. One part of
the body in scripture is called "a world of iniquity:" "The tongue is a
fire, a world of iniquity." (James iii. 6.) How much iniquity is there in
the world, when in this little member there is " a world of iniquity!"
Thus much shall suffice to have been spoken to the first thing propounded, namely, why sin is expressed sometimes in scripture by the
parts and members of our body.
II. My second work is to show you, that our right-eye sins, and our
right-hand sins, our beloved lusts, may, in a more especial manner, be
called ours ; or, that every man hath his proper, his particular iniquity.
" If thy right eye offend thee," &c. " If thy right hand offend thee,'1
&c. Look, as it is with good men, though they have the seeds of every
grace in them, yet some one may be said to be theirs in an eminent
manner: (Abraham was eminent for obedience; Moses, fpr meekness;
Job, for patience O'thus it is with wicked men; though they have the
seed of every sin in them, yet some one may be said to be theirs in an
especial manner. Wicked men in scripture are, as it were, marked out
for several sins calculo nigro [" with a black stone, with an unfavourable
suffrage"]:Cain, for his murder; Simeon and Levi, for their treachery;
Corah and his company, for their conspiracy; Nebuchadnezzar, for his
pride; Manasseh, for his cruelty; Balaam, for his covetousness. Or,
look, as it is in the natural body; (though every man hath blood, phlegm,
choler, melancholy, yet some humour or other is predominant from which
a man hath its denomination;) so it is in the sinful body, some sinful
humour or other hath the predominancy. Most men have some peecefum
in deliciis, "some sweet morsel" that they roll under their tongue,
which they will by no means spit out or part with. It would be no
hard matter to show you, that several nations have their proper and
peculiar sins,as the Spaniards theirs, the French theirs, the Dutch
theirs. Look into the scripture, and you will find, that the Corinthians
had their sin, which is thought to be wantonness and uncleanness; and
therefore the apostle, in the epistles that he writes to them, uses so many
* The pious and learned author seems to have intended this word to refer to the spots
of the leopard, as though it had been written, be-leoparded, to distinguish it from a word,
much older, belepered, "spotted like a leprous person.".EDIT.
BE DISCOVIRKD AND MORTIFIKD?
57
preeeing arguments against this sin. The Cretians are branded for liars;
the Jews, for idolaters. So your towns have their sins; villages, theirs;
cities, theirs. Possibly, London's sin may be loathing spiritual manna,
neglect and contempt of the gospel, a non-improvement of ordinances.
III. I am to inquire how this comes to pass, that particular person
have their proper and particular sine.
1. Men have particular temperaments and constitution of body, and
therefore they have their particular sin suitable to their temperaments and
constitutions.You heard before, how particular temperaments inclined
men several ways. Creatures in the general are naturally delighted with
those things which are fitted, suited, and accommodated to the genius
and frame of their respective natures: as, in the same plant, the bee
feedeth on the flower, the bird on the seed, the sheep on the blade, the
swine .on the root. The same seeds are not proper for the sand and for
the clay. Every thing thrives most where it likes best. So it is in this
case: that sin is like to thrive most in the soul that we make most of,
that we are most delighted in, that suits best our complexions and
constitutions. We must be careful here, lest we strain this too far, with
some physicians and Epicureans, that hold the soul to be nothing else
but the temper of the body. But, questionless, this hath a very great
influence on the better part. Hence, some have adjudged it not fit for
illegitimate persons to be admitted into ecclesiastical orders: and you
know, under the law, by the appointment of God himself, " a bastard
was not to enter into the congregation, to the tenth generation."
(Deut. xziii. 2.)
And I humbly conceive, that a toleration of unclean mixtures is not
only against religion, but against principles of polity and government;
the children of filthy persons, for the most part, proving degenerate,
ignoble, lascivious, and by that means become the blemishes, the ulcers,
the plague-sores of the body politic, kingdom, and state whereunto they
do belong.
2. There are distinct and peculiar periods of times, distinct and
peculiar ages, that incline to peculiar sins.For instance: childhood
inclines to levity and inconstancy; youth, to wantonness and prodigality; manhood, to pride and stateUness; old age, to frowardness.
You know, diseases make men fretful: now, ipea senectus morbus, " old
age itself is a disease." If we take not heed, the sinful body will grow
strong, when the natural body grows weak. I have heard of a good
woman, something inclinable to passion, that used to say, " I must strive
against peevishness when I am young, or else what will become of me
when I am old?" And so covetousness is a sin that old age is very
much addicted to. Windelin, in his "Moral Philosophy," (cap. 25,)
discourses learnedly, Cur senes sint magis avari quam juvenes'? ["On
the reason why old men are more avaricious than their juniors."] When
God is taking people out of the world, they cling fast about it, and cry,
"loath to depart;" truly, this is no good sign. You know, men that are
a sinking, and in a desperate case, lay hold on any thing.
3. Men have distinct and particular callings, that incline them to
particular sins.For instance: a soldier's employment puts him upon
58
SERMON III.
HOW MAT BELOVED UJST8
rapine and violence. And therefore John the Baptist, when the soldiers
demanded of him, "What shall we do?" tells thems "Do violence to
no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."
(Luke iii. 14.) A tradesman's employment puts him upon lying,
deceiving, over-reaching his brother. Ministers, upon the account of
pleasing the best, as we many times catachrestically call them, or the
greatest, of the parish, are tempted to flattery, to please men, to sew
pillows under their people's elbows. Magistrates and judges are tempted
to bribery and injustice: if great care be not taken, their very calling
and office may prove a snare upon that account.
4. Men have distinct and particular ways of breeding and education,
and upon that account have their particular sins.The child that hears
his father and mother swear, is like to swear too. That child that hath
frequently wine and strong drink given to it by the parents when it is
young, it is likely, may get a smatch of it, and love to it, and so prove
intemperate when it is old. Joseph, by living in the court of Pharaoh,
learned to swear the court-oath. Man is ,,, " a creature very
much given to imitation." Examples have a very great influence on
men, both in reference to virtues and vices, especially to the latter: we
catch sickness one of another, but we do not catch health. For instance,
the scripture, speaking of the son of Jeroboam, tells us, that " he did
that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done: he
departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made
Israel to sin/' (2 Kings xv. 9.) He writ after his father's copy, and
therefore the sins of his father in a particular manner are taken notice of
by the Spirit of God in that place. So in 2 Sam. vi. 20, you have an
account of Michal's jeering of David, because he danced before the ark;
and you will find that she is called there, not the wife of David, but the
daughter of Saul: " And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet
David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to-day, who
uncovered himself to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as
one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!" Now, why is
she called there the daughter of Saul ? Because she had learned this
wickedness from her father. We have woful experience of this in our
days. Formerly people could say: " We have heard with our ears, 0
God, our fathers have told us, what works thou didst in their days, in
the times of old." (Psalm xliv. 1.) Truly, the people of this generation
may say: " We heard our fathers swear, and curse, and scoff, and mock
at the ways of God." In reason we may expect men's manners to suit
their education.
Thus much shall suffice to have been spoken to the third particular
propounded to be discussed; that is to say, how it comes to pass, that
particular persons have their proper and particular sins: and thus much
also for the doctrinal part.
IV. The fourth and last thing is the USE and APPLICATION of this to
ourselves.
USE. I.
[The first use is] for lamentation and humiliation in the presence of
God this day.We trouble ourselves about other men's sins, (magie-
BK.DISCOVERED AMD MORTIFIEDf
5S
tratee' sins, ministers' sin,) as the Pharisee: " Lord, I thank thee, I am
not as other men are, an extortioner, an adulterer," &c., "or as this
publican." And in the mean time, where is the man that considers his
own iniquity, his right-eye sin, or his right-hand sin ? There are great
outcries amongst us, "What have others done?" Bat who smite upon
his thigh, and says', " What have 1 done ?" We search every where,
save where our Rachel sits upon her idol.
Possibly some poor soul may say, " Did I know this particular sin,
this right-eye sin, or this right-hand sin, the Lord knows I would quickly
pluck out the one, and cut off the other:" and that brings me to
USE II.
[Which is the use] of examination, haw this tin may be discovered.

Now to this purpose, take these marks or rules:
1. It may be known by the love and tender respect* the sinner bear
unto this sin,Strong love, for the most part, hath but one single object.
Affections are like the sun-beams in a burning-glass; the more united
they are in one point, the more fervent. A wicked man hath a particular
affection for his particular lust. As Abraham cried, " 0 that Ishmael
may live in thy sight!" so a wicked man, "0 that this sin may be
spared!" This is his Benjamin. The soul is ready to say, " Here is
one sin must be plucked out, and here is another sin must be cut off;
and must this beloved lust die also 1 All these things are against me."
The sinner seems to repent of sin, and to condemn sin, and himself for
sin. But when the time of execution comes, the man is very tenderhearted : here is a reprieve for this sin, and there is a pardon for another
sin. O, it goes against him to cut the throat of his darling lust! (It is
a woful case when a man will undertake to pardon his own sin : this is
crudelitas parcens, " sparing cruelty!") And if it fall out that his beloved
sin die a natural death,that is, if the adulterer, for instance, cannot
actually engage in bodily uncleanness as formerly, upon the account of
old age,he follows it to the grave, as we do our dear friends, and
heartily mourns that he and his dear lust must part.
2. It may be known thus: that sin that distracts us most in holy duties
is our beloved sin.You may know that cold is natural to the water, and
that it likes that quality best; because, let it be made never so hot, it will
be still working itself to its own proper temper. Souls possibly may sometimes be warmed at an ordinance; but they quickly cool again, and are
still working towards their proper lust, the sin they like best. You may
take notice in scripture, that God, to speak after the manner of men, in
an especial manner remembers the sins of wicked men in the performance
of holy duties: '* They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings,
and eat it; but the Lord accepteth them not: now will he remember
their iniquity, and visit their sins." (Hosea viii. 13.) As if a felon or
murderer convict should escape out of prison, and afterwards presume to
come into the presence of the judge: this brings his felony or murder
into remembrance; and herein their punishment is visible sin. They
remember their sins in their duties, and so will God. The people of
God themselves are tainted with this. Pride was the disciples' master-
60
SERMON 111.
HOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS
ein; and whilst they were healing diseases, and casting devils out of
other men's bodies, the proud devil was stirring in their own souls: and
our Saviour gives them a rebuke for that: " In this rejoice not, that the
spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice because your names are
written in heaven." (Luke x. 20.)
3. It may be known by it domination, it commanding power over all
other in.Look, as there is a kind of government in hell, (such an
one as it is; Beelzebub is called " the prince of devils,") so, in a wicked
man's soul, one sin or other is still uppermost, and keeps the throne.
All other sins do, as it were, bow the knee to this sin, hold up the train
of this sin, are obedient servants to this sin : it says to one, " Go," and it
goes; and to another, " Come," and it comes. For instance: if covetouenes be the beloved sin, lying, and deceiving, and injurious dealing,
will serve that. If ambition, temporizing and sinful compliance will
serve that. If adultery, sinful wasting of time and estate and body will
serve that. If vain-glory be the Pharisees' great sin, " devouring widows"
houses, under pretence of long prayers," will serve that. As it is with a
man's bo'dy when it is hurt or maimed,all the ill-humours will flow to
the part that is ill-affected. Hence it is, when a man is first wounded,
he feels but a little pain, because he suffers only upon the single account
of the division of the part: but afterwards the pain is increased; for
then he suffers doubly,upon the account of the division of the part, as
also by the conflux of ill-humours. When the soul hath received some
gash, some hurt more than ordinary by its particular sin, all the sinful
humours will make haste to feed that iniquity; so that this is the sin
that carries it, and bears the sway in the soul. In a word : the sinner
hath the curse of Ham as it were pronounced upon him: " A servant of
servants" is he; his other sins are servants to his beloved sin, and he
himself is a slave to them all.
4. That sin that conscience in a particular manner doth chide a man
for, that, it is likely, may be his particular fin.The Greek word for
conscience is : it signifies " a joint knowledge," or " knowledge
with another." It takes notice of things together with God. Conscience is God's deputy, God's spy, God's intelligencer, (pardon the
word,) in our bosoms, an exact notary of whatever we think or do, a
co-witness with God, as St. Paul is bold to call it. (Rom. ix. 1.) Now,
wouldst thou know thy beloved sin ? Hearken to the voice of conscience.
Doth that condemn thee for pride, for passion, for worldliness, for persecuting the ways of God ? 0 remember, it is God's viceroy: honour it
so far as to weigh and consider thoroughly what it saith. It is likely,

this may be thy particular sin: that which dishonours God most, if conscience be anything tender, will trouble thee most. Many a man deals
with his conscience as Felix did with Paul,hearken to it awhile, whilst
it tells them of their lesser faults, or that they are sinners in the general;
but when it rebukes them for their darling lust, though they cannot say,
" Go thy way," as Felix to Paul, yet, " Hold thy peace, and when I have
a convenient season I will give thee the hearing!"
5. It may be known by being impatient of reproof.Herod hears John
Baptist gladly, till he preached against his Herodias. This is a noli me-
61
tangere, " touch me not." The plant-animal, or the sensible plant, (so
called,) when it is touched, shrinks up and contracts itself; the sinner
shrinks when he is touched in the sore place. The eye is a tender part,
and apt to he offended if you meddle with it. This is the reason why
people are enraged against a powerful, soul-searching, soul-saving ministry. Most men are for mountebanks and quacksalvers, that make use
altogether of lenitives, and healing plasters; but as for your faithful
surgeons, that, according to art, will probe, and search, and cleanse the
wound, they cannot away with them! "I hate him," saith Ahab of
Micaiah ; " he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil." Only I
shall add this, that man, especially that minister, that reproves another
for his sins, had need to be blameless as much as may be himself. Thus
the apostle intimates: " Thou which teachest another, teachest thou not
thyself?" That man that is a teacher of others should teach himself
so much the more. We teach others, when we deliver unto them rules
and precepts, unto which they are to conform ; we teach ourselves when
we obey those rules. " Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost
thou steal ? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou
commit adultery?" &c. (Bom. ii. 21, 22.) That man that hath a beam in
his own eye, is not likely to pull out the mote that is in his brother's.
6. It may be known by this : it makes a man notoriously partial in At*
own case.David could allow himself another man's wife; and could
condemn one to death for taking away another man's lamb.
7. It may be known, by the covers, and cloaks, and fair pretences,
that the sinner hath for this sin.Uncleanness and intemperance are
"but tricks of youth, and sowing his wild oats;" luxury is "magnificence;" covetousness is "good husbandry;" pride is "a piece of
nobleness, and grandeur of spirit;" yea, (which is more,) it is "humility." You have some that disparage themselves in company, and they call
this "humility;" when, in truth, it is the height of their spirits; like
the archer, that draws back the arrow, that it may fly so much the
higher, and so much the further. It is strange blindness or deceit, or
both, to call (not yellow or some middle colour, but) black, " white:" yet
thus it is with many; they shape their darling lust like those virtues
unto which they are extremely contrary. Every wicked man is sin's
advocate, and will plead its cause gratis. " 0," saith Judas, " to what
purpose is this waste ? This ointment might have been sold for much,
and given to the poor." (Matt. xxvi. 8, 9.) "This he said," saith
another evangelist, " not that he cared for the poor; but because he was
a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein." (John xii. 6.)
Beware of speaking any thing towards the justification of yourselves in
any way of wickedness. You know, the malefactor is condemned before
he is put to death; and so it is in the case of sin : Cum peccator justificatur, peccatum condemnatur, " When a sinner is justified, his sin is condemned;" and after condemnation followeth execution. Job vindicates
himself in this particular: " If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by
hiding mine iniquity in my bosom," &c., then "let thistles grow
instead of wheat." (Job xxxi. 33, 40.) As if he had said: " I did not
hide mine iniquity as Adam did; I did not cover my transgression j I was
62
SERMON III. HOW MAY BBLOVKD LUSTS
open and ingenuous." The Psalmist eaith, *Blessed is the man hose
iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is covered." But then it must be by
God's hand, not ours.
8. If there be any one sin, more them other, that the soul doth readily
dose with, that is its beloved sins its right-eye tin, or its right-hand
in.Samson, when all the world could not take away his strength, is
easily persuaded by Delilah. See how Solomon expresses the harlot's
dealing with the young man : " With her much fair speech she caused
him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him:" (Prov.
vii. 21:) the most she could do was to flatter him; and yet, notwithstanding, it is said, she forced him. Sin works altogether by
enticement. "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of
his own lust, and enticed." (James i. 14.) Yet it is so powerful, that
it amounts to a force, as the request of a king amounts unto a
command.
9. That sin which a man wishes were no sin, is like to be his beloved
sin.The case of the young man in the gospel is considerable to this
purpose. Saith our Saviour, " If thou wilt be perfect, go sell that thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and
come follow me. When the young man heard that saying, be went
away sorrowful:" (Matt. xix. 21, 22:) that is, he was very much troubled that there was such a truth as this, that the world, for Christ's
sake, was to be parted with. So, Psalm xiv. 1: " The fool hath said in
his heart, There is no God."
" 0," eaith the fool, " that there was no
God! that there was no heaven! that there was no hell!" Atheism was
the beloved sin in that case. First men wish there were no Deity; and
then ihey judge so, and say so. Carnal affections after some time settle
in opinion and judgment. It is possible for men, by ways of unrighteousness, by a constant course of cheating and cozening, so far to shut up
and imprison their natural light, and so to muffle their reason and understanding, that at length they may cheat and baffle their own souls; and
think it a piece of justice and righteousness so to do.
10. That sin which we think of first in the morning, and last in the
evening, is like to be our beloved sin.God is the chiefest good, the
prime object of onr love: and therefore, as he is Alpha and Omega in
himself, so he is alsu unto his people " the Beginning and the End, the
First and the Last." They begin the day with him: " When I awake, I
am still with thee." (Psalm cxxxix. 18.) They end the day with him:
thus the spouse: " By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul
loveth." (Canticles iii. 1.) You have mention of both these: "With
my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me
will I seek thee early." (Isai. xxvi. 9.) Now this sin that I am treating
of (like that , that " lawless person" that we read of, 2 Thess.
ii. 8, "that man of sin'*) "opposeth and exalteth itself in the soul
above all that is called God; and sitteth in the seat of God." (Verse 4.)
A beloved lust is usually the sinner's first and last: he gives it entertainment first in the morning, and takes his leave of it last in the evening.
Yea, this darling sin must be entertained and made much on in
the bed-chamber. The Psalmist, speaking of a wicked man, tells us,
63
" Re deviseth mischief upon his bed." (Psalm xxxvi. 4.) For the most
part, that is a very friend that we admit to our bed-sides.
11. That sin which most infests us and trouble us in our solitudes and
retirement, that i our beloved sin.My meaning is, when a man is
alone, in his closet, or in the fields, and his thoughts run adrift, that
sin Which of themselves they move towards and close with, that may be
his beloved sin: the current of the soul is that way. 0 Christian! mark
the workings of thy heart in private, an'd thoa mayest possibly make
some discoveries. When a man retires himself into some solitary place,
it is usually absurd to trouble him. It is a friend, indeed, that falls in
with him, and offers his company in that case. That sin is more than
ordinarily beloved by us, that interposes in our privacies.
12. And, lastly, that sin, that we are willing to endure greatest hardships and sufferings for, that is our beloved sin.For instance: suppose
covetousness be" the darling sin; what base, absurd, unreasonable
offices will it put a man upon! how scraping, and niggardly, and
dunghill-like will that man live, in his town, or in his parish, and expose
himself to scorn and contempt from every one that knows him! Suppose ambition be the beloved sin: how will a man in that case swear,
and forswear, and temporize, and, like the boatmen, look one way and
row another; almost any thing for preferment! If uncleanness be the
man's particular sin, how will he destroy his body, disgrace.his name,
overthrow his estate, for the gratifying of his lust! I dare aver, that the
worst and basest drudgery imaginable, to scour kettles and dishes, to tug
at the oar, to dig at the mine, are honourable employments, in comparison
of this.
USE III.
[The third use"] is for exhortation and direction, to press you to the mortification of your beloved sin, and show you how it may be mortified.Let
me take up that scripture again, " Mortify your members which are upon
the earth;" (Col. iii. 5;) that is, let every sin be mortified: for, you.
must know, as death is to the members of the natural body, so is mortification to the members of the sinful body. Now in death the soul is
separated not only from one member, (as it is in a paralysis or numb
palsy,) but from all, even from the principal parts of the body as well as
others. So it is in spiritual death; there is a separation of the soul, not
only from this or that sinful member, but from the whole body of sin,
from the principal parts and members of this body as well as others.
The right eye is dead, the right hand is dead: it must needs be so ; the
one is " plucked oiit," and the other is " cut off."
A Christian must deal by bis darling lust as the Israelites dealt by
Adoni-bezek: " they cut off his thumbs and his great toes/' (Judges i.
6.) So must thou deal with this sin; hack it, maim it, that it may not
be able to go nor stand, nor act, nor stir, if it were possible. And for
that purpose take these directions:
1. Labour to have your heart steeled with an holy courage and resolution against this in.It is upon the account of baseness and cowardliness of spirit that people fall by the right hand of their spiritual
enemy. Shall I give you some instances for this ? Doth the devil tempt
64
SERMON III. HOW MAT BE1X5VBD MJSTS
thee to uncleannesa f Is that thy right-eye sin, or thy right-hand sin f

Take up St. Paul's resolution: " Shall I take the members of Christ, and
make them the members of an harlot?" TViij , "God forbid."
(1 Cor. vi. 15.) [Take up] Joseph's resolution: "How can I do this
great wickedness, and sin against God ?" (Gen. xxxix. 9.) Doth the devil
tempt thee to blasphemy, or to perjury, or to lying, or to any other sin of
that nature ? Take up the Psalmist's resolution: " I said, I will take heed
to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with
a bridle, while the wicked are before me." (Psalm xxxix. I.) Art thou
tempted to idolatry, to deny the truths of Christ, to make shipwreck of

faith and a good conscience ? Take up the three children's resolution :
" Be it known unto thee, 0 king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up." (Dan. iii. 18.) Every
man should be a prince over his lusts; and, like Joshua's captains, should
put his feet upon the necks of them. Here courage, resolution, severity,
is very successful; and, in special, exercise your revenge on your beloved,
lust. " Fight not against small or great" comparatively, but against this
kingly, this master-sin.
2. Let your repentance be particular for your particular iniquity.-It
is not enough to confess your sins in the lump, in the general; but in
prayer you must take particular notice of your right eye sin, your righthand sin. Thus David was particular in his repentance: "Against
thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight:" (Psalm
li. 4:) this evil of murder, and this evil of adultery,pointing, as it were,
with the finger to particular sins. Zaccheus makes a particular confession
of that wrong and injustice that he had been guilty of: " Behold, Lord,
the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing
from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." (Luke xix. 8.)
This particle "if" in that place may not be a note of doubting, but supposition.* " If I have taken," that is, Seeing I have taken " from men
by false'accusation!" Si Deus eet animus, " Seeing God is a Spirit."
3. Beware of those things that may occasion the commission of this
in.For instance: if thou art prone to the sin of lying, " keep a door
before thy lips;" if to gluttony and drunkenness, "when thou goest
to a feast, put a knife to thy throat." We use to say, proverbially,
" Occasion makes a thief." This is true also in other cases: occasion
makes a liar: occasion makes a drunkard. It is a sign of a naughty
heart to dally with occasions to sin. " Look not thou upon the wine,"
saith Solomon, " when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup,
when it moveth itself aright." (Prov. xxiii. 31.) It is not simply unlawful to look upon wine in the glass; but, if this may occasion intemperance, here is a law laid upon our looks. That command which
forbids a sin, forbids also those things that have a tendency thereunto,
as is observed by learned commentators on the Decalogue. Sometimes
this is expressed in scripture: the commandment that forbids adultery,
takes-in all causes and occasions thereunto. Thus Solomon, speaking of
an harlot: " Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door
of her house." (Prov. . 8.) Harlots, like pestilential diseases, make the
* In every edition except the first, these words are misprinted or suspicion.DIT.
65
houses infections where they are; and therefore " come not nigh the door
of her house." "Avoid all appearance of evil." (1 These, v. 22.) I
know, there are some that dislike the translation of eiSoj by " appearance/' and rather think it should be expounded " sort or kind." But
whether the word be taken in a logical notion in the whole book of God,
is very questionable; and therefore why we should depart from the current and stream of expositors, and the sense of our learned translators, I
know not. When God would forbid the sin of injustice, selling wares by
false weights, mark how it is expressed : " Thou shalt not have in thy bag
divers weights, a great and a small." (Deut. xxv. 13.) It was a sin not
only to sell wares by one sort of weights, and take wares in by another;
but to " have a great and a small weight in his hag." God would not
have us come near the sin of injustice. Hence also is that caution of St.
John: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (1 John v. 21.)
If you would avoid idolatry, beware of idols. He that would not hear
the bell, must not meddle with the rope.
4. Pray unto God, that thou mayest not fall into tuck a condition a
may draw forth that corruption that thou art most prone to.This was
that which undid Judas: he was naturally inclined to unjust gain, and
he had the office of carrying the bag; and thus his lust was drawn
forth. When a man is apt to be high-minded, it is a snare to be in a
high place. When a man is passionate, it is sad to converse always or
mostly with those that are " kindle-coals;" that, by provocations and
unworthy carriages, are casting fire-balls into a man's soul; and he,
having a gunpowder nature, is in a flame presently. And the nearer the
relations in this case the worse. It is sad when my next neighbour's
house is on fire; but it is worse when mine own is on fire. It is a
promise made to the people of God, that all conditions of life, and all
passages of providence, "shall work together for their good;" and,
therefore, on the contrary, when our conditions and relations make for
the worse, especially with reference unto our souls, it must needs be
very sad.
5. Learn to suspect things that are delightful." The woman saw
that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes."
(Gen. iii. 6.) Carnal pleasures are forbidden fruit. Agrippina poisoned
her husband in that meat he loved best. The devil tempts us with
dishes sweetly-poisoned. Love and delight pari paesu ambulant, " walk
together, and keep the same pace." Many a man hath been undone by
riches, and honours, and worldly comforts, like the bee that is drowned
in its own honey. Christians, be careful; every one of us hath Eve's
sweet tooth in our heads.
6. Labour to met that grace in especial manner, which it contrary to
thy beloved tin.For instance: if passion be thy darling sin, labour to
act the grace of meekness; if excess, the grace of temperance; if
uncleanness, the grace of chastity. Let me tell you, Where grace is
helped by nature, upon the account of a man's temper and constitution,
there a little grace will go far. But when grace is to be employed
against nature, it had need to be strong and active. Your watermen in
some cases take their ease, and their boats will go of themselves; but
66
SERMON III, HOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS
when wind and tide are against them, then they must labour at the oar.
Sic labor, hoe opus. [" Here is need for labour and exertion."]
7. Keep a watch over thy heart." Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues of life." (Prov. iv. 23.) So our
Saviour: " Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." (Matt. XT. 19.) Godliness is but a fancy till the heart be reformed. We read In the book of
Psalms of Israel's turning unto God: " When he slew them, then they
sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And
they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their
redeemer/* (Psalm Ixxviii. 34, 35.) But was their conversion right?
No : " Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied
unto him with their tongue." (Verse 36.) And whence was this?
" For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in
his covenant." (Verse 37.) Therefore, mortify sin in its rise, in its first
principle. Lay the axe to the root. There is more sap in the root than
in the branches; there is more sin in the heart than in the life. One
stroke at the root of the tree conduces more to the deadening of it, than
many at the body, or the boughs, or any other part whatsoever.
To quicken your industry in this, know, that the motions of original
sin, as they are permanent, so they are exceeding violent and impetuous.
I remember the learned Davenant gives this difference between the remission
of actual and original sin: " When actual sins are forgiven," saith he,
"penitut tolluntur, ['they are entirely removed/} quoad maculam et reatum,
* both as to their guilt &na filth.' But it is not so with original sin : the
guilt is done away, but the stain remains. This is a sin that dwells in us,
that abides in us and abides by us; we shall not be rid of the body of death,
till the death of the body." (De Justitid habituali et actuate, cap. v.) Sin
is an ill tenant; it will not out till the house fall upon its head. Now, the
certainty of the inherence of this sin is an argument of the more efficaciousness of its operation: Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi.
["The manner of its working follows the manner of its being."J
Unquenchable fire burns more fervently than that which may be extin-
guished. The reason why the angel at this day do the will of God in a
more eminent way than the saints on earth is,because they have such
a principle of holiness as cannot be lost to eternity; whereas the saints
on earth have a weaker principle of holiness, which may unhappily be
abated, though it be recruited again. The reason why the soul of an
healthful person moves and acts with more vivacity, and energy, and
power, than the soul of a sick man is,because in the latter it may be
departing, and taking its leave of the body, or at least may be in danger
so to do; whereas the former, being a man of an hale nd good constitution of body, the soul may act, inform, enliven it many years.
8. Get a respect to all God's commandment." Then shall I not be
ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments." (Psalm
cxix. 6.) The reason why men indulge any one lust is,because they
pick and cull their duties, and so indeed serve not the will of God, but
their own choice. ! how many are there that answer the Lord with
half obedience! like the echo, which makes not a perfect respondence of
BK DISCOVERED AND MORTIFIED f
67
the voice, bat of some part thereof. Many make rack a difference
amongst the table [of the Decalogue] a* if only one tide or one part
were of God's writing. sire! this will not do, this will undo. The
man that, like Agrippa, doth bat almost believe, almost repent, almost
conform to the will of God, that man shall be saved proportionably
almost} One sin nnrepented of will cause you to miscarry to all eternity.
One crack in a bell may make it unserviceable, untunable; and till it be
new-cast, it is good for nothing. One wound may kill your bodies, and
so may one sin your souls. 0 Christians! what had become of yon and
me, if Jesus Christ had satisfied the justice of God for all but one sin ?
There is a text in Ezekiel that is usually taken for a place of the greatest
mercy in the whole book of God: " When the wicked turneth away from
his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful
and right, he shall save his soul alive." (Ezek. xviii. 27.) Yon have to
the same purpose, in verses 21, 22, of the same chapter. But pray mark
what follows : " Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his
transgressions that he hath committed." (Terse 28.) No mercy to be
expected from this scripture, unless a man turn away from all Me transgressions. The vessel of honour is distinguished from the vessel of diahonour, by this character, that it is " sanctified, and meet for the Master'*
use, and prepared unto every good work." (2 Tim. ii. 21.) And this is
the commendation of Zachary and Elizabeth: " They were both righteous
before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord
blameless." (Luke i. 6.) Halting in religion is a troublesome, deformed,
dangerous gesture; and there is no cure for this like cutting-off the
right foot.
9. Lay hold on God's strength for the mortifying of thy beloved sin.>
Surely, this is no easy work. See how it is expressed in scripture.
Sometimes it is called " the mortification of our members:" is to mortify a part of the body an easy work ? Sometimes, " the circumcising of
the foreskin of our hearts:" (Deut. x. 16:) did the Sichemites count
circumcision an easy work ? [It is also expressed] by " crucifying of the
affections and lusts:" (Gal. v. 24 :) was crucifixion an easy death ? And
here, in the text, it is called " a plucking out the right eye, and cutting
off the right hand." The apostle Paul, in the fore-mentioned place, tells
the Romans: " If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live." (Bom. viii. 13.) He who is the Fountain of spiritual life, is also the Principle of this spiritual death. This is a work to
be done by us, but through the Spirit. Hence in scripture God is said
to do this : " The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the
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heart of thy seed :" (Dent. xxx. 6 :) and the apostle expresses this by
" circumcision made without hands;" (Col. ii. 11;) intimating that it
is not a work of man's hands, but God's.
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QUESTION. If any ask me, " But how shall we lay hold on God's
strength ?"
EKPLY. By faith. Great things are attributed onto this grace,
because it lays hold on God, and sets God at work, " This is the tory that overcometh the world, even our faith." (I John v. 4.) It
overcomes not only the honours, and riches, and pleasures of the world,
68
SERMON III.
HOW MAY BELOVED LUSTS
bat the lusts of the world, of which you have mention, 1 John ii. 16.
Faith is a self-emptying grace; a poor beggarly hand, rich only in
receiving from another; something like David's sling and stone against
Goliath-lusts. But, in the name of the Lord of hosts and by his
strength, even a babe in Christ, through faith, shall overcome the world.
I must tell you, that Hannibal, and Alexander, and all the, glorious
victors that we read of, were but fresh-water soldiers, in comparison of
one that is born of God.
I shall only, to what I have said, add a few MOTIVES, to quicken you
to your duty, and so commend all to God's blessing.
MOTIVE I.
Right-eye sins and right-hand sins are the greatest hinderances of the
sour dosing with Christ.When you flay any creature, the skin comes
off with ease, till it comes to the head, and there it sticks; more than
ordinary skill is required to get it thence. Now I must tell you, the sin
that I am dissuading you against is, not only the eye-sin, and the handsin, but the HEAD-sin ; and here conversion sticks. The sinner forbears
many sins, and performs many duties: but when it comes to this, " 0
master!" saith flesh-and-blood, " pity thyself, beware what thou doest!
What! be thine own executioner 1 pluck out thy right eye ? cut off thy
right hand ? A man's sin is himself. To deny ungodliness is, to deny
thyself. This is a kind of , 'self-murder.* 'No man ever
yet hated his own flesh.* (Bph. v. 29.) Is there no getting to heaven
unless a man leave himself behind? This is durus serma, 'an hard
saying.' '* As Naaman the Syrian : " When my master goeth into the
house of Bimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I
bow myself in the bouse of Bimmon: when I bow myself in the house
of Bimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing:'* (2 Kings
v. 18 :) so the sinner : " The Lord pardon thy servant in this thing!"
The young man in the gospel tells Christ that he had kept all the commandments from his youth. But when Christ said to him, " One thing
thou. lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven: and come, take up thy
cross, and follow me :" here he sticks: " He was sad at that saying, and
went away grieved: for he had great possessions," (Mark x. 2022,)
or his great possessions had him. Alas! this poor young man little
thought, that, notwithstanding his forwardness to keep the commandments, he was under the power of worldly lusts. 0 sirs I there is great
strength in a river, when it runs smoothly and without noise.
MOTIVE II.
As these sins are the greatest hinderances of the souFs doting with
Christ, so they prove the greatest trouble to the soul afterwards.Your
eye-sin will prove your eye-sore, yea, and your heart-sore. My meaning
is, your conscience will suffer most upon the account of this sin all your
days. Thus Job : " Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest
me to possess the iniquities of my youth." (Job xiii. 26.) When a

man's conscience is disquieted and tormented for the sins of his youth,
BE DISCOVERED AND MORTIFIED f
60
then he may be said to "poteen them;" yea, it may occasion not only
grief, but guilt. Of all sine this is many times most unmortified, even
after mortification. Soldiers that have received wounds and braises
when young, have smarted by them when they have been old. There
are many good souls, that after cure have gone to heaven halting on the
old maim.
MOTIVE III.
The mortifying of our darling lust, our right-eye ein, and our right
hand fin, if a choice evidence of regeneration.Truth of grace hath, as
much as any way, been declared thus. Paul after conversion becomes a
preacher of that name wbich he before blasphemed. Those of Ephesns
that were given to witchcraft and sorcery, after their conversion
"brought their books together, and burned them before all men."
(Acts xix. 19.) And many other instances of the like nature are urged
by divines to this purpose. Cranmer, that had subscribed the popish
articles with his right hand, afterwards, as a piece of revenge, put that
hand first into the flames. A true convert, of ail sins, will be revenged
most upon that by which he hath most dishonoured God. His right eye
and his right hand shall smart for it; the one must be " plucked out,"
and the other must be "cut off:" as we say of hunger, "He will kill
that which, otherwise, would have killed him." I speak much of mortification and death to you this morning. Christians, be not afraid! To
die thus, doth not argue imperfection : there is corruptio perfectiva, " a
corruption that tends to perfection." " I was alive," saith Paul, " without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I
died." (Bom. vii. 9.) This is expiring unto life; just as an embryo expires
after it becomes a child.
Here I would add two CAUTIONS under this head :
1. The forbearing of any outward act of ein whatsoever is no evidence
of mortification or conversion.Sin may he restrained when it is not
mortified. A chained lion is a lion still. A swine washed is a swine
still. In some sense yon may be said to be " a new man," and yet you
may not be " a new creature." This may come to pass partly from the
sense of temporal inconveniences, partly from the clamours of natural
conscience, or from fear of wrath. Such principles as these are not
strong enough to kill sin, or to heal the soul; but are like those odours
which we use to raise men out of a fit of the falling-sickness, but [which]
do not at all cure them of the disease.
2. The mortifying of our darling sin is joined with an universal hatred
of all sin.A true convert "hates every false way," as the Psalmist
phrases it. (Psalm cxix. 104, 128.) Sin is often expressed in scripture
by " abomination :" it is so to God; it should be so to man. Anger is
only with reference to particulars; but hatred is ret yevi), " against
the kind/' A godly man hates sin as sin ; and therefore he hates every
sin. The devil hates goodness as goodness, and therefore he hates all
goodness. A gudtenus ad omne, valet consequentia. [" The consequence
deduced from a part to the whole, is valid."] A man may be angry with
sin, and not kill sin: but as " he that hates his brother is a murderer"
70
SERMON III. BOW HAY BELOVEO LUSTS, &C.
0 he thai hates sin is a mortifier. When the right eye ie plucked out,
and the right hand is cat off, the whole body of sin hath its death's
wound. The man that keeps himself from his iniquity, will keep himself from every iniquity. The heart with one hole reserved for sin, is
not sound*
MOTIVE IV.
Mortification is a duty becoming the best of saints whilst they are in

this world.I told you in the beginning of this discourse, that the text
was part of Christ's Sermon upon the Mount; and if you consult the first
and second verses of this chapter, you shall find that it was preached to
Christ's own disciples. Fir bonus et pius, non est gui carnem non habet,
aed qui carnem suam mortificat: " A good man is not one that hath no
flesh, but he that hath crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts."
(Gal. v. 24.)
It is with our sinful body, as with our natural body; if you cut a
wen, or any excrescence of that nature, it will grow again and again; and
it will be an hard matter to be rid of it all your days. So though every
day we be paring away our lusts, yet they grow again.
To close all: Go on and persevere in the subduing and killing of thy
beloved lusts.Mortification is a work once done, and yet in this life it
is always a doing. There are some things that consist of an iteration of
multiplied acts. As in wedlock, persons are actually married at once,
the husband surrenders himself unto the wife, and the wife surrenders
herself unto her husband; and yet if they live together suitably to that
near relation, marriage is as it were renewed every day; there is a
continual surrender of themselves each to other: so it is here. When
the soul is first converted, the beloved sin is mortified; and yet there
is a continual mortification of it. This is a duty that consists not
in any one act, though never so good, never so vigorous; but it is a con-
tinued act of the whole life. It is not killing sin at one blow; the
strength of sin decays by degrees; it begins in the weakening of sin,
and ends in the destroying of sin. Sin dies a lingering death; therefore
let us go on in this great and necessary work. Yon know, Samson
denied, and denied Delilah, for some time; and would not discover where
his strength lay. But, not holding out, he lost his strength and his life
to boot. Beware of apostasy. Crabs, that go backward, are reckoned
amongst unclean creatures. (Lev. xi. 10.) Factum non dicitur, quod non
perseverat, ["That act of which continuity or perseverance forms no
part, is not entitled to the appellation,"] is a maxim. A will not finished,
is no will: a deed, unless it be signed, sealed, and delivered, is no deed.
The sacrifice that was offered up unto God, was not to want so much as
the tail. (Lev. iii. 9.) True Christians hate sin so perfectly, that they
cannot be quiet till it be utterly abolished. First, they go to God for
justification, ne damnet [" that sin may lose its condemning power"];
then, for sanctification, ne regnet [" that sin may not reign"]; then,
for glorification, ne sit ["that sin may no longer exist"]. "Let us
be faithful" as to this spiritual " death, that we may receive a crown
of life." Amen.
SERMON IT.
WHAT RELAPSES INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE? 71
SERMON IV.
BY THE REV. JOHN SHEFFIELD, M.A.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE f
For it is impossible for those toko were once enlightened, and have tasted
of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world
to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance:
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him
to an open shame.Heb. vi. 46.
I COULD say, beloved, of the interpretation and application of this

scripture, before I begin to open it, (containing the doom and sad sentence pronounced against apostates and relapsarians,) as once Daniel did
to the king, before he opened his mouth to give the sense of his ominous
dream: " The dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation
thereof to thine enemies." (Dan. iv. 19.) Yet shall I not wish so much
ill to our worst enemies ; but the text be to them that hate God; and
the interpretation, only to the enemies and despisers, or despite, of his
grace.
It is one of the most startling scriptures in all the Bible.; and one of
the most terrible flying fiery rolls in all the book of God, utterly consuming the house of the hypocrite-apostate, " with the timber thereof,
and the stones thereof," and dreadfully affrighting his truly-religious
neighbour, " who trembleth at God's word."
The Novatiane, or Cathari, abused this place of old, to shut the
church-doors and gate of grace upon such as had fallen after their profession of Christianity. And many poor souls and troubled consciences
have as often quite perverted or misunderstood it, to the shntting-np the
gate of heaven and door of hope against themselves, after their bitterlybewailed falls or slips: but both unjustly.
But as Joseph's interpretation once of the same night's dream, when
rightly applied, did rid the butler out of his misapprehended fears, and
only left the more-secure baker under that execution which the other
apprehended, but himself never dreamed of; (Gen. xl. 523 ;) so neither this nor any other scripture speaks a word of terror to any sintroubled soul, that trembles at God's threats. But all the prophets
prophesy good with one consent to these; and my word shall be like one
of theirs.
It was indeed once a joyful sight which Jacob beheld at Bethel: A
ladder whose foot stood " on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it." (Gen. xxviii. 12.)
But here we see a ladder whose top spires toward heaven, but the foot
resteth in hell, where seeming angels of light ascend, or such new strange
gods as the witch once saw ascend out of the earth; (1 Sam. xxviii. 13;)
72
SERMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
but black apostate angels descend. Intrat angelus, exit daemon ["The
angel enters, the devil departs"].
I am to speak of the case of relapses, and my text is the fairest glass
[in which] to discover so foul a sight that I know.
Here we have the rise and fall, the first and the last, the better and
worse part, of an apostate-hypocrite described.
1. The former,his rise, his first and better part, set oat in five particulars: (1.) Enlightening. (2.) Tasting the heavenly gift, as of some
common faith, or repentance, or the like. (3.) Partaking of the Holy
Ghost, which is not to be understood of the sanctifying graces of the
Holy Ghost, but the common, or extraordinary gifts, as of tongues, &c.,
of the sanctifying Spirit. (4.) Tasting the good word of God. (5.) And
the powers of the life to come. Had they had to these five steps two
other more, sincerity at the bottom of the ladder, and perseverance at
the top, they had been safe.
2. The latter,Aw fall, his last and worse part, is set out in four
things.
(1.) His fall is a break-neck, fatal down-fall." They fall away." * It
is not an ordinary slip or stumble, but a down-right; not fair fall, but a
foil given them by Satan; such a fall as his own was at first.
(2.) The irrecoverableness of that fall.They are past grace: and grace
and mercy have done with them; " they cannot be renewed to repentance/' As is said of Esau, "there is no place for their repentance,
though he sought for the blessing with tears." (Heb. xii. 17.)
(3.) The certainty of that irrecoverableness, in that it is said to be
IMPOSSIBLE, &c.He doth not say, It is hard, or unlikely, or seldom
seen; but, " is absolutely impossible," , it was never seen,
nor ever shall be. IMPOSSIBLE, not so much ex naturd rei, ["from the
nature of the thing,"] as some things are utterly impossible which imply
a contradiction, as that true should be false; good, evil; light, darkness;
these impossible because inconsistent with the nature of the things themselves : but IMPOSSIBLE ex institute Dei, [" from the appointment of
God,"] because inconsistent with God's decree and declared will; " as
impossible as," we say, " an elect or true believer should perish, or an
impenitent person be saved;" so we mean impossible by reason of God's
irreversible decree concerning such.
(4.) The cause that makes all this dead-sure, and seals the stone of this
certainty." Seeing they crucify to themselves afresh the Son of God,
and put him to open shame," and make no account of the blood of
Christ, and the grace and promise of the gospel, and of the comfort of
the Holy Ghost; and are therefore said to sin against the Holy Ghost,
because they directly slight, resist, and oppose the gracious office and
workings of the Holy Spirit.
But I must stay no longer upon the words, by reason of that brevity
expected in this Exercise.
* He saith not, *, or vapaSaivovrtu, but arapcareffovras, ui cum edificium
malt sartum prorsus eorruit.PARE a in foe, " He saith not,' If they shall sin,' or, 'If
they shall transgress,' but, If they shall fall away; like an edifice which, after having
been imperfectly repaired, falls down at once, and is broken into fragments."EDIT.
INCONSISTENT WITH G&ACB?
73
DOCTRINE.
Our observation is:It is the most fearful and dangerous condition

in the world, to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh, to rise and fall
in religion, to decay and apostatize from grace; to have had some work
of the Spirit and the word upon their hearts, so as to have light, and
love, and taste, and gifts, and favour, and seriousness, and hopes, and
fears, and, after all, to cool and give over! how desperate is such
a case!
To go to hell with so much of heaven, 0 what a hell is that! " For
if we sin wilfully 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," &c. (Heb. x. 26, 27.) " For if after they
have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and
overcome, the latter 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," &c. (2 Peter ii. 2022.)
Such a thing there may be; possibly the text supposeth it, that such
may fall, and fall away totally and finally, only [it] pronounceth an
impossibility of their rising again.
Some are said "to fall from grace." (Gal. . 4.) The stony and
thorny ground did so in a parable. Demas, Judas, Saul, Hymenaeus, did
so in good earnest. A great apostasy was foretold, in the first days, to
let in Antichrist, (2 These, ii. 3,) and in the reign of Antichrist more.
(1 Tim. iv. 1.) All are warned: "Let him that standeth take heed lest
he fall." (1 Cor. z. 12.) " Look diligently lest any man fail of," or fall
from, "the grace of God." (Heb. xii. 15.) Some of John's [the Baptist's] hearers, after a while, left him. (John v. 35.) Many of our
Saviour's hearers quite left him. (John vi. 66.) Many of Paul's supposed converts were turned away; all they of Asia. (2 Tim. i. 15.)
Some have left their love. (Rev. ii. 4.) Some left the faith. (1 Tim.
v. 12.) Some have turned after the world; as Demas. (2 Tim. iv. 10.)
"Some have turned aside after Satan." (1 Tim. v. 15.) And would to
God there were no example to be given in our age and observation! It
is that which the professors of a true religion are more subject to, than
those of a false. " Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no
gods ? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not
profit." (Jer.ii. 11.)
Now there are three falls to which men are subject:
I. Some fall, as wood or cork into the water,sink at first, but get up
gain, being helped by the hand of divine grace, as Peter; (Matt. xiv.
31 ;) or brought off by a miracle of mercy, as Paul and his company,
after all hopes of safety were quite taken away. (Acts xxvii. 2044.)
This the fall of the godly.
II. Some fall, as lead or stone, into the bottom of hell; as Pharaoh's
host into the bottom of the sea; (Exod. xv. 4, 5 ;) and never rise again,
having neither promise of God, nor seed of God to raise them up again,
74
SERMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
but make a final " shipwreck of faith and conscience," and of their souls
together. (1 Tim. i. 19.)
This the fall of the wicked.
III. There is a mixed fall common to both, which is like the falling
into an epidemical disease; whereof many die, and as many recover: of
which in their order.
There are four kinds or degrees of falling, which the people of God
are subject to; and four kinds or degrees to which the wicked are subject ; and each latter is worse than other in them both.
I.
FOUR FALLS OF THE GODLY.
1. The first and lightest fall of the godly, is that in their daily combat between flesh and spirit, set out in Romans vii. at large, and in
Oalatians v. 17. "We cannot do what we would," but fail or fall short
after our best endeavours. Our duties are imperfect, graces defective,
our gold and silver drossy, "our wine mixed with water." Sin
deceiveth, surpriseth, captivateth,* slayeth, yet reigneth not all this while.
" It is not I, but sin that dwells in me. I consent to the law; I delight
in the law of God, even in my inner man," &c.
These falls or slips are unavoidable and involuntary. There is no
saint but complains of them, no duty but is stained with them. In our
clearest sunshine we see a world of such motes, which yet hinder not
the light and comfort of our justification, and destroy not sanctification.
True grace consists with these; yea, is not separated from the assaults
and indwelling of such motions. "Will we, nill we," said Bernard,
" we are pestered with swarms of these Egyptian flies, and have these
frogs in our inmost chambers." f
We are none of us iwpra-lapsarians in this sense; but *uo-lapsarians
all; yea, and n-lapsarians too. " The just falleth seven times a day,"
by this infirmity, "and riseth up again;" (Prov. xxiv. 16;) and taketh
no harm, but is kept humble and depending thereby. Every son and
daughter of Abraham is kept bound " under this spirit of infirmity," to
their dying day.
This first fall is but like the fall of a mist in a winter morning: the
sun gets up, and it is a fair day after.
This is the first fall: the second is worse, which is,
2. An actual and visible stumble as to offence of others, yet occasioned
by some surreptitious surprise of temptation, for want of that due consideration which we should always have: this the apostle calls " a man's
being overtaken with a fault," who is " to be restored with a spirit of
meekness, considering we also may be tempted." (Gal. vi. 1.) Such
falls (or slips rather) all or most are subject to. /ttev
cnravres, " In many things we offend all." (James iii. 2.) We sometimes trip, or slip, or "miss our hold," (so the word signifies,) and so
down we come, but not out of choice. Thus did Peter slip or halt,
when he did Judaize out of too much compliance with the Jews; whom
* All editions, previous to the fourth, have captiveth.EDIT.
f Velimus,
nolimus, irruunt in not ASyyptiorum musoae, et obstrepunt rana in cubilibus regiis.
INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE?
75
therefore Paul did rebuke and restore. (Gal. ii. 11, 14.) Tha the disciples slipped, when they, in zeal to Christ, would have fire fetched down
from heaven upon those that would not receive them; whom Christ set
right with a spirit of meekness. (Luke ix. 54, 55.)
These slips or falls are like those of him whose foot is wrenched or
out of joint; whence he halts till it be set right. Thus Peter is said to
halt; he did not * motpairiirrew, [" fall or tumble,*'] only not op9oiro$tw
["walk uprightly"]. But when Paul had set his wrenched foot, he
went upright ever after. Hence that word, xeeretp-, " restore," is a
surgeon's word, "to set him right," as a bone out of joint. (Gal. vi. 1.)
He that shall be censorious and severe against these two first kind of
falls incident to most, "let him," as Constantine said to Acesins the
Novatian bishop, " get himself a ladder, and climb up to heaven by himself : he should have but a few come there else." (SOCRATES, lib. i. c. 7.)
3. The third fall is much worse, "a fall from the third loft," whence,
like Entychus, they are " taken up dead" for the present; but they
come to themselves again. These are falls into grosser and more scandalous sins which do vastare conecientiam, " set the stacks or corn-fields
of conscience on fire;" whereas the other two forenamed, especially the
former, are such as Tertullian calls quotidiana incureionis ["of daily
incursion"]. These are very dangerous, and befall not all professors:
(they had not need!) bnt, now and then, one falls into some scandalous
sin; but they not usually again into the same sin after sense and repentance of it. Thus fell David and Peter into foul flagitiousness, but not
deliberately, nor totally, nor finally, nor reiteratedly. Sin raged indeed,
and seemed to reign for the present. Moses's hands grew weak, and the
hand of Amalek prevailed for the present. But a "seed of God" was
in them, and they "could not sin" unto death; (1 John iii. 9;) but
were renewed to repentance, and their sins are blotted out.
This fall is like the fall of the leaf in autumn. Life remains safe; a
spring in due time follows, though many a cold blast first.
4. There is yet one worse fall than the former, incident to a child of
God too,to be of the decaying hand, and to remit and lose his former
fervour and liveliness.
And it may be he never comes (as the second temple) up to the former
pitch and glory. (Ezra iii. 12.) Thus Solomon's zeal and love were
abated in his old age. As his father David's natural heat was in his age,
that he needed an Abishag to lie in his bosom; so was Solomon's
spiritual heat cooled by the many Abishags that lay in his bosom: and
though he was beloved of his God, his sun set in a cloud, bis hut was
not like his first.f (1 Kings zi. 4, 9, 10.) Thus Samson, after many
triumphs over the Philistines, was at length circumvented and betrayed
into their hands, who bound him, put out his eyes, made sport with
him ; who, though his hair and strength grew again, and he died in the
* Not is left out in the fourth edition, so as to alter the true sense.EDIT.
) Incepit melius quam desinit, ultima primi
Cedunts dissimilis hie puery tile senex.
Unlike the hopes with which his life began,
YOUTH yielded blossoms, but no fruit the MAN.**EDIT.
76
SERMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
quarrel, and died a victor, yet never did he regain his eight or liberty to
his dying day. These kinds of decays are dangerous, and make the
people of God go mourning to their dying day; and they are saved as by
fire. But [they] are not inconsistent with grace.
This is like the fall of the hair in aged persons. Life yet remains ;
but strength, native heat, and radical moistness decay, and the hair never
grows alike thick again.
These are the fallings of the children of God; and there are four worse
than these follow of the unregenerate, and each worse than [the] other.
II.
THE FOUR FALLS OF THE UNREGENERATE.
1. The first whereof is a final fall, but not a total at first, but insensible, by degrees, sensim sine sensu, [" gradually and without perceiving
it,"] grow worse and worse; as the thorny ground, choked with cares, or
drowned with the pleasures of the world. This proves like Eli's fall; they
fall backward, break their necks, and die of it; (1 Sam. iv. 18;) and may,
with him, be much lamented and pitied; but they are dead and lost.
2. Some fall totally and finally, but not premeditately and voluntarily
at first; but are driven back by the lion of persecution and tribulation in
the way, and they retreat. " These endure for a season," as the stony
ground; (Mark iv. 17;) and, leaving God, they are for ever left and
forsaken of him. (1 Chron. xxviii. 9.)
This is like the fall of Sisera at the feet of Jael: " At her feet he
bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he
bowed, there he fell and lay down dead." (Judges v. 27.)
3. Some, more fearfully, totally, finally, voluntarily, deliberately, but
not yet maliciously. Thus Demas is supposed to fall, who, of a forward
disciple or teacher, is said to have become, after, an idol priest at Thessalonica; so Dorotheus reports of him. Thus fell Saul; who having
rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord rejected him; and " the Spirit
of the Lord departed from him, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled
him." (1 Sam. xvi. 14.)
Of these three last, I may say as Elisha to Hazael of Benhadad: These
may certainly recover: " howbeit," sjuth he, " the Lord hath showed me
that he shall surely die." (2 Kings viii. 10.) These have not yet crucified
the Son of God afresh, nor done despite to the Spirit of grace; therefore
it is not impossible they should be renewed again to repentance.
These are like Sardis; [they] may " have a name to live, but are
dead." (Rev. iii. 13.) Their works not perfect before God, ready to
die, yet are [they] called once again to repentance, otherwise certain
destruction [is] threatened.
But this is like the fall of Haman, whose doom was read by his wife
and best friends: " If once thou beginnest to fall, thou shalt not recover,
but shalt certainly fall irrecoverably." (Esther vi. 13.)
And these end fearfully, usually, and unpitied spectacles of God's
wrath, to astonish and warn others; as Spira once.
4. The fourth and last fall follows, which is like the opening of the
fourth seal, and the fourth horse appears; " a pale horse, and he that
eat on him is called death,.and hell followed with him:" (Rev. vi. 8 :)
INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE
77
when men fall totally, finally, voluntarily, and maliciously. Thus Simon
Magus, Julian the apostate, Hymeneeus, and Alexander, whose names are
in God's black book. Here the gulf is fixed, and there is a nulla
retroreum [" no retracing of the steps"] hence. These are not to be
renewed by repentance.
This fall is like that of Jericho's walls: they fell down flat with a
curse annexed; (Joshua vi. 26;) or as Babylon's walls, with a vengeance ; (Jer. li. 58;) both without hope of repairing: or like the fall
of Lucifer the first apostate, without offer, or hope of offer, of grace any
more for ever: or like the fall of Judas; who, " falling headlong, burst
asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." (Acts i. 18.)
III.
THE MIXED FALL.
There is also another kind of fall, of a mixed or middle nature: and

to which side of the two (godly or reprobate) I should cast it, is not so
easy to determine. [It is] a reiterated fall into some foul act or course
of sin: and herein I must proceed as warily as the priest of old in a
doubtful case of leprosy, whether to pronounce clean or unclean ; and by
his rule I shall go. He was to shut him up seven days, and look upon
him better ere he could give his definitive sentence. (Lev. xiii. 459.)
If therefore,
1. I see the sore be bat skin-deep, (Lev. xiii. 4, 34,) and have not
corrupted the blood:
2. If it stand at a stay and spread not further: (Lev. xiii. 5, 6; so
also verses 23, 28, 34, 37:)
3.. If all become white by repentance and mortification: I shall pronounce him clean. It is a scab, it is but a scab, or a scall. (Lev. xiii.
6, 34.) It is no deadly leprosy.
But, on the other side, 1. If it be deeper than the skin, having
taken the heart with the love and liking of it: (Lev. xiii. 20, 25, 30:)
2. If it spread further and further, by renewed acts: (verses 8,

27,36:)
3. If there be proud raw flesh in the rising, (verses 10, 14, 15,) and
the man presumptuously live in it, and plead for it: I shall pronounce
him unclean. " It is an old leprosy." (Terse 11.) It is " not the spot
of God's children." (Deut. xxxii. 5.)
Concerning relapses, I shall desire you to take notice of these eight
observations:
1. It is very observable, that the Holy Ghost is very sparing in
setting down in the scriptures instances in this kind, well foreseeing how
apt flesh and blood is to abuse and pervert such examples to their own
destruction. Such examples are, as Simeon said of Christ, " set for the
fall and rising again of many, and are a sign spoken against." (Luke
ii. 34.) How have David's and Peter's falls emboldened many to fall
and live in sin!, There is not one instance in all scripture of any saint
that laid violent hands upon himself, lest any should presume to do the
like: but one example of late repentance accepted, lest many should
presume; yet one, lest any should despair. Those falls are not set as.
land-marks to ffuide you, but as sea-marks to warn you.
78
SERMON IT.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
2. It is certain Paul returned not to persecute the church after hie

conversion, or Manasses to re-erect idolatry, or Matthew to the receipt of
custom after he was called thence.
3. Nor did David and Peter fall again into the same foul act of sin
after they had truly repented.
4. They were only wicked ones, as Ahab, Pharaoh, Saul, Jeroboam,
who persist and return to sinful courses, from drunkenness to thirst, from
thirst to drunkenness. Of Jeroboam it is said, "After this thing"
the prophet's warning, his arm smitten, his prayer thereupon, the
recovery upon the prophet's prayer" did he return again, and made of
the lowest of the people priests of his high places," &c. (1 Kings xiii.
33.) Neither warning, nor judgments, nor mercies could work any
amendment in him.
5. It is certain that " he who is born of God doth not commit sin,"
(1 John iii. 9,) so as to make a trade of it, returning to his vomit.
But "he that is born of God keepeth himself, and the wicked one
toucheth him not." (1 John v. 18.) He hath paid too dear for such a
miscarriage. It was not so light a matter to lie under God's wrath, [to]
lose his former peace; nor was his comfort so soon restored, and God's
favour regained; that he should hazard all anew, and buy repentance at
so dear a rate.
6. Very dreadful is that threat of God: " If there be among you man
or woman...... or a root that beareth gall and worm wood: and it come
to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself
in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, adding drunkenness to thirst: the Lord will not spare
him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke
against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall
lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.
And the Lord shall separate him" (and single him out) " unto evil," &c.
(Deut. xxix. 1821.)
7. Relapses into sin are like relapses into a disease after hopes and
beginning of recovery. If, by taking cold, or want of heed-taking, or

[by] other disorder, the disease return, and the man [be] down again,
this is worse than the first ill fit, and [it is] long ere such recover. But
if, as soon as he get a little strength, he fall into a new relapse, we
reckon his case very doubtful, if not desperate.
8. Yet it is not to be denied but there are some sins of human
infirmity which, though repented of, a godly person may be again overtaken with and foiled; yet [will] not his last end [be] worse than his
beginning. Thus was Jonah overtaken with his passion a second time;
Abraham with his excusatory lie; the disciples, after a former rebuke, a
second time contending for superiority. (Matt. xx. 25, [compared] with
Luke xxii. 25.)
The first fall in this kind I should liken to a sad and dangerous fall,
by which one hath broken a bone in his leg or arm; which, though it put
him to much pain, is well set again, and he becomes as strong as before,
but more wary while he lives. David speaks of his fall into sin, that
it was as " a breaking of his bones." (Psalm li. 8.) But a second fall is
INCONSISTENT WITH GRACE?
79
like the breaking of the bone the second time; which is more hardly set,
and pnte to more, pain, and, it may be, the man feele it at time to hi
dying day.
But a third, or more frequent relapse, is like the putting of an arm out
of joint, again and again ; [which] not being well bound and looked-to in
time, becomes habitually loose, and never keeps the place. So it is here:
crebrous and frequent acts of sin beget an habit and custom in sin; and
then as soon may " the Ethiopian change his skin, and the leopard his
spots," as one "accustomed to do evil," ever learn to do well. (Jer. xiii. 23.)
Bernard describes the steps of sin, how it comes to its height: " First
time, it is importable; next time, heavy, no more importable ; then easy,
then light, then sweet, at last necessary; and what was at first importable to be committed, is now impossible to be omitted."* And St.
Austin confirms this by a story of his own mother, who, by sipping of
the cup at first when she filled the wine, learnt at last to take almost
whole cnps.f
Qui modica no spernit paulatim decidit, is his good note
upon it: " He that makes a small matter of small sins, is in the ready
way to fall into the greatest." Every new relapse into a former sin is
like the adding of a new figure to the first cypher; which raiseth the
sinner's account ten or an hundred-times naore.J
Therefore if thou hast been overtaken once, stop and be humbled, and
say, " Once I have spoken," or done amiss; " but I will not answer," to
plead for myself. Beware the second time, the second fall, as the second
blow makes the fray; but if a second time, say, " Tea, twice; but I will
proceed no further." (Job xl. 5.) But be sure thou take heed of drawing
sin with a threefold cord, or " cart-rope:" (Isai. v. 18:) this "threefold
cord is not easily broken." (Eccles. iv. 12.) Take heed of a third act;
"fear, and the pit, and the snare are before thee;" 0 bold and presumptuous sinner! if thou escape the fear of the first act, thou mayest
perish in the pit for the second; but if thou escape the pit, thou wilt be
taken in the snare, the third time. (Isai. xxiv. 17, 18.) "Upon the
ungodly, God raineth snares;" (Psalm xi. 6;) God gives [them] once to
a reprobate mind, and they are gone. Think not, after a third or fourth
act of presumptuous sin, to go and shake thyself, (by prayer and repentance,) as Samson once, and that thy strength may return to thee to be
delivered from these Philistines which lie in wait for thee. He did so,
" but wist not," till he found it by woful experience, " that the Lord
was departed from him:" (Judges zvi. 20:) so may it be with thee,
therefore be warned.
USE I.
1. This informs us, that possible it is for men (yea, too ordinary) to
fall from grace. The text supposeth it; and in another place the apostle
* Prune importabile ; proeessu temporis grave ; paulo pott lew; postea placet et
suave est , ad extremum, quod erai importabile ad faciendum, est impossible ad continendum.BERNAHDUS, De ConscientiA.
f Ad illud modicum quotidiana modica
addenda, in earn consuetudinem lapsa erat, ut prope jam plenos men caKcufos inhianter
hauriretAUGUSTINI Confessiones, lib. 9.
Ex voluntate perversa facia est
consuetudo, et dum consuetudini no resistitur facta est necessitas.Idem, Confessiones,
lib. 8. "A bad habit has its origin in a perverted will; and while it prevails without
resistance, it becomes at length a necessary habit."EDIT.
80
SERMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES ARK
items us to " look diligently lest any man fall from the grace of God."
(Heb. xii. 15.) The angels did so at first, and Adam soon after; and
that which was morbus angelicus then is morbus Anglicus now.* The
Lord may complain of us, as justly as ever he did of Israel: " My people
are bent to backsliding from me." (Hosea xi. 7.) And: "Why should
ye be smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more." (Isai. i. 5.)
And: " Why is this people sudden back by perpetual backslidings ? they
hold fast deceit, they refuse to return." (Jer. viii. 5.) This is, and of
late hath been, the case and epidemical disease of England. It is no new
thing to see the sons of fallen man to fall, and fall away. Saul, Joash,
Amaziah, Judas, Demas, Alexander, fell away of old. Of all Israel that
came out of Egypt with Moses and Aaron, only two, Caleb and Joshua,
"followed God fully." (Num. xiv. 24.) Of the four grounds in the
parable, only one held oat. Many of John Baptist's hearers left him and
fell away : (John v. 35 :) many of Christ's hearers and disciples: (John
vi. 66:) many of Peter's: (2 Peter ii. 20:) many of Paul's: (2 Tim. i.
15 ; 1 Tim. v. 15 :) many of John the Evangelist's hearers: "They went
out from us, because they were not of us; for had they been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they
might be made manifest that they were not all of us." (1 John ii. 19.)
But none of these were ever sincere Christians and sound at the heart.
We wonder not to see a house built on the sand to fall, or seed not
having root wither, or trees in the parched wilderness decay, (Jer. xvii.
6,) or meteors vanish, or blazing stars fall, or clouds without rain blown
about, or wells without springs dried up. So, for hypocrites to prove
apostates [is] no strange thing, and utterly to fall away. There are four
wills some have observed: (1.) The Divine will never alters or turns.
(2.) The angels' will hath turned, never returns. (3.) The will of man
fallen [hath] turned, and in conversion returns. (4.) The will of apostates, after that grace received and abused, turns away and never returns,
but becomes like [that of] the fallen angels.
2. Even godly and gracious persons are subject to fall, and therefore
must not be secure: they must " work ont their salvation with fear and
trembling." (Phil. ii. 12.) They are bidden to "fear lest they should fall
short:" (Heb. iv. 1:) "stand fast:" (1 Cor. xvi. 13:) "take heed
lest they fall:" (1 Cor. x. 12:) "look diligently lest any fail of," or
"fall from," (so is the other reading,) "the grace of God:" (Heb. xii.
15 :) "take the whole armour of God, that they may be able to stand."
(Eph. vi. 13.)
Even the very elect have this root of bitterness and seeds of apostasy
within them. Even Peter had sunk, if Christ had not put forth his
hand to save him from the water; (Matt. xiv. 31;) and had been
winnowed as chaff, if Christ had not " prayed for him that his faith
should not fail." (Luke xxii. 31, 32.)
Let not him therefore that puts on his harness boast as he that puts
it off. (1 Kings xx. 11.)
3. Yet a truly regenerate soul, a plant of God's planting by the water* "That which was then the disease of angels, is now the disease of Englishmen."
DIT.
INCONSISTENT WITH OB ACS?
81
side, a plant or graff grafted into Christ, and rooted in Christ, can
never faU away totally or finally; Peter could not, when Christ prayed
for him: the elect cannot. (Matt. xxiv. 24.) In the general apostasy
of the Christian world, and the greatest persecutions under Rome-pagan,
and Borne pseudo-Christian, antichrittion both times, when all the world
"wondered after the dragon and the beast;" they who had their
" names written in the Lamb's book " held out, and warped not. (Be?, xiii.
8; xvii. 8.) The elect are as Mount Sion that cannot be moved, and are
as fixed stars that fall not. The house on the rock stands firm in all
weathers; the tree by the water's side; (Jer. xvii. 8;) seed in good
ground. (Matt. xiii. 8.) They who have a seed of God in them cannot
so sin: (1 John iii. 9:) and "they that are born of God," (1 John v.
18,) they who are in the hand of Christ, "none can pluck them out."
(John x. 28.)
Yet as to the fallings of the elect, net presuming to teU you the
minimum or tummum quod tc,* we shall make these concessions or
observations >
POSITION i. We grant that the godly, as well as others, are subject
to this faUing-ticfatee*, having aeeds of apostasy in them; and would
certainly fall irrecoverably, if left to themselves. " By strength" (his
own) "no man shall prevail" or stand. (I Sam. ii. 9.)t
POSIT. 2. Grace received, truly-sanctifying, is not for its measure so
great, or for its nature so immutable and invincible, but might be overborne ; and would, if not divinely supported and continually supplied;
as the widow's oil kept from decay, fed by a spring of auxiliary grace;
as " Joseph's bow abode in strength by the arm of God, and his bough
green and fruitful, fed by a well of living water:" (Gen. xlix. 2224:)
so that it is not the grace t'n v*, but the grace with us,
, [" Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me ;"]
(1 Cor. xv. 10;) grace supervening and additional,^ which keeps us from
falling. Even the good ground, were it not for the influence of the sun
and rain, would prove as the stony and thorny ground.
POSIT. 3. There is no such state of consistency in the effectually
called; but there is a daily combat, and oft-times a great inequality in
his pulse. Sometimes Amalek, sometimes Israel prevails; and this war
lasts not, as that between the house of Saul and David, for certain years;
(2 Sam. iii. 1;) but as that " between Behoboam and Jeroboam, all their
days." (1 Kings xiv. 30.)
Paul sometimes, as in the third heaven, cries out: " We are more than
conquerors," &c. "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" &c.
Sometimes, as under foot, [he] cries out: " wretched,man that I ami
who shall deliver me from this body of death?"
POSIT. 4. Even godly persons may fall for once, very foully, as
Peter: yea, lie long, as David: (it is hard to say how low they may
fall, and how long they may lie:) yet sin not unto death; as the sun
* "What may be the quality of the smallest lapse or of the greatest**EDIT.
f In te stae et nonstat.AUGUSTINE. Thou standee! in thyself; and yet tbou
art not stable."EDIT.
t Gratia gratiam pottulat. "Grace requires more grace."
.EDIT.
82
6KRMOM IT.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
ie for many months absent from some climates, yet returns gain: BO
that they may then say with the church: " Rejoice not against me, 0
mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the
Lord shall be a light nnto me." (Micah vii. 8.)
POSIT. 5. There may also possibly be a relapse, or falling anew, into
the same act of sin through human infirmity; as Abraham twice denying his wife, the disciples twice contending for supremacy. And as I
will not say how oft thy brother trespassing and repenting is to be
forgiven, " not to seven, but to seventy-times seven ;" so I cannot say how
oft through infirmity a sinner trespassing, and returning with repentance,
may be forgiven,God's mercies and thoughts being so far above man's.
POSIT. 6. The Christian may, as to his own sense, be reduced to
a very sad and low state. (1.) He is poor in spirit, he mourns, he
hungers, thirsts, pants, doubts, dislikes all. (2.) He judgeth of himself
as (under present prevalency of corruption) " carnal, sold under sin," a
forced slave to it. (Rom. vii. 14.) (3.) As if nothing had been done
yet, and all was to do, he begs: " 0 God, create a new heart in me!"
(Psalm li. 10.) (4.) He may be apt to conclude against himself, "I
never did yet truly believe or repent and, which is worse, with Thomas,
I never shall believe." (John xx. 25.) (5.) In this case he lies bound,
as Peter, and cannot help himself till the angel comes and strikes off the
bands, and opens the iron gate. (Acts xii. 6, 7.) (6.) And as to comfort,
he may be at an utter loss; [may] walk in darkness; (Isai. 1. 10;)
judge himself "cut off;" (Ezek. xxxvii. 11;) his "hope perished;"
(Lam. iii. 18;)God hiding his face; Satan showing his teeth, casting
forth a flood, and shooting-in a peal of fiery darts: " Curse God and die!
Thou art mine as sure as death, as sure of damnation as I myself!"
Then how doth a poor soul mourn! " I am forsaken, and quite cast out
of sight, I am as a bottle in the smoke of hell, like a broken vessel, or
fire-brand reserved for hell I" "As possible for this Venice-glass," said
that distressed gentlewoman Mrs. Honeywood, " not to be broken when it
falls on the ground, as for me to escape the damnation of hell." " God can
do much," saith he; " but doth he ' show wonders among the dead ?' "
(Psalm Ixxxviii. 10.) Then pray he would, but cannot; hope he would,
but cannot; believe he would, but dare not; fear he would not, but
must: resolve he would to cast himself upon God, but he sees his resolution set another way, and he cannot, he thinks, change it; therefore doth
he not go about it. To God he saith, " I am cast out of thy sight:"
(Psalm xxxi. 22:)to Satan, Ficisti, Satana ! [" Satan, thou hast conquered."] " Hast thon found me, mine enemy ?"to despair, " I yield,
but call not for quarter, nor beg I mercy." To affliction he saith,
" I am in the belly of hell, the weeds and chains of hell wrap me
about." (Jonah ii. 2, 5.) To ministers and other friends he saith,
" Stand away! go not about to comfort me!" (Isai. xxii. 4.) To promises
and experience he saith, in his haste, "All are liars!"
Yet may the tide turn; and the Sun of Righteousness arise, after a
long winter and continual night,as* in those remote climates who sit in
* To make the sense of this dame complete, the subjoined addition is required: "as
the natural sun does upon the people in those remote climates," &c.EDIT.
INCONSISTENT WITH CRACK?
83
the region and shadow of death,'and come "with healing under his
wings;" and he may cry out: "Rejoice with me! I have found Him
whom my soul loveth!" The lost sheep is found by the Good Shepherd,
the lost Saviour is found, (Luke ii. 4350,) the lost star seen again ;
(Matt. ii. 10;) and the utterly despairing hopes of salvation are disappointed by a safe though hazardous coming to land. (Acts zzvii.
2044.)
For God's election stands firm, and his love is unchangeable, and his
gifts [are] without repentance: and the undertaking of Christ is, to keep
his to the end, that none shall pluck them out of his hand; and whom
he gives himself for, he presents them spotless and blameless before hie
Father.
Therefore are the godly as firm and safe from utter falling away, as
Mount Siou from being removed, or an house on a rock from being
subverted.*
USE II.
OF TERROR.
Here follows an use of terror, and speaks to four sorts.

1. This text i thunder and lightning against apottate.Awake, you
drowsy professors! "There is no sin like apostasy: adulteries, manslaughter, theft, idolatries, &c., nothing to this. No IMPOSSIBLE written over them: they have been renewed to repentance." (I Cor. vi. 10,
11.)f Mary Magdalen's seven unclean spirits, and Manasseh's len or
more, not so bad as the unclean spirit going out, and a return with an
ogdoa malorum spirituum, as Ireneeus calls it, " with seven other spirits
more besides itself." Thou art in the high-way to perdition, to the sin
against the Holy Ghost. Sins and judgments meet together in this sin.
The cataracts of upper and nether springs, all " the windows of heaven,
and fountains of the great deep," (as in that great deluge, Gen. vii. 11,)
are "broken up" to drown thee in perdition; thy sins making way for
more judgments, and this judgment making way for more sins, till,
between* these two seas, thy soul (as that vessel, Acts zzvii. 41) is
eternally shipwrecked.
If thou art not altogether past feeling, crucifying the Son of God
afresh, and treading his blood and covenant under foot, I sound this
trumpet to warn thee, or to deliver my own soul: " Remember whence
thou art-fallen, and repent, and do thy first works." (Rev. ii. ft.) "Be
watchful, and strengthen what is ready to die." (Rev. iii. 2.) Haste,
" escape for thy life! look not behind thee!" as was said to Lot; (Gen.
* Gratia nee totaliter intermittitur, necfinaliter amittitur. Aetus omittitur, habitus nan
amittitur ; aotio pervertitur, fide no subvertitur ; concutitur, nan excutitur; dejtuit
fructus, latet succus ; jus ad regnum amittunt demeritorid, mm effectivi. PHIDKAUT.
Effectu justificationis suspenditur, at status justificati non ditsolvitur.SUFF. BKIT.
" Grace is neither totally intermitted, nor finally omitted or lost. The act is omitted, but
the habit is not amitted or lost The action is perverted, but faith is not subverted: it
suffers a concussion, but not an ercussion, or an utter casting away. The tree ceases to
produce fruit, but the latent sap remains. The right or title to the kingdom is lost through
the demerits of the sinner, but not in effect"PRIOEAUX. " The effect of justification
is suspended, but the state of the justified person is not dissolved.""SurraAGES or
THB BRITISH DIVINES at the Synod of DOHT."EDIT.
f Hie videmus quanta
tit apostasia afrooitas nihil ad earn homicidia, adulteria, furta, $e..PAKE in foe.
84
SERMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES ARE
ziz. 17;) or as Jonathan in another case, Away, "make speed, haste,

stay not I" (1 Sam. . 38.)
2. This speaks terror to professors fatten, or lying in scandalous sine.
You cannot *in at so easy a rate as others. You know your Master's
will, and do it not, therefore [ye] "shall be beaten with more stripes.'*
(Luke zii. 47.) You are as a city set on an hill. Your fault cannot be
hid, no more than an eclipse of the sun. When the moon or other stars
totally eclipse, no notice is taken of them. Yon make " the enemies of
religion to blaspheme," (2 Sam. zii. 14,) or deride godliness. "You
make the Lord's people to transgress." (1 Sam. ii. 24.) Your sins are
more infectious than others'. Your repentance had need be extraordinary, not only for pardon which you haply may obtain, but for the
scandal which others may take, [and] which you cannot possibly prevent.
3. Terror to suck as, after conviction and engagements under affliction
and distress, after some prayers, vows, and a begun or resolved reformation, return to former courses.As they, after what they promised in
their distress, returned when delivered, and started aside like a broken
bow. (Jer. xxxiv. 15, 16.) The new broom of affliction swept the house
clean for the present; but afterwards the unclean spirit returns, and this
washed sow is wallowing in the mire again.
4. [Terror to] such as lapse and relapse into the same sin again.As
Pharaoh, Jeroboam, and those antichristian brood which repented not.
(Rev. ix. 20, 21.) Notwithstanding all judgments, convictions, confessions, promises, [they] go from evil to worse, from affliction to sin;
from sin to duty, and from duty to sin; repent and sin, sin and repent;
(Jer. ix. 3;) and from repenting of sin in distress, go to repent of their
repentance when delivered. Pharaoh unsaith all he had said, and saith
his repentance backward. As the door turneth and returneth on the
hinges, is sometimes shut, by and by open again; so these [are] in no
constant posture. Their goodness [is] like a " morning dew," a little
devotion in a morning; for all companies till night comes, then a little
evening dew again. [They are] amphibia, that live in both elements.
Modb ecclesias, modb theatra replentes; "now you see them at a sermon, anon at a play-house;"* as Solomon's harlot, sacrificing in the
morning, prostituting herself to all filthiness at night; (Prov. vii. 14,
15;) or as Solomon's drunken beast, that hath had knocks and blows,
yet, being besotted with his drink, or company, saith, "They have
stricken me, and beaten me, but I felt it not; when I awake I shall seek
it again;" (Prov. xxiii. 35 ;) or as Isaiah's debauched watchmen, who,
having drunk sufficiently one day, say the/ will do as much to-morrow,
and more too; and so had their drinking matches and rantings from day
to day. (Isai. Ivi. 12.)
USE III. [OF DISCRIMINATION.]
The third USB is of discrimination, to discover who is clean and who

unclean in respect of falls and relapses; and " to put a difference between
the holy and profane," which is the proper work of a faithful prophet.
(Ezek. xxii. 26.) To some we are to open the door of hope; to some,
* St. Augustine.
INCONSISTENT WITH CRACK?
85
to shut it. Every sin "ie not a sin to death;" (1 John . 17;) every
disease not the plague; every nicer not a leprosy.
1. There are some who have fallen into fonl sins; and they think their
case desperate, because of the greatness of their sins. But their sin Is
not the sin against the Holy Ghost, because not committed after light,
taste, partaking of the Holy Ghost, &c., but in the days of their ignorance, as Paul once. Some fall foully after conversion, as Peter, but not
deliberately, maliciously; and both these may be the spots of children :
they see " the plague" in their heart, (I Kings viii. 38,) feel the smart.
These have foul scabs; but they go to Jordan and wash, go to " the
fountain opened for sin and uncleanness;" and then, "though their sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though red like crimson,

they shall be as white as wool." (Isai. i. 18.)
2. There be some relapses through human infirmity, which are truly
bewailed. This is not the sin against the Holy Ghost neither. Come
into the camp, I pronounce such clean: for, (1.) There is no raw flesh
of pride and presumption in them. (2.) All is turned white, by true
repentance; it is a scab, and bnt a scab. (3.) It is but skin-deep; the
heart was not tainted. (4.) It standeth at a stay. (Lev. xiii. 46.)
These four signs show it to be no plague of leprosy; such are not to be

shut up, or put out of the camp. And God, as he pardoneth iniquity,
transgression, and sin, so he promiseth "to heal" and pardon "their
backslidings." (Hosea xiv. 4 ; Jer. iii. 22.)
3. But there are others that make a trade of sin, " drink up iniquity
like water," that "add drunkenness to thirst," and fall and rise, and
rise and fall: they lapse and relapse, and slide, away as water. Shall I
gay such shall have peace ? No! What peace to such so long as their
sins remain? "The wrath of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke
against that man, and he shall blot out his name from under heaven."
(Dent. xxix. 19, 20.)
Call not this a scab; this is the plague of leprosy; this is more than
skin-deep; this doth not stand, at a stay; here is proud raw flesh; this
is an old sore, thou must out of the camp, thou art unclean. (Lev. xiii.
10, 11, 14, 15.) "God will wound the head of his enemies, and the
hairy scalp of him that goeth on still in his trespasses." (Psalm

Ixviii. 21.)
I shall, to conclude, give a few short directions, to prevent falls and
relapses, bnt cannot now enlarge upon them.
1. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. (Matt. zzvi.
41.)This is the old and great receipt, and daily experimented with
every ordinary saint; probatum est. Watch in prayer, watch after
watch when alone, watch when in company, especially against ill company and all occasions of sin.
2. Keep conscience tender, and shun the first motion and occasion
of tin."If thou find thyself given to appetite, put a knife to thy
throat," is the Wise Man's counsel; if to wine, "look not on the
glass;" if to wantonness, " come not near her corner." The consecrated
Nazarite must not only forbear the wine, but the grape; and not only
the juice, bnt the husk and kernel of it. (Num. vi. 4.)
86
BftRMON IV.
WHAT RELAPSES AR INCONSISTENT, &C.
3. Take heed of having slight thought* of sin.As to say, "As long

as it is no worse;" " It is the first time;" " It is bat now and then,
a great chance, when I meet with such company;" and many have such
foolish pleas, and so play at the mouth of the cockatrice's den till they
are stung to death.
4. [Take heed] of having light thoughts of God** mercy.'I hall
have peace, (Deut. xxix. 19,) I shall have mercy, when I do hut ask;
At whet time soever, will save me. We cannot oat-sin the mercy of
God. When sin abounds, grace snperabonnds," &c. The Lord saith,
he "will not spare" such, nor be merciful to them.
5. Take heed of reasoning from God's temporal forbearance, to eternal
forgiveness."Because sentence is not speedily executed against" an
evil-doer, his " heart is fully set in him to do evil. But though a sinner
do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged," &c., " yet it shall
not be well with the wicked" at last. (Bccles. via. 1113.)
6. Take heed of presuming of thy own strength:" I can, and I mean
to repent; I can when I will, and I will when time serves. I trust I
am not so bad, that God hath not given me over. Many have gone
further than I: why may I not repent at [my] last hour?"*
7. Take heed of a mock repentance:Saying, '* I cry God-mercy ! God
forgive me! I sin daily, and repent daily. When I have sworn or been
drunk, I am heartily sorry. Is not this repentance?" 1 answer, No!
Repentance is quite another thing. "The burnt child," we say,
" dreads the fire." Thou hast smarted for suretiship, and hast repented
of it. Thy friend comes again and desires thee to be bound with him
once again. Thou repliest: " I have paid dear for suretiship already.
have repented of my folly. I have resolved to come into bonds again
no more ; no, not for the best friend I have." Thou art importuned by
many arguments, but peremptorily refusest: " Urge me no more, I have
vowed and resolved against [it], and have made an oath, I would never
be taken in that fault again." Now I believe thee that thou hast truly
repented of suretiship: why dost thon not thus when thou art enticed
unto sin again ? why dost thou not say ?" I have smarted, confessed,
bewailed, been heartily sorry for my former folly. Now speak no more
of it, J have sworn, and will perform it, to keep God's commandments*
(Psalm cxix. 106.) Away from me, ye wicked: I must keep the commandments of my God." (Psalm cxix. 115.) This would be somewhat
like true repentance. But take heed of a mock repentance; lest, as
true repentance meets with a true pardon, thy mock repentance should
be answered with a mock pardon, as Tertullian excellently saith.
" There be some that say," saith he,f "their heart is good: they fear
God, grieve for sin, though yet they fall into sin :" they can salvafide et
metu peccare, fyc., sic et ipsi, salvd venia, in gehennam detntdentur, dum
salvo metu peccant: " They can live in sin, nevertheless,notwithstanding their faith and repentance; and God can damn them nevertheless,
notwithstanding his mercies, and promises, and pardoning grace."
* Qui promittit patnitenti veniam, non promittit peccanti pcmitentiam. " He who has
promised pardon to the penitent, has not promised repentance to the sinner."EDIT.
t De Pamitentia.
8RRMON V.
BOW MAT WB BB SO SPIRITUAL, &C.
87
True repentance, among other companion, is alway attended with these

three: "What CAREFULNESS, what INDIGNATION, what FBAR hath it
wrought in yon ?" (2 Cor. vii. 11.)
8. Consider, in re-iterated riseth high, add another figure to increase
thy account." Is the in of Feor too little for yon," (old sins in ignorance,) " but that you must this day again turn away anew ?" (Joshua
zxii. 17, 18.) The Lord keeps an account how often and how often
thon hast committed such and such a sin; at length [he] saith,
"For three transgressions, and for four, I will not turn away their
punishment." (Amos i. u. passim.) When Israel had seen God's works
forty years, and tempted him ten times, he sware they should not enter
into his rest. (Num. xiv. 22.) In the law, if an ox did gore a man, and
the master knew not of it, the ox should die, not the owner. " But if
the ox was wont to push with his horn," and the master was told of it,
ox and master were both to die. (Exod. xxi. 28, 29.)
Lastly. Though I will not say to thee who art a frequent relapsarian,
" It is impossible," as to the malicious relapser; yet I say, Remember,
that every time the bone is broken the more danger; and though thou
mayest possibly, after a second breaking, have it well set, yet thou
mayest at times, against weather, specially when in years, feel it to thy
dying day. Thy sins will lie down with thee in thy grave; and in sickness and trouble thou wilt "possess the sins of thy youth." (Job
xiii. 26.)
I conclude all, as St. Jude concludes his Epistle: " Now unto him
that is able to keep you from" all "falling" and relapses, "and to
present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding
joy; to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion
and power, both now and for ever. Amen."
SERMON V.
BY THE REV. JOHN GIBBON, B.D.
80 FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLBOE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW MAY WB BB SO SPIRITUAL, AS TO CHECK SIN IN THB FIRST

RISINGS OF IT?
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Gal. v. 16.
THB case of conscience to be discussed this morning, from these

words, is, How a Christian may be able to check sin in the first risings
of it.
" And without controversy great is this mystery of godliness," and, if
any other, of inestimable use and moment in the practice of Christianity.
88
SERMON V.
SOW MAY W8 BE SO SPIRITUAL,
A the title which Solomon inscribes on the frontispiece of that divine

poem of his, the Canticles, is, "*") , "the Song of Songs;"
and as Aristotle calls the hand, " the instrument of instruments," and
the mind, "the form of forms;" so may we with as just a reason style
this holy skill of arresting and intercepting sin in its earliest motions and
overtures, " the art of arts/' Could the chymists ever compass their
grand elixir, it were but a poor and cheap trifle in comparison of this
grand secret of the school of Christ. So that the case of conscience
before us, like Diana of the Ephesians, is great and illustrious amidst its
fellows.
My text presents us with it resolved in this excellent rule of sanctification: Walk in the Spirit," &c.
Wherein we have,
I. The principle and root of sin and evil,the flesh with its lusts.
II. The opposite principle and root of life and righteousness,the
Divine Spirit.
III. The terms and hounds of a Christian's conquest, how far he may
hope for victory: " Ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."
IV. The method and way of conquering: " Walk iu the Spirit." Of
each a word:
I. The principle and root of tin and evil, the flesh with it* Imte.-The
apostle meaneth (pardon the phrase) a spiritual flesh, not that of the
body, but the mind. The immortal souls of men, through their apostasy
from God, the blessed Source and Original of all goodness, are become
carnal. (Bom. viii. 7.) There is a principle of evil radicated in the very
nature, interwoven in the very frame, and births, and constitution of all
men; a bias that turns us off in large and wide aberrations from the
paths of life and happiness, but with notorious partiality seduceth us
into the ways of sin and death. This the Scripture calls " the old man,"
(Eph. iv. 22,) " the law of sin in our members," and " the body of
death," &c. (Rom. vii. 23, 24.)
The wiser Heathen felt, by the very dictate of reason, that human
nature was not either as it should he, or as they could have wished it.
What meaneth else that , ^-;, "that hanging and flagging
of the soul's wings," that drooping of her noblest faculties, and that
fatal nnwieldiness, and nntractableness of the will to virtue, which the
Platonists so much complain of?* and what meaneth that
> /,- , "that reluctancy to the

divine life, and that impetuous hurry and propension" wherewith they
felt themselves driven headlong towards folly and sensuality ?
This " flesh " in man, this corrupt and depraved nature, is perpetually
fly-blown with evil lustings. " This body of death," like a rotten carcass, is constantly breeding vermin, as a filthy quagmire, a noisome
Mephitis or Camarina, sends out stench and unsavouriness. This region
of the lesser world, like Africa in the greater, swarms with monsters. It
is " the valley of the shadow of death," " a habitation for dragons, and
a court for owls," where dwell " the cormorant and the bittern, the raven,
the screech-owl, and the satyr," if I may allude to that of the prophet,
* PLUTARCH in .
A TO CHECK SIN IN THE FIRST RISINGS Of IT ?
89
(Isai. xxxiw 1114.) The apostle seta down elegantly the whole pedigree and lineage of evil: " Then when last hath conceived, it bringeth
forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James i.
15.) Lust is the root of bitterness, fruitful in all the unfruitful works of
darkness; and these, like the apples of Sodom and clusters of Gomorrah,
if yon gather them, crumble into the dust and ashes of death. They are
fruits " nigh unto a curse, and whose end is to be burned." (Heb. vi. 8.)
That ie the first, the " old Adam," " the flesh with its lusts."
II. We have here the Second Adam, who is a quickening Spirit. (I Cor.
xv. 45.)There is in good and holy souls an immortal seed, a principle
\
'
1
of life and righteousness, an antidote to the former poison. " For the
law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath made us free from
the law of sin and death." (Rom. viii. 2.) Philo the Jew, or whoever
was the author of that noble tract in the Apocrypha, called the Wisdom
of Solomon, styles it, " the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and a
pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty." (Wisdom vii.
25, 26.) Every one that is in Christ is " a new creature," (2 Cor. v. 17,)
"bom again," (John iii. 36,) and "made partaker of the divine
nature." (2 Peter i. 4.) For it is the royalty of that King of aunts:
" Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. xxi. 5.) The Divine Spirit, that
great and heavenly Archeus, is busy in holy souls; that mighty principle
of life is counter-working the flesh and its lusts. So that now the
weapons of a Christian's "warfare are mighty through God for the
pulling down of strong-holds, and the captivating every imagination,"
yea, " bringing every thought into the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. x.
4,5.)
III. Here are the term and bound of the Spirit* conquests in thi
present life, at which a Christian* hopes and endeavours must take aim;
Not the extirpating but subduing, not the not having but the not fulfilling,
the lusts of the flesh. The flesh will be lusting, that accursed womb will
be conceiving, in the regenerate themselves. But here is the Christian's
privilege, that while he walks in the Spirit, those conceptions shall prove
abortive.
IV. The words entirely, and in sum, present us with the method and
way of conquering, with the art of circumventing-in in the first avenues
and approaches of it." Walk in the Spirit," &c. This is the ev peyot,
" the [one] great and Achillean stratagem" against the powers of darkness, the true and only course we are to take, if we would strangle the
brats of night and hell in their very birth, and crush the cockatrice's egg
whilst it is hatching, and before it excludes* the serpent.
DOCTRINE.
So that, in fine, the observation which resulteth, is this:
The best expedient in the world not to fulfil the lusts of the flesh, ie
to walk in the Spirit; which what it imports, I come now to show.
1. " Walk in the Spirit:" that is, in obedience to God's commandments
which are the oracles of the Spirit.That this is excellently preventive
* An expression, borrowed from the Latin classics, for hatching; in which sense it i
employed by many old English authors.EDIT.
90
SERMON T.
HOW MAY WE BE SO SPIRITUAL,
of fulfilling the motions to , appeareth [from] Psalm czix. 13:

"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the
Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies. They also do no
iniquity." Again, a little lower: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse
his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." (Verse 9.)
Aristotle, that great dictator in philosophy, despaired of achieving so
great an enterprise, as the rendering a young man capable of bis rftxst
, "his grave and severe lectures of morality;" for that age
is light and foolish, yet headstrong and untractable.* Now, take a young
man all in the heat and boiling of his blood, in the highest fermentation
of hie youthful lusts ; and, at all these disadvantages, let him enter that
great school of the Holy Spirit,the Divine scripture, and permit himself to the conduct of those blessed oracles; and he shall effectually be
convinced, by his own experience, of the incredible virtue, the vast and
mighty power, of God's word, in the success it hath upon him, and in
his daily progressions and advances in heavenly wisdom. Let me invite
you then this day in the prophet's words: " house of Jacob, come ye,
and let us walk in the light of the Lord." (Isai. ii. 5.) And what THAT
is, David tells us: " Thy words are a light to my feet, and a lamp to my
paths." (Psalm cxiz. 105.) And, " His judgments are as a light that
goeth forth.'* (Hosea vi. 5.) Order thy steps by his word, and thou
shalt not tread awry. Let the law of thy God be in thine heart; and
sin, which is the transgression of the law, shall not come nigh thee.
Walk in this broad day-light of the Sun of righteousness shining in the
scriptures, and thou shalt have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness. This was the practice, and experience too, of the " man after
God's own heart:" "I have hid thy word in my heart, that X might
not sin against thee." (Psalm cxix. 11.) It is good writing after the
copy of so great a Master: " Go thon and do likewise."
2. " Walk in the Spirit:" that is, <w becometh those in whom God1
Spirit dwells.As if the apostle had said, " The part which ye are now to
act, 0 ye Christian Galatians, it is that of new creatures: see that ye
keep the decorum. Demean yourselves tike the children of God who are
led of the Spirit of God. (Bom. viii. 14.) Be true to your part, fill it
up, adorn it; and then, sure enough, ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the
flesh. For that were to act the part just contrary to what you sustain .)
as he that is to represent upon the stage some generous and heroic
person, cannot do the least base and sordid thing but he breaks his
part, and digresseth into the garb and posture of a vile and abject
person. Whilst he is true to his part, he cannot possibly do any thing
that is absurd and misbeseeming."
Some of the Nethinim stood continually porters at the door of the
* Cereus in vitiumflecti, monitoribus taper, $c.HORATII Ars Poet. 163.
" The youth, whose will no forward tutor bounds,
Joys in the sunny fields, his horse and hounds;
Yielding like wax, th' impressive folly bears,
Rough to reproof, and slow to future cares;
Profuse and vain, with every passion warm'd,
And swift to leave what late his fancy charm'd."FRANCIS'S Translation.
t ' eis yivos.
AM TO CHECK SIN IN THX FIRST RISINGS OF IT?
91
temple, to keep oat whatsoever was unclean; and hereunto the apostle
palpably alludeth: " Know ye not that ye are the temples of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? Now if any man defile the temple
of God, him will God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are." (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.) So then that which the rale amounts
to, by this interpretation, is, "Walk in the Spirit;" that is, " Walk as
becomes the temples of the Holy Ghost, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts
of the flesh."*
3. "Walk in the Spirit:" that is, Fulfil the eouneeh and advices of
the Spirit, and you thall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.Every renewed
soul is the scene and stage, wherein the two mightiest contraries in the
world, the Spirit and the flesh, that is, light and darkness, life and
death, heaven and hell, good and evil, Michael and his angels, and the
dragon with his, are perpetually combating hand to hand. And well it
U for a Christian that the Holy Spirit is lusting in him against the flesh.
Ayecdi) * tpn . [" This is a contest which is beneficial to

mortals."] God takes thy part, Christian; the Spirit of the Lord of
hosts is with thee, if thou dost not sin and grieve him away. Follow
but thy Leader; be prompt and ready to start at the Divine signal;
when the Holy Ghost displays his ensigns, then ftrr' /3 0foio,f
march presently forth under those mighty and victorious banners,
and thou shalt become invincible. When a Christian goeth out thus to
warfare, following the Almighty conduct of bis God, he must needs
proceed conquering, and to conquer.^ " My soul followeth hard after
thee," saith David: "thy right hand upholds me." (Psalm Ixiii. 8.)
The original is, -pin -ffiD3 rrpm " My soul cleaves after thee." As if
he had said, " Go, lead on, my God! Behold, I follow as near, as close,
as I can; e vettigio , ' I would not leave any distance, but pursue thy
footsteps, step by step,' leaning upon thine everlasting arms, that are
underneath me, and following thy manuduction." Lot had almost
* That a good man's eoul is a temple which God inhabits, the philosophers acknowledge;
and that the honour and worship rendered to him in a pure and holy mind, is incomparably more worthy and acceptable, than all the costliest sacrifices and offerings in temples
made with hands, how magnificent soever.
yap oiS* (
* , 6 trooffyoityMVMS itpttov rpoowyw, dciov TCKTOIVWV

YVXW *** **0* * re &* Qtrro* Vapturtuvafuv vow.
Vuxflj * outtiortpov tn 9ms << its , >
Ewrcfanv 9t HIKBOCLIS Comment, in Awea

Pythagoreorum Carmina, p. 18. "For he alone knows how to render due honour, who
does not confound the relative worthiness of those that ought to be honoured; who, in
preference to all other acts, offers up himself as a sacrifice, fashions and moulds his own
soul into the Divine image, and prepares and furnishes his mind as a temple for the
reception of Divine light. The Deity possesses no spot on earth which is more the object
of his choice for a residence, than a pure human spirit. In accordance with these sentiments, the Pythian oracle declares:
As much as in Olympus bright,
With holy men is my delight'"EDIT.
f * The footsteps of the Deity he treads."POPE'S Translation of the Odyssey, ii.
453.
9* &t\t i 6 0cos & art , rts ,
- , , & rwpeypr, &C..
ARKIAN in Epictetwn, lib. iL cap. 17 "Simply wish and wiU for nothing but for
that which God wills; and any one shall as soon hinder or compel God himself as thee,
when thou hast such a mighty Leader, in concert with whom thou both wiliest and
doest," &c.EDIT.
92
SERMON V.
HOW MAY WE BE 8O SPIRITUAL,
perished in Sodom, for lingering when his God hastened him away. (Gen.
xix. 16.) But Samson (till then invincible) awoke too late from the
bosom of his Delilah, when the Philistines had shaved his seven locks.
And he thought to go out and shake off their cords wherewith they
bound him, "as at other times:" but "the Lord was departed from
him:" and they took him and put out both his eyes. (Judges xvi. 20,
21.) A Christian is more than a man when he acts in concurrence with
his God. "The Lord is my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
(Psalm xxvii. 1.) But if he resists the Holy Ghost, he doth not only
grieve Him, but will (if he go on resisting) quench Him; and then he is
all alone, and becomes heir to the curse of Reuben: he who was, a while
since, " the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power," is now
weak "as water, and cannot excel." (Gen. xlix. 3, 4.)
The proverb tells us, ? ev xatpm , " There is a great deal
of time in a little opportunity." It is good striking while the iron is
hot, and launching-out while wind and tide serve. Open all thy sails to
every breath and gale of God's good Spirit. Welcome every suggestion,
reverence every dictate, cherish every illapse of this blessed Monitor.
Let every inspiration find thee as the seal doth the wax, or the spark the
tinder; and then, as the spouse tells her beloved, "or ever thou art
aware, thy soul" will make thee "as the chariot of Ammi-nadib."*
Step into the pool when the Angel stirs the water. (John v. 4.) Keep
touch with the motions of the Spirit, and all is well.
But if these three rules are too general and remote, I shall now lay
down some more particular and exact directions for checking the beginnings of sin: and these are of two sorts; (as physicians have their prophylactics, and their therapeutics;) some for the prevention of the fit and
paroxysm; others for the cure, and removal, when the symptoms of it
are npon thee.
RULE I.
Before the paroxysm cometh, prepare and antidote thy foul against
these lust of the flesh, by observing these advices:
The first is that notable counsel of Eliphaz to Job: " Acquaint now
thyself with God, and be at peace." (Job xxii. 21.) Get thy heart fixed
where thy treasure is. Have thy "conversation in heaven," and thy
" fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Flee to
thy God to hide thee. " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the
Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Surely he
shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome
pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings
sbalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler." (Psalm xci.
1, 3, 4.) Arise with thine arisen Lord, and "seek the things that are
above." Set thine affections there, "where Christ sits at the right
hand of God." If the soul is not where it animates, but where it loves,
awaken, thine, and kindle it into holy passionate ecstasies of love, that
* 3-1} SQV that is, a free and willing people."
AS TO CHKCK BIN IK THK FIRST RI8INOS OF IT?
93
thou mayest live in heaven all day long, and (which ie the privilege of
"the upright*') "dwell in the presence of that God" whom thy soul
delighteth in. (Psalm cxl. 13.) The tempter cannot reach thee there.
Be much in converse with God, and the devil will have little convene
with thee; or if he have, it will be to little purpose. How was the
majesty of king Ahasuerus incensed at that affront of Hainan, when he
threw himself upon queen Esther's bed! " What I will he force the
queen in our presence ? " (Esther vii. 8.) Keep but in the presence of
thy Lord, thy King, thy Husband; and the ravisher will not offer to
force thee there; or, if he do, it will be but in vain. How secure is
that soul that lives under the deep, and warm, and constant sense of
God's being its " all in all I" What a munition of rocks is this against
all assaults and incursions of the tempter! They are our tame and
common poultry whose wings sweep the ground as they fly, and raise a
dust: but the generous eagle soon mounts above this smoky lower
region of the air, till she makes the clouds a pillow for her head. Put
on, Christian, thy eagles' wings, (which are the same with those doves*
wings which David prays for,) " and flee away, that thou mayest be at
rest." (Psalm Iv. 6.) "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles," &c. (Isai. xl. 31.)
When the soul is once but upon the wing heaven-ward, how easily
then doth it soar away above this region of smoke and dust, above this
atmosphere of carnality and fleshly lustings, into the pure and free
ethereal air, the blessed serenity and rest of God's life and kingdom,
"which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost!" (Bom.
xiv. 17.) It is cold iron that shows its rusty scales; they disappear
when it is red hot. Get but thine heart on fire heaven-ward, be but
ascending thither Elijah-like in a flaming chariot of holy longings and
pantings after God; and the lustings of the flesh shall no more appear
to deform thy beauty, than the rust of iron appears, when the metal is
candent, that is, all over of a light and glowing ardour. The rule then
is, Be sick of love to thy dear Master and Lord; and thou shalt not be
sick of sin. Stir up spiritual and holy lustings in thy soul after the
love and favour, the grace and image, of thy God; and thou shalt not
fulfil the lustings of the flesh.
RULE II.
Study thoroughly the unchangeable nature*, the eternal law and

difference, of moral good and evil.To open this: There are some
thing of a middle and indifferent nature, neither good nor evil in themselves. But if God commands or forbids any of these, they are then
good or evil indeed; but only because or whilst He doth so. The ceremonial law of the Old Testament stood in these things, and is now
abolished by the same Divine authority which enacted it. And it is now
the glory of Christian religion, that (excepting the two sacraments, and a
very few other positive institutions for great and weighty causes reserved)
the evangelical law of the New Testament consists of such precept as
carry their own credential letters, and are built upon moral grounds of
everlasting equity and righteousness. Wherefore the Romanist deserve
94
SERMON V.
HOW MAT WE BE SO SPIRITUAL
very ill of Christian religion; nor are the Lutheran churches to be

excused, who, of their own heads, impose so many, indifferent things now
in the service of God under the gospel, and that for no other reason, but
because they will; consequently rendering that yoke a hard one which
Christ left ay, and that burden a heavy one, which he would have
light.
But, now, moral good and evil are not only such because God commands the one, and forbids the other, but because the things themselves
are so, essentially and unalterably. As mathematical truths and proportions are not such only because God would have them o, but because
the nature of the things cannot be otherwise; almighty power itself
(reverently be it spoken!) cannot make two parallel lines or surfaces
meet, though extended infinitely; or the three angles of any straightlined triangle amount to any less or more than two right angles, in
geometry; or, in arithmetic, alter the proportions between two and four,
to any other than that of double and half, or between three and nine
than that of a root and square ; or (to name no more) is it possible that
a seventh in music should ever become a concord, or a unison (fifth or
eighth) a discord: for these things are in their very nature fixed, and
unchangeable; they must be what they are, or not be at all. Thus
there is an eternal reason why that which is good should be so, and
commanded; and why that which is evil should be so, and forbidden,
which depends not so much on God's will, as on his nature. For if God
could will that good should be evil and evil good, he could deny himself,
and change his own unchangeable Divinity; which is impossible; and
therefore I look upon that opinion of a modern Dutch author * (though I
would be so charitable as to believe he knew not, and therefore meant
not, what he said) as overthrowing all religion : the thing is this,That
God may, if he please, out of the vast sovereignty of his will, command
all that wickedness which he hath forbidden, and make it our duty;
also forbid all that holiness which he hath commanded, and make it
become sin to us.
For my part, I would choose rather to be an atheist, than to believe
there is such a God as this in the world. But, I am sure, " the Holy
One of Israel*' cannot do so, not through my defect, but through infinite
plenitude and redundance, of all perfection. For instance: There is an
eternal fitness and comeliness that a reasonable creature should love, and
honour, and obey its Creator; and, contrarily, an eternal horridness and
indecency, that an immortal soul should forget, contemn, and affront the
Father of spirits. Now to affirm that God can dispense with the former,
nay, [that He can] make our fear of him, or delight in him, to be a sin,
and punish it with everlasting torments; and to affirm, that God can
wink at or allow the latter, much less command atheism, blasphemy,
pride, unthankfulness, &c., or make hypocrisy, covetonsness, revenge,
sensuality, to become duties and graces, and reward them with everlasting happiness;this were to utter the most hellish blasphemy, and the
most impossible contradictions in the world. The heathen Plato, in
those divine discourses of his (hie Eutyphro and Theeetetus) and other* Ziglovius
A8 TO CHECK SIN IN THK FIRST RISINGS OF IT
95
where, may well rebuke the madness of each Christians as this bold and
vain speculator. The earn of this rale then is : Deeply poeeees and dye
thy soul all over with the representation of that everlasting beauty and
amiableness that are in holiness, and of that horror, and ugliness, and
deformity that eternally dwell on the forehead of all iniquity. Be
under the awe and majesty of such clear convictions all day long, and
" thou shalt not fulfil the lusts of the flesh/1 For the mind of man is
wont to conceive before its own apprehensions and ideas of good and
evil, as Jacob's sheep did before the rods in the gutter. If thy notions
of good and evil be right and clear, thy lustings and desires will be from
evil towards good, all the conceptions of thy soul and their births will be
fair and unspotted. But if thy apprehensions be speckled, confused, and
ring-straked, (like his rods,) the conceptions of thy mind, thy lustings,
will be so too ; so great a truth is that, ; ayvoei, that dark
ignorance and folly lie at the bottom, as the root and foundation of all
wickedness ; " every immoral man is a fool ;" even when he commits a
known sin,* yet then he may be said not to know what he doeth. (Luke
xziii. 34.) All the reason in the world takes the part of holiness ; aud
sin hath not one jot of true reason to plead, or allege in its own behalf.
HULK III.
Understand thyself i be no stranger to thy own breast; know the

frame, and temper, and constitution of thy mind. " The wise man's
eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness." (Eccles.
ii. 14.) It is a true and sober maxim of the Platoniet, E<p* 6<rov (
ayvoei;, , /tt0tivr00ti, " As far as a man is ignorant of himself, so far
forth he is to reckon himself guilty of madness and distraction." f The
satirist complains of this :
Ut nemo in MM tentat detcendere, neme.$
Dare to unlock thy bosom, to ransack every corner of thy heart ; let thy
spirit accomplish a diligent search. Feel the pulse of thy soul ; visit it
* notfatery/uanMr tv ry mri rrwrew, fun beuw cvfaipwcorarav, row it afcov
' OJMHTCI OVTMS , TC *
rif * rat aSucout irpa(eis, * 8c </( 9
Simp' fararcy &wv & .
Ear 8" pep oVi, or
nj ftciwnrros, r*\tvn&tuirtu aorma tittans > i rttv ?

rowos ov de(Toi, &c.PLATO in Theateto. " In the present life two classes of
example present themselves to our view ; the one being of a truly Divine and most felicitous character, the other without any reference to God, and consequently most wretched
and miserable. Those who compose the latter, not observing the existence of this broad
difference, are imperceptibly assimilating themselves, by their wicked conduct and extreme
folly, to their own unhappy class ; pursuing an opposite course to the virtuous and happy.
The wicked indeed suffer the penalty of their unrighteousness while they 'lead a life
which is in conformity with that to which they are assimilated. If, however, we remark,
that unless they desist from the practice of their wickedness, that place which is
unsullied, and perfectly free from the society of the wicked, will not be their receptacle
when they depart out of this life ; but then their state of existence will for ever be in
accordance with themselves, wicked men constantly herding with their flagitious companions ;if we talk in this style to these desperate and artful men, our words will
insure from them only that degree of attention which they usually give to the ravings of
idiots."EDIT.
f DEMOPHILUS in IVwjuots.
$ PEESIUS, eat. iv. 23. " Into themselves how few, alas ! descend,
And act, at home, the free, impartial friend ! "
BBJEWSTEB'S Translation, altered.
98
SERMON V.
BOW MAY WE BE SO SPIRITUAL,

RULE VII.
Be well-skilled in the eteneh* of temptation.I mean, in unmasking

the sophistry and mystery of iniquity, in defeating the wiles and stratagems of the tempter, and in detecting and frustrating the cheats and
finesses of the flesh with its deceitful lusts. (Eph. iv. 22; 2 Cor. U. 11.)
No small part of spiritual wisdom lies in the blessed art of discovering
and refuting sin's fallacies and impostures. If ever thou wouldest prove
famous and victorious, and worthy [of] honour and reverence in thy
spiritual warfare, be well-seen in the skill of fencing, know all thy ward
for every attack. Provide thyself with answers and retorts beforehand,
against the subtle insinuations and delusions of thine enemy. For example : If Satan tells thee, as he often will, that the sin is pleasant,* ask
whether the gripings of conscience be so too, whether it be such a pleasant
thing to be in hell, to be under the wrath of an Almighty Judge f If he
tells thee, "Nobody sees; thou mayest commit it safely;" ask whether
he can put out God's all-seeing eye, whether he can find a place empty
of the Divine presence for thee to sin in, or whether he can blot out the
items out of the book of God's remembrance. If he tells thee, " It is a
little one;" ask whether the majesty of the great Jehovah be a little one,
whether there be a little hell or no. If he talks of profits and earthly
advantages that will accrue, ask what account it will turn to at the last
day, and what profit there is if one should gain the whole world and lose
his own soul, or what one should give in exchange for his soul! (Matt,
xvi. 26.) When sin, like Jael, invites thee into her tent, with the lure
and decoy of a lordly treatment, think of the nail and hammer
which fastened Sisera dead to the ground. (Judges iv. 18, 21; v. 25,
26.) Be not caught with chaff; lay by thee such memoirs, such
answers and repartees, as these, wherewith thou mayest reply upon the
tempter: That the God of truth hath other manner of pleasures, profits,
honours, to court thy love and reward thy service with, than the father of
lies; namely, true and real, solid and eternal ones. What are " the pleasures that are in sin for a season," to be compared with " the rivers of
God's pleasure, that are for evermore at his right hand?" And what is
a little wealth, " that thieves can steal," a despicable heap of riches,
(which, like a flock of birds alighting a little while in thy yard, wiU
*' take wing presently and fly away,") to be named with " the unsearchable riches of Christ," or that " inheritance of the saints in light ?" Or
what is the painted bubble, the fading though beauteou rainbow, of
earthly honour and grandeur, to " a weight of glory," to an " incorruptible crown of righteousness that fadeth not away," to "a kingdom
which it is the Father's good pleasure to reserve" in the highest heavens
for every sheep and every lamb of his "little flock?" And (to name
these considerations by duster) remember, that the greatest wisdom is to
do (not what in some poor few regards is, but) what is absolutely lovely
and desirable; that what is beat of all is best for thee to lore, and
* T ft roAv*Aarcay vrtuv c8ifo|c /; Hero. VJ&.
M
Who first essay'd thy youthful mind to teach
These wily art of smooth deceptive speech ?"EDIT.
AS TO CHECK SIM IN THB 8 RISING OF IT?
99
mind, and prosecute ;* that a good conscience is a continual feast; that

God alone is enough, and without Mm nothing [is enough] for thy happiness ; that thy soul is worthier thy care than thy carcass, and the life to
come than this; that eternity is more valuable than time; that not the
opinions of men lulled asleep in voluptuousness and sensuality, hut God's
estimate, but the sentiments of the holiest, best, and wisest men*or, if
you needs will, of the worst and vilest* when conscience is awakened,
when they come to lie a-dying, and when they shall stand before God at
the hut day,are to be preferred as the wisest; that everlasting happiness cannot be bought too dear, but repentance and shame may easily;
that the hardest doings or sufferings for Christ are infinitely easier than
everlasting misery; that heaven and glory will more than recompense all
thy self-denials and mortifications, all thy watchings, fastings, &c.; and,
in the mean time, the very hope of it, beside " the peace of God which
passeth all understanding/' and his love and grace, and the comforts of
bis Spirit, will certainly sweeten all the tediousness of thy way to heaven,
with inexpressible redundance of satisfaction, yea, sometimes with joy
unutterable and full of glory i in sum, that God is a good master, and his
service perfect freedom; for beside the glorious recompence to come, thy
work, Christian, is even now its own reward. If thou believest strongly
such aphorisms as these,and he is madder than any in Bedlam that
doth not believe them,it will be no hard matter, by God's blessing and
assistance, in their strength to "put to flight the armies of the aliens,"
at least to shield thyself against the volleys of fiery darts, which at any
time the tempter shall pour upon thee.
RULE VIII.
Withdraw thyself, i/poetidle, from the occasion of tin.It is good

standing out of harm's way i do not gaze upon temptations, but pray,
with David, " Lord* turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity." (Psalm
czix. 37.) If thon perceivest " thy feet are almost gone, thy steps had
well-nigh slipped," (Psalm Izziii. 2,) it is surely high time for thee, if thou
canst, to run away; nor will it be reckoned thy cowardice, but thy
valour, in the day of thine account, thus to re treat from the enemy. It
is a very wise man's counsel, concerning the haunts and converses of the
profane: " Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way
of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it; turn from it, and pass away."
(Prov. iv. 14, 15.) Again, concerning the strange woman: "Remove
thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house." (Prov.
v. 8.) And again, concerning occasions of intemperance: " Be not among
wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. Look not thou upon the
wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth
itself aright;" (Prov. xxiii. 20, 31;) that is, when it sparkles and vapours
in the glass. When it laughs in thy face, and invites thy lip, then shut
thy eyes, lest sin steal in upon thee. Do not imitate the silly lark, which,
* Mbffois * wopcnrp, * tpytf,
cnrciy 6 - fk\rtpov , An. Carm. 2, 8&
" To word or actions stain'd with horrid rice,

Disgraceful to thyself, let none entice,"EDIT.
100
SERMON V.
by the pleasing contemplation of the little piece of glass, that glitters in

the sun, while the fowler twirls it about, is enticed nearer and nearer,
forgetting or overseeing the net, which ere long overwhelms it. Vouchsafe not to admit the tempter to a parle: the poets fable Ulysses to have
stopped his ears at the enchanting voices of the Syrens. Be thou as the
deaf adder to that great charmer: the best entertainment thou canst give
him, is, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"
RULE IX.
Bind thyself beforehand, with the severest of thy resolutions, not to

trust thy own judgment, when the temptation begins to get within thee.
" A man in passion is not himself." Periit judicium cum res transiit in
affectus.
One distempered with the morbus arcuatus, " the jaundice,"
black or yellow, is apt to impute the colour his eye is vitiated with to
every object. Who would trust such a judge of colours? or the palate of
one in a fever, to distinguish of tastes ? It is a good rule, under the
disorder of temptation, Msftvijiro * "Never credit thy own
apprehensions" at such a time. If thou takeet thyself yielding in the
least, start back with abhorrence, and chide thy rashness, appealing from
thy present distracted, to thy ancient and wiser, self; from thyself asleep
and disordered, to thyself awake and sober at other times. Jonah's
judgment was weak and childish, though a prophet, when he waa under
that temptation of impatient anger: "I do well to be angry;" (Jonah
iv. 9;) a saucy and bold answer to his God! He should not have trusted
his present sentiments; for he was not himself. As one that bespeaks an
awakening, will, over-night, desire his friend not to give ear to him:
" Though," saith he, " I plead earnestly to sleep a little longer, yet do
not regard that; for I tell you of it before on purpose; and I shall
thank you, when once I am up, for not letting me have my will." Thus
tell thyself aforehand, that though, under a drowsiness and slumber of
spirit, thou art ready to plead for the flesh, and to feel some inclinations
to fulfil its lusts, and art very loath to let them go unsatisfied; yet, if
thou art but resolute not to comply with thy own foolish and unreasonable desires, thou wilt heartily thank thyself; I mean, [thou wilt] be
entirely glad, when thy eyes are open, that thou hast overcome thyself,
and that wisdom and reason and conscience have got the day. Resolve
to remember this, when temptation comes the next time to assault thee,
and play the man.

Having laid down these directions, by way of prevention against the
time of conflict, to prepare the soul aforehand, that in the assault it may
not be vanquished, I come now to the Christian's behaviour in the fit and
paroxysm itself, when the lusts of the flesh are stirring. And the great
rule to be observed here, is this:
As soon as ever thou perceivest thine affections and lusts begin to grow
inordinate, and thy inferior appetites to rebel, take thyself to task forthwith, and resist them with all thy might.Do not stay a moment; delay
is unutterably dangerous. Who but a madman, that sees the stable or
barn hard by his dwelling-house just beginning to catch fire, would stand
* "Recollect to be mistrustful of thyself."EDIT.
AS TO CHECK SIN IN THE FIRST RISINGS OP IT ?
101
till, and say, " Let it alone a little, I would tee what will come of
it?"Two or three minutes' indulgence to the flame will embolden it,
without expecting his leave or permission any longer, to devour, and rage,
and consume, and carry all before it, in despite of his mightiest resistances ; when a little at first might have saved that vast damage which
his folly and loitering have occasioned. How contemptible were those
fires at first, that in few hours have triumphed over stately palaces, and
turned sometimes vast cities into heaps of dust and ashes ! How small
an infirmity and distemper, neglected, hath ushered in the most fatal
sickness! And how often hath a trifling bruise or strain been preface to
a gangrene; and the prick of a pin or thorn, not looked after time
enough, enforced the cutting off a leg or arm, nay, [hath] proved mortal
and uncnrable!
Advantages to good, like arithmetical progressions, rise
slowly, in fair and even intervals; but advantages to ill, like geometrical,
grow up presently from little to vast excesses:
Facilit descensus Averni t
Sed revouare yradum, supertuoue evadere ad aurat,
Hie labor, $c.VIEGILII jEneit, vL 126, 8, 9.*
Motion to ill is downwards, and, like the descent of heavy bodies,

collects a new impetus, and moveth every step with a swiftness perpetually increasing,f and, if not stopped early, soon irresistible. Mischief
springs apace; grows tall, and large, and adult suddenly, as Jonah's
gourd did in a night. Our passage in sin is with wind and tide increasing ; but in holiness, with both against us. To seek the things above is
a supernatural motion, and therefore difficult; but the contrary is natural,
and therefore easy: -ev (, /3 ov,J as
the philosopher well determines. Evil is now akin to us since our

degeneracy, and hath vast advantages on its side, if once it gets an
allowed harbour and entertainment in our breast.
The inquiry then before us is, By what methods a Christian ought to
address himself to battle in this spiritual warfare; how he may so bid
defiance to his enemies, as to daunt and vanquish them. Let these

RULES therefore be observed for resisting and quelling thy lusts and
inordinate affections in their first sallies, and in the commencement of
the insurrection.
RULE I.
Awe them with the authority of thy reason and understanding.It is

infinitely unbeseeming a man, that his lower appetites should grow
mutinous and nntractable, that * dijpicofc;,
* * Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade;
And hell's black gates for ever stand display'd.
But't is a long unconquerable pain,
To climb to these ethereal realms again."PITT'S Translation,

f Galileo, and, after him, Oassendus and others, have demonstrated, that heavy bodies,
in their descent, do in equal times transmit unequal spaces, continually increasing
according to the progression of odd numbers. For instance: If in one pulse a bullet rail
perpendicularly one inch ; in the next it will three inches; in the third, five; in the
fourth, seven, &c., till the swiftness grow immense and unutterable.
$ " We feel
pleasure in that which is agreeable to nature; but the exertion of force against her is
harassing and painful."EDIT.
102
SERMON T.
HOW MAY WB BK SO SPIRITUAL,
" the inferior and brutish faculties of oar tools/* should rebel against
the TO iiyeftowxov, " that sovereign faculty of reason." The Scythians
are reported, when their slaves took arms, to have dashed the sneaking
rebels presently out of countenance by showing their whips, that wellknown weapon. How soon doth the presence of a grave magistrate
allay a popular tumult, if he comes in soon enough, in the beginning of
the riot 1
Itte regit dictis animos, et pectora mukei.VIEGILII Mnew, i. 157.*
God hath made reason the magistrate of the little world; he hath
given it a commission to keep the peace in our souls. And so far as our
minds are illustrated and governed by right reason, so far do they
partake of the image of God; of whose glorious mind one of the best
and clearest conceptions we can have is, that it t* infinite and eternal
reason. Do thy passions begin to rise in arms ? Do they grow die
ordered and unruly? Let thy reason come out to them, and ask
whether they know their master; and let thy soul blush, with infinite
scorn, that ever these base slaves should usurp the throne of their
rightful lord, and tinman thee, by deposing reason, which is all thou
hast to show that thou art not a beast! What an extreme silly thing is
a man in passion! Nothing can be more ridiculous and contemptible.
Out of love and pity to thyself, 0 man, do not affront and disgrace thine
immortal soul any more, by suffering any malapert and saucy passion to
outrage and assassinate thy reason. That was a generous rule of
Pythagoras: ^* " Let a man use
great reverence and manners to himself." Be ashamed, friend, to do any
vile or dishonest action before thyself. Though nobody be conscious,
yet thy soul is ; and thou canst not run away from that. What good
will it do thee to contradict the dictates of thine own mind ? Is it
possible for thee to be at peace, when thou fallest out with thyself? Thou
justifies! all the injuries in the world that others do thee; for thou doest
thyself daily injuries ten millions of times greater than the greatest others
can do to thee. Whoever thou art that despisest thy own reason, and
permittest every silly lust to abuse thee, by scorning that thou art a false
traitor to thy own soul. There are but a very few men that are in their
wits. The far greatest part of mankind, in the greatest matters, in the
highest concernments of a man, are beside themselves: for a man's own
self must be a reasonable creature; and therefore, not to govern one's
own mind and affections by reason, is to be mad and distracted. If he
that looks not to his family is worse than an infidel, what then is he that
looks not to his mind ? What " confused chaos" are most men's minds!
Rudie indigestaque mole ? \ A man makes a fool of himself as oft as be
prefers his passion before his reason. The philosopher gives us the sum
of this rule excellently: }" tsripi ft-ijSev '
<' Accustom thyself to act every where like a reasonable creature."
* " AD stand attentive, while the sage controls
Their wrath, and calms the tumult of their souls."PITT'S Translation,
f PYTHAGORAS, in Carminibvs, 12,
Ovum Metam. i. 7.
PYTHAQOR./E Carmina, 14.
CHECK BIN IN THB FIRST RISINGS OF IT?
103
BULB II.
If iky distempered affection and hut flight the authority of thy

reason, a thou art a man; bid thy conscience do it office, as thou art a
Christian.Try to awe them with God's written word: Thus our Saviour
thrice repulsed the tempter, by producing scripture to confront him : " It
is written/' &c. (Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10.) Ask thy heart if it knows that
hand; whether it daree rebel against the express commands, statutes,
and ordinances of the living God. Bring out of the register of conscience
the laws of Him that made thee; oppose some clear text of holy writ,
that comes into thy mind, against that very lust that is now rising. For
instance: If it be carnal fear, Isai. li. 12; if love of the world, 1 John
ii. 15; if revenge, Bom. xii. 19; if impatience under affliction, James
i. 12; if diffidence in God's promises, Num. xxiii. 19; if immoderate
anger, Eph. iv. 26; if pride and arrogance, and self-assuming, Matt. v.
3; xL 29, &c. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of such
artillery, whose conscience is rich in these memoirs! Store thy mind
with this sacred treasure, that, as a " scribe instructed for the kingdom
of heaven," thou mayest upon all occasions "bring forth out of thy
treasure things new and old." (Matt. xiii. 52.) Hold such scriptures as
are point-blank contrary to the temptation, before thy conscience; if it
would turn away, compel it to look upon them; and think, " I am God's
creature, I must obey him." Did ever any rebel against him and prosper? Eine ego ut adverser?* "Is it wisely done of me to resist my
Maker ?" to try which is strongest, a poor worm, or the Almighty
God? And if the love of God's commands will not restrain thee, let
the terrors, the thunders and lightnings of his threats persuade thee;
which are all levelled against wilful sinners. And it is not safe standing,
surely, in the very cannon's mouth. Peruse those two scriptures, and
tremble to venture on any known breach of the law of thy God, Deuteronomy xxviii. 58, and Isaiah xlv. 9.
RULE III.
If all this effect nothing, then draw the curtain, take off" the tail from
before thy heart, and let it behold the God that searcheth it. (Jer. xvii.
10; Heb. iv. 13.)Show it the majesty of the Lord; see how that is
described, Isai. vi. 13. Ask thy soul whether it sees the living God,
that seeth it; whether it is aware whose eye looks on; (Gen. xvi. 13,
14;) whether it hath no respect for God himself, who stands by, and
whose pure and glorious eyes pierce through and through thee ! (Hab. i.
13.) Tell thy heart again and again, that God will not be mocked; that
he is " a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed;" (1 Sam.
ii. 3 ;) that he is " a jealous God " too, " and will by no means clear the
guilty." (Exod. xxxiv. 7.) Bid it consider well and look to itself; for
God will bring to light every hidden thing of dishonesty; he that now
sees, will judge it. Speak to thy unruly lusts as the town-clerk of
Ephesue wisely did to the mutinous citizens: " Sirs, we are in danger to
be called in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby
we may give an account of this tumult." (Acts xix. 40.)

* TERENCE.
104
SERMON V.
HOW MAT WE BE BO SPIRITUAL,
RULE IV.
If these great real arguments be slighted, try whether an argument ad

hominen, drawn from tense, witt prevail.-Awe thy lusts then with the
bitterness of thine own experience. Consider how often thou hast rued
their disorders; what dismal consequences have followed upon their
transports, and how dearly thou hast paid heretofore for thy connivance
at them. Bethink thyself on such a fashion as this " The other day I
was angry, and behaved myself uncomely, put the whole company or
family out of order, disobliged such a dear and faithful friend, by my
rashness and folly, in uttering hasty words before weighed them. 0
how did I repent me afterwards! How ashamed, and abashed, and

confounded was I, when I came to myself! So at another time thus
and thus I miscarried myself; and these are the fruits and cursed effects
of my yielding to the beginnings of sin : and shall I go now and repeat
my madness ? Had I not smart enough for my folly before, but must I
needs play the fool and the beast again?" Ask thyself what thou
ailest, to forget all the sighs and groans and bitter tears that thy lust
hath already cost thee; and yet would the impudent sin be committed
once more ? Hcf. ! ;* " Where are thy wits, man,"
if thou goest about it ? Sic notus Ulysses ?f Was it so sweet a thing to
lie under the horror and agony of a wounded conscience, and under
God's rebukes in secret the last time, that thou must needs venture
again? Why wilt thou hurt thy soul, and become a devil to thyself?
Why wilt thou needs break thy peace, by consenting to sin ; and not
only so, but torment thyself, and kindle a hell in thine own bosom; and
all this in despite of all thy warnings ? Ictus piscator eapit.% " The
burnt child dreads the fire." But it seems thou art in love with misery,
and weary of thy joy and comfort. Thou hast a mind to be cursed;
wretchedness, and woe* and death are, it seemeth, grown so amiable in
thine eyes, as to become thy deliberate choice. Thus upbraid thyself;
and do it so long and loud till thou fetchest thy soul again to itself, out
of that swoon and lethargy which besotteth it. Give not over chiding and
reproaching thyself, till thou makest thy heart sensible and considerate,
ROLE V.
Labour to cure thy lusting and affections in the first beginning of their
disorders, by revulsion, by drawing the stream and tide another way,
As physicians stop an hemorrhage, or bleeding at the nose, by breathing
the basilic vein in the arm, or opening the saphcena in the foot; so may
we check our carnal affections, by turning them into spiritual ones; and
those either,
1. Of the same nature.For example: catch thy worldly sorrow at
the rise, and turn thy mourning into godly sorrow. If thou must needs
* THEOCBITUS, in Idyl. xi. 72. f Cyclops.)
t" Is not Ulysses notorious for the
highest exercise of human prudence ? EDIT.
t " When a fisherman has received
one smart stroke, he afterwards becomes wiser and more cautious." In Pliny's " Natural
Ifistory," (lib. xxxii.) scorpius et draco pieces are described as the. only species of fish
which strike the fishermen when taking them out of the nets. May not this proverb, which,
Erasmus traces up to Sophocles, have had its origin in the shock of an electrical eel ?.
EpiT,
A8 TO CHKCK BIN IN THB FIRST RISINGS OF IT?
105
weep, weep for somewhat that deserves it. Be the occasion of thy grief
what it will, loss of estate, relations, &c., I am sure thy sins are a
juster occasion ; for they brought that occasion of mourning upon thee,
be it what it will, that thou art now in tears for. Art thou troubled at
any danger, full of fears, heart-aching, and confusion ? 0 forget not the
mother-evil, sin ; let that have but its due share, and there will not be
much left to spare of these affections for other things.
Is thy desire, thy love, thy joy, too busy about some earthly trifle,
some temporal good thing ? Pray them to look up a little, and behold
thy God, who is altogether lovely, " in whose presence is fulness of joy,
and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore;" (Psalm xvi. 11 ;)
and let everlasting shame stop thy mouth, if thou darest affirm any thing
in this wretched world worthy to be named once with the living God, for
rivalship and competition in thy heart : * sure I am he is the fountain
and measure of all goodness. Let but the first and sovereign good have
its due of thy love and desire, thy delight and joy, and the remainder
will be little enough for thy creature-comforts. (Jer. ii. 12, 13.) 0 how
great a folly is it to doat on husks, and overlook the bread in thy
Father's house !
2. Turn thy carnal affections into spiritual ones of a contrary nature.
For example : allay thy worldly sorrow by spiritual joy. Try whether
there be not enough in all-sufficiency itself to compensate the loss of
any outward enjoyment ; whether there will be any great miss or want
of a broken cistern, when thou art at the fountain-head of living
waters ; whether the light of the sun cannot make amends for the expiring of a candle. Chastise thy carnal fears by hope in God. Set on
work the grace contrary to the lust that is stirring : if it be pride and
vain-glory in the applause of men, think how ridiculous it were for a
criminal to please himself in the esteem and honour his fellow-prisoners
render him, forgetting how guilty he is before his judge. If thou
beginnest to be poured loosely out, and as it were dissolved in frolic
mirth and joviality, correct that vainness and gaiety of spirit by the grave
and sober thoughts of death, and judgment, and eternity.
RULE VI.
If this avail not, fall instantly to prayer.And, indeed, all along the
whole encounter with thy lusts, pray continually ; lift up thy heart to
God with sighs and groans unutterable : " 0 that thou wouldest rend the
heavens and come down !" Tell him, thy lusts are his enemies, as well
as thine; tell him they are too strong for thee; beg of him that he
would interpose, and make bare his arm, and get himself a glorious
name. " Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of the Lord ; awake, as
in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath
cut Bahab, and wounded the dragon?" (Isai. li. 9.) Entreat him, of all
love, to pity thee, even by his very bowels, and not to let the enemy
* ( rot Bfov, rtav ' .
, , , ( 6,
/, *,MAXIMUS TYRIUS, Dissert, i. "For the Divinity is
indeed beautiful, and the most splendid of all beautiful things. So far as every thing
participates of this, it is beautiful, stable, and safe ; and, so far as it Mis off from this, it
is base, dissipated, and corrupted." TAYUOU'S. Translation.
10$
SERMON V.
HOW If AY WE BK SO SPIRITUAL,
triumph over thee. Tell him them knowest not what to do; bat thy
eyee are toward him. Bemoan thyself before him and plead hie glory
with him, and hie truth and faithfulness. Spread his own gracious
promises in hie eyes: Pealm xxvii. 14; Isaiah xl. 2831; Psalm Iv.
22; 1 Peter v. 7.
Such ejaculations or meditations as these are mighty useful; God's
children find them so in the very paroxysm and assault. But if the
temptation continue, get into thy closet, and humble thyself greatly
before thy God: throw thyself at his feet; tell him, thou wilt not rise
till he hath given thee a token for good: no, thon art resolved there to
lie hanging on him, and not to let him go until he bless thee. 0 how
welcome is every honest heart to the Father of spirits, when it comes on
such an errand, and in such a manner, to the throne of grace! God
cannot choose but melt in pity and tenderness over his poor desolate
ones, when he sees the anguish of their souls. " How shall I give thee
up, Ephraim ? My bowels are troubled for thee, they will not give me
leave to forget thee. Is Ephraim my dear son ? I do earnestly remember him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." (Isai,
xlix. 15; Jer. xxxi. 20; Hosea xi. 8.) Give not over wrestling, like
Jacob, till thou risest ISRAEL, "one who hast power with God and
prevailest." (Gen. xxxii. 2628.) And it is worth observing, that the
Lord takes pleasure to be called " the mighty God of Jacob," and " the
Lord God of Israel:" as if he reckoned it an honour, that once the
worm Jacob wrestled with his omnipotence, and overcame him, he seems
to glory in his being conquered, and chooseth that for his name, and for
his memorial throughout generations; which is an everlasting monument, that a poor frail man got the day of him. So much doth the
effectual fervent prayer of the righteous prevail.
Perhaps sometimes it may be requisite to join secret fasting with thy
prayer. It may be, the devil that tempts thee is of that " kind that
will not' go out but by prayer and fasting." (Matt. xvii. 21.) Thus
Daniel lay prostrate at God's feet, " till a hand touched him, and set him
upon his knees, and the voice said to him, 0 Daniel, a man greatly
beloved," &c. (Dan. x. 2, 3, compared with verses 10, 11, 18, 19.)
RULE VII.
When thou hast done thi*> rise up, and buckle on " the thield offaith>
wherewith thou halt be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked"
(Eph. vi. 16.)Clothe thy soul with a heroic confidence in the power
and faithfulness of thy God; and in the name and majesty of the Lord
of hosts, bid battle to thy lusts, and to all the powers of darkness.
Take heed of going out in thy own single strength; for lust " hath cast
down many strong men wounded/' (Prov. vii. 26.) While thou art
keeping thine own heart with all diligence, forget not by faith to bring
the great Keeper of Israel in. If any other man could have kept his
own heart, sure the man after God's own heart could have done it.
Si Pergama deatri
Defendi possent, etiam hoe defenta fuissenf.*(ViBGii.ii JEne'a, ii. 291.)
* " Could any mortal hand prevent our fate,
This hand, and this alone, had saved the state."Pi IT'S Translation.
AS TO CBKCK SIM IM TB* F1ROT ftlSINGS OF IT
107
Bat the matter of Uriah and Bathaheba stands on record to all poeterity to
the contrary: for " except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh
but in vain." (Psalm cxxvii. 1.) Do not venture to grapple with the roaring lion, but in the strength of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who ie
alao the Lamb of God, and the great Shepherd of Israel, " that carriea
bia lamba in hie bosom;" (laai. xl. 11;) and whither should the pursued
lamb betake itself, but into that Shepherd's arms? "In the time of
trouble," spiritual as well as other, "be will hide thee in his pavilion:
in the secret of his tabernacle shall he bide thee, and set thee upon a
rock." (Psalm zzvii. 5.) He never fails the eyes of them that look up
to him, nor makes his people ashamed of their hope. " What time thou
art afraid trust in him/' His name is a strong tower. Cast thy care
upon him; and expect the same pity from thy God, which the men of
Jabesh-Gilead found from Saul when Nahash the barbarous Ammonite
would have put out their right eyes: " To-morrow, ere the sun be hot,
ye snail have help." (1 Sam. xi. 9.) If the king of Israel's bowels
yearned over those poor men, shall not the bowels of the God of Israel
over those that fear him ? Yes, upon his honour, truth, and faithfulness,
he will not suffer that cruel Nahaah, (to allude to the signification of the
word,) that " old serpent," * to have his will upon them: if he doth not
come to-day, be " will to-morrow, ere the sun be hot."
" Lift up your
heads," therefore, " ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors;
and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory ? The
Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." (Psalm xxiv. 7, 8.)
Thus was Joseph rescued from the " archers that shot at him, and sorely
grieved him.
His bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands
were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." (Gen.
xlix. 23, 24.)
I come at length to the USB.
USE I.INFORMATION.
We are to learn hence, that our iovla are not ae they came out of
ike Father of spirit*' hand.They appear as it were wrong risen in the
world, and begin to tread awry the very first steps they measure on the
stage of earth. All the symptoms of degeneracy are upon them. The
best of men that ever yet blessed the earth with their residence upon it,>
except that Son of man who was only so by the mother's side, being by
the Father's the only-begotten Son of the eternal God,had flesh lusting
in them unto sin: which is as convincing an argument, that human
nature is blemished and infected, that it hath received a ,, " a stain
and venom," as the ^, ["pustules or eruptions"] are of a

pestilential disease, whose breakings-out display the contagion within.
If the carbuncle and the token proclaim the plague, or the spots discover
a pestilential fever, or the variola, those pustulous efflorescences which we
commonly name " the small-pox," argue the precipitation of the blood,
by some latent malignity; certainly the Instings of the flesh in all men
demonstrate, that the very nature of man on earth is now blasted and
corrupted*
* ttfllJ serpent, Hebrew.
108
SERMON V.
Methinke the Divine Perfection, and oar own imperfection, are the
two greatest sensible in the world, both of them equally, that is,
immensely, clear and discernible. For the former is no less illustriously
undeniable, than is the being, light, and beauty of the sun in the firmament at noon-day ; and the latter is no less evident and conspicuous
than the obscurity and horror of midnight darkness. Not to see the one
is to be etSsost "without God in the world ;" and not to feel the other,
(for it is like the Egyptian darkness, Exod. x. 21, that may be felt by
all that are not past feeling,) is to be without (or beside) one's self.
Now, since all the reason in the world consents to the truth of that
aphorism of the philosopher, yiverai,* that " the
Best and Most Excellent Mind is the Parent of the universe," and an
almighty, ever-living goodness is the source and root of all things ; since
heaven and earth say, "Amen," and again, "Amen, hallelujah!" to that
oracle of the Psalmist, " The work of God is honourable and glorious ; "
(Psalm cxi. 3;) "and all that God made was very good;" (Gen. i.
31 ;) no wonder if it puzzled all philosophy, ; "whence
human nature came to be thus vitiated and debauched." What are the
fountains of this great deep of sin within us, which, " like the troubled
sea," is perpetually thus "casting out mire and dirt?" (Isai. Ivu. 20.)
Sure enough, so universal an effect as this calamity of mankind must
have a cause as universal.
The Socinians here, and others, will have us believe that we all are
born as innocent as Adam in Paradise; that is, say they, in an equilibrium and perfect indifferency to good and evil ; assigning no other
cause of the general corruption of men's lives and manners, but the
infection of example, and evil custom : which is, methinks, as wise a
guess as to affirm the wolf and vulture to be bred and hatched with aa
sweet and harmless a nature as the innocent lamb or loving turtle,
but only the naughty behaviour and ill example of their ancestors
and companions have debauched them into ravenousness and ill
manners.
The Manicheee, as St. Austin tells us, (who was himself for several
years before his conversion of that heresy,) thought that all the evil in
the world sprang from an almighty and an eternal principle of evil,
counter-working and over-bearing God, whom they held the opposite
eternal principle of goodness. But since the very formal notion of God
involveth infinite perfection, and that of sin mere imperfection, it is a
perfect contradiction that evil should be infinite, if good be so ; it were
to make imperfection perfect, and mere impotency omnipotent. Therefore, there can be but one God, who is Almighty Goodness; and as
possible it is that the sun should darken the world by shining, as
Almighty Goodness should do any hurt in the world, or make any evil.
* Hierocles most divinely concludes : yap TJJ rcav vroti)erees
; -arpofftcmv tv\oyos, * *. ; yap
8e ovSeis vrtpi wievoj ovitaroTC tyytverai . HIEROCLES in Can. Pythaffor. p. 21. " The dictate of sound reason can assign no other cause for the creation of all
things, than that of essential goodness. For, according to his own nature, God is infi-
nitely good ; and in that Being who is essentially good, no malignant passion against any
" nossibly exist,"EDIT.
AS TO CHECK 8 IN THE FIRST RISINGS OP IT?
109
God is the Author of all the good in the world; but sin and misery are
of our making, (Hoeea xiii. 9.)
Much wiser than either of the two former wae the conjecture of the
Pythagoreans and Platoniste, though Heathens; who, having nothing
else to consult (as wanting the divine revelation of holy scripture) bat
their own faculties, embraced the conceit, that all human souls were
created in the beginning upright, and placed by God in happier
mansions, in purer and higher regions of the universe, until at length
they did 0) -njv Seiav , tij onto *},* as Hierocles
phraseth it; that is, till they fell from the divine life, and became
inhabitants of earthly tabernacles, bringing their fallen and degenerate natures along with them. This opinion had of old the general
consent of the Jews, as appeareth, John iz. 2; and yet hath, as Men.
Ben Israel, in his book De Resurrectione Mortuorum, witnesseth. Among
the Christians, Origen is in the number of its sectaries, (in his books
Tltpi ,) and some few of the ancients.
But as much as is necessary for us to know about this great inquiry,
God hath (blessed be his goodness!) sufficiently revealed in Genesis
i.iii., compared with Psalm li. 5; Ecclee. vii. 29; Bom. i. 24, 25, &c.
And he is as wise as he need be in so great a point, that knows how to
understand these scriptures according to the analogy of faith, and consistently with the divine perfections; and that so believeth them, as to
put that and no other sense and interpretation upon them which is
worthy of the glorious attributes and excellent majesty of the living
God; although some difficulties will remain perhaps insuperable to us,
in this our present estate on earth.

USE II.EXHORTATION.
I have already in some measure discovered the mysteries and secrets

of this blessed art of checking sin in the beginnings of it. Let me now
persuade the practice of these holy rules. Let us resolvet in the strength
of Christ, to resist these lustings of the flesh. Take the exhortation of
the apostle: " Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be
strong." (1 Cor. xvi. 13.)t
Let me press this with a few considerations.

1. The more thow yicldest, the more thou mayest.Sin is unsatiable:
it will never say, "It is enough." Give it an inch, it will take an'ell.
See the sad example of Peter denying his Lord. (Matt, xxvi.) (1.) He
was only timorous; he follows afar off. (Verse 58.) (2.) At the next
step he denies his Lord openly before them all. (Verse 70.) (3.) He
adds an oath to it. (Verse 72.) And, lastly, he falls a cursing and
swearing, as if he meant to out-sin the vilest there. (Verse 74.) It is no
wisdom to try conclusions between fire and gunpowder in the heap.
Who but a fool would unlock the door of his house, when it is beset
* " By their departure from God, they destroyed that happy and divine life which they
had previously enjoyed."EDIT.
t AW/MS core, , 8 bovpi&os *.HoMKHi IKat, vi. 112.
M
Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore;
Be still yourselves, and Hector asks no mote."POPE'S Translation.
110
SERMON V.
BOW MAY WE BE SO SPIRITUAL, &C.
with thieves, and excuse it?"he did but turn the key, that was all!"
Why, he need do no more to undo himself; they will easily do all the
rest.
2. It it the quarrel of the Lord of host in which thou fight eat.Let
thy courage rise in proportion to the goodness of thy cause, and the
honour of that great Prince and Captain under whose banner thou
servest.* Upon thy good behaviour and address in arms depends much
of the renown and honour of Christianity. A cowardly soldier is the
reproach of his commanders. Thou hast a noble General, 0 Christian,
that hath done and finished perfectly whatever concerns thy redemption
from the powers of darkness. " To him that overcometh will he give to
sit on his throne, even as he overcame, and is set down on his Father's
throne." (Rev. iii. 21.) Do valiantly and worthily. Follow thy victorious Leader; let all that know thee see that religion is no mean and
feeble thing; that the school of Christ breeds the excellent of the earth ;
that the divine life is the most powerful principle in the world; that the
Spirit of God in thee, and his grace, are stronger than all thy lusts and
corruptions. Not he that talks most, or profeeseth most, but he that
acts and lives most, as a Christian, shall be the " man whom the King
delights to honour."
3. The lusts of the flesh are thy greatest enemies, as well as GocTs.
"They war against thy soul." (1 Peter ii. 11.) To resist them feebly,
is to do not only the work of the Lord, but of thy soul, negligently.
4. It is easy vanquishing at first in comparison.A fire newly-kindled
is soon quenched, and a young thorn or bramble easily pulled up. The
fierce lion may be tamed, when a whelp; but if thou stay a little, there
will be no dealing with a lust any more than with a savage beast of
prey. Grace will lose, and corruption get, strength continually by
delaying.
5. If thou resistest, the victory is thine. (James iv. 7.)And in my
text, "Walk," &c., "and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."
Thou canst never be conquered, if thou wilt not yield. Stand but to it,
and thou art invincible; while thou art unwilling, all the devils in hell
cannot force thee to sin. Temptation puts on its strength, as the will
is. Cease but to love the sin, and the temptation is answered. Indeed,
if thon choosest to be a slave, thou shak be one. Nothing but thy own
choice can undo thee.
6. Consider what thou doest.If thou fulfillest the lusts of the flesh,
thon provokest thy heavenly Father, rebellest against him, (and
"rebellion is as witchcraft, and stubbornness as idolatry,"f) thou
" crucifiest Jesus Christ afresh, and puttest him to an open shame." $ Is
this thy love and thanks to thy Lord, to whom thou art so infinitely
beholden ? Canst thou find in thy heart to put thy spear again in his
side? Hath he not suffered yet enough? Is his bloody passion
nothing? Must he bleed again? Ah monster of ingratitude! Ah
perfidious traitor as thou art, thus to requite thy Master I Again: thou
grievest thy Comforter; and is that wisely done ? Who shall comfort
* Catarem vehit et fortune* Cesaris. Thou conveyest<3sar, and the destinies of
Cear."-JSDiT.
f 1 Sam. xv. 23.
t Heb. vi. fc
SERMON .
HOW TO VISIT THE SICK.
Ill
thee, if He depart from thee grieved? Or is it ingenuous, thus

unworthily to treat that noble guest, to affront God's sacred Spirit to
his very face; and, in despite and mockery of him, to side with his
enemy, the flesh ? Is this thy kindness to thy best Friend, thy faithful
Counsellor, thy infallible Guide, thy Minister and Oracle, thy sweet and
only Comforter? What need I add, that thou breakest thy peace,
woundest thy conscience, forfeitest the loss of God's countenance, and
makest a gap in the divine protection for all evil to rush in at ?
7. And lastly, Consider the invaluable benefit of resitting, of not
folfilling the hut of thefiesh, in two great instances :
(1.) Unutterable joy and pleasure will be shed abroad in thy soul, a
often as thou gettest the day.I know no greater triumph than that of
a Christian, when he is " more than conqueror through Christ that loves
him." the peace, the joy, and holy glorying in the Lord, and in
the power of his might, that a good man is even ravished and caught up
into the third heavens with, when the Lord covers his head in the day of
battle, and lifts it up above bis spiritual enemies! To vanquish One's
self, is a nobler exploit than to subdue a city; (Prov. zvi. 32;) nay, a
vaster conquest than if one could, with that great Macedonian captain,
achieve the empty title of " the vanquisher of the world."
(2.) Every conquest will increase thy strength and dexterity against
the next assault.So that when the vanquished lust recruits its forces
thou wilt be able to outvie thyself, and become more dexterous every
time.
Nay, the mortifying of one earthly member, like the cntting-off a
limb from the natural body, will make the whole body of sin tremble, all
the rest of thy lusts will fare the worse, and by consent languish: so
that every victory over any one corruption weakens that and all the rest,
and breaks the way for future conquests.
SERMON VI.
BY THE REV. MATTHEW POOLE, A.M.
BOW MINISTERS OR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS MAY AND OUGHT TO APPLY
THEMSELVES TO SICK PERSONS, FOR THEIR GOOD, AND THE
DISCHARGE OF THEIR OWN CONSCIENCE.
If there be a messenger with Aim, an interpreter, one among a thousand,

to show unto ma his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and
saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a
ransom.Job xxxiii. 23, 24.
THESE words are part of Elihu's discourse uttered by way of reprehension and conviction to Job, and by way of vindication and apology
for JGod in bis dealings with men; and although he premiseth this, that
112
SERMON VI.
HO-W CHRISTIANS MAY APPLY THEMSELVES
God "giveth no account of his matters/' (verse 13,) yet he doth, ex

abundanti, give an account for God, and makes a defence, or gives a
rationale of God's proceedings with men, &c.; where he shows that it
is not man's torment or ruin that God desires, but his reformation and
amendment. And that it may appear how sincerely and fervently he
desires it, he shows that there are several ways and means which God
useth, which are most powerful and likely to produce it.
1. He speaks to men in dreams. (Verse 15, &c.)
2. When that will not do, by afflictions. (Verse 19, &c.)
3. To make those afflictions more intelligible and more effectual, he
sends " a messenger," &c. This is the business of the text: " If there
be with him," &c.: wherein you may observe two parts:
1. A supposition: " If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter/*
&c. (Verse 23.) 2. A position: "Then he is gracious to him," &c.
(Verse 24.)
The words may be called " the sick man's cordial, or his restorative:"
wherein you may observe: 1. The patient, expressed in the word "him."
2. The disease, his danger, and misery: " He is going down to the pit."
3. The Physician, who is described, (1.) Ab offtcio, "by bis office," "a
messenger." (2.) Ab opere, " by his work," " an interpreter." (3.) A
prtestantid, ["from his excellent qualities,"] a rare man, "one of a
thousand," multis e millibus unus. 4. The physic: " To show unto a
man his uprightness." 5. The cure: "Then he is gracious," &c.
Where are considerable:
.(1.) The quality of it, the kind of the cure: " Deliver him from going
down to the pit;" that is, from mortal sickness.
(2.) The spring of it, God's grace: " He is gracious."
(3.) The meritorious cause of it: " I have found a ransom."
(4.) The declaration of it: " He saith," &c.
The difficulties are neither many nor great; yet some things there are
which need explication.
If a messengerAn angel; that is, by office, not by nature; for so
the word is oft used in scripture, both in the Old Testament, " Behold, I
will send my messenger," Hebrew "JX^tt, "my angel," (Mal. iii. I,)
which the infallible Interpreter, the Lord Jesus, tells us was meant of
John the Baptist: " This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send a
messenger," &c. (Matt. xi. 10,)and in the New Testament, (Rev. ii. iii.,)
where the pastors of the several churches are called "angels:" and so it
is most fitly understood here, both because God did then and still doth
most generally use the ministry of men rather than angels in counselling
and comforting afflicted men ; and because he is called " one of a thousand," a phrase which implies, as his excellency and fitness for that
work, so the insufficiency of most of the. same kind for it; which must
not be charged upon the meanest of God's elect angels.
An interpreterNamely, of the mind and will of God Christ is the
great Interpreter; (John i. 18;) but he, when he ascended on high, gave
forth this gift, and left us interpreters in his stead. (Eph. iv. 11, &c.)
To show unto a man his righteousnessThat is, man's own righteousness, to say nothing of the other senses [of the words]; for it is the sin
TO 8TCK FBRSON8 FOR THKIR GOOD*
113
and unrighteousness of a man which causeth hie disease, and the sense of
that sin which makes his disease bitter and formidable: sin is the sting
of every affliction. Now then omnis curatiofit per contraria, " all cures
are wrought by contraries;" when therefore a faithful messenger or
minister of Christ having* made the sick man sensible of his sin, and
afterwards of the pardon of it, and when he comes to discover to him
his righteousness, uprightness, holiness, " then God is gracious," &c. $
although it is not at all impossible that here may be a reference to
Christ's righteousness; for Job is no stranger to that; and the word " ransom " carries an evident relation thither: so that both may be conjoined.
Then he (that is, God) is graciousGod is always gracious in himself,
in his own nature; but he is gracious to none, but in his own way, and
upon his own terms. God ia not gracious to unrighteous and unholy
persons; but when men return from their sins, &c., " God is gracious,
and aaith;" that is, God saith, "Deliver him." He saith so to his
minister, he gives him commission to deliver him; that is, to declare him
to be delivered. God delivers men authoritative et realiter, ministers only
ministerialiter et declarative: it is an usual phrase; ministers are said to
do that which they declare God will do : "I have set thee over nations
and kingdoms," satin God to Jeremiah, " to root out and to pull down,
and to destroy;" that is, " to declare that I will do it." (Jer. i. 10.)
I have found a ransomI have received satisfaction, that is, in the
death of my Son; which was a ransom satisfactory for the sins of his
people. And, farther, it is by virtue of this ransom that God's people
are delivered, not only from hell, but from any other miseries. Indeed,
as divines distinguish of the resurrection of the godly and the wicked, so
the temporal deliverances which wicked men receive,they are the effects
of common providence; but those which Christ's members receive, they
have as the fruits of Christ's purchase. And well saith God, " I have
found a ransom:" for it is beyond the wit of men or angels to find out
such an admirable way for man's salvation. Thus you have had the
coherence, division, and sense of the words.
There are several doctrines which these words would afford; but I
shall forbear the very mention of them, and only speak of this one,
which falls to my share.
DOCTRINE.That the seasonable instruction of nek and languishing
person is a work, as of great advantage^ so of great skill and difficulty.
I need not spend much time in the proof, yet something must be
said of it: there are two branches.
I. It is of great advantage.
II. It is of great difficulty.
I. That it is a work of great advantage.It is convenient to say

something of this, because I take it to be a common mistake of many
persons: they are apt to think, that sick-bed applications are in a manner
useless and ineffectual. It may be a discouragement which the devil
proposeth to ministers or others to make them neglect this work, or be
formal in it, especially when the persons are ignorant or profane : the
devil may suggest the invalidity of a sick-bed repentance, the customari* The construction of the sentence requites ibis word to be "has."EDIT.
114
SERMON TI.
HOW CHRISTIANS MAY APPLY THEMSELVES
ness and hypocrisy of nek-bed desires, &c. Now, to obviate such

suggestions, consider these things:
1. That the instruction of sick persons is God's institution.So you
see in the text: " A messenger;" that is, one sent of God to this purpose. Now God's institutions are not in vain: every institution of God
carries a promise in its bowels to him that doth not ponere obicem,
I" place any hinderance in its way," ] that doth rightly use it. Ministers or Christian friends may go about it with much comfort; for it is
God's work; as he said, " Have not I commanded you ? " See. It is one
of those ways, as you see in the chapter, which God ordained to reclaim
sinners; and when you attempt it, you may expect God's concurrence;
you may pray in faith for God's assistance in his ordinance.
2. God's mercy is proposed by himself, and may be offered by ministers, even to languishing persons.It is true, it must be done cautiously,
as you shall hear; but it may be done. God doth indefinitely tender hie
mercy to all; and we must not limit where God limits not: ministers
may safely follow God's example. And whereas it may he thought that
such men only come to God, as driven by necessity; you must know that
God is so gracious, that he receives even such whom mere necessity
drives to him; and, indeed, all true converts are first persuaded to come
to God by the sense of their own necessities, though afterwards they are
elevated to a more noble disposition. God never rejected any upon this
ground. How many came to Christ merely in sense of their bodily
maladies, and were sent away with spiritual cure! Christ received her
that came not to him till she had in vain tried all other physicians. So
in that parable of the prodigal, wherein God is pleased to represent the
methods of his grace in the conversion and salvation of sinners, you
shall find that God doth not reject that poor prodigal, because he was
forced home by that durum telum, necessitas, [" hard dart, necessity,"}
by insuperable straits and difficulties.
2. Sick-bed repentance is not wholly impossible, though it be hard.
Sickness is one means that God useth to work repentance. God can
work repentance even upon a sick-bed; and it is God that must do it
even in health; and, to speak truly and strictly, although the means of
repentance be more probable, and the truth of repentance more discernible,
in health than in sickness; yet the practice of repentance is as hard a
work in health as in sickness, seeing in both cases it is the great work
of the omnipotent God, who hath ever challenged it as his royal prerogative to give repentance, whatever those hoates gratia Christi, [" enemies
to the grace of Christ,"] as Austin calls them, say to the contrary; so
that, in short, with men, repentance is always impossible: "Can the Ethiopian change bis skin, or the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do good,
that are accustomed to do evil:" (Jer. xb'i. 23 :) but with God it is always
possible. And yet, to prevent the abuse of this, by a presumptuous
putting-off repentance to the time of sickness and death upon this pretence, I must add, that such as put off repentance on such a pretext, do
seldom meet with it. God doth seldom give repentance to such persons;
and it is a general observation of all serious divines, that late repentance
is seldom true, though true repentance is never late; it being the just
TO SICK PERSONS *OR THKIR GOOD,
115
judgment of God, that they that intend to mock God by potting off
repentance, should deceive themselves, and die without repentance.
II. Thdt it i a work of great difficulty, might easily be demonstrated.
But that will appear in the further prosecution of it all along: only
there are two arguments which the text suggests:
1. That it if a work which God hath put into the hand of hi chief
officer, hie ministers, who ought to be the most accomplished persons of all
others, fyc.This is one of those works for which God hath vouchsafed
such singular gifts unto his messengers.
2. That it i not every minister, neither, who is fit for this work.And
therefore here it is required, that he be " one of a thousand."
But this I shall pass over, and come to that which is allotted to me,
the resolution of this great and important case of conscience How
ministers or Christian friend may and ought to apply themselves to tick
person for their good, and the discharge of their own consciences.
I take it to be one of the hardest parts of the ministerial work, to
make seasonable applications to such persons. I shall therefore endeavour to answer it, though not so fully as the point deserves, yet so far
as the brevity of this exercise will permit, in these eight propositions or
directions :
1. Endeavour must be used to understand the state of the sick person.
As physicians do by sick persons: they inquire into the manner of
their life, diet, &c. It is a great step to the cure to know the patient's
temper; because, as bodily, so spiritual, physic must be suited to the
temper, and disposition, and condition of the patient. And as physicians
take pains in this, by conference with friends, and by examining the
patient; so should ministers, by discourse with religious acquaintance,
and by searching conference with the sick persons, endeavour to find out
the truth. For why should not men be as accurate in healing men's
souls as their bodice ? since the very Heathen could say, That all our
care should be translated from the things of the body, to the soul. So
Bpictetus, in his sixty-third chapter: ; oypetov, TO ivSietrf
rots vrepi -,,* &c. And as for the body, men prize those physicians
most that best know their temper, &c.; so should sick persons prefer,
ceeteris paribue, [" things in other respects being similar,"] that faithful
minister that hath most knowledge of them, &c.
2. The great business is to bring the sick man to a true eight of hi
state and condition.Indeed thin is a happy thing, whatever his condition be. If his condition be sound and good, then it is a happiness to
know it, that he may have the comfort of it; if it be bad, yet it is a happiness to know it, that a man may be capable of counsel, and put into
the way to amend it. It is true, evil men, like persons much in debt, care
not to look into their books, and understand their debts; but they must
be brought to it. And the worse thy condition is, the more art thon con* M There is no surer sign of stupidity and want of sense, than to trifle away a great
deal of time in things relating to the body; as, to be long at exercise, or at meals, or in
drinking, or in the other functions of nature. For we ought to look upon all that is done
to the body as thing* by the bye ; and upon the improvement of the soul as that which
challenges our time, and is the true and main end and businets qf our lives"DEAH
STAMHOF'S Translation.
116
SERMON TI.
HOW CHRISTIANS MATT APPLY THEMSELVES
cerned to discover it; for, to be ignorant of thy condition, if it be good,

only hinders thee from comfort; but if it be bad, it hinders thee from
salvation. Ton and they must both consider, that as the heart is always
deceitful, so then especially for three reasons amongst others: (1.) Then
men are impotent and unable to examine themselves; their natural parts
are weakened, the eyes of their mind clouded; their mind ie diverted by
bodily pains, that it cannot attend, and so may sooner be cheated. (2.)
Then men are slothful and listless as to all spiritual exercises. If even
good men are slothful in their most healthful times, how much more evil
men in times of sickness! The listlessness of the body generally makes
an answerable impression upon the faculties of the soul; that being a
received truth amongst physicians and philosphers, and ratified by daily
experience, that mores animi seguuntur temperamentum corpora. [" The
moral habits of the soul follow in the train of the body's temperament."}
(3.) In times of sickness, men are greedy of comfort, and so will catch
even at a shadow, &c. Upon all these grounds there needs the more
caution, to set before his eyes the folly and misery of self-deceit, especially in everlasting matters.
3. Minuter and others must take great heed, lest, while they avoid
one extreme, they run upon another ; which is a common error in practice.
Some, for the prevention of despair, hare made such unseasonable
applications of comfort as have begotten presumptuous hopes. Others,
again, to prevent presumption, have so indiscreetly aggravated things, as
to render them hopeless, and so careless, &c. There must therefore be
prudent contemperation of things together: as the wise physician mixeth
several ingredients; he puts-in, indeed, things of a sharp and corroding
nature, which may eat out or remove the noxious humours, but addeth to
them things of a more gentle temperature, which by their lenity may correct the acrimony of the former. God himself sets us a copy by the
mouth of Samuel: " Te have done all this wickedness." There are the
corrosions; he faithfully discovers that, and doth not daub with them.
Yet, lest the disease should rather be exasperated than removed, he adds
this healing counsel: "Yet turn not aside from following the Lord;'*
and this cordial: "The Lord will not forsake his people." (1 Sam. xii.
20, 22.) And Ezra follows it: " We have trespassed against our God, and
have taken strange wives: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this
thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with God." (Ezra x. 2, 3.)
4. The same methods are not to be used to all sick persons.You
might as well give the same pill to all diseased persons; whereas that
which would cure one will kill another: you may as well make one suit
for all bodies. Discreet physicians diversify their applications, according
to the difference of the patient's disposition and condition: so here.
And there are many differences to be eyed here:
(I.) Difference of tempers, whether tender, or rough and stubborn.As
you read, it is the husbandman's "discretion" that "the fitches are not
threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is the cart-wheel turned
about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and
the cummin with a rod;" (Isai. xxviii. 27;) so it must be the discretion
of a minister, to have respect to the different tempers of men, in hie
TO SICK PERSONS FOR THEIR GOOD.
117
applications to them. It is said of Christ, he taught the disciple as they

were able to bear.
(2.) Difference of education and conversation.Some have been
nuzzled [nursed] in ignorance, others brought up in the knowledge of
the truth; [the] not considering of this occasions much mischief. Diecourse to an ignorant person of the necessity of faith and repentance,
you lose your labour oft-times; he conceits he hath believed and
repented; for he takes faith to be a believing (though without any
grounds) that God hath pardoned him, and repentance a crying, " God
mercy!" &c, One must consider where foundations must be laid, and
where we need only raise superatrnctions. Some have had a loose and
profane education, others civil and religions: the former require more
terror, the latter more caution, lest they deceive themselves.
(3.) Difference of omit.Great difference is to be made in the handling
of sinners of a smaller size, and inveterate sinners: as God expects, so
ministers must endeavour, that sorrow may bear some proportion with
the sin. Peter, having sinned grievously, wept bitterly. (Matt. zxvi. 75.)
5. It is a very bad guide to follow the counsels or detire of tick pereon, or their carnal friend*.It fares with faithful ministers as with
honest and able physicians, that are many times ill thought of by the
eick man and foolish friends. When they put* him to pain or trouble,
they charge him with cruelty, and delighting to torment the poor man
unnecessarily; and, it may be, think of discharging him, and getting a
physician, that will deal more gently with him: whereas, indeed, he is
the sick man's best friend; and many times should he not pain him, he
would kill him. So is it here: come to a sick man, he cries: " Comfort, for God's sake." So say his friends; and they think all is done, if
they can get comfort! Why, you shall have it, but in due time; you
shall have ease, health, &c.; but you must be contented to wait for it,
and expect it in due order. First, you must be sick: oft-timee that
physic is the best which makes you sickest. You shall be healed; but,
if yon would proceed regularly, and work a true cure, you must first
have your wound searched, and then healed, else you have only a palliative cure, and the wound will fester inwardly: and it is an horrible
mistake of sick persons,they think comfort is all they are to look after.
I tell you, it is not present comfort, but everlasting happiness, yon must
make [it] your business to get: it is not the eu0ava<naf of Augustus, " to
die quietly, like a lamb," as the vulgar phrase it; but a scripture
, to " die the death of the righteous." It is not so much a
calm, and sweet, and easy passage, (the fishes have that, when they
swim down the sweet stream of Jordan, into the Bead Sea, where they
perish,) but a safe harbour. One may go to heaven in a storm, and to
hell in a calm; and which is better, judge yon. Those wretches in
Psalm Ixxiii. "have no bands in their death;" and yet death hath dominion over them. Comfort is not the great business you need.
6. The same course, for substance, is to be taken for the conversion
of sick and healthful person, fyc.There is but one way to heaven for all
* The rest of the sentence requires the commencement to be, When he puts, &c._
EDIT.
f Vide SUETONIUM De XII. Cftsaribut, lib. it 00.EDIT.
118
SERMON VI.
HOW CHRISTIANS MAY APPLY THEMSELVES
persons; and therefore consider with yourselves what you would do, if
they were in health, and what were necessary then; why, that same
course you must take now ; and if it he more troublesome to sick persons, they may thank themselves for it, who neglected the time of their
health, &c. Indeed, sick men are apt to favour themselves, and to think
God will accept of less from them than [from] others; whereas, if possible, they have need to do more than others, and to make the more
haste, having the less time for their work.
7. The greatest care must be, to keep sick persons from those error
whereby tuck persons commonly miscarry.~-Snch as these:
(1.) Insensibleness of their danger,Whereas the first step to a cure, is
to know one's malady. It is a dreadful thing to see poor ignorant and
unconverted sinners, at the very brink of the pit, ready to drop into hell,
and not at all affected with it, &c. If ever you mean to do them any
good, yon must awaken them out of that mortal sleep or lethargy, lighten
their eyes with a conviction of their danger, lest they sleep the sleep of
death.
(2.) Willingness to be deluded.Ton may know it thus: if a daubing
minister or friend offers comfort, how greedily they catch it! They will
receive comfort upon any grounds, nay, upon no grounds, but upon the
bare words, it may be, of a time-serving and man-pleaeing minister.
But let a serious and faithful minister come to them, and show them
their sad, and sinful, and hazardous condition, and demonstrate it by
irrefragable arguments, they will not yield to it. But, as St. Peter
speaks, TOUTO Se\ovra$' " This they willingly are

ignorant of." (2 Peter iii. 5.) You must possess them with the folly of
such a temper, the unavoidable misery of self-deluding persons, &c., and

the dread of disappointment when too late.
(3.) Carelessness and listlessness.This is the temper of many;
knowing the difficulty of believing, repenting, &c., and remembering
their own guilt, they cast off the care of that which they think will be to
no purpose, &c. You must therefore possess them with the necessity of
Christian carefulness; what madness it is to be careless now, which is
the only season of caring to any purpose, &c.; what folly it is to free
themselves from the care of a few days, to ascertain* to themselves everlasting care and torment, &c. Also yon must possess them with the
benefit of this care, and laying it to heart, &c.,that it is God's course,
in opening the heart, to stir up this care.
(4.) Resting in generals,Dolosus versatur in generalibus. ["An
artful and treacherous man deals in generalities."] This deceives many
in hell: you may discourse excellently against sin in .the general, and
raise in them some passion against it, yet not profit them at all, &c.
For, true repentance takes notice of particular sins, &c.; and as generals
have no existence, but in the particulars, according to principles of
philosophy; so it is sin in particular which doth primarily affect the
heart of a true penitent.
(5.) The concealment of some hidden way of wickedness, I believe,
bath sent many to hell: they would never make their disease known,
* In the old English signification of assure.EDIT.
TO SICK PERSONS TOR THEIR GOOD.
119
through fear of shame, &c.; as Rome persona have died of those

diseases which they have smothered. It is true, a man is not hound
to make confession of all his sins to a minister, as we rightly assert
against papists; but yet all divines grant, that in many cases it is
both expedient and necessary to acknowledge thy wickedness to men;
and, to say nothing of those cases wherein it is sometimes necessary,
nor of many reasons which make it frequently expedient, I shall
only instance in one, which is sufficient of itself many times,that the
physician, knowing more exactly thy malady, may more effectually
proportion his remedy. Possess them with this in such cases,How
infinitely better it is to have some shame before a friend, who will
cover your shame, and hate to reproach you with it, than before all
the world! Convince them what folly it is to be unfaithful to themselves, &c'.
8. Take heed of healing the eoul* of nek persons slightly.This we
re very apt to, (1.) From the sick man's greedy desire of comfort; (2.)
From the expectation and desire of carnal friends; (3.) From our own
careless hearts, that love not to put ourselves to any trouble or reproach,
which we shall meet with, if we be faithful in this case. However, take
heed of it: " They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace." (Jer. viii. 11.)
This is the case: a soul, whether in sickness or in health, must first be
wounded, then healed. There must be sorrow and travail, ere the manchild be brought forth. There must be true repentance, and godly
sorrow, deep sorrow: (they daub that tell you otherwise, and make God
a liar:) great heaviness of heart, &c. Repentance is neither a short nor
a superficial work. Persuade them to wait God's leisure, and in God's
way, for the cure; not to precipitate your work. Persuade them not to
be afraid of sorrows, troubles, &c., but rather to fear the want of it.
For here is a common and a fatal mistake: most men are afraid of
sorrow, and labour to drive away sorrow; whereas, indeed, sorrow is the
midwife of all true joy. Tears of penitential sorrow are the streams
that lead us to "the rivers of pleasure, which are at God's right hand ;"
it is none other than the gate of heaven, the fountain of comfort: and,
on the contrary, to be a stranger to godly sorrow, is one of the dreadfullest signs of a lost soul. The laughter of such a person is a risus
Sardonicus,* a deadly joy. Labour more to work a solid than a sudden
cure.
There are other directions I thought to have given; but these may
suffice; and I will conclude all with two or three USES, first to ministers,
then to people.
USB I.
I. To ministers.Hence we may learn the great difficulty of the

ministerial work: we see one reason why Paul said, " Who is sufficient
for these things?" what a sin and shame it is to see what persons
venture upon this work! that such undertake to be shepherds of Christ's
* A Sardonic mile signifies s kind of **convubive laughter," or "forced grin,"
EDIT.
129
SERMON VI.
HOW TO VISIT THE SFCK.
flock, that are hardly fit to be set with the dogs of the flock " Father,
forgive them! they know not what they do." Many act as if they
thought this were all the work of a minister,to make a few sermons,
read some prayers, &c. No, no j a minister must be " thoroughly
furnished to every good work." He must be apt and able for every
work; this, among others. 0 what angelical abilities doth it require!
Acnteness, to discern the sick man's temper; knowledge, to understand
the nature of all spiritual diseases, the symptoms, the prognostics, as
also the antidotes and remedies; wisdom, to make suitable, speedy
applications. 0 how hard a case is itl Many sick men can neither
endure morbum, nor remedium, neither the " disease" of their souls, nor
their " remedy," &c. A minister had need know all things, understand
all persons, discern the subtilties of men's hearts, and not be ignorant of
the wiles of the devil.

How many knots must he be able speedily to untie! How many cases
must he be able to give speedy resolution to! And he must be supposed
to have kid up with great industry, because he must " bring forth out
of his treasure things both new and old." 0 the difficulty! It is a
sad thing to consider, that many souls do perish, not only vi morbi, " by
the force of their disease," but also errors medici, " by the error of their
physician," by the mistakes of their ministers: and, as Galen speaks of
physic for the body, it is also true of the physic of the soul: In
medicind nihil exiguum: " In physic nothing is little." A small error
there, may occasion fearful mischiefs; so a small mistake in souls' con
cernments may occasion a soul's everlasting ruin.
TTSB II.
. To people.Is it of such difficulty? 0 labour you to do your

work in health, while time and strength last, before the evil days come,
&c. It is a serious admonition of Gregory, in his book De Curd
Pastorali: Salve corpora, yjtando ad bene operandum accepta despicitur,
quanti sit muneris amissa sentitur: " He that neglects the time of health
for the doing of his great work,he shall feel the worth of it by the
want of it." I beseech you, let me reason with you . " Why will you run
a hazard, when you may go a safe way ? Consider what woful straits
you will bring yourselves to. If yon do not ponder your ways, and fix
your thoughts, and afflict your hearts, yon kill your souls; if you do,
perhaps your bodies, &c. What a dreadful dilemma is this! &c. The
physician chargeth you not to trouble yourselves with sad thoughts, lest
yon overthrow your bodies; and the minister, if he will be faithful, must
charge you to trouble yourselves, lest you lose-your souls. 0 consider
now ; now you may consider, you have the use of reason: then reason
may be lost, &c. Now God will accept of you; thent it may be, he will
reject you. (Prov. i. 2032.) Now you are at leisure to consider;
then, " sufficient unto the day will be the evil thereof." And therefore
be persuaded to improve the time of health. It is the general custom
of sick persons to send for ministers to prepare them for the future life,
when they despair of the enjoyment of this present life. A learned
man wittily observed, that, as they say, Ubi deeinit philosophus, insipit
SBRMON VII.
HOW TO REPttOVB OTHER M1N*8 SINS.
121
medicui :* so it may be said, 175* desinit medicue, incipit tKeologvgfi

"Where the physician ends, the divine begins." Thus they begin to
live at the end of their life: but you, if you be wise, take this counsel,
and (0 that my words might prevail with you!) desire to speak with able
nnd godly ministers in the time of your health: that, that is the acceptable time! then may they give counsel freely, and you may follow their
counsel thoroughly. That was the course of those converts, Acts ii. 37
47. They did not tarry till their souls were ready to breathe out
themselves into eternity; but, in the time of their health applied themselves to Peter, &c.: " Men and brethren, what shall we do ? "
Make such applications to your friends in health, as you must do in
sickness, if you mean to discharge your duty to God, or friendship to
them t yon will give them, and yourselves too, great ease and advantage
by it, &c. Remember, what obligeth you to do it in sickness, obligeth
you also in health; you are your brothers* keepers; you have all curam
animarum, " cure of souls." And as ministers are bound to this work
virtute offidi, "by virtue of their office;" so you are bound to it, ex
lege charitatis: [" by the law of charity:"] and, surely, if every one of
you are bound to deliver your neighbours* ox or ass, when you see it
falling into a pit; much more are you obliged to have compassion upon
their souls, when they are going down to the pit from which there is no
redemption.
SERMON VII.
BY THE REV. JOHN KITCHIN, A.M.
HOW MUST WB REPROVE, THAT WE MAT NOT PARTAKE OP OTHER

MEN'S SINS?
Neither be partaker of other men's tins: keep thyself pure.
1 Timothy v. 22.
THIS Epistle is a scripture-directory for church-government. In this

chapter there are certain general rules, or canons apostolical, which St.
Paul enjoins Timothy to observe:
1. About church-widows, how they must be qualified. (Verses 316.)
2. About church-elders, how they must be ordered. (Verses 1725.)
(1.) About their maintenance and encouragement. (Verses 17, 18.)
(2.) About their credit and reputation. (Verse 19.)
* " At the point where the Philosopher ends, there the Physician exhibits his fatty;"
conveying an intimation, that, whenever a Physician deserts the enlightening guidance of a
true Philosophy, that moment he becomes foolish. The fourth edition is the only one in
which this sentence is correctly printed, and in which the latent wit is preserved. The
witty author couched his pleasantry in the word itwipit, which, when thus written with , in
barbarous Latin, signifies, " become foolish," or "exhibits his folly;" but when written
with o, means simply " he begins," or "he commences."EDIT.
f "When the
Physician ceases to prescribe for his patient, then the Divine commences his visit."
_EDIT.
122
SERMON vii. HCTW MOST we REPROVE,
(3.) About the reproof and correction. (Verse 20.)
(4.) About their admission and ordination: " Lay hands suddenly on
no man." (Verse 22.) Some understand this of the hands of absolution ;* others, of the hands of benediction ;f others, of the hands of
confirmation ;$ but most and best, of the hands of ordination ; that is,
" Ordain no man, admit no man into this sacred and weighty office and
function of the ministry, suddenly." Suddenly, that is, not before
natural capacity, not without competent ability, not unless qualified with
piety, industry, gravity. ||
The danger follows: " Neither be partaker of other men's sins."

1. Not of their sins who would importune thee to ordain unworthy
persons, coneentiendo, " by consenting."
2. Not of their sins who do ordain unworthy persons, imitando, " by
imitating."^"
3. Not of their sins who are ordained, being unworthy persons ;**
and that,
(1.) Not of their sins BEFORE ORDINATION, approbando, "by approving of them." ff
(2.) Not of their sins AFTER ORDINATION, confirmando," by confirming
them in them." For, says the apostle, in the next verse but one, " Some
men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment;" (that is, the
crisis, or test, or censure, or judgment of the church;) " and some follow
after." This is the grammatical sense and logical analysis of the words.
But, beloved, I must take leave to handle the words in a greater
latitude and extent. For certainly this caution is not intended to
ministers only, neither is it to be confined to the case of ordination ; but,
as Christ said upon another occasion, " What I say unto you, I say unto
all;" (Mark xitt. 37}) so" here, what St. Paul writes to Timothy, he
peaks to all. A private Christian as well as a minister, a churchmember as well as a church-elder, must be sure to take heed, that he
" be not partaker of other men's sins." The case of conscience to be
discussed this morning is this :
CASE.
How mutt we reprove, and not partake of other men*8 ins f

And, indeed, this case is complex and double: it bears twins. (Canticles iv. 2.)
I. About PARTICIPATION of other men's sins.
II. About REPROVING of other men's sins.^

I must beg leave to project and manage my discourse sermon-wise,
and so commend to your Christian meditation this truth and doctrine.
In the explication whereof, I shall handle the former case, and in the
application, the latter.
DOCTRINE.
It ought to 6e every man* care, not to PARTAKE of any man' tin :
"Neither be partaker."
* SALMERON. f OVIL. CHRYSOSTOM, THEOPHSXACT. THEODORET,
CALVIK.
|| PAREUS, ESTIUS.
If ESTIUS.
** CECUMEKIUS.
ft ESTIUS in loc.
In the fourth edition this line is omitted.EDIT.
THAT W MAY NOT PARTAKK OF OTHER * 88?
123
In the handling of which I shall endeavour to show yon,

I. How a man may he guilty of other men's sins, or how many ways
man may be said to partake of other men's sins.
II. Why a Christian must be careful not to partake of other men'
sins.
III. To apply it.
I. How a man may be *aid to partake of other men* *.To this I
answer, There are many ways whereby we contract the guilt of others*
sins. " Lord," says David, " who knows how oft he offends ?" I will
name some of them.
There are eight ways especially noted in scripture, by all which a man
is made partaker, and becomes guilty, of the sins of others.
1. .By contrivance,By plotting and contriving of sin, by provoking
and soliciting others to sin ; and this is in an high degree to be guilty of
other men's sin. Thus Jonadab was guilty of Amnon's incest, by hie
subtle contriving of that wickedness, by being a pander to that villany.
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(2 Sam. xiii. 5.)

When a man shall wittingly and willingly spread a snare in his
brother's way, and either drive him in by provocation, or decoy him in
by allurement, he makes himself a partaker of his sin. For example: to
provoke a man to passion, to tempt a person to drunkenness and
uncleanness, to put a man upon murder and bloodshed, to draw souls
into error, heresy, blasphemy, &c.,this is to espouse and adopt the
sin, and to make it a man's own.
You know the story there, 2 Sam. zi.: Uriah was slain with the edge
of the sword; David was many miles off when Uriah was slain; he died
in the battle; Joab put him in the front, and the Ammonites slew him ;
but now, because David plotted and contrived all this, the scripture tells
us that David was the murderer: " Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite
with the sword, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of
Ammon." (2 Sam. xii. 9.) Though the blade was the Ammonites', and
the hilt might be said to be Joab' ; yet the hand was David's, and the
deed was David's. The Ammonites slew him; but David murdered him.
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St. Paul tells us, he was a "blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious."
(1 Tim. i. 13.) Why, beloved, we do not read of any blasphemy that
St. Paul uttered in all the Bible. "0, but," says he, " I compelled the
saints to blaspheme." (Acts zxvi. 11.) There was his blasphemy, in
compelling others to blaspheme.
Beloved, to incite and provoke any to sinful practices, to seduce and
solicit any to loose doctrines and erroneous opinions, it is to be doubly
guilty of those sins,once by infection, and again by instigation.
Hence is that frequent expression among the Fathers, concerning Anns
the heretic : that, look how many souls he had seduced to his heresy and.
blasphemy, so many several additions of torments he had in hell, as guilty
of all their sins. 0 man! whoever thou art that makest thy neighbour
drunk, by putting the bottle to his mouth; (Habak. ii. 15;) that callest
to thy brother, saying, " Cast in thy lot amongst us, and let us have one
purse ;" that enticest the soul of the simple with a " Come, let us take
our fill of loves, and solace ourselves until the morning;" I tell thee,
124
SERMON Til.
HOW MUST WE REPROVE,
Thou art guilty of all their sins, and mayeat justly be punished with all
their plagues: for this, Christians, is a most devilish practice,to tempt
and provoke others to wickedness. All sins, indeed, are devilish sins, per
modum aervitutie ; but some sins are devilish sins, per modum imaging
In all sins, " men bear the devil's yoke;" (1 John iii. 8 ;) but in some
eins, "men bear the devil's image''
Five sins especially the scripture brands as devilish sins; and this is
the chief: (1.) False accusation: " Men shall be false accusers," devils,
says the Greek. (2 Tim. iii. 2, 3.) (2.) Lying . " Ye are of your father
the devil: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John viii. 44.) (3.)
Pride /"Not a novice, lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the
condemnation of the devil." (1 Tim. iii. 6.) (4.) Persecution: "The devil
shall cast some of you into prison;" (Rev. ii. 10;) that is, devilish menpersecutors. (5.) Temptation, as this is: " Get thee behind me, Satan,**
says Christ to Peter, when he tempted him. (Matt. zvi. 23.) He that
shall either hinder another of doing that good which is commanded, or
shall further another to the doing of that evil which is prohibited, is
justly chargeable with both their sins.
2. By compliance.By consenting and complying with sin and sinners:

so a man makes himself partaker. Though he has no hand in it, yet,
if he has a heart in it; though he does not act it, yet if he likes it,
and loves it, and approves it; though he does not persecute God's saints
and ministers, yet, if he saith, " Aha, aha! so would we have it;" it ie
enough to make him guilty before God.
Saul,he had no hand in St. Stephen's death, he did not cast one
stone at him ; but because he looked on with approbation, and stood by
with consent,"Saul was consenting unto hie death," (Acts viii. 1,)
therefore was he esteemed guilty of his blood and murder; and so
himself confesses, when God had awakened him, and humbled him to
repentance: " When the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I was
consenting unto his death;" (Acts ii. 20;) and so charges himself aa
guilty of it.
God looks not upon the outward man so much as upon the heart g
according to the frame and inclination of the heart, according as the
pulse of the heart beats, so is every man in the account and esteem of
God. If sin has once stormed the fort~royal of the heart, though it never
appears in the out-works, the garrison is lost. That which is upon the
stage of the heart after consent, is as truly acted in the sight of God as
that which appears in the outward man by commission. " Out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies." (Matt. xv. 19.) Why, beloved, from the
hand proceed " murders and thefts;" (Eph. iv. 28 ;) from the eye proceed " adulteries and fornications;" (2 Peter ii. 14;) and from the
tongue proceed " false witnesses and blasphemies." (Psalm cxx. 3.) O>
but the heart is the forge of ail.

You may murder a man with a thought, as they say the basilisk will
with a look,such a poisonous thing a wicked heart is: and let me tell
you, it is the heart-murder, and the heart-adultery, and the heart-blas-
phemy, and the heart-iniquity, that God especially judges; according to
THAT WK MAY MOT PARTAKE OF OTflER MEN* 8 BINS?
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that famous place: " I the Lord search the heart, to give every man
according to his ways;" (Jer. xvii. 10;) that is, " according to what I see
acted and done upon the stage of the heart/' says God; he does not
only judge the action*, hut he judges the very intention.
3. By connivance.By a sinful dissembling, flattering, and winking
at others in their wickedness and sins, so men become guilty of others'
sins: "The leaders of this people cause them to err:" (Isai. ix. 16:)
it is in the Hebrew, " The blester* of thi* people cause them to err."*
Beloved, the blessers of men in wickedness are the leaders of men in
wickedness. He that shall wink at and flatter men in sins, when he
knows in his conscience that they do wickedly,he makes himself
captain and master of misrule among them* And thus we are too
prone to be partakers of magistrates' sins, and governors' sins, and
great men's sins, patrons' sins, and landlords' sins. If the grandees
of the world profane the sabbath, dishonour God, rant and swear, and
scoff at religion; out of a base, cowardly spirit, or out of a carnal,
covetous heart, we flatter them and let them alone, it may be, applaud
them; as he said, Tu fac hunc dominum, te facit ille Deum; " Do
but make him a lord, and he straightway makes thee a God!" as if
we were not to distinguish between the person* of men and the vices of
men; or as if so be we more feared a mortal man, whose breath is in
his nostrils, than we do the immortal God, who can frown us into hell in
a moment. 0, this is to be deeply guilty of other men's sins! See how
sharply God by his prophet taxes and reproves this daubing in those
wicked upholsterers, that "sew pillows to every elbow," Ezek. xiii. 17,
and so forward. Bead it at leisure.

I fear this has been the sin of former times and governments: God
grant it may not be the sin of present and future ages,for men to
connive at any that promote their own interests!
Alas* my brethren! methinks the interest of piety, and the
interest of conscience, and the interest of the eternal God, Judge
of quick and dead, should swallow up all the interests of the world.
If Nebuchadnezzar himself should set up a golden image, and
would have it worshipped, I tell you it is not treason for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to say, "0 Nebuchadnezzar, we are
not careful to answer thee in this matter." (Dan. iii. 16;) Besides,
let, not men deceive themselves; for such persons as can so easily
betray the interests of God, will never be afraid, if opportunity serve,
to oppose the sovereignty of man, whose authority he bean; and
are not indeed Hushais, but Zibae; not David's friends, but David's
flatterers.
4. By sufferance.By permitting the sins of others, so we become
guilty, by suffering others to sin, whom we are bound in duly, and may
be able by authority, to hinder. And thus, as in the former particular
we are guilty of magistrates' sins, in this particular magistrates oft-times
become guilty of our sins. Kings, and rulers, and subordinate magistrates become oft-times deeply guilty of their people's sins; namely, by
Be<tt\fioantet populum.
126
SERMON .
sufferance, by tolerating errors, and heresies, and blasphemies, on the one

hand, or by suffering wickedness and profaneness, on the other.
That ruler or magistrate that shall suffer either loose opinions or
principles that are contrary to sound doctrine to be broached, or loose
ways and customs that are contrary to the power of godliness to be
observed, and shall not use his authority to prevent and suppress them,
he contracts to himself the guilt, and draws upon himself the mischief,
of all those sins and enormities. Just as he that licensee a book to the
press, if there be any faults of ignorance, or error, or poisonous opinions,
they may be justly charged upon him and laid at his door; though he is
not the author, yet because he is the licenser; though he is not the
parent, yet because he is the midwife. So if there be any heresy and
blasphemy tolerated in a place, if there be any profaneness and ungodliness suffered among a people, because it has the magistrates' imprimatur,
and he suffers it to pass the country without whipping, therefore, he is
highly guilty.
Sabbath-breaking abounds : " Let it pass," says the mayor of a town.
Drunkenness abounds: " Let it alone," says the justice of peace. Profaneuess abounds: " Let it go," says the minister. Sirs, if it should be
thus, this were to bear the sins of a whole parish, and a whole county,
and a whole nation, upon a man's back at once. See that [in] Revelation ii. to this purpose; where you find the sins of the people charged
upon the governors, for their permission and toleration, both sins of
doctrine and practice. OF DOCTRINE : " To the angel of the church in
Fergamos, write; I have a few things against thee, because thou hast
there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam. So hast thou also them
that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitaues, which thing I hate." (Rev. ii.
12, 14, 15.) This is charged upon the angel, " the overseer and governor," of the church. He should have hindered it, and he did tolerate
and permit it; and it was his sin. And so OF PRACTICE : " Unto the
angel of the church in Thyatira write ; I have a few things against thee,
because thou suffereat that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a
prophetess, to teach and to seduce," &c. (Rev. ii. 18, 20.)
To suffer
Jezebel to teach in a nation, is to suffer painting, and wantonness, and
uncleanness : these were the sine of Jezebel; and to permit them, is to
partake of them.
OBJECTION. But some may object, and say, " Why does God then
permit sin to be in the world? He might hinder it, and he might
prevent it, if he would. There could be no wickedness acted under the
sun, but by God's permission. The devil could not tempt Job, and
Satan could not sift Peter, without leave and commission from God ;
neither could any wicked man act his villany, and spit out his venom,
without God's sufferance. If permission of sin be a partaking of sin,
how shall we vindicate God from the imputation of unrighteousness?"
ANSWER. (1.) This was Marcion's wicked and malicious cavil at God's
providence about the first transgression. " Why would not God, who
foresaw the issue, hinder Eve and the devil from conference and communion together, that so sin might have been prevented, and the world been
everlastingly happy ? unless/' saith he, " God was either envious and
THAT WE MAT NOT PARTAKE OP OTHER MEN*8 81N8?
127
would not, or weak and could not, hinder it!" To which Tertullian
replies: "Because God was arbitrary and free in his gifts." Austin
answers: " Because it was his will." Prosper and Hilary reply: "The
cause may be unknown: it cannot be unjust." All which is enough
09 obturare, " to muzzle" that heaven-daring " mouth" of blasphemy.
But afterward Austin answers, that " though sin be the worst thing in
the world, yet the existence of sin is not ill;" as poison would do no
hurt, if men would not meddle with it. But that satisfies not our case.
Therefore,
(2.) Though God hath authority, and is of ability, to prevent and
hinder the commission of sin, yet he it not bound in duty so to do." God
is under no tie and obligation," but his own purpose and pleasure: Dens
non tenetur legibus, " God is a law to himself." Herein lies the guilt
and evil of man's permitting of sin:he is bound in duty, as well as
furnished with ability and authority, to prevent it; and therefore his
permitting of sin is a partaking of sin : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live:" (Exod. xxii. 18:) man is bound to hinder profaneness and
wickedness, if he can ; but so is not God. Though he is of infinite
power and ability to restrain it, or to remove it, yet he is not bound in
duty; and so it is no unrighteousness in God to suffer sin. " Sin is the
transgression of the law; but where there is no law, there is no transgression."
(3.) It is no unrighteousness in God to suffer sin, when he may hinder
it, because he can by hie infinite wisdom order it to his own glory.He
suffered Pharaoh to harden his heart, that he might be glorified on
Pharaoh. (Rom. ix. 17.) Pharaoh's sin turned to God's glory. As he
makes all penal evils work together for our goods so he makes all sinful
evils concur to his own glory.
(4.) It is no unrighteousness in God to suffer sin, because he can turn
every man's in to a greater benefit and advantage." Ye thought evil
against me," saith Joseph to his brethren; "but God meant it unto
good." (Gen. 1. 20.) He can bring good out of evil, and light out of
darkness. God suffers toads and serpents to live, because they are
useful; they suck the noxious and hurtful gusts from herbs and flowers,
and so make them wholesome for man's use. So God permits sin in
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antidote of the viper's flesh. He did, by an excellent and rare chymistry,
extract the greatest mercy from the greatest mischief, the greatest good
from the greatest evil:the salvation of mankind from the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ.
5. By influence of bad example.By setting loose and bad example
for others to imitate. So men are guilty of others' sins; as, namely,
when children sin by the examples of their parents, those very parents
are guilty of their children's sin. So we have some families that inherit
the lusts, as well as the lands, of their ancestors; parents swear and curse,
and so do children ; parents are drunkards, and so are children ; parents
are unclean, and so are children ; as they make them rich by their livings,
so they make them wretched and debauched by their lives: this is to
make themselves partakers of all their sins. So when people sin by the
128
SERMON VII. HOW MUST WB REPROVE,
looseness and licentiousness of their minister, that minister is guilty of

those very sins that the people so commit; which made Austin, though
a very holy man, so exceeding jealous of himself in this case, that that
was his constant prayer, Libera me, Domine, a peccatis meis alieni*.
" Lord," saith he, " deliver me from mine other men's sins!" those sins
that others have committed through my carelessness and incogitancy.
And indeed examples are more cogent and influential a great deal
than precepts. The adulteries of Jupiter and other pagan gods did
mightily draw the people to imitate their wantonness; and Angustine
gives the reason: Magis intuebantur quid fecerat Jupiter, quam quid
docuit Plato: " They more minded what Jupiter did, than what Plato
taught."
Jeroboam the son of Nehat is said to make Israel to sin : that is his
brand. How did he make Israel to sin ? Why, by his law he commanded
them to sin ; hut by his practice and example he made them to sin. He
set up calves in Dan and Bethel, and whole herds of people ran a lowing
after them. So it is said of St. Peter, that he compelled the Gentiles to
Judaize: "Why eompellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?"
(Gal. ii. 14.) How did St. Peter compel the Gentiles to Judaize ? " Not
by any thing he preached to them," saith Jerome, " but by his example :"
Non docentis imperio, ted conversantis exemplo.* A stone, you know,
thrown into the water, makes itself but one circle; ay, but that one
perhaps begets a score, or a hundred. So it is here: he that sets an
evil example sins not alone; he draws hundreds, it may be, into sin after
him. He is like a man that sets his own house on fire; it burns many
of his neighbours', and he is to be answerable for all the ruins.
6. By inference from a bad example, or by imitation.So a man is
guilty of another man's sin, not only by pattern, in setting bad examples,
but also by practice, in following bad examples; and thus that man that
will be drunk because another was drunk, or that breaks the sabbath
because others do the like,he is not only guilty of his own particular
sin, but he is guilty also of their sins whom he imitates and follows; and
the reason is, because bad examples are not land-marks for us to go by,
but they are sea-marks for us to avoid. Hence you shall find in scripture mention made of children by imitation as well as by nature, and
people by imitation as well as by nation, and kings by imitation as well
as by succession. I will give you an instance of all these. Look into
that, Judges xviii. 30: " The children of Dan set up the graven image :
and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his
sons were priests to the tribe of Dan."
Here Jonathan, an idol-priest,
is called the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh; that is, the grandchild
of Manasseh. Now it is clear in scripture, that Gershom was the son of
Moses, and not of Manasseh. (Exod. ii. 22; xviii. 3; 1 Chron. xxiii. 15.)
And so Jonathan must be the grandchild of Moses, and not of Manasseh.
But the Jews and learned critics tell us, that he is called the grandchild
of Manasseh for a double reason : (1.) Because the scripture, consulting
the honour of Moses, did conceal his pedigree as to Moses; for it had
* Epistola Hieronymi infra opera Augustmi, Epist. 11. "The eleventh epistle of
St. Jerome, inserted in the Works of St Augustine."EDIT.
THAT WE MAY NOT PARTAKE OF OTHER MEN*S SINS?
129
been a disgrace to Moses to have had upon record an idol-priest in hie

lineage; and, (2.) Which ie to my purpose, he is called the grandchild
of Manasseh, and that by ^ and "anticipation," because he
followed him in his idolatry: he was no whit like Moses, but rather
imitated Manasseh, and so he is called his grandchild.
For the other instance, see Isaiah i. 10: " Hear the word of the Lord,
ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of
Gomorrah." Why, beloved, these that the prophet speaks to,they
were the people of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Why does
the prophet call them the people of Gomorrah ? Even for this reason,
they did imitate those filthy Sodomites and Gomorrhites in wickedness,
and wantonness, and looseness, and so became guilty of their sins, and
worthy of their names.
The last instance you have in 2 Chronicles xxviii. 19: "The Lord
brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel." Ahaz, all know,
was king of Judah, and not king of Israel; but he is called king of
Israel, because he imitated the wicked and idolatrous kings of Israel:
he was not so by succession, but he was so by imitation.
Hence it is that God is said to " visit the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children," because they make themselves guilty by imitation: and
this may be a key to unlock that place of the apostle : " Evil men and
seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."
(2 Tim. iii. 13.) Deceivers are worse, but the deceived are worse and
worse: if they see a bad example, and will not avoid it, but copy it, they
are worse than worse. The deceiver is guilty of the deceived's sin by
instigation, and the deceived is guilty of the deceiver's sin by imitation.
And this is the woful, intricate, perplexed labyrinth into which sin
doth precipitate careless and ungodly sinners. If thou committesfc that
sin which none before committed but thee, thou art guilty of all the sins
of future generations by thy example,as Adam was in the world, and
Jeroboam in Israel. And if thou committest any sin because others
have committed it before thee, thou art guilty of all the sins of former
generations by thy imitation: and so sin never goes alone; a single sin is
as great a solecism in divinity as a single thank is in grammar and
morality. And that you may know, Christians, I do not speak without
book in so saying, witness that dreadful place: " Wherefore, behold, I
send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes : and some of them
ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your
synagogues, and persecute from city to city:" Mark! " That upon you
may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye
slew," though slain in Jehoash's reign, almost nine hundred years before,
yet ye slew, " between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto yon.
All these things shall come upon this generation." (Matt, xxiii. 3436 )
And why ? Because they sinned " after the similitude of their fathers'
transgression." what matter of humiliation is this to every soul that
continues in any known sin!
7. By countenance.By delightful society and company with wicked
men to countenance them, so we become partakers of their sine: " But
130
SERMON VII. HOW MUST WE REPROVE,
now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is
called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or
a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. Therefore
put away from among yourselves that wicked person." (1 Cor. v. 11,13.)
As you would avoid the sin, avoid the sinner. Eating does denote intimate
fellowship and familiarity; and we cannot be intimate with such without
contracting their guilt to our own souls. It is true, indeed, all commerce with such is not forbidden; for then, as the apostle says, " we
must needs go out of the world ;" (verse 10 ;) but intimate society is,
upon this account. And therefore the apostle, or at least the translator, does here seem critically to distinguish between " companying,"
and keeping company: " I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to company
with fornicators. But now I have written unto yon not to keep company." (Verses 9, 11.) Company we may(yea, we cannot avoid it,)
but keep company we must notwith wicked men. As elsewhere the
Holy Ghost distinguishes between " sinning " and committing in : " He
that is born of God doth not commit sin," saith St. John. The holiest
man on this side heaven cannot but sin, saith the same apostle; ay, but
"he that is born of God does not commit sin;" sin he does, but commit
tin he doth not; that is, he doth not deUght in it, he doth not use it, he
doth not make it his practice : so here.
We read in scripture where wicked men have often fared better for the
godly; as Laban for Jacob, and Potiphar for Joseph, and Ahab for
Jehoshaphat, &c.; but we never read that godly men fared better for the
company of the wicked, but rather worse: " Depart from me, ye evil
doers: for I will keep the commandments of my God." (Psalm cxix.
115.) It is a very hard matter to keep wicked company, and to keep the
commandments of God together.
The Lacedaemonians would never suffer a stranger to be with them

above three days, for fear of infection and corruption with their evil
manners. And verily those that are strangers to God and godliness
should be as little as may be our companions.
8. By maintenance.By upholding and encouraging men in their sins,
though thou never committest them thyself, yet thou art guilty. " He
that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John 11.)
Though thou dost not commit it, yet if thou dost applaud it, and rejoice
in it, and say, " It is well done," thou art a partner. If thou art not the
mother of it, yet thou art the nurse of it; if thou art not the father of it,
yet thon art the guardian of it; and God will lay the brat at thy door, as
sure as if thou hadst begot it.
Thus I have done with the first thing, How we become guilty, or how
many way partakers, of other men* sins. There are many more might be
named, as by hindering good, by excusing evil, by administering occasion,
by not reproving, not mourning, not reclaiming, fyc. Bat these and many
more that practical authors handle,they are but underling-sprigs from
the great branches that I have opened.
II. Why a Christian must be careful to avoid, and not to partake of,
other men's sins: The reasons of the doctrine ?
ANSWER. Out of a three-fold principle:
THAT WB MAY NOT PARTAKE OP OTHER MEN*S SINS?
131
1. Out of a principle of charity to our brethren.

2. Oat of a principle of pity to ourselves.
3. Oat of a principle of piety to God.
1. Out of charity to our brethren.That we be not means and instruments to promote their rain and destruction: for, to partake of other
men's sins, though it does more burden us, yet it does never a whit ease
them, but does rather harden them, and confirm them in their practices;
for company in sin makes men act it with the greater confidence. Now,
this is to do the devil's part in the habit of a friend. Sirs, we must be
charitable; charity is the golden rule; charity is the bond of perfection.
Now, if it be a piece of charity to help up our brother's ox or ass, when
he is fallen into a ditch ; (Exod. xxiii. 4 ;) sure it is more charity to do as
much for his soul: "Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire."
(Jude 23.) Sin is the deep ditch of the soul, and sin is the hell-fire of
the soul, as it were: here should be lifting and plucking indeed.
The neglect of this duty of keeping one another from sin, the scripture
calls an " hating of our brother." " Thou shalt not hate thy brother in
thine heart: thou shalt not suffer sin upon him/' (Lev. xix. 17.) I
observe, in company, that if many persons sit together by a fire, and a
spark fly upon any one of them, every one is ready to shake it off and
beat it off; and why should not we be as friendly and charitable to men's
souls, when sin, which is as hell-flakes, lies smothering in their consciences, or burning upon their souls ?
2. Out of pity to ourselves.That we may keep ourselves from the
blood of other men's souls, and secure ourselves from the judgments of
other men's sins. For the former, says St. Paul: " I take you to record
this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not
shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." (Acts xx. 26, 27.)
Had the apostle connived at, or consented to, their sins, God would have
made inquisition for the blood of their souls at his hands. For the latter,
says Jacob: " Simeon and Levi are brethren ; instruments of cruelty are
in their habitations: my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto
their assembly, mine honour, be not thon united." Why ? 0, " I will
divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." (Gen. xlix. 57.) He
would not have a hand in their sinful union, because he would not have
a share in their dreadful division :- they were united in sin, and they must
be divided in punishment.
3. Out of piety towards God.God forbids it: " Be not ye partakers
with them;" (Eph. v. 7;) and God forbid that we should do it! Nay,
God abhors it and condemns it: " When thon sawest a thief, then thou
consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers," &c.
" These things hast thou done : but I will reprove thee, and set them in
order before thine eyes." (Psalm 1. 18, 21.) This sin is a breach of all
the law at once, being against the rule of charity. He that hath his own
sins alone, doth only commit them; but he that takes other men's sins, doth
highly approve them; and this greatly dishonours God. It is worse partaking of sin, than committing of sin. " They do not only do the same,"
saith the apostle, " but have pleasure in them that do them:" (Rom. i.
32:) that is worse. Wherefore Zelophehad's daughters pleaded in
132
SERMON Til.
BOW MUST WE REPROVE,
mitigation of their father's offence, that "he died in hie own sin;"
(Num. xxvii. 3;) he was not partner with Korah, but died in hie own
sin. It is worse to be a partner, than to be an actor.
III. Application.
1. Information,Is there each a thing as " partaking of other men's
sins" after this manner?
(1.) Hence you may be informed of the equity and justice of God'
proceeding in punishment.You oft-times see God punishing one man's
sin upon another, or at least hear of it; and you think it strange. Why,
this (Edipus will read you the riddle; this clue will conduct you
through the labyrinth :They have been, some way or other, partakers
of those sins, either by contrivance, or by compliance, or by connivance,
&c., one way or other, else God would never punish them : if they have
not been actors, they have been abettors. " Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?" God punishes children for the sins of their
parents; (Exod. xxxiv. 7;) ay, but those children have been ,
"partakers," certainly by approbation, it may be by imitation. God
punishes servants for the sins of their masters; (Gen. xii. 17;) but, sure,
the servants were xoivcovot, " partakers " by consenting,* it may be by
executing. God punishes wives for the sins of their husbands; (Gen.
xx. 18;) but those wives were xoivcovoi, "partakers" still by admitting,
by enduring. God punishes ministers for the sins of the people; (Ezek.
xxxiii. 8;) but then those ministers are xoivcevo*, " partakers," sure
enough, by not instructing, by not reproving: still the justice of God is

vindicated.
(2.) Hence he informed what piety, and strictness, and watchfulness
are more especially required of those that have the care of others.For
example: kings, and parents, and masters, and magistrates, and ministers,they should be exemplary in godliness. They have curam
animarum, and therefore they should have curam animee; they have
" care of other men's souls," and therefore they should look well to
" their own."
The want of this was her crime and complaint: " They
made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not
kept." (Canticles i. 6.) 0, those that are keepers of vineyards had
need to have special care of their own vineyard!
(3.) Hence take an account why the wicked of the world do so hate the
godly, and reproach and revile them.It is this : They will not be partakers of their sins; they will not commit them, neither will they connive at them; and this is the reason why the world hates them. Ahab
hates Micaiah ; and himself gives the reason,because he reproved him:
" I hate him," he " doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil."
(1 Kings zxii. 8.) He never speaks well of me. Herod hates John
Baptist because he reproves him.
No wonder that ministers, of all kind
of men in the world, are most hated. The case is plain: because they are
reprovers. Godly ministers are wicked men's reprovers, and wicked men
are godly ministers' reproachers: " They think it strange ye run not with
them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." (1 Peter iv. 4.)
(4.) Here is matter of reproof and humiliation this day for our want
* In the first edition, this word is consulting,EDIT.
THAT WE MAT NOT PARTAKE OV OTHER MEN* BINS?
133
of watchfulnest in thie kind.0 which of us can say, that we are free

from the guilt of other men's sins? Every man may cast this bur of
reproof and lamentation at his own conscience, and there let it stick.
Parents, every one: " Ah my children's sins 1" Masters : " Ah my
servants' sins!" Ministers: "Ah my people's sins I" Balers: "Ah
my subjects' sins I" let us deeply mourn for want of relative holiness, and more frequently and fervently pray that prayer: "Lord,
forgive me my other men's sins."
2. The SECOND USE is of exhortation and caution together.Is it so,
that it ought to be every man's care not to partake of any man's sin ?
0 Christians! let me entreat you, then, to be very mindful of this
duty: be persuaded, beloved, and the Lord persuade you, to he tenderly
careful and watchful, that " you do not partake of other men's sins."
These are infectious times and places that we live in; and multitudes
there are that catch diseases and distempers from others. But let me
tell you, Christians, that bodily diseases are not half so catching as sin is.
Sin is an infectious, contagious, pestilential plague, that spreads mightily
in the world. 0 take heed, take heed, that the guilt of other men's sins
do not one day lie upon your conscience, and be put upon your account!
Let me enforce this counsel in the words of our apostle here; and they
are very weighty and emphatical:
" I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect
angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before
another;" and amongst the rest this is one: " That thou be not partaker of other men's sins." (1 Tim. v. 21, 22.) Give me leave to prosecute this in these three particulars:
1. By laying down some arguments to press this caution and exhortation.
2. By pointing at what sins especially yon must not partake of.
3. By showing you how you may so manage the business, and order
the matter, as not to be partakers of other men's sins; what are the
antidotes against this infection.
1. To lay down the argument.
(1.) Consider: . have fine enough of your own, you have no reaeon
to partake of other men'.It is cruel to " add affliction to your bonds."
Jesus Christ had no sins of his own, and therefore he could and did bear
ours; he did take all men's sins, though he did not partake of any
man's sins: all were his by imputation: " The Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all;" (Isai. liii. 6;) but none were his by perpetration
and participation. It is not so with us. Alas! we have sins enough of
our own. Man, woman, thine own pride will damn thee, if thou dost
not repent; and thine own hypocrisy, and formality, and worldliness,
and hardness of heart. Thou hast no need to take the sins of others.
Said the daughters of Zelophehad, "Our father died in his own sin;"
(Num. zzvii. 3 ;) ay, that is enough to kill a man, and damn a man,
" his own sin."
(2.) Consider: If it a most monstroue tin, it i a moat dreadful at, to
partake of other men'* sine.The apostle speaks of committing iniquity
" with greediness." (Eph. iv. 19.) Sirs, there is no such greedy sinning
134
as this,for a man to lick up, and swallow down, and devour, other
men's sins. Naturalists tell us, that serpens serpentem devorans fit
draco, " If a serpent swallow down another serpent, it becomes a
dragon." 0 Christians! this sin of devouring other men's sins is a
dragon-sin, a monstrous sin, a dreadful sin, a devilish sin ; and therefore
take heed of it!
(3.) Consider : If you partake of other men's tn, you shall certainly
partake of other men's plagues." Come out of her, my people," says
God, namely, from Babylon, " that you be not partakers of her sine, and
that ye receive not of her plagues." (Eev. xviii. 4.) See Prov. xiii. 201
" A companion of fools shall be destroyed;" not only "fools shall be
destroyed," but " a companion of fools shall be destroyed." If you sin
with them, you shall suffer with them, and you shall suffer more because
of them. Read that: And the rich man said, " I pray thee, father
Abraham, that thou wouldest send Lazarus to my father's house: for I
have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come
into this place of torment." (Luke xvi. 27, 28.) Why would not he
have his brethren to come to hell to him ? Divines determine, [that it
was] not out of any love to their souls; there is not that charity to be
supposed in hell. 0, but [it was] because the sight of them, and company of them, would increase his torment. This will be the shrieking
and howling in hell among damned souls one to another : " 0 woe-worth
the day that ever I saw thy face !" "0 that ever I saw thy face!"
" Thou hast brought me hither!" " And thou hast brought me hither!"
and so they will torment one another to all eternity !
2. What sins we must especially take heed of partaking of.
ANSWER. Of all sin whatsoever: " Abstain from all appearance of
evil;" * (1 These, v. 22;) but especially of three sorts of sins, which may
be called epidemical plagues. (1.) Church-sins, (2.) National sins, (3.)
Family-sins. But I shall speak nothing of the first, but little of the
second, and most to the third.
(1.) Among national sins, especially take heed of profaneness. This
is obvious; this is an universal, spreading plague, that is like to infect the
whole kingdom, if God does not in mercy prevent it. There is a deluge
of profaneoess breaking in on every side; swearing, drinking, whoring,
sabbath-breaking, scoffing, and mocking at religion: all the countries
ring again. Men are now grown bold, and audacious, and incorrigible
in their wickedness ; that, like a Titan-brood, they even threaten heaven
itself with an over-daring impudence, as if they would storm the palace
of Jehovah, and pluck him out of his throne. 0 take heed of partaking
here I
(2.) Family-sins.We must have a care of partaking here, and so
much the more watchful must we be, in that family-sins, of all sins, are
most catching and infectious. As it is with bodily diseases, if one be
sick in a house, they of the blood, and kin, and family, are likeliest to
catch the distemper, because of their frequent and intimate converse
* Loquitur apostolu de peccatis gramoribus iisque maximi qua pttblicum offendi*
culum pariunt.ESTIUS in loc. " The apostle here speaks of the more grievous sins \
and, chiefly, those which produce the greatest public scandal and offence."EDIT.
THAT WE MAY NOT PARTAKE OF OTHER MEN*S SINS?
135
especially: so it is here ; if there be any predominant lust lurking in a

family, all are apt to be infected with it, if they are not marvellous circumspect and watchful.
And therefore parents, and masters, and governors of families had
need to be reformers, both of themselves and all under their charge; for,
beside that this is the most compendious and safest way to state-reformation and church-reformation,every family being a kind of a little
kingdom of itself, and a little church of itself, wherein the master is
both king, priest, and prophet;beside this, there is the sound of this
argument and reason to alarm them, namely, as they desire to have their
souls and consciences free from the guilt of other men's sins.
Plato, seeing a child do mischief in the streets, went forthwith and
corrected his father for it. That father that does not correct his child
when he does amiss, is justly corrected for his faults ; and it is the pattern of God's judicial proceedings. As he visits the iniquities of the
fathers upon the children who imitate them ; so he visits the iniquities
of the children upon the fathers, who countenance and indulge them.
As Jacob was countable to Laban for the whole flock; not a sheep or
a lamb lost or torn, but it was required at bis hands; (Gen. zzzi. 39;)
thus must family governors be accountable to God for every lamb in the
fold, for every child in the family, for every servant in the house. Says
God to him, " Give an account of thy stewardship ; for thou mayest be
no longer steward." (Luke xvi. 2.) So will God one day cry aloud in
thine ears : Quintili Vare, redde legione / * " Husband, father, master,
wife, give an account of thy husbandship, and give an account of thy
fathership, give an account of thy mastership, give an account of thy
wifeship," &c. This made Joshua undertake for his house, as well as for
himself. (Joshua zxiv. 15.) And this made David careful of his house, as
well as his heart: " I will walk within my house with a perfect heart;"
(Psalm ci. 2;) not only with a perfect heart, but in hie house with a perfect heart, so as to reform his family, that that may be the church of
God ; (Col. iv. 15 ; Philemon 2 ;) as well as to reform himself, that he
may be the " temple of God." (1 Cor. iii. 17; vi. 19.)
Ah! how many families are there whose houses are not the " church
of God," but the " synagogue of Satan " rather! " God is not in all
their thoughts;" God is not in all their mouths, except it be in swearing,
and cursing, and blaspheming. Their " bellies are their god," and their
lusts are their lord. It is said of Noah's ark, that it " was pitched
within and without." (Gen. vi. 14.) " Such," says one, " is the condition of many a man's house: it is a Noah's ark ; it is pitched within and
without; nothing but the pollutions and defilements of sin in every room,
and passage, and corner. Idleness stands at the door; -unconscionableness walks in the shop; covetousness lurks in the counting-house; luxury
sits at the table; pride looks out at the window; wantonness lodges in
the bed;all pitchy and filthy both within and without."
* SUETONII Vita, lib. ii. 23." It is related, that Augustus waa in mch a state of
consternation," (at the loss of the three legions in Germany, under the command of Quintilius Varus,) that, having allowed his beard and his hair to grow for several months,
he sometimes, through agony, struck his head against the doors, and cried out, Qumtiliiu Varus ! restore me the legion which you lost! "EDIT.
136
SERMON VII.
And' therefore, Christians, for the Lord's sake, out with all this rubbish, if it should be found in your families. How do yon in London
here delight to have your houses clean; and hereupon sw.eep them, and
wash them, and rub them! that you would be as careful to cleanse
your families from sin, as you are to cleanse your houses from dirt i How
soon would this great city become " a habitation of righteousness," and
"a mountain of holiness !" How would this family-reformation prevent
the guilt of family-sins, and keep out family-distractions, and secure
from family-desolation! Therefore, sirs, set up family-watchfulness, and
family-correction. Let every house be an house of correction of itself;
and set about family-reading, and family-conference, and family-repetition,
and especially family-prayer; that all your houses may be like God's
house: you know his is called an "house of prayer:" "Mine house
shall be called an house of prayer for all people." (Isai. Ivi. 7.) So
should yours ; they should be houses of prayer, all of them : if they be
not, let me tell you, they are no better than dens of thieves. Saith
Christ, " My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have
made it a den of thieves." (Matt. xxi. 13.) There is no medium betwixt
these two; if your houses be not " houses of prayer," they are certainly
" dens of thieves;" if you do not pray to God for your mercies before
you receive them, and praise God for your mercies when you enjoy them,
you do but rob God of his mercies; they are not given but thrown, and
snatched indeed rather than received.
3. Now, and in the last place, we come to the ANTIDOTES : How we
must 90 carry it, and order the business, as not to partake of other men's
fins.
ANTIDOTE i. Exercise an holy jealousy over others, (" I am jealous
over you," saith St. Paul,) especially thy relations; and this is the way
to deliver thy soul from their sins. Job, sacrificing for his children, said,
" It may be that my sons have sinned." (Job i. 5.)
ANT. ii. Watch against the sins of others.Have your eyes about
you : take heed of contriving, complying, winking at them. If it be in
your power, take heed of suffering them. See David's paroxysm of zeal
in this case, Psalm ci. 2, &c.
This is the direction in the text, which must not be omitted: " Keep
thyself pure;" take heed of infectious places, and infectious practices,
and infectious company.
ANT. in. Pray against them.Pray against profaneness, pray Augustine's prayer, " Lord, deliver me from other men's sins!"
ANT. iv. Mourn for them.Mourn for the sins of the nation, and
mourn for the sins of thy relations;' for the sins of thy brethren in their
obstinacy, that they will not be reformed. Christ came to sinful Jerusalem with weeping eyes, and with a mourning heart t "0 Jerusalem!"
Pavid mourned for the wickedness of the times that he saw. (Psalm
cxix. 136.) "Many walk," says Paul, "of whom I tell you weeping." Thus did God's people of old free themselves from national sins,
and particular men's sins. When they could not be reformers, they
turned mourners. (Jer. xiii. 17.) And see how prevalent this is with
God! These mourners are the only people to deliver a nation, or at least
THAT WK MAY NOT PARTAKE OF OTHER MEN*8 SINS.
137
to deliver themselves from the sins and plagues of a nation, when God
makes an overflowing scourge to pass through. (Ezek. is. 4.) On the
other side, not mourning for the sins of others makes us adopt and
espouse the sins of others. (Dan. v. 22.)
ANT. v. Reprove them. (Ezek. Hi. 1719.)If we would not partake of the sins of others, we must reprove the sins of others. (Lev. xix.;
Ezek. zxxiii. 79.) So the apostle saith expressly; (Eph. v. 11;) intimating that you do certainly approve them, if you do not reprove them.
Reprove heresy, blasphemy, drunkenness, oaths, sabbath-breaking, uncleanness, and every sin you hear or see committed. The ravished
virgin under the law was to cry out; (Deut. xxii. 2527 ;) in this case
God takes silence for consent. As there is a holy silence to God's correction ; (Aaron held his peace;) so there is a sinful silence under man's
corruption; (Eli held his peace also;) Aaron's silence was a good silence ;
but Eli' silence was a naughty silence. We must be silent under God's
correction; but we must not be silent under man's corruption. (Lev. v. 1.)
Therefore, saith St. Paul, "Reprove them:" the best way to avoid
" fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness," and to free a man's
soul from the guilt of other men's sins, is to reprove them : that is the
antidote against this infection. Thus the Ephesians practised as St. Paul
preached. St. Paul does not more advise them to this duty, than St.
John does commend them for this duty. Says the Holy Ghost there, in
Rev. ii. 13, compared together: "Thou hast borne, and yet hast not
borne," God's correction, man's corruption: " I know thy patience, and
how thou canst not bear," &c.: it is no breach of patience to be impatient against sin and sinners. But now, beloved, because this sword of
reproof is a very dangerous weapon, if it be not rightly handled, an edgetool that we must be marvellously chary how we meddle with; there is
required therefore a great deal of skill, and prudence, and wisdom, and
watchfulness, to a right and successful managing of this duty. He that
would fasten this nail of reproof in the conscience of his offending brother, had need be a very wise man. (Eccles. xii. 11.) Yea, as I remember Isiodorus Pelusiota [says,] To fttv tvmfiav patitov. [" It is indeed
an easy matter to bestow rebukes."] Every one can find fault and
reprove another for the same; but to do it discreetly and seasonably and
successfully, requires a great deal of wisdom; and to this end I shall
give you these rules. Reproof is double: 1. Ministerial, and by way of
authority; and, 2. Fraternal, by way of charity.
II. And here we come to the second case; namely, REPROOF.

1. He that reproves another must be very careful that himself be faultless and blameless, as much as may be.Otherwise he is not acting his
charity, but bewraying his hypocrisy. " Thou therefore which teachest
another," &c. (Rom. ii. 21, 22.) This is hypocrisy, saith Christ. (Matt,
vii. 35.) And here there are two things couched in this:
(1.) A man must be faultless in reference to sin in general, as much 09
may be, that will reprove another.The snuffers of the sanctuary under the
law were of pure gold; and it behoves that man that will be a snuffer in
God's house,to correct others, to amend others, and reprove others,
138
to be very upright and circumspect in all things, and then he may admonish with the greater advantage, authority, efficacy. " Let the righteous
smite me," &c., saith David. (Psalm cxli. 5.) A man of a strict and
severe life, and religious and righteous conversation, carries a kind of a
majesty and authority along with him, at which the guilty consciences of
guilty sinners cannot but recoil; as Herod did to John Baptist, though
John had reproved him, and touched him to the quick. (Mark vi. 18, 20.)
And then,
(2.) A man must be blameless in reference to that ein [wkicK] he
reproves especially. Else, in healing his brother, he doth but stab
himself. If thou reprovest pride in others, and art proud thyself;
covetousness, and art covetous thyself; drunkenness, and art a drunkard
thyself; thou dost but, like David in Nathan's parable, pronounce the
sentence of thine own condemnation. (Rom. ii. 1.) But here I must
enter one caution : none is exempted from this duty for unfitness : no ;
" This ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone."
2. As he must take heed that himself be faultless, so he must be sure
that his brother be faulty.For, otherwise, it is not to reprove him, but
to reproach him ; and so, instead of doing a Christian duty, a man commits a devilish sin ; he becomes an " accuser of the brethren," instead of
a reprover of the brethren. (Gal. ii. 11.) And here are likewise two
things considerable:
(1.) It must be a truth that thou reprovest him for.
(2.) It must be a sin that thou reprovest him for.
(1.) It must not be a conjecture, or imagination, or jealousy, or
rumour, or hearsay, that is ground sufficient for reproof: for all these
may be false ; and the rule of charity is, Quisgue preesumitur esse bonus
nisi constat de malo.* But, verily, the guise of the world is far otherwise. We deal with our brethren as the persecuting Pagans did with
the primitive Christians ; put them into lions'-skins, and into bears'skins, and then bait them, and tear them to pieces. Alas! the poor
Christians were harmless, meek lambs; but they disguised them, and so
abused them. Thus it is now; Christians are apt and ready to put their
poor brethren into I know not what kind of monstrous ugly shapes, of
their own imagining and devising, or else of other men's traducing and
reporting ; and, without more ado, they fall foul upon them: this is not
to imitate our Saviour. (Isai. xi. 24.) Not from rumours, but with
"righteousness and equity." As God said in destroying of Sodom, so
should we say in reproving our brethren : " I will go down now, and
see." (Gen. xviii. 21.)
(2.) It must be a breach of some command, affirmative or negative,
directly or reductively ; either the omission of that which is good, or the
commission of that which id evil. We must be Catos, not Momuses. As
the Pharisees to Christ, (Matt. xix. 3,) so here, " Is it lawful to reprove
a man for every cause?" No ; the disciples were quite out in reproving
the children for coming to Christ in this chapter, when it was not
their sin, but their duty. (Verses 13, 14.) Quakers make a stir about
* "Every man is presumed to be good, unless his wickedness be manifest."EDIT.
THAT WE MAY NOT PARTAKE OF OTHER MEM*8 SINS?
139
cuffs, and bands, and ribbons, and laces, and such like minute trifles of
Pharisaical humility : if they can prove these [to be] sins, let them reprove
them in God's name; but if they are indifferent things, it is censoriousness, uncharitableness, and pragmaticalness to rail at them ; and not
Christian reproof.
3. He must manage his reproof to sincere end ; must take heed that
his aims and intentions be upright and honest in reproving,Take heed of
mingling any wild-fire of pride, and vainglory, and ambitious humour of
contradicting and controlling others, with thy zeal of reproving. This
heat must be holy heat, a fire of the sanctuary, as free from the smoke of
by-ends and self-interest as may be, purely for God's glory, and out of
hatred unto sin, and out of love to the salvation of thy brother's soul.
Diogenes, it is storied, reproved Plato's pride, by trampling upon his
velvet chair and cushion; but, says the author, Majori fastu superbum
Platonem Diogenes superbior.*
4. He must manage his reproof in fit season.There is a time to
speak, and a time to be silent. Reproof is a duty grounded upon an
affirmative precept. Now, it is well observed by divines, that affirmative
precepts bind semper, but not ad semper; we must always reprove, but
we must not reprove always; it is constant duty, but it must be done
in a seasonable opportunity. There are certain mollia fandi tempera,^
" words upon the wheels," as Solomon calls them, " that are like apples
of gold;" (Prov. xxv. 11;) and let me tell yon, Christians, one word
spoken in season is worth a thousand other words. Now, it is impossible to define and determine all the nicks of time wherein a man should
strike-in with a reproof; for this must be left to the wisdom and experience of every Christian, that makes it his business to be his brother's
keeper; and let him assure himself, he must expect to lose many an
admonition, shoot many an arrow of reproof, as Jonathan did Ms, under
and over, on this side and the other side, before he hit the mark.
RULES.
1. He must take a season wherein the offender is capable of reproof.
If a man be drunk, we must stay till he be sober; as Abigail. (1 Sam.
xxv. 36, 37.) So, if a man be all in a heat of passion, we must stay,
and come to him, as God did to Adam, in the cool of the day, whon the
fit was over.
2. We must take a season wherein we hone occasion to commend a man
for his virtues, and then rub him up for his faults." Sir, you are thus
and thus; but if you would but mend this and that, how excellent
it would be!" So St. Paul, 1 Cor. xi. 2, 17.
3. We must do it as soon as ever we can.And the sooner the better
a green wound is easier healed than an old sore. (Lev. xix. 17.)
4. If we have long waited for fit seasons, and yet cannot find them,
you had better make a breach upon one's prudence than one' conscience.
* " When Diogenes trampled on what he deemed to be the pride of Plato, he exhibited
a specimen of his own greater pride and consummate arrogance."EDIT.
f " Suit-
able times for speaking to a man, when he is inclined to be specially bland and courteous.**
EDIT.
140
SERMON VII.
Discretion then mast give place to necessity: out with it, and leave the
success to God.
5. He must manage hie reproof with due conditions and qualification.
And, beloved, there are seven properties of that reproof that will, in all
likelihood, both benefit and better our brother, and also secure ourselves
from participation of his sins.
(1.) We must reprove seriously and in good earnest, so as to knock
the nail up to the head in the conscience of the sinner. (Psalm 1. 21.)So
should we, in our reproofs of our brother, charge him home: ' These
things hast thou done; there is no denying." " Thou art the man,'*
says Nathan to David. Before he was in his parable; but now he speaks
plain English, as we say. " This Jesus whom ye have crucified," says
Peter to the Jews; and thus we should set things in order before him.
" Sir, is not this and that highly to dishonour God, and to crack your
credit, and to shame your profession, and to impair your body, and to
waste your estate, and to wound your conscience, and to damn your precious and immortal soul ? And therefore, for the Lord's sake, think on it,
and amend it." A loose and squibbing kind of reproof is like an ignis
lambens, [" a lambent flash,"] as soon off as on, and does the man more
hurt than good; as Eli'a careless and loose reproving of his lewd sons
did rather harden them in their villany, than any way reform them. As it
is with weak physic administered to a sick man ; if * it doth only stir the
humours, but not purge them away, it leaves the body in a greater and
worse distemper than it was before: so it is here. Therefore, says the apostle, [" Reprove "] /*?, " cuttingly." (Titus i. 13.) A finger that is
but just pricked, and no more,it is apt to rankle and fester, and be
worse; but let it bleed, and there is no danger; it will then soon be healed.
(2.) We must reprove impartially, and without respect of persons.
Good men, if they "miscarry, must be reproved as well as bad men. If
Peter temporize, Paul will not spare him; nor Barnabas neither; they
shall hear of it. (Gal. ii.) Again: great men, be they never so great,
they should be admonished as well as others, so long as they are under
the great God, and subject to great failings and miscarriages; kings, and
nobles, and magistrates, as well as meaner and inferiors persons. Nathan
reproved David, though a king ; and so did Elijah, Ahab ; and Nehemiah
reproved the nobles and rulers for usury and sabbath-profanation.
Certainly, if any be fit to teach great men, they are as fit to reprove
them; for both must go together. (2 Tim. iv. 2.) That is but a dronelike preaching that hath lost the sting of reproving. It is the great
nnhappiness of princes and nobles, that they have so many flatterers
about them, and so few reprovers. Carneades, in Plutarch, was wont to
say, that " great men's sons learned nothing well, but to ride horses;
for men would be sure to flatter them. If they run, they would lag
behind, that they might outrun them ; if they wrestled, they would fall
on purpose, that they might seem to cast them, &c. But a horse, not
knowing a prince from a peasant, would down with him if he could not
rule him." Just so it is now: let great men do what tl jy will, both
against scripture, and reason, and law, and conscience, they will not
* If is omitted in all editions except the first.EDIT.
THAT ^T MAY NOT PARTAKE OF OTHER MEN*8 BINS?
141
want their parasites, both to encourage them and applaud them. If

there be not a law for Cambyses to marry hie sister,tush I what of
that ?there is a law for Cambyses to do what he pleases; and thus
men, out of cowardice, and fear of frowns and wrath, dare not reprove
guilty greatness. 0, but if a man be a faithful monitor, he must be
impartial in his reproofs. Agag must be reproved, as well as the poorest
Amalekite; and the mountains must be touched, let them smoke and
fume never so furiously, to allude to that place, Psalm czliv. 5. This
made that excellent emperor Theodosius so much esteem Ambrose;
namely, that he durst and would, out of the sense of his duty, reprove
even the highest and proudest. Ambrosium ob hoe dignum episcopi
nomine solum naci* But here humility must be used.
(3.) We must reprove discreetly, making a difference between man and
man.For though it is true, that all are to be reproved that are
offenders, especially within the pale of the church; (1 Cor. v. 12;)
except they be scorners, whom Christ calls " dogs" and " swine," (Matt,
vii. 6,) and obstinate "heretics; " (Titus iii. 10;)yet all must not be
handled in the same manner. Some will do more with a rod than others
will do with a scorpion. A glass is not to be handled so roughly as a
brasen vessel. This rule St. Jude gives, verses 22, 23. Some must be
dealt withal with lenitives, others with corrosives; some gently reproved,
others sharply rebuked; according to the tenderness or stubbornness of
their disposition, or according to the nature and quality of their offences.
And here abundance of rules might be laid down about public, private,
great, small, seldom, or frequent, offences, tn one word, " a reprover
must be like the thresher, that the prophet describes," as one says.
(Isai. xxviii. 27, 28.)
(4.) We must reprove compassionately, with the deepest ense of our
own failings and miscarriages, and so with the greater pity to their
infirmities. (Gal. vi. 1.)Bernard said of himself, that he never saw
another man sin, but he was distrustful and jealous of his own heart:
Ills heri, et tu hodie, et ego eras ;f and this would file off a great deal
of that rigour and roughness that renders a reproof so unpleasing, and
so unprofitable; for, verily, Christian tenderness and compassion in the
reprover is the best way to work sense and passion in the sinner:
iS vii mejlere, dokndum ett
Primum ipsi .$_HOE AT. De Arts Poet. 103,104.
This is the way to mollify men's hearts ; whereas, by a lordly, domineering, austere, rigid reproof, instead of rendering thy brother God's
friend, thou dost but render thyself his enemy. (James i. 20.)
(5.) We must reprove charitably, with the greatest love to men's
persons.Even then, when we show the greatest zeal against their sins ;
for it is one thing to be angry with the sins, and another with his
person; therefore, we should consult our brother's credit, and esteem,
* * On this account Ambrose is the only man whom I have known to be worthy of the
title of bishop."EDIT.
f " He committed sin yesterday, and yon may commit it
to-day, and I to-morrow."EDIT.
- If you would have me weep, begin the strain ;
Then I shall feel your sorrows, feel your pain."FftAXCis'a Translation.
142
SERMON VIII.
WHAT MEANS MAY BE VSED TOWARDS
and honour, and person, while we stab his sin; and not, as one said
well, " in healing a wound in his conscience and conversation, to leave a
scar of reproach upon his person, and a brand of shame' and ignominy
upon his name :" that were to do the work of an enemy under the vizard
of a friend. And thus I remember the Jews generally interpret that
law, Lev. xix. 17; that is, say the Talmudists and Gemarists, "Thou
shalt rebuke thy brother, so as to reform him; but thou shalt not
rebuke thy brother, so as to shame him ; thou shalt rebuke him in love
and lenity: he that shames his brother by rebuking him, bears his sin;
nay," say they, " he that shames his brother shall never enter into the
kingdom of heaven:" their meaning is, unless the fault be notorious,
and public, and scandalous; for then they may shame him: " I speak
this to your shame," saith Paul.
(6.) We must reprove meekly, net in rage, and passion, and bitterness,
but in meekness, and sweetness of spirit.This rule the apostle gives.
(2 Tim. ii. 25.) Though there may be some warmth in a reproof, so as
to fetch off the hair; yet it must not be scalding hot, so as to fetch off
the skin. Elisha* did that with a kiss which his man could not do with a
staff: beloved, when a kiss will do better, 0 take heed of carrying your
teeth in your tongues. Take soft words and hard arguments to convince
gainsayers; and so gentle reproofs, and solid reasons, to reduce
offenders.
(7.) We must reprove scripturally.My meaning is, as near as we
can, to reprove our brethren in scripture-text, and scripture-language,
that so it may not seem to be we that speak, so much as the Spirit of
our Father that speaks in us; and this is to reprove with authority.
(Titus ii. 15.) What greater authority aud majesty wherewith to awaken
the conscience of a sinner than the word of God, by which he should be
ruled, and by which he must certainly be judged ?
Know, reader, that God took the author to glory, before he could
finish this sermon for the press.
SERMON VIII.
BY THE REV.
SAMUEL LEE,
A.M.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD.
WHAT MEANS MAY BE VSED TOWARDS THE CONVERSION OF OUR

CARNAL RELATIONS?
Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they
be saved.Romans x. 1.
THIS noble argumentative Epistle of the apostle Paul to the Romans,

was written and dated at Corinth, when he was now even ready to set
* In all the editions, this is misprinted Elijah.EDIT.
THE CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS?
143
Baft for Jerusalem, the messenger of the churches, to convey thither

the collections of Macedonia, and other places in Greece, made for the
poor saints of Judea; as appears by chap. xv. of this Epistle: " But
now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it hath
pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution
for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem;" (Bom. xv. 25, 26;) it
being supposed to be the same journey which is mentioned in Acts xx.
3; xxi. 3, &c.
The time of the penning this Epistle, some place in the fourteenth
year* of Claudius the emperor; some in the second, some in the sixth,
some in the eighth, of Nero.f It is at present impertinent to decide
that chronological controversy.
It consists principally of two parts; the first doctrinal, the second
hortatory.
The doctrinal part spends its strength upon the great point of justification by faith, and its glorious effects. Unto which our apostle doth
annex a notable discourse of the abstruse mystery of predestination, from
the beginning of chap, ix., to the end of chap. xi.; and therein takes
occasion to speak of that doleful bill of divorce which God had given to
the Jewish nation. He treats likewise of the calling and fulness of the
Gentiles, and the restoration of Israel in the latter days.
In each of these three chapters he sadly bewails the deplorable state
of his own kindred ; and, by all the evincing arguments possible, labours
for their conversion to the faith.
To cut off any further prologue: in the beginning of this tenth
chapter, he pours out his longings after their salvation.
In the first verse whereof, be pleased to observe these four parts:
I. PauFs holy groans and prayers: " My heart's desire and prayer to
God," ; "The good-will, the hearty wishes,

desires, and pan tings of my soul."He lays open the greatest earnestness of his spirit.
'
\
;
Tijv riflupav, ,
- uroieirat, &c. " By this his desire we are to understand a

marvellous strong intention of spirit, and an earnest study and endeavour
about accomplishment." Hesychius expounds the term by -,
, , " to will, desire, wish, love, and delight in the work."
He wills it, not only as a possible achievement, but as amiable; he
endeavours to compass it by all good means, because he proposes so
desirable an end. The sincerity of our desires in obtaining of possible
designs is manifested by our diligent endeavours in the use of proper
ways to effect them. OuSei; spot, * /, $
. " For the most part," says the philosopher, " no man delights
in, or hankers after, impossibilities." No rational man, certainly. And
therefore we are to conceive, that our apostle doth here, under his
importunate desires, couch and imply all holy means to accomplish his
end. Upon which account he presently subjoins 8j<rv erpo; ,
" his prayer to God " for that purpose: of which afterwards. Only at
present observe, from the connexion of his prayers to his hearty desires,
* CAFELLUS in Hittoria Apottol. p. 76.
t CALVISIUS, USSERIUS, PAREUS
t CHRYSOSTOM in toe.
ARISTOTELIS Rhetor, lib. ii. cap. 191.
144
SERMON VIII.
WHAT MEANS MAY BE USED TOWARDS
that lively are those prayers which flow from the heart: most harmoni-
ous in the ears of God are those groans that mount up to heaven upon
the. wings of ardent emanations, out of the depth of our hearts; suspiria e sulco peetoris ducta ;* when the words of our petition ascend
warm and reeking out of our bowels, when every expression is dipped in
our heart-blood.
2. The persons that were the subject of Ms prayers and desires :
"For Israel."And here it is considerable in what relation Israel stood

to the blessed apostle. They were bis "brethren," his "kinsmen
according to the flesh." (Rom. he. 3.) "For I also," saith Paul,
" am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."
(Rom. xi. 1.) In another place he acquaints us, that he was " circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an
Hebrew of the Hebrews," that is, both by father and mother; "as
touching the law, a Pharisee." (Phil. Hi. 5 ; Acts xxiii. 6 ; 2 Cor. xi. 22.)
It appears thence, that the Israelites were his kindred, his own dear
and near relations, remaining for the most part in a state of ignorance as to the Messiah, and of alienation and estrangement from the
covenant of grace, and the mystery of the promise through faith in the
blood of a Mediator. For these it is that our apostle groans ; for these
he is so ardent in prayer; for these he pours out such earnest petitions
to the Father.
3. The great scope and design of the apostle for his kindred and relations according to the flesh, in all his desires, endeavours, and prayers, was
i (reoTtjûav, " that they might be saved."The earnest solicitude of his
spirit, the fervent petitions poured out into the Divine Bosom, did all
combine in this,that his natural might become spiritual relations;
that his kindred of the tribe of Benjamin might, through union to

Christ, be allied to him in the tribe of Judah. What is natural to
animals and plants, *, , erepov,-\-
" to thirst after an impression of their own likeness upon another," is

much more longed for by the saints, that others might be holy and
happy, as well as themselves ; but especially such as are nearest to them
by the bonds of nature. Holy Paul doth not press after outward
enjoyments; as health, strength, riches, power, or dominion in the
world ; that Israel might have prosperity and plenty in their streets and
palaces, or that the kingdom should be restored to them from the
Romans; not the great things of the earth, but the greater of heaven.
This his soul travails with,that Christ might be formed in them, and
dwell in their hearts by faith, that so Israel " might be saved."
4. Jn these words we may observe, likewise, the kind compilation,
wherewith our apostle doth salute the saints at Rome, to whom he wrote
this Epistle,by the name of " brethren."Now, though he wrote to
the Gentiles, yet he lets them know, that his bowels did yearn over his
poor kindred, " that they " also " might be saved." The reason why
in this letter to the Romans he doth so pathetically mention these his
desires, with such strong and vehement asseverations, is, because there
* " Sigbs drawn forth out of the deep furrows of the breast."EDIT.
TOTEIIS Polii. lib. i. cap. 1.
f Aais-
145
were great numbers of the Jews at Rome, and principally of the two
tribes that returned out of the Babylonian captivity; who, after the
ware of Ponapey, and other Roman generals and captains in Judea, were
very many of them transplanted into Italy; which is not only attested
by civil and ecclesiastical historians, but also by scripture itself, declaring that there was a solemn convocation of the Jews assembled by Paul
at his arrival: (Acts xxviii. 17, &c.:) to whom the apostle did first
preach the gospel, and related the story of his coming to that imperial
city, by reason of his appeal to Caesar.
From all these parts laid down together, there results this doctrinal
conclusion:
OBSERVATION.
That to endeavour the conversion and salvation of our near relation it

'a most important duty.
The precedent and example of our holy apostle, compared with and
confirmed by other scriptures, will notably evince the truth of this
assertion. " The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to
profit withal." (1 Cor. xii. 7.) One great end why God bestows the
graces of his Spirit upon us, is, that we should spend the savour thereof
upon others. Our discourse must be seasoned with the salt of grace,
that it may minister edification to others. (Col. iv. 6; ph. iv. 29.)
Our speech should never overflow in abundance, but, like the waters of
Nilus, to render the neighbouring plantations fruitful. Grace is sometimes compared to light, by reason of its diffusive nature; that our
shining conversations might illustrate others in the paths of truth and
holiness. Sometimes grace is likened to spikenard; (Canticles i. 12 ;) to
perfumed ointment, (Prov. xxvii. 9,) which must not be shut up in a
box, though of purest alabaster, but opened, that the whole house may
be filled with the fragrant odour thereof; (John xii. 3 ;) to oil, to the
costly sacred oil that ran down not only upon the beard of Aaron, but
to the skirts of his garments; (Psalm cxxxiii. 2;) to talents, which
must be industriously traded with, and not laid up in napkins ; to dews,
showers, waters, because of their fructifying virtue; to a generative
principle, because of its begetting power and influence. We are therefore commanded, exhorted, directed to "edify one another," (1 These,
v. 11 ; Rom. xiv. 19,) to "exhort one another," (Heb. iii. 13,) to
"admonish" one another, (Col. iii. 16,) to "turn" one another, as

that phrase in Ezekiel seems to import, tasti)m, et converti facite,
" and make others to be converted" as well as ourselves; (Ezek. xviii.
30 ;) " to provoke one another unto love and to good works." (Heb. x.
24.)
"When converted," we are enjoined to "strengthen our
brethren," that we may "save their souls from death, and hide a
multitude of sins." (James v. 20.)
Now, the principal objects of this excellent duty are each with whom
we converse; such to whom we are obliged and connected by the bonds
and links of nature, office, or vicinity of habitation.
Hence was it that our blessed Lord, while he walked in the valley of
his incarnation, exercised his ministry [for the] most part among his
146
SERMON VIII.
kindred, relations, and neighbours ; at Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida,

near the Sea of Tiberias, at Cana, and other regions of Galilee, in which
parts he had received hie education. Andrew, when he understood the
call of Christ, the great Saviour of the world,he presently seeks out
his brother Simon, to bring him to the Messiah. (John i. 41.) Philip,
after the like manifestation, looks out for Nathanael, and in a great
ecstasy of spirit, cries out, Eupijxet, efyjxa, "We have found him, of
whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write.1' (John i. 45.)
There are many instances of this nature both in the Old and New
Testament. Abraham and Joshua were famous in their generations for
this work; they counted it their principal business, they made it their
great care, to instruct their families in the fear and service of the great
God. David also engages to " walk within his house with a perfect
heart," that by his exemplary pattern he might gain over his family to
the Lord. (Psalm ci. 2.) Matthew the publican, we read, did invite all
the tribute-gatherers, that were of his own fraternity and profession, to a
great feast, that they might sit down with Christ, and feed upon his
heavenly doctrine. (Luke v. 29.) The great man in the city of Capernaum brings in his whole family to the belief of the truth. (John iv.
53.) Cornelius, the Roman centurion, who was quartered at Csesarea,
calls his relations together, to hear the doctrine of faith and repentance.
(Acts x. 24.) The woman in the gospel, having found the lost groat,
after great pains and diligence, calls in her friends and neighbours to
rejoice with her. (Luke xv. 9.) Crispus, and the jailor, and Lydia, and
Stephanas, are eminent examples of this duty; by whose conscientious
care and procurement it may be supposed, that their whole households
came under the roof of Christ; because, presently after that we have
heard of their own personal baptism, we find their families also washed
in that sacred laver.
I shall not insist upon arguments, to prove the incumbent necessity
of this duty, or motives to allure you to the practice of it. I might
deduce it as an inference consequent from the law of nature, to use our
greatest endeavours that our relations might obtain an union to the best
and highest good. I might draw it from the divine injunction. (Psalm
Ixxviii. 5.) I might excite your diligence, from the consideration of the
dreadful danger following its neglect; from the comfort that will flow
into thy bosom upon the exercise of it, since it is a notable evidence of
the sincerity of grace in thine own heart. None but such as have seen
and tasted, can cry out to others, with an holy affectionate vehemency, "
ome taste and see that the Lord is good I" (Psalm xxxiv. 8.) The wine
of the kingdom, having once warmed the hearts of saints, sends up
vivacious spirits, and fills their mouths with a holy loquacity. I might
farther provoke thee to this excellent work, by the rich benefit in gaining such to love thee, whose affections will exceed all natural love whatever ; and by the great reward that shall ensue in the life to come.
For " they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for
ever and ever." (Dan. xii. 3.)
0 brethren, if families were holy, then cities, then nations, would
quickly prove mountains of holiness, and seats for the throne of God.
147
We are apt to cry out of "bad times:*' Alas! those unclean nests of
ungodly families have been the causes of all the wickedness in all ages
and generations to this day. Therefore, whoever thou art on whom the
grace of God hath shined, study that "holy art of divine reflection, and
repercussion of that light on others* hearts: which brings me to an
useful and practical question.
QUESTION. You will say: " What course shall we take, what means
shall we use, what method will you prescribe, that we may be able to
manage this important and weighty duty; that we may be helpful
towards the conversion and salvation of our near relations that are in the
state of nature ? "
I confess this question is of grand importance, and, being properly
solved, may prove of great influence in all places where we are cast by
Divine Providence. There is scarce a family, scarce a person living, who
may not be comprehended within the verge and limits of this discourse.
ANSWER. In answer, therefore, to it, I shall spend the principal
part of my time; and that I may handle it the more distinctly, I shall
rank such as may desire satisfaction and direction in this weighty and
excellent case under three forms or orders: such as are either superiors,
equals, or inferiors. But before I enter into the main body of the
answer, I shall crave leave to premise three things:
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1. That this question it not to be understood of persona in public

capacity and concernment, as magistrates or ministers: out of familyrelations, kindred cohabitants, neighbours, friends, and acquaintances.
Of such as have frequent converse together in civil societies, and often
commerce in dealings; but principally of economical relatives, or such as
are nigh to each other by blood or affinity.
2. That saving conversion is in the power of God alone to effect, as
being the primary and principal efficient cause of all those gracious works
that accompany salvation.There is none able to kindle grace in the
heart, but He who hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
Yet, notwithstanding, all of us, in our several stations, as subordinate
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instruments, may and must use all wholesome means that are of divine
appointment, conducing to such a blessed end.
3. That there are different states, conditions, capacities, and qualifications among such relations, whose conversion we should endeavour.Some
being perhaps enormously and outrageously wicked; others morally
civil; and yet further, others possibly may be conformable to the institutions of the external worship of God. Of these I may speak, sparsim
opere intertexto,* as the particulars will bear, together with such other
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appendent cases that may hold some consanguinity with the general
question.
To begin then with the first branch :
QUESTION i. What means superiors, principally in family relations,
should use to draw on their inferiors to relish and savour the things of God ?
True it is what Jerome says, Fiunt, non nascuntur, Christiani,^ " No
man is born a Christian,*' but an heir of wrath and divine justice. For
* "Occaeionally interweaving them in the texture of the discourse."EDIT.
f HIERONTMUS ad Lastam, torn. L p. 55, editio Lugd. 1630.
148
SERMON VIII.
the obtaining of the new birth, then, in such as are committed to our
charge, I shall draw up directions under twelve heads. Some whereof,
though usual and obvious, in such as treat upon economical duties, yet,
being further improved, may by no means be here passed by in silence,
since they are exceeding useful, and no less practical than others. Most
men under the gospel perish for want of practising known duties;
wherefore let me beg of thee, 0 Christian, that every prescription may
be duly weighed, and conscientiously improved; so shall thou not doubt
of admirable success, through Divine assistance.
1. In the first place, Preserve and uphold the honour and pre-eminence
of that station wherein God hath set you, by all prudent means.The
prophet bewails those times wherein "the child shall behave himself
proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable."
(Isai. Hi. 5.) Distance of years calls for distance of deportment. A
father may challenge honour and reverence ; a master, his due fear and
subjection from his servant. What is duty in the inferior to yield, is
prudence in the superior to maintain. It is therefore wisely advised by
the philosopher, that no persons should marry over-early :

* JJTS
, taepi ,, .*
" For if parents and children prove too near in age, there may follow great
inconveniences; in that too much propinquity of years diminisheth
reverence in children, and oftentimes produces contentions in the

management of family affairs." Let such a distance be preserved, as
may obtain the effectual issue of that counsel which Jerome gives to
Gaudentius about the education of Pacatula: Matris nutum pro verbis ac
monitis et pro imperio habeat. Amet ut Parentem, subjiciatur vi
Dominte, timeat ut Magistram.^ " Let the child esteem the nod of her
mother in lien of words, admonitions, and commands. Let the mother
be loved as a parent, subjected to as a lady, feared as a mistress." Condescension to mean, sordid, and contemptible actions draws scorn and
disdain upon superiors. As reverence and obedience are enjoined to
inferiors; so rulers should manage and order their actions with such
gravity and sobriety before them, as may gain some awe and respect from
their hearts. No wonder, if that ruler be contemned and slighted who
disgraceth himself. Some are apt to count it a piece of gracious humility and lowliness of spirit; but they are greatly mistaken. It argues
rather a base, low, degenerate temper. Be as humble before God, as
reverential to rulers, as affable to equals, as thou canst; but ever remember to maintain the eminency of thy place above inferiors. It is not
heavenly (no, nor moral) wisdom to entertain discourse of trivial and
frivolous matters, with those that are under your inspection and government. Let converse with inferiors be spent, not upon superfluous, but
necessary, subjects. It is a good precept of the Stoic, to abstain from
moving of laughter by jests among familiars ; for it will have that influence, > <re % " to lessen their reverence towards
thee." There is a great deal of reverence to be manifested by superiors
* ARISTOTELIS Politic, lib. vii. c. 1&
torn. L p. 101.
J EPICTETUS, c. 54
HIEROXYHUS ad Gawfenrtum,
THE CONVERSION Of OUR CARNAL RELATIONS?
149
towards youth; if they would cherish and preserve that due reverence
which ought to be in the hearts of young ones towards themselves.* And
yet, notwithstanding, you must not carry yourselves with any proud,
supercilious, or fastuous deportment; your countenance, though grave,
yet must not be stern. As you need not indent your cheeks with
continual smiles, so neither to plough your foreheads with rough and
sour wrinkles. A sober affability, an unaffected and amiable gravity,
will sufficiently chastise contempt, and nourish a reverent love. Rigid
austerity in words and actions will produce a slavish, dispirited temper
in children and servants; that when they come to yean, they prove
either more difficult to please than their fathers before them, or else so
pusillanimous that they are rendered unfit to manage the work of their
generation among whom they converse. It is a maxim of Plato:
2 <$ , , ftiffavdpanrou;,
&c., , that "over-much rustic slavery renders them dejected,

illiberal, and haters of mankind." Carry yourselves, therefore, in that
manner, that they may neither fear nor hate your morosity, nor grow
wanton upon the commonness and supinity of your carriage. If inferiors
repute their rulers not wise enough to govern them, all their instructions
will fall to the ground. Regimen esee non potest, met fuerit jugiter in
rectore judicium.% " Judgment and prudence in a ruler is the foundation of the consistency of government."
2. Be frequent, and pithy, and char in family inetrvction." Nature
without moral discipline is blind," could a Heathen say. Without
heavenly instruction, it is sealed up to eternal darkness. We are all
like barren heaths and stony deserts by nature: instruction is the
culture and improvement of the soul. It is observed by naturalists, that
bees /3/ <0 ev , "do carry small gravel in their
feet," to poise their little bodies through the stormy winds.|| Such are
instructions to the floating and wavering minds of youth. The keel of
their weak judgments would soon overset without the ballast of discipline; their conversations would soon prove unfruitful, or overspread
with the rampant briers of vice and sin, unless well manured and
laboured upon, and moistened with the sweet showers of parental
teachings. (Dent, zzzii. 2.) Wherefore all inferiors are by God referred
to their rulers, that they may drink-in the soul-refreshing dews of prudent precepts. Even women are commanded to " learn in silence with
all subjection." (1 Tim. ii. 11.) Tuvaw ,q .^[ "Silence
* Maxima debetur puero reverentia. Si quid
Turpe paras, nee tupueri amtempteris anno.JUVEKAL, eat. xlv. 47.
" Reverence to children, as to heaven, is due:
When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,
Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;
And let the thought abate the guilty speed."GIFFORD'S Translation.
Havrtv Se .PYTHAGOR. Aurea Carmina, 12.
" Above all witnesses thy conscience fear;
And, more than all mankind, thyself revere."FITZGBRALD'S Translation,
f PtATO De Legibus, lib. vii. torn. ii. p. 791. Editio Hen. Stephani.
$ SALVIAV
De Gvbern. Dei, lib. i. p. 20. Editio Oxen.
PLUTARCHUS ncpt neuSuv
* Editio Hen. Stephani, p. 2.
|| De Animaiiinu, L i. c, 11,
U A&ISTOTELIS Pol. lib. i. c 8, p. 86.
150
SERMON VIII.
is a woman's ornament," as a great master of wisdom hath observed.

Their ears should be more exercised than their tongues. " If they will
learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home," (1 Cor. adv. 35,)
who are commanded to "dwell with them according to knowledge."
(1 Peter iii. 7.) As for servants and children, the case is more evident
and clear. (Isai. xxxviii. 19.) But in all your instructions, have a care
of tedious prolixity; make up the shortness of your discourse by
frequency. Thou art enjoined to talk of God's precepts, "when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up;" (Deut. vi. 7; xi. 19;)
a little now, and a little then. " When thou wouldest accustom a child
to any useful quality, begin betimes:" it is the counsel even of a
Heathen; " but yet" ex vrporayarpus 8* eflifsjv,* "inure him by degrees."
As the precepts and axioms by which a wise man should guide his life,
according to the royal moralist, should be ^ "brief
and compendious," so much more for youth. Long orations burden
their small memories too much, and through such imprudence may occasion the loathing of spiritual manna, considering their being yet in the
state of nature. As physicians, in their dietetical precepts, prescribe to
children little and often; BO must we deal with beginners in the things
of God. A young plant may quickly be over-glutted with manure, and
rotted with too much watering. Weak eyes, newly opened from sleep,
cannot bear the glaring windows; scarce a candle at the first: " Line
upon line, and precept upon precept; here a little, and there a tittle."
(Isai. xxviii. 10.) You must drive the little ones, as Jacob did, very
gently towards Canaan. (Gen. xxxiii. 13.)
Entertain their tender attentions with discourses of God's infinite
greatness, and amiable goodness, of the glories of heaven, of the torments
of hell. Things that affect the senses must be spiritualized to them;
catch their affections by a holy craft. Deal as much in similitudes as
thou canst. If you be together in a garden, draw some sweet and heavenly discourse out of the beautiful flowers; if by a river-side, treat of the
water of life, and the rivers of pleasure that are at God's right hand ;
if in a field of corn, speak of the nourishing quality of the bread of life;
if yon see birds flying in the air, or hear them singing in the woods,
teach them the all-wise providence of God, that gives them their meat in
due season ; if thou lookest up to the sun, moon, and stars, tell them
they are but the shining spangles of the out-houses of heaven: then
what glory is there within! If thou seest a rainbow to diaper some
waterish cloud, talk of the covenant of God. These and many more may
be like so many golden links drawing divine things into their memories.
" I have spoken by the prophets, and used similitudes," saith God.
(Hosea xii. 10.) Moreover, let young ones read and learn by heart
some portions of the historical books of holy Scripture. But, above all,
the best way of instruction, especially as to the younger sort, may be
performed by catechisms, platforms of sound words, (2 Tim. i. 13,) by
question and answer in a short, compendious method; whose terms, being
* AKISTOTELIS Pol. lib. vii. c, 17.
Ediiio Lend. 1643.
t ANTONINUS De Seipso, lib. iv. p. 69.
THE CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS ?
151
dear and distinct, might be phrased oat of holy scripture, and fitted to
their capacities, by a plain, though solid, style, and to their memories by
brief expressions.
OBJECTION. Bat some may object, that children not well understanding what they repeat, do but profane the name of God.
ANSWER. To this I answer, that our reasonings ought not to countermand or contradict divine injunction. We are commanded by God in
the book of Deuteronomy, to whet the law upon our children. (Deut.
vi. 7.) " Train np a child in the way he should go: and when he is old,
he will not depart from it." (Prov. zxii. 6.) By the bending of young
trees, and putting young fruit into glasses, you may form them into what
shape you please. The apostle commends the precedent of Timothy to
the whole Christian world, that jSpsipowf, "from a little sucking
child," as the word imports, he had known the holy scriptures. (2 Tim. iii.
15.) Some children have been sanctified from the birth, as is evident in
[the case of] Jeremy and John Baptist. (Jer.i. 5 ; Luke i. 41, 44.) Now
we, being ignorant who are under the election of God, must use the
means to all, especially such as are under the federal stipulation between
God and us; such as are the children of believing parents. They are
commanded " to remember their Creator in the days of their youth."
(Eccles. xii. 1.) And who should make such impressions of God upon their
hearts, but those that are over them by divine appointment, who ought to
"bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?" (Eph. vi. 4.)
As seals are to be imprinted upon the wax, while it is tender; !
ffcetdqtrfif $> ? **
"so teaching
and instruction will best fix upon their minds while yet they are
children." So soon as ever reason begins to sprout forth, yea, as soon
as they are " drawn from the breasts," (Isai. xxviii. 9,) begin to season
younglings with the sense of God's majesty and mercy. Gardeners begin
to graft so soon as ever the sap begins to arise in the spring, and the
bud of the stock to swell and enlarge. Colts must be backed before
their mettle grows too high; and heifers must be used to the yoke
before they attain to their full strength, or else they will prove unserviceable. God commanded, in the old law, more lambs, kids, and bullocks,
young turtles, and pigeons, to be offered upon his altar, than those of
elder growth : first-fruits and green-corn must be presented to the Lord :
(Lev. ii. 14 :) to intimate the dedication of our children (those reasonable
sacrifices, Bom. xii. 1) unto the temple and service of God, while they
are young and tender. The sooner you sow, the sooner yon may reap.
" In the morning sow thy seed," says Solomon. (Eccles. xi. 6.) The
benefit of timely instruction is scarce imaginable. But I come to
the third.
3. Add to thine instructions preceptive injunctions.Lay it as a charge
upon their souls, in the name of God, that they hearken to and obey
thine institutions. " Every house is under a kind of kingly government," |3</, &c,, de/xitrretm * ? reuSow *
, " and a ruler gives laws to wife and children." An instance

we have in the case of Solomon, who acquaints us that he was " his
* PLUTAECHUS Ityi . p. 5.
) ABIST. Pol. lib. i. c. 1.
162
SERMON VIII.
WHAT MEANS MAY BE TJSED TOWAHDS
father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of his mother. He
taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words;
keep my commandments, and live." (Prov. iv. 3, 4.)
When David was
ready to die, Solomon, the text says, was " yet young and tender;"
(1 Chron. xxii. 5; xxix. 1;) and, notwithstanding that, his father
instructs him in many grave and excellent lessons ; (I Chron. xxviii. 9,
&c.;) and in the book of Kings it is remarkable, that when David's

decease drew nigh, "he charged Solomon his son, saying," &c. (1 Kings
ii. 1.) Now when Solomon came to the crown, he was but eighteen
years old, or nineteen at the most, as the learned seem to evince from
several passages of David's reign.* How young, then, was he when his
father David, and his mother Bathsheba, began to instruct him, and lay
their preceptive charge upon him! This charging of obedience upon
yonng ones is like the tying and claying-on of the graft upon the stock.
Non multis opus, sed efficacibus.^
"Efficacious words rather than
many are to be sought, studied, and used/'
Nay, women have both precedent and precept also for this work; as
who do more frequently converse with their children in their tender age 1
We have an excellent example in Bathsheba teaching her son, and pressing divine precepts upon his heart; she gave also a portion of instruction,
as well as of food, to her servants and maidens. (Prov. i. 8; vi. 20 ;
xxxi. 1, 15, 26.) Ancient matrons are commanded also by the apostle to
teach younger women the work of sobriety and obedience. (Titus ii. 3,4.)
For this matter Abraham was commended by God himself, as a pattern
to all posterity. " I know him," says God, " that he will command his
children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the
Lord, to do justice and judgment," &c.: (Gen. xviii. 19 :) and therefore
God was pleased to reveal secrets to him. To conclude: It is good to

edge your precepts and instructions with some notable remembrances of
the great day, as that holy and learned Mr. Bolton did to his children
upon his death-bed ; for, speaking of the instructions that he had given
them in the time of his sickness and before, he said, he hoped they
would remember it, and verily believed " that none of them durst think
to meet him at that great tribunal in an unregenerate state." |
4. Set a narrow guard upon the first sprouting of ein in their conver-
sations.Crush vipers in the egg. Exercise your hazel-rods upon the

serpents' heads, when they first creep out of their holes, being chill and
feeble in the beginning of the spring. " I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land," says David. (Psalm ci. 8.) You must set about this
work betimes, check every evil and unsavoury word at the first hearing;
watch the beginnings, the first babblings, of corruption in them. A
man may pull off a tender bud with ease ; but if he let it grow to a
branch, it will cost him some pains. It is observed by experienced
naturalists, that a common bringing forth nothing but fern may be made
very good ground; if when the weed comes up tender and green, it be
often cut down, you will in three or four times discourage the root, aud
* USSERII Annales, pars ii. p. 56. SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S "History of the
World," part i. book ii. c. 18. sect. 4.
f SENECA Epist. 38.
$ Mr. Soltou'a
JUfe, p. 33. Printed with his Works, 4to. Anno 1639,
153
make it die away. It may prove so, through Divine blessing, as to the
shootings-tip of original corruption, if thou be diligent and constant at
first. " Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines;" (Canticles ii. 15;) this is the way to destroy their race, as well as to preserve
your tender grapes. David smote Goliath in the forehead; he smites
the devil and sin in the forehead, gui initio tentationis vincit,* "that
falls upon and overcomes temptation at first." It is a saying of Salvian:
Ckm primhm homo peccare incipit, aternum W accendit ignem :f " When
one first begins to sin, then he kindles* the eternal fire." 0 that you
would then begin to cast water upon the first kindlings of sin in your
little ones! Cut off the occasions of sin by'prudent interposition. It
is strange to see what excuses and palliations for sin, what collusions in
speech, little children will use! Before thou canst teach them to speak
plain English, the devil and a corrupt heart will teach them to speak
plain lies. While their tongues do yet falter much in pronunciation,
they will falter more in double-speaking. What great need is there,
then, to put a curb and bridle upon thy child's tongue as well as thine
own! (Psalm xxxix. 1.) Undermine their fallacies by discreet examinations and sagacious questions. If this work be not set-to betimes,
possibly in process of years they may prove too cunning to be caught,
unless thou season them quickly with the awe of God's judgments, and
the danger of sin. Teach their conscience to blush, as well as their
cheeks, that they may, from an in-wrought principle, eschew the evil and
do the good. Else they may too soon prove like the hares in Julian, that
by leaping this way and that way, when they come nigh their muse,
ruf>et$eu }, "do confound their footsteps to prevent discovery."
If thou suffer a child, or a young servant, to go on in sin unregarded,
untaught, unchid, and think it is too little to mind at first; that sinful
folly will be thy scourge in the end. God many times whips an aged
parent by that child which was unwhipped at first. Adonijah had wellnigh broken the design of David about Solomon's being set in the
throne; whom his father had never displeased -by saying, " Why hast
thou done so?" that is, never checked him for his faults. (1 Kings i. 6.)
The means to take away the root and foundation of evil customs and
habits, is to fall a-weeding in the spring of thy child's life: JEgrt reprehendas quod sinis consuescere.^ Reproofs will go down untowardly, when children come once to their teens, when their years come up to double numbers.
5. Preserve them from evil society.David not only hated sin in
general, but especially he detested to have it become an inmate in his
house. " He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he
that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight;" (Psalm ci. 7 j) that so
the evil example and pitch-like society of wicked persons might not cleave
to and corrupt his near relations. Children are like the polypus in
JEtian, that turns into colour of that rock or weed in the sea that lies
nearest.|| Imitation is natural to children: associates and companions
* STELLA in loo.
f SALVIANUS De Gubern. Dei, lib. iv. p. 116.
JELiAtrus De Animal, lib. vi. c. 47.
HiEHOiTYMirs ad Gaud. p. 101.
" With an ill grace can you blame that which you have yourself allowed to become a fixed
habit."EDIT.
U JELIAXI Variai Ilistoria.
154
SERMON VIII.
are the patterns of their imitation. Wherefore Plutarch, in his tract

about the education of children, advising some Grecian "boys to be
brought up with them," gives this precept, that these ,

should be ,* "of virtuous manners and behaviours," lest children should contract some vice from ill society. For,
according to the proverb, " He that lives with a lame man, will learn to
limp/' Nay, one greater than Plutarch tells us, that " with a furious
man we should not go, lest we learn his ways." (Prov. xxii. 24, 25.)
Children especially may be dangerously infected by lewd and corrupt
company. Many children of godly parents have had their manners
fouled and vitiated extremely by frequent and familiar converse with the
naughty children of wicked neighbours.
6. In the next place, let seasonable and prudent relukes be administered, according to the nature and quality of their offences.Begin
gently; use all persuasive motives to draw and allure them, if possible,
to the ways of God. Tell them of the rewards of glory, of the sweet
society in heaven; endeavour to satisfy their hearts, that God is able to
fill their souls with such joys as are not to be found in the creatures.
" Of some have compassion, making a difference." (Jude 22.) But if
this will not do, then begin to mix some more severe expressions of thy
holy anger against sin. As there is a concatenation in virtues, so in passions. Love and anger are not altogether , " incompatible affections." Nay, love may be the principle and foundation of that anger, which
shoots its rebuking arrows against the butt of sin. It is well observed by
the philosopher: Ftyvsrat )/* ,<$ ev TJJ
/* -f " There may be accusations and reprehensions connected with that love, which designs the profit and benefit of the persons
beloved;" and that luXoycoj, as he says, "according to the rule even of
right reason." Thou mayest tell thy child, and that with some grains
of vehemency, that if he continue in sinful courses, God will be angry,
and them wilt be angry ; and then let him know what a " fearful thing it
is to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. x. 31.) This is the
way to "be angry, and not to sin," as the apostle commands. (Eph.
iv. 26.) Let not your passions, like unruly torrents, overflow the banks
that are limited by scripture and reason. There is a grave and sober
anger, that will procure reverence, and advance reformation. That which
is mixed with horrid noise and clamours, floweth from the breasts of
fools. In vain ehalt thou attempt to reclaim others, who art so exorbitant thyself. He that lets loose the reins upon the necks of the unruly
horses of his passions, will endanger the tumbling his reason out of
the chariot. How shall that person in his rebukes speak reason to
another, that hath lost his own ?
He that is a slave to his irascible
appetite, can never manage ingenuous reproofs. A child can never persuade himself that such anger proceedeth from love, when he is made the
sink to receive the daily disgorgements of a choleric stomach; when the
unhappy necessity of his relation ties him to be always in the way where
an angry disposition must vent and empty itself. If thou that rulest be
thus unruly, how canst thou expect thy inferiors to be regular, when thy
* PLUTAKCHUS /> UeuS. p. 6.
f AHISTOTELIS Ethic, lib. x. c. 13.
155
uncomely demeanour does almost convince them, tbat love can hardly be
the genuine root of thine anger, bnt that they are made the sad objects of
thy native temper, or that thy reprehension is spiced with hatred?
Observe, therefore, a prudent administration of thy rebukes. Gild those
bitter pills with the hopes of recovering thy favour upon amendment;
mix these unpleasant potions ;,* " with some sweet
emollient juices," that such interwoven lenity may procure access for
your admonitions, and effect your desired issue. The quality of the
offence, and the various aggravations of it, must statef the quantity,
measure, and duration of thine anger. Great faults, if repeated, deserve
a greater ardency of spirit. Consider, likewise, the station and place of
thy several relations. A wife ought not to be rebuked before children
and servants, lest her subordinate authority be diminished. Contempt
cast upon the wife will reflect upon the husband at last. Yea, for
smaller offences in children and servants, if they be not committed
openly, rebuke them apart, and in private. But, above all, take heed
thou be not found more severe in reproving faults against thyself, than
sins against the great God. " Them that honour me," saith God to Eli,
in the case of his sons, " I will honour, and they that despise me shall
be lightly esteemed." (1 Sam. ii. 30.) It is a point of excellent wisdom
to manage thy family aright in these cases. A pilot may show as much
skill and dexterity in [the] steering of a little catch [ketch] or pinnace of
pleasure, as of the vast galleons of Spain. If thou hast cause to be
angry, yet let not thy storms run all upon the rocks, but endeavour
; ,' , eivau 0U/U.OV, J " speedily to cool the inflammation, to abate the fever, and slake
the fire of anger. It is better for a father to be often and nimble,
than to be heavy and durable, in his wrath." Wink at infirmities; if not
such as are immediately sinful, chide them with frowns, and not with
bitter assaults; reserve thy public and sharp reprehensions for open and
scandalous offences, for reiterated and repeated transgressions which bear
a show of great neglect, if not of some contempt and disdain.
7. Keep up a constant and vigorous practice of holy duties in thy
family."As for me and my house," says Joshua, "we will serve the
Lord." (Joshua xxiv. 15.) Moses commanded the Israelites to go over
the laws and precepts which he had given them from God, in their own
families in private among their children. (Deut. vi. 7.) The instructions
and exhortations of God's ministers in public should be repeated at
home, and whetted to and again upon the little ones. Samuel had a
feast upon the sacrifice in hie own house. (1 Sam. iz. 12, 22.)
Job and
others had sacrifices in their own families. The passover-lamb was to be

eaten in every particular house. (Exod. xii. 3, 4.) God says, he will
" pour out his fury upon the families that call not upon his name."
There are times that every family must be apart, as well as every wife
and person apart. (Zech. xii. 12, 13.) All the males of Abraham's
family were appointed to pass under the ordinance of circumcision. The
keeping-up of family-duties makes every little house become a sanctuary,
* PLUTABCHUS, ibid. p. 22. GASSEWD. in Epiour. torn. iii. p. 1511.
the old meaning ot regulate.EDIT.
t PHJTARCHUS, ibid. p. 23.
t In
156
SERMON VIII,
WHAT MEANS MAY BE USKD TOWARDS
a Beth-el, a house of God. And here I would advise, that Christians be

not over-tedious in their duties of private worship. I have heard from a
near relation of that holy man, Mr. Dod, that he gave this counsel, that
the constant family-prayers should not ordinarily exceed above a quarter
of an hour, if so much. The morning and evening sacrifices at the
temple, and the passover-offerings, which were for every family, consisted
but of one lamb. Take heed of making the ways of God irksome and
unpleasant. If God draw forth thy heart sometimes, do not reject and
repress Divine breathings; but usually labour for succinctness and
brevity, such as may stand with holy reverence to God, so as not to
huddle over excellent and weighty duties; and yet such as may render
religious worship desirable in the eyes of those whom thou wouldest have
to look towards Canaan. The spirit is willing many times, when the
flesh is weak; and a person may better for a little time keep his
thoughts from wandering and discomposure, whenas the large expense of
expressions gives occasion for too much diversion. " God is in heaven,
and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few." (Bccles. v. 2.)
When our Lord gave his disciples a form of prayer, which was for quotidian and daily use, as appears by that petition, " Give us this day our
daily bread;" you know how short and compendious it is. The spirits
are like strings of harps and bows, which, if never remitted and slackened, will crack, and make those instruments unserviceable.* It is of
good use, likewise, to vary the duties of religion; sometimes sing and
sometimes read, sometimes repeat, sometimes catechise, sometimes exhort.
Orationi lectio, lectioni euccedat oratio; breve videbitur tempus, quod
tantis operum varietatibus occupatur.-f It was the direction of that holy
hermit of Bethlehem: " Let reading succeed prayer, and prayer reading:
that time will seem short which is exercised with such variety of works."
Aristotle observes out of a poet, - , Snx
,$ that " change is a most sweet thing, by reason of our pravity." Indeed, says the philosopher, unto simple natures the same
action is most pleasant; and therefore God delights in one and the same
simple pleasure. However, let us use the best art we can to draw on
our own hearts, as well as [those] of inferiors, to delight more constantly
in holy duties. But in two things be principally frequent: the offering
up the sacrifice of prayers, and the keeping of children to read daily
some portion of holy scriptures; as Jerome counselled Leeta: Reddat

tibi penaum guotidie de ecripturarum floribus carptum: " Let thy child
give thee a daily account of some choice flowers cropped out of the
Bible."
8. Endeavour by all good means to draw them to public ordinances.
For there God is in a more special manner present. " There the Lord
commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." (Psalm cxxxiii. 3.)
There he " walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." (Rev.
ii. I.) "While the king sitteth at the table, the spikenard sendeth forth
the smell thereof." (Canticles i. 12.) He makes the place of his feet to be
glorious. Though it were God's appointment that the males only should
* PLUTAHCHUS ncpi A-ywyiji.
AKISTOTELIS Ethic, lib. vii. c. 14.
t HIERONYMUS, torn. i. p. 57.

HIE ROM ITS, p. 57
157
at the solemn feasts repair to Shiloh, yet Elkanah carries up " all his
house " to the yearly sacrifice. (1 Sam. i. 21.) He would have his wife,
and-children, and servants, " to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to
inquire in his temple :" and you know what a great blessing succeeded
upon Hannah. Cornelius also, when Peter came to preach at Ceeearea
upon God's immediate command,he calls together all his kindred and
acquaintants * to hear the sermon. (Acts x. 24.) Jesse and his sons
came together to the sacrifice which Samuel offered to the Lord at Bethlehem. (1 Sam. xvi. 5.) It is an ungodly, wicked custom to leave many
children and servants at home needlessly upon the Lord's day. Indeed,
in great and numerous families, where there are many small children
that might disturb the congregation, and where much provision is necessary for such as attend upon God in the duties of worship, there the case
is somewhat altered; for such works of mercy are dispensed with by God
himself. But labour to contract the number of absents to the smallest
quantity possible; and let servants take their turns, that none may be
always at home; leave none behind thee without necessary and urgent
cause. As for such as can be present at ordinances, remember to
examine them of what they heard; as our blessed Lord, the grand pattern of our imitation, dealt, by his beloved disciples, when he had
preached that famous sermon by the sea-side : Jesus asks them, " Have
ye understood all those things?" (Matt. xiii. 51.) And when they
were alone, and apart from the multitude, then he expounded and
explained all things that he taught more fully to them. (Mark iv. 34; he.)
9. In the next place, if all these things fore-mentioned will not prevail
but inferiors will still run on in a course of sin, then oughtest thou to
repair to paternal correction.Now, chastisements must be suited to
their age, the temperament of their natures and several dispositions, the
various qualities and kinds of their offences. Indulge a pardon sooner to
lesser faults upon repentance and sorrow. Yon must consider, whether
their faults proceed from imprudence and weakness, upon what ground
and occasion, upon what provocation or seduction. Call to mind their
former lives, whether they have fallen seldom and rarely, or often and frequently, into the same sin. Observe whether they appear to be deeply
sorrowful, and truly humbled, and readily beg forgiveness of God and
you, cum animo non revertendi, "with a promise of a new life." In
these and the like cases, you must adhibit great diligence and prudence.
Due punishment is a part of economical justice; and there must be care
had, lest by frequent impunity they and their fellows be hardened in the
ways of sin, and grow contumacious against the commandments of God.
" He that spareth his rod hateth his son : but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Thou shall beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver
his soul from hell." (Prov. xiii. 24 ; xxiii. 14.) This is an ordinance and
appointment of God. " Our fathers corrected us, and we gave them
reverence." (Heb. xii. 9.) But let superiors remember, that they must
not do this without good and without great cause, and when all other
means will not prevail. If it be possible to rule without the rod, it is
* This word has at length become ACQUAINTANCE, on account of euphony.EDIT.
158
SERMON Vllt.
best. Happy are those parents to whom God hath given each towardly
children, that a nod, that a frown, that a wink, will reform them.
Certainly the wisdom of parents might do much this way at first. If
their children he of any tolerable frames, that the holding-up of a finger
may excuse the holding-up the rod, it preserves and endears the affections of children exceedingly. That of the tragedian is a good maxim in
economics: Qui vult regnare diu, languidd regnet manu: " Durable
power is fixed upon gentle management." Take heed of exasperating
and "provoking your children to wrath," (Eph. vi. 4,) by rigid and
severe courses, where less may effect your purpose, and that more kindly.
There be some cruel parents and masters, that carry themselves more
like raging brutes than men, that take pleasure in tyrannical corrections.
They can let their children swear, and lie, and filch, and commit any
other sin, and yet correct them not. But if they do not what they
would have them, then they fall upon them, and tear them like wild
beasts. Know, that God will require such vile acts at your hands in the
great day. 0 rather let them see that thon art angry for God's sake, and
not for thine own ! There must be a great deal of gracious pity to their
souls, and holy love, mixed with thine anger against sin. how few be
there that beg in secret, that God would soften the hearts of their relations by their due and moderate castigations! 0 pray that God would
lay his holy hand upon their hearts, when thon layest thy rod upon their
backs ! After they have paid their debt to justice, look more serenely
upon them, and thereby encourage them to amendment. "Morosity
and acerbity," }?,* if continuing etui, will check their hopes of
ever returning to thy grace and favour. Let ancient rulers have a care
of too much sourness of carriage; for, many times, through the common
incidents of age, the philosopher hath observed that they are too proclive
to jealousies, suspicions, ,& cwravTa,f "to
interpret all things in the worst sense," and so, possibly, to be too quick
and ready, upon easy suggestions, to think of and deal hardly with their
inferiors. Be careful to use both your ears, and hearken to both parties
in matters of complaint. But if, upon deliberate and mature conviction,
nothing less will prevail, follow God's command herein, and " thy son
shall give rest unto thy soul." (Prov. xxix. 17.) In all these cases there
lies a great point of prudence, to let them know, that thou hast yet
greater corrections for them, if they mend not; that the fear and terror
of what thou hast yet reserved may work them to a compliance. They
that show the utmost of their rigour and power in such acts at once,
despoil themselves of that authority and awe which otherwise they might
ingenerate in their hearts ; but take heed of all violent and passionate
corrections. A Heathen could say to his servant: Ceederem te nisi
ireucerer: J "I would beat thee, were I not angry." He that smites
when his passion boils, is too, too subject to transcend the limits of
moderation ; vehement anger makes the hands to tremble, [so] that such
are not able to strike aright. Take heed lest thou make thy child or
thy servant to become vile in thine own eyes by too many stripes. (Deut.
* AHISTOTELIS Ethic, lib. viii. c. 6.
$ SENECA De Ira, lib. L c. 15.
f Idem in Rhetoric, lib. ii. c. 12.
THK CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS?
159
xxv. 3.) Such persona plant quicksets in the hearts of their children,
that may grow up too fast to prick their own hands (yea, their hearts)
another day.
10. If the fore-mentioned means, through Divine blessing, prove
effectual, then praise and encourage them, when they come on, though yet
but a little.Ingenuous, yea, rugged tempers are sometimes wrought
upon by moderate and prudent euges. It is spoken of God himself, that
" he will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever."
(Psalm cih. 9.) As magistrates, so parents, must be sometimes praisers
of them that do well. (Bom. xiii. 3.) Our Lord comes in sometimes
with, "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Matt. xxv. 21.) So
must you, when they are towardly and dutiful, etvaxa\eur6ou
?, "call up their spirits by commendation.*' Laudibus excitandum et ingenium:* " There is a notable virtue in praise, especially as
to generous spirits, to excite" and prick them forward to duty; and
that principally when divers together, according as deserts vary, are
unequally praised : it stirs up a virtuous emulation. Only take heed of
exceeding too much; for little vessels can bear no great sails. Pride
and arrogancy are, many times, nursed up by too exuberant and lavish
expressions, and sometimes an unmannerly familiarity appears.
11. Do they flourish and thrive in duty and obedience, and begin to
take-in precepts freely and kindly ? then win them on further by rewards,
according to their several capacities, and the quality of thine own estate.
God is pleased most graciously to draw and allure us on in the ways
of holiness, by the proposal of reward : " He is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him." (Heb. xi. 6.) I remember that Jerome, as to the
green years of Pacatula, wishes her father to use these means: Proponantur ei crustula, mulsa pramia, et quicquid gustu suave est; quod vernat
in fioribus, quod rutilat in gemmis, quod blanditur in pupis, acceptura
festinet, fyc.; psalmos mercede decantet.^ "Give her sweetmeats, flowers,
jewels, babies, to entice her to learn the psalms." As to yean of further
growth, such rewards as become them may be more proper. In some

cases, these have proved great spurs and incitations, at least to the outward work of religion in younger ones. Hannah, that good woman,
brought up a little coat every year to her son Samuel, when he was in
the service of the Lord at the tabernacle in Shiloh, under Eli. (1 Sam.
ii. 19.) And you know the father of the prodigal in the parable, when
his son returned home to lead a new life,he killed a fatted calf for
him, put the best robe upon his back, a ring upon his hand, and shoes
upon his feet. (Luke xv. 22.)
12. In the last place, be exceeding conscientious and cautelous in disposing them abroad, when either their education or profession requires it.
As to the schools, when young and tender, choose out such guides and
masters as may edify them, and imprint something more of God upon
their hearts. It is a great fault in many that take up any neighbourschool where there are profane and wicked children, such as have
learnt of their parents to swear, and take God's name in vain. Many
times little youths gather a great deal of filth, and soil, and pollution in
* HIERONYMUS ad Latam, p. 55.
f Idem, p. 100.
160
SERMON VIII.
such places, that sticks by them many years after.
It is a good work,
TrsXaoveiv <> reov ^^ avsXiuflepias,* "to
prohibit and keep them off from all illiberal and sordid speeches and
spectacles." There was, it seems, a great crew of naughty children at
Bethel, in the days of Elijah, that mocked the prophet,a place that was
a seminary and nursery for young ones in knowledge. (2 Kings ii. 3, 23.)
how sad is it for children that have been diligently taught at home in
the fear of God, to unlearn all in wicked schools ! Have a great eye to
this, and especially if they be such as are designed for academical learning,
that they be placed under godly tutors at the university; or if for trades, or
other mechanical mysteries, that you choose out the blessed shadow of a
godly master and mistress, that may rivet and clench the nail that thou
hast knocked in. Great will be thy comfort in this, if thou soughtest
more a pious family than a great and rich trade ; a family wherein ships
go to heaven, and a trade is driven to Canaan : but especially in the
grand concernment of marriage, that they match into a godly family, in
whose veins the blood of the covenant doth run. An heiress of the
Divine promises is a greater match than an empress of the whole world.
He that hath but one foot of laud in Mount Zion is richer than he that
holds a sceptre over the round globe.
I come now to the second branch of this question, and that is,
QUESTION n. By what means may we attain our desires in reference
to a good work in the hearts of those that are our equals, whether of
consanguinity; affinity, or neighbourhood ?
ANSWER. As to this, I shall only propose two particular rules, which
I cannot now handle largely :
1. Be diligent in private conference and admonition, as the providence
of God shall administer seasonable occasions.-" Give attendance to
exhortation." (1 Tim. iv. 13.) "Exhorting one another." (Heb. x. 25.)
Lay before them the weighty and momentous matters of eternity and
another world. Such things will make deep wounds, to be cured in time
by the hand of Heaven. Be short and nervous ; and lead them off from
carnal discourse, by some sweet and heavenly diversions.
2. Manage your reproofs with great prudence and discretion." Thou
shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke
thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." (Lev. xix. 17.) I might
here divert into a case almost co-incident; and that is,
QUESTION. When is it our duty to reprove such as we see and hear
committing of sin as we pass by in the streets ?
ANSWER. This being the business of another subject, I shall only say
thus much,that, if thou perceivest them (by their haughty and scornful carriage) to be such as will kick at rebuke, thou hast a rule from
Solomon : " Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee." (Prov. ix. 8.)
When, by the wisest conjecture that thou canst make, he is like to show
the properties of a brutish, swinish nature, " Cast not your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend
you." (Matt. vii. 6.) But if he be a person likely to receive impressions,
and particularly if it be a trespass against thyself, go and tell him his
* AIUSTOTELIS Polit. lib. vii. c. 17.
THK CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS?
161
fault between thee and him alone: if be stall bear thee, thou hast gained
thy brother." (Matt, rriii. 15.) "Debate thy cause with thy neighbour
himself.*' (Prov. xxv. 9.) I hare known admirable success in this case.
Bat in all such cases observe these three directions:
1. Time your reproofs seasonably." Words spoken in season are like
apples of gold in pictures of silver." (Prov. zxv. 11.)
<^; , * " This very point,"
says an ancient, " is proper to a philosopher, to understand the teuton of
all things" I may say, it is much more the excellency of a Christian to
feel the pulse of the soul, and hit the diseasfe in the very joint; as it is
reported of Galen, that when Antoninus laboured under a distemper,
others not being able to declare where it lay, this physician, by bis
expertness in the evidence of symptoms, pronounced that his stomach
was vexed with crudities and indigestion. The emperor cried out three
times : AUTO -, TOUTO, ? twrej mv.t " That is it! that very
thing is it, which thou hast spoken." As to our purposes, it is advisable,
sometimes, not presently and immediately to fall bluntly upon the work,
lest thou thyself shouldest be in a passion; yet stay not too long,
lest thy holy zeal be cooled, and both thoo and he forget or dissemble
the circumstances whereby reproof might be the better fixed. A seasonable time to intermeddle in these cases may be when a friend is under
the holy hand of God in any affliction, particularly in a sick-bed. That
time which is fit for bodily- may be much more fit for soul- physic;
when thoughts of mortality, and the leaving of all outward enjoyments,
do prepare and meliorate the way for spiritual impressions.
2. Mix thy reproofs with meek and gentle expressions.Every reproof
should be like the syrupus acetosus of physicians, " tbe syrup of vinegar,"
that carries with it a grateful sharpness. Take heed them go not to this
work vested in thine own anger; for though there may be in thee some
holy zeal, yet take heed of mingling too much of kitchen-fire. Meek
reproofs are like tents dipped in the Balm of Gilead, that both search
and cure the wound together. " Let the righteous smite me," says
David ; " it shall be a kindness t and let him reprove me; it shall be an
excellent oil, which shall not break my head." (Psalm cxli. 5.) Such
are the disciples of the Good Samaritan, who poured-in wine as an abster-
sive, and oil as a suppling incarnative, into the wound. (Luke x. 34.)
Such are the children of that prudent matron, wbo " opened her mouth
in wisdom, and in whose tongue was the law of kindness." (Prov. xxxi.
26.) And yet, friends, if we be over-gentle, the core of the wound will
remain. The surgeon who hath taught his fingers too much tenderness,
and not willing to put his patient to pain, may, through cruel kindness,
occasion distorted limbs and lameness all a man's life. Corrosives are
as necessary as glutinous plasters, to eat down the proud flesh of our
sinful sores. Eli's sinful mildness procured the sharp sword of the
Philistines to cut off his sons ; and occasioned such dismal events, that
broke his own heart, and his neck too. In many chemical operations,
salt is a most necessary ingredient, and causes things to ferment: without the salt of reproof, in its due proportion, bare words of advice will
* DIOOENES LAERTIUS in Arcetilao.
+ CASTELLANUS De Vit. MecKc. p. 117.
164
SERMON VIII.
Hagar; and the Spirit of God takes notice of the temper of Sarah, and commends her for it, that she called her husband "lord." (Gen. zzi. 12j 1 Peter
iii. 6.) And, that I may give an instance in all three relations, if we consult the circumstances of the text, we shall find it probable, that Terah
the father hearkened to Abraham his son, as to his departure out of an
idolatrous country. For the voice of God came to Abraham alone, bidding him to go out of Ur of the Chaldees, to a land that he would show
him. (Gen. xi. 31; xii. 1 ; Joshua xxiv. 2.) Nebuchadnezzar, that great
and mighty monarch, did not reject that pious and savoury counsel which
was given him by Daniel, his captive-servant within his palace. (Dan. iv.
27.) Job, likewise, a man of great possessions in the east, did not
" despise the cause of his man-servant or of his maid-servant, when they
contended with him." (Job xxxi. 13.) Humble, modest, and reverent
behaviour may have notable influence into superiors. It is controverted
by Seneca, whether or no a child may not heap greater benefits upon a
father than he had received from him.* It may be clearly stated in the
affirmative, if he should be a means of turning him unto God. The
father begets his son to a miserable and mortal life: the son begets his
father to that life which is glorious and eternal.
There remain yet four general directions respecting all relations.
1. Insinuate thyself into their affections.Let them know that thou
hast no design upon them but to make them happy. Endeavour to persuade them that thou hast no private end, only their everlasting good.
Wind into their hearts, screw thyself into their affections, and thou hast
done half thy work. ' epoos ovtievi )
Seerf '* Nothing [is] so inimical to love as fear and necessity/* When
all jealousies of any sinister ends are blown away, then exhortations and
counsels go down comfortably. When persons are convinced and satisfied, that in all our applications we study their benefit and profit, this
opens an effectual door to all the means that we shall use. Thus the
apostle accosts the Romans: " I long to see you, that I may impart
unto you some spiritual gift." (Rom. i. 11.) Thus he facilitates his
way to the Philippians: " God is my record, how greatly I long after
you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." (Phil. i. 8.)
, ^? exeivowj Tiftetv, ", ,
" We
do even naturally respect and reverence such as bring that which appears
profitable to us; " especially when superiors carry themselves with courteousness and kindness. For most men delight tb be honoured and
esteemed by them that are above them, TJJV , " for the hope
that they conceive of some special profit to be received from them."
The case varies not in spiritual matters. Labour, then, to gain their
love, their good esteem, and the work will thrive beyond expectation.
2. Study to convince them by rational arguments. creiflco

xau : || " Persuasion is the daughter of love and reason."
Our affections, indeed, most times are first wrought upon, we are so
sensual by nature. When thou art once gotten into their hearts, then
* SENECA De Benefie. lib. iii. c. 35.

f MAXIMUS Traiue, Dissert, x. EdiUo
Heinsii, 160?.
{ SIMPLICIUS in Epictetum, c, xxxviii. p. 217. Edit. Slim,
| AHISTOTELIS Ethic, lib. viii. c. 8.
|| MAXIMUS Tvaiue, Dits. x.
165
press them with weighty argument drawn out of scripture; argue with
them about the folly of sin. See how lob handles the matter with his
wife about murmuring and impatience against Ood : " What I shall we
receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? " (Job
ii. 10.) Let them know that all the ways of Ood are pleasant ways, and
all his paths are peace; (Prov. Hi. 17;) that the path to heaven is a
most sweet path to walk in. Show them the beauty of Christ, the glory
of Christ. Draw aside the curtain, and unveil the mysteries of free grace
before their eyes. Let them behold the image of that blessed Saviour
portrayed in scripture. As the spouse did to the daughters of Jerusalem,
run over all the excellencies of Christ; and then conclude, " He is
altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, 0 daughters of Jerusalem." (Canticles v. 16.) Tell them what experience you
had of the blindness, nakedness, miserableness, of your own condition
formerly, when yon were as they are now; that yon then thought of
religion as they do,that it was but a peevish, foolish, unnecessary
strictness. Tell them how the case is mended with you; how admirably,
through mercy, it is altered.
3. Let your conversation be very exemplary ; go that what you persuade
may be strongly confirmed by your own example.Both vice and virtue
are learned by precedents. Alexander, in his manners and gait, did
imitate his master Leonides, ae long as he lived. Nihil in te et in patre
euo videat quod si fecerit peccet: * " Let thy child behold nothing in
thy walking which, if followed, may prove sinful." Be an example to
others of holiness, that they may not offend by the authority of thy
name.f Though thy precepts be short and concise, let thine actions,
exemplifying those precepts, be constant and perpetual.J Deny yourselves sometimes in the enjoyment of lawful things, which may not be
expedient before carnal relations, when you are upon this work. Let
wives, says the apostle Peter, win their husbands by their holy conversation. (1 Peter iii. 1, 2.) Walk so meekly, so obediently, so winningly
by an amiable deportment, that a wicked, drunken husband may see the
picture of grace in the life of a wife, and may be forced to confess, that
grace of a truth dwelleth in her. Many times the unbelieving husband
may be saved, even in this sense, by the believing wife, et vice versa,
(1 Cor. vii. 16.) David professed that he would "walk within his
house with a perfect heart." (Psalm ci. 2.) As the water follows the
finger in the clay; so may thy example lead them on to the things of
God. There is a secret reverence and awe upon the hearts of others, when
any in the family do walk worthy of the gospel unto all well-pleasing.
4. And lastly: after thon hast used all these fore-mentioned directions,which lie couched in the bowels of these words in the text: " My
heart's desire is, that Israel may be saved :" for if he did heartily desire
their good, as he professed, then he would use all good means proper
and proportionable to that end. Bat then he adds his "prayerto God"
for the same purpose : and so must thou,-follow the example of our holy
apostle. Alas! all thy instructions without prayer will do no good. Go
* HIEBOKYMUS ad Latam, pp. 66,57.
t. xv.
Idem, p. 101,
$ MAXIKOS
166
SERMON VIII.
WHAT MEANS HAY BE USED TOWARDS
to God to sanctify all, and to persuade their souls that yon have a most
single and sincere aim at their everlasting salvation. Pray apart for
them ; and if the condition of thy relations will admit, pray with them ;
and therein couch * some sweet reflections upon their souls. Elijah, when
he was in prayer with company, cries out, " 0 Lord, hear me, that this
people may know that thou art the Lord God." (1 Kings xviii. 37.)
Our blessed Lord also, in that heavenly prayer to the Father, makes
most sweet and ardent mention of his disciples who were present with
him. (John xvii. 20 ; xviii. 1.) Job,he sacrificed for his children, he
sent for them, and sanctified them, and " offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all;" (Job i. 5;) to teach us to pray for
children distinctly one by one. Abraham,he begs of God, " 0 that
Ishmael might live before thee !" (Gen. xvii. 18;) and Bathsheba,she
calls Solomon " the son of her vows." (Prov. xxxi. 2.) Austin was the
child of Monica's prayers and tears. Ask counsel of God, as Manoah
did, that he would be pleased to teach you what you must do with your
children. (Judges xiii. 8.) Beg of God wisdom and direction, that he
would order providential seasons for their good. Let that be your great
request in secret: " 0 that such a child, such a servant, might be pulled
as a firebrand out of the fire, (Jude 23,)and brought home to God!"
Should you have the wisdom of angels, if God do not come in to your
help, all you labour will be in vain. Cry out with the poor man in the
gospel, " Lord, have mercy on my son : for he is lunatic, and sore
vexed: for oft-times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water;"
(Matt. xvii. 15;) sometimes into one sin, sometimes into another,
whereby his soul incurs fearful and terrible dangers. Commend thy
child to God, whom thou hast begotten to death and damnation, unless
wonderful mercy interpose itself. Sprinkle him with the holy water of
melting tears, beg of God that he may be delivered from the wrath to
come by his almighty arm. Petition earnestly for the pardon of those
sins, for the rooting-out [of] that spiritual wickedness, which thou hast
been the means to propagate. Pray it out, fast it out, weep it out
before God. Such devils go not out without fasting and prayer.
Now I shall make some brief application of the whole, and so
conclude.
USES.
1. In the first place, hence we learn the diffusive nature of holiness.

It is like the widow's oil, that filled all the vessels of her neighbours.
(2 Kings iv. 3.) He that is holy, is 3, "like unto God himself"
for communicativeness, as well as for purity, in his small degree and
measure. The language of a saint is, " come, let us sing unto the
Lord: let us come before his presence with thanksgiving." (Psalm xcv.
1, 2.) " Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways," &c.
(Isai. ii. 3.)
2. [We learn] to reprove such as do not perform their utmost', that do
not improve their skill and endeavour to the height, in this excellent woitc.
* The third and fourth editions have touch in this place.EDIT.
1 CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS
167
Every child is bora an heir of hell; and wilt thou use no mean to
deliver hie soul from death, and to pull him out of the jaws of the devil f
thou ungodly father, that, like Gallic, takest no care in this matter!
God will require the blood of thy child, and the blood of thy servant, at
thy hands one day. Dost thou love thy child? A Heathen will teach
thee thy duty : " To love," eaith he, " ie /30
$ ,* " to desire good things for such, and, according to the utmost ability, to endeavour to accomplish them." There is
but one good thing that is absolutely necessary for thy child ; and that
is, a happy union to God. What hast thou yet done to the effecting of
that ? Many are eagerly bent upon those designs,how their children,
like Caligula in the historian, may tumble in a room fall of gold ;f but
take little pains for " the gold of Ophir," and that wisdom which is " far
above rubies." (Prov. iii. 14, 15.) Know, that all the sins of relations
under your charge that are not reproved and corrected for, will become
yours. Every drunken fit of thy servant will be counted thine to
answer for. Every turn of pleasure that thy children and servants take
in the fields upon God's holy day, with thy approving connivance, will turn
to thy account at the. great tribunal. (Isai. Iviii. 13 ; 2 John 11.) If thou
wouldest find favour with God, labour to divert them from the ways that
lead to the chambers of death. He that neglects his duty herein, does
what in him lies to damn his child and himself too. As if he were in
league with death, in covenant with Satan, and with hell were at an
agreement; (Isai. zxviii. 15 ;) as if it were a laughing matter, for
himself and all his relations to fall into the bottomless pit of fire and
brimstone ! how many families are the filthy cages of unclean birds,
like so many hog-sties and sinks of all manner of abominations! We
can scarce walk the streets, but we shall hear swearing, and cursing, and
polluting God's holy name, and many obscene and filthy speeches, and
see great wickedness committed, even by young striplings: and this is
because they are not instructed and taught the fear of the Lord at home
by their parents and rulers. There be many ruffling gallants in our
times, that look upon holiness as a crime, and count it their bravery to
go towards hell with open mouth, with a full swinge, that swim down
the rivers of riot and luxury into the Dead Sea; (2 Peter ii. 3, 13;)
that are so far from reproving others for sin, that they commend and
encourage them rather; that have much ado to bear with servants that
perform excellent service, if they will not drink healths, and be
debauched as well as themselves, more like Nero}: than Christians.
(1 Peter iv. 4.) If their children serve Satan never so much, they
matter it not; so they do not ruin their patrimony. No wonder that
their children be profligate and vile, that have such sad examples. The
Spirit of God takes notice, that Ahaziah was a wicked man, and gives
this for the reason : " His mother was his counsellor to do wickedly."
(2 Chron. xxii. 3.) Such as will be angry rather, if their relations do not
walk in the ways of sin, [are] like the wasps, in the naturalist, that dip
their stings in the poison of vipers. Their angry tongues are tinctured
* ARISTOTELIS Ethic, lib. ii. cap. 4.
f SUETONIUS in Caligula, cap. 42.
SUETONIUS in Nerone, cap. 5.
^LIAKUS De Animal, lib. v. cap. 16.
168
SERMON Till.
CONVERSION OF OUR CARNAL RELATIONS.
in the venom of sin. (Rom. iii. 13.) how much good might
Theophilus do! When greatness and holiness run in a blood, how
would the generations to come rise up and bless them! how much
honour might they bring to God! how would religion flourish! how
would our fields bring forth peace, and our streets run down with rivers
of righteousness!
3. Hence we learn the horrible sin of such that cause others to do
wickedly.That egg on others to the commission of sin, that encourage
children to profane the sabbath, to lie, and swear, and seem to approve
of, delight, and rejoice in it: " Who knowing the judgment of God, that
they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the
same, but have pleasure in them that do them." (Bom. i. 32.)
4. Hence we may infer, what great wisdom is requisite in managing
those means that are proper and useful in order to the salvation of our
relations."What integrity of heart, what sincerity, what holy contempt of the scorns of this wicked world !" " Dost thou take upon thee
the study of wisdom?" says the Stoic, "prepare thyself speedily,"
$}(.,* "to be laughed to scorn, and expect that
many should mock at thee." How much greater is the depravation of
men's hearts since the fall, in opposition to true holiness! Many a
hitter taunt and scoff must thou go under; but in wisdom pass it by,
regard it not: you work for souls. One soul begotten to God is better
than the gaining of whole kingdoms and empires.
5. To such as live under holy rulers and governors of families, that you
would highly esteem them for their labour of love.That you would
count it a singular mercy that God hath given any of you a holy father,
or a holy mother, such as have spent many an hour in secret for thy
good, that have sought it earnestly at the throne of grace, that thy life
might be hid with God in Christ. Look upon their instructions as so
many pearls, their reproofs as so many rubies, to wear about thy neck.
(Prov. i. 9.) Not to be reproved in the way of sin, is a great judgment.
To have these thorns and briers cast in the way to our sinful lovers, is a
great mercy. (Hosea ii. 6.) 0 how many blessings do children enjoy by
means of praying parents! Count it a great and an admirable favour
from God.
6. To such as are employed and exerrised in this excellent duty and
study, to perform it conscientiously.Who seriously endeavour, that
their yoke-fellows may be the spouses of Christ, their posterity the

children of our heavenly Father, their servants the freemen of Christ,
their kindred of the blood-royal of heaven. Let me say, as our blessed
Lord to Zaccheus, "This day is salvation come to this house." This
day hast thou fellowship with the Father and with the Son. The God
of heaven goes along with thee. Though thou dost not see the desired
fruit of thy labour at present, do not despond, the work is God's. It is
like to some of those seeds, which, sown in the earth, will not come up
till the second spring. "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit
of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early
latter rain." (James v. 7.) It is often seen that there is a mighty
* EPICIETUS, cap. 29,
SERMON XX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOXJI/S LOVE TO CHRIST.
169
power of God going along with such constant endeavours; at length the
diligent hand may make thee rich. The grace that dwelt in the grandmother Lois, in the mother Eunice, dwelt afterward in their little son
Timothy. (2 Tim. i. 5.) Though God is not tied by any bond of
nature, yet fervent prayer is of a high esteem in the sight of God. The
use of means directed by God, is a hopeful sign of mercy intended':
where God chooseth to the end, he ordains to the means. He hath
chosen us to be holy, that we might be glorious. (Eph. i. 4, 11.)
However God deal with you in that particular request, yet be sure your
care and pains will not lose a signal reward. Your prayers shall return
into your own bosom; and, I tell thee, God watcheth over such a family
in a way of mercy and peace. His eye of grace is toward thee; his
holy hand will uphold thee; his heart will bless thee. Unto his good
pleasure commit thyself, and wait the success; go on and prosper, thou
blessed of the Lord.
SEBMON IX.
BY THE REV. THOMAS NEAST, A.M.,*
SOMETIMK FELLOW OF NEW-COLLEGE, OXFORD.
WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS OF A 8OUI/S SINCERE LOVE TO

CHRIST? AND HOW MAY THAT LOVE TO HIM BE KINDLED
AND INFLAMED?
Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.
Ephesians vi. 24.
THESE words may well be treated on without much preface, there

being nothing in them which speaks any dependence upon or connexion
with any thing that went before. Some form of benediction we find
used by this great apostle, at the conclusion of every epistle; (Bom. xvi.
24; 1 Cor. xvi. 23, 24; 2 Cor. xiii. 14; Gal. vi. 18;) and accordingly, having driven his excellent design, in this to the church of
Ephesus, to a full period or issue, he first makes an affectionate address
to God, and to the Mediator, in their behalf: " Peace be to the brethren,
and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;"
In the fourth edition of thia volume, in 1677, the name of each author waa first printed;
and MR. NEST was then announced as the writer of the ninth sermon. Not being able to
find his name in Calamy's " Account of silenced Ministers," or in any other Dissenting
Historian, I was induced, in some of the earliest impressions of this sermon, to attribute its
composition to the celebrated Christopher Nesse. In this I was mistaken; for Anthony a
Wood, in his Fasti Oxonienses, (col. 773,) properly claims its authorship for THOMAS
NEAST, A. M., who, during the Inter-regnum, was rector of Hardwick, Bucks.; from which
he appears to have been ejected, and to have remained for some time a Nonconformist.
After conforming, "he became minister of St. Martin's church in Ironmonger-lane, and,
a little before the grand conflagration, was presented to St. Stephen's church in Colemanstreet, London."EDIT.
170
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOUI/S LOVE TO CHRIST,
(verse 23;) and then leaves his apostolical benediction upon them:
" Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity:"
(verse 24:) or, "The blessing of the eternal God be upon all the
sincere-hearted Christians among you;" for so I look upon the latter
words of the verse as a periphrasis of all real Christians; love to Christ
being as essential to the Christian, as the rational soul is to the man.
The only difficulty in the words, that will require our stay, is to inquire
what is meant by ev , " in sincerity:" some refer it to the
?, " grace," mentioned at the beginning of the verse; as if it had
been read, ? <0<, " unto incorruption," or " to bring them to
eternal life," or " until they come to a state of immortality :" so, many
of the ancients, and of the modern interpreters, Beza, Tremellius, and
others.
Others read it in conjunction with the 'love of the Lord Jesus Christ;"
making it a qualification or a discriminating note of that love, which is
sound, real, and sincere, from that which is but pretended, counterfeit,
and easy to be corrupted by every difficulty and temptation. And,
accordingly, they translate, some in incorruptione; others, absque; a
third sort, amore non vitiato nee culpato : all to the same sense with our
English translation, " in sincerity."
There are others who consider this phrase apart by itself; some
explaining it by purity of heart and conversation, others as denoting
thereby the " duration of love," tarn prosperi guhm adversis, or " both
in good and bad times." Piscator makes it a distinct branch of the
apostle's prayer; as if he had said, " Grace be with all them," &c., " and
life eternal;" taking no notice of the preposition that is added, and
varies the construction. It is the conjecture of a learned divine, that the
apostle, in adding this clause, hath some reflection on the Gnostics, who
had mingled themselves with the Christians of Ephesus, and were, whatever they pretended, neither pure in their love to Christ, having mixed
his doctrine with abominable corruptions, nor yet sincere and lasting
therein, being ready, upon every blast of persecution that did arise,
to deny him, and apostatize from him. I shall for the present, with
Musculus, leave the matter indifferent, not only which of the two first,
but of all the other fore-mentioned, opinions is fixed upon, finding no
cause, so far as concerns my present purpose, to be peremptory in either;
the apostle doubtless meaning none else by " lovers of Christ," but such
whose hearts were sincerely and entirely affected to him, whether he
intended to characterize them any further by ev a<pdap<na., or no; which,
I presume, might easily be manifested from other parallel places, -where
this grace is mentioned and understood properly, having no additional
qualification made thereto; (1 Cor. xvi. 22; John xiv. 15, 23; xxi. 15
17 ; 1 Peter i. 8;) and from the design of the words themselves; for
certainly he would not so solemnly have entitled the rotten-hearted
hypocrites, that did only pretend love to Christ, unto the benediction of
the great and blessed God. And if that stand good, we have enough
for our purpose ; and more need not be contended for.
Let this suffice, then, for their meaning. The subject-matter of them,
whether you look to the first clause or the last, is very noble, and might
AND BOW IT MAY DC KINDLED AND INFLAMED.
171
well deserve a large consideration; but I am confined to this single use

of them, which is, to make them the foundation of these two cases of
conscience:
What are the genuine character of a soul's sincere love to Christ ? And
how may that love to him be kindled and inflamed f
And there are but two or three things that I desire to suggest, and
then we shall immediately begin to treat upon them in their order.
1. Let it be considered, that there is a vast difference between these
cases, and such others as do refer only to lower duties. When we inquire
after the sincerity of our love to Christ, it is all one as if we were upon
the search whether we are Christiana, yea or not; and whether, consequently, our portion doth lie in the divine promises or threatening^; and
what is our immediate duty, that, all other set aside, we must attend
unto. And, again, when we seek for directions to help us unto the love
of Christ, our inquiry is not, how we may order this or that inferior
action, but how we may attain to saving religion and Christianity ; how
we may escape the great damning sin of the world, and entitle ourselves
to the love of God and Christ, and to all the rare privileges which belong
to the communion of saints; in a word, to the grace of God here, and
to eternal life hereafter. (See 1 Cor. ii. 9; James i. 12; ii. 5; John
xiv. 21, 23.)
2. Let it be considered, that it is not the distinct resolution of these
cases that will be of final advantage to any person, unless there be added
to the former an impartial soul-searching examination of themselves;
and to the latter, as the case shall require, a conscientious practice;
the resolutions given to cases of conscience about the right performance
of duties being nothing else but the bare providing the food or physic;
and again the discoveries of men's states thereby, being but the presenting
looking-glasses to them; neither of which are effectual, or do any good
but to such as faithfully use them.
3. Let me humbly mind you, that the more uncertainty yon are at,
touching your estates, when you have examined them by the CHARACTERS, the more diligence you are concerned to use in the practice of the
DIRECTIONS. And let me add this, that where you cannot undeniably
and demonstratively conclude the sincerity of your love, which I think
few in comparison on this side of heaven can, there you must never layby the advice about the last case; no, not although your probabilities
should be great: it being at the worst but an easy and sweet trouble to
be still doing this great work over again, whereas it is irrecoverably
dangerous and desperate, upon presumption that we have done it already,
to leave it wholly neglected: and I beseech you, remember this useful
rule,that in all trials, which Christians make about grace, it is safer to
want credulity than to be over-hasty therein.
The cases are two, and very fit to follow each other in the order that
is given to them. I begin with the first.
CASE I.
What are the genuine characters of a soul '* sincere love to Christ ?
And in order to the resolution thereof, I must premise these several
172
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOUI/S LOVE TO CHRIST,

PROPOSITIONS.
PROP. i. That there is a great deal of difference between love, as it is

seated in the will or rational appetite, and the same act or principle of love
as seated in the sensitive.*In the former, it is a settled, rational, uniform,
and deliberate motion, co-incident with the very natural act of the will
itself; to love, as the great schoolman notes, being nothing else but
intensive velle, " to will intensely," either person or thing. The motion
of the will towards the object, as good and desirable, and the earnest
embracing thereof,this is rational love. And according to the various
aspect which it hath thereto, either as present or absent, perfect or
imperfect, it is called love of desire, or fruition, dependence, or complacency : and if the object be such as can or doth reciprocate affection,
then it is friendship, or amor amicitiat ["the love inherent in friendship."] But now take love, as it is an affection properly so called,
and seated in the lower faculties of the soul; and so there is a great
variety and inequality in its motions, much easier to be felt than expressed.
Sometimes the soul is in a kind of ecstasy, rapt above itself; and then
by and by it is flat and dull again. I note this 'first, for this reason,
that you may understand what kind of love it is that our inquiry
doth proceed upon, namely, rational love; it being, as a judicious divine
hath often observed, " not so safe for Christians to try their states by the
passionate motions of grace in the lower parts of the soul, or the affections, as by the more equal and uniform actings thereof in the will
itself,"f the TO tysp,ovncov, " commandress " of the soul.
PROP. ii. The acts of the will, in specie morali, derive their goodness
or viciousness partly from the nature of the object upon which they are
fixed.I do not assert this to be the only ground, whence they are
concluded good or evil; for the principle, and the end, and sometimes
the degree, of the act are all necessary thereto; but only that this is one
thing necessary. Thus the willing of God, or any of those things which
are in a direct order to his glory, is that [which] we call " the grace of
love;" as, on the other side, when the will moveth towards any thing
which standeth in opposition thereto,this is that [which] we call
" sinful concupiscence."
PROP. in. It is not barely the object, in itself considered, but as
clothed with its proper excellences that agree to it and all its necessary
relations, which the will in its motions must have respect unto, before any
of those motions can truly be said to be gracious.For the nature of
grace lies not in the act or motion of the will, simply and nakedly
considered, but as it is suited and proportioned to the excellences of the
object, and those relations which do inseparably belong thereto. For
instance: to delight in God; it is not every act of delight which the
soul may have upon the apprehension of him, such as a bare philosophical conception of God may sometimes raise the heart unto: but when
* Voluntas nfyil aliud eat, quam mtellectus extensus ad habendum et faciendum id
quod cognoscit.SCALIGERI ExerciL " The will is nothing more than the understanding extended to have and to do that of which it takes cognizance."EDIT.
f BAXTER'S Directions for Peace and Comfort," Direct 21.
AND HOW IT MAT BE KINDLED AND INFLAMED.
1/3
the believing soul, having taken a view of the excellence of God, and it
own sweet relation to him as a gracious Father, is carried forth in a holy
rapture and exultancy of spirit. This ie the grace of delight.
PROP. iv. Though the hue of God, and the love of Christ, are never
found one without the other, yet ie there a distinction necessary to be put
between them ; and that even a great, in proportion, a ie between God
and the Mediator, or between the last end and the principal mean
conducing thereto.The love of the soul to God is amor finis ultimi,
[" the love of the ultimate end,"] or of such a being as it will be an
eternal happiness to be united unto. The love of the soul to Christ as
Mediator, is amor medii principalis, [" the love of the principal means,"]
or of one by whom we may have access to God, and find our happiness
in him. The formal reason of the former is the divine all-sufficiency and
blessedness; but [that] of the latter, the personal excellences that are in
Christ, together with his ability and willingness to free us from our
undoing straits and exigencies, as we are in a state of apostasy and
elongation from God. And, if I mistake not, the not observing this
necessary distinction between the acts of the soul, as respecting God, and
the same acts, in specie, or " in kind," as respecting the Mediator, hath
occasioned much confusion in those answers which are given to this, and
many such like inquiries; such arguments as are only proper to the
one, being made use of to discover the sincerity of our hearts in the
other.
PROP. v. Love, as it is an act or habit of the will, and hath Christ
for its object, is not properly the evangelical grace of love to Christ,
unless it have respect to him, according to the various excellences of his
person, and the several distinct relations which are by God invested in
him. Or thus : Ths Gospel grace of love is not the intensive willing a
naked Christ, but Christ as represented with his peculiar personal excellences, and with his various offices and relations unto us in the Gospel.>
This proposition undeniably follows from the third before laid down.
But yet, because it gives some special light to help us to discover the
true nature of this grace, and is intended as the foundation of some of
those characters that will afterwards come to be insisted on, I must crave
your patience, while I offer something farther for the confirmation thereof. That certainly is no true moral act which is not suited to the nature
of the object: thus, for a man to love his friend no otherwise than he
loves his beast, would not be a true moral act of love. And again: as
plain a truth it is, that where the act of love doth not bear some gradual
proportion to the various excellences of the object that it is conversant
about, neither can that act have any moral truth or goodness in it. For
instance: to love God or Christ with no higher love than we love
inferior persons, whether friends, relations, or superiors in the world,
this were not sincerely to love either of them. (See 1 John ii. 15 ;
Matt. x. 37; Luke xiv. 26.) I add, in the last place, (which is no less
evident than either of the former,) that where there are relations or
offices necessarily invested in and inseparable from the person beloved,
then, if our love doth not respect the object as under those relations
\
I
\
and offices, it will be far from being love hi sincerity. Some instance
\
174
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOUL'S LOVE TO CHRIST,
wilt clear this also beyond contradiction : Suppose a woman that hath a
husband, and she loves him no otherwise than one friend loves another;
and the case is the same between a scholar and his master, a servant and
his lord, a subject and his prince; if the affections be without reverence,
obedience, and loyalty, will either of these be reputed true love ? Why,
no more are such to be accounted the sincere lovers of Christ who do not
bear an affection to him, in all bis offices and relations. And this I take
to be so demonstrative a truth, and of such necessary consideration in
our present inquiry, that nothing could be spoken in judgment thereto,
until we had first made our way unto it, and laid it down ; I am sure it
will be found fundamental to the right understanding the nature of
sincere love to Christ, and the greatest part of the characters which are
laid down in the scripture of this grace. It might now be here expected,
and it is almost necessary, to give some account of Christ's personal
excellences, and also of his offices, what they were; and briefly to
intimate what new qualifications each of them would put upon a
Christian's intensive willing of Christ, which is but the substratum or
matter of this grace. But I am not now to discourse the nature of this
grace at large ; and so much thereof as is necessary will come in, when
we lay down some of the characters of it: and I have but two things
more, and then we come to them.
PROP. vi. The love of the soul to Christ in sincerity is not any one
indivisible act or habit, but a holy frame of spirit, made up of many
gracious inclinations, carrying the whole soul along with it unto Christ,
for union and communion with him.I told you in the beginning, that
it is used here by the apostle as the periphrasis of a Christian, a brother, a real saint; and therefore it is not a sudden and transient flash
of the soul, or any one act, but comprehensive of much of that wherein
the nature of Christianity doth essentially lie. This follows necessarily
from the last proposition : and, indeed, to make faith or love to Christ
such single physical acts as many do, as it renders the doctrine of Christianity perplexed, so doth it exceedingly tend to the amusing of the
consciences of weak Christians, and, I am afraid, engender also to licentiousness ; it being too usual with such persons, who presumptuously
conceive themselves to be Christians, because they discern, as they think,
those supposed particular acts, to take up with them, and to grow
remiss and careless in other duties, as essential
necessary to salvation as those graces themselves.
proposition: you may note, that as love to God is
piety, and is incorporated into every branch of it,
the very spirit that diffuseth itself through and
to Christianity and
To conclude this
the soul of natural
so is love to Christ
animates all those
duties which are required by the new covenant, and respect Jesus Christ
as Mediator.
PROP. vii. When we inquire after this love, by its genuine characters,
you are not to understand thereby only such special properties as argue
the essence of this grace a posteriori; but you are to know that we understand it in such a latitude, as leaving room for all those arguments by
which the conscience of a Christian may be resolved, whether this grace
was ever truly wrought in his soul or not
AND HOW IT MAY BE KINDLED AND INFLAMED.
175
And, these things premised, the characters which evidently discover

whether we love Christ in sincerity are these that follow.
CHARACTERS.
CHAR. i. We may know it by our former convictions.And the rale is

this: Where love to Christ is sincere, there hath been a conviction of the
soul's undone condition without him, and of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to recover the soul out of that condition. (Isai. Iv. 1; Izi.
13 ; Matt. zi. 28.) And wherever this conviction bath been folly
wrought, and the wound made thereby regularly healed, there dwells
sincere love to him. I put this first, as containing the original birth of
evangelical love. dare affirm, " No conviction, no love; no contrition
of heart for sin, no affection in the soul for Christ." " Every degree of
true spiritual love," saith a divine, that had well studied this point,
" proceeds from a proportionable act of saving faith." \\ Peter i. 8.)
And to the same purpose, saith Dr. Preston,and he presseth it earnestly,two things must concur to beget love. 1. The sight of Christ's
willingness and readiness to relieve. 2. His ability and sufficiency to
help. These two, willingness and ability, are the crown upon the head
of Christ, when undone souls do first take delight in him; they are the
sweet ointments of our Lord which, by their savour, do attract virgin
souls to betroth themselves unto him. (Canticles iii. 11; i. 3.) Whatever men may vainly talk, it is brokenness of heart, and a sense of
approaching ruin, that gives the soul the first occasion of acquainting
itself in good earnest with Christ; (Acts ii. 36, 37; iz. 5, 6 ; Matt. iz.
12;) and when faith hath thereupon found the suitableness of Christ to
itself, in its present state of misery, then the fire of love begins to burn.
So that it is not a blind, casual passion, but a matter of right reason,
mature judgment, and choice. It is not a frame of spirit that persons
were delivered into they'know not how; but such, whereof they that
have it can give undeniable reasons; so that, if the question were put to
any love-sick soul, as to the spouse in the Canticles, "What is thy
beloved more than another beloved ? " she could give an account, if not
so glossy and rhetorical, yet as logical and rational as that which is there
given. (Canticles v. 9,10; i. 3,12; ii. 3.) She hath seen that in Christ,
so much excellency in his person, and so much readiness and sufficiency,
as resulting from his several offices,which hath even ravished her, and
made " him comely to her for delights," yea, " the very chiefest of ten
thousands:" (Canticles v. 10:) and therefore she both can and doth clasp
fast about him, and takes him for her Physician, Husband, King, Priest,
and Prophet. " Since he is willing and fit to be my Saviour, 0," saith the
soul, " I will be his disciple, servant, subject, or anything." Thus she can
hold no longer, but falls down-right sick of love. (Canticles ii. 5 ; v. 4.)
And this is the first character. Take it now, and ask thy soul,
" Didst tbou ever yet find thyself lost and undone ? not able to bear up
against the terrors of an accusing and condemning conscience; even
dying away for fear lest God should spend all his arrows upon thee, and
leave thee a horror to thyself, and an amazement to all about thee?
(Deut. zxzii. 23 ; Job vi. 4; Psalm zzzviii. 2.) And was it in this dark
176
8BRMON IX.
CHARACTERS Of A SOU 1/8 LOVE TO CHRIST.
yalley that thou earnest first seriously acquainted with Christ ? and didst
thou see his bowels yearning to thee, (Jer. xxxi. 20,) and that he was
fully able to set thee in the light of the countenance of that God whose
terror was upon thee ? (Acts ix. 5.) And under this conviction was it
that thou didst first close with him?" Why, this is love, not in pretence and compliment, but in sincerity: whereas, on the other side, if
thy pretended affection wants this foundation; if it hath been always
alike, neither more nor less; if that senseless conceit runs through thy
eoul, that thou bast loved Christ ever since thou wast born, and never
didst feel the least stirrings of enmity against him ; if education, custom,
outward communion,* be all that tbou hast to Cny to prove thy love; in
faithfulness to thy soul, I warn thee to take heed of self-deceit, for
surely "the root of the matter is not in thee;" (Job xix. 28 ;) and if
thou wilt still presume, notwithstanding this confident denial, I have but
one word more, and that is, to commend to thy serious perusal that
judicious tract of Mr. Pinke,f on this very case and text; where these
counterfeit grounds of love are fully convicted of insufficiency, and therefore I would not do it here again.
CHAR. it. Where love to Christ dwells in sincerity, there hath been
some sensible impression, taste, and feeling of the Father's love to the soul
in him,I do not mean, the Father's love, as it lies in the womb of

election, (Rom. viii. 30 ; ix. 13,) but as it hath broken forth in a powerful, actual vocation. The pedigree of a Christian's love to his Saviour
is to be fetched from the Father's love to souls in Christ. (John xiv. 6.)
" We love him, because he first loved us." (1 John iv. 19.) Christ himself, as Mediator, is but a means whereby souls may come to God, their
final end and blessedness ; (John xiv. 9 ; xv. 23 ;) and therefore, as the
soul that loves him loves the blessed God much more, so, before we can
fix upon him with full satisfaction, some beams thereof must light upon
us; it being too great a difficulty for the soul to prevail with itself to trust
all its concernments in the hands of a crucified Christ, and to be fond %
of him, until it hath gained some sweet assurance of the Father's love to
itself in him. And hence it is that our Saviour tells us: " No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." (John vi.
44.) By " coming to Christ," I take it for granted, may be understood
either faith or love ; and these cannot be without the Father's drawing
What is that ? Morally, it lies in the clear discoveries of his willingness
to be reconciled to us in Christ; when, in conformity to his being " in
Christ, reconciling the world to himself," (2 Cor. v. 19,) he is pleased

to vouchsafe us his own beseechings of us to be reconciled, then he draws
us. The promise, therefore, of reconciliation must first be made known;
and by the sweet influence thereof the soul is allured with cheerfulness
to throw itself into the arms of its Saviour: and this is love.
Try by this also: " Didst thou ever find those cords of a man, those
bonds of divine and ravishing love, thrown upon thee ? Didst thou ever
see God to be thy happiness, and offering himself to thee as such, and so
* See Reynolds on Psalm ex. pp. 59, 60, &c.
f " Trial of a Christian's Sincere
Love to Christ."
Found is the incorrect reading of the third and fourth editions.
EDIT.
AND HOW IT MAY HE KINDLED AND INFLAMED.
177
alluring tLee ? Then thou art married to Christ; for this speaks tnee
united to God in love; and the end most include the means, and the
greater the lesser.
CHAR. in. We then love Christ in sincerity, when that affection in
v it qualified according to the various excellence* that belong to the
person of our Lord.When it respects him according to the manifestation made of him in the gospel; namely, not simply as a person, who is
historically made known to us by such a name ; bat according to the true
character of him, as God and man in one person, ' as one
filled with the Spirit of God, above measure, (John iii. 34,) by an ineffable unction ; as one admirably condescending, and laying aside his Divine
splendour and majesty, that he might appear " in the form of a servant,
and be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," for the
salvation of sinners; (Phil. ii. 68 ;) and, lastly, as one raised from the
dead by God, (Acts v. 30,) made able, and declaring his high satisfaction
in the access of sinners unto God by him : and so there are these four
graces, which are always attendant upon and are, as it were, incorporated
into the nature of the evangelical affection:
1. Humble and reverent admiration.It is an admiring love. Objects
that are incomparably excellent do always first affect with admiration;
and though that affection dissolve into love, yet doth it not usually wholly
cease, especially if the object be not thoroughly comprehended. It is
thus with thy soul, Christian, that art a sincere lover of thy Redeemer,
and hast not set up some image of an ordinary person, in the place of
him : thou admirest him, whom thou lovest, as never being able to comprehend his glory: (Canticles v. 16 ; Eph. iii. 17:) the Lord whom
thou lovest being God as well as man, and man as well as God, and all
this in one person : (John i. 1, 14 ; I Tim. iii. 16 :) an object in whom
heaven and earth are so admirably blended together, that the acutest
reason loseth itself, and stands amazed at the union: whence we find one
of the ancients thus speaking of it: "I know that the Word was made
flesh; but how or in what manner this was done, I know not. Dost
thou wonder that I profess my ignorance ? Why, the whole creation is
ignorant of it as well as I." * And another of them gives this advice:
" If reason go about to cavil, OrpoQspe (/, <) , do
not dispute, but apply thyself to the common refuge against cavils in
matters of faith, even faith itself: God hath said it, and therefore I most
and will believe it." f These things considered, I dare boldly tell thee,
that thou canst not love in sincerity, but together therewith thou wilt be
under a holy rapture of admiration; and, together with thy love, thy
admiration will be always increasing.
2. Sweet and refreshing delight.It is a delighting, rejoicing love.
(Canticles ii. 3.) " Love," saith Aquinas, est complacentia amantis in
amato, "is the rest and satisfaction of the soul in the object loved/'
The nature of love lies much in delight. Thou canst not, Christian,
love thy Lord, but thou wilt find thy heart even ravished with delight in
him; as being one in whom "the fulness of the Godhead dwells,"
, or " pe.*onally," (Col. ii. 9,) non per efficaciam solbm out
* CHRYSOSTOM.
f JUSTIK MARTYR.
178
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOUL*8 LOVE TO CHRIST,
assistentiam, eed per unionem hypostaticam ; * or not virtually, or only in a

way of external help and assistance; and being also one that had such an
unction of the Spirit upon him, that hath fully fitted him for the delight
of thy soul. (Canticles iv. 15.) And hence it is, that we find the
spouse in the hook of Canticles so often letting forth her heart in holy
delight to her Beloved, as is manifested by her many loving compellations,
and several other expressions, (" He shall lie all night betwixt my
breasts," Canticles i. 13,) too large and many to be mentioned here; and
therefore I refer you to the book itself.
3. Ingenuous gratitude and thankfulness.It is a grateful and thankful love, as that which is begotten in the soul by the sense of Christ's
unspeakable goodness and condescension, and which is also ever after fed
and maintained thereby. Now the condescension of Christ lies in three
things: (1.) In his voluntary undertaking the work of reconciliation and
mediation with Ood for persons so unworthy. (Rom. v. 8.) " He took
not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham." (Heb. ii. 16.) It was the cause of sinners which this great Lord
undertook to plead. (2.) In his unwearied diligence, and invincible
patience, in fulfilling the severe law of redemption, which he had submitted to. Though the injury that was done him by man was so great
and manifest, and the terror of the Lord against him also so severe
and unspeakable, " yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
Opened not his mouth." (Isai. liii. 7.) (3.) In being willing to communicate the benefits purchased thereby to sinful and rebellious men, upon
such easy terms ; bidding us do nothing else but turn to Gqd by repentance and self-denial, and believe in himself; and then, whatever our sins
had been, all the advantages merited by his death should be made over to
us. (Matt. xi. 30; Bom. x. 810 j Isai. i. 1618.) Now, when all
these are considered, (as by every soul that sincerely loves him more or
less they are,) do they not sweetly affect with thankfulness, as well as
love ? Christian, canst thou look upon such a Redeemer without some
sense of an obligation laid upon thy soul thereby ? Wilt thou think one
single and separate affection enough for him ? Or rather, will not thy
heart empty itself into the bosom of the Lord, with love and thankfulness both at once, and each of them contending which shall outdo the
other ?
4. Supporting hope and confidence.It is a hoping and confiding love;
it is not a languishing affection, but that which brings life into the soul
from the fulness of that Christ it feeds upon. "Perfect love," saith the
apostle, " casteth out fear." (1 John iv. 18.) There will not be so much
as the shadow of fear upon the soul, when this affection is ripened into
perfect fruition. And, in the mean time, as the degrees of it do increase,
so is the soul heightened in its hopes, and tramples upon its former
jealousies, fears, and discouragements. And to this sense some interpret
those words: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" &c.:
(Rom. viii. 3539 :) as if they were the exultation of faith upon the view
* DAVESANT in loe. " Not through efficacy and assistance only, but by a personal
union."EDIT.
AND BOW IT MA* BK KIMDLVD AMD INFLAMED.
179
of love* conquest, and victorious triumph over all it enemies. Love gives
confidence of access to Christ, and unto God by him; and this confidence
lies in the soul, as a cordial against all its faintiugs and despondencies:
not that there may not be a sinking of spirits, and a swooning away for
a time; but love will restore the soul again, and knowing Christ to be
good, as well as all-sufficient for its condition, it will recover life and
spirits again, and not Buffer it utterly to faint under its own sad apprehensions. (Canticles vi. 12, 13.)
And this is the third character. Take now all these four qualification
of sincere love, and try yourselves by them
CHAR. iv. If our love be rincere, it ie an affection which retpecteth not
a naked Chriet, but Christ 09 Mediator ; or, it ie a hearty detire of, and
complacency in, Chrit, in all his offices, a King, and Priest, and Pro
phet.And of such moment is the right knowledge of this character,
that, Christian, I must desire thee principally to study it, and pass a
judgment upon thyself thereby. For, whatever fondness and sudden
flashings of love thou mayest find within thee, they will not so clearly
tell thee what thou art,, as the knowledge of thyself by this mark. Take
it for a clear truth, that if thou lovest not Christ as thy Sovereign Lord;
if thy heart be not knit to him as thy High Priest with God; if thou
hast not affectionately entertained him as thy Master and Teacher; in a
word, if thou art not consecrated unto God by Christ, if thou art not a
loyal subject, and a willing disciple; love in sincerity doth not dwell iu
thee; tbou art still an enemy, and wilt so be judged. It ie not fondness
of expression, nor any outward compliment that men put upon Christ,
which reacheth the New-Testament notion of love to Christ; but when
as loyal subjects and willing disciples we are always doing the things that
are grateful, and are obedient to him: this is love. And hence it is,
that in so many places our Lord puts us upon trying our love by our
obedience, by keeping his words and commandments; and speaks of
libertines, infidels, the carnally-wise, rebels, and apostates, as enemies and
haters of him, whatever their pretences are to the contrary. (John ziv.
15, 21; zv. 8, 10, 21, 23, 24; 1 John v. 3; Luke xix. 27; Heb. x. 28;
John xiv. 23, 24.) And, verily, so essential is this to sincere love, that,
unless you understand it, yon will be able to give but a lame account of
most of the scripture-characters thereof, (as, if I had time, I could easily
demonstrate,) because they do all pre-suppose it. If thou wonldest know,
therefore, whether this grace be in thee in truth, take thy heart, Christian,
to Christ in every office, and try it, by such interrogatories as may result
from the consideration of them ; and this will tell thee thy case distinctly.
Begin first with Christ as High Priest; for this did lay the foundation
of the other two offices; and if thou hast any love to Christ in sincerity,
it was the sight of him in this that first kindled it. And thus bespeak
thyself: "Didst thou ever, 0 my soul, seriously consider what Christ
hath undertaken in thy behalf with the jealous God, whose face thou
couldst not see, and live? Wast thou ever convinced, that all thy
prayers, duties, outward privileges, and devotions were little worth, and
could not have aught availed thee, unless by his own blood he had first
entered within the vail, and made atonement for thee ; (Heb. x. 10, 12;
180
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A 80171/8 LOVE TO CHRIST,
1 Cor. ii. 2;) and then with the game blood went afterwards to the right
hand of God, and put him in mind of his covenant, to procure actual
grace, and peace, and adoption for thee ? And is it a pleasure to thee, as
well as thy admiration, to be always musing and searching what such an
abyss of grace and goodness should mean ? And in the midst of thy
znusings was it that thy affections first took this holy fire, and were even
surprised into lore ? Is it by his mediation that thou findest thy expectations from God, and thy delight in him, supported ? (Bom. viii. 34;
Phil. iii. 7, 8.) And dost thou rejoice in him, as one whose goodness
tbou adorest, and whose favour with God, purchased by his own merit,
thou admirest; and therefore art most willing to trust all thy concernments in his hands; and in all thy addresses to God comest leaning upon
the arms of him, as thy beloved Mediator and Intercessor ?" (Canticles
viii. 5.) Why, thus to renounce our own righteousness, and to feel our
hearts warmed into a further' estimation of his; to attribute all our
acceptance with God to him; briefly, to be intensively willing of Christ,
and to look upon him with full satisfaction of spirit in all his priestly
administrations:this is sincerely to love Christ as our High Priest.
And, on the contrary, to undervalue his blood either as needless by presumption, or as worthless by desperation; to be ascribing to ourselves,
when we receive any kindness or favour from God; to doat upon our own
worth and righteousness, as that which is sufficient without either Christ's
righteousness, satisfaction, or intercession;this is interpretatively to
reject him from being our High Priest, and to hate the person of our
Lord. (Heb. x. 28.)
Thus try yourselves, whether ye love Christ in his priestly office; and
when you have done with that, take thy soul to his prophetical office;
and make a further trial, by bespeaking thyself after the same manner.
Thus: " Didst thou ever, my soul, seriously consider that thou wast
made for an eternal life, and that none could ever chalk thee out the
way thereto, it being only to be learned in the school of this great Prophet ? And thereupon hast thou wholly ceased from listening unto any
other ? and, as a loving disciple, hast thou found pleasure in seeking the
law, even the word of thy salvation, at his mouth? Doth thy heart
thoroughly savour his doctrine? And dost thou like the discipline of
his school? Dost thou make it thy study to know, and lay it as a
charge upon thyself to keep, the words of this great Master and Prophet ? (John xiv. 23, 24.) And even now, that he is gone to heaven,
and hath left his word in the scripture behind him, and hath sent his
Spirit, and set up under-officers in his school, and precious ordinances
for thy guidance and direction ; dost thou value the scriptures above all
other writings in the world, and witness thy esteem of them by thy
daily perusal and study of them ? Dost thou bear a reverence in thy
breast to all Christ's offices and institutions? Dost thou account the
mouth of Christ most sweet, and even delight to hear his voice in the
scripture, and in every ordinance? And when thou hast heard, dost
thou lay up what thou hast been taught as the faithful counsel of thy
dearest Teacher, and rejoice therein ? (Canticles v. 16 ; Psalm i. 2; Heb.
ii. 1.) More particularly, what is thy carriage towards his Spirit ? Dost
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181
thou hear when he calls ? And art thou tractable to all hie motions f
Dost thou grieve him, or art thon willing to be instructed and guided by
him?" Why, thus to cease from leaning to oar own understandings;
to give up ourselves to Christ, and his Spirit in the scriptures, and in all
the ordinances of the gospel; to be the serious and willing disciples of
Christ;this is to love Christ as our Prophet in sincerity. That ie the
second office.
Once more, to make the trial by this mark complete: and that will
respect his kingly office: and this is as easy as either of the former; for,
our loyalty and voluntary subjection to Christ as commanding and
governing,this is love; and the heart's rebellion against Christ,
rejecting his dominion, murmuring against his laws, finding fault with
his administrations, disturbing his subjects, and disquieting the peace of
his kingdom, envying him the multitude of his subjects, and yielding no
obedience to his commands;all these are several branches of enmity
against Christ as King and Sovereign. Put the case, therefore, home to
thy own soul, if tbou wouldest not be mistaken, and say: " Doth Christ
rule within thee, my soul, or doth self and Satan ? Art thou glad
with his sovereignty, or is it the yoke tbou canst not bear? Do the
laws of his kingdom bear sway within thee, or is it the law of thy
members and carnal self? (Bom. vi.) When both come in competition,
whose command dost thou in the course of thy life most commonly
fulfil? Whose kingdom art thon most delighted in the advancement of?
Is it a pleasure to thee, that thy Lord doth reign, and that bis throne is
more universally exalted? Or else, doth thy heart rise against the
advancement of Christ's kingdom? In whom dost thon find thy
greatest delight ? Is it rather in the company of rebels, that would pull
the crown from the head of Christ, than in the humble and obedient
subjects of thy Lord? Dost thou take Christ to be thy Prince and
Sovereign ? And dost thou love the peace and glory of his kingdom, as
becomes an obedient subject of so great a Lord?" Why, this is
intensively to will Christum Rcgcm, or to love him as King. And this is
the third office, and the fourth character. If yon would make sure
work, this is a rule which will not deceive you.
CHAR. v. If we hone a fellowship with Christ in hit honour and diehonours, or in hi joys and sorrow, then is our love not feigned unto
Christ, but in sincerity.True love, if I may be allowed so to speak,
mixeth concernments: my meaning is, that it makes another's joys and
sorrows to be mine, as well as his: they may write "hatred" upon
themselves, who are regardless whether it go well or ill with Christ's
interests in the world. No communion with Christ, no love. Even the
personal reproaches and abuses which Christ endured here below, though
so many hundred years since, do yet affect them; and they that love
him have a sympathy with him in them. Neither is it his joy alone that
he was personally advanced by being raised again from the dead, and
taken up to glory, to sit therein at the right band of God, but theirs
also. (Luke xxiv. 52; Acts ii. 26.) Tell a loyal wife, that her husband
is honoured, and her heart will leap at the tidings that are brought to
her. It is good news to love-sick souls to hear that Christ is now in
182
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OP A fiOVX/S X.OVB TO CHRIST,
glory; they savour the advancements of their Lord, according to those

words of Christ himself to his apostles: "If ye loved me, ye would
rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater
than I." (John xiv. 28.) They are glad by faith to see the Sun of
Righteousness after a dark and cloudy morning in his meridian altitude.
(John zx. 20.) They die, and are crucified with Christ in his death ;
(Bom. vi. 3; Gal. ii. 19;) and they feel a reviving of themselves in the
resurrection of their Lord; and hence it is said of them, that they are
" quickened together with him," and that they " sit together in heavenly
places with him." (Eph. ii. 5 ; i. 20.) We read of Mary, that she went
weeping to the grave of her Lord; but hearing that he was arisen, she
came away rejoicing: (John xx. 11; Matt, xxviii. 8 :) and no otherwise
was it with his disciples. Christ doth not triumph alone in his ascension ; but all such as love him share therein together with him. And as
they share with Christ in his personal joys and troubles; so do they no
less when any of his concernments in the world do either prosper, or else
are trampled upon and clouded. It is as the arrows of death to see
either his laws, ordinances, officers, or subjects trampled upon. The
reproaches of the rebellious world reproaching their Lord fall upon
them, and are as so many darts struck into their own souls. (Psalm
xlii. 10; Ixix. 9.) This is that which successively feeds their joys and
sorrows, that it goes well with the militant church here below, or that a
cloud of displeasure and persecution is spread over it.
CaAR. vi. Where love to Christ is sincere, there Christ is accounted by
the soul to be its treasure ; and there is a longing desire in every such soul
of the nearest communion with him.I put both these together, though
there be a very clear distinction between them, for brevity. It is a truly
conjugal love, which can neither bear with distance, nor brook any rival.
And this is the meaning of the spouse in that double expression, calling
him " the chiefeet among ten thousand," and professing him to be " altogether lovely." (Canticles v. 10, 16.) The soul that loves Christ may
love other things, and esteem them lovely; but she will say of none, that
they are " altogether lovely," but only of her Lord. When one asked
Alexander to show him his treasure, the report is, that he pointed to his
friend Hephaestion : the treasure of a soul that sincerely loves Christ, is
Christ himself: Deus meus est omnia, or, "My God is my all," saith the
soul that loves God as his ultimate end. Hence is that of David:
" Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that I
desire beside thee." (Psalm Ixxiii. 25.) Christus meus est omnia, or, " My
Christ is my all," saith the soul that is upon inquiry how to find acceptation with God. Whence is that of Paul: " Doubtless I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."
(Phil. iii. 8.) It is the proper motto of a love-sick soul, "None but
Christ:" the sincerity of a Christian's love lies in giving a pre-eminence
to the Redeemer, whom it loves above every thing else. The soul that
loves Christ, values nothing in comparison of him, no, not his own
benefits. Meretndus amor est, plus annulum guhm sponsum amare, or,
" It is a note of a harlot, to prefer the portion before the person." And
that is a no less true than noble speech of the devout A Keropis : Nobili*
AMD BOW IT MAY BB KINDLED AND INPLAMJRD.
183
amator nan yttieeeit in dono, sed in Christo super onute Amum, or, " The
worthy and noble lover values not Christ so much by what he brings, as
by what he is himself." The soul that loves Christ, loves ordinances,
because they are the " banqueting-house" of her Lord, wherein she is
often refreshed by him; (Canticles ii. 4 ;) she loves the privileges of the
gospel, because they are the purchase of her Lord's blood. (Canticles iv.
1, &c.) She loves her own graces, because they are the rare ornaments
which Christ hath put upon her, to render her beautiful, and fit her for
his own embraces; and yet, after all, her language to Christ is, " Not
thine, but thee:" she will not so value them, as to forget Him that
gives them; Christ is her centre, and therefore she rests not, but will lay
by, and through all to come to him; she can scarce forbear a fit of
impatience sometimes to think of that distance that is still between
them. " Make haste, my beloved," saith the spouse to Christ, " and be
thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices."
(Canticles viii. 14.) And such another ejaculation is that, where the
whole church is brought-in crying to Christ: " Come, Lord Jeans, come
quickly." (Rev. zxii. 17, 20.) While our hearts dwell below upon the
thick clay, and have no daily desires to send forth, as doves from the
ark, for communion with Christ, there is little sign of sincere love to him.
CHAR. vn. We may know our sincerity in love, by the value toe put
upon ourselves, a well at upon Christ.If our interest in Christ be the

rule by which we value ourselves, that will argue true love: when this
makes it day in our souls, that Christ smiles upon us; and, on the other
side, when this spreads the darkness of the night over us, that he hides
his face from us; then we love him. David loved God heartily; and,
therefore, when God smiled, he rejoiced; and when God hid his face, he
was as much troubled then as before delighted. (Psalm iv. 6; xzz. 7.)
It is thus in every relation, where there is sincerity of affection as the
bond thereof, and a dependence between them of the one upon the other.
It is thus between a prince and a loyal favourite; between a husband
and a loving wife. It is thus between the love-sick soul and Christ;
when she enjoys him, then none so lightsome in countenance as she.
According to the nature of love, her affections are hardly concealed; they
are even too big for her heart to cover, and therefore she can scarce withhold herself from a holy exultation before every one that meets her.
Whereas, on the other side, if Christ but withdraws; if she calls, and he
gives no answer; if be seems to avoid her company, and to despise her
familiarity; what then ? then her joy is turned into gall, and her
pleasantness into wormwood; then her countenance grows dark and
sable, and her thoughts within her are full of horror, dejection, and confusion ; she goes up and down like a person almost distracted, and every
place is made to echo to her griefs and mournings; she goes from ordinance to ordinance, and from one watchman to another, and proclaims to
them all the sickness of her soul, if peradventure she may recover again
the sight of her Beloved. All this and much more with incomparable
elegance you may read described in the Song of Solomon. Thus, as the
marigold opens to the sun in the firmament, so doth the heart of a sincere Christian to the Sun of Righteousness, Christ in glory.
184
SERMON IX.
CHAR. vm. Where love is sincere, the soul will be often on the wing
of meditation, and busied in the contemplation of Christ.It is an old
rale and a true one, Anima est ubi amat, non ubi animat, or, " The soul
dwells as much where it hath fixed its lore, nay, more there, than where
it hath its most natural operation." Christ, and the believer that loves
him, live as if they had but one soul betwixt them. It is not the distance between earth and heaven that can separate them; true love will
find out Christ wherever he is; when he was upon the earth, they that
loved him kept his company; and now that he has gone to heaven, and
out of sight, those that love him are frequently sending up their hearts
unto him. And, indeed, they never think themselves intelligent in any
thing that is worth the knowing, until they have made their souls much
acquainted and familiar with their crucified Saviour. (1 Cor. ii. 2.)
CHAR. ix. There will be a willingness to part with all for him.
How many goodly things do persons of all sorts contemn for some one
thing which they love! Amnon, Abab, and Haman, are three great
examples of this. (2 Sam. xiii. 2; 1 Kings xxi. 4; Esther v. 13.) Take
but one instance, and it shall be of a covetous man: why, he disregards
all the learned accomplishments in the world for a little gain ; he thinks
himself better, when he hath got that which comes out of the bowels of
the earth he treads on, than that which comes from the mansion-house
of God, in the heaven above him; and, therefore, how familiarly and
easily will be part with the one to choose the other! No bonds of nature
or religion are enough to restrain him. (Acts xx. 24.) It is the resolution
of a soul that loves Christ, that nothing shall part them. They are
habitually martyrs already; and if he put them to it, it is not life itself
that they will account too precious to lay down for the sake of him.
(Matt. x. 37; Rev. xii. 11.) All the waters and floods of persecution,
temptation, and affliction shall not quench their flames of love. (Canticles
viii. 7.) Witness those words of Ignatins: ;, &c.; or,

" Let fire, cross," &c., " and all the torments, which by men or beasts
can be inflicted on my body, yea, and add to them what all the devils in
hell can do upon it, if it were by solemn sentence of excommunication
delivered to them; yet would I go through them all, to come to the
bosom of my Lord."
CHAR. x. There will be a willingness to stoop to the meanest offices,
for the service of Christ.'* Love," we use to say, *' stands not with
majesty ;" it did not do so in the person of our Saviour, when he washed
and wiped his disciples' feet; (John xiii. 5, 6, 14;) and those that love
him will not think it much to conform to his example; they will not
think they can ever stoop too low for the sake of him. (John xxi. 15.)
CHAR. xi. If it sticks not barely in the person of Christ, but reacheth
to all that have an union with him.If it be to Christ mystical as well as

personal; if you love their persons, their graces, their fellowship, &c.
" Tell me," saith the spouse, " where thou makest thy flocks to rest at
noon." (Canticles i. 7.) She delights to be led forth with them into
the green pastures of his ordinances, and to feed together with them.
If she hath any thing, it is all theirs, who have an equal interest in
Christ with herself (Acts ii. 44, 45.) She will make use of her graces,
185
substance, and all, that fellow-members may be refreshed. It make

them of catholic spirits. The apoetle is peremptory, and brandeth them
all as liars that pretend to the one of these without the other. See
1 John iv. 19, 20 ; v. 1; John xiii. 34, 35.
CHAR. xii. We may know it by it concomitant*.Sincere lore goes

not bnt in the company of every other grace: it either presnpposeth, or
strongly implieth and inferreth, the whole duty of a Christian. Diligere
Christum, saith Aquinas, est Christo in omnibus ee subjicere, et regulam
jpraceptorum ejus in omnibus sequi; or, " To love Christ, is to fulfil the
whole law of Christ." (John xiv. 15.) It is a most comprehensive
grace ; it is the abstract of the new creature, the whole image of God.
In one word : it is the substance of the divine workmanship upon the
soul. They are but ciphers, and signify nothing in Christianity, who are
without it. Briefly : to love Christ, it is in some measure to partake of
every grace, and to be a Christian altogether.
These are the characters : some I have omitted, and in others I have
been brief, because I would reserve a little room for the second case.
Give me leave but briefly to suggest a few things for satisfaction of one
doubt, and I shall presently come to that. Will some say, " If this be
love in sincerity, who then loves him aright ?" It is no less dangerous
to draw out the description of a grace so as none can find it, than to
leave it so as none may suspect the want or absence thereof in themselves ; and upon that rock, they will tell me, I have split in the decision
of this case, there being hardly any one that can go from character to
character, and say, after a thorough search, " Now I know that I am a
lover of Christ in sincerity:" for answer to which scruple, I shall barely
suggest a few considerations.
1. It is most certain and notorious, that there is much counterfeit love
abroad.And it was not the least part of my design to unmask it. Characters serve as well to convince the presumptuous, as to establish the sincere and upright. There is much in the world that looks like love, that
is not: such are those vagous affections that are to a Christ in general,
and not to Him as King, Priest, and. Prophet: and those counterfeit
affections, which are to Christ upon the sole arguments of education,
custom, which are as truly in a Turk to his Mahomet, and serve as well
to justify the Jew in his blasphemy against Christ, as the Christian in
his pretended love of him : (for love to Christ, say divines, is not so
much to be measured by the degree and fervour, as by the grounds and
motives:) and also that barren love which works up the soul to no
measure of obedience unto him ; and, lastly, that which allows Christ but
the world's leavings in our hearts, every thing being constantly preferred
before him: and what a vast number of persons go no further than these!
2. Many persons are truly gracious, who yet know not whether they
have any grace or not.It requires more skill to search out the nature of
a grace, and to find it in ourselves, than barely to exercise it; the former
are works of much judgment, and require a deep acquaintance with our
own hearts; whereas to the latter, it is enough if a person be but of an
ordinary understanding, and an honest heart. Besides, graces have their
degrees, like the waters of the sanctuary; (Ezek. xlvii. 35;) and
186
SERMON XX.
CHARACTERS OF SOUL*8 LOVK TO CHRIST,
where grace is very shallow and little, it is exceeding difficult to know

that there is any at all; and euch persons should do ell, who are so
weak, rather to spend time in the exercise of grace, than in trying whether they have grace or no; for commonly it is but labour in vain.
3. There are no soul* in whom this grace is really planted, but they
have all these characters drawn upon their hearts to know it by, more or
less.I do not say, they can find them in themselves, and know they
have them ; hut only, that they have them. And of this I need give no
further evidence than what you will easily find yourselves, if you will but
study the nature of love to Christ, by the rule of it laid down in the
fifth proposition premised, and by the third and fourth characters ; for I
am well assured that Christ cannot be loved as therein described, unless
all these particulars mentioned be either antecedent thereto, or connexed

with it.
CASE II.
And ao I come to the second case; namely, How we may get our love
to him kindled and inflamed,
And I shall proceed in the resolution of this, by these four steps.
I. I will discover the danger of being without this grace.
II. I will add some moving considerations to provoke all that love
their souls, to look after it.
. I will give directions to them that have it not, how to get it.
IV. I will add a few more directions for them that have it, how it
may be increased and inflamed.
I. I begin with the first, which I will dispatch by these two steps:
1. By discovering the heinousness of sin. 2. The terror of the punishment due thereto.
1. Now, that you may understand the first, besides what hath been
said in the fore-mentioned tract, proving it to be a sin against the Father's
love and wisdom, the whole work of the Son, and the special economy
of the Holy Ghost; I add,
(1.) It is a sin utterly subverting the whole design of the Gospel:
Casting a scorn upon the grace of all the three Persons, and not so much
as acknowledging what was done by them as worthy the least acceptance,
it writes " vanity " upon all the promises, and is a frustration to the design
of Christ in that noble dispensation; there being nothing that he did
more aim at than to testify his own and his Father's love to us, and to
recover from us our love to them again. (John iii. 17; 1 John i. 3.)
(2.) It is interpretatively a confederacy with Satan against God and
Christ, (Matt. vi. 24 ; Acts xiii. 10.)The proper and grand wickedness
of the devil being his opposition to the design of God in glorifying himself by the salvation of mankind through Christ, which yet, so far as we
are haters of Christ, we are in our mer.aure guilty of, as well as he.
(Heb. x. 28.)
(3.) It is a complicated sin; many sins in one. Such as are foul
ingratitude, rebellion; it being the casting off the sovereignty of a rightful Lord; cruelty to Christ, and, as it were, a kicking him upon the
bowels, a Christicidium s and to ourselves, (Prov. viii. 36,) the tearing
AND BOW IT HAY BE KINDLKO AND INFLAMCD.
187
out oar own bowels with oar owa hands spiritual uncleanness and
adultery; (James ir. 4;) it being a treacherous revolting from Christ,
after profession of marriage to him.
(4.) It it a tin which open the door to all wtc&ednett.Resistance of
the Spirit, contempt of the gospel aud them that bring it, slighting of
ordinances, treason against Christ as King, and implacable bitterness and
enmity against his subjects and children. (John XT. 18, 19.)
(5.) It i an irrational tin.Or such for which there cannot be the
least apology; because Christ was lovely in himself; (Canticles i. 13,14;
v. 9, 16;) did much to engage our hearts to him; earnestly entreated us
to place our affections upon him; sending his messengers to woo us;
bestowing gifts upon us, like a king, to oblige us; (1 Peter i. 4 ;) and
making almost incredible offers of much more that he would do for as;
yea, finally, threatening us even with Anathema Maranatha, (1 Cor. xvi.
22,) if we withhold our hearts from him. And can such a sin after all
this be extenuated ?
(6.) It it a tin brought forth and nurted by the foulest abomination.
Such as spiritual darkness, and ignorance ; (I Cor. ii. 8 ;) notorious
infidelity, as to the doctrine of the gospel; (John . 43, 44,47;) horrible
pride, self-righteousness,, idolatrous and carnal self-lore.
(7.) It it a tin against all our covenants and engagement.Especially
our baptismal bond, wherein we did solemnly promise Christ our hearts,
and that in opposition to all others; (2 Cor. xi. 2;) the bond of
Christian ingenuity, self-love, and proper interest, profession, and relation, as we bear his name in the world.
(8.) And, lastly, It it a tin utterly inconsistent with the pretence of
any one grace in the tout.It being impossible that any thing should
prosper, where this weed hath once settled and rooted itself. Too may
as well expect to find branches without a root, as the graces of the Spirit
without love. Thus very briefly you have an account of the danger of
being without love to Christ, from the nature of the sin.
2. I argue it from the terror of the punishment.Ana certainly the
just God hath proportioned the evil of this, to the quality of that.
Study well these few places of scripture: John iii. 19 ; Matt. xxi. 41;
Heb. ii. 3; x. 28, 29; xii. 25 ; Rev. ii. iii. throughout. 0 the terrors
of the Lord, that will one day be heaped upon the haters of his Son \
(See Rev. vi. 16.) But we need not look any further for this matter,
than into the awakened conscience of a rebel against Christ in a fit of
desperation: what scorpion-lashes doth such a man's conscience give
him ! 0 the heat of this burning caldron! With what rage and fury
doth it break forth on every side, until the soul is even become a heU
to itself! " And wouldest thou not love Christ," will enrnged conscience
then say, " so lovely in himself, and so full of love to thee ? Couldst
thou see him sighing, bleeding, sweating, dying for thy sake, and yet not
love him ? Cooldst thou spurn at such bowels, and contemn such pro*
digious mercy ? and that when this love would have opened to thee the
door of glory! how great, how infinite, glory 1 and when the rejecting of it would infallibly plunge thy soul into misery; how dreadful,
bow intolerable! Was ever madness like thine, 0 my soul?" will
188
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOtJI/8 LOVE TO CHRIST,
conscience say. " Certainly hell is too easy a punishment for such a
serpent, each an incarnate devil as thou art. Well may God rejoice to
be avenged on each a wretch as thee, and make thee to drink op the
very dregs of his indignation ; while others that ' dwell in God' shall
' dwell in love/ 0 how will God be nothing else but fury, and wrath,
and vengeance to thee! Thou shalt one day (and that day such as never
shall have an end!) hear Justice call upon Omnipotency still to add more
flame to thy torment!" Thus conscience will look backward and forward,
and even wreak itself, with the most dismal flaming language that it can
find out, upon the haters of Christ. And is not that a dreadful sin,
which shall thus set a man against himself, and put a sword into the
hand of cruel conscience to cleave the soul in pieces ? And is not that a
dreadful punishment, when a man shall become his own accuser, judge,
and executioner ? when conscience shall burn so hot within a man, that
he shall be a terror to himself, and an eternal amazement ? And yet,
alas! what is all this to the immediate impressions of the wrath of God
upon the soul ? when He that hath said, " Vengeance is mine; I will
repay," (Rom. xii. 19,) shall grasp the soul in his dreadful hand: which
might be farther improved, and be demonstrated to be incomparably the
sorest part of the punishment.
II. But I come to the second particular, which was, to lay down some
moving considerations to provoke such as love themselves to love Christ;
and, besides the particulars last mentioned,
1. Consider who it is that I plead for this day.Sire, I do not call
you to doat upon thick clay, filth, and vanity. I do not plead to gain
your hearts to one that is not worthy, or hath not deserved that you
should place your affections upon him : if you can make either of these
manifest, hate him and spare not. But I plead for one who is, (1.)
Glorious and excellent: if you doubt it, read his character, Canticles v. 9.
What sayest thou now ? Is he not altogether lovely ? Is there any blemish
to be found in him ? And if thou mistrustest the judgment of the church,
sure thou canst not doubt of God's. Hear his sentence: " This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." (Matt. iii. 17.) He knew of
whom he spake, for he was his Son; and he doth not say, he was pleased
with him only, but well-pleased, that is, delighted, and satisfied. (See
Prov. viii. 30.) And was he worthy of God's love; and dost thou doubt
whether he have deserved thine ? (2.) Consider, he is one that died for
thee; first, to purchase thy love; and since is gone to heaven, where yet
he doth not cease to call upon thee, and invite thee to bestow thy heart
upon him. Were he excellent, but proud, it would be little to thy
advantage; but he stoops, and wooes, and entreats thee. It is
a day of the gladness of his heart when he prevails but with one
soul to close with him : and all the rage of his persecutors did not
grieve him more, than you will if you stand it out against him.
(Isai. Iv. 1; Luke xv. 20; Acts ix. 4 ; John v. 21, 26.) (3.) Consider, he is one that hath the power of thy life and death in his
own hands; and this is one part of his covenant, upon which thy life
or death depends; as offered in the promise, so he waits; but as
love is the condition of it, so if thou hearkenest not, thou losest thy
AMD HOW IT MAT BB KINDLED AMD INFLAMKD.
189
hare therein; and what thou choosest, be it life or death, thou halt
certainly have.
2. Consider, what it i I plead for.Why, all that I ask is love; and
will you deny Christ that ? I call thee to think well of Christ, to desire
him, to take complacency in him, to breathe after nnion and eternal communion with him; and which of these dost thou think too much for
such an object ? Or where canst thou place them more fitly than upon
him ? What is he worthy of, if not of this ? Did ever death content
itself with such a recompence? Was ever any debt easier paid, any
service so easily performed, as this,only to love ? Hath God made
Christ a King, Priest, and Prophet? and is that all which thou must
do, to partake of his love in him, to love him in those relations ? and
wilt thou stick at this ? Hast thon any other way to the bosom of God
but by him ? and yet, rather than thou wilt come thither by love, wilt
thou damn thy soul by hating Christ? Is not the enjoyment of God
worth the labour of love ? (1 These, i. 3.) Shall all go, rather than be
saved by love to thy Redeemer ?
,
!
'
\
3. Consider, what he will do for thee, if thou art a eincere lover of

him,He comes not to court thee, and flatter thee to thy loss; but his
reward is great, and he brings it with him. (Rev. xxii. 12.) Give me
leave to tell thee some particulars thereof. (1.) If thou wilt love him,
he will betroth thee to himself in dearest love; (Hosea ii. 19, 20 ;) he
will be thy bridegroom, and thou shalt be his bride; (Eph. . 32;) it
is not all thy filthy garments, rags, or poverty, that shall hinder; (Zech.
iii. 4;) but he will be to thee the covering of thine eyes; (Gen. xx. 16;)
and a gladness of heart shalt thou be unto him ; (Zeph. iii. 17;) thou
shalt be the joy of Christ himself; (Rev. xxi. 9 ;) for " as the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.*' (Isai. Ixii.
5.) (2.) He will dwell with thee: (John xiv. 23, 24 :) husband and wife
dwell together, and so do the betrothed soul and Christ: " I in them,
and they in me," saith Christ. (John xvti. 23.) Now this is a privilege
which carries many in the womb of it; such as are these : (i.) Intimacy
and daily familiarity; Christ and Christians take their meals together;
(Rev. iii. 20 ;) there is no communion so near, as that which is between
them: (Eph. v. 23:) " One spirit." (I Cor. vi. 17.) (ii.) Maintenance and provision. " He is worse than an infidel, that provides not
for his own house." (1 Tim. v. 8.) All that live under the same roof
with Christ have their daily bread provided for them at his charges; and
he hath said, that he will never leave them. (Heb. xiii. 5.) (iii.) Protection. Every man's house is his castle ; they are under safe covert that
dwell with Christ, (iv.) Counsel, guidance, and direction: this great
husband dwells with all his family according to knowledge; (1 Peter
iii. 7;) for he teacheth them all his secrets, and shows them his covenant.
(Psalm xxv. 14.) (3.) He will interest thee in all hie own riches,
purchases, possessions, and dignities; together with his person, he offers
heaven and earth for a dowry. All things are his by purchase, and thou
shalt be a co-partner or co-heir with him, when thou art espoused to
him. (Rom. viii. 17; 1 Cor. iii. 22,23.) (4.) He will manifest the highest
indulgence and tenderness towards thee. (Isai. liv. 7, 8.) Not all thy cross
190
SERMON IX.
walkings (if through temptations it shall so fall out) shall put him upon any
more than a momentary departure from thee; for he hath resolved that his
faithfulness towards thee shall never fail; (Psalm Ixxxix. 33;) and therefore when thon seemest almost lost, and ready to despond, he will return
to thee again ; and the more time he hath lost by absence, the more full
will his heart be of ravishing love and affections to thee. (Canticles vi. 3.)
(5.) He will turn all to thy good : neither thy sins, though many and
great, nor thy miseries, though overwhelming and discouraging, no, nor,
lastly, shall death itself be ever able to make a divorce between thee and
him ; but serve as a passage to thee, when thy work is done, into the
bride-chamber of thy Lord. (Bom. viii. 28, 38; Phil. i. 21.) And now
tell me, hast not thou reason to love him ?
4. Consider but thy ease, while this virgin affection to thy Saviour if
wanting.
(1.) Thou multipliest thy whoredom and thy abomination continually.
<For what are thy intensive willings of other things, but so many acts
of spiritual adultery, and base prostitutions of thy soul to thy dishonour
and disadvantage, while other things usurp the room of Christ ?
(2.) Thou art a treacherous hypocrite and deceiver.Forasmuch as thou
pretendest to the eye of the world to be Christ's, and yet art nothing
less than bis.
(3.) You lay a bar in against yourselves, and the acceptance of all
your duties.When " faith works by love," (Gal, v. 6,) then is obedience
illustrious, and meet for a gracious acceptation. That obedience which
owes no part of itself to love, is worth little, and brings-in no more than
it is worth.
(4.) You make bonds for yourselves in death, and lay up terrible
reproaches in your consciences against the day of judgment. (Job xxvii. 6.)
(5.) You make your damnation necessary: there being no congruity
to any of the divine attributes, much less to the offices of Christ, that
that man should ever be saved, who never had any sincere affection to him.
These are some of the considerations, which may be of use to them
that have no spark of love yet kindled in their hearts. There are a few
of the other kind, which may provoke to get this love inflame^ where it
is: such are these :
,
1. Consider, the love of Christ to thee was a growing, increasing love.
I do not mean in respect of the habit, but in the outward demonstration thereof. The nearer he was to his death, the more exuberant in
love ; and when he rose again, his heart did overflow with tender indulgence ; as appears by the meltings of his bowels towards Mary and over
Peter ; and much more may we believe him now to be full of them, now
that he is at the right hand of God.
2. There is more loveliness in Christ, than ever thou canst find out or
fathom.When we have let out our affections to the utmost, there will
still be more than we can find affection for; our love, to eternity, will
have something of admiration mixed with it.
3. It is all you can return to him.It is all he looks for at our
hands. That which lies in love, and which flows from it, is the whole
that is required to complete Christianity.
AND HOW IT 1C AT BE KINDLED AND INFLAMED.
191
4. The more you love him the more lovely you are unto him,Then
bath Christ the highest complacency us, when oar hearts are under
the greatest raptures of love to him.
5. It ie the honour of a man to love Christ superlatively.It is the
sweetest part of our lives, and that which Christ values as more by than
by any thing else : it is heaven on earth.*

6. According to the meaeure of your fate, to will all the reef of your
services and grace* be.That is, either more or less, better or worse.
Love is like the master-wheel in an engine, making the whole son! to
move faster or slower.

These are the considerations of the hut kind. Will some say?"O,
but what shall we do to get this blessed affection into our souls " which
was the third thing proposed: and in order thereto, I offer these
DIRECTIONS.
DIRECTION i. Be well acquainted with the nature of this great duty

The great mistake of the world lies in this,that is thought to be
love, which is not; and thence men and women grow bold and confident,
and value themselves more than they ought. I have given-in my best
assistance, so far as the nature of the first case would permit, to prevent
mistakes in this matter, before; and therefore I will not do it over again.
Only remember, if you would not miscarry, that it is not a naked Christ,
bat a Christ advanced by incomparable personal excellences, and clothed

with his offices of King, and Priest, and Prophet, that is THE CHRIST to
be loved; and yon cannot well miscarry. This is that damning mistake
of the world; they love Christ, but not as dignified by God with any of
his offices.
DIREC. ii. Be much in the study of yourselves.What yon were
originally, and what you are since become through your own miscarriage,
wilfulness, and folly. Take your souls to the glass of the law, and go
from one precept to another; and when yon have done there, go to the
gospel: and be sore yon do not deal slightly, bat understand thoroughly
how much yon have offended. And when you have well studied the
number and quality of your sins, then consider the Justice and holiness
of the eternal God, which you shall understand by the same law and
gospel, where they speak the Divine terror against offending sinners; but
more especially shall ye know it by going to the cross of Christ, and
wisely and seriously considering the horror of that punishment which
Christ there endured; for we never know as we ought the evil of sin,
and our misery thereby, until we know what he endured to make an
expiation for it. Do this, and do it faithfully. They that never knew
themselves,they are most certainly without love to Christ: and it i
enough to prove it; because, unless this foundation be first hud, they
can see no sufficient reason for it.
DIREC. in.Get a true conviction concerning thy own ultimate end and
happiness.Where it lies, namely, not in the objects of sense, (Matt.
* Beatut ettf qui inteUigit quid tit amor* Jetum, et ooniei,.nere teiptum propter
Jenm.A. KEMPIS De Imtattone Chritti, lib. ii. c. 7. " Blessed i that men who
understand what it is to love Jesus, and for the sake ot Jesus to despise himsel"EDIT.
192
SERMON IX.
CHARACTERS OF A SOUL*S LOVE TO CHRIST,
zvi. 26,) but in the beatifical vision of God. Possess thy soul, by scripture-light, of the grand importance of securing thy interest therein:
while yon think your happiness lies any where else than in God, it will
be irrational to love Christ, because his purpose and design is to take
our hearts from the pursuit of all but God. And until you know God to
be your happiness, you will never understand the best reasons (that I may
not say, the only) that you have to love him. That man loves Christ
best that most fully knows God to be his eternal Best and Blessedness,
and loves him as such.
DIREC. iv. Get a gospel knowledge of Christ.Both what he was
originally, and what he hath stooped and humbled himself to be for thy
sake ; why he came into the world, how he lived and died, and what was
the covenant between the Father and him; how he is exalted and
honoured by God, and what great things are promised both by Father
and Son to all that in Christ sincerely draw nigh to God. the sweet
gales of affection which, by spiritual meditation upon Christ, will begin
to blow within us! We cannot muse upon Christ's dying, and rising
again, and inviting us to love him, but the fire will barn: a considering
faith in Christ will naturally bud and blossom into love.
DIREC. v. Believe the reality of his love to thee.I mean, that he
did all that ever he did for thee out of a hearty and real affection to thee;
and that he still desires to have the match made up betwixt thy soul and
himself. This fond prejudice, whereby souls put discouragements upon
themselves, is that which spoils many a match. Do not weaken thy
soul by making difficulties where there are none. If thou nearest Christ
inviting, stir up thyself, 0 thou convinced soul, as if thou heardest him
even calling to thee by name. Believe it, that Christ is never better
pleased than when he is loved; and that he came no less to procure thy
love than to testify his own. The way to love Christ in good earnest is
to believe that he is so in his offers of grace to us.
DIREC. vi. Understand the world thoroughly, and be jealous of thy
own heart therein.Remember that of the apostle, who knew what it
was to love Christ, as well as any man ever did : " If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John ii. 15.) We may
well enough add, " Nor the love of the Son.'* We may offer to our Lord
corfractum, or "a broken heart;" but we must not presume to desire
him to accept our cor divisum, or "divided heart." Remember that
Christ and the world are two, contrary each to other; and the single
stream of love cannot run two contrary ways at once. If our hearts be
not crucified to the world, the love of Christ will never live within us.
DIREC. vn. Be much in attendance on those means or ordinances,
wherein Christ is evidently set forth, and by his Spirit wooing souls to
love him.If faith comes by hearing, so no less certainly doth love.
Christ most commonly honours his own ordinances and officers, iti
making up the match between himself and souls; so he did Paul.
(2 Cor. xi. 2.)
DIREC. vin. Go to God and Christ for love.When you have gotten
your hearts well warmed with the use of all the fore-mentioned means,
then go to God and Christ, and turn thy meditations into petitions.
193
Plead hard and heartily all those moving considerations which were set
down to usher-in these directions. God delights to honour prayer in
this great work of his, in drawing souls to Christ. " No prayer, no
faith:" and it is as true, "No prayer, no love, no marriage to Christ."
I have done with the directions of the first kind; and have therein
almost prevented myself from going any further ; it being a rule in the
spiritual, as well as the natural, growth, that we are nourished by the
very same that gave us our first beings. If we know by what means we
came by our love at first, and have but appetites whetted-on to a further
growth, we need little more. And therefore having first persuaded you
carefully to continue to practise-over the fore-mentioned directions, I

only add:
DIRECTIONS.
DIREC. i. Consider much your own experiences, and the great advantages you have made by this grace.I need not tell what they are,
because ye know them well enough already ; and the sense of past
advantage will best quicken to future diligence; which is the second
direction.
DIREC. ii. Be constant in the exercise of that love ye have.The best

way to strengthen any habit, is to be often repeating its acts. We cannot do any thing better to increase love, than to be often acting love.
DIREC. in. Get faith more rooted.And that will make your love
to be more inflamed. If you would have fruitful branches, you must
keep the root of the tree fat; and if you would have any grace to thrive,
yon must be sure to strengthen faith.
DIREC. iv. Take heed you be not willingly guilty of any known
wickedness against Christ.For this will cause Christ to withdraw; it
will occasion in thy heart a jealousy, and that will be an abatement of
thy love. Be conscientiously diligent in all known duties.
DIREC. v. Get thy heart daily more thoroughly crucified to the world,
and better acquainted with heaven and the love of God.The more you
love God, the more you will and must love Christ.
DIREC. vi. Be much in the communion of saints.And then, especially when together with them, thou mayest look on, and admire the
love of thy crucified Saviour in the Lord's supper. They that are most
where Christ is to be enjoyed, love him best.
And these are briefly the heads of DIRECTIONS in answer to each of
these inquiries: they might have been more largely insisted on and
pressed ; but this defect must be supplied by yourselves.
Remember, again,and with that I will conclude,that it is not the
knowledge of these directions that will advantage you, but the serious
and diligent practice of them. And so "grace be with all them that,"
in the diligent use of these means, get and inflame their "love to the
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
194
SERMON Z.
WIIERKIN LIKS THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS,
SERMON X.
BY THE REV. JOHN T1LLOTSON, D.D.*
WHEREIN LIES THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS, WHICH IS REQUIRED
BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do

ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew vii. 12.

THESE words being brought in by way of inference from something
said before, we must look back a little, to find out the relation of them
to the former verses. At the seventh verse Christ commands to ask of
God those things which we want; to encourage us to ask, he promises
we shall receive; to induce us to believe this promise, he puts a temporal case: Our earthly fathers, who are evil, give us good things when
we ask them ; how much more easily may we believe this of a good God,
of Infinite Goodness! Now, as we desire God should give us those
things we ask, so we should do to others ; and not only so, but universally in all other things, what we would that men should do to us, that
we should do to others. That men should do unto youThough the
persons be expressed, yet we may take it impersonally, by an usual
Hebraism; as if it had been said, " Whatever you would should be done
unto you/' leaving the person to be supplied in the largest sense:
thus, Whatever you would should be done unto you by God or men:
This is the Law and the ProphetsThat is, this is the sum of the Old
Testament, so far as concerns our duty to our neighbour.
The observation which ariseth from the words is this :
The great rule of equity in all our dealings with men is this,to do as
we would be done unto.
This rule hath been otherwise expressed, but not more emphatically
in any other form of words than this here in the text. " Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matt. xxii. 39.) This requires that we
should bear the same affection to our neighbour which we would have
him bear to us; but the rule in the text expressly requires that we
should do the same offices to others, which we would have them do to us.
Severns the emperor, as the historian f tells us, did learn this rule of
Christians, and did much reverence Christ and Christianity for it; but
he expressed it negatively: Quod tibi non vis, alteri ne feceiis.$ Now
this forbids us to do injuries to others, but doth not so expressly command us to do kindnesses and courtesies.
In speaking to this rule, I shall give you,
I. The EXPLICATION of it.
* Dr. Tillotson afterwards became archbishop of Canterbury.EDIT.
+ LAMPftimus.
J " What thou wouldst not wish to be done to thyself, that do Dot thou
to another."EDIT.
WHICH 18 RBUUIRKD BETWEEN MAM AND MAN!
195
II. The GROUNDS of it.

III. The INSTANCES wherein we ought principally to practise it.
I. For EXPLICATION.The meaning of it is this: Put thyself into
the case and circumstances of every man with whom thou hast to do;
that is, suppose thou wert he and as he is, and he were thyself and as
thou art: that, then, which thou wouldest desire he should do to thee,
that do thou to him; and that which thou wouldest be unwilling he
should do to thee, do not thou do to him. Now, this is an exact rule;
for we are very curious in determining our own privileges, and what
duty others owe to us. Just so much as we take to ourselves, we must
allow to others; what we expect from others when we are in such
circumstances, we must do the same to them in the like. And this is a
plain and easy rule. Many men cannot tell what is law or justice or
right in such a case ; many cannot deduce the laws of nature one from
another; but there is no man but can tell what it is that he would have
another man do to him. Every man can take his own actions, and put
them into the other scale, and suppose, " If this that I do now to
another were to be done to me, should I like it, should I be pleased, and
contented with it ?" And thus, by changing the scales, his own selflove, and self-interest, and other passions, will add nothing to the
weight; for that self-interest which makes a man covetous, and inclines
him to wrong another man for his own advantage, makes him likewise,
when the scales are changed, unwilling that another man should wrong
him. That self-conceit which makes a man proud, and apt to scorn and
despise others, makes him unwilling that another should contemn
him.
I question not but, by this time, you understand the meaning of the
rule; but we are not yet past all difficulties about it. Three things are
to be done, before this rule will be of use to us:
1. We must make it appear that it is reasonable.
2. Make it certain ; for till it be certain it cannot be a rule.
3. Make it practicable.
1. We must make it appear to be reasonable.The difficulty about
the reasonableness of it is this: according to this rule, I shall be obliged
.to do that many times which is sinful, and to omit that which is a
necessary duty. I will give two or three instances. Saul would have
had his armour-bearer to have killed him; might he therefore have
killed his armour-bearer, if he had been willing, and had desired it ? I
may not be an instrument or furtherer of another man's sin, though I
were so wicked as to desire that another would be so to me. If I were
a child, I would not have my father correct me; or a malefactor, I
would not have the magistrate cut me off: must there therefore be no
correction or punishment? Now, because of these and the like
instances which may be given, the rule is necessarily to be understood of
things that may be done, or omitted, that is, which are not unlawful or
unreasonable. Saul might not kill his armour-bearer; I may not
further another man's sin, in the cases propounded; because these things
may not be done; they are morally impossible, that is, unlawful. A
parent or magistrate may not wholly omit correction or punishment,
196
SERMON X.
WHEREIN LIES THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS,
because such omission would tend to the ruin of good manners and of
human society.
2. We must make the rule certain.The difficulty about the certainty
of it is this: everlasting disputes will arise about what is lawful and
reasonable, and unlawful and unreasonable. Now, we must reduce it to
a certainty thus: Whatever I would that another should do to me, that I
should do to him, unless the thing be plainly and evidently unlawful or
unreasonable: and this cuts off all disputes; for though there may be
perpetual disputes about what is lawful and reasonable, or the contrary,
yet there can be no dispute about the unlawfulness and unreasonableness
of those things which are plainly and evidently so; for that which is
plain and evident is out of all dispute. To confirm this, let us consider
another text, Phil. iv. 8 ; where the apostle exhorts Christians to follow
whatever things are true, and honest, and just, and pure; and, as a discovery of what things are such, he adds, " Whatever things are lovely, of
good report, and praiseworthy;" that is, whatever things are amiable,
well spoken of, and praised by wise and good men ; (who are the only
competent judges of these things;) if they be not plainly contrary to
truth, or honesty, or justice, or purity,follow these things; and if this
be not the meaning, those words, " lovely, of good report, praiseworthy,"
are superfluous, and do not at all direct our conversation, which certainly
the apostle intended to do by them.
3. We must make it practicable.There are two things which make
the practice of it difficult. (1.) A seeming contradiction in the rule.
(2.) Partiality in judging of the circumstances of other men's conditions
and our own.
(1.) A seeming contradiction in the rule.Which you will see in these
instances : if I desire a thing, I would not have another stand in competition with me for it; if another desire a thing, I would not have him
tbink much that I stand in competition with him. If I be indebted to
another, I would not have him arrest me; if another be indebted to me,
I would not have him think much that I arrest him. When we sell, we
care not how dear; when we buy, we care not how cheap. Now, if this
were a real contradiction in the rule, it were impossible it should be put
in practice ; but it is only a contradiction in our wills, which must thus
be reconciled to the rule :
(i.) We must consider which of these wills is most reasonable, and
the greater reason and equity must carry it; and that which is plainly
unreasonable, in comparison of the other, is not to be regarded. If we
consider the two first instances, this is most reasonable, that where men
have an equal right, they should be allowed an equal liberty to use that
right. Another man hath as much right to stand in competition with
me for anything, as I to stand in competition with him; and to arrest
me in case of debt, as I to arrest him ; and it is plainly unreasonable
that I should use this right, and another be debarred from it.
(ii.) If both these contradictory wills be plainly unreasonable, as in
the third instance of buying and selling, they must be accommodated by
finding out such a medium as is equally and mutually good for all buyers
and sellers; that is, such a proportion of gain may be taken, and must
WHICH 18 REQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AMD MAN?
197
be allowed to be taken, as will be equally and mutually good for all

buyers and sellers.
(2.) Another difficulty in tbe practice of this rule ariseth from men's
partiality in judging of the circumstances of other men's conditions and
their own.We are apt to lessen the circumstances of another man's

condition, and to overvalue our own ; another man's concernments seem
less to us than they are, and our own greater than they are. Now, this
difficulty will most eminently appear in cases of passion, and interest, and
those subordinate relations which are at the greatest distance. Another

man provokes me; I revenge myself on him: one asks me, " Would you
be contented to be thus dealt withal?" I am ready to answer, 'Yea, if
I should so provoke another:" I aggravate the fault of his provocation,

and lessen that of my own revenge: here is passion. I desire a courtesy
of a man which he cannot conveniently do for me: he denies me: I
think much at him, because I judge the courtesy less, and his obligation
to do it greater, than indeed it is: here is interest. I think, " If I were a
father, I should not carry myself so severely towards my children. If I
were a master, I should give more liberty to servants, and use them with
a greater familiarity. If I were a minister, I should not gall the consciences of people by so free and open a reproof of sin. If I were a
magistrate, I should make other laws, or punish some crimes more or
less severely." Now, if men frequently thus misjudge, how shall this rule
be put in practice ?
To remove these difficulties as much as may be, and to make the practice of this rule more easy, observe these rules:
(i.) Labour to understand truly every man's condition, to far a you
have opportunity.This is easily said ; but how shall we come to do it ?

Thus, when you are in any condition, observe diligently the motions of
your own mind, and how your affections then work, and what apprehensions you then have of things, and what it is that in such a condition
you desire and expect from others ; and labour to remember this when
you are out of that condition, and to retain the sense which you then had
of things.
(ii.) In cases wherein you are unexperienced, and which you cannot
reasonably be presumed to understand, partly because of your distance
from that condition, partly because of the opposition of your own
interest, and partly because of tbe mists and clouds of your own passion;
trust the concurrent experience of others that are in that condition : and
think that you ought not to do that to another which the generality of
mankind count grievous; and that fit to be done, which the most and
wisest in such a condition and relation do usually expect. If men, when
they are under, and lie at the mercy of others, generally desire that
clemency and moderation should be used towards them ; how just soever
thou mayest think thy severity is, and that thou wouldest be contented
that another should deal so with thee, yet do not trust thy present
apprehensions of things, but believe that thou wilt have tbe same sense
of things, when they lie heavy upon thee, with the rest of mankind, and
[that] when thou art in their circumstances, thou wilt desire quarter as
they do. In like manner, that respect and obedience which parents, and
198
SERMON X.
WBE&K1N LIES THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS,
masters, and magistrates do generally expect, even the best and wisest
of them, that do thou pay to them; and though it may have some
appearance of rigour and injustice, yet believe that when thou comest to
be in the same relation, thou wilt expect the same things as they do;
and that thou dost now judge otherwise, proceeds from thy inexperience,
and distance from that condition, or from passion or opposition of
interest.
(iii.) Conclude, that in case betwixt superiors and inferiors, the partiality is usually on the inferiors' side.And it is reasonable thus to conclude, both because inferiors have seldom had experience of the other
condition, as superiors usually have had; (a child hath not been a
parent, or a servant ordinarily a master, or a subject a magistrate; but
all parents have been children, and most masters have been servants, and
many magistrates subjects; and so they have had experience of both conditions ;) and likewise because inferiors cannot so well see the condition
and circumstances of those that are above them, as those that are above
can of those that are below them ; they have the advantage of ground,
and better opportunities of knowledge.
(iv.) In judging of your present condition and circumstances, always
abate something for the presence of them, and for self-love, and selfinterest, and other passions.He that doth not consider how apt every
man is unequally to favour himself, doth not know the littleness and narrowness of human nature. We are near to ourselves, and our own
interest is near to us; and we see it in its full proportions, and with all
possible advantages: other men and their interests are at a distance from
us, and seem less to us than they are. Now, we must make abatements
for this, according to that experience which we have had of our own
mistakes; which, if we will observe, as we pass from one condition into
another, we may easily be convinced how great many times they are.
II. For the GROUNDS of this.The equity of this rule stands upon
these foundations:
1. All men are equal in many things, and those the greatest things.
Now, I should deal equally with him whom I acknowledge to be mine
equal. "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?"
(Mal. ii. 10.) Are we not all made of the same materials? Is it not
" appointed unto men once to die," and after death to stand before the
impartial judgment of God? (Heb. ix. 27.) We have all the same
notions of right and wrong; we are all obnoxious to one another, and
may be all beneficial one to another; we all love ourselves, and study the
advancement of our interest and happiness. Thus far [we are] equal.
2. In most of those things wherein we are unequal, the inequality is not
considerable, so as to be a ground of any unequal dealing with one another.As to strength of body, whatever the difference be, the inequality
is not considerable; because as to the greatest effects of strength there is
an equality. " Every man that will venture his own life, may take away
another man's," * either by open force or by surprise. As to abilities of
mind, which we usually call parts, there is originally a great equality,
* Dominus est alterius vita quicunque eonteinnit tuam.
WHICH 18 REQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
199
especially if that received opinion be true, that soul are equal; and, as
the French philosopher Dee Cartes hath ingeniously observed, there is
this notable sign of the equality of men's understandings: Nulla re,
saith he, aequabilius inter homines distributa est qttam bona men, fyc,
" Nothing is more equally divided among men than a good understanding. Men will acknowledge others to be richer and stronger than themselves ; few will acknowledge others to be wiser, or to have better parts,
than themselves. Every man thinks himself to have so good a proportion of parts and wisdom, that even those who are most covetous, and
have the most insatiable desires as to other things, and whom nature
could never satisfy in any thing else, yet would not desire to have more
wit than they have, or exchange their parts with any man." * Now,
there is no better sign of an equal distribution of things than that every
man is contented with his share.f Now, because all men generally think
thus, it is to be presumed that all are not deceived, but that there is
some real equality, which is the ground of this conceit. A difference,
indeed, must be granted, but which ariseth usually from one of these
two causes,either an unequal exercise of our parts, or an unequal temper
of body. Now, those who are so happy as to exercise their understandings more than others, are very often rather conceited that they are wiser
than others, than really so; "for the greatest clerks are not always the
wisest men." Those who are unhappy in the temper of their bodies, are
thereby inclined, how weak soever they be, to conceit themselves as wise
as others. So that whatever real inequality there be, conceit levels all
again. So that whether men be really wise, or only think themselves so,
it makes no difference as to men's dealing with one another; for they
that think themselves equal will not deal but upon equal terms. So
that Aristotle's pretty notion, that " wise men are born to govern, and
fools to obey," J signifies very little in this case; for there are but few
such fools in the world, but would govern if they can. So that by virtue
of wisdom or parts, no man can challenge a privilege or prerogative to
himself above others, which another will not pretend to as well as he.
3. In all those things wherein men are unequal, the inequality is not
fixed and constant, but mutable and by turns.All things that belong to
us are either the endowments of the mind, the accidents of the body, or
the circumstances of our outward estate. Now, those that are most
unequal in any of these, may be equal; for the inequality may turn, and
be as much on the other side. A disease may ruin the most happy and
excellent memory, and make a man forget his own name. A little knock
on any side of the head may level the highest understanding with the
meanest. Beauty, health, and strength may be blasted by a disease, or a
thousand other accidents. Riches, and honour, and reputation are the
most slippery and brittle things that belong to us; and when these are
gone, friends will fall off, like leaves in autumn. Now, why should I
despise another man, when I may be as silly as he ? or bear down another
by my strength, when I may be as weak as he ? or insult over another's
* Dissertat. de Methodo.
t Qui velit inyenio cedere rarus erit, " It very rarely
happen*, that any man owns himseli to possess less genius than another."EDIT.
t Politic, c. 3.
200
SERMON X.
poor and low condition, when a day may level me with hie meanness, and
raise him to be as great and rich as I am ?
4. Another ground is the mutual and universal equity and advantage
of this rule.Upon those terms I and all men shall be equally dealt
with : it will be well with me, and well with all men. The observation
of this rule would secure peace to the world; and if it were generally
practised, those few that should offend against it would be looked upon
as the peets and troublers of human society. As by the violation of this
rule every man becomes a wolf and beast of prey to another, so, by the
mutual observation of it, every man would be a God to another; men
would be full of mutual goodness, and pity, and compassion ; they would
be mutual benefactors one to another. All men would be as happy as
it is possible for them to be in this world; and no man could be
miserable, if it were in the power of his neighbour to help him.
5. The last ground I shall mention is the absurdity and inconvenience
of the contrary.And this is the most proper way of proving this; for, as
Aristotle tells us, " First principles which are evident by their own light,
cannot be proved by way of demonstration, but of conviction." As thus:
contradictions cannot be true at once. This cannot be demonstrated
a priori, because there is nothing true before it to prove it by; therefore
whoever shall deny it, must be convinced of the truth of it by showing
the absurdities of the contrary. In like manner, this being one of the
first principles of human society,that we should use no more liberty
towards other men, than we would allow them to use towards us, the
best way to convince any man of the reasonableness and equity of it will
be to show him the inconveniences of the contrary. Wherever this
principle is violated, men will think themselves injured ; where men are
injured, they will be apt to vindicate themselves. Hence come contention
and wars, which loose the bands of human society. Or, if a man can
pardon an injury that hath received one; yet he that hath done it cannot
believe so, but he will fear revenge; and fear of being oppressed makes a
man seek to anticipate and prevent another: so that every injury endangers the peace and security of mankind, and lays the foundation of perpetual mischief; for by the same reason that I injure any man, I am
obliged to ruin him.
He that breaks this rule, doth what he can to break human society;
that is, to spoil himself of all common protection, and to leave himself to
stand upon his guard against all the world: in which state no man can hope
to continue that is not wiser and stronger than all the world. Aristotle
tells us, " He that desires to be alone, must either be a God or a wild
beast;" * that is, he must either be self-sufficient, and stand in need of
nothing; or else be wild and savage, and delight in cruelty and mischief.
III. The INSTANCES wherein we ought chiefly to practise this rule, are
these:
1. In matters of civil respect and conversation.I must treat every
man with that fair respect which I would have another to show to me.
We must accommodate ourselves to men's particular tempers; and not be
fro ward or intractable, or tenacious of our own humour, especially when
* it os-AaiSTOTEUS Polit. c. ii.
WHICH 18 RKQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
201
it lies in another man's way. But we must be apt to recede and give
way, that there may be room for other men's tempers and humours, as
well as ours: our humour must not take up all the world. Those who
want this complaisance are, in society, as one ingeniously compares them,
like irregular stones in a building, which are full of roughness and
corners: they take up more room than they fill: till they be polished
and made even, others cannot lie near them. So men of sharp and
perverse humours are unsociable, till the ruggedness and asperities of
their nature be taken off. We must not carry ourselves insolently, or
superciliously, or contemptuously towards others. We must not be contumelious ; nor by deed or word, countenance or gesture, declare hatred
or contempt of others. We must not upbraid one another with any
imperfection, or weakness, or deformity. We must not peremptorily
contradict others. We must not use to talk things displeasing to others,
wherein their credit, or relations, or especially their religion is concerned.
Josephus saith, this was one of Moses's laws (it was a good one, whoseever it was) : 5, ,; ' *
" Let no man blaspheme that which other nations count a God," or make
their religion. Not but that every man may confute a false religion, and
endeavour by all fair ways to convince a Jew, or Turk, or Heathen; but
we may not reproach another man's religion, or provoke any man in
ordinary conversation, by unseasonable and uncivil reflections upon it;
for we are with meekness to convince gainsayers, to reprove men for
their sins, but not to upbraid them with them. We must give no offence
to the Jew or to the Gentile, remembering always that the wrath of man
doth not work the righteousness of God; and that Michael the archangel, when he contended with the devil, did not bring a railing accusation against him ; he did not revile him, no, not in the heat of dispute.
And there is great reason why we should thus carry ourselves towards
others, because we ourselves would not be contemned or despised; we
would not have any man jeer us, or insult over us, or upbraid us, or
peevishly contradict us, or affront us by speaking unhandsomely of us,
or of our relations, or of our religion. Now, if we would have others to
consider us, we must not neglect them; if we would be taken notice of
for somebody, we must not overlook others with contempt. Every thing
thinks itself considerable, and there is nothing comes sooner to us, or
continues longer with us, than a sense of our own worth; and we judge
ill of human nature, if we think another man is not as impatient of rude
and uncivil usage as we are. Nothing would be despised, a worm would
not be trod upon. Nay, men do usually overvalue themselves, and are
apt to think that they are owners of that singular worth which may
command respect from all men, and that every one that passeth by ought
to fall down and do obeisance to them. They have Joseph's dream
waking, they think "all men's sheaves bow to their sheaves ;" they think
every man takes notice of them, and observes their carriage and actions,
when probably not one of a thousand ever took them into consideration,
or asked who they were. Now, we must consider, that it is a hundred
to one but there is a little of this vanity in us also, and that we do usually
* Antiquit. Judaic, lib. iv.
202
SERMON X,
WHEREIN LIBS THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS,
look for more respect than is due; therefore it will not be amiss, in oar
respects towards others, largiri aliquid, " to give men something above
[that which] we think they deserve;" and the rather because civil
respect is cheap, and costs us nothing; and we expect from others full
as much as comes to our share: for it is a mistake to think, that we do
but righteously esteem ourselves, and that we have no more than a just
value of our own worth.
2. In matters of kindness and courtesies,We must be useful to one
another. I would have no man churlish to me, but ready to gratify me,
and do me a kindness. Do I think much to be denied a reasonable
favour, and doth not another so too ? We would have all men love us,
that is, bear such an affection to us, that when it falls in their way, they
should be ready to do us a courtesy. We would not have courtesies
done in a discourteous manner, extorted by importunity, or upbraided to
us afterwards. Let us likewise dispense favours with a liberal hand and
a cheerful countenance, that men may see that they come from a kind
heart, and a real good-will.
3. In matters of charity and compassion.If any man be in misery,
pity him, and help him [according] to your power. If any be in necessity and want, contribute to his relief, without too scrupulous inquiries
about him; for we would be thus dealt with ourselves; we would not
nave others to harden their hearts, or shut up their bowels of compassion
against ns. Is any man cast down 1 Do not insult over him, and trample upon him ; do not look upon him with scorn, and rejoice over him in
the day of distress. Res est sacra miser: " Persons in misery are sacred,
and not to be violated." When you see any man in calamity, think ye
hear him say to you, with Job: " I also could speak as ye do: if your
soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and
shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my
mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief." (Job
xvi. 4, 5.)
4. In matters of forbearance and forgiveness.We stand in need of
forbearance and pardon from others, from God and men. We should be
loath God should take advantage against us upon every provocation, and
let fly at us with a thunderbolt every time we offend him. We would
not have men storm and fall into passion with us upon every slight occasion : I would have great allowances given to me; I would have my
ignorance, and inadvertency, and mistakes, and present temper, and all
occasions and provocations, and every thing considered; and, when I
have done amiss, upon acknowledgment of my fault, I would be forgiven
and received to favour. Now, if we would be thus dealt with, we must
bear with others: the best men need some grains of allowance: Nullum
unqicim inaenium placuit sine venid: " No man was ever so perfect, so
accomplished, so unexceptionable, but there was something or other in his
carriage that needed pardon." Every man hath a particular humour;
we must give some allowance for that. Every man is subject to mistake :
we must allow for that too; and if a man have committed a fault, we
must accept of an ingenuous acknowledgment, and be ready to grant
him peace. There is a shame and disdain in human nature of too vile
WHICH 18 REaXIIRKD BETWCEN MAN AND MAN?
203
a submission ; therefore we must not bring a man too low when we bare
him at advantage.
5. In matter of report and representation of other men, and their
action.We must not take op a rash prejudice, or entertain a sinister
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apprehension of any, upon slight grounds. Do not represent any man,

his words or actions, at a disadvantage. Make the best of every thing.
A man's good name is like a looking-glass; nothing is sooner cracked,
and every breath can sully it. Handle every man's reputation with the
same tenderness thou wouldeet have every man use towards thine. Do
not slander or defame any man, or rejoice to hear other men's miscarriages
ripped open. Do not account it an entertainment to censure and backbite
all the world.
6. In matter of truet and fidelity.Where I place a confidence and
repose a trust, I would not be deceived: I must not deceive another, nor
let any man fall that leans upon me. If a man trust me with the
management of his business, or lodge a secret with me, or put his life
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into my power, or commit the care of his estate or children to me after

his death, these are all ingenuous trusts, and must be discharged with
the same faithfulness we expect from others.
7. In matter of duty and obedience.We must give that honour to
our parents which we would expect from our children; and pay that
reverence to masters which we would exact from our servants. We must
rise up before the gray head, and give respect to old age; for, let not
us think but that the change of relation and of age will have the same
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effect upon us which it hath upon the rest of the world. It is a folly to
talk, that when we are old, we shall be pleased with the insolencies of
youth; when we are masters, we shall not be at all offended with the
contemptuous carriage of our servants; that it will not touch our hearts
to have our children undutiful and void of respect, to see the fruit of our
body unnatural and unkind to us.
8. In matters of freedom and liberty, which are not determined by
any natural or positive law.We must permit as much to others as we
assume to ourselves; and this is a sign of an equal and temperate person, and one that justly values his own understanding and power. But
there is nothing wherein men usually deal more unequally with one
another, than in indifferent opinions and practices of religion. I account
that en indifferent opinion which good men differ about; not that such
an opinion is indifferent as to truth or error, but as to salvation or
damnation it is not of necessary belief. By an indifferent practice in
religion, I mean, that which is in its own nature neither a duty nor a
sin to do or omit. Where I am left free, I would not have any man to
rob me of my liberty, or intrench upon my freedom; and, because he is
satisfied such a thing is lawful and fit to be done, expect I should do it
who think it otherwise; or, because he is confident such an opinion is
true, be angry with me because I cannot believe as fast as he. Now, if
another do ill in doing thus to me, I cannot do well in doing so to
' another. And do not say that thou art sure thon art in the right, and
he that differs from thee in the wrong; and therefore thon mayest impose
upon him, though he may not upon thee. Hath not every man this
204
SERMON X.
confidence of his own opinion and practice? and usually the weakest
cause bears up with the greatest confidence. Now, if thou wouldest not
have another, that is confident he is in the right, to impose upon thee,
do not thou impose upon another, for all thy confidence. We should
rather be modest, and say every one to ourselves: " How came I to be
so much wiser than other men ? Which way came the Spirit of the
Lord, from so many wise and pious men, to speak unto me ? Is it a
peculiar privilege granted to me, that I cannot be mistaken ? or are not
they most of all mistaken who think they cannot mistake? If, then, I
be but like other men, why should I take so much upon me, as if my
understanding were to be a rule, and my apprehensions a standard to the
whole world ? as if, when another man differs from me, I did not differ
as much from him. Why may not another man understand the thing
better than I do ? or what crime is it if he understand it not so well ?
Were all men's understandings cast in the same mould ? Is it presumption for any man to know more than I do, or a sin to know less ?" Job
doth well reprove this self-conceit. His friends would needs bear him
down, and were very angry with him, that he was not of their mind,
and would not acknowledge all to be true of himself which they said
against him: he takes them up sharply: " No doubt but ye are the
people, and wisdom shall die with yon. But I have understanding as
well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things
as these ?" (Job xii. 2, 3.) Let not any man think that he hath engrossed
all the knowledge of the world to himself, but others know the same
things which he doth, and many things better than be.
9. In matters of commerce, and contracts which arise from thence.
Now, a contract is a mutual transferring of right. When I buy any
thing of another, he makes-over the right of such a commodity to me
for so much money, or other valuable thing, the right whereof I make
over to him. Now, in this kind of intercourse, we are to be governed
by this great rule: In making of contracts, we must agere bond fide,
"deal honestly and truly;" in performing of contracts, we must give
liberare fidem, "satisfy the engagement we have made;" for thus we
ourselves would be dealt withal.
Now, if any shall desire to be more particularly satisfied, what that
exact righteousness is which, in matter of contracts, ought to be observed
betwixt man and man, I must confess this is a difficult question, and to
be handled very modestly by such as acknowledge themselves unacquainted
with the affairs of the world, and the necessities of things, and the
particular and hidden reasons of some kind of dealings. For he that
is ignorant of these may easily give rules, which will not comply with
the affairs of the world: he may complain of that which cannot be otherwise, and blame some kind of dealings which are justifiable, from particular reasons, not obvious to any man who is unseen in the way of trade.
Besides, there are many cases fall under this question which are very
nice, but of great consequence; and the greater caution and tenderness
ought to be used in the resolution of them, because they are matters of
constant practice, and the greatest part of mankind are concerned in
them. Now, it is a dangerous thing to mistake in those things in which
WHICH IS REQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
205
many persons are interested, especially if they be things of such a vast

difference as good and evil, right and wrong, are. For if that be determined to be lawful which is unlawful, men are led into in s if that be
determined to be unlawful which is lawful, men are led into a mare.
For if this determination be to the prejudice of men in their callings, it
is an hundred to one but common example and private interest will make
many continue in that practice, and then the mischief is this :Though
men do that which is lawful and right, yet they are staggered by the
authority and confidence of him who hath determined it unlawful; and
so have some reluctancy in their consciences in the doing of it; and this
by accident becomes a great sin to them: and when upon a sick-bed, or
any other occasion, they come to be touched with the sense of sin, this
will be matter of greater horror and affrightment to them than a real sin
which they committed ignorantly, and were afterwards convinced of.
Upon all these considerations I ought to proceed with great wariness in
the answering of this question: therefore I shall content myself with
speaking those things which are clear and evident, though they be but
general, rather than venture out of my depth by descending into particulars, and such things as are out of my notice.
I shall therefore,
1. Lay down the general rule;
2. Some propositions which may tend to the explication of it;
3. Some special rules for the directing of our commerce and intercourse.
1. The general rule is this: That which it is not unreasonable for me
to desire to gain by another when I am to sell, that I should allow another
to gain by me when I am to buy ; and that which it is not unreasonable
another should gain by me when I am to buy, that, and no more, I may
gain by another when I am to sell.
2. The propositions which I shall lay down for the further explication
of this rule, are these:
(1.) In buying and setting, such a proportion of gain may be
taken, and ought to be allowed, as is mutually and universally best.
And this every man is presumed to desire, because this will be certainly good for every one ; whereas, if it be not universally good, it may
be bad for any one; if it be not mutually so, it will be bad for me by
turns.
(2.) Thai proportion of gain which allows a reasonable compensation
for our time, and pains, and hazard, is universally and mutually best.
If the compensation be unreasonably great, it will be bad for the buyer;
if unreasonably little, it will be bad for the seller; if equal and reasonable, it will be good for all.
(3.) That proportion of gain, which, in common intercourse and use of
bargaining among those who understand what they buy and sell, is generally allowed, ought to be esteemed a reasonable compensation.This is
evident, because the common reason of mankind doth best determine

what is reasonable. Therefore, those who speak of commutative justice,
and place it in " the equality of things contracted for," need explaining;
for value is not a thing absolute and certain, but relative and mutable.
206
SERMON X.
Now, to fix the value of things as much as may be, this role is commonly given : Tanti unumquodque valet, quanti vendi potest; " Every
thing is worth so much as it may be sold for;" -which must not be
understood too particularly, as if the present and particular appetite of
the contractor were to be the rule; for every thing is not worth so much
as any body will give for it, but so much as in common intercourse
among knowing persons it will give. For this I take for a truth,that,
in the ordinary plenty of commodities, there is an ordinary and usual
price of them known to the understanding persons of every profession :
if I be out in this, the matter of gain will be more uncertain than I

thought on.
(4.) A reasonable compensation doth not consist in an indivisible
point, but hath a certain latitude, which, likewise, is to be determined by the common intercourse and practice of mankind.Suppose
ten in the hundred be the usual gain made of such a commodity,
eleven the highest, nine the lowest; the latitude is betwixt nine and
eleven.
(5.) Every man engaged in a way of commerce is presumed to under
stand, unless the contrary be evident.So that, keeping within the
latitude of a lawful gain, I may use my skill against another man in
driving a bargain. But if his want of skill be evident, that is, sufficiently
known to me, I must use him as I would do a child, or other unskilful
person, that is, fairly.
(6.) Where the price of things alters, as it often doth almost in all
things, no other rule can be given but the common and market-price.
There are some things which are fixedly certain, as coin : there I have
no latitude at all; I may not put off a piece of money for more than its
value, though a person out of ignorance would take it for more. There
are some commodities which, in ordinary plenty, being of an ordinary
goodness, have an usual price: here I have but little latitude, namely,
that of the market. In the rising and falling of commodities, I have a
greater latitude: but usually in these cases the market sets some kind
of price: unless I be the sole master of a commodity; and here the
latitude is the greatest, and my own reason and moderation must limit
me. And if any ask why I make the market the rule, seeing this seems to
be as if I should say, " Let every man get as much as he can, for so men
in the market do;" I answer, The market is usually more reasonable
than the particular appetites of men; and though every man be apt to
get as much as he can, yet men generally have an appetite to sell, as well
as to sell dear, and that checks this; and men are brought to moderation,
because they are unwilling to lose custom; so that he that governs himself
by the market-prices, not catching at particular advantages, seems to me
to follow the safest rule.
(7.) There are some things allowed in common intercourse which are so
rigorous, that they are hardly just, which are rather tolerable than
commendable.I will give one instance instead of many: A man hath a
small piece of ground lying within another man's estate. He is willing
to sell, but requires, possibly, forty or sixty years' purchase, or more,
according to the particular appetite of the purchaser. This seems not to
WHICH REQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN f
207
be BO agreeable to this great rale of equity, I deny not* bat Borne

advantage may be made in this ease, and I will not set any peremptory
limits. I shall only say this in general, We should set a moderate value
upon another man's appetite and convenience.
(8.) It is be feared, that something very like unrighteousness is
woven into the mystery of most trades; and, like Phidias's image in
Minerva's shield, cannot be defaced without the ruin of it.I think this
is not a groundless jealousy; but the confession and complaint of the
most knowing and understanding persons in human affairs. I shall
instance only in the elightnese of work, the imbasing of commodities, and
setting them off by indirect advantages. I can only bewail this; for,
unless the world could generally be convinced of this, it is not like
to be amended. Perfection is not to be looked for in this imperfect state:
we must be content if things are passable.
(9.) Nevertheless, we ought to aspire after as great a degree of righteousness and equity as the condition of human affairs will admit.We
should bend all our endeavours to the bettering of the world ; and not
only avoid all unrighteousness, but draw back, as much as in us lies,
from the indirect practices of the world, and from all appearance of
unrighteousness.
3. The more particular rules are these :<
(1.) Impose upon no man's ignorance or unskilfulness.Thou mayest
set a just value upon thine own commodity, but not a price upon
another man's head. I mean, thou mayest not rate a man's want of
understanding, or set a tax upon his ignorance: therefore, take no advantage of children, or any other incompetent persons: and do not only use
them with justice, but with ingenuity, [ingenuousness,] as those that
repose a trust in you, and cast themselves upon your equity. And here
are some questions to be resolved.
QUESTION i. " If a man be otherwise skilful in his calling, may not I
take advantage of his ignorance of a particular circumstance wherein the
contract is concerned ?"
ANSWER. I will tell you how Tally resolves this in a particular case :
" A man," saith he, " brings a ship of corn from Alexandria to Rhodes,
in a time of great famine: he may have what price he will: he knows
of a great many more ships that will be there next day: may he conceal
this from the Rhodians?" He determines peremptorily, he may not.-f
If we will be worse than HeathensI say no more.
QUESTION n. " But may we not take advantage of the ignorance of
the seller, though not of the buyer ? The difference is, he that offers to
sell any thing at such a price is willing so to part with it: now there is
no wrong done to him that is willing."
I answer: A man is so far willing, as he is knowing. Aristotle tells
us, that "ignorance is a sort of unwillingness." If a man, out of forgetfulness, or want of consideration or sufficient understanding of his own
calling, mistake himself, I may not make a prize of this man's weakness;
* The third edition has, instead of this commencement, / do not tee ; and the fourth
has, / doubt not; but the reading of the first edition, as it stands in the text, is the
correct one.EDIT.
f De Qfficiia, lib. iii.
208
SERMON X.
for he is only willing to sell it so upon supposition he remembers right,

and understands himself aright; hot, the thing being really worth
more, he is absolutely unwilling, and I am injurious to him in taking
advantage.
QUESTION in. "May I not sell secret faults and vices in a commodity?"
ANSWER. If the faults be each as men take for granted do often
happen, and, notwithstanding them, they do not account any man to
have deceived them, then they are faults pardoned by common consent.
Bat if they be such as I am grieved at, and think myself not fairly dealt
withal when they happen; then some think it is enough to allow for
them in the price ; but I think Tally hath determined it better: Ne quid
omnino quod venditor novit empior ignoret; * " That the buyer should not
be left ignorant of any thing that the seller knows." And this seems
reasonable; for I know not but another man may value those faults
higher than I do: however, it is not so fair for me to make another
man's bargain.
(2.) Impose upon no man's necessity.If a man must needs buy now,
or of thee, because none else is near, make no advantage of this.
(3.) When God's providence hath put into thy hands some great
opportunity and advantage, (as by the intervention of some unexpected
law, by a sudden war or peace betwixt nations, or by some other casualty,) do not stretch it to the utmost.Fortunam reverenter habe, " Use
this providential advantage modestly;" considering that He whose blessing gave thee this opportunity can blast thee a thousand ways.
(4.) Use plainness in all your dealings.This the Roman laws called
bond fide agere. Do not disparage another man's commodity, or raise your
own beside truth : this is sinful. Do not insinuate a commendation or
disparagement indirectly, thereby to lead a man into an error, that you
may draw-on a bargain the more easily. Do not, as your phrase is, ask
or bid much out of the way; for if this be not simply unlawful, yet it
doth not become an honest man. We commend the Quakers, because
they are at a word in all their dealings. We would be loath not to be
counted as good Christians as they are ; let us, then, do as good things
as they do, especially when we account those things praiseworthy; and
I am sure this is no ways contrary to justice, and honesty, and truth. I
know nothing that gives so real a reputation to that sect as this practice;
and would it not adorn those who account themselves the more sober
Christians ? If we praise this in others, let us practise it in ourselves.
We are apt to value ourselves much by our orthodox judgments; but let
us take heed that sectaries do not confute us by their orthodox lives. For
the sake of religion, next to your consciences, in all your dealings, tender
your reputation ; for, quod conscientia est apud Deum, id fama est apud
homines: "that which conscience is in reference to God, that our reputation is in respect of men."
(5.) In matters of vanity and fancy, and things which have no certain
estimation, use moderation.And so much the rather, because in these
thou art left to be thy own judge.
(6.) Do not go to the utmost of things lawful.He that will alwaye

* De Offioiis, lib. iii.
WHICH 18 fcEClUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
209
walk upon the brink, is in great danger of falling down. He that will
do the utmost of what he may, will some time or other be tempted to
what he should not. For it is a short and easy passage from the utmost
limits of lawful, to what is evil and unlawful; therefore, in that latitude
which you have of gain, use favour toward the poor and necessitous,
ingenuity* toward the ignorant and unskilful, moderation toward all
men.
(7.) Where you have any doubt about the equity of your f dealing,
choose you the safest part, and that which will certainly bring you peace.
For not only a good conscience, but a quiet conscience, is to be valued
above gain. Therefore, in matters of duty, do the most; in matters of
privilege, and divisions of right, and proportions of gain, where there is
any doubt, choose the least; for this is always safe.
Thus I have laid down the rule and explained it, and have given as
particular directions as I could safely adventure to do: I must now leave
it to every man to apply it more particularly to himself, and to deal
faithfully with his own conscience in the use of it. Circumstances
which vary cases are infinite; therefore, when all is done, much must be
left to the equity and chancery of our own breasts. I have not told you
how much in the pound yon may gain, and no more; nor can I. A
man may make a greater gain at one time than another, of the same
thing; he may take those advantages which the change of things, and
the providence of God, give him, using them moderately: a man may
take more of some persons than of others: provided a man use all men
righteously, he may use some favourably. But I have on purpose
forborne to descend to too many particularities, among other reasons, for
the sake of Sir Thomas More's observation concerning the casuists of his
time, who, he saith, by their too particular resolutions of cases, did not
teach men non peccare, " not to sin," but did show them quam prope ad
peccatum liceat accedere sine peccato, " how near men might come to
ein, and yet not sin."
The USES I shall make of all this are these two:

USE I.
Let w not revenge ourselves.The rule is not, " We should do to

others as they do to us;" but, " as we would have them to do to us:" as
if it were on purpose to prevent revenge. St. Luke forbids revenge from
this rule: " For if ye love them which love you," &c. (Luke vi. 31,
32.) "But love ye your enemies." Revenge is the greatest offence
against this rule; for he that revengeth an injury hath received one; he
that hath received one knows best what that is which he would not have
another to do to him; the nature of evil and injury is better known to
the patient than to the agent; men know better what they suffer than
what they do. He that is injured feels it, and knows how grievous it is;
and will he do that to another?
* Ingenuousness.EDIT.
EDIT.
f In the fourth edition the word your is omitted.
210
SERMON X.
WHEREIN LIETH THAT EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS,

USE IT.
Let me press this rule upon yon. Lire by it; in all your carriage
and dealings with men, let it be present to you. Ask yourselves upon
every occasion, " Would I that another should deal thus with me, and
carry himself thus towards me?" But I shall press this chiefly, as to
justice and righteousness in our commerce. It is said that Severus the
emperor caused this rule to be written upon his palace, and in all public
places: * let it be written upon our houses, and shops, and exchanges.
This exhortation is not altogether improper for this auditory. You that
frequent these exercises seem to have a good sense of that part of religion which is contained in the first table: do not, by your violations of
the second, mar your obedience to the first. Do not prove yourselves
hypocrites in the first table, by being wicked in the second. Give not
the world just cause to say, that you are ungodly, because they find you
to be unrighteous; but manifest your love to God, whom you have not
seen, by your love to your brother, whom you have seen; and if any
man wrong hie brother, he cannot love him. Do not reject or despise
this exhortation, under the contemptuous name of "morality." Our
Saviour tells us, this is a chief part of that which hath ever been
accounted religion in the world: "It is the Law and the Prophets;"
and he, by enjoining it, hath adopted it into Christianity, and made it
Gospel. We should have an especial love to this precept, not only as it
is the dictate of nature, and the law of Moses; not only as it is a
Jewish and Gentile principle, but as it is of the " household of faith."
When the young man told Christ, that he had kept the commandments
from his youth, it is said, "Jesus loved him." (Mark x. 20, 21.)
Wherever we have learned to despise morality, Jesus loved it. When I
read the Heathen writers, especially Tully and Seneca, and take notice
what precepts of morality and laws of kindness are every where in their
writings, I am ready to fall in love with them. How should it make
our blood to rise in many of our faces who are Christians, to hear with
what strictness Tully determines cases of conscience, and bow generously
be speaks of equity and justice towards all men! Societatis arctissimum
vinculum est, magis arbitrari esse contra naturam, hominem homini
detrahere sui commodi causa, quhm omnia incommoda subire.^ " This is
the strongest bond of society, to account it to be more against nature,

for any man to wrong another for his own advantage, than to undergo
the greatest inconveniences." And again: Non enim mihi est vita mea
utilior, quttm animi talis affectus, neminem ut violent commodi mei gratia.
" Nor is my life more dear and profitable to me, than such a temper and
disposition of mind as that I would not wrong any man for my own
advantage." Again: Tollendum est in rebus contrahendis omne mendadum. "No kind of lying must be used in bargaining." And to
mention no more: Nee ut emat melius, nee ut vendat, quicquam simulabit,
out dissimulabit vir bonus. "A good man will not counterfeit or
conceal any thing, that he may buy the cheaper, or sell the dearer."
* LAMPRIDIUS.
f De Qfficiis, lib. iii.
WHICH 18 REQUIRED BETWEEN MAN AND MAN?
211
And yet, further to check our pronenen to despise moral righteousness,

I cannot but mention an excellent passage to this purpose, which I have
met with in a learned man of oar own nation: " Two things," saith he,
" make up a Christian,a true faith, and an honest conversation; and
though the former usually gives us the title, the latter is the surer; for
true profession without an honest conversation, not only saves not, but
increaseth our weight of punishment; but a good life without true
profession, though it brings us not to heaven, yet it lessens the measure
of our judgment; so that a moral man, so called, is a Christian by the
surer side." And afterwards: " I confess," saith he, " I have not yet
made that proficiency in the schools of our age, as that I could see why
the second table, and the acts of it, are not as properly the parts of
religion and Christianity, as the acts and observation of thejffrei. If I
mistake, then it is St. James that hath abused me; for he, describing
religion by its proper acts, tells us, that ' pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world;' so that
that thing which, in an especial refined dialect of the new Christian
language, signifies nothing but morality and civility, that in the language
of the Holy Ghost imports true religion. When the scribe told Christ,
that 'to love God with all the heart,' &c., 'and our neighbour as
ourselves, was more than whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices,' it is said,
' When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou
art not far from the kingdom of God.' (Mark zii. 33, 34.)"* They
that would have a religion without moral righteousness talk indiscreetly,
and are farther from the kingdom of God than a mere moral man. Tf
we neglect this part of religion, we disparage the gospel, and abuse our
profession; we are but pretenders to Christianity. Plutarch speaks
somewhere to this purpose: "he had rather posterity should say,
' There was never such a man as Plutarch,' than that ' he was a vicious,
or cruel, or unjust man.' "
I had rather a man should not call himself a Christian, that he should
renounce this title, than that, by his life and actions, he should represent Christians to the world as oppressors, as unjust and treacherous
dealers'. If men will only use religion for to cover their unrighteousness, I had rather they would put off their cloaks, and be knaves in
guerpo, that every body may know them, than that they should go, like
highwaymen, in vizards and disguises, only that they may rob honest
men the more securely.
And to move you to the practice of this rule, I shall only offer to you
one consideration, but which hath so much weight in it, that it may be
instead of many: At you deal with other, to ye ehall be dealt with.
" With what measure you mete to others, it shall be measured to you,"
is a proverbial speech often used by our Saviour; and which, one time
or other, yon will find to be very significant. God doth many times, by
his providence, order things so, that in this life men's unrighteousness
returns upon their own heads, and their violent dealing upon their own
* Ma. HAUIS.
212
SERMON X.
WHEREIN LIES EXACT RIGHTEOUSNESS?
pates. There is a Divine Nemesis, which brings onr iniquities upon

ourselves. No man hath any vice or humour alone, but it may be
matched in the world, either in its own kind or in another. If a man
be cruel and insolent, "A Bajazet shall meet with a Tamerlane;" if a
man delight to jeer and abuse others, " No man hath so good a wit, but
another hath as good a memory:" he will remember it to revenge it.
He that makes a trade of deceiving and cozening others,he doth but
teach, others to cozen him; and there are but few masters in any kind
but are outdone by some of their scholars. But, however we may
escape the hands of men, how shall we escape our own consciences,
either trouble of conscience in this life, or the worm of conscience in the
next ? How shall we escape the hands of the living God ? How shall
we escape the damnation of hell ? " Let no man go beyond and defraud
his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all
such." (1 These, iv. 6.) He will take their cause into his own hands,
and render to us according to our fraudulent and cruel dealing with
others. " So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you," &c.
(Matt, xviii. 35.)
What our Saviour saith, that "there is no man that
denies himself in houses or lands," &c., " for Christ's sake and the
gospel's, but shall receive in this life a hundred-fold, and in the world to
come everlasting life," (Matt. xix. 29,) is true also here. There is no'
man that is injurious to his brother in houses, or lands, or good name,
or any other thing, but shall probably receive in this world an hundredfold; however, without repentance, in the world to come, everlasting
misery. In the next world men will find, that they have but impoverished themselves by their ill-gotten wealth, and heaped up for themselves
treasures of wrath. Bead those words, and tremble at them: " Go to
now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon
you," &c. (James v. 15.)
Let us, then, be persuadedas we love God whom we have not seen ;
as we love the gospel which we read and hear every day, and would
preserve the reputation of it; as we would better the world and the
condition of mankind; as we love ourselves and our own peace and
happinessto deal justly and equally with all men. Till we come to
live by this rule of equity, we can never hope to see the world a quiet
habitation. But if this were practised among us, then "glory would
dwell in our land; mercy and truth would meet together; righteousness
and peace would kiss each other; truth would spring out of the earth ;
and righteousness would look down from heaven; yea, the Lord would
give that which is good; and our hind would yield her increase;
righteousness would go before him, and set us in the way of his steps."
(Psalm Ixxxv. 913.)
8KKMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GIVE ALMS?
213
SERMON XI.
BY THE REV. THOMAS GOUGE, A.M.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF KIHO's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GIVE ALMS, THAT THEY MAT BE

ACCEPTABLE AND PLEASING UNTO GOO?
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor
trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly
all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in
store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come,
that they may lay hold on eternal life.1 Timothy vi. 1719.
THE earn of these words is, a direction for rich men how to make the
best use of their riches. The ground or occasion of this direction is, to
meet with an objection, which might he made against the discommodities
and dangers of riches, noted before in verses 9, 10 : " But they that will
be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love
of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they
have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows." From hence some might infer, as the disciples did from the
inseparable and inviolable bond of marriage, noted by our Saviour:
" If," say they, " the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good
to marry." (Matt. xix. 10.) So might some say, "If they that will be
rich fall into temptation, and a snare," &c., " then it is not good to be
rich;" yea, such as are rich may say, "Let us give away, or cast away
all that we have, rather than retain such vipers as riches seem to be."
To prevent such inconsequent inferences, the apostle giveth this direction, whereby he showeth that riches may be weU used, and, being well
used, be a means of helping on our eternal salvation. Learn hence
not to condemn things good in themselves, because of the abuse of them.
The Lord, in regard of the ordinary abuse of riches, styleth them
"mammon of unrighteousness;" (Luke zvi. 9;) and yet adviseth not
thereupon to cast them away, but to "make to ourselves friends thereof:"
that is, so to use them as the good works done by them may, as friends
before the Judge, give evidence of the truth of our faith and love, and
show that we are of the sheep of Christ, for whom eternal life is purchased.
Having thus showed the occasion and dependence of these words upon
the former, come we now to the logical resolution of them; where we

may observe two parts:
1. A. prohibition.
2. An injunction.
A prohibition of hurtful vices. An injunction of needful virtues.
214
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MOST WE GIVE ALMS,
The vices are two:(I.) High-mindedneai. (2.) Fain-confidence.

" Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded,
nor trust in uncertain riches."
The virtues are likewise two:(1.) Confidence or faith in God:
" But trust in God," which is urged by an argument taken from God's
bounty, in these words, "Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy."
(2.) Charity towards men, expressed in several phrases; namely, " by
doing good," and by being " rich in good works, ready to distribute,
willing to communicate," which duties are enforced by an argument
taken from the benefit of performing them, which is, in brief, assurance of
eternal life, implied in these words: " Laying up in store for themselves
a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on
eternal life."
I shall briefly speak something to the several branches of the text, as
they lie in order, and then come to the question or case of conscience
given unto me to handle.
Charge them that are rich in this worldThe expression of our
apostle is here observable, in that he saith not, , " Speak to them,"
not, , "Declare to them," but, $, "Charge, command
them." Well did the apostle know how forward, on the one side, rich
men are to be high-minded, and to trust in their riches; and, on the
other side, how backward they are to trust in God, and to show charity
to the poor; and thereupon saw it requisite that a minister should take
courage to himself, and not think it enough closely to intimate to rich
men what vices they are addicted to, or what virtues they are bound unto;
but, remembering the place wherein they stand, which is God's, in the
name of his most excellent Majesty, to require, charge, and command
them to forbear to one, and endeavour after the other.
In the next place follow the parties to whom this charge is to be
given, namely, to the rich in this world: "Charge them," saith the
apostle, " that are rich in this world," that is, in this present world;
noting our riches to be only for this world. For true is that proverb of
the wise man, " Riches are not for ever;" (Prov. xxvii. 24;) they cannot
be carried out of this world. " As naked we came into this world, so
naked shall we go out of it." (Job i. 21.) And therefore it must needs
be a point of great wisdom, by that which is but for the present world,
to store up a sure foundation for the time to come.
In the next place follow the vices here forbidden : the first is highmindedness ; whereunto rich men are very prone, in that their wealth is as
wind ; and though wind be but a vapour, yet it puffeth up exceedingly;
as we see in a bladder blown up with wind. In like manner, riches,
though they be but mere vanity, as the wise man expresseth it, (Eccles.
i. 2,) yet are they apt to puff up men extremely, even to think of themselves above what is meet. Whereas, if rich men would but well weigh,
that they came from, and must return to, the same mould that others
do; " for dust they are, and to dust they must return ;" (Gen. iii. 19;)
yea, if they would consider, that they came from the same cursed stock
that others do, and are by nature no better than the meanest; especially
if they would consider, that outward riches cannot add the least dram of
THAT THEY MAY BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD
215
real worth to the owners of them; bat though they may be more honourable parts or members in the civil body of the state, yet in the mystical
body of Christ they may be less honourable than the poor;I say, if
rich men did but seriously consider these things, they would not be so
high-minded as they are.
The other vice here forbidden unto rich men, is, vain-confidence, or
trusting in their riches; and this is very fitly joined to the former ; for
where our pride is, there will be our confidence. That rich men are apt
to put too much trust and confidence in their riches, doth appear by the
titles which they commonly give unto them, calling them " their goods,"
as if they were the only good things; and " their substance," as if all
things else were shadows; and by the increase of them they say they are
" made for ever," and by the loss of them they say they are " utterly
undone." What do these expressions imply, but a trust and confidence
in their riches ? Whereupon saith the wise man, " The rich man's wealth
is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit." (Prov. xviii.
11.) It makes him think himself so safe and secure, that, like the
judge mentioned by our Saviour, " he feareth not God, nor regardeth
man." (Luke xviii. 2.)
In the next place follow the virtues enjoined.

The first is confidence, or faith in God; which is directly opposed to
trust in riches, so as rich men may have wherein to trust, though they
trust not in riches. God is the God of the rich, as well as of the poor;
and the one as well as the other are to put their whole trust in him.
And if we consider the property here given to God, namely, living,
(" But trust in the LIVING GOD,") we shall see good reason to trust in
God rather than in riches. For our wealth may vanish away; but He
ever liveth.
Our wealth may prove our bane ; but He is both the Giver
and Preserver of life. Our trusting in God is here pressed by an argument taken from God's bounty to us in these words : " Who giveth us
richly all things to enjoy:" so that the Lord is not only a living but also
a giving God, of whose gift you have not only your life, but also your
riches; yea, all that you have is the gift of God, who giveth you not only
all needful things, but also richly, and, as St. James saith, " liberally."
(James i. 5.) For God in his gifts showeth himself to be a God, and
that two ways: 1. In the freeness, 2. In the greatness, of them. He
"loadeth us with benefits," saith the Psalmist. (Psalm Ixviii. 19.) This
rich bounty of God is a further motive to draw yon to trust in him.
Tea, the apostle addeth, that the Lord " giveth us all things richly to
enjoy;" that is, not only for the present to spend, as being absolutely
necessary; but also to lay up and reserve, so as it is not unlawful to lay
up for after-times. The apostle presseth it on parents as a bounden duty,

" to lay up for their children." (2 Cor. xii. 14.)
Only let this lawful liberty be limited with these and such-like
bounds:
1. That we lay up nothing but what is justly gotten. To lay up riche*

of unrighteousness, is to kindle a fire that may destroy both our temporal
and our spiritual estate.
2. That we be not so covetous of hoarding up, as to deny ourselves
?16
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GIVE ALMS,
what is needful for oar use and comfort, or to deny the poor what is
needful and necessary for them ; but that we willingly give out, as what
is meet for ourselves, so what is necessary to the poor.
3. That, in our treasuring up, we aim not merely, wholly, and only
at ourselves, but withal have an eye as to the charge which in particular
God hath committed to us, so also to the church, commonwealth, and
poor for the time to come.
4. That we exceed not measure in our treasure, no, though we aim at
the fore-mentioned good ends.
So much for the clearing the first duty the apostle would have pressed
upon rich men especially, which is to " trust in God."
The second is charity towards men, expressed in several phrases; as,
first, by "doing good:" "Charge them that are rich in this world, that
they do good." So that true charity consisteth not only in compassionate affections, and kind speeches, but in good deeds, as yaflospysiv,
the word in the original, implieth.
You rich men ought " to be rich in good works," as the apostle
addeth. For God expecteth fruit answerable to the seed which he
soweth. He giveth you plenty of seed ; therefore you must be plentiful
in this kind of fruit.
The next branches," Beady to distribute, willing to communicate,"
set forth the manner of our charity j the former implying a wise distribution of our alms; for "to distribute" is not hand-over-head, without
consideration, to give, but according to the need of them to whom we
give: the latter implying a willingness therein. As by distributing,
good is done to others; so by willingness therein, much comfort is
brought unto our own souls, and grace to the work ; and God doth best
accept such, for "he loveth a cheerful," willing, "giver." (2-Cor. ix. 7.)
In the next place follow the reasons, to enforce the fore-named duties,
taken from the benefit of performing them; which is, in brief, assurance
of eternal life, implied in these words : " Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay
hold on eternal life." The apostle here, for their better encouragement
to lay out a portion of their estate on good works, telleth them that they
are so far from losing what they so lay out, as in truth " they lay up
thereby in store for themselves."
Yea, they lay up "a good foundation ;" that is, such a treasure as is
like a foundation in the ground, that cannot be shaken nor overthrown.
This treasure the apostle thus expresseth, in opposition to the forementioned uncertainty of riches: so, as by a cheerful distribution of this
world's wealth, they do indeed but exchange uncertainties for certainties,
and so no fear of losing by such bargains. Yea, they thereby obtain
"eternal life."
QUESTION. "Are then good works the cause of eternal life?"
ANSWER, Surely, no; only they are the means and way of attaining thereto; and in this sense is this phrase here used: " That they
may lay hold on eternal life."
Having thus showed you the occasion of the words, the logical resolution of them, their sense and meaning, I should now, according to my
THAT THEY MAT BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
217
accustomed method, come to each points of doctrine which the words do

naturally afford unto us. Bat I must wave them, and fall upon that
question or case of conscience which was given me to handle; namely,
QUESTION. How, or after what manner, must we give alms, that they
may be acceptable and pleasing unto God?
In the resolving whereof, I shall endeavour to answer most of the
cases of conscience about alms-giving.
ANSWER i. It must he with justice, giving only of our own, whereunto
we have a just right and title.So much our Saviour implieth in that
precept of his, where he saith, " Give alms of such things as you have;"
(Luke xi. 41;) whereby is not meant, such things as a man hath by
him, (for one may have another man's things by him,) but such things
as are his own, whereunto he hath a just title and undoubted right,
whereof he is the lawful proprietor, hath the power of disposing those
things; And those only he may lawfully and justly give away.
This caveat is very necessary for many reasons.
1. Because otherwise we shall sever mercy from justice, which should
always*go hand in hand.God hath put them together, (Prov. xxi. 21;
Dan. iv. 27,) and we must not put them asunder. Indeed, they are two
links of one and. the same chain, of which other virtues and graces are
also other links. So many virtues, so many links. Now, if one link of
a chain fall off, the whole chain is broken, and down falls that which is
drawn or held up by it: so we that are held up out of the pit of destruction by the chains of graces, are in danger to fall into it, if one grace be
violated, and severed from the rest.
2. By giving that which is not our own, the excellency and glory
of charity is lost.-Of such chanty it may be said, Ichabod; (1 Sam. iv.
21;) "Where is the glory?" The glory of charity consists in this,
that we are willing to part with our own, and therein to damnify ourselves, for the relief and succour of others.
3. By giving that which is not our own, we do wrong, and thereby
make ourselves liable to restitution :So as charity in such a case is a
plain injury. It is a case wherein recompence of revenge may more be
feared than recompence of reward expected.
QUESTION. "Who may be said to give that which is not their own?"
ANSWER. 1. They who filch, steal, or rob for this very end.As parents
for children, or children for parents, or one friend for another. It is a
sin for one to steal to satisfy his own hunger; (Prov. vi. 31;) much
more is it sin to steal for another. Certainly it is a great wickedness
to do injustice, that we may do acts of charity.
2. Such as having raised up an estate, or got something by indirect and
unjust means, as by lying, swearing, false weights, deceitful measures, and
the like, think to make up all by giving part to the poor.For, as the
Civilians say well: " The good use doth not justify the unjust getting
of their goods." * And can any imagine that God will be pleased with
those men's charity who give relief out of that which they have wrongfully gotten ? Restitution should rather be made to such as have been
wronged. And if neither the parties wronged, nor their heirs, can be
* Bonui utu nonjustificat injusti quanta
218
SERMON XI.
found, then what hath been wrongfully got ought to be given to the
poor, as their heirs. An example whereof we have in Zaccheus, who,
having wronged many by oppression, after his conversion offereth fourfold restitution unto all whom he had wronged; and because many
could not be found, to whom he should make it, he offereth to bestow
half of his goods to the relief of the poor. (Luke xix. 8.)
3. Such as being under authority, and having no propriety* in the
things which they give, do, notwithstanding, give directly against, or
simply without, the consent of those who have the true propriety, do not
give of their own.Servants, children, and others. Indeed, servants
and children may lawfully give out of that which is their own; but not
out of that which is their masters' or parents', without their allowance.
4. Such as being joined in partnership with another, and give alms out
of the common stock without the consent of their partners, do not give
that which is their own.
5. Such as are in extreme debt, and owe more than they are worth.
We showed, that mercy and justice must go together; yea, justice must
go before mercy, and be satisfied before mercy be showed. They who
owe more than they are worth have nothing at all to give for alms; such
join arrogancy to injustice, to make show of a great estate, and yet have
none.
I shall close this with a word of advice to such as have a merciful and
charitable disposition, above their outward condition and ability: that
they use the best diligence they can, by all lawful and warrantable
means, to get something to bestow upon charitable uses. Let poor'
labouring men take so much the more pains, that they may have somewhat to give; let servants spare out of their wages; let such as have no
propriety in any thing, but are wholly maintained by them under whom
they live, (as children, apprentices, and others,) do what they can to
obtain something of their parents, or other governors, even for this very
end, that they may have something to give. Let such as are in debt first
pay their debts, and then give alms. Let such as have any way
defrauded others first make restitution, and then relieve them that are in
need. (Eph. iv. 28.) Finally, let such as live at the extent of their
estate, and much more, such as live beyond their means, well weigh
wherein they may cut off some of their expenses to bestow on the poor.
ANSWER it. Alms-giving must be with freedom and cheerfulness, and
not grudgingly.The phrase of " giving alms," frequently mentioned in
scripture, implieth as much; for, to give, is freely to bestow. In the
law this propriety of giving is plainly expressed, and by the contrary
thus explained: " Thou shalt surely (freely) give him, and thine heart
shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him." (Dent. xv. 10.) It is
also implied under this phrase: " Thou shalt open thine hand wide."
(Verse 11.) Alms must not be wrested and wrung out of a man's hand;
but he must of himself "open hie hand;" that is, freely give. The
word "wide" addeth emphasis. And in the gospel we find it commanded by the apostle: " Every man according as he purposeth in his
* This good old word occurs frequently in this sermon, and, as the reader will perceive,
uniformly has the meaning of our modern words, property, or proprietorship..EDIT.
THAT THIS* MAT BE ACCBPTABLK TO GOD?
219
heart, 90 let him give; not grudgingly, or of neceeeity: for God loveth
a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. ix. 7.)
Many motives may be produced to induce ua hereunto: as,
1. The pattern of God our heavenly Father, and of hit Son Jesus
Christ, our Redeemer,All the good that the Father doeth, he doeth
most freely: "Who hath first given unto him?" The word which is
used to set oat that which God giveth, signifieth "a free gift;" * (Bom.
v. 15, 16;) and he is said to "love us freely/' (Hosea xiv. 4,) to "justify us freely/' (Bom. iii. 24,) and " freely to give us all things." (Bom.
viii. 32.)
This reason of God's love," The Lord set his love upon yon, because
he loved you/' (Deut. vii. 7, 8,) doth clearly demonstrate the freeness
of it.
The good also which the Son of God, Jesus Christ oar Saviour, doeth
for us, he doeth most freely upon his own love, without any desert of
ours: in this respect it is said that he hath " loved us, and hath given
himself for us." (Eph. v. 2, 25.) The conjunction of these two, "love,"
and " giving," plainly prove the freeness of the gift. But, further, he
expressly saith, concerning the freeness of his gift: "I will give onto
him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." (Bev. xxi.
6; xxii. 17.)
2. A second motive may be taken from the nature of charity, which,
unless it be free, is not true and sound.Thus much the apostle implieth
under this phrase: " Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Cor. xiii. 3.) By
"charity" he meaneth a free giving of that which is given, merely out of
love and pity to him unto whom he giveth.
3. Free giving makes that which is given to man acceptable to God.
"For God loveth a cheerful giver." (2 Cor. ix. 7.) Yea, God hath
more respect to this manner of giving, than to the greatness of the
gift. " For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to
that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." (2 Cor.
viii. 12.)
4. A free manner of giving make the gift the more acceptable to hit
that is made partaker thereof.As the gift supplieth his want, so the
manner of giving reviveth his spirit. The apostle rejoiceth in the Lord
greatly upon that care which the Philippians showed to him in his
necessity. (Phil. iv. 10.)
5. A free and cheerful giving much redovndeth to the glory of God, in
that others are stirred up to praise God for such gifts.David praised
God's glorious name, when he saw his people offer willingly unto the
Lord. (1 Chron. xxix. 13, 14.) And this in respect the apostle saith of
such benevolence, that it is "abundant by many thanksgiving unto
God." (2 Cor. ix. 2, 12.)
ANSWER in. With simplicity and sincerity.According to that of
the apostle: "He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity;" (Bom.
xii. 8;) that is, with an honest, plain, and sincere heart, not aiming
* To . Id quod grat\ficando aKquit donat. " That which 07 one fkeelj
bestow on another for the purpose of gratifying him."EDIT.
220
SERMON XT.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GtVE ALMS,
therein at his own praise or applause, bat at the glory of God, doing it
in obedience to his command. This simplicity in giving, our Saviour
binteth unto us, where he saith: " When thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth;" (Matt. vi. 3 ;) that is, let
not the nearest that may be unto thee know what thou givest. The
right hand is that hand wherewith we ordinarily give, yet the left hand
is often assistant to it. Now, though there should be any so near unto
thee, as to be helpful and assistant, or at hand, yet let them not know
it; make known thy charity to none.
QUESTION. " May we not give alms if others be by ?"
ANSWER. Yea, if need so require; as at public collections, or when in
public we see one stand in need. But we may not do it with a mind to
have it known; our mind must be free from all such conceit; and we
must so do it, as if we were alone. " That alms is not unacceptable
which is given and seen of men, but that which is given to be seen of
men." * So that the scope of our Saviour in the fore-mentioned place
is, to take us off from all vain-glory in giving of our alms, that as much
as in us lieth we should endeavour to hide and conceal our good works
from'the eye of the world.
ANSWER iv. Our alms must be given with a compassionate heart,
with bowels of affection.The Greek word for " alms " is derived from
a word that signifies " mercy;" f which intimateth the disposition of the
giver, how he should be a merciful man, whose bowels are moved at the
misery of another, and thereupon contributes to bis need with bowels of

compassion.
In giving, we must not only open our hands, but our hearts, also, in
pity and compassion; we must " draw out our own souls," as the
prophet speaketh, as well as our purses, " to the hungry and afflicted,"
(Isai. Iviii. 10,) which is implied under several expressions of charity,
used in scripture by the Holy Ghost; as, "He that hath mercy on the
poor, happy is he." (Prov. xiv. 21.) And again: "He that hath pity
upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord." (Prov. xix. 17.) And saith the
apostle St. Paul: " Put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies."
(Col. iii. 12.) And saith the beloved disciple St. John: "Whoso hath
this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his
bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?"
(1 John iii. 17.) It is not sufficient to have an open, liberal hand,
unless we have also an open and compassionate heart; for if the sacrifice of our alms-deeds be not mingled with the oil and incense of mercy
and compassion, it will not be acceptable unto God, who will have mercy
as well as sacrifice. In contributing, therefore, to the relief of the poor,
let our inward affection go along with our outward action. $
As helps hereunto,
1. Be well informed in the benefit that compassion bringeth.And that,
not only to thy distressed brother, who is succoured, but also to thyself,
* Non est ingrata eleemosyna qua fit et videtur, sed qua fit ut videaiur.
f ) ab eAeoi, misericordia.
J Beneficentia ex benevolentia manure
debet. Affectus tuus nomen imponil operi tuo.AMBROSIUS De OJficiis, 30.
"Beneficence ougbt to flow from benevolence. The work in which thou art engaged
receives its name and impress from the feeling by which thou art actuated."EDIT.
THAT THEY MAY BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
221
to whom in this case a promise of mercy is made: " Blessed are the
merciful: for they shall obtain mercy;" (Matt. v. 7;) mercy from
other men, and mercy from God himself.
2. Well weigh the common condition of all.How "all things come
alike to all," as the wise man speaketh; (Eccles. ix. 2;) so as thou
also art subject to the same distress whereunto others are brought; and
therefore, as Aquinas saith, " we should have compassion on other men's
misery, for the possibility of suffering the like:" * which argument the
apostle useth to the Hebrews; saying: " Remember them which suffer
adversity, as being yourselves also in the body;" (Heb. xiii. 3;) that
is, say some, "as being members of the same body;" but rather, as
Beza and others interpret the place, " as being yourselves in the body of
flesh and frailty, subject to the like miseries." f For so long as we
dwell here in these houses of clay, and carry about us this earthly
tabernacle, we are all subject to the like changes and chances; which
made old learned Theodoret to reach his helping-hand to those outcast
Africans: " For when I saw," quoth he, " their pitiful estate, I began
to lay to heart the doubtful turnings and inversions of human things,
and to fear lest I myself might fall into the like evils." $
ANSWER v. Our alms must be given seasonably.For, as the wise
man speaketh, "To every thing there is a season, and every thing is
beautiful only in its time and season;" (Ecclee. iii. 1, 11;) and therefore it will be our wisdom so to observe the needs and necessities of
other men, that we do not let slip any season or opportunity of doing
good. According to the exhortation of the apostle, "As we have
opportunity, let us do good." (Gal. vi. 10.) The word in the original,
xettpov, translated " opportunity," properly signifies a " seasonable time."
QUESTION. " Which are the most seasonable times of doing works of
mercy?"
ANSWEH. 1. When accidentally thou meetest with any fit objects of
mercy.Thou must not then pass them by, with the priest and Levite;
but, with the good Samaritan, presently ponr the oil and wine of thy
charity into the wounds of thy brother, forthwith contributing somewhat
to his relief. (Luke z. 3034.) For, misery being the proper object of
mercy, thou shonldest then extend thy mercy unto such as are in want
and misery.
2. When God by his providence hath any way blessed and increased
thy stock and store:By prospering thy adventure at sea, or thy
trading at home, or by some great legacy bequeathed thee by some of
thy friends,that is a seasonable time for thee to give out freely and
liberally to the relief of the poor, in testimony of thy thankfulness unto
God for his bounty towards thee. I know, it is usual with most men,
upon the increase of their stock and store, to " sacrifice to their own
nets," to ascribe their wealth to their own wit and policy, and to say in
their hearts, their "power and the might of their hand hath gotten
them this wealth." But mark what Moses saith in the next verse:
* PropterpoenbilitatemtimtKapatiendi.THOMAS AS, Sum. Theol paw. ii.
quart, iii. art. 2.
f Ut gut titu et ipei iudem calamitatibut oonoxii.BEZA i
loo.
THEODORE-TITS, Ep. 29.
222
SERMON XT.
"Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee
power to get wealth." (Dent. viii. 17, 18.) Seeing, therefore, what
thou hast, thou hast received from God, whatsoever the means and
instruments were of conveying it unto thee, is it not most just and
equal, that in way of thankfulness thou shouldest set apart some portion
thereof for the poor and needy ?
3. The Lord's day ie another seasonable time of doing works of mercy.
According to the apostle's rule and direction: " Now concerning the
collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of
Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of
you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." (1 Cor. xvi.
1, 2.) Where by "the first day of the week" is meant the Lord's day,
on which the apostle enjoineth the Corinthians to " lay up something in
store;" implying thereby that that is a very fit season, not only to do
such works of mercy which are then offered unto us, but also to prepare
for other times.
4. Days of thanksgiving for some eminent mercy are another seasonable
time of doing works of mercy.The remembering of the poor at such
times is expressly commanded in scripture: " Thou shalt rejoice in thy
feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and
thy maid-servant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and
the widow." (Deut. xvi. 14.) Here "the stranger, the fatherless, the
widow," are commanded to rejoice on their days of feasting, which presupposeth the rich men's sending portions of their good cheer unto
them; which was the practice of the people of God, as appeareth by
that command of Nehemiah to the Jews on a day of thanksgiving: " Go
your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them
for whom nothing is prepared." (Neh. viii. 10.) And their day of
thanksgiving [on account of their deliverance] from Hainan's conspiracy
is called " a day of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to
another, and gifts to the poor." (Esther ix. 22.) And what more
seasonable time can there be for showing mercy to the poor, than when
we are blessing God for bis manifold mercies vouchsafed unto us ?
5. Days of fasting and prayer are another seasonable time of doing
works of mercy.For how can we expect that God should show mercy
unto us, in removing those judgments which we feel, or in preventing
those which we fear, if we will not show mercy to our poor brethren,
who stand in need of our relief? In the day of our fasting, therefore, let
us at least give away to the poor so much as we save by our fast. For
as St. Austin, in one of his sermons, saith: " Then are our fasts acceptable to God, if they who fast out of necessity, because they want meat,
be relieved by us."*
Let this, therefore, be always observed by us,
that the poor have the gain of our fasting, and not our own purses.
ANSWER vi. Our alms must be given readily and speedily, without
any needless delay.According to the counsel of the Wise Man: " Withhold not good from them to whom it is due;" that is, withhold not any
act of charity from those who stand in need of thy help.
" Say not
* Turn grata aunt Deo noslra jejunia, si UK qui necessitate jejunani reficiantur a
nobis.AUGUST Sermones De Temporibus, 64.
THAT THEY HAT BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
223
unto tby neighbour, Go, Mad come again, and to-morrow I will give
thee.; when them hast it by thee." (Prov. iii. 27, 28.) " He that so
delayeth his helping hand, is next door to him that denieth." * " And,
therefore, as any occasion offers itself nnto us, let as speedily embrace
the same, as knowing that a speedy giver is a double benefactor; and
the swifter that a benefit cometh, the sweeter it tasteth. And contrariwise a benefit loseth its grace that sticketh to his fingers who is about to
bestow it." f What, then, shall we think of their charity who put off
all to their death-beds, never giving any thing considerable to the poor
till they can keep it no longer? These, though by their last Will and
Testament they give somewhat to the poor, yet questionless it is against
their will: for could they have kept it longer, they would not have
parted with it.
I shall desire such seriously to consider these six things:
1. That if all rick men should do thus, the poor would toon be starved
for want of bread.
2. That this practice of theirs is against the express command of God,
who requireth us to do good, and to communicate out of our store, while
we have time and opportunity. (Gal. vi. 10; Matt. v. 16.)
3. That they have no assurance of the continuance of their wealth.>
For as the Wise Man speaketh, "Riches certainly make themselves
wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven;" (Prov. xxiii. 5;)
they have eagles' wings to fly from us.J And how many are there who
have outlived a fair estate! If God in his displeasure blasts a man's
substance, it vanisheth away in a moment.
4. Though their riches should continue with them, even to their deaths ;
yet they have no assurance that God will give them grace to be liberal at
their deaths, who had never the goodness to be charitable in their lifetime.
5. That they have no assurance that God will accept of their death-bed
charity.What St. Austin speaketh of death-bed repentance, that " it is
seldom true and hearty," the same may I say of death-bed charity,It
is seldom true and hearty, but for the most part rotten and hypocritical,
proceeding from ill grounds, as vain-glory, conceit of merit, and the like.
6. That they have no assurance of the true performance of their will,
that the poor shall be the better for what is thereby given them.For
how many executors have proved most unfaithful to their trusts, whereby
many charitable gifts have been clean perverted! And if friends be so
unfaithful to us in our life-time, how can we but question their fidelity

after our deaths ? 0, therefore, that all, whom the Lord hath blessed
with an estate, would in their life-time become their own administrators;
making, as one saith, " their own hands their executors, and their own
eyes their overseers!" For, questionless, that charity which is exercised
in a man's life-time is the best, and most acceptable nnto God.
ANSWER vn. Our alms must be bountiful and liberal, giving out
* Qui moratur, neganti pnueimw eat.SENECA D Beneficiu, lib. ii. cap. ft.
f Beneflcia non runt procrattinanda, ted tempestivl danda, ut magi prodesse posaint.
Bis dot, qui did dot. Ingratum est beiuifieium quod dm inter moatu dantis
SENECA De Benqfieiig.
J Ala* aquilinas.
224
SERMON XI.
proportionably to what the Lord hath given unto us.This is implied in

that command of God to his people: " Thou halt open thine hand wide
unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land;" (Dent.
XT. 11 ;) that is, thou shall give unto him bountifully and liberally.
And our apostle here in the text would have rich men charged " to be
rich in good works, even as God hath given them all things richly to
enjoy;" (I Tim. vi. 17, 18 j) "For unto whomsoever much is given, of
him shall be much required." (Luke xii. 48.) And therefore the same
apostle adviseth the Corinthians to give " as God had prospered them:"
(I Cor. xvi. 2:) to whom God hath given little of this world's goods,
of them he requireth but little; but to whom he hath given much, of
them he requireth much. Rich men, therefore, must not only give a
portion of their wealth to the relief of others, but also in some fit
proportion to their estate.
QUESTION. If any shall ask, " What is that portion or proportion of
estate which rich men ought to set apart for charitable uses?"
ANSWER. It is a hard matter to determine the quantity and proportion of men's charity, the scripture being silent herein, leaving this to
the discretion and ingenuity [ingenuousness] of the prudent Christian.
As the apostle speaketh, "every man according as he purposeth in his
heart, so let him give," &c. (2 Cor. ix. 7.*) A certain quantity is not set
him: that is left to the free purpose of his own heart.
But yet, though the scripture giveth us no direct precept in this
particular, it holdeth forth many precedents for our imitation; as that
of Jacob, who, in testimony of his thankfulness unto God for what'he
should bestow upon him, vowed the tenth part thereof unto God for
pious and charitable uses: " And Jacob vowed a vow unto God, saying,
Of all that thou ehalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee."
(Gen. xxviii. 2022.) Of Cornelius it is recorded, that he "gave much
alms." (Acts x. 2.) And the Macedonians are highly commended for
their great bounty and large contributions. (2 Cor. via. 3.) These
examples are left upon record for our imitation. For, as the apostle
speaketh, " whatsoever things were written afore-time were written for
our learning, and for our admonition." (Bom. xv. 4; 1 Cor. x. 11.)
So that though the quantity of oar alms, how much we should give, is
not expressly set down; yet this we find both commanded and com
mended, by precepts and precedents, in the scripture, that we give
liberally and bountifully in some fit proportion to our estates; that if we
be rich in this world's goods, we should then be rich in good works;
" sowing liberally, that so we may reap liberally." (2 Cor. ix. 6.)
Now, that our alms may be liberal, it must be fitted to two things;
namely .
1. The necessity of the receiver.
2. The ability of the giver.
1. That in giving we should have respect to the need and necessity of
our brother.The law is clear which saith, " If there be among you a
poor man of one of thy brethren, thou shalt open thine hand wide unto
him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he
wanteth." (Deut. xv. 7, 8.)
THAT THEY MAY BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
225
2. That we should likewise hone respect to our own ability.The

apostle St. Peter is as clear, where he eaith, " If any man minister, let
him do it as of the ability which God giveth;" (1 Peter iv. 11 ;) that is,
let every one give with respect to his own estate and ability. Notwithstanding, in cases of urgent necessity and great extremity, we are to
strain ourselves even above our ability.
Here it may not be impertinent to answer another question: (for I
resolve to contrive all I have to deliver upon this subject into this plain
and easy method:) and that is this :
QUESTION. "How many ways may rich men exercise their charity?"
ANSWER. 1. By laying out a portion of their estate in such a way
a* directly tend to the worship of God, the advancement of religion, the
salvation of men's souls.Which I may not unfitly term, " a spiritual
charity."
And this may also be done several ways. As,
(I.) By contributing towards the planting and propagating the gospel
where it hath not been.A work set on foot by divers in New-England,
but chiefly carried on by the charity of well-disposed people here in
Old-England.
(2.) By setting up and maintaining of lecture.The preaching of the
word being the ordinary means appointed by God for the bringing of
sinners to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, "whom to know is life
eternal." (Bom. i. 16.)
(3.) By adding to the maintenance of such settled preachers whose
pains are great, and means small, through the covetouauess of impropriators, who engross to themselves what doth more properly belong to
the minister.
(4.) By maintaining of poor scholars at the university t in reference to
the work of the ministry.That so there may be a continual supply of
learned, godly, and orthodox ministers, for the edifying of the body of
Christ.
(5.) By bestowing of Billet on poor children.Whereby, through the
care of their parents, they may be acquainted with the knowledge of
" the holy scriptures, which are able to make them wise unto salvation."
(2 Tim. iii. 15.) Memorable is the famous gift of Sir John Fenner, who
by his hist will gave six pounds per annum to several out-parishes in
London, for the buying of Bibles, to be distributed among poor children.
From my own experience I can say, that this gift hath occasioned many
poor people to teach their children to read, that so they might be
capable of those Bibles, which are to be given only to such as can in
some measure read.
(6.) By erecting of country-schools, and endowing them with some
competent maintenance, for teaching of poor men's children, who have not
wherewithal to pay for their schooling.Which will be a special meana
not only to further their civil, but likewise their spiritual, education;
for thereby they will be made more capable of divine instruction. Experience teacheth us how ineffectual the most powerful ministry is upon an
ignorant and unlearned congregation. Questionless, therefore, the erect
ing of country-schools is a work of charity, more noble in itself, more
226
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GITE ALMS,
acceptable unto God, and more beneficial to the kingdom, than the building of alms-houses, which are too often filled with swarms of idle
drones.* But though this spiritual charity is questionless the more
excellent, as tending to a more excellent object, namely, the souls of our
neighbours, yet the bodies of our neighbours must be cared for as well
as their souls : our charity, therefore, must also extend to them, and in
this kind it may be practised and expressed.
2. By a free and liberal giving to the relief of those who are in want.
Of which I have already largely spoken.

3. By a ready lending to such as, being in a calling, want stock, or
other means to help themselves in their trades. This duty of lending we
find expressly commanded both in the law and in the gospel. IN THE
LAW ; as in the place before quoted : " Thou shalt open thine hand wide
to thy poor brother, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in
that which he wanteth," &c. (Deut. xv. 7, 8.) IN THE GOSPEL ;
" Lend," saith our Saviour, "hoping for nothing again ;" (Luke vi. 35 ;)
that is, lend not only to such from whom you may hope, by reason
of their ability, to receive your own again ; but also to such as by
reason of their poverty may perhaps never be able to repay you. The
Psalmist maketh this a note of a righteous and a good man, that " he is
ever merciful, and lendeth ;" (Psalm xxxvii. 26 ;) that he "showeth favour,
and lendeth;" (Psalm cxii. 5;) where we see it is set down as the
property of such a man, that he is ready to lend to the poor, to such
as stand in need of his help ; and that freely, without hope of gain.
This duty belongeth especially to rich men, because the occasions of
him that would borrow usually require more than meaner persons can
well spare : they can better give a penny than lend a pound ; though in
many cases the lending our brother a considerable sum together would
be more beneficial to him than it may be to give him half as much.
There is therefore a noble and very generous act of charity to be exercised
this way ; and it is peculiar to rich men, who have it by them wherewithal to do it.
4. Rich men may and ought to express their charity, by forgiving
debt, in ease the borrower be not able to repay it.
There be many who, by the help of that which is lent them, God
blessing their pains in the employments thereof, are able to repay what is
lent. If there were not hope thereof, men would rather give than lend
to such.
But there are others who, notwithstanding their care and pains in their
calling, thrive not ; or, by some accident, suffer such loss and 4amage, as
they are not able to repay what they have borrowed. In such cases
creditors are bound to forgive, at least to forbear, their debtors. This is
the intendment of that charge, "Lend, hoping for nothing again." (Luke
vi. 35.) To take this phrase simply, is to alter the nature of lending,
and to turn it into giving. Herein lieth the difference betwixt lending^
and giving : lending is on condition to have again that which is lent, or
* Doceresimpliciter eetmeKus quam pasuereAd^JVAe, Summ. Secunda Pars, art. ii.
" The mere act of communicating iustraction to children's minds is better than that of
feeding their bodies."EDIT.
THAT THY MAY BX ACCKPTABLK TO GOD ?
227
ftt leaet the worth of it some other way ; giving is free, without any inch
condition. That advice of Christ, to " lend, hoping for nothing again,"
hath respect to the mind of the lender, that he should not have his mind
wholly and only upon the repaying of what he lendeth, but on the need
f his brother. He is not simply to lend, because he is persuaded he shall
lose nothing but have his own again ; he is to lend, because he doeth
therein great kindness to his brother, who stands in much need thereof.
The Greek word properly signifieth "to despair;"41 and so it may
here be taken : as if he had said, " When your brother hath need to
borrow, lend, though his case be such that you even despair of receiving
it again, though you run some hazard of losing the principal."
If, therefore, it so fall out that the debtor be not able to repay what
he borrowed, forgive it him. He lends, "hoping for nothing again/' who
is willing to forgive, in case the necessity of the borrower require it. This
was it which Nehemiah enjoined the rich Jews. (Neh. v. 11.) Excellently doth our Lord press this duty in the parable of the two creditors ;
where we have a commendable pattern of a certain king, that in such a
case forgave a great debt ; and of the sore revenge he executed on one of
his servants, because he did not in like manner forgive his fellow-servant.
(Matt, xviii. 2335.)
In the Old Testament it is commended to us under the phrase of
" restoring the pledge." (Ezek. xviik 7; xxxiii. 15.) A pledge was a
pawn left by a debtor with his creditor, for assurance to repay the debt.
(Gen. xxxviii. 17* 18.) Restoring the pledge when the debt was not
paid, was an evidence of remitting the debt.
5. By hospitality, which consisteth not so much in a loving entertainment of kindred, friends, and neighbours, as of strangers ; as the word
in the Greek importeth.f
This is that hospitality which is both commanded and commended to
us in the holy scripture.
It commanded in those known precepts of the apostle St. Paul: " Be
given to hospitality;" (Bom. xii. 13 ;) and, "Be not forgetful to entertain
strangers." (Heb. xiii. 2.) Which is as much as to say, " Forget not
hospitality, which is an entertaining of strangers." And the apostle St.
Peter commands the faithful to whom he writes, to "use hospitality
without grudging," or repining. (I Peter iv. 9.)
It i commended to us in the practice of God's people : as of Abraham ;
of whom it is recorded, that he sat at his tent-door, looking and waiting,
as it were, for strangers to entertain them ; and so soon as he saw three
men, whom he took for such, he ran to invite them : (Gen. xviii. 1 3 :)
and of Lot, that as he sat in the gate of Sodom, he saw two whom he
* $* EXnfcu', tperwre ; orcXrtCcty, detperare.
t , compounded
of $iXfw et {vow. Hoepitalita* ett ipeciet liberalitatit qua peregrine, t hotpite*, ao
pratertim propter vera doctrina profesnonem ensuhmte, vera benevotentiA, et aliquibvt
qfficii* hotpifaKtatit prosequimur.URSIXI Catechimus, quest, iii. " Hospitality i
one kind of liberality; namely, liberality and bountifulness toward travellers and
strangers, especially toward those that are exiles for the profession of the gospel, entertaining them with all duties of hospitality and Christian charity." PARRY'S Translation, 1646.
tori wpi ? m.CLEMEKS AlEXAH-
DRINVS. "Hospitality is a loTiag art, skilfully exercised in behalf of strangers."EDIT.
228
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT HANKER MUST WE GITE ALMS,
conceived to be strangers; them he exceedingly pressed to tarn into hie

house, where he made them a feast: (Gen. xiz. 3:) and of the Shunammite
woman and her husband, who showed themselves hospitable to the prophet Elieha, " as oft as he passed by" their house. (2 Kings iv. 8.) We
have Job's testimony of himself: " The stranger," said he, " did not
lodge in the street; bnt I opened my doors to the traveller:" (Job xxxi.
32:) which words set ont Job's great hospitality, who kept open house
for all passengers. In those days there was no common inn for the
entertainment of strangers; and therefore they must have lain oat of
doors, if some good men had not entertained them.
Having each and so many precedents of hospitality, let us strive to
follow them, labouring to write after their copy ; knowing assuredly that
our labour of love and cost therein shall not be in vain. For I may truly
say, it is a fruitful and gainful course of liberality; never did any lose by
it. Some hereby have entertained angels, as the apostle speaketh: " Be
not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares." (Heb. xiii. 2.) In setting down this recompence, the
apostle hath an especial respect unto two instances; oue of Abraham, and
the other of Lot. (Gen. xviii. 2; xix. 1.)
Angels came to both these, in the appearance of men, whom they
knew not; which showeth God's high account of this duty, in that once
and again he sent angels, to such as were ready to entertain strangers.
Yea, we may entertain Christ himself; and, indeed, in every entertainment of a poor godly stranger, Christ himself is entertained. And therefore, in the great day of judgment, we read that Christ puts-in this good
work by name : " I was a stranger, and ye took me in;" (Matt, xxv.
35;) Jesus Christ is a stranger in bis members.
In sacred scriptures we find several others rewarded for their hospitality : as, Bebekah, for her courtesy to Abraham's servant, a mere
stranger to her, was rewarded with precious gifts and a good husband. (Gen.
xxiv. 22, 67.)The Shunammite's hospitality to the prophet was recompensed with giving her a son, and restoring him to life. (2 Kings iv.)
The widow of Zarephath's hospitality to the prophet Elijah, in receiving
him into her house in a great famine, was rewarded with preserving and
increasing her meal and oil; for it is expressly said, that her " barrel of
meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail," until the Lord sent
plenty of food. (1 Kings xvii. 16.)Gaius's hospitality towards St. Paul,
in receiving him into his house, was recompensed with an honourable
testimony, which both St. Paul and St. John gave of him. (Bom. xvi.
23; 3 John 5, 6.)
OBJECTION. Some may object and say, " Instead of a godly man, I
may haply entertain some dissembling hypocrite, and so lose both my
gift and reward."
ANSWER. 1. Our charity ought to hope the best of every one, of
whom we have no evident proof or presumption to the contrary. (1 Cor.
xiii. 7.)
2. If we receive a distressed minister in the name of a minister of
Christ, or a private distressed Christian in the name of a righteous man,
supposing him to belong to Christ; let him be what he will, we shall
THAT THEY MAY BB ACCKPTABLK TO GOD?
229
neither lose gift nor reward; Christ hath undertaken the payment
thereof,
6. Bich men may and ought in some cases to express their charity,
even, by selling what they have, for the relief of others: according to that
of onr Saviour, " Sell that ye have, and give alms." (Luke xii. 33.)
QUESTION. " In what cases must rich men sell their estates, or any
part of them, for the relief of others ? "
ANSWER. 1. When they are extraordinarily called thereunto: as he that
asked Christ what he should do to inherit eternal life: Christ said unto
him, " Sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor." (Mark x. 17
21.) That which the apostles did in leaving their callings to follow
Christ, was equivalent to selling their possessions. (Matt. xix. 27.)
2. When they have defrauded and depressed others, and are rebuked
for that sin, or otherwise brought to repentance for the same, they ought
to testify the truth of their repentance by a full restitution, though it be
by parting with their possessions. Thus did the Jews, after their captivity, restore to their poor brethren, whom they had oppressed with
usury, their lands and their houses, &c. (Neh. v. 11, 12.) The instance
t>f Zaccheus tendeth also to this purpose, who promised to give the half
of his goods to the poor. (Luke xix. 8.)
3. When there are such a multitude of indigent persons in the church,
as the superfluity of such as are rich is not sufficient to relieve them. In
this case, Christians in the primitive church that "were possessors of
lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that
were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution
was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts iv. 34, 35.)
These particular cases, being all of them somewhat extraordinary, do
not patronize the Platonical and Familistical conceit of community of
goods. Which fond mistake of theirs, these arguments, amongst others,
may sufficiently confute, and evince propriety [proprietorship] in land
and possessions to be lawful now in the times of the gospel.
1. In those very times wherein Christians, for use, had all things
common, St. Peter expressly saith tq Ananias, concerning the lands
which he sold, " Whiles it remained, was it not thine own ? and after it
was sold, was it not in thine own power?" (Acts v. 4.) Hereby it
is manifest, that men then had a propriety in goods and lands.
2. The duties prescribed to rich men in the words of my text, " to do
good, to be ready to distribute, and willing to communicate," prove as
much,
3. The many admonitions to pay debts, to give tribute, and perform
other like duties of justice, do imply a propriety of goods/
4. Exhortations also to lend, and to sell, prove as much. (Luke vi. 35;
xi. 41.) For men may not lend nor sell that wherein they have not a
propriety.
5. Inhibitions against stealing, and against all kind of injustice, presuppose a propriety. (Eph. iv. 28; 1 These, iv. 6.)
Thus have I done with the seventh property, requisite to the right
manner of giving alms, which is bounty and liberality; whereon I have
somewhat the longer insisted, because it is the principal thing intended
230
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE CITE ALMS,
in my text,That " they which are rich in this world's goods, be rich in
good works." I shall add but one more.
ANSWER vm. Oor alms must be given prudently, with discretion,
according to every one's need. It is said of the merciful man, " A good
man showeth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion." (Psalm cxii. 5.) And truly there is a great deal of discretion to be
used, in the ordering of our charity; by putting a difference between
poor and poor; for, as one saith, " Unadvised giving is the worst kind
of losing."*
Prudence in alms-giving is commended to us by our Saviour, in this
word, distribute: ? , "Distribute unto the poor." (Luke
xviii. 22.) For " to distribute," is with discretion to give to sundry persons several portions, according to their need. When mention is made
of a prudent, discreet relieving [of] the poor, it is thus expressed:
" Distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."
(Acts iv. 35.)
For the better performing this due discretion: in our charity, let these
rules following be observed :
1. They are before other to be relieved, over whom we have an especial
charge.As they who are of our household, of our own house and
family, as wife, children, and servants. For, as the apostle speaketh, " If
any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he
hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Tim. v. 8.)
2. In our charity we ought to have a special respect unto our poor kindred,For of those is the fore-mentioned place (1 Tim. v. 8) to be
understood; where the word in the Greek, rcov oixeieov, translated
" house," is rendered kindred in the margin of your Bibles. For the
scope of the apostle is to free the church from unnecessary charges,
and to that end doth impose the care of providing for poor kindred upon
such of their relations as were able. (1 Tim. v. 16.)
3. They are to be relieved who are of the congregation or parish
whereof we are members,Especially they who dwell near unto us, in
regard that we may best know their wants. (Dent. xv. 7, 8.)
4. They whom we have just cause to believe that they are of the house
hold of faith. (Gal. vi. 10.)For we may judge them to be true in their
words; and believe that their wants are such as they declare them to be.
Now, amongst the godly, such are especially to be relieved, and to be
preferred in our charity, who are imprisoned, or otherwise suffer, for
Christ and the gospel's sake. For Christ in a special manner is relieved
in the persons of such as himself will acknowledge at the day of judgment, when he will pronounce that blessed sentence of absolution to
such merciful men: " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for yon from the foundation of the world: for I was an
hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I
was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me: I was in
prison, and ye came unto me," &c. (Matt. xxv. 3436.)
5. They whom we discern to stand in need of present succour.
Though they be mere strangers, whom we never saw or knew before.
* Tvrpiitimum genus perdendi st inconsvita donatio.
231
Hereof we have a worthy pattern set before us in the good Samaritan.

(Luke z. 33, &c.)
6. They who are in prison, or eick, or any other ways restrained from
making their want known unto other*. (Matt. XXY. 36.)
7. They of whose piety, poverty, and necessity, credible testimony is
brought unto us, though we see them not ourselves.Thus many of the
Christian Gentiles sent relief to the churches at Jerusalem upon the
apostle's making known their wants. (Bom. xv. 25, 26; Acts xxiv. 17.)
In 4hese and other like cases we ought to extend our charity, according to the necessity of those whom we relieve, and our own ability; and
not think it enough to give a few scraps of bread and meat, or some
halfpennies or pence, to common beggars at our doors, or in the streets.
This kind of alms savoureth more of vain outward ostentation, than of
true inward compassion; and it more beseems proud Pharisees, than
humble Christians. A charitable Christian ordinarily giveth more to one
whose distressed case he knows, or is credibly made known unto him,
than these Pharisees do to many beggars at many times.
QUESTION. But you will say, "Do ye, then, utterly condemn all
giving to common beggars, as unlawful?"
ANSWER. For answer to this question, we must distinguish of common
beggars. Some are strong and lusty, able to work; and yet are so lazy,
that they will not work, but would live by the sweat of other men's
brows. Others, again, are weak and impotent, unable to work through
age, sickness, lameness, blindness, or the like.
These latter are fit objects of charity, and therefore ought to be
relieved. But the former sort of beggars (namely, the strong and lusty,
who are able to work, but will not through laziness) are no fit objects of
charity, and therefore it is no work of charity to relieve such; for,
1. Their trade of life is no warrantable catting.It is a disorderly
walking, which is expressly taxed by the apostle; for, saith he, " When
we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work,
neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk
among yon disorderly, working not at all." (2 These, iii. 10, 11.) It
cannot be said of those, "As the Lord hath called every one, so let
him walk:" or, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he
was called." (1 Cor. vii. 17 20.) God hath called none to such a trade.
2. They are a drones in a hive of .-They live of the labours of
others, but bring in nothing to the stock, as all the other bees do. They
are as barren trees, which receive sap from the earth, but yield no fruit;
"unprofitable burdens of the earth,"* whose sad doom ye may read,
Luke xiii. 7.
3. Many of them are of no particular church, nor of any civil society s
but out of all government in church and state.In this and the former
respect they may justly be styled " children of Belial," without yoke.
(Deut. xiii. 13.)
4. They withhold, and in a manner rob the state wherein they dwell
of their labour and pains.The state or kingdom is as a body; all that
dwell therein are as so many members. Now, nature teacheth every
* Telluns inutile pontûs.
232
SERMON XI.
member to do somewhat for the benefit of the whole. These, doing

nothing thereto, sin against the light of nature,
5. They who are truly poor shall by this means be neglected and
wanted: whilst these lazy drones devour that which of right belongeth
unto them.
6. They are a great scandal and shame to the government of the nation
wherein they are.For their course of life implieth that no good provision is made for the poor; nor order taken to set such as are able to
work, and to relieve such as are impotent. Now, it is a great sin to be a
shame to one's own country.
7 Their kind of life is sensual and brutish.For as brutes they spend
all their days in seeking food for their bodies.
From hence it followeth that they who relieve such make themselves
accessary to the fore-mentioned sins.*
There are some allegations made for relieving such; but they are
undue allegations, and may easily be answered. The chiefest of them is
this:
1. Christ commandeth to "give to every man that asketh of thee."
(Luke vi. 30.)
ANSWER. To this I answer, that the precept is to be taken in reference to a false position of the Pharisees; which was this,that their
countrymen and friends only were their neighbours, whom by the law
they were bound to love. That this was their opinion, is evident by this
their gloss on the law : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine
enemy;" (Matt. v. 43;) and by the parable which Christ produceth to
demonstrate to the lawyer who was his neighbour. (Luke x. 29, &c.) In
opposition to that false doctrine, Christ commands to "give," not to
friends only, but " to every man." So as the scope of that precept is,
to take away respect of persons in alms-giving; that we should not
restrain this duty of charity to countrymen, kindred, and friends; but
extend it also to strangers, enemies, and to every one, that, being in need,
craves it of us.
2. A second allegation is, " that many beggars may perish, if they be
not relieved."
ANSWER. In case of necessity they may and must be relieved, either at
doors, in streets, or other like places, where their necessity is manifested.
" Necessity," as we speak, " hath no law." It dispenses with ordinary
rules. Instance that which Christ produced concerning David: "He
entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was
not lawful." (Matt. xii. 4.)
I have done with the question allotted to me. Give me leave to add a
few words, for the more profitable pressing this most necessary, but
much-neglected, duty of charity. I shall dispatch my intendmeut herein,
* Qui largiuntur indignis ea qua dignis conferri debebant, Ma committunt abeurda:
I. Nam et ipsi jacturam fanv/nt, 2. Et in bonos contumeliosi sunf. 3. Et malos
roborant materia vitiorum suppedila. " Three great absurdities are committed by those
who bestow on the undeserving what ought to have been conferred only on the worthy s
1. They suffer the loss of their own property. 2. They both injure and reproach good
people. 3. And they strengthen bad men, by supplying materials for pampering their
vices."EDIT.
THAT THEY MAY BX ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
233
I. By showing you by what MEAN you may obtain this grace.
II. Giving you some MOTIVES to quicken you up to a conscionable

performance of the works of it.
I. The MEANS are these:
1. Meditation. Seriously meditate,
(1.) Of the necessity of it; which arieeth from the Lord's express
charge and command, unto which we are bound to yield obedience. It
is often commanded, both in the Old and New Testament. That I may
not be tedious, I shall give you but two or three proofs: Deut. xv. 11;
a place I often mentioned for the excellency and exceeding pertinency of
it to this purpose. Saith the Lord to his people there : " The poor shall
never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou
shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy
needy, in thy land;" that is, thou shalt give unto him freely and bountifully. And saith our Saviour in the New Testament: " Give to him that
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away." (Matt. v. 42.) And saith the apostle: "To do good and to
communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased;"
(Heb. xiii. 16;) in which words he presseth the duty with a forcible
motive; for who would not do that which is well-pleasing unto God, who
is bountiful in rewarding the least good we do upon his command ?
This duty of alms-giving being so expressly commanded in scripture,
it is not in our power to omit or neglect the same; neither can any
creature give us a dispensation against the Creator's command. A
prophet styleth omission of that which God enjoineth to be done, yea,
though that omission were but in part, and that upon a fair pretence,
" rebellion, which is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness, which is
as iniquity and idolatry." (1 Sam. xv. 23.) Against him who failed in
performing the charge enjoined him, though he were a king, this doom
is denounced: "Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he
hath also rejected thee from being king." (Verse 26.) In like manner
may God reject such as neglect this duty of charity, when he calls them
to it, from being kings, and reigning in heaven. We have a manifest
instance thereof, Matt. xxv. 4143.
Now, the giving of alms being a duty so expressly commanded in the
holy scriptures, it cannot therefore be accounted a matter merely arbitrary, left to a man's own will, to give or not to give. But it is a
bounden duty, which they that in any competent measure can do, must
not omit: which consideration cannot but be a strong incitation unto us
to make conscience of this duty of alms-giving, as occasion is offered,
and not to overslip opportunities that by the Divine Providence are
offered unto us. Should we neglect that which our Lord hath
expressly commanded ? that whereunto, by virtue of that command, we
are bound ? that whereof we are to give an account ? Let us, upon the
Lord's commands, do what in this kind we can; and when we have
done what we can, say, " We are unprofitable servants: we have done
that which was our duty to do." (Luke xvii. 10.)
(2.) Of the equity of this duty of alms-giving. It is a most equal
thing, that he who hath wherewithal should give to him that hath not.
234
SERMON XI.
The equity ariseth both from the Divine Providence, and also from the
instability of man's state and condition.
(i.) God for this end gives more to some than to others, that they
who have more abundance should give, out of their abundance, to them
who are in want. This was typically signified by the gathering of
manna; [of] which, though it were rained down from heaven, yet the
Lord would not allow that they who had gathered much, even more than
was needful for themselves and their household, should hoard up their
superfluity, bat enjoined them to communicate of their abundance to such
as had not enough. The which the apostle applieth to the giving of
alms, out of our abundance, to those who want; which he styleth
'equality." (2 Cor. viii. 14.)
(ii.) Man's state is so variable, as he who now hath may quickly want,
and in want desire to be succoured by such as have. It is thereupon
most equal, that they who would be succoured in their need should be
willing to succour the need of others. This equity doth Christ himself
press: " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to yon, do
ye even so to them;" and as a ground to enforce this the further, he
addeth: " For this is the Law and the Prophets:" (Matt. vii. 12:) hereby
implying, that this doctrine is contained in the Law and the Prophets.
But that is not all: these words, " This is the Law and the Prophets,"
intend that the sum of the Law and the Prophets consisteth therein;
and the main scope of them tendeth thereunto; namely, so far as they
contain the duties of man to man. So evident is the equity hereof, even
by the light of nature, as the very Heathen, who wanted the light of
God's word, discerned it. Well, therefore, might the apostle enforce this
duty of charity upon this ground: thus, " Remember them that are in
bonds, as bound with them;" (Heb. ziii. 3;) that is, "Be helpful to
others which cannot help themselves, as yon would have others afford
succour unto you, if you were succourless."
(3.) Meditate of the manifold singular benefit* which do follow and
accompany a consdonable performance of this duty.For thereby we
discharge our duty to God, who requireth it at our hands; and, as a consequent thereof, we shall glorify God; for it tends much to his praise and
glory when, in such works as himself hath commanded, his children
testify their obedience and thankfulness: and therefore saith onr Saviour,
" Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." (John zv. 8.)
And by onr charity, as we shall grace and adorn our holy profession,
so we shall stop the mouths of wicked men from speaking any evil of us
or of our profession; for how are men apt to speak of us, and of our
profession, according to the fruits we bring forth, and the good works
which we do I
And as we shall thereby comfort and make glad the hearts of the poor
and distressed, so we shall refresh our own souls, in that our works of
charity will evidence our fruits to be sound and saving, lively and effectual ; for as Rachel said to Jacob, " Give me children, or else die;"
[Gen. xxx. 1;] in like manner saith faith to the soul of a Christian,
"' Give me children,' let me bring forth good works, * else I die,' and
have no life in me;" according to that of the apostle James, "Faith
THAT THEY MAY BK ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
235
without works is dead:" (Jamee ii. 26 :) it is not a living bat a dead

faith, that manifest not its life by working.
2. A meditation, so prayer, is a special means on our part to be performed for attaining onto this grace of charity. I say, earnest and fervent prayer unto God for the same; for as he is the Fountain and Author
of every good gift, so he hath sanctified prayer, as the means of obtaining every good gift from him.
Be earnest, therefore, with God in prayer, that he would be pleased to
give thee, as a compassionate heart towards the needs and necessities of the
poor members of Jesus Christ, so aa open hand, that thou mayest freely
and liberally contribute unto them, according to their necessity, and thy
ability. Beg of God that, as he hath blessed thee with some competent
estate, so he would add this mercy,to give thee an heart to give out
proportionably to what he hath given thee; and that in testimony of thy
love and thankfulness unto him. But, alas! how few are there who in
their prayers unto God are mindful of this grace of charity ! How few
are there who ever begged of God that he would be pleased to implant
this noble grace of charity in their hearts! If, upon examination, thou
findeat thyself to have been faulty therein, go, take up a new resolution
to be earnest with God in prayer for this grace especially, and never to
give over till thou find it in some measure wrought in thy soul, till thou
find thyself, upon all good occasions, " ready to distribute, and willing
to communicate," to the needs and necessities of thy poor brethren.
3. Diligence in our calling is another means on our part to be performed, for the practising of charity. He that would be charitable to
the poor in their needs and necessities, must be diligent and industrious
in his calling, so that he may have wherewithal to express his charity:
for men's diligence in their callings is usually crowned with a blessing;
according to that of the Wise Man : " The hand of the diligent maketh
rich." And again: " The soul of the diligent shall be made fat;" (Prov.
z. 4; ziii. 4;) that is, shall be enriched with outward blessings: and
the Greeks say that " plentifulness follows painfulness;" and that " all
things are made servants to care and industry." * And therefore the apostle Paul prescribeth diligence and industry in a lawful calling as a means
of charity: " Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him
labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may
have to give to him that needeth." (Eph. iv. 28.) This is one end we
should propound to ourselves, in the works of our callings; namely, that,
through God's blessing on our pains and endeavours, we may have not
only sufficient for our own livelihood, and of them that belong unto us,
but also somewhat for the relief of others. Solomon, describing the
virtuous woman, saith, in the first place, that " she seeketh wool, and
flax, and worketh willingly with her hands;" and then, that "she
stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands
to the needy." (Prov. zxxi. 13, 20.)
4. Be careful to prevent all tuperfiuities in your expenset.As dili* wXovroj ewijii rrjs warm .
Riches
are always found in company with labour; and every thing become subservient to
attentive carefulness,"EDIT.
236 SERMON xr. AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GIVE ALMS,

gence in your callings, so frugality in your spending, is a special means
for the practice of charity. " Frugality," says Justin, " is the mother of
virtue." * I am sure it is the foundation and supporter of charity: for,
let a man's estate be never so great, yet, if there be not frugality used in
the management thereof, there will be but little found for works of
charity. And, on the other side, though a man's estate be but mean
and low in the world; yet, if there be frugality used in the management
of it, there will be ever somewhat for charitable uses. As, therefore,
thou desirest to be charitable, be careful to prevent all unnecessary
expenses; I mean, let not thy apparel be too costly; for how can it be
expected that they should be charitable, ready to distribute to the necessities of others, who lay out the greatest part of their estates upon their
backs ? Neither let thy feastings be too frequent, nor too chargeable;
which is noted for one of the sins of the old world, who " were given to
eating," as the word in the original, , properly signifieth. (Matt,
xxiv. 38.) Neither let thy recreations be too expensive, in playing more
for money than for refreshment. 0 that such of you who spend so
much time and money on your recreations (as if God had sent you into
the world, and given you the good things of the world, for no other end
than to follow your pleasures) would consider what a fearful reckoning
you are to make at the day of judgment, not only of your precious time
lavishly mis-spent, but also of your estate wickedly lost or wasted; when
in thy account there shall be found so much wasted in gaming and pleasures, and so little given to the poor!
5. Set apart something out of thine incomes and receipts, as a sacred
*tock,for charitable uses,For, (1.) Hereby thou wilt be fitted and prepared with matter for such uses, having always somewhat by thee to give
upon any good occasion. (2.) By this means thou wilt more readily
and willingly, more freely and liberally, contribute to the needs and
necessities of others, having a stock by thee for that very end and purpose. All men naturally are hard-hearted, and close-handed; f and
thereupon are very hardly persuaded to part with any thing considerable
for charitable uses. But this consecrating beforehand a part of thine
estate for the use of the poor, will cause thy charity to flow out more
freely and bountifully.
Now a sacred stock for the poor may be raised two ways:
(1.) By setting apart something every Lord's day, out of thy comings-in
the week before, according as God hath prospered thee,Which practice
we find prescribed unto us by the direction of the Holy Ghost, and warranted unto us by apostolical authority: for, saith the apostle Paul
to the Corinthians, " Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I
have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the
first day of the week," which is the Lord's day, " let every one of you
lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him ;" (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2;)
* Geiietrix virtutum frugalitas.JUSTINUS, lib. xx. cap. 4.
f Ad opes
honoresguc expetendos, ad eumulandas diviliae, furiosa eat noslra libido, infinita
cupiditas.CALVIVI Institutions, lib. 31. " Most outrageous is our natural deeire,
and infinite our cupidity, for the acquisition of property, influence, and honour, and ior
the accumulation of riches."EDIT.
THAT THEY MAT BE ACCKPTABLK TO GOD?
237
that is, according to the ability wherewith God hath blessed him, let him
set apart something for the relief of the poor, especially the poor saints.
This rule I would commend to such who live upon their daily labour.
But for those merchants, citizens, and tradesmen, who sell much of their
wares upon trust, and know not certainly at the week's end what they
have gained, I would advise such, when they have cast up their accounts
at the year's end, to set apart something of their comings-in that year,
according as God hath prospered them, for charitable uses; as they
expect God's blessing upon their trading the year following.*
(2.) By consecrating unto God a certain portion of thy yearly income
and revenues for charitable me.What this portion should be, I dare
not determine, the scriptures being silent therein; only in the general we
are commanded to give out proportionably to what God hath given unto
us, that they who are rich in this world's goods be rich in good works.
But this I can say, that the most that I have heard or read of, who have
taken this course to consecrate unto God a certain portion of their estate
to charitable uses, have followed the example of Jacob, in giving a tenth
part unto God. (Gen. xxviii. 22.) And as God did exceedingly bless
Jacob after his vow, so likewise hath be blessed divers others after their
vow unto God.
An eminent divine of this city.f now with God, in his funeral sermon
at the burial of a merchant, speaking of his charity, saith, that at hie
first effectual call, among other things he then resolved upon, this was
one, to set apart every year a tenth of his gain for the relief of the poor;
and that God from that time forward abundantly advanced his estate.
And, withal, he adds a passage very remarkable, and therefore I shall
give it yon in his, own words: " True it is that for some space of time,
some three or four years after that his resolution of setting a tenth apart
for such purposes, he thrived not, he found no increase, nor came forward in the world, as formerly he had done; yet was he not thereby discouraged ; nor did he forbear to be bountiful, as opportunity was offered,
and the necessity of poor people required it. But he gave still with
cheerfulness and comfort, out of love to God; conceiving that God, in
wisdom and goodness, prospered him not, thereby to try hi sincerity to
Him, and hi charity to others ; yea, and that he himself might thereby
have experience of his love unto God, his faith, patience, and constancy."
But then he adds; " From that time forward, God abundantly advanced
his estate; so that he found experimentally all those gracious promisee
of God true, of bis blessing of him that ' disperseth and dispenseth to
the poor,' (Psalm cxii. 9,) and of the repayment of that with interest that
is so lent to the Lord. (Prov. xix. 17.)"
Another eminent divine, in his funeral sermon at the burial of the
Lord Harrington, speaking of his charity, declared, that in his life-time
he gave the tenth part of his yearly revenue to the poor.
And from mine own experience I can tell you of one yet living, who,
* This paragraph was added by the author after the publication of the first edition..
EDIT.
f Mr. Thomas Gataker, in his funeral sermon at the burial of Mr. John
Parker, merchant and citizen of London.
The remainder of this paragraph is
to be found only in the first edition.EDIT.
Mr. Stock.
238
SERMON XI.
finding little coming-in by his trade, resolved upon two things: (i.) To
be more careful in sanctifying the Lord's day. (ii.) To set apart the
tenth of hie increase for charitable uses. Whereupon he gained so much
in a few years, that he gave over his calling, and ever since liveth upon
his rents.
Many like instances I could give you of some that are dead, and
others yet living, who have devoted, some a tenth, and others a fifth,
part of their whole estate to pious and charitable uses. *Which I do not
propound as a general rule to all good Christians; for, some there are
who have no more than is necessary for the comfortable support of
themselves and families, from whom less is required for the relief of
others. But I question whether such whom the Lord hath blessed with
a plentiful estate, so that their necessary expenses are, nr might be, far
less than their incomes, can be accounted " rich in good works," unless
they give at least a tenth part of their whole yearly income to charitable
uses. I say of their " whole yearly income," without first deducting
any part thereof for diet, clothes, or other necessary expenses ; for the
tenth of the remainder will be a very inconsiderable proportion for a rich
man to devote to charity, and far short of that which the scripture
seems to call for. It is recorded of the Jews, that very many amongst
the richer sort, who are devout in their religion, do usually give away a
tenth part of their estate to charitable uses. And is it not very unbeseeming Christians who are rich in this world's goods to fall short of the
Jews herein ?
II. Having thus done with the MEANS on our part to be performed
for attaining unto this grace of charity, come we now to the MOTIVES,
to quicken us up to a conscionable performance of the works of it. I
shall touch only upon these four:
1. The excellency of the duty.
2. The piety which it containeth in it.
3. The profit which ariseth from it.
4. The damage which follows upon the neglect thereof.
1. The first motive or inducement to charity may be taken from the
excellency thereof.I suppose that all will grant that the greatest
excellency that a creature can attain unto, is to beJike his Creator.
That excellency wherein man was at first created, is thus set out: " God
created man in his own image;" that is, "in his own likeness." (Gen.
i. 26, 27.) And that excellency wherewith we shall be glorified in
heaven is set out by our likeness to Christ; for it is said, our bodies
shall then "be fashioned like unto his glorious body," (Phil. iii. 21,)
yea, in the whole man : " when he shall appear, we shall be like him."
(1 John iii. 2.)
Now, while we live on earth, there is nothing wherein we can show

ourselves more like unto God than in showing mercy, and in succouring
such as stand in need. When God sets himself to proclaim his name,
he most insisteth upon his mercifulness and goodness. (Exod. xxxiv. 6.)
Christ himself doth press this motive to enforce this duty ; thus : " Be
ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." (Luke vi. 36.)
* The remaining sentences in this paragraph do not occur in the first edition.EDIT.
THAT THEY MAT BK ACCXPTABLJE TO GOD ?
239
The excellency of charity doth herein farther appear, that Christ hath
set the poor in his own room; insomuch as they who relieve the poor do
therein relieve Christ himself. So much doth Christ acknowledge,
where he saith to such as succoured the poor, " Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me." (Matt. xxv. 40.) Is it not an excellent thing to relieve Christ ?
They, then, that relieve the poor do an excellent work. As it is a great
aggravation of persecuting the true professors of the faith, because
therein they persecute Christ himself, (as is implied under this divine
voice that affrighted Saul, while he was breathing out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" Acts ix. 4,) so it is a great commendation of true
charity, that Christ himself is relieved thereby.
2. Another motive is the piety, which in and by performing this duty
of almt-giving is manifested.Piety, I say, to God : for " pure religion
and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction." (James i. 27.) Here he puts two
particulars, for all kinds of charity; and by this phrase, " pure religion
before Ood is this," he intends four things:>
(1.) That it is but a mere show of religion that is without charity.
(2.) That true religion will make men charitable.
(3.) That charity will prove men to be truly religious.
(4.) That works of charity are as acceptable to God as duties of
religion. For God accounts charity "an odour of a sweet smell, a
sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing unto him/' (Phil. iv. 18.) The poor
and needy are to God as the altars of burnt-offerings and incense were
under the law. Those things which were laid on them, and offered up,
were given to the Lord, and as a gift accepted by him. Even so are
alms given to the poor; the poor are the altar, alms the sacrifice.
Now, who would not dispose of that which he hath, as God may account
it given to him, and answerably accept it ? On this very ground doth
the apostle incite the Hebrews to this duty, in this manner: " To do
good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is
well pleased/' (Heb. xiii. 16.) Thus we see how works of charity are
not only useful and profitable to man, but also acceptable and well-pleasing
to God; which consideration addeth much life to the duty here pressed.
3. A third motive is, the manifold profit wherewith it i rewarded*
Profit and advantage is the motive, which, for the most part, spurs men
on to labour and take pains ; to rise early, and sit up late ; to venture
goods, life, and all they have. Witness the pains, travels, and watchings, and adventures of labourers, workmen, tradesmen, farmers, merchants, mariners, &c.: * yet that profit which they aim at is but earthly
and temporary, and their hope of attaining it uncertain. Surely, works
of charity give an assured hope of a far greater and better profit than
earth can afford.
* Omnes expetimus viililalem, ad eamque rapimur, nee facere aliter utto modo
postumus.CICERO De Officiis, lib. iii. All of us are engaged in the search of that
which we consider to be useful; and in the pursuit of it we are impelled forward, and
incapable of acting in any other manner than as we really do."EDIT.
240
SERMON XI.
In general it is promised, that if we cast oar bread upon the waters,

we shall find it after many days; [Eccles. xi. 1 ;] that is, if we give
alms to the poor, where all we do may seem to be cast away, as if it
were thrown into the sea; yet, in due time, will it return to us with
advantage.1" And lest any should be discouraged from doing works of
charity, our Saviour assureth us, that " whosoever shall give a cup of
cold water only," (which is one of the least acts of charity we can perform,) " shall in no wise lose his reward." (Matt. x. 42.)
If, in special, it be demanded, What profit is there of charity ? I
answer, as the apostle did of circumcision, " Much every way." (Rom.
iii. 2.) Yea, I may say of charity, as the apostle doth of piety: it " is
profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of
that which is to come." (1 Tim. iv. 8.)
In this life is promised,
(1.) Sufficiency: "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack;"
(Prov. xxviii. 27;) that is, he shall be secured from want and penury.
God will not suffer him to be brought to penury, who hath been
charitable to the poor.
(2.) Not only sufficiency, but likewise abundance: for, saith the Wise
Man, "Honour the Lord with thy substance," by giving freely and
cheerfully to charitable and pious uses: "so shall thy barns be filled
with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine;" (Prov.
iii. 9, 10;) which is an hyperbolical expression, implying plenty and
abundance.
(3.) Good success in what he enterpriseth. According to that of
Moses, " Thou shalt surely give him, because that for this thing the
Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou
puttest thine hand unto." (Deut. xv. 10.)
(4.) Deliverance out of trouble: for, saith the Psalmist, " Blessed is
he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of
trouble." (Psalm xli. 1.)
(5.) Protection against enemies: as it followeth in the next verse:
" Thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of bis enemies." (Verse 2.)
(6.) Succour in sickness; as the prophet goes on: "The Lord will
strengthen him upon the bed of languishing;" (verse 3;) that is, the
Lord will comfort and support him in his sickness, and at length restore
his strength again. "Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness;"
that is, thou wilt give him ease and rest, as they do to sick men that
make their beds.
(7.) To pass by other particulars, blessedness, which cotnpriseth
under it all manner of commodities, is promised to the charitable person.
(Prov. xxii. 9.) And in Psalm xli. 2, it is said, " He shall be blessed
upon the earth;" yea, and " at the resurrection of the just." (Luke
xiv. 14.)
(8.) This promise is extended to his posterity ; for " his seed shall be
blessed." (Psalm xxxvii. 26.)
*Fecundus est ager peatpemm; otto reddit donantibus /ruc<wm._AvGUSTiNU8,
Sermo De Divite. " The field of the poor is a fertile soil: ite returns of fruit, to those
who are benefactors to it, are abundant."EDIT.
THAT THEY * ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
241
These and other like promises of temporal, spiritual, and eternal

blessings, being made by the Lord God of truth, may with much confidence be rested upon: for God's words are deeds; his promises, performances.
In the lift to come, merciful men shall " inherit the kingdom prepared
for them from the foundation of the world." (Matt. xxv. 34.)
There are, among others, two metaphors often used by the Holy Ghost,
in setting out alms-giving, which do much amplify the commodity thence
arising: one is taken from lending ; the other from sowing.
(1.) Alms-giving is set forth in scripture by lending; yea, to such a
lending whereby we have not only the principal restored, but with great
increase. And whereas such as put forth their money unto men can
expect but six in the hundred; if we, in obedience to the command of
God, shall freely part with our money to the use of the poor, for their
relief, we shall receive an hundred for six, yea, an hundred for one, and
eternal life to boot. (Mark x. 30.) And we need not to doubt of the
payment; for though the poor be never so unable, yet we have an allsufficient Surety, even God himself, who hath undertaken to pay whatsoever is thus put forth; according to that of the Wise Man : " He that
hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he bath
given will he pay him again." (Prov. xix. 17.) Where yon have God's
counter-bond to save you harmless, in which he both acknowledged the
debt, and promiseth payment. And what better security can any man
desire than a bond under God's own hand ? The consideration whereof
should, methinks, make us willing to embrace any opportunity of putting
out our money to this great advantage.
( 2.) As for the other metaphor of sowing, it is in scripture applied to
alms-giving, under this phrase, " He hath dispersed." (Psalm cxii. 9.)
As the husbandman disperseth his seed which he soweth in the earth, so
doth the alms-giver bis alms; therefore this is added by way of exposition : " He hath given to the poor." The apostle also applieth unto
alms-giving this proverbial speech: " He which soweth sparingly shall
reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also
bountifully." (2 Cor. ix. 6.) Now, what is it that ordinarily bringeth
forth a greater increase than sowing seed in fertile ground ? It is said
of Isaac, that he " sowed in the land, and received in the same year an
hundredfold." (Gen. xxvi. 12.) And Christ saith, that "good ground"
beareth fruit, some " an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold."
(Matt. xiii. 8.) Now, alms-giving is one of those things that shall receive
an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
If, therefore, profit and advantage may be a motive to stir us up unto
anything, surely it should be a motive to incite us unto liberality in almsgiving, to be bountiful in contributing to the relief of the poor.
For it is a most certain truth, that " giving to the poor is the surest
and safest way of getting." For though husbandmen may sometime
lose the benefit of their seed sown, through mildews, or unseasonable
weather; and such as put their money to use may come short of their
principal; yet he who with an honest and sincere heart giveth to the
poor, shall in no wise lose his reward. For, as the Wise Man speaketh,
242
SERMON XI.
" there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth;" (Prov, xi. 24 5) intimating unto us, that this scattering is the best way of increasing. And,
indeed, so it is ; for hath not our Saviour promised, that if we " give, it
shall be given unto us; good measure, pressed down, and shaken
together?" (Luke vi. 38.) Here God gives us, as it were, a bill of his
hand, and enters into bond, and becomes surety with the poor, that what
we give shall be repaid with advantage. This is a paradox to worldly
men, that giving should be the surest and safest way of getting and
increasing ; yet nothing [is] more clearly laid down in the scripture, and
found to be true by the experience of God's people.
4. The fourth motive and inducement is the damage which may ensue
upon the neglect of alms-giving.Though it argue a kind of servile disposition to be moved with fear of loss or pain,* to a duty; yet of that
disposition are many; and in that respect this may be added as an
inducement to the duty.
The damage that may arise upon the neglect of charity, when it ought
to be showed, is, in the kind thereof, as large as the fore-mentioned
benefits of performing the duty, in the kind of it. For, neglect of tbe
duty doth not only cause a forfeiture of all the fore-mentioned benefits
arising from the performance thereof, but also pulleth upon the neglecter'e
head many evils. Where the Wise Man saith, " The merciful man doeth
good to his own soul," he addeth, " But he that is cruel troubleth his own
flesh." (Prov. xi. 17.) Soul and flesh are the two essential parts of a
man; both the one and the other are synecdochically put for the whole
man ; even for the person. By a "cruel" man is meant an unmerciful
or hard-hearted man ; for he is opposed to a merciful man. The meaning, then, of this proverb is this : " As a merciful man doeth good, not
only to his poor brother, to whom he showeth mercy, but also to himself;
so a hard-hearted man doth not only grieve hie distressed neighbour in
affording him no succour, but also brings much damage to himself." For
he " that withholdeth more than is meet, cometh to poverty." (Verse 24.)
" Withholding " is there opposed to " scattering," which word hath reference to casting or sowing seed on the earth, to bring forth a crop ; and
thereby is meant alms-giving. On the contrary, " withholding more than
is meet," implies a denial of alms, when there is just cause to give.
Justice and equity require this duty, as we have before showed; so as
that phrase doth much aggravate this kind of unmercifulness; and, as a
just punishment thereof, that which covetous men, by refusing to give,
seek to prevent, shall fall upon them, even poverty.
And if in any distress they shall be forced to seek help of others,
even they shall be neglected as they neglected others. The Wise Man
testifieth as much in these words : " Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry
of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard." (Prov.
xxi. 13.) Not only other men, but also God himself, will refuse to hear
his cry. Dives, who refused to relieve Lazarus, could not obtain any to
afford him a drop of water to cool his tongue, when he was tormented in
* All the editions, except the first, have misprinted this word gain, to the manifest
injury of the author's argument, as is apparent through the whole of the fourth motive.
EDIT.
TflAT THEY MAY BB ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
243
hell-flames. (Luke xvi. 24.) It IB expressly sard, that " he shall have
judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy." (James ii. 13.)
For God deals with men according to their dealing with others. (Matt,
xviii. 33.)
Finally: As blessings are promised to merciful men, so curse* ttre

denounced againtt unmerciful men. (Prov. ixviii, 27.) As under " blessings** all manner of good things are comprised, so under " curses*' all
manner of evils. Unmerciful men shall have the curses of men, and
"people shall curse them." (Prov. xi. 26.) And at the great day of
Judgment, they shall be pronounced cursed by the Great Judge. For
" then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from.me, YE
CURSED, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for
I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave
me no drink," &c. (Matt. xxv. 41, &e.)*
Having thus done with the MOTIVES, I shall close this discourse with
answering some OBJECTION*, which keep back many from a conscionable
discharge of this duty.
OBJECTIONS.
OBJECTION i. Some object their great charge, having a wife and
many children to provide for; and are ready to say with the apostle,
that " parents ought to lay up for their children." (2 Cor. xii. 14.) And,
" If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own
house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Tim.
v. 8.) How, then, can we be liberal to the poor ?
ANSWER. 1. I deny not but parents ought to provide for their children, so far as they may with a good conscience. But know, that the
same apostle who commands you to lay up for your children doth likewise command you to lay out a considerable part of your estate for the
succour and relief of others: as Gal. vi. 10: "As we have therefore
opportunity, let Us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are
of the household of faith." And, Heb. xiii. 16 : " But to do good and to
communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."
If, therefore, yon would approve yourselves sincere Christians, yon jaust
bear an equal and impartial respect to all and every the commands of the
Lord, making conscience of one duty as well as of another.
2. The greater thy love, the stronger thine affections are to thy
children, the more liberal and bountiful shouldest thou be to the poor
saints and servants of Jesus Christ, that thereby thou mayest entail God's
blessing upon the persons and estate of thy children. I am sure thou wilt
grant that, without God's blessing, all [that] thou shall bequeath unto thy
children will little avail them; and what better course canst thou take to
procure God's blessing upon that part of thy estate which thou shalt leave
them, than freely to communicate some part thereof to pious and charitable uses ? For, as the Psalmist expresseth it, " the seed of the merciful
* In the first edition the conclusion of the sermon was at the end of this paragraph.
But, in the subsequent impressions, the benevolent author, ho was favoured by Heaven
both with the ability and the heart to practise his own precept, enlarged it with nine
Additional pages of most important matter, which the reader will peruse greatly to his
own pleasure and profit.EDIT,
244
SERMON XI.
AFTER WHAT MANNER MUST WE GTVE ALMS,
hall be blessed." (Psalm xxxvii. 26.) Whereby ie implied, that thy mercy
and liberality to the poor will entail God's blessing upon thy children.
Very solicitous many are to entail their lands and houses on their
posterity, that they may continue in the same family; but I know no
surer way than in their life-time to communicate a considerable part of
their estate to the poor: and thus, "by taking somewhat from your
children's portion for the relief of the poor, yon may exceedingly advance
their estate." * Hath God blessed thee with children ? in Christian
discretion, then, thou shouldest be charitable, that thereby thou mayest
procure God's blessing, both on thyself and posterity; for thy sparing
and withholding from the poor, to make thy children rich, may prove
the subversion and ruin of thine house and children.
3. Though thou oughtest to lay up some competent portions for thy
children, yet ought not that to be a pretence against laying out a portion
of thine estate here on the poor. For know, that the poor have a right
unto part of thine estate, as well as thy children, though not unto so
great a part. In which respect the Spirit of God calleth that part of the
rich man's stock which he can well spare, the poor man's " due," unto
whom of right it doth belong; for, saith he, " Withhold not good from
them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do
it." (ProT. iii. 27.) Whereupon said an ancient father, " It is the bread
of the hungry which moulders in thy cupboard ; it is the garment of the
naked which hangs useless in thy chamber; it is the gold of the poor
which lieth rusting in thy chest." f So that thy relieving the poor is
not only an act of mercy, left to thy choice to do or not to do, but also
of justice, to the performance whereof thou standest bound. And, therefore, what St. Paul saith of himself concerning the preaching of the
gospel, " Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not
the gospel!" (1 Cor. ix. 16;) the like should all rich men especially
say of themselves: " Necessity is kid upon us to give out a part of our
estate for the relief of the poor saints and servants of Jesus Christ; and
woe be unto us, if we do it not!"
4. It is a great mistake in parents, that, because it is their duty to
make some provision for their children, therefore they are bound to lay
up all that possibly they can scrape together for their use, without giving
any considerable part towards the relief of the poor; for thereby they
manifestly declare, that they prefer their children's temporal good before
their own spiritual and eternal good, and hazard the salvation of their
own souls for the advancement of their children's estate. 0 how little
comfort will it be to yon in hell-torments, to think that you have lost
heavenly joys, for the gaining of some earthly enjoyments for your children ! If, therefore, you have little or no charity for others, yet have
some for your own souls, by a liberal contribution to the poor saints and
servants of Jesus Christ, and that according to your own ability and their
necessity.
OBJEC. ii. Some object their poor and mean estate, pretending they
* Forsiian haredi praslabis quicquid miserioordia eautA de ejus porttone detraxeris.
AUGUSTUS us De Tempore, sermo 76.
-J Est pants famelici quern tu tenes,
nudi tunica quam tn in conclavi conservas, c.BASH.
245
bave not wherewithal to supply the wants, and relieve the necessities,
of others.
ANSWER. 1. Though thou pleadest poverty, to excuse thy not giving
towards the supply of the needy and necessitous, yet it is to be feared,
that thy plea is not real, but feigned, a mere pretence; because thou
canst find money enough to buy rich and costly apparel for thyself, wife,
and children ; money enough to pamper thy belly, and to feast thy rich
neighbours, friends, and acquaintance; money enough for the gratifying
thy sinful lusts and pleasures; when thou canst find little or nothing for
the clothing the naked backs of the poor members of Jesus Christ,
nothing for the filling of their empty bellies, nothing for their comfort
and support. 0 how sad will thy reckoning be at the great day of judgment, when thou shalt hear : " So much spent in clothes, so much in
costly diet, so much in satisfying thy carnal lusts and pleasures, and so
little in relieving the poor saints and servants of Jesus Christ!"
2. Though thy plea be real, that thou art in truth in a low and mean
estate, yet oughtest thou to give something when thou meetest with
those who are poorer than thyself, especially if they be in great necessity.
The apostle ezhorteth poor men, even such as work for their living, so to
labour that they may have not only to maintain themselves and family,
but also to relieve the necessities of others: " Let him labour," saith the
apostle, " working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may
have to give to him that needeth." (Eph. iv. 28.) The deep poverty of
the Macedonians, we read, kept them not from contributing to the poor
saints at Jerusalem, who were poorer than themselves. (2 Cor. viii. 2, 3.)
Who could plead greater poverty than the poor widow in the gospel,
who having but two mites, cast them both into the treasury ? of whom
our Saviour giveth this testimony, that she cast more into the treasury
than the rich ; " for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of
her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living." (Mark zii. 43,
44.) A halfpenny or farthing of that little which a poor man giveth, is
more, in Christ's reckoning, than a whole mass of money out of a rich
man's treasure. Say not, therefore, " I am poor, and have but little;"
thinking thereby to excuse thy not giving; for thou canst not be poorer
than that poor widow: but of a little give a little, and it will be accepted;
" for if there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man
hath, and not according to that he hath not." (2 Cor. viii. 12.) God
looketh not so much to the greatness of the gift, as to the quantity of the
store out of which it is given, and the largeness of the affections wherewith it is given.
OBJEC. in. Some are ready to object and say they live in dangerous
times, and know not what troubles may befall them; and therefore it
will be wisdom to keep what they have.
ANSWER. The more dangerous the times are, the more reason thou hast
to give out of thy store towards the relief of others; for,
1. Thou knowest not how long thou mayest enjoy thy life or estate:
"Whatsoever," therefore, "thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy

might;" (Eccles. uc. 10;) that is, whatsoever ability or opportunity
thou hast of doing good, do it, as with all diligence, so speedily. And,
246
SERMON XI
* WHAT MANNER MVOT WE GIVE ALMS,
nith the Wise Mae, " Give a portion to seven, and also to eight ;" if
he had said, " Let thy liberality be large and bountiful, not limiting it to
few, but distributing it to many." Mark his reason in the next words:
" For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth;" (flecks, xi.
9;) that is, what troublesome times may be. I have read of an husbandman, who, hearing of the approach of an army, and fearing thereby
the loss of all his corn, caused as much as possibly he could to be carried
into the city, and committed the custody thereof to a friend of his. In
like manner let the apprehensions of dangerous times prevail with thee,
to deliver some considerable part of thy estate unto the poor members of
Christ, whereby it will be best preserved from loss and spoils,
2. Thy liberality to the poor will be a notable means to free thine
heart from those anxious and distrustful fears of evil times which do
usually possess the hearts of unmerciful men; as the Psalmist eeemeth to
imply: " He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting
in the Lord." The reason whereof he rendereth: " He hath dispersed,
he hath given to the poor;" (Psalm cxii. 7, 9;) therefore " he shall
not be afraid of evil tidings." And, indeed, such hath least ground of
fear; for, (1.) God hath promised to deliver such from the evil to
come: as, " Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will
deliver him in time of trouble." (Psalm xU. 1.) (2.) God hath promised, that, though they should fall into troublesome times, yet they
shall find abundance of sweet peace and comfort in their own souls ; for,
saith the Lord, " If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy
the afflicted soul;" (that is, if thou shalt afford unto him that which
may supply his necessity, and satisfy his hunger;) " then shall thy light
rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day." (Isai. Iviii. 10.)
Where " light" signifieth peace and comfort, as " darkness " eignifieth
affliction. So that the prophet's meaning is, that merciful men shall
have peace and comfort in the most troublesome and uncomfortable
times; which, if it were seriously considered, would be a great encouragement to us to abound in works of mercy.
OBJEC. tv. Some object and say, " If I be so full in giving, I may
want myself before I die."
ANSWER. 1. Doth the husbandman forbear to sow his seed for fear of
want ? Nay, rather doth he not with a plentiful hand sow his seed, that
he may prevent want ? being confident that by sowing his seed, he shall
in due time reap it again with such increase, that thereby he shall be
enabled to sustain himself and family. So that this objection is a
groundless fear, arising from a distrustful heart, contrary to that of the
Wise Man: " He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack;" (Prov. xxviii.
27;) namely, any thing which God seeth to be good and needful for him.
Nay, by not giving, thou art likeliest to come to want; for, saith the Spirit
of God, " There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth
to poverty." (Prov. xi. 24.) So that keeping back and hoarding up is the
readiest way to want and penury; whereas, giving to the poor, according
to that God hath given unto us, is the best means to prevent penury.
2. Thou needest not fear want by giving; for thereby thou wilt both
secure thy stock, and increase tby store.
TfiAT THEY MAT BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD?
247
(1.) What thou giveet to the poor, with an honest and sincere heart,
will secure the rest of thy estate. For, as in a stale politic, the leigerftmbassadors that are sent abroad to lie in foreign kingdoms,* secure oar
peaceable state at home; in like manner, that which thou dispenest and
endest abroad to the poor doth secure the rest at home. " So that in
. truth our earthly goods are lost by keeping, and kept by giving away/'f
(2.) That which thon giveet away to the poor win increase thy store.
For, " Give/' saith our Saviour, " and it shall be given unto you; good
measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." (Luke
vi. 38.) By which variety of expressions our Saviour declareth, that
charitable men shall not only receive back again from God what they
give to the poor, but abundantly more ; which the Wise Man implietb,
where he saith: "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth;" (Prov.
xi. 24;) intimating that the more we scatter the seeds of our beneficence,
the greater our increase will be. And, as it followeth in the next verse,
"The liberal soul shall be made fat;" (that is, he that is bountiful
towards others shall be enriched himself;) "and he that watereth"
{namely, others with his store) " shall be watered also himself;" that
is, shall be abundantly watered with the blessing of God, that he may
have wherewith to do more good. Whereupon saith the apostle Paul,
" He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth
bountifully shall reap also bountifully:" (2 Cor. ix. 6:) thereby hinting
unto us the great gain and increase that we shall receive by a free and
liberal contribution to the poor saints and servants of Jesus Christ;
which Job acknowledged, when he said, "The blessing of him that
was ready to perish came upon me;" (Job xxix. 13;) that is, I had
their prayers, and the Lord blessed me extraordinarily for relieving
them.
Some question there is about the lawfulness of putting out money

to use. But this is out of question, that to put Out a considerable part
of thine estate to charitable uses, is, as a lawful, so the most gainful,
usury in the world ;$ for thereby thou shalt receive, instead of six in
the hundred, an hundred for six. If, therefore, thon wilt be wisely
covetous, fall upon the practice of this Christian usury j knowing that
the more thou shalt adventure therein, the greater will be thy gain, and
the more bountifully tbou shalt receive.
OBJEC. Y. Some object, that what they give unto the poor is utterly
lost.
ANSWER. 1. This is directly contrary to what the Spirit of God saith:
" He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that
which he hath given will he pay him again." (Prov. xix. 17.) If that
* The ingenious writer of this sermon had in bis mind's eye the subjoined " pleasant
definition of an ambassador," given by Sir Henry Wotton, while at Venice: Legates est
vir bantu peregri missus ad mentiendum reipublicce causa. Walton, his biographer,
adds: " Which Sir Henry Wotton would have been content should have been thus
Englished: An ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his
country."EDIT.
* Terrena servando amittimus, largiendo servamus..
ISIODOBUS.
t Eleemosyna non est divitiarum dispendium, sed ditescendi potius
compendium, yuastusgue omnium uberrimut. " Alms-giving is not a wasteful expending
of wealth ; on the contrary, it is a compendious mode of acquiring riches, and, beyond all
other methods of employing capital, yields the most profitable returns,"EDIT.
248
SERMON XI.
which tbou givest to the poor be repaid thee again, how can it be said to
be lost ? Indeed, the poor, onto whom thou givest, are unable to repay
thee; yet, having such an all-sufficient Surety as God himself, who hath
undertaken the repayment, thou needest not doubt thereof.
2. It is a great mistake in men, to think that what they give away to
charitable uses is utterly lost: for, in truth, a covetous, scraping, and
sordid hoarding-up [of] our wealth, is the only way of losing it. But,
as I have formerly showed, a cheerful distributing [of] part thereof to
the poor is the surest way of securing our stock, and increasing our
store. I never yet met with the man who could say, that he was a loser
in his estate by what he gave away to charitable uses. And this I can
affirm, that very many have, and are still ready to acknowledge, that as
the widow's oil increased by pouring out, so that their store hath multiplied and increased by giving away to good uses.
3. What thou givest to the poor is not lost, but sent to heaven before
thee. It is reported of Cyrus, that he should say, that " by doing good
he hoarded up riches for himself." But sure I am, that by communicating part of thy goods to the poor saints and servants of God, thou
layest up treasure for thyself in heaven. (Matt. vi. 20.)
This is the very argument wherewith the apostle, in the words of
the text, enforceth this duty of liberality to the poor; for, saith he,
" Charge them that are rich in this world, that they do good, that they
be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate:"
mark his reason in the next words : " laying up in store for themselves a
good foundation against the time to come;" where the apostle intimateth,
that, by laying out on the poor, we do in truth lay up in store for ourselves. Look, therefore, how much thou layest out here on good uses, by
a bill of exchange, as it were, thou shalt receive as much, yea, much
more, in the kingdom of heaven : to which agreeth that of St. Austin :
" Whatsoever we give to the poor, we send before us; and we shall find
that in heaven which we give here on earth." *
I have met with a notable story to this purpose, which I shall the
rather relate, because I have known some so affected upon the hearing
thereof, as that they have taken up present resolutions to communicate
more liberally to the necessities of the poor than ever they did in their
lives before. The story is this:
" Synesius, a good bishop of Gyrene, laboured much and a long time
with one Evagrius, a heathen philosopher, to convert him to the Christian faith ; but all in vain; the philosopher still objecting that the
Christian religion taught many strange and improbable things; among
others, that 'he that hath pity on the poor, lendeth to the Lord;' and
' he that giveth to the poor and needy, shall have treasure in heaven, and
shall receive an hundred-fold from Christ, together with eternal life :'
' things,' said he, to be derided rather than believed.' The good
bishop, notwithstanding, ceased not to travel with him, assuring him, by
many arguments, that these things were true; and at last prevailed, so
that the philosopher and all his children were baptized. A while after,
he cometh to Synesius, and bringeth with him three hundred pounds of
* Quod pauperi damus ante nos praemitlimus, %c.AUGUSTINUS.
THAT THBY MAY BE ACCXFTABL TO GOD?
249
gold for the poor, bide him take it, bat would hare a bill under hi* hand,
tbat Christ should repay it him in another world. Syneeius took the
money for the poor, and gave him such a bill under his hand as he desired.
Afterwards, the philosopher, being near his death, commanded his sons,
that when they buried him, they should put Synerius's bill into his hand
in the grave; which they did. The third day after he was buried, the
philosopher seemed to appear to Synesius in the night, and said to him,
' Come to my sepulchre where I lie, and take thy bill; for I have
received the debt, and am satisfied; which for thy assurance, I* have
subscribed it with mine own hand.' The bishop, not well knowing the
meaning hereof, sent to his sons, who told him all; whereupon, taking
them and the chief men of the city with him, he went to the grave, and
found the paper in the hand of the corpse thus subscribed : Ego, Evagrius, philosopkus, tibi eanctissimo domino Syneeio epitcopo, alutem :
Aecepi debitum in hie Uteri menu tud conacriptum, eatiefaetumque mihi
efts ft nullum contra te habeojuepropter aurum quod dedi tibi, etper te
Chrieto Deo et Salvatori noetro ; that is, ' I, Evagrius the philosopher, to
the most holy sir, bishop Synesius, greeting: I have received the debt
which in this paper is written with thy hand, and I am satisfied ; and I
have no action against thee, for the gold which I gave thee, and by thee
to Christ, our God and Saviour.' "
This story, I say, I was willing to relate at large, not only because it
passeth in antiquity for a great, though strange, truth, but also because,
I said, I have known it reported to some, with such good effect and
success, as I hope and heartily wish it may have upon thy spirit.
4. Thy works of charity to the poor saints and servants of Jesus
Christ will hereafter be rewarded with everlasting glory and happiness in
heaven. So much our Saviour expresseth, by declaring, that the kingdom of heaven was, from the foundation of the world, prepared for the
merciful, who had showed themselves bountiful to the poor members of
Jesus Christ, by clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, &c. (Matt,
xxv. 34, 35.) And, saith our Saviour: " He that receiveth a prophet in
the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that
receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a
righteous man's reward." (Matt. x. 41.) As by receiving a righteous
man, " in the name of a righteous man," is to show kindness to him for
his righteousness*, sake; so by " receiving a prophet in the name of a prophet," is not only receiving of his message and ministry, but also a receiving of his person, by showing kindness unto him, either in entertaining
of him, or contributing to his needs and necessities, and that as he is a
minister of the gospel. And by the " prophet's and righteous man's
reward," which such shall receive as relieve them, is meant that surpassing and excellent weight of glory in heaven, which cannot be expressed
by the tongue of men or angels. Not that their works of charity do
merit that glorious reward, but in regard of the promise of God made to
all those who in faith apply themselves to the practice of good works.
OBJEC. vi. " Many there are who make a great profession of religion,
but manifest little power thereof in their lives ; being as backward to any
good work, and as barren therein as any whosoever."
250
SERMON XI.
APTKft WHAT MANNER MOST WE GIVE ALMS,
ANSWER. I must confess there is more troth in this objection than in

any I have yet met withal. For I cannot bat acknowledge, there are too
many whose leaves of profession are very broad, bat their fruits of charity
and liberality are very small; who are a shame to religion, a reproach to
Christianity, and a scandal to profession.
Bat this may be taken for an answer : That whereas many who make a
profession of religion are barren in good works, questionless they are no
sincere Christians, no true converts, but mere outside professors. For
most.certain it is, that " the elect of God put on bowels of mercies," as
the apostle Paul speaketh. (Col. iii. 12.) Therefore, whosoever he be
that, having this world's good, doth make a profession of religion, and
yet shutteth up his bowels of compassion from his poor brother, and will
not communicate towards his necessities, let his profession be never so
specious and glorious in the eyes of men, yet certainly he is but a rotten
professor and dissembling hypocrite in the sight of God; for, saith the
apostle St. James: " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction:"
(James i. 27 :) implying that works of charity are clear evidences of the
truth of our religion, and of the sincerity of our profession. If you look
into the scripture, you shall scarce read of a man truly godly, but he was
charitable; nay, according to his eminence in godliness, he was eminent
in works of charity. To instance in some few :
Abraham, the father of the faithful, as he was eminent in godliness, so
was he eminent in hospitality, which is one of the noblest works of
charity. For we read how Abraham stood at his tent-door, and no
sooner saw strangers passing by, but called them in, and gave them
entertainment. (Gen. xviii. 1, 2.)

As there was none like Job, in his days, for piety and godliness, of
whom God himself giveth this testimony, that " there was none like him
in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God, and
eschewed evil;" (Job i. 8;) so neither was there any like Job for liberality. Note what be saith of himself: " The blessing of him that was
ready to perish came upon me ;" that is, I bad many good prayers, and
well-wishes from them, whom I had relieved in their low and perishing
condition ; " and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy;" that is,
By my bounty and liberality to her in her necessity, I gave her great
cause of hearty joy. (Job xxix. 13.) And afterwards Job declareth
how he had not, according to the manner of covetous and churlish
persons, eaten his meat alone, without giving part thereof to the hungry
orphans. Neither had he " seen any perish for want of clothing." (Job
xxxi. 17, 19.) Under which expressions is implied, his readiness to
feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, with other like acts of charity.
It is recorded, to the perpetual praise and commendation of good
Obadiah, that, in the time of famine and persecution, he not only hid
the prophets of God by fifty in a cave, from the cruelty of Jezebel, but
that also, in that extreme dearth, [he] there sustained them with food,
and supplied their necessities, (i Kings xviii. 4.)
We read of Cornelias, who, as he was a godly and devout man, so he
was very charitable ; for the Spirit of God giveth this testimony of him,
THAT THEY MAT SB ACCBPTABI4E TO OOD ?
251
that he was "a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house,
which gave much alms to the people;" he was not only charitable, but
did abound in works of charity, giving much alms to the poor. (Acts
x.2.)
We likewise read of Gains, who is recorded to be a godly, wealthy
citizen of Corinth, that he did usually in his house entertain, not only
the apostle Paul, but also all Christians resorting to that city. (Bom.
xvi. 23.)
The apostle Paul, who was an holy, zealous Christian, was likewise
charitable; for in his Epistle to Timothy, reckoning up some of his
graces, as his faith, patience, long-suffering, &c., he mentions charity.
(2 Tim. iii. 10.)
Tea, we read of Zacchens, that though, before his conversion, he was

a most covetous extortioner; yet after his conversion, he gave the half
of his goods to the poor; for, said he, " Behold, Lord, the half of my
goods I give to the poor." (Luke xix. 8.)
But the most remarkable is the charity of the primitive Christians,
who, being converted by the ministry of the apostles, and having
embraced the Christian faith, it is said, that "as many as were
possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the
things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and
distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.1' (Acts
iv. 34, 35.)
Thus yon see it hath ever been the property of a sincere Christian
and true believer to be charitable. And certainly, whosoever, by a true
and lively faith, are ingrafted into Jesus Christ, cannot but be fruitful
branches, bringing forth the fruits of mercy and compassion, of charity

and liberality, towards their poor brethren.
I shall conplude, therefore, with a passage of a reverend divine, now

with God:*
" If the world hath locked up thine heart, and congealed the bowels
of thy compassion towards the poor; let the blaze of thine outward profession shine never so fair; manage the heartless representation of external
holiness never so demurely; keep the times and tasks of daily duties
with never so great austerity ; nay, though thou be able to amaze weaker
Christians with some affected strains and artificial fervency in prayer;
for all this, if the holy heat of brotherly love doth not warm thine heart,
and upon occasion work affectionately and effectually; I dare say, thou
art rotten at the heart-root; there is no true love of God in thee, no
grace, no hope of salvation.
" Let that terrible and flaming place against all covetous Pharisees,
' Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and
fthutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of
God in him?' (1 John iii. 17;)let it, I say, dissolve thy frozenheartedness this way, and enlarge the bowels of pity towards thy poor
brethren of Christ Jesus; or else never look hereafter to look him in the
face with comfort, or to find mercy at that day."
* Ma. ROBERT BOLTOK j in hi " Directions for a comfortable Walking with
God," p. 262.
252
SERMON XII. ASSURANCE IS POSSIBLE.
SERMON XII.
BY THE REV. THOMAS DOOLITTLE, A.M.
OF PEMBROKE HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
IV WE MUST AIM AT ASSURANCE, WHAT SHOULD THEY DO, THAT ARE

NOT ABLE TO DISCERN THEIR OWN SPIRITUAL CONDITION?
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son
of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.1 John v. 13.
THE greatness of the mercy in having of the scripture, is manifested

by the great advantages that the elect of God receive thereby; namely,
that they might be brought to close with Christ by faith unfeigned, and
be partakers of eternal life through him; (John xx. 31 ;) that bad men
might be made good, and that good men might be made sure of an
eternal blessed state in the life to come, whereby the Lord hath abundantly provided both for our happiness and our comfort. For OUR
HAPPINESS, that we may have eternal life. For OUR COMFORT, that we
may know we have eternal life. (1 John i. 4; Rom. xv. 4.) I cannot
stay to view the context: I need not stay to explain the text. The case
of conscience to be treated of from this scripture is this : .
Since men may know that they have eternal life, what must they do
that cannot discern their spiritual condition ?
Here are two things to be performed:
First. That we may know in this life, that we shall certainly be partakers of eternal glory in the life to come. For if assurance be not
possible, I can neither blame you for wanting it, nor stir you up to
labour after it.
Secondly. Lay down some rules for the getting of it, and directions,
if by these rules we cannot for the present obtain it.
For the stating of the first part of the question, concerning the possibility of getting this certain knowledge of our future happiness, I shall
lay before you these six positions:
POSITIONS.
POSITION i. An unregenerate person, while such, can have no assurance or certain knowledge of the eternal salvation of his immortal soul.
(John iii. 36; 1 John v. 10, 12.)Because, as such, he hath no actual

interest in the promises of salvation, being without the conditions of
faith and repentance, to which the promises are made, being a child of
wrath, (Eph. ii. 3,) a slave to his lusts, (Titus iii. 3,) a captive to the
devil, (2 Tim. ii. 26,) a rejecter of the Son of God. (John v. 40, 43;
Mark xii. 10.) This man hath plague-sores, tokens of eternal death.
I cannot say thou shalt be infallibly damned, because thou mayest repent
and believe; (2 Tim. ii. 25;) and thou canst not say thou shalt be
8EBMON XII.
ASSURANCE 18 POSSIBLE.
253
saved, because thou hast not yet repented for thy sin, nor believed on
the Son of God. A wicked man is not subjectum capax, " a subject
capable" of this assurance: " In whom also after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." (Eph. i. 13.) It is not the
hard stone, but the soft wax, that receiveth the impression of the seal.
If he hope for salvation while he liveth, and dieth in a natural condition,
he shall lose his hope and soul together; (Job xi. 20 ; viii. 13, 14; xviii.
14;) this presumption will prove self-delusion, and end in desperation. He
is worse than a Pharisee, (Luke xviii. 11,) whether he be a private person
or a preacher, that liveth in gross sins, hating the power of godliness,
and discouraging holiness, that yet blesseth God for election, justification, sanctification, and assured hope of glory.
POSIT, ii. That many of God's dear children for a long time might
remain very doubt/hi a to their present and eternal condition, and know
not what to conclude, whether they shall be damned, or whether they
shall be saved. (Psalm Ixxvii. 110; Ixxxviii. 4, 15, 16; Isai. 1. 10.)
There are believers of several growths in the church of God: fathers,
young men, children, and babes: (1 John ii. 13, 14; 1 Peter ii. 2:) and
as in most families there are more babes and children than grown men,
so in the church of God there are more weak, doubting Christians than
strong ones, grown up to a full assurance. A babe may be born, and
yet not know it; so a man may be born again, and not be sure of it.
Sometimes they think they have grounds of hope, that they shall be
saved; sometimes they think they have grounds of fears, that they shall
be condemned: not knowing which might be most weighty, like a pair
of balances, they are in equal poise : " And it shall come to pass in that
day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark." (Zech. xiv. 6.) It is
spoven primarily of God's providential dispensations towards his church
in gospel times: for a while she should live in crepusculo, " in
twilight;" in a mixed condition of light and darkness, comfort and
affliction ; like a man in a misty morning, that neither walketh in the
dark, nor yet hath the light clear to see far before him; like Paul and
the mariners, that saw neither sun nor stars for many days; (Acts xxvii.
20 ;) so might it be with a particular person, in reference to his spiritual
condition.
By this you see,
First. We make a difference betwixt saving faith as each, and a fall
persuasion of the heart.
Secondly. That some of those that shall be certainly saved might not
be certain that they shall be saved ; for the promise is made to the grace
of faith, and not to the evidence of it; to faith as true, and not as
strong: they may be sure of heaven, and yet in their own sense not
assured of heaven. As an infant may be born to a great estate, and
have a certain title to it; but yet ha might not know it, or make it out
to himself or others. So that the question is not de certitudine objecti,
" of the certainty of salvation," but de certitudine eubjecti, " of the
apprehension, sense, and knowledge of the believing person," concerning
his salvation.
POSIT, in. That a believer may not only in the general gather from
254
SJtRMON XII.
the word of God, from the death of Christ, from the glorious preparation
God hath made, that many shall be infallibly brought to glory, but also
that he in particular shall be one of them. (Matt. viii. J 1 ; xxv. 34; xx.
28; 1 Peter i. 4, 5.)This must have its proof after: I therefore now
pass on.
POSIT, iv. That we are not to. expect any wise from heaven, or Goo"
ending of an angel, or extraordinary: revelation, to make us to know that
we do believe, or shall be saved i but to make use of those kelps and means
appointed by God, common to all believers, but yet sufficient for the
obtaining of this particular assurance.This I pat in, because the
Papists grant it may be got by extraordinary revelation, but not else; as
it is their wicked practice to keep the people most ignorant of those
things of which they should have most knowledge, that,'foliowing them
with an implicit faith and blind obedience, [they] might not scruple at
their human traditions, and unwarrantable and many ridiculous innovations,* that have crept in amongst them, so they keep them most doubtful, where they should be most sure; and so the Council of Trent :f " If
any man say that he knoweth he shall certainly persevere, or infallibly be
assured of his election, except he have this by special revelation, let him
be anathema." A wicked council that anathematizeth a man for asserting that may be obtained which God commandeth him to get: " Make
your calling and election sure." (2 Peter i. 10.)
POSIT. Y. That such as have been filled with divine joy, through wellgrounded apprehensions of their present grace and future glory, might lose
that assurance, and that joy. (Psalm xxx. 7; Canticles v. 6.)And this
maybe, 1. From God acting, (1.) As a Sovereign Lord. (Job ix. 17.)
(2.) As a wise God, putting a more eminent difference betwixt earth and
heaven. (Psalm xiii. 1; 1 Cor. xiii. 12.) Or, 2. From the bufferings of
Satan. Or, 3. From themselves, (I.) For the trial and exercise of some
of their graces. (Job i. 1; xiii. 24; Isai. viii. 17.) Or, (2.) For correcting them for sin. (Isai. lix. 2.) As, (i.) For their backwardness to
duty. (Canticles v. 2, 3, 6.) (ii.) Slotbfulnese in duty. (Hi.) Frequent
strong actings of pride in and after duty, (iv.) Letting down their
spiritual watch; and so, (v.) Falling iuto some notorious transgression *
(2 Sam. xi. 4 ; xiii. 15 ; Psalm li. 8, 12.) Or, (vi.) For not setting a due
esteem upon the comforts of the Spirit. (Job xv. 11.) Or, (vii.) Insulting too much over weak believers ; not exercising tender compassion to
dejected, drooping Christians, (viii.) For their too much earthlymindedness. (ix.) Not rising presently by repentance; (Isai. Ivii. 17;)
for these reasons and the like, their sun might he eclipsed, a winter of
sorrows might follow their summer joys. They may lose their evidence,
but not their adherence; and though there shall not be any interci* BELLAHMIHUS De Baptismo, torn. iii. lib. i. cap. 2527, mentioneth twenty-two
ceremonies about baptism, exorcism, salt, spittle, cross, unction, wax-taper lighted, in
token that the baptized person is translated from the power of darkness unto light, &c.
f Si qitis dueerit, hominem renatum et justificatum teneri ex fide ad credendum se certo
esse, ex numero preedestinatorum, anathema titCvndl. Triden. sees. vi. can. 15.
And again: Si quit dixerit, magnum illttd usque vnfinem perseverantia danum se certo
habiturum absoluta et infallibili certiiudine, nisi hoc ex speciali revelation* did* eril,
anathema sit.~-Concil. Triden. sees. v. can. 16.
SERMON XII.
ASSURANCE IS POSSIBLE.
255
eion of justification, yet there might he afterwards a non-apprehension
of it.
POSIT, . That in divers men, there are diverse degree of this assurance, and in the same man different degrees at diver time ; but in no
man, at any time, in this life, perfection of degree,For our understanding is imperfect, both as to the faculty and its acts. And though
the mind is curing, yet it will not he perfectly cured in this life, from
that darkness that befell it by man's apostasy from God. For we hare
but an imperfect knowledge of faith and love ; and while we have but an
imperfect knowledge of the premisses, we cannot give a perfect assent to
the conclusion. And no man hath such perfection of degrees of the
assurance of his salvation, in an ordinary way, as that one degree more
cannot be added to the former; neither is there any repugnancy in
asserting an infallible assurance, and denying a perfect assurance; for I
infallibly know that there is a God, and that this God is good and just;
and yet I have not a perfect knowledge of a Deity, or of his goodness
and justice; for in this life we know but in part. (1 Cor. ziii. 11,12.)
A THREEFOLD CERTAINTY.
I
,
!
There are three ways that we come to a certainty:

1. There is a certainty that comes by sense.Which cannot err about
its proper object, when there is a due distance, a fit disposition of the
organ, and the medium rightly disposed. Thus Thomas was certain of
Christ's resurrection from the dead : " The other disciples said unto him,
We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in
his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of (die
nails, and thrust my hand into his aide, I will not believe. Then saith
he to Thomas, Beach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not faithless but
believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my
God." (John xx* 25, 27, 28.) Though the other disciples told him they
had seen the Lord, yet he would not take it for a certainty from their
report, except he had a certainty from his own sense. But the Papists
do not only deny us a certainty of faith, but also a certainty of
sense; for though in the sacrament we see it is real bread, and taste
it to be real bread, and feel and handle it as real bread; yet, contrary to our sense, [they] would have us believe and say it is transubstantiated.
2. There is a certainty of science, or knowledge arising from first
principles, received by all, that are proved by their own light, that cannot
be demonstrated a priori, because there is nothing true before them; as
a man cannot show you the sun but by its own light; so, I certainly
know, that both parts of a contradiction cannot be true;. so, I certainly
know, that the whole is greater than any particular part.
3. There is a certainty of authority, or testimony : if the testimony
be human, it begets but a moral persuasion ; for no human testimony is
of necessary verity, because truth is not necessarily, but contingently and
mutably, in the man that gives this testimony; and the testimony hath
not its cogency or validity from itself, but from the qualifications of the
26
SERMON XII. ASSURANCE 18 POSSIBLE.
person that bears the testimony; whence there is a gradual certainty in

human testimonies; only God is so necessarily true, that it should imply
a contradiction that he should be God, and yet lie : God " cannot lie."
(Titus i. 2.) So that a divine testimony begets a certainty of divine
faith; for what God saith, I undoubtedly know to be true, because truth
is essential to him; (Dent, xxxii. 4; xxxiv. 4; Heb. vi. 18;) for if
truth be necessary to the testator, the truth of the testimony must necessarily be true; (John xvii, 17;) so I know that the impenitent, unbelieving person that dieth without grace, and an interest in Christ, shall
certainly be damned, (Mark xvi. 16; Bom. ii. 4, 5; Heb. xii. 14,)
because God hath said it, as if I saw him in his misery; and I know
that the penitent, believing, self-denying, and sin-mortifying Christian shall he saved, (Matt. v. 8; Bom. viii. 13 ; Acts z. 43,) because God
hath said it, as certainly as if I saw him act ally possessed of it already.
When faith hath this divine testimony to lean upon, it ariseth in some
by degrees to a full assurance. There are especially four words in the
scripture, that set forth faith in its different degrees.
1. As it is said to be fawrreuns the substance, subsistence, existence
of things: (Heb. xi. 1:) looking upon things future, as certain as if
they were present. Among the Hebrews there is usual a mutation of
tenses, turning the future into the preter tense. Faith is the believer's
Pathach, making things to come as certain to him as if he did already
enjoy them; * and putteth a date upon the joys of the life to come,
before he is possessed of them. Noah's faith assured him of the flood,
as certainly as if it had then been when it was first foretold. (Heb. xi.
7.) 2. It is a demonstration of things not seen; faith seeth things that
cannot be seen. That way of argumentation whereby error is confuted,
by Aristotle is called ;, the word here used ; but here, for a certain conviction arising from divine authority, showing us such things which
sense cannot perceive and reason cannot comprehend. When faith thus
represents these glorious things to come thus unto the believing soul,
then, 3. There is reiroidi}(rif, a good persuasion of the heart, or a holy
confidence; and from this persuasion there ariseth wa/J^tjtria, "an
humble boldness," or liberty, and freedom of speech to God in prayer,
which de jure all believers have. These words you have together, in
Eph. in. 12: "In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by
the faith of him." 4. And from these resulteth that desirable
, a full assurance of a future enjoyment of those things that
faith presents unto us, and we are persuaded of our title to, and with
liberty, freedom, and enlargedness of soul have prayed unto God for.
So the question is not concerning all men, but believers ; and not whether all believers have it, but may have it; not by revelation, but by
* In lingua sacra Vau cum Pathach sequente Dagesh futurw in prateritwn
convertit, nam prasens proprium Hebriei nullum habent. " In the holy language, the
letter Fan, with the point Pathac following Dmgesh, changes the future into the preterite
or past; for the Hebrews have no proper present tense."EDIT.
-f * cart
TTJJ wrtêurews.An.jSTOTEi.E8 De Reprehensione, lib. L cap. 8. And so

used by the apostle, 2 Tim. iii. 16. The scripture is profitable vpos tXtyxov, to con-
vince die enemies of the truth : it signifieth " conviction," plain and evident. (John viii.
9; xvi. a)
SERMON XII.
257
ordinary means; not whether they always keep it; nor about perfect
bat certain infallible assurance in these words: thus,
THE QUESTION STATED.
A believer may, without extraordinary revelation, certainly know and be

infallibly assured of eternal life.
I. ARGUMENT FROM SPECIAL GRACE.
And this will be made evident by the proof of these two proposition:
1. That a believer, without extraordinary revelation, might certainly
know that he hath justifying faith, and unfeigned love to Christ, and that
he ie upright and sincere with God.
2. That there ie an infallible connexion between these special graces
andfoture glory.
That a man may certainly know his sincerity, faith and love, is evidenced by these particulars:
FIRST PROPOSITION, WHICH 8HOWETH THAT A MAM MIGHT KNOW
HE HATH SAVING GRACE.
1. God hath laid down in his word certain infallible ,,

"characters, signs, discoveries," of sincerity, justifying faith, and
unfeigned love to God.Beside other topical heads, we may know it from
the effects which it doth always produce; that where I see such an effect
of faith, I know there is faith :* and Papists must make us cast away all
logic, if we shall not have this granted. I see the broad clear light
shining in mine eyes; therefore I know the sun is risen ; and when we
see any sign that is concomitant or consequent, inseparable and proper
to the thing of which it is a sign, we know that that thing is. A man
that is sick and weak, yet feels his heart to leap and pant; he knows he
is a living man. A man that discourseth, and rationally iuferreth one
thing from another, knoweth that he hath a reasonable soul, and that he
is a man. There are as certain characters, in the word of God, of sincerity, faith, and love, as there are plain injunctions that we should be
sincere, believe, and love. Would God command a man to " examine
himself whether he be in the faith," if there were not rules suitable and
sufficient to direct us to know the nature of faith, and wherein it doth
consist?
2. God hath given to a man a power to understand, consider, deliberate, and reflect upon himself, and judge of himself and of his ways.
Herein a man is above a brute :f a beast likes his pasture, but cannot
know his propriety. Certainly, a man that is not a stranger to himself,
* Posito effectu in etse, effectut ponitur eausa. " The effect being granted actually
existing, the cause of that effect is likewise granted"EDIT.
f YVX9 < /wrerai,
' aAi0w ofxf vrarruv KM w avrp.MARC. AKTONINI MedUattonet,
lib. xi. sec. 12. Edit Cant. " When the superficies of the soul is thus even, the light
plays better upon her: she reflects a light which discovers the truth in other-objects, and
that within herself."JE.R. COLLIER'S and GRAVES'S Translations. nit
! > opf, {' Stopfywt, oiroiof /3) trotciIdem, ibid.
sec. 1. " The privilege of the rational soul are these: it contemplates itself; it regulates
itself; and renders itself such as it wishes to be."GRAVES'S Translation.
258
SERMON XII.
but a diligent observer of the actings of his soul, might know what they
are, yea, and discern the moral modifications of those acts. For conscience is privy to the principle and spring of all oar actings, to the
manner and the end. If I love a man, by reflecting upon myself I know
I love him; and shall this noble power of the soul be only useless in the
greatest concernments of my soul ? Can I know what I approve, esteem
most, and delight-in most, and breathe, and pant after most in other
things, and not in this ? It is true, conscience is naturally blind in
spiritual things ; but yet, directed by the word, and enlightened by the
Spirit, [it] might pass a judgment upon a man. For as the moon borroweth light from the sun, and BO communicateth light unto the world,
which else it could not do ; so conscience, receiving light from the word
and Spirit, discovereth what else it could not do. So it is called the
" candle of the Lord:" " The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,
searching all the inward parts of the belly:" (Prov. xx. 27 :) not only
taking notice of the outward acts in the life, but the inward motions of
the heart; not only of some, but it bath a power to take cognizance of
them all. Conscience is like the urine which diecovereth whether a person be sound in health, or shows what his distemper is. By the echo
caused by the reflection of the sound, a man heareth his word after he
hath spoken it; so by the reflecting power of conscience a man views his
actions after they are done, and bears his words after they be spoken.
A man sees his spots or beauty in the glass, by the reflection of the
species,* that do represent them to his view. As Joseph's brethren's
consciences told them that they were true men, and not spies; (Gen.
xlii. 31 ;) so conscience may truly tell a man, that he is sincere, and not
an hypocrite. Thus conscience is said to be a witness: " I say the
truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Ghost;" (Rom. ix. 1;) to accuse and to excuse. (Bom. u. 15.) So
it is a judge, condemning or acquitting, according as a man's state is
found to be. So much Heathens have spoken of conscience.f
Unfeigned willingness to peart with and mortify every sin, sure sign
of saving grace.
Now, that the scripture containeth characters of sincerity, and that a

man comparing himself by those characters might certainly know that he
is sincere, will be evidenced by these scriptures: " Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sine; let them not have dominion over me:
then" (mark, "then") "shall I be upright." (Psalm xix. 13.) Whett
there is no one known sin but a man is really willing should be mortified
and parted with, his most beloved sin that is nearest to him, which, by
way of propriety, he may call bis own, in an especial manner, which
the last -sin a man parteth with; and if there be any sin which a man is
unwilling to part with, and will keep a man off from Christ, it is his
* In the old signification of image, likeness, outward appearance, or show.EDIT.
" To ffvvfiHos
cairo tort SMCCMWJJ Sucatartrros, KM owceiOTOTOs.-HlEBOCLis Com-
ment, in Pythagor. Carmina. " Conscience itself is of all judges the most equitable and
unbiassed ; and, besides, it is one that we always have most intimately near us, and that
need not be sought for at a distance."EDII.
SERMON XII.
ASSURANCE I POSSIBLE.
25$
bosom no, hie darlipg; and the truth it, that if any maa keep [end]
love any one tin* which he will not let go to dose folly with Christ, let
hie profession he never so great, he is an hypocrite. Some men part
with Christ for one last, for one sin. " When Jesus heard these things,"
how far he had gone, how much he had done, " he said onto him, Yet
lackest tbou one thing." (Luke xviii. 22.) Lore to his riches, and
prizing them more than Christ, was his ruin; one stab at the heart with
a pen-knife will as certainly kill a man as a thousand wounds with a
sword; one disease that is mortal will as certainly bring a man to his
grave as twenty ; and one leak in a ship will sink it, as well as
more. Herod did many things; but yet he would not let go his
Herodiaa. (Mark vi. 1720.) It is a sure rale, that which a man loves
most, he will endeavour to keep longest: " Skin for skin, yea, all that a
man hath will he give for his life." A man prizeth his right hand
much, but his bead more; and therefore, to save his head, he will hold
up his hand, and venture the loss of the one, to save the other. There
may be many sins [which] a man might love, but one especially ; and he
may be willing the other should be pared off to preserve that; but when
he is willing to leave all, to indulge himself in none, no, not his darling
sin, it is a sign of sincerity. Consult these scriptures : Psalm xvii. I, 3,
4 ; cxix. 13, 6; Job i. 8 ; ii. 3 ; zxxi. throughout.
A man may know whether he be thiu willing to part with tin.

Now, a man may, by diligent inquiry, find out his beloved sin, and he
may know, and his conscience may bear him witness, of his willingness
to part with this, to have it subdued, and that by the grace of God he
doth keep himself from it, that it bears not rale nor dominion in his
soul: " I was also upright before him." (Psalm zviii. 23.) How doth
David manifest this ? By the observation of his heart and ways in this
particular j for it followeth : " And I kept myself from mine iniquity."
There is as much power of God required, and strength of grace, to make
a man part with his beloved sin as all the rest. Thus Hezekiah knew his
sincerity. He had the testimony of his conscience, and was sure of it;
else how could he have made his appeal to God ?" Remember now,
Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a
perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight." (Isai.
xxxviii. 3.)
True faith might be discovered in us.
Likewise, that a man might certainly know he hath justifying faith,
is proved from 2 Cor. xiii. 5 : " Examine yourselves, whether ye be in
the faith ; prove your own selves. Enow ye not your own selves, how
that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" Doth God so
strictly charge us to know that which cannot be known? That that
faith here spoken of, that we must inquire after, is a justifying faith,
appears from the text.
1. By this Christ dwelleth in us, and so not by any other faith.
2. Because without this faith we are , " reprobates," not as
opposed to the elect, but denoting persons unsound and hypocritical.
260
SERMON XII.
It is also not a conjecture, but a certain knowledge, that we are pressed

to obtain, by the word that the Holy Ghost useth, , " search,
make trial," as God tried Abraham, (Gen. xxii. 1,) that his love to
God, and fear of God, appeared. , " prove," as the goldsmith doth his metals, in the fire, or by the touchstone ; because he bids
ns prove it not so much by argument, as experience ; for so the word is
used, Luke xiv. 19. He went , "to prove" his oxen : and forasmuch as we must prove ourselves to be in Christ, we must not leave it
uncertain; for what is uncertain after trial, is not proved.
A note of true faith.
Besides, that we do believe, we might know by the judgment's valuing,
the will's choosing, and the affection's loving Christ above all. " Unto
you that believe he is precious;" (1 Peter ii. 7;) Christ is an honour to
the believer, and Christ is most prized and valued by the believer: * and
cannot a man know what he prizeth most ? what he valueth and esteemeth most ? what his understanding doth dictate to him to be chosen
above all ? and whether his will doth choose according to the dictates of
the understanding ? and the affections, love, and desire are upon the wing
to enjoy what the will doth make choice of ? and grief filleth the heart
when he cannot obtain it? Could not Ahab know that he prized
Naboth's vineyard, when he grieved because he could not get it ? and all
that he had was lessened by the want of what he prized so much ? So
doth the soul cry out, " Riches are nothing without Christ;" and honour
and friends cannot remove the grief of his heart, till Christ comes into
his heart, and manifests himself there. Cannot he know it by his care
to get, by his fear to lose, by his determining what to do in case ha
must lose, that which he prizeth most, or all other things besides ? He
will part with all, though very desirable, as a mariner will cast away his
richest goods in a tempest, to save his life: f which think you doth he
prize most ? A woman, if her house be on fire, suffers all her pewter to
be consumed in the flames, so that she may but save her child: is it not
apparent which she valueth most ? All shall go, that thou mayest keep
Christ, if thou prize him most. This is known by the delight of the
heart in the enjoyment of that which a man valueth most in the want of
other things. Thou canst delight in Christ, in poverty, affliction, in the
midst of troubles in the world.
So, likewise, for love: is it not possible for a man to know that he
loveth Christ above all? How else could Peter, when asked three times
by Christ whether he loved him, answer three times, that he did love
him, and did appeal to Christ, that knew his heart, that he spake truly,
because he knew he loved him sincerely; and this is observable that this
was after Peter's fall, by which he had learned to have a holy jealousy
over his own heart; and Christ doth not intimate any deceitfulness in
his heart in this, as he did before when he said twice that he would not
deny him. (Matt. xxvi. 33, 35.)
* for rijuos.PiscATOR in loc,
f As Aristippus east his gold into the
sea, saying, Satius est, tit hacper Aristippum, quam propter hoc pereat Aristippua, " It
Is better these things perish by Aristippus, than Aristippus by these things."
8XRMON XII. ASSVRANCX 18 POBSIBLK.
261
Signs of true love to God.

By the effect* of love, we may certainly know that we love him.
1. By thy unfeigned desires to be like unto Mat.We love to imitate
those whom we dearly love. Love produceth assimilation: if he be holy,
so wouldeet thoo be ; if he hate sin, so dost thou.
2. By thy hearty desire to be united to him, to have him with thee.*
His presence thou dost desire, his absence thou canst not bear without
mourning and complaints, and wishing, " 0 that I could see him! 0 that
I could meet with him 1" And therefore thou goest from duty to duty,
from ordinance to ordinance, from thy prayers in thy closet to the congregation, if thou mightest find him there; from the word to the sacrament, if thou mightest find him there: if he come unto thee, thou
rejoiceet: if he withdraw himself, thy soul is troubled.
3. By thy great care to please him, fear to offend him, and resigning
thyself to Aiiit.fWhen it grieveth thy heart to grieve thy Lord, and it
breaks thy heart when thou breakest his commands: " If ye love me, keep
my commandments. He that hathmy commandments, and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me." (John xiv. 15, 21.) " And hereby we do
know that we know " (including this affection of love onto) " him.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a
liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him
verily is the love of God perfected: hereby we know that we are in him.'*
(1 John ii. 35.) " For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments : and his commandments are not grievous,*' (I John v. 3,)
because of the love we have to him that doth command.
4. By the love that toe bear unto his image, in whomsoever we do see
it, and love them that are like to Christ so much, that we could deny
ourselves of honours and profits, were it necessary, and God should call
us to it, to do them good. As we love Christ above all, so we love his
likeness in others, and the believer for Christ's sake above outward
things, that if he, be in necessity, we do not only wish him well, but part
with something; and if God and the law of nature did not require us to
lay it out first for necessary provision for our families, could part with
all to help them in their great necessity. (Acts iv. 32, 34, 35, 37;
1 John iii. 16, 17.) Now, this sincere love to the people of God is an
evidence of the goodness of out spiritual condition : " We know that
we have passed from death unto life." How? not by extraordinary
revelation, but by this rational argumentation: " Because we love the
brethren ;" (1 John iii. 14 ;) and, verses 18, 19: " My little children,
let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
* Nihil magit gregale yuam amor; omnium rerun patifntissimtu, nisi tolitudmit,
tocietate gaudet et extorquet eon*orfom._JoHAH. BUST. NIEREMBEROIUS, De Art
Vol., p. 333. " Nothing is more social and gregarious in its nature than love. Possessing
the most extraordinary powers of enduring all things except solitude and absence, it delights
in the society of the object beloved, and claims for itself a companion with whom it may
associate."-.
-f Se a se aufert omens, et amato tradit. " He that loves,
withdraw* himself from himself, and delivers himself up to the object beloved."EDIT.
Amor echo. The soul that loves God, doth echo to God's commands : " When thou
aaidest my heart said," &c. (Psalm xxvii. 8.)
262
And hereby we know that we are of the truth* and shall assure oar
hearts before him/'
The Papist cavils, the drooping Christian doubts.
Bat here the Papist doth not only cavil, but the drooping, distressed
Christian also queationeth all this, because of the deceitfulnese of the
heart. " Alas! the scripture tells us, that ' the heart' of man ' is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it ?'
(Jer. zvii. 9 :) and if the heart of man cannot be known, how can we say
we believe or love God ?" For this, consider these four things:
1. Another man cannot know it; I cannot certainly and infallibly
know whether another man be sincere, or what his heart is; for it is the
prerogative and excellency of God to be , "one that
knows the hearts of all men." (Acts i. 24.)
2. A wicked man's heart is so wicked, and there is such a depth of
wickedness in his heart, that he cannot come to the bottom of it.
3. If a man cannot know all the secret turnings and windings of his
heart, yet he may know the general scope and frame of his heart.
4. If he could not do this of himself, yet, assisted by the Spirit of
God, which all believers have received, he might know the frame, bent,
scope, inclination, of his own heart.
Thus far the first proposition, that a man may know that he hath sincere faith in Christ, and love to God. Now we proceed to the second.
SECOND PROPOSITION, WHICH SHOWS THE CONNEXION BETWEEN
GRACE AND GLORY.
[The] second proposition is this: That there is an infallible connexion

between justifying faith, unfeigned love, and eternal glory.
The apostle tells us of some things that may be called
, " things that accompany salvation," (Heb. vi. 9,) having or
containing salvation, that are so contiguous to salvation that the one
toucheth the other. This must be proved j for, else, though I know I
do believe and love God sincerely to-day, I can have no infallible assurance of salvation, because this may be lost before to-morrow, or before I
die. Now this I shall endeavour to prove by these three following

particulars:
1. From the verity of God's promises.
1. The undoubted verity of God's promises proveth an inseparable connexion between sincere grace and eternal glory.Faith is the eye of the
soul, and with it, through a promise, as through a perspective glass, can
the soul have a view of heaven and glory. What greater certainty or
security can a man have, than the infallible promise of that God who is
Truth itself? who will not deny 'his word; but the same love and free
grace that moved him to infuse grace into thy heart, and to make the
promise, will move him also to give the thing promised : " God so loved
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John iii. 16.) " He
that believeth hath everlasting life." (John v. 24.) He hath it in the
8CHHON XII.
A8ST7BANCE 18 POSSIBLE.
263
promise, he hath it in the first-fruit. " Bat ourselves also, which have
the first-fruits of the Spirit." (Rom. viii, 23.) The Jews, by offering
their first-fruits, did testify their thankfulness to God for what they had
received, and hopes of the full crop in due time. He " hath everlasting
life;" then it must not end. " He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark xvi. 16.)
As certainly as the unbeliever shall be cast into utter darkness, so
certainly shall the believer be partaker of the glorious inheritance of the
saints in light. The promise is as true as tbe threatening. There,
(Acts xvi. 30, 31,) you see a poor convinced, wounded sinner, under the
load of guilt, that had a sight of his lost, undone, deplorable condition,
coming to the apostles, and speaking after this manner: " Te men of
God, ye servants of the Lord, if there be any way for me, who have
been so great a sinner, that have done enough, ten thousand times over,
to damn my own soul; if there be any certain way to avoid damnation, I
beseech you tell me ; if there be any me,ans by which I might certainly be
saved, as you pity my sinful soul, my bleeding heart, my wounded conscience, tell me what it is, declare it to me!" What is the apostles'
answer? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
The apostle speaks not doubtingly, "Perhaps thou shalt be saved,
perhaps thou mayest be damned." " If thou get faith it may be thou
mayest go to heaven" Alas 1 what relief, peace, satisfaction would this
have been to his wounded conscience ? But they speak peremptorily :
" Believe, and thou shalt be saved." So that prove thou that thou hast
faith, and these scriptures prove thou shalt have salvation
The connexion, therefore, will not be questioned: "If I believe, I shall
be saved." This God hath promised. But shall not a believer lose his
faith in Christ, and lose his love to God? for the Remonstrants grant
that a believer qua talis, " as a believer," cannot foil away, nor come
short of glory; but qui talis est, "he that is-a believer" may fall
away totally and finally, and so cannot have assurance of salvation,
because he hath no assurance that he shall persevere in his believing and
state of grace. To this oppose these places of scripture: "And the
very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless "(therefore preserved from
apostasy, which is exceedingly blameworthy) till when?"unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Is this a prayer, and not a promise ?
Yea, it is a prayer indited by the Spirit of God, and hath a promise
following it, if you will read on : " Faithful is he that calleth you, who
also will do it." (1 These, v. 23, 24.) Here the apostle, that had the
Spirit, prayeth for perseverance; and the apostle, that had the Spirit,
promiseth perseverance. Certainty, then, of perseverance doth not make
men careless in the use of means, nor prayers needless; by praying, a
man obtains the thing promised; and the certainty that he hath by
the promise of obtaining, puts life into his prayers: " Being confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in yoa will
perform it," TriTsAso-ei, " will finish it, will perfect it," " until the day of
Jesus Christ." (Phil. i. 6.) ,, " kept," garrisoned,* " by
* ( denoteth more safety than 0.
264
the power of God through faith auto salvation." (1 Peter i. 5 ; John x.

2830.) " Bat will with the temptation make a way to escape." (1 Cor.
x. 13.) Therefore they shall persevere; for to enable the believer to persevere in all temptations, is to make a way to escape the destruction and
hurt the temptation tendeth to. God doth promise this absolutely:
" And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: and I will make
an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them,
to do them good ; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall
not depart from me." (Jer. xxxii. 38, 40.) They shall not forsake God,
because God will not leave them. " And I will put my Spirit Within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them:" (Ezek. xxxvi. 27:) as absolute as was the
covenant with Noah, that he would not drown the world. Besides, as
God doth make conditional promisee of pardon and salvation to those
that believe and repent, so he doth promise to give the condition. (Isai.
liv. 9, 10.) And herein is one special difference betwixt the covenant of
works, and the covenant of grace ; for God promised happiness to man
under the covenant of works, if he persevered in yielding perfect obedience, but did not promise to keep him from departing from him.
(Ezek. xxxvi. 2527.) So that a conditional promise is sufficient
security, where the condition is certain, and doth not infer the uncertainty of the promise, but where the condition is doubtful. These
places also prove the constancy of grace, that it shall not be lost.
" Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;" doth not make a
trade of sin, cannot sin so as by sin totally and finally to fall; " for his
seed remaineth in him."* (1 John iii. 9.) While the Papists and
Arminians have endeavoured to bite asunder the golden chain, whereby
grace and glory are linked together, this place of scripture hath broken
their teeth. Bellarmine acknowledgeth that this is the hardest place of
scripture for him to answer, in all the book of God.f In John iv. 14, it
is set forth by " a well of water springing up into everlasting life." A
believer is " born of incorruptible seed." {1 Peter i. 23.) An hypocrite,
like a stake, hath no root, and therefore may be plucked up ; but a real
believer hath grace rooted in him, and therefore, like a tree rooted in the
earth, stands fast.
If it be objected^ " No man can certainly be assured of salvation,
because God hath no where made a particular promise to any person by
name; and nothing is to be believed with a divine faith but what is
expressly contained in the word of God. He hath not said, "Thou,
Cornelius, shalt be saved :'"
To this is answered, that all particulars are contained under the universals. If all men be rational creatures, and Cornelius be a man, we
must conclude that Cornelius is a rational creature. How will they
prove that there is an infallible certainty, that every particular person
shall come to judgment ? For God hath not said, " And thou, Cornelius,
shalt come to judgment." In the commands that are given to all men,
* ' trotew differt
ab simpliciter aecepto.
from sinning in its simple acceptation."EDIT,

torn. iv. lib, iii. c. 15.
" To commit sin differ
f BELLARMINUS De Just\ficat,
XII.
A8SURANCK POSSIBLE.
265
that they shall not commit adultery; how will they prove that this
reaches every particular man ? for where hath God said " Thou, Cornelius, shalt not commit adultery?" . Thus this is proved from -the infallibility of God's promises.
2. From the prevalency of Chrief* prayer.
2. The prevalency of Chrtsfe intercession for those that do believe
and love God, doth demonstrate the inseparable connexion between
grace and glory.For we know, that what Christ prayed for shall he
granted. " And I know that thou nearest me always." (John xi. 42.)
Arminius layeth it down as " a certain truth, that Christ's prayers are
never rejected/'* Now Christ's prayers for believers are not conditional : " Father, if their faith fail not, let them be saved;" but Christ
prayeth, that their faith might not fail, and that they may be saved.
Christ's intercession doth not exclude the conditions of faith and perseverance, but is, that we may believe, persevere, and so infallibly be saved.
" I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." (Luke xzii. 32.) And
Armenians grant this prayer of Christ to be absolute, praying not for
Peter's salvation if he should persevere, but praying that he may persevere. Neither is this prayer peculiar for Peter, excluding the rest; for
though he mentioneth Peter, yet he speaketh to all, and of them all:
" Simon, Simon, Satan ^ ,, hath desired you, that he may
sift you as wheat;" and when he should be recovered from his fall, he
should strengthen his brethren: whereby it is manifest, that Christ had
respect unto the perseverance of the rest, as well as to Peter's. And the
like intercession Christ makes for all that should believe, as appeareth
from John xvii.; which was not a prayer only suitable to the condition,
and cases, and exigencies of the apostles at that time, but a pattern of
his interceding now in heaven. So much Arminius grants.) " I pray
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil;" (John xvii. 15 ;) therefore
from apostasy, the greatest evil. Not that they should be free from persecution, but from being overcome by persecution, that it may not separate them from him: avo ' the article shows "the evil" to
be specially sin and Satan. " Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word." (Verse 20.)
And he prayeth for their glorification : " Father, I will that they also,
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am;" (Christ then, as
to his divine nature, was in heaven, a proof that he was God;) " that
they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me." (Verse 24.)
* Certo eerttu ooncludere notes licet, Ckriito prece nunifuam rejectum iri..
ARMINII Oratio De Sacerdotio Chritti, p. 17.
t Coniinet illud oaput 17 Joh.
perpetuwn canonem preeum et intercessions, qua* Chiittus Pain offert in caelit:
quanqwun enim Christus adhue in terra existens illam precationem recitaverit, tamen
ad statum illius sublimem in eeelin pertinet proprii ; et describi voluit, ut perpetuo nobi
esset in terrii eolatio.AAMINII Oratio De Sacerdotio Christi, p. 17. "The seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel contains the perpetual rule, the exact canon, of the
prayers and intercessions which Christ offers in heaven to his Father. For although that
prayer was recited by Christ, while he remained upon earth, yet it properly belongs
to his sublime state of exaltation in heaven : and it was his will, that it should be written
and described in his word, that we who are on earth may derive from it continual consolation."- .
266
SERMON XIT.
3. From the inability of all things to separate betwixt Christ and a

believer.
3. The inability of all things that may set themselves to make a
breach and separation between God and the gracious soul, doth demon
strafe an inseparable connexion between grace and glory.Famous is that
place to this purpose, in Rom. viii. 35, 3739; where the question is
propounded by the apostle, whether any thiug shall separate betwixt God
and his people, and hinder their salvation. And the apostle saith,
*' No:" where observe these particulars:
First. The interrogation : "Who shall separate?" that is, none shall.
For thus an interrogation is a strong negation.* (Matt, xxiii. 33; Heb.
ii. 3.)
Secondly. Here is a particular application of this to individual persons; not only believers, or elect in general. "Who shall separate
us?"
Thirdly. A particular enumeration of those evils that might threaten
this separation : " tribulation, persecution," &c. And whereas some
assert their own wills may be the cause of their apostasy, and that not
mentioned in the text: " It is not said, their own wills shall not separate
them ;" I answer, It is included, when it is said, " no other creature,"
except they will exempt men's will from the creation.
Fourthly. His glorying and triumphing over all these, wrepvtxwpsv,
"more than conquerors;" "over-overcome."
Fifthly. In whose strength it is that we are enabled to keep our steadfastness, that maketh it the more certain; in the strength of Christ, and
not our own.
Sixthly. His confidence, (and he had the Spirit of God,) /.,
"I am persuaded;" though sometimes it signifies no more than a
moral persuasion or probable conjecture, yet it doth not exclude a
certainty of knowledge. "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord
Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself;" (Rom. xiv. 14;) that
is, / certainly know: it must therefore be judged by the circumstances
of the text.
Seventhly. It is not said only, they " shall not separate," but that they
" cannot separate us from the love of God." Whether " love " be taken
actively or passively, for the love wherewith we love God, or the love
wherewith we are beloved by God, is not now material: it is true of
both. The sum of this might be gathered up in this syllogism :Those
that may certainly know that they do sincerely believe and love God,
may certainly know that they shall be saved: But a real believer may certainly know that he doth sincerely believe and love God: Therefore, he
may certainly know that he shall be saved.
Thus far of the first argument from our graces, and the infallible connexion between them and glory. Because I may be judged to be too
long in this, I will be shorter in the rest, that I may come to the second
part of the question.
* Interroyatio negantis.
SERMON XII.
267
II. ARGUMENT FOB THB INHABITATION OF TH SPIRIT.
II. A Miner may know that he thatt be eaved, bectnue he may know
he hath the Spirit of God dwelling in Mm.The indwelling of tbe Spirit
is proper and peculiar to believers; for the world cannot receive him.
(John xiv. 17.) That they have the Spirit,they may know by the
special effects which he produceth in that heart where he dwells, by his
convincing, humbling, sanctifying work ; (1 Cor. vi. 11;) by enabling
them to make progress in their sanctification ; (2 Cor. in. 18 ;) by his
special assistance vouchsafed to them in holy prayer, with sighs and
groans which cannot be uttered ; (Bom. viii. 26, 27 ;) by enabling them
to mortify their sins more and more. (Rom. viii. 13.)
Now, by all these effects, the indwelling of the Spirit of God in the
heart of a believer being manifested, it doth assure him of three things:
First. By the inhabitation of tbe Spirit, he may know his eternal election. " Because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation,
through sanctification of the Spirit." (2 These, ii. 13.)
Secondly. By this we may be sure of oar adoption. " And because
ye are sous, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father." (Gal. iv. 6.)
Thirdly. By the Spirit dwelling in us, we may be sure of eternal salvation : " In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth,
tbe gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our
inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, nnto the
praise of his glory." (Eph. i. 13, 14.) In which text there are two
words that are to be considered: 9)' AppaScov. The Spirit is
a seal: it is an earnest. I. A seal among men is, (I.) For secrecy. (2.)
For distinction. (3.) For authority. (4.) For certainty. A writing
sealed is authentic, and for insuring. 2. It is " an earnest;" so also
called, 2 Cor. i. 22; a metaphor taken from buyers and sellers. An
earnest among men is part of payment; and though it be but small, yet
it is sufficient to secure you of that which is of very great value.* Though
there be no commutative justice betwixt God and the creature, yet here
it hath its weight. There is this difference betwixt an earnest and a
pawn : a pawn might be fetched from his hands to whom it was committed to keep ; but an earnest binds a man to stand to his agreement,
or at least he must lose his " earnest." But God will give the whole
inheritance, and will not lose his " earnest."
For our greater comfort, we may take notice of these particulars in
this text, and 2 Cor. i. 21, 22, compared together: 1. Tbe person sealing : " The Father." 2. In whom : "In Christ." 3. With what seal:
"The Spirit of promise:" where are all the Persons in the Trinity
making us sure of our inheritance. 4. When: "After ye believed."
* AifaS** peculiariter diciiur pare aiiqua pertoluta pretii in vendilione interoenieniis,
utfidetfiat reliquasperiolvenda summa.. "The word EARNEST is peculiarly
applied to that part of the price of any thing which, in the course of bargaining, i
agreed to be deposited, as a security that the rest of the sum will be paid at the stipulated time."EDIT.
268
SERMON XII.
WHAT SHALL THEY DO THAT ARE NOT ABLE
5. The end, subordinate, the certainty of our salvation, a seal, " an

earnest:" ultimate, "the praise of his glory." 6. How long this seal
and earnest shall thus assure us 1 And that is, till we have the complete
possession of what it is " an earnest."
III. ARGUMENT FROM INSTANCES, AB ESSE AD POSSE VALET
CONSEQUENTIAL
III. Many have without extraordinary revelation obtained a certain knowledge, that they should be saved. Therefore it is possible: that which hath
been done is not impossible." I have fought a good fight, I have finished
my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give
me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing." (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.) This certainty the apostle gathers from
his sincerity and constancy in hie obedience and faith, and declareth the
same certainty that all those have, that know "they love his appearing:"
"Knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring
substance." (Heb. x. 34.) Par parium est ratio, et par affirmatio.^
IV. ARGUMENT, NEMO TENETUR AD IMPOSSIBILE.J
IV. God commands its to make our calling and election sure ; therefore
it is possible.God's commands are not evidences of our ability, but
yet are of the possibility of the duty that he commands. They do not
tell us what we by our own strength can do; but yet they declare what
by oar diligence and God's assistance may be done. (2 Peter i. 10.) And
it we can make our election sure, (not in itself, for so it is, 2 Tim. ii. 19,
but to ourselves,) we may be sure of salvation. " Whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified :
and whom he justified, them he also glorified." (Bom. viii. 30.)
V. ARGUMENT.
V. The Papists grant a certainty of hope, therefore we may have a

certainty of faith.For by faith we must first apprehend the object,
before we can hope for it; and according to the measure, degrees, and
strength of our faith, is our hope. He that hath but a weak faith cannot
have a strong hope. If Abraham had staggered in his faith, he had not
been steadfast in his hope. " Now the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope." (Rom. xv. 13.)
So much for the possibility of this assurance.
SECOND PART OF THE CASE.
Now I come to the second part of the question, to speak to those that
know not that they have eternal life, and discern not their spiritual con
dition. And those may be of two sorts:
* " In reasoning from that which actually is, to that which is possible, the consequence
is valid."EDIT.
" The same reason exists for things in similar circumstances,
and the same affirmation may be made concerning each of them."EDI .
" man is bound to that which is impossible."EDIT.
rift
e\*iXos, [" the full assurance of hope,"] in Heb. vi. 11, supposeth \> TIJI
y, [" the full assurance of faith,"] in Heb. x. 22.
TO DISOWN THBIE SPIRITUAL CONDITION f
269
I. Some that, for want of diligence in ike ute of mean are uncertain
what their condition it.
II. Such a have made inquiry, and long earnestly to be resolved in
thit great question, whether they be converted, changed, and thall be
eaved, or no, and yet cannot find it out.
I. I would speak a few things to the first of these, because the greatest part know not their condition through their own carelessness and
negligence; that, through the slothfulness of their own hearts, or the
difficulty of the work, or multiplicity of worldly care and business, are
yet in the dark, that examine their shop-book oftener and more
diligently than they do the book of their own hearts; that make oftener
inquiry whether they grow rich, than whether they wax good. If I may
judge of other men's hearts by mine own in this point, and not be
thought to hare too hard and uncharitable thoughts of them, I would
conclude we are all guilty of negligence in this case, and therefore walk
in the dark, and remain in uncertainties about the salvation of our
immortal souls; which should be the first thing we should make sure of,
because it is of the greatest and everlasting concernment. Ah Christian!
chide thy own slothful, lazy, negligent heart; shame thyself out of this
carelessness. What! canst thou eat, and drink, and sleep, and trade as
quietly as if thou wert past all danger ? And yet thou dost not know
whether thou shalt be damned or saved! Awake, 0 my soul! Bouse
up thyself, and look after thine eternal state. It is no matter whether
thou art rich or poor, honourable or contemptible; the great question,
that with the greatest seriousness is to be resolved, is, whether tbon hast
grace or no, whether Christ be thine or no. Certainly careless persons
should be stirred up to look after their eternal state; and those that are
diligent need some considerations to make them more diligent; and therefore the apostle Peter writeth to those that had obtained like precious
faith with himself, calling upon them, urging and exhorting them, to make
their calling and election sure. (2 Peter i. 10.) For this end let me propound these following questions to thee that art negligent in this great
concernment, and, as thou readest, give thyself a sober, serious answer.
EIGHT QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED TO SLOTHFUL CHRISTIANS.
1. J it nothing to thee, to live in the daily neglect of a commanded

duty ?Is it not the injunction of thy Lord, whose servant thon dost
profess thyself to be, that thon shouldest give all diligence in this matter,
and wilt thou not give any at all, or not at all proportionable to the
weightiness of thy concernment herein ? Might not this raise doubts
and jealousies in thy soul, that thy condition is not good, because thou
art not diligent to know and to prove it to be good ? especially when
thou dost consider that thy Lord commands thy diligence herein.
Mightest not thou question the sincerity of thy obedience to any of
God's commands, for want of thje universality of it, extending itself to all
God's commands? Tell me, Christian, why hath God given us this
charge? Bead 2 Peter i. 10: "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give
diligence to make your calling and election sure." Is it not the same
God that commands thee to pray, that commands thee to make sure of
270
SERMON XII. WHAT SHALL THEY DO THAT ARE NOT ABLE
heaven ? Didst then never read these word? or hast thou read them,
and thrown them by, and thought, " This counsel is not fit to be followed,
nor this command to be obeyed ? " What canst thou say for thy neglect ?
Look a little into the text, what is it that you are commanded to make
sure of? house or land? If it had been so, it is like thou wonldest have
obeyed; but it is something better, infinitely better,whether thou art
effectually called, and eternally elected ; and is this to be done slothfully,
carelessly? or doth not God require thy diligence, (^<,) thy
utmost diligence; nay, all thy diligence; nay, thy speedy diligence,
without delay; thy painful diligence, without indulging thyself in thy
sloth; thy continual diligence, without weariness, or till thou hadst got
a certainty of thy state ? And shouldeet thou not do this, rather than
any temporal concernment? Shouldeet not thou make sure of grace,
rather than of riches ; of heaven, rather than the earth; of an interest
in God, rather than of earthly possessions ?
2. /* it not a shame that wicked men should daily we more eare to
make sure of fading vanities than thou dost to make sure of better and
more lasting riches ? *What! is not the soul better than the body ?
Or are things temporal better worth than things eternal? How do they
cark and care! " What must we eat, and what must we drink; and how
shall we be sure of something to keep us when we are old ?" Dost thou
do thus for thy soul ?" How shall I get my sins pardoned, my nature
sanctified, and my soul saved ? How shall I be sure of an eternal, heavenly bouse above, when this mouldering cottage of my body is tumbled
down ?" Doth it not shame thee to see the diligence of worldly men,
that if they buy house or land they look narrowly to the writing, and
ask advice and counsel, whether the title will be good, that they may be
sure, and not defrauded ? The old usurer will not let forth his moneys,
but he will have good, sufficient security both for principal and interest,
because he saith, and knows, it is good to be sure. Nay, yet farther,
doth it not shame thee that many men should take more pains for hell
than thou dost for heaven, and to be sure of damnation than thou dost
to be certain of thy salvation ? How do they daily drudge in the ways
of wickedness, committing sin with greediness, with both hands, heartily,
with their whole soul, as though they should not come to hell sure
enough, or soon enough! while thou art dull, flat, listless in thy duties
to God, and not praying heartily as for thy soul! Do not wicked men
take more pains in breaking the sabbath than thou dost in keeping of
it? And do not they scorn duties, more than thou dost prize and
practise them ? But, further :
3. Dost thou not too much forget thine own mortality ?Dost thou
indeed consider that thou art hasting into an eternal state, and must,
within these few years, months, yea, weeks, enter into an unchangeable
condition ? Dost thou indeed believe heaven or hell is before thee ? that
eternal death, or eternal life, is at the end of this fading, short, momentary life? Or dost thou judge it to be indifferent whether be the place
of thy everlasting abode ? What is the matter ? Good Lord! what sloth
stupidity, negligence, hath possessed our hearts! Surely, if thou didst
* Operate nihtl aguiit. " They are officiously busy in doing just nothing at all."EDIT.
TO DI8C1EN THVIR SPIRITUAL CONDITION?
271
believe that thou mightest be in thy grave to-morrow, wonldest thou not
make rare of heaven to-day? If the lease of thy house be almost expired,
and the landlord hath given thee warning to provide thee another habitation, (for he will not suffer thee to renew it any more,) dost thou not
presently inquire of thy Mends and of thy neighbours?'"Sirs, can yon
tell me where I may have a convenient dwelling ? I have but a little
time in the house where I am, and I have had warning to go out by such
a day." Art thou not careful to have a house ready to go to upon the
very same day thou leavest the former ? Alas! man, dost thou not know
the lease of tby life is almost out ? Nay, dost thou not know that thou
art only a tenant-at-will, and God may turn thee out at an hour's, at a
moment's, warning? And yet dost thou not make sure of "an house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens ? " Hath not God given thee
warning ? Did thy head never ache ? Was thy heart never sick ? Surely,
if thou didst not forget thy own mortality, thon wouldest be more careful,
painful, diligent in thy business. I see frequently men upon their sickbeds, when they think they must die, begin to inquire after heaven, and
how they may know their sins are pardoned, and whether their souls
shall be saved; because the apprehension of the nearness of the grave
doth rouse them; and for all [that] thou knowest, thou, though now in
health, mayest be as soon in thy grave, as he that lieth sick. God can
stop thy breath when he pleaseth. Art thou mortal ? Look, then, after
thy soul.
4. L not this too great a flighting of the comfort of the Spirit of
God ? of Christ and happiness ?Is there not so much excellency in all
these, and sweetness in discerning thy propriety [proprietorship] to *
them, as to provoke thee to diligence in making sure of them ?
5. Doet not thou know that other have looked long after it, and doet
thou think thou shalt come so easily to it ?Others have prayed much,
and searched themselves often, and yet have not been able to satisfy all
their own doubts, whether they have gone farther than ever any hypocrite
went: and dost thou think it will be so easily discerned whether thy
heart be sincere with God ? Many find it a hard thing to distinguish
betwixt the highest degrees of common grace in hypocrites, and the
lowest degrees of saving grace in a true believer.
6. Dost thou think that conscience will never be awakened to disquiet
thee, when thou canst not satisfy it about thy salvation ?Will it always
be in this spiritual slumber? Dost thou think that sickness will never
come, and that death will never come, and that trouble will never seize
upon thee? when thy conscience shall be so alarmed that thou woaldest
give all thou art worth to know what shall become of thy soul ? 0 then
for an infallible evidence of God's love! 0 then that thou mightest
know whether God will pardon thy sin, and save thy soul? 0 dreadful
case, when thou comest to die, and conscience shall accuse thee for thy
sloth, when thou feelest thy spirit begin to fail, and apprehendest thyself
near the grave, and conscience rageth and is not at peace, because thou
dost not know whether thou shalt go to heaven or hell! It is dreadful,
doleful, sad, to hear these complaints from a dying man: " 0, woe is
* The fourth edition has in.EDIT.
272
SERMON XII.
WHAT SHALL THEY DO THAT ARK NOTABLE
me, that I must take my farewell of all my friends, and death ie impatient
of delay, and yet I cannot say my sins are pardoned! 0 woe is me!
though I lie a-dying, I cannot say my sins are pardoned! Within a
little while my body must he carried from my bed to my grave; but, 0,
it breaks my heart that I cannot tell whether my soul, my precious and
yet too-much neglected soul, shall be carried to heaven by holy angels, or
dragged down to hell by cursed devils! that God would grant me a
month or two, a little longer, that I may work out my salvation!" But
thy conscience shall tell thee, thou hadst time, but thou didst mis-spend
it; thou hadst it, but thou didst not improve it in getting this grand
question resolved, whether thou hadst made thy peace with God. Consider now how dreadful it will be, when conscience is awakened, and
thou in this case unresolved!
7. If thou be a true Christian, yet herein dost thou not act too much
like the careless, ungodly world ?They take no care to make sure of
heaven; and wilt thou justify their practice, and harden them in it ?
There are some carnal ones in the family; a carnal husband, or a carnal
wife, or ungodly children, or graceless servants, that mind not God,
nor care for their souls, that look not after heaven: and wilt thou
be guilty of encouraging them in their carelessness, and hardening them
in their forgetfuiness of God, by thine own remissness ? But if thou
wast serious in the use of means, pressing, following hard after God,
thy strictness might shame them out of their wickedness, and might
reflect upon themselves: " If such a one that lives so circumspectly,
and taketh so much pains in duties, and yet doubteth, and fears, and
would fain be resolved, what a careless wretch am I, never to regard
my own soul!" They are ignorant of God and his excellency, of
Christ and his beauty, of grace and its necessity; and therefore desire
them not, nor care to make sure of them. But God hath opened thine
eyes, to see all these. Stir up thyself, then, to get a certainty of thine
interest in them.
8. Art thou not too much guUty of hypocrisy, when thou goest to the
table of the Lord, and yet dost not give diligence to make thy catting and
election sure, nor to have the certain knowledge of the pardon of thy sin,
and of thy peace with God ?Is not the Lord's supper an ordinance for
the helping the right receivers to assurance of the pardon of their sin, in
the blood of Christ ? Is it not for that end a seal of the covenant of
grace ? If thou sayest thou usest it for this end, why then dost thon
look after it no more when thou returnest from that ordinance ?
Having premised these things to awaken you, and rouse you out of
your sloth, supposing that now you are resolved to take any course that
can be prescribed from the word of God; that thou art one who weepest,
mournest, complaineet, because thou dost not discern thy spiritual condition ; I shall lay down my advice to thee in these following Directions:
DIRECTIONS TO GET ASSURANCE.
DIRECTION i. Get some characteristical, distinguishing signs of true

saving grace, by thy serious searching [of] the word of God,God hath
told thee in his word who shall be damned, and who shall be saved;
fO DISCERN THEIR SPIRITUAL CONDITION?
273
though not by name, yet by the qualifications by which they are described.
ID the Bible, there are the statute-laws of heaven, and the standing-rule
by which you must be tried, [by which] thou must stand or fall, be
eternally blessed or everlastingly miserable, as thy condition is consonant
to or various from the infallible characters of saving grace contained in
the scripture. Thou that hast deserved eternal death, mightest know
before the day of the general assize whether thou shalt be acquitted or
condemned.
But if thou know not how to gather these thyself, go to some godly,
faithful minister, and desire him to give thee some characters of a sincere
Christian from the word of God, wherein hypocrisy and sincerity are
differenced ; and be sure the signs thou triest thyself by be not short of
saving grace, or that will not hold trial, or bear thee out at the day of
judgment. I cannot here insert any, partly because I have not room to
crowd them in, partly because by what I have already laid down under
that head, that a man might know that he is sincere, believeth and loveth
God, something to this purpose might be picked up.
DIREC. ii. When thou hast thus furnished thyself, thy next work
must be to set thy conscience on work, and reflect upon thy own heart,
and upon the motion of thy will, and compare thyself with the word of
God.The former sent you to study the book of God's word; this
ealleth upon'you to study the book of your own hearts. The other is a
direct act of the understanding; this is a reflex act to make a judgment
of thy state, whether there be a transcript of those things in thine own
heart; for every believer hath the gospel-laws written upon the table of
his soul by the Spirit of God. Assurance cannot be had ordinarily,
without the examination of our own hearts ; for assurance is the certain
knowledge of the conclusion drawn from the premisses, one out of the
scripture, the other by the reflex act of the understanding or conscience;
thus: " He that believeth and is justified shall be saved ;" that is the
word of God: then, by the search of his own heart, he must be able to
say, " But I believe, and am justified;" and from these two doth result
this assurance that he may conclude: " Therefore I shall be saved."
The woman that had lost a piece of silver did light a candle, and swept her
house, and thereby found what she had lost. (Luke xv. 8.) Conscience
is this candle, the scripture is the fire at which it must be lighted, and
self-examination is the broom whereby the heart is swept; and so the
state of the soul, which before was not discerned, comes to be discovered.
But here take heed thy heart be not rash in affirming or denying.
Suspend the determination till thou hast made a narrow, strict inquiry
into thy soul. As thou lovest thy soul do not presume, as thou vainest
thy comfort do not deny, any work of the Spirit of God upon thy heart;
but with thankfulness acknowledge any thing that thou canst discern to
be a fruit of the Spirit. Search thoroughly, and judge impartially. Say,
therefore, to thy soul, to make thyself more serious in this weighty work,
" Thou art now, 0 my soul, in the presence of the great heart-searching
God, that knoweth certainly what thy state end condition is ; what thy
will heart, and affections are.* Thou must, 0 my soul, shortly stand at
* Deut it ocvtui infirutus.
God is an infinite eye."EDIT.
274
SERMON XII.
WHAT SHALL THEY DO THAT ARK NOT ABLE
the bar of God, as now thou standest at the bar of conscience, and must
be searched, judged by the Lord, and have the sentence of life or death,
of absolution or condemnation, according as thy state shall be found to
be. Consider, 0 my soul, thou art now about the greatest concernment
in the world. Many have been mistaken ; many are now tormented in
hell, that once thought their condition was good. It is not therefore for
thee to flatter thyself; and it is easy to be mistaken; and if thou
shouldest be mistaken, it is as much as thy soul is worth: if thy condition
be bad, and thou conclude it to be good, thou wilt but go more merrily
to hell. It is as much as thy comfort is worth: if thy condition be
good, and thon conclude it to be bad, thou wilt go more sadly to heaven,
and wilt be unthankful to thy God, and keep the glory from him, and
the comfort from thyself. Thou art indicted, 0 my soul, arraigned, and
found guilty, that tbou hast sinned against the Lord. The question is,
whether thou hast repented, and art pardoned ? I charge thee, therefore,
0 my soul, that thou speak truly, and answer rightly to these demands."
Art thou so far convinced of sin, of the vileness of its own nature, the
evil in it, the evil after it, that thou art weary of it, thou groanest under
it, thou loathest it, and art unfeignedly willing to be broken from every
sin without any reserve ? and what thon canst not extirpate, that thou
wilt bewail? Art thou so far convinced of thine own insufficiency
to help thyself, that all thy tears cannot wash thee, and make thee
clean, all thy duties cannot save thee? that though thou darest not
neglect them as mean*, yet thou darest not rely upon them as a
saviour? so that thou seest the necessity of a Christ, the suitableness
of Christ? the sufficiency and willingness of Christ, offering himself
unto thee in the gospel, calling to thee, crying after thee, saying, " Ah,
thou poor, miserable, forlorn sinner! thon hast undone thyself: wilt
thou now be cured? Thou hast wounded thyself: wilt thon let me
apply a plaster of my blood, my healing, pacifying blood, to thy bleeding
soul, to thy distressed, disquieted conscience ? All that I expect from
thee is, to take me for thy Lord and Husband, to rule, govern, sanctify,
and save thee. Thou hast withstood thine own mercy; I have often
asked thee, and thou hast often denied me; but yet if now thou wilt
receive me, behold, I bring pardon along with me, and peace along with
me, and eternal life, and every good thing along with me ; yet mercy is
not gone, it is not yet denied to thee." When thou mayest gather such
things from the word of Christ, put the question to thyself, " What
gayest thou, 0 my soul ? Thou hearest the gracious words of the Lord
Jesus: he commands thee to come, he inviteth thee to come, he promiseth
thee acceptance if tbou come. Art thou willing, or art thou not ? Wilt
thou persevere in thy former denial, and be damned; or wilt thou yield,
and be saved ? Wilt thou consent to take him for thy husband, and
subscribe unto his terms ? Doth thy judgment value him above all, and
thy will choose him above all, and thy affections go out after him above
all things in the world ? as a woman doth in all those three respects,
when she taketh a man to be her husband ? "
Art thou so far convinced of the excellency of the everlasting glory of
the saints, and the perfection of that happiness that is above, as it is a
TO DISCERN THEIR SPIRITUAL CONDITION?
275
tote of perfect holiness, as well as a state of real happinew, that thou art
willing to part with anything that might hinder thee from obtaining of
it, and do any duty prescribed by God, though displeasing to thy flesh,
and use them as means for the attaining of so excellent an end ? Wouldest
thou have him whatever it cost thee ? Canst thou not be without him,
whatever thon be without ? Then pass sentence for thyself, concluding
thy condition to be happy.
This is the nearest way to find out thy condition ; not stand wrangling with thyself for thy former neglects any further than for thy humiliation ; and do not so much inquire what thou hast not formerly done,
as what now thou art really willing to do.
Besides this solemn, set examination, thou shalt find it very profitable
to get and keep a sight of thy spiritual condition, to call thyself to an
account every night before thou sleep, where thou hast been that day,
what thou hast done, what company thou hast been in, what sin thou
hast committed, what duty thou hast omitted ; and mourn if thou hast
fallen, and return thy hearty thanks to God if thou hast walked carefully and circumspectly that day. This counsel a noble Heathen did
give, to call ourselves to an account before we sleep.*
DIREC. in. That thy assurance may be yet more complete and
full, and thy comfort arising from the same more enlarged, fall
down at the throne of grace, and beg earnestly and pray importunately for the witneee of the Spirit of God. For as it is the
Spirit that worketh grace in us, so it is the Spirit that must discover
the truth of that grace to us : " Now we have received, not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God." (1 Cor. ii. 12.) "The
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God." (Rom. viii. 16.) But beware thon take not satanical delusions
for the Spirit's persuasion, or the conceit of thy own brain for the
witness of the Spirit. The Spirit never witnesseth any thing to any
man contrary to what is revealed in the word; for he is a Spirit of
truth, and never speaks contradictions ; therefore, if any man thinketh
that he hath the witness of the Spirit, testifying that he is a child of
God, and yet is not holy, humble, penitent, he is deceived. But if thon
hast the graces of the Spirit, and the Spirit witnesseth so much unto
thy conscience, and with thy conscience ; 1. It inflameth thy heart with
love to God and Christ ; 2. It raiseth more hatred in thee to thy sin ;
3. Thou findest a mighty strength and power in it, engaging thy soul to
walk humbly, holily with thy God ; 4. A wonderful cogency in it to be
zealous for God in suffering any thing for his sake, and doing and
obeying any thing that he enjoins. Thou hast encouragement to ask
this of God, because it is according to his will. (John xiv. 13, 14, 21.)
" Lord, is it not according to thy will that I should be careful of my
immortal soul, and make sure its eternal happiness and salvation ? It is
thy command I should do so ; that I should examine myself whether I
be in the faith, and whether Christ be formed in my heart. Lord, I
* mprfitir; nV {; tow owe rc\<r^ ; For a tnuulatioa of this part of
die " Golden Verse " of Pythagoras, see p. 36. EDIT.
276
SERMON XII.
have examined, but yet I cannot clearly see it. I see there are some
grounds to hope it; but yet I cannot confidently assert it. 0 thou
blessed Spirit of God, clear up mine understanding, and stir up and
excite my graces, that I may feel the actings of them in my soul, and so
better discern them. Though this be arbitrary, and not necessary, yet
do to me as thou didst unto thy servant David; when he prayed that
thou wouldest lift up upon him the light of thy countenance, thou
puttest gladness into his heart." (Psalm iv. 6, 7.)
DIREC. iv. Press after the highest degrees of grace, and be much in
the exercise thereof, if thou wouldest clearly discern thy spiritual condition.The weakness of thy grace makes thee doubt of the truth of
grace. The Christian must be like the crocodile, that grows as long as
it lives, and ceaseth to be when it ceaseth to grow.* The body of a
man is continually growing, till he come to his perfect age, and then
ceaseth to grow; for then, though he may wax fat and broader, yet he
riseth not higher, and hie bones have no increase: so when we come to
our full stature in Christ, to our perfect age in glory, we shall grow no
more, because then we shall be perfect; but in our minority we must be
always growing ; and a growing person is easily discerned to be a living
person. A dwarf cannot see so far as a taller man, nor be seen so far:
so a little grace cannot be so easily perceived amongst a crowd of sins
and corruption.
When grace at first is like Elijah's cloud, little like a man's hand, it
was hardly discerned; but when it did increase, and the heavens were
black with clouds, every eye could then perceive them. (1 Kings xviii.
43, 44.) Assurance is usually vouchsafed to Christians of the largest
size. Men put not up a great mast or sail in a little boat, but in a
larger vessel that is able to bear it.
So also, by the strong actings and exercise of grace it is discerned.
A man in his sleep, when he acts not reason, cannot judge himself to
be a man.
A, man in a swoon, when he cannot be perceived to breathe,
standers-by know not whether he be dead or alive, nor he himself.f
Moral habits are acquired and strengthened by frequently-repeated acts,
and more easily discerned. The fire lying raked under the ashes, is not
BO easily found, as when it, being blown up, breaketh forth into a flame.
He that hath strong love to God will sooner feel it; and the more
frequent it moveth, and is upon the wing after God, the sooner shalt
thou know that thou lovest him.
" The being of a thing is proved by
its operation." Operari eupponit esse.
DIREC. v. Be well acquainted and informed in the nature of the covenant of grace, and the condition thereof.Whatsoever are thy doubts,
there is something in the covenant of grace that would be ground of
satisfaction to thee: is it thine own unworthiness ? Here rich and free
grace is laid open. Is it thy long delay of coming unto God, that now
thou thinkest it is too late ? The gospel will tell thee, that Christ will
not cast thee off, if now thou come unto him. Is it thy ragged, torn,
imperfect obedience? The covenant of grace accepts of sincerity,
* A some affirm.
f Animi quiee, molus virtulis esl; " The moving activity of
virtue, is the settled rest of the mind."EDIT.
DISCERN THEIR SPIRITUAL CONDITION?

2/7
though there be many infirmities; the intention of the heart for the
work of the hand; the purpose for the performance, where the sincere
soul cannot do so much as he doth really desire to do.
DIREC. vi. Prize the society of the people of God that are acquainted
utith the workings of God's Spirit upon their hearts.Be much in communion with the saints. When they have been unfolding their doubts,
they have been in some good measure resolved; this hath quickened
their hearts when they have been dull, and blown up the sparks of love
in their souls to God, that they have felt their hearts to burn within
them with love towards God. (Luke xxiv. 32; Psalm Ixvi. 16; Mal.
iii. 16.)
DIREC. vn. Keep a record of all the experiences thou hast had of
goodness to thee; and what thou hast formerly found make it a
means for the supporting of thy soul for the present and the future.
(Psalm Ixxvii. 10, 11.)Such a time thou canst remember thou wast
upon thy knees, bemoaning thyself, loathing thyself, full of sorrow and
complaints, and God took thee up in the arms of his love, and spake,
like a friend, words of peace and comfort to thy soul, and bid tbee be of
good cheer, he was reconciled to thy soul. He filled thee full of sorrow,
and afterward filled thee full of joy. He cast thee down, and raised
thee . He broke thy heart, and bound it up. He came to thee, as
to Mary, expostulating with thee: " Sinner, why weepest thou ? What
aileth thee ?" Thou weepest for thy Saviour, and he was by thee, and
showed himself unto thee.
So much for the means to obtain this certain knowledge of eternal
life.
II. But if by the use of these and the like directions, the soul cannot
get this assurance; and though he search, and pray, and grieve,
because he hath not the light of God's countenance shining upon him,
followeth the means, and longs to know his estate, and all things he
enjoyeth are lessened in his esteem, because he cannot see his interest in
Christ, whom he doth most esteem: to thee I will give these directions.
COUNSEL TO THOSE THAT, BY THESE DIRECTIONS, CANNOT YET
OBTAIN THIS ASSURANCE.
1. Though thou canst not say thy condition is good, yet do not say
that thy condition is bad.Though thou canst not affirm thou hast the
faith of evidence, yet do not peremptorily say, thou hast not the faith of
adherence. Though thou hast not the witness of the Spirit for thee, yet
do not bear false witness against thyself. Canst not thou say thou art
sure of heaven ? yet do not say tbe're is no hope of heaven. Though
thou canst not own heaven as thine, do not disown it; if thou canst not
prove it, do not disclaim it. It is strange, yet ordinary, to see many
doubting Christians dispute against themselves, and reason against their
own comfort. Tell them of their longing after Christ, their weeping
and mourning for him, they doubt it is not in truth: if you say to
them, " If you do not truly love him, then let him alone, and follow no
more after him: why do you grieve for him, because you cannot find
him, if you do not truly love him?" they will reply, "Conscience will
278
SERMON XII.
pat a man on to do something, when yet it may not be done oat of love
to God." If yoa ask, "Can yon take up with any thing short of
Christ?" though indeed they cannot, yet they will reply, "The heart is
deceitful," and they know not what they should do. Frame not arguments against thyself, when tbou canst not frame them for thyself: five
by faith, when thou canst not live by sense and comfort.
Take heed here of judging thy condition to be bad, by trying thyself
by rules not so suitable to find out the being and truth of grace, as the
growth and increase of grace. And here,
(I.) Say not, thou hast no grace, because thou hast not so much as
thou seest others to have.To take notice of the eminent degrees of
grace in others, to provoke ourselves to labour after the same proportion,
is good; but to argue for a nullity of grace, because thou hast not such
a quantity of grace as thou diacernest in others, is not rational. Is
there no water in the brook, because there is not so much as in the
river ? Is there not light in a candle, because there is not so much as
in the sun ? Wilt thou say thon art a beggar, because thou art not so
rich as thy neighbours, that have a full estate ? Or, that thou knowest
nothing, because thon knowest not so much as the greatest scholar?
Observe Peter in this case: he did not say,when Christ asked him,
"Lovest thou me more than these?""I love thee more than John or
any of thy disciples love thee;" but, "I love thee." (John xxi. 15.)
Thou must love Christ more than thou lovest any thing in the world
besides, or else thou dost not sincerely love him; but thon must not
conclude that, except thou lovest him as much or more than others love
him, thou hast no love at all unto him. Yet this is ordinary: " I never
was humbled so much as others have been; I cannot mourn as others
do." Inquire now after the truth, rather than after the degrees; and
know thy humiliation is true, First, when thou art broken for and from
thy sin : so much bitterness upon the breast, as weaneth the child from
it, is sufficient: Secondly, that makes thee see a necessity of Christ, and
willing to close sincerely with him.

(2.) Say not, thou hast no grace, because thou hast not grace proportionable to thy desires , but rather hope thou hast it, because thou hast
such enlarged desires after it. Is not he a froward, unthankful child,
that saith his father hath given him nothing, because not so much as .he
desireth ?
(3.) Say not, thou hast no grace, because thou seest corruption in thee
more than before.They were in thy heart before, though thou didst not
discern them. The house is full of filth; but while the shuts are up, it
is not perceived; but take them down, and you see it plainly, not
because there is more filth, but because there is more light*
(4.) Not because of the indisposed-ness of thy heart to, and dulness
of thy affections sometimes in the time of, holy duties.
2. When thou canst not get assurance, make as much improvement of
the grounds upon which thou mayest build hopes of salvation. (Psalm
xxxiii. 18; cxlvii. 11.)The probable grounds [which] thou hast, thou
wouldest not part with for all the world. If thy heart is not full of joy
through the sense of God's love, yet thine eyes are full of tears, and thy
2/9
soul of sorrow, through the sense of thy sin. Wouldest thou change
thy condition with any hypocrite whatsoever, with the richest man that
hath no grace 1 I would not have thee rest satisfied with a probability,
but yet bless God for a probability, of salvation. Is it nothing, that

one that hath deserved hell most certainly, should have a probability
that he should escape it ? Would not this be a little ease to the torments
of the damned, if they had but a strong probability that they may be
saved? But "no hope makes it heavy." When thou art sick, thou
inquirest of the physician : " Sir, what do you think of me ? Shall I
live or shall I die ?" If he reply, " It is not certain; but there are good
hopes, it is probable you will live, and do well;" this is some support
unto thee in thy sickness.
3. Discourse with such Christiana whom thou darest not judge to be
ungodly, and yet findest them to be in the same condition with thyself,
having the same doubts, the same fears, complaining of the tame sin; and
do not pass a worse judgment upon thyself than thou darest upon them.
This is a very useful way either to convince or support,to consider our
case in a third person. Thus Nathan convinced David. (2 Sam. xii.

114.) So the prophet convinced Ahab. (1 Kings xx. 3543.) A
man condemning another in the same case, becomes ;,
" self-condemned." So a man approving of another in the same state
and condition, clothed with the same circumstances, as himself, is to
approve of himself. Thou nearest another say, he knows not what to
think of his present and eternal state; but yet thou seest, and he tells
thee, he dares not willingly sin; the desire of his soul is to walk holily
and humbly with his God; he dares not neglect a commanded duty:
thou darest not say, " This man hath no grace." It being as well with
thee [as with him], say not worse of thyself.
4. Forsake not duty, because thou wantest comfort.Thou hadst
better want joy than neglect duty; for duty is more necessary than comfort, and in order to it; therefore [it] must be minded more. To seek
comfort, may be in love to thyself; but to be constant in duty in the
want of comfort, argues conscientious obedience to the commands of thy

God. Though thou art not taken up into the arms of Christ, yet lie at
his feet; though he doth not take thee into his bosom, yet throng among
the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. He might deny thee comfort, and yet own thee for his child; but thou canst not deny him duty,
and yet own him for thy God. If he do not tell thee thou art his son,
yet do not thou say, thou wilt not be his servant. (Luke xv. 19.) I
beseech thee, say not, " I will hear no more, I will pray no more: ordinances are in vain, and all endeavours will be in vain."
Casting off
hope clips the. wings of serious, constant endeavours. Limit not God to
thy time. Joseph did not presently discover himself unto his brethren,
but carried himself as a stranger to them. Joseph knew that they were
his brethren, but they knew not that they were related to him; but they
often coming to him, and making known their perplexed condition in
the grief and trouble of their souls, with sad complaints and moans, he
could no longer refrain; his heart was full, his bowels did yearn, and
the fire of love did so flame forth, that made his tears presently boil over.
280
SERMON XII. WHAT SHALL THEY DO THAT ARE NOT ABLE
" I am Joseph your brother: I will show you kindness; be not troubled." (Gen. xlv. 1, &c.) While thou followest God with thy complaints, and pressest hard after Christ, he will at length show and make
known himself unto thee. " 0 thou weeping sinner, I am Jesus thy
Brother, I am thy Redeemer, I will be thy Saviour: though thou hast
dealt unkindly with me, yet I will receive thee with the sweet embracements of my everlasting love." Read Psalm Ixxxv. 8; Hosea vi. 13;
Isai. liv. 7, 8.
5. Always be more observant of the purpose and disposition of thy
heart, the inclination of thy will, the general scope of thy life, than the
passionate sense of joy and comfort.There is but little constancy in
these joys: like the tide, they ebb and flow; like a land-flood, [they]
might overflow for a while, but a little after be dried up. Joys are the
sweet-meats of the soul, but are not for its constant fare and diet; for a
spiritual banquet, not for a standing-dish. Thus it was with David.
And the experience of Christians proves it.
6. When thou canst not experience the sweetness of the promise, yet
then firmly believe the verity of the promise.The truth of the promise
doth not depend upon our sense and feeling of it, especially when we
would. There might be evidentia credibilitatis, when there is not
evidentia rei, " sufficient reason to believe, because it is a promise made
by God, when thou dost not as yet see the performance of.it." Though
thou hast not tasted honey, yet thou wilt believe it to be sweet, if told
by one that hath eaten thereof.
7. Carry thyself really towards thy sin, as thou dost conceive, through
mistake, God doth towards thee.Thou sayest, God doth not love thee;
be sure thou dost not love thy sin. Thou sayest, he hath cast thee off;
be sure thou cast off thy sin. Smile as little upon thy sin as, in thy
greatest darkness of discomfort, thou sayest God doth upon thee.
Lighten the ship by casting thy sins overboard, and thou shalt come safe
to shore. This eclipse may be by the interposition of some sin betwixt
thee and the light of God's countenance.
8. Diligently observe what grace is of the greatest growth in thy soul,
and make the best improvement of that for thy support.The body
natural doth grow in all the parts of it, but not equally as to all dimensions. The finger grows not to the magnitude of the wrist or arm. In
mixed bodies, there are all the elements, but one is predominant.
Amongst the many branches of a tree, one might out-top all the rest.
In a ring of bells all sound; but the great bell is heard above them all.
In the new creature there are all graces radically and seminally; but yet
one might be more eminent than the rest. In some, faith; (Matt. xv.
28;) in some, love to God; (Luke vii. 44, 47;) in some, sorrow for sin ;
(2 Cor. ii, 7; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12;) as every sin is radically in every
wicked man, yet some sin is grown to a greater height, and, like Saul,
is taller than the rest; in pne, covetousness; in another, passion; in
another, pride.
Moral virtues are connexed communi vinculo, " with a common bond,"
yet they may be in several degrees: some have them in gradw continentiee,
["in the degree of continence,"] that, though the disorders and pertur.
281
bations of the soul are very urgent and pressing, yet a man is able to
resist and to suppress them; some, in gradu temperantitey ["in the degree
of temperance,"] when the passions are more sedate and cairn ; some, in
gradu heroico, ["in the heroic degree,"] when they are subdued and
restrained, that they are subject to the government and rule of right
reason, the guide and leader of the soul. Now, that grace that is most
eminent is easily discerned. Make use of that.
9. Blear not thine eye*, by always poring upon thy sin and wants,
that are the reaton of thy doubts and fear ; but study also the righteousness and fulness of Christ, for the support of hope and confidence.
Know, that if thou hadst never so little sin, (Gal. iii. 10,) yet thou hast
need of a Saviour; and if thou hast never so much, he is willing and
sufficient; (Isai. i. 18;) if thou hadst never so much sorrow and inherent grace, thou must be justified by the merits of Christ alone; (Job ix.
21; 1 Cor. iv. 4; Phil. iii. 8, 9;) and if thou hast but so much as is
true and sincere, thou art justified, and shalt be saved. (Matt. xii. 20.)
Set thy faith on work, therefore, to lay hold upon Christ, and faith will
suck strength from Christ, as the child doth cleave to the mother by
the navel, and receive nourishment from her. A twig that is shaken
by every wind, yet tied to the body of a tree,it standeth fast.
Eye thy sin to cast thee down, and Christ's righteousness to raise
tbee up.
10. Be more in practice than in disputes ; and wherein thou wouldest
inform thy judgment, proceed in a right method.Many weak Christians
cannot see the complexions of their faces, because they are always looking into troubled waters, searching into needless disputes and questions.
Notional knowledge in the scripture will never cure thy distemper; no
more than [the] bare reading of Galen, or the works of some physician,
will recover a man from a fit of sickness.
And where thou wouldest be informed, proceed in a right method.
Question not thy election first, but thy true- conversion. " God hath
reprobated me : all will be in vain." But thou must prove thy election
by thy conversion, as the cause is discovered by the effect. " We must
begin in this where God doth end, and end where God doth begin." As
on a ladder, he that is above, if he would come down to you, must first
use the top rounds ; but if you would go up to him, you must first use
the bottom rounds, and ascend step by step. Election is the uppermost
round, sanctification is at the bottom; and by our sanctification we must
climb up to see our names written in the book of life. In building, men
proceed methodo syntheticd;* in pulling down, methodo analytic A,\ If
you would take a watch to pieces, yon must begin where the watchmaker
made an end. The carpenter, when he builds, first lays the foundation,
and finishes the roof last: when he pulls down, he takes off the roof,
and so to the foundation. God did first choose, and then convert us;
but we first know our conversion, and thereby our election.
* " By the synthetical method," that is, from the foundation of first principles up to
the conclusion; or that which, beginning with the part, leads onward to a knowledge of
the whole.EDIT.
f " By the analytical method " of separating a matter into
constituent part, or resolving it into its first principles.EDIT.
282
SERMON XII,

MOTIVES TO GET ASSURANCE.
In the close, take these MOTIVES drawn from the utility of this assurance, to quicken thee further to labour after it. This assurance will be,
1. Comfortable to thyself. 2. Profitable to others.
1. It will fitt thee with comfort. (1.) Under all God's providence,
(2.) Under all God's ordinances.
(1.) That is a desirable frame of spirit, that doth fit us to carry ourselves, under the various dispensations of Divine Providence wherewith
the people of God are exercised, as most becomes the gospel of Christ,
and the profession we make.Assurance helps us in this; for,
(i.) Assurance sweetens every mercy.It is the sugar in our wine.
He knows every mercy is given in mercy, and not in wrath. He knows
it is not his portion : he hath much here ; but he is sure he shall have
more hereafter. But the want of this embitters all outward enjoyments
to the doubting Christian; who saith, " What are the riches of the world
to me, when I doubt whether the graces of the Spirit are infused into
me ? What is gold without God's love 1 And what is plenty without
hope of heaven?"
(ii.) Assurance will lighten every burden.With this he can bear the
burden of adversity, as Samson did the gates of Gaza upon his back,
(Judges zvi. 3,) without sinking under it.

First. The assured believer knows he is rich in the midst of poverty.
(Col. ii. 2.)" Though I cannot say, ' Riches are mine; * yet I can say,
* Christ is mine;' and that is more. Though I cannot say, 'Silver and gold
are mine;' yet I can say, 'Grace and glory are mine;' and that is better."
This believer CBL look up towards heaven, and say, "Yonder is the place,
the palace, the kingdom I have a title to; above yonder heavens must I for
ever dwell; above yonder sun is a mansion for me. 0, I long to be
there, where I know I shall for ever be! My heart is filled with joy while
I think on it.
0, what joy shall enter into me, when I shall enter into
that joyful, blessed place ! Though now I walk in rags, I shall shortly
be clothed with white and glorious robes. Now a cottage is my house,
but a stately building is prepared for me." (2 Cor. v. 1; John xiv. 2, 3.)
Secondly. The assured believer rejoiceth in the sharpest sufferings for
the gospefs sake. (Heb. x. 34 ; Acts v. 40, 41 ; xvi. 2325. Compare
Gal. ii. 20, with Acts xx. 23, 24; xxi. 13.)He can despise and scorn
all the scornings, threateniugs, and reproaches of the ungodly world;
for though he seeth he is hated by men, yet he knoweth he is beloved by

God.
(iii.) Assurance is the best cordial in time of sickness, and a sovereign
remedy against the fears of death.But it is sad to be a doubting
Christian, when thou art a dying Christian.
(2.) The assured believer may with comfort approach to God in all his
ordinances.(i.) He can go to the throne of grace with humble boldness, crying, " Abba, Father." (ii.) When he reads or hears the word
of God, every part is welcome to his soul. When the promises are
opened, he can say, " These belong to me."
When threatening are
denounced, he can rejoice, because he is delivered from the misery
TO DISCERN BIR SPIRITUAL CONDITION?
283
threatened. When commands are urged, by assurance they are much

facilitated : " This is my Father's command, I will do it; my Father's
will, I will obey it." (iii.) He can approach with joy to the Lord's supper,
and sit there with great delight. He sees the wounds, the sufferings, the
sorrows, of Christ; and saith, " All this was for me."
2. This assurance will make thee profitable unto other*. (I.) To the
wicked 5 (2.) To the godly.
(1.) To the wicked.(.) By this the wicked shatt be convinced that
religion if a reality, that ordinances are not empty things; when they
must acknowledge: " Surely these men meet with something from God
in duty, which we are strangers to, that maketh them thus cheerful in
all conditions."
(ii.) By thi they shall be convinced that that ie false [which] they
have conceived of seriousness in religion ; that if they close with Christ,
they shall never have a delightful, pleasant life more. Drooping, disconsolate, mourning Christians strengthen this error in wicked men too
much.
(2.) It will make thee profitable to the godly.(i.) To the weak,
(ii.) To the strong.
(i.) Thou wilt be profitable to the weak, by communicating thy experiences to them for their comfort and support. (2 Cor. i. 4.)
(ii.) Thou shalt be profitable to the strong, that have the same assurance with thyself. When two such meet together, 0 how sweet is their
discourse of the joys of heaven, and of the comforts of the Spirit, and
the delights of the life of a Christian!
These advantages, amongst many others that I might have named,
hath the believer that is assured of his spiritual-safe condition, that a
believer that yet knoweth it not doth not so fully enjoy. I shall conclude all with that exhortation of the apostle: " Wherefore the rather,
brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye
do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ." (2 Peter i. 10, 11.)
284
SERMON XIII.
WHAT DIFFERENCE IS THERE BETWEEN
SERMON XIII.
BY THE REV.
ROGER DRAKE, D.D.
WHAT DIFFERENCE IS THERE BETWEEN THE CONFLICT IN NATURAL

AND SPIRITUAL PERSONS?
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my

mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members.Romans vii. 23.
THE apostle, having showed in the former chapter, that justified

persons are not under the lav, prosecutes and amplifies that choice privilege in this seventh chapter, which hath four parts.
PARTS OF THE CHAPTER.
1. An allegory, which shows there is no matching with Christ, till

we be divorced from the law. (Verses 16.) Moses may be a good
friend; but to fallen man he is ever an ill husband, " a bloody husband,"
as he was to Zipporah. (Exod. iv. 25.)
2. A complaint, partly of the law, as an occasion of sin's malignity,
(verses 810,) and partly of his own estate: (1.) Before conversion,
as either secure, or desperate. (Verses 911.) (2.) After conversion, as
troublesome and vexatious. (Verses 1424.)
3. An apology. (1.) For the law, as spiritual, holy, just, and good.
(Verses 12, 14, 16.) (2.) For himself, as under a force, &c. (Verses 15,
17, 20, 22, 25.) The best gospel-apology against sin is, under Christ,
a fore or after discent.* This, grace will allow for a good clearing of ourselves. (2 Cor. vii. 11.)
4. A gratulation. (Verse 25.) No man, especially no godly man, can,
under the gospel, want matter of thanks, be his condition never so sad;
since the former is not altogether hopeless, and the latter hath at present
a part and interest in Christ.
COHERENCE.My text falls under the second head. The apostle's
condition was bad before conversion, sad after conversion, truly militant,
and no release from this warfare. (Eccles. viii. 8.) Christ endured the
contradiction of sinners; (Heb. xii. 3;) Christians, the contradiction
* Such is the correct reading of the first edition, which, by gradual corruption, at length
became, in the fourth edition, " afore or after dissent" Our old lexicographers describe
discent, now generally written descent, as " a term in Common Law, being an order or
means whereby lands or tenements are derived to any man: thus, to make one's discent
from hit ancestors, is to show how and by what means the land in question came to him
from his ancestors; and this discent is either lineal or collateral." In this view, the
words, " a fore or after descent," contain an allusion to " the first" and " the second
4 dam;" under the latter of whom a title to the " inheritance that is undefiled" i
claimed collaterally by all believe, as " children of the promise," in right of their elder
Brother, who is himself* not ashamed to call them brethren."EDIT.
THE CONFLICT IN NATURAL. AND SPIRITUAL PERSONS?
285
both of sin and sinners, and that continually. May they not well com
plain, as [in] Psalm cxx. 57, and Gen. xxv. 22 ?
DIVISION OF THE TEXT.In the words, note,
I. An act of observation.Godly men are great observers, especially
of themselves: "I know;" (verse 18;) "I find;" (verse 21 ;) and in
the text, " I see."
II. The matter observed: a combat or conflict.In which, note,
1. The combatants or champions,the law of the mind, and the law
of the members. The form of a being, naturalists call " a law," (Bacon
de Forma Calidi, Aphor. 7,) because forms, like laws, and laws, like
forms, do ordinate and constitute natural and politic bodies in their
being, distinctions, and operations. Vatablus calls it, aliam vim,
[" another force or power,"] laws, as forms, being principles of action.
Grotius distinguisheth of a fourfold law: (1.) Lex Dei, ["the law of
God,"] recorded in scripture. (2.) Lex mentis, ["the law of the
mind,"] the judgment between things honest and dishonest. (3.) Lex
membrorum, ["the law of the members,"] "the carnal or sensual
appetite." Lex peccati, [" the law of sin,"] " the custom of sinning."
To complete which heads, we must, with the leave of the learned author,
add two other distinctions; namely, (1.) The law of original sin propagated by generation, which is strengthened by custom in evil, and,
together with our sensual appetite depraved, makes up the law of sin.
(2.) The law of sanctifying grace infused in regeneration, which completes the law of the mind.
2. The equality of this fight in a reciprocal oppoaition; sin indwelling
fighting against grace indwelling and contra Arabes castrametantem*
there being a pitched battle between grace and corruption; in which
some graces and corruptions bear the office of commanders, others, of
common soldiers: this is noted in the preposition . (Compare Heb.
xii. 4.)
3. The disparity of the fight, managed by way of " rebellion" on the
part of sin, by way of loyalty and authority on the part of grace;
whence Beza and Piscator render it rebellantem.
4. The dubiousness of the fight, both parties often fighting, as it were,
ecquo marte, [" with equal prowess and success,"] sometimes one, sometimes the other, seeming to get the better, as in the battle between
Israel and Amalek. (Exod. xvii. 11.)
5. The sad event too often on the better side which is led captive.In
which term yet there is a mixture of comfort; sin, when in triumph,
acting as a tyrant, not ae a lawful sovereign. The law of the mind may
be overborne by, but never indents with, the law of the members; as a
person enslaved by force, but not by contract; or as school-boys, in a
mis-rule, may shut their master for a while out of doors, but at last he
gets in, and they pay dearly for that affront. Withal, note in the text a
mixture of civil and military terms to illustrate the spiritual conflict;
there being a law-suit, as well as a pitched battle, between grace and
corruption.
THE SCOPE OF THE TEXT.The text is limited, by the apostle, to the
* " Pitching his tents against the Arabs."EDIT.
286
SERMON XIII.
regenerate; yet may in a good and true sense be extended to the unregenerate also, in whom there is "a law of the mind;" namely, the law
of reason, though not of regeneration. Tea, Porphyrius (flspt ;,
lib. i.) uses the apostle's phrase, calling it / voog. Taking,
therefore, the law of the mind, and the law of the members, in a large
sense, may not every one take up this complaint of the apostle ? Thence
note,
THE DOCTRINE.
In every man, especially in the regenerate, there it a conflict between

the late of the mind and the law of the member,
THE , "that it is so," appears by a threefold evidence:
1. By the testimony of nature speaking in [the'] Heathen.Thus
Medea:
Video Die/tore, proboque:
Deteriora sequor.*OVIDII Metamor. lib. viL 20.
So Simplicius ad Epictetum: opei; )-<, (TOUT*

f<rriv Jj*af ; * ouaria>j*6voi;j,)t / Xaloocre.
" The irrational appetite displaces reason," &c.; " and leads it captive."
2. By testimony of scripture; and that, (1.) As to the godly:
"The flesh lusteth against the spirit," &c. (Oal. v. 17.) (2.) As to the
unregenerate: instance in Herod, who was troubled by this conflict
between lust and conscience; (Mark vi. 26;) yea, in the very Heathen,
who, by not hearkening to conscience opposing sin in them, felt conscience accusing them for sin. (Rom. ii. 14, 15.)
3. By every man1 experience.Who finds not every day within himself a contest of contrary motions and inclinations? Are we not all in
this point Rebekahe, big, though not with twins, yet with an Esau and
a Jacob, two contrary nations struggling each with other? (Gen. xxv.
22, 23.) 0 that we had all her wisdom and success!
THE , " why it is so," will appear in the explication and resolution of the special case of -conscience assigned ; which therefore here I
pass.
PREMISALS.Before I propound the case, let me premise some particulars preparatory, as a key of explication.
1. As the great, so the little, world (man) is made up of contraries:
The outward man of contrary elements, humours, health, and sickness;
the inward man, of contrary principles, reason and passion, grace and
corruption, conscience and sense.
2. Man is both an actor in, and a theatre of, the greatest action and
noblest conflict in the world, though usually invisible, and therefore not
so much observed. He that conquers himself, is a nobler hero than
Alexander, who conquered a great part of the world. (Prov. xvi. 32.)
3. In the state ofinnocency there was no conflict: in the state of glory
* " Affection this, discretion thai persuades.
I see the better, I approve it too:
The worse 1 follow."SANDYS' Translation.
t "That is, ourselves, whose very essence consists in this."DEAN STANHOPE'S

Translation.
THE CONFLICT IN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PERSONS?
287
there will be no conflict, there being no corruption to combat with grace.

In a state of minority, as in infants and fools, there is no conflict till reason begin to dawn, and with it conscience to actuate common principles
against the motions of innate corruption. In a state of corruption there
is no spiritual conflict, because there is no renewing grace to combat
with corruption, that strong man that keeps all in peace till a stronger
than he comes. (Luke zi. 21, 22.)
4. The natural conflict is in every godly man, the spiritual conflict i in
no wicked or natural man.This I note to allay the fears of drooping
saints, who, finding a conflict between conscience and corruption, conclude they are in a state of nature, and search not for the conflict
between grace and corruption. This is as if a man should conclude he
is a beast, because he hath sense like a beast; not considering that he
hath reason superadded, which a beast is not capable of.
5. There is a vast difference between the natural and the spiritual
conflict.This will appear in the resolution of the case.
6. The mistake about these two conflicts.(1.) [It] undoes natural
men, who, feeling a combat in themselves, fondly apprehend it to be the
fight between the flesh and the spirit, and thereupon rest secure in a
natural estate. (2.) It troubles regenerate persons, and that in reference
both to duty and comfort; making them drive heavily, because they
doubt whether they be Israelites or Egyptians.
7. As the great wisdom of God lies in governing the great world made
up of contraries, so the great wisdom of a godly man lies in governing the
little world made up of like contraries.
8. This government lies principally in discerning these conflicting contraries, and improving their contrariety for the advantage of the outward
and inward man.He is the wisest physician who can govern the body
made up of contraries; and he is the wisest Christian who can rule his
soul in the midst of contraries. In this government Christ is principal;
(Psalm ex. 2;) a saint instrumental. (Hosea xi. 12.)
9. This singular wisdom is attainable in the use of ordinary means, and
that by the meanest who have grace to follow Christ's conduct: yet not
by the power of free-will or human industry, but by the bounty of free
and special grace. (2 Tim. iii. 15; James i. 5; Rom. ix. 16.)
10. It cannot be expected that any unregenerate person should under-
stand to purpose the difference between these two conflicts; because he

hath no experience of this double state, and double principle.Mo wonder, then, if such say of me, as the Jews did of the prophet, " Doth he
not speak parables?" (Ezek. xx. 49.) However, for the sake of the
unregenerate, (to convince them,) and for the sake of the regenerate, (to
comfort them,) I shall endeavour, ploughing with Christ's heifer, to find
out this great riddle. And so I come to the case, and a case of the
highest concernment.
QUESTION. Wherein doth the natural and spiritual conflict differ ? or,
what difference is there between the conflict in the natural and spiritual
man?
ANSWER. They differ principally in seven particulars; and,
1. In the ground or cause of the fight; which, in the unregenerate, is,
288 SERMON xiii. WHAT DIFFERENCE is THERE BETWEEN

(1.) Natural principle, or the relics of God's image in the understanding. The notion of a Deity, and of loving my neighbour an myself,
&c., are principles [which] cannot be razed out of any man's heart, be
he never so professed an atheist; nor can these principles lie always
idle, but will more or less be in action against corrupt inclinations.
(2.) Acquired principle, from common illumination, moral and religious education and custom. This light discovers more of sin's obliquity
and danger, thereby laying on a stronger bridle of restraint, through fear,
shame, &c., and adding spurs to the exercise of many parts of piety.
(3.) The natural temper of the body, which indisposes to some special
sins, as well as to some special graces. As all souls, so original corruption in them, may be equal, yet not act equally, because of the indisposedness of bodily organs. Thus some naturally are more chaste,
sober, and meek than others; and hence their temper advances the combat against the lusts that oppose the fore-mentioned virtues.
(4.) The contrariety of one lust to another.Grace is uniform, and
each virtue linked together in a perfect subordination ; but sin is divided,
and opposite to itself as well as to grace. Thus ambition says,
"Spend;" covetousness says, "Spare;" revenge incites to murder;
self-love restrains, for fear of an halter. Here, now, is a combat, but
only between flesh and flesh, between flesh more refined, and flesh more
corrupted. The best of these may be called " a counter motion," as in
dust and clouds agitated by contrary winds; but not properly " a conflict
or fight;" because they proceed not from a true vital principle, there
being in a natural man no principle of spiritual life.
On the other hand, in the regenerate, the combat ariseth from the
antipathy of two contrary natures perfectly hating each other. (Gal. v.
17.) Of all affections, as one notes well, love and hatred are first, and
most uncompoundable. A godly man hates sin as God hates it, not so
much for its danger as for its loathsomeness; as some creatures hate
filth, so that they will rather die than defile themselves. One wolf may
snarl at another; but the quarrel is not laid in their natures as it is in
the wolf and lamb, which therefore cannot be reconciled. God in Paradise first sounded the trumpet to this alarm,* proclaiming an eternal war
between this seed of the woman, and of the serpent. (Gen. iii. 15.) As
in persons, so much more in principles, there is a mutual abomination.
(Compare Psalm cxzxix. 22; Prov. xxix. 27; Psalm xcvii. 10; cxix. 123;
Bom. viii. 7.) Enemies may, but enmity can never, be reconciled.
2. They differ in the object or matter of conflict; which, in a natural
man, is, (1.) Grosser evils that startle the conscience; (2.) Infamous
evils that are attended with worldly fear or shame; or, (3.) Some particular evils that cross temper, education, or custom, &c.
But in spiritual persons, the matter of conflict is, (1.) Little sins, as
well as great. (2.) Secret sins, as well as open. (3.) The first risings,
as well as the gross acts. (4.) Sins which promise worldly safety, credit,
profit, contentment, as well as those sins that threaten the contrary.
(5.) In a word, all moral evil; hatred and antipathy being of the whole
kind; (Psalm cxix. 128;) especially of those evils which most endanger
* Concerning this word, see the note in page 291.EDIT.
THK CONFLICT IN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PERSONS?
289
the new man; (Psalm xviii. 23 ;) and such as are beloved one. (Matt,
xviii. 8, 9.)
3. They differ in the subject of the conflict.In natural men, the fight
is in several faculties; reason fighting against sense and passion, or the
dictate of conscience against the corrupt inclination of the will; whence
the fight is more at a distance, by missile arms and velitation. But in the
regenerate man, the fight is more close in the same faculty; the wisdom
of flesh and spirit counteracting, in the same understanding, the lustings of
the flesh and spirit in the same will: whence the fight is, as it were, inter
triarios, ["between veterans of approved courage,"] grace and corruption
immediately; which at first, haply, was managed by the haetati ajnd
ecutati, [" the spear-men and targetiers,"] reason and interest. The former
is like the fight of the soldiers of fortune, more lazy, and by way of siege;
the latter more keen and vigorous, by way of assault and onslaught,* like
that of Scanderbeg, who fought with his enemies breast to breast in a box
or grate.
4. They differ in the instruments or weapons wherewith they combat.
The natural man's weapons are, like himself, carnal; to wit, natural or
moral reason, worldly fears or hopes, and sometimes spiritual fears or
hopes, but carnalized ; namely, slavish fear, and mercenary hopes. But
the regenerate man's weapons are spiritual; (2 Cor. x. 4 ;) to wit, gracious interest, and all the spiritual armour, especially the shield of faith,
and the sword of the Spirit. (Eph. vi. 1118.)
5. They differ in the manner of the fight.The natural man's combat
is more mercenary ; admits of more parleys, cessations, correspondencies;
as Saul's fight with Amalek. (I Sam. xv. 9.) But the spiritual man, as
such, fights it out to the last, and will give no quarter. The former is
like the strife between wind and tide, which often come about, and are
both of one side; the latter is hike the dam and the tide, that strive till
one be'borne down ; or like stream and tide meeting and conflicting till
one hath overborne the other.
6. They differ in the extent of the conflict, in relation to it subject and
duration.(1.) The extent of the subject is double: (i.) As to the faculties;
(ii.) As to the acts, (i.) As to the faculties: the seat of war in the regenerate is every faculty, flesh and spirit being ever mixed; as light and
darkness in every point of air in the twilight. (1 These, v. 23.) Grace and
corruption leaven the whole man ; so that, in the regenerate, there is at
the same time both a civil and a foreign war; that in the same faculty,
this in one faculty against another. Contrariwise, in the unregenerate,
there is usually nothing but a foreign war between several faculties, there
being nothing of spiritual good in their wills and affections, to set the
same faculty against itself.
(ii.) It extends also to every act of piety and charity, especially if more
spiritual; (Rom. vii. 21;) for which the natural man hath no conflict, but
against them; unless it be to stop the mouth of conscience enlightened, &c.
Nor, indeed, doth he know experimentally what spiritual acts of piety are.
But the regenerate find it by constant experience; faith and unbelief,
* In the early edition this word i printed onslaii ; but in the fourth it i* improperly
changed into ontet,EDIT.
290
SERMON XIII.
humility and pride, ever opposing and counter-working each other:

whence he is forced to cut his way through his enemies, and to dispute it
step by step. Others may seek, bat he strives, (Luke ziii. 24,) and
takes the kingdom of heaven by a holy violence, (Matt. xi. 12,) in spite
of spiritual enemies that waylay him within and without.
(2.) As to the extent of duration of the war, which, being in the regenerate irreconcilable, must needs be interminable; like the war between the
Romans and Carthaginians that was entailed to posterity; or as fire and
water will fight for ever, if together for ever. In the natural man, contrariwise, the quarrel is soon taken up; as between the Romans and
otb.er nations; there being not that antipathy between reason and corruption, as there is between grace and corruption.
7. They differ in the concomitants and consequents of the fight.
And,
(1.) The fight in natural men may stand with the constant practice of,
and living in, sin, against the light of conscience. Godly men sin more
with knowledge, but wicked men more against knowledge. " He that is
born of God doth not commit sin," that is, make a trade of living and
lying in known sin. (I John iii. 9.)
(2.) The fight in the unregenerate hinders not the perfection and consummation of sin in the antecedent deliberation and purpose, in the
present delight and complacency, and the following pertinacy and
impenitency. Instance in Saul, Herod, Judas, and others. But the Spirit,
by its conflict, breaks the power of sin in all these in the regenerate, that
they can neither do good as they would, nor sin as they otherwise would.
(Gal. v. 17.)
(3.) The fight in natural men seeks only the repression, not the
suppression, of sin; to lop the superfluous branches, not stub up the root;
to charm the serpent, not to break its head. But the spiritual fight seeks
the full mortification and abolition of sin, (Rom. vi. 6,) (hatred seeks the
destruction of its enemy, 1 Sam. xxiv. 19; 1 John iii. 15,) and the
complete perfection of grace, though not attainable in this life. (Phil. iii.
1014.) This for the first branch of wisdom, which teaches to discern
between the natural and the spiritual conflict.
APPLICATION.
The second branch of heavenly wisdom lies in improving these spiritual

contrarieties, by siding with the spirit against the flesh.
This is done,
1. By watching all the force, designs, and motions of the enemy.We
have in us legions of these devils, the meanest of them too strong and too
subtle for us; (Heb. iii. 13;) true Gibeonltes, that can easily cheat us with
their mouldy bread and clouted garments; sons of Anak, all of one confederacy, and sworn enemies of our salvation. Had we not need have our
eyes in our heads, and set watchfulness upon the forlorn hope? (1 Cor.
xvi. 13.)
2. JBy making head early against the enemy.Principiis obata, &c.
" Nip sin in the bud," crush this cockatrice in the shell, strangle this hellish
brat in the birth ; take heed of the first appearances of evil, take its first
TH CONFLICT IN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL PERSONS?
291
alarms ;* alight not the smallest sin or occasion of sinning. How much
mischief is done by a little wound, a little thief, a small spark! (James
iii. 5 ; 2 Sam. xi. 2.)
3. Oppose especially thy matter-hut.Fight, in comparison, neither

against small nor great, bat against the king of these hellish regiments.
(1 Kings xxii. 31.) Be sure to pull out that right eye. This is the skirt
Satan lays hold of, in wrestling with thee, to thy hazard and his no small
advantage; the Goliath and Holofernes, who being once slain, the Philistines and Assyrians will soon be rooted. Throw the head of this Sheba
over the wall, and the enemy will retreat shamefully.
4. Never enter the field without thy second.Fight under the shield,
as well as under the banner, of thy general. In other fights the general
flies to the battle upon the wings of his army; but here the army flies
upon the wings of their general. This is done by faith nad prayer.
Thus David conquered Goliath, (1 Sam. xvii. 45,) and the Philistines.
(2 Sam. v. 19, 23.) Fight always npon thy knees. Let Moses be praying
while Joshua is fighting. (Exod. xvii. 11.) May not Christ take it ill,
if thou carry thyself as if thou meanest to steal a victory before he know
of it?
5. Put on, keep on, etand in, and exercise, thy spiritual arm. (Bph.
vi. 1018.)That only is armour of proof: never any girds it on but
may boast before the victory. (Allude to 1 Kings xx. 11.) Never any
fought prosperously without it: it is our metal as well as our weapon.
Neither earth nor hell can stand against this artillery of heaven. Let not
Satan find thee disarmed, lest he leave thee despoiled. There is no fighting with carnal weapons against a spiritual enemy. You may as well beat
the devil with a sword or spear, as conquer sin by the power of free-will,
or with moral and worldly arguments. They are but paper-bullets and
paper-walls; the scoru, not the terror, of hell, though useful in some
cases. Remember, withal, there are no arms for thy back-parts.
6. With eome hut* fight like the Parthian*, flying. (I Cor. vi. 18;
2 Tim. ii. 22.)This is but an honourable retreat, and warlike stratagem.
(Joshua viii. 15 ; Judges xx. 32.) Youthful lusts are like the basilisk,
or like a burning-glass in the sun, that may not be looked on. (2 Sam.
xi. 2.) With other lusts fight like the Romans, charging home.
7. Entertain no parley with thy enemy.This cost all mankind dear at
first. (Gen. iii. 14.) It is disloyal, looks like a confederacy, and is very
dangerous. Come not into Jael's tent; sleep not in Delilah's lap; talk
not with Joab, lest he smite thee under the fifth rib. Sin and Satan are
too cunning sophisters for us to dispute withal. He in a manner gives up
his cause that will plead it with the devil. The beet answer to Satan's
suit is, a round and churlish denial. (Zech. iii. 2; Matt. iv. 10; Jude 9.)
Parleying is a kind of faint denial, and draws on this impudent suitor.
8. Take advantage by every thing that befall thee in thit spiritual
* In the fint edition this word ii printed " all-armes," according to it primitive signification of conclamatio ad arma, in French, crier armes. Old Kereey'e definition
ie very appropriate: " A signal given by loud cries, or the sound of warlike instruments,
to cause people to take arms upon the sudden arrival of the enemy. It is figuratively
taken for all manner of sudden fear, fright, or trouble."EDIT.
292
SERMON XIV.
HOW MUST WE PRAT IN FAITH?
warfare.Eye thy reserves. The captain of thy salvation is both thy

vanguard and thy rear-ward, and will he thy reward. Thou gainest thy
husband, as David did his wife, by conquering these Philistines: and,
while tbou art fighting for him, he is weaving thy crown. (2 Tim. iv. 7,
8.) Eye thy fellow-soldiers, those worthies of the heavenly David, that are
both militant and triumphant. (Heb. xii. 1.) Example is very forcible.
Yea, take advantage by thy very foils, to be more humble, charitable,
dependent, watchful, and courageous. Let not the enemy gain the field,
after conquest, by a back-blow of pride. This Antiochus gains often more
by flattery than by force. (Dan. xi. 21, 22.) It is honourable for Christ to
say, " Well done," &c., but dangerous for Satan to say, " Well done I"
and safe for thee to say, " Poorly done," when thou hast done thy best.
Despise thyself when others admire thee; and be assured, that self-admiration is the most dangerous devil in the world. Especially improve
advantages prudently: when thou hast thy enemy on the hip, yea, on the
ground, fall with all thy weight upon him, give him no quarter, lest thon
meet with the doom of Ahab, (1 Kings xx. 42,) and of the Israelites.
(Num. xxxiii. 55, 56.) Here, as one notes well, learn wisdom of the
serpent's brood, who never thought they had Christ sure enough, though
they had him in the grave. (Matt, xxvii. 64.) Remember: it is thy highest
wisdom, first to discern, next to improve, the spiritual contrarieties that
act in thy own bosom. He is the wisest man that knows himself, and he
the strongest man that conquers himself. This alone is the true Israelite,
who, by conquering himself, doth in a pious sense overcome both heaven,
earth, and hell. (Gen. xxxii. 28.)
SERMON XIV.
BY THE REV. THOMAS WHITE, LL.B.
WHAT FAITH IS THAT WHICH EXCEPT WE HATE IN PRAYER, WE
MUST NOT THINK TO OBTAIN ANY THING OF GOD?
But let him ask in faith.James i. 6.
FOR the connexion of these words with the former, since they will not
give much light; to the question I am to handle, and the time will hardly
permit things more necessary to be spoken, I shall wholly wave or very
briefly speak to.
The subject I am to speak to, is to show what is meant here by asking
" in faith," or what faith that is which whoso hath not, must not, or
bath no reason to, expect to receive any thing from God. God may
bestow his mercies where and on whom he pleaseth ; but he is no way
engaged by promise to bestow any mercy on such an one that asketh not
in faith. It is not said, that such an one should not expect any great mat
ten from God, but not any thing at all; the least mercy is greater than
he hath any reason to think he shall receive; not only he shall not
KRMON XIV. HOW MUST WB PRAY IN FAITH f
receive wisdom, spoken of in veree 5, but not any thing. Wisdom he

may get as Ahithophel did, and many other things, without praying in
faith, or praying at all; hat for Divine wisdom, or for any blessing from
God, he may think what he will, but if the apostle may be thought
worthy to advise him, he would not have him think to receive any thing,
except he ask, and ask in faith. Therefore it much concerns us to know
what is meant by taking in faith, since the want of it makes our prayers
of none effect: if we pray without it, we may pray; but you cannot
justly expect any return of your prayers, except it be as of an arrow shot
up to heaven, upon your own head to your wounding. Of this question
I shall speak very plainly, as the Lord shall enable me in the evidence
and demonstration of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual things.
I. Some may make it to imply more to ask in faith than to ask with
faith, or that it is more to be in faith, than for faith to be in u*. To be
in love is more than to loves and when it is said, that the apostle was t
tfie Spirit, (Rev. i. 10,) it shows that not only he had the Spirit, and
' filled with it, but there were great overflowings, and a superabundance
of the Spirit. This the apostle seems to call "the prayer of faith;"
(James v. 15;) as if their faith rather prayed than they: as St. Paul
speaks: " Not I, but the grace of God which was with me ;" (1 Cor.
zv. 10;) when faith rather may be said to act ue than we to act/.
But I suppose those high degrees of faith cannot be meant here,
because it is said that they who have not this faith must not think to
receive any thing, not the least: if so, then the highest degrees of faith
should be required for the obtaining the lowest degrees of mercy. But
scripture-promises are made to the truth, and not to the degrees, of grace:
to faith that is but as a grain of mustard-seed, to remove mountains;
and to love that is but a spark, to be victorious. (Matt. xii. 20.)
(I.) But I shall rather endeavour to show you how faith is taken
here, than how it is taken in other places; therefore,
To "ask in faith," may be here spoken tit reference to the person that
prays; namely, he that prays must be in the faith, a faithful or righteous
person. The scripture is full to this purpose; as* " If I regard iniquity
in mine heart," though my tongue do not plead for it, nay, though it
speaks against it, though I refrain from it in my life; (for we may love
the sin we commit not;) and if I do so regard it in mine heart, God will
not hear my prayers: if I give it so much as a good look, (for so the
Hebrew, "if I see iniquity in my heart,") if I take pleasure in sin, for
David calls it "painful iniquity," for so in the Hebrew. (Psalm Ixvi. 18.)
No saint can live without committing sin; but all saints live without
regarding it in their hearts. So also, " The prayer of a righteous man
availeth much" (James v. 16.) How MUCH is not set down, because it
cannot be set down how much it avails; as much as they please; they
may have what they will. But, for a wicked man, though his prayers
were effectual, they avail not much, since their desires are for temporals.
The other places are full to this point, namely, that the prayers of none
but righteous persons are accepted with God; as John ix. 31; James i.
15 Prov xxviii 9 1 John Hi 15
294
SERMON XIV.
HOW MUST WE PRAY IN FAITH?
OBJECTION i. To this may be objected, that " many tmregenerate and

profligate wretches have obtained [some things] by prayer; aa scoffing
Ishmael; (Gen. xxi. 17;) nay, Ahab, a man that 'sold himself to work
wickedness/ prevailed with God, for an adjournment of the judgment
denounced."
I answer: 1. This was done by way of common providence, or God's
prerogative, not by way of promise; so that they could not reasonably
expect that their prayer should be heard.
2. God did this to honour the ordinance of prayer. As when our
children come and tell us of some poor body: though we may not think
it fit to relieve him in respect of his wants, yet we give him, for fear we
should hinder oar children from acts of charity; for they, not knowing
our reasons of denying him relief, will expound it to be our neglect of
the poor. So, many times, God may give to bad men, lest good men
should be discouraged from prayer.
3. God gives to wicked men when they pray, oft-times for the
strengthening of his people's faith ; for they may be sure,, if God hears
the croakings of ravens, he will hear the mournings of doves.
OBJEC. ii. You may farther say, " Are wicked men bound to pray,
since their prayers are an abomination, and they cannot ask in
faith?"
I answer: 1. Inability to pay a debt doth not acquit one from it, nor
cancel the obligation. If one blows out the candle, one cannot excuse
one's self for not working, by saying that they could not work in the
dark; nor can a boy excuse himself from saying the lesson [which] he
hath torn out of his book.
2. Because wicked men break others of God's commandments, it
cannot justify them in the breaking of this: sin doth superinduce a new
obligation, namely, to punishment, but doth not cancel their former,
namely, to duty.
3. Wicked men sin not in praying, but in praying so.
4. Doubtless the wickedest man in the world is bound to desire
grace.
OBJEC. in. " But doth not this make God a respecter of persons, since
he will hear none but his own children, and them that love him ? If a
judge should favour his relations in judicature, he should be unjust."
I answer, No; God is no respecter of persons, by doing thus:
1. Because the prayers of saints are better, as well as their persons
nearer; for the prayers of the wicked are lazy, irreverent, brutish,
wanton prayers. (Hosea vii. 14.) If God's people should pray so, God
would not hear them either.
2. If unbelievers could pray better than saints, yet God might acquit
the saint, and condemn the unbeliever; as a judge may pass sentence
against one who hath paid ninety and nine pounds of an hundred, and
acquit another who hath not paid a farthing, if his surety hath paid it.
3. Though in matter of justice we are not to respect persons, (Lev.
xix. 15,) yet in matters of favour we may. (Gal. vi. 10.) This may be
the. first meaning of the words, but not the only, nor as I conceive the
chief. Therefore,
SERMON XIV.
BOW MUST WB PRAT IN FAITH?
295
(II.) To " ask in faith," is, to believe that all we eay in prayer it true.When we confess ourselves to be grievous sinners, we are to think oarselves to be great sinners as we say we are; when we call God
Almighty " our Father/' we are to believe him to be so.
Then the poor soul will say, " Alas I I cannot pray in faith; for I
cannot say, ' Our Father,* since I do not believe that I am his child I
How, then, can I call him Father?"
I answer: 1. Thou mayest call him Father, for he is thy Father.
If
thou shouldest sec divers children playing some untowardnesa in the
street, and shouldest see a man that passed by go and single out one of
them, and correct him, and yet the child should follow him, would you
not say he was the father of that child ? For a strange child would fly
from him, or fly at him, if he should strike him. Dost thou not follow
God when he corrects thee ? Be of good comfort; God is thy Father,
and thou art his child.
\
\
When that precious man Mr. Murcot was in great anguish, fearing
that God was not his Father, these words were impressed on his mind:
" If I am not thy Father, why dost thou follow after me ?"
2. Nay, not only God it thy Father, but thou thinkeet so also. When
Naaman's servants called him father, what did they mean, but to show
that they acknowledged that he carried himself rather as a father than a
master ? When the prodigal returned, though he acknowledged that he
was not worthy to be called his son, yet he called him father, since he
had failed of nothing that might be expected from a loving, tender
father. Mayest not thou call God thy Father upon this account ? Hath
he not dealt with thee in abundance of tender compassion; nay, more
than the tendered parent in the world ? Give God the glory due to his
goodness, call him "Father;" for thou mayest truly say he hath dealt
so with thee. The same Mr. Murcot, being troubled upon the same
account, namely, the fear that God was not his Father, had these words
come into his mind with power; namely, " If I am not thy Father, am
I thy enemy?" God argues thus with the Jews. (Dent, xxxii. 6.)
(III.) We are to believe, that whatsoever we aek of God in prayer i
according to hit will. (1 John v. 14.)
The poor doubting soul will say, " Then I dare not pray for the recovery of my child, since I know not whether it be the will of God it
shall recover or no."
I answer: Thine asking what God hath decreed not to give, makes
not thy prayer sinful; but thine asking what he hath forbid thee to
desire. For the will of God's decree is not the rule for us to walk by,
but the will of his command. (Dent. xxix. 29.) If what we pray for be
such as is lawful and good for us to desire, though God should tell us by
& prophet that he would not grant it, yet we might lawfully pray for it,
and be blameless; for so did David. (2 Sam. xii.) Nay, though God
should send us word by a prophet that we should die and not live, yet we
might pray, and not only be blameless, but successful; for so was Hezekiah. Nay, though God should forbid us to pray, yet since he commands
us to pray in his word, we may pray and be heard; for though God bid
Jacob let him go, yet he wrestled on, and obtained the blessing; and
296
SERMON XIV.
HOW MUST WE PRAT IN FAITH?
Moses, though God bid him let him alone, yet Moses did not let him
alone, and prevailed. So, then, to ask things according to the will of
God, is to ask nothing that is unlawful to ask; as for one to pray that
God would prosper us in evil ways,this is to ask what is not according
to his will. I say, you are to pray for nothing that is any way unlawful
to be desired. Now, it is not enough that the thing itself be lawful to
be desired, but the end for which we desire it must be lawful; for if we
desire lawful things for unlawful ends, we ask amiss. (James iv. 3.) The
end why we desire such a mercy must be such as God approves of by
his word, as well as the thing itself. To desire gifts of edification for
ostentation, though according to the will of God as to the thing desired,
yet as to the end it is abominable.
II. As concerning the matter of our prayer we are to believe as hath
been said, so a to God we are to believe several things. Indeed, scarce
any of his attributes but some way or other we are to act our faith
upon in prayer: but I shall choose some few on which the eye of faith is
especially fixed in prayer.
1. The first is God's omniscience} for else we shall be at a great loss.
If we believe not this, how can we be assured that God hears our prayers ?
For,
(1.) In respect of the number of prayer.There being millions of
prayers put up at the same time to God, if he be not omniscient, how is
it possible he should hear all? If any should not be heard, how
knowest thou that thine is not the prayer that is not heard ?
(2.) In respect of the secrecy of prayer.For except God know our
hearts, he cannot know our prayers: for " it is the heart that prays;
the tongue only speaks:" Orat mens, lingua loquitur.
(3.) If God knew not the heart, the poor soul who prayed with sighs
and groans that cannot be expressed, should find no acceptance; when,
the hypocrite, that speaks much and means nothing, shall be heard for
his much babbling.
(4.) The saints ask such things that require infinite knowledge and
wisdom to do for us.For when we desire God to make us know him, it
requires more wisdom than for us to teach an infant the mathematics.
So we desire God to cure us of our spiritual distempers. Alas! they are
so various, so contrary, so deeply-rooted in our natures, we are such
froward unruly patients, that it requires infinite wisdom to heal us; for
when God goes to cure our pride by afflicting us, then our impatience is
increased. That which is the cure of one corruption increaseth another.
If we believe not God's wisdom and omniscience, we cannot acquiesce
in God's answer of prayers; for we may suffer, but not acquiesce in,
God's answer of prayers.
2. We are to believe God's providence, that he rules and orders all
things.Whoso thinks that all things are ruled by second causes, by the
power and policy of men, or by the stars, or chance, they will not pray
at all, or go to God merely as a refuge: we shall pray to God, but
trust to ourselves; or to medicines when we are sick, and to our food
when we are well. We may be confident we shall be delivered; but we
shall not at all trust that God will deliver us. To strengthen our faith in
SERMON XIV. HOW MOST WE PRAT IN FAITH?
297
tbis, we mast know, that those things that seem to be least within the
compass of Providence, are wholly guided by it.
(1.) Things natural.God makes the sun to arise, and the rain to fall;
(Matt. . 45 ;) gives '* to every seed his own body." (1 Cor. xv. 38.)
(2.) The smallest things.They escape not Providence; God number

the hairs of oar head. (Matt. x. 30.)
(3.) Thing casual.That which we call " chance-medley " is providential as to God: (Prov. xvi. 33:) the man "drew a bow at a venture,"
and yet God directed it to an hair's breadth. (1 Kings xxii. 34.)
(4.) The counsels of men, yea, against God, yet are ordered by the
determinate counsel of God. (Acts ii. 23.)
(5.) Things most unruly.The raging sea goes so far, and no further,
by God's decree. The " roaring lion " cannot destroy a swine, nor afflict
nor tempt a saint, without God's leave. (Job i. 12; Luke xxii. 31, 32.)
The wrath of man, as well as the rage of the devil, is ordered and
restrained by the wisdom and power of God. (Psalm Ixvi. 3.)
(6.) The skill and inventions of men. (Isai. xxviii. 2729.)
(7.) Sin itself, whether of omission or commission, (as silence and
discord in music,) serves to make the harmony sweeter.
3. God's omnipotence is to be believed,Else we will stagger through,
unbelief. This was that in which the eminency of Abraham's faith did
appear; (Rom. iv. 21;) and of the centurion's; (Matt. vtii. 810 ;)
and Christ far more blames them that question his can than his will: for
He doth not so much as reprove the leper in Matt. via. 14: but so
sharply reproves him * that he makes him weep, because he said, " If
them canst;" and he saith, " If thou canst believe," to show that we
cannot believe, if we do not believe God's power. (Mark ix. 2224.) We,
doubtless, are generally faulty this way, though we are ashamed to own it;
as yon may see by this instance: If we have two children sick ; the one
whose death would be far more afflictive to us hath some cold or some
other small distemper; the other [is sick] of some mortal disease, and
given up by physicians. Thou prayest for the recovery of both; but
for which of those two recoveryf art thou least confident ? Is it not of
his who is most sick ? And why so, but because thou questionest God's
power or providence ? If thou shalt say, " My sins are so great, God
will not hear my prayers and heal my child ;" for if, indeed, that were
the reason of thy fearing that God will not hear thee, thou wouldest
rather fear it as to thine other child, since his death would be more
afflictive.
Now, the saints have more reason to strengthen their faith in the
omnipotence of God in prayer, than wicked men: because the things
worldly men desire need not Omnipotence to do. A creature may do
what they desire, except God will withdraw his common providence.
For one that is worth an hundred thousand pounds can make a poor man
rich ; and some medicines, in an ordinary way of providence, have virtue
to cure many diseases. But the things [which] the people of God desire
cannot be done but by Omnipotence. (Eph. i. 19.)
* The father of the demoniac.EDIT.
4 The construction ought to stand thue t
"But for the recovery of which of those two art thou least confident ?"ED IT.
298
SERMON XIV.
BOW MUST WE PRAY IN FAITH?
4. We must act our faith upon hi goodness and bounty.'For we
must not only have high thoughts of God's other excellences, but of his
goodness also, of his abundant willingness to do us good, and loathness
to afflict us; for surely he never afflicts us but in case of necessity. " If
need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." (1 Peter
i. 6.) When he afflicts us, he only gives us necessaries , but when he
bestows mercies, he gives us not only for our necessity, but " richly to
enjoy." When we go to a covetous man for money, he parts with every
penny as with a drop of blood. For us to think God parts so with his
mercies, that he is hard to be entreated, and that he is an hard master
either for work or wages, are thoughts utterly unworthy, and shamefully
dishonourable to the goodness of God. If thy child, whose finger if it
should but ache, thine heart aches, should think thou grudgest him every
bit of meat [which] he eats, thou wouldest think him a wretched child,
unworthy of thy tender affections: and must it not be far worse in thee
to have such thoughts of God, since tarn pius nemo, tarn pater nemo?*
Was it so great a grief to Peter to have Christ question his love, (John
xxi. 17,) though he had given but sad testimony of his love but lately ?
and can it choose but much offend God, for thee to question God's love
to thee, nay, his goodness in itself, when God hath given thee no cause of
either? (Mal. i. 2.) We should go to God with as much confidence of his
love, and readiness to do us good, as the child doth to the tenderest
parent, as we do to the dearest friend we have in the whole world, and
much more abundantly. If we do not believe that the goodness of God is
as much above the goodness and love of our dearest friend, as we account
his wisdom and power above our friend's, we have unworthy thoughts of
that attribute which God hath most abundantly manifested, and would
have [to be] most glorified; and the love our friend bears us is but a drop
from and of that ocean that is in God. Doubtless, God loves his enemies
more than we love our friends ; he loves us more, if we love him, than
we love ourselves or him. Surely, God loves the weakest saint on earth
more than the highest angel in heaven loves him; for when God saith, that he
" so loved the world," it was such a c ["so"] there was no eicut ["as"]
for it; it might not be said, " as the angels loved God." Ah! we deal
unworthily with God in having base, low thoughts of his goodness: He
hath little deserved it at our hands,he that hath done such wonders and
miracles of mercies for us, and hath promised to do more. Say, that
every mercy is too great for thee to receive; but say not, that any is too
great for God to give. Surely, surely God is more willing to give, than we
are to receive, mercies.

But you will say, " If God be so willing to bestow mercies, why doth
he not bestow them without prayers, and such importunity ?"
I answer: God doth not thus because he is not willing, but because
we are not fit for mercies; for God "waits to be gracious." The
tender mother had rather give her child cordials than bitter pills; but
her child is sick. By our prayers we make not God more willing, but
we become more prepared for mercies; for our prayers exercise, and so
* No one is so compassionate aa God ; no one possesses such paternal affections,"
EDIT.
XIV.
BOW MUST WB PRAT IN FAITH?
299
strengthen, grace ; and strong grace weakens and mortifies corruption;

and then we are fit for mercies. God only stays while he may bless us
indeed, as Jabez phraseth it. One that is in a boat, and pulls a rope
whose other end is tied to a rock, polls not the rock to the boat, bat the
boat to the rock ; so our importunities move not God, but us.
Bat you will say, " When we pray for others, this reason holds not;
for their graces are not increased by our praying for their deliverances
from misery or danger, or the church from persecution."
I answer : It is true ; but our prayers add to our reward; for God is
in goodness as Satan is in badness, and much more abundantly;
whereas when Satan hath a commission, and intends to do some mischief, he, as oft as he can, engageth witches to put him upon doing that
which he intends to do, howsoever that he may involve them in the
guilt; as if they themselves [had done it], or that he had not done it if
they had not put him upon-it. So God, that the saints may have the
reward of the good he doeth to others, (as if they themselves had done
it, or as if God would not have done it without their prayers,) puts them
upon praying for those mercies for others, which he will do howsoever.
(Isai. lix. 16.)
III. The third object of faith are the promisee; and there are three
kinds, some to prayer, some of prayer, some to the person praying. We
are to act our faith upon all; but, for brevity-sake, (for I am forced to
contract,) I shall answer but one objection.
The poor soul will say, " I do not believe I have any interest in the
promises; therefore I cannot pray in faith/'
I answer: To obtain the mercies included in a promise, it is not
required that we should believe our interest in it, but the troth; not
that God will perform to us, but to those to whom it belongs, though
yon do not believe it belongs to you, for the promises made to graces
are made to them that have them, not to them that believe. As, for
example, the promises made to faith are made to them that have faith,
though they believe not that they do believe; and that poor souls doubt
that God will never make good any promise to them, proceeds not from
any doubt of God's veracity or faithfulness, but of their own unwortbiness and non-interest in them.
IV. The fourth and main object of faith which our faith must eye in
our prayers, is CHRIST, in whom "all the promises are Yea and
Amen;" who hath reconciled the person and attributes of God: and
concerning Christ we are the believe,
1. The great love God heart to Christ.-Which is doubtless greater
than to the whole creation. " For to which of the angels said he at any
time, Thon art my beloved, in whom I am well pleased ?" God's love
to Christ is not only greater, but diffusive ; for the love that God bears
to Christ is as the oil that was poured upon the head of Aaron, which
ran down to the skirts of his garments; so the love that God bears to
Christ terminates not in the person of Christ, but is communicated to all
that are his. As Haman, to show the great hatred he bore to Mordecai,
would not bound his malice on the person of Mordecai, but would
destroy the whole nation; so God thought it too small a testimony of
300
SERMON XIV.
his love to Christ to be well-pleased with Christ, (for so he is with the

angels,) but he is well-pleased in Christ with the whole world ; I mean,
all nations. We must believe this, or we cannot expect any favour for
his sake. His love to Christ is so great, that his love to Christ is
greater than his hatred to sinners; so that any sinner may be reconciled and accepted through Christ. Christ came to reconcile God and
sinners, not God and sin : as one who desires the king to be reconciled
to such a traitor doth not desire him to be reconciled to the treason, but
to the traitor.
2. We are to believe the fulness of Chrisfs satisfaction, and the great
ness of the value and efficacy of the death of Christ.For if justice be
not satisfied, we have no throne of grace, but a seat and bar of justice,
to come before. The blood of Christ hath a pacifying, purifying, purchasing, perfuming, reconciling, satisfying, justifying, virtue. It pacifies
God's wrath, it reconciles and justifies our persons, it purifies our
nature, it perfumes our duties, it purchaseth our inheritance.
3. We are to believe the efficacy and infallible success of Chris?s
intercession.The fulness of Christ's intercession is in this, that he doth
three things for us, all that we stand in need of, according to what was
typified by the high-priest; for he did three things:
(1.) He sprinkled the blood upon the mercy-seat.Hereby an atonement was made as to our sins, they being pardoned.
(2.) He went in with incense.Hereby our duties were perfumed ; so
God is said to " inhabit the praises of his people," and to " dwell in
thick darkness," that is, in the thick smoke of the incense.
(3.) He had the names of the tribes engraven on his breast or "heart.
Christ pleads the love [which] he bears to his people. Three places
the names of the saints are written in, out of either whereof nor men
nor devils can blot them out, namely, in the book of life, on the palms
of his hands, and on the heart of Christ. I may add the fourth thing
the high-priest did when he entered into the holy place, namely, he went
in with all his rich priestly garments, to show we should be clothed
with the rich robes of Christ's righteousness; for what the high-priest
did, he did not in his personal, but in his public, capacity. Now, the
efficacy of his intercession was not only from the wonderful love [which]
God bore to Christ, from the unparalleled interest [which] Christ had in
the Father; by these means we may expect all acts of favour, but we
have justice on our side; for favour is an arbitrary thing; therefore
Christ is our Advocate; (1 John ii. 1, 2;) he presents our case not by
way of petition, but by way of pleading; for advocates do not petition,
but plead.
So then Christ doth four things as to our prayers. (I.) He indites
them by his Spirit; (2.) He perfumes them by his merit; then, (3.)
He presents our prayers and persons ; for we have access through him ;
(Eph. iii. 12;) and then, (4.) Superadds his own intercession, his blood
crying louder than our sins, and better things than our prayers.
4. We are to believe and improve this truth; namely, That the
Father exceedingly delights to honour Christ.-And hereby God wonderfully honours Christ, by pardoning and receiving into favour such rebel-
SERMON XIV.
301
lious sinners as we are, for hie, sake, by forgiving any thing for hie sake.
A sinner cannot please God better than by coming with confidence for
pardon for his sake. If we come for pardon or mercies, and oar confidence aiiseth from our low thoughts of the number or sinfulness of our
sins, or of God's hatred of sin, or our ability to satisfy justice or deserve
mercy, our confidence is desperate impudence and arrogance: but if
purely from the high esteem [which] we have of the incomprehensibleness of Christ's satisfaction, and of Christ's interest in God's love, and
of the Father's delight to honour Christ, such confidence is precious and
acceptable with God; and whosoever hath it may go with as much freedom and assurance of favour as if he had never sinned; with as much
aa Adam in his innocency, or the angels in glory. Alas! we do not
believe or not improve these truths; for if we did, we might have any
thing; for Christ hath interest enough in God to bear us out, and procure any mercy.
5. We are to believe, improve, and obey Chrisfs command.Namely,
in John xiv. 13, 14; xvi. 23. The former truths give us great hope, but
thi strong consolation; for though such a great person had never so
much interest in some other great person, with whom we had to do, yet
without a commission from him we might not go in his name; but
Christ bath not only given us leave, but a command; and now it is not
an arbitrary thing, we may do or not do, but we must do. This is the
incomprehensible goodness of God, that what is for our good he commands us, that not only we may be put-on the more to obtain what is
good for us, but that it may be an act of obedience, and so we may be
rewarded for procuring our own happiness.
So much for the things we are to believe; now for the manner of
believing.
1. We are to believe these thing of God and Christ with an historical
faith.
2. With a faith of recumbency.We are to rely upon the power, wiadom, and goodness of God, and upon Christ's interest in God, &c.
3. Saints are, by way of duty, but not by way of a necessary condition of obtaining whatsoever they ash, to believe with the faith of assurance of obtaining whatsoever we pray for.By faith here in the text is
not meant, that we must, without any doubt or wavering, believe that
we shall receive in kind whatsoever we ask, even the very thing we pray
for.
(1.) The leper was cured, though he prayed with an "if thou wilt."
(2.) Those in desertion should put up no acceptable prayers, since
they have not faith of assurance of obtaining.
(3.) Christ, when he comes at the day of judgment,he shall not
find this faith on the earth; (Luke xviii. 8;) and yet it is said, in verse
7, God will hear those prayers.
4. The apostle forbids this faith; (James i. 7;) therefore it is not
the faith here commanded; for then it should run thus: " Ton must
believe you shall receive the thing you ask for but if you do not, you
must not."
Many more arguments may be brought to prove this; but
these shall suffice, beside what shall be said in the positive handling thi
302
SERMON XIV*
question, namely, What faith is required to our believing absolutely

and undoubtedly in kind the very thing we ash f which I shall answer in
several
PROPOSITIONS.
PROP. i. When we oak temporal blessings a we ought, we are bound

to believe we shall receive them as we ask them.For our prayers for
temporal things should be spiritual as to the end, and moderate as to
their measure, and conditional as to their effect upon us; that is, if it be
for our good. Now, since our desires are to be conditional, and God's
promisee of temporals are conditional, we must not absolutely believe
we shall receive what we ask: a conditional promise cannot be a
foundation for an absolute faith.
PROP. ii. Our faith and confidence of obtaining the thing we ask
should proceed pan passu, should be as strong to the event as it is to the
conditions.If we are very confident [that] what we ask is for the glory
of God or [for] our good, we must be as confident that we shall have it;
for as we are to put no condition to absolute promises, since God hath
put none; so we are to add no more conditions to conditional promises
than God hath put; and upon those conditions we are as fully to rely
upon God's performance, as upon his performance of absolute promises.
PROP. in. Though we cannot nor ought not certainly to believe the
obtaining the thing we ask, if it be temporal, by virtue of the promise;
yet, by virtue of an immediate assurance God may give us of receiving the
very thing we ask, we may, and indeed cannot choose but, expect it.We
read of God's dealing so with several of his saints; with Mr. Fox, and
many others.
PROP. iv. As for spiritual blessings, they are of four sorts.
1. Of edification ; as gifts; such as speaking with tongues, and prophesying in the primitive church, and the gifts of preaching and praying
now. Or,
2. Of consolation ; as assurance, and the comforts of the Spirit, the
privileges of the kingdom of God, as peace and joy in believing.
3. Of sanctification ; as grace and glory. For the former, the same
rules as belong to temporals belong to these; but for saving grace, as
our prayers ought not to. be conditional, since we are sure it is for our
good and the glory of God for us to be holy; so our faith ought not to
be conditional, but absolute and particular, that God will give us grace
and glory, if we sincerely and fervently ask it.
4. Yet though I should believe that God certainly will give grace, nay,
and all other things, if good for me; yet my not believing that God will
give me grace, doth not null mine interest in the promise, but only my
comfort; nor shall it hinder God's performance, though it binders our
expectation of receiving.
PROP. v. Though we are not absolutely to believe we shall receive temporal blessings, or those of consolation or edification; yet that we do not
more confidently expect the performance of such prayers in kind, proceeds
generally from our not believing and improving the power and goodness
of God, and the great interest Christ hath in God, and the rest that I
SERMON XIV.
BOW MUST WE PRAT IN FAITH?
303
have spoken of.For, generally, we are more confident that the thing we
pray for is good for us, than we are that we shall have it.
PROP. vi. We may be confident that the restoring of ourselves or our
relation to health, or deliverance of them out of danger, is for our good;
as they, in oar Saviour's time, who prayed to him for these mercies, were.
PROP. vn. As the case stands between justifying faith and assurance,
eo the case stands as to our receiving, and our expecting the answer of our
prayers in kind.
1. As we may and shall have all the promises that are made to faith
made good to us, though we do not believe that we have faith, and by
consequence do not believe we shall have them made good to us; so
when we pray for those things [which] God hath promised to those who
love or fear God, or walk uprightly, (though we do not believe we have
that fear or love, or that we walk uprightly,) if we have those graces, we
shall receive the promises made to them.
2. As there are two kinds of assurance, one which comes from the
testimony of our own spirits, when, upon serious examination of ourselves, we find that we do believe; the other, which comes from the
testimony of the Spirit of God, witnessing with our spirits: so there are
two kinds of assurance of receiving the thing we ask: one which proceeds from our believing, and improving our believing, the power and
goodness of God, and Christ's interest in God, and God's delighting to
honour Christ, by giving the mercies we ask in his name; the other,
from God's immediate assuring us that we shall receive the very mercy
we pray for.
3. As the immediate testimony of the Spirit comes with more evidence

than the testimony of our own spirits; so the immediate assurance
that God gives that we shall receive the things we pray for, is clearer
and fuller than that which we have by our relying upon the power and
goodness of God; or, to speak more properly, we do more fully rely
upon the goodness and power of God, when God doth immediately
enable us so to do, than when we work out this confidence by our own
endeavours, assisted by the ordinary concurrence of the Spirit.
4. As it is not our sin to want the immediate testimony of-the Spirit,
so it is not our sin not to have this particular assurance of receiving
what we ask. These parallels may be far more enlarged, and will hold,
as I think, in all particulars.
USES.
The use of this is,
1. For consolation, to all that love and fear God; for thy not believing [that] God will grant thy prayers, shall not hinder thy prayers- from
being accepted and granted. For although if thine unbelief were built
upon thy not believing God's power or goodness to do what thou prayest
for, [it] would hinder thee; yet, since thy diffidence proceeds from thy
not believing that thou art such an one as the promises are made to, such
thine unbelief shall not make the promise of God of no effect. (2 Tim. ii.
13.) In verses 11, 12, the apostle saith, " If we are dead with Christ,"
(not, "If we believe [that] we are dead with Christ,") "we shall also
304
SERMON XIV.
BOW MUST WE PRAT IN FAITH?
live with him;" though we do not believe [that] we are dead, if we are
dead it shall not hinder: "for if we believe not, God is faithful."
(2 Tim. ii. 13.) For suppose one dies, and leaves such an one a legacy;
though he to whom the legacy is left doth not know of any such legacy,
yet the executor will not therefore not give him the legacy; nay, though
he will hardly believe it when he tells him, yet he will keep it and give
it him: so the legacies that Christ hath left to the saints, though they
little think any such legacies are left by Christ to them, yet their ignorance shall not frustrate Christ's love; nay, though they will not for the
present extend their hand of faith to receive it, yet God will and doth
keep mercy for thousands, until they will receive it. (Exod. xxxiv. 7.)
2. The second use is an use of exhortation.
(1.) Put in thy claim for mercy for thy claim will hold, not according to thy sense, knowledge, or belief, that thou hast an interest, but
according to the truth of thine interest. Suppose thou shouldest promise to give to every one of thy children such a gift, if they were good
children. Suppose one of your children who had obeyed your commands, and had been very inquisitive to know your will; I say, suppose
such a child should sit weeping because he thought he had not obeyed
your commands, and because he thought you were angry with him, and
upon that account would not come for your promised gift; would you
not therefore give it him ? Nay, would you not only be pleased with his
obedience, but that he took so to heart your supposed anger? So, 0
poor soul, that sittest weeping with thine eyes full of tears, and thine
heart full of sorrow, under the sense of God's supposed displeasure!
shall not God " wipe all tears from thine eyes," and give thee the promises he hath made to thee, though thou, through the sense of thy
unworthiness, dost not believe thou hast any interest in them ?
(2.) The second advice is, that thou shouldest endeavour to obtain the
grace to which the promise are made ; namely, fear and love of God, and
uprightness of heart, &c. Whilst others are examining, and going from
minister to minister, to know whether they have those graces, be thou
getting of them. For, (i.) Thou shalt be sure to get an interest in the
promises, for they are made to such as have the graces, not to those that
know that they have those graces; and if thou hast a title, thou shalt
have possession, (ii.) By getting greater degrees of graces, the trouble
of examination will be needless; it will save thee that labour; whereas,
otherwise, thou wilt perpetually be put to examination: as for instance:
Thou findest a spark of fire, and coverest it up again, and lettest it lie
wet; to-morrow thou wilt be as far to seek, and wilt as hardly find, the
spark, and know whether there be any fire to-morrow as to-day. Another, knowing where to have fire close by, knows she can as soon fetch it
from her neighbour as find it on her own hearth, if there be but a spark
or two: she therefore fetches some, and blows up into a flame, and she
lays on fuel to keep-in the fire: so thou knowest where thou mayest
have God's love, namely, from God, " who is near unto them that call
upon him." They know they may have it sooner by prayer, than find it
by examination; this they blow into a flame: and as when the fire
flames we may be sure there is fire, without poring to find it; so
8KAMDN XIV.
BOW MUST WE PRAY IN FAITH?
305
when thy graces are in an eminent degree, they are so apparent, that one
that hath but half an eye may see them, (iii.) By getting the conditions to which the promise is made, thou shalt often get what is better
than the promise itself; for the promise is often temporal, when the condition is spiritual.
(3.) Study muck, or rather meditate much upon, these great gospel
mysteries of Christ's satisfaction, of Christ's interest in the Father's
love, and of the Father's delight to honour the Son, by giving mercies, and
pardoning sinners, for his sake,Know that thou greatly dishonourest
Christ when thou goest timorously to God for any mercy in his name, and it
:
\
greatly argues thine infidelity. Suppose thy friend, that Was bound with
thee for some great sum of money, and he, hearing there were serjeante
to arrest thee, should put himself into their hands to save thee from
|
\
|
prison, and he should be carried to prison, and pay the debt, and send
thee word that he had paid the debt every farthing; if thou shonldest,
notwithstanding, be afraid to see thy creditor, or stir abroad, would it
'
'
not argue that thou believedst not tby friend had paid the debt ?
(4.) Go, then, with confidence to God, in the name of Christ', since Christ
hath bid thee, or else thou hast strange thoughts of Christ.
'
j
,
Suppose a friend of yours should bid yon go to such a great man for
such a courtesy, and should tell thee that he had spoken to him in thy
behalf, and bid thee not fear, for he could hate any thing of him that
he spoke to him for, and should bid thee go to him in bis name, and
tell him he sent thee; if thou shouldest stand considering what to do,
and shouldest fear, that, for all thy friend professed he had so great an
t
interest in that great man, you should not find it so when you came to
him, would not this show that you feared your friend boasted of more
interest than he had ?
Christ hath plainly bid us go to the Father in his name from him,
and that we shall have any thing whatsoever: if we doubt whether,
when we go to the Father in his name, we shall obtain, doth it not
plainly argue our low thoughts of Christ's interest in the Father's love,
and that Christ hath higher thoughts of his interest in his Father's love
than indeed he hath ? The sense of thine own unworthiness should by
no means hinder thee, except thou wentest to God in thine own name;
for the question in this case is, not how God loves thee, but how God
loves Christ. Thou hast thoughts high enough of God's love to Christ,
if thou knowest that God loves Christ more than he hates any sinner in
the world. Thy thoughts are not high enough of Christ's love to thee,
if thou thinkest Christ will deny thee any thing; nor hast thou worthy
thoughts of God's love to Christ, if thou thinkest God will deny Christ
any thing, or any one that comes to him in his name, whom he bids so
to do; for in so doing, he doth not so properly deny thee, as Christ*
\
\
306
SERMON XV.
HOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BEHAVE HIM8SLV
SERMON XV.
BT THE BEY. ELIA8 PLEDGER, A.M.
Or THE CAUSE OP INWARD TROUBLE ; AND HOW A CHRISTIAN
SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF WHEN INWARD AND OUTWARD
TROUBLES MEET.
And they said one to mother, Yea, but we are verily guilty concerning
our brother, in that we saw the anguish of hi soul, when he besought
us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon ut.
And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying,
Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore,
behold, also his blood is required.Genesis xlii. 21, 22.
IN this chapter we have the description of oar fathers, the patriarchs;

their first journey into Egypt for corn, to relieve their famine in Canaan.
Herein is considerable,
1. Their entertainment there : it was harsh, with much trouble, more
danger: the great Lord-Treasurer of Egypt would not know them, but
treats them roughly; (verse 7;) takes them for spies ; (verse 9;) rejects
their defence; (verse 12;) renews, and out of their own mouths reenforceth, his charge and suspicion of them; (verse 14;) threatens to
commit them; (verses 15, 16;) commits them; (verse 17 ;) puts bonds
upon one of them, till the rest should quit and clear themselves and him
of suspicion. (Verses 19, 20.) This is their cold and sad welcome and
entertainment.
2. The consequent of this their hard and distressful usage and entreatment; and that is trouble of mind, horror and perplexity of spirit: "And
they said one to another," &c.
The words, then, are the Holy Ghost's report of the case of the sons
of Jacob, their being spiritually troubled, by way of conviction, or judgment in their own (which also is the Lord's) court of conscience.
Wherein we observe,
1. The actors themselves: [being] the registers, accusers, witnesses,
judge, [and] tormentors.
2. Process in judging themselves: wherein,
(1.) Self-accusation of the cause of their trouble, their sia, with the
utmost aggravations; namely,
(i.) In general: "We are guilty."
(ii.) In particular: Of envy, wrong against a brother; whom in
bitterness we saw without pity, and were deaf to his entreaties ; obstinate
to the admonition of Reuben, and abiding therein.
(2.) In self-condemnation: "Therefore is this distress come;" and
his blood required.
3. Execution: wherein,
WHEN INWARD AMD OUTWARD TROUBLES MEET?
307
(1.) The smart, by inward terror and consternation; their heart, misgiving them, is deeply affected, and that make them very abrupt t "Yea,
verily," that is, Alas! what shall we do ?
(2.) The circumstance of the time when ; coached in, " and."
(i.) Tn general t many years after the offence was done.
(u.) In special: now that they were outwardly in an afflicted condition.

DOCTRINES. I. Every man hath a conscience within himself.
II. The guilt of sin turns a man's conscience, that is, himself, against
himself.
III. Conscience is apt to be very sensible, when it is awakened, not
only of sin, but particular sins, and the particular circumstances and
degrees thereof to the utmost; and charge all upon a man's self, not
upon God's decrees or providence, nor upon the devil or evil company, &c.
IV. Envy, unnatural affection, cruelty, deafness to the entreaties of
the distressed, obstinacy against warning and admonition, continuance in
sin without repentance, &c., are very heinous and dangerous.
V. The accusations and condemnations of conscience are terrible, or
cause terror beyond all expression.
VI. There is a time when God will call over sins that are past, and
charge them upon the conscience.
VII. Inward trouble of mind sometimes (yea, usually) comes upon the
people of God, when they are outwardly in some distress.
I shall speak of the two last, and in them something of all the other,
saving the fourth, containing the particular matter of feet; namely,
cruelty and blood, which I shall not meddle withal.
These are then the two
DOCTRINES.
I. There i a time when God will call over poet sins with horror, fyc.
II. This time of inward horror f all* in with outward trouble.
DOCTRINE I.
There is a time when God will call over tine that are , without
repentance, and charge them upon the conscience with horror.
Here is the case: The sons of Jacob had formerly trespassed against
God in the matter of their brother, "And they said," &c.: now, and not
till now that we read of, are the guilt and horror of it reflected upon their
consciences. In sin, the act passes, the guilt and consequent remain.
Sin is like some poison, which may be taken at one time, and work at
another, it may be seven years after. It was now more than seven and
seven years, that the poison of this sin began to work.
It is true of family sins; (Hosea i. 4 ;) of national sins; (Ezek. iv. 4, 5 ;
Lam. v. 7;) and of personal sins, as here. And that is the case,
I. Not only of the wicked, as in the case of Cain : " If thou doest
not well, sin lieth at the door," (Gen. iv. 7,) to shut out mercies, and let
in judgments; and that as a fell mastiff, or a sleeping lion, ready to
take thee by the throat, whenever the Lord awakens guilt in the conscience.
508
SERMON XV.
HOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BEHAVE HIMSELF
2. But aleo of the godly: " Thou makest me to possess the sins of my
youth." (Psalm xix. 12; xxv. 7 ; Job xiii. 26.)
REASONS.
REASON i. From God.

1. God remembers all: "The Lord hath sworn, Surely I will never
forget any of their works." (Amos viii. 7.) " I remember that which
Amalek did," &c. (1 Sam. xv. 2.) God hath three books:
(1.) Of prescience ; wherein he writes down our names, and his purposes concerning us. The Arminians deny that book.
(2.) Of providence; wherein he writes down our names, and all hie
care over us. The epicure and atheist deny this, as also the former.
(3.) Of post-science or remembrance; wherein he writes down our
names, and all the particulars of our carnage towards him:
(i.) Whether they be good.No act of piety or charity, not a cup of
cold water from the spring of love, not a drop of tears from the spring of
godly sorrow, not a sigh from the bottom of a broken heart, but it is taken
notice of, bottled, recorded. (Mal. iii. 16.)
(ii.) Or bad.Not a wicked thought, a malicious scoff, or wicked
action, word, motion, but God marks it, and sets it down in the book of
his remembrance. (Psalm 1. 21.)
2. God need not reflect or look back; for he hath all things present
before him, that ever were, are, or are to come; namely, (1.) In specula
decreti. (2.) In causis particularibus.*
God's knowledge (caUed fore-knowledge, and remembrance, in respect
of us, and the things known) is as his being, altogether in puncto aetemitatis
["in the point of eternity "]. There is not in God first and second of
time, and cause; no was and is to come, but all is. There is not with
God beginning, succession, and end; but his name is I AM ; and so is [his]
knowledge as himself, "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." (Heb.
xiii. 8; 2 Peter iii. 8.) The knowledge of men is as of one standing on the
shore, where some ships are past, and out of sight one way; others to
come, and out of sight another way; others in sight right over against
him; but the knowledge of God is [as] of one on the top of an high
mountain, where with one view all things are present. (Heb. iv. 13.)
3. God also seals up our iniquities as in a bag. (Job xiv. 17.) As the
clerk of the assizes seals up the indictments for the next circuit; nay,
God himself will bag them, and seal them up with his own hand and
signet. God, speaking of the provocations of his people, saith: " Is not
this hud up in store with me, and sealed among my treasures ?" (Deut.
xxxii. 34.) So strict and earnest is God for security, as we say, "Sure bind,
sure find" What more sure and safe than that which God himself lays
up in bag and cabinet, and seals among his jewels ? As when God makes
up his jewels of mercy, he will remember them; (Mal. iii. 17;) so when
he casts up his treasures of wrath, he will remember them.
4. God's truth engages him in this case.His word cannot pass away,
now he hath said it. He will by no means acquit the guilty; (Exod.
xxxLv. 7;) that is, unless the blood of sprinkling for repentance and ranis
* " 1. In the glass of the decree. 2. the particular causes."EDIT.
WHEN INWARD AND OUTWARD TROUBLES MEETf
309
don be applied. It is said, again: " God shall woand the head;" (Psalm
Ixviii. 21;) and again: " The sinner an hundred years old shall be
accursed!" (Isai. Ixv. 20.)
Now, as the godly look to have God as good as his word for good: so
the wicked mnst look to have God as good as his word for evil: " Did
not my words take hold of your fathers?" (Zech. i. 6.)
5. No time can remit God's anger,If yon offend a man, and he be
angry, you may get ont of the way, and time will wear off the memory
of the offence, or at least assuage his passion; but it is not so with God;
for if he be once angry, he is for ever angry, the same cause, which is sin
unrepented, remaining. "God is angry with the wicked every day,"
(Psalm vii. 11,) for the sins he commits one day; the anger of the Lord,
unless he works a change in us, abides upon us, burning to the bottom
of hell. 0, as his fear is, so is his wrath, (Psalm xc. 11,) and a thousand
times more.
6. Lastly: The tinner it as much under the power of God at one time
a at another.Forty, a hundred, a thousand, years after a sin is committed, as when the sin was first done.
As the people of God are borne up with that word, "Behold, the Lord's
hand is not shortened, that he cannot save;" (Isai. luc. I;) so the wicked
sink under the terror of that word, "Can thine heart endure, or can thine
hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord
have spoken it, and will do it." (Ezek. xxii. 14.)
This is the first reason from God.
REASON n. From sin.In a twofold consideration of every sin, wherein
there are two things which make sin, unrepented, sure to be called
back:
1. There is in every tin a breach of the eternal rule of righteousness.
(1 John in. 4.)Now, the breach of an eternal law must needs be eternal,
unless he which is eternal make it up, that is, Christ, in giving repentance
and remission. Make a breach in a stone-wall, you may come many
years after, and find it as you left it; and it must hold as long as the
wall holds, if it be not made up: even so it is in this case. Let one come
from the dead and warn us, those poor cursed cast-aways are still, and
must be still and ever, crying out under the wrath of God.
What is the
reason, I pray ? Verily, not only because they sinned out of an affection
and spring to sin for ever, but also because every sin is objectively infinite
and eternal, being against the infinite, eternal law of the eternal God.
Now, the law, being wronged by the sinner, demands and solicits the
justice and vengeance of God against him, till it be satisfied to the utmost
farthing; therefore, till then (that is, for ever) must the wrath of God
abide upon him ; and if time wears not out the breach of the eternal law
in bell, much less doth it make any alteration therein here, while thou
donblest and treblest thy sin, by going on with an impenitent heart.
2. There is also in every sin a spot, stain, or brand, whereby the sinner
is marked out for judgment and condemnation. (Deut. xxxii. 5 ; Jer. xiiu
23; xvii. 1.)As we say of a murderer as to man, so we may say of every
sin (which is hatred, and so murder, of the blessed God) as to God: There
is always some mark or token whereby he is known; and that is the
310
SERMON XV.
macula [" pot"] which sin doth impress upon him. Now this also is
an indelible character, as the former of guilt was, save only when upon,
the penitent, heart-changing application of the blood of sprinkling, there is
made an alteration of the case. It is plain, "it is written with a pen of
iron, and with the point of a diamond :" (Jer. xvii. 1:) 'Though thou
wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is
marked before me, saith the Lord God." (Jer. ii. 22.) David cries out so:
" 0 wash me, purge me," &c. (Psalm li. 2, 7.) This is the second reason
from sin.
REASON HI. The third is from the inner himself; that is, from his
own conscience.
There is in every rational creature a certain thing called " conscience;"
upon the account of which also, sin must needs be kept upon the file for
a back-blow. Know here, that there are divers acts of conscience, and
all of them unavoidable.
1. Directive, as to that which is to be done: it being the law written in
the heart, it points to all the duties and sins, whereby that law is kept or
broken; warning from the one, and putting on to the other. " How can
I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen. xxxix. 9.)
"I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies." (Psalm
cxix. 59.) Thus conscience is a monitor.
2. Reflexive, both gratulatory and reprehensive as to all that which is
doing or done.
(1.) Considering, observing, and recording, whether it be done or no;
the matter of fact simply, with the natural circumstances of action,

negative and positive, both in the point of omission and commission:
Item, " This is done, or not done."
(2.) Taking notice, and recording the quality of the fact in a comparative act; comparing it with the rule, together with the moral circumstances thereof. Thus conscience is a surveyor, witness, register:Item,
" In the doing or omitting of this and this, the law is broken, and the
forfeiture and penalty is incurred."
(3.) It applies this, and sets it home upon the sinner. " Thou art the
man." "This thou hast done, verily thou art guilty," &c. Thus
conscience is a judge also, and gives sentence touching both the sin and
sinner, pro or eon, as the case is.
(4.) It never leaves, nor gives-over these acts of warning, observing,
recording, witnessing, and judging, till judgment take place, and the law
and sentence be fulfilled upon the sinner. " Verily, I am guilty," &c.
Thus conscience is tormentor and executioner also, executing its own
sentence, by affecting the heart and moving the affections, as of joy and
boldness, if the case be good; so of honor and fear, shame and sorrow,
if the case be bad, &c.
Now these acts of conscience, though haply for a time suspended, as
it were, are unavoidable, upon a double account: and conscience cannot
be bribed;
1. Because of that relation that conscience hath to God.It ever
takes God's part, and God its; it is God's deputy and viceroy; and so its
voice and judgment is the very voice and judgment of God himself, who
WHEN INWARD AMD OUTWARD TROUBLES MEET?
311
can and will maintain it in it office, till he bring forth judgment onto
victory.
2. Because of to relation to a man' elf.It is, Senetu et prayudiciutn
jttdicii Divtni.* Nothing so intimate to a man, and inseparable from life,
as this bosom-judge, and God* court within a man: it is a part of a
man's soul and self, a subordinate to God and his judgment; so that if
a man can run away from God or himself, then he may escape the reflection of his sin upon him ; bat if not, then know, it must be an evil and
bitter thing that thou hast departed from God in any known sin, either
to thy penitent amendment, or penal condemnation and confusion ; and
that upon all accounts: (1.) In respect of God. (2.) Of sin, (3.) Of
the sinner himself: "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy
backslidings shall reprove thee." (Jer. ii. 19.) All the time thou abidest
in sin, thou art gathering either hemlock to poison thee, or wormwood to
make thy life bitter.
USES.
1. Instruction,
(1.) See, then, the malignity and danger of sin. " Fools make a mock
of sin."
(2.) See the vanity, sinfulness, and desperate danger of presuming
upon any bottom of peace and satisfaction, or security, whilst sin remains.
Of a truth, thy peace and hope thereof shall be as a spider's web, and as
the giving up of the ghost; and thy presumption must end in despair.
Bribest thou thyself with a persuasion of peace, presuming and leaning,
(i.) Upon God's patience ? Remember, forbearance is no payment or
forgiveness, or sign thereof.
(ii.) Upon outward privileges God knows thee not, whilst thou art
a worker of iniquity. (Matt. vii. 2123.)
(iii.) Upon the mercy of God ? He is holy, and therefore must be
just; and because just, angry; and because angry, ever angry: unless
Christ be thy peace, upon faith and a thorough change.
(iv.) The blood of Christ ? Though it be an ocean, yet not a drop of
it can do thee good, unless it turn thee from all thine iniquity. (Acts iii.
26.) All this is but physic in thy pocket.
(v.) The promises of the gospel ? They are sweet, but poison to the
impenitent: as bread to a dying man.
(vi.) Upon thy faith in all this ? Whilst impenitent, all is but notional
and imaginary; and so thy peace and happiness is but a notion.
2. Therefore be exhorted to get thy tin off.
I shall here do two things : I. Give you some directions how to put
you in the way to escape this doom. II. To awaken myself and you to
the serious use of them by some motives.
I. Then if you ask " How ?" I answer,
DIRECTION i. Attend to, and comply with, the word and Spirit
therein, in summoning thyself to God19 and thine own bar of conscience.
Suffer thyself to be stopped, as a loose and skulking malefactor; seize
and sequester thyself to hearken to the call and treaty of the word about
* " The perception and feeling formed within a man prior to the final judgment of
God."EDIT.
312
SERMON XV.
thy condition; the hue and cry of the word is after thee to apprehend
thee.
DIREG. ii. Let inquisition and diligent search be made into the matter* between God and thy soul.This is the way : " Let us search and
try our ays, and tarn," &c.: (Lam. iii. 40 :) this is the miscarriage :
"No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I
done?" (Jer. viii. 6.) The first step to peace with God is inquiry:
" If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come." (Isai. xxi. 12.)
DIREC. in. Declare against thyself.Turn God's faithful pleader
against thy own soul; accuse thyself in free and particular confession,
whereof thou art guilty, with all the killing circumstances thou canst
find out. This will prevent the " accuser of the brethren."
DIREC. iv. Condemn thyself.Charge thyself with fault, guilt, punishment ; so shalt thou prevent the condemnation of the Lord. (Lev. zxvi.
40, &c.) Though thou canst not satisfy the justice of God in the least,
yet thou must glorify it to the utmost thou canst. (1 Cor. xi. 31.)
DIREC. v. Be thorough and to purpose, and constant herein.For if
fhy sense of thy condition be not real, thy cure will not be real: there
will be no more reality in the application of the word for the one, than
there is for the other. To no more purpose wilt thou apply the word to
thyself, than thou appliest thyself to the word: therefore give thyself to
it, to dwell upon thy case; hold the object close to the faculty, till it
make some impression, and thy heart yield.
DIREC. vi. Fly the Lord Jesus, and the mercy-seat in his blood.~
(i.) For repentance, (ii.) For remission. He is exalted to give both.
(Acts v. 31.) None can take up the quarrel between God and thee,
save only Christ alone; he, he is the way; (1 Sam. ii. 25 ;) God's way
to thee for grace and mercy, and thy way to God for faith. " Lord, I
am a guilty, helpless creature; but thou hast laid help upon One that is
mighty to save from the utmost to the utmost."
DIREC. vn. In him therefore cry to God for mercy and grace with thy
whole heart." 0 mercy, mercy, Lord! 1 have wronged thee, Lord, forgive me! I have defiled my soul, Lord, wash me! I have wounded and
cast away my soul, Lord, heal me! Lord, save me!" &c. (Psalm Ii.)
DIREC. viii. Cry for mercy, till God have mercy upon thee. (Psalm
cxxiii. 2, 3.)Take heed thou be not temporary for a fit; but set thyself
in an habitual tenor, restless after [an] interest in Christ, and the great
work, till it be done.
DIREC. ix. Accept of Christ upon the terms of the gospel.Not
thine own, or picking and choosing; but as he in Acts ix. 6, " Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do?" Consent and resign thyself, stooping to his articles of peace; to deny thyself of the dearest, bear the
heaviest, do the strictest, as he shall call. Not that thou canst do any
thing, but-upon these terms :If he will receive thee, and furnish thee
with grace, thou wilt follow, and cleave to him with full purpose of
heart.
DIREC. x. Cashier and discharge, in thy purpose and endeavour, in
dependence on this Christ in the promise, whatever thou knowest offends in
heart and life, whatever belongs to a carnal mind, which is enmity to
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313
Gods and addict thyself to the pleasure of God i aU known commands,

and whatever savours of the Spirit, and the kingdom of God.
DIREC. xi. Upon these terms, consenting to embrace Christ in the offer
of grace, rest upon Christ; who is assuredly thine, and will never be
otherwise.
II. The motives.
MOTIVE i. The comfort of this way.Now then " there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ," &c. ; (Rom. . 1;) their
iniquities shall never be remembered. God gees no iniquity in Jacob;
there is no fury in God. " blessed is the man to whom God imputes
\
i
,
i
i
\
\
not his sin," &c. (Psalm xxxii. 2.) Now, Christ is Jehovah thy righteousness. Thy Judge is thy Advocate, thy God reconciled. Thy Comforter
is come to apply Christ, in all that he is for thee, to thee, and shall abide
for ever with thee. He is thy seal unto the purchased possession. The
law is satisfied, the curse is removed, all the promises are thine, and the
Spirit of promise to confirm thy title thine, the stain or mark of sin washed
off quite as to justification and present acceptation ; and in part begun as
to sanctification and purity of heart and life. Thy conscience is pacified
with " the blood of sprinkling," as to what the word declares concerning
thee, though not as to what thou feelest; and where the judge acquits,
there conscience, which is the serjeant, cannot condemn; but that it is
not always set right according to the word.
MOTIVE ii. The terror of being yet, and going on, in sin.But 0, the
terror of having sin upon the file against us! And dost thou remain in sin
nrepented ? Dost thou go on to add sin to sin, not caring how many
sins thou loadest thy conscience withal, as if there were no time of reckoning ? " Be sure your sin will find you out." (Num. zxxii. 23.)
Do not say, "Hast thou found me, 0 my enemy?" Or, as the
wicked one, "Art thou come to torment us before our time?" But as
thou lovest thy soul, take all I say in good part; for, God knows, I speak
out of tender respect to your eternal good.* Consider, then,
1. The innumerable number of sins thou standest guilty of."Who
can understand his errors?" (Psalm xix. 12.) Methinks there is no sad
eight in the world but the sinner in his sins.
Suppose you had seen Herod covered over with worms; alas! what is
this to one worm of conscience ?
Suppose you had seen every member in the senate run upon Caesar to
give him a stab; would not you have given him over for dead a thousand
times ? Brethren, every sin you commit is an envenomed knife to stab
you at your very heart.
Suppose, again, you should see a malefactor at the bar for a capital
crime, the evidence clear; "0," you will say, "it will go hard with
him!" But when you see another, and another, and many other indictments sworn home against him, and every one touching his life, will you
not say ?"There is no hope; he is a dead man; and all the world cannot
* Sicmihi semper confingattractare etbeareamicot,rumdulcibus verbissedtanin terroribus.BJE RX AHDUS. " May it ever be my part thus to conduct myself toward my friends, in
promoting their blessedness, not by smooth and sweet verbiage, but by the application of
jialutary terrors."EDIT.
314
SERMON XT.
save him!" Remember, this is thy case, and it will be certainly called
over.
If one poison be enough to dispatch a man, without an antidote, what
doth that man mean that drinks off a thousand poisons, and refuses the
antidote of the blood of Christ?
If one sin be as a thousand mill-stones to sink all the world into the
bottom of hell, what dost thou mean to tie so many thousand mill-stones
about thy own neck?
2. Old debt vex most.The delay of payment increases them by use
upon use; and the return of them being unexpected, a person is least
provided for them. We count old sores, breaking forth, incurable.
Augustus wondered at a person's sleeping quietly that was very much in
debt, and sent for his pillow, saying, " Surely, there is some strange virtue in it, that makes him rest so secure." My brethren, if one debt unto
God's law be more than the whole creation can satisfy, what do any of us
mean to rest secure with so vast a burden upon our consciences and
account? 0 take heed thou beest not surprised and arrested with
old debts! "0 remember not against us former iniquities." (Psalm
Ixxk. 8.)
3. God will call over and charge thy tin upon thee, when all the tweet
is gone.Thou makest a shift to swallow the hook with pleasure, when
it is covered with the sweet bait; 0, but when that is digested or disgorged, and the naked hook piercing and raking thy heart, what wilt
thou do then ? 0 how bitter is the pill when all the sugar is melted off I
Now this will be thy case; Job found but a taste of it, and O, how he
cries out!"Thou writest bitter things against me;" that is, "bitternesses." (Job xiii. 26.)
4. With old fin must come old wrath." Thinkest thou, 0 man, that
thou shall escape the judgment of God ? or despisest thou the riches of
his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the
goodness of God" doth not only give thee a space of, but " leadeth thee
to, repentance ? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest"
(tunnest) " up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath," &c. (Rom.
ii. 35.)
There be three sorts and degrees of wrath [which] will come with old
sins:
(1.) Wrath for old sins (2.) Wrath for the forbearance of that
wrath. (3.) Wrath for the abuse of that forbearance. what wilt
thou do in the day of thy visitation ?
5. The former admonition, $*c., nips of conscience, will come again:
and they with the present will be unsufferablc, beyond all that can be
expressed.This is their terror here : say they, " He besought us, and
we would not hear;" and saith Reuben, "Said I not to you, did I not
tell you, warn you what it would come to, and ye would not hear?"
0, he who hardens his neck to reproof shall surely be destroyed. 0,
timely and fair checks and warnings, obstinately rejected, are the racks
of conscience, the sharp sting and teeth of the worm thereof!
6. And what will now become of thee ? As the Lord lives, thou wilt
come to thy distracting, misgiving thoughts."Yea, but, and verily
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315
we re guilty/* &c. "Methinks," enith Lather, "every cloud is loined *

with thunder against me." Thou wilt take every visitation from God
a messenger of death; nay, that God himself sets-in against thy life.
Suppose you saw two desperate enemies grappling, closing-in upon each
other : " 0," say you, " they are armed with some instruments of death;
they owe each other a deadly grudge; there is of old a mortal feud
between them; they will take this opportunity to vent their malice to
the utmost! 0, one of them will fall and die for it." My brethren,
God and the sinner in his sins are, according to the tenor of this book,
enemies, hated of and hating one another; and when God visits sin upon
him, he falls upon him, and deals with him, as I may say, hand to hand ;
and now one of them must go to the walls; God or the sinner must fall.
Take it in God's own challenge, Ezek. xxii. 14: in verse 13, God complains [that] the sinner had given him a blow; but then, saith God,
" Canst thou indeed make thy part good, when I shall be in good earnest
with thee ? Can thy heart hold out ? Can thine hands be strong in the
day that I shall deal with thee?" 0 consider and tremble at it, how
God will thus deal with thee, and how infinitely thon, being a guilty
worm, art over-matched by Omnipotency, whose wrath will one day wax
hot against thee, even to the utmost! 0, saith David, " When thou
with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makeat his beauty,"
even all his hopes and desires, "to consume away as a moth," &c.
(Psalm xxxix. 11.)
Sad was the case of the children of Benjamin, of whom we read in
Judges xz. They had fought against their brethren twice, and prevailed. They ventured out the third time; but then the battle went
against them, the ambnscadoes cut them off, and others fired the town
behind them. the horror and amazement they were struck withal,
when they could not stand before the face of the tribes which were before
them, and they saw their city all on a flame behind them! 0, said they,
"Now is evil come upon us;" and they were trodden down as dirt.
Thou wretch, who art still in thy sins, hast fought against God many
and many times, and seemed to carry the day; but when God shall come
upon thee in his strength, and thou shalt see all the refuge of creaturecomforts in despairing case, as on fire behind thee, what reprobate
astonishment will then take hold on thee! Now come thy distracting,
misgiving, despairing thoughts!" Now evil is befallen me! Now is God
come upon me, and will make an end of me at once! Now come the
floods of my ungodliness in amain, and the flood-gates of God's wrath
are opened upon me! Now ' the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set
themselves in array against me!' (Job vi. 4.) And as the church :
Now hath God summoned and mustered, as in a solemn day of battle
between him and my poor soul, my terrors round about me!" (Lam.
ii. 22.) O, you that have been twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, years, even
ever since you were born, a provocation, and yet also forget God, " consider this," before he fall upon yon, and " tear yon in pieces, and there
be none to deliver;" (Psalm 1. 22;) for, assure yourselves, there is a
* The first edition has the correct and forcible word loyned , the others have gradually
\
poftened it down to lyned and lined.EDIT.
316
SERMON XV.
HOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BERATE HIMSELF
time when God will call over sins past, and charge them home upon the
conscience.
QUESTION. Bat yon will ask, "What is the sign, and when shall
these things be?"
ANSWER. I answer: The God of spirits can at any time, and will in
his own time, certainly fall upon thy spirit with horror and confusion ;
(Deut. xxxii. 25 ;) especially and usually at these particular instants :
1. After certain term of patience abused and expired.God is
patient toward all men; and this patience is as the banks which keep-in
his wrath, that it breaks not in upon thee. But it will not be always so:
these banks have their bounds; and as thy sin abides, it rises with thee;
and as God's wrath abides on thee, it rises with God, till at last it swells
up to the bank of his patience ; and then it is a thousand tiroes more
dreadful than the sea to overwhelm thee.* God's patience, and thy
respite, hath [each] its date; (Gen. vi. 3;) one hundred and twenty
years to them, and thenSo it may be so many years, or months, or
weeks, or days to thee, and thenLcesa patientia fit furor ;-\ and as
lead, the colder when cold, the hotter when hot.
2. When the sinner is secure.The less fear, the more danger; the
more thou puttest the evil day from thee, the nearer it is to thee. (Amos
vi. 3.) God shall cut thee off in an hour when thou art not aware;
when thou sayest, "My lord delayeth his coming;" (Matt. xxiv.
4350;) as the flood came upon the old world, as some say, in the
spring or summer,}; when they would least have dreamed of it. God
deals with a sinner, as Samuel with Agag: when he said, " Surely the
bitterness of death is past," then comes the messenger of death from the
Lord to cat him in pieces. (1 Sam. xv. 32, 33.) When the wicked cry,
" Peace, peace," (nothing but peace,) " then sudden destruction cometh
upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not
escape." (1 These, v. 3.) Dost thou bless thyself in thy sins, as if thy condition were good, or thy account far off? (Deut. xxix. 19.) "As the Lord
liveth, there is but a step between thee and death." [t Sam. xx. 3.]
3. After the commission of some great .This [is] like some great
blow, which awakens the conscience to see the whole account; as in
Cain, Judas, &c. God deals with the sinner, as Solomon with Shimei: he
reviled his father David; but David seems to forget it; and so did his
on Solomon; only he is bound by an oath not to go out of Jerusalem.
He breaks his oath, and goes out; Solomon, upon this, comes upon him
for the breach of his covenant and oath; and also for former rebellions:
"And I remember," saith he, "what thou didst to my father David."
(1 Kings ii. 44.)
4. On thy death-bed, (not to speak of judgment, when we must account
for every particular, 2 Cor. v. 10.)God comes to the sinner, as to Adam in
the cool of the day, (Gen. iii. 8,) in his cold sweat, when his sun is setting,
and he is going to make his bed in the dark ;< his life and soul sits on his
pale, trembling lips, ready to take her flight into eternity: and whereas
* Tarditatem vinficla compensat gravitate supplicii. " He counterbalances the slowness
of hie vengeance by the severe aggravation of the punishment inflicted."EDIT.
t" When once patience is tired out and wounded, it becomes perfect fury."EDIT.
j MUSCULUS in Gen.
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317
thou wert before as the " deaf adder/' or the " wild ass snuffing up the
wind," or the " dromedary traversing hie way/' without all regard of any
check, now, taken in thy month: [Jer. ii. 23, 24:] "O my contempt of the
means of grace! my profaning sabbaths, sacraments! 0 my breaking bonds of oaths, covenants, promises, and casting away cords of discipline and government! 0 my malice against God's people! 0 my
hardening my heart against the word and the rod!" &c., as the rankling
thorn in the flesh pains most when thou goest to bed.
5. Before this, in a time of outward calamity and distress.And this
is the second DOCTRINE, from the special circumstance, when they were
troubled: "And now."
DOCTRINE II.
Thi* inward horror and trouble of mindfalls-in (even to God* people)

with outward trouble.
This is the case here : the patriarchs, the children of the promise, are
in distress and danger, by their brother Joseph's seeming severity toward
them. " And they said one to another, We are verily guilty," &c.:
with the pressure on the outward man, comes a snare upon the conscience.
If any find it otherwise, (as there are some, with whom, when there
is a storm without, there is a calm within; and when a storm within,
there is a calm without,) let them bless God. But in the experience
of God's people, it is often found, that when their outward condition
is troubled, their inward state and frame is full of perplexities and fears.
David found it so: " The sorrows of death compassed me, and " then
also "the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow ;"
(Psalm cxvi. 3;) that is, very much perplexity, both inward and outward
at once. So again: Then " I said in my haste," (that is, when I was
flying for my life before the face of Saul, and hard put to it, 1 Sam.
xxiii. 26,) "I am cut off from before thine eyes." (Psalm xxxi. 22;
xlii. 7.) Thus it was with Jonah: in the depth of his distress, saith he,
" I am cast out of thy sight." (Jonah ii. 4.) Sad conclusions I touching
not only God's providential care over them, but his love towards them.
Thus with Paul: "Without were fightings, within were fears;" that is,
spiritual conflicts. (2 Cor. vii. 5.)
We find the whole church, in the Lamentations, at the same pass:
" Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord."
(Lam. iii. 17, 18.) Alike sad is that swoon of Israel's faith, when they
were in the captivity. (Ezek. xxxvii. 11.)
REASONS.
You will ask what the reason and cause of this should be.
I. It arifcth from their ignorance.Especially in the fundamental
points of religion, as touching our disease, and the remedy, and way
of cure, the tenor of the covenant of grace, according to which God
exactly proceeds in all his dealings with us, and we should ever carry it
towards God. If a man be taken with a fit of sickness; knows not what
318
8KRMON XV.
he ails, nor what to take, nor how to apply that which is prescribed, nor
how to order himself; is unsatisfied touching the way, skill, and faithfulness of his physician; by his ignorance he is pat to a sad plunge, and
at hie wits' ends, ready to sink and welter: thus it is in our spiritual condition. David is dangerously tossed in his spirit upon waves of temptations, and much staggered about his condition; his " feet were almost
gone," he almost wrecked, and cast away. See the reason: " So foolish
was I, and ignorant:" (Psalm Ixziii. 2, 16, 22:) ignorance is darkness:
it will either find fears, or make them.
2. This ariseth from the ill and imprudent carnal management of a
more prosperous state.It is rare to receive much of this world, and
not, as the prodigal, to go afar off. (Luke xv. 12, 13.) It is hard to
keep close to God in prosperity, when we have much of this world to
live upon and content ourselves with ; to live upon God, and make him
our content and stay, as if we had no other life nor livelihood but in
him. We are very apt, in such a case, to contract a carnal frame, let go
our hold of God, disaccustom ourselves to the exercise of faith, abate and
estrange our affections from God. See how it was with David : " I said
in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong." " I solaced myself in these outward accommodations, as if I needed no other support, strength, or content, and there
were no fear of a change; no care now to make God my constant joy
and stay, and reckon upon God only for my portion, and that I must
follow him with a cross, and be conformed to my Saviour in being
crucified to the world." What comes of this ? " Thou didst hide thy face,
and I was troubled;" (Psalm xxx. 6, 7;) namely, because he had too much
indulged a life of sense. Children that are held up by their nurse's hand,
and mind not to feel their feet and ground, when the nurse lets them go,
they fall as if they had no feet or ground to stand upon. Or thus: we
are like children, who, playing in the golden sunshine, and following
their sport, stray so far from their father's house, that, night coming
upon them ere they are aware, they are as it were lost, and full of fears,
not knowing how to recover home. The world steals away our hearts
from God, gives so few opportunities for the exercise of the life of faith,
and such advantages to a life of sense, wears off the sense of our dependence on God and need thereof; so that when we are put to by affliction,
we are ready to miscarry, ere we can recover our weapon or hold. Faith
is our cordial. Now, if it be not at hand, (as in health, when we have
no need of it, it uses to be,) we may faint ere we recover the use of it.
(Psalm xxvii. 13.)
3. It ariseth from the shortness and dimness of our spiritual evidences.
-Our evidences, you know, are great matters in point of estate and
livelihood; and in affliction we are put to prove them; at which time,
if they be either not clear or not at hand, we are at a great loss and
plunge. A good man makes always conscience of " making his calling
and election sure;" but he is especially put upon this work in affliction.
Then he considers, then searches more than in his ordinary course.
Afflictions are as sharp, searching winter-weather; [they] will search
whether your house be tight or no: those garments, walls, and windows
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that will serve in [the] summer of prosperity will be found defective in

[the] winter of adversity. "Then how stand the case between God and
me What ground of my confidence, what evidence that I am in Christ ? "
&c. Though the least degree of faith will save the house from falling,
yet it will be a poor* cold, uncomfortable dwelling in winter, unless you
mend the cracks and flaws, to defend yon against driving, piercing winds
and storms.
4. It ariseth, at it did here, from the remembrance of tome fin unmortijted, and therefore it may be, for ought we know, unpardoned.-Affliction puts upon the remembrance of sin with more circumstances and
aggravations, and to more purpose, than ordinarily; even the best
(which make most conscience hereof) attend to it in time of freedom:
" If they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; then
he showeth them their work, and their transgressions that they have
exceeded." (Job xxxvi. 8,9.) " Art thou come unto me to call my sin to
remembrance, in slaying" (afflicting me with the loss of) "my son?"
(1 Kings xvii. 16.)
In stormy change of weather, when clouds gather black over us, and
it begins to drop, then we feel it in our bones, what bruises or aches
we have gotten. When a man is arrested by one creditor, all his debts
come in upon him. Even so when a man is arrested with sickness, or

some other outward distress, then come in upon him the debts wherein
he is bound over unto the divine law: when all is well with us, we can
easily cast these debts on the score of Christ; but now it is hot work.
Affliction is the glass of sin, and the opening and awakening the
conscience to see it; and thence comes the trouble upon the spirit. It
is not all the stormy winds upon the face of the earth, but some generated in the bowels thereof, which make the earth shake.
5. It arieethfrom Satan.When the eye of conscience is most open,
he is most busy to present either that which may close it, or that which
may trouble it: when the heart is most tender, he is most ready to
bruise and wound it. In affliction, he would make breaches between
God and us, us and God, and us and ourselves, if we must needs be
sensible of them ; gulfs out of which there is no redemption. He tempts
us unto sin in prosperity, and then for sin in adversity; as we find in
Job's case: even in those who he knows are out of his reach, where [be
has] least strength and ground to do any thing, there he is most malicious ; as it appears in his bold attempts upon our Lord. If he cannot
run thee upon a rock, yet he will disquiet thee with a tempest; if he
cannot rob thee of thy grace, yet he will of thy peace and comfort.
6. It ariseth from the weakness of faith, and strength of sense.
Apprehending God in affliction as our enemy; especially if there be some
willing correspondence between us and any thing which God hates, God
is a terror to us. Thus sense wrought in Job: " Behold, he findeth
occasions against me, he counteth me for his enemy." (Job xxxiii. 10.
[See] also chap. xvi. 1214.) And in the church: " He bath bent his
bow like an enemy," &c. (Lam. ii. 4, 5.) 0, if thou contest to that
of Jacob: " Surely ' all these things are against me;' (Gen. xlii. 36;)
and in them God against me ;" it is sad with thee. This is the triumph
330
SERMON XV.
of faith : " If God be with us, who can be against us ?" Thjs the shriek
of thy fainting: "God is against me! and then who can be for me?"
7. It ariseth from God's withdrawing.Thus with Christ; when
God would make his condition sad, and his burden heavy indeed, the
Father and his own Divinity withdraw, and withhold their comfortable
influential presence from the apprehension of the human nature; and
when was he thus spiritually afflicted, but when most outward trouble
came upon him, when his murderers and the traitor were upon him, and
his life drew near to the grave ? As it was prefigured in David, when the
sorrows or dangers of death compassed him about, then the terrors
of hell took hold upon him; (Psalm cxvi. 3;) that is, terrors arising from
this,the withdrawing of the divine love and countenance. Now come
his astonishing, dismaying fears and sorrows, pressing even to death,
making him as it were to shrink from the great work of his own mercy.
(Mark xiv. 34.) Now he cries out, as his type: " My God, my God, why
hast thon forsaken me ?" (Psalm xxii. 1; Matt, xxvii. 46 ;) the perpetual
shriek of them who are cast away. When we can, with David, encourage
ourselves in our relations to and interest in God, (I Sam. xxx. 6,) then
every, even the heaviest, burden, even death itself, is light; and we can
in Christ's strength shake it off, or run away with it, as Samson [did]
with the gates of the city. But, as when the sun is down or eclipsed,
the flowers fold up and droop ; or, when the face before the glass turns
away, the face in it vanisheth; even so, when God hides his face, and
we doubt of our title and interest, we are troubled; and then we are as
Samson when his covenant [was] broken, and his locks, the sign thereof,
cnt: we are as other men, our strength is gone; any cord will bind us,
any burden sink us. (Isai. Ixiv. 7.)

8. I might add, it may arise from our disacguaintedness with afflictions,
as to our expectation and resolution.
USES.
But for use .

USE i. A word to them which are yet in their sin, out of Christ: and
it is, 1. Of conviction. 2. Counsel.
1. Conviction and terror to them who are out of Christ.If God's
people be liable to inward and outward trouble at once, wherein yet there
is not a drop of wrath; what shall the visitation of the rest be, wherein
there is not a drop of saving pity ?
If they may be so hardly put to it
who yet are ever secretly and mightily supported, what shall they do
that have no strength but their own to bear up under the mighty hand
of God? Surely, if they smart sevenfold, the wicked must be avenged
seventy times sevenfold.
If the cup of affliction, by reason of the bitter
ingredient of inward perplexity, be so bitter to them; what becomes

of them for whom the dregs of that cup are reserved ? The godly may
stand condemned at their own bar; but the wicked at God's too; and
nothing remains to them but a certain expectation of execution, without a
change. 0, if Jacob halt, sure Esau's back and bones must be broken ;
if the righteous be, by reason of sharp afflictions within and without,
"scarcely saved," (to whom yet all afflictions are through grace ever
321
snfierable, ehort, and sanctified,) "where ball tbe sinner appear" when
hie sins and sorrow shall meet together ? There be three days wherein
thou shalt never be able to hold up thy head and yet thou most appear t
First, A day of extreme calamity: Secondly, Of death: Thirdly,
Of judgment. 0 remember how sad it goes with the godly in a day
of outward calamity, because of inward trouble joining with it, through,
gradual want of knowledge, faith, and evidence, the venom of sin nnmortified, malice of Satan not yet quite trodden under their feet, and the
withdrawing of God's grace and countenance in part! And consider
how thou wilt speed, who hast no saving knowledge, no faith, no interest,
art under the reign of sin and Satan, whom the holy and jealous God
cannot endure to behold but with revenge and execration. David had
fainted in his affliction, had he not believed, &c. (Psalm xxvii. 13.)
Surely, then, thou must utterly faint, because thou hast not obtained an
heart to understand and believe to this day. The children of God,
\
j
>
:
1
notwithstanding all their inward and outward pressures, can say, as Paul
sighs for them all: "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed/*
so as there is no way to escape or bear up; " we are perplexed, but
not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not" quite
"destroyed." (2 Cor. iv. 8, 9.) But if thou lookest not to it betimes,
such a day will come upon thee, wherein thou shalt be so beset with
trouble, that thou wilt be absolutely concluded and shut out from all
relief; so "perplexed," that thou wilt despair; so pursued by the avengers
of blood, that thou wilt be quite "forsaken" of heaven and earth; so "cast
down," that thou wilt be utterly " destroyed " and dashed in pieces.
if trouble, such trouble, may seize on God's dear ones, what reprobate
fear and astonishment shall take hold on thee that art a stranger, a slave,
an enemy, and yet secure and presumptuous in that condition!
2. It is a word of counsel to thee, as to be an alarm to thy security, so
an antidote to thy presumption and censoriousness in reference to the
godly.The men of the world can easily pass over the beams of raging
wickedness in themselves and their own ; but they maliciously and
proudly aggravate the motes of infirmity in the godly. If they carry
themselves unbecomingly by any impatience under the hand of God, now
they are hypocrites presently, now they sink, notwithstanding they
would seem to have special interest in, and acquaintance with, God to
bear them up. Thus was Job censured, even by his friends; for which
God censures them, and that with wrath. (Job xlii. 7.) Thus God's
people serve themselves, but especially they have this measure from the
men of the world: they see them droop and walk heavily under some
outward burden, which they think is but ordinary; they see them faint,
having drunk of the cup of affliction which is common : but, alas! they
consider not what may be the weight of their burden within, what
bitter ingredients may be in their cup, as to their inward man. Now,
the spirit is the man, the mind is the strength ; and they are not aware
how tender the love of God hath made that, and how grieved and
broken that may be upon some spiritual account between God and them.
Joab reproves David for mourning so excessively for Absalom; and at
first sight we mny think it strange that so eminent a saint as David
322
SERMON XV.
should so take-on for an outward loss, more, AS it seems, than for the
loss of God's favour and grace. Bat Joab did not know and consider
what visitation there might be within David, while God stood over him
with that outward rod; how God might set-on that outward blow with
some inward smart and rebuke upon his spirit, in such an intimation as
this: " 0 David, thou that wert so obliged to me, more than thousands!
I will make thee know it is an evil and bitter thing to provoke me, and
dishonour my name, as thou hast done. Thy child is dead, Absalom is
gone with a curse, and Adouijah shall follow ; and now, what hast thou
gotten by hearkening to temptations, and pleasing thyself in the enticements of thy naughty heart ?" No question but there were some such
workings of God's displeasure within him; and therefore no wonder he
took-on so heavily, as in Psalm xxxix. II. Therefore, do not pass
sentence npon the godly in their extremities, till thou canst hear and
see all the bitterness of their condition.
USE ii. The second word is to the godly. 1. They who are not, but
may be, beset with this double perplexity. 2. They who are.
1. Art thou in a state of freedom and exemption?Bless God; thy
lot is very comfortable; but be not secure, indulge not thyself with a
persuasion that it will always last. For,
(1.) Thou hast married Christ with his cross, or not at all.Thou art
delivered from the eurse indeed; but thou art appointed to the cross,
and canst not with integrity except against any part thereof, that
without or that within.
(2.) Outward afflictions and troubles may be many and heavy :One
upon the neck of another; and by reason of them, though they come
single, thou mayest endure an hard brunt, aud have enough to exercise
thy whole strength of faith and patience.
(3.) Inward affliction may come:And that is far more heavy and
grievous. The soul is infinitely more tender than the body; and yet
scalding water npon the eye can very hardly be endured. 0, then, a
wounded spiritwho can bear that ?
(4.) It is not improbable, nor unusual, that both these rods may come
upon thee at once.And then thy affliction is as a load upon a broken
back; now thou wilt have thy hands full indeed, and very hardly be
saved; now thou wilt need not only all the strength which thou hast,
but all which thou mightest have had.
You will say, "Sirs, what shall we do?'*
I answer, as in natural distempers, (i.) You must take some preparatives and prophylactics, to prevent the disease, if it may be, or at least to
break the strength of it, if it doth come, that we may not sink under it.
(ii.) Some cordials, restoratives, and therapeutics for the cure of the
malady when it is come. I shall endeavour, by the grace of God, to help
you in these two cases, and conclude.
DIRECTIONS.
I. Then for direction by way of preparation.

DIREC i. Labour to be well-seen in points of saving knowledge, especially fundamentals.Ignorance, I told you, was the cause of soul-
"WHEN INWARD AND Ot7TWARD TROUBLES MEET?
323
distress; and it is so the impregnable impediment of comfort most-what

in the godly; they are not thoroughly informed, they do not understand
themselves well in the matter of the covenant of grace; the doctrine,
way, benefit, terms of it, and the mistakes about it. If they were clear
in these things, they would have a fairer way to comfort, and more
easily go to the wells of salvation to draw water of life at any (even the
darkest) time. Our Saviour prescribes this receipt in John xvi. 33:
" These things I have spoken unto you," &c.; (namely, the great things
of the gospel, such as those in verse 28: that " I came forth from the
Father," that is, to purchase all, " and go to the Father," that is, to
procure and apply all;) " These things," say the disciples, " thou hast
spoken plainly; thou hast given us clear evidence and full information
of these, &c., points of knowledge." And what advantage did Christ's
teaching and their learning and understanding of these great matters
tend to? "That in me ye might have peace;" when "in the world ye
shall have tribulation." Christ had promised he would not leave them
comfortless; (John ziv. 18;) and this is the course he takes, and the
way he puts the disciples into, to prevent or prepare for tribulation, that
it might not spoil them of their inward peace; namely, instruction and
knowledge. 0, the Lord give you with utmost diligence to follow on to
know, and to work-in what you know into your hearts!
So shall you
have that within you, which, in dependence on Christ in the many

points well understood, will be of singular use and advantage, to quiet
and compose your spirits in all your troubles and languishments:
grounds of knowledge are grounds of support and comfort.
DIREC. ii. In order to the forenamed second cause of this distemper,
be eure you be close with, and often taking hold on, God by renewed acts
of faith.My brethren, faith is not to be acted only at first, for our
entrance into the state of grace ; but it is our duty and wisdom to carry
on the exercise of faith for our continuance and progress in that state,
and passage through all those temptations, difficulties, oppositions,
discouragements, we are to meet withal therein. Faith and prayer must
be as the breathing of our souls in and out, to keep the heart in life:
" The just shall live " (that is, every part, degree, and act of life) " by
his faith." This, again, is the order the great Physician of our souls
prescribes: " Let not your heart be troubled;" (John xiv. 1;) why, how
shall they prevent or help it ? " Believe!" they were believers already.
but they must still [believe] in reference to every change and condition, or occasion of life, especially in order to this, that they may not
be troubled in trouble, that the storm get not into their hearts, to shake
and shatter them within, they must believe, that is, they must be much
in the acting and exercising of faith, upon the grounds thereof. It is
sad that I shall now say: We come to some Christians in their dumps
and despondencies. Show them the promise, Christ in it, the way to it:
they are so to seek that they scarce know what we mean; " we are as
barbarians to them ;" they are ready to faint under our hand, before we
can, as it were, stanch their bleeding, or apply any plaster or cordial, or
make them understand their way and ground of support and comfort:
and all this for want of use and exercise of faith.
The acting of any
324
SERMON XT.
faculty (where life is not come to the declining etate, as it never fares
with the life of grace) strengthens that faculty; and that person can
readily, even in the dark, go to his rest or cordial, where he uses himself to
be. Therefore, take a Christian, who makes conscience to bear bis
weight on the ground and object of faith, (Christ in the promise of free
grace,) to a sensible, lost, undone sinner; let [the] world and [the]
devil conspire to trouble him, and God try him; saith he, " I know not
what to do; but I will try my old way: it is good for me to draw near
still; (Psalm Ixxiii. 28;) I wUl do so still as I used to do, I will cast
myself down* upon the free grace of Christ in the promise; I will lay
the weight of my sinking spirit there; I will renew my hold, life,
expectation there: this is my old path; I will never be turned or
beaten out here/' This Christian in his strength may challenge all the
gates of hell. (Isai. xxvi. 3.) This was David's course : " Thou art my
trust from my youth," &c. (Psalm Ixxi. 5.) Thence was it that he
could say in Psalm Ivi. 3 : " At what time I am afraid, I will trust in
thee.** His shield and sword was always in his hand; therefore, he
could make use of it when fear and inward trouble offered themselves.
Afraid, alas! who is not ? But what course will you take then ? Even
what course you use to take; that is, believe; use faith always, and
have it now.
DIREC. in. In reference to the third and seventh cause of trouble
of mind, (coming in conjunction with trouble in outward things,) namely,
short and dim evidence, " give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall;" (2 Peter i.
10;) that is, under the power of sin and wrath, Which make up the
spiritual burden; but " so an entrance shall be ministered unto you
abundantly into the everlasting kingdom," &c.; that is, you shall have
a safe and secure, peaceable, quiet, comfortable, well-assured passage
through all the straits and storms we can meet withal on this side the
kingdom, even death itself. Best upon Christ always by faith of adherence on gospel-terms, and you are safe; but rest not, sit not down with
this faith: for it is not enough to comfort you in an evil day, though to
support it is.
OBJECTION. " 0, but I have laboured and waited, and yet cannot
obtain."
ANSWER. But go on, and thou canst not miss it; for it is promised ;
(Isai. xxxii. 17; Ivii. 19 ; Horn. viii. 16, &c.;) and thou shalt have assurance in thy greatest need. Better affliction find thee in this work and
pursuit, than put thee upon it, as for certain it will to thy cost. When
affliction comes, then first for a man to begin to put the question. " Am
I in Christ? am I in the state of grace, favour of God," &c.; 0 thou wilt
find it hard to get above thy fears; but " God is a very present help in
trouble;" (Psalm xlvi. 1;) that is, for assurance in a darksome state,
when thou canst make no shift without it. Do thou very much seek
God for it in thy freedom, and thou shalt be sure of it in thy need : he
will be " very much found" (Hebrew) as before; give all diligence to
make, and thou art sure.
* And away, are here added, in the first edition..EDIT.
WHEN INW4&D AND OUTWARD TROUBLES MEET?
325
DIREC. iv. Add hereunto, in order to the promoting of a VMM-grounded

evidence and assurance, a prudent observation of, and careful attendance
to, the doubts which arise, upon occasion, about your condition.There is
no Christian [who] attains to that degree of assurance, bat is sometime
troubled with doubts; namely, such as these;
"(1.) I was never humbled enough. My sore was never searched to
the bottom: can my cure be done with so little pain ?
" (2.) I never knew the beginning or manner of my conversion: can
grace, like dew, come without noise, in insensible degrees ? Surely I am
at best but a refined moralist.
"(3.) I can be heartily and excessively afflicted for outward losses,
&c.; but sin, as sin, is not such a burden to me; and the loss of God*
favour goes not so near me.
" (4.) I can pour out my heart in vain delights; but have little liveliness of affection for spiritual things.
" (5.) I grow heavier and heavier in duties; and I think, were it not
for shame, I should be ready to lay them aside, and tread them under
foot; so little joy do I take in them, so little good do I get by them;"
and the like.
Now, what doest thou? [Dost tbou] shift off and let pass these and
other like doubts, without endeavouring, by what means thou canst, to
salve and assoil them with some resolution and satisfaction ? * This will
be of ill consequence: I will tell thee what will come of it: they will
return upon thee, and be as motes in thy eyes, gravel and thorns in thy
feet, when the hand of God is upon thee; whereas, if they were well
weighed, there would scarce a scruple be found in them.
DIREC. v. To meet with the fourth cause of the disease, which is some
sin returning, &c., cast up thy spiritual accounts, and set them even every
day.Observe thy particular sins, offences, breaches, which we are ever
making between God and us. Humble thyself in a heart-breaking, soulgrieving particular acknowledgment of them; and strengthen thyself, and
set thyself aright, by a particular application of Christ in the grace of the
promise, in reference to these particular offences, so acknowledged. Sins
that through negligence escape thy observation, will return to make
cracks and flaws in thy evidence, which affliction will find out to thy
terror and disquiet ment; but if thou takest this course, the word is for
thee: " If we confess," &c. (1 John i. 9; Psalm xzzii. 5 ; Lev. ixvi. 40;)
and now if this or that sin return, what mayest thou say ?"Truth, Lord,
I am guilty, and my guilt thou dost justly suffer to be awakened in this
evil day, and hour of temptation. But, Lord, thou knowest this; and
this sin in particular hath been my burden, under which I have poured
out my heart in groans and complaints, imploring and applying Christ in
the promised grace of pardon, and power in reference to it; and thou
hast heard it and known it." In this case, though afflictions seem to
search out iniquity, yet it shall not be found; but when affliction start
some sin, which thou didst wink at or slightly pass over, then thou wilt
find trouble and sorrow indeed.
* The fourth edition has, very properly, an interrogation at the dose of this sentence^-*
EDIT.
326
SERMON XV.
BOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BEHAVE HIMSELF
DIREC. vi. Because there is much malignity in this distemper, let me

here also add, in reference to the same cause, and the sixth, this preventive : Follow-on the work of mortification close.There is a combat
between flesh and spirit: be sure you take the right side. If sin be it
which embitters thy life, and gives a sting to every affliction, disarm
affliction, aiid kill that which will kill thee. (Isai. xxvii. 9.) The
design of the Lord in affliction is mortification: now, if thou joinest
thy hand in the same work, God is ever with thee in the same way, and
not against thee. But in case thou connivest at, hidest, sheltereet,
some known corruption, then thou canst hardly apprehend God but as
thine enemy coming against thee.
As it was with the city of Abel, they were terrified at the approach
of Joab and David's army : "0!" saith the woman upon the wall, "Art
thou come to destroy the inheritance of the Lord ?" " No," saith Joab;
" but there is a traitor, Sheba, harboured here," &c. It is he that put
the city into fear and danger, and made Joab seem their enemy. When
his head was delivered, all was quiet. (2 Sam. xx. 1422.) Now when
thou insistest on the business of mortification, thou wilt joy when thou
fallest into tribulation ; as it was with Jael: having done execution upon
Sisera, " Come," saith she to Barak, &c., " welcome, my lords: I know
whom yon pursue: here he is, dead at your feet. Behold the nail in his
temples!" (Judges iv. 22.) "0," saith one, visited with the stroke
of death, " I have been long getting-down this body of death, and now
God will do all my work at once." Be not slack in this work, and
afflictions will be more joyous than grievous.
DIREC. vn. Yet, again, to come to the root of this malignity, and in
order to the advancing of the work of mortification, endeavour after
mortified affections to the world.These are the suckers that draw away
thy strength from God, and the fuel and foment and strength of all that
corruption that must be mortified. Aversion from God, with an immoderate clinging and cleaving to the creature, is the whole corruption
of nature. Affliction is the reducing thee to God, and the nngluing,
disengaging, and divorcing thee from a carnal, worldly interest: therefore, minus gaudebis, minus dolebis, " the less thou joyest, the less thou
ruest;" the less thou layest a world-interest near thy heart, the less that
affliction which is the parting work will go to thy heart; therefore let all
creature-comforts and advantages be loose about thee as thy clothes,
which thou mayest easily lay aside ; and not as thy skin, which cannot
be pulled off without great torture. Affliction endangers nothing but
that which is outward ; therefore let not thy excessive respect to that
which is without thee make thy affliction an inward terror. If thou
countest the world of no value, thou wilt be able, without inward perplexity and fear, to pass through all places of danger and plunder; as
the traveller, when he carries but a small matter, which, he knows, if he
loses it, will not at all undo him. Besides, "if thou lovest the world, the
love of the Father is not in thee ;" and this will be a desperate venemous
sting to thy soul in thy affliction. If thou wouldest not have the world
thy plague and thy poison iu the enjoying, thy rack and thy terror in
the losing, comply with the word and Spirit of grace, in the application
327
of a Christ crucified for the crucifying and mortifying of thy affections

unto every earthly interest.
DIREC. YIII. In reference to the eighth cause, (nnacquaintedness
with affliction,) live in the meditation and expectation of the crow.Be
much in the knowledge of the necessity, nature, and design of afflictions.
(1.) Neceuity.If need be, you must be in heaviness for a time.
(1 Peter i. 6.) In respect of the terms of the covenant, which lie in this,
" Deny yourself, and take up your cross," &c.; and in respect of our
disposition, we cannot be without them to wean us from the world, to
embitter the creature to us, to conform us to a crucified Saviour, and
make us partakers of his holiness.
(2.) The nature and design of afflictions.They are fire, not to consume
our gold, but to purge away our dross; they are not revenging judgments, but fatherly medicinal corrections; not judicial poison, but remedial physic, &c. Therefore " think it not strange," be not strangers,
as the word imports, to the fiery and greatest trial; (1 Peter iv. 12;)
and thou wilt not be dismayed when it comes. Even poison may be
habituated and made innocent. If a stranger come-in unexpected into
our house, grim, and armed with instruments of mischief, we know not
whence he is, nor what he comes for; it will startle and appale * us:
but if we be acquainted with him and his design, and expect him, we are
quiet, and composed to entertain him. So when affliction comes, we
can say, " This is the cup my Father gives me, who, I am sure, mean
me no hurt: this is but what I looked for every day," &c. Inure we,
therefore, ourselves to the cross, and make it familiar, conversing with it
in our meditation and expectation. Seest thou one afflicted with the loss
of a wife, another of a husband, another of A child, another of estate,
another begging bread in prison or distress, &c.? bear part of his burden
in sympathy and pity, and readiness to succour him, and put thyself in
his or her case; supposing thou wert so and so, (it will do thee no hurt,)
what shouldest thou do? And so God will make thy burden light.
(Pealm xli. 1.) So thou wilt be prepared to entertain and meet the
burden, and it shall not fall upon thee and upon thy spirit, to crush and
sink thee, &c. Think often, and think not amiss, (have no hard conceits,) of affliction; and it shall not be hard upon thee. Take this
course; and then, as for the malice of Satan, in accusing and tormenting, and the seeming severity of the Lord, in withholding and
withdrawing, thou shalt not need to trouble thyself; for Satan is a
restrained and conquered enemy, and cannot hurt thee; and God is
reconciled, and will not hurt thee. He may try thee, by intercepting the
sweetness of fruition ; he will never curse thee, by intermitting or breaking the firmness of the union; and if he hide his face for a moment,
lament after him, and he will visit thee with the everlasting kindness
of his compassion, which changes not, though there may be a change as
to what thou feelest.
* This was the original orthography of our modern word appal, and continued in common
use till near the time of the abdication of James II. It conveys an accurate impression
of the pallor or " pa'eness " which is produced by such a sudden fright as that which is
described in the textEDIT.
328
SERMON XV.
Thus much for tbe preventives, to prepare for double afflictions upon
the inward and outward man before they come.
II. Now, secondly, what shall they do that are already under them ?
DIREC. i. NEOATIVE. 1. Do not go about to settle thy mind by diversion, or turning thy thoughts another way, nor think that time will wear
off1 this trouble.For this will but increase thy disquiet in itself, or
in the causes of it, and wear off the sense of thy condition, which is
occasional and preparative to thy well-grounded peace and settlement.
2. Design not a little ease.-The sore that is but skinned over will
break out again and be more dangerous: put-in, therefore, for a cure, and
that not partial, bat thorough.
DIREC. ii. POSITIVELY. Take this course upon the sense of thy con*
dition, and the actual knowledge of the fundamental matters of the covenant of grace,First, and immediately come, at least look, uato Christ
for faith, and then, by faith looking to him as the author of faith,
believe; that is, consent with all thy heart to receive him, and rest on him,
on the terms of the gospel, to be saved by him only in his own way, at his
own rate. This is the course [which] David, Jonah, the church, in
the places aforenamed, took; this is the course the Lord prescribes:
" Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his
servant? let" this child of light, (and such thou art, if thou takest this
course, fearest to sin against God, and hearkenest to this word I now
speak,) " walking in darkness, and having no light," (there is the depth
of trouble of mind,) " trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his
God." (Isai. 1. 10.) His name is "the Lord God, gracious," &c.;
(Exod. xxxiv. 6;) Emmanuel, a Saviour, spreading his arms all the day
long, (any time before the night of death close thy eyes and Christ's
bowels,) even to the disobedient, and will in no wise cast out or lose any
that come to him upon all hie own terms. Thou dear troubled heart,
how wilt thou heal and settle thyself? What wilt thou do? Wilt thon
first make satisfaction by thy mourning, humiliation, reformation, purpose of amendment, and so commend and ingratiate thyself to Christ?
Thou nestlest upon a false bottom, and thy heart deceives thee; sound
rest and peace is not to be had this way, if it be thy first, principal, or
only way.
On the other hand, are yon willing to let Christ let you into heaven,
and not lead you his own way, that is, under his government in all
things? Then you run away from Christ, and cannot be saved by him
as such. But dost thou freely and willingly consent, upon the sense
of thy lost condition, to take Christ for all purposes, for grace and glory ?
Thou art welcome to him ; and let this be thy rest, in coming to him
burdened and weary, willing to take his yoke upon thee : (Matt. xi. 28:)
he saves thee to the utmost, only upon coming. Let this be satisfaction
and settlement in thy trouble, from whatever cause it comes. 0 how
clear is this way according to the contents of the covenant of grace!
which is thus : Christ stands always ready to receive any that is willing
to come to him upon his terms, and will never-cast them off.
OHJECTION. "0, but if he were my God and my Christ, I would
come to him and believe in him."
'WHEN INWARD AND OUTWARD TBOUBLES MEET?
I
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i
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32$
SOLUTION. Your coming thus to him upon hie own term makes him
yours ; gives the interest, and shall give the true rest.
OBJECTION. " 0, but I have long stood out against his invitations,
and rejected his importunities; Christ hath called graciously, and I have
heard ; bis Spirit hath knocked, and my conscience hath pressed me to
believe and come, and yet I have stood out; and now I may expect he will
throw me away with indignation ; I have denied mercy so many times,
rnd mercy will surely now deny me:" and here comes-in thy trouble.
SOLUTION. No; he. will not in any wise cast thee out, if thou art
willing to come. He knew that all that belong to his grace, till they are
effectually called and quickened, and drawn to close with mercy in the
offer, will serve him thus; and therefore he waits still, and still, till they
can be gotten to be willing to accept and close with him, and then for
certain he closeth with them.
OBJECTION. " O, but I have made my address, and seemed to come to
him, and have made profession, and been taken for a believer many
years ; but I have falsified with him. I am a studied hypocrite, and
have compassed God with lies: surely, then, there is no mercy for me."
SOLUTION. All this ariseth from thy ignorance of the tenor of the
covenant of grace, which calls tbee to believe upon the sense of this also.
Suppose all this, (though these sad workings of thy doubts and troubles
are no bad signs, being but part of thy combat,) yield all against thyself,
if there be no other way ; (and it may be there is no better way in this
juncture ;) yet now be willing on gospel-terms, and it is done, and thou
mayest be at rest, as if all thy former work had been true. And, it may
be, it was true; but, however one or the other, thy way is immediately to
come : and that shall be cleared up afterward; and if thou hast doubled
with God, thou wilt the rather be afraid to do so still.
OBJECTION. " 0, but now come ? This would be only self and
slavish fear; my necessity compels me now ; I can make no other shift:
there is no ingenuity [ingenuousness] in such a faith as I am like to put
forth in this my extremity."
SOLUTION. Thou must yet be willing, &c., and all is well The occasion of believing is always extremity and necessity; for none ever came
to Christ as long as they could make any shift without him ; but the
cause, if thou comest, is the mighty power of God to make thee unfeignedly willing upon all the terms; and thou art no less acceptable to God,
because thou art constrained by grace, upon the pinch of thy necessity,
to come. (Rom. xi. 32 ; Hosea v. 15.) God puts thee to this pinch, that
he might hear of thee : in that latter place, it is as if God had said,
" Well, I have called again and again, and used variety of means with
this people, but all in vain : I will take another course, I will leave them,
go to my place, hide myself, that trouble, and horror, and anguish shall
take hold on them." And what then ? Shall it be unseasonable and
too late to come ? No. " Then they will and shall seek me early."
See how welcome a sinner is in this case to Christ. The prodigal,be
runs his course, spends all in riot and luxury, and was reduced to utter
extremity; and then he bethinks himself of coming home: "' How
many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and
330
SERMON XV.
HOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BEHAVE HIMSELF, &C.
I perish with hunger!' There be 'many mansions in my father's

house.' I will arise and go to my father,"' &c. (Luke xv. 17, 18.)
Being, upon this knowledge of his father's fulness, drawn, and, upou
sense of his own lostnees, driven, he comes ; and what salutation do you
think his father might give him ? " What! are YOU come indeed ?
In good time! You, that have all this while taken your swing in all
wickedness, as long as you could live, my house was not good enough
for you; and now, that you have laid me under the reproach of your
lewdness, and fulfilling your lusts, as long as you had a penny in your
purse, or a rag to your back! do you now come to me? There is
no duty or affection to me that sways you hither; but you are compelled by the extremity you have brought yourself to ! Get you gone
with a sorrow, and never look me in the face more!" Thus we would
have thought; but it is quite otherwise: his father, when he did but say
he would come, meets him afar off, falls on his neck, kisses him, brings
him home, provides the best room, the best robe, the best kid, all the best,
and there is great joy. His father does not question what draws, or what
drives ; whether he comes out of compelling necessity, or out of ingenuity
[ingenuousness] and dutiful affection: but he is come, that is enough.
" This my son was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found ;" f
and there is all done that possibly may make him welcome. Apply it for
your encouragement to believe, and settlement in your undoubted interest
by faith. Though you seem to come late, and out of necessity, yet
God's thoughts are not your thoughts. Yours may be thoughts of
wrath, &c.; but God's are of pity, love, acceptation upon your coming.
Thus, you see, your way is immediately to come and cast yourselves upon
Christ, on the terms of the gospel, and your great trouble shall be
removed. Make not a judgment of your condition from what you feel,
but from what yon hear from the word of grace, which now gives sentence on your side.
DIREC. in. Then, having this for your support, search, look back to
experiences.Look into yourselves, what marks you can find of the truth
of your faith; and in this, be sure you take hold on the promise that lies
nearest to you, that is, is most suitable to your present condition, as in
point of fear to sin ; (Isai. 1. 10;) lostnees; (Matt, xviii. 11;) poverty
of spirit, longing and thirsting after righteousness, &c.; (Matt. v. 3, 4,
6 ;) and so one grace and promise will draw-in all.
DIREC. iv. In dependence on Christ in the promise, wait till it speaks
peace and assurance:Ever fearing to offend God, especially by casting
off duty, distrusting of him, charging him with folly, limiting him to
time or means; knowing and assuring yourselves, that you cannot so

please God in any thing as in resolved faith to cleave to him, and to follow
him fully in the patient expectation of the promise of grace and glory.
Thus accepting Chiist in the covenant, in the strength of the grace
thereof, give up thy whole self to Christ in a covenant of willing, universal, unreserved obedience; and say with David, " I will hear what
God the Lord will speak : for he will speak peace unto Ins people, and to
his saints;" that, by the power thereof, they "turn not again to folly."
(Psalm Ixxxv. 8.)
SERMON XVI.
HOW TO USE MODERATION.
331
SERMON XVI.
BY THE REV. JOSEPH HILL, B.D.*
SOMETIME FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
IN WHAT THINGS MUST WE USE MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
Let your moderation be known unto all men.

Philippians iv. 5.
The Lord is at hand.
WHAT St. Austin said, in hie days, of another scripture, that " it stood
more in need of good practising, than any learned interpretation," THAT
may I say, in these days wherein I live, concerning the words that I have
read to you at this time. I shall not therefore detain you, with showing
their coherence, (especially considering their entireness,) or with any
glossing upon them; but haste to open the nature of this duty, and
press the practice thereof upon you all. In the verse you have two
general parts:
1. An exhortation to the showing [of] moderation, which, being in
materid necessaria, [" in its matter necessary,"] is a command.
2. The argument enforcing it: " The Lord is at hand."
The former will bound my present discourse, which I need not alter,
but, according to the grammatical order the words stand in, might consider the personee, res, et actiones, [" the persons, the things, and the
actions,"] expressed therein : all which make up the whole of the duty
enjoined. Yet, if you please to have the proposition formed, take it
thus:
DOCTRINE.
It is God's command, and our duty, to let our moderation be known

unto all men.
Which I shall prosecute, according to the order of nature, in this
method : I. In opening the nature of moderation. II. In showing its
exercise. III. By whom, and to whom. IY. Why. Y. And, lastly,
make application.
MODERATION OPENED.
1. Concerning the nature of moderation, or what it is: wherein the

signification of the word, description of the thing ; its subject, kinds, rule,
and extremes.
1. And here I confess I enter upon an unbeaten path: the word
neixej,and evmxetet, which descends from it, and for which, by a
Graecism, it is used in the text,being of such multifarious signification,
* The character of Mr. Hill is held, to this day, in high estimation among all classical
scholars, for the very great and important improvements which he introduced into Scbrevelius's Lexicon, and by which it was rendered the best manual then extant for students.
See his elegant preface to the ninth edition of that useful work, in 1707, which contains
a well-merited eulogium on the learned printer, the elder Bowyer, and which has been
retained in all subsequent impressions.EDIT.
332
SERMON XVI. IN WHAT THINGS MUST WE
and no where in scripture rendered in that extent as here, nor any where
else that I can find by " moderation/' which also occurs in no other
place of all the Bible. It signifies properly " that which is fit, decent,
doe, meet, convenient;" * and is accordingly rendered by former interpreters, modestia; not as opposed to pride or haughtiness, in its strict
philosophic acceptation, (which some not attending to, have therefore
quarrelled with,) but that which doth moderate our actions, in which
sense the masters of that language frequently use it; f and by later
[interpreters] for avoiding that ambiguity, moderatio, from whence is
formed our English word " moderation."
2. Which, in its latitude, is not any particular grace or virtue, but
that fit and proper temper [which] we ought to observe in the governing
of our hearts and lives; that equal judgment which should command
our wills and affections, and all our human actions, which are capable
of excess or defect, by proportioning them according to the quality of the
object, and the end for which and [for] whom they are employed, for
the preserving of peace within ourselves and with others; that there may
be no contumacy or rebellion in our affections to disquiet ourselves, or in
our actions to disquiet others.
3. So that moderation, according to its subject, is either that of the
mind, which is as a cause; or of the will and affections in their actings,
which is as the effect: from all which the whole man is denominated
" moderate."
(1.) The former, or that of the mind, is that part of Christian prudence which proportions our actions to the object which the will chooseth,
and its end, according to the variety of circumstances the agent is in, by
applying the general rules of scripture for our walking, to our particular
actions; and is accordingly well rendered here; by one of the ancients,^
rationabilw conversatio, " your reasonable or equitable conversation."
(2.) The latter, of the will, pertains to the several and particular virtues therein, especially those that serve for the restraining our most strong
and impetuous passions, which offer the greatest violence to the equality
of our minds. And, therefore, although it most properly be of the
judgment, yet being most conspicuous and discernible in the exercise of
such virtues, it doth, according to the quality of the object about which
they are conversant, assume their several notions and names. The most
violent passions in reference to ourselves being the lusting power after
the good things of this life, and, consequently, the grief which arises
from the want or loss of them; it is therefore, in reference to the former,
temperance, in its large acceptation; and the latter, patience: and in
relation to others, the raging power of anger and revenge, with what
flows from them ; in which regard it is in the magistrate, clemency ; and
* Kdfopco?, tffpewov, , .HESYCHIUS.
EirttiKfs, TO wpeirw.Etymolo*
fficum Magnum.
t Modestia dicta est a mode s ubi autem modus nee plus est
quicquam nee minus.CICERO. " It is called modesty from a mode or limitation.
But where any thing is completely modified and bounded, it has neither excess uor
deficiency."EDIT.
AMBROSIUS in loc.
% Est autem modestia in
animo, eonttnens moderationem cupidttatum.CICEKONIS Rhetor, lib. iii. cap. 2. "It
is modesty or soberness of mind, and comprises within it the government or moderation
of the passions and desires."EDIT.
TT6E MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
333
humanity, meekness, gentleness^ lenity, in all. In thi variety is the

word need by authors, sacred and profane, which I will not clog you with.
And for this cause, it consists in that mediocrity which approaches nearer
to the extreme of defect, and consequently is opposed to violence, impetuousness, or inordinacy of affection, (not as placed upon undue objects,
for that is materially evil and to be wholly declined, not moderated, but
upon lawful [objects] immoderately,*) and in general, to all excess in
human actions.f Hence it is, by the way, as I conceive, that it IB commanded so frequently in scripture by negative precepts; as, " Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world." (1 John it. 15.)
"Take no thought for your life, for the morrow." (Matt. vi. 25, 31, 34.)
" Fear not them which kill the body." (Matt. x. 28, 31; Luke xii. 4, 7.)
"Let not your heart be troubled;" (John xiv. 1;) and many the like,
which I cannot stand to mention $ and sometimes by the action contrary to its opposite vice; as, " Turn the other cheek: Let him have thy
cloak also : Go with him twain ;" (Matt. v. 39il;) that is, rather than
violently resist, and revenge thyself.
4. Moderation, then, being no particular grace or virtue, (as you have
heard,) cannot have any peculiar object, but only in common with the
principles and actions wherein it is employed; whereby it becomes uncapable of any future accurate division into several kinds. For although it
be of a general consideration, yet not as a principal which acts upon its
object, but tbat which peculiarly respects the actions themselves when
the object is pitched upon; it being moderation's office to regulate and
govern principles in their actings upon their due objects chosen, that
they exceed not therein. So that as all those graces and virtues which
respect the manner of actions, as zeal, sincerity, &c., that respect the
moral quality, as this doth the moral quantity, degree, or measure
of them, are of so many several kinds, as the actions are wherein they
are conversant; so also is moderation.
5. And in regard our particular actions are so very many, so diverse,
and clothed with such infinite variety of circumstances, it is impossible to
lay down any certain rule, that may determine wherein moderation in
them all should consist; the . , or " the things that are just,
necessary, and convenient," and no other, being always in particular
actions very difficult to define, as the philosopher acknowledgeth, who
saith, "There is nothing more full of difficulty than in every thing to
find the mean;" the rule [which] he lays down to walk by is reason,
and a prudent man's determination; the best [which] nature affords,
and are especially good for the duties of the second table, which he only
(though not to all) speaks of; yet we, through the goodness of God,
have a more sure and certain one to guide us, to which we shall do well
to take heed, even the scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation. It will be worth our while to speak briefly what we can touching the rule, which in general must guide and determine our moderation:
* All the editions except the first have culpably changed this appropriate adverb into the
noun moderation.EDIT.
f EH-MIKCS opponit Hermogenes. Vbfttv inrtpa\Aotrws, /xer/MCM, ewttutus, &.C.IsocRAT E8. " flermogenes places befitting or moderate in opposition to that which is violent or outrageous." " Let nothing be done in excess,
but with much equanimity and moderation."EDIT.
334
SERMON XVI.
IN WHAT THINGS MUST WE
for which end we mast know, that all our human actions, which are
cnpable of moral good or evil, are of two sorts, especially according to
their objects, religious or civil: (1.) The former requires a spiritual principle, end, and rule, by which we must perform them for their manner
and measure; which scripture doth abundantly (for the internal by its
particular, and sufficiently-for the external by its general, precepts)
declare. (2.) For the latter, or civil actions, as a natural principle and
end referrible to God's glory ; so also for their manner and measure, the
general rules of scripture to allow and prescribe them is all we can reasonably expect, and is sufficient for the same. In the application whereof,
reason and prudent determination are three ways subservient:
(i.) In judging the nature or quality of the objects in general, which
we are particularly employed about, (as the good things or [the] evils
of this life, in the particulars wherein we are conversant,) according to
what scripture declares them to be, when it speaks of them, especially
not comparatively, but absolutely what they are in themselves.
(ii.) Of the end God hath ordained such things for, about which he
hath commanded us to be employed, and accordingly to proportion our
actions; it being a known rule in the schools, Omnium appetibiUumfinis
est mensura ; or, that " the end is that which must prescribe the measure
of our actings," according to its double respect, ret, et persona, "for
what and for whom " the action is.
(iii.) Lastly. In due consideration of the circumstances of the agent;
wherein is such great variety, not only in regard of the person, which
involves the end for whom the action is, but all the adjacent circumstances, that herein occurs by far the greatest difficulty. For example,
in meats and drinks. Consider diligently their nature in those set before
thee; then their end, for refreshing us, not feeding our lusts ; and of
thyself, what is sufficient and convenient for thee in the circumstances
thou art then in, and accordingly use them, or put "a knife to thy
throat," and refrain, as the Wise Man speaks ; (Prov. xxiii. 2;) for that
which may but be sufficient for one, may serve for another to make his
belly his God; yea, that which may be only convenient to the same person at one time, may be gluttony and excess at another. And as about
things, so in our dealing with others much more variety, both in respect
of ourselves, and those we have to do withal. As we must remit that to
one, we need not (nay, sometimes ought not) to another, according to
our own and their capacity; as they are poorer or richer than ourselves,
as they are weak, or wilful and malicious opposers of truth or equity;
and a thousand such-like considerations, which -occur in our actions;
which, though always sufficient in themselves to determine us, yet because
of our shortness of sight, are often but as the uncertain twinkling starlight to us, whereby to steer our course.
6. All that is said of moderation will more clearly appear, if we consider its extremes, from the nature of God's commands, which are of two
sorts:
(1.) Some are affirmative ; and those either general, what we must
do, &c., and imply the end for which, and all the circumstances that
necessarily attend our doing it; or particular, and express the circum-
USE MODERATION AND IN WHAT NOT?
335
stance external, as time and place, and internal, (usually called the
manner,) which comprehends the quality, and the moral quantity or
proportion we are speaking of; which implies the intenseness,
frequency, and duration of our actions. These continually oblige us,
though not to continual practice, but only when God requires; the
former by way of more absoluteness, the latter more conditionally, as
depending thereupon.
(2.) The other sort of precepts are negative; some, what we must not
do, and so, consequently, at once forbid all the concomitants of such
actions as are prohibited; others, not forbidding us the object, but
rectifying us about it, in the end we must do it for, manner bow, &c.;
both which oblige us to continual observance; and, in morals, to the
contrary duties. By which it appears, in our not right proportioning
our actions, we sin in omission, by not doing so fully as he commands;
in commission, when we do those things that are our duty, but exceed
therein, and go beyond the bounds [which] God hath-set us; and this is
formally immoderateness, which is rectified by moderation. As for
actions materially evil, as Jonah's being angry with God, hating virtue,
and loving vice, &c., which are absolutely forbidden, no proportion is to
have place, but it and all other circumstances, together with the action,
wholly avoided or suppressed ; because towards undue objects forbidden
us there can be no defect, in regard there should be no action, and
therefore no moderation or government thereof. For instance, in those
two great commands, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, as
our blessed Saviour tells us : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself." (Luke x. 27 ; Matt. xxii.
3740.) Here is the grace of love required to act towards God ; the
manner expressed in heart, soul, strength, mind; the measure, in the four
alls, the New Testament adding one to the three of the Old Testament,
so far is the gospel from detracting from duty. Here can be no excess,
in regard we can never love him as he deserves; not only in regard
of what he hath done for us, but is to us, being our end and happiness ;
and towards our neighbour, the manner expressed, " as thyself," that is,
truly and sincerely; but not "with all thy heart," &c., that is only
God's due, who is absolutely to be loved for himself, others for him.
Herein, alas! grace is defective, but never exceeds, so that moderation
hath here no place; for if we love any person or thing more than God,
Christ, and ourselves, it is not the action of grace, but sinful affection,
which is to be moderated. For he that with his natural affection loves
father or mother, wife or child, (whom yet they ought greatly to love,)
more than God or Christ, is not worthy of them.
I am not ignorant all this while, that this word < is most
frequently used in a foreusical or law sense, more strictly; the Moralists, Schoolmen, and Civilians borrowing it from Aristotle, and restraining it to that particular moderation of mitigating strict justice in the
execution of human laws, and so is rendered equitas " equity." Which
is either, I. That of the magistrate in his public capacity, and is so
dementia, " clemency," and is opposed to cruelty; the magistrate being
336
obliged as not to write his laws in blood, like Draco's, so also not to
execute them with cruelty, (though, where requisite, with severity,) bat
to moderate them by the law of nature, other laws, former precedents,
constant customs, which have the nature of laws, or the reason and end
of the law, which is more equitable (and more law, say some) than the
letter, and, amongst Christians, by the written laws of God, that there
may be convenientia pcenee ad delictum, or " a proportioning punishment
to the quality of the offence," all circumstances (which the law cannot
possibly foresee or provide for) being duly considered. This includes all
superiors, political, ecclesiastical, domestical, &c., and is frequently
joined with "justice" and "judgment" in scripture, as executed both
by God and man. (Psalm xcviii. 9; xcix. 4; Isai. xi. 4; Prov. i. 3 ;
ii. 9 i xvii. 26; Micah iii. 9, &c.) Or, secondly, that of private persons, or public in their private capacity, which is between party and
party, when, according to the rules of equity, we omit what the rigour
of the letter of the law would adjudge us, thereby neither injuring
ourselves nor others; which is usually called probitas, or honestas; by
us, "common honesty" that should be twixt man and man. And hence
some borrow it, and restrain it to that carriage [which] the law takes
not cognizance of in our meekness and gentleness, making it that single
virtue the moralists call mansuetudo, we, " meekness." But though it
be all these, yet it is also more, these not reaching the latitude of the
Word swisjxei*, nor the extent of the duty here enjoined ; the word being
not used here in that strict sense [in which] the philosophers use it, as
the learned Grotins well observes upon the place ; but for that equalness
of mind and spirit that becomes us in our conversation, and diffuseth
itself through many, very many, other actions, than are proper to these
virtues; and though sometimes restrained to this or that particular kind
of moderation, yet in its latitude, as the best philologers tell us, [it]
denotes " mediocrity, indifferency, equality," or the like.* And in this
general acceptation, which I may call " the moral or theological sense,"
not restraining it to, though not excluding, the forensical and stricter
acceptation thereof, I shall, through God's assistance, handle it; the
rather, because our judicious and learned Perkins hath in a peculiar
little tractate already spoken sufficiently to that particular, of the moderation of justice by the magistrate, and private persons, in reference to
their remitting from the rigour of the law; which every one may peruse,
and I seriously wish they would also practise.
THE EXERCISE OF MODERATION.
II. The second general now follows: the exercise of moderation,

wherein the case proposed is included; namely,
CASE. Wherein must we practise moderation ?
"Which necessarily implies the external object, or about what oar
moderation must be conversant, and appear to all; call it the object
of the faculty or of the action, or of moderation when employed in
* TAtrpioi, eirifixeis.HESYCHIUS. Evteuews .Etymologicum
Magnum., .Sin DAS. , ijfC., W *<>
.SCHOLIASTES in Thucydlden, lib. i.
USE MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
337
governing these, and so hath the same object with them, as is said before,
it all comes to one.
And [it] formally includes, 1. What it ie that we must moderate ? or
the faculty, or principle, of what kind soever internal and external, from
which the action flows. 2. In what actions. And, 3. How, or the
measure and proportion to be observed in such our actions. Which
three are always distinct in themselves, though not always easily distinguishable to us, and therefore often seem coincident. I shall therefore
join them together in the prosecution of the case.
For the general object of moderation, or about what it must be exercised and appear.
NEGATIVELY. 1. Not [abouf] ruck thing a are materially good.

About such things, or in such actions as are materially good, moderation
hath no place, because all the good we can possibly do is too little, so
that there can be no excess in these, and therefore no moderation : for
the office of moderation being to restrain excess, where there can be
none of this, that can have no employment. For example : we cannot
believe in, hope, love God and Christ too much, nor hate sin and Satan,
as the schoolmen affirm, in regard of his wholly losing the image
of God, too much. In all our internal religious duties, and actings
of grace, as such, no moderation therefore can or ought to have place.
2. Not about such things as are materially evil.For herein we cannot be defective. Where the object is absolutely forbidden us, and no
circumstances can make the action good, there we are wholly to abstain
or suppress the action, if in it, there being inordinacy in the principle or
faculty; for though moderation is to govern even the principle, yet not
in the choice of its object, but in its exercise about a due object chosen,
that it exceed not. And though we call any great acting npon an undue
object, or great omission towards due, " immoderate," because of their
excess, yet that is not properly immoderacy ; for so every sin would be it
formally; whereas those only which respect the moral quantity of our
actions are properly immoderacies. Both these sufficiently appear by
what is said before.
POSITIVELY. But about such things as are in themselves of an indifferent nature, and neither absolutely commanded as things materially
good, or absolutely forbidden as those materially evil, but only conditionally according to the circumstances we are in: which, though
of an indifferent nature, yet become morally good or evil to us, as we
are actually conversant about them. In these properly may be excess;
in regard of which, moderation is to take place to restrain and keep all
within due bounds, being formally the modification (to use the schoolterm for once) of such actions. Wherein we must carefully distinguish
of the several formalities of the object, grace and nature being con
versant about the same object, but not in the same respect.
For its exercise, therefore, or what, wherein, and how we must
practice it.
Which I shall speak of,
1. ABSOLUTELY, in reference to ourselves, for preserving peace
within, as it is to be exercised towards the good and evUe of this life.
338
2. RELATIVELY, or in relation to others for external peace, wherein

we must exercise it, in civil and in religous matters. The former I shall
c& 'moderation towards things, the latter towards persons.
I. MODERATION TOWARDS THINGS.
first, then, for moderation towards things, as it is absolutely taken in

reference to ourselves.This being so clearly enjoined in the text, as
appears not only by the word firieixsia, but the duty ; the
apostle not saying, " Use moderation towards all men," but, " Let it
appear to all men," which even that which is internal doth in our
external conversation. But though there be abundance of excellent fruit
on this branch of moderation, yet in regard I conceive that towards persons principally intended, I will not stand to shake it down, but only
point yon out briefly the boughs, on which it especially grows, that you
may gather it yourselves; and proceed to the second, moderation towards
others, which I shall only prosecute afterwards in all the following discourse. Now the good things of this life being either internal, of the
mind, as parts, learning, &c.; of the body, as health, strength, beauty,
and the like; or external, as the riches, honours, relations, and lawful
pleasures of the world, and what [are] comprehended under them: and
the evils of this life, such as are contrary to these, as shallowness
of parts natural or acquired, sickness, weakness, death, deformity, poverty,
losses of friends or estate, infamy, reproaches, troubles, wars, hunger/
thirst, nakedness, imprisonment, captivity, banishment, and such like: we
are towards these to exercise moderation.
1. Towards the good things of this life.
(1.) We must moderate our judgments in the valuation of them.As
forbidden fruit must not be looked upon, so lawful must not be judged
by us more desirable than it is. As we may not undervalue these good
things, and, with the Stoic, despise and cast them away; so we must not
over-value them, beyond their intrinsic worth, and the ends for which
God allows them, the end and use being the measure of every thing's
estimation. For though every creature be good in itself, and some better
in themselves and to us than others; yet those that are the best, and
best for us that the world affords, are still but creatures who are most of
them serviceable only to our bodies, that they may be serviceable to our
souls, in the service of our heavenly Father; which when we too much
estimate, we quickly fall to admire, and so bow down to them, and commit idolatry with them. For, an over-valuation of the judgment begets
in us admiration, and so an over-valuation of them also in onr affections.
These sensitive objects make such impressions upon our imagination when
absent, and our passions when present, that if grace and reason moderate
not our judgment of them, our whole man becomes inflamed therewith,
and violently carried out towards them, by an excessive admiration of
their seeming excellency, love to them for the same, and desire after them
for their apprehended suitableness, hope to obtain them, (seeming possible,) using means for obtaining them, and delighting and glorying in
them. Therefpre our Saviour prescribes wisely, that our hearts may not
be in them, the light of our minds being single. (Matt. vi. 22, 23.)
tJSR MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
339
When Achan judged the Babylonish garment " goodly/' and the silver
.
1
\
\
\
and gold, then he quickly coveted and took them. (Joshua vii. 21.) Let
thy moderation, therefore, begin here, and consider the character [which]
Solomon, upon good experience, gives them, that they are all to us in
this degenerate state " vanity of vanities," yea, " vexation of spirit."
(2.) Moderate thy will and affections, in their love, desires, hopes,
after the get tiny or keeping these things,' according to the ends for which
God allows them thee in particular, and with subordination to his pleasure
and providence in the event.We must [not only] value, love, desire, God
and Christ, and hope in them absolutely and for themselves, and grace
absolutely, but [also] for the enjoyment of them, and consequently for
our own happiness; but so must we not these things, but only conditionally, as God in his all-wise disposing providence sees meet to dispense to
us, he having so only promised them, and for those ends and so far forth
as they are " convenient for us," according to Agur's desire. (Prov. xxx.
8.) Which conveniency is to be measured by the estate [which] the providence of God hath set us in, and the circumstances wherein we are : as
so much health, strength, refreshment, comfortableness in our lives, as
God sees good for us, and may render us serviceable to him; so much
food, raiment, profit, pleasure as he pleaseth to bestow, and so far forth
as convenient for us, according to our present condition, for our health,
and other ends now mentioned, to which they refer. But neither these
nor any other good things of this life absolutely or for themselves, so as
to make them our end and happiness, or to be fuel for our lusts, must we
either love, desire, or hope for.
It is not thus desiring the lawful pleasures, profits, honours of this life, which St. John speaks of, 1 John ii.
16 ; but the itnmoderacy of the desiring them, which he calls 'Must/'
and saith it is " of the world;" as well he may, seeing this is the trinity
that it generally worshippeth more than the blessed Trinity of heaven.
Is it not the cry of many, nay, most, "Who will show us any good?"
but of how few, " Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon
us!" (Psalm iv. 3.) How do menjgrasp at these things in their desires,
which are as boundless as the ocean, as craving as the horse-leach's
daughters, still crying, "Give, give;" as unsatiable as the grave, and as
unsatisfied as hell and destruction, towards which they are travelling.
What Libanius observed so long since, (and it is worth the observing,)
holds as true at this day.* " It is difficult/' saith he " to meet with a
man, satisfied and not complaining of his condition. If he want any
bodily good, as beauty, strength, &c,; or, if none of these, yet not
thankful, if he want some of the mind, if he be not an orator, physician,
skilful commander, or the like: and especially in riches and honours.
He that hath one field would have, and complains if he have not, two ;
he that hath two, for four; he that hath ten, for twenty; and he that
hath twenty, twice so many; and so on, no number satisfying hi desire.
For though it be great before, when we enjoy any thing it then seems
small to us; as one thousand talents of gold, when we have them, are
small to two, and two to ten, and so on. In honours, likewise, he that
governs a city is not satisfied because he governs not the nations and if
* * trept .
340
STSRMON XVI.
the nation, that no more; as Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, mighty princes,
yet they wanted Greece, they thought, which caused their expeditions
against it. Thus passing by still what we have, and reckoning what we
have not, [we] never think we enjoy enough; ,;,
'every one herein being injurious to God, not injuriously dealt with by
him/ * Keep, therefore, thy heart/ and moderate it, that it break not out
in these things, * with all diligence/ lest the swarms of these lusts, whatever sweetness they seem to bring with them, sting thee to death."
(3.) Moderate thy pursuit and endeavours after the acquiring and
retaining these, by the end for which, and subordination wherewith, thou
mayest and oughtest desire them.This, speaking only the execution
of the former particular, must needs be accordingly bounded. What we
may lawfully desire, that we may use lawful means to attain; and so far
fyrth as we must desire, so far only must we use the means. We must
seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness absolutely, and in the
first place ; then the things convenient for us in this life, according to
their subserviency thereto, and his seeing good to bestow upon us. As
it is the statute-law of Heaven, that " in the sweat of our brows we

should eat our bread," and should be our daily prayer, that our " Father
which is in heaven " would " give us this day our daily bread," that ie,
all things requisite and convenient; so is it that we should " not lay up
for ourselves treasures upon earth," nor serve these as our masters, nor
" take thought for our lives, what we shall eat, or what we shall drink,
or wherewithal we shall be clothed;" which three are the total sum all
these externals amount to in their use; (Matt. vi. 19, 24, 25, &c.;) our
blessed Saviour, from verse 19 of that chapter, forbidding this immoderate pursuit in those negative precepts which he presseth with several
cogent arguments and expostulations; and not absolutely, but so as they
may be not our " treasures " that we set our hearts upon, our " masters *'
that we serve; whenas they are but our servants, and so as that we
oppose them not to, and set them in competition with, the " treasures in
heaven," and God our great " Master." whom we ought to serve even in
the following [of] our employments for these; as appears [from] verses
19, 24; nor absolutely our taking thought, but our too solicitousneas
about the choice of, and using means, and especially their event, and so,
consequently, what shall become of us, if we be not blessed but blasted
therein, as appears by the word /^/*, in the last verse of the chapter. And yet, alas! after all this, how do we seek them as if they were
our treasure, our happiness, our all! as if here was our continuing city,
wherein we should always live and have these treasures, and none other
to come that hath better! Though these be things after which " the
Gentiles seek," yet they will be excusable who know no better in comparison of thee and me, who know the true pearl of price, are invited and
called to better dainties, and yet make light thereof, one preferring his
farm, another his merchandise. (Matt. xxii. 5.) And yet, though the
generality of the Gentiles which had not the gospel, (as the Jews in our
Saviour's time,) were so immoderate; yet many of them were such, as
appears by their works and lives, as, I fear, will rise up in judgment in
this particular against most of us that call ourselves Christians. They,
US MODERATION, AMD IN "WHAT NOT?
341
beholding the busy world, (as one of them speaks of the souls in the
other,) as the ant carrying & straw, or some little thing of like moment,
into her hole in the mole-hill; which yet dazzles our eyes with their
seeming lustre, and makes our hearts say of these our houses, as if they
were our homes, " It is good for us to be here."
(4.) We must moderate our whole man in the me and enjoyment
of these, in our loving, delighting, rejoicing, and glorying in them.
We must not, in our using of them, exceed the bounds within which they are
allowed us; nor in our love towards them, (" Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," 1 John ii. 15,) by taking too
much complacency and delight in them; not our rejoicing. If thon
dost, "know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." (Eccles. xi. 9.) Nay, our Saviour, when the disciples " returned
with joy, that the devils were subject to them," which was a divine and
extraordinary gift, calls them off, and shows them a fit matter of rejoicing, wherein they could not exceed ; not absolutely forbidding, but limiting them with a "rather" "But rather rejoice, because your names
are written in heaven." (Luke x. 17, 20.) Nor in our glorying in them.
(Jer. ix. 23, 24.) 0 what need of moderation here! In our eating,
drinking, sleeping, lawful recreations, raiment; in the using of our parts,
learning, riches, honours, and other creature-comforts! If the enjoyment of these outward things had been so considerable, think you our
blessed Saviour, who could have commanded them, would have wanted
them ? What are the best of them ? Are thy riches any thing but
of the earth and earthly ? thy pleasures any thing, but a little titillation
of the flesh, of no permanent nature; lives but one instant, and dies as
fast ? thy honour any thing beside a hollow echo or noise, that, like the
circle of the water, is but of little circumference, and soon gone ? doth
not every cross wind or wave break and dash it away ? Is not he that is
great in this city scarce known in the next? he that is king in one
nation, unknown to many other nations? How short-lived, I pray?
Have there not been many great ones [whom] we never heard of? Those
[of whom] we read, do we not skip their names often, not troubling ourselves with the thought or remembrance of them ? If we do, what are
they the better? Read Psalm ciii. 1418. Nay, have not the greatest
judgments of God followed excess in things lawful ? I will trouble you
with none but a few scriptural examples: two of the greatest the world
ever knew,the flood, and [the] destruction of Sodom and the rest
of the cities of the plain. To what are they ascribed but security and
excess? "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were
given in marriage:" what follows? "The flood came, and destroyed
them all." " Likewise in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank,
they bought, they sold, they planted, they bnilded;" (all, again, things
lawful in themselves;) " but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it
rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all." (Luke
xvii. 2729.) If David take too much pride and glory* in the number
of his people, and fall to numbering them, God quickly follows with pes* In the first edition, the author employed pride and glory as verbs, without the use of
tajte.EDIT.
rt
342
tilence, and makes them decrease seventy thousand. (1 Chron. xxi. 14.)
If Nebuchadnezzar will vaunt, " Is not this great Babylon, that I have
built by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ?"
while the word is in the king's mouth there falls a voice from heaven, saying, "The kingdom is departed from thee;" and he is turned to grass
with the oxen. (Dan. iv. 30, 31, 33.) And his son Belshazzar's great
feast fills up the measure, for which he was that night slain, and his
kingdom taken. (Dan. v. 1, 30, 31.) If the rich man will think thus:
And so " will I do, and say, * Soul, thou hast goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry:'" he is not only
stigmatized for a "fool," but, "This night thy soul shall be required
of thee" follows. (Luke xii. 19, 20.) Nay, if the wicked servant begin
to " eat and drink with the drunken," his lord will come unexpectedly,
and " cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites."
(Matt. xxiv. 49, 51.) How great, then, this sin is, God's judgments
being always equal, and proportioned to our offences, what slight
thoughts soever we may have of it, you cannot but by these examples
perceive; nay, rather, what a big-bellied monster is it, full of many
deadly sins, of atheism, unbelief, idolatry, carnal security, preferring
these things before God, Christ, heaven, and happiness! Take heed, and
beware, therefore, herein, lest, while they speak thee fair, they wound
thy heart.
2. Towards the evils of this life.
(1.) We must moderate our fears of these befalling us, according to,
the good they threaten to deprive us of.As we must not fear these
groundlessly, so when there is just cause, and apparent danger, we
should not be senseless and secure, nor fear all alike, or over-fear any.
Security is the forerunner to destruction ; (1 These, v. 3;) which these
should awake us out of, but not so affect us, or affright us, as to put us
past ourselves and our duty. When the storm threatens us, we must not,
with Jonah, be asleep, but praying and endeavouring, as the poor mariners, for preservation; or, as the disciples, "Lord, save us, we perish!"
though they were too fearful in regard of Christ's being with them, who
was sufficient security for their safety. There is a provident fear, that
opens our eyes to foresee dangers, and quickens us in the use of lawful
means for their prevention. Such was the good patriarch Jacob's
[fear] of Esau's destroying him and his company; that makes him pray,
send presents to his brother, divide his bands, and use all prudent means
of preservation. (Gen. xxxii.) This we must have; for, security and
putting far away the evil day, when God threatens us even with temporal judgments, is a great sin, and hath a "woe" pronounced upon it;
(Amos vi. 1 ;) whereas this makes us wisely serve the providence of God,
But thi'n there is a diffident fear that distracts us, and cuts all the nerves
and sinews of lawful care and endeavours, that brings a snare with it,
(Prov. xxix. 25,) and often drives us upon unwarrantable means, or

makes us sit down in despair. This we must beware of, by a due moderating our fears according to the impendent evil, which must be judged by
its opposite good ; not fearing all evils alike ; the loss of some wealth
like the loss of our health, because health is the better good; no, nor all
T7BB MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
343
evils of the same kind alike; not a tertian ague like the atone; this, by
its exquisite pain, depriving us more of the natural comfort of health, and
more endangering our lives. And not overfearing the greatest, namely,
death, called by Job, "the king of terrors," (Job xviii. 14,) and by the
philosopher, QoGepaov , "of all terribles the most terrible;"

which our Saviour, as man, feared with a natural fear, yet chargeth we
should not over-fear it. (Matt. x. 28; Luke xii. 4.) Yea, though we
should fear political or public evils, as wars, famine, pestilence, more than
our own personal, (of which, you see, I speak only all along,) in regard
those are greater, the public good being better and to be preferred before
any private; yet not these too much.
(2.) We must moderate our grief and trouble for these, according to the
good we want or lose by them.There are imaginary evils, that are of our
own creation, begot, brought up, and nourished only by our own brain :
these we must carefully avoid, and, if formed, not be cruel to ourselves, in
being compassionate to thern^ but dash them in pieces. And there are
real evils, which come not forth of our own dust, nor spring out of the
ground, but are from above, of God's creating and framing, (Amos iii. 6;
Isai. xlv. 7; Jer. xviii. 11.) These we are not to be senseless under,
bnt duly affected with, and yet not over-affected, so as to murmur and
repine, much less quarrel with God. A stoical apathy becomes us not,
and yet better than quarrelling at God's providence ; it coming nearer
moderation; for " wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the
punishment of his sins?" (Lam. iii. 39.) Little reason whilst thou art
living, seeing it is less than thy desert; and no reason even for death and
hell, for they are but equal to thy desert: if thou confess thyself a sinner,
thou must confess this. Plato said, that God doth atet yeeo/tmpsiv; which
is expounded by Plutarch well: that " God is said always to act the geometrician, in regard of his equal dealing with all men, in proportioning
rewards and punishments to their deserts."* And a greater than he,
yea, the greatest that can be, God himself, appeals to the sinner's own
conscience: " Is not my way equal ? Are not your ways unequal ?" (Ezek.
xviii. 25;) which whole chapter is a defence of his equity. Troubled,
then, we may be, murmuring and discontented we must not be. Nay,
troubled we ought to be, as the evils- are greater or less, which must
be judged by the good they deprive us of; more for public, because that
good is greater; less for private evils, because our own good is not equal
to the community's. But in the body politic it is quite otherwise than
in the natural body: we are usually too senseless under public, and too
sensible of and immoderate under our own particular, evils; rather apt to
quarrel with God, like Jonah, for a gourd, or some inconsiderable concerns of our own, than be troubled at the destruction of a great Nineveh;
more troubled at our own houses being on fire, or child sick, than all our
neighbours in the city about us burnt and dead. Therefore, scripture
accordingly calls for affection for the public, and forbids it in our own
concernments, in regard [that] we are generally defective in the former,
and excessive in the latter; nay, even towards others, when just cause of
compassion, if excessive. So our Saviour, when the women lamented hi
* Symposiac., lib. viii. qusest. 2.
344
SERMON XVI. IN WHAT THINGS MOST WE
death, (which was matter of grief, as in respect of him, though of greatest

joy in itself, as to them and the world,) bids them, " Weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves, and for your children," in regard of the public
calamities that were coming upon Jerusalem; (Luke xxiii. 2729 ;)
every particular being concerned in the community. Now, of these evils,
seeing all are privations of good; some are of the good we want, and
never enjoyed; as deformity of body, defect in parts, constant poverty,
&c. And here we must beware we judge not those [to be] evils which are
none, and so trouble and torment ourselves without cause, and reproach
our Maker; saying, "Why hath he made me thus?" "Why am I no
nobler born, no more beautifully made, no greater heir, no quicker-parted ?
Why am I not as such, or such, not as they, this, or that?"when thou
hast what is suitable and convenient for thy condition ; for this all may
say of those that excel them, (and the best of imaginary excellences,) as
well as thou.
Other evils are [privations] of the good we have
enjoyed, and are deprived of; as sickness [is a privation] of health;
losses, of friends and estate; reproaches, of our good name; imprisonment [a privation] of liberty; and the like, which are incident to
our present state.* These are they especially which the world lament,
and cry out after, as foolishly as Micah: '* Ye have taken away my gods:
and what have I more ? and what is this that ye say unto me, What aileth
thee ?" (Judges xviii. 24.) We must not here be too passionately excessive, either in the degree or duration of our trouble ; we must be affected
with the providence of God in these evils, according to their greatness to
us, (a little loss in itself may be great to a poor man; as the widow's two
mites were more to her than their far greater sums were to them that
cast them in; the death of an only child greater than when a number,)
and so trouble and sorrow for them; but discontented we must not be,
nor distracted in the duties [which] God requires; nor refuse to be comforted, because our husbands, wives, children, pleasures, honours, riches,
are not; for as there is a time to weep, so a time to take up, and refrain
from weeping: we must love them so as we may lose them ; that when
we do, we may not lose ourselves. Amavi heec omnia tanguam amissums,
let us every one say at parting with them : " I loved you so as I can lose
you."
Take heed of murmuring with the Israelites, cursing thy stars
with the profane; of discontentedness, which the best are apt to fall
into; nay, wish for death rather than life, as several of the prophets.
Maintain that eqnilibrious frame in thee, as David: " Here am I, let God
do to me as seemeth good unto him;" (2 Sam. xv. 26;) which is the
mother of patience, and, like it, makes these evils, though not none, yet
become none to us.
Thus I have done with moderation towards thing, most of whose particulars mentioned you have pressed by the apostle Paul, and by the same
argument of the text: " The time is short: it remaineth, that both they
that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, a
though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced
* In all editions except the first, this sentence has been left in a very faulty state, no
reference having been made to the author's preceding proposition: " Seeing all these evils
ere privations of good;" whic'i is the proper key to all that follows.EDIT,
345
not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use
this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.*'
(1 Cor. vii. 2931.) And though I have stood longer upon this than
I intended, and promised both you and myself, in regard the fruit hung
BO thick about me, that I could not but pluck some of it, and, after I
had tasted it, more; yet I hope it will prove so pleasant also to the taste,
that you will pardon me; especially considering how much this moderation towards thing conduceth to that which respects persons; (the contentions in the world arising usually from our want of moderation to the
things of the world, as in civil matters it is patent; and in religious,
though less obvious, yet most frequently as certain, that these are the
springs from which they flow;) and how necessary it is for us all to
know and practise it; for Haiti perimua omneis, " We usually perish by
the hand of these lawful things."
II. MODERATION TOWARDS PERSONS.
Having spoken of moderation, as it respects ourselves, for preserving

peace within, (this, as all government, having peace for its end,) which
appears, and is made known to others, by our conversation; let us now
look abroad, as we are members of the public, and have to do with others,
and see what moderation we must use for the preserving external peace.
Now, each Christian having a double capacity;as a man, his civil
capacity in the state ; as a Christian, his religious capacity in the church
wherein he lives;I shall speak to both these, in reference to peace,

political 'and ecclesiastical; to the former more briefly, being so near
akin to that part we have already dispatched.
1. In civil matters.
Herein we may be considered actively or passively,

(I.) ACTIVELY.
1. We must moderate our speeches, that we give no just provocation
thereby, according to prudence.That we may neither provoke those
of whom or to whom we speak, we must duly consider the nature of the
matter we speak of, and the quality and temper of the persons concerned.
In our discourses with others.Not trifling in weighty matters, and
fervent in trifles of no moment; not rashly to thy superiors, without

respect; not superciliously to thy inferiors; not contentiously to thy equals.
We also must have regard to their temper, if passionate and angry, with
soft, not grievous, words; or, if tender and meek-spirited, with the like;
(for these two different tempers must be alike, though for different ends
dealt withal;) if contumacious, more sharply ; if flexible, gently; if testy
or jealous, more tenderly and cautiously; if equal, with more freedom
and liberty; and so of all others.
Yea, we must also observe their
present condition, if distressed, or joyful and comfortable, and the like;
and the disposition they are in, (which for the most part is suitable
thereto,) as sad and dejected, or cheerful and pleasant, beyond their
accustomed temper, and accordingly moderate our speeches, as the Wise
Man adviseth ; (Prov. xxv. 20;) at no time stirring up contention, or
speaking swords and darts ; but as the wise, whose " tongue is health."
(Prov. xii. 18; xviii. 6.)
346
SERMON XVI.
IN WHAT THINGS 8 WE
In our judging, characterising, and censuring of others.We must also
consider for what, of whom, and to whom we do it; not for every failing,
and weakness, or miscarriage, nor upon slight grounds; not readily
taking up a reproach against our neighbour, and rashly venting it;
(Prov. x. 12;) nor jealously framing one, and according thereto passing
verdict: for though there be a charitable and godly jealousy we may
exercise towards those we have special interest in or charge over, such as
St. Paul's towards his Corinthians; (2 Cor. xi. 2;) and Job's [towards]
his children, (Job i. 5,) in reference to our admonishing or other dealings
with them, yet not to our judging and censuring them to others. And
when the carriages of others are such as no due candour can excuse, we
must rather interpret them better, than aggravate them as worse, according to the favour of charity to the offender, though in no wise to the
offence: nor this without necessity; nor to every one blazoning others;
nor of all alike, without respect to quality, age, temptations, and the
like; of which, and all other circumstances, consideration must be had,
and due allowance made.

In our rebuking and reproving of others.We must likewise see, that
it be a matter so deserving, and consider the persons we so deal with.
In counsel and admonition, though prudence be required, yet in them we
assume not so much to ourselves, nor [are we] apt so passionately to
miscarry. Great need of this in superiors, masters especially towards
servants and scholars, that they deal with them according to fheir dispositions, " forbearing " (or, as the Greek, " moderating ") " threatening."
(Eph. vi. 9; Prov. xvi. 24;) and parents often towards children:
" Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged." (Col. iii.
21.) And as [there is] great need of superiors moderating their passion
towards inferiors, so [is there] great need of these using prudence towards
those and their equals. " Rebuke not," therefore saith Paul to Timothy,
" an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren."
(1 Tim. v. 1.)
2. We must moderate our contests with others according to equity.So
long as sin, Satan, and meum et tuum, "thine and mine," are in the
world, there will be strife and contention about the things of the world.
And where interest engages us, we are subject to be biassed thereby, and
drawn away by our passions from all equality. Great need, therefore,
of moderation here:
(1.) In considering the matter, that it be of moment, and the person
we have to do withal, whether faulty; and not about toys, and rashly,
with any that is next us [whom] we think upon the blush guilty, enter
the lists of contention and strife. " Go not forth hastily," saith Solomon,
" to strive, lest thon know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy
neighbour hath put thee to shame." (Prov. xxv. 8.)
(2.) If so, in trying by all fair means the obtaining [of] thy right,
whether of estate, good name, honour, or the like, by arguments and
persuasions, by seeking accommodation, by willingly referring it to the
equal judgment and determination of others, or the like. " Agree," saith
our blessed Saviour, " with .thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the
way with him;" (that is, "to the magistrate," as Luke expounds it
347
xii. 58;) " lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and
the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison."
(Matt. v. 25.)
(3.) If these will not prevail for thy right, in voluntary yielding some part
thereof, rather than contest.It must be thy own right [that] thou must
yield, not another's, except thou be intrusted therewith, and so far forth
as he consents thereto ; for this, being a gift, must be of such things as
are our own, which thou oughtest to do for peace* sake. How eminent
was Abraham for this! who stood not upon his terms of superiority with
Lot, though his uncle and guardian formerly and governor, nor his right,
nor his nephew's first seeking to him, and the like; but that there might
be no strife, [he] offers him his choice of the land : " If thou wilt take
the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right
hand, then I will go to the left;" (Gen. xiii. 8, 9;) and performs accordingly. How far are we from following our father Abraham's example!
How many that will not yield others any of their right, but by compulsion
of law! How few that yield their own right voluntarily! how far, or
how much, we must yield, our own (and those we deal with) circumstances best determine. We must not be injurious to ourselves; for, as
St. Austin saith well, Quis aliis ceguus, qui sibi iniquus? "Who that is
unequal to himself, will be equal to others?" We must not yield that
which is greatly to our detriment, except our yielding be on as easy terms
as further contesting; as it proves often when we proceed to law, &c.
And here that may be very considerable to one, that is but small to
another, as poorer or richer for matters of estate, as entering the stage of
the world, or well known in it, for credit and good name, &c.; and very
considerable to the same man at one time, that may be small at another;
as if upon preferment to have reports made of him, or the like. Nay,
there may be grounds for not yielding the least we can possibly obtain,
which we must conceal from the public, though we may satisfy private
Christians; as when we know our estate is small, though, living upon
credit, others judge it great; or the like cases. But here is not such difficulty ; every one knowing his own circumstances, for the most part,
pretty well, which should be a ground for our charity, that we censure
not men whose circumstances we know not; nor are we apt to miscarry
in departing from our own interest. We should especially, therefore,
consider the condition and circumstances those are in [whomj we have to
do withal: if greater, we usually make a virtue of necessity, and yield
most where we should yield least: but here, in our speeches and carriages,
we should especially yield, and [the] least we can of our purses; and on
the contrary, if they be meaner and poorer: not when others are low, or
in present exigencies, to take them by the throat, saying, " Fay me what
thou owest;" (Matt, xviii. 28;) but to be equal, merciful, and considerative of others as well as ourselves, and accordingly to deal.
(4.) If all thou must yield will not satisfy, in thy chargeable appeal to
the civil magistrate.As all lawful means must be essayed for public
peace before, by war, appeal be made to God, so should all lawful means
be used before we appeal to his vicegerent for private peace: and when we
do, with charity to the person against whom we proceed; for it is a
548
SERMON XVI.
IN WHAT THINGS MOST WE
great mistake to think we cannot be in charity and law together: and

though with vigilance and circumspection, yet not with violence and
passion, to manage the prosecution.
Lastly. In the issue or event of appeals.If we overcome, in admitting
equal compensation for the loss of riches, credit, or the like thou contestest
about. For some men's natures, others' necessities, are such as make
them obstinate, and persist, to their ruin and destruction; and laws in
some things are severe, though just; which though the magistrate moderate according to equity, yet [they] often adjudge more than we should
take. And if thou be overcome, and lose thy right, by no means seeking revenge, or righting thyself, but use moderation, in committing thy
cause " to Him that judgeth righteously."

3. We must moderate our whole carriage and conversation towards
others, according to the rules of modesty and sobriety, (Prov. xxv. 6.)
Avoid all occasions of giving just offence to others. Seek peace and
pursue it; but fly occasions of quarrelling and strife, lest the wrath
both of God and man pursue thee. Consider, that not only " hatred "
and "wrath," but "variance, emulations, and strife," are reckoned
amongst "the works of the flesh," which "they that do shall not
inherit the kingdom of God;" whilst "peace, long-suffering, gentle
ness, and meekness," "fruits of the Spirit," shall. (Gal. v. 2023.)
Let not thy immodest looks efface others' modesty, nor thy gestures
offend their gravity. For St. Ambrose extends this moderation to gestures, gait, and bodily motions ; speaking also his own experience herein,
how he refused to admit one into orders, merely for his immodesty
in these.* Let not, then, any taunting jests, bitter sarcasms, or any
other words, or mimical gestures, foolish wagers, recreations, or the like,
become snares to entrap thy peace with others. "Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are tme, whatsoever things are honest," (or " grave
and venerable," <rfftv,) " whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these
things," speak these things, do these things: "and the God of peace
shall be with you." (Phil. iv. 8, 9.)
(II.) PASSIVELY.
Thus we are considered in our suffering from others; wherein, as we
must cordially forgive them all; (Matt. vi. 15;) so in our carriage we
must moderate our spirits, passions, speeches, actions, and punishing
thereof, towards those that are the offenders.
1. We must moderate our spirits, by an equal bearing with the weaknesses and natural infirmities of others." He that hath no rule over his
own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls;"
(Prov. xxv. 28;) that is, soon overcome. We must consider their years ;
as the fervour of youth, testiness of old age: Their temper; some are
more dull and phlegmatic, others more melancholy and suspicions; some
more choleric and boisterously passionate; others more agile, quick,
and sprightly: Their education; some are with study morose; others,
according to those they converse with, more rude, or complimeutal and
* De Qfficiis, lib. i. c. 18.
tJSB MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
349
courtly; according to which, and their present condition, we ehould

give due grains of allowance, in our speeches and conversations towards
them, and retain our equality of mind; as the orator said, " TranquiUve
animus meua, qui <equi 6oni facit omnia"* (1.) By a prudent dissembling them. (1 Sam. x. 27.) (2.) By a charitable covering them.
(Prov. x. 12.) (3.) Interpreting them; not putting any sinister interpretation, but most favourable, nor aggravating the offence. (1 Cor. xiii.
5, 7.) (4.) Admonishing them. (Matt, xviii. 15; Gal. vi. 1.) Lastly,
pardoning them : " Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another,"
&c. (Col. iii. 13.)
2. We must moderate our passions in their due exercise, in case
of greater and wilful offences, according to the nature and quality thereof.
Our anger towards such offenders, aversation of them, severity with
them, and the like; avoiding of and suppressing all wrath, envy, malice,
revenge, and the like sinful passions, that have the stamp of hell upon
them; (James iii. 15;) which come thence, and lead thither. (Gal. v.
20, 21.) In God's cause we must be angry against sin; and in the
public's, against the impediments of peace and truth. (Neh. v. 6; Acts
xvii. 16.) But these I am not speaking of. In our own we may be
angry, but we must not sin. (Eph. iv. 26.) " Whosoever is angry with
his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment," saith
our blessed Saviour. (Matt. v. 22.) In which three things are considerable : (I.) With whom; and that is clearly the offenders, not every one
that is next us. (2.) For what; which the philosopher and all acknowledge difficult to determine, being in particulars; the only help is from
the consideration of the quality of the offence, (i.) Not for every trifle,
but material in itself, or in its consequence, (ii.) Not for natural defects
and weaknesses; as when they are slow of parts, weak of strength, or
the like, and can do no better: here we may find fault, and admonish
gently to quicken, not be angry to discourage, those we have power
over, or interest in. (iii.) Nor for purely involuntary and casual offences,
such as no due circumspection could prevent; but for errors and mistakes which might have been avoided, [for] carelessness and negligence
in the doing or omission; wilfulness or maliciousness in the end for
which others offend us. When these appear, and as they appear more
or less, we may be angry; least for the first, more with the next, and
most with the last of wilfulness and malice. Lastly. The measure
of our passion is considerable, which must not be beyond the nature
of such offences, in the degree Or duration. "Be ye angry, and sin
not:" (the same words in the original the Septuagint renders Psalm iv.
4, by " Stand in awe, and sin not;" when we are angry with others,
we had need stand in awe of God, that we sin not:) " let not the sun
go down upon your wrath : neither give place to the devil;" (Eph. iv.
26, 27;) that is, we must neither too deeply, nor too long, be angry,
lest the devil, who is ready at hand, take occasion thereat to blow us
all into a flame of wrath, malice, revenge, and what not: all which are
to be wholly avoided.
* CICEHO ad Atticum, lib. viL epist. 7 " In a state of perfect tranquillity,my mind
view all things favourably, and receives them in good part"EDIT.
350
SERMON XVI.
3. We must moderate our speeches and actions towards suck wilful

offenders.By no means rendering railing for railing, or " evil For evil,"
but "overcoming evil with good." 0 that oar blessed Saviour's known
precept, Matt. v. 44, &c., was but as well known in the practice, and
that his copy was but writ after by us! how would the world be reformed
thereby ! If those many places of holy scripture, of " forbearing, and
forgiving one another," under the penalty of damnation, were duly
believed, they would marvellously restrain men at least, and becalm the
world* But let us see our practice.
(1.) By -a prudent silence, or slighting the presumptuous offenders of us,
when secret, or not greatly to our detriment.Not to hearken or regard
every reproach, scorn, and contempt, that is cast upon us, nor every
trespass of our neighbour. (2 Sam. xvi. 10.) " The discretion of a man
deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression."
(Prov. xix. 11.) It is his glory, not only as it shows a spirit above
such dealings, but wisdom, many times, more ashaming and silencing
such thereby than by our contending with them.
(2.) By yielding to the unequal demands of others for peace, wherein
we are solely concerned, and not greatly prejudiced.How eminent is
our Saviour's example herein, who, though free from tribute, yet, rather
than he would offend, works a miracle for the solution thereof! (Matt,
xvii. 27.) He fairly shows first that he is so, and then notwithstanding
pays; whose wisdom and practice herein let us follow.
(3.) By admitting equal compensation, or less than our wrong, for such
manifest injuries as we may and ought to right ourselves in, when the
offender is willing to make us satisfaction.If in our reputation, let us
not insist too much upon the punctilios of honour; if in estate, upon the
strict terms of right; but herein observe the golden rule, by putting
off self, and putting on thy neighbour, doing to him as thou wouldest he
should do to thee. (Matt. vii. 12.) Nay, in real wrongs of estate, we
should, in case of their incapacity of recompensing, accept, for present,
verbal satisfaction, till they be better enabled, and, if never, to lose all,
rather than, by imprisonment or otherwise, to bring upon them, and
often theirs also, utter destruction. (Matt, xviii. 29, 30.) For, as the
moralist well [observes]: To KTOV, but not To *
" Though all justice be equal, yet all equality is not justice, but that
which is proportioned to persons."
(4.) Lastly, We must moderate our prosecution of such injuries and
wrongs as we ought to vindicate ourselves from, and see punished.
Though we must forgive all injuries, as to ourselves, by charity to others;
yet we may, nay, we must, in some cases have so much charity also to
the public and ourselves, that in notorious injuries we should do right
to both, in the prosecution of such offenders as will not otherwise be
restrained, or do us right. If thy brother sin against thee, not only
seven, but seventy-seven, times a day, thou must forgive him; (Matt,
xviii. 22;) that is, if he frequently wrong and injure thee, (for so the
word " sinning," when against us, signifies, as the Septuagint, 1 Sam.
xix. 4, Gen. xlii. 22, and elsewhere, frequently use the Greek words, Av
* PLUTAHCHI Symposiac. lib. viii.
TJ8E MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
351
- [1 Kings viii. 31:] " If any man trespass

against his neighbour," that is, injure or wrong him,) yet thou must
constantly forgive him; but, notwithstanding, thou mayest seek thy
right from him, and if by no fair means canst obtain it, prosecute him
before the magistrate for the same. Nay, thou not only mayest, but
sometimes mast.
(i.) When God is concerned therein, a in the church" right.Thus

Moses, though the meekest man upon earth, would not abate Pharaoh
" an hoof; for thereof must we serve the Lord," saith he; " and we
know not with what, until we come thither," that is, to Canaan. (Exod. x.
26.) A minister may yield his own, but be must not the church's, right.
(ii.) In case of trust from others.Either from the public, or private
persons, which allow us not to make terms of concession, but stand upon
strict justice and right. Here, so far as others consent who are proprietors, we should compose, yield, and take up controversies ; further
we justly cannot: for in cases of trust, a man must be regulated by the
will of those that intrust him ; as arbitrators and solicitors for others ;
so executors frequently, and guardians, that are intrusted for those that
are young, and not yet sui juris, " at age to consent and dispose of their
own;" and the like cases, wherein the intrusted are responsible for what
is not legally done therein; the law's determination being by all presumed just.
(iii.) In our own personal injuries, wherein the public is concerned.
First. When public peace, order, and government are much violated and
broken thereby; as in notorious thefts, attempts of murder, and the like;
which if tolerated, the world would become a great latrocinium* and
slaughter-house, wherein the longest sword and strongest arm would
sweep away all; a place for beasts, and no quiet habitation for men.
Secondly. When the public emolument or estimation suffers in our
injuries. As magistrates, ministers, and all others employed in public
affairs, when grossly defamed, so as the public is thereby reflected on,
ought fairly to vindicate their integrity, so far at least that those that
employ them and the public suffer not thereby. And, lastly, When thy
serving the public, and, consequently, the public good, is thereby hindered. How ample is the apostle Paul in his own vindication against the
false apostles' defamation of him, in his second epistle to the Corinthians,
which is much of it apologetical! And, good reason; for where the
person is traduced, his employment is not likely to be much effectual
or advantageous to the public, and his example less; as Quintilian,f and
many others, yea, constant experience tells us. In these cases thou
must do thyself justice, but so moderately, as not doing to others injustice thereby.
In all other merely personal wrongs and injuries, when they are considerable in themselves, or their issue to thee, provided thou canst no other
way obtain right, thou mayest publicly prosecute thine injure, oppressors, public defamers, and the like wrongers of thy estate, reputation,
and other thy temporal good things; in charity, and according to equity,
equally seeking thy own right and good, not thy neighbour's wrong,
* " An asylum for robben."EDIT.
f Institution, lib. ii. cap. 3.
352
much less ruin and destruction.

others in civil matters.
And thus for moderation toward
2. In religious matters.
Although I have spoken, in the opening, [of] the nature of moderation,
and the general object, that which might serve to direct us herein ; yet,
lest I be mistaken, and thence any of you mistake your duty, I shall
further open this particular object) by speaking to it negatively, about
what moderation is not to be practised, and positively, wherein it must.
NEGATIVELY. I. Not in matters of faith.For the believing these,
being not only absolutely required of every Christian, and in that measure that we cannot fully come up to, in regard of the great truth and
reality of spiritual objects, and their revelation, the best being, alas!
miserably short and deficient herein ; but also internal, the profession of
these being matter of practice, moderation cannot possibly here have any
place, much less that which respects others.
2. Nor in matters of moral practice ; such as the moral law requires,
and grace and virtue should perform.For in these can be no excess,
either in degree or duration. We cannot love God too much, nor, with
grace, our neighbour, nor too constantly. Consider father, mother, wife,
children, as moral objects, so we exceed not, as natural goods; and so in
the exercise of natural affection, we frequently, as is said before, do
exceed, which is discernible especially by the end ; with grace we love
them for God ; with the moral virtue of love, for the relation they stand
in to us; with the affection of love, when we sinfully over-love them
for ourselves: for though the natural affection co-operates with the
former, yet it solely exceeds. But it being difficult for us to discern
these formalities in objects, and the operations of principles about them,
it is our only way to have recourse to God's laws, (which, though
founded upon the nature of things, yet show us plainly our duty, where
we cannot discern them,) which, in all things wherein we may exceed,
(as in the externals of the first table, and the duties of the second,) not
only prescribe us what, and also particularly how, to act by positive
precepts; but, lest we should miscarry, by negative also, which respect
the end, manner, measure, &c., of such duties, restraining and bounding
us, that we exceed not. Both which are moral, and comprehended in
this particular; it being equally moral not to over-love, as to love thy
neighbour; the former being forbidden, as well by the negative, as the
latter enjoined by positive precepts.
In negatives, which forbid the action absolutely, (as blasphemy,
adultery, &c.,) no need of any such precepts to regulate us; for the
actions being not to be done, no need of direction for their manner, and
consequently no place for moderation; such being to be subdued and
suppressed, not ordered or regulated, as I have formerly spoken ; and in
things only indefinitely forbidden, (as swearing, travelling on the Lord's
day, &e.,) when we are to practise them, we have the rules for positive
actions, affirmative and negative, to direct us sufficiently.
3. Nor especially in the weightier matters of the law or religion.I
must speak a little to this ; because that may be commanded absolutely
353
in itself, which comparatively, when it comes in competition with other

duties of greater moment, becomes only conditional. For affirmative
precepts are so many, it is impossible they should bind ad temper;
["perpetually;"] so that when two or more duties come together, man,
in regard of his finite capacity, being not able to perform them at once,
must duly consider the weightiest, and that do; it being requisite, in
terms of inconsistency, that the lesser always give place to the greater, and
cease pro hie et nunc, or " for that present," to oblige us. Thus David's
eating the shew-bread, and the disciples' plucking the ears of corn on the
sabbath-day, when hungry, is defended by our Saviour. (Matt. xii. 3,
&c.)
Yea, even frequently the externals of the first table give way to
the weighty exigent duties of the second; as the sanctification of the
sabbath, to the defending the city in the Maccabees' case ; according to
that, "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice." (Hosea vi. 6.) Not only
"rather than sacrifice," but, in such cases, "not sacrifice;" God dispensing with the lesser, so that its omission becomes no sin; as is clear,
in our Saviour's practice, in his healing the man with the withered hand,
&c., as well as in his defence of his disciples. (Luke vi. 310.) For
that may be our duty, and necessary at one time, which, at another,
when a weightier comes that should take place, ceaseth to be so, by virtue
of the reason and constitution of the laws themselves, that the superior
law take place.
Therefore, under the notion of moderation, to omit moral, and especially the great and necessary, duties required, and practise only the less,
is pharisaical hypocrisy, not Christianity. If to do the great duties
of religion God requires of us, be accounted immoderateness, let us say
with David, " If this be to be vile, we will be more vile still." God's laws
admit of no effieixetee, or dispensation from us, but what he hath admitted
himself: we must neither add nor detract. (Deut. iv. 2.) Tbou canst
neither mitigate their execution, nor any other beside himself, on thee for
thy transgressing [of] them. If the wise Romans were so careful to
preserve their laws from others, [rather] than the supreme dispensing with
them, lest they should prove a Lesbian rule; * much more the great and
wise God hath reason to keep up the authority of his laws, and expect
our punctual observance of them. Moderation in religion and religious
duties is the devilish precept of Machiavel, not the doctrine of the gospel
or St. Paul. To engage or wade no further in religion than temporal
interests will permit us to come safely again to shore, was the resolution
and speech of a greater courtier of France than of heaven, and of such as
resolve more to save their skins than their souls. How doth Christ
every where arm those that will be his disciples against their desisting from
their necessary duty, for the offence of the world! [He] is so far from
concealing this, that it is the first thing he tells them of; invites them
upon no other terms than the cross; tells them, they must trust him in
this world, for compensating them in the future, &c. (Matt. xvi. 2428.)
And how eminent was he in the practice of this! How did the zeal
of God's house eat him up, and he persist in doing the work he was sent
about, notwithstanding all the offence the Jews took! And yet, in bis
* Diffett, de Legibtu et Senatas-Consult.
354
own private concerns, how meek, gentle, patient! which none can be
ignorant of that read the gospel, and which he commands us to learn
of him. (Matt. xi. 29.) Great, then, is the mistake of those that think
zeal and moderation, which were thus eminently concentered in Christ,
should be inconsistent. No lovelier match than of this blessed couple
in our souls; nor of more universal nee to us throughout the course
of our lives, if rightly ordered : the one for God, the other for the world ;
that giving life and intenseness in our duties towards him, this restraining
us in our personal concernments; that edging* and quickening us in
desires, motions, and endeavours for heaven, and this stopping us, and
retarding the wheels, when we drive too furiously after our own interests ;
that, according to knowledge, supplying us with resolution for and fervour
in the great duties of religion, this, according to charity, duly qualifying
them in the less, that our love to God and one another may walk hand in
hand heaven-ward, and neither leave the other behind.
POSITIVELY. It must, then, be in matters of opinion and Christian liberty
and indifferency, as they all refer to practice.And here let none expect
I should determine what things are only matters of opinion, liberty, and
iudifierency, which so much trouble the world, what not; for every one
herein must, according to the scriptures, be, in some respect, judge for
himself and his own practice. (1 Cor. x. 29; Bom. xiv. 4, 12.) Upon
which I shall proceed and show our moderation, in principles, passions,
speeches, and practices.
1. We must moderate our principles or judgments concerning these,
by forming them according to the nature of truths and duties.This is
necessary, not only in regard of ourselves, (for as the judgment, such is
the practice,) but others also, for the moderating our prejudices towards
them. We must therefore carefully distinguish between matters of faith
and necessary duty; and matters of opinion and conditional practice.
For though every ray of truth be excellent in itself, and absolutely there
be no minimum in religione, [" matter of small account in religion,"] as
the Heathen said ; yet, comparatively, there is great difference in truths,
some differing from others, as one star from another in glory. Nor have all
the like clearness of revelation, nor shine forth with that lustre as others,
nor [have] all a like consequence. Some are VO/M.OU, ["the
weightier matters of the law,"] great in themselves, clear to us, and
weighty in their consequence. (Matt, xxiii. 23.) These we must hold
fast, practise carefully, contend for earnestly. (1 Tim. i. 19; 2 Tim. i. 13;
Jude 3.) Others are such as, salvd religione, ['without injury to piety,"]
we may and do differ in, both in judgment and practice, without the
endangering our happiness: " For the kingdom of God is not meat and
drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;" (Rom.
xiv. 17;) that is, in the opinion or practice of those, [which] the false
apostles would have obtruded as necessary. In these things, our principles should give us leave to meet one another in our practice; keeping the
unity of the Spirit in the former, and the bond of peace by the latter; as
the apostle enjoins. (Eph. iv. 3.)
2. We must moderate our passions in these, our heat and fervour for
* In the acthe sense of "giving an edge or sharpness to any thing."EDIT.
355
them, our anger against those fiat differ from v in them.In these
things wherein the way to heaven is broad enough, there may be difference without division; and let any take heed how they straiten it,
taking upon them to be wiser than Christ, who, well knowing human
frailty, so chalked it out to us, telling us, " He that doeth the will of his
Father," not [he] that is for or against these things, "is his brother,
sister, and mother;" and, consequently, [they] should be brethren and
sisters amongst themselves. It is strange to consider, how, upon principles and prejudice once sucked in, passion blinds men in their own
opinions and practices, and what woful divisions have in all ages arisen
thence. That the eastern and western churches, wherein were so many
grave, holy, learned, and wise men, should so fall out as to make a
separation ; every one would be ready to think and say, " Surely it was
some great matter that occasioned it:" would yon know ? Nothing
but about the time of the observation of Easter. Though Irenseus and
others were mighty advocates for peace, yet nothing would serve Victor,
bishop of Rome, but exact uniformity in these indifferencies; and thence
arose, about two hundred years after Christ, that great breach of unity
betwixt those two great and famous churches. How do all the zeal and
fervour [which] we should bestow upon the great things of religion run
out at this time amongst us about these things! May not I say,
Quoreum keec perafitio ?* " Wherefore do ye spend your money for that
which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?"
Why do we stand thus busily hewing good limber into chips, and,
leaving out the figures, spend our time in the bare ciphers? How
many, on both sides, at this day, make it their religion to be for or
against those things that they account indifferent in themselves! So
true is the moralist's observation, that "the devil always labours that
mankind may either wholly neglect a Deity, or be wholly taken up in
the externals of worship." Quite contrary to scripture, that teacheth us
to mind every thing as of consequence in its place; to do tfte great and
weighty things, and not to leave the other undone. My beloved, " the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." When Elijah,
that good prophet, was discontented, and passionately requests he may
die, and professeth his zeal for the great things of religion, God passeth
by him : but in the great and strong wind, or in the earthquake or in
the fire, the Lord was not; but " in the still small voice," showing him
and us thereby, that he is not in our passions; (1 Kings xix. 4,
1012;) and if not for the great, how much less for these things
of religion wherein the apostle's rule for peace and edification should be
observed! (Rom. xiv. 19.) God never suspended bis church's peace
upon these ; for if I should not love others till I knew they were of allf
my opinions and my practice in these, I might perhaps never love any.
3. We must moderate our speeches, in ovr discourses of, debate* and
contests for or against, these.Some speeches [which] we are too apt to,
* " What is the course of this widely-spreading rain, and whither does it tend ?"
EDIT.
f All the editions have this reading: some persons may think that it
ought to be," They were all of my opinions,*1 Ac. But the transposition is not authorized;
aud perhaps the clause, as it now stands, correctly conveys the writer's meaning.EDIT.
356
SERMON XVI. IN WHAT THINGS MOST WE
we must wholly forbear, others we must moderate. (1.) We nrast

beware of judging and censuring others for these. We may in apparent
transgressions of God's law, censure, upon occasion, the offenders,
though not rashly, or for hypocrites, reprobates, or the like; but, for
these we mast not at all. (Rom. xiv. 418.) For, in these, through
another's knowledge that may not be a sin in him which would [be] to
thee; and [which] thou judgest sinful therefore in others, for want
of charity. How much malice, and how little candour, do we use in this!
How do we almost make it the characteristical note of Christianity, to be
of such or each a way which none account essential to religion! We
are apt (as those in Africa, in Tertullian's time) to account it enough,
that we or others are of such a party; and to empale the church, and
impropriate Christ and salvation, every one of us, to our own side : and
this many times the most by the vulgar: so true is that of Seneca, Qut
pauca respiciunt, facile pronunciant: " Those that discern the least,
being apt to judge most." (2.) We must take heed of despising and
contemning others for these. (Rom. xiv. 3.) As the former, (of not judging,) so this, (of not despising,) is a necessary duty internally as to
ourselves, and in our carriage and speeches especially as they respect our
external duty towards others; our sinning in both arising from uncharitableness, in that to others' liberty, in this to that we judge their
weakness. Our hearts and tongues are too apt to follow our judgments,
and break out into these exorbitances; but, my brethren, these things
ought not so to be. t Judge not, censure not, according to outward
appearance or inward prejudice, but righteous and charitable judgment
rather, that we mutually bear with one another in these. And when we
have occasion to discourse or debate concerning what things are such or
their practice, not measuring all men's judgments by the model of our
own apprehensions, or, like dictators, thinking ourselves infallible,
obtrude those things for necessary which, it may be, others of as
piercing sight account but indifferent; or those things for indifferent
which they reckon amongst Jthe number of unlawful; but modestly
declaring our judgments herein. For, as I told you in the entrance, I

take not upon me to determine what are such, nor the magistrates'
duty: (concerning which, I think, he said well and wisely, that "it
were good [that] they require as little as they can," what is necessary
for the safeguard of religion, as contained in the scriptures, " and [that]
subjects practise as much as they can:") but only for the direction
of every one how to order their conversation in the diversity of judgments
that are amongst us.

4. We must moderate our practising of these, according to the circumstances we are in, and as they are convenient and expedient for u.
Sometimes the practice of these must be wholly waved: for the laws
concerning them being conditional as to their doing or not doing,
(though not as to the manner thereof,) and not absolute as of necessary
duties, their practice becomes suspended on such conditions; which
(beside that I formerly mentioned, namely, when they come in competition with greater matters) are especially three: in regard of ourselves,
dissatisfaction of conscience; in regard of others, known scandal, and
USX MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT?
357
disturbance of public fettled peace. When any of these ease occur,

wherein the condition on which the command ie suspended is wanting,
the command there, as all other conditionals, becomes negative. For we
are obliged absolutely in moral duties to do them, and for the manner
rightly, they being no ways suspended as to practice ; but in these only
absolutely for the manner, that, if we do them, we do them rightly;
and conditionally, if we be satisfied in our judgments, and offend not
others thereby, or disturb the public peace; the first being knowledge
in ourselves, the other two charity to other, if we do them. And
therefore where there is no place left for charity to others, (as in
case of equal scandal on both hands,) thy doing or forbearing, there tbou
art at liberty. In which case, in smaller matters, that which is least
observable is best; in greater matters, according to thy concernments,
and charity to thyself, and for general good, if the public be interested
in thee. For when we cannot know on which side our doing or not
doing most evil to others lies, charity to ourselves preponderate
eupposals of the issue.
But time permits me not to launch out into discourses of these eases,
my subject also confining me to the exercise of moderation, which when
the action is to be wholly omitted, is not required, its office being
only, as I have often said, in the regulating of actions. As we must
therefore use modesty in our speeches for or against these, so also in
our practising them according to conveniency and expediency; not too
violently running ourselves out of breath, or a-tilt at others, in our
practising them; but with that equalness of spirit and candour towards
others as becomes us. (Rom. xiv. 19, 23 ; 1 Cor. xi. 16.)
Thus I have done with the case, wherein I have been too large, I
confess, in the whole, though perhaps too short in several particulars,
and I hope not very tedious in any. A little more time for that which
remains will give a release to my pains and your patience.
THE PERSONS.
\
\
\
\
III. For the third general, the persons.

1. Who must exercise this moderation.And that is, in a word,all.
2. To whom.And that is also all with whom we have to do, of all
ranks, degrees, and qualities, superiors and inferiors, as well as equals,
of all tempers and carriages; not only to the gentle, but also to the
froward ; not only to friends, and those equal and fair to us; (for then
what singular thing do we ?) but to those that are, or we repute, our
enemies, that despitefully hate us, and injuriously persecute us, as our
Saviour teacheth. (Matt. v. 44.)
3. Before whom.And that is expressed in the text, "all men;" our
conversation in all the good and the evil things of this life, and towards
all, must to all that see, and observe, or hear thereof, be known to be
moderate.
REASONS.
IV. The fourth general, or the equity of this command, which I shall
show for that towards persons, (waving that towards things, both in
this, and [in the] application, as I told you, being by many sufficiently
handled,) in three particulars :
358
SERMON XVI.
1. Thi it no other than what God himself exercise toward us.In

all his dealings with mankind, from the fall, to the consummation and
end of the world. This doth eminently and always will appear; so that
good reason we should do it, " that we may be the children of our
Father which is in heaven;" (Matt. v. 45 ;) who spareth us continually, when we offend and sin against him. If God was not more
moderate than man, the world would quickly crack about our ears; for
if man had power to his will, it would scarcely be habitable; but he that
hath power, if he should but exercise it even justly, and not use moderation, it would no longer be inhabited. "Thou wicked servant, I
forgave thee all: shonldest not thou also have had compassion on thy
fellow-servant?" (Matt, xviii. 32, 33.)
2. Christ did use moderation eminently towards us, and hath left us
his example to follow, in our exercising it towards one another.Though
he was equal with God, yet he " made himself of no reputation, aud
took upon him the form of a servant, and humbled himself, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;" (Phil. ii. 7, 8;)
whose example how pathetically doth the apostle urge, that " nothing be
done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind esteeming
other better than ourselves; not looking every man on his own things,
but the things of others ;" (Phil. ii. 14 ;) likewise Matt. xi. 25, and
many other places well known.
3. Because we have all need of this from one another.We are all
men subject to like passions; nay, usually those that need it most from
others, use it least; such as are passionate and boisterous, and though
good men, yet, as a wise man said of one of such a rugged 'temper,
" Though he had grace enough for seven others, yet had little enough
for himself." But yet, if there be any so equal-tempered by nature, so
polished by education, so ruled by grace in all things and towards all,
that he hath no need of moderation from others, let him take the first
etone, and violently throw at his neighbour. Read, I pray, Matthew
xviii. 2135 ; which is the great scripture for our moderation to one
another, and is most ample therein, where you will see both, the equity
and necessity thereof to salvation.
USE.
V. For the last particular, which is the use and application of this
moderation towards one another.
1. Use of information.That it is not enough that we have moderation, which all pretend to, though few practise; but we must show it;
nay, not only show it sparingly, or at some times and to some, but
usually, frequently, constantly, and to all men.
2. Therefore use of exhortation.Wherein let me plead with you a
little for moderation towards one another, this so much a-wauting, and
yet so necessary duty, besides the equitableness thereof in the reasons,
consider briefly the necessity, utility, and jucundity thereof.
(1.) How necessary.Are there not , or " difficulties ?"
Have all the like apprehensions? Is not the balance of reason very
deceitful ? Are any of us infallible ? Nay, doth not the pretence thereto
declare the contrary ?
USB MODERATION, AND IN WHAT NOT!
359
(2.) How profitable is this to tee all.Moderation doth not a little

conduce to the health of our bodies, as the great Hippocrates and experience tell as; nothing more destroying as than not only immoderateness in things, but our passions against others ; and not less to the peace
and tranquillity of our minds, for the enjoyment of ourselves, and most
to the serving and enjoying of God. If good Jonah be in a passion, he
is not only weary of his life, bat his praying is nothing but quarrelling
with God. (Jonah iv.) Nay, it hath an especial promise both from God
and Christ: "The meek shall inherit the earth;" (Psalm xxxvii. 11 ;)
whom our Saviour therefore pronounceth " blessed." (Matt. v. 5.) Whosoever, therefore, may curse them, or count them fools for the same, He
having blessed them, blessed they shall be.
(3.) How sweet and pleasant a thing is moderation, both to ourselves
and others.It being the foundation of that sweet fellowship and communion of saints which is one great article of our creed.
Experience tells every one how sweet the fruit of moderation is, so
that felicity and it (as the heathen said) constantly dwell together, in
families, in nations, all the world over.* Without it, this world would
be a desert, barren of all comfort, and nothing but a vast howling
wilderness for bears and wolves, not civil men or Christians, to dwell in.
Let, therefore, the necessity of moderation persuade thee, let its profit
and pleasure draw and allure thee, to the practice thereof.
Lastly. To these motives, let me add that of the text, " The Lord is at
hand." For so I look upon this and all other arguments subjoined to
exhortations and commands; for though they be materially reasons to
convince, yet are formally motives to persuade and quicken us to the
duties enjoined. Flesh and blood may say, " Others are insolent; and
the more we are ready to bear, the more they are apt to injure us;" as
the Heathens to the Christians of old cried, " Blessed are the poor," and
so plundered them : therefore, ululandum inter lupos,-\ "we must retaliate like for like." 0 no, saith the apostle, Kopioj eyyws, " The Lord
is nigh " to observe them, and how they carry [themselves] in his family;
whose wisdom governs their petulancy, and whose power and goodness
can overcome all their malice and unkindness;" is nigh" to observe thee,
and to help thee in his due time, if injured;and "is nigh*' also to judge
both, to punish those that miscarry, (Mutt, xviii. 34, 35,) and reward
those that herein are his children. The not believing this, that "the
Lord is at hand," in his providence and with his judgment, is the great
reason of the want of moderation in the world. Let us, therefore, all
live under a continual sense of this, and all pray for and practise moderation. " Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for
evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye
are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing;" (1 Peter iii. 8,
9;) and that " the Lord is at hand," ready to bestow it upon all those
that make their " moderation known unto all men."
* VALEHIUS MAXIHUS, lib. ix. cap. .
among wolves."EDIT.
f "There must be mutual howling
360
SERMON XVII.
HOW HAY WE HAVE SUITABLE
SERMON XVII.
BY THE EEV. THOMAS MALLEKY, D.D.*
HOW MAY WE HATE SUITABLE CONCEPTIONS OF GOO IN DUTY?
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to
unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes. Gen. xviii. 27.
THIS text presents to us Abraham's standing before the Lord, pleading
for the preservation of the righteous, in the destruction of Sodom, and
for the preservation of Sodom, if possible, from destruction, for the
righteous* sake.
That which we have in it more especially to take notice of, in reference
to this present exercise, is, with what apprehensions or conceptions
of God Abraham did speak to God, did deport himself towards God, did
manage this great undertaking with God : concerning which, four things
present themselves for our observation :
1. That those apprehensions or conceptions [which] Abraham had
of God, did highly exalt and magnify the greatness and excellency of God
in his heart : " Behold, now I have taken upon me to speak unto the
Lord : " One who hath excellency, and sovereignty, and majesty, and
dominion, and power, and glory.
2. That they were such conceptions of God as did humble, vilify, and
abase Abraham in himself in comparison of God : " I have taken upon
me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes ;" a sinful,
weak, worthless, frail piece of vanity and mortality.
. That they were such conceptions of God as did represent him
gracious, propitious, benevolous to the creature, notwithstanding the
greatness and excellency of God, and the meanness and unworthinesa
of the creature : thus much seems to be comprehended in the note
of admiration, " behold !" 0 what admirable condescension ia this in the
great God ! 0 what wonderful mercy and grace is this, that such a poor
vile creature should have liberty to speak to him, to parley with him !
4. That they were such apprehensions of God as did beget in Abraham

a faith of acceptation with God in the performance of that duty, without
which it had been dangerous presumption in him, " who was but dust
and ashes, to take upon him to speak unto the Lord."
Tins example of Abraham I shall endeavour to draw forth for our
practice and imitation. He who is made to us a pattern of faith may be

to us a pattern of true worship ; and such apprehensions or conceptions
* It is highly probable that this is the person who proceeded to the highest degree in
Divinity, December 1st, 1660 ; and who, in the second edition of the " Catalogue of all
Graduates in Divinity, Law, and Physick," &o., Oxford, 1772, (p. 229,) is described as
being a member of New College. Dr. Thomas Mallory, Dean of Chester, who ia sup.
posed to have been one of his kindred, died in 1644. EDIT.
CONCEPTIONS OF GOD IN DUTY?
361
[as] Abraham had of God in speaking to him, euch conceptions of God

we are to have in our prayers and performances to him.
For which end I shall lay down this general proposition :
DOCTRINE.
That such ae speak to God or speak of God, such as draw near to God
or have to do with God in any part of divine worship, must manage all
their performances with right apprehensions and due conceptions of God.
The truth of this general proposition I shall endeavour to manifest

and make clear, by laying down four particular propositions, which must
give evidence to it.
1. The FIRST proposition is this: That we cannot have any true, right
apprehensions or conceptions of God, except we have a true knowledge
of him.Such as have not known God, have slighted him: "Who is the
Lord," saith Pharaoh, " that I should obey his voice ? I know not the
Lord." (Exod. v. 2.) Such as know not God, nor desire to know him,
are so far from drawing near to God, that they drive him as far from
them as they can ; they say unto the Almighty, " Depart from us; for
we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." (Job xxi. 14.)
What counsel Eliphaz gave Job, (whom he supposed to be a greater

stranger to God than indeed he was,) may be an useful instruction to
us : "Acquaint now thyself with God." (Job xxii. 21.) To know God,
and to be known of God, is our highest privilege : " Acquaint thyself
now with Him, and be at peace." The reason why any are real enemies
to God, is, because they know not God; and the reason why many think
God is an enemy to them, is, because they are not acquainted with God
so intimately as they should.
" Acquaint thyself now with God," saith
he; and " thereby good shall come unto thee." But what good ? and
how shall this good come ? It is partly expressed in verses 2225; but
more fully in verses 26, 27: " For then shalt thou have thy delight in
the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy
prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows."
So that, except we know God aright, and have some acquaintance with
him, we cannot delight ourselves in God, we cannot make our prayer to
him, nor lift up our face unto him.

2. The SECOND proposition is: That we cannot know any thing savingly
of God, further than he is pleased to manifest and make known himself to
vs.No man can make known God but God himself. Moses, who had seen
as much of God's glory as any man, when he desired a further manifestation
of God's glory, in a higher measure or degree than formerly he had seen,
he goes to God himself for it: "I beseech thee, show me thy glory."
(Exod. xxxiii. 18.)
The great promise [which] Christ maketh to them that love him and
keep his commandments, is the manisfestation of himself to them by himself : "I will manifest myself to them," for none else can. A disciple
puts a question to him about it: " Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest
thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" (John xiv. 21, 22.) We have
clear answer to this, in Luke x. 21. This very doctrine which is so much
matter of indignation to the wise and prudent of the world, is matter of
362
SERMON XVII.
HOW MAY WE HAVE SUITABLE
rejoicing and exultation to the Spirit of Christ. And he said, " I thank
thee, 0 Father, that thou hast hid and hast revealed; for so it seemed
good in thy sight:" hence is that of onr Saviour, "0 righteous Father, the
world hath not known thee; but these have known." (John xvii. 25.)
3. The THIRD proposition is: That the clearest manifestations of God
to us, and such as can beget in us right apprehensions and due conceptions
of him, are made out to us in and by Jesus Christ." No man hath seen
God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him." (John i. 18.) Therefore no man ever did
or can apprehend any thing of God truly, that is, upon a saving account,
hut in and by Jesns Christ.
The divine essence or Godhead " no man hath seen, nor can see " in
itself. (1 Tim. vi. 16.)
Something of this eternal Godhead is manifested in the works
of creation: "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and
Godhead," are "clearly seen," in "the things that are made." (Rom.
i. 20.) But yet this knowledge of God in the creature could not bear
down the vain imaginations, or idolatrous conception of God, in men's
hearts ; as appears in verses 21, 23.
Much of the eternal Godhead is manifested in the works of providence:
God " doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without
number. Lo, be goeth by us, and we see him not: he passeth on also, but
we perceive him not." (Job ix. 10, 11.) God is invisible in himself, and
incomprehensible in his works; Job made it his work to trace God in his
works. (Job xxiii. 8, 9.) Sometimes God was working forward, or
before him ; sometimes backward, or behind him; sometimes on his right
hand, sometimes at his left hand. Job follows him up and down, if he
might apprehend him, and the reason and design of God in all his works.
But he could not perceive him; God hid himself from him.
Much more of the eternal Godhead was manifested in his most righteous
and holy law; but the manifestations of God here affrighted them that
saw it; the people cry out, " Let not the Lord speak any more to us, lest
we die;" and Moses himself said, "I exceedingly fear; so terrible was
the sight" of God there. (Heb. xii. 21.)
Hence it will follow, that the clearest, sweetest, most comfortable,
manifestations of God to us, and such as can beget in us right apprehensions and conceptions of God, are made out to us only in Jesus Christ,
"who is the image of the invisible God;" (Col. i. 15 ;) in whom God
hath made such discoveries of himself, as can no where be seen but in
Christ: he is the " express image " or character of his Father's " person ;"
(Heb. i. 3;) the exact resemblance of all his Father's excellences in their
utmost perfections; therefore, when Philip desired him to show them
of the Father, to give them a sight to satisfaction ; " He that hath seen
me," saith Christ to him, " hath seen the Father; believe me that I am
in the Father, and the Father is in me." (John xiv. 9, 11.)
In the works of creation, God is a God above us; in his works
of providence, a God without us; in the law, a God against us; in
himself, a God invisible to us. Only in Christ he is Emmanuel, " God
manifested in our flesh," God in us, " God with us," God for us.
CONCEPTIONS OF GOD IN DUTY?
363
4. Hence follows the FOURTH proposition: That the manifestation

of God to us in Christ are those which alone can beget those due apprehensions and right conceptions of God, with which we must draw near to
him, and perform all our worship to him.
As Abraham is held forth to us a pattern of faith ; so he may be to us a
pattern of worship, inasmuch as all true worship to God is performed by
faith, by faith in Christ. Such apprehensions, therefore, [as] Abraham
had of God in his worship, such apprehensions of God we are to have in
our worship; and as Abraham had those conceptions of God by faith in
Christ, so can we have the like conceptions of God by faith in Christ only.
(1.) Those apprehensions Abraham had of God did beget, as we have
shown, high thoughts of God.With such apprehensions of God we must
perform all our worship. See what high thoughts of God his people have
always had in worshipping him : Neh. ix. 5, 6 ; 1 Tim. i. 17; vu 16.
Low thoughts of God will ever perform but low, base, contemptible
service and worship. They brought God the blind, the lame, the sick
for sacrifice; Go, saith God, " offer them to your governor," and see if he
do not scorn your present, as undervalued by it! And " should I accept
this at your hand," which a petty lord will reject with indignation ? " For
I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts." (Mal. i. 8, 13, 14.)
Now, such high thoughts and conceptions of God with which all oar
worship must be performed to him, can spring only from the manifestations of God in Christ, who is the highest revelation of the glory of God,
(Isai. xl. 5,) the brightness, the effulgency of his glory. (Heb. i. 3.)
When God had yielded to give Moses a sight of his glory, he put him
into the cleft of the rock, (which was a resemblance of Christ,* as a
learned divine hath observed,) and so made his glory to pass before him.
(Exod. xxxiii. 22.) Certainly, Moses had here a sight of God's glory
beyond all that ever he had seen before. Compare with this that text:
" God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ:" (2 Cor. iv. 6:) all the other manifestations
of God's glory were but dark and dim, in comparison of those which
appear in the face of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can attain no where
such high, so great, so glorious conceptions of God as in Jesus Christ.
(2.) Abraham had such conceptions of God as humbled, emptied, and
abased him in himself in comparison of God.And with such apprehensions of God must we perform all our worship to him. We are exhorted
to " come and worship, and bow down, and kneel." (Psalm xcv. 6.)
all worship we are to testify, as our absolute subjection to God, so our
humblest submission to him. Observe what self-abasing thoughts the
apprehensions of God's goodness wrought in David when he went to
worship before the Lord. (2 Sam. vii. 1820.)
Now, such conceptions of God, which, above all others, humble, and
lessen, and abase the creature before God,they spring principally from
the manifestation of God in Christ.
It is the general opinion of the Schoolmen, that the angels, in the first
instant of their creation, did not enjoy that sight of God [which] we call
* DR. RAINOLDS on Psalm ex. p. 166.
364
SERMON XVII.
HOW MAY WE BATE SUITABLE
" beatifical vision," and that the angels that fell never had sight of it at
all; for if they had, they could not have fallen.* But what they talk
of the good angels' meriting that beatifical vision of God, in the second
or third instant of their creation, is popish foppery : divines unanimously
attribute their station and stability in holiness to Jesus Christ. We may
upon good grounds also attribute to Jesus Christ their first admission into
the presence, sight, enjoyment of God, their state of supernatural blessedness. Pardon this digression ; it is to make the way clear for the demonstratum in hand, namely, that the angels, before they had a sight of God,
or of themselves in Christ,many of them waxed proud and fell; the
same pride that ruined some might have ruined nil; but after they had a
sight of God in Christ, how humble were they! That vision spoken of,
Isai. vi. 1, 2, was manifestly an appearance of the glory of God in Jesus,
Christ: " I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and
his train filled the temple." What the carriage of the seraphim was
towards God in this bis appearance is expressed: " Each one had six
wings; with twain they did fly;" noting their ready execution of God's
commands; "with twain they did, cover their face;" noting their
natural impotency in themselves to behold the surpassing brightness
of divine glory; ' with twain they covered their feet," as humbled in
the sense and shame of their own creature-imperfection in comparison
of the infinite purity and holiness of God.
Thus, when Moses had had a sight of the glory of God in Christ, he
" made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped."
(Exod. xxxiv. 8.) Quickly is the soul humbled at the manifestations
of God in Christ. In Christ we have seen God humbling, emptying,
lessening, dishonouring, himself for us. (Phil. ii. 57.) Who can be
proud, that hath bad a true sight of God humbled for him ?
By the manifestations of God in Christ are begotten the deepest soulhumiliations for sin: " They shall look upon me whom they have pierced,
and they shall mourn for him, and shall be in bitterness for him." (Zech.
xii. 10.) This great sorrow was not for the piercing of the humanity
of Christ, barely considered ; but for piercing God in Christ, though the
Godhead was not in the least 'passive; therefore that blood which was
shed is called the blood of God; (Acts xx. 28;) and that person who
was pierced [is] called "the Lord of glory." (1 Cor. ii. 8.) Sins against
the manifestations of the love, mercy, grace, compassions, goodness, and
glory of God in Christ, beget the deepest humiliation of soul in all our
confessions.
(3.) Abraham had such conceptions of God ax did represent him gra*
cious, propitious, benevolous to the creature, a bountiful rewarder of him
that serveth him, notwithstanding the greatness of God, or the unvoorthiness of the creature.
Such apprehensions we must have of God in all our approaches to him*
in all our performances of duty and worship.
When Cain could not apprehend so much favour and grace in God as
could pardon his sin and remove his punishment, he then " went out from
the presence of the Lord;" (Gen. iv. 1316;) that is, as interpreters
* See SALKELD de Angelis, c. 34, 33; AQUINAS, pan i. quest. 62, art. 1.
CONCEPTIONS OF GOD IN DUTY f
365
of good note render it, he left, the church of God in hit father's family,
the worship of God, the ordinances of God, the service of God, the profession of God, and all. Such as cannot have apprehensions of God as
gracious, propitious, will not come into the presence of God.
Nor such as cannot apprehend him a bountiful rewarder of them that
come to him. They hid God depart from them who question whether
God can do any thing for them, or whether there be any profit in his
service. (Job xxi. 14, 15; xxii. 17.) When those mercenary hypocrites
had lost their worldly profits and preferments which they had gained by
the profession of religion, when the tide was turned, and profaneness
only countenanced, they cast off all, and said, " It is vain to serve
God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?" (Mal.
iii. 14, 15.)
But he that cometh to God must have such apprehensions of him as
render him gracious as well as glorious, merciful as well as righteous;
for we come to God sitting on his throne of grace, and we have to deal
with mercy for supply to all our needs. (Heb. iv. 16.)
And " he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Heb. zi. 6.) Why did
David prefer the lowest place or office in the house or church of God,
a porter's place, before the highest preferments in the tents of ungodliness ? He gives the reason: " For the Lord God is a sun and shield;"
a sun to confer all good, a shield to preserve from all evil. " He will
give grace and glory,"what can a man desire more? yet, if there be any
" good thing " beside grace and glory, he will not " withhold " it; such
a bountiful master is God in his house, and such an one his servants
apprehend him. (Psalm Ixxxiv. 10, 11.)
Now, we cannot have right apprehensions and due conceptions of the
grace, mercy, good-will of God to us, but from the manifestations of God
in Jesus Christ. It is God in Christ reconciling the world to himself,
and beseeching us to be reconciled to him. (2 Cor. v. 19, 20.) When
\
|
God gave Moses a sight of his glory in the cleft of the rock, " I will,"
saith God, " make all my goodness pass before thee;" and he proclaimed
the name of the Lord: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity,
and transgression, and sin." (Exod. xxxiii. 19; xxxiv. 6, 7.) He presents himself in his richest robes of state, and all his attributes arrayed
in a livery of grace.
Nor can we have right apprehensions of God as a bountiful rewarder of
his servants, but through the manifestations of himself to us in Christ;
for we cannot expect the reward of debt, but of grace. God in Christ,
and upon the account of Christ, is the most bountiful rewarder. So
Christ tells his disciples: " If any man serve me, let him follow me; and
where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him
will ray Father honour." (John xii. 26.) We serve the Father in serving
the Son : never was service rewarded with such honour; " For," saith
Christ, " the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and
have believed that I came out from God." (John xvi. 27.)
(4.) Abraham had euch apprehension* of God a did beget a comfort-
366
SERMON XVII.
HOW MAY WE HAVE SUITABLE
able persuasion of faith for his acceptation with God in that his drawing
near to him.
It is the mind of God that such AS come to him should have such
apprehensions of Him as One that will accept them, embrace them; when
he discovers nothing but wrath and displeasure against them that stand
in opposition against him : " Fury is not in me. Let" a man " take
hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall
make peace with me." (Isai. zzvii. 4, 5.) That holy man knew that all
his happiness consisted in the enjoyment of God; therefore he said, " It
is good for me to draw near to God;" but was he sure God would accept
him? "I have put my trust," saith he, "in the Lord God." (Psalm
Ixxiii. 28.)
Now, such apprehensions of God as beget a faith of acceptation with
God in our approaches to him, can spring only from the manifestations
of God to us in Christ. That is supposed, by judicious interpreters, to be
spoken of Jesus Christ, who is said to engage his heart to approach unto
the Lord; and God saith, " I will cause him to draw near, and he shall
approach unto me." (Jer. xxx. 21.) Christ hath boldness and liberty,
full security of acceptation with God; and hereby he hath procured us
liberty, boldness, and acceptation with God. " Seeing then that we have
a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, let us come boldly
to the throne of grace." (Heb. iv. 14, 16.) " Having boldness to enter
into the holiest, and having an High Priest over the house of God ; let
as draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith," (Heb. x. 19,
21, 22,) for the acceptation of our persons and services: " In whom
we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him." (Eph.
iii. 12.)
From what hath been laid down, we may conclude, that such apprehensions or conceptions of God wherewith we are to draw near to God,
to perform every duty, and every part of divine worship, must flow from
the manifestations of God in Jesus Christ.
USE.
The use I shall make of this point is, to inform Christians how much it
concerneth us to acquaint ourselves more intimately with God as he hath
manifested himself in Jesus Christ; in whom alone we can have right
apprehensions and due conceptions of God ; without which we cannot
perform aright any kind of worship to God.
1. Without due apprehensions and conceptions of God, we cannot
perform any part of that NATURAL worship we owe to God.We cannot
love him, fear him, trust in him, pray unto him, praise him, &c.
2. Without the right apprehensions and due conceptions of God in
Jesus Christ, we cannot perform aright any part of his INSTITUTED
worship.
(1.) for all the ordinances of God's instituted worship (as the sacrifices and sacraments under the law, so the sacraments and other ordinances
under the gospel) seem to have immediate relation , and near dependence
on, Christ." God manifested in the flesh." You may observe, they consist of two parts, the one natural, the other spiritual; the one external,
CONCEPTIONS OF GOO IN DUTY?
367
the other internal; the one, as it were, the body, the other, the soul,
of it; the one representing the humanity, the other the divinity, of Jesus
Christ: so that every ordinance of worship is, as it were, a representation
of Christ incarnate.
(2.) The divine essence or Godhead in Jew Christ teems to be the
proper object of all worship.The Schoolmen have concluded, (to which
I find our learned and pious divines have given their assent,) that " the
essence of the Godhead is the primary and proper object of worship." *
This divine essence is wholly in Christ: " In him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Col. ii. 9.) In that body or human
nature of Christ the fulness of the Godhead dwelt not locally, as locatum
in loco, or contenium in continentefi but by personal union. And the divine
essence, as it is in Christ, seems to be the proper object of all gospelworship : it was so under the law in types and figures; and such was the
tabernacle and temple-worship in its spiritual notion.
The tabernacle or temple was God's habitation or dwelling-place.
(Psalm Izxvi. 2.) There was the only place of public worship. (Psalm
xxix. 2.) No sacrifice was to be offered in any other place. There the
spiritual worshippers had by faith a sight of God, and communion with
God. (Psalm Ixiii. 2; Ixviii. 24.)
Towards God in this place they were
to make all their supplications and prayers wherever, or in what country
soever, they were. (1 Kings viii. 29, 30. See Dan. vi. 10.)
Now the
tabernacle and temple were a type of the body or humanity of Christ,
as himself explaineth ; (John ii. 19;) in which the divine glory of the
Godhead dwelt. " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," (or
" tabernacled in us," as the Greek word signifies,) " and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." (John i. 14.)
Therefore, what the tabernacle or temple was to them under the law, that
is Christ Jesus to us under the gospel. And as God manifested to them
in the temple was the proper object of worship to them, so God manifested
to us in Christ is the proper object of worship to us.
(3.) The flesh or humanity of Christ is the medium or mean by which
we have access to God in all our worship.This is expressed: " Having
boldness to enter into the holiest," where the divine glory appeared
between the cherubims on the mercy-seat, " by the blood of Jesus, by
a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the
veil, that is to say, his flesh." (Heb. x. 19, 20.)
By the "flesh" of
Christ here, I do not understand his natural flesh barely considered as
such, but in that notion as it is to be understood in John vi. 5356 ;
where Christ speaketh of eating his flesh and drinking his blood unto
life; where Christ's flesh, by a metonymy of the cause for the effect,
signifies the righteousness, satisfaction, reconciliation, grace, peace, glory,
[which] Christ procured for us by the obedience he performed to God in
that flesh. By the flesh of Christ in this sense, we have access to God in
all our worship.
Yet is not the consideration of Christ's natural flesh altogether useless
unto this end; for whereas we are apt to frame images and similitudes of
* Da. WED'a " Communion with the Holy Ghost," chap. viii.
one place, or contained in a container."EDIT.
f "Confined in
368
SERMON XVII.
OF SUITABLE CONCEPTIONS OF GOD.
God in oar minds, the right apprehensions of God dwelling in the human
nature of Christ, who is the true " image of the invisible God," * may be
effectual to remove all other images and likenesses of God out of our
minds. But then we must be careful that we do not terminate our
conceptions of God in the man Christ, or in the manhood of Christ; for
then we shall make the human nature of Christ the image of the Godhead,
and that would be an idol. But when we have taken up an apprehension of the humanity of Christ, if our conceptions pass " through the veil
into the holiest," if we are led thereby to worship that Godhead that
dwells in it, this is a right conception and true worship.
The humanity of Christ was to the Godhead as a back of metal to a
crystal glass : look on such a glass in its pure substance, and it is transparent ; put a back of metal to it, and it gives a beautiful reflex. So,
if we take up conceptions of the Godhead in its pure essence, it is transparent : if we consider God infinite, almighty, immense, eternal, what is
this to the creature, or our comfort ? If we consider him in his power,
justice, wisdom, holiness, goodness, truth, what is this to us ? Tea, all
these are against us as we are sinners. But if we take up conceptions
of God in all these attributes as they appear to us in Christ, as they are
backed with the humanity of Christ, so they make a most comfortable
reflex upon us. In this glass we behold " the glory of the Lord," and
" are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) In this glass we behold that wisdom
by which we are instructed, that righteousness by which we are justified,
that power by which we are preserved, that grace by which we are chosen
and called, that goodness by which we are relieved and supplied, that
holiness by which we are transformed, that glory to which we shall be
conformed.
The conclusion of all this is, that our right apprehensions and due
conceptions of God must spring from the manifestations of God in Jesus
Christ.
* Mft. BYFIELD'S Commect on 1 Peter ii, 12, p. 410.
8 XVIIT.
BOW TO LIVE BY PAttS ON PROVIDENCE.
369
SERMON XVIII.
BY THE REV. THOMAS LYB, A.M.
HOW ARK WE TO LIVE BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE?
Trust in him at all time, ye people.Psalm Izii. 8.
THESK words are a serious and pathetic exhortation to a moat important and spiritual duty. In them we observe,
1. The duty proposed and enjoined.That is, trust:* "Trust in
him;" confide in, or securely repose yourselves upon, him, for assistance,
support, direction, protection, provision, deliverance, complete salvation.
2. The subjects of this trust.Or the persons on whom this duty
is incumbent, and from whom it is expected; that is, "ye people."
Wherein we note,
(1.) The eckphonesis that lies conchant in the words, which is apt to
excite intention and affection : as if he had said, " ye people." So
the Arabic translator renders the word, populi.
(2.) The universality of its concernment, to all people.It is an indefinite expression, and holds parallel with an universal: " Te people :"f as
if he had said, " 0 all ye people, of what sex, age, degree, condition,
relation soever." Thus the Septuagint render the word, ueurot
, and the Vulgar [Latin] follows them; that is to say, Omnia congregatio populi.
(3.) The speciality of its obligation, on some people, more than others.
It is true, all the families of the earth must trust in God; but there is a
, "a more special tie" that lies on the household of faith, the
commonwealth of Israel, and assemblies of the saints; those that are the
dearly beloved of God's soul. These are strongly obliged, beyond and
above all others, to trust in the Lord their God. Thus the Chaldee
paraphrase, Popule, Domus Israel: and the Psalmist elsewhere, "O
Israel, trust thon in the Lord. Ye that fear the Lord," whether Jew or
Gentile, "trust in the Lord." (Psalm cxv. 9, 11.)
3. The grand object of this holy trust, or the person in whom this
trust must be reposed; namely, "in him," that is, the Lord Jehovah; as
appears from verse 7. "In him, and in him alone."|| It is an exclusive
particle: " In him, and in nothing beside him."
4. The modification of this trust, or the circumstance of the time when,
and the duration how long, this trust is to be exerted.
(1.) Quando : When must we trust? " At what time ?"
SOLUTION. At all times, omni hora, "every hour:" so the Syriac
version. As a true friend is to love, so a sound believer is to trust, at all
times. (Prov. xvii. 17.)
* A ntol Confisus est. Fiduciam posuit.
* DJ> Singviare collectivum pro pluraK,
per synthesin Hebrais usitatissimam.MOLLERUS. " A noun of multitude in the
nnyular number, instead of the plural, according to a synthetical form very common
with the Hebrews."EDIT.
J"The whole congregation of the people."EDIT.
jj Yet more particularly."EDIT.
|| Ei, id eat, Ei soli.JUKI us et TBEMEIXI U8,
370
SERMON XVIII.
ROW ARE WE TO LIVE
(2.) Quamdiu : The duration of this trust: " How long?"
SOLUTION. " All the day long/' (Psalm xliv. 8.) All our lives long:
all the days of their appointed time must God's Jobs not only " wait/'
bat "trust," till their change come. Yea, "for ever;" (Isai. xxvi. 4;)
nay, " for ever and ever." (Psalm lii. 8.)
Having thus unlocked the cabinet; the jewel or truth that we find
laid up in it, is this j namely:
OBSERVATION.
It ie the great indispensable duty of all believers, at all time to trust

in the Lord, and in him alone,
All that I have to say on this practical truth, I shall couch under these
six generals:
. ', That trusting in God is a believer's duty.
II. What it is to trust in God.
III. What is and ought to be the grand and sole object of a believer's
trust?
IV. What are those sure and stable grounds, those corner-stones, on
which the faithful may firmly build their trust in God ?
Y. What are those special and signal seasons which call aloud for the
exerting of this trust ?
VI. How faith or trust puts forth, exerts, demeans, bestirs itself in
such seasons.
I. Or, That trusting in God is a believer's duty.The Lord is, or at
least he should be, "the confidence* of all the ends of the earth."
(Psalm Ixv. 5.) " Trust in the Lord with all thy heart," (Prov. iii. 5.)
on the arm of his power; (Isai. li. 5;) " on the word of his truth,"f in
his faithful promises, in his freest mercies; (Psalm lii. 8;) in his full
salvation. (Psalm Ixxviii. 22.)
II. What it is to trust in God.
SOLUTION 1. Negatively.To presume on God, to tempt God, to

conceive false hopes of God's gracious favour and protection, whilst in a
way of sin, is not to trust in God. To gallop down a precipice, and to
say confidently, " I shall not fall;" to cast ourselves down headlong from
a pinnacle of the temple, and yet to expect the protection of angels;
(Matt. iv. 57;) to " teach for hire," and to " divine for money,"
and yet to " lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us ?
None evil can come upon us;" (Micah iii. 11;) to bless a man's self in his
heart, and to say he shall have peace, though he walk in the imaginations
of his evil heart; (Dent. xxix. 19;) all this is not to trust in God, but
to "trust in vanity," (Job xv. 31,) and to spin "the spider's web." (Job
viii. 13, 14.)
2. Positively.And so more generally, and more particularly.
(1.) More generally. To trust in God, is to cast our burden on the
Lord, when it is too heavy for our own shoulder; (Psalm Iv. 22;) to
dwell " in the secret place of the Most High," when we know not where
to lay our heads on earth ; (Psalm xci. 1 ;) to " look to our Maker," and
* Metonymia adjunct*, actus pro objecto. " By a metonymy of the adjunct, the oat is
here put for the object."EDIT.

renders our text.
t / verbis ejus. So the Chaldee Paraphrast
BY VAtTH ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE?
871
to "have respect to the Holy One of Israel;" (leai. xvii. 7;) to lean on
oar Beloved; (Canticles viii. 5 ; leai. xxxvi. 6;) to stay ourselves, when
sinking, on the Lord our God ; (leai. xxvi. 3 ;) in a word, trust in God
is that high act or exercise of faith, whereby the soul, looting upon God,
and casting of itself on his goodness, power, promises, faithfulness, and
providence, is lifted up above carnal fears and discouragements, above
perplexing doubts and disquietments, either for the obtaining and continuance of that which is good, or for the preventing or removing of that
which is evil.
(2.) More particularly. For the clearer discovery of the nature of
divine trust, we shall lay before you its ingredients, concomitant, effect.
(I.) The ingredient of trust in God.They are three :
1. A clear knowledge or right apprehension of God, as revealed in hie
word and works."They," and they only, "that know thy name will put
their trust in thee." (Psalm ix. 1U.) The grand reason why God is BO
little trusted, is because he is so little known. Knowledge of God is of
such necessity to a right trust, that it is put as a synonyme for trust:
" I will set him on high, because be hath known," that is, trusted in,
"my name." (Psalm xci. 14.)
2. A full assent of the understanding, and consent of the will, to those
divine revelations, as true and good, wherein the Lord proposeth himself
as an adequate object for our trust.This act the Greeks express by the
word vriffreutw the Latins, by credere, fidem habere, testimonium
recipere i the Hebrews, by ): all importing "believing" or "giving
credit to." Thus the Israelites are said to " believe the Lord and his
servant Moses;" (Exod. xiv. 31 ;) and thus the soul that trusts looks
upon the words of promise, rierroi, , "as
faithful and worthy of all acceptation." (1 Tim. i. 15.)
3. A firm and fixed reliance, resting, or recumbency of the whole soul

on God.Or a firm persuasion, and special confidence of the heart,
whereby a believer particularly applies to himself the faithful promises of
God, and certainly concludes and determines with himself, that the Lord
is able and willing to make good to him the good promises he hath
made. This indeed is the very formality of trust; one of the highest
and noblest acts of faith. This is that which the Greeks term
reiroiflj<nf, and which Paul so frequently useth in several of his epistles.
Thus Abraham is said to be "strong in faith, giving glory to God;"
and was "fully persuaded that, what he had promised he was able*' and
willing "to perform." (Rom. iv. 20, 21.) This the Latins call fiducia;
["trust;"] the Schools, fiduciafidei; ["the assurance of faith;"] the
Hebrews, by a word that signifies " to lean on," or " cast the weight of
one's body on, for support and stay." Thus, " The house of Jacob shall
no more again stay upon him that smote them ; but shall stay upon the
Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth." (Isai. x. 20.)* Thus for the
ingredients of trust.
(II.) The concomitants of an holy trust.And these are,
1. An holy quietness, security, and peaceableness of spirit springing
from full persuasion of our safety.By this the soul is freed from
* |i>tt>J, firmiter innitetur, incumbet.
372
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARE WE TO LIVE
detracting cares and jealousies about our state and condition. Hence
that of the prophet : " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee/' (Tsai. xxvi. 3.)* An
holy security, I say, not a carnal security like theirs mentioned in Zeph.
i. 12, that were "settled on their lees : that said in their heart, The
Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil ;" nor like that of the
scarlet whore, that says in heart, " I sit a queen, and shall see no
sorrow." (Rev. xviii. 7.) No, but an holy security; as we have it
Pror. xviii. 10 :" The name of the Lord is a strong towers the righteous runneth into it," that is, by the feet of trust, " and is safe :"f as safe
as a man judgeth himself to be, when got into an high tower, well
fortified, and fears not the sharpest or swiftest darts that can be shot
against him ; safe as the chickens take themselves to be, " when housed
under the covert of their dam's wing ;" or safe as the manslayer is from
the pursuit of the avenger when lodged in a city of refuge. (Psalm zlvi.
l.)| Thus, when a man trusts in God, he doth sweetly acquiesce
and repose himself in God's bosom, troubles himself no more, casts no
jealous thoughts about his condition. Thus David resolves : "I will
both lay me down in peace, and sleep : for thou, Lord, only makest me
dwell in safety," or " in trust." (Psalm iv. 8.)
2. A steadfast, well-grounded hope. Trust and hope are gemini,
"twins," bom together, bred up together. Hence [they are] often
conjoined in scripture : " Thou art my hope, 0 Lord God : thou art my
trust from my youth :" (Psalm Ixxi. 5 :) and, " Blessed is the man that
trnsteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." (Jer. xvii. 7 ; Psalm
cxix. 42, 43, 49.) Hence the Septuagint usually render the word put
for " trust," as also in the text in on, , and Arias Montanus,
and divers others, Speraie, " Hope ye in the Lord." Hope, then, is
that fidiu Achates, " the faithful companion," of trust. Now, in this
hope, there are two things :
(1 .) A holy and confident expectation and looking out after God1 gracious presence. Trust believes, and hope expects, to enjoy what God has
promised. Thus the prophet : " I will wait upon the Lord, and I will
look for him." (Isai. viii. 17.)|| Hope looks, and looks out, as expecting God's appearing ; not as Sisera's mother once did, who looked for a
victorious success, and expected that her son should have returned a
triumphant conqueror, richly laden with spoils and booty, whenas the
wretch lay bleeding at the feet of Jael ; (Judges v. 28 ;) nor like those
sinful, miserable people, who "looked for peace, but," behold, "no
good came." (Jer. viii. 15.) No : such a vain, groundless hope draws a
blush into the cheek, and covers the face with confusion. But this is a
hope which makes not ashamed ; (Rom. v. 5 ;) whose earnest expectation shall assuredly end in sweet fruition.
* OlVtt> pacem Dlta pacem.
t Sittni Bt exaltabitur. And shall be exalted.*
EDIT.
Celsut oft alto
Infra te cernes hominum genus. SILIUS IT ALICUS, lib. xv. 106.

Shalt see, when stooping from thy lofty seat,
The common race of men beneath thy feet." EDIT.

J Utpulli sub alts gallina.
nsal conftdertter.
|| n1p1 el expectabo eum.
BY FAITH ON DIVINV PROVIDBNCsf
373
(2.) An humble and constant waiting on Got? leisure.Looking out,

and waiting on God, both put together: "Therefore I will look onto
the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear
me." (Micah vii. 7.) Faith gets op to the top of its watch-tower, looks
out, sees whether relief be coming. But suppose none appears in
ken ;* suppose help deferred: yet now it waits, and tarries God's time.
Faith knocks at heaven's gate; no answer from within. Faith knocks
again; still there is silence. However faith concludes, " My God will
hear, yea, and answer too ; but it is fit I should wait his time.'* " The
vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and
not lie: though it tarry/' I must and will " wait for it; because it will
surely come, it will not tarry/' (Hab. ii. 3.) Thus David: My soul,
wait thou only upon God;" or, keep thou silence unto God; "for my
expectation is from him." (Psalm Ixii. 5.) David, when he shuts his
mouth, opens his ear; waits and listens what God will say, and concludes, contra Gentesfi " The Lord will," in his own best time, " speak
peace." (Psalm Ixxxv. 8.)
3. An humble, holy, and undaunted confidence.Thus Solomon: " In
the fear of the Lord," in the filial, awful, reverential fear of God,
"there is strong confidence:$ and his children shall have a place
of refuge." (Prov. xiv. 26.) This holy confidence is nothing else but
faith pegged up to its -la. A confident soul moves in an higher orb
than other saints, leads up the van of the militia of heaven. As patience
is nothing else but hope lengthened ; so confidence is nothing less than
faith strengthened, the very spirits, the mere elixir, of faith; which
carries with it,
(1.) Christian courage and fortitude, opposite to carnal fear and
despondency of spirit. \\" Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust,
and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength." (Isai. xii. 2.)
" He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in
the Lord." (Psalm cxii. 7; xci. 5 ; xlvi. 13.) Thus David, undauntedly : " The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear ?
the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
(Psalm xxvii. 1.) His confidence in God quite extinguished in him all
base, sneaking fear of man. (Psalm Ivi. 4.)
(2.) Christian boldness and adventurousness, opposite to cowardice.

Holy confidence steels the heart of Joseph of Arimathea to go in
;, boldly to " Pilate, and to beg the body of Jesus." (Mark xv.
43.) This [it] was that enabled David to encounter Goliath, that made
* Within sightEDIT.
f M Against the Gentiles/' in opposition to the wishes
of the Heathen by whom the Israelites were oppressed.EDIT.
J j>*hao./Wweia
fartitudinis. "The assurance of strength."EDIT.

An. allusion to a stringed
instrument, stretched up to e-la, one of the highest notes in the scale of music.EDIT.
|| Seatus Ule, gut undique petitus, ftrmius stetit: qui exhausit damonii pharetram, nee
oonoedit, imo ne de gradu quidem tantisper motus est.NIC. <' Blessed is that man
who, though attacked on all sides, has maintained his ground with firmness, has exhausted
the devil's quiver of all its arrows, and who yet exhibits no symptoms of surrendering; but
who, on the contrary, does not recede a footstep from the favourable, position which he
had previously occupied." The first syllable only, in the name of the author of this
passage, is given by Mr. Lye, like many others in the volume; and, not being able to
verify the quotation, I have no means of knowing whether the author's name was Nicteua,
Nicephorus,JNicellus, Nicolaus, or Nicetas.EDIT.
374
SERMON xvni. HOW ARE WK LIVE
him dare to take a bear by the teeth, and a lion by the beard. It is for
sluggards to say, "There is a lioa without;" (Prov. xxii. 13j) but let
a believer that makes God his trust but once know his duty, it is
enough : he will, with a courageous and undaunted mind, cheerfully
undertake it,* and commit both himself and the success to God. (Acts
iv. 13, 19; xx. 22; xxii. 13; Jer. xvii. 7, 8; Dan. iii. 17, 18; Esther
iv. 16; Heb. xi. 3440.)
(3.) Holy and humble boasting, opposite to sinful concealing of what
God hath done for us.A believer that dares not boast of himself or
riches, of any thing within, that " has no confidence in the flesh," yet
dares boast of his God. " In God we boast all the day long, and praise
thy name for ever." (Psalm xliv. 8.) Thus the church challenges the
eyes and ears of all that were round about her ; saying, " Lo, this is our
God; we have waited for him, and he will save us." (Isai. xxv. 9.)
(III.) The effects of a holy trust.And they are such as these :
1. Fervent, effectual, constant prayer.Thus, in our text: " Trust in
him at all times ; ye people, pour out your heart before him." (Psalm Ixii,
8.) "Whilj Joshua is in the valley, conflicting with Araalek, Moses gets
him up into the mount to pray. (Exod. xvii. 9, 11 ; Psalm Ixxxvi. 1,2;
1 John v. 14; Psalm xviii. 2, 3.) Moses knew full well, that as prayer
without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer was but
a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust his
promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands.
He will give, but not without our asking. (Ezek. xxxvi. 37; Psalm 1, 15.)
2. Sincere, universal, spiritual, cheerful, constant, obedience.They
that expect to enjoy what God promises, will be sure to perform what
God enjoins. Holy trust takes it for a maxim, that he that contemns
the commands of a God as his Sovereign, has no share in the promises
of a God as all-sufficient. If we trust in the Son with a faith of confidence, we shall be sure to honour tbe Son with a kiss of obedience,
(Psalm ii. 12.) Thus David: " I have hoped for thy salvation, and
done thy commandments." (Psalm cxix. 1C6.) As faith shows itself by
its works, (James ii. 18,) so trust discovers itself by its obedience;
especially in the use of such means as God prescribes for the bringing
about his appointed end, If Naaman will prove that he trusts the God
of Israel, he must go and wash in Jordan. True, indeed, the waters
of Bethesda could not cure, unless the Angel stirred those waters; and
yet the Angel would not cure without those waters. Paul trusted that
himself, and the men with him, should all get safe to land; but then it
was with this proviso, that they all kept in the ship. (Acts xxvii. 24, 31.)
God's means are to be used, as well as God's blessing to be expected.
3. Soul-ravishing, heart-etiliveniwg joy.Thus David: "I have trusted
in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation." (Psalm xiii. 5.)
If the Lord be our trust and strength, he will be (he cannot but be)
our joy and song. (Isai. xii. 2.) " In whom believing," (let me add,
* Invictus ad labores, fortis ad pericula, rigidus adversus voluplates, durus adversus
illecebras.AMBROSIUS. "He remains unconquered by labour, armed with fortitude
amid all perils, rigid against pleasures, and severe against all enticing allurements."
BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE?
375
in whom trnsting,) "ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and foil of

glory." (1 Peter i. 8.) Thns trust and joy are linked and lodged together in that: " The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust
in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory." (Psalm Ixiv. 10.)
See to what a cue of joy Habakkuk's trust had raised him. (Hab. iii.
1719.) The soul that truly trusts cannot but sit down under God's
"shadow with great delight: his fruit" must needs be exceeding
" sweet to our taste." (Canticles ii. 3.) Is Jonah "exceeding glad" with
the shadow of his gourd ? (Jonah iv. 6;) how, then, must a saint needs
rejoice in the protection of a God! And thus I have despatched the
second general proposed; namely, a full discovery of the nature of trust
in God, what it is, what [are] its ingredients, concomitants, effects. I
proceed to the third, namely,
III. What is, or at least ought to be, the grand and sole object of a
believer's trust ?
SOLUTION. The text and doctrine tell us, it is the Lord Jehovah,
and he alone. He is, or at least should be,
1. The GRAND object of a believer1 trust."Put your trust in the
Lord." (Psalm iv. 5.) In whom should a dying creature trust, but in
"living God?" (1 Tim. iv. 10.) In stormy and tempestuous time,
though we may not run to the bramble, yet we must to this Bock, for
refuge. (Isai. xxvi. 4.) When the sun burns hot, and scorches, a
Jonah's gourd will prove insignificant: no shadow like that of a God*
wings. (Psalm xxxvi. 7.)
2. The SOLE object of a believer's trust.Holy trust is an act of worship proper and peculiar to a holy God. No creature must share in it:
whatever we trust in, unless it be in subordination unto God, we make it
our God, or at least our idol. True trust in God takes us off the hinges
of all other confidences: as we cannot serve, so we cannot trust, God
and Mammon. There must be but one string to the bow of our
trust; and that is the Lord. More particularly, we may not, mast
not, repose a holy trust in any thing besides God, either within us, or
without us.
(1.) Not in any thing within us.And so,
(i.) Not in our heads, understanding, wisdom, policy.No safe leaning
to our own understanding. (Prov. iii. 5.) Carnal wisdom is but an
ignus fatuus, that misleads into a bog, and there leaves us. " Thy
wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee." (Isai. xlvii. 10.)
He that is wise in his own eyes, will be found at last to stand in his own
light.
(ii.) Not in our own hearts.It is folly, the height of folly, to trust
those lumps of flesh, that are so deceitful, so desperately wicked. (Prov.
xxviii. 26; Jer. xvii. 9.)
(iii.) Not in our bodily strength and vigour.Those hands, that are
now able to break a bow of steel, will eftsoons hang down and faint.
(Eccles. xii. 13.) The most brawny arm [will be] utterly unable to
ward off, or wrestle with, the assaults of death or sickness. Those legs,
which now stand like pillars of brass, will shortly appear to be, what
indeed they are, but sinking pillars of mouldering clay. Raise the
376
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARE WE TO LIVE
strength of man to its highest x/tMj, [acme",] yet even then it cannot
make to much as one hair either white or black. (Matt. v. 36.)
(iv.) Not in any natural or acquired excellences.Be they what they
will, or should they be far more than they are. Should all the lines
of created perfections meet in one man, as in their centre; yet surely
that man, in that his best estate, is altogether vanity, (Psalm xxxix. 5,)
and therefore not to he trusted in.
(2.) Not in any thing without us.To trust in any creature without
us, is to feed not so much on bread as ashes, (Isai. xliv. 20,) or rather ou
gravel-stones, which may easily break the teeth, but can never fill the
belly.
(i.) Not in riches. (Jer. ix. 23.)No, not in the abundance of riches.
(Psalm Hi. 7.) Though riches increase, our hearts must not be set upon
them. Riches, when in their fullest flow, are most uncertain. (1 Tim.
vi. 17.) "Wilt thou," therefore, "set thine eyes upon that which is
not?" (Prov. xxiii. 5.) Though they seem to have a being, yet they
are indeed but fair-faced nothings, gilded vanities. Or, suppose they are,
yet the next moment they may not be; like birds on the wing, ready to
take their flight. Treasures, then, are not to be made our trust. They
cannot "profit in the day of wrath." (Prov. xi. 4.) Nay, if we trust in
our riches on earth, never expect a portion in heaven. Sooner shall the
camel go through the eye of a needle, than such an one pass through the
gate of glory. (Mark x. 24, 25.)
(ii.) Not in idols. (Psalm cxv. 8.)Baal, Dagon, Ashtaroth, and the
whole pack of those senseless abominations, cannot save themselves;
much less can they preserve their bewitched votaries.
(iii.) Not in man, or human allies or assistances. (Psalm Ixii. 9, 10.)
Egypt and all her chariots, when trusted in, prove not supporting-staffs,
but broken reeds, which run into the side and bear not up, but wound
the body, (2 Kings xviii. 24 ; Jer. xlvi. 25.) If the shadow of Egypt be
our trust, the end of that trust will be our confusion. (Isai. xxx. 2, 3.)
Might we build the nest of our trust on the sons of men, reason would
bid us pitch on the topmost branches of the tallest cedars; I mean those
earthly gods, the princes of this world. But, alas! these, though styled
gods, must die like men, (Psalm Ixxxii. 6, 7,) yea, like other men.
Their breath is in their nostrils; they soon return to their dust, from
whence they sprang} and then all their thoughts, and, with them, our
hopes on them, perish. (Psalm cxlvi. 4.)
(iv.) Not in any thing clad in mortal flesh.He that presumes to
make flesh his arm, will be sure, at a long run, to find the Father of spirits his foe. '* Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in
man, and maketh flesh his arm." (Jer. xvii. 5.) And thus we have
despatched the third general.
IV. What are those sure and stable grounds on which saints may firmly
and securely build their trust on God ?
SOLUTION. There is nothing which the eye of faith or reason can

discover in God, but the arm of trust may safely lean on. But more particularly,
J, God* almighty arm and power.The Lord hath an arm, an out-
BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE f
377
stretched ana; (1 Kings viii. 42;) a hand, an omnipotent hand; a hand

that spans the heaven (Isai. xl. 12,) that stretcheth them out as a
curtain, and spreadeth them oat as a tent to dwell in. On this Almighty
arm may believers trust. (Isai. li. 5.) The Lord is a strong and mighty
God, (Psalm xxiv. 8,) that created the world with a word, (Psalm xxxiii.
9,) and can as easily speak or look it into its first nothing. He is a
wonder-working God. (Exod. xv. 11.) [nitf ^,] El-shaddai, (Gen.
xvii. 1,) "Able to do," farep ex , "far more exceeding-abundantly
than we can ask or think." (Eph. iii. 20.) His vast power far exceeds
our wants, prayers, thoughts, all that we can need, beg, imagine. We
want much, can ask great things, can think greater. Our imaginations
exceed our expressions; yet God's power far exceeds both. Open we our
mouths never so wide, his open hand can more than fill them. (Psalm
Ixxxi. 10.) God's power, then, is a most firm basis, whereon to fix our
trust. " Trust ye in the Lord Jehovah; for in the Lord Jehovah is
"tt^ly "i 13 everlasting strength." * Creature-props are not able to bear
the weight and stress of an immortal soul. They are sandy foundations,
apt to sink and crumble under us. But an almighty God is a Bock, a
Rock of Ages; on which he that builds his confidence, though the winds
blow, the rain descends, and the storms beat upon him, yet shall he
not fall. (Matt. vii. 25.) On this power of God Abraham built his transcendent faith, (Bom. iv. 21,) and David his impregnable trust. (2 Sam.
xxii. 2, 3.)
2. Gofs infinite and free goodness, mercy, and bounty." The Lord
is good to all: and his tender mercies are over 11 his works." (Psalm
cxlv. 9.) "With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous
redemption." His bowels are as tender as his arm is strong. He is no
less willing than able to relieve; therefore, "let Israel hope in the Lord."
It is the Psalmist's inference. (Psalm cxxx. 7.)
"Like as a father
pitieth bis children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." (Psalm
ciii. 13.) That father tbat sees his child in want, and pities not, and
pitying, if able, relieves not, forfeits the name of father, and may
write himself, not man, but monster. It is enough for our heavenly
Father, that he knows we have need of any thing. (Matt. vi. 32.) The
Lord is all that to his people, yea, and infinitely more than that, which
Zsie Mammosa was to the Egyptians: "a God full of dugs;" and
whilst he hath a breast, let not saints fear the want of milk. The character that the Heathens idolatrously gave their Jupiter, may far more
truly (indeed only) be ascribed to our Jehovah: He alone is that Et/j re,
Meyet; re, that Optimus Maximus, " the Best, as well as the Greatest,
of Beings." Goodness is God's darling attribute; it is that which he looks
on as his glory. " I beseech thee," saith Moses, " show me thy glory."
(Exod. xxxiii. 18.) "Moses, thy prayer is heard, and it shall be answered." But what says God in answer to this request ? " I will make
all my goodness pass before thee." (Verse 19.) The thing requested was
a view of God's glory; the thing promised was a discovery of God's
goodness: which hints unto us, that, however all the attributes of God
are in themselves glorious, yet the Lord glorieth most in the manifestation
* Pelra saculvrum. ["The Rock of Ages."] Isai. xxvi. 4.
378
SERMON XVItl.
BOW ARE WE TO LIVE
of bis goodness. So, then, though we hare nothing to plead or prevail

with God, as in or from ourselves, yet there is an orator in his own
boeotn that will certainly and effectually intercede for oar relief; and that
is his goodness. This was that, that buoyed up David; this was the
cordial that kept him from fainting: "I had fainted, unless I had
believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
(Psalm xxvii. 13.)
3. GoeFe many, choice, exceeding great, and precious promises.These
are the flagons that faith keeps by her, the apples [which] she hath
hoarded up in store, to revive and quicken in a day of swooning. Who
will not trust the word, the promise, the protest of the King of kings 1
God hath said, " I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Heb. xiii. 5.)
The Greek here hath five negatives, and may thus be rendered : " I will
not, not leave thee; neither will I not, not forsake thee."* "Five
times," as one observes, " is this precious promise renewed, that we may
suck and be satisfied with the breasts of its consolations, that we may
milk out and be delighted with the abundance of its glory." Leave us
God may, to our thinking; but really he doth not, will not. Or if he
leaves us for a time, a email moment, yet he will not forsake us utterly.
Desert he may, but not disinherit; forsake us, it may be, in regard
of vision, not of union; change his dispensation, not his disposition.
Dost thou pass through the waters ? Thy God hath promised to be with
thee: he was so with Noah, and the Israelites in the Bed Sea and in
Jordan. Dost thon walk through the fire ? Warmed thou mayest be,
" thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."
(Isai. xliii. 2.) The three children were living monuments of this truth;
God "sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him."
(Dan.iii. 28.) The Lord hath graciously engaged to "create upon every
dwelling-place of Mount Sion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and
smoke by day," for her protection, "and the shining of a flaming fire by
night/' for direction ; to be a shield and sun, yea, and " a shadow from
the heat, and a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from rain."
(Isai. iv. 5, 6.) In such promises as these holy David trusted : this
was his comfort in his affliction, the word of his God quickened him.
(Psalm cziz. 49, 50.) God's promisee are some of his bonds and obligations whereby he is held firmly bound to believers. These faith makes
bold to put in suit, to plead the security that God hath given. " Lord,"
eaith faith, " here is thy bill obligatory; behold, see here thy hand and
seal. Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets,
and staff." Thus David : *' Kemember the word unto thy servant, upon
which thou hast caused me to hope." (Psalm cxix. 49.) The word of
promise was all that David had to show; and he counts that enough to
set his faith on work.
4. God's inviolable, steadfast, never-failing faithfulness. (1 Cor. x. 13.)
God's goodness inclines him to make good promises, and his faithfulness
engages him to make those promises good. If the word be once gone
out of his mouth, " heaven and earth shall sooner pass away, than one
* -, ovSt . " Never, in no wise, in no case; whatever I do, I will not do this,
whatever shift I make."
379
iota of that word fail." (Luke xzi. 33.) This faithfulness of God Joshua
asserts to the height: throws down the gauntlet, and does, as it were,
challenge all Israel to show but that one thing that God had failed them
in, of all the good things that he had promised. (Joshua xxiii. 14, 15.)
If God in very faithfulness afflicts, (Psalm cxix. 75,) to make good his
threatening; much more in faithfulness will he preserve, to make good his
promises. God never yet did, never will, fail that man that puts his
trust in him. (Psalm ix. 10.) It is true, God may froWn on, yea,.and
severely lash, a Solomon, a Jedidiah, when they break his statutes, and
keep not his commandments : " Nevertheless, his loving-kindness he will
not utterly take from them, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail." (Psalm
Ixxxix. 33.) God never yet brake his word by deceiving; nor cracked his
credit by compounding, for less than was due, with any mortal living.
80 faithful is God, so true to his word, that let God but promise a victory,
and Jehoshaphat will sound an Triumphe before the battle. (2 Chron.
xx. 17, &c.) And let but him threaten Babylon's ruin, and the angel
cries, " Babylon is fallen." (Rev. xiv. 8.) Thus then God's faithfulness
calls for saints' trust. (Psalm cxlvi. 5, 6.)
5. God?9 most holy, wise, powerfol, gracious providence.This also ie
a prop for trust. It is the Lord that " gives unto all life, and breath,
and all things." It is " in him we all live, and move, and have our being."
(Acts xvii. 25, 28.) " The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding" of and providing for " the evil and the good." (Prov. xv. 3.) This
Dirine Providence the Egyptians acknowledged, and held forth in that
significant hieroglyphic of a sun portrayed in a ship tossed with wind
and water. (EusEBius De Prepar. Evang. lib. Hi. c. 3.) God hath an
eye in the wheels and motions of all inferior creatures. (Ezek. i. 1.8, 20.)
" )jj.sA>jafvov urapot rep ' trxovroei 6
txotjttijro; ;.* Hence that holy symbol of our English Josiah,

Edward VI.; namely, a celestial globe, with this motto, Nihil sine Deo.
[" Nothing without God."] It is the Lord that feeds the sparrows that
have no barn, and the ravens that have no granary. It is he that so
gorgeously clothes the lilies that have no distaff. Not a bird descends
from his perch, not an hair falls from the head, without his Father.
" Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows."
(Matt. x. 2931.) Where God sends mouths, he will not grudge
meat. And he that feeds the young ravens, will not starve the
young herons.f Faith contemplates what God doeth, recounts what
God hath done; and from thence concludes what God will do. Hence
it prays with the Psalmist; Psalm xvii. 7, and xxxi. 19. Faith reflects
on former experiences, its own and others'; and by the holy skill it hath
in the physiognomy of providence, clearly reads and collects what God
will do, in what God hath done. It casts its eye on,
(1.) The experiences of others.And judges herself to have an interest
*." There is in God no deficiency of provident solicitude or tender care concerning any of
his creatures. That benignant and ever-wakeful Eye brings fully within the range of its
observation all things that exist."EDIT.
t [The saying of] Mr. Heron, when
lying, to hit* wife, somewhat desponding by reason of her many children, and small
for them.
380
SERMON XTIIX.
HOW ARE WE TO LIVE
in those very providences of grace which they enjoyed. Thus the

church, a thousand years after that heavenly combat betwixt God and
Jacob, tells us, that God found Jacob "in Bethel, and there he spake
with us," (Hosea xii. 4,) several ages before they were born; yet with
*, that is, with Jacob for our good, on our account, for our interest.
Faith remembers, there was once a Joseph in a prison, a Jereray in a
dungeon, a Daniel a den, a Peter in chains, a Hezekiah on a supposed
death-bed; and Providence assisted them: why not me?"* "This
poor man cried, and the Lord heard him;" (Psalm xxxiv. 6;) and,
"Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver
them/' (Psalm xxii. 4, 5.) "Lord, thou art 'the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever;' why, then, may not I expect salvation from
thee?"
(2.) Its own experiences.Thus David confidently replies to Saul, that
thought him no match for Goliath: " The Lord that delivered me out
of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me
out of the hand of this uncircumciaed Philistine;" (1 Sam. xvii. 37;)
and thus Paul: he had the sentence of death upon him; the black stones
were thrown down into the urn against him; but his God had [delivered]
and did deliver, and therefore in him he trusts, " that he will still deliver." (2 Cor. i. 10.)
6. And, lastly, I argue from those dear relations in which the Lord
is pleased to stand and own towards his people.These cry aloud for
their trust in God. Is he not our Creator? (Isai. xl. 28.) Hath he
built the house, and will he not keep it up ? He that made us will
assuredly take care of us. We may safely give up ourselves, our trust,
our all, to him, who hath given us ourselves and our all. This relation
the apostle makes the ground of trust. (1 Peter iv. 19.) Is he not our
Redeemer ? Will he part with his blood for us, and yet deny us bread ?
Is he not our Father? (Isai. Ixiii. 16.) Are we not his children? And
shall he not provide for his own children? (1 Tim. v. 8.) Hath the
great God put such a pbilostorgy, or " natural affection," into the bear,
pelican, dolphin, lioness, [and] eagle, towards their young, and shall
not he much more carry his own upon eagles' wings ? (Exod. xix. 4.)
Is he not our King, Head, and Husband? In a word, all those relations wherein we stand to God, or God to us, are stable grounds of our
trust upon him, and strong engagements of his assistance to, and
providence over, us. Thus much for the fourth general. The fifth
followeth:
V. What are those special and signal seasons which call aloud for the
exerting of this dimne trust ?
SOLUTION. This holy duty is indeed never out of season. So much

the original word nyf for "time" imports. True, indeed, our Saviour
saith, and saith truly, "My time," that is, my time of discovering
myself to be a wonder-working God, "is not yet come." (John vii. 6 ; ii. 4.)
Yea, but all time, in respect of trust in God, is an appointed, yea, and an
* ARROW SMITH'S ["Chain of Principles,"] chain 401, 416; JENKIN "on Jude,"
part. i. p. 286.
Isai. L 4.EDIT.
t A DB^ tempestive eloqui. " To speak a word in season." See
BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDING* ?
381
accepted, time. The Wise Man tells us, there is an appointed time for
every purpose under heaven: a time to kill and to heal, to plant and to
pluck np, to weep and to laugh, to get and to lose, to be born and to
die. (Eccles. iii. 1, &c.) In all these, trust in God is not, like snow in
harvest, uncomely, but seasonable, yea, necessary. There may be indeed
a time when God will not be found, but no time wherein he must not be
trusted. Nullum tempvs occurrit regi, saith the law. Let me add, Nee
fiduda* and it is sound divinity: " The time of trusting in God cannot
be lapsed." But, more expressly, there are some special instances and
nicks of time for trust :
1. The time vf prosperity.When we sit under the warm beams of a
meridian sun ; when we " wash our steps in butter, and our feet in oil;
when the candle of the Lord shines on our tabernacle; when our mountain is made strong:" now, now is a time for trust; but not in our mountain, (for it is a mountain of ice, and may soon dissolve,) but in our God.
Halcyon days to some are temptations to security; but to saints, times
for trust; to carnal persons, lures and decoy f to pride, but to believers,
seasons for dependence. Now it is that a saint owns God as the author,
(not chance, or his own wit and industry,) and implores his God to be the
preserver and blesser, of his enjoyments. When our cistern is full, our
trust must be not in it, but [in] the fountain. (Canticles iv. 15.) At our
fullest tables, we must acknowledge that, as bread is the staff of our lives,
so that staff cannot support unless held in God's hand. (Isai. iii. 1.)
God's blessing is the only stay of that staff of bread. Man lives not by
bread alone; indeed not so much by bread, as by the word of blessing
that proceeds out of God's mouth. (Matt. iv. 4.)
2. The time of adversity.This also is a seasonable time for trust;
when we have no bread to eat, but that of carefulness; nor wine to
drink, but that of affliction and astonishment; no, nor water either, but
that of our own tears. Now is a time, not for over-grieving, murmuring,
sinking, desponding, despairing, but for trusting.
In a tempest, then, a believer thinks it seasonable to cast anchor
upward. Thus did good Jehoshaphat: " 0 our God! we know not what
to do: but our eyes are unto thee." (2 Chron. xx. 12.) Thus David :
'What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." (Psalm Ivi. 3.) Times
of trouble are proper times for trust, be the trouble either spiritual or
temporal.
(1.) Spiritual trouble.Doth the child of light walk in darkness; in
each midnight darkness, that he hath no light? Now is a time to
" trust in the name of the Lord, and to stay himself upon his God/'
(Isai. 1. 10.) Doth God take Job by the neck, and shake him even to
pieces ? Doth he set him up for his mark, and shoot such arrows into
his soul, that the poison of them drinks up his spirits ? Why now, when
God is killing, yea, though he kills, Job will trust. (Job xiii. 15.) His
* " The king' rights suffer no injury from lapse of time. Neither does trust or confidence in God suffer any."EDIT.
t Instead of decoys, all the editions have
DUCKOYS, a word which was in common use prior to the Revolution, and which bore die
same signification as that which, in mote modem days, is conveyed by the compound
word, decoy-ducks.EDIT.
382
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARK WE TO LIVE
faith lives in the midst of death. Is a godly Hem an so scared with the
terrors of God, that he is even distracted ? though he be at his wits' end,
yet [he is] not at his faith's end. Heman will pray, and trust, and hope
even now, in this his day of spiritual trouble. (Psalm Ixxxviii. 13, 15.)
(2.) Temporal.Is it an evil time ? (Micah vii. 79;) a time of personal distress and visitation ? a time of wants or weakness ? Doth the
barrel of meal begin to fail, and the cruse of oil sink? Is there no
"fruit in the vine?" Doth "the labour of the olive fail?" "Are the
flocks cut off from tie fold, and are there no herds in the stall?" Now,
now is a time for Habakkuk to believe, believing to trust, and trusting to
" rejoice in the Lord, and to joy in the God of his salvation." (Hab. iii.
17, 18.) Throw a Jonah overboard into the raging sea, bury him alive
in the whale's belly, let the floods compass him about, and all God's billows pass over him ; yet even then Jonah remembers God, and with the
eye of his trust dares look towards his holy temple. (Jonah ii. I9.)
Let holy Paul have the sentence of death upon him, yet he will trust;
(2 Cor. i. 9, 10;) and so will David, though he walk in the very " valley
of the shadow of death." (Psalm xxiii. 4.) Be the trouble what it will
be, faith knows what to do, namely, to fly, by the wings of trust, to Him
that is the hope of Israel, and his Saviour in the time of trouble. (Jer.
xiv. 8; Isai. xxxiii. 2.) Trust in God in a sad condition is a believer's
alextpharmacum prastantissimum, " his choicest medicine, preservative,
antidote against faintings, swoonings, sinkings." It is like that corneum,
Indorum poculum, which Philostratue speaks of; (lib. iii. c. 1;) namely,
" a goblet out of which the Indian princes drank," and then looked on
themselves as secure from the assaults either of fire, sword, or poison.
VI. And, lastly: How faith or trust exerts, puts forth, demeans, and
bestirs itself in these signal seasons. (Psalm xxxvii. 39.)
(I.) In times of fulness and prosperity.When it goes well with us
and ours; when the caudle of the Lord shines on us and our tabernacle;
when our lines fall in pleasant places, and our God makes us to lie down
in green and fat pastures : when we are as the wings of a dove, covered
with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold; when, with Judah, we
wash our garments in wine, and our clothes in the blood of grapes ; now,
now, is a fair opportunity for faith or trust to exert itself, yea, and to
appear gloriously. And, indeed, it requires no less than the utmost
of faith's skill, to steer the soul handsomely in this serene and smoothfaced calm. And so,
1. Faith or trust looks upward, and there fixeth its eye on God and on
the thing of God.
(1.) On God.And so holy faith delivers herself, in such effata
[" expressions "] as these; namely,
(i.) "How full soever my large cistern be, it is the Lord, and the Lord
alone, that is the grand Fountain, or rather Ocean, of all my enjoyments.
'All my springs are in him.' (Psalm Ixxxvii. 7.) All my streams are
from him." Faith freely and humbly acknowledges, that all outward as
well as inward blessings, that " every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." (James i. 17.)
Every good gift; not only those transcendents of grace and glory,
BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDBNCf
383
of union with Christ here and full fruition of Christ hereafter; but also
all temporal good things, be they more or less, even to an hoof or shoelatchet, faith confesseth that it hath nothing, but what it received from
God. (1 Cor. iv. 7.) "As God in mercy hath promised, so God in
bounty hath given me these earthly enjoyments." (Matt. vi. 33; 1 Tim.
iv. 8.) " Tt is the Lord that gave," saith believing Job; (Job i. 21 ;)
riches, honour, advancement, promotion, they all come of God; " not
from the east, nor west, nor south ;" that is, neither this way nor that
way, nor any way of man, but " God putteth down one, and setteth up
another." (Psalm Ixxv. 6, 7.) Faith knows that as all good things come
from God, so all success in business, all blessings on our labours, callings,
affairs* is only from the Lord. It is the Lord alone that makes whatsoever Joseph doetli to prosper. (Gen. xxxix. 23.) The disciples may* fish
and tug all night; but till Christ comes, they can catch nothing. (Matt,
iv. 19.) It is the blessing of the Lord alone that maketh rich. (Prov.
x. 22.)
(ii.) " Since all that I have is received of God, I may not, I must not, boost,
crack, glory, as if I received it not. (1 Cor. iv. 7.)Let others," saith
faith, " thank their own labours, wisdom, policy, parts, wickedly ' sacrifice to their own nets, and burn incense to their own drags, as if by them
their portion were fat, and their meat plenteous.'" (Hab. i. 16.) Faith
leaves it to the atheist to bless himself in being fortuna stuefabers* or,
with that dunghill wretch who, being excited to thank God for a rich
crop of corn, replies, " Thank God shall I! Nay, rather thank my
dung-cart!" Faith is of another kind of complexion. "0 far be it,"
saith she, " that I should so much as in my heart say, that ' my power
and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.'" (Deut. viii.
17, 18; Dan. iv. 30.)
(iii.) " Inasmuch as all that I have is from God's blessing and bounty,
this whole all shall be for his praise and glory.Since all my enjoyments
are of him, it is but just that all should be to him. (Bom. xi. 36.) He
that is the Alpha,' the beginning' of all my mercies, shall be the Omega,
'the end' and centre of all my services.f These earthly treasures,"
saith faith, " shall be improved for high and heavenly ends : not thrown
into the sink of a voluptuous paunch, not so much [as] on a hawk or
hound, but laid and locked up in God's treasury; that is, the backs and
bosoms of Christ's poor members." Faith is resolved to improve Satan's
greatest weapon (that is, the world and its sweetest enjoyments) against
himself: it will break his hairy scalp with his own cudgels, turn his own
cannons against him; that is, by reducing all its worldly enjoyments
into a serviceableness and subordination for the glory of God. Faith disdains to take that coarse way of curing the lust of the eyes by plucking
them out, and to slake the thirst of riches by a profuse casting of it into
* " The fabricator of his own fortune.'.'EDIT.
f Diis te minorem quod geri, imperas:
Hinc omne principium, hue refer exitum.Ho RATH Com., lib. iii. od. vi. 6,6.
** You reign by bowing to the gods' commands:
From this your State arose, on this your glory stands."
Translation of Bentley's Horace. (Lintot, 1712.)
3S4
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARB WE TO LIVE
the sea, to conquer the world's honour and applause by taming hermit,
and hiding of its head in a lonely care. No; faith prepares the soul for
a nobler way of victory, not by slighting the bait, but by digesting of it
into food, by using of creature-comforts, as so many rounds in Jacob's
ladder, to mount itself and others the nearer heaven. Faith considers
that the King of heaven expects his toll, tribute, custom, out of all our
receipts; that where much is given, there more is required; (Luke xii.
48;) and justly fears, lest, if it should not pay its God the interest, it
should, and that justly, forfeit and lose the principal. Therefore, the
more it is dunged, and dressed, and pruned, the more abundant clusters
it brings forth, and such as are acceptable to the palate of the vinedresser. (Isai. v. 2, &c.)
(iv.) ** Because all my enjoyments proceed from God's free-gift, or
rather JIM loan, therefore they must and shall oe readily surrendered to
God's call.If God will continue these outward comforts," saith faith,
" I will own and improve his bounty; and yet if he thinks fit to call-in
his debts, I will revere, and submit to bis sovereignty." Let God give,
and give abundantly, Job will bless. Let God take, Job knows he
takes but his own, and on that account will bless him then. Job has
learnt to bless a taking as well as a giving God. (Job i. 21.) " Here are
lands, houses, children, parents, dear enjoyments indeed; but yet such
as are not my fee-simple," saith faith; " I am only a tenant at will. All
these, yea, and much more, nay, life, and all must and shall be denied,
resigned, when God calls for them." (Luke xiv. 33.) A gracious heart
knows that he cannot possibly make so much of his worldly enjoyments
any other way as by offering them up for Christ's sake, and resigning
them to Christ's call. Mary's ointment could never have been carried to
a better market than it was, when poured so freely on her dear Saviour's
head. Be a believer's enjoyments what they will, never so great, never
so precious, suppose his vessel laden with pearls; yet even these shall
[be thrown] overboard, rather than hazard the wreck of faith or a good
conscience. (1 Tim. i. 19.)
(v.) "Now I enjoy most from God, now, even now, it is necessary that
I should trust mostly, yea, wholly and only, in God."Thus Jehoshaphat;
(2 Chron. xx. 12;) thus Asa, though he had an army almost innumerable, no less than five hundred and fourscore thousand men, all of them
mighty men of valour; yet he looks on all of them as ciphers, as nothing
without a God; and therefore now puts forth his trust in God, and flies
to him for help. (2 Chron. xiv. 8, 11.) Here, indeed, was a noble trust.
It is difficult to trust God in our greatest wants, but more difficult to
trust him in our greatest weal. It was a brave act of trust in Job, when
he resolves to trust in God, though he killed him; (Job xiii. 15;) a high
attainment in Paul, when he had nothing, to be as one that possessed all
things. Yea, but, when God quickens, when we are full and abound,
when our cup runs over, now to trust in a God, and not in our cup;
when our sails are filled with a trade-wind, then to confide only in our
Pilot; when we have all things, and yet then to look on the creature as
utterly insufficient, and to lean wholly on God's all-sufficiency:this
speaks the most spiritual and refined trust; and yet this is that which
BY FAITH ON DIVINE MtfmDKNOB?
385
faith exerts in it fullest enjoyment*. Where mercy abound, trust

superabonnds; reputing the' creature as nothing at an, and esteeming
God a all in all.
(vi.) " Theee outward enjoyments are indeed tweet; but my God, the
author of them, i infinitely more eweet.They have all, even the most
defecate of them, a tang and smack Of the cask and channel through
which they come. At, at, dulciue ex ipto fontel* A single God is
infinitely more sweet than the enjoyment of all created good things that
come from him.
Though, indeed, I can smile, when my corn and wine
and oil increaseth, and bear a part with my valleys, when they stand so
thick with corn, that they even laugh and sing; alas! this, without the
enjoyment of a God, is but a mere row* Sardonicu; f the leaping
of the head after the soul is gone. True, indeed, these are some of God's
love-tokens; but what are these to his person and presence ? These,
indeed, are rich cabinets; but, the light of his countenance! that, that
is the jewel I (Psalm iv. 6.) In having these, I can say, with Esau, ' I
have a } much I * But, give me Him, I can exult and, triumphing, say,
with Jacob, have î all.' (Gen. xxxiii. 9, 11.) These are some
of his left-hand favours; some of bis bottles of milk and gifts; a fit
portion for Ishmael and the sons of Ketnrah. But it is an Isaac's
inheritance, waters of the upper fountains, [which] my soul thirsts
after; those right-hand blessings, his presence, his soul-ravishing presence, in which there is * fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore.'
(Psalm xvi. 11.) These may serve for my comfortable passage; but
nothing but himself can content and satisfy for my all-sufficient portion;
(Psalm Ixxiii. 26;) according to that, [in] Psalm xxxvi. 8. He alone
can fill up all the gaping chinks and chasms of my soul. He is my
' sun and shield;' (Psalm Ixxxiv. 11;) my root and branch; (Isai. xi.
10;) my 'foundation and corner-stone;' (Isai. xxviii. 16;) my 'sword
and shield.' (Deut. xxxiii. 29.)
He only can answer all my desires, all
my necessities. Deus meus et omnia, 'My God and my all."' Thus

faith fixes its aspect on God.
(2.) On the thing of God.And so faith concludes: " f I have higher
and nobler projects, designs of deeper concernment,'$ than to sit down,
ingulf and please myself in these poor, earthly, drossy, dirty things here
below. I have many corruptions within,these are to be mortified;
many temptations without,these are to be resisted; many sweet
motions and whispers of the Spirit,these are to be cherished; many
weak graces,these are to be strengthened; many personal, relational
duties,these are to be performed; in a word, an effectual calling and
election to be made sure,this, above all, is to be regarded." Faith
discovers a world beyond the moon, and trades thither; leaving the men
of the earth to load themselves with clay and coals, faith pursues its
staple commodity, and traffics for grace and glory. Thus David, when
he had branded the worldling for " disquieting himself in vain, for
* " But how much more delightful is it to drink at the fountain itself!"EDIT.
f " Hysterical laughter."EDIT.
Altiora sapio.
Eacelta pia mentii
generositat tupra omnem rerun humanarum speciem erecta. M The elevated generosity
of a pious mind is raised far above all the specious variety of human affairs.".EDIT.
VOL. I.
386
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARE WE TO LITE
heaping up riches, and knowing not who shall gather them/* with an
holy disdain tarns his back upon the world, a not worth hie thoughts;
saying, "And now, Lord, what wait I for?" (Psalm xxxhc. 6, 7.)
As if he had said, " It is true, I have riches, and honour, a crown, a
kingdom : but is this the portion I could be content to sit down with ?
No, no: 'My hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions.'
(Verse 8.) Let them that love the world enjoy it; but, Lord, pay not
my portion in such adulterate coin, but in pardon of sin, and peace of
conscience: this, this is that I wait for/' Thus Luther, having a rich
present sent him, " professed, with a holy boldness to God, that such
things should not serve his turn." * He was not taken with pebbles ;
his nobler soul flew higher, and was fixed on pearls.f It is God's favour
that the subjects of the King of heaven desire rather than his preferments
like him that preferred Alexander's kiss before a great sum of money,
given by Alexander to another. Thus faith looks upward on God, and
the things of God, and acts accordingly.
2. Faith or trust looks downward, on its fattest and sweetest temporal
enjoyments.And so it accurately weighs these enjoyments in the balance
of the sanctuary, and so makes a just estimate of them as to their worth

and value. Faith knows that generally men look at the things which
are seen; and therefore the things that seem best, that glitter most, are
the best delights of most of the children of men, the desire of their eyes,
the joy of their hearts. These they over-rate; and not only esteem them
highly, but adore them superstitiously, as a God, or their chiefest good.
But now faith brings these to the touchstone and standard, and there
interprets them as they are, according to their just value, finds them to
be but the delights of sense, fortuna ludibria,% the sports of nature,
the trials of human folly, at the best but helps of human frailty.
Particularly, faith passes a twofold judgment on them, negative and
positive.
(1.) NEGATIVE. And so faith concludes,
(i.) " These, and all such like, earthly enjoyments, never yet of themselves benefited any man for heaven.True, some things are so good in
themselves, that he that hath them cannot but be good, and the better
for them: such as are the grace of God to us, and the graces of the
Spirit in us. These find us evil, but make us good; but no man was
ever made good, merely by riches and worldly wealth. These, indeed,
have found some really good, and made them less good than they were ;
and have found many seemingly good, whom they have made stark
naught. How often hath a fat preferment spoiled a good preacher, and
caused him, (with him,) when the fish is caught, to lay aside his net !
Usually the more we have of this world, the less we mind the world to
come. Our place in Paris makes us forget our portion in paradise.
That earth which we tread under our feet, gets up into our hearts, and
makes them more earthly than the earth we tread on.
(ii.) " This high mountain, on whose top I stand, adds not a cubit to
my stature in God's eyes.God values not, as men do, by the rate- or
* Valdi. protestatua sum, $c.
never stoops to catch flies."EDIT.
f Aquila nan. capii mtiscas. " The towering eagle
" The mockery of fortune."Emi.
387
subsidy-book. ' Not many wise, not many noble, not many rich,' ftc. j
* but God bath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith.'" (James
u. is.)
(iii.) " Therefore my true blessedness doth not, catwot, consist in

the fittest confluence of these worldly enjoyments.I may not, I dare
not, with that rich fool, sing a requiem to my soul, and bid it take its
ease, for it hath goods laid up for many yean. (Luke xii. 19.) Here is
not my rest." Faith, like the turtle, finds no rest for the sole of its foot
even in a deluge of creature-comforts. Suppose a believer's " sons as
plants grown up in their youth," and his " daughters as corner-stones,
polished after the similitude of a palace ;" suppose his " garners full,
affording all manner of store," his " oxen strong to labour," and his
"sheep bringing forth thousands and ten thousands in the streets;"

though the blear-eyed world should pronounce him happy that is in sneh
a case; how would the believer immediately reply with the Psalmist's
epanorthosis, (or, "in express contradiction rather to so gross a
mistake,") " Yea, happy is that people," they rather, or they only, are
blessed, "whose God is the Lord." (Psalm cxliv. 1215.) Thus faith
concludes negatively.
(2.) POSITIVELY. That divine lesson which Solomon, the wisest
of mere men, had by such difficult and costly experiments at length
learned, faith hath got by heart; and in the face of the world concludes
with him: " Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." (Eccles. i. 2.) The
assertion is repeated, as in Pharaoh's dream, to show its certainty, and
the term of " vanity" doubled, to manifest the transcendency and multiplicity of this vanity. There is a fivefold vanity, which faith discovers
in all its creature-enjoyments ; namely, in that they are,
(i.) Unprofitable.Thus the Preacher: "What profit hath a man
of all his labour which he taketh under the sun ?" (Eccles. i. 3.) What
profit? Why, he hath filled his hands with air, he hath "laboured for
the wind." (Eccles. v. 16.) Just so much and no more than Septimius
Severus got, who, having run through various and great employments,
openly acknowledges: Omnia fui, sed nihil profu.it.* Creature-comforts
are not bread. (Isai. Iv. 2, 3.) They profit no more than the dream
of a full meal doth an hungry man, or that feast which the magician made
the German nobles, who thought they fared very deliciously, but, when
they departed, found themselves hungry.f In a day of wrath, sickness,
death, can riches profit? (Prov. xi. 4; Ezek. vii. 19.) Just as much as
a bag of gold hung about the neck of a drowning man.
(ii.) Hurtful and pernicious.Solomon observed, that "riches were
kept for the owners thereof to their hurt." (Eccles. v. 13.) Hence it is
that Agur prays against them : " Give me not riches, lest I be full and
deny thee;" (Prov. xxx. 8, 9 ;) as if abundance made way for atheism,
in those that know not how to manage it. Maximilian II. was sensible
of this, who refused to hoard up a mass of treasure; fearing lest, by
falling in love therewith, of a sovereign lord, he should become a
* " In all public employments I have borne a conspicuous part; but, in the end, none
of them yield me relief or satisfaction."EDIT.
CORNELIUS A LAFIDK,
Comment, in Isai. Iv. 2.
388
SERMON XTIII.
HOW ABB WK TO L1V
servant to the mammon of unrighteousness. Now, the hurtfulness

of creature-comforts shows itself in several particulars :-
First. Faith knows that they are apt to puff up and swell the heart
with the tympany of pride.Hence that great caution, Deut. viii.
1020. The usual attendants on riches are pride and confidence.
Hence Paul to Timothy, " Charge them that are rich in this world, that
they he not high-minded." (1 Tim. vi. 17.) How apt are men to be
lifted up with the things of this lower world ! Riches at once sink the
mind downward in covetous cares, and lift it upward in proud conceits.
To see a man rich in purse, and poor in spirit, is a great rarity.

Secondly. Faith knows, that great enjoyments are great tare, and
powerful temptation, to many other lusts.Such as are covetonsness,
lust, luxury, security, &c. The plenty of places oft occasions much
wickedness in persons. Rich Sodom was a nursery of all impiety.
Jeshnrnn, when he waxeth fat, is apt to kick. (Dent, xxxii. 15.) And
when Israel is fed to the full, then she commits abomination. (Ezek.
xvi. 49, 50.)
Thirdly. Faith is sensible how apt temporal comfort re to make us
slight spiritual graces, and heavenly communion.
[i.] Spiritual graces.Our digging for silver and searching for gold
makes us too, too apt to neglect that which is better than thousands of
gold and silver, even durable substance. The radiant splendour of these
things here below dazzles our eyes to those things above. While
Martha is much cumbered about many things, she forgets to act Mary's
part, and to pursue that one thing necessary. (Luke x. 41, 42.) How
often do outward comforts entangle the spirits, weaken the graces,
strengthen the corruptions, even of good men! There was a serious
truth in that atheistical scorn of Julian, who, when he spoiled the Christians of their outward estates, told them, he did it to make them " more
ready for the kingdom of heaven." Many really godly lose much in
spirituals by gaining much in temporals; they have been impoverished
by their riches. They are indeed rich in grace, whose graces are not
hindered by their riches; whose souls prosper when their bodies
prosper. To see the daughter of Tyre come with her gift; to see the
rich among the people entreat Christ's favour, and give up themselves to
him;this indeed is a rare sight. (Psalm xlv. 12.) To be rich or
great in the world, is a great temptation. When we flourish in the
flesh, we are apt to wither in the spirit. The scorching sunbeams
of prosperity too, too often cause a drought, and then a dearth, a famine
in the soul, and make us throw off those robes of righteousness which
the wind of affliction makes us to gird on the faster. The world is
of an encroaching nature: hard it is to enjoy it, and not come into
bondage to it. Let Abraham cast but a little more than ordinary respect
on Hagar, and it will not be long ere she begin to contest with, yea,
crow over, her mistress.
[ii.] Spiritual communion with God.Worldly comforts are always
dogged with worldly business; and this too often eats up our time for
communion with God. It is a very difficult tbiug to make our way into
the presence of God through the throng of worldly incumbrances.
BY VAITH ON D1VINB P&OVIDXNCE ?
389
Wordly employments and enjoyment an exceeding apt, not only to

blunt, but to turn, the edge of our affections from an holy commerce
with God. Faith knows what a task, what an Herculean labour, it is,
after it hath passed a day amidst worldly profits, and been entertained
with the delights and pleasures [which] a fall estate affords, now to
bring a whole heart to God, when at night it returns into his presence.
The world in this case doeth by the saint, as the little child by the
mother: if it cannot keep the mother from going out, it will cry after to
go with her.
If the world cannot keep us from going to religious
duties, it will cry to be taken along with us; and much ado there is to
part it and our affections. Thus faith discovers the danger and hurtfulness of creature-enjoyments. But, more than this:
(iii.) Faith know that these outward thing are perishing at well 09
unprofitable and hurtful.Mutable, inconstant, "fading vanities,"*
bubbles, pictures drawn on icy tablets, grass growing on the tops
of houses. Faith hath seen and heard the providence of God ring the
changes of men's estates all the world over: now, exalted and lifted up;
within a while, depressed and cast down: now, honourable; eftsoon,
abased; the rich becoming poor, Naomi becoming Man, hills levelled
into valleys, and great mountains becoming plains. That spoke of the
1
\
v
'
!
;
!
>
wheel which is now aloft, as the captive king told his conqueror, is
quickly turned to the ground and brought low.
The best earthly estate
is in itself a tottering estate. No mountain so strong but may soon be
moved. (Psalm xxx. 6, 7.)t What we call substance, faith knows is
but " a shadow," and hath no continuance. There is no assurance in
any earthly inheritance. How soon doth God sequester it from us, or
us from it! These externals cannot be held with all our care, nor kept
with all our policy and power. The best of earthly excellences may
soon be taken from us. Job's crown quickly falls off from Job's head.
(Jobxix. 9.) Not only is "all flesh grass," but "all the goodlinesa
thereof is as the flower of the field." (Isai. xl. 6.) Not only is man
of a brittle constitution in nature, but all the perfections which he hath,
be ihey either moral or civil accomplishments, on this side grace, are
brittle too.
Reason, scripture, experience, abundantly attest this truth :
"The fashion of this world," saith the apostle, "passeth away." (1 Cor.
vii. 31.)
As fashions in the world alter and change every day, so doth
the fashion of this world. Creature-comforts are "not so properly
possessions as pageants, which, whilst they please us, pass away from
us in a moment."}: Those we have here are running banquets, delicate,
and served-in with state, but soon over.
(iv.) Faith makes yet a farther discovery, and finds that these
|
1
creature-comforts are false, deceitful, lying vanities.-Which appears,

First. In the report they make of themselves, and of their own worth.
If yon look upon the bill of the creature, it puts down not only an
hundred for fifty, but a million for a mite. Like the title-pages of some
empty pamphlets, more in them than in the whole book.
,
\
* Felicticu umbraiiKe.
t Summit negation ett stare (Kit.
$ Quod miratit
pompa st. Ottenduntur ista ret, nan postidentur, et than piaoent trantetmt,SEHECA,
Epitt. lift.
390
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARE WE TO 1,1 VB
Secondly. In the promise* which they make to ut.It promises that

in the enjoyment thereof we shall be happy; whereas we are both poor
and miserable in the fullest possession of the creature, unless God himself be our portion. It promises to ease us of oar cares, yet it doth bat
multiply them. Like drink to a dropsy-man, so far from slaking, that
it inflames the thirst. Riches are not food, but fuel, to our desires;
and are so far from satisfying, that they but widen the throat. They do
not allay our appetite as bread doth, when received and digested; but
inflame it, as oil doth, when cast into the fire. It promiseth to protect
us, but performs no more than the great tree doth from a soaking and
lasting storm. It promises to continue with us; though father and
mother forsake, yet it will not: whereas it usually proves like Absalom's
mule,then apt to go from under us when we most need it. Thus the
creatures are deceitful, that is, they are objectively deceitful; through
the deceitfulness of our hearts and lusts, we are deceived about them,
if not by them. They frustrate our expectation, when our hopes
of advantage by them are at the highest; seldom or never make good to
the enjoyer what they promised to the expectant. Like Jonah's gourd,
when most needed, then they wither; like Esther's invitation of Haman
to a banquet with the king, which filled his bladder with windy hopes,
but soon after ended in his ruin.
(v.) And lastly. Faith Knows that creature-comforts are unsatisfying
vanities. (Isai. Iv. 2.)This -the philosopher saw by the dim eye of
nature, concluding, that the world, being orbicular, (of a round figure,)
could never fill up the corners of a heart, which is triangular. The
creature were a god to us, if it could do this to us. Kindle thirsting it
may, but quench none; can beget a thousand fears and cares, but quiet
none. Here, " the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hear,
ing," (Bccles. i. 8,) the soul still crying out, " Give, give." It is God
alone [who] satisfies. (Psalm xxxvi. 8. 9.) It is only a God in Christ
that can give the soul rest. (Matt. xi. 29.) God would not rest from his
works of creation till man was formed. Man cannot rest from his
longing desires till God be enjoyed i and then, and not till then, can a
holy David sing a lullaby to his soul: " Return unto thy rest, 0 my soul;
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee." (Psalm cxvi. 7.) Faith,
having thus expressed her judgment concerning the true nature and
worth of creature-comforts, concludes her work in three resolves:
First. " In the midst of these my enjoyments, I must take heed that my
heart sits loose from them.These handsome pictures must be only
hanged on the wall, not glued to it. Though riches increase, I may not,
must not, set my heart on them. Thus the Psalmist, Psalm Ixii. 10. Use
them I may, love them I may not. (1 John ii. 15, 16.) My affections
may perchance pitch, but must not fix, on these things below. (Col. iii.
2.) Look upon them I must with an holy indifferency, and use them as
if I used them not, possess them as if I possessed them not. (1 Cor. vii.
31.) The zeal of my spirit must be for heaven and heavenly things. My
soul must press hard only after God, as David did. (Psalm Ixiii. 1, 8.)"
Secondly. "Though I have all these comforts, yet I may not, must not,
inordinately, immoderately, carnally deliyht and rejoice in them.Thus
391
the apostle enjoins: ' It remained), that both they that have wives he as
though they had none; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced
not; and they that bay, as though they possessed not; and they that
use this world, as not abusing it/ (1 Cor. vii. 2931.) As we are apt
to underdo, to do too little, in heavenly things j so we are apt to overdo,
or to do too much, in worldly things."
Our two great failings are [these], namely, that we do but make use, as
it were, of those things [which] we should enjoy, and that we enjoy those
things [which] we should only make use of. 0, the divine art of holy
moderation in the use of our sweetest worldly enjoyments is known and
practised by few!
Thirdly and lastly. "At I do not over-love them, nor inordinately
delight in them," saith faith, "to, least of all, may I put the leaet trust
or confidence in them.I must not in the least lean upon them; not say
to gold, to fine gold, ' Thou art my confidence;' (Job xxxi. 24;) that is,
My soul may not securely rest and rely on gold, or golden enjoyments;
as if these could stand by me, when all friends fail; as if these would not
see us want any thing, nor suffer us to be wronged as long as they last,
which, God knows, is but for a moment. All these enjoyments can
neither make me better nor wiser, nor render my life more safe and
comfortable; not sanctify our souls, nor satisfy our desires: Therefore,"
saith faith, " I will trust in God only, whom I can never trust too much;
not in the creature; which I can never trust too little."
(II.) In times of sadness, afflictions, wants, sufferings, miseries.
When the hand of the Lord is gone oat against us, and he greatly multiplies our sorrows; when he breaks us with breacfrupou breach, and runs
upon us like a giant; when his arrows stick fast in us, and his hand
presseth us sore ; when he sows sackcloth on our skin, and defiles our
horn in the dust; when we are fain to eat ashes like bread, and to
mingle our drink with weeping;now, now is, a time for a saint's trust
to bestir itself to purpose. In this storm and tempest, wherein the waves
mount up to heaven, and go down again to the depths, faith sits at
[the] helm, and preserves the soul from shipwreck. Faith takes this
serpent by the tail, handles it, and turns it into an harmless wand, yea,
into an Aaron's rod, budding with glory and immortality. Faith encounters this seeming Goliath of affliction, grapples with it, not as a match,
but as a vanquished underling. Let misery dress himself like the cruellest
fury, come forth guarded with all her dismal attendants,sighs, groans,
tears, wants, woes; faith sets its foot on the neck of this queen of fears,
insults and triumphs over her. When the heart and flesh are apt to fail,
when soul and spirit are apt to sink and swoon away, faith draws forth
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its bottle, and administers a reviving cordial. In a word: in a sea, an

ocean, a deluge of trouble, amidst all storms, winds, tempests, yea, an
hurricane of sorrows and miseries, faith knows where and how to cast
anchor. According to that of our Saviour: Mi) ,
. "Let not your heart be troubled," so troubled, as a ship
tossed in a tempest:* "ye believe in God, believe also in me." [John
xiv. 1.] Faith is that great antidote, cordial, panacea, catholicon, " healer
* Ne perturbetur, commoveatur.
392
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARK WK TO LIVE
of all diseases." This is that that makes a believer live in the midst
of death. Bat, more particularly, in this tempestuous condition, faith
doth these three things:
1. It warily avoids some dangerous rocks and quicksands.
2. It needfully looks to its bottom in which it sails.
3. It accurately observes its compass by which it steers.
1. There are some rocks, shelves, quicksands, likeScylla and Charybdis,
against which, in such a dark condition, the soul is apt to split itself.
These faith avoids with utmost care. They are six :
(1.) Distracting, distrustful, carking, corroding, heart'dividing, heartstabbing cares.Faith, according to the apostle's command, ftySev
ptpipvet, is carkingly " careful for nothing j but in every thing by prayer
and supplication makes its requests known to God." (Phil. iv. 6.) True,
indeed, a believer is not, may not, dares not be slothfully, negligently
careless of his body, estate, relations, affairs, particular calling. (Rom. xii.
1117.) Faith knows, that he that endeavours not, by honest, prudent,
diligent care and foresight, to " provide for his own, is worse than an
infidel." (1 Tim. v. 8.) And yet faith is far from all carking cares,
such as distract the head, and divide the heart from other and better
things. Faith " takes no thought for its life, what it shall eat; nor yet
for the body, what it shall put on.*' (Matt. vi. 25, &c.) Faith leaves
that to God, who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies. It is for
Gentiles and unbelievers to cry out solicitously: " What shall we eat ?
or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" My
heavenly Father knows that I have need of all these things. It belongs
to him to provide. It is his work: I leave it with him. All that care I
cast upon him: he doth and will care for me. (1 Peter v. 7.) " I may
not, must not," saith faith, " speak against God, as did the Israelites,
saying, 'Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?' As he hath given
waters, 'can he give bread also? can he provide flesh for his people?'"
(Psalm Ixxviii. 19, 20.)
(2.) Carnal counsel, using unlawful and carnal confidence, trusting in
lawful means.Say not, when God pursues, " Asshur shall save you,
and you will ride on horses." (Hosea xiv. 3.) In sickness faith will not
run first to the physician. That was good Asa's great sin. (2 Chron.
xvi. 12.) It was holy David's great failing, to say, though but in his
heart, " Nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land
of the Philistines." (1 Sam. xxvii. 1.) Alas, poor David! to what a
shift art thou now driven ! What! to the uncircumcised Philistines! Is
it because there is not a God in Israel ? 0, thou wilt quickly find this
starting-hole to be only a going out of God's blessing into a warm sun !
To think by sinning to avoid suffering, is, by saving the finger; to make
way for a stab at the heart. To pursue and obtain deliverance, by
unlawful ways, is to fish with, and lose, a hook of gold, and only to
catch a gudgeon; to preserve the body, but to destroy the soul.
(3.) Stinting and limiting the Holy One of Israel to this or that particular means, way, time, and manner of deliverance.So as to say, If God
help not this way, nothing will do; if not now, never. Faith remem-
bers, this was the Israelites' God-provoking sin. They "limited the Holy
BY VAITH on omr FftoviDSNCsf
393
One of Israel." (Psalm Ixxnii. 41.) Thus Naaman: "Behold," with

he, " I thought, he will surely come oat to me and stand, and call, and
strike;" (2 Kings v. 11;) and no other way will serve him. He thought
thus, and thus; but the man was no less blind than leprous. He was
at once both proud and vain in his imaginations; and he shall know that
the Almighty will not sail by his narrow compass, nor dance, as I may so
say, after his pipe. God hath more ways to the wood than one; and
always more than many out of it, though we at present see them not.
God hath extraordinary means to bear up, when ordinary ones fail. God
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can turn poisons into antidotes, hinderances into furtherances, destructions themselves into deliverances. Has Elijah no meat ? Bather than
fail, the devouring ravens shall be his caterers. (1 Kings xvii. 6.) Is Jonah
in danger of drowning ? Rather than sink, a whale shall have commission to be both his ship and pilot too, to set him safe on shore. (Jonah
ii. 10.) Faith knows that an Almighty God can work with, yea, and
without, above, contrary to, means; and doth on purpose many times stain
the pride and glory of some means that seem most probable, that we may
observe and adore his wise Providence in finding out and blessing the use
of others more unlikely, that we may prefer his Jordan before our Abana.
(4.) Impatient fretting, murmuring, and quarrelling against God's
dispensations.This was poor Jonah's great stumble. Peevish man!
" Doest thou well to be angry," and that with thy God ? " Yea," saith
he, " even unto death." (Jonah iv. 9.) The most foolish answer that
ever dropped from the mouth of a holy man! * Humble Aaron was
better-instructed. He knew it was no safe kicking against the pricks ;
that nothing was to be got by striking again, by repining ttgainst God,
but more blows ; and therefore, when God had killed both his sons at a
blow, he humbly " holds his peace," his heart and tongue were both
silent. (Lev. x. 2, 3.) True, indeed, we may not be senseless and stupid
under sufferings. Had all the martyrs had the dead palsy before they
went to the stake, their sufferings had been far less glorious. But yet,
though we may not be stupid or stoical, we must be patient and submissive. Though we may not be like the Caspian Sea, that neither ebbs nor
flows, yet we must take heed of being like swelling, roaring waves and
billows. Though God's turtles may, through infirmity, flutter, yet they
may not belike bulls, when caught in a net, raving. "I was dumb," saith
David, " because thou didst it." (Psalm xxxix. 9.) Away, then, with those
surly looks, that do, as it were, enter a protest against what we suffer;
nay, more, beware of those murmuring echoes and replies of spirit within,
against God, who, though they seem to yield and run, yet, with the flying
Parthian, shoot their arrows backward in discontent against God.
(5.) All sinful and ungrounded doubting of God's love, in and under
suffering.How God's heart inclines, cannot infallibly be gathered from
God's hand. Faith many times discovers love in God's heart, when it
sees nothing but frowns on God's forehead, and knows that frequently
when his tongue chides, his bowels yearn. " Is Ephraim my dear son ?
is he a pleasant child?" Is he? Alas, no! rather, he is a pettish,
untoward, undutiful child. True, but yet a child; and, therefore,
" since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: there-
394
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARV WE TO LIVE
fore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon
him." (Jer. xxxi. 20.) Jea, more, faith is so far from arguing, that
God has thrown his love out of his heart, when he takes his rod into his
hand, that it rather from thence argues the quite contrary: " I am now
therefore beloved, because chastised." " As many as I love, I rebuke
and chasten." Faith knows, that a Father's correction is so far from
being an argument of wrath, that it is one of the clearest evidences
of love. Better far to be a chastened son, than an undisciplined bastard.
(Rev. Hi. 19; Amos in. 2; Heb. xii. 68.) No anger like that: "Why
should ye be stricken any more ? ye will revolt more and more:" (Isai.
i. 5:) and, " I will be quiet, and will be no more angry." (Ezek. zvi.
42.) "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone." (Hosea iv. 17.)
" Then is God most angry of all, when he refuseth to be angry." *
(6.) Faintingt sinking, desponding, despairing, under God's correction.
As faith looks upon it as a great sin to despise the Lord's chastening,
so it holds it for no small infirmity to faint, when corrected by him.
(Heb. xii. 5.) This was that for which David so roundly chid and rated
his soul: " Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within me ? hope thou in God." (Psalm xlii. 11.) " If thou
faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small." (Prov. xxiv. 10.)
It argues thee to be a man of a short, narrow, pusillanimous, poor, low
soul, to faint and sink in such a day. Thus we-have shown you the
rocks, the dangerous rocks, which faith warily avoids.
2. Faith heed/ally looks to its ship or bottom, in which it sails.
Wherein he views the keel, ballast, sails; takes care that these be tight,
and in good condition.
(1.) The keel, bulk, or body of the ship in which faith sails; and that
is holy contentation,This was the grand and highest lesson that ever a
believing Paul learnt and practised; namely, " In every state therewith
to be content." (Phil. iv. 11.) What some observe of that earthly
ange.l, that glory of her sex, the Lady Jane Gray, "That she made
misery itself seem amiable, and that the night-clothes of adversity did as
much become her as her day-dressing," is much more true of holy contentation : it renders every condition, even the blackest, lovely. An
afflicted Christian, if contented, may truly say with the spouse, " I am
black, but comely." (Canticles i. 5.) Faith, therefore, mainly looks to
this, and professes, that though she cannot be satisfied with the whole
world for her portion, yet she must, will be, and is contented with the
least pittance of it for her passage. Has an Agur food ? what, though
"ptt coarse, ordinary commons? (Prov. xxx. 8,) yet it is "food."
Has John Baptist raiment? what, though of camel's hair? (Matt. iii. 4,)
yet it is " raiment." And so long faith looks upon herself as obliged to
be therewith content. (1 Tim. vi. 8.)
(2.) The ballast that poises the ship s and that is humility.This is
that that keeps the soul steady, and makes it ride out the storm. Pride
is that which swells the heart. Now, when a member is swollen, though
it grows bigger, yet it grows weaker, and so the more unfit and unable
* Tune maxima irascttur, quando non iren,citur.
Super omnem iram miseratio ,
UKUNAUDUS. " This forbearing pity rises far above all anger.".
BY FAtTB ON DIVINE PROVIDING
395
to bear any burden laid upon it. It was humility that steeled Athanaaus
against all hie adversaries and sufferings, in that he was, aa Nazianzen
reports him, as truly low in heart as really high in worth. The
humble soul judges itself " less than the least of mercies," (den. xxxii.
10,) justly obnoxious to the greatest judgments; and therefore no wonder
if it can patiently want or undergo any thing.
(3.) The sails whereby this well-ballasted skip is carried; and that is
heavenly-mindedness.This, indeed, is faith's top, and top-gallant,
whereby it sails with a full forewind into its port and haven. Faith
minds, savours, sets its affection on things above, not on things below.
(Col. iii. 2.) Its heart is, where its treasure is, in heaven. Faith
knows, that mixture of earth and dross much weakens the soul, and
makes it unable to suffer; whereas a soul quickened with heavenlymindedness, that flies high, and looks beyond the stars, concludes, that a
little, a very little, of the dreggy creature will serve turn to pass it
through this worldly pilgrimage; and this greatly enables for suffering;
and thus faith needfully looks to her bottom.
3. Faith accurately observes its compass by which it steers.Now
there are several points in faith's compass, or, if yon will, there are
several choice maxims or axioms of faith, by which a believer sails in
and through the blackest storms and tempests. Such as these :
(1.) Whatever the stone be that is thrown, it is the hand of Heave
[that] flings it.In all the evils we either fear or feel, faith looks beyond
the creature, and carries up the heart unto God. No evil in the city, no
penal evil, either on me or mine, but the Lord hath done it. (Amos iii. 6.)
Thus David: " I was dumb, because them didst it." (Psalm xxxix. 9.)
And the Lord hath bid Shimei curse. (2 Sam. xvi. 10.) David could
read God's hand at the foot of the commission, though his commanders
could not. " Thou couldest have no power against me, except it were
given thee from above," saith our Saviour to Pilate. (John xix. 11.)
And holy Job, when plundered of all, eaith. not, " The Lord gave, and
the Chaldeans and Sabeans have taken away; the Lord enriched, but
Satan hath robbed me:" no; but as i they all had been but ciphers,
and mere standers-by, " The Lord gave'; and the Lord " only, or at least
chiefly, "hath taken away." (Job i. 21.)
(2.) Let the King of heaven do his worst, yet, even then, he can do no
wrong.This is a grand maxim in the rolls of eternity; one of the fundamental laws of heaven; and that because,
(i.) God is the most sovereign God, the supreme Lord, that know no
law but his own will, which is, the highest and the most unerring rule
of righteousness.God's hand is God's only rule ; and therefore, whatever line he draws, it must needs be right. Our God is a law to himself,
who only can write on his imperial edicts and proceedings,
STAT PHO HATIONE VOLUNTAS.*
God doth and may justly do whatsoever pleaseth him, (Dan. iv. 35,) and
" can most justly resolve the reason of all his actions into his own will."
* JUVENALIS Sfiiir. vi. 222............. " I command :
It is iny sovereign will! Who dares withstand ?".OWEN'S Translation.
396
SERMON XVIII.
BOW ARE WE TO LIVE
That Greet Potter may do with his clay what he pleaseth, and that without the least control or contradiction. (Bom. iz. 20, 21.) On this
account, faith counts it wisdom not to play the censorious critic on God*a
administrations, considering that He alone is uvevfovos ,*
according to that of Eiihu: " God is greater than man. Why dost thou
strive against him ? for he giveth not account of any of his matters."
(Job xzxiii. 12, 13.)
(ii.) " God, as he is most just in himself, so alto he act most justly to
me" saith a believer.Faith justifies God in all his proceedings; that is,
subscribes and gives testimony to the righteousness of God, even in his
sharpest corrections. Thus David, " I know, 0 Lord, that thy judgments are right." (Psalm cxix. 75.) Thus the church, when under the
Babylonish captivity, (the heaviest judgment ever inflicted on any people,) yet then humbly sets her seal to God's justice: " The Lord is righteous ; for I have rebelled against him." (Lam. i. 18; Neh. ix. 33.)
(3.) It is not fit that poor, weak, short-sighted, sinful creatures should
be their own carvers.If they should, they would, like rash children, cut
either too much or too little, or their own fingers. Well for us, that as
our times, so our conditions, are not in our own (but in God's) hands.
(Psalm zxxi. 15.) " Not what I please," saith faith, " but what my God
pleaseth. He knows best what is good for his people; and I know, had
God granted my requests, and fulfilled my desires, I had long since been
undone. The cooling drink, which I so passionately desired in my burning parozsym, would have added to my flame, and quickly dispatched me
to the house of darkness." Hence it was that the honest shepherd,
being asked what weather it should be to-day, replied, "Even what
weather I please." "Not so," saith the other; "but what pleaseth
God." "Yea so," replies the shepherd; "for whatever pleaseth God,
shall be sure to please me."

(4.) Better to want outward comforts, than enjoy them without my
Father's good-will.Israel had been better to have been without quails.
They had sour sauce to their sweet meat: while the flesh was in their
mouths, the plague of God was in their nostrils. (Num. xi. 20.) You
will needs have this, and that, and the other thing: " Why, take it,"
saith God; " but then take my curse with it too; the sack, but poison
with it. You shall have it, but in wrath." (See 1 Sam. viii. 5, 6, 10
12; Hosea ziii. 11.) Rachel, you will have children, or else you will
take pet and die. (Gen. xzz. 1.) You shall have children, Benjamin to
your Joseph, which yet shall prove a Benoni. His intrat [" entrance"}
will prove your exits his life, your death. (Gen. xxzv. 18.) Better
were it for David to be without Michal, than that she should, being
enjoyed, become a snare. (1 Sam. zviii. 21.)
(5.) Seem it never so ill, yet it is really well.On these two
accounts:
(i.) It cannot but be well with him with whom God is.It was not ill
with the three children, though in a fiery furnace, so long as God was
there. (Dan. iii. 25.) Suppose David, walking in the suburbs of death
* " Without any superior to whom he is accountable, or by whom he may be directed
and controlled."ÊDIT.
BY TAITH ON DIVINE PBOVIDENCB?
397
and danger; yet [it ie] not ill with him, became God [is] with aim.
(Psalm zxiii. 4.) When God says, "I will be with yon/' (as he has,
Isai. xliii. 2,) "and I feel him," saith faith; "it is infinitely more to
me than if he should say, ' Peace, health, credit, honour, plenty, shall be
with thee.' God being with me, is all these, and infinitely more. In
these I could have but a particular good: in a single God I have all good."
Now God, who is with his people at all times, is most with them, and
most sweetly with them, in the worst times.* As their afflictions increase
without, so do their consolations within. (2 Cor. i. 5.) When the child
is most sick, then it is most dandled on the mother's knee; when it
begins to faint, then is the closet ransacked for tbe choicest cordial.
This blessed Baynham found, when at the stake he told the bloody
Papists: "0 ye Papists," said he, "yon talk of miracles; behold here
a true one: these flames are to me a bed of roses." God is wont to
give believers, in such a time, their exceeding, their "five messes.'*
That part of the army which is upon action in the field, and upon hard
service, shall be sure to have their pay. What are all the promises, but
vessels of cordial wine, tunned on purpose against a groaning hour, when
God usually and speedily broacheth them ? (Psalm 1. 15.)
(ii.) All i well that ends well." Now," saith faith, "all sad and'gloomy
dispensations have sweet ends, whether I respect God or myself:"
First. In respect of God.And that,
[i.] For the manifestation of hie infinite wisdom.Who so contrives
the passages of his providence, as that one shall qualify another. God
knows, that should I always prosper, I should have been apt to swell and
presume; and therefore he pricks my bladder, to let out that wind.
Had I been always fed with sweetmeats, it is very probable I might have
surfeited; and therefore he mingles my sweets with these tart ingredients. Were not this bass added to my treble, I should never have
made any harmonious music.
[ii.] For the declaration of hie Almighty power.God many times
brings his people into such a condition, as not to know what to do,
that they may know now what the Lord can do. Thus: " The Lord
shall judge his people, when he seeth that their power is gone." " See
now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me." (Deut. xxxii.
36, 39.) Thus: "Nevertheless he saved them for his name sake."
But what name ? even that glorious one of his power: " that he might
make his mighty power to be known." (Psalm cvi. 8.)
Secondly. In respect of believers.The life of every saint is a tragicomedy, and the last act of it crowns the whole play. "Mark the
perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."
(Psalm zxxvii. 37.) Out of the eater shall come meat. This affliction
and that affliction, yea, the whole series of them, "shall work together
for my good." (Bom. viii. 28.) Saints' good is God's aim. As love is
the principle [which] he constantly acts from, so the saints' good is the
* Domitiamu in Jovit tinu.SUETONIUS. "Domitian in the bosom of Jupiter."
This phrase is not applied by Suetonius to Domitian. But one somewhat similar in
import may be found in lib. ii. 94, referring to Augustus: Jovem Opt. Ma*, vanm
secreviite, atque in ejus ainum eignum reipublica reposutsse ; a/, in tequenti,
animadverting se in gremio Capitolini Jovie eundcm puenan, $o.EDIT.
398
SERMON XVIII.
HOW ARK WE TO LIVE
end [which] he propounds and aims at, in all his dispensations. From
this he never swerves. The fire of love never goes oat of his heart,
nor the saints' good oat of his eye. When he frowns, chides, strikes, yet
then his heart burns with love, and his thoughts are to do them good.
(Jer. zziv. 6, 7; xxix. 11; Deut. viii. 2, 16.) Bat what good? Much
every way, chiefly with respect to their corruptions, graces, services, glory.
[i.] Saints' corruptions, to purge and subdue them." This is all the
fruit, the taking away of their sin.*' (Isai. zxvii. 9.) Afflictions are
God's brine and pickle to preserve the saints from putrefying. Paul's
thorn in the flesh was given him to prevent and mortify pride. (2 Cor.
xii. 7.) All the harm which the fiery furnace did the young men, in
Dan. iii. 24,25, was but to burn off their cords. Our lusts are cords, cords
of vanity: fiery trials [are] sent on purpose to burn and consume them.
Adversity, like winter-weather, [is] of great use to kill weeds and vermin,
which the summer of prosperity is wont to breed. God is fain to rub
hard many times, to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our nature.
This thunder serves to clear the air from infectious vapours. This bitter
potion purges out ill-humours. Be the teeth of thy troubles never so
many, never so sharp, it is but to file off thy rust. This tempestuous
tossing in the sea will more purge the wine from its lees. It clarifies the
soul: according to that, " I will bring the third part through the fire,
and will refine them as silver is refined." (Zech. xiii. 9.)
[ii.] Saint J graces.And that,
First. For their trial and experience." That the trial of your faith,"
&c. (1 Peter i. 7.) The fire tries the gold as well as the touch-stone.
Diseases not only need, but try, the art of the physician; and tempests,
the skill of the pilot. The saints' sufferings are but as so many touchstones. Now, now shall the saint clearly know, whether the conscience be
sound or foundered, if it will pace well in rough ways. Here, " here is the
faith," that is, the trial of the saints' faith and patience. (Rev. xiii. 10.)
Secondly. For their increase and growth.The snuffing of the candle
makes it burn the brighter. Hence it is that the saints " glory in
tribulations," (Rom. v. 3,) because their sufferings add strength to their
graces. Never are God's spiritual nightingales apt to sing more'sweetly,
than when the thorn is at their breast. Saints are indeed made of precious metal; and yet they are too, too apt to lose their edge. Hence
it is that God by afflictions whets and sharpens them. He beats uud
bruises his links, to make them burn the brighter; loads bis choicest
ships with sufficient ballast, to make them sail the steadier; bruises his
spices, to make them send out an aromatic savour. (Jer. xxii. 21; Isai.
xxvi. 16; Heb. xii. 10.)
OBJECTION. " But I find not this precious benefit."
SOLUTION. Afflictions do not presently work; at least thou mayest
not presently feel their, operation. As Christ to Peter: "What I do
thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." (John xiii. 7.)
So afterward it brings forth the fruit of righteousness. (Heb. xii. 11.)
[iii.] With respect to saints' future services.Great sufferings are many
times sent to prepare saints for extraordinary services. See it in Joseph and
Paul. Joseph thrown into a pit, sold a slave into Egypt, there cast into
BY FAITH ON DIVINE PROVIDENCBf
399
a prison [was] by 11 fitted for a palace, and to be a nursing-father to the

church. (Gen. xli. 40, 41.) God bestows more chopping and hewing on
corner-stones, because [that] he intends they shall not only support, but
adorn the building. God means to build high upon them; therefore lays
his foundations very low: intends to sell these diamonds at a high rate;
and thence it is be spends so much time and art in cutting them.
[iv.] With respect to the furtherance of their future glory.Christ
went from a cross to Paradise; so do Christians. The Master was
made "perfect through sufferings;" (Heb. ii. 10;) so are saints his
servants. Though the saints' cross cannot merit, yet it makes way for, a
crown of life. (James i. 12.) Their "light affliction, which is but for a
moment," occasionally works for* them " a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory." (2 Cor* iv. 17.)
(6.) Be it really ill, never to ill, yet it might well be worse.Be the
suffering what it will, yet whilst here, whilst above-ground, it is far less
than I have deserved. (Ezra iz. 13.) " Blessed be God," cried out that
man of God,* when in the paroxysm of his gout, " this, though sharp, is
not hell." The wont that we can feel here is not the hundred thousandth part of what we have deserved hereafter. " Every step on this
side hen is mercy," saith a sensible believer. God is gracious in his
greatest severity, remembers mercy in the midst of judgment. As it is
said of Asher, " His shoes were iron and brass, yet he dipped his foot in
oil;" (Deut. xxxiii. 24, 25;) so God tempers his greatest severities with
the oil of mercy; corrects but in measure, (Isai. xvii. 6,) nay, in mercy,
in infinite mercy. I that have deserved the blow of an executioner's axe,
am sent away with a lash only of a father's rod. God only lops off some
luxuriant branches, when in justice he might cut up the vine, both root
and branch, and cast them into everlasting flames.
(7.) And lastly. Be it now never so ill, it will certainly be better, f
Thus the Psalmist: " All thy waves are gone over me. Yet the Lord
will command his loving-kindness." (Psalm xlii. 7, 8.) Thus the
church, Micah vii. 79. More particularly, faith concludes :
(i.) "My afflictions, though lasting, will not be everlasting.Though
the night be dark and long, yet there will come a day-break and comfortable dawn ; my God will not always chide, ' neither will he contend
forever.'" (Isai. Ivii. 16; Rev. ii. 10.)
(ii.) " My greatest extremity of distress is GoeTs fairest opportunity for
deliverance."When the Cassians are most infested with locusts, then,

and not till then, do the Seleucidian birds come-in to their assistance.
(CAUS. Hier. 1. 6. c. 31.) "Now will I arise, saith the Lord." (Psalm
* Ma. WHITAKEH.
f Nemo desperet meliora lapsus.SENECJE Tragaediae,
" When at the lowest ebb) indulge no fear;
Soon will the flowing current re-appear."EDIT.
J The Cassians were the inhabitants of Catieh, near the ancient Pelusium, now Tiueh,
in Lower Egypt; and "the Seleucidian birds " to which Caussin refers in his account of
Egyptian antiquities, were those innumerable flights which congregate on the immense
plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in the immediate neighbourhood of the city
of Seleucia, (which was intended, by its celebrated founder, to become the capital of the
East,) and Bagdad, the ancient site of which was on this account called by the Tunes,
Knshlar Kalasi, or " the Castle of Birds."EDIT.
400
SERMON XIX.
HOW MAT WE CURE
xii. 5; Dent, xxxii. 36.) Cum duplicantur lateres, venit Mote*.*
In
the mount there will God be seen. (Gen. xxii. 14.)

(iii.) And lastly. '* Heoven will pay for all at last"Where every
tear shall be wiped off. (Rev. xxi. 4.) The pleasantness and security
of the port will make more than full amends for the danger and difficulty
of the passage, f And this is that wherein faith triumphs, as knowing
that he that for Christ's sake, in obedience to Christ's will, in conformity
to Christ's word, in aiming at Christ's glory, wears the sharpest crown
of thorns here, shall, by Christ, have his temples encircled with the fairest
crown of glory hereafter. | As in this life an hundred fold, so in the
world to come, eternal life. (Mark x. 30.)
SERMON XIX.
BY THE REV. THOMAS MANTON, D.D.
HOW MAY WE CORE DISTRACTIONS IN HOLY DUTIES?
Te hypocrites^ well did Esaia* prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their
Up s but their heart is far from me.Matthew xv. 7, 8.
IN this chapter you will find- a contest between Christ and the Pharisees, about their traditions and old customs, which they valued above the
commandments of God, as it is usual with formal men to love chains
of their own making, and to make conscience of a tradition when yet
they can dispense with a commandment; and thereby discovering themselves to be very hypocrites, who are more in externals than in internals,
in show than substance, minding the formality rather than the spirit and
life of service to God. Our Lord confirms his censure by the testimony
of the prophet Isaiah, " Ye hypocrites," &c.
I shall not stand explaining the words. Drawing nighIs a phrase peculiar to worship, especially to invocation. Mouth and lipsAre put for all
external gestures, and that bodily exercise which is necessary to the worship
of God, especially for words. But their heart is far from meIt chiefly
intendeth their habitual averseness from God, but may also comprise the
wandering and roving of the mind in duty, which is a degree and spece
of it. Of that I shall treat at this time; and my note will be,
* When the tale of bricks is doubled to the children of Israel in Egypt, then Motes
appears."ED IT.
f Superata tellus sydera donat.BOETIUS.
"When these realms our spirits leave,
Heaven the exiles shall receive."EDIT.
$ Felix pott fata. Ad delicias juvat ire periclis. ** Happy, after enduring all the
emergent ills of life." "Our delights are enhanced when we pass through dangers to
their enjoyment" -arovov ?. " Through trouble and difficulty we obtain glory."
EDIT.
This word is printed spece, speiee, and spice, in the different editions;
but spece, the reading of the first, is proper, signifying " a sample, a specimen."EDI r.
DISTRACTIONS IN HOLY DUTIES?
401
That detraction of thoughts, or the removing of the heart from God

in worship, w a great sin, and [a] degree of hypocrisy.
The text speaketh of gross hypocrisy, or a zealous pretence of
outward worship without any serious bent of heart towards God. But
any removal of the heart from him in times necessary to think of him,
is a degree of it; for though distractions in worship are incident to the
people of God, yet they are culpable, and do so far argue the relics
of hypocrisy in them. I shall show,
I. The GREATNESS of the sin.
II. The CAUSES.
III. The REMEDIKS.
. That there is such a sin, sad experience witnesseth: vain thoughts
intrude importunately upon the soul in every duty. In hearing the
word we are not free; (Ezek. xxxiii. 31;) nor in singing; but chiefly
they haunt us in prayer; and, of all kinds of prayer, in mental prayer,
when our addresses to God are managed by thoughts alone, there we are
more easily disturbed. Words bound the thoughts, and the inconvenience of an interruption is more sensible, as occasioning a pause in
our speech; and as in mental prayer, so when we join with others, to
keep time and pace with their words, (unless the Lord quicken them to
an extraordinary liveliness,) we find it very hard. But how GREAT a
sin this is, is my first task to show. I shall do it,
1. By three general considerations.
2. By speaking particularly to the present case.
1. Generally.
(1.) Consider how tender God is of hi worship.He hath said that
he " will be sanctified in all that draw nigh unto him." (Lev. x. 3.)
To sanctify is "to set apart from common use." Now, God will be
sanctified; that is, not treated-with as an ordinary person, but with
special heedfulness of soul and affection becoming so great a Majesty.
When you think to put him off with any thing, you lessen his excellency
and greatness, and do not sanctify him, or glorify him as God; and
therefore God pleadeth his Majesty when they would put a sorry sacrifice
upon him, as if every thing were good enough for him. " Cursed be
the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth
unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saitb the Lord
of hosts." (Mal. i. 14.) To be slight in his service argueth mean
thoughts of God. "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine
heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and
thou upon earth." (Eccles. v. 2.) We forget our distance, and by a
bold profaneness are too fellow-like and familiar with God, when we are
not deeply serious and exact in what we do and say in his presence, but
only babble over a few impertinent words without attention and affection.
Certainly, God is very sensible of the wrong and contempt we put upon
him; for he noteth all: " All things are naked and opened unto the
eyes of Him with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) And he will
not put it up; * for he telleth us, that he " will not hold him guiltless
* This is an old form of English speech, tantamount in meaning to its cognate, not to
put up with it, "not to endure it without expressions of anger or dissatisfaction."urn .
402
SERMON XIX.
HOW MAY WE
that taketh bis name in vain;" (Exod. xx. 7;) and be will be as good
as bis word; for tbe least disorders in worship bare been sorely
punished: witness tbe stroke from heaven upon Aaron's sons; (Lev. z. 2;)
the breach made upon Uzzah; (2 Sam. vi. 7;) and tbe havoc made of
tbe Beth-sbemites; (I Sam. vi. 19;) the diseases that raged at Corinth
(1 Cor. xi. 30.) And though judgments be not so rife and visible now
upon our unhallowed approaches to God, yet he smiteth us with deadnesa
where he doth not smite us with death: for a man is punished otherwise than a boy; and judgments are now spiritual, which, in the
infancy of the church, were temporal and bodily. Certainly, we have
all cause to tremble when we come before the Lord.
(2.) The more sincere any one is, the more he maketh conscience of hie
thoughts.Is more observant of them, and more troubled about them.
"Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts," &c. (Isai. Iv. 7.)
Then he beginneth to be serious, and to have a conscience indeed when
his thoughts trouble him. So David: " I hate vain thoughts: but thy
law do I love." (Psalm cxix. 113.) We think thoughts are free and
subject to no tribunal. If there be any error in them, we think it is a
very venial one. They betray us to no shame in the world, and therefore
we let them go without dislike and remorse. But a child of God
cannot pass over the matter so; he knoweth that thoughts are the
immediate births of the soul, and do ranch discover the temper of it;
that there actions begin; and if " vain thoughts" be suffered to lodge in
him, he will soon fall into further mischief; and therefore be considereth
what he thinketh, as well as what he speaJceth and doeth : and if at all
times, especially in worship, where the workings of the inward man are
of chief regard, and the acts of the outward only required as a help to
our serving God " in the spirit." (Phil. iii. 3.)
(3.) Carelessness in duties is the hiffh way to atheism.For every
formal and slight prayer doth harden the heart, and make way for
contempt of God. Men that have made bold with God in duty, and it
succeeds well with them,their awe of God is lessened, and the lively
sense of his glory and majesty abated, till it be quite lost: by degrees
they outgrow all feelings and tenderness of conscience; every time you
come to God slightly, yon lose ground by coming, till at length yon look
upon worship as a mere custom, or something done for fashion's sake.
2. Particularly.
(1.) It is an affront to God, and a kind of mockery.We wrong his
Omnisciency, as if he saw not the heart, and could not tell man his
thought. It is God's essential glory in worship to be acknowledged an
all-seeing " Spirit," and accordingly to be worshipped "in spirit and in
truth." (John iv. 24.) Thoughts are as audible with him as words;
therefore, when you prattle words, and do not make conscience of
thoughts, you do not worship him as a Spirit. We wrong his Majesty
when we speak to him in prayer, and do not give heed to what we say.
Surely, we are not to prattle, like jays or parrots, words without affection
and feeling; or to chatter like cranes; or be like Ephraim, whom the
prophet calls "a silly dove without a heart." A mean man taketh it ill
when you have business to talk with him about, and your minds are
403
elsewhere; yon would all judge it to be an affront to the Majesty of

God, if a man should send his clothes stuffed with straw, or a puppet
dressed up, instead of himself, into tbe assemblies of God's people, and
think this should supply his personal presence; yet our clothes stuffed
with straw, or an image dressed up instead of us, (such as Michal put
into David's bed, 1 Sam. xix. 12, 13,) would be less offensive to God
than our bodies without our souls. The absence of the spirit is the
absence of tbe more noble part. We pretend to speak to God, and da
not hear ourselves, nor can give any account of what we pray for. Or
rather let me give you Chrysostom's comparison: A man would have been
thought to have profaned the mysteries of the Levitical worship, if,
instead of sweet incense, he should put into the censer sulphur or brimstone, or mingle the one with the other.* Surely, our prayers should be
" set forth as incense." (Psalm cxli. 2.) And do not we affront God to
his face, that mingle so many vain, sinful, proud, filthy, blasphemous
thoughts ? What is this but to mingle sulphur with our incense ? Again:
when God speaketh to us, and knocks at the heart, and there is none
within to hear him, is it not an affront to his Majesty ? Put it in a
temporal case: If a great person should talk to us, and we should neglect
him, and entertain ourselves with his servants, he would take it as a despite
and contempt done to him. The great God of heaven and earth doth often
call you together to speak to you. Now, if you think so slightly of his
speeches as not to attend, but set your minds adrift, to be carried hither and
thither with every wave, where is that reverence [which] yon owe to him 7
It is a wrong to his Goodness, and the comforts of his holy presence;
for, in effect, you say that yon do not find that sweetness in God which
you expect, and therefore are weary of his company before your business
be over with him. It is said of the Israelites, when they were going for
Canaan, that "in their hearts they turned back again into Egypt."
(Acts vii. 39.) They had more mind to be in Egypt than under Moses's
government, and their thoughts ever ran upon the flesh-pots and bellycheer [which] they enjoyed there. We are offended with their impatience and murraurings, and the affronts they put upon their guides;
and do not we even the same and worse in our careless manner of worshipping ? When God hath brought us into his presence, we do in effect
say, " Give us the world again: this is better entertainment for our
thoughts than God and holy things." If Christians would but interpret
their actions, -they would be ashamed of them. Is any thing more
worthy to be thought of than God ? The Israelites' hearts were upon
Egypt in the wilderness; and our hearts are upon the world, nay, every
toy, even when we are at the throne of grace, and conversing with Him
who is the centre of our rest, and the fountain of our blessedness.
(2.) It grieteth the Spirit of God.He is grieved with our vain
thoughts, as well as [with] our scandalous actions. Other sins may
shame us more; but these are a grief to the Spirit, because they are
conceived in the heart, which is his presence-chamber, and place
of special residence. And he is most grieved with these vain thoughts
which haunt us in the time of our special addresses to God, because his
* CHBY808TOMU8, HomiL 74 in Matt,
404
SERMON XIX. HOW MAY WE CORE
peculiar operations are hindered, and the heart is set open to God's
adversary in God's presence, and the world and Satan are suffered to
interpose in the very time of the reign of grace, then when it should be
in solio, "in its royalty/' commanding all our faculties to serve it.
This is to steal away the soul from under Christ's own arm. As a
captain of a garrison is troubled when the enemies come to prey under
the very walls, in the face of all his forces and strength; so, certainly, it
is a grief to the Spirit when our lusts have power to disturb us in holy
duties, and the heart is taken up with unclean glances, and worldly
thoughts, then when we present ourselves before the Lord. God looks
upon his people's sins as aggravated, because committed in his own
house: " In my house have I found their wickedness" (Jer. xxiii. 11.)
What is this but to dare God to his very face ? Solomon saith, " A
king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with
his eyes." (Prov. xx. 8.) They are bold men that dare break the laws
when a magistrate is upon the throne, and actually exercising judgment
against offenders: so it argueth much impudence, that when we come
to deal with God, as sitting upon the throne, and observing and looking
upon us, that we can yet lend our hearts to our lusts, and suffer every
vain thought to divert us. There is more of modesty, though little
of sincerity, in them that say to their lusts, as Abraham to his servants:
"Abide ye here; and I will go yonder and worship;" (Gen. xxii. 5;)
or, as they say, the serpent layeth aside her poison when she goeth to
drink. When a man goeth to God, he should leave his lusts behind
him'; not for a while, and with an intent to entertain them again, but
for ever. However, this argueth some reverence of God, and sense
of the weight of holy duties; hut when we bring them along with us, it
is a sign we little mind the work we go about.
(3.) It i a spiritual disease.The soul hath its diseases as well as
the body. The unsteady roving of the mind, or the disturbance of vain
and impertinent thoughts, is one of those diseases. Shall I call it a
spiritual madness, or fever, or shaking palsyt or all these? You know,
mad men make several relations, and rove from one thing to another,
and are gone off from a sentence ere they have well begun it: our
thoughts are as slippery and inconsistent as their speeches; therefore
what is this but the frenzy of the soul ? What mad creatures would we
seem to be, if all our thoughts were patent, or an invisible notary were
lurking in our hearts to write them down! We run from object to
object in a moment, and one thought looks like a mere stranger upon
another; we wander and run through all the world in an instant. O,
who can count the numberless operations and workings of our mind in
one duty ? What impertinent excursions have we from things good to
lawful, from lawful to sinful, from ordinarily sinful to downright blasphemous ! Should any one of us, after he hath been some time exercised in duty, go aside and write down his thoughts, and the many
interlining^ of his own prayers, he would stand amazed at the madness
and light discurrency of his own imaginations.
Or shall I call it the feverish distemper of the soul ? JEgri somnia
["the dreams of a sick man"] is a proverb. In fevers men have a
DISTRACTIONS IN BOLT DUTIES?
405
thousand fancies and swimming toys in their dreams ; and just so it is

with our soul in Qod's worship. We bring that corse upon us spiritually, which corporally God threatened to bring upon the Jews: " I will
scatter yon to the end of the earth." We scatter our thoughts hither
and thither, without any consistency. The heart, in regard of this
roving madness, is like a runagate servant, who, when he hath left his
master, wandereth up and down, and knoweth not where to fix; or like
those that are full of distracting business, that cannot make a set meal,
but take their diet by snatches.
(4.) It ttrgueth the loss and non-acceptance of our prayers.You are
in danger to lose your worship, at least so much of it as you do not
attend upon. And, truly, to a man that knows the value of that kind
of traffic, this is a very great loss. You that are tradesmen are troubled
if yon happen to be abroad when a good customer cometh to deal with
you. The ordinances of God are the market for your souls: if yon had
not been abroad, with Esau, you might have received the blessing, and
gone away richly loaden from a prayer, from the word, and the Lord's
supper; but yon lose your advantages for want of attention. Allowed
distractions turn your prayers into sin, and make them no prayers.
When the soul departeth from the body, it is no longer a man, but a
carcass: so when the thoughts are gone from prayer, it is no longer a
prayer; the essence of the duty is wanting. What is prayer ?
AvxSouris , as Damascene defined it, " The lifting up of the heart
to God." Many have prayed without word; but never any prayed
without lifting up or pouring out the heart. If a man should kneel, and
use a gesture of worship, and fall asleep, no doubt that man doth not
pray. This is to sleep with the heart, and the words uttered are but
like a dream, have but a slight touch of reason in them, a mere drowsy,
unattentive devotion. The soul is asleep, though the eyes be not closed,
and the senses locked up. Can we expect that God should hear us and
bless us because of our mere outward presence? We are ashamed
of those that sleep at a duty; and this is as bad or worse : they may
sleep out of natural infirmity, as weakness, age, sickness, &c.; but this
doth more directly proceed from some slightness or irreverence. Well,
then, with what face can we expect the fruit of that prayer to which we
have not attended? "It is a great presumption to desire God to hear
those requests, a great part whereof we have not heard ourselves if they
be not worthy of our attention, they are far more unworthy of God's."
Cyprian, or Ruffinus, or whoever was the author of the explication
of the Lord's Prayer in Cyprian's works, hath a notable passage to this
purpose: Quomodo te a Deo exaudiri postulas, cum te ipso no oudias t
Vis Dew ewe memorem tut cum rogas, cum ipse tui memor nan sis?*
"Thou art unmindful of thyself, thou dost not hear thyself; and how
canst thou with reason desire the blessing and comfort of the duty
which thon though test not worthy thine own attention and regard ?"
I would not willingly grate too hard upon a tender conscience: it is a
question that is often propounded, "Whether wandering thoughts do
altogether frustrate a duty, and make it of none effect;" and " whether,
* CYPBIANVS De Oratwne Dominica,
406
SERMON XIX.
HOW MAY WE CURE
in some case, a virtual attention doth not suffice." There is an actual

intention, and a virtual intention. The actual intention is when a soul
doth distinctly and constantly regard every thing that is said and done
in a duty ; and a virtual intention is, when we keep only a disposition
and purpose to attend, though many times we fail and are carried aside.
This Aquinas calleth primam intentionem; ["the first intention;"] out
of the scripture we may call it, the " setting of the heart and soul to
seek the Lord." (1 Chron. xxii. 19.) Now, what shall we say in this
case ? On the one side, we must not be too strict, lest we prejudice the
comfort and expectation of God's people. When did they ever manage
a duty hut they are guilty of some wanderings ? It is much to keep
up our hearts to the main and solid requests that are made to God
in prayer. But, on the other side, we must not be too remiss, lest
we encourage indulgence and careless devotion. Briefly, then, by way
of answer, there is a threefold distraction in prayer, distractio invitat
neaiigeiu, et vohntaria.
(1.) There is distractio invita, "an unwilling distraction/'When
the heart is seriously and solemnly set to seek God, and yet we are
carried beside our purpose; for it is impossible so to shut doors and
windows but that some wind will get in ; so to guard the heart as to be
wholly free from vain thoughts; but they are not constant, frequent,
allowed, but resisted, prayed against, striven against, bewailed; and then
they are not iniquities, but infirmities, which the Lord will pardon. He
will gather up the broken parts of our prayers, and in mercy give us an
answer. I say, where this distraction is retracted with grief, resisted
with care, as Abraham drove away the fowls, when they came to pitch
upon his sacrifice; (Gen, xv, 11;) it is to be reckoned "among the infir*
mities of the saints, which do not hinder their consolation.
(2.) There is distractio negligent, " a negligent distraction/'When
a man hath an intention to pray, and express his desires to God, but he
prays carelessly, and doth not guard his thoughts; so that sometimes he
wanders, and sometime recovers himself again, and then strays again,
and is in and out, off and on, with God j as a spaniel roveth up and
down, and is still crossing the ways, sometimes losing the company he
goes with, and then retiring to them again, I cannot say, this man
prayeth not at all, or that God doth not hear him; but he will have
little comfort in his prayers; yea, if he be serious, they will minister
more matter of grief to him than comfort; and therefore he ought to be
more earnest and sedulous in resisting this infirmity, that he may be
assured of audience otherwise, if his heart be not affected with it iq
time, by degrees all those motions and dispositions of heart that are
necessary to prayer will be eaten out and lost.
(3.) There is distractio voluntaria, ' a voluntary distraction."When
men mind no more than the task or work wrought, and only go round
in a track of accustomed duties, without considering with what heart
they perform them,this is such a vanity of mind as tnrneth the whole
prayer into sin.
II. The CAUSES of this roving and impertinent intrusion of vain

thoughts,
DISTRACTIONS IN HOLT DUTIES?
407
1. Satan w one caute, who doth maxime insidiari orationibiu, as

Cassian speaketh, 'lie in wait to hinder the prayers of the saints."
Whenever we minister before the Lord, he is at our right hand ready to
resist us. (Zech. iii. 1.) And therefore the apostle James, when he biddeth us "draw nigh to God," biddeth as also to "resist the devil;"
(James iv. 7, 8;) implying thereby, that there is no drawing nigh to
God without resisting Satan. When a tale is told, and you are going
about the affairs of the world, he doth not trouble you; for these things
do not trouble him, or do any prejudice to his kingdom. But when you
are going to God, and that in a warm, lively, affectionate manner, he will
be sure to disturb you, seeking to abate the edge of your affections, or
divert your minds. Formal prayers pattered over do him no harm; but
when you seriously set yourselves to call upon God, he saith within himself, " This man will pray 'for God's glory ; and then I am at a loss; for
the coming of Christ's kingdom, and then mine goeth to wreck; that
God** will may be done upon earth as it is in heaven, and that minds me
of my old fall; and my business is to cross the will of God. He will
pray for doily bread, and that strengthened dependence; for pardon and
comfort, and then I lose ground; for the devils are the ' rulers of the
darkness of this world/ (Eph. vi. 12.) He will pray to be kept from sin
and temptation; and that is against me." Thus Satan is afraid of the
prayers of the saints; he is concerned in every request yon make to God ;
and therefore he will hinder or cheat you of your prayers; if you will
needs be praying, he will carry away your hearts. Now, much he can
do, if you be not watchful; he can present objects to the senses which
stir up thoughts, yea, pursue his temptations, and cast-in one fiery dart
after another; therefore we had need stand upon our guard.
2. The natural levity of our spirits.Man is a restless creature. We
have much ado to stay our hearts for any space of time in one state,
much more in holy things, from which we are naturally averse: " When
I would do good," ^, "evil is present with me."

(Rom. vii. 21.) 0 consider this natural feebleness of mind, whereby we
are unable to keep long to any employment, but are light, feathery,
tossed up and down like a dried leaf before the wind, or as an empty
vessel upon the waves! It is so with us in most businesses, especially in
those which are sacred. The apostle biddeth us "pray without ceas-
;
,
I
1
\
\
\
s
>
\
t
\
ing;" and we cannot do it whilst we pray. He is a stranger to God

and his own heart, who finds it not daily. This is an incurable vanity;
though we often repent of it, yet it is not amended ; a misery that God
would leave upon our natures, to humble us while we are in the world,
and that we may long for heaven. The angels and blessed spirits there
are not troubled with those things: in heaven there is no complaining
of wandering thoughts; there God is " all in all." They that are there
have but one object to fill their understandings, one object to give contentment to their desires; their hearts cleave to God inseparably by a
perfect love; but here we are cumbered with much serving; and much
work begets a multitude of thoughts in us. "The Lord knoweth the
thoughts of man, that they are vanity." (Psalm zciv. 11.) When we
have summed up all the traverses, reasonings, and discourses of the mind,
408
SERMON XIX.
HOW HAY WE CURK
we may write at the bottom this, as the total sum: " Here is nothing
but vanity."
3. Another cause is practical atheism.We have little sense of things
that are unseen and lie within the vail, in the world of spirits. Things
that are seen have a great force upon us. "Offer it now unto thy
governor," saith the prophet. (Mal. i. 8.) God is afar off, both from
oar sight and apprehension; senses bind attention. If you speak to a
man, your thoughts are settled, and you think of nothing else; but in
speaking to God, yon have not like attention, because you see him not.
"Make us gods, which shall go before us:" (Exod. xxxii. 1 :) ay, that
we would have a visible god, whom we may see and hear: but, the true
God being a Spirit and an invisible Power, all the service that we do
him is a task performed more out of custom than affection, in a slight,
perfunctory way.
4. Strong and unmortified lusts.Which being rooted in us, and
having the soul at most command, will trouble us, and distract us when
we go about any duty. Each man hath a mind, and can spend it unweariedly as he is inclined, either to covetousness, ambition, or sensuality;
for "where the treasure is, there will the heart be also." (Matt. vi. 21.)
Set but the covetous man about the world, the voluptuous man about his
pleasures, and the ambitious man about his honours and preferments;
and will they suffer their thoughts to be taken off? Surely, no. But
set either of these about holy things, and presently these lusts will be
interposing. "Their heart goeth after their covetousness." (Ezek.
xxxiii. 31.) The sins to which a man is most addicted will engross the
thoughts ; so that this is one sign by which a man may know his reigning sin, that which interrupts him most in holy duties; for when all
other lusts are kept out, Satan will be sure to set the darling sin a-work
to plead for him.
If a man be addicted to the world, so will his musings
be; if to mirth, and good cheer, and vain sports, his thoughts will be
taken up about them; if to the inordinate love of women, his fancy will
be rolling upon carnal beauty, and he will be firing his heart with unclean
thoughts.
5. Want of love to God and holy things.Men are loath to come into
God's presence for want of faith, and to keep there for want of love.
Love fixeth the thoughts, and drieth up those swimming toys and fancies
that do distract us. We ponder and muse upon that in which we
delight. Were our natural hatred of God and of the means of grace
changed into a perfect love, we should adhere to him without distraction.
We see, where men love strongly, they are deaf and blind to all other
objects ; they can think and speak of no other thing. But because our
love to God is weak, every vain occasion carrieth away our minds from
him. You find this by daily experience; when your affections flag in an
ordinance, your thoughts are soon scattered; weariness maketh way for
wandering; our hearts are first gone, and then our minds. You complain you have not a settled mind; the fault is, you have not a settled
love; for that would cause you to pause upon things without weariness.
" His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate
day and night." (Psalm i. 2.) " 0 how I love thy law! it is my medita-
DISTRACTIONS IN HOLT DUTIES?
409
tion all the day." (Psalm cm. 97.) David's mind would never ran
upon the word so much, if Me heart were not there. Thoughts are at
the command and beck of love : where love biddeth them go, they go;
and where love biddeth them tarry, they tarry; the saints first delight,
and then meditate.
6. Slightness and irreverence, or want of a tense of God** pretence.
A careless spirit will surely wander; but one deeply affected, is fixed and
intent. Jonah, when he prayed in the whale's belly,could he have a
heart to forget his work ? Daniel, when he prayed among the lions,
could he mind any thing else ? When we are serious, and pray in good
earnest, we will call-in all our thoughts, and hold them under command.
This question was put to Basil,how a man should keep the mind free
from distraction: his answer was, 6 ,

, ;
? * that is, that "this evil came from slightness
of heart, and unbelief of God's presence; for if a man did believe that.,.
God were before his eyes, searching the heart, and trying the reins, he
would be serious." "All things are naked and opened to Him with
whom we have to do." God looketh on, and so do the angels. He
looketh on the heart, and will not you be serious ? Scholars that have
a truantly mind,yet the presence of their masters forceth them to their
books,the great God who telleth man his thought,he seeth. Our
desires and thoughts speak louder in his ears than our words: therefore,
possess the heart with a dread of his glorious presence, and with the
weight and importance of the work we are about. Were we to deal
with another man in a case of life and death, we would weigh our words,
aud not rove like madmen.

7. The curiosity of the senses.These occasion a diversion. It is the
office of the fancy to present, as in a glass, whatsoever is received by the
external senses, or offered by the memory; and so the understanding
taketh notice of it. The wandering eye causeth a wandering heart.
Solomon saith, " The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth." (Prov.
xvii. 24.) First his eyes rove, and then his heart. The apostle Peter
saith of unclean persons, that they have " eyes full of adultery;"
.\$;, "of the adulteress," as the word eignifieth. (2 Peter ii. 14.)
,
I
;
The eye is rolled upon the object, and then the dart by the fancy is
transmitted to the heart. Senses are the windows and doors of the soul:
keep the senses, if you would keep the heart. Job was at a-severe
appointment with his eyes. (Job xxxi. 1.) It is good when we go to
i
\
God to renew these covenants ; to agree with the heart, that we will not
go to God without it; with the eyes and ears, that we will not see and
hear any thing but what concerns our work. It was a strange constancy
and fixedness which Josephus speaketh of, when Faustus, Cornelius, and
Furius, and Fabius, with their troops, had broken into the city of Jerusalem, and some fled one way and some another; yet the priests went on
with their sacrifices and the holy rites of the temple, as if they heard
nothing: though they rushed on them with their swords, yet they preferred the duty of their religion before their own safety.f And strange
* BASILIUS in Regulis Ireviwibus.
f JOSEPHUS De Bellis Judaorum.
,/
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410
SERMON XIX.
HOW MAY WE CORE
is that other instance of the Spartan youth, in Plutarch, that held the
censer to Alexander whilst he was sacrificing; and though a coal lighted
upon his flesh, he suffered it to burn there, rather than, by any cryingout, he would disturb the rites of their heathenish superstition. Certainly these instances should shame us Christians, that do not hold the
senses under a more severe restraint, but upon every light occasion suffer
them to trouble and distract us in worship.
8. Corking and distrustful caret.When we are torn in pieces with
the cares of the world, we cannot have a composed heart; but our minds
will waver, and our dangers will recur to our thoughts, and hinder the
exercise of our faith. God took special care of the Jews, when they went
up to worship, that they might have nothing to trouble them; and
therefore he saith, " The nations shall not desire thy land, when thou
shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year;"
(Exod. xxxiv. 24;) and Augustine gives the reason of it: " Lest they
should be distracted with thoughts about their own preservation," vuft
Deus intelligi vt eecurus quisque ascenderet, nee de terra sud sollicitus esset,
Deo promittente custodian.* And one of the arguments by which Paul
commendeth single life, is freedom from the incumbrances of the world:
" That ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction." (I Cor. vii. 35.)
REMEDIES.
III. I might speak many things, by way of mere counsel, about

guarding the senses, the use and abuse of a form, &c.; but all these are
but like external applications in physic, or topical medicines, as the
binding of things to the wrists of the hands, &c., which work no perfect
cure of a disease, unless the distemper be purged away. Therefore I
shall speak to those things that are most effectual.
I. Go to God, and wait for the power of his grace.David, speaking
of it as his work, [says,] "Unite my heart to fear thy name;" (Psalm
Ixxxvi. 11;) fix it, gather it together. jttou, saith
the Septuagint, "Make it one." The heart is multiplied when it is
distracted by several thoughts. God hath our hearts in his own hand;
and when we can keep them up no longer, then he holds them up;
when he withdraws his grace, we lose our life and seriousness. As
meteors hang in the air as long as the heat of the sun is great, but when
the sun is gone down they fall: as long as the love of God and the work
of his grace are powerful in us, we are kept in a lively, heavenly frame;
but as that abateth, the soul swerveth, and retnrneth to vanity and sin.
We read, that " the Lord opened the heart of Lydia, that she attended
unto the things which were spoken of Paul." (Acts xvi. 14.) Attention
there beareth somewhat a larger sense than we now consider it in; namely,
"a deep regard to the doctrine of life;" yet this sense of fixedness
of spirit cannot be excluded. Go to God, then; pray him to keep thy
heart together: be that hath set bounds to the sea, and can bind up the
* AUGUSTINUS, Qucett. 161 in Exodum. " God wished them to understand, that
they might (each of them) go up to the holy city with perfect security, devoid of all
solicitude respecting their land; for He promised to become its Guardian in their
absence."EDIT.
411
in a heap, and stops the sun in its flight,certainly He can fasten

and establish thy heart, and keep it from running out.
2. Meditate on the greatness of Him before whom we are.It is
of great consequence in duties to consider whom we take to be our party,
"with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) In the word, God is the
party that speaketh to us: " Thou shall be as my mouth;" (Jer. xv. 19;)
" As though God did beseech you by us." (2 Cor. v. 20.) It is God
[that] speaketh ; and the heathen king of Moab showed such reverence,
that when Ehud said, " I have a message from God unto thee, he arose
out of his seat." (Judges iii. 20.) So in prayer, yon have to do with
\
\
God; yon do as really minister before him as the angels that abide in his
presence. 0, if you could see Him that is invisible, you would have
wore reverence I A man that is praying or worshipping should behave
himself as if he were in heaven, immediately before God, in the midst
of all the blessed angels, those " ten thousand times ten thousand" that
stand before God. 0, with what reverence, with what fear, should a
poor worm creep into his presence !* Think, then, of that glorious, allseeing God, with whom thon canst converse in thoughts, as freely as with
men in words. He knoweth all that is in thy heart, and seeth thee
through and through. If you had spoken all those things you have
thought upon, you would be odious to men. If all our blasphemy,
uncleanness, worldly projects, were known to those that join with us,
should we be able to hold up our heads for blushing ? And doth not
the Lord see all this ? Could we believe his inspection of the heart, there
would be a greater awe upon us.
3. Mortify those lusts that are apt to withdraw our minds.He that
indulgeth any one vile affection will never be able to pray aright. Every
duty will give you experience what corruption to resist. What thoughts
are we haunted and pestered with, when we come to God? God requireth
prayer, that we may be weary of our lusts, and that the trouble that we
find from them in holy exercises may exasperate our souls against them.
We are angry with an importunate beggar, that will not be satisfied with
* Omnino not oporfet oration!* tempore curiam intrare calestem; , utique,
curtatn in qu& Rex regum sedet in stellato folio circwndante cum innumerabili et
weffabili beatorum spirituum eatereitu, ubi et ipse qui viderit, quia majorem numerum
non invenit, Millia, ait, mitiium minislrabant ei, et denes eentena millium assisteoant
ei quanta ergo cum reverentia, quanta timore, quanta illuc humilitate aocedere debet
e palude sua procedens et repent ranuneula viKs: quam fremebundus, quam supple*,
quam denique humilis et solieitut, et Mo intentus ammo majestati gloria, in presentia
angelorum, in consilio juttorum et eonqregatiane, assistere potent vilis homuneio..
BERNARDUS De quatuor Modis orandi. "At the time of prayer, it is our paramount
duty to enter into the very court of heaven; even into that court in which the King of
kings is seated on his high and starry throne, encircled with an innumerable and indescribable army of blessed spirits; which when he who saw them attempted to enumerate,
his mental powers could furnish him with no higher numerical expressions than these:
* Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
before Him!' (Dan. viL 10.) With what profound reverence, therefore, with what great
awe, and deep humility, ought a vile and crawling frog to emerge from its muddy pond,
and to approach into such an august and overpowering Presence! And how trembling
and suppliant, how humble and anxious, while gazing with all the intensity of his spirit
on the majesty of the Divine glory, will he who thus feels himself to be a mean ' worm
and no man' be able to stand within the angelic circle,in the assembly of the upright,
and in the congregation!' (Psalm cxi. 1.) "EDIT.
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A-
412
SERMON XIX.
HOW MAY WE CURE
any reasonable terras, but is always obtruding upon us. Every experience in this kind should give us an advantage to free our hearts from this
disturbance. The whole work of grace tendeth to prayer; and the great
exercise and employment of the spiritual life is, "watching unto prayer/'
(Epb. vi. 18,) and that prayer be not interrupted. (1 Peter iii. 7.)
4. Before the duty there must be an actual preparation or a solemn

discharge of all impediments, that we may not bring the world along
with us." Put off thy shoes from off thy feet," saith God to Moses;
" for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (Exod. iii. 5.)
Surely we should put off our carnal distractions when we go about holy
duties. " Gird up the loins of your mind," saith the apostle Peter;
(1 Peter i. 13;) an allusion to long garments worn in that country. It
is dangerous to come to prayer with a loose heart. " My heart is fixed/'
saith David, " 0 God, my heart is fixed ;" (Psalm Ivii. 7;) that is, fitted,
prepared, bended to God's worship. The soul must be set, put into a
dexterous, ready posture. Claudatur contra adversarium pectust et soli
Deo pateatt ne ad se hostem Dei accedere tempore orationis patiatur.
(CYPRIA.NI liber De Oratwne Dominicd.) "There must be a resolved
shutting of the heart against God's enemy, [and the opening of it only
to God, in the hour of prayer,] lest he insinuate with us, and withdraw
our minds."
5. Be severe to your purpose.And see that you regard nothing but
what the duty leadeth you unto. It is the devil's policy to cheat us of the
present duty by an unseasonable interposition. Satan beginneth with us
in good things, that he may draw us to worse. What is unseasonable is
naught. Watch against the first diversion, how plausible soever: it is
an intruding thought that breaketh a rank. In this case say, as the
spouse, " I charge you, that ye stir not up, nor awake my Love, till he
please." (Canticles iii. 5.) Such a rigid severity should you use against
the starting of the heart. If Satan should at first cast-in a thought
of blasphemy, that would make thee quake and shake: therefore, ho
beginneth with plausible thoughts. But be careful to observe the first
stragglings. Yea, be not diverted by thy very strivings against diversions;
and therefore do not dispute with suggestions, but despise them; nor
stand examining temptations, but reject them; as blind Bartimeua
regarded not the rebukes of the people, but cried the more after Christ;
or as travellers do not stand beating back the dogs that bark at them, but
hold on their course. This is to be religiously obstinate and severe to
our purpose. Satan, contemned, hath the less advantage against yon.
When he is w riting images upon the fancy, do not vouchsafe to look upon
them. A crier in the court that is often commanding silence, disturbeth
the court more than they that make the noise; so disputing with our distractions increaseth them; they are better avoided by a severe contempt.*
* Est praterea optimum ad altendendum remedium: imagines rerum irruentes no
soliim nan advertas, nan excutias, non examines, ted ila te habeas quasi eas nan aspioere
digneris: nam ipsum advertere et examinare istas cogitationes, evagari est; et jam
adversarius liquid a nobis ejctorsit, $c.JACOBUS ALVAREZ. "Besides, the be^t
remedy which you can adopt is strict attention in this duty : if images of things begin to
rush in crowds into your mind, you should not only be unconcerned about them, stopping
neither to cast (.hem away nor to examine their quality, but you should also coutpovt
413
6. Biing with you to every holy service strong spiritual affection.

Our thoughts would not be at such a distance from our work, if our
y/
affections were more ready and more earnestly set: it is the unwilling /\
servant that is loath to stay long at his work, hut is soon gone. Could
we bring ourselves mere delightfully to converse with God, our hearts
would hold our minds close, and we would not straggle so often as we
do: therefore, see you do this, or you do nothing. " I was glad," saith
David, " when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord."
(Psalm cxxii. 1.) Were we of this frame of spirit, many directions [we]
/
would not need. Now, what should hinder us from being thus affected ?
Are not the ordinances of God the special means of our communion with
him ? and the throne of grace, the very porch of heaven ? Can we be
better than in God's company, pleading with him for our soul's good,
and waiting for his blessing ? Therefore, let us be glad, and rejoice in
his presence; and you will not easily find such out-strayings of mind and
thought.
7. Remember the weight and consequence of the duties of religion.That
is a cure for slightness. You are dealing with God in a case of life and
death; and will yon not be serious ? With what diligence and earnestness
doth an advocate plead with a man, in a case wherein he himself is not concerned, either for the life of another, or the inheritance or goods of another!
And wilt not thou plead earnestly with God, when thy soul is in danger,
when it is a case of eternal life and death, as all matters that pass between
God and us are?* Certainly, if we did consider the weight of the business, the heart would be freed from this garish wantonness. If Christ
had taken thee aside into the garden, as he took Peter, James, and John,
and tbou hadst seen him praying and trembling under his agonies, thou
wouldst have seen that it is no light matter to go to God in a case of the
salvation of souls, though thou hast never so much assurance of the issue;
for so Christ had. The frequent return of Christian duties maketh us to .
forget the consequence of them. In hearing the word, be serious; it is /\
your life. " Set your hearts to observe all the words of this law. For
it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life." (Deut. xxxii.
46, 47.) Thy everlasting estate is upon trial; and the things that are
yourself as though you disdained even to look upon them. For the mere turning aside
to those obtrusive thoughts, for the purpose of examining them, is itself an act of
wandering; and already has the adversary of our souls extorted something from us, and
gained an advantage," &c.EDIT.
* Si cum sublimi homine, non dieam pro vita et salute nostra, ted etiam pro alicujus
iucri commodo tupplieamiu, totam in eum mentis et corporis aeiem defigentes, de nutu
ejus trepida expectatione pendemui, non mediocriter formidantes, ne quidforti ineptum
et incongruum verbum misericordiam audientis avertat: Quanta magi eum UK occultorum omnium Cognitori, pro imminenti perpetua mortis perieulo, supplieemus, &c.
C AS si AN us, coL xxiii. c. 7. "If when we supplicate a man of exalted rank, I will not
say, for our own life and salvation, but even for the purpose of obtaining advantages for
some other person, fastening all the keen sight of our mind's eye as well as that of our
body intently upon him, we hang with trembling expectation upon the slightest motion
of bin countenance, entertaining no small dread lest perchance an indiscreet or inappropriate word should escape from our lips, to avert the flow of mercy from the breast of him
who favours us with an audience:with how much greater ardency, caution, and solicitude,
then, ought we to address ourselves as suppliants to Him who takes cognizance of all
secret, while we are engaged before him in deprecating the peril of eternal death, which
is impending over us, and to which we are obnoxious {"EDIT.
414
X
X
V
X
SERMON XIX. HOW TO CURE DISTRACTIONS INT HOLY DUTIES.
spoken, concern your souls. Every act of communion with Gdd, every
participation of hie grace, hath an influence upon eternity. Say, therefore, as Nehemiah in another case, " I am doing a great work, so that I
cannot come down." (Neh. vi. 3.) Can you hare a heart to mind other
things, when you are about so great a work as the saving of your souls ?
8. Let every experimental wandering make you more humble and
careful.If men did lay their wanderings to heart, and retract them,
even every glance with a sigh, the mind would not so boldly, so constantly, digress and step aside. All actions displeasing are not done so
readily; therefore, it is good to bewail these distractions. Do not count
them as light things. Cassianns, speaking of these wandering thoughts,
saith, " The most that come to worship, being involved in greater sins,
scarce count distraction of thoughts an evil,"* and so the mischief ia
increased upon them. It is a sad thing to be given up to a vain mind,
and such a frothy spirit as cannot be serious; therefore, if we do soundly
humble ourselves for these offences, and they did once become our burden,
they would not be our practice. One saith.f that huntsmen observe
of young dogs, that if a fresh game come in view, they leave their old
scent; but if soundly beaten off from it, they kindly take to their first
pursuit. The application is easy : did we rate our hearts for this vanity,
and pray against the sins of our prayers with deep remorse, this evil
would not be so familiar with us.
9. A constant heavenliness and holiness of heart.If men were, as
they should be, ev rowjj , " holy in all manner of conversation," (1 Peter i. 15,) in solemn duties, good and proper thoughts
would be more natural and kindly to us. They that live in a constant
communion with God, do not find it such a tedious business to converse
with him.
If they have any excursion of thoughts, it is in their daily
work, and the offices of the common life, which they are ever seasoning
with some gracious meditations and short ejaculations. When they are
in duty, they are where they would be: constant gravity and seriousness
is a great help to them. Men allow themselves a lawless liberty in
their ordinary conversations; and then in prayer they know not how to
gather up their hearts. Such as men are out of prayer, such they will
be in prayer. We cannot expect that pangs of devotion should come
upon us all of a sudden; and that when we come reeking from the
world, we should presently leap into a heavenly frame.
10. The next remedy is frequent, solemn meditation.If the understanding were oftener taken up with the things of God, and our thoughts
were kept in more frequent exercise, they would the better come to band.
There is a double advantage comes to us by meditation :
(1.) The soul gets more abundance of heart-warming knowledge.And
therefore will not be so barren and dry, which certainly is a cause
* ffteo omnia nonnullis gui nmt crasnoribus viliis involuti lematatque a peooato pen
aliena, videntur: scientibta tauten perfectionis bonum, etiam minimarum rerum multitudo
yravitsima esteCASSIANUS, coLrxxui. c. 7. " To some who ate entangled with vices
of the grosser kind, all these wandering thoughts seem to be trivial, and scarcely coming
within the verge of sin; but to those who know and value the blessing of perfectnese,
the multitude even of these very little things is grievous and distressing."EDIT.
f HOOKER on Acts ii. 37
8ERMON XX.
HOW MOST WE IN ALL THINGS GiVB THAN&8?
415
of wandering. "My heart is inditing a good matter;" and then "my

tongue is the pen of a ready writer." (Psalm xlv. 1.) A man that boileth
and concocts truths in his heart, hath a greater readiness of words and
affections: there is a " good treasure" within him, (Matt. zii. 35,) out
of which he may spend freely. One expresseth it thus: " He that hatli
store of gold and silver in his pocket, and but a few brass farthings, will
more readily, upon every draught, come out with gold and silver than
brass farthings: so he that hath stocked his heart with holy thoughts,
will not find carnal mnsings so rife and frequent.*' *
(2.) By v*e a man get a greater command over himself."When we
constantly leave the thoughts at random, and never lay restraints upon ythem, it is in vain to think we shall keep them in order when we please. ^
Fierce creatures are tame to those that use to command them. Every art
is difficult at first, as writing, singing, playing npon an instrument; but
we get a facility by use and exercise; yea, not only a facility, but a
\S
delight in them : and those things that at first we thought impossible, by /
a little practice grow easy. Certainly, " the way of the Lord is strength
to the upright;" (Prov. x. 29;) and the more we set ourselves to any
good thing, the more ready and prepared are we for it.
SEEMON XX.
BY THE BET. WILLIAM COOPER, A.M.
BOW MD8T WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
In every thing give thanks : for thi is the will of God in Christ Jesus
concerning you.'1 Thesealonians v. 18.
THE more comprehensive any mercy or duty is, the greater they are.
There are three duties here together, which the apostle exhorts to; all
which have a kind of universality annexed to them; of which my text
contains one.
1. Rejoicing.We must "rejoice evermore;" for even holy mounting
hath the seed of joy in it, which the soul finds by that time it is over,
if not in it. (Psalm cxxvi. 6; xcvii. 12.)
2. Prayer."Pray without ceasing."f We must be ever, at least,
in a holy disposition to this duty, when we do it not actually. " Prayer
is the wall that compasses the city: there must be no gap in it. It is
as the sun in the firmament: it must always keep its round." J
3. Thanksgiving." In every thing give thanks," &c.
Observe in the words these two parts:
(1.) A duty enjoined.

(2.) A reason annexed.
* COBBKT Of Prayer."
f Though not in the heretical eense of [the] Euchites
and MessaHans.
$ CHBYSOSTOJIUS, Oral. ii. Dt wand. Devm.
4J6
SERMON XX.
HOW MTJST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
(1.) In the duty note four things:

(i.) The matter of it: " thanksgiving."
(ii.) The object of it, implied: "God."
(Hi.) The performer of it: "believers;" for to them he writes.
(I These, i. 13.)
(iv.) The extent of it: " in every thing."
(2.) In the reason we have three things:
(i.) The ground of the duty.It is " the will of God," the revealed
will of God, the rule of all obedience.
(ii.) The manner of declaring God's will to us in this behalf. Tt is
"the will of God in Christ Jesus ;"* it is a gospel duty. Christ Jesus
was the prophet and messenger of it; it is suitable to the mind of Christ;
it is accepted of God in Christ and for Christ. Lastly, Christ himself was
a pattern of it: " This is the will of God in Christ Jesus."
(iii.) The special application." This f is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you."
Mr. Calvin doth excellently show the sweet harmony between these
three duties, how one helps the other; $ but I cannot insist on that.
The lesson, then, which the Holy Ghost would have us learn in the
text, is thus summed up:

DOCTRINE.
It is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning Christians, that in every

thing they give thanks; that they be thankful, as our word is more
proper to our purpose.
For though we have nothing of our own that is good to give God but
thanks, yet neither do we properly give him that, seeing both our giving
and the right manner of doing it, even in thanksgiving, are of the Lord.
(I Cor. iv. 7; 1 Chron. xxix. 14; Phil. ii. 13.)
Our continual praying shows that we are always beggars, and our continual thanksgiving shows us always debtors. Our thanks, then, indeed,
is the rebound of mercy heavenward, whence it came, and a holy reflection
of the warm sun-beams of God's benefits shining on us.
That which I principally aim at in the pursuance and pressing of this
truth, is, not only to speak somewhat to it in the nature, necessity, and
excellency of it, but to the extent of it as a special case: How Christians
may be said to give thanks in every thing, and why ?
QUERIES.
I. Who are properly concerned in this duty ?

II. Why, and upon what grounds, are Christians bound to give thanks
in every thing ?
III. How, and in what manner, are Christians to give thanks in
every thing?
* It is pleasing and acceptable unto God.BEZA inlocum. Velista per anthypophoram
dicta sunt.Idem, ibidem. " Or these expressions are employed in the form of an answer,
to an objection."EDIT.
f Illud autetn referendum nan ad gratiarum
tantum actionem, ted et ad preces.GaoTii Annotationes in locum. " But the word
this must refer not only to giving thanks, but also to praying without ceasing."EDIT.
$ Comment, in I Thess.
SERMON XX.
HOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
417
IV. How in afflictions, and why?

Y. How shall we bring our hearts to give thank to God in every
thing?
QUERY i. Who tare or ought to be thankful ?
/
ANSWER. The Lord hath a return and tribute of praise due to him A
from all creatures. David names animate and inanimate creatures, and
bids them sing hallelujah; (Psalm cxlviii.;) as if all the world were but
one concert of musical instruments tuned to God's glory. But he looks
for it principally from men and angels; from all men.
It is charged as an inexcusable sin, uncapable of any apology, upon V
natural men, " that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, /
neither were thankful."* Upon which place Beza brings in Galen, a
heathen man, praising and blessing God, not with sacrifices and sweet
incense, but acknowledging and proclaiming the wisdom, power, and
goodness of God, &c. "I write this," saith he, "as a hymn, and
account it the true worship of that God."f
Thelaw of thankfulness is written upon the hearts of very Heathens;
as may be proved at large, not only from heathen instances, but [from]
scripture also; as the Philistines, when they had taken Samson and
killed Saul; (Judges zvi. 24; i Sam. xxxi. 9;) and Belshazzar, who
" praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone,"
&c.; (Dan. v. 23;) which although it be enough to shame unthankful
Christians, yet it signified little ; for all wicked men, though they have
cause, yet they have no heart to this work, at least not often, nor at all
as it should be.
Some are so curious as to inquire whether reprobates in hell have not
cause to give thanks that their torments are less than the merits of their
sins, and for that the justice of God is glorified in the inflicting of them;
but this is foreign to our case.
The persons engaged and most bound to this duty are the Thessalo- y
nians that believed, and all the faithful upon the same account.
/\
THANKFULNESS DESCRIBED.
Now, howbeit all the service we perform to God,, both mediate and
immediate worship, the duties of both tables, yea, and the whole work
of our Christian obedience in a holy conversation, be but a return
of thankfulness unto God;$ yet thanksgiving, in the text and
doctrine, is taken more strictly for a particular part of God's worship
distinct from prayer, (of which he spake immediately before,) which
sometimes includes praise and thanks too, by which we render due praise
to God for all or any of his benefits promised or bestowed, and that
with our hearts, lips, and lives.
Some affirm that much of religion is seen in piety to parents, observance to our betters, and thankfulness to our benefactors. God is indeed
all these to us. Tet the proper notion of our thankfulness refers to God
* Eis TO vat currovs !. (Rom. i. 20, 21.)
t 'Itpov rye, roe
Ai>/uovpyn<ru>r<tt , & * TOM* tutu otTttt
, &c.GALEXUS De Utu Pariium, lib. iii.
s/
/^
y\
418
SERMON XX.
HOW MUST WK IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS f
as our benefactor, every benefit from God makes the receiver a debtor; *
thankfulness is rather the confessing of our debt than the payment of
it; and forasmuch as we are bound always to be thankful, it doth
acknowledge we are always beholden to God, and always insolvent.

Now, a child of God is bound to be thankful to God above all men,
because,
1. He is more competent than any other.
2. He is more concerned than any other.
1. More competent.By acts of reason and grace too. All that the
scripture speaks, as to the duty of thankfulness, may be referred to
these heads:
(1.) To know and acknowledge the Lord's mercies.
(2.) To remember them; that is, to record and commemorate them.
(3.) To value and admire them.
(4.) To blaze and proclaim them.
In all which a gracious soul is much more competent than a mere
natural man, though endued with quick understanding, strong memory,
and great eloquence. For the Spirit of God hath enlightened his soul,
and taught him this lesson; he is principled for it; he is a well-tuned
instrument; his heart boileth with good matter, and his " tongue is the
pen of a ready writer/' as David speaks on this occasion, when he spake
of the praises of the king in his " Song of loves." (Psalm xlr. 1.)
This Spirit of God in a thankful soul is as the breath of the organ,
without which the pipes make no sound; yea, as the breath of the
trumpeter, by which the trumpet gives a certain and melodious
sound.
This is it that makes that noble evangelical spirit, yea, that heavenly
Angelical spirit, in Christians. See a place for it: "Be not drunk with:
wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns; giving thanks always for all things
unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ:*'
(Eph. y. 1820:) showing that what wine doth in poets and goodfellows, (it makes them sing and roar out catches, by which they make
music to the devil,) so the Spirit of God in saints is the principle of all
true thankfulness and holy joy towards God: and, indeed, there was a
very gracious frame of spirit this way in primitive Christians.
2. More concerned.As having received more than others: "Unto

whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required;" (Luke
xii. 48;) a proportion of duty according to the degree of every portion

of mercy, whether you consider what is given, or what is forgiven, you.
There are two things which every gracious soul will acknowledge:
" No man,*' saith he, " in the world hath deserved less of God than I;
and none hath received more of God than I: how much, then, am I
concerned to be thankful!"
I have read of a holy man, that was seen once standing still with
tears in his eyes, and looking up to heaven; and being asked, by one
that passed by, why he did so, said, " I admire the Lord's mercy to me
"We praise God for all his perfections, we thank God for hie benefits."
b, out of Aquinas.
& XX.
BOW MUST WB IN ALt. THINGS GIVE THAXKS?
419
that did not make me a toad;" that vermin being then, casually at bis V
feet.
/N
The least common mercy affects a gracious soul that knows his desert
[to be] nothing but misery. Mephibosheth " bowed himself, and said,
What is thy servant, that thon shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I
am?" (2 Sam. ix. 8;) when David had told him he should have his ^.
lands, and eat bread at his table. When the Lord spares oar lives, and X
gives us common mercies, we must admire and adore his goodness.
/
And this leads me to the second general question.
QUERY ii. Why, and upon what ground*, Christian are bound to give
thanks in every thing ?
ANSWER . It is the will of God in Christ Jesus.
The will of God in Christ Jesus is the clearest rule, and the highest
obligation, to any soul for the performance of any duty. that men
would now-a-days study more, act by, and hold fast to, this rale; and
ask conscience in the performance of every duty, "Is this the will
of God in Christ Jesus?"
It was meet that this duty of thankfulness should be pressed and
practised under the gospel, because it argues a spiritual and noble frame
of soul, the highest pitch of grace, which is a true gospel-frame.
David, under the Old Testament, had a New-Testament heart in this
particular: his Psalms, which were all penned upon emergent occasions,
are all tehilla and tephilla, " prayer and praise;" his heart and harp were
so tuned to the praises of God, to " Psalms of Degrees," to Hallelujahs,
J\
that some have thought the Lord is praised with ihose psalms in heaven.
Tet is it promised under the gospel, that " he that is feeble shall be
as David;" (Zech. zii. 8;) which some understand as to praise and
thanksgivings, upon the account of gospel grace.*
More punctually, "this is the will of God in Christ Jesus;" that is,
Jesus Christ shows us the duty of thankfulness, both by pattern and
by precept; for he was not only ushered into the world with songs
of thanksgiving by angels, by Zachary, by Mary, by Simeon, by the
shepherds, &c., (Luke i. 46, 68; ii. 13, 14, 20, 29,) but the Lord
Jesus himself was a great Pattern and Precedent of thankfulness all his
< ,
life long; and in this also was a true Son of David; he thanked God
V*
frequently and fervently: " I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and ' *
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes;" (Matt. zi. 25;) when his disciples
preached and cast out devils. Thus, also, when he raised Lazarus:
"Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." (John zi. 41.)
When he was to eat common bread, he blessed it with giving of thank*;
(Mark viii. 6 ;) much more consecrated bread. (Luke zzii. 19.)
Thus was he a pattern of thankfulness, he did " in every thing give
V
thanks."
^
In like manner we find him reproving the nine lepers for their
unthankfulness; (Luke zvii. 17, 18;) which shows that he held out
thankfulness as a duty; personally, he gave a pattern and precept for it.
Now, though this were enough to show it {to be] " the will of God in
* GttEGOttiua, Horn. xx. in Ezek.
420
SERMON XX.
HOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS f
Christ Jesus," yet these words reach further; namely, to show that it is
the strain of the gospel in the apostles* doctrine and practice; for they,
through their commission, and the great measure of God's Spirit in
them, declared ' the will of God in Christ Jesus:" " They worshipped
him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in
the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.'* (Luke xxiv. 52, 53.)
What the apostle Paul's spirit was in this, (by whom so much
of " the will of God in Christ Jesus" is revealed and penned,) I need
not rehearse; for all his Epistles breathe out the praises of God's grace.
ANSWER 2. Thanks and praise is the homage we owe to God for all
we have and are.Therefore, in every thing to be rendered.
We live precariously, and at mercy: " By the grace of God we are
what we are." (1 Cor. xv. 10.) God in his sovereignty might have left
us in the womb of nothing, and never made us, and have crashed us
into nothing as soon as he made us; for " bath not the potter power
over the clay?" (Rom. ix. 21.) Every moment we depend on him, and
hold all from him; (Acts xvii. 28;) his power over us is arbitrary and
infinite; to this sovereign God we owe all, and therefore our thanks:
" Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him
again ? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to
whom be glory for ever. Amen." (Rom. xi. 35, 36.) For not considering this, Belshazzar smarted: " The God in whose hand thy breath
is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." (Dan. . 23.)
V The birds that lift up their bills at every drop they take may mind us
of this duty. Common and constant mercies deserve special thanks,
because constant.
ANSWER 3. Christians must give thanks in every thing, because they
have spiritual mercies innumerable and invaluable superadded to common
mercies.Special and spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus: " Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ." (Eph. i. 3.) " Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible,"
&c. (I Peter i. 3, &c.) " Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort j who
comforteth us in all our tribulation," &c. (2 Cor. i. 3, 4.)
Papists distinguish grace into " grace freely given," and " grace that
makes men grateful to God the Giver of grace." * This distinction is
idle and untrue; for all grace, as freely given, obligeth ns to be grateful ; but yet special grace binds us to a more special gratitude; namely,
sanctifying and saving grace.
The decreeing and sending of Jesus Christ to and for poor sinners;
the opening a fountain of grace in and by him; the making and ratifying a covenant of grace, whereof the Lord Jesus is the Angel and
Mediator; the precious promises, both absolute and conditional, there
upon; with all other choice gospel-privileges of grace and glory, as far
as God's all-sufficiency, and the infinite merit, satisfaction, and righte* Gratia gratia data, et gratia gratum faciens.BELLARJUINUS, VALEHTIA, &c.
SERMON XX.
HOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS QIVB THANKS?
421
ousness of the Son of God can reach '.This deseros a suitable proportion of thanks and blessing from us, both here and in heaven.
" Because thy loving-kindness is better than life,* my lips shall praise
thee;" (Psalm bdii. 3;) that is, I will render special and continual
praise for this above all other things.
QUERY in. How and in what manner Christian are to give thank in
\J
/\
every thing.
ANSWER. The difficulty lies here as to the act and the object both.
1. That is, how a man can always have his heart and tongue exercised
unto this duty. 2. If he could be supposed to do this, yet it seems
that every thing is not a fit subject-matter of thanksgiving: for, a great
part of our life being sin and misery, which is rather the ground
of mourning than of thanksgiving, our thankfulness seems to be restrained to a narrower sphere than what the text holds out.
1. " Can a child of God in any tense give thanks for tin f"
ANSWER. No, not properly; because, (I.) That which is the ground
of detestation cannot be the ground of thanksgiving; but sin is a
"detestable thing." (Ezek. v. 11.) (2.) That which producetha curse,
cannot properly cause blessing; but sin is a cursed thing. (Gal. iii. 10.)
(3.) As we may not "sin that grace may abound," nor "do evil that
good may come" of it, (Bom. vi. 1; iii. 8,) so sin cannot be the \j
ground of thanksgiving ; being contrary to the honour, image, and will /\
of God. (4.) Sin is none of God's creatures,! therefore a plague and
not a benefit; therefore the subject of sorrow and shame, not of thanks.
Nevertheless, improperly, by accident, occasionally and consequentially,
as men speak, sin is a ground of thanksgiving. "How?" That the
Lord by his unlimited power can so master sin, and by his infinitely wise
providence can so permit, dispose of, and bound sin, and by his free
->/
grace pardon sin; yea, make grace superabound where sin did abound;
'
fetching light out of darkness, and make great sinners become great
taints? and from all lay a foundation, and raise a revenue, of infinite
glory to himself:this is praiseworthy in God.
Now, as Pilate and Herod, Judas and Jews, are not to be praised for
their treachery and cruelty against Christ, although they did, by all they
did, fulfil and execute God's decrees in that behalf; so no man must
thank sin, or God for sin, albeit God hath extracted treacle out of this
viper. (Acts iv. 27, 28.)
Wherefore, when we read of a holy man that said, he was more beholden to his corruptions than to his gifts and graces, because the former
made him humble, the latter made him proud;or when we hear another
cry out, Ofelix culpa, &c., " 0 happy sin of our first parents, happy tree
of knowledge, that bore such fruit, that brought forth such a promise, such
a Saviour/' &c.;I say, when we hear such rhetorical strains as these
from the devout, ancients or moderns, we must understand them warily.
Yet, when the Lord doth demonstrate the glory of his attributes in
overruling and. pardoning sin, to the salvation of poor sinners, there is
reason we should magnify him to the height. (1.) Because all the die* A meiosie.
f Dew turn eet author, ted tor, peocafi.
author, but the avenger, of sin."EDIT.
"God U not th
422
X
X
X
X
SERMON XX.
honour which God hath in the world is upon the account of sin. (2.)
Because we ourselves, having dishonoured him much that way, it is meet
we adore and admire him the more in the power of his grace, that can
fetch a pearl out of this dunghill, and by such a foil set-off his glory.
Let us, then, as many as profess to be made partakers of this grace,
speak good of the Lord for it, and give others occasion so to do; as the
Romans did to Paul: " God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin,
but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you;" (Rom. vi. 17;) that is, that ye were once sinners, and are
now saints.
2. Come we then from moral evil to penal evil; that is, if we may not
give thanks properly for sin, without sin ; whether may we give thanks for
crosses and calamities ?
ANSWER. Here, say some, we may not properly give thanks for penal
evils, because, as such, they are the strokes of God's vindictive justice,
the fruit of sin, and destructive to the creature; in which sense they
have not rationem beneficii sed supplicii, "they are not benefits, but
punishments."
But, whereas the Lord hath so ordered that all things shall work
together for good to them that are good, and crosses are some of those
things, they are hereby sanctified and become the matter of thanksgiving
to a child of God.
And this was that noble primitive frame of spirit among Christians:
under what providence soever, dark or light, sweet or sour, they were
thankful in all; always thankful.
St. Augustine, upon Psalm cxxxii., commendeth that ancient custom
among Christians, in whose mouths you should always hear these words;
Deogratias, "Thanks be to God!" when they met and saluted one another, Deo gratias, "God be thanked ;" when they heard any tidings of
persecution or protection, favour or frown, gain or loss, cross or comfort,
still Deo gratias, "The Lord be thanked;" at which custom the
CircumcelHans pick quarrels, but St. Austin defends it as laudable and
religions: "What," saith he, "shall brethren in Christ not give God
thanks when they see one another ? What better thing can we speak, or
think, or write, than this? God be thanked! Nothing can be more
compendiously spoken, nor more gladly heard, nor more solemnly understood, nor more profitably acted, than this; God be thanked!"* Thus
he. Such a frame of heart had holy Job: " The Lord gave, and the
Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." [Job i. 21.]
And such a one was in the sweet singer of Israel: "I will bless the Lord
at all times." (Psalm xxxiv. 1.) Notable is that of Chrysostom: " There
is nothing," saith he, " nothing can we study more pleasing to God, than
to be thankful, not only in good days, but when things likewise fall out
cross. This is the best sacrifice and oblation we offer God."f Of a
* Quid meliut et animo geramus, et ore promamut, et calamo eatprimamus, guam
"Deo gratias?" Hoc nee did brevius, nee audiri laetius, nee intelligi grandius, nee
affi fruciuosius potest, Deo gratias."AUGUSTIXUS, Epist, 77
t OuSev
oorui ftf
Ortpunrovoturrov &s ro
, < fvwrtvs
tn Psalmum cxv.
ca>eu teat
MS
Suucctficyw, &c.CHRVSOSTOMUS
8EBMON XX.
BOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
423
like spirit was famous Mr. Bradford, martyr: speaking of Queen Mary,
at whose cruel mercy he then lay, " If," said he, " she will release me, I
will thank her; if she will imprison me, I will thank her; if she will
burn me, I will thank her," &c. So saith a believing soul: " Let God
do with me what he will, I will be thankful."
This made one of the ancients* to say, "It is peculiar to Christians
to give thanks in adversity. To praise God for benefits,this Jew and
Gentile can do; but to give God thanks in dangers according to the
apostle's sense, and in miseries, and always to say, ' Blessed be God,'
this is the highest pitch of virtue; for a true Christian's language is
this: * I cannot tell how I should suffer less; these things are but little
to my sins: I deserve much more at the Lord's hands.' Here is your
Christian; such a one takes up his cross, and follows his Saviour: no
loss or cross can dishearten him; but, as the poet saith, * If the world
break and fall about hie ears, he would not be afraid.'" Thus St.
Jerome.
By whom it should seem, that to give God thanks for crosses and
afflictions is vepurrov, " to be numbered among those singular things
which Christians are bound to excel in" beyond Heathens and publicans;
as to love enemies, to bless them that curse, &c., to which our Saviour
exhorts and commands. (Matt, v.)
Papists, indeed, tell us, they are counsels and commands, and therefore required only of perfect one*, in order to merit and supererogation;
which is a blasphemous fancy. Those duties, and so this of thankfulness, in every thing is required of every Christian, virtute praceptif
["in virtue of the command;"] "This is the will of God concerning
you," saith my text.
QUERY iv. Why and how we do give thanks in and for affliction?
ANSWER 1. We mutt give thank for good: affliction are not evil, but
good.David tells you so, and wherein: (Psalm cxix. 67, 6 8 , *
which every child of God also finds. To this agrees that of the S
that crosses are not evil, but good :f
(1.) Because inflicted by the Lord, who is the Chief Good.
(2.) Because suffered by the Lord Jesus, who is the Chief Good.
(3.) They conform us to the Lord, who is the Chief Good.
(4.) They prepare us for communion with the Lord in heaven, which,
is our chief good: therefore, be thankful for crosses.
ANSWER 2. We must thank God for every token of hi fatherly love.
But now crosses and troubles are such fatherly love-tokens. " Whom
the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth;" (Heb. xii. 6;) therefore, give thanks for them; as well for
the rod, as for bread.
"This is thankworthy:" this is acceptable to God. God will thank
us for suffering patiently; therefore we must thank him for inflicting it
as a tender Father on beloved sons. (1 Peter ii. 19, 20.)
Would you be counted bastards? Alexander cashiered one of his
name that would not fight; the eagle is said to cast off those young ones
that cannot bear the sight of the sun; and some Germans counted such
* HIEHONYMUS.
f BIEL and others.
\ /
\ >
V
, A
V
424
SERMON xx. HOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKSf
children spurious brats that could not swim : so our heavenly Father will
never own them for his children that will not submit to his rod, and kiss
it too. " Lord, when thon strokest, and when thou etrikest, thou art
alike a Father," saith St. Austin.*
.
ANSWER 3. The Lord by afflicting his people doth prevent sin, and
y. purge it,Therefore, give thanks for it, for this is good, because it frees
/
us from the greatest evil.
(1.) He prevents sin by it."Lest," saith Paul, "I should be
exalted above measure, there was given to roe a thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan to buffet me." (2 Cor. xii. 7.)
(2.) He purgeth sin by it." By this," saith the prophet, " shall the
iniquity of Jacob be purged." (Isai. xxvii. 9.)f
Now, do we not thank and pay the surgeon that lets out our bad
blood, that lanceth our festered sores, that cuts out our proud and rotten
flesh ? Yes, surely, we do thank him. Do we not also thank the physician that keeps us to a strict diet, confines us to our chamber, gives us
bitter pills and potions, and crosses our appetites ? Yes, we do thank
him; for hereby he cures a disease, defends and preserves both our
health and life.
Now, what else, I beseech you, doth the Lord do, more or less, by all
that we suffer at his hands ? And doth not he deserve our thanks, as
well as the physician and surgeon ?
"When we are vexed and pinched, then onght we more especially
to give the Lord thanks, who, as a most indulgent Father, will not
suffer our corruptions to spread further, but represses and corrects them
by severe strokes and scourges," saith Lactantius. |
" Withhold not correction from the child : for if thou beatest him,
with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and
shalt deliver his soul from hell." (Prov. xxiii. 13, 14.) 0 blessed rod
that can do this! God's rod doth it surely. " Then it is better to go
to God's house of correction, than to the place of torment." Happy
children, then, who have the Lord for their Father and for their Physician! this he takes for one of his eminent titles, ?fKD*i rrirr? "The
Lord thy Physician." (Exod. xv. 26.) He doth it "'skilfully, easily,
safely, quickly, thoroughly," || according to all the properties of the best
artists ; therefore, thank him.
ANSWER 4. We must thank the Lord for afflicting us, and for laying
the cross upon us, because it is so far below what we deserve at his hands.
What is a drop of wormwood sweetened, to the gall of bitterness ? to
/the lake of fire and brimstone? Hear what Zophar tells Job: "0 that
/ * G o d would speak, and open his lips against thee; and that he would
show thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which
, j is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity
X deserveth." (Job xi. 5, 6.)
The like saith holy Ezra; and then, surely, we have much more cause
* El /m blandtr'is Pater es, et eum cadis Pater es.AUGUSTINUS in Psalmvm
xcviii.
f CHRysosTOM.
Institut. lib. v. de Justitia, cap. 23.
? 9>.GREG. NAZIANZENUS.
cito, tine dolore.
<
|| Tuto,
SERMON XX.
HOW MOST WB IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
425
to say so; and is not this ground of thankfulness f " If thou suffer
a thousand evils, thou wilt never suffer what thou meritest," saith that
Father.*
Jesus Christ drank off the dreggy part of the cup for us. We do hut
as it were sip for fashion, that we may seem to pledge; for, to drink as
he drank it we cannot, we need not. (Matt. xx. 22.) f Thank God, \/
then, that thou hast so little a share of it, when all was thy portion by / \
right and justice. This is thankworthy.
ANSWER 5. We mutt give thanks in every thing, even in and for afflictions, under the rod and cross, because thereby the Lord doth discipline
us, and learns us much which else we never would have learned.By this
David learned God's commandments, and they became dearer to him
" than thousands of gold and silver." (Psalm cxix. 71, 72.) By this the
Lord "opens the ear to discipline," saith Elihu, even when men are
" bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction ; then he showeth
them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He
openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return
from iniquity." (Job xxxvi. 810.) For as wax, unless it be heated .
and softened, takes no impression of the seal; so no man, unless exer-
cised with much affliction, will receive the prints of divine wisdom.
, the word commonly used by the Holy Ghost in the New
Testament for "chastise," signifies, properly, "to teach a child as a
schoolmaster or father, with a rod." (Heb. xii. 512 ; Luke xxiii. 22.)
This is God's way of teaching; and the best scholars in Christ's college
have come by their learning this way. " It is good for a man that he
bear the yoke in his youth/' (Lam. iii. 27.) By this, the poet saith,
wise Ulysses was trained up. We use to say, They are usually the best
scholars that have bought their learning dearest. I am sure this is the
choicest saints' academy.
ANSWER 6. Give thanks in and for afflictions, because hereby the
lord fits us for heavenly glory.Saints are called " vessels of mercy,
prepared unto glory;" (Rom. ix. 23 ;) but how do men make and prepare vessels? If it be a vessel of earth, the potter beats the clay to V
make it well-tempered, then he moulds it on the wheel, then he bakes y \
it in the oven, and then it is fit for use. If it be a vessel of wood, it
hath many a turn and many a cut, before it is fit. If it be a vessel
pf gold or silver, it hath both heats and knocks, before it be complete.
So must every vessel of mercy be served, before it be fit for glory. |j
* vatyf
Scivo, ovSow * C&DKOS Junjv.CHRreoSTOMtTS i
Psalmum xli. 1,
f Vide GREGOHIUM, Horn. *vL in Ezek. x. lib. 2.
$ Tbe
CTOse teacheth more the way to heaven than all the sermons of the doctors.TACLERUS.
Qui ttudet optatam eunu contmgere tnetam,
Multa tulitfeeitquepuer, sudavit et aisit, c.HORATIUB De ArtePoetica, 412.
"A youth who hope the' Olympic prize to gain,
All 1arts must try, and every toil sustain;
The extremes of heat and cold must often prove,
And shun the weakening joys of wine and love."FRANCIS'S Translation.
| Sub malleo premitur aurum tungionibus, ut va fabricetur magni pretii: tic veluti tub
malteo suntjusti, premunturgve laboribus, vtfiant vtua magntt ghria.OERHARDUS.
" Gold is crushed under many and repeated strokes of the hammer, that out of it may he
fabricated a vessel of great value. Thus, as under a hammer, are die righteous placed, and
are oppressed with labours, that they may become vessels of great glory."EDIT.
426
SERMON XX.
" We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.'*
(Acts xiv. 22.) Thus the apostle Peter tells, us also, " that the trial
of our faith, being much more precious than of gold/' will be " found
unto the praise and honour and glory" of God; (I Peter i. 7;) for
" the cross is the whetstone of faith," * and all other grace, setting an
edge and lustre upon it; it is the awakening of the north-wind and
south-wind, to make these spices flow. (Canticles iv. 16.) The stone
that is most hewed, cut, carved, and polished, is usually set in the
chiefest part of the building. So are suffering saints prepared for the
highest degrees of glory.f For these are prepared the aureola, those
additional "flowers and ornaments" that all shall not partake of, say the
Schools.
Those only that were beheaded or slain " for the witness of Jesus,"
reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Rev. xx. 4.) So that it may be
said of the Lord's sufferers, as David speaks: " Though ye have lien
among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." (Psalm Ixviii. 13.) This may
be truly said, when the Lord shall " change our vile bodies, and fashion
them like to his glorious body." Notable and curious is that of Tertullian upon Jacob's blessing the two sons of Joseph "with his hands
across," (which is granted by all,) decussate manibus, that he might
bless Ephraim the youngest with the blessing of the first-born: (Gen.
xlviii. 14:) " That we might know, no blessing comes to us more kindly
and properly than by the cross." Therefore give thanks in and for thy
afflictions.
ANSWER 7. It is a very high privilege for a Christian to be conformed

to Christ.To be conformists to Christ, is to be nonconformists to the
world. (Rom. xii. 2.) But now, what doth more conform us unto
Christ than the cross? Therefore give thanks for it. "That I may
know the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his
death." (Phil. iii. 10.)
This is part of that excellent knowledge for
which he accounted all other worldly privileges but dung.
To this con-
formity in afflictions unto Christ we are predestinated. (Rom. viii. 29.)

This privilege appears in verse 17 : "If we suffer with him, we shall be
glorified together." This way Christ entered into glory. " Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ?" (Luke
xxiv. 26.) Now, if we will enter with him, we must follow after him.
How ? By taking up his cross. " Christ, like a good physician, first
tasted the medicine that he gave his patient." || " The cross of Christ
sweetens our sufferings in the bitterness of them; as that piece of wood
sweetened the waters of Marah, being cast into them."^[ Therefore,

John wrote to the saints, as partakers together of a great privilege, when
he said, " Companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience
* Cnue est coticula fide*.HIERONTMUS.
f AUGUSTINUS in Psdlmum xxvi.
Ut intellifferemus benedictionem non nisi per crucem haberi posse.TEETUI-LIANUS
De Baplismo, cap. viii.
Oportet nos crucifigi cum Cruoiflxo, ui glorificemur cum
Glorificato.MACAIUUS, Homilia xii. "With the Crucified One we must be crucified,
that we may be glorified with Him who is glorified."EDIT.
|] Chrisfus prius
ipse dibit pationem quam suis paravit.BERNARDI Parv. Serm.

in xod. xv.
*[[ LUTHERUS
SERMON XX.
BOW MUST WK IN ALl THINGS GIVE THANKSf
427
of Jesus Christ." (Rev. i. 9.) Then never hope to go another way than \j
the Captain of oar salvation hath led as; for if we baulk hie track, we y\
are lost.* Must we not then give thanks for affliction that conforms as
to our Head ?
ANSWER 8. The crow i a Christian's banner, hie honour, and the
special favour of the Lord toward him.Therefore be thankful for it.
Let not this seem a riddle or paradox. " I have you," saith the apostle,
" in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and
confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace;" (Phil,
i. 7 ;) where by " grace " many understand, a special act of God's favour
to him and them, wherewith they were to account themselves highly
graced. Hence he saith again a little after, " Unto you it is given in the \/
behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his /\
sake." (Verse 29.) This he accounts a peculiar gift of God to them,
whereof but few in comparison do partake, f Hence saith one upon that
place, "It is a most noble, yea, and almost divine, thing to suffer for the
Lord Jesus." $ For the Lord gave Christ himself, on this very account,
" a name which is above every name." (Phil. ii. 9.) Mark what the
apostle Peter smith : " If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy
are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." (1 Peter
iv. 14.) Which words must be understood emphatically [as] the highest
manifestation and operation of the Spirit of God. God's Spirit mani*
festeth itself variously in several subjects; but in sufferers for Christ the
very spirit and quintessence of glory seems to be extracted and poured
on them.
Upon all these accounts, and many more such, we are to thank God
for crosses and corrections, because the good of them doth flow from
God's goodness, not from their nature. When the horse-leech, by the
physician's direction, sucks our blood, and thereby performs a cure, the
horse-leech is not to be thanked, but the physician for his application.
So the Lord can make the bloody persecutors of his people to be
instruments of good to his people: no thanks to them, but to him,
for it.
QUERY .v. How shall a Christian bring his heart to this holy and heavenly frame, so as in every thing to give thanks f
ANSWER. Hearken to these few directions, and lay them up in your
hearts, and draw them out in your constant practice.
1. Pray earnestly for the Spirit of God.Without that Spirit thou
canst never pray or praise God duly, because not spiritually; none can
sanctify the Lord God in bis heart, (which is the first principle of this
work,) but he whose heart the Lord God hath sanctified. |] The Holy
Spirit breathing in a man, makes him a living organ, tuned to and sound
ing out his praise. " Praise is comely for the upright;" (Psalm xxxiiL 1;)
* AUGUSTINUS m Psalmum lit
t Utrumque ottendit Dei dontm, qttia
vtrumque dint este donafam.AUGUSTINITS. " He shows each of these to be die gift
of God, because he declares them both to have been given."EDIT.
VASQUEZ,
tn locum.
mtrt "The Spirit," per He emphaticum.
|| Canticum nmntm
et vetvs homo meui concordant.AUGUSTIXUS. " The nev> tong, and the old man,
(unsanctified human nature,) make sad discord."EDIT.
\ /
\S
\,
428
BBRMON XX.
HOW MXTST WE IN THINGS GIVE THANKS?
but as uncomely in a carnal mouth as a jewel in a swine's snout. The

pompous dresses and melodious choirs of Magnificats,* without the Spirit
of God breathing among them, are but as " a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." f For, indeed, without the Spirit of God in men, they
neither can nor will remember the Lord's mercies, nor consider them, nor
value them, nor be affected with them, nor blaze % the praise of them.
"The dead," saith David, "do not praise thee;" dead hearts produce
dead works; it is the Spirit that quickens.
2. Labour to get a continual quick sight and sense of sin.This will
make thee sensible of every mercy, and thankful for it. So the provocation and merit of sin is nothing but curses; death and wrath being due
to it. That yet thou shouldest be so tenderly spared, and instead
of miseries shouldest enjoy blessings, how shouldest thou be affected
,
with this, as Mephibosheth was with David's kindness to him! A humble,
\V broken heart is the most thankful heart: this was most eminent in the
most eminent saints: Jacob, (Gen. xxxii. 10,) David, (per Psalmos,}\\
Paul, &c. (1 Tim. i. 1217.) He that knows he hath forfeited all,
knows he deserves nothing but the reward of that forfeiture, which is
wrath; and he that deserves nothing, thanks God for every thing, even
for the least drop and crumb. ^[
3. Behold every mercy coming to thee in the stream of Chrisfs blood,
and through the covenant of grace.This gives the mercy both an esti. mate and a relish; this doth both sanctify it, and sweeten it, and subli\J mate it.** A crust of brown bread, coming thus, is better than a purse
7s full of gold another way; as that king's kiss to one friend was said to be
better gold than a cup of gold which he gave another friend.ff " He
sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for
ever: holy and reverend is his name." (Psalm cxi. 9.) The deliverance
there was, in David's account, and that truly, the more thank-worthy,
as being upon a covenant-account; for thus every mercy is a token
of the Lord's favour to bis favourite: it is that which makes common
mercies to become special mercies. Carnal men, so they enjoy mercies,
they mind not which way they come-in, so they can but have them; but
* Magnificat, the well-known title of the song of the virgin Mary, (Luke i. 46,)
is adopted as part of the even-song in the ritual both of the church of Rome and of England 4 in the chanting of which, as a canticle of great joy, the prsecentors, vicars-choral,
choristers, and other tuneful sprites, in cathedrals and collegiate churches, rise up and pour
forth their " notes symphonious." By an allowable metonymy it is here used for the
persons engaged in this lively service.EDIT.
)* Non musica chordula sed cor, non
damans sed amans cantat in aure Dei. " In die ears of God, that is the most delightful
harmony which proceeds, not from musical concord, but from a well-tuned heart; not from
a loud singer, but from a true lover of Christ Jesus."EDIT.
In the old meaning of " make known, or spread abroad."EDIT.
" I will sing with the spirit."
(1 Cor. xiv. 15.)
|| " Throughout the book of Psalms."EDIT.
*5 Jnvitat
ad magna, qui gratanter accipit modica.CASSIODORUS. " When s man receives small
favours with thankfulness, his grateful expressions serve as an invitation for his benefactor
to bestow on him much greater benefits."EDIT.
**An\ma immersa sanguini
Christi aurea redditur, ut manus in aurum Kquefaetum injecta deauratur.CHRYSOS
TOMUS. " A soul immersed in the blood of Christ is rendered golden ; even as a hand
dipped into a crucible containing the metal in a liquid form, is completely encrusted with
gold on its being withdrawn."EDIT.
the Great in page 386.EDIT.
)) See this anecdote related of Alexander
XX.
HOW MUST VfK
IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
429
,/
a child of God knows that every thing that comes through Christ's hands A
is the better for it, and tastes the sweeter hy far.*
'
4. Look on thy mercies at answer to thy prayers, and bleu the
Lord for them on that account:For that is doable mercy :(1.) That W
God hath inclined and directed thine heart to beg such a mercy; for /\
this is a special act of the Spirit of adoption. (Bom. viii. 26, 27.)
(2.) That he hath answered such prayers; for this is a sign [that] he \t
accepts thee in Christ. Many blessings come-in unasked-for, and /\
unlooked-for : yet these require thankfulness.
Bnt when the Lord is inquired-of for the things we have, and doth
grant them to us, this is a blessing upon his own institution, and a seal
to his promise. Hear David: " Come and hear," saith he, " and I will
declare what he hath done for my soul. I cried unto him with my
mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue;" (Psalm Izvi. 16, 17;) as \,
if he had said, " This was a signal favour for the Lord to grant what I
petitioned him for; and therefore deserves a special acknowledgment.'*
For this Hannah calls her son, Samuel, that is, " asked of God;" (1 Sam.
i. 20;) and Leah calleth her second son, Simeon, that is, " hearing,"
because God heard her prayer for him. (Gen. xxix. 33.) And Rachel
called her son, Naphtali, that is, " wrestling," because she wrestled for
him. (Gen. xxx. 8.) Now as Samuels should be Lemuels, that is,
" dedicated to God," so all our mercies we get by prayer should be the
more solemnly dedicated to the Lord by thanksgiving; and such a frame
of a thankful heart is a spiritual frame.
5. When any of God's dealings do either draw us, or drive us, nearer to
God, this is a special mercy.When we consider that well, we cannot but
be greatly affected with it, and will be accordingly thankful for the mercy,
for the dispensation is thereby the more merciful. Mercies are drawingcords, afflictions are whip-cords to drive us; by both we are brought nearer
to God: thank him. If the chief Shepherd hunt us together, and keep us
from straggling, and bring us under command, this is a mercy to Christ's
sheep. If the Lord " hedge up our way with thorns," that we cannot
find our lovers, this is a mercy. And if the Lord recover f his mercies
from us, that in the want of them we may know he was the Founder and
Fountain of them,this is a mercy. (Hosea ii. 69.) When Absalom
burnt Joab's corn, it was to make Joab (who before that kept off) come to
him: so all the angry dispensations of God towards his children are, that
they [may] return to him. (Amos iv. 612.) That storm that sinks and
splits some ships, drives others faster into the haven: so do the troubles
of this world make a true Christian's voyage towards heaven the speedier.
6. That soul that is truly and spiritually thankful, will so order his
whole conversation, that God may have the glory of it.This the Psalmist,
who was well skilled in this art, seems to point at often. " Whoso
offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation
aright will I show the salvation of God." (Psalm 1. 23.) We cannot better
* Non tarn benqficwm, ted ratio benefioii attendenda eti. "We must have regard
not merely to the benefit which we receive, but also to the manner and reason of its having
been conferred."EDIT.
-f In its legal meaning of regaining, or taking backt
in judgmentEDIT.
)(
\ .
V
/
\/y\
,
y
f\
w
y\
430
y
x
X
X
SERMON XX.
glorify God than by a well-ordered conversation : this is in every thing to

give thanks indeed. So likewise in Psalm cvi. 1: " Praise ye the Lord!
Hallelujah. 0 give thanks unto the Lord;- for he is good: for his mercy
eudureth for ever." There is, (1.) The doxology; (2.) Invitation; (3.)
The reason that we should, and why we should, give thanks always.
But " who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord ? who can show forth
all his praise ?" That is, It is impossible for any man in the world to do
this great duty aright, and as he should. " Blessed are they that keep
judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times." (Psalm cvi.
2, 3.) As if he had said, " This indeed is a vast duty; but yet he
makes the best essay towards it that sets himself constantly to serve God
and keep his commandments." Now, this no man can do, neither perfectly, but only by the merits and in the strength of Christ j he, making
it the desire of his soul to serve the Lord, is accepted, though endeavours
fall short; and therefore [he] is pronounced blessed. For to be " a doer
of the work" by evangelical obedience, makes him " blessed in his deed."
(James i. 25.) Labour, then, to bless the Lord, not only in words, but in
deed, and you shall be blessed.
7. If we would offer thanks to the Lord acceptably, let us do it " in the
name of the Lord Jems" (Eph. v. 20.)Thus are we directed by the

Spirit of God, (I.) Because all mercy comes to us by him. (2.) Because
nothing is accepted but in him.* (3.) Because it is one part of his
priestly office to receive the prayers and praises of the saints in his golden
censer upon the golden altar, with much incense. (Rev. viii. 3,4.) " By
him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is,
the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name;" (Heb. xiii. 15;)
alluding to that of the prophet, who calls it, "the calves of our lips:"
(Hosea xiv. 2:) that through Christ's propitiatory sacrifice our eucharistical sacrifices are accepted, and that we must offer these under the gospel
" continually," jugiter ; alluding to the daily sacrifice.f Now this must
needs sanctify our service, because the "altar sanctifies the gift;" and
therefore mention is made of a golden altar in this case.
USES.
Is it the will of God in Christ Jesus that in every thing we give thanks f
Then this serves to condemn the horrid ingratitude of Christians.
1. Those that in nothing will give thanks, at no time, for no mercy.
These are swine that devour all that drops from the tree of God's bounty,
and never look up whence it cometh. These are worse than the ox and
ass that know their owner's and master's cribs. (Isai. i. 3.) These
are mere Heathens, J who, though they profess " they know God, yet do
not glorify him as God, nor are thankful." [Rom. i. 21.] These are like
buckets that run greedily down into a well when they are empty with
open mouth; but when they be full, they turn their hinder part upon the
* Per eundwn est deoursu beneficiorum et recwsva. " The same Divine Person is
the conduit through which our mercies flow down to us in benefits, and are returned in
thanksgiving."EDIT.
t Juge sacrificium. "An unceasing, never-failing
sacrifice."EDIT.
J error grati homines reperiuntur.CICERO. "Truly
grateful men are very rarely to be found."EDIT.
8KRMON XX.
BOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS OIVS THANKS?
431
well that filled them. Thus do unthankful men call greedily for mercies; V
N
and when God hath filled them, they " turn the back, and not the face."
2. Another kind of unthankful men if that sort, who, having received
mercies from God, arrogate the honour of them to themselves.Let
Papists and Pelagians, old and new, who attribute more to free-will
than to grace, which the one makes the root of merits, the other gives
the casting of the scale in man's conversion to it;let these see how by
such principles they can acquit themselves from the crime of sacrilegious
ingratitude, for they rob God of his glory; and then let them hear, not
me, but St. Austin, thundering against them: "0 Lord, he that assumes
the glory of any good he hath to himself, and ascribes it not to thee, that V/
man is a thief, and a robber, and like the devil, who robbeth thee of thy / ^
glory." * Thus also they who attribute their riches, children, honours,
victories, health, safety, knowledge, &c., to their wits, labours, merits,
these are ingrateful robbers of God. Thus they burnt incense to their
drag and yarn. (Hab. i. 15, 16.) Thus Nebuchadnezzar gloried in the great
Babel of his own building. (Dan. iv. 30.) Thus the Assyrian also ranted
and vaunted himself, as if by his own great wisdom and valour he had
conquered the nations. (Isai. x. 1315.) But mark the end of these
men; how the Lord took it, and how he dealt with them for it. He
turned Nebuchadnezzar out to graze f among the beasts. He kindled a
fire in the Assyrian's forest, and burnt it. He struck Herod, that he was
eaten up with worms, because he gave himself, and not God, the glory.
(Acts xii. 23.)
3. Another tort of unthankful one there is, that seem to be very

thankful; but it is only complimentally, and with the lip.These are
like apes that eat up the kernel, and leave God the shells; they care not
to go to the cost of a heart- or a life-thankfulness; they are cursed
hypocrites: they put him off with the blind and the lame in sacrifice,
and never once give him the male of their flock. (Mal. i. 14.) God will
pay them in their own coin; they are thankful in jest, and God will
damn them in earnest. " That man," saith Lactantins, " cannot be a
godly man that is unthankful to his God." J And Aquinas saith, that
" unthankfulness hath in it the root and matter of all sin;" for it
denies or dissembles the goodness of God, by which we live, move, and ^s
have our being, yea, and all our blessings, the thankful acknowledgment /\
whereof is our indispensable homage unto God. Unthankfulness was a
huge ingredient into Adam's sin: to sin against his Maker as soon as he
was made; yea, by whom he was so fearfully and wonderfully made,
little lower than the angels! (Psalm cxxxix. 14; [viii. 5.]) Unthankfulness was the sin of Noah and Lot after their deliverances, the one from
water, the other from fire; (Gen. ix., xix.;) the sin of Israel, that forgat their Rock, their Husband that found them in " the waste howling
wilderness;" (Deut. xxxii.;) and when they "lay in their blood, no eye
pitying them, cast out to the loathing of their persons;" (Ezek. xvi.
* Qui de bono two, Domine, glotiam sibi qvartt, et nan tibi, hie fur ett et latro et
mi/is diabolo, 0. Soiiloq, e. 15.
-f- The editions vary that in ibis
word: grate, grite,grase.EDIT.
$ Nonoonttare homini ratiopietatiipotett, 0.
LACTANTII Institut. c. 3.
Materialiter per connoiationem, et adharentiam.
432
SERMON XX.
136 ;) the sin of David ; (2 Sam. xii. 79;) the sin of Solomon;
(1 Kings xi. 9 ;) the sin of Hezekiah. (2 Chron. xxxii. 25.)
The great sin of the gospel is unthankfulness, by sinning against the
light, love, free grace, and rich patience of God in it.* This is "to
turn his grace into wantonness;" to prefer darkness before light, to
" neglect so great salvation," not to come under Christ's wing when he
calls to us, to " despise his goodness and long-suffering, leading us to
repentance," not to "come to him that we may have life;" to resist his
Spirit, and trample on his blood, f The sin of the greatest sinners in the
book of God is unthankfulness: the sin of the angels that kept not
their first station; the sin of Cain in his offering; the sin of the Sodomites ; the sin of the old world, the sin of Saul, the sin of Jeroboam the
son of Nebat, the sin of Nabal, the sin of Hanun, the sin of Judas, the
sin of Julian, and of antichrist,all is unthankfulness.

EXHORTATION.
I shall conclude with a solemn exhortation to all that hear this word,
X
X
and profess the Lord Jesus, and to be ruled by the will of God in Christ
Jesus revealed, that they study and practise this great, this comprehensive duty of thankfulness. Consider, that no people in the world have
such cause of thankfulness as Christians: J they have received more
mercy than any; therefore there is the more of them required ; therefore
the Lord takes their unkindness the more unkindly. (Deut. xxxii. 6.)
Sins against mercy will turn mercy into cruelty, and patience into fury.
To be unthankful to a bountiful God, is for a froward child to beat his
mother's breasts that gave him suck, and to kick his father's bowels.
The Lord, that he might upbraid his people's ingratitude, compares them
to a bullock that was fatted in good pasture, and then kicked. (Deut.
xxxii. 1525.) And what this cost you may read there.
When the Lord would preserve in his people the memorial of his
mercies, see how he orders them: every man was to come with a basket
of fruits; and the priest was to take it, and set it down before the
Lord; and he that brought it was to make a solemn confession of his
own poverty and wretchedness, of God's goodness and faithfulness to
him, and of his engagements to the Lord for the same. (Deut. xxvi.
110.) Hereby the Lord let them know that they had all from him,
and held all at mercy, and this was their homage that they paid him.
what shall we then render to the Lord for all his benefits ? who were
" Syrians ready to perish;" [Deut. xxvi. 5 ;]-who " with our staff passed
this Jordan, and now are two bands;" [Gen. xxxii. 10 ;] who have not
only nether springs, but upper also; the Lord hath opened a fountain
and a treasure for us.
* Peremptoria re est ingratitude, hostis gratia, inimica salutis.BERN AUDI Serm.
i. de septem Miser. " Ingratitude is a most destructive vice, the foe of grace, inimical to
our salvation."EDIT. Ingratitudoeat ventus urens,et exsiccansfontem gratiee, fluenta
misericordia.Idem. " Unthankfulness is a hot and burning wind, drying up both the
fountain of grace, and the streams of mercy."EDIT.
t Quousque se diffundit
gratia, eo patet ingratitude. "As far as ever grace has been diffused, so far has ingratitude developed itself."EDIT.
Crescentibus doms crescunt donorwn rationes.
" Concurrent with the increase of the gifts of God is that of our liability to account for
their receipt and employment"EDIT.
SERMON XX.
BOW MUST WE IN ALL THINGS GIVE THANKS?
433
Think of this, all you malcontents and murmurere; read over your \/
mercies; preserve a catalogue of them; compare them with what others / \
enjoy. It is not with you as with Heathens ; you have the gospel; if it
totters, as if it were in a moving posture from you, thank your unthankfulness for it. Ton have had it with peace and plenty; and if that hath \J
glutted you, and the Lord is now curing your surfeit hy a sparer diet, /\
thank your wan ton ness for it.
Yet consider: Turks and Tartars are not in your bowels, burning
your houses, ravishing wives and daughters, killing old, sick, and
infants, carrying away the rest captives, drinking healths in your dead
nobles' skulls digged out of their graves. Yet all this is done among
the poor Protestants in Transylvania; sword, famine, and pestilence

making havoc in that flourishing country; not to speak of other places,
what is felt or feared. Is not this ground of thanks?
Consider, yet again, what we have had long, and still have, though
the land is full of sin from one end to the other; what we have
deserved, and yet do,even to be stripped naked of all life and liberty,
peace and plenty, to have our doors shut up, our lights put out, our
teachers all driven into corners, the good land to spue us out, and the
abomination that maketh desolate to enter in among us, our land to
keep her sabbaths because we profaned the Lord's sabbaths, the voice
of the screech-owl to be heard instead of the voice of the turtle. " It is
of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed;" for what privilege or
patent have we to be secured and indemnified above others ?
How long ago had Divine Justice made short work with us, if Divine
Patience had not been stretched to long-suffering; if Mercy had not
held back the hand of God's vengeance, as the angel caught Abraham's
knife when it was lifted up to kill his son! For, surely, methinks Mercy
and Justice have been long wrestling, and the Lord hath said long
of England, as he said of Ephraim, " How shall I give up England ? how
shall I make thee as Admah aud Zeboim, as Sodom and Gomorrah?"
Now, consider this, all ye that forget the Lord's benefits, lest he come
not only as a moth to you, as he seems to be already in your trade, in
your health, in your food, but as a lion to tear and go away. Where- \/
fore, would you value your mercies? consider others' miseries. Would
^
you thank God for them ? consider your abuse and unworthines
of them. Would you continue and increase them ? be thankful for them.
Would you taste sweetness in them? get a sanctified use of them.
Would you honour God in every condition ? make a holy improvement
of every dispensation. Would you be Christians indeed? "in every
thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you." Turn your hearts and tongues to it here, and you shall be
chosen into the choir of angels, to perform it for ever in heaven. *
* Hand qwoquam ita terris represented calestis habitation, statwn, sicvt
alacritas Deum laudantium.BEAN AUDITS, Ser. i. in Cant, "Scarcely any thing on
earth conveys to our minds so lively and appropriate a representation of the state of that
'house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' as doth the cheerfulness with
which those who praise God, in these his earthly courts, engage in that most delightful
service.",D IT.
434
SERMON XXI.
HOW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
SERMON XXL
BT THE BEY. MB. SIMMONS.
HOW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH, AND KNOW WHEW
OUR ACTIVITY IN DUTY IS FROM THE SPIRIT OF GOO?
Quicken thou me in thy way.Psalm cxix. 37.

THIS psalm shines and shows itself among the rest,
Velut inter ignes
Luna minorest*
A star in the firmament of the psalms, of the first and greatest magnitude. This will readily appear if you consider either,
1. The manner it is composed in; or,
2. The matter it is composed of.
1. The manner it is composed in is very elegant.
2. The matter it is composed of is very excellent.
1. The manner it is composed in is very elegant: Fall of art, rule,
method, theological matter in a logical manner, a spiritual alphabet
framed and formed according to the Hebrew alphabet.
2. The matter it it composed of is very excellent: Full of rare sublimities, deep mysteries, gracious activities, yea, glorious ecstasies. The
psalm is made up of three things,
1. Prayers; 2. Praises; 3. Protestations.
1. Prayers to God; 2. Praises of God; 3. Protestations unto God.
My text belongs unto the first, and may fitly be styled "David's
Litany ;" where you have,
1. His Lidera, Domine: "Turn away mine eyes from beholding
vanity."
2. Hie Eseaudi, Domine: " Quicken thou me in thy way."
In this, these three parts are considerable:
1. The act, "quicken." 2. The subject, "me." 3. The object,
thy way."
In the prosecution of which scripture I shall do these three
things:
I. Explicate the terms.
II. Deduce a corollary.
III. Resolve the cases.
I. For EXPLICATION. " Quicken." There is a two-fold quickening :1. Proper and moral. 2. Improper and metaphorical.
1. Proper and moral, which is two-fold: (1.) Total. (2.) Partial.
(1.) Total.Which is the raising a dead body to natural life. Thus
was Lazarus raised. (John xi. 43, 44.) So was Drithelme of Northum* Ho RAT 11 Odarum lib. i. od. xii. 47.
" And like the moon, the feebler fires among,
Conspicuous shines."FRANCIS'S Translation.
SERMON XXI.
HOW HAY WE GET HI OV SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
435
beriand raised) if credit may be given to Bede;* and [so was] Heros
Armeneus. *f
(2.) Partial: Which is the restoring a body, declined and decayed

with sickness or sorrow to spirits and vigorous energies. So was
David, whose body by grief and sorrow was made a mere skeleton.
(Psalm xzzi. 1022.) Hezekiah by sickness [was] brought so low,
that he was become spiritless ; yet he was raised up again: upon which
he composes that rare hymn or canticle of praise to God, Isaiah
zxxviii. 20.
2. Improper and metaphorical i which is likewise two-fold: (1.) Total.

(2,) Gradual.
(1.) Total; which is the raising of a soul stark-dead in sin, to spiritual life: " And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses
and sins." (Bph. ii. 1.)
(2.) Gradual; which is the raising of a dull and drowsy soul from
sloth and sluggishness to high (yea, highest) degrees of vivacity and
activity. For this you have David praying here, and in Psalm cxliii. 11:
"Quicken me, Lord, for thy name's sake." In this description it
will be very necessary to explain sloth, and activity.
1. Spiritual sloth is threefold:(1.) Resolving sloth. (2.) Delaying sloth. (3.) Disturbing sloth.
(1.) Resolving sloth is, when a soul is settled upon its lees, and
resolves to lie still, and never to stir in that momentous concernment
of its own eternal salvation. Solomon excellently deciphers this: "As
the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed."
(Prov. xxvi. 14.) As the door turns upon the hinges, and never
stirs from his place, so the slothful turns upon the bed of security,
and never turns from his purpose. They were resolved to worship
the queen of heaven, come life, come death. (Jer. xliv. 16, 17.) Such
was the soldier's resolution, who had on his target God and the
devil pictured; under God, Si tu no w*/J under the devil, lete
rogitat.
(2.) Delaying tloth; when a person doth intend to look after sonlconcernments, but not yet, they will borrow a day, a little time. Much
like that sluggard: " Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding
of the hands to sleep." (Prov. vi. 10.) When the sluggard is called to
arise in the morning, he resolves to do it; only entreats one little, one
short nap more, and then he will arise. So, when some are called to
awaken, arise, and walk with God in his way, in the morning of their
age, they crave one short nap more first, and then they will do it; give
them leave to get such an estate, to obtain such an honour, to match
such a child, to satisfy such a lust, and then will they be for God: such
a sluggard was Austin: " A little longer! 0 Lord, a little longer!
* Historia Anglia, lib. . cap. 13.
f PLATO De RepublicA, lib. x.
FE ARAKIUS, Reip. lib. vii. fol. 162. The clause in the text, and these references to the
curious fact of Plato's entranced man, were the author's additions, after the publication
of the first edition.EDIT.
$ " If thou wilt not" consent to gratify me.EDIT.
" This old one solicits and invites me" to pleasure. The first edition contains no
reference to the author of this passage; but the third and fourth give RUFFUT,
name with which I confess myself to be unacquainted.EDIT.
436
SERMON XXI.
HOW MAY VTE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
presently,presently!"* The five foolish virgins resolved to have oil in

their lamps and vessels; only they would take a nod. 0 how dangerous is delaying sloth! The virgins' deferring provokes Christ to denying. (Matt. zzv. 10.) Archias, being merry at supper, had a letter sent
him that concerned his life; and, though desired to read it, puts it up
into his pocket, saying, auptov rot <nrouSia"r " I will mind serious
things to-morrow;" but he lived not unto the morrow, to mind those
serious things. ' Such another sluggard was the rich man: (Luke xii.
20:) Stulte, hae wcte.%
Tofle moras: semper nocuit differre paratis.
Alexander being asked how he came to conquer the world, replied,

Nunquam differre volens. || If you will overcome more than Alexander
did, not only the world, but also Satan, and your own flesh, the worst
and strongest enemy of all, yon must carefully lay hold on every lock
of opportunity, and expeditiously improve the same.
(3.) Disturbing sloth is, when a person doth intend and endeavour to
walk in God's way; but sloth, as rust, hinders the wheels of his soul from
coming to and running in the way of God. The torpedo if it touch but any
part of the angle that a man holds in his hand, corpus torpeecere facit, <fi
" it benumbs and stupifies all the members, that they cannot stir or strive."
Such malignant influence hath sloth upon the soul. The chariots of saints'
souls should drive as Jehu's, heartily and furiously; (2 Kings ix. 20;)
and not as Pharaoh's chariots, heavily and faintly. (Exod, xiv. 25.)
All the agility of the soul, and all the ability of the body, are required in
God's way, and about God's work: whatsoever comes short of this is sloth,
as whatsoever comes short of virtue is vice.
2. Activity in duty is a victorious conquest over the great Goliath,
sloth, and riding triumph in the way, work, and worship of God. Activity is a David's dancing before the ark with all his might. There are
three things which concur and contribute to complete this activity in
duty:
(1.) Tola animi intensio: * * "A straining and stretching of the soul to
the utmost peg, and highest pin;" a putting of it upon the tenter-hooka
in service.
(2.) Inexplelilia cupiditae agendi: " An unsalable and nnsatisfiable
desire or longing for the effecting and accomplishing of a duty."
(3.) Assiduitas in actions: "A constant and continual waiting and
working until the duty be perfected."
Take these three exactly shadowed out in Archimedes: he was drawing
his mathematical lines, when Marcellus ff entered the gates of Syracuse,
yea, when the soldiers entered his study, that he never minded them:
* Pauhiium, paululum, modi et modo, et hoe erat sine modo.AOGOSTINI Confessionum lib. viU. cap. 5.
+ PtOTAUCHUs in Moralia,
J "Thou fool, this
night thy soul shall be required of thee."EDIT.
LUCANI Pharsalia, lib.
L 281:
" Haste then thy towering eaglea on their way:
When fair occasion calls, 't is fetal to delay."ROWE'S Translation.

|| Never wilfully to postpone to a future time any thing which ought now to be done."
EDIT.
If PLINII Nat. Hisloria, lib. xxxii. cap. 1.
** BASILIUS in Repute
Sreviartbus, reap. 259.
ff PL ARCH us in Vita ejus.
SERMON XXI.
HOW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
437
there was Me intension of hi mind. When the soldiers pulled him by

the sleeve, he cries out, "Let me alone to finish my scheme:" there was At*
inexpleble desire of perfecting it. When the soldiers drew their swords
to ran him through, be yet plied his business: there was Ate asnduity in
his action: here was Hoc aye, ["Attend only to this,"] indeed. 0 what
a shame would it be for us Christians, if a Heathen in his way should
outgo and outdo us in God's way! Stupendous was the activity of the
Jewish priests about their sacrifices, when their enemies were broken in
upon them.* I shall commend two texts of scripture to you, which do
most lively obumbrate tepidity and fervidity: TJJ <nrOu8jj , *
" Not slothful in business ; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord." (Rom.
xii. 11.) Infestinatione non lenti:f here Festina lente$ is out of doors. We
must fly as upon the wings of the wind; our heart must be like the
primxtn mobile, to wheel and whirl us about with a most rapid motion ;
" fervent in spirit/' boiling or burning hot, all on fire and flame; " serving
the Lord:" "Continuinginstant in prayer," (Rom. xii. 12,) strenuously
and steadfastly wrestling with God, as Jacob did, who as a prince " had
power with God." (Hosea xii. 3.) This is that ultimum virium\\ which
is expected and only respected of God; God accounts nothing else prayer
but this: " And there is none that caJleth upon thy name, that stirreth
up himself to take hold of thee;" (Isaiah Ixiv. 7 ;) that is, "with that
faith and fortitude to hold God's hands," ^[ as Moses, Jacob, and others
did. The cock is a rare emblem of this activity, who raises and rouses
himself, claps his wings, and then crows with all his might. " We desire
that every one of you do show the same diligence: that ye be not slothful," (Heb. vi. 11,12,) * * not of a slow pace; to want fire, yea, and feet too,
that [do] not run in God's way. Non amo nimivm dilioentes,-\-^ was the
saying of a Heathen; but God will never say so, because we can never
be too diligent and devout in his service; and, surely, if Jacob did serve
Laban toto conatu," With all my power I have served your father,"
(Gen. xxxi, 6,) then much more should we with all our industry and
endeavour serve our Father.
"THY way;" by way of emphasis, in opposition to and exaltation of,
above, all other ways.
There is a fourfold way:
1. Via. mundi, "the way of the world;" and that is spinosa,
"thorny."
2. Via carnis, "the way of the flesh;" and that is insidioea, "treacherous."
3. Via Satanae, "the way of the devil;" and that is tenebricosa"
" darksome."
* JOSEPH de Bella Judaioo.
f "Not slow in that which requires
instant despatch."EDIT.
J Use caution in your speed."EDIT.
npotncaprepowrcf, assidul operam navante.
|| " That last and utmost exertion
of strength."EDIT.
f E&fide etfiduci&, ut Dei mantte teneat.A. LAPIDE m ho.
** Nwflpoj ex PC et beta, non curro. Segnis, quasi seigne, nneigne. "The Greek word
in the text which we render slothful, seems to be derived from a particle used as a negative
prefix in composition, and from a verb which signifies to run. thus representing the
slothful' to be no-runner. The Latin word segnis has a similar derivation, from w
two
words signifying without fire, or devoid of vigorous animation."EDIT.
tt I
feel no admiration for such as are over-diligent."EDIT.
438
8KRMON XXI. BOW MA* WE GET RTD OP SPIRITUAL SLOTH!
4. Via Domini, "the way of God;" And that is gratioaa, "gracious."

This way is twofold ;-
(I.) Via velata, "a concealed way;" and that is of his privy counsels.
(2.) Via revelata, " a revealed way j" and that is of his public commands.
(1.) Via oeneplaciti, "of his privy counsels:" "How unsearchable
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Bom. xi. 33.) He
that shall go about to seek ana search for that way, must return a Non
*9t inventa,* and shall prove himself a true ignoramus : " For who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?"
(Yerse 34.) The best of mortals were never honoured with that title, to
be one of God's privy counsellors.
(2.) Via siffni, " of his public and common road of commandments :'*
"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law.of the Lord.
Make me to understand the way of thy precepts." (Psalm cxix. 1, 27.)
"He will teach" Sion's scholars "of his ways, and" they "will walk in
his paths." (Isai. ii. 3.) " Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,
saying, This is the way, walk ye in it/* (Isai. xxx. 21.)
We must not be so impudent as to desire to walk in the way of hie
privy counsels, nor so imprudent as not to walk in the ways of his public
commands.f " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but
those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for
ever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deut. xxix. 29.)
II. Having thus planed my way to the text, or rather explained the
way in my text, I proceed to the deduction of a COROLLARY, or conclusion, from the words, which is the second thing I premised and
promised.
DOCTRINE.
Every saint is very apt to be a slug in the way and work of God,
" Quicken me," says one of the chiefest and choicest of saints, "in thy
way ;*' and it is as much as if he should say in plain terms, " Ah Lord!
I am a dull jade, and have often need of thy spur, thy Spirit." This
prayer of David seems proof enough to this point; but if you desire
farther confirmation, I shall produce an argument instar omnium, " that
none shall dare to deny, nor be able to disapprove:" and that is drawn
from the topic of your own experience ; and this is argumentum lugvbre^
like a funeral anthem, " very sad and sorrowful," Do you not feel and
find, to the grief of your own souls, that, whereas you should weep as
if yon wept not, rejoice as if you rejoiced not, and buy as if you possessed
not; inverao ordine, ["inverting this order,"] you weep for losses, aa
if yon would weep out your eyes; you rejoice in temporal comforts, as
if yon were in heaven; and you buy as if it were for ever and a day.
(Psalm xlix. 1J.) But e contrario, [" on the contrary,"] you pray, as
if you prayed not; hear, as if you heard not; work for God, as if you
* *' It cannot be found."EDIT.
} To ^. frrreu '
wojreActfs aryvotiv.THEODORITI uiialoffi, L "It is improper for us to pry into
those thing which are hidden; neither must we show ourselves to be completely ignorant
of those which are revealed,"EDIT.
1ERMON XXI. BOW MAY WK GET RID Of SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
439
worked not. Now, we know eseperto credo :* a man that ticks fast in
a ditch needs no reasons to prove he is in, hot remedies to pull him out.f
Tour best course will be to propose the case how yon may get rid
of this unwelcome guest, spiritual sloth: it is a ease we are all concerned
in. Anni aures qtti non habet?$ Every man and mortal hath some
of the ass's dulness and sloth in him; and therefore I have brought a
whip of ten strings to scourge this sloth and dnlness out of us.
1. Keep a strict watch over your eye at all time, especially when you
are in dvty.\\The eyes are the port-holes that sin and Satan creep in at.^
It is accounted a great piece of charity to a man's body, to close his eyes
when he is dead: I am sure it is more charity to our souls, to dose our
own eyes whilst we are living. See what a strict guard Job keeps upon
his eyes, that would not permit them at any time to view vain or wanton
objects: " I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think
upon a maid?" (Job zxxi. I.) And the prophet seems here to imply,
that unless God would turn away his eyes from beholding vanity, he
should never be quickened in his way. It is removere prohiben
" beholding vanity forbids the banns between the soul and quickening."
If you will keep your houses warm, you must keep your doors shut.
If you will keep your hearts hot in a duty, you must keep your eyes
shut. If those doors stand wide open for all comers and goers, either
your soul, Dinah-like, will be gadding out, or Satan will be getting in,
by which the poor soul will be defiled and deflonred.* *
2. Send sin packing, bag and baggage.These two mutually generate
one the other:
Motet me ffenuil, eadem max gignitur ex me.
"Sin begets sloth, and sloth begets sin:" sloth in David made him
sinful, and sin in David made him slothful. Sin is the soul's sickness.
Now sickness makes men lazy, lither, ft loath to stir. There is a disease
* "You may yield credence to that of which you have made trial"EDIT.
f Cum
guidam ruietet in pttteum, &c.: Cogita quomodo hinc me libcres, no quomodo hue oeeiderim
quteras.AUGUSTINUS, Epist. 29. "When a certain man had fallen into a well, where
die water was of such a moderate depth as saved him from being instantly drowned, and
where his sense of suffocation was not too great to hinder his ready utterance; a stranger,
attracted by his cries, approached the brink, and, on looking down with vacant wonderment
on the struggling man, began coolly to inquire:' May I ask, Sir, what unlucky accident has
brought you into this awkward situation ?' The anxious man smartly rejoiced: Instantly
devise some method of extricating me hence, I entreat you; and not stand there raising
useless queries about the mode of my fiuling-in !'"EDI . .
" Where is die man
who has not the ears of an ass ? "EDIT.
Eheu 1 quot ovovs habet sanetou David,
velpotiu Spintus Sanettu,adsuamcytharam! PAHEUS. "Alas! howmanyconfessiont
of unaptness or ignorance, like that of an ass playing on a harp, are recorded in the Psalms
by holy David, or rather by the IJoly Spirit!"EDIT.
g opav yuftrai t(*p.
[ Vide] Isai. Ivii. 8 et ult, " In consequence of our beholding any object, we begin to
love and desire it See Isai. Ivii. 8, 21."EDIT.
If Aperuit nobis in Paradiso
oculot Satan t nune ornnis labor in eo nobi* eat, ut eo ilerum claudamu et obturemut.
LUTHERUS. " Satan opened our eyes in Paradise: but his most strenuous endeavours
are now directed to the sole object of inducing us to shut them again, and keep them
dosed."EDIT.
** Ridiculum est quod quidam respondent, te epectaculi non
moveri. Quidnam, anferrei, an saxei, an adamantini eunt, an sapientioret, fortiores,
sanctiores quam David?CHRYSOSTOMUS in Psalmum li. torn. i. " The reply is ridiculous which some persons give, that THEY are never moved with any kind of shows and
spectacles. What then ! are they formed of iron, stone, or adamant ? Or are they wiser,
stronger, or more holy, than David ? "EDIT.
ft" Inert, supine."EDIT.
440 SERMON . HOW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?

incident to man's body, called the lethargy, which makes him drowsy,
eleepy, negligent, and forgetful: it springe from a cold catarrh of a pitchy
and glutinous nature, which cools and benumbs the brain.* Sloth is the
soul's lethargy, which makes it sluggish, negligent, forgetful. This arises
from the catarrh of sin, benumbing and stupifying the heart; and of all
sine, turn covetoueneee out of doors. There is a disease in the body,
called the yellow jaundice,f which makes the persons look yellow all
over: this springs from the overflowing of the gall, which, overspreading
the whole man, makes it lifeless, listless. Covetousness is the yellow
jaundice of the soul, which arises from the overflowing of the heart with
love to yellow gold, by which a Christian is dulled and deadened. Thrust
a knife into the earth, and it takes away the edge: throw earth upon the
fire, and it deadens the heat. Let but earthly-mindedness creep into the
heart, it takes off the edge, and deadens the heat of it to, or in, any
exercise of religion4 Solomon calls it "an evil disease;" (Eccles. vi. 2;)
indeed, the worst of diseases, a complicated disease. This disease does
not only deaden, but destroy, the soul; " drowns men in destruction and
perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil," (1 Tim. vi.
9, 10.) " The birth of money is the burial of the mind ;" therefore our
Saviour bids us " take heed, and beware of covetousness:" (Luke xii. 15:)
a double caution, that we might have a double care. Above all keepings,
keep covetonsness out of thy heart; (Prov. iv. 23;) for that will not only
hinder thee from being active in duty, but help thee to be active against
duty. " The Pharisees, who were covetous, derided him." (Luke xvi. 14.)
They that drink of the water of the river Hypanis, at first are delighted
with it, but afterward are so hurt by it that non injuridexecrantur.\\ It is
moat true of Chrysorroas, " the yellow river," at first draught it pleases;
but afterward it makes them so dead drunk, that they become dormice
for ever after,
3. Frequent a quickening ministry." Thy word hath quickened me.*1
(Psalm cxix. 50.) "The word of God is quick and powerful;" (Heb. iv.
12;) "living and operative," not only formaliter and in
itself, but also virtualiter in the virtue and efficacy of it: it makes men
lively in their operation: , "Oracles making lively :" (Acts
vii. 38:) " I will make my words in thy mouth fire." (Jer. v. 14.) Fire,
as it is the most noble, so it is the most active, element; and makes
other things active.^f Creatures almost dead for cold, brought to the
fire, are made active and nimble: witness ^Bsop's snake, which the
countryman brought in his hand; but when it had received heat

from the fire, it disturbed the whole house.
Dr. Ames relates, that
there was once such cold preaching in Paris,.that the Protestants were
* Mgns eorportbus simillima eat mgritudo animi.-~CiCERO De Finibus, lib. vii. 13.
" Grief of spirit bears the strongest resemblance in its symptoms to bodily indisposition."
EDI .
f Aurugo, ob aureo colore, ut medioi. " It is called the golden or yellow
disease, from the colour of gold which it assumes, as physicians intimate."EDIT.
Scythians smothered their gods in the dust, Christians bury their godliness in the dunghill,
Fcenus peeunia, funus animte.LEO.
|| SOLINUS, c. 14. "That with good
reason it becomes an object of their detestation.".EDIT.
IT Ignis animanttbiis
vim dot mirificam.VARRO. " Fire communicates a most amazing power and force to
every particle of animated nature."EDIT.
SERMON XXT.
BOW HAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH f
441
constrained to go into the country to a godly minister to be wanned. A

godly minister will warm a cold heart, and put quickness into a drowsy
spirit.
4. Make out to the Lord Jew Christ, whose promise and office it is to
make ua active and vivacious." I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly." (John x. 10.) "Christ
came not only to make us alive, but also to make us lively." * Persons
who are slothful by reason of cold stiffening their joints, make out f to
the mineral and metalline baths, which heal and help them. The blood
of Christ is the most precious mineral hot-bath in the world: it will
doubtless cure and quicken all cold and dull souls that come into it.
It is the "fountain opened for sin and for uncleannesa." (Zech. ziii.
1.) Sloth,it is a very foul sin and filthy uncleanness. "And the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin:" (1 John i. 7:)
[from] the sin of sloth, which in some sense may be called " all sin," it
being pulvinar Safanae, " the devil's pillow " that he lays his head on in
the soul. Come to Christ the "living stone," and you shall come from
Christ "lively stones." (1 Peter ii. 4, 5.)
5. Get quickening love to the ways of God.
Qui non wit fieri desidiosw, amet.t
Pliny tells us, that a rod of myrtle in the hand of a traveller will never
suffer him to flag or faint, but keeps him fresh and lively to his journey's
end. I am sure, where love is in the heart, it will carry a man in the
way of God with life.$ The apostles did triumph in their tribulations;
and how so ? " Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost which is given unto us ;" (Rom. v. 5 ;) [in the] original
"is plentifully poured out," as wine into bottles, which makes it
spiritful. "Love turns all pains into pleasures, and perils into perfumes." I) Love is the fore-horse in the soul's chariot, who draws all
the other affections and faculties after him. What a loadstone was
Shechem's love to Dinah! (Gen. xxxiv. 19.) It makes him communicate his wealth, change his religion, circumcise his fore-skin.^]" See how
spiritual love wrought in Paul: it was as strong physic, ready to work
out his bowels : " For the love of Christ constraineth us." (2 Cor. v. 14.)
Love hath not only an impulsive but also a compulsive power, .**
* minima dot vitam et vivacilatem eorpori ; Christus dot vitam et vivaeitatem mama.
*' The presence of a human spirit imparts life as veil as vivacity to the body; but it is
Christ that imparts vitality and liveliness to the spirit."EDIT.
" Make out"
in that age conveyed nearly the same meaning as our modem colloquial phrases, " Make
. off," " Run away quickly," &c., when any one is commanded hastily to depart In this
sense also it occurs at the commencement of the paragraph.EDIT.
J OVIDIUS,
4morum lib. i. 9,46.
" Let him whose listless soul no power can move,

Begin to feel the active force of love.".EDIT.
Omni* animas motvs radix est amor.PARISIKNSIS. " Love is the spring of every
motion of the heart"EDIT.
|| Ubi amor est, non est labor, sed sapor.BERNARDFS, Serm. 85, in Cant
H Si tantum potuit cupiditas, quidpotest charitas 9
AUGUSTINUS. '< If cupidity, or strong natural desire, possessed such potency, what
Immense power must exist in the love of God !"EDIT.
** Afetaphora a par-
tw-ientibus sumpta.OROTIUS.
Constraineth us" A metaphor derived from women
Who endure the pains of parturition."EDIT.
442
SERMON XXI.
BOW MAT WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
Love ie a grace that is always big-bellied, and is in labour, always being

delivered of some good duty or other. This love pat Paul upon exceeding pains, and excessive perils.
(1.) Exceeding pain, that never mere mem took the like." I laboured
more abundantly than they all." (1 Cor. xv. 10.) It must be great
pains to preach the gospel folly "from Jerusalem round about unto
Illyricum;" (Bom. xv. 19;) ev , in circulo, or circuitu,* making

Jerusalem tbe point, and the regions round about the circumference;
and then tbe space could not be less than four thousand miles. But
if yon take it in a collateral line, taking-in the regions of Attica, Beeotia,
Achaia, Epirns, Asia Minor, Cilicia, Cappadocia, &c., it was two thousand
miles. But if you take it in a direct line from Jerusalem to Stridon, a
town in Illyricum, it was above a thousand miles. And though these
tiresome journeys might have apologized for sparing, or at least for
curtailing, duties; yet Paul never measured out bis pains by a few
sands in a glass, but spent much time among the saints in praying,
preaching, disputing. Very memorable is that pains of his, where Paul
spends all the time, from the disciples' meeting together on the Lord's
day, until midnight, in holy exercises. (Acts xx. 7.)
(2.) His excessive perils.What a large catalogue have you of them!
" In stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I
beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night
and a day I have been in the deep ; in journeyings often, in perils
of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in
perils by tbe Heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness,
in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and
painful ness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness." (2 Cor. xi. 2327.) All this laid together,
well may we say with him :f " There was never a more fierce persecutor
of the gospel, nor a more fervid propagator of the gospel: the first
proceeded from his hatred against Christ, the last proceeded from his
love to Christ."
6. By faith apply the quickening promises, and the promise
of quickening.
(1.) The quickening promises.Promises are steel spurs that will
reach the dull heart to the quick; they are singular plasters, if well
applied, to draw out tbe corruption of sloth; they are the sovereign
elixirs whose quintessence will make the soul full of spirits. " Whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these
ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature." (2 Peter i. 4.) Precious
promises, as stones.J are precious, which have egregious virtue in them,
" that by them we might be made partakers of the Divine Nature," not
of the substance of God, " as Servetus stubbornly defended even to
death," but of those divine qualities and gracious dispositions which
will stand with God's nature to communicate, and our nature to par* BEZA. " In a circle or circuit."EDIT.
f AUGUSTINUS. Nemo acrior
inter persecufores, nemo prior inter peccatores. (Tom. x. p. 202.)
CARDANUS,
Sub&t. lib. vii.
BEZA in loe.
.6ERMON .
HOW MAY WE GET RTD Of SPIRITUAt SLOTH ?
443
ticipate.* Now God's Divine Nature is en act, and our Divine nature
is active. Now, the right applying promises will be very virtuous f
to make ne vigorous, to come as nigh the image and life of God as
possibly we can. Plato says, it is our chiefest good, Deo penitus
conformemfieri, "to bear the character of God upon us."
(2.) The promise of quickening.David presses God to be as good an
bis word: " Quicken thon me according to thy word." He is often upon
this string, resolving not to let God alone until he kept his word. (Psalm
cxix. 25, 107, 154.) "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall
run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isai. xl. 31.)
Our soul, as a bee, must suck honey from this flower to quicken itself.
Say thus to thyself: " Soul, God hath promised I shall mount up with
eagles' wings, fly through difficulties and duties with celerity; he is a
God able, true, willing; therefore I may be assured of this assistance."
! this honey will enliven thee more than Jonathan's honey enlightened
him; who must die, because he had eaten honey; and if he had not
eaten honey, he must have died. (1 Sam. xiv. 26, 29.)
7. Mind quickening examples.A dull jade will put himself faster on
when he sees other horses gallop before him4 The apostle, having
mustered up in rank and file the examples of those famous worthies,
does excite the Hebrews with patience to run the race that was set before
them. (Heb. xi., xii. 1.) If the rare acts of Miltiades would not suffer
Themistocles to sleep, then the famous actions of God's worthies should
not suffer us to slumber. View Elias, how he went tip in a fiery chariot
to heaven in hie spirit, before he went in a fiery chariot to heaven in his
person. (James v. 17.) Eye Paul, how industriously and indefatigably
he pursues, even as a beagle, his chase with full cry, and all celerity.
(Phil. iii. 1015.) Observe Ignatius, how he goes to the beasts to be
devoured, as if he had gone to a bridal to be married.[| Lastly, slight
not the martyrs in Queen Mary's days, who went to the fire as if they
had been going to a bonfire. " Seest thon this woman ?" saith our
Saviour to Simon, of Mary Magdalene, " with what activity and affection
she hath washed and wiped my feet, her tears being the water, her hair
the towel: let it provoke thee to more diligence and devotion."^
(Luke vii. 44, 45.) Examples are pricking and provoking goads, to
quicken us ; fires to light our candles by, to heat our bodies with.
* Nan transformation* nature Humana in divinam, ted participations donorum
quibut cvnformes divina nature timui. A HE us. "Not by transformation of the
human into the Divine nature, but by partaking of those gifts through which we may
become conformed to the Divine nature."EDIT.
f In the anciently received
meaning of " potent, efficacious," from the Latin word virtiu.EDIT.
J Cobnut
in coetum, ut Deum, quasi manu facta, precationitnu ambiamus orantei; hoe m Deo
grata.TERTULLIAXI Apolog. advertu Gerties, cap. 39. "We Christians assemble
together in one congregation, that we may form ourselves into a sacred band of suppliants,
and by our united prayers importunately besiege the throne of grace: with such holy
violence God is well pleased."EDIT.
more venatorum pertequentium feram.ARETIUS. " < I follow after,' I eagerly pursue, as hunters do when
in warm chase after wild beasts."EDIT.
|| IGNATIUS, Epist. ad Romanos.
II En, amo te ; et hoe parum eat, omern volidiut.AUGUSTIKUS, liber de Meditoiionibus, c. 18. " Behold, I love thee, my God ! and since this is indeed feeble
expression of my affection, I would love thee with still greater intensity."EDIT.
444
SERMON XXI.
BOW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
8. Keep quickening company.As bad company is water to quench, so

good company is oil to quicken, fervour; * as iron sharpens iron, so one
gracious heart sets an edge upon another. (Prov. xxvii. 17.) Holy companions are bellows, uvaânrupetv, "to blow up, and make burn," the
graces that lie in embers. (2 Tim. i. 6.) The gracious affections of saints
are called beds of spices. (Canticles vi 2.) Holy conference of holy company is the rubbing and chafing those spices to make them scent and send
forth their perfumes. Alexander, wherever he came, perfumed the room
with his presence; so does every believer with his speeches. David, who
desires quickenings, picks out quickening company: " I am a companion
of all them," rich or poor, " that fear thee, and of them that keep thy
precepts." (Psalm cxix. 63.) Paul is "pressed in the spirit" by the
company and conference of Silas and Timotheus: (Acts xviii. 5 :) the two
disciples' hearts burned within them in their journey to Emmaus, by that
sweet discourse [which] they had with Christ. (Luke xziv. 32.)
9. Consider quickening considerations,They that are apt to faint and
tire in a journey, carry-about their bottles of water to quicken their
spirits. Let these ten considerations be such bottles to you, when you
tire in the journey of a duty :
(1.) Consider how odious and abominable sloth is to man or God.
The Romans judged sloth and idleness worthy of the greatest contempt.f
Asinus ad lyram, Asinus ad tibiam^ are proverbs of the greatest derision
and disgrace. How contemptibly does Jacob speak of lesachar, "A
strong ass couching down between two burdens!" (Gen. xlix. 14, 15;)
yea, God himself refuses the first-born of an ass in sacrifice. (Exod. xiii.
13.) Bellarmine gives this reason, because it was animal tardigradumt "a
slow-paced and sluggish creature," which God hates : God, being a pure
act, loves pure activity. || 0 what thunder-claps and cracks of threatenings may you hear from the Mount Ebal of his word, able to make the
most sluggish Caligula to creep under his bed for shelter! "Cursed
be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently." (Jer. xlviii. 10.)
" Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and sacrificeth
unto the Lord a corrupt thing." (Mal. i. 14.) God threatens to remove
the candlestick from the church of Ephesus, because she was grown
remiss in her first love. (Rev. ii. 5, 6.) He terrifies the church of
* Bonus comes pro vehiculo. " A good companion is as useful as a carriage in aiding
us in our journey through life."EDIT.
ZONABJB Annales, lib. ii.
J In
these proverbs, the ancients referred to the alleged absence of musical taste and perception in the ass; for it was averred, that whenever the most delicious music was within
hearing, he remained insensate and supine, betraying not the slightest emotion of pleasure, all other animals at the same time exhibiting undisguised symptoms of delighted
sensation. It is a case widely different from that of the adder, mentioned by the Psalmist,
which had the faculty of stopping or opening its ears, at option, when it was within the
sound of the syren " voice of charmers." (Psalm Iviii. 4.) This peculiar defect in the
ass seems to have anciently affixed to his character the opprobrium of natural hebetude
and incurable dulness ; which, by an easy figure of speech, has been transferred to those
human beings whose power of option has been more perversely exercised than their powerof perception.EDIT
PEIRESC. 87. d. lib. iii. cap. 16.
|| Enerves
animos odisse virtus solel.VALERIUS MAXIMUS, lib. ii. cap. ? "Those who possessed natural courage have always evinced the utmost contempt for men of pusillanimous
spirits."EDIT.
Tardis nam mentibus virtus non focife committitur.CICERO,
Quasi. Tusculan. lib. v. " He must be a man of extraordinary capacity; for virtue is,
not easily connected with dull minds."MAIN'S Translation.
BERMON XXT.
ROW MAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOT ?
445
Laodicea with the menace of spaing her oat of hie moath for her lukewarmness. [Rev. iii. 16.] The servant who had not returned cent, per
cent, for his talent is called " wicked and slothful servant/' and cast into
the darkest dungeon. (Matt. xxv. 26,30.) How would this consideration,
well considered on, cause all slothful servants' ears to tingle, and their
hearts to tremble!
(2.) Consider, sloth expose you to all manner of n, especially these
two desperate and dangerous ones:(i.) Sordid apostasy, (ii.) Spiritual
adultery.
(i.) Sordid apostasy.Sloth in the soul is like the green sickness in the
body of a virgin, which makes her not only fall from her colour, strength,
stomach to wholesome food, but also to long and lust after trash and
trumpery, coals, soot, ashes. The Galatians, because they were ,
" without mind and mettle," do therefore prove apostates, beginning in
the Spirit, ending in the flesh; (Gal. iii. 1,3;) falling off from fervour,
will turn to falling away to folly.* " The slothful man will not bring his
hand to his mouth." (Prov. xiz. 24.) It is expounded of a slothful
minister who will not bring voci eva vitam suam, "his works to his
words." f Though this be an undoubted truth of lazy and slothful ministers, yet the proverb holds true of all sluggards' tendency to falling away
in their hand from their mouth, that is, from what they have formerly
professed. Consider how great and grievous a sin apostasy is: it was the
first sin that ever was committed; it was the sin of the devils, for which
they were cast out of heaven, and cast down into hell. " If any man draw
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;" (Heb. x. 38;) a metaphor
taken from a sluggish jade, who, finding the load come heavy, draws back
again. " The backslider in heart," much more in hand, from God's way,
" shall be filled with his own ways;" (Prov. xiv. 14;) that is, he hath run
away from his captain, colours, cause, and he shall have martial law for
it. It will be worth my pains and your patience, to give an instance what
severe martial law God hath executed on all renegadoes and revolters.
[i.] Ministers.Judas, who revolted from his Master and ministry,
turning from being a guard to his Saviour, to be a guide to the soldiers,
afterward hanged himself, his bowels burst out of his belly, and so he
took his proper and peculiar place in hell. (Acts i. 17, 18, 25.) John
Speiser, preacher at Ainsborough in Germany, who preached so profitably
and powerfully, that the common strumpets left the brothel-houses, then
tolerated, and betook themselves to a better course, anno 1523; yet,
afterward revolting to the Papists, he perished miserably4
[ii.] People." Remember Lot's wife;" (Luke xvii. 32;) who, turning back to Sodom, was turned into a pillar of salt, " to season us, that
we may be preserved from the stinking sin of apostasy." || Lncian, a
great professor in the days of Trajan, but revolting, was torn in pieces,
and devoured of dogs. The emperor Julian the Apostate was wounded
with an arrow, none knowing from whence, in his war against the
* Tepiditat, si callum obduxerit, fiet apostaaia. " If lukewarmnese superinduce a
callous insensibility, it will soon degenerate into apostasy."EDIT.
-f GREGOHII
Moral, lib. xzii. cap. .
$ SCULTETI Annales, 118.
Jo BE PHI Antiq.
lib. L cap. 12.
|| Quoddam prastitit condimentum, quo tapiunt aliquid, undi iUud
caveatur etnp/wm.AUGUSTINUS De Civitate Dei, lib. xvL cap. 30.
446
SERMON XXf.
HOW MAY WE GET RIO OF SPIRITUAL 8LOTH ?
Persians, who, throwing his blood up to heaven, died, scornfully crying,

Ficisti, Galilee, vicistif*
(ii.) Spiritual adultery.Bodily sloth exposes to corporal adultery.
Quaritur, MgwtKut quart tit factut adulter 9
Inpromptu causa ett: Desidiosut era/.f
Band's instance clears it sufficiently. Spiritual sloth exposes to spirit*

nal adultery. (2 Sam. zi. 2.) "When they knew God, they glorified
him not as God." What follows upon this sloth in not glorifying God as
he ought to be glorified ? They " changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image make like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four*
footed beasts, and creeping things." (Rom. i. 21, 23.) Sloth is the high
way to superstition, and idleness the road-way to idolatry: " Neither be
ye idolaters, as were some of them ; as it is written, The people sat down
to eat and drink, and rose up to play;" (1 Cor. x. 7;) by which is
implied, their idleness was the cause of their idolatry. When Demas
grew lazy and slothful in his ministry, he turned priest in an idol's
temple, where he had less work and more wages. J (2 Tim. iv. 10.) Consider, idolatry and superstition are God-provoking, land-destroying, souldamning, sins; no wonder John should conclude his epistle with,
"Keep yourselves from idols." (1 John v. 21.)
(3.) Consider how impossible it is, that creeping snails in God's way
should ever get to their journey's end." Fair and softly " goes far, but
never so far as heaven.|| "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent," , "take it by force;" (Matt. xi. 12;) a
metaphor taking from storming cities and castles.^]" They storm heaven,
hang their petards of prayers on heaven-gates, and blow them open, that
get heaven by a conquest: storming is not work either for the fearful or
the slothful.** "So run, that ye may obtain;" (1 Cor. ix. 24;) not
creep, but run; not run, but so run; not indifferently, hut industriously ; as the racers in the Isthmian games, to which the apostle here
alludes, who did stretch and strain their legs and limbs, that they might
gain the prize.ft " Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Heaven hath a
very strait gate: we must crowd, yea, crush, ourselves, if ever we get in;
* " Thou hast conquered, Galilean! thott hast conquered."EDIT.
t Ovum
Rented. Amor, 161. " Ask ye the cause of vile Êgisthus' crime ?
In idleness he spent his weary time."EDIT.
DOROTHEUS in Synopsi. Adeo proelive eat e servo Mommonee transire in toeerdotem diaholi. " Such a strong propensity is felt by a servant of Mammon to become a
priest of the devil!"EDIT. DR. ARROWSMITH'S Tactica Sacra.
% Gravissimum peccatum.AQUINAS, Secunda Secundce, Quest 94. Act iii. " A most grievous
sin." Principale crimen, et summits hujus sceculi reatus.TEHTULLIANUS. "The
principle crime and highest guilt of the present age."EDIT.
II Omnem qui ad
Paradisum redire desiderat, oportet transire per ignem et aquam.AUGUSTINUS in
Serm. ad Lipp. " Every one who feels desirous of returning to 1- aradise must pass through
fire and through water."-~.
U BRUGENSIS.
** Nan dormien'ibiu
provenit regnum ccelorum, nee otio et desidia torpentibus beatitude aternitatis ingeritur.<
PROSPER de Vita Contemplativa. "The kingdom of heaven has no place, and does not
flourish, in sleepy Christians; neither is the blessedness of eternity held out for acceptance
to those who are in a state of torpor through their sloth and inactivity."EDIT.
f-} Qui stadium currit, eniti debet et eontendere quam maxime, possit ut vincat, $o.
CICERO De Offices, lib. iii. 10. "The man who runs a race ought to stretch and to strain
all he can, in order to come in foremost; but he ought by no means to jostle or to trip
up the heels of the man with whom he runs."GUTHRIE'S Translation.
SERMON XXI. HOW MAY WB GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
447
ayoviier0, "play the champions to a very agony;*' "for many, I say

unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able;" ijn)<rotwiv,
" shall seek with industry and endeavour." * (Luke ziii. 24>)
(4.) Consider how equitable it it that you should be at active in the
way of God, as you were once in the way of sin and Satan." I speak
after the manner of men/' that is, I speak reason as well as religion ;f
"as ye have yielded your members servants to nncleanness and to
iniquity unto iniquity;" (" a" not of quality but equality ;) | " even so
now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness;" (Bom.
vi. 19;) "even so;" in the same manner and the same measure. This
very consideration wrought effectually upon Paul himself, who, as he had
formerly sinned more than all, so afterwards he laboured more than all:
the time he could not recover by recalling, he does recover by redeeming.
What a piercing and prevailing spur would this be .to a dull and sluggish
soul! " Ah soul! what a shame, what a sin is this, to be a slow snail in
the way of God, that hast been a swift dromedary in the way of sin!"
(5.) Consider how you contradict your own prayers, your very Paternoster, wherein you desire God's will should be so done by you on earth,
as it is done by the angels in heaven.Now those winged Mercuries and
messengers of heaven do speedily and spritefully execute the commandments of God: " Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength,
that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word."
(Psalm ciii. 20.) These heavenly pursuivants stand listening to know
their Prince's royal pleasure, and then they go to execute it.||
(i.) With all celerity and speed.They are said to have wings, which
are the emblems of velocity : the seraphim came flying to Isaiah with a
coal from the altar. (Isai. vi. 2, 6.) Gabriel is sent post from heaven,
"being caused to fly swiftly," (Dan.ix.21,) [with] extraordinary haste, that
he seemed weary and tired; the angels' flying upon God's embassy is always
very swift. The Schoolmen make a doubt whether they do ab extremo
ad extremum transire;^ yet it seems they can mend their pace in their
flight from heaven to earth, and so back again, which is, (as those wise
astronomers,* * who have been there to measure it,) backward and forward, above one hundred and sixty millions of miles.
(ii.) With ardency and intenseness.They are called "seraphims."
(Isai. vi. 2.) loniti, " fiery," yea, " a flame of fire." (Heb. i. 7.)
Elijah's chariot and horses of fire were angels appearing in those forms.
(2 Kings ii. 11.) Of all the elements, fire is the most intense and
active: the mouth of fire devours and destroys all that comes before it.
Many of the Heathens did worship fire for their god, because it devoured
* Petent cum ardore.
f Humanum quiddam dico.ERASMUS. " I am now
peaking that which is in accordance with every man's own experience."EDIT.
" Sicut" non qualilatis ted aqualita&t.
Cyprian was troXuj tv atrcfaa, trKtuev
tv fv<rttiaOB.EG. NAZ. Oral. 18. "In his unregencrate state, Cyprian was
remarkable for profeneness; but, when reclaimed, he became far more distinguished
for piety."EDIT.
|| Angelas vropfyicvoiras rw bttav vrpos artyanroux,
vpos rovt dcoia, esse putat Plutarchut. " Plutarch supposed angels to be
employed in conveying to men those things which belonged to the gods, and to the
gods those things which concerned mankind."EDIT.
If "Whether they pass
entirely through the path ethereal from one extremity to the other."EDIT.
** CLAVIVS in Sphasram.
448
8KEMON XXI.
HOW HAY WE GET RID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
all their other gods. These fiery hosts of God are very devouring: one
of them in one night destroyed a hundred fourscore and five thousand
Assyrians. (2 Kings xix. 35,)
(iii.) With alacrity and ckeerfiilnes*.It is a great part of their joy
in heaven, that they do God's service with joy. As soon as ever they
were created, they rejoiced that they should be employed in such honour'
able service: "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons
of God shouted for joy.*1 (Job xxxviii, 7.) How cheerfully did the angels
bring tidings of Christ's birth to the world! as appears by their praising
God to the highest of their power: " Glory to God in the highest," &c.
(Luke ii. 14.) Surely, if yon consider angels' worship and doing God's
will, it will make you leave off your sloth or your service; either cause
you to pray better, or not to pray at all.
(6.) Consider you lota the very soul and life of your ditty, if you do
not perform it as for your life and eoul.Yon come to seek and see the
face of God in the glass of ordinances; (Psalm xxvii. 8;) to have communion with him, to fetch comfort from him, to get some kisses of him;
(Canticles i. 2;) to mortify some lust, to increase some grace, to
strengthen your assurance, to testify your duty, to express your affection,
&c. Now, spiritual sloth hinders yon of all this: dull and drowsy eyes
cannot see God; heavy and slothful hearts cannot receive those benefits
and blessings from God.* " Sloth is a sluice-gate to the current of God's
grace and favour."f Jupiter rained a shower of gold into Danae'e lap ;
but God will never rain a shower of grace, joy, and comfort, into a sluggard's heart. If you lose the blessed sight of God here in ordinances,
you shall lose the beatifical sight of God hereafter in glory. "But we all,
with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) Then have we the kernel of a duty, (every
thing else is but a shell,) when our employment is on earth, and our
enjoyment in heaven ; when we have so sought God's face that our face
comes away shining; and we have so poured out oar hearts to God that
God hath poured out his heart to us; that we return home, like bees
loaded with honey, filled with the comforts of the Holy Ghost.
(7.) Consider the infinite and wonderful glory, greatness, majesty,
of Him you appear before and approach unto in your duties.A. God
yon are not able to conceive, nor I to express. See how the scripture
shadows him out unto us (and indeed it is but a shadow in comparison
of his substance): " Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his
hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust
of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the
hills in a balance ? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and
are counted as the small dust of the balance : behold, he taketh up the
isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor
the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. All nations before him
are s nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and
* Lambunt petram; mel no sugunt.CYPHIANUS De Cana Domini. "They
lick the bate rock, whence they suck no honey."EDI .
f Torpor no sinit Deum
esee beneficum.
8CRUOM XXI. BOW MAT WB GIT KID OF SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
449
Tanity." (Isai. xl. 12, 1517.) JE pede Hercultm* By this glorioa

description we may guess (and that is all) at enough in God to scare us
from coming to God in a dull and drowsy manner. The Heathen who
worshipped the sun for their god, durst not offer up any thing but a
flying horse to him in sacrifice: our God is more glorious, swift, teeing,
than ten thousand suns; therefore we should not daoeT to offer up any
thing but a winged cherubim, or swift-flying eagle, to him in service, f
(8.) Consider how industrious and indefatigable an adversary you
have, that lie always in ambush to wrong you, yea, to ruin you.Satan
is the unwearied peripatetic, who " walks up and down" for prey and
spoil. (Job i. 7.) Now the dull soul is his prey: a slug ship is a
purchase for the pirate, and a sluggish soul for the devil. It is holy and
wholesome advice given by Peter: " Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour." (1 Peter v. 8.) " The devil," says pious and plain Latimer, " is the most diligent bishop in England: he is ever at his plough:
no lording nor loitering may hinder him: his office is to hinder religion,
to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of Popery r
where his plough goes, there away with books, and up with candles;
away with Bibles, and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel,
and up with the light of candles, yea, at noon-days!" $ How should
this quicken us to be active for God and our soul, that have an enemy
so active always against God and our soul! You need not quicken a
mariner to make out all the cloth he can, that knows a pirate hath him
in chase at stern; timor addidit aloe, " fear will spread the sails, which
are the wings of the ship." The devil, the great pirate of souls, to make
prize and pillage of us and our graces, hath us in daily pursuit: how
careful should we be to fill the sails of our souls with the strong gales
of the Spirit, that he may neither overtake us, nor take us. |j
(9.) Consider, when you slothfully and sluggishly perform duties, you
do but mock God."God is not mocked;" (Gal. vi. 7;) that is, "God
will not have his noee played with/'^f
God is mocked three ways:>
(i.) DIRECTLY ; when men, by deriding speeches, mock the essentiality
or personality of the Godhead: as,
[1.] The essentiality ; when a blasphemous Quaker shall say, " God it
nothing else but the letters read backward," which is, horresco referens,* *
. Or,
* " From a sight of hi huge foot, you may form a judgment of die immense six
of Hercules."EDIT.
f Qttaparticipationenobivenfrandaeunt,meompa>'aHone
ejue memoranda nan ran*.GREOORII Moral. lib. xviil. c. 27. "Those thing which
we ought to venerate in consequence of common participation, are not worthy of mention
when placed in comparison with the Deity."EDIT.
$ Mft. HUGH LATIMEA'S
Sermon preached hi the shrouds at Paul's church in London, Jan. 18, anno 1548;
Of the Plough, page 21.
In the active sense of "spread /out all his canvass;"
in opposition to the phrase, M Take or haul in all sail" See page 441.EDIT.
|| Prius conditionem, complexionem ttnitaotyueque perspicit, et turn tentationit laqtteoe
apponit.GBEOOBII Moral, lib. 9. "Satan first sifts out and accurately examines the
conditions and connexions of every one; and then he lays down the snares of his temptations with which he may catch them."EDIT.
If , cum naso ludere.
CALVIHUS. Nastu derisioni dicaiut.PLINIUS. The nose is used to express
derision and contempt"EDIT.
** "A crime too horrible to be described."EDIT.
450
SERMON XXI.
BOW HAT WE GET RID Of SPIRITUAL SLOTH
[2.] The personality ; as,

First. God the Father; when lie shall be called " a cooper hooping
his tubs/' when it tbundereth; or " an old man sitting in heaven," as
your common and country people usually jeer.*
Secondly. God the Son; when Julian shall gibe him with, "The
craoified God;" or Libanus, "The carpenter's Son;" or, as Pope
Leo X. to cardinal Bembus, when he brought a piece oat of the gospel
to comfort him when sick, "Away with those forgeries and follies !"f
Thirdly. God the Holy Ghost; when Securtus [Serretus?] shall call
him "the three-headed Cerberus, and ridiculous invention of human
curiosity."
(ii.) RBFLEXIVELY ; when men gibe and jeer the faithful messengers
of God: " But they mocked the messengers of God:" (2 Chron. xxxvi.
16:) to mock the messengers of God is, by reflexion, to mock the God
of those messengers. Cum multi alii.
(iii.) INTERPRETATIVE!/* : when men do such actions as plainly
evidence a mockage of God. I have read of a fellow in want, that
earnestly intreated Mercury to send him some relief, promising him that
whatever he found he would sacrifice half to him. He found nuts: he
ate the kernels, and offered the shells to Mercury; which he resented as
a high affront. Activity in doty is the kernel, sloth is the shell, which
we offering to God in service, is interpreted a high and horrid mocking.
Augustus Ceesar, being invited to one of his subjects* houses, and being
slothfully and negligently entertained, took it as a derision.$ Duty is an
inviting God to our house: if we entertain him sluggishly and carelessly,
be will call you to an account for your impudent familiarity with him,
and make yon hold up your hand at his bar for being guilty of taking
his name in vain. (Exod. xx. 7.)
(10.) Consider how active Christ wot in doing wt service.He did omnem
movere lapidem.\\ He was so enlarged about the thoughts of doing the
work, that he was straitened until he was about it: * I have a baptism
to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplishedI"
(Luke xii. 50.) That is, " I have a death of the cross to suffer for man's
redemption, and I am pressed with an antiperiettuia^ until I have finished
it." Or else, as Grotins renders it, " I am with child of my passion;
and how do I long for my delivery! I am in pain until I am in pain ;**
much like some women, who breed their children with more pain than
they do bring them forth When that day of his travail came, it was the
* PERKIKS.
f Apage isicu nugat de Christo.PAC. MED. Hitt. Eedes.
$ Netciebam me tibi tarn fuisse familiarem.ERASHI Adagio. " I was not previously
aware that you deemed yourself to be on such terms of easy familiarity with me."EDIT.
The whole of this ninth division, nearly an entire page, is omitted in the first edition ;
instead of which, the following short and appropriate paragraph occurs:" Consider, when
you slothfully perform duties, you do but mock God.To act in the service of God slothfully is, interpretative, to act scornfully. ' Wine is a mocker;' (Prov. xx. 1;) that is,
Wine immoderately taken makes men dull, dronish, sluggish. Sleepy actions in a
serious business, are mocking actions. Drowsy service to God, is but a mockery of God.
God is not mocked;' (Gal. vi. 7;) that is, God will not bear mockery."EDIT.
"Christ left no stone unturned."EDIT.
If " A being hemmed in; a greater
exertion or intension of the active power of one quality, in consequence of the opposition
of others."EDIT.
SERMON XXI.
BOW MAY WE GET RID OT SPIRITUAL SLOTH?
451
day of his triumph: Triumphing over them in it." (Col. ii. 15.) The
Athenian Codrns, being informed by the Oracle, that the people whose
king should be shun in the battle should be conquerors, disrobed himself,
went into the enemies* quarters in the habit of a poor man, with a burden
on his back, that he might steal a death to make his people conquerors.*
Christ disrobed himself of the garments of glory, assumed the form of a
servant, endured contradictions of sinners, held his peace when falsely
charged; that he might steal a death for his people, that so they might
be more than conquerors: " Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher
of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross,
despising the shame." (Heb. xii. 2.) Shall Christ give you such a copy
of activity, and will you blot and blur it with sloth and sluggishness? f
Shall Christ go swiftly to death, and we go sluggishly to duty?
10. Beg the quickening Spirit.This is inetar omnium, [" equal to all
the rest,"] none like it, as David said of Goliath's sword. Sloth is the
king's evil of the soul; and none but the King of heaven can cure it by
his hand, which is his Spirit. " I will run the way of thy commandments, when thon shalt enlarge my heart." (Psalm cxix. 32.) Idleness
is the soul's prison, sloth is her shackle; the Spirit of God only can
knock off her fetters, and give gaol-delivery to her. " The Spirit helpeth
our infirmities" of ignorance, dulness, deadness, sluggishness; and
enables, yea, ennobles, us with gracious, copious, filial affections, even
"groans And sighs that are unutterable;" expressions not to be expressed. (Bom. viii. 26.) "Drawme, we will run after thee:" (Canticles
i. 4:) there is her prayer, and her promise, and there is no doubt of her
performance: she will as certainly follow as the iron the load-stone, or
the card the north-pole. "Awake, 0 north wind; and come, thou
south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out."
(Canticles iv. 16.) " Awake and come;" there is the prayer; " 0 north
and south wind;" there is the Spirit; the soul, that is " the garden;"
gracious affections, they are the " spices " that " flow out."
QUESTION. But some precious soul whispers in mine ears: " I bless
God, I am not troubled with this lethargy; my sails are so filled that my
mill goes and grinds nimbly; only I am afraid the wind blows not from
the right quarter: pray, therefore, satisfy my conscience in this case,
whether my activity in duty proceed from the Spirit of God ?"
ANSWER. We may easily be deceived by our enlargements, because
there are many winds and gales blowing from several quarters, which
may set the soul in active going and doing; as popular applause, high
opinions of the preacher, taking}: expressions in prayer, flourishing
novelties and notions in a sermon, satanical infusions, common and ordinary inspirations of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed to reprobates: (Heb. vi.
46:) all which, or any of which, may so draw and delight the heart,
that, as Orpheus's pipe, they or it may make the heart dance in a duty;
and yet, for all this, it may be possible, yea, probable, the heart may
dance after the devil's pipe. (Ezek. xxxiii. 32.) The resolution of this case
* PLUTARCH.
f The next clause WM not in the first edition, which had, instead
of it: "O look on your copy, and fairly write after U!"_EDIT.
$ Pleasing,
engaging, popular.DIT.
452
8ERMON XXI. HOW MAY WE KNOW WHEN OUR ACTIT1TY
would have been fitter for some ancient, experienced master of assemblies,
whose Bible is more in bis heart than head, than for so weak and worthless a person as I am, who may truly say, with Agur, &
ftfii aviporcoy, " Surely I am more brutish than any man, and
have not the understanding of a man." (Prov. xxz. 2.) Yet, seeing
Providence hath laid the lot at my door, to use Peter's words a little
altered, Though silver and golden experiences add expressions I have
none, yet such as X have I shall willingly impart and communicate to you.
(Acts iii. 6.) If you will lend me your patience, I will give you my pain*,
in resolving this weighty and worthy case of conscience, How a Christian
may know whether his activity in duty be from the Spirit of God.
I shall commend to you these eight characteristical notes, as so many

touchstones:
1. When we have beforehand earnestly prayed and prepared our souls
for such activity.When you say and do to yonr soul, as Jehu did to
the worshippers of Baal, (2 Kings z. 19,) "I have a great sacrifice to
offer, my soul!" warn and summon-in all the power and parts of soul
and body; be sure that not one be wanting, and so, by reading, meditating, and prayer, get our souls into a holy frame and gracious posture;
and humbly, yea, heartily also, beg and beseech of God to carry us on
eagles' wings through the duty we are drawing near to. If we mount
and soar aloft as aquila in nubibus, "eagles to heaven," in that duty, we
may safely and surely conclude that activity is from the Spirit. When
mariners buy a wind of the witches, (as they do in Lapland and other
places,) and they have it at every place and point, according to the
purchase of the one and the promise of the other, they may undoubtedly
conclude that wind came from the spirit of the devil. When we beg a
wind from God, and we enjoy it at the time according to our desire, we
may upon good ground say, that wind came from the Spirit of God.
This will appear very clear, if you please to lay together these four
things:
(1.) It is God's prerogative to hear prayer."0 thou that nearest
prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come." (Psalm Ixv. 2.)
(2.) It is God's promise to hear prayer." Open thy month wide,
and I will fill it;" (Psalm Ixxxi. 10;) spread thy sails by prayer, and I
will fill them by my Spirit. He will " give the Holy Spirit to them that
ask Him." (Luke xi. 13.)
(3.) It is God's usual course to perform his promise, jijjrov,*
in that very kind." Lord, thon hast heard the desire of the humble:
thou wilt prepare their heart, thon wilt cause thine ear to hear." (Psalm
x. 17.) "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain."
(Isai. xlv. 19.)
(4.) It hath been the constant practice of God's people to look after
their prayers, to see what success they have had.Prayers come not out
of the ark of their soul, as the raven did, never to return; but, as
Noah's dove, to come back again with an olive-branch into the soul. " I
will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto
his people, and to his saints." (Psalm Ixxxv. 8.) Saints do not shoot
* "Literally, according to the specified terms."EDiT.
IN DUTY 18 FROM TO SPIRIT OP GOD
453
the arrow of their prayers as children do,ihoot them away, and never
mind them; bat as archers that shoot their arrows up at a bird, and
stand expecting their returns down again. If our activity come from
the return of prayers, it must be from the Spirit. When Elias prays so
fervently, that fire might come down from heaven, and consume the
sacrifice, and it did so, the people might justly cry out, " The Lord, he is
the God; the Lord, he is the God!" (1 Kings xviii. 3739.) So when
we pray for fire and fervour to come down from heaven on our service,
and it comes, we may cry, " The Spirit of God! The Spirit of God!"
2. When our activity carriee us supra sphaeram activitatis,* above the
reach of any creature.When dust is carried up on high, the wind does
it; when dust and ashes are carried up on high in a duty, the wind
of the Spirit does it. If a chymist dissolves a stone into drops of water,
we may be sure some help higher than a creature hath helped him. If
a heart of stone shall be dissolved into drops of water in a duty, it must
be some help higher than a creature's [that] must do it. If Ganymede
be carried up to heaven, it must be by the help of Jupiter. If the soul
be carried up to heaven so in a duty that it is an ecstasy rather than an
activity, it is by the -help of the Spirit. If our spirit cries in a duty
with sighs and groans that are unutterable, it was enabled by the Spirit
of God. (Bom. viii. 26.) When we are carried through difficulties,
doubts, duties, dangers, that seem impossible, impassible, by reason
of the lions in the way, and the lions in the streets, that stand open
mouthed to devour us; (Prov. xxvi. 13;) then to venture through all,
fire, fury, faggot,this is of the Spirit of God. When Daniel shall
continue active in prayer three times a day, with his windows open, that
all might see him, when there were lions in the way indeed; (Dan. vi.
10;)when Luther in outward straits shall have such inward
enlargements, that he comes off from his knees with a Ftcimw, Fteuma/f
when he shall go to Worms to own the truth of Christ, though all the
tiles upon the houses were devils: of these prayers and practices, and
such like, we may say, as Protogenes of a curious line, "None but
Apelles could draw this :" "None but the Spirit of God could enlarge
and enable to do this."
3. When we feel and find our heart* after duty filled and freighted
with spiritual joys, and heavenly comforts.When our soul is like a
merchant's ship returned from the Indies, loaden as deep as it can swim,
with all variety of spices, and precious commodities;when we have
such inward ravishings, that our heart is a little heaven, filled up to the
brim with joy; as our Saviour prayed for us ; (John xv. 11;) enjoying
that "joy unspeakable and full of glory;" (1 Peter i. 8;) heaven ante
dated, or heaven before-hand;when we have that joy which is the
earnest of God's love:" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared," in this life, " for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by his Spirit." (1 Cor. ii. 9, 10.) This joy is not only the
fulfilling of Christ's prayer, but also the fruit of the Spirit. (Gal. v. 22.)
* " Above the sphere of human activity."EDIT.
have conquered !"EDIT.
SLEIDAN.
f " We have conquered! we
454
SERMON XXI.
BOW MAY WE KNOW WHEN OUR ACTIVITY
When the king had brought his spouse into his bridechamber after her
prayer, he ravishes her heart with joy. (Canticles i. 4.) When David had
been at prayer, " Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon
us," then conies that rapture, " Thou hast put gladness in my heart,
more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." (Psalm
iv. 6%7.) When we have greater joy after duty than worldlings have
after harvest, which is their greatest joy: gaudium mesei is mestis
ff audit j " the joy of their harvest is all the harvest of their joy,*' which
this world's earth-worms are likely to enjoy: " Son, remember that
thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things," ay Abraham to
Dives. (Luke xvi. 25.)
4. When our activity in duty is constant, like the motion of the fire i
its orb, which, philosopher* tell ue, ie perpetual." My soul breaketh for
the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times." (Psalm cxix.
20.) The Spirit dwells in us as his temple. (1 Cor. vi. 19.) The body
is the temple, the soul the Inte, the affections the strings, the Holy Ghost
the musician, who in all our duties makes melody in our hearts. (Eph. v.
19.) Where the ship is alway sailing, the wind is alway blowing; and
we are sure that sailing comes from the wind. If -the wind lies still,
the ship lies still, is becalmed. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is , liberty." (2 Cor. iii. 17.) Freedom and liberty are opposed
to three things:(1.) Necessity; (2.) Co-action; (3.) Restraint. Now,
the Spirit of God sets our heels, vt aiunt,* our hearts, at liberty, not
only from necessity [and] co-action, but also [from] restraint. Setting
at liberty is freeing us from imprisonment, and giving freedom to go
whither we will. The Spirit admits us to that liberty which is, (1.) The
purchase of Christ; (Gal. v. 1 ;) (2.) The privilege of our filiation:
" The glorious liberty of the sons of God." (Rom. viit. 21.) The Spirit
makes us act as itself: Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus Sancti gratia.^
(AMBROSES.) " The Spirit quickeneth," ÔUOTTOISI, " makes lively."
(2 Cor. iii. 6.) As the " Spirit of life " frees us from " the law of sin
and death," so from the law of sloth and deadness.J (Rom. viii. 2.)
OBJECTION.But some poor soul cries out, "Woe is me, I am
undone! I find none of this Spirit in me. I am none of those fixed
stars about the equinoctial that move many millions in an hour; but a
slow-paced planet, that finishes not his course in many years, whose
motion is so dull, that [it is] not discernible. Sure, I am cast out
of the firmament of God's favour, and shall be a wandering star, ' to
whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.'" (Jude 13.)
ANSWER.It is the misery of ministers, that they cannot speak of
the experimental sublimities of some, but others are presently desponding
and despairing. I would not, for a world, quench the smoking flax, or
break the bruised reed. (Matt. xii. 20.) Yea, I would, with all my soul,
* " As the phrase is." EDIT.
t" The grace of the Holy Spirit possesses nothing
in common with the tardiness of human efforts."EDIT.
Per namen libertatis turn
tantitm intelligo a peccati et carnis servitute manumissonem, sed eliam fidumam gvam
concipimus ex adoptionis nostrae testj/monio ; convenit cum Rom. iii. 15.CALVIN us
in 2 Cor. iii. 17. " By the word liberty, I understand not only a manumission from the
slavery of in and of the flesh, but also that trust (or assurance) which we conceive
through the witness of our adoption; and this is agreeable to Rom. viii. 15."EDIT.
IN ntmr is noil TBX SPIRIT or oonf

455
put the lamb in my boeom which cannot go, or [which go] bat lowly,
and gently lead them that an with young. (laai. xl. 11.) I speak this
to them that are upon the staves of Jacob's ladder in their ascending to
heaven, to be a loadstone to draw them up, not a mill-stone to drag them
down. Bat, to answer more appositely:
(1.) I intend it in opposition to them who live in a course of sin, yet
now and then in a duty do feel a flash of joy, and thereupon presume
pf their good estate; and not to those who, with Zachary and Elizabeth,
" walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless;"
(Luke i. 6;) and yet do not obtain this constant favour.
(2.) I lay it down [as] a positive sign, and inclusive, that those, and all
those that have constant activities, though differing for the altitudes and
degrees, may be certain of the Spirit, as those that have trade-winds
from port to port may be sure they sail by the wind ; or as those that
have the organ, medium, and object rightly disposed, may be sure they
see. Bellarmine tells a story of an old man, that always arose from duty
with these words: "Be you shut, 0 my eyes! be shut! for I shall
never behold any fairer object than God's face, which I have now
beheld." * But not a negative sign, exclusive, as if those (that repent
of sin, meditate on the promises, pour out prayers, walk with God, wait
on ordinances) who have it not, were cast-aways. I am confident that
many that lie wind-bound in the harbour shall in due time get to* the
haven.
(3.) There are four things [that] belong to a Christian: (i.) A habit;
(ii.) An act; (iii.) Degrees of that act; (iv.) Sense of all these. He may
have the three first, and yet want the sense of them. A ship may sail,
and yet the mariner not [be] sensible of it.
(4.) There is no rule but hath some exception ; no experience in one
believer's heart but a contrary experience may be found in another's.
Various are the workings of God's Spirit in the heart. He blows when,
where, how he pleases.f (John iii. 8.) He is called "seven Spirits," (Rev.
i. 4,) because of his various influences. He doth, eirt , [" generally,"] blow in a duty, if the ship be ready; but, to show he is agent
libenimwn,% he will sometimes suspend his act, and leave the common
road. To conclude this: take this counsel: Stay thyself upon thy
God; (Isai. 1. 10;) remembering, he will "send forth judgment unto
victory." (Matt. xii. 20.) And take this for a cordial, which is a
spiritual riddle: " It is a comfort to have no comfort." The desire*
of some are as acceptable to God as the deeds of others.
5. When toe are enlarged, and yet we are not elatedt high in God*
Spirit, low in our own spirit.True Christians are like canes, the fuller
they are of sugar, the lower they bend. Quantd sublimior, tantb tub*
missior; "The loftier, the lowlier:" every true saint's motto. True
activity is not leaven to puff us up, but lead to pull us down. What
Bede wished some to observe of Austine the monk, sent over a legate
* Claudimini, oculi met I claudimini: nihil enim pulchrius jam videbitis.
+I
may truly say of it as Keckerman say of Mercury's motion, Valdl variut, et, magn& ex
parte, incognitus. [" Extremely various, and, for the most part, unknown."]
j " An
agent supremely free."EDIT.
456
SCRMON XXI.
BOW MAY WE KNOW WHIN (TOR ACTIVITY
from the pope to his brethren the prelate and bishops of England, I
may advise yon to observe, that if he carried himself humbly, he came from
the Lord: high in duty, and humble after duty, comes from the Lord.
When David and his people had been on the mount, in their offerings to the
building of the temple, see [in] what a low valley they are, in the opinion
of themselves: " Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be
able to offer so willingly after this sort ? for all things come of thee, and
of thine own have we given thee." (1 Chron. xxix. 14.) Here is no
haughty pharisee, " Who but I ?" but an humble publican, " Who am I ?"
6. When activity in duty ie expressed in activity in doing; when active
prayer* are turned into active practices.The emperor Sigismund,*
having made fair promises, in a sore fit of sickness, of amendment of life,
asked Theodoricus, archbishop of Cologne, how he might know whether
bis repentance were sincere; who replied, " If you are as careful to perform in your health, as you are forward io promise in your sickness."!*
"As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow
thereby." (1 Peter ii. 2.) When our being high in duty makes us grow
high in grace and knowledge; (2 Peter iii. 18;) even as cedars of Lebarion,
until caput inter nubila, "we lodge our heads in heaven;" (2 Peter i. 10,
11;) we may be sure it is from the Spirit, when enlargement in duty lays
on us an engagement to duty.
7. When we give God the glory of all our actings and activities.If it
be returned to his praise, it was received from his Spirit. When rivers
return to the sea, it argues they from thence proceeded. (Eccles. i. 7)
When David and his people had showed their activity in their present
towards the erecting of the temple, they shut up all with a most gracious and grateful doxology: "Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and
praise thy glorious name." (1 Chron. xxix. 13.) "Not unto us, 0 Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name give glory." (Psalm cxv. 1.) He doubles
Non nobis, ["Not unto us,"] to lay down man, to lift up God. When we
nnfeignedly give God the glory, God hatb undoubtedly given us the grace.
8. When we have the testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit,
that this activity is from himself."God hath sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." (Gal. iv. 6.) When we are so
enlarged in a duty that we do cry, "Abba, Father;" this the Spirit witnesses is his work. The Spirit doth not witness by a clear and distinct, either
outward or inward, voice, totidem verbis: ["just in so many words:"]
" This I have wrought in thee." Thus to affirm, would be a Quaker's
fancy, or rather folly. But the Spirit doth sweetly and secretly suggest
to us, by having wrought those filial affections and child-like dispositions
of love, joy, peace, hope, fear, grief, confidence, &c., in the heart, and by
enabling us to act these gracious dispositions, as need shall require. This
is the Spirit's ,/^, " witnessing with our spirits," thus fitted
and filled with peace and purity, with melting and mourning. The Spirit
doth by his impress and impulse ratify and seal the witness of our own
spirit to make it authentic : " Ye have received the Spirit of adoption,
* SYLVII lib. ii. Comment, de Gestis.

t Promptiores sunt homines
promittendo quam exequendo.DION. lib. xxxviii. " Men display far greater prompti-
tude in promising, than in the performance of that which they have promised."EDIT.
IN DUTY IS FRO TH SPIRIT OV GOD?
457
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirits." (Bom. viii. 15,16.) So that, having two witnesses, it may be
established.
(1.) The witness of conscience; which is mille testes : ["a thousand
witnesses in one:"] " For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of oar
conscience." (2 Cor. i. 12.)
(2.) The witness of the Spirit; which is more than ten thousand
witnesses,* because he is an infallible witness, that cannot err; therefore
called "the Spirit of truth." (John xiv. 17; 1 John . 6.) Now these two,
putting their hands to the testimonial of our activity, breed and beget
that r<xj}j9i]cn0ey , " that confidence in God and evidence to
God," as a Lapide interprets the word. (1 John iii. 21.) Now, as those
two witnesses1 testimony in prophesying against idolatrous and superstitious worship was sufficient to evidence [that] all their actions were from
the spirit of antichrist; (Rev. xi. 3;) so these two witnesses, testifying to
our souls that these activities are legitimate and laudable, are sufficient
assurance that they came from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
USES.
USB i. Makes an apology for those precious sonls, whose wings are so
besmeared with the bird-lime of sloth, that they are forced to pat ap
their humble bills to ministers and congregations to beg of God in their
behalf spiritual quickenings; that so their hearts being enlarged, by the
breathings of the Spirit, they may bowsingly sail in the ways, and through
the waves, of God's commandments.
USE ii. Is an advocate to plead justification to the action in the
behalf of those who, as they make it a case of conscience, so they make
conscience of the case, to bring their activities to the touchstone, and to
the trial. They know that all is not gold that glisters ; and they would
not, in a thing of that eternal concernment, be deceived with alchymy
instead of gold, with blear-eyed Leah instead of beautiful Rachel, with a
cloud instead of Juno, with a pebble instead of a pearl; and therefore
they are industrious and illustrious to try whether their activity in duty
be from the Spirit, by those spirits that are ingredients into their activity.
* Cum Spiritus tettatur, qua tandem rettat ambiguitas 9CHHTSOSTOMUS in Rom.
YUL 15. "When die Holy Spirit bean witness, what ambiguity or doubt can still
remain ?"EDIT.
Beside those variations, in the text and illustrative notes, between the first and
subsequent editions, which have been specifically noticed, some others
occur of minor importance.EDIT.
458
SERMON XXII.
WHEREIN ARE WB
SERMON XXII.
BY THE BEV. HENEY WILKINSON, SEN., D.D.,
MARGARET PROFESSOR OP DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
WHEREIN ARE WE ENDANGERED BY THINGS LAWFUL?
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in mar
riage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood
came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days
of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they
planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom
it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Luke xvii. 2729.
HERE is set down -what the generality of people were doing in the
world: they were brutish in the days of Noah, before the flood came and
drowned them; and in the days of Lot, before the fire came down from
heaven and destroyed them. In Matt. xxiv. 38, it is expressed by participles : " They were eating," &c., , &c. This shows the vigour
and activity of their spirits spent on those things in which they were
engaged; and the word , proprie de brutis diet volunt gram
matici; ut etiam videatur magna esse hujus verbi emphasis, qua significatur homines brutorum inetar fore ventri deditos.* (BEZA.) This word
eignifieth a kind of "brutish feeding themselves without fear," as it
ie [in] Jude 12; but here in the text the words ran, H<r0iov, nvov,
,, &c. They are expressed by an aauvSsTov,f without a copula
tive. Camerarius observes : Hose ita euruvSerco; posita magis notant et
arguunt hominum temporis illius securitatem , so that the vehemency, and
eagerness, and intension of their spirits in the things they were employed
in, is hereby noted. They were very busy; their hearts, and heads, and
hands, all taken up in eating, drinking, buying, selling, &c., the actions
named; and the comforts which they were enjoying, those natural and
civil employments in which they were engaged^ all good and lawful
in themselves; but they were not well employed in them. The use
of those things was lawful, but they did sinfully use them; for there is in
all these actions a narrow way and a broad way: (Matt. vii. 13, 14:) the
narrow way which is bounded and limited, and under a rule as to the
end, namely, "the glory of God," (1 Cor. x. 31,) and also [as] to the
circumstances; though there be but few that find it: but the broad way,
* " The Greek word which we translate eating, as the grammarians observe, is properly
applicable to beasts; so that the use of this word may likewise appear to be very emphatic;
since by it an intimation is conveyed, that men addicted to appetite would be degraded to
as low a condition as that of the brutes."EDIT.
f Subjoined is Kersey's definition
of this word: " Asyndeton, in Grammar, a defect or want of conjunctions in a sentence.".
EDIT.
$ "The words in this collocation, without the intervention of a single
conjunction copulative, more forcibly describe and condemn the state of security into
which the men of that age were lulled."EDIT.
KNDANGKRKD BY THING LAWrVL?
459
which i* without bound and limit,thie is the common roed which

mo! walk in. " Thus far, hot no further/' aaith God. The will of God
i the boundary of the narrow way; but lust knoweth no bound, and
will not be prescribed to.
The very Heathen looked at their common action a* under bound:
they had their , sustine et abstine, cwroi^rfov
.* (GELLii Nottes Attica, lib. xvii. c. 19: ANTON. (T) PIGHIU,
lib. iv. sec. 3.) But the difficulty lie in observing the just limit in the
use of lawful thing; and therefore one said well, Lieitis perimus omnes,
&c.: " Bain usually arieeth from the use of lawful thing;" there being
most danger where it is least suspected. In all our comforts there is ft
forbidden fruit, which seemeth fair, and tasteth sweet, but which must
not be touched.
The observation may be these:
,
\
1. That att our action*, natural i eating, fyc., and civil, in buying
and filing, fyc., come under a rule.This is implied, else the Lord would
not have brought those great judgments on them, barely for their eating,
&c., had they not in those employments transgressed a rule.
2. Such are usually the miscarriage of men in the use of lawful thing,
that they are the procuring causes of the most dreadfid judgment.For
we see that the Lord makes mention of these very things, lawful in
themselves, as the causes of the flood on the world, and fire on Sodom.
3. The Lord put great weight and stress on those very things which
we take but little or no notice of.The old world and Sodom little
thought they should come to so severe a reckoning for their eating and
drinking, &c.
To bring things to an issue as to the case, concerning our danger
of sin and miscarriage in lawful things, I shall inquire,
I. When lawful thing become sin to us ?
II. How we may judge of our hearts and selves, and discern their
miscarriage and sin in the pursuing, enjoyment, and use of lawful
things ?
III. What are the sins that attend the immoderate and inordinate use
of lawful things?
I. As to the first, I answer, When lawful comforts, which are given
us for helps, become hinderances in our way to heaven, then they become
sin to us.When we, by our abusive' cleaving to the creature, by our
inordinate affection to it, by our exorbitant, -disorderly pursuing of it, do
abuse our helps, they become hinderances to us; and, as it was said
of Gideon's ephod, he made an ephod, which, when it became an idol,
" became a snare." (Judges viii. 27.) When lawful comforts are immoderately and passionately desired, pursued, enjoyed, then they become an
idol and a beloved; or at least they become beloved so far as to carry it
from Christ, from duty. Now, when any thing become an idol in the
heart, so as that the soul begins to bow before it, and yield obedience to
it, then it becomes an idol; and what is an idol in the heart, is a
stumbling-block of iniquity in our life; (Ezek. xiv. 4 ;) it is a etumbling-
* " Sustain and abstain, bear and forbear: it must be well done and firmly main*
tained."EDIT.
460
SERMON .
WHEREIN ARE Wfi
block, an hinderance in our way. Such idols in the heart usually prove
great offences, and both & r^, " stumbling-blocks
and occasions of falling;" (Rom. xiv. 13:) the first signifies "a
stumbling-block to keep one off from duty:" such an offence Peter was
to Christ. (Matt. xvi. 23.) He would have hindered him in that great
work which he had to do. The second signifies a gall-trap, which will
vex and trouble one in duty; so that when our comforts become idols,
images of jealousy in our hearts, then they are stumbling-blocks, and so
obstacles in our way to heaven.
Again : When our lawful comforts by our dotage become beloveds,
or greatly, passionately beloved, then they become hinderances.When
your hearts inflame themselves with your comforts, as the Lord speaks
of them in Isai. Ivii. 5 : they inflamed themselves with their idols. When
the heart doth inordinately love creature-comforts, they are then turned
into lusts, so that of lawful comforts they are made unlawful lusts.
(1 John ii. 15, 16.) The things of the world, or the profits, pleasures,
honours, which usually men's hearts and thoughts are taken up withal, are
good and lawful things in themselves; but, being abused, they are called,
" the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye," &c. The Holy Ghost puts the
lust that is within us, to express the profits, pleasures, and honours
of the world which are without us: so that the good things of this life, by
our inordinate love to them, being abused, the very nature and property
of the things are altered; for, instead of proving good helps to us when
lawfully loved and used, [they] become lusts that hinder us, (for they
fight against our souls, 1 Peter ii. 11,) and members of the old man,
and weapons in his hand to fight against God; they become one with
old Adam in us, and therefore we are bid to mortify our earthly members. (Col. iii. 5.) He doth not say, " Mortify your lusts," but " members;" they being all one, and make up together a body of sin, one
" Old man," as it is called, Eph. iv. 22. Now, it is certain, that the old
man in us, the body of sin, is an enemy and a hinderance to us in our
way to heaveii.
In this case those foul sins of idolatry and adultery are committed
with the creature ; in both which sins, the heart is stolen away from
God, drawn away from the proper object. The apostle useth that
expression, &, ,, " drawn away by lust," (James
i. 14,) or some object, in an unlawful conjunction with the heart: then
the heart comes to be glued to it, as God speaks: they are ''joined to
idols." (Hosea iv. 17,) fixed to them; so that as in idolatry the heart
is joined to and fixed to the idol, so as that it will not easily part with
it; (as it is, Jer. ii. 11: " Hath a nation changed their gods ?" As if he
had said, " No, they are fixed to their gods, and they will not change
them ;") so it is in the sin of adultery, the heart is stolen from the
proper object; as it is in Hosea iv. 11, speaking of wine and women, it
is said, they " take away the heart," and it is glued to that which it
goes a-whoring after, so that it will not be taken off from it. (Prov.
ii. 19.) When the creature becomes an idol in the heart, then there is
idolatry committed; and when it is a beloved, there is adultery committed ; the hope, and trust, and confidence of the soul are gone; the
ENDANGERED BY THINGS LAWrtTlf
461
love and care, and joy and delight of the eool are gone; and the tool,
with every creature that it thus enjoy, " poureth out her fornications,"
as the Lord spake of them in Ezek. xvi. 15; and as they in Isai.
xxiii. 17, are said to " commit fornication with all kingdoms/* so a heart
which inordinately loveth, and doteth on, and is glued to, creaturecomforts, commits* fornication and abomination with them.
II. The second inquiry was, How we may judge of our heart*, and
know when they miscarry and offend in the pursuing, use, and enjoyment
of lawful things.
1. When our desire of, and our endeavours after, worldly things grow
strong and vehement, and very eager and impatient.As Rachel said,
" Give me children, or else I die." (Gen. xxz. 1.) When we begin to
say, " I must have such an accommodation, whatever it cost me; I must
have such a comfort, or I am undone;" such a pursuit after worldly
comforts argues a heart very carnal; and he that miscarries so much in
seeking after the things of this world will not mend the matter much
when he comes to enjoy them. When the heart groweth sick after
worldly things in the desire of them, usually it surfeiteth when it gain
eth it: as Amnon was sick for his sister, (2 Sam. xiii. 1, 2,) he had a
surfeit after; and as Ahab,he was sick with impatient, earnest longing
for Naboth's vineyard. (1 Kings xzi. 4.) When your heart is very
impatient till you do obtain your desires, you are never well with that
thing which yon do so obtain. When the affections grow strong and
warm, that yon can endure no opposition or contradiction in the pursuance of your desires, but you can bear any trouble or hardship that you
may obtain the things desired: (as we see in Shechem, who could
endure circumcision that he might have Dinah ; Gen. xxxiv. 19; and in
Jacob, who did endure very much that he might have Rachel: Gen.
xxix. 18 :) then there is a match towards,f then in such a case, when it
is gained, the heart becomes glued to it, and commits fornication with it,
and cannot endure to be touched or thwarted in the fruition of it; as
Demetrius and the silversmiths, when they found their Diana began to
be touched by Paul's doctrine, they made an uproar, they would not
endure that. (Acts xix. 24, &c.) When ye look on any thing with a
greedy and impatient, longing, lusting eve ; THAT, if you do obtain it,
(if God doth not otherwise order it,) will prove a snare to you, as the
Psalmist speaks, an idol, an image of jealousy, a curse, and a cross.
(Psalm Ixix. 22.)
2. When you have raised expectations and hopes of great contentment
and satisfaction from your com/or*.-When you. promise to yourselves
greater matters from the creature than it can yield; then you miscarry
when you look on the creature through the multiplying glass of your
affections and lusts, and see them as they are so represented bigger and
better than they are; and from thence you have high valuation of
them, and raised expectations also of great things from them. When
* All the edition, except the first, have the word re-eommitt in thi place.EDIT.
f All the editions have match towards, which, as the language of that age, is susceptible
of a good interpretation : " There is a match in great forwardness:" " A contemplated
union is in hopeful progress."EDIT.
462
SERMON XXII.
WHEREIN ARK WE
we fancy an excellency in the creature that is not, we fancy a fulness in an empty thing, a satisfaction in an insufficient, unsatisfying
comfort; we fancy a stability in a vain, fleeting, vanishing thing. When
we fancy a fountain-excellency in a broken cistern, as they did Jer. ii.
13 ; then npon this the heart is raised to great expectations of pleasure,
profit, &c.; then the heart shamefully miscarries; and, as it is said there
is a strange beast that turned the eyes of all the world after it, they
looked with an eye of great expectation from this beast, and then they
wondered and adored also; so that they looked with an eye of admiration
and adoration too. (Rev. xiii. 3, 4.)
3. When the obedience and willing submission of the soul ia brought off to
any worldly comfort, and the soul stoops to its sceptre and the faculties, like the centurion's servants, do as they are bid.Such comforts
which are slavishly obeyed, are sinfully enjoyed. When we are afraid to
displease them, the fear is at command; when we are careful to please
such a lust, then the care is under subjection; when we are troubled
if crossed, then our sorrow is at command; if rejoiced when that is
gratified, then the love and delight of the soul are at command : " His
servants ye are to whom ye obey." (Rom. vi. 16.) When the soul is
even as the servant that looks to the hand of the master with an obediential eye, expecting a command, and ready to yield obedience, (Psalm cxxiii.
2,) such a comfort is a sin and a curse to you. Christ calls to us to
deny ourselves. (Matt. xvi. 24.) Profits, pleasures, carnal advantages

say, " Rather deny Christ's command." Who is obeyed ? Christ saith,
"Mortify your lusts;" lust saith, "Gratify us." Consider, who is
obeyed ? If family duties, and personal private duties; if praying, holy
meditation, secret close communion with God, be neglected, because multitude of worldly business, and full and great trade in the world, command you another way, and require the love, and zeal, and strength,
and care of the heart to another attendance, then you are under another
sovereign than Christ. The obedience of the heart is carried to another
law : other lords rule over you. Now, the soul that is under the com-
mand of the creature, as I have showed, that comfort becomes a sin

which usurps the throne of the heart.
4. When the soul groweth very tender and compassionate towards
such a comfort, and begins to spare that above other things: then that
becomes a lust, and lust is very tender and delicate, and must be tenderly
used.Right eyes are very tender; the least touch fetcheth tears. When
thou canst not endure that either the word of God, or the rod of God,
should come too near, or so much as touch npon such a carnal contentment, such a comfort, such a husband, such a wife or child; thou canst
not endure that the Lord should smite thee in any of these, but thou
criest out, " 0 spare this," as David concerning his Absalom, " 0 tender
the young man, pray deal gently with him ;" (2 Sam. xviii. 4, 5;) and
as old Jacob with his Benjamin,he could more easily spare his other
children than him; he looked with a very tender, compassionate eye on
him ! Whatever thou dost enjoy with such a tender, bleeding heart and
eye, it hath ravished thy heart very far, and it is become thy idol and
beloved very far, and thy sin.
ENDANGERED BY THINGS LAWFUL?
463
5. When the care, anxiety, and solicitude of the soul run out after ike
comforts of this life: saying, " What shall I eat ? what hall I drink f
Horn shall I live and maintain my wife and children ? what shall I do
to get, to keep such or such a thing?"When the thoughts of the heart
are taken up for protection, for provision, to get and bold the things
of this life; such comforts as are so gotten, and so enjoyed, they are
sinfully obtained and maintained ; and this oar Lord Christ doth clear
to as. (Matt. vi. 25, 26.) And he warns his disciples in a special
manner against all such cares: 8t ieuiroi;.* (Luke xxi. 34.)
6. That comfort which thou art not dead vnto, neither is that dead to
thee, thou wilt hardly enjoy with safety to thyself, or thou wilt part
withal but upon severe terms.
If when God, by his providence, calls for such or such a comfort,
husband, wife, child, yet thou canst not, you will not, resign and give
up that comfort at God's call; but thou growest impatient and sullen,
when he doth but attempt to bereave thee of it; God may perhaps let
thee have thy lust, as he dealt with the Israelites; but thou shall have
that comfort without any comfort, it may be with a curse. (Psalm
Ixxviii. 18, 30, 31.)
When we cannot bear the thoughts of either absence or loss of such
or such things, cannot endure the thought of parting; it is like the
tearing off a limb from the body, when God takes away such a husband,
or wife, or child, or estate, &c.; it argues that they were greatly abused
while we had them. If there were an indifferency of spirit in us, as the
apostle speaks, that they that were married, were as if they were not
married, &c., (1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, &c.,) they would part upon easier
terms by far. When the life is bound up in a comfort, it is death to
part; as it was with Jacob to his Benjamin. (Gen. xliv. 22, 30.) When
the creature hath got too great an interest in thee, that thou canst by no
means bring thy heart to think of leaving it, or its leaving thee, though
God seems to call for it; the heart begins secretly to rise up against
God, and to murmur and quarrel at providence; this argueth a very
carnal heart. If the heart did hang loose from these things, tbou mightest
enjoy them with more comfort, and part with them with more ease.
7. If after God hath been weaning us in a more special manner by his
word and rod, and taking off our hearts from our worldly comforts, yet
the strong bent of the soul is towards them, it argues much carnal love to
them that we are not crucified to those comforts.
When the soul hath its secret, sinful converse and fellowship with a
creature-comfort, against its own conviction to the contrary; it may be,
thou hast repented, or at least hast seemed to repent, of such a way and
course; yet, for all this, thy heart continually hangs that way; and as
it is [in] Prov. ix. 17, her " stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in
secret is pleasant." When a stolen glance of the eye, a stolen kiss from
a lustful object, is still pleasant to the soul, there is much of a meretricious carriage in that heart, it is so far sinfully enjoyed.
When the heart hankers much after such a thing, it is stolen away ;
(Hosea iv. 11;) when it hangs after it, as it is in Jer. xxii. 17, their
,
I
>
\
1
j
;
1
j
\
I
* ** And take heed to yourselves," lest at any time, &c.EDIT.
464
SERMON XXII.
WHEREIN ARE WE
hearts went after their covetousness; when the heart hath it secret
haunts and postern-doors to get out to each or each an object, .and that
object hath its secret passage to the soul. There be some secret correspondencies betwixt the heart and the object. When the lustful
object hath its welcome, it no sooner knocks but it is admitted ; when it
hath a free passage into the heart, and the heart hangs after it, nay,
perhaps admits it when it is in dnty; if it comes even when we are with
God in prayer, and is admitted; it argues a sinful, whorish familiarity.
8. If, after solemn and frequent warnings, invitations, an$ earnest
beseeching, perhaps corrections too, God call thee to a more strict
and close walking with him in a severer way of self-denial, in a more free
and full enjoyment of himself.If God would sequester thee from thy
oxen, farm, married wife, that he might have thee more alone from the
crowd, and dust, and tumult of the world; if yet, after all this, thou
then settest thy wits on work to frame excuses; if Christ speak to thee
as he did to his spouse: " Come, let us go forth into the field ; let us
lodge in the villages;" (Canticles vii. 1] ;) "Come, let us go out of the
city-crowd and multiplicity of worldly businesses, and let us retire alone,
that we may more fully enjoy one another." If he saith to thee as

he speaks to his spouse, " Let us get up early to the vineyards," &c.,
(verse 12,) and calls thee off to a more early, earnest, diligent attendance on him; and thou doest as the spouse, makest lazy excuses,
(Canticles v. 2,3,) for thy easy gainful trade and way of life thou leadest;
if so it be with thee, thou keepest thy comforts upon sinful terms.
When the arguments, and pleas, and excuses, and pretexts, are for
lust; when denials, equivocations, and thy reason, are all at work for
lust; when God calls to self-denial in some creature-comfort, and then
the heart forms excuses for the enjoyment of it; (as they in the gospel;
they all began to make excuses, when they were called to the weddingsupper ; their lawful comforts became a snare and sin to them; Luke
xiv. 17, 18 ;) if thy heart, in such a case, studies colours to adorn or set
it out, or set it off, or covers to protect it, then it is sinful. The heart
miscarries in the enjoyment of its comforts, when it studies how to hide
itself in the enjoyment of it, as much as may be, even from the eye
of God.
III. The third thing propounded was, What are the sins that attend
the immoderate sinful use or abuse of lawful comforts ?
I will confine myself to the sins in the text.
1. The first sin in their eating and drinking, &c., was sensuality s and
that is expressed by the word , which, as I have showed, is
properly applied to brutes, an eating after a brutish manner; and by
the <, [" asyndeton/'] which notes the vehemency and intension
of their spirits, laid out in their sensual enjoyments. Men are apt
(especially in abundance) to grow sensual and brutish, to use their comforts without fear, to indulge themselves very far, and so say to themselves, as the rich glutton, " Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be
merry;'1 (Luke xii. 19;) a sensual, brutish speech, fitter for a swine than
a man. Abundance of the things of this life hath a strange virtue to
corrupt a man into a brute. "Jeshnrun waxed fat, and kicked."
ENDANGERED BY THINGS LAWFUL?
465
(Dent, xxxii. 15.) How is he degenerated to a fat heifer or horse,

that kicks and winceth! The Lord complains, that " when he had fed
them to the full, they then committed adultery," &c., and were like " fed
horses," brutish and sensual. (Jer. v. 7, 8.) Such as gratify their lusts
eating, &c., are "strong bulls of Bashan." (Psalm xxii. 12.) The
Psalmist says, he was compassed about with them, who were like hulls
in a fat pasture, well-fed and strong, and ready to gore and push. The
great, and rich, and potent ones are compared to these brutes. We
are very apt in the midst of comforts to grow sensual, and before we are
aware, as Noah and Lot, who both were overtaken. Our Lord Christ
exhorts his disciples against these, and bids them to beware. (Luke
zxi. 34.) The word notes a very diligent and intent study and intension
of mind to what he said, " lest their heart should be overcharged." It
seems strange that he should give the disciples an exhortation against
sensuality and brutish sins, but that he knew their natures; and though
they were most temperate persons, yet he bids them " beware of surfeiting," knowing that if the best did not watch, they might be overtaken
with sensuality.
2. Pride, ease, and idleness usually go together, the immoderate or inordinate use of the creature.This was it which God warned his people of:
"When thou hast eaten and art full, beware lest then thine heart be lifted
up." (Deut. viii. 11, 12, 14.) So, Psalm cxxiii. 4, there it is said,
" Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at
ease, and with the contempt of the proud:" they are put together.
When we fall to eating and drinking, the next thing is to take our ease.
(Luke xii. 19.)

So the Lord speaks: "According to their pasture, so were they
filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they
forgotten me." (Hosea xiii. 6.) Ease and idleness attend sensuality;
these gratify a brutish disposition very much. " Fulness of bread and
abundance of idleness" were Sodom's sins; (Ezek. xvi. 49;) and the rich
glutton sang a requiem to his soul. Usually, when men abound in
outward comforts, they are most apt to grow lethargic and slothful, or at
least they will not take much pains ; it may be, they will be doing something, but they will not be at much pains, especially as to their souls:
"Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the
corn," &c.; (Hosea x. 11;) but not to plough; he cares not for that.
They were wont to use beasts in treading their corn, instead of threshing of it: now, it was God's command, that the ox that trod out the
corn should not be muzzled, but that he might eat as he did work.
Then here is Ephraim at a good lazy work, that hath meat in the
mouth of it, wages for work, and present pay ; here is corn, he abounds
in outward things; and though he treads out the corn, he will not
plough, that is too hard labour; he will not go abroad in the wet and
cold: and [this] seems to have reference to those of the tribes that
would not go to Jerusalem to worship, they would not take so much
pains. Ephraim considers his ease, he loves no hard work. Ephraim
did abound, and grew rich. (Hosea xii. 7, 8.) He drove a great trade
in the world, and took pains; but yet it was in a way that might gratify
466
SERMON XXII.
WHEREIN ARE WE ENDANGERED, &C.
bis last, and carry on his gains: but what eaith God to this temper
See Hosea x. 11: the Lord saith, he will pass upon his fair neck : " I
will make Ephraim to ride." He had a fair and a beautiful neck; he
led such a life, that though he trod out the corn, he lived in plenty,
ease, and idleness; no yoke came on his neck, he would not abide a
yoke to be put on; but by his lazy life and good trade he had a beautiful neck, he became tender and delicate: but, " I will pass over his
fair neck;" as some take it, " I will cause a heavy yoke to come over
his neck, and will make him work, and set him to hard labour. I will
make him a drudge. I will make him ride." Some take it for their
speedy captivity, that shall tame him: by his plenty and ease he is
grown so lusty, like a restive jade, " I will ride him, I will set some on
his back [that] shall ride him off his legs/' And, " Jacob shall break
his clods;" (verse 11;) the ten tribes. This is a base, drudging work,
to break the clods, but this servile work shall be his. We see, in
Laodicea, their plenty and idleness went together; and they were to be
spued out. (Rev. iii. 16, 17.)
3. Then there is security follows this eating, &c.; and usually where
there is abundance of these, and that men are much taken up with
these, there is a secure, sleepy, forgetful spirit goes with them: and,
doubtless, this was the sin of the old world, that though Noah was a
preacher of righteousness, and his making the ark was a public alarm to
the world, yet they went on in their way, eating and drinking, &c., very
securely, promising to themselves peace and safety. Such as are filled
with what they eat and drink, are apt to drop asleep ; and then they are
secure; they apprehend themselves safe from danger; they are compared to a drunken man, that doth not know in what condition he is. In
2 Tim. ii. 26, the word * is "to return to one's self after
drunkenness," "that they may awaken:" for it signifies otfe that is
secure, and so goes on in his way ; when he returns and recovers himself, he is as a man that was drunk, and awakes and returns to himself.
Whence it is that God did so often caution his people against a secure,
sleepy, forgetful frame of spirit; and when the Lord was to bring the
children of Israel into Canaan, he still bids them [that] they should not
forget him. (Deut. vi., viii. 14.) But this sin he complains of in them.
(Hosea ii. 13.) When David was in the midst of his comforts he grew
secure. (Psalm xxx. 6.) We find some brought-in, speaking in their
thoughts that they had " made a covenant with death and hell," &c.
(Isai. xxviii. 15.) They in their secure thoughts apprehended themselves free from danger: such thoughts ever carry impenitency and
hardness of heart with them; when they are " settled on their lees," they
never consider or say, "What have I done?" (Zeph. i. 12; Jer. xlviii.
11; viii. 6.) Incogitancy and security go together. A secure person
never considers bis own estate, danger, nor duty. When once a man
grows sleepy, promising to himself freedom from danger, and good days,
then he falls into some sin or other, or some evil falls upon him. The
evil servant said his master delayed his coming, and he began to beat his
fellow-servant. (Matt. xxiv. 4850.) (1.) He is secure, he promiseth
to himself safety; his master delays, &c. (2.) He falls to beat hie
SERMON XXIII.
HOW TO HARE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS.
467
fellow-servant. Or else they fall into some sin. While they slept, their
lamp went out. (Matt. MY. 5, 8.) Or some evil befalls them; (Lam.
i. 9;) " Sadden destruction/' &c. (1 These, . 3.) When men grow
secure as to their state, and of a supine, sleepy, careless spirit, such are
ever in a most unsafe, sinful condition, nigh to cursing, and on the very
brink of ruin and utter destruction.
SERMON XXIII.
BY THE REV. THOMAS WATSON, A.M.,
OF XMMANtTBl OOLLBOB, CAMBRIDGE.
BOW MUST WE MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS ?
Wist ye not that I mtut be about my Father's bunnte*?Luke ii. 49.
THESE are the words of our Lord Jesus, whose lips dropped as an
honey-comb. The occasion was this: Christ having the Spirit of wisdom and sanctity poured on him without measure, being but twelve
years old, goes to the temple, and fell a-disputing with the doctors.
(Verse 46.) Where should learning blossom but upon that tree which
did bear several sorts of fruit ? Who could better interpret secrets than
He who lay in his Father's bosom ? (Col. ii. 9.) " All that heard him
were astonished at his understanding." (Luke ii. 47.) In the Greek it is
<, " they were out of themselves" with admiration.* Well
might they admire, that he who never had been at the university should be
able to silence the great rabbies: " How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" (John vii. 15.) While they were wondering, his
mother, who now was come to seek him, propounds this question, " Son,
why hast thou thus dealt with us ?" (Luke ii. 48;) that is, 'Why hast thou
put us to all this labour in seeking tbee?"f In the words of the text
Christ makes a rational and religious reply: " Wist ye not that I must
be about my'Father's business ?" In the Greek it is,
, " in the things of my Father." As if Christ had said, " I must be
doing the work which my Father in heaven hath set me about: for this
received I my mission and uuction, that I might do the will of Him that
sent me. (John ix. 4.) What am I in the world for, but to promote his
glory, propagate his truth, and be as a load-star to draw souls to heaven ?
'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?'"
DOCTRINE.
From this example of our blessed Saviour, in making his Father's work
his business, we learn this great truth:
* Usque ad ttuparemperoulti.BuDJBtrs. They were completely surprised, and
overcome with* stupor,"EDIT.
f Minimi objurgane, ted remfidenter modetfi
guateni.BRUGENSIB. " His mother did not utter this in a chiding tone, but inquired
into the matter with modesty, and ia confidence " that she would receive a satisfactory
reply.EDIT.
468
SERMON XXIH.
HOW MUST WE
That it if the duty of every Christian to make religion Ms business.

Religion is not a repepyov,* or thing by the by," proper only for
spare hours; but it must be the grand business of our lives. St. Paul
made it so: his great care was to know Christ, and to be found in Christ.
(Phil. iii. 9, 10.) How abundantly did he layout himself for God!
ilepHTtroTepov exovtourot' "I laboured more abundantly than they
all," &c. (1 Cor. xv. 10.) St. Paul moved heavenward, not slowly as
the sun on the dial, but as the sun in its hemisphere, with a winged
swiftness.
He made religion his business.
For the illustrating and unfolding of this, there are three questions to
be resolved:
I. What is meant by religion t
II. Why we must make religion our business ?
III. What it is to make religion our business f
QUESTION i. What is meant by religion ?
I answer, the Latin word religio quasi reliaatio,it signifies "a knitting
together." Sin hath loosened us from God; but when religion comes
into the heart, it doth religare, " fasten the heart to God again;" as the
members are knit to the head by several nerves and ligaments.} Religion
is the spiritual sinew and ligament that knits us to God. The Greek
word for religion eu<rej8sia,J signifies "a right worshipping." This i
religion, when we not only worship the true God, but in that manner
which he hath prescribed; by a right rule, from a right principle, to a
right end.
QUESTION n. The second question is, Why we must make religion owe
business ?
I answer, because religion is a matter of the highest nature; while

we are serving God, we are doing angels* work. The business of religion
doth infinitely out-balance all things besides. Pleasure, profit, honour,
(the trinity which the world adores,) are all of an inferior alloy, and
must give way to religion. The fear of God is said to be " the whole
duty of man;" (Eccles. xii. 13;) or, as it is in the Hebrew Q-mrri?:?
" the whole of man." Other things may delight, religion doth satiate ;
other things may make us wise to admiration, religion makes us " wise
to salvation." (2 Tim. iii. 15.)
QUESTION HI. The third question is, What it is to make religio
our business ?
I answer: it consists principally in these seven things:
1. We make religion our business, when we wholly devote owselves to
religion." Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy
fear;" (Psalm czix. 38;) as a scholar who devotes himself to bis studies
makes learning his business. A godly man may sometimes run himself,
through precipitancy and incogitancy, upon that which is evil. There is
no man so bad but he may do some good actions; and there is no man so
good but he may do some bad actions. But the course and tenor of a
godly man's life is religious; when he doth deviate to sin, yet he doth
devote himself to God. It is with a Christian as it is with a company

* "Something only secondary in importance."EDIT.
Insttt. lib. iv.
t Ab cv, et <TC&>/MU.
f LACTAHTIUS, Dm.
MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS?
469
of mariners at sea; they are bound for each a coast: now, while they are
sailing, they may meet with such a cross-wind as may turn them back,
and drive them a quite contrary way; but as soon as the storm is over*
and the sea calm, they recover themselves again, and get into the right
way where they sailed before. So it is with a Christian: heaven is the
haven he is bound for, the scripture is the compass he sails by; yet, a
contrary wind of temptation blowing, he may be driven back into a sinful
action; but he recovers himself again by repentance, and sails on constantly
to the heavenly port. (Isai. v. 20. ?) This is to make religion oar business,
when, notwithstanding some excursions through human frailty, we are devoted to God's fear, and dedicate our [" entire existence "] to God.
2. We make religion our business, when we intend* the business of religion chiefly.It doth principatum obtinere ["gain the pre-eminence"].
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God;" (Matt. vi. 33;) first in time, before
all things, and first in affection, above all things. We must give religion
the precedency, making all other things either subservient or subordinate
to it. We are to provide for our families, but chiefly for our souls: this
is to make religion our business. Jacob put the cattle before, and made
his wives and children lag after. (Gen. xxxii. 16.) It is unworthy to
make religion come behind in the rear: it must lead the van, and all other
things must stoop and vail to it. He never had religion in his heart who
saith to any worldly thing, " In the throne thou shalt be greater." f
3. We make religion our business, when our thought are most busied
about religion.While others are thinking how they shall do to get a
living, our thoughts are, how we shall do to be saved. David did muse
upon God: " While I was musing the fire burned." (Psalm xxxix. 3.)
Thoughts are as passengers in the soul: when we travel every day to the
city of God, and are contemplating glory and eternity, this is to make
religion our business. Theophylact calls holy contemplation, " the gate
and portal by which we enter into heaven;" J a Christian, by divine
soliloquies and ejaculations, is in heaven before his time; he is rapt-up
into paradise, his thoughts are all packed-up and gone.
4. We make religion our business, when our main end and scope is to
serve God.He is said to make the world his business, whose great design
is to get the world. St. Paul's ultimate end was, that Christ might be
magnified, and the church edified. (Phil. i. 20; 2 Cor. xii. 19.) Our alms
must be good, as well as our actions. Many make use of religion for
sinister ends; like the eagle, while she flies aloft, her eye is upon her prey.
Hypocrites serve God propter aliud; they love the temple for the gold;
(Matt, xxiii. 17;) they court the gospel, not for its beauty, but for its
jewels: these do not make religion their business, but a politic trick and
artifice to get money. || But then we make religion our business, when
* In the classical signification, well-known and much-used by our ancestors, to pay
great regard to, devote much attention to, to pursue any thing with intentenett.-Er)iT.
Si Chrittus pro te de caeleeti sede deteendit, tu propter ipna fuge terrena.
AUGUSTINUS. " If on thy account Christ descended from his heavenly throne, do thou,
tat his sake, avoid and flee from earthly entanglements."EDIT.
t dvpa rttv
ovpavwv, tf $ yap * ttf 8cy.THEOPHYLACT.
"On account
of other advantages."EDIT.
|| MqScp wpaps, ay KtpSos e%p, Star.
CHRTSOSTOMUS. "No good action wilt thou perform, unless thou canst derive some
advantage to thyself" through the semblance of piety.EDIT.
470
SERMON XXIII.
BOW MUST WB
the glory of God is mainly in oar eye, and the very purport and intent
of our life is, to live to Him who hath died for as. (2 Gar. v. 15.) God is
the centre, and all the lines of our actions most be drawn to this centre.
5. We make religion our business, when we do trade with God every day.
-" Our conversation is in heaven." (Phil.*in. 20.) The Greek word for
" conversation/' , signifies " commerce and traffic:" " our merchandise is in heaven." A man may live in one place, and drive his trade
in another: a saint, though he lives in the world, yet he trades above the
moon; * he is a merchant for the pearl of price. This is to make religion our business: when we keep a holy intercourse with God, there is a
trade driven between us and heaven: " Our fellowship is with the Father,
and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1 John i. 3.) God comes down to us
upon the wing of his Spirit, and we go up to him upon the wing of prayer.
6. We make religion our business, when we redeem time from secular
things for the service of God.A good Christian is the greatest monopolizer : he doth hoard up all the time he can for religion: " At midnight
I will rise to give thanks unto thee." (Psalm cxix. 62.) Those are the
best hours which are spent with God; and David, having tasted how
sweet the Lord was, would borrow some time from his sleep, that he
might take a turn in heaven. It well becomes Christians to take time
from worldly occasions, sinful dressings, idle visits, that they may be the
more intent upon the matters of religion. I have read of a holy man,
who being tempted by his former evil companions to sin, he made this
answer: " I am so busy in reading in a little book with three leaves,
that I have no leisure so much as to mind my other business;" and
being asked afterward, whether he had read over the book, replied,
" This book with three leaves is of three several colours, red, white, and
black; which contain such deep mysteries, that I have resolved with
myself to read therein all the days of my life. In the first leaf, which
is red, I meditate on the precious blood of Christ, which was shed for
my sins; in the white leaf, I meditate on the pure and delicious joys
of heaven; in the black leaf, I contemplate the hideous and dreadful torments of hell, prepared for the wicked to all eternity." This is to make
religion our business, when we are so taken up with it, that we have
scarce any leisure for other things. Christian, thou hast a God to serve,
and a soul to save; and if thou hast any thing of religion in thee, thou
wilt take heed of the thieves of time, and wilt engross all opportunities
for the best things. How far are they from Christianity, who jostle out
holy duties! instead of borrowing time from the world for prayer, they
steal time from prayer, that they may follow the world.
7. We make religion our business, when we serve God with all our
might.Our strength and spirits are drawn forth about religion: we
seek, sweat, strive, bestir ourselves, as in a matter of life and death, and
put forth not only diligence, but violence. " David danced before the
Lord with all his might." (2 Sam. vi. 14.) This is to make religion our
business, when we shake off sloth, and put on zeal as a garment. We
must not only pray, but pray fervently: (James v. 16:) we must not
* Ut municipe ceelorum not gerimus. "We conduct ourselves as the burgesses
of heaven, "~-DIT,
MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS?
471
only repent, but "be zealous and repent:" (Rer. iii. 19:) we mutt not
only love, but be " sick of love." (Canticles ii. 5.)
Multa tulii,.....,t*davit, et akU,* e.
This is to be a Christian to purpose, when we put forth all onr vigour

and fervour in religion, and take the kingdom of God as it were by storm.
(Matt. xi. 12.) It is not a faint velleity [that] will bring us to heaven:
there mast not only be wishing, but working; and we must so work, as
being damned if we come short.
USES.
USB I.
INFORMATION.
BRANCH i. Hence learn, that there are fat few good Christians.'
how few make religion their business! Is he an artificer that never
wrought in the trade ? Is he a Christian that never wrought in the
trade of godliness ? How few make religion their business!
1. Some make religion a complement,^ but not their business.They
court religion by a profession, and, if need be, religion shall have their
letters of commendation; but they do not make religion their business.
Many of Christ's disciples, who said, "Lord, evermore give us this
bread," yet soon after basely deserted Christ, and would follow him no
longer. " From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked
no more with him." (John vi. 34, 66.)
2. Others matte the world their business." Who mind earthly things."
(Phil. iii. 19.) The earth puts out the fire; so the love of earthly
things puts out the fire of heavenly affections. It was a judgment upon
Korah and Dathan, " the earth swallowed them up." (Num. xvi. 32.)
Thus it is with many: the world swallows up their time, thoughts,
discourse; they are swallowed up alive in the earth. There is a lawful
use of these things; but the sin is in the excess. The bee may suck a
little honey from the leaf; but put it in a barrel of honey, and it is
drowned. How many ingulf themselves in the creature, and drive such
a trade in the shop, that they quite break in their trading for heaven!
The farm and oxen have kept millions from Christ. These do not make
religion their business, but make the world their business; and what will
all be at death, but as a dream or fancy 1% " The people shall labour in
the very fire, and shall weary themselves for very vanity." (Hab. ii. 13.)
BRANCH it. Hence tee how hard it is to be saved.It is not so easy
as some apprehend: religion must be our business. It is not enough to
have a smack of religion, a touch and away, cania ad Nilum; but we
must make it onr TO fpyov, " our business." How many precepts have
we to obey, how many temptations to resist, how many graces to treasure up 1 Religion is the work of our whole lives, and all little enough!
Lord, then how hard is it to be saved! "Where will the sinner
* HORATIUS De Arte Poeticd, 413. For a translation of this passage see page 436.
EDIT.
f A good use of the old word, in the sense of " something to fill up a
vacant moment"EDIT.
2 ecu wop, KM rmrrw o&ytivtrrtpa.
" A shadow,
and a dream, and the most worthless and contemptible of these things."EDIT.
" Like the dog which drinks hastily of the waters of the Nile," moving cautiously along
the banks of the river while trying to slake his thirst, through fear of becoming the prey
of crocodiles.EDIT.
472
SERMON XXIII.
HOW MUST WE
appear?" What will become of tbe gallants of oar times, who make
sin their business, whose whole employment is to indulge and pamper
the flesh? ij .* "All their care is," as

Jerome speaks, " to crisp their hair, to sparkle their diamonds; instead
of steeping their souls in brinish tears, they bathe themselves in perfumed
waters, and ride to hell upon the back of pleasure." f
USE II.
TRIAL.
Let us deal impartially with our own souls, and put ourselves upon a
strict trial before the Lord, whether we make religion our business.
And for our better progress herein, I shall lay down ten signs and
characters of a man that makes religion his business, and by these, as by
a gospel-touchstone, we may try ourselves:
CHARACTER i. He who makes religion his business doth not place
hie religion only in externals." He is not a Jew who is one outwardly,'*
v Tto <pvspeo. (Bom. ii. 28.) Religion doth not stand only in forms
and shadows; this is to give God leaves instead of fruit. It is often
seen, that the pomp of worship destroys the purity, as the paint of the
glass hinders the light; and it is no untruth to say, that formality may
as well damn as profaneness. A superstitious Pharisee may as well be in
hell as a drunken epicure. A Christian's main work lies with his heart.
He that makes religion his business, gives God the vitals: he worships
him " in spirit and in truth." (John iv. 24.) In stilling, the spirits are
strongest. The good Christian distils out the spirits for God. Aaron
must offer the fat upon the altar: " He shall offer an offering made by
fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards. All the fat is the
Lord's." (Lev. iii. 3, 16.) If Aaron had offered the skin instead of the
fat, it would not have been accepted. External devotion alone is offering
the skin; and they that give God only the skin of duty, shall carry away
only the shell of comfort.
CHAR. n. He who makes religion his business avoids every thing that
may be a remora and " hinderance " to him in his work.A wicked man
cares not whether the matter of religion goes forward or backward; he
stands in the way of temptation ; and as if sin did not come fast enough,
he "draws it as with a cart-rope." (Isai. v. 18.) But he who makes
religion his business flies from temptation; and while he is running the
heavenly race, "lays aside every weight of sin which doth so easily
beset" him. (Heb. xii. 1.) A man may as well miss of heaven by
loitering in the way, as by losing the way. "The king's business
required haste;" (1 Sam. xxi. 8;) so the business of religion requires
haste: therefore the good Christian is careful that he be not taken
off the work, and so be taken tardy in it.
CHAR. in. He who makes religion his business hath a care to preserve
conscience inviolable, and had rather offend all the world than offend his
conscience."I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with
pure conscience." (2 Tim. i. 3.)
Much of religion lies in conscience.
* "Lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of labour."EDIT.
t Quibw euro
et vt vestes bem oleant, ut digiti annulis radicnt, ut crines calamisiro rotentur.,

HIERONYMUS.
MAKE &KLTGIOM OUR 88?
473
Faith is a precious jewel; but conscience is the cabinet where this jewel
must be kept: " Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."
(1 Tim. iii. 9.) Love is a beautiful flower; but this flower most grows
in the garden of a pure conscience : " Charity out of a pure heart, and
of a good conscience." (1 Tim. i. 5.) So sacred a thing is conscience,
that without this all religion drops in pieces. He who makes religion his
business, labours to get conscience regulated by scripture; (as the watch
is set by the dial;) and, having done this, he keeps his conscience as
his eye, that no dust of sin fall into it.*
CHA.R. iv. He who make religion hie duetnew, religion hath an
influence upon all hie civil action.
1. Religion hath an influence upon hi eating and drinking.He holds
the golden bridle of temperance ; he eats sparingly. " The godly man
feeds not to please the sensual appetite, but that he may," as Chrysostom
saith, " by the strength he receives from the creature," tv TJ
wvetijUrOtTixcov epyot<rnx <nrot*&i}v n$eixvuo*d0ci, " be the more fit for the
cheerful discharge of spiritual services:" he makes not his food fuel for
lust, but help to duty. Epicures dig their own grave with their teeth ;
they feed without fear. (Jude 12.) Irregulare gulare.^ Sinners fear not
lest their table should be a snare; J they fear not the process of justice:
while the wine is in the cup, they fear not the hand-writing on the wall.
But the godly man, being regulated by religion, puts a knife to his
throat, that he may cut the throat of intemperance. (Prov. xxiii. 2.)
2. He that makes religion his business, religion hath an influence
upon hi recreation.The strings of the viol must sometimes be
slackened, lest they break;
Neque semper areum
Tendit Apollo ;$
God affords his people generous delights; the scripture allows the use of
the bow. (2 Sam. i. 18.) But we are apt to offend most in lawful things;
more are killed with wine than with poison. Religion sits [as] moderator in the soul. The man influenced by religion dares not make play
an occupation; it is oil to quicken him in God's service, not a sea to
ingulf him. He who is devoted to religion puts bounds to the Olympian
sports; he knows where to make his stops and periods ; he sets up an
Herculi columna,]] on which he writes, Non ultra, " No further than this."
* Ofelix ctfnscientia Paradisus, bonorum operum virgultis consita, variitque virtuttm
fioribus purpurata.AUGUSTINITS ad Fratres in Eremo, torn. . " the blessed
Paradise of a pure conscience, planted around with pleasant shrubs of good works, and
beautifully empurpled with variegated flowers of virtues and graces!".EDIT.
f- " Lawless gluttons," who exercise no rule of moderation while in the act of gratifying
their appetites. It is a witty play upon the two words, irre-gvlares gulares, which cannot
be tersely rendered into our language.EDIT.
opart euro -njj
& , .CHBY8O8TOMUS in Psalmum Ixix. 22. " You
have no conception of the myriads of maladies which are introduced by the indulgence of
excess and intemperance."EDIT.
HORATII Carmin. lib. ii. od. x. 19.
" Sometimes Apollo tunes his lyre,
And wakes the Muse to sing;
Nor deals perpetual death around
With his unerring string.".BUNCOMBE'S Translation.
H " A pillar or boundary as immovable as one of those which bear the names of Hercules;" Calpe or Gibraltar in Europe, and Abyla in Africa.EDIT.
474
8RMON XXITI.
HOW MUST WB
3. He that makes religion his business, religion hath an influence upon

hi buying and selling.The wicked get a livelihood often by cozening;
sometimes they era base commodities: they "sell the refuse of the
wheat." (Amos via. 6.) They would pick out the best grains of corn,
and then sell the rest. Sometimes they falsify their weights: " He is a
merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand." (Hosea zii. /.) But
he who makes religion his business is regulated by it in the shop: he
is just in his dealings; he dares not hold the book of God in one hand,
and false weights in the other; he is faithful to his neighbour, and makes
as much reckoning of the Ten Commandments, as of his Creed.
4. Religion hath an influence upon his marrying.He labours to graft
upon a religious stock: he is not so ambitious of parentage as [of]
piety; nor is his care so much to espouse dowry as virtue : * in a word,
he seeks for "a meet help," one that may help him up the hill to
heaven: this is marrying " in the Lord." That marriage indeed is
" honourable," (Heb. xiii. 4,) when the husband is joined to one who is
the " temple of the Holy Ghoet." (I Cor. vi. 19.) Here is the man that
makes religion his business, who in all his civil transactions is steered
and influenced by religion: religion is the universal ingredient.
CHAR. v. He who makes religion his business, is good in his calling and
relation.Relative grace doth much grace religion. I shall suspect bis
goodness who herein is eccentrical. Some will pray and discourse well;
but it appears they never made religion their, business, but took it np
rather for ostentation than as an occupation, because they are defective
in relative duties: they are bad husbands, bad children, &c. If one
should draw a picture, and leave out the eye, it would much eclipse and
take from the beauty of the picture: to fail in a relation stains the
honour of profession. He who makes religion his business is like a star
shining in the proper orb and station wherein God hath set him.
CHAR. vi. He who makes religion his business hath a care of his
company,He dares not twist into a cord of friendship with sinners :
" I have not sat with vain persons." (Psalm xxvi. 4.) Diamonds will not
cement with rubbish. It is dangerous to intermingle with the wicked,
lest their breath prove infectious: sin is very catching. They " were
mingled among the Heathen, and learned their works. And they served
their idols: which were a snare unto them." (Psalm cvi. 35, 36.)
ij waOsiv, ij ftafleiv, TJ xaxov.f If you mingle bright and rusty
armour together, the rusty will not be made bright, but the bright will
be made rusty. He who makes religion his business, likes not to be near
them whose nearness sets him further off from God, and whose embraces,
like those of the spider, are to suck out the precious life. The godly
man ingrafts^ into the "communion of saints," and hereby, as the
* , -areptovcriav, ( vtpâvftav
operas \( nrictKcio'.CHRVSOSTOMUS. "Though each of us
marries a wife, let us not receive (as our spouse) a superabundance of property, nor the
splendour of ancestry, but rather a virtuous disposition and habits of discretion."EDIT.
f EPICTETUS. " They must have either endured, or learned, something that was evil."
EDIT.
This word is here employed as a reciprocal or reflective verb, like the
middle voice in Greek, and conveys the signification of he ingrafts himself, or is ingrafted,
EDIT.
liAKB RELIGION OCR BUSINESS?
475
scions, he partakes of the sap and virtue of their grace: he who makes it
his business to get to heaven, associates only with those who may make
him better, or whom he may make better.
CHAR. vn. He who make religion hi bueinc keep hi spiritual
watch alway by Mm.*
1. He watcheth his eye: "I made a covenant with mine eyes.*'
(Job xxxi. 1.) When Dinah was gadding, she was defiled. (Gen. zxziv.
1, 2.) When the eye is gadding by impure glances, the heart is defiled.
2. He who makes religion his business watcheth his thought, lest
they should turn to froth: " How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge
within thee?" (Jer. iv. 14.) What a world of sin is minted in the
fancy! A child of God sets a spy over his thoughts, he summons them
in, and captivates them "to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. x. 5.)
3. He who makes religion his business watcheth his passion.Passion

is like gunpowder, which the devil setting on fire blows up the soul.
Jonah in a passion quarrels with the Almighty. (Jonah iv. 1, 9.)
He
who is devoted to religion watcheth his passions, lest, the tide growing
high, reason should be carried down the stream, and be drowned in it.
4. He who makes religion his business watcheth his duties.>" Watch
and pray." (Matt. xxvi. 41.) First. He doth watch in prayer. The
heart is subject to remissness; if it be not dead in sin, it will be dead in
prayer; a Christian watcheth, lest be should abate his fervour in duty;
he knows if the strings of his spiritual viol slacken, he cannot " make
melody in his heart to the Lord." (Eph. v. 19; Col. Hi. 16.) Secondly.
He doth watch after prayer. As a man is most careful of himself when
he comes out of a hot bath, the pores being then most open and subject
to cold; so a Christian is most careful when he comes from an ordinance,
lest his heart should decoy him into sin: therefore, when he hath prayed,
he sets a watch. He deals with bis heart as the Jews dealt with Christ's
sepulchre; they " made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting
a watch." (Matt, xxvii. 66.) A good Christian having been at the word,
and sacrament, (that sealing ordinance,) after the sealing he sets a watch.
5. He who makes religion his business watcbeth his temptation.
Temptation is the scout [which] the devil sends oat to discover our
forces; it is the train he lays to blow up our grace. Satan ever lies at
the catch; he hath his /3flij, "depths," (Rev. ii. 24,) his fwflo8saf,
"methods," (Eph. iv. 14,) his , "devices." (2 Cor. ii. 11.) He
is continually fishing for our souls; and if Satan be angling, we bad need
be watching. He who makes religion his business is full of holy excnbation: he lies sentinel, and, with the prophet, stands upon his watch"
tower. (Hab. ii. 1.) Solomon saith of a virtuous woman, " Her candle
goeth not out by night." (Prov. xxxi. 18.) The good Christian keeps his
watch-candle always burning.

CHAR. vm. He who make religion hi business, every day caete up hi
account to ee how things go in hi soul. (Lam. iii. 40.)fSolomon saith,
" Know the state of thy flocks." (Prov. xxvii. 23.) A man that makes
religion his work is careful to know the state of his soul: before the
Lord brings him to a trial, he brings himself to a trial: he had rather
* 'Days \ aypvwvfua . M How needful is it for each of us to exercise watchfulness !"EDJT.
t SENECA.
476
SERMON XXIII.
HOW MOST WE
use the looking-glass of the word to see his own heart, than put on the
broad spectacles of censure to aee another's fault. He plays the critic
upon himself, he searcheth what sin is in his heart unrepented of;
and having found it out, he labours by his tears, as by " the waters
of jealousy," to make the thigh of sin to rot. (Num. v. 22.) He searcheth whether he hath grace or no, and he tries whether it be genuine or
spurious. He is as much afraid of painted holiness, as he is of going to
a painted heaven. He traverseth things in his soul, and will never leave,
till that question, " whether he be in the faith," be put out of question.
(2 Cor. ziii. 5.) Here is the man making religion his business: he is
loath to be a spiritual bankrupt; therefore is still calling himself to
account; and wherein he comes short, he gets Christ to be his Surety.
CHAR. IX. He who make religion his business will be religious, what-
ever it cost him.He is a resolved man : " I have sworn, that I will
keep thy righteous judgments." (Psalm cxix. 106.) There are some who
will be rich; (1 Tim. vi. 9;) and there are some who will be godly.
(2 Tim. iii. 12.) He that makes religion his business, will not, as Luther
saith, be put off with other things: he can want health, riches, friends;
but he cannot want Christ or grace. He will be godly: let the times be
what they will, they shall not take him off the work of religion ; he will
follow Christ upon the water; the floods of persecution cannot drown
his zeal; he doth not say, " There is a lion in the way;" he will wrestle
with difficulties, march in the face of death. The Christians of the primitive church cried out to the persecutor, " Hew us in pieces, burn us: we
will never worship your idols :" * these were in good earnest for heaven.
There is a great deal of difference between them who go to sea for
pleasure, and those mariners who are to go a voyage to the East Indies :
the first, upon the least storm, retreat back to shore; but they who are
embarked for a voyage hold on their course, though the sea be rough and
stormy, and will venture their lives in hope of the golden harvest at the
Indies. Hypocrites seem religious when things are serene and calm;
but they will not sail in a storm ; those only who make religion their
business will hold out their voyage, to heaven in the midst of tempests
and death-threatening dangers.
CHAR. x. He that makes religion his business lives every day as his
last day.He prays in the morning as if he were to die at night; he
lives as if he were presently to be called to God's bar; he walks "soberly,
righteously, and godly;" (Titus ii. 12;) he girds his loins, trims his lamp,
sets bis house in order, that when death comes for him with an habeas
corpus, he may have nothing to do but to die. Behold here the man who
makes religion his business.
USE III. EXHORTATION.
Let me persuade all yon whose consciences may smite you for former
neglects, now set upon the work, make religion your business; contend tanguampro arts e/oew, bestir your selves in this as in amatterof life and death.
QUESTION. "But how must we do to make religion our business?"
ANSWER. That you may be serious in this work, I shall lay down
several rules for your help and direction herein.
* Ure, tunde, dwellet idola tua nan adorabimus.TERTULLIANUS.
MAKE RELIGION OtJR BUSINESS?
477
RULES FOR MAKING RELIGION OUR BUSINESS.
RULE t. If you would make religion your business, poetess yourselves

with this maxim, that religion is the end of your creation.God never
sent men into the world only to eat and drink, and put on fine clothes;
but the end of their creation is to honour him: " That God in all
things may be glorified." (1 Peter iv. 11.) Should the body only be
tended and looked after, this were to trim the scabbard instead of the
blade: it were to invert and frustrate the very end of our being.
RULE ii. If you would make religion your business, get a change
of heart wrought.Breathe after a principle of holiness. He cannot
make religion his business who hath no religion.* Can the body move
without a principle of life? Christian, get thy heart spiritualized by
grace: an earthly heart will no more trade in heaven than a mill-stone
will ascend, or a serpent fly in the air; the heart must be divinely
touched with the Spirit, as the needle with the loadstone, ere it can
cleave to God, and follow him fully. (Num. xiv. 24.) Never expect
the practice to be holy, till first there be a holy principle.
RULE in. If you would make religion your business, set yourselves
always under the eye of God.The master's eye makes the servant work;
God's eye will quicken our devotion. "I have set the Lord always
before me." (Psalm zvi. 8.) If we leave off work, or loiter in our work,
God sees: f He hath a casement [which] opens into our breasts; this
; as Chrysostom calls it, " this eye of God that never
sleeps," would make us active in the sphere of duty. If, indeed, God's
eye were at any time off us, we might slacken our pace in religion: but
He is ever looking on; if we " take the wings of the morning," we
cannot fly from his presence: (Psalm cxxxix. 9:) and He who is now
the Spectator will be the Judge. 0 how would this consideration
of God's omnisciency keep us from being truants in religion, how would
it infuse a spirit of activity and gallantry into us, making us put forward
with all our might in the race to heaven!
RULE IT. If you would make religion your business, think often
of the shortness, of time.%-This life is but "a vapour," (James iv. 14,)
a "shadow:" (I Chron. xxix. 15:) it is ^K3 "as nothing:" (Psalm
xxxix. 5:) 6 . We are wheeling apace out of the world, and
there is no work to be done for our souls in the grave: " Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor
device, in the grave, whither thou goest." (Eccles. ix. 10.) Now is the
time of life, now is the day of grace: yon know not how soon these two
suns may set. The shorter our life, the swifter should be our pace.
RULE v. If you would make religion your business, get an understanding heart.Weigh things seriously in the balance of reason
and judgment. Think of the infinite importance of this business; our
eternal misery or happiness depends upon it. Other things are but for
* Act rt eviw . " There must be some inward principle."EBIT.
-f Interett animis nostrit, ft coffiiationibut mediii intervenit.SENECA. " God is preterit with
our spirits, and in.no stranger to our most secret cogitation.".EDIT.
Cito pede
praterit (labitvr)atae.-JOviOii Art. AmaL lib. iii. 65. " With what a swift foot does life
glide away! "EDIT.
PHOCYLiDES,25. Life is wheel in motion."EDIT.
4/8
SERMON XXIII.
HOW TO MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS.
convenience, this is of necessity. If this work be not done, we are

undone; if we do not the work which believers are doing, we must do
the work which devils are doing ; and if God give us a serious heart to
lay oat ourselves in the business of religion, oar income will be greater
than our expense. Religion is a good trade, if it be well followed; it
will quit the cost; it is working in silver : " Receiving the end of your
faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter i. 9.) God will shortly
take us from the working-house to the throne, and will set upon our
head a fresh garland made of the flowers of Paradise.*
RULE vi. If you would make religion your business, implore the help
of God?* Spirit.All we can do is but lost labour, unless the Spirit excite
and accelerate. Beg a gale from heaven. " Awake, 0 north wind and
come, thou south; blow upon my garden," &c. (Canticles iv. 16.) If the
Spirit join with our chariot, then we move to heaven swiftly, as " a roe
upon the mountains," or as " the chariots of Ammi-nadib." (Canticles ii.
17; vi. 12.)
Now, having laid down the rules, let me, for a conclusion, press all
Christians to this great duty of making religion their business; and I
will use but two weighty considerations:>
MOTIVES.
MOTIVE i. The sweetness that is in religion.All her paths are
pleasantness. (Prov. iii. 17.) The way of religion is strewed with roses,
in regard of that inward peace [which] God gives: " In keeping thy
precepts there is great reward." (Psalm xiz. 11.) This is such a labour
as hath delight in it. As while the mother tends her child, and sometimes beyond her strength too, yet finds a secret delight in it; so while
a Christian is serving God, there is that inward contentment and delight
infused, and he meets with such transfigurations of soul, that he thinks
himself half in heaven. It was Christ's " meat and drink" to do his
Father's will. (John iv. 34.) Religion was St. Paul's recreation. (Rom.
vii. 22.) Though I should not speak of wages, the vales [which] God
gives us in this life are enough to make us in love with his service.
MOTIVE ii. The second and last consideration is, that millions of persons have miscarried to eternity, for want of making religion their business.They have done something in religion, bat not to purpose : they
have begun, but have made too many stops and pauses. They have been
lukewarm and neutral in the business; they have served God as if they
served him not; they have sinned fervently, but prayed faintly. Religion
hath been a thing only by the by; they have served God by fits and
starts, but have not made religion their business; therefore have miscarried to all eternity. If you could see a wicked man's tombstone in hell,
you might read this inscription upon it: " Here lies one in hellish flames,
for not making religion his business." How many ships have suffered
shipwreck, notwithstanding all their glorious names of THE HOPE, THE
SAFE-GUARD, THE TRIUMPH ! So, how many souls, notwithstanding their
glorious title of saintship, have suffered shipwreck in hell for ever,
because they have not made religion their business!
* Mi; Qvyyf ?, CHRVSOSTOMtre. "Decline
DO labour, relax in DO exertion, in prospect of thy obtaining the crown immortal"EDIT.
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER VOW8 DO NOT PROMOTE RELIGION. 479
SERMON XXIV.
BY THE REV. HENRY HURST, A.M.
FALLOW OP MEETON COLLEGE, OXFORD.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS TOWS DO NOT EXCEEDINGLY

PROMOTE RELIGION.
What thatt I render unto the Lord for all hi benefit toward me? I
will pay my vow unto the Lord now in the pretence of all hie
people.Psalm cxvi. 12, 14.

DAVID was no Popish votary; nor were the vows [which] he is now
about to pay like the vows of Popish and superstitious votaries, either in
the matter of them or in the object of them, nor in the manner or end
of them; and I hope you who read these lines are, as the greatest part
of my auditors were, far enough from liking of such vows in others, and
from lying under the ensnaring tie of any such vow yourselves. Since,
then, there is such unlikeness hoped from you, justify the unlikeness
and disparity between my discourse and theirs, whose business is either to
state and maintain monkish vows, or to state and overthrow them ; the
one the work of Popish, the other the work of Protestant, writers. In
the words which I have chosen, we have a fit occasion to state our own
case by David's, who was mindful of his debt to the Lord, and the more
careful to discharge it, because it was due by vow.
Two things noted will be a key to open the words, so far as we at
present are concerned in them:
1. That the turn of all our religion is our rendering to the Lord.I
might so define religion; and, with these qualifications, that it be done
in right and due manner, in right and proper matter, it would amount to
a definition of the true religion. All the religions which men have in
the vanity and blindness of their minds euperstitiously and idolatrously
adhered to, have been nothing else but their rendering to their supposed
gods, according to their apprehensions and erroneous thoughts; and the
rendering to the true God, in a true and right manner, is the sum of true
religion. This notion is consonant to the scriptures: thus: "Render unto
God the things that are God's." (Matt. xxii. 21.) As true loyalty is a
giving to Caesar the things that are Cseear'e, so true piety is the giving to
God the things that are God's. And so, in that parable of the vineyard
let out to husbandmen, all we owe to God is expressed by the rendering
the fruit of the vineyards (Matt. xxi. 41;) particular acts of religion are
o expressed too in the scriptures. (Psalm hi. 12; Hosea xiv. 2; 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 31.) Let this, then, be the import of David's rhmi 3*tffi$
What shall I render unto the Lord ?" " In what things, and by what
means, shall I promote religion in the exercise thereof? How shall I
480
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED TOWS
show myself duly religions toward Him who hath been constantly and
abundantly munificent in his benefits towards me?"
2. The second thing to be noted is this, that David so ordered hie
vows that he could pay them; and in paying them did so render to the
Lord, as that religion was promoted and furthered.He had so engaged
himself by vow, that he could say, " I will pay;" and his vows were such
as were a fit answer-to that inquiry, "What shall I render to the Lord?"
David had very well composed his vow; it lay within his compass; he
could perform it; and, in performing, he paid tribute and did homage to
the Lord; in keeping his vow, he gave unto the Lord.
Now put these two notes together, and they are resolved into this
doctrinal position:
DOCTRINE.
Vows, so made as we can say, " We will pay them," and so made that
in paying them we render to the Lord, do much advance and promote
religion.Or, in the words of that case of conscience now to be stated,
Well-composed vows do much promote religion.
Whoso doth engage himself by a well-ordered vow, doth set his religion
in the whole, or in some particular part of it, in very good forwardness.
Religion is a gainer by this bargain well-made ; the bond is to God, but
religion receives the interest at least: well-composed vows are religion's
engines, able to move the weightier burdens and loads, and fit to be only
employed in them.
In handling farther this case, we must inquire,
I. What a vow is, that we may know of what we speak.
II. Whether a vow may lawfully be made by us.
III. When it is well composed for religion's advantage.
IV. How much it furthereth religion.
V. Whence this influence of a vow upon religious persons.
VI. What proper use to make of the position.
I. A vow is a voluntary and deliberate promise made unto God in an
extraordinary case. " It is a religious promise made unto God in a holy
manner:" so a modern writer defines it.* It is a " holy and religious
promise, advisedly and freely made unto God, either to do or to omit somewhat which appeareth to be grateful and well-pleasing unto him:" so
Bucanus.f I forbear Aquinas' definition of a vow. If these [which]
I have given satisfy not, then view it in the words of Peter Martyr, a man
of repute, and well known to our own nation in the days of Edward VI.,
of ever-blessed memory: " It is a holy promise, whereby we bind ourselves to offer somewhat unto God."}; There is one more who defines it,
and he is a man whose judgment, learning, and holiness hath perfumed
his name: it is learned Perkins, in his "Cases of Conscience." " A vow,"
saith he, " is a promise made unto God of things lawful and possible."
Of these five descriptions of a vow, you may indifferently choose which
you will; for when you have chosen either of them, and looked upon it,
* Estpromissio reliatosa sanctefaeta Deo.SZEOSDINT Loci Commune.
t JStt
taneta el religiofa promitsio Deo consulto et eponte facta, ad aliquid faciendum el
omittendum quod UK gratum et acceptumfore oonstat.BUCANI Loci Commune, zlv.
$. Et taneta promistio qua not obstnngimu Deo alignid oblaturos este.PET&I
MABTTHIS Loci Commune, de Votit.
t>O KOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE RELIGION.
481
yon will find it lays an obligation upon the person vowing, and bind
him strictly and unalterably to perform his TOWS : for it is, I. A promise;
(Dent, xxiii. 23;) it is not a purpose, not a single resolution, much less
is it the deliberation of the mind concerning a matter not yet determined,
but determinate on either part. A vow is a promise which had its beginning in a serious, due, and thorough deliberation ; which from deliberation
passed into a rational, strong, and fixed purpose of doing what had been
so deliberated and weighed: nay, further yet, a TOW passeth into a formal
and express promise, and so makes the votary a debtor. This part of a
vow Solomon hath long since prepared to our hands: " Suffer not thy
mouth to cause thy flesh to sin ; neither say thou before the angel, that it
was an error." (Eccles. v. 6.) Note what Solomon forbids, namely, "Offend
not by rash vowing;"* nor seek excuse by saying, "It was an error;"
that is, "Through mistake and imprudence thou hast vowed, not observing
what thou didst when thou vowedst." *j* It must be a deliberate and advised
act of a man, if he will duly vow to God. 2. It is said to be voluntary ; the
thing speaks itself; a vow must be free; it is injurious to extort a promise
from a man: free choice should be the spring of every promise, much more
of every vow. The old law empowered some persons to disannul the vow
of another; but no law or reason can empower any one to enforce a vow
npon another: each one may "forbear to vow." (Deut. xxiii. 22.) 3. As
it must be voluntarily and deliberate, so it must be to God alone. We
read still, " If thou wilt vow, thou shalt vow to the Lord:" not to angels,
with such as worship them; not to saints, with superstitious Papists; not
to any man: man may promise solemnly unto man, but he may not vow ;
man may be the mines of thy vow, but man may not be the object. For
the dependence of man upon man is not great enough to warrant the one
in vowing, or the other in expecting, such a vow. Beside that, we must
not vow to one [whom] we must not pray to; nor can we expect help
from man in cases that are just ground for and which do require a vow
from us. 4. Which cases, I say, are extraordinary, and more than usual
either from received mercy, or hoped and expected mercy. It is impossible
he should well compose his vows, or duly pay them, who makes ordinary
and daily cases ground of his vows: we cannot but forget many an ordi-
nary mercy received; but we may not, mast not, forget any vow made.
We must pray for every mercy we want; but we may not bind ourselves
in the bonds of a vow for every mercy we pray for: this would inevitably
cast us npon the sin of falsehood and unfaithfulness in our vows.
II. But I proceed to the second thing to be inquired into; that is,
\
\
Whether it be lawful, in any case, for us now, under the New Testament,
to make a vow.That it was lawful for the Jew, none have doubted; but
some doubt is made whether a Christian may voluntarily bind himself to
God by making a vow. The solution of this doubt is necessary to our
clearer determination of this case; for if vows were now unlawful to us,
they could neither be well-composed, nor could they advantage religion;
and if it may appear they may lawfully be made, then we may go on in
the consideration of the remaining particulars. To this second, then,
* committee temerl vovendo.MERCER cs in foe.
t Neque dixeri te per
errorem et imprudentiam vovuse, nee advertisse quid fitceret dvm OVCTMÎdem, ibid.
482
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS VOWS
very briefly we answer, that a Christian may lawfully make a promise or

vow unto God, binding himself more than ordinarily unto God for, and
in expectation of, mercy, in some or other more than ordinary case or
exigency. For a great mercy received already, a Christian may vow
thankfulness ; for a mercy not received, but expected, he may vow, upon
the receipt, to render to the Lord more than usual duty. " Such vows
at this day may be used by us, so often as the Lord hath delivered us
from any destruction, or dangerous disease, or from any danger," earth
Calvin, speaking of vows for mercy to be received.* And Mr. Perkins,
in hie " Cases of Conscience/' both affirms what we now do, and answers
the objections made to the contrary. Bat leave we men, and come to
reason: why it is lawful for us to vow.
Vows, well-ordered, not tin in themselves, nor by accident.
1. What is not evil in itselft nor evil by accident unless made .evil by
the undue ordering of it through our fault, may lawfully be done by vs.
I know this, well considered, proves itself; yet I would confirm it with
this observation 5 what is not evil, may lawfully be done by us. Now
things are evil either per se, ["in themselves,"] or per accidenet if vows
be either way evil, it is "by accident;" which accidental evil may be prevented, and indeed is, by due composing of vows, and by diligent performing of them when composed. So that, if a Christian may order the
making and performing his vow, so as to prevent the evil which attend
a vow ill-made; then such a Christian may surely make a vow very lawfully. But I presume no one will doubt, that he who makes vows
seldom, consnltedly, and sincerely, may duly keep them and in so doing
prevent any consequent evil.
Some vows once lawful on moral grounds, seen lawful stttl.
2. Vows may be lawfully made now by us Christians, because what
was lawful to the Jew on moral considerations, and not on any ceremonial
consideration*, that is also lawful now ttnio us Christians.Let it be
noted, I do not say what was once lawful to them is now lawful unto us;
(for it was lawful for them to sacrifice; it is not now lawful unto us;)
but I say, what was once, on moral grounds, lawful to them, is now lawful
to us, because the morality of the thing (which is supposed the ground
of this vow) is the same to them and us. It was lawful for Jacob on
moral motives, to engage himself more closely to God, if God would
indeed be with him; it is as lawful for any of us, on the same occasion, and
for the like motive, to vow unto God. Jacob was moved to it, lest he
should be found less than ordinarily thankful, for a more than ordinary
providence and mercy to him: so may you or I; "for it is not abhorrent
to the duty of a pious man, at such time to consecrate (as a solemn testimony of his acknowledgment) an offering by vow, lest he should seem
unthankful for his bounty."f
If there were then vota moralia, "vows
* Ejutmodi vota hodii qvoûe nobia in u*u esse posfimt, quotie no Dominu vel
elode aliqua, vel a morbo difficiii, vel ab alio quovis discrimine eripuit.CALVIN
Institut. lib. iv. c. 13.
t Neque enim a pii hominis qfficio tune abhorret, votivam
oblationem, velut solenne recognition** symbolum, consecrare, ne ingratu* erga beniynitatem ejus videatur.Idem, ibid*
DO NOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE RELIGION.
483
that were moral in their matter, manner, motives, and ends;" (and that
such there were, Job' covenant with hie eye, and David' wearing to
keep God' commandments, prove to ns;) either we must say they did
what was unlawful, or else we cannot make such moral vow, (which is
not rational to suppose,) or else, yielding such vow so made to be lawful
to them, they are BO to us. But, thirdly,
Vow by general consent of nation* approved.
3. Vow may lawfully be made by us Christian; for it a kind
of thankfulness and acknowledgment made to God, with the universal approbation and content of men.It is such a chief rent, that no nation in
the world, putting a value on God's goodness, and putting a difference
between great and little dangers, between great and little blessings, but
did constantly approve this way of preventing great dangers, by great
vows, and re-senting* great blessings, by like vowed praises; thus addressing themselves in a more than ordinary manner to their gods, on more than
ordinary exigencea.f And if I must bring my witnesses to depose for
the truth, one speaks in English thus: " Vow was used frequently by
all nation and people beset with danger."]; Another learned pen at
once intimateth the universality of the custom, and censureth the vanity
and blind folly of the Heathens, in their vows to their idol-gods. "Hence
the follies and monstrous absurdities of the Heathens in their vows,
wherewith they did too insolently abuse their gods." It were endless
to attempt what testimonies might be gathered up in this point; but by
these it is apparent, that thankfulness is a debt which all nations apprehended might and ought to be insured to God by vow. So that hence I
would collect, that as gratitude is not only lawful, but a duty imprinted on
the soul of man; so this high degree of gratitude is a copy or transcript
of that original: it is lawful, doubtless, to us to be thankful in the highest
degree. Now the return of more than ordinary duty, for more than
ordinary mercy, is the highest, and is the vow we speak of.
* To went, from the Latin tentio, to feel," and the intensive particle re, was, in
all it forms, almost uniformly used by oar oH writers, down to the age of James II., in
the signification of feelmg intensely either in the mind, or through any one of die
bodily sense. Our modern usage of the word reientment, in the bad sense of " strong
anger on account of some affront or injury received," is but confining what was formerly a
general term to a more restricted meaning. The reflex French verb *e rettentir, from
which it is derived, still retains this meaning of a reciprocation of feeling, either of kindness
or unkindness, between the agent and patient. This interchange of good or bad *entiment, (a perverted word of the same origin,) is determined by the character of the feeling which is communicated by the agent, and which is to be accordingly well at ill taken
and reciprocated by the patient In this correct acceptation it is employed by an
eminent religious poet, about the middle of the last century, in a hymn addressed to
our Saviour :
"My inmost bowels shall resent
The yearnings of thy dying lore."EDIT.
t Quid enim niti vota mperttmt ?OVIDII Trutium lib. i. eleg. U. 1.
* To one of every hope bereft,
What else but vows and prayers are left ?"EDIT.
t Votum omnibut gtntibus et populit in periculo constitute tMJAsrunk^JScEOEnxvi
jLoci Commune, De Votis.
$Hine ilia votor urn ineptia,imoprodiffiotaabsurditatet
apud Ethnwot, ouibut nimii insotenfer cum dtu tuit iuserunt.GALVIKI Inttitut. lib.
iv. c. 13.
434
SERMON XXIV.
Vow the only gospel free-will-o/ering-extraordinary.

4. Unless suck vows may be accounted lawful to us, I cannot see how
we have any way of making free, voluntary, and extraordinary acknow
ledgments unto God.For since all duty is commanded, and so determined as to matter and manner ordinarily, that the law prescribes and
enjoins them, and we may not superadd any thing to the law; yet
sometimes more than ordinary mercy gives us command to be more than
ordinary in our acknowledgments; which, since it may not be by doing
any thing not commanded, must be done by adding our own promise and
word, to have more than our ordinary care was (or otherwise would have
been) to do what is commanded; or else it must be left undone as
unlawful, which is in the issue to leave us without any way of binding ourselves to acknowledgments, suited to extraordinary providences. In a
word, seeing the law of God is the standing rule of our daily obedience,
and is the same unchanged rule of our daily duties; but, withal, the
mercies and varieties of providences are a law likewise to us Christians,
and, when great, require great and suitable deportment in us; we must
have some way, and that lawful, to measure out our re-sentments,*
which can be no other but the laying bonds and voluntary obligations on
ourselves unto God, which is the same with this vow. Either there must
be some such lawful way, or else great providential mercies which call
for greater returns, and are a real law to us, cannot be duly observed
and obeyed. Now, I know, riches of grace in the gospel have not so
intrenched on, or done injury to, providences. I know, that as grace is
no enemy to the standing law, nor patronizeth licentiousness; so neither
is grace an enemy to providence, nor warranteth any one to overlook the
greatness and extraordinary mercy in any providences, or to be careless
and slight in answering them with unsuitable returns of thankfulness.
Vows beat insure duty, and ensnare not vs.

5. But that is lawful to us Christians, which doth most certainly insure
our duty to God, yet doth not ensnare us in the insuring of it.-That you
or I may do lawfully [that] which will not ensnare us, but more strongly
engage us to our duty, none will doubt this. In dealing with a man,
you, or I, or any reasonable man, would be ready to give any security
that we might give without ensnaring of ourselves. Now, vows wellcomposed do more insure the duty; (for we cannot go back, it is a vow;)
yet do not ensnare, for we can perform them, they are vows well-composed. Jephthah's vow bound him fast, for it was the bond of a vow;
but this bond ensnared him, for it was rash, and ill-composed ; such was
unlawful to him and is to us. (Judges xi. 35.) David's vow here was an
insuring him to God, and his duty; it unalterably bound him : yet it was
no snare to him; for he had so vowed, that he could say, " I will pay
my vows." Such vows were lawful to him; such are lawful to us.
Now, all well-composed vows will be such; they will very firmly bind us to
our duty, and they will never ensnare us in their binding us; which thing
will be more plainly seen, upon discovery of the next general; namely
* See the note in the preceding page.EDIT.
485
IIT. When vow are well-composed, and to consequently for the advantage of religion.
It must be in extraordinary ease.

1. Then, if you would duly and well compose your TOWS, you must
wait a fit season; not vow on every occasion.[He] who is ready to
vow on every occasion, will break his vow on every occasion. It is a
necessary rule, that " we be as sparing in making our vows as may'be ;'*
there being many great inconveniencies attending frequent and multiplied
vows. It is very observable, that the scripture mentioneth very few
examples of vows, compared with the many instances of very great and
wonderful providences; as if it would give us some instances, that we
might know what we have to do, and yet would give us but few, that we
might know we are not to do it often. You read Jacob lived sevenscore
and seven years; (Gen. xlvii. 28;) but you read, I think, but of one
vow that he made. Our extraordinary exigences are not many; and,
I say, our vows should not be more. Let this, then, be the first necessary ingredient of a well-ordered vow. Let it be no oftener made than
the pressing greatness of an evil to be removed, or the alluring excellency
of a blessing extraordinary to be obtained, will well warrant. Jephthah's
vow was so far right; he had just occasion; there was a great and
pressing danger to be removed; there was an excellent blessing to be
obtained: the danger was, lest Israel should be enslaved; the blessing
was victory over their enemies. This warranted his vow, though his
rashness marred it. It was in David's troubles that David aware, and
vowed a vow to the Most High; (Psalm czxxii. 1,2;) and Jacob for-'
bare to vow until his more than ordinary case bade him vow, and warranted him in so doing. (Gen. xxviii. 20.) Let us do as he did,spare
to vow, until such case pats us on it

It must be deliberate.
2. When the extraordinary case warrants thee to this extraordinaryobliging [of] thyself, then be sure to proceed deliberately, and with
advice.Consider what thou doest: every one condemns rash vows; and,
I am sure, inconsiderate vows are rash ones. Here Jephthah failed; he

did not consider, and ponder with himself, what he was about to do
when he vowed. Aquinas reckons this among the three things necessary
to a vow.* And since this was wanting in Jephthah, " the scripture
makes a narration of his fact, but no where giveth commendation to it."f
This is one of the conditions Bucan prescribes, "that we thoroughly
weigh." But we have a greater than Aquinas, or the other two, here:
" Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter
any thing before God:" which rule he doth in the context extend to
this case of vows. (Eccles. v. 2,46.) Be not hasty, but deliberate these
four things in thy vow:
* Ad votum tria tie necessitate reqvirtmtur; toilicet, deliberate, $o.,
Secund Second, q. 88, art. 1.
f Scriptura hoc ejv faotum narrat tantim, tetl
nan km/dot.PET. MAH.TYRIS Loci Com. d. 3. c. .
t Ut maturi deliberemut.
BUCANI Loci Commune, De Votis.
486
SERMON XXIV.
-WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS VOWS
Whether lawful.
(1.) Whether that thou vowest to do be lawful.Sin can never be the
matter of a justifiable and well-composed vow. If that thou vowest be
not lawful, it is not so much a vow, as a contriving and designing
of wickedness. It was a murderous conspiracy of those " more than
forty," not a vow, to take away Paul's life. (Acts xxiii. 21.) Whatever
God hath forbidden us in our ordinary course of life, (as he hath forbidden every sin,) that cannot be the matter of an extraordinary promise
unto God. The Schoolmen tell us it is to be de meliore bono, " in an
excelling good.** Now, what is not lawful, is not good.* They tell ue,
Debet fieri Deo de tie qua Dei sunt: " It must be made to God, in the
things that are of God :'* and we are sure no unlawful thing is of God.
Whether acceptable to God.
(2.) As it must be considered whether the thing be lawful; BO next
we are to consider, whether it will be acceptable unto the Lord.The
vow is made to him, and the performance of it is to him: it is a debt,
and payment is to be made to him. If it be a matter which thou findeat,
upon after-search, to be indeed lawful, yet in reason to be thought not
acceptable for so great a mercy as thou hast received, thou wilt be
enforced to confess thy mistake and error in vowing: and this is to provoke God. (Eccles. v. 6.) Sit Deo acceptum, [" That it be acceptable to
Gud,"J is the second circumstance under deliberation:
Whether proportioned,
(3.) Which will be seen by a third particular, that is, whether that thing
[which] thou rawest bear a proportion to that thou didst expect and pray for
when thou vowedst, or to that thou hadet received, for which thou dost now
make thy vow.Bring it, with the providence which occasioned it; set them
together; and hear what thy own reason, what other men's judgment, what
the very things themselves, what thy receipts and returns, say of thy vows,
in the matter of them. As in ordinary, so in all extraordinary, mercies.
God requires and accepteth only suitable and well-proportioned return:
if it be over proportioned, it will hazard thee; if it be under-proportioned,
it will shame tbee; and neither will be so well accepted. Though one
meal's meat, when thou art hungry, is more, and a greater mercy, than
thou canst equal by thy obedience; yet to vow thyself, and all that is
thine, for that one mercy, is more than is expected, and may be called a
disproportioned vow. So, on the contrary, to pray for a prosperous
voyage, and an ample return of thousands, and to vow thereupon a few
pence or shillings, is disproportioned, will not be accepted. Thou must
render to the Lord, according to thy receipts from the Lord.
Whether in thy power.
(4.) In a well-composed vow, thy deliberation must be employed in
considering thy power and ability; whether it be in thy power to do
what thou vowest.No impossible thing can be the matter of a vow.

God hath not made an impossibility the matter and primitive object
* AQUINAS, Secunda SecuncUe, q. 88, art. 1. c.
487
of our duty; nor doth he expect we should; nor would he accept inch
a TOW : for a TOW of an impossible thiiig is, in effect, to bind ourselves to
falsify our TOW. Who engageth to do what he cannot do, engageth
himself to be worse than his word. Ton must consider, then, whether
the thing be possible in itself; and then, next, whether it be in your
power, that you can say you will do it, that you may truly affirm you
can absolutely do it; which thing being Tery uncertain, (for what is
to-day in our power, to-morrow may be out of our power,) it is therefore good to limit it so far, as it shall be in your power, and so long as
it continues in your power, to perform your TOWS. These two things
are requisite to a well-composed TOW ; an occasion or exigency more
than ordinary; and then a thing lawful, acceptable, proportioned to the
mercy, and within our power.
Font must be cheerfully made.
3. Now, when these concur, a third must be added; that is, thou must
vow checrfitlly, and with a ready mind.There must be much of the will in
it. Some tell us, the Latin word noting "a TOW," comes from the word
which signifies "the will." Indeed, all that is in a TOW, so far as it is a
TOW, is and must be of our will; for it consisteth principally, if not solely,
in the, manner of our obliging ourselves; and this is voluntary. God hath
left it much at our liberty to TOW, or not to TOW ; only he requires us to
do it cheerfully, if we TOW : it is matter of our choice: " If thou shalt
forbear to TOW, it shall be no sin in thee.H (Dent, xxiii. 22.) Yet, if we
will TOW, it is matter of duty to do it cheerfully; for so the Lord
"loveth a cheerful giver;" (2 Cor. ix. 7;) and therefore expects a
speedy performance. "Defer not to pay." (Eccles. . 4.) Hence the
rabbinical proverb, "Speed suits the time of deliverance."* As a TOW
suits the time of dangers and straits, so haste from a ready mind fits the
time of deliverance and mercy.
Fow sincerely.
4. But he that will compote hie vow wellt mutt vow sincerely and
uprightly.That is, to the end he may most honour God,
(1.) By the commemoration of hi mercy and goodness.Vows are
mercy's monuments, on which are written the praise of the Lord.
(2.) By the publishing the mercies of God.For the engaging others
to admire the Lord, and to trust him, and to seek unto him.
(3.) By the setting grace on work in the heart and soul of him that
vows.It sets grace on work, both in that part which eyes God, to draw
nearer and to keep closer to him; and in that part which keeps eye on
sin, to prevent, mortify, and destroy it. So, then, when a Christian
(having received, or being in expectation of, some extraordinary mercy
from God) doth deliberately promise what is lawful in itself, acceptable
to God, proportioned to the mercy, and within his power to perform;
whoso doth this cheerfully and sincerely, that God may be honoured in
the continued remembrance of it, in the public declaring it, and in the
J 1*1 njf^'a.
Tempore respwalioms festinatio.
488
SERMON XXIV.
exciting of grace, in the person vowing; then hath a Christian wellcomposed his vow. And such a vow doth very much further religion;
which will appear by handling the next thing.
HOW WELL-COMPOSED VOWS PROMOTE RELIGION.
IV. How much, or in what things, it doth further and promote religion.Now there are three grand concerns of religion, than which it
hath none greater; and all three are carried on and promoted by such
vows as these.
The credit of religion.
1. Religion hath its concernment in the credit and reputation which it

hath in the world.Religion hath a name to look after, so well as you or
I; and it loseth or gaineth, aa it is either honoured or reproached by
the professors of it. Now, when times of extraordinary danger drive us
to our prayers and vows to the true God, and we resolve to have mercy
from him, or to choose to fall into his hand, this sets the credit and
honour of religion, that it can have recourse to God, who, we know, can
deliver us. This is somewhat; but the making a vow doth not so much
honour religion as the performing of it doth, when it is hereby declared
to the world,that religion is the thing [that] makes men the same in
their mercies which they were in their distresses; that the God [whom]
they worship is the true God, able to require their vows, if they should
neglect to pay them. A Heathen who in distress makes a vow, and in
his safety performs it carefully, putteth a very high honour upon his
false god, upon his idol. What Christian soever makes and keeps his
vows duly, doth likewise put an honour on the true God.
(1.) It honours the power and providence of God, by acknowledging
its sovereignty over all in the world, and its particular disposing and
over-ruling of us and our concerns.When thou prayest and vowest in a
strait, thou seemest to tell the world thou believest that thy God rules
the world by his power and providence. But when thou payest thy
vows, thou really testifiest to the world, that thou believest and ownest
this power in thy particular case. So when Jephthah, when David, paid
their vows, they did give real testimony that their God delivered them
by his power and providence ; and this is religion's honour,that it is
the worship of so mighty a God.
(2.) It honours God in his readiness to hear, and in his faithfulness
to answer, the prayers of his suppliants.Prayers conceived speak a
belief that he is ready; vows made speak our confidence that he is
faithful; but now vows performed speak thus much,that we have
found him so to us. When David said, " I will pay my vows," it is that
he may render to the Lord for the Lord's readiness and faithfulness
to hear and deliver him. Now, it is religion's honour, that it is the
worship of a God of truth and faithfulness.
(3.) It honours God in his omniscience and all-seeing eye ; it declares
to the world that we worship and serve a God who takes notice of us in
particular, and who observes whether we keep our word with him, or no.
When thou hast made a vow, and canst perform it, yea, dost perform
DO MOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE RELIGION.
489
it, because thou knowest and believeet thy God remembers when tbou
didst make it, and observeth how thou wilt perform it; what is this but
to give him the honour of hie all-seeing and all-observing eye ?
(4.) It honours religion, in that it is a demonstration that religion
teacheth men gratitude,It is a high charge which is laid on the Romans
in their Heathenism, that they were unthankful. (Rom. i. 21.) It is a
very great reproach to religion, to have its professors branded with this:
it is, though but one single miscarriage, left on Hezekiah's name, like a
spot in the moon, to endure while his name shall be in remembrance,
that he remembered not to return to the Lord " according to the benefit
done unto him." (2 Chron. xxxii. 25.) But now thy care to make thy
vows well that they may be kept, and thy thankfulness in keeping them
when eo made, do clearly evidence, that thy religion engageth thee to
aim and attempt at the highest gratitude. Now, according to the old
rule, " If you say a man is unthankful, you say he is all naught;" * so,
if you say, " He is thankful, and his religion teacheth him to be so," you
speak all good of the man and of his religion. Indeed, David doth often
comprise all religion in this, " Be thankful unto him."
So religion shineth forth in the lustre and brightness of a good name,
when they who profess it dare neither be rash in making, nor remiss or
false in keeping, their vows.
Next, vows well-composed, and faithfully performed, do much promote

religion, and that frequently,
By spreading religion.
2. By setting forward the growth of. religion, in the midst of those
who profess it.For I will only speak of this now, albeit I might speak
of the spreading of religion amongst such, who before were strangers to
it, by the faithfulness of some zealous, prudent, and industrious votaries.
When Christians on great exigences are brought on their knees to pray,
and plead, and confess, and promise, if they may be heard; and when
they come to praise, acknowledge, and pay their vows to God in the
presence of those [who] are called his people; it is very powerful to,
(By confirming,)
(1.) Confirm them in the profession, and to establish them.For who
would not hold fast, where he can observe such goodness, tenderness, and
power in [the] God [whom] he worshippeth ? Men, religious men, some
at least, will praise the Lord, for such wonderful works to the children
of men; (Psalm cvii. 8;) when they see such excellent loving-kindness
showed to the distressed, the children of men will put their trust in God.
(Psalm xjutvi. 7.) None will leave the shadow of that wing which so
saveth.
By reforming.
(2.) It is very like to make them inquire into the way and doing
which have been theirst but have not been good, and to look forward to
* Si ingratum dixerit, omnia cUoit.
490
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WILL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS VOWS
the way which must be theirs, and must be amended.When a standerby shall observe the distress a good man is in, and how he re-sents*
neglect of doty, prevalency of corruption, necessity of reforming, and
binds himself to more diligent discharge of duty, to more vigorous opposition of sin, to constant care of reforming,he is ready to reflect on
himself; and, if he be what he professeth, will judge himself one who is
as deep in the faults, as much needing to reform, and as near to the like
or greater distress: he may, ere long, be put to it, and therefore it will
be best to be on the amending hand.
Vows promote religion in the votary** heart and life.

3. But, however, thirdly, vows well made, and kept weft, very much
improve and promote religion in the heart and life of him who so voweth
and keepeth his vow.Tf none of those who are acquainted with thy religious making and keeping thy vows, should either honour it more, or set
to the exercise of it more, yet certainly it will produce such effects in thy
life as will very much conduce to the increase of godliness and righteousness : which will appear by some few particulars, which are undeniably
the effects of a well-composed vow, and do as undeniably promote and set
forward religion: as,
Vows increase circumspection.
(1.) A well-composed vow will make thee more circumspect and wary in
the general course of thy life.Such an influence it bath, as doth more
directly work on one particular part, yet is not terminated to that parti-
cular only. It is here as with a debtor, who doubles his bond and
security for his debt, upon some extraordinary favour which bis creditor
showed him. This double bond directly looks to that particular debt;
but it works on the debtor's ingenuity and gratitude, to be the more careful in the discharge of all his debts: so thy vow looks on a particular,
but engageth thee to better discharge of all thy debts to God. Thus it
was with David: "Thy vows are upon me, God." (Psalm Ivi. 12.)
Now these vows were made when he was in danger of his life, as it
seemeth from verse 13. For when God heard him, he delivered his soul
from death : for this he vowed praises in particular, and be will render
them. But, withal, he takes himself to be hereby engaged to a more
exact and circumspect walk before God in all duties; so he expreaseth
himself, in the latter part of verse 13. Vows are too broad and general,
which are not fixed more especially to some one thing; and they are too
narrow, which are so fixed to one that they exclude all other things
which might conveniently be taken in. Jacob mentions titties as the
particular object of his vow; but Jacob withal intended a more exact
and circumspect care over himself and family in matters of religion; as
appeareth by those passages : " Jacob said unto his household, and to all
that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you."
Here is the reforming of his household. And, observe, this was in
consideration of God's answering his prayers, when he vowed unto God,
* See note, page 483.EDIT.
OO NOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE KBLIGION.
491
who answered him in his distress, and was with him in the way which
be went. (Gen. xxxv. 2, 3.) So, then, tike a stream, it riaeth from
one spring-head, and runs in one main current; hat it disperseth
itself through many other smaller branches, and waters every part. Bat,
Vows tKecover former defect.

(2.) Well-composed vow do very match promote grace and holines in
the heart of the vower, in that it doth briny the man to a eeruau vie and
survey of hi former defect and neglect.When he comes to look over
his straits, what likely brought them on him, and so put him on this
extraordinary way of seeking God, and suing for mercy; when he reads
over the bond he hath voluntarily entered into, and observes what put
him thus in debt to God; when he views these and such-tike particulars,
he comes to knowledge of his former aberrations and defects. Now, as
a good and careful tradesman accounts he is in a good forwardness to a
thriving way when he hath found out what did hinder and endamage
his trade, for removal of which he hath set himself in a hopeful and
likely way; so, when a Christian comes to cast up accounts, to make even,
he finds an unconstant and starting heart hath in this or that particular
endamaged him; and if there be any way of dealing with it to keep it
constant and stable, it is by doubling its bonds; and this mast be done
by vow. This course is like to repair former defects; and reparation, I
am sure, is a good and effectual means to keep up the house. Some
interpreters tell us, that when Jacob came to reform his bouse, it was
occasioned by his defective observance of his vow; and that God, in
Gen. xxsv. 1, puts him in mind of it in such words: " Go up to Bethel,
and dwell there : and make there an altar." If their conjecture fail not,
it is a pertinent instance to our case: Jacob had made a good vow, and
well-ordered, and doubtless had performed much of it; yet, thirty years
after, he is minded of it by God, and then he comes to consider and
perform what was yet wanting to make up his defects. Thus when
care to perform vows well-made, discovers things ill-carried to the prejudice of religion, it makes way for future furtherance of religion.
DUBITATION. But, it is like, you will inquire, " May a Christian vow
the repairing of such defects ? Are they not more than'can be discerned ?
more than can be prevented ? Should be vow this, would he not ensnare
himself and break his vows?"
SOLUTION. To this I answer briefly, that no man in the world may
engage himself by vow, to live for future without any defects: such
perfection is only in heaven ; here it is not attainable. But a Christian
may engage himself by vow to be careful, and to do his best diligence to
prevent as many as he can. He may vow, that, so far as grace shall
enable him, he will endeavour to live with fewer faults. But a vow
of full perfection can never be a well-composed vow, nor ever be
performed.
Vow* engage against a particular sin.
(3.) Well-composed vow do promote religion in the heart and life of a
Christian, in that it strongly and unalterably engageth the Chi-istian
492
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSE RELIGIOUS VOWS
against some one or other particular sin, which would more easily prevail,
if the reverence or care of so sacred an engagement did not set the
Christian against that sin.Sometimes we should sin by taking too
little notice of great providences, or by setting them at too low rates, or
by soon forgetting them, or by waxing proud and insolent under them.
Now, such sins provoke God, weaken religion's interest in the heart, and
diminish its fruit in the life. Now, when vows prevent such sins, they
do as much promote religion as preventing physic promotes the health
of the body. Of such a nature was Job's covenant with his eyes, which
shut the windows of his soul, and kept out sin by preventing its
entrance at the out-doors: " I made a covenant with mine eyes." (Job
xxxi. 1.) "Away, then, with all alluring beauties; I cannot gaze on
them, for I cannot be false to my vow and covenant!" Every vow is for
more strict and exact approbation of ourselves, in either universal or
particular, either in a perpetual or temporary, observance and serving the
Lord. Now, that promotes religion which thus exactly and strictly
binds the soul to approve itself to God. Sin and religion have two
concernments as contrary to, each other as the rebel and the taw of his
sovereign; and as he promotes the interest of his sovereign who doth
strictly bind himself to oppose any rebel, so he promotes religion who by
TOW binds himself strictly to oppose any one sin whatever. If Noah
rowed, after his miscarriage, against drinking any considerable quantity
of wine, that he might prevent that sin, this vow strengthened the
interest of his holy sobriety, and the interest of religion too, so far as
sobriety promotes our fitness and greater aptness to religious works.
DUBITATION. But I shall be here asked: " May a man vow against
any one particular sin, and bind himself by so great a bond against the
committing of it?" The ground of the doubt is, because none so
stands but he may fall, and it is not in our power to keep ourselves
from any sin.
SOLUTION. To this, then, I answer, that it would be rash and inconsiderate to vow absolutely and peremptorily, that thou wilt never act
such or such a sin. But thus thou mayest justifiably vow,
(i.) Thai thou wilt endeavour, and with thy best diligence labour, to prevent this or that sin.Thou mayest vow to set a guard upon thy soul;
but thou mayest not vow the success of this guard. The endeavour is
thy duty, and that thou mayest vow; the success is God's gift, and that
thou must pray for. And let weak Christians take notice of this, lest
they ensnare themselves by vowing what is not in their power.
(ii.) If thou wilt vow so, thou must do it still with dependence on the
Lord for power to perform.Through grace, thou wilt not sin thus or
thus, may be thy vow.
(iii.) If thou wilt so vow, then take my advice with thee: First. Let it
be only against great sins, and such as are committed with deliberation.
These are seen before [they are] committed: and so are more easily
resisted. Secondly. Let it reach no farther than sincere endeavour
against them: And, Thirdly, Be sure to do your utmost; and then,
though the sin may be too strong for you, yet are you not false to your
vow. But, next,
493
Vows increase our care of particular duty.

(4.) Well-composed vows do much promote religion in the heart and lift
of a Christian, insomuch as they engage the Christian to a more intent
care of some particular duty and grace to be more than ordinarily
attended and exercised.A vow binds the votary to a more than ordinary
care of duty, and to a more than ordinary diligence in the exercise
of grace. Now, where such a TOW is so well-composed that the duty
may be more than ordinarily well performed, and the grace may be,
more than usually hath been, exercised, there such a TOW doth as much
promote religion as its care doth exceed our ordinary care. Who bestows
most on a duty, or on the constant exercise of a grace, doth do most
to the promoting of religion ; and, I am sure, whoso doth advisedly and
duly vow, and doth punctually and duly perform his vow, is the man
whose care is greatest in that duty and grace which his vow and the
particular occasion of it did commend to his thoughts.
DCBITATION. "But may we vow to perform a duty, or exercise a

grace ? Can we say, it is in our power?"
SOLUTION. To this in one word: Vow so far as it is and shall be in your
power, and you may warrantably and acceptably do it before God. The
performance of duty, and exercise of grace, are debts we owe to God:
and we may bind ourselves doubly to pay them so far as our stock will
reach j and without this limitation every vow is rash and ill-composed.
Vows [promote religion] by observing and improving providences.
(.) Well-composed vows do much promote religion, in that they engage
us to a more diligent observing of providences, and to a due improving
them to the best advantage of grace.When thou hast vowed, thou hast
sealed on thy part: if God do answer thy hope by his providence, he
performs the condition on his part; and now it must be thy care to
observe God's providence, and to improve it. So Jacob vowed, then
observeth how God will perform with him, and afterwards makes the
improvement. Now, [a] providence answering the expectation of one

who voweth, bath in it,
(i.) Remarkable power and faithfulness, to be the ground of faith.*
This was seen in that providence which gave Jephthah that victory
which was his hope and expectation when he vowed.
(ii.) Eminent goodness and tenderness, to be the loadstone and attractive of love.So in that providence which brought David to the possession of his hopes ; and David thought so when he professed he would
love God dearly, because he had delivered him out of the hand of all
his enemies. (Psalm xviii. 1.)
(iii.) Eminent readiness to hear prayer.When God doth, as to Jephthah, speedily hear, or, as to Jacob, continue still to hear, for many yean
together.
(IT.) More than ordinary obliging considerations to draw forth our
obedience too.Such providences have tongues to call for our faith, our
love, our prayers, our obedience, and our praises: " What shall I render
to the Lord?" ie the serious, well-advised votary's inquiry.
491
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELTGTOXJS VOWS
(v.) A most undoubted evidence, appropriating this to the Lord.That

the expecting Christian can truly say, " It was the Lord's doing, and his
only: none bore part in the work, none shall bear away share of his
trust, love, prayer, or observant obedience due to him from me."
Now, if these particulars be considered, it cannot, sure, be doubted
longer whether well-composed vows do promote religion, when they do so
engage and quicken those who vow to such acts of duty, to such exercise
of grace, to such opposition of sin, to such improvement of providence,
for the increase of grace. And what is religion, but all these in one word?
and what is the promoting of religion, bnt the facilitating, continuing,
and perfecting of all these, which is not a little furthered by such vows ?
V. It yet remains to show, Whence these well-composed vows have
such influence on religion, what have they in them more than ordinary thus
to promote it.To this I will answer as briefly as I may : There is in
such vows a most notable awakening and quickening power, which sets
all a man's care, wisdom, truth, and strength on work, to do the things
whereby religion is so much promoted.
1. A deep-rooted, natural reverence and awe of a serious vow, which
makes the man who hath so much sense of religion as to make a vow, to
have as much care of performing it.Man is readier to cast off the reverence he owes to God's law, than to cast off the regard he hath to his own
vow; so that, many times, it is very expedient to engage by vow to do
what is our duty by the law of God. The bond of natural conscience is
very strong; and vows have much of their strength from it, and thereby
become great supporters of religion.
2. To this the Christian hath a superadded strict command and prescript of the law of God, indispensably requiring the performance of that
vow which is lawful and possible." I have opened my mouth unto the
Lord, and I cannot go back." (Judges xi. 35.) It is the unalterable law,
if you vow, you must pay. (Psalm Ixxvi. 11.) God did indulge the Jews
so far as to redeem some of their vows ; but he allowed none to break
them. Read that: "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God,
thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the Lord thy God will surely require
it of thee. That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform." (Deut. xxiii. 21, 23.) Now, when so much of religion lieth in
and dependeth on such vows, and these vows are such inviolable ties that
God will wink at none who break them, they cannot but have such influence and strong operation on persons to the advantage of religion.
3. God's severe judgments on contemners of their vows add much to their
influence.I will not mention examples of vengeance on Heathens for
breach of their vows, though the idol deserved not better; yet God, who
is the true God, would have men know such sacred bonds as vows should
not be profaned by slight performing, or contemned by a total neglect
of them. The Jewish rabbies tell us, that God punished Jacob, for neglecting his vow, by Dinah's miscarriage. However, it is enough [that}
God hath threatened the falsifier of his vows with no less than a destruction of the works of his hands, if not with the ruin of his person. God
will not let such [an] one go unpunished, " lest his holy name should be
scorned, lest the people should be accustomed to an impious contempt
405
of him, if the falsifier of hie TOW should deny what he had promised to
God, and go unpunished."* In one word, that which stands thus on
the unchangeable law of nature and is written on the conscience, what
. is confirmed and ratified by the peremptory, positive law of God, what is
yet further armed with the terrible threat of the God of heaven, must
needs have a mighty binding strength in it, obliging men. But now all
these concur in vows well-composed ; and hence they have such influence
on religious persons. You may add,
4. The gracious acceptance that God give to persona to vowing and
performing their vowsf with,
5. The signal blessings crowning religious person in due performance
of their vow*.All which make them careful to vow, so that they may
eny they will pay their vows, and, in paying them, render to the Lord for
all his benefits.
USES.
VI. I am come now to the last thing I intended, the practical application of this practical case.And here, reader, I shall be briefer than I
first purposed, because I was enforced by the undiscerned speed of the
time outrunning me in preaching it, to contract much more than I was
willing to have done.
USB i. INFORMS. The first use, then: If well-composed TOWS do indeed
much promote religion, it will teach us how careful we should be in making
our vows to the greatest advantage of religion.If yon look to the necessary requisites of such vows, it will appear to you that yon need a great
care and diligence in making them ; if yon look to religion's lose in the
breach of vows, or its gain in a faithful performance of them, the care will
appear double; if you look to your obligation under which you are to
perform them, it will appear yet further needful that you be very wary and
circumspectly careful how you make them: the rash and inconsiderate
person who cares not how he makes, will not care whether he perform, hie
vows. And what a reproach is this to his religion 1 What a provocation
is this to his God, to destroy either him or the works of bis hand! And
all these bespeak your care, and advise you to circumspection in this case.
Do you not find it hard enough to discern what is daily and ordinarily to
be done under daily and ordinary occurrences ? Are you not in great care
to frame yourselves fitly and comely to every day's business [which] you
have to do among men, especially when yon come within the tie of a promise to them ? How solicitous are you, what, and when, and on what terms,
you promise ? how you shall perform, and so keep your word and credit ?
Any competent measure of honesty and regard to reputation will make a
man consider what he promiseth to a man. How much more care should
he use in promising unto God, where the promise is more than ordinary,
where the tie is so indissoluble, where the demand is so punctually and
peremptorily made, where the danger [is] so great in making default. Let
me commend unto thy more than ordinary care these two things, if thou
wilt make a vow so well-framed as to set up religion :

* Ne eaerum ejtu rumen ludibrio exponeretur, neve populut tutvetceret ad impium
ejtu contemptum, tifrmtdator mpune negaret gwd Dee promiurat.BUCAWUS, Lori
Communes, 45, De Votie.
4<?6
SERMON XXIV.
WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RKLIGIOUS
1. Be careful that thy vow vf obedience for, and in consideration of, a

mercy hoped or received hold weight with that mercy.Keep a steady
hand, and get an even balance, and weigh the mercy which commands
thy obedience, and weigh thy vow which promiseth it. It will be thy
reproach and religion's reproach to have thy vow found a shekel when thy
mercy weighs a talent.* When God gives a full harvest, thoti must not
vow a handful, or one sheaf: this were to expose thy God to contempt,
and it would be a practical denial of his bounty to thee. Jacob observed
this proportion: God shall be his God, and then the tenth of all he hath
shall be His. (Gen. xxviii. 2022.) David's " for all his benefits," is as
much as " according to all his benefits," and that speaks proportion and
commensurateness. Take care to this; for others will observe and inquire
into it. They will weigh these two, thy mercy, and thy gratitude: do
thou do it first, lest thou be ashamed, lest God be provoked, and tbou be
punished; for as good a man, and as great, as thou, whoever thou art
who readeet this, met with all these,with shame, with the anger of his
God, and with a punishment too on him, for want of this. See Hezekiah's
fault and punishment, 2 Chron. xxxii. 25. Do not fall short of Heathens,
who knew this, and observed it as their rule, and have branded such who
deviate from it.f Be careful thou put not off a mercy, that lives many
years with thee, with a day'9 entertainment, or week's or month's lodging
with thee.
2. Be careful that thou make thy vow so, that they may oe thy witnesses
whom God makes.Be careful thou make them witnesses of thy performing whom God made witnesses of thy straits, and [whom] thou madest
witnesses of thy vows. A man that would have his credit in his truth to
his word kept up, would choose them witnesses of his performing who
were witnesses of his promise. I think David took this heed in his rendering and paying his vows: " I will do it," saith he, " now in the presence of all his people." (Psalm cxvi. 14.) The people were witnesses to bis
straits, prayers, and vows ; and he will honour religion by performing in
their sight what he sealed, signed, and delivered, what he vowed to the
Lord. Seek not more than providence makes conscious to thy vows, lest
this be interpreted ostentation, and vain self-glorying: take so many, lest
the good example be lost, or thou suspected-of falsifying thy vow. Briefly
and plainly: Dost thou on a sick bed make thy vow before thy family,
before the neighbourhood ? Be careful to perform it before them; let
them see thou art what thou vowedst to be. This care in thy vow will be
a means to make it most to the advantage of religion, whilst all that
heard or knew thy vow bear thee testimony that th'ou art thankful; and
more thou seekest not, lest thou be suspected to be proud: thus religion's
gratitude and humility are set forth; thus thou givest others occasion to
glorify thy Father who is in heaven.
* 5. Talentum Hebreeonan continet pondere 3000 siclos.BREREWOOD De Pon*
deribus Hebr. "The talent of the Hebrews contains in weight three thousand shekels."
EDIT.
f 0<> , &c. Sordidum et tenuem sumptum hoc adagio
significabant.EBASMI Adagwrum chil. ii. cent. 7 Ad. 33. "The sacrifices of the
Phaselitae, (a nation of Paxnphylia,) consisting of salted fish, and being offered without
blood, were accounted vile. By this proverb the ancients intended strongly to designate such
an oblation as was mean and sordid, having been furnished at a slight expense.".EDIT.
BO MOT BXCEKDINGLY PROMOTE RELIGION.
Us ii. Do well-advieed and composed vows o much promote

religion, when well and faithfully kept ? Are they also such sacred and
inviolable bonds? Then look what vow you are under, look how you
have performed them.It is time to view what you fairly promised for
advancing of religion, and what you have faithfully performed for its
real advantage. Christian, consider with thyself, wast thou ever in more
than ordinary distress? Didst thou not then vow largely? Tell me, what
were thy vows ? How hast thou paid them ? Wast thou ever in a poor,
needy condition? Didst thou not then vow to honour God with thy
increase, to enrich the poor, to relieve thine indigent brethren, and God's
poor children ? Now, what hast thou done ? Who are clothed out of thy
flock? Who are fed at thy table? Who are lodged at thy charge?
Where is thy paying thy vow ? Was it ever thy lot to be tossed at sea t
to be mounted up to the heavens? to be cast down again into the
depths ? to be at thy wits' end ? Didst thou not then vow, if ever God
should command, and make it a calm, and bring thee to thy desired
haven, thou wouldeet be more circumspect in all manner of conversation,
more vigilant to thy particular duty, more severe against thy particular
sin ? Didst thou not vow that an anniversary sermon, with an allowance
to the poor, or a constant lecture, or an alms-house, or some such great
standing monument, should commemorate God's goodness to thee, and
persuade others to trust and seek unto that goodness? Or at least,
if thy estate would not do so much, hast thou not vowed to do according
to thy power? Where now is thy paying these vows? "But I was
never poor, never at sea." May be so; yet art thou not under some
vows for some other mercies ? Wast thou never in danger of losing thy
estate, thy relations, thy life ? Didst thou never lie dangerously and
(men thought) desperately sick? Hast thou no sick-bed vows upon
thee ? Stay here, whoever thou art that readest these lines; and read
not a word more, until thou hast duly considered whether ever thou
hast been dangerously sick, and what thou then vowedst, and how
thou hast performed.
The proud contemner of religion learns by his dangerous sickness to
promise to be religious: wast thou ever such ? Didst thou ever so vow ?
And art tbou now what thou didst then promise? The profane swearer
and blasphemer is brought by a sickness to fear his oath; and to vow to
learn to fear and abstain. 0, then, if God will not destroy, and damn,
but give life, he will (that he will!) repent and amend; he will bleat,
but not blaspheme, his name; he will never more profanely swear and
curse. Wast thou ever such an one? so sinful? so engaged? What
performance now ? The drunkard vows sobriety when he is sick; the
adulterer vows chastity; the worldling vows to mind heaven; the tradesman, who hath so often sold his conscience at every price to gain sixpence by an untruth and lie, then if this plunge be out-lived, will keep
a good conscience. In a word, a sick-bed makes a sinner sick of his
sin, and seldom fails to make him vow against it. Now, reader, what
thinkest thou ? vows or no vows ? Art thou under any, or no ? I am
persuaded now thou canst not deny it; methinks I could believe I heard
thee say, "Such a fever, such an ague, the small-pox, a surfeit, the
498
SERMON XXIV.
pestilence, or some such disease, made me TOW to be another man, to

destroy sin, to exercise grace, to love God, to hate last, to be holy and
heavenly." Now, thou seest thy bond: where is thy payment of thy
debt? 0 how few do well keep any, how much fewer do well keep
their sick-bed, vows! as if these vows were as sickly as their makers,
and doomed to as short a life as the sick votary thought he had been
doomed to! Reader, thy conscience tells thee what thou canst answer,
or what thou must confess in this matter; and, upon thy conscience's
answer, I have advice for thee: if thou art conscious,
1. Of total neglect, go speedily on thy knees, bless infinite patience,
humble thyself before infinite grace, get out thy pardon.And whilst
God saith by me, by these lines, '* Defer not to pay/' be thou honest to
thy word, thankful to thy God, advantageous to religion, and an example
of reformation, lest [the] next sickness be thy death, and thy vows be
thy sin, which shut out thy hopes of praying and speeding. God
delights not to answer such fools: thou mayest find motives enough to
hasten thee to this duty, from Eccles. v. 2, 46, which I commend to
thy thoughts with these queries:(1.) Is not God in heaven, and thou
on earth ? (2.) And is not thy vow made to this great God ? (3.) And
is not this vow thy voluntary debt ? And, (4.) Doth God require present
payment? Or, indeed, (5.) Wilt thou worse thy condition by vowing?
Or, (6.) Wilt thou provoke God's anger and displeasure? (7.) Darest
thou venture on threatened destruction ? These are Solomon's motives
to a punctual and present payment of vows: I offer them, to awake
thee from neglect of thy vows.
2. Or, secondly, Hast thou vowed, and performed in part, but
not fully?Hast thou done somewhat, but not all, of that thou hast
promised and vowed? I advise,
(I.) See what hindered: wast thou rash in promising more than thou
eouldest do ?Is this the reason thou didst not all, because some of it
was out of thy power ? Thou must be humbled for thy rash vow ; and
if ever it come within thy power, do it.
(2.) See whether thy sloth and negligence did not hinder, when thou
mightest have performed.But now it is out of thy power, and thou
canst not. This is a high breach of thy vows; and I know no way for
thee, but due and seasonable repentance and confessing, that God may
pardon thee; and be thou better in what thou canst, since thou canst
not be so good in this* thou shouldest.
(3.) See whether it continue yet in thy power to do, though as yet thou
hast not done it.And if so, be affected with the sight of thy unthankfulness, but remove this sin by performing thy vows; for God will not
release the promise, nor cancel the bond, until the debt be paid by him
who bath power in his hand, and may do it.
DUBITATION. " But what, if it were in my power when I vowed, but
since that time Providence hath put it out of my power ? I was rich
when I vowed to relieve the poor; but when I was recovered, God
suffered me to be spoiled, as Job was: what shall I do then?"
* In all editions, except the first, the particle "as" is found between this and thou, to
the manifest injury of the meaning.EDIT.
499
SOLUTION 1. Thy vow, well-composed, engaged thee to far as it VMU in

thy power.Remember, a well-advised TOW hath this express condition,
or this implied, " So far and so long as it is in my power to do, until I
have done all." "The tenth of all I have, of all that God shall give
me," saith Jacob, " I will give to God." Now, if the Lord exercise his
bounty to Jacob, Jacob is engaged; then he hath power, and can do it:
if God make Jacob poor, the limitation [which] his vow implied in it
doth quit him.
SOL. 2. So far at God puts it out of thy power, to far he releaeeth
thee from the debt.When God, by his providence over-ruling all, doth
disable thee to the payment, then he dischargeth thee from the bond:
this is God's real discharge and cancelling of the obligation.
USE in. Are well-composed vows such promoters of religion ? and
re they to be made so warily ? and do they bind so strictly ? Then be
sure to wait until God give you just and fit season for vowing.Be not
over-hasty to vow: it is an inconsiderate and foolish haste of Christians
to make more occasions of vowing than God doth make for them.
Make your vows, and spare not, so often as God bids you; but do not
do it oftener. You would wonder I should dissuade from vowing often,
when you have such constant mercies; and wonder well you might,
if God did expect your extraordinary bond and security for every
ordinary mercy: but He requires it not; He is content with ordinary
security of gratitude for ordinary mercies: when He calls for extraordinary security and acknowledgment, by giving extraordinary mercies, then
give it, and do it,
1. Cheerfully.Enter such bonds willingly.
2. Pay the bond punctually at its time.
3. Pay it fully, in the whole of it.So do it, that you may say, " I
will cheerfully, and of choice." So do it, that you may call it a paying
punctually and fully. And this will be accounted a rendering to the
Lord, and a real promoting of religion, by setting forth our debt, and the
Lord's goodness, to which we are indebted. Fear not to give thy God
double security when Le requires it. Fail not to pay readily and fully,
when pay-day comes; for the Lord doth expect and command thee so to
do; and if thou do wilfully make default, he will lay folly to thy charge,
and take the forfeiture of thy bond, and make thee know it too, some
way or other, to thy grief and trouble. Keep out so long, or get out
of such debts so soon, as thou canst. Pay the Lord thy vows.
600
SERMON XXV.
SERMON XXV.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM WHITAKEB, A.M.,
FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
BOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
But Christ is all, and in all.Coloesians Hi. 11.

THE great concernment of lost creature is, above all things, to mind
salvation. This is "the one thing needful;" this should be the great
inquiry; (Luke x. 42; Acts xvi. 30;) and in the neglect of this, all oar
other endeavours are no better than laborious trifles. The great danger
which even they are in who seriously mind salvation, is, lest they build
upon some sandy foundation, seeking heaven in those ways which lead
not thither. The great design of Satan is, either to detain poor undone
creatures in a total neglect of salvation, or to deceive them in the way and
means thereof. It is therefore the great care of the apostle, as in other
scriptures, so in this, not only to undeceive the world as to those mistakes
which prevailed then, but to point out the right, the proper, the only
sure, way of salvation; namely, through Christ, whom he here declares
to be so complete a Saviour, that, as we have "none other," (Acts iv. 12,)
so we need none other, because " Christ is all."
In the former part of the verse, the apostle shows the insufficiency
of all things on this side Christ, to commend us unto God, or stand us
in stead in the matter of salvation; and this be does by removing four
mistakes at that time common:
1. The mistake of the Jews ; who prided themselves in a genealogical
kind of sanctity, as being the seed of Abraham. This they account so
great a matter, that they cannot be persuaded it could go otherwise than
well with them. Let the messengers of God tell them their sins, warn
them of their dangers; yet they shelter themselves under this privilege,
as that which would be a sufficient bulwark against all kind of threats
and com ruinations; and though John the Baptist in his time, (Matt,
iii. 9,) our Saviour in his time, (John viii. 39, 44,) and the apostles in
theirs, do all concur in taking them off from leaning upon this broken
reed; yet will they not be beaten out of these strong-holds. Time was,
indeed, when "salvation was of the Jews;" but, that wall of partition
being now taken down, and the pale of the church so far enlarged as to
take-in both Jew and Gentile, (Acts x. 34, 35,) no national privilege can
now commend us unto God; nor can a succession of Abraham " according to the flesh" avail us, unless we succeed him in his faith.
2. The mistake of the circumcised, whether Jews or proselytes; who,
because they had this badge of religion upon them, concluded themselves
in a priority for heaven, before all the world besides. But however time
SERMON XXV.
501
was when circumcision was an ordinance of that necessity, that the Lord
threatens to punish the neglect thereof, by cutting off that soul from
among his people; (Gen. xvii. 14;) yet was it not the outward but
spiritual part God accounted of. The apostle, in excluding this,
excludes all outward religious observations ; (Bom. ii. 29 ;) as Davenant
in he.*
3. The mistake of the Grecians; who were at that time the masters
of all learning; and all other nations, in contradistinction onto them,
were styled Barbarians; and of all Barbarians, the Scythians were
esteemed the rudest. But whatever worth and excellency may be in
human accomplishments ; yet all these, in the business of salvation, are
but poor matters. It is neither the having nor wanting of these that
can considerably advantage or prejudice us in that high concernment.
4. The common mistake of the world; who from their rank and
quality in the world are ready to promise themselves a more easy
acceptance with God. (I Cor. i. 26, 27.) But "God is no respecter
of persons;" (Acts x. 34 ;) he looks upon the children of men with
another kind of eye than man is used to do. (1 Sam. xvi. 7.) Whether
our outward condition be high or mean, there is nothing of privilege or
disadvantage from hence, in respect of salvation.
And as, in the former clause of the verse, the apostle shows the insufficiency of all things beside Christ; so in this clause he shows the
single sufficiency of Christ alone. Whatever the Jews promised themselves from their stock and lineage, the proselytes from their circumcision, the Grecians from their wisdom and learning, the great one
of the world from their outward pre-eminences;all that, yea, and
much more, is Christ to believers. " Christ is all."
This single sufficiency of Christ the apostle proves by a double
argument:
1. The completeness and perfection of Christ as a Saviour." He is
all." Take salvation from first to last, in all the several parts of it, he
is the Alpha and Omega, the beginner and perfecter, the author and
finisher, of all. (Heb. xii. 2.)
2. The way and means whereby Christ imparts and communicates this
salvation.It is by being " in all." Some read the words as an amplification of the fulness and completeness of Christ: " Christ is all," and
that in all things that concern either our present comfort or eternal
happiness.f Others refer these words, "in all," to those divers sorts
of persons spoke of in the former part of this verse; to whom, that
Christ may be a Saviour, he disdains not to take up his dwelling
their souls, though lying under all the disadvantages which were then
accounted prejudicial. And thus the apostle seems to explain himself,
Gal. iii. 28 ; a parallel scripture unto this. And according to this exposition, as the benefit of Christ's sufficiency is extended to all believers by
* Circumcisio erat in Judaica religione rittu prtecipwu; adhibetur itaque ad dengnandam observaiionem omnium rituum legalium.DAVEXAVTIUS. "In the Jewish
religion, circumcision was the principal rite; and is therefore used to designate the
observance of all the rites of the law of Moses."EDIT.
( waffa> if vparypcurtr,
j rou Tip C<w|i ^M4" rwwtroceij, i> ev .(EcuMENius in ft. M Either in all
things, or in those intimately connected with our life, or in all of us.".EDIT.
502
SERMON XXV.
BOW ARK WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
virtue of their union unto Mm,* so is it restrained and locked up from

all unbelievers.f
The case to be insisted on from this scripture is, Hoto Christians
are complete in Christ. For the resolving hereof, take this natural
deduction from the words ;
DOCTRINE,
That Christ is a Christian's all.
By " Christian," I mean not them who have nothing more to declare
them such than only their baptisms and outward professions ; as the
church of Sardis. (Rev, iii. 1.) We account them monsters in nature,
who have the faces of men, but, in their other limbs, the lineaments and
proportions of brute beasts ; and how can we account them better than
monsters in Christianity, who have the faces of Christians indeed, but
withal the hearts and lives of Pagans ? That " all " which is in Christ.
is nothing unto each, except to increase their guilt, and heighten their
condemnation. But by the " Christian/' I mean him who is Xijflwf
"an Israelite indeed," as Christ speaks concerning
Nathanael : (John i. 47 :) one who labours more to be than seem religious ; one whose great care is, that his heart may keep an even pace
with his tongue, in all his outward professions. Now to such Christ is
" all." In having an interest in him, they have enough for the supply
of all wants, for the prevention of all dangers, for the procuring [of] all
good ; and therefore, what the apostle speaks here in one word, " Christ
is all," he speaks at large, in an enumeration of several weighty particulars : " Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption." (1 Cor. i. 30.) We are/oofi*A creatures; Christ is "wisdom." We are guilty; he is "righteousness."
We are polluted s he is " sanctification^" We are lost and undone ; but
in him is " redemption." We are empty of all good ; but he is a full
fountain, from whom flow all those blessings which concern either our
present comfort or future happiness. We are necessitous and indigent ;
" in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Yea, " in
him dwelletb all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him." (Col. ii. 3, 9, 10.) Or as you have it [in] Col. i. 19,
., "In him dwells all fqlness." The rich merchant
* In omnibus, id est, Jldelibw hunc in modum sanoliflcatis, et Christo copukttis.
DAVENAHTIVS in loo. "In alii that is, in all believers, who are thus sanctified, and
joined to Christ."EDIT.
f Qiiorf lex bona est, nostrum mm est ; quod autem
matt, vivimus, nostrum eat} et nihil uiique prodest quod lex est bona, si vita el conversatio nostra non est bona. Lex enim bona muneris est Christi ; vita autem non bona
criminis noslri ; imo hoc magis oulpabiles sum us, si leêm fonam colimus, et mali cultores sumus. Quin polius non cultures si mali ; guia cultor diet non potest malus cullor,
$c. SAL vi AN us De Gubernatione Dei. lib. iv. " That the law is good, is a result in
which we have had no concern 4 but that we are wicked in our lives, is a matter in which
we are personally concerned. And it will in no respect prove advantageous to us that the
law is good, if our life and conversation be not also good. For the goodness of the law
appertain to the office of Christ ; but a wicked life has its origin in our own criminality,
Nay, we render ourselves the more culpable by our professed attachment to a law which
is good, while in our outward observance of it we are manifestly sinful. Indeed, ii we be
sinners, we are not followers of the law ; because one who really observes the law cannot
be called a wicked observer of ii." EDIT.
8ERMON XXV. HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST f
503
thought himself no loser by the bargain, in parting with all he had to purchase an interest in Christ. (Matt. xiii. 45,46.) But when never so much
is said, there cannot a greater word be used than what the apostle speaks
here: " Christ is all." The Greeks were wont of old to account it an
excellency to epeak much in few words; to give their auditors reXayov
, ev orretXayjtMtri (&/.>, " an ocean of matter in a drop of
words." Thus does the apostle here give us, as I may speak, gold in
the wedge ; which I shall endeavour to beat out into the leaf, by" showing how much is comprised in this one word, " ALL." The two names
by which the most ancient philosophers were wont to speak of God
were, that he was, To Ov To , " the True Being and the Universal Good ;" all the scattered excellencies which are dispersed among
several ranks of creatures, meeting in him, as the lines of the circum-
ference in the centre. This does the apostle speak here of Christ: he is
" all." Physicians speak of an universal medicine suited to all diseases,
and helpful in all maladies; but whether this can be found in nature
or not, yet certainly Christ is a Panacea ; in him we have a plaster for
all sores, a remedy against all distempers. There are indeed thousands
of cases wherein all other helps are but " miserable comforters," and
physicians of no value; but not one case wherein Christ is not a full
and proper help. When all that friends can do is only to pity us, he
can help us ; because " Christ is all."
For the further explaining and confirming of this great truth, three
things shall be spoke to:
I. Wherein Christ is all.
II. How Christ i all.
HI. What advantage it is to sincere Christians to have their att i
Christ.
I. Wherein Christ is all.
In general, he is "all" in all things; for so some of no small

account render the following words, " and in all," as hath already been
hinted. But, more particularly,
1. Christ is ALL to sincere Christians, to free them from whatever
might hinder their salvation.Salvation is not a mere negative thing,
nor does it consist in a bare exemption from hell and wrath, but a translation into heaven and glory. But, alas! betwixt us and glory there is
ttfya </, "a great gulf," many bars and impediments. Ay, but
Christ is ALL to deliver us from these ; and though our deliverance in this
world is not complete or perfect, yet is it so far complete as to render our
salvation nndoubtful, if we be in the number of them to whom Christ is
here said to be "all."
The wrath of an offended God, which, like that flaming sword that
kept our apostate parents from returning into Paradise, (out of which,
because of their apostasy, they had been ejected,) would render our
admission into heaven equally impossible. But Christ, by bearing the
wrath of God in his own person, hath taken it off from ours ; and therefore he is said to " deliver us from the wrath to come." (I These, i. 10.)
He who was the Son of God's love, became the subject of his displeasure;
as appears by comparing Matt. iii. 17, with Isai. liii. 10; that we, who
504
SERMON XXV.
were children of wrath, might become the objects of his favour: and,
however Christ hath not delivered believers from the anger of God as a
Father, yet from the anger of God as a Judge. There is an anger that
proceeds from love, as the anger of a parent towards that child whose
good he desires; and there is a vindictive anger: the former, believecs
are neither freed from, nor would it indeed be their privilege; (Heb. xii.
68, &c.;) there is not a greater judgment can befall poor sinful crea-
tures here on earth, than for God not to discover himself angry with them
for their sins. (Isai. i. 5.)* God then deals with men as a skilful physician with an unruly patient, whom he gives up as desperate; or as a
tender parent with a graceless child, whom he utterly rejects. In a
word, whatever kind of anger might tend to the prejudice of believers,
THAT they are delivered from; but what is for their advantage, THAT
they are subject to. That " Christ is all" in delivering from the wrath
of God, may further be evidenced by these considerations:
(i.) The adequate \cause~] of God's wrath ie sin.There is this difference betwixt wrath and mercy in God : that mercy flows, as I may so
speak, naturally from God, and hath no other motive but only the gracious
and merciful disposition of God. But wrath hath always its* rise from
us; and nothing in us but sin can draw down his wrath upon us. Our
meanness cannot, our afflictions cannot: these may sometimes be the
effects of God's wrath, but never the causes. No, it is " because of these
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."
(Eph. v. 6.) Because of these things, that is, because of these sins, as
appears from the verses foregoing. What is it that hath filled every age
and place of the world with eo many dreadful tokens of God's displeasure, but only sin ? What was it that cast the angels out of heaven, and
degraded them from their first station, but only sin ? What was it that
drove our first parents out of Paradise, and subjected them, and all their
posterity, to so many miseries, but only sin ? What was it that brought
destruction upon the old world, upon Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim ?
What was it that broke off the natural branches, and hath for so many
hundreds of years continued them under a divorce from God, but only
sin ? In a word, look over all those miseries under which the whole
creation groans; (Rom. viii. 22;) and though those miseries in several
creatures are divers, yet do they all proceed from the same fountain,
namely, sin.
(2.) Christ is ALL, in making expiation for sin.He is that " Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John i. 29.) He is
our <. and iAacrrr/pjoy.t (1 John ii. 2 ; Rom. iii. 25.) It was not
" thousands of rams," nor " ten thousands of rivers of oil," could have
home any proportion in point of satisfaction for our sins. It was not
all the legal sacrifices of old could do any thing, nor can all our duties
now; but Christ is ALL in expiating for sin. (Heb. x. 57, 14.) And
auch is the fulness of Christ's satisfaction, that he hath not only freed
* Magna ira est quando peccantibus non irasciiur Deus.HIERONYMUS. " Great
indeed is that wrath which God is treasuring up, while he manifests no tokens of his
displeasure against sinner."EDIT.

for us."EDIT.
f " A propitiation, atonement, or expiation
SERMON XXV. HOW ARE W COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
505
each as are united unto him from condemnation, hut purchased for them
the adoption of children. (Bom. viii. 1, 1416.) And thus Christ is
ALL in removing this bar, and opening this door to salvation, which, had
it not been for his mediation, would for ever have remained shut against
all the children of men. The pollution and prevalency of corruption,
how great an impediment this is to salvation and happiness, was typified
by the lepers and unclean persons of old, who were not admitted within
the camp. (Lev. xiii. 46.) Heaven is no common receptacle for all persons, as Noah's ark was for all sorts of creatures. " Enow ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" (1 Cor. vi. 9.)
Know ye not ? If yon know any thing in religion, you cannot but know
thus much. In the church of God on earth, there is a mixture of corn
with chaff, of wheat with tares, of good fish with bad, of sheep with goats;
but there shall be a separation of the precious from the vile, and God will
come with his " fan in his band, and throughly purge his floor." (Luke in.
17.) Do but consider, and pause a while upon that mischief which
sin hath done poor creatures by its pollution. How hath it stained
their glory, cast them down from their excellency, turned angels into
devils, and debased man, who was once almost the top of the whole
creation, in whom all the scattered excellencies in the book of nature
were bound up together in one volume, and met together in a blessed
union! How unlike hath sin made us to what God at first made us!
Those souls of ours, which were once as so many pure beams of light,
how is the beauty of them now blotted and darkened! But Christ is
that " Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness;" (Zech. xiii. 1;) in
his blood is virtue enough to fetch out " scarlet" spots, and " crimson "
stains; (Isai. i. 18;) and if any of the children of men perish in their
pollutions, it is not because he wants sufficiency, but because they want
faith. (John iii. 16.) Christ is "all" in the business of cleansing and
purifying. But, alas! beside the pollution of sin, there is the prevalency of it. This was to St. Paul so great an affliction, that he who
could bear the greatest of outward afflictions patiently, (2 Cor. xi. 23, &c.,)
cannot but express something of an holy impatience under this burden ;
(Rom. vii. 24;) he that could triumph over principalities, powers, life,
death, &c., (Rom. viii. 38, 39,) is yet more than a little discouraged
when he reflects upon the corruptions [which] he found lodging in his
own heart. Corruption is the great tyrant that hath usurped over the
whole world ; the bounds of its dominion are almost as large as all mankind : there is not a man in all the world, (except the first man Adam,
made after God's image, and the Second Adam, who was God as well as
man,) but be is born a slave, a vassal to this usurper. The four great
successive monarchies, Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, Roman, though the
extent of them were great, and the circumference vast, yet were all these
limited and bounded: some parts of the world there were which knew
nothing of their yoke. But, alas! the empire of corruption reaches
every corner of the earth, every person born into the world. We may
therefore not unfitly compare it to Nebuchadnezzar's tree, the top whereof reaches heaven, from thence it threw the angels, and the bough
thereof spreading themselves to the ends of the earth; (Dan. iv. 11;)
506
SERMON xxv. BOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
yea, this vassalage unto corruption, as it is the largest and univerealest, so
also the miserablest and most dreadful. All other slaveries compared
with this, are but like Behoboam's government compared to his father
Solomon's, the least finger of whose dominion, he threatens, should be
heavier than his father's loins. (1 Kings xii. 10.) We read in scripture
of an Egyptian slavery; in history, of the Spartan slavery, and of the
Turkish : all these sad and lamentable ; but yet all these reached but the
body, and that for a time only; whereas the slavery of corruption reaches
the soul, and that for ever, unless Christ become our " Jesus " in saving
us from our sins. (Matt. i. 21.) He hath purchased our freedom, and
that with a great sum ; as the centurion speaks of his Roman freedom.
(Acts xxii. 28.) There are none [who] can say with St. Paul, they are
born free, except they who are born again, and they are free indeed.
(John viii. 36.) Christ is "all" in removing this impediment also, in
setting our poor captive souls at liberty from the bonds and fetters
of our corruption. (Rom. vi. 6, &c.; vii. 25.) It is he alone can conquer
these great Goliaths, these untamed affections. But yet even this deliverance is also incomplete in this world ; he delivers his people from corruption as to the reign and dominion of it, though not as to the presence and
disturbance of it: ut non reanet, sed nondum ut non sit.*
(3.) The oppositions of Satan, his wiles and subtilties.These are
another impediment, and that no small one neither: for if [in] our first
parents, in whom there was nothing of ignorance, but a sufficiency of
knowledge, there was indeed a nescience of many things, so is there also
k) the angels; (Matt. xxiv. 36;) but yet their knowledge was both
full and clear in things necessary and pertinent. (Col. iii. 10.) This
was no small advantage against the methods of Satan ; because his
usual way of miscbieving poor creatures hath not been so'much by
force as fraud; not as a lion, but as a serpent; not so much by conquering, as cheating; acting all his enmity under a pretence of friendship, and tempting us to no evil, but under the pretence of some
good. The advantage of our first parents was, in this respect, great
in respect of their knowledge. Besides, in them was nothing of weakness, but a sufficiency of strength; in them was nothing of corruption, but an universal rectitude and uprightness. The ways by which
Satan ordinarily prevails is, either by our ignorance or by our weakness,
or else by making a party within us against ourselves. The advantages
of our first parents were, in all these respects, far greater than any have
against Satan now; yet Satan prevailed against them. What cause,
therefore, have we to fear! (2 Cor. xi. 3.) But "Christ is all" to free
us from these dangers, to carry us through these oppositions, who hath
"led captivity captive," (Eph. iv. 8,) who hath "spoiled principalities
and powers, triumphing over them." (Col. ii. 15.) But yet, even this
deliverance is at present incomplete; for, though Christ hath delivered
believers from Satan as a destroyer, yet not from Satan as a tempter: he
may disquiet such, but he cannot ruin them.
(4.)
The disturbances and interruptions of a profane world, its allure-
ments, discouragements, promises, threats, smiles, frowns,Our difficulties

* " That it may not reign i but not yet that it shall not exist."EDIT.
SERMON XXV.
BOW ABB WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
507
and dangers from hence cannot be little, eince the people of God in all
ages have found them so great. The great advantage which all theee
outward things have against us, in their suitableness to our senses; for
though believers are said to " live by faith," (Heb. x. 38,) yet the best
of men have had something to witness they were but men of "like
passions/' of/wiOTraiijj, as it was said of Eliaa; (James v. 17;) but
" Christ is all" to free us from these dangers: " Be of good cheer; I
have overcome the world." (John xvi. 33.) He hath overcome it for us,
and in some measure in us.
2. Christ ie ALL, to fill the emtle of believere with all that goed
which may capacitate and qualify them for happiness.It is the decree
of heaven, that none be admitted into glory but those on whom God hath
wrought the truth of grace. Heaven must first be brought down into
our souls, before our souls are capable of ascending up thither: we must
first be " made meet," before we can partake of that '* inheritance of the
saints in light." (Col. i. 12; ph. v. 5.) We are by nature unmeet,
because we are carnal and earthly; and should God dispense with his
own decree, and open so wide a door unto heaven and happiness as to
let-in carnal and sensual persons, heaven would be no heaven unto such;
cnrual hearts can never relish the sweetness of spiritual enjoyments.
(Rom. viii. 6, 7.) Philosophers observe, that all delight arises from a
suitableness betwixt the person and the object. What is the reason
of that diversity of delights which is among the children of men ? That
which is one man's joy is another man's grief; and that which is one
man's pleasure is another man's pain I The only reason is, because
1
1
!
\
\
i
\
of the diversity of tempers and dispositions. Some there be of such

a brutish and swinish temper, that nothing is so pleasing unto them
as wallowing in the mire of their sensualities; others, again, of so
refined a temper, that they esteem these sensual pleasures very low, and
much beneath them. But still every man's delight is according to his
temper and disposition; and therefore heaven would be so far from
being a heaven unto such, that it would be a kind of hell to them 4 for
as delight arises from an harmony betwixt the person and the object, so
all kind of torment, from an unsuitableness and contrariety. Hence is
it, that although God vouchsafes us 'something of heaven here on earth,
namely, in his ordinances, yet to uuheavenly hearts, every thing of this
nature is a (tedium, " a burden." " When will the new moon be gone,
that we may sell corn ? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ?"
&c. (Amos viii. 5.) jElian reports of one Nicostratus, who, being a
skilful artificer, and finding a curious piece of art, was so much taken
therewith, that a spectator, beholding him so intent in viewing the
workmanship, asked him what pleasure he could take in gazing so long
upon such an object; he answers, " Hadst thou my eyes, thou wouldest
be as much ravished as I am." So may we say of carnal persons: had
they the hearts and dispositions of believers, they would be as much
delighted with all means of communion with God as they are, and
account that their privilege which now they esteem their vexation. The
,
I
\
I
Greeks tell us, that , "good," is derived , "from

culling," because all good is of an attractive and magnetic nature, to
508
SERMON XXV. HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
draw forth and call our affections after it. But yet it is not the intrineical excellency of any object that renders it taking with us; but our
affections are accordingly exercised upon all kinds of objects, as representations are of those objects from the understanding; for it is the
understanding which sits at the stern of the soul, that is the primum
mobile, " the master-wheel," that puts the affections, as so many lesser
wheels, upon motion: therefore, unless our judgments be both enlightened and sanctified, we can never " approve the things that are excellent." Naturalists observe, that, though the loadstone hath an attractive virtue to draw iron to it, yet it cannot exercise that virtue upon iron
that is rusty. Ignorance is the rust of the soul, that blunts the edge
of our affections to whatsoever is spiritually good. There must be,
therefore, some kind of suitableness and harmony betwixt our souls and
heavenly mercies, before we are capable of tasting the sweetness of them.
Now, " Christ is all" to believers in this respect also: it is from " his
fulness they receive, and grace for grace." (John i. 16.) That we have
any thing of grace, it is from him ; and that we have such a degree or
measure of grace, it is from him: "I am come that they might
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John x. 10.)
The essence and the abundance are both from him. All those miracles which Christ wrought in the days of his flesh upon the bodies
of poor creatures, in restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb,
life to the dead,all these does Christ work over again upon the souls
of them whom he prepares for heaven. (Eph. v. 8 ; ii. 5, 10.)
3. Christ is ALL, fill all ordinances with power and efficacy.

These are the means of salvation ; and, through his concurrence, effectual means. As they are his institutions, we are under an obligation
of using them; and as they have the promise of his presence, we are
warranted in our expectations of benefit from them. (Matt, xxviii. 20;
xviii. 20.) But yet ordinances are but empty pipes, but dry breasts,
unless Christ be pleased to fill them, who "filleth all in all." (Eph.
i. 23.) That there should be such a might and efficacy in things so*
weak, such miraculous and strange effects by means so inconsiderable;
that the foolishness of preaching should be powerful to salvation; it is
because it is not man, but God, that speaks: " The hour is coming, and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they
that hear shall live." (John v. 25.) Look upon ordinances in themselves, and so they are , "things which are not;" but as
they are accompanied with the power of Christ, so they "bring to
nought things that are." (1 Cor. i. 28.) It is he who in baptism
baptizes "with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." (Matt. iii. 11.) It is
he, in preaching the word, [who] speaks not only to the ear, but to the
heart: " Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by
the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke xxiv. 32.)
In a word, " Christ is ALL " in every ordinance, in respect of efficacy:
while the disciples fished alone, "they caught nothing;" but when
Christ is with them, the draught of fishes is so great they are scarce
"able to draw it." (John xxi/3, 6.)
4. Christ is ALL, to fill every condition with comfort." The best
SKRMON XXV.
HOW ARC WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
509
of conditions is not good without him, nor is the wont bad with him." *
Alexander accounted himself to live so nlany days as he obtained victories ; but David accounts himself to live more in one day's communion
with God, than in a thousand days' enjoyment of all earthly comforts;
(Psalm Ixxxiv. 10;) yea, in the midst of all his earthly confluences, he
looks upon all as nothing in comparison of communion with God:
" Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that
I desire beside thee."f (Psalm Ixxiii. 25.) Though he had a kingdom,
he values not that. And well might David be of this mind; for, could
we add kingdom to kingdom, and world to world, yet all these, in comparison of the least smile or love-token from God, are no better than
nothing; for, " Thy loving-kindness is better than life." (Psalm Ixiii. 3.)
The ancient philosophers distinguished betwixt bona <, and
bona , "Some things good in their own nature:" thus only
God: "There is none good but one, that is, God:" (Matt. xix. 17:)
"Others good by way of opinion or estimation;" and thus all the comforts of this life: whence that maxim of the Stoics: ;,
" Life is but opinion and fancy ;" and whatever good is in these things
is but like those pictures of most deformed and monstrous creatures,
which, the poet tells us, bad no other beauty than what they owed to
the painter's courtesy, namely, the offspring of our own fancies; those
who were virtuous were only, by the philosophers, accounted to live;
others might degere, but not vivere; they might " be," but they could
not "live." The only true comfort of life consists in living in communion with God. It is his presence [which] fills heaven with all its
glory, and it is his presence that fills every condition with all its sweetness. But, alas! how "can two walk together, except they be agreed?"
(Amos iii. 3.) And what agreement can there be betwixt light and
darkness, the glorious Majesty of heaven and sinful dust, but only
through a Mediator? And the only Mediator is Jesus Christ. (1 Tim.
ii. 5.) What was it that enabled the blessed martyrs to account the
scorching flames to be beds of roses ? What was it that enabled St. Paul
to triumph over all kind of adversaries, but only the " love of God in
Christ Jesus?" (Bom. viii. 38, 39.) Herein alone consists our comfort,
our happiness. Now " Christ is ALL " in this respect also.
5. Christ is ALL, in furnishing us with strength and assistance to
persevere.The way to heaven is no smooth or easy way, but beset with
many difficulties: 4(} $;$ (Matt. vii. 14;) and " we must
through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." (Acts xiv.
22.) Yea, though the calmness of our passage through this world
should be in a perfect serenity from all outward enemies, yet can we not
expect a total freedom from the worst of enemies,our own hearts, our
corruptions. All the prejudices and mischiefs we either do or can
suffer from others, are nothing to what we suffer from ourselves: it is
not, Homo homini lupus, but, Homo sibi lupus, " Men are to none such
* Ubi bmi tine te, ant ubi male man te.BERHAHDUS.
f JVo dieit, NiAil
hakeo, ted, Nihil concupisoo.MUSCULUS in loo. "David does not say, 'There is
none upon earth that / have beside thee,' but,' There is none that / desire,' e."EDIT.
" Confined and difficult is the way."EDIT.
510
SERMON XXV. HOW ARK WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
wolves as to their own souls/' Now, inasmuch s the crown of happiness is reserved for the head of perseverance; (Rev. ii, 10;) and
inasmuch as perseverance in conflicting with such kind of adversaries, (as,
though we conquer them yet they are in us, and though we vanquish
them yet still we carry them about us,) must needs require a greater
strength than our own; (Rom. vii. 24;) it cannot but be esteemed an
eminent privilege to be under the continual supplies of Christ by his
Spint, that after we have put our hand to God's plough, we may not
look back, (Luke iz. 62,) and after we have " begun in the Spirit," we
may not end " in the flesh." (Gal. iii. 3.) I speak not this as doubting
the perseverance of them who are sincere, but as declaring the true
foundation on which their perseverance is bottomed, namely, not any
inherent strength [which] they have in themselves, but those supplies
of grace and strength [which] they continually derive from Christ. There
is a vast difference betwixt the best of Christians, considered singly in
themselves, and considered relatively in respect of their union unto
Christ: in themselves, so weak and impotent that they "can do
nothing," * (John xv. 5,) " not sufficient of themselves to think any thing
as of themselves," (2 Cor. iii. 5,) and yet what can be less than to
think ? but in Christ mighty and powerful, able to do and bear whatever
God would have them: " I can do all things through Christ which
strengthened me." (Phil. iv. 13.) And thus is Christ the Christian's
"all;" thus are they "complete in him." (Col. ii. 10.)
II. How Christ is all?
The resolution of this query is therefore necessary, because many there
are who, instead of sucking milk from this doctrine, are ready to suck
poison; but, for prevention of all dangerous and unsafe inferences from
this great truth, consider,
1. Negatively, how Christ is not all.Not so as to excuse us from all
endeavours in the use of means for working out our own salvation.
Christ's sufficiency does not excuse but engage our industry; for thus
the apostle argues: " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do."
(Phil. ii. 12, 13.) As if he had said, It is God [who] does all; therefore do you what you can."
2. Positively or affirmatively, and that in these two respects especially :
(1.) Christ is ALL by way of impetration :Inasmuch as our salvation was his purchase. We may say of our hopes, our helps, our advantages, as the chief priest said of the moneys which Judas had received
for the hire of his perfidionsness: " It is the price of blood." (Matt,
xxvii. 6.) Whence is it that they who have brought themselves under the
deserts of hell, may have hopes of heaven, enjoy the means of heaven,
taste the first-fruits of heaven ? All are the price of Christ's blood. (Eph.
v. 2527 ; Acts xx. 28; John xv. 13.) It was by his own blood that
* Non dint, arum potestis facere; vet, Dfficulter potentis facere; vel, Nthil
potestis perficere; sed, Nihil facere.AITGTJSTINUS in loc. "The Lord says not,
' Without me ye cannot do much ;' neither,1 ' Ye will find great difficulty in doing any
thing;' nor, 'Ye cannot perfect any thing; but He declares, 'Without me ye can do
nothing.'"EDIT.
8KB.MON XXV.
HOW ARK WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
511
he entered into heaven himself, and hath opened the door to heaven for
all that are incorporated into him. (Heb. ix. 11; x. 19, 20.)
(2.) Christ is ALL by way of application:Inasmuch as he brings
home the blessings he hath purchased unto the souls of his. He hath
not only purchased salvation for them, but them for it; not only the
possibility ef heaven, bnt a real propriety [proprietorship] in it; and certainly propriety is absolutely necessary unto the refreshment of every
comfort. " What are all the treasures of either or both the Indies,.to him
who only hears of them?" But mere stories. "What all the glories
of heaven, to him who is thrust from the enjoyment of them?" But
mere torments. There must be a propriety in all spiritual blessings
before they can be refreshing; and this alone from Christ. " I give unto
them eternal life; and they shall never perish." (John x. 28.) " I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye
may be also." (John xiv. 2, 3.) And what is clearly asserted in these
scriptures, is strongly intimated in those emblems by which Christ is
described. What the root is to the tree, the vine to the branches, the
head to the body, all this is Christ to believers; (Col. ii. 7; John xv. 1,
5 ; Eph. i. 22, 23;) namely, not only a treasury of all good, but a fountain continually streaming down all kind of spiritual blessings into their
souls; and though faith be both the eye that discerns, and the hand that
receives, all from Christ's fulness, yet it is he that by his Spirit works
this grace in us. Faith is our act, but it is bis gift: it is we that
believe, but it is Christ [that] enables us to believe; so that both in purchasing and applying salvation " Christ is all." (Gal. v. 22; Eph. ii. 8;
Phil. i. 29.)
III. What advantage is it to believer* to have their ALL in Christ ?
1. Because our salvation could have been in no hand so safef so sure,
as in the hand of Christ.Had it been in our hand by any inherent
righteousness, our sad experience [which] we have had of our own
unfaithfulness, in sinning away that happiness wherein we were created,

may cause us for ever to be jealous of ourselves; but to have it in the
hand of Him who is mighty, to save, even to the utmost, who is so faithful that in all our distresses he is touched with our infirmities; we cannot
be so sensible of our own miseries, but Christ is much more; (Psalm
Ixxxix. 19; Isai. Ixiii. 1; Heb. iv. 15; vii. 25;) and hence it is that as
we have no other Saviour beside him, so is it impossible we should have
any like unto him. (Acts iv. 12.)
2. Because our salvation could have been in no way so comfortable.
Because as God hath the glory of every attribute, so have Christians the
comfort of every attribute in this way of salvation; for as God hath the
glory of his justice from them (in their Head and Surety) to whom in
this way he shows mercy, " mercy and. truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." (Psalm Ixxxv. 10.) Justice
itself, that dreadful attribute to guilty creatures, is in this way of salvation so far from being their enemy, that it becomes their friend, and
speaks nothing but what is to their encouragement. And hence it is
that sincere believers have, from the very justice of God, answered all
512
SERMON XXV.
HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST f
meaner of discouragements arising from their sins. " Who is he thai

condemneth? It is Christ that died ;" (Rom. viii. 34 ;) that is, Since
God hath already received satisfaction from Christ, he cannot in justice
require it from the members of Christ, but is just in the "justifying him
that believeth in Jesus;" (Rom. iii. 26 ;) and " if we confess" and forsake
" our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness." (Prov. xxvih. 13; 1 John i. 9.) Thus hath
the justice of God been their great support in the time of their outward
dangers also: " Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne."
(Psalm Ixxxix. 14.) In a word, this way of salvation (which was the
contrivance of infinite wisdom, and is in itself so mysterious that the
angels delight to look into it) does so fully correspond with the condition
of poor, weak, sinful, mutable creatures, that it lays a double obligation
of praise upon us, that salvation is possible, and that the way of salvation
is so complete and full.
The doctrinal part of this observation being thus cleared, one word by
way of application.
USES.
USE i. If Christ be ALL, then is there no ground of despondency
either from your own de/ectiveness, or the defectiveness of all creature-
helps.Your duties are defective; your endeavours defective; your very

righteousness unsafe to confide in. (Phil. iii. 9.) But though you have
nothing in yourselves, yet if you have an interest' in Christ, you need
nothing more, because in Christ you have ALL.
1. You have the sum of all.Though you have not estates, friends,
worldly comforts; yet in Christ yon have what does more than make up
the want of all these. We may he as impatiently desirous of this and
that earthly comfort, as Rachel was of children, whom we find quarrelling
with Jacob, " Give me children, or else I die." (Gen. xxx. I.) But what
Elkanah said to Hannah in the like condition, " Am not I better to thee
than ten sons?" (1 Sam. i. 8;) the same we may say much more to
persons interested in Christ: " Is not Christ better to you than all ?"
The absence of the cistern may well be dispensed with by him who lives
at the fountain ; and the light of a candle, by him who enjoys the sun.
All those seeming contradictions, which so frequently occur in scripture,
can no other ways be reconciled but by the acknowledgment of this.
For example: " A father of the fatherless:" (Psalm Ixviii. 5 :) how can
they be fatherless who have a father ? Thus we read of them who were
rich in the midst of poverty, (James ii. 5,) who, "having nothing,
possessed all things ;" joyful in the midet of sorrows ; (2 Cor. vi. 10;)
that is, though they had not these comforts, yet they had an interest in
Him who is infinitely more and better than all those comforts. Nay, as
to inherent righteousness, though you cannot attain a perfection, yet in
Christ is perfection. He is ALL.
2. You have in him the pledge of all.According to the apostle's
argumentation, " How shall he not with him also freely give ns all
things ?" (Rom. viii. 32.) The inference is strong. Had there been any
one mercy that God had thought too great, too much for worthless crea-
SERMON XXV. HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
513
tores, it would certainly hare been this; but since God bath not stuck
at giving bis Son, this instance of God's bounty is so high that it removes
all grounds of questioning his bounty in any thing else. The apostle from
this mercy might very well infer a ceitain subsequence of all other mercies, that might be profitable or beneficial. No ground of despondency,
therefore, unto such as are interested in Christ.
USE ii. What cause have toe to be thankful for Christ!We have
cause to be thankful for the meanest of mercies, inasmuch as we are less
than the least of all; (Gen. xxxii. 10;) much more for this which is the
highest of mercies. The mercies of oar creation, preservation, &c., though
never so many and great, are little in comparison of this. It is mentioned
as an astonishing act of love, that God should " so love the world, as to
give his only Son," &c.; (John iii. 16;) so beyond all comparison, to
beyond all expression. If God hath given you his Son, it is more than
if he had given you a whole world ; because it is in him that God hath
" blessed you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places." (Eph. i. 3.)
USE in. How great i their folly and misery who keep at a dis~
tance from Christ!Our Saviour mentions it as the highest folly in the
Jews, " Ye will not come to me, that ye might have Hie." (John v. 40.)
There is in Christ the life of justification, to free us from that eternal
death to which the law sentences us; the life of eanctification, to free us
from that spiritual death under which our apostasy hath brought us.
There is in him an all-sufficient fulness, for the repairing of all our losses.
And are these mercies not worthy the coming for ? The apostle puts the
very emphasis of the Heathens' misery in this, that they are " without
Christ/' and therefore without hope. (Eph. ii. 12.) And what is their
misery shall any of us make our choice ?
USES OF EXHORTATION.
USE i. Let it be your care that Christ may be ALL to you.It is no

small, nor is it any common, privilege. Many there are who live " without Christ;" (Eph. ii. 12;) others, to whom all that is in Christ is so
far from being to their salvation, that it only aggravates their destruction.
He that is to some the "chief corner-stone," is to others no better than
" a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." (I Peter ii. 6, 8.) This
was prophesied of Christ: " This child is set for the foil and rising again
of many in Israel." (Lute ii. 34.) There is no mercy so eminently good,
but through our corruptions it may become an occasion of evil. Christ
himself, the greatest of mercies that ever God vouchsafed to creatures, is
yet so far from saving some from their sins, that he only increases their
sin. " If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
but now they have no cloak for their sin." (John xv. 22.) Those who
enjoyed the ministry of Christ in his own person, and were not wrought
upon thereby, all their sins would comparatively have been a kind
of innocence, had they not discovered such an height of obstinacy. It
is therefore no common privilege. " But what should we do that it may
be ours?" Take these few directions:
1. Labour to get your judgment settled in the belief of this great
truth, that all things in the world are a very nothing without Christ.-
514
SERMON XXV. HOW ARE WJ2 COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
That you are poor in the midst of worldly riches, and miserable in the
midst of all earthly happiness, while you remain in your estrangements
from Christ; and that, of all kind of poverty and misery, this is the
worst, because it is in those spiritual blessings wherein consists both our
present and future happiness. It is but little those persons understand
of their great concernments, that can, with that Gospel "fool," think
themselves sufficiently provided for in the things of this world, and say
to their souls, as he to his, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for
many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." (Luke xii, 19.)
Dost thou know thou livest in this world upon the very brink of eternity ?
And dost thou know whether there be more than "one step between**
thee and another world? (1 Sam. xx. 3.) And canst thou take up with
any thing on this side Christ ? It is an argument [that] you know but
little of your own concernments. Some of the grosser Platonists thought
the world to he a great animal, and the soul which acted it was God.
Now, if the soul he departed from the body, what is it but a mere carcass
without life ? Christ is the very life and soul of all our comforts; and
without him all our creature-enjoyments are but as so many ciphers
without a figure, which have no significancy in them, but are so many
nothings; nothing in respect of true comfort here, nothing in respect
of your preparations for another world. Labour, therefore, through the
glass both of scripture and experience, to behold all the excellences
of this world as so many bladders filled with wind, and, at best, to be like
Hagar's bottle, which was soon empty, (Gen. xxi. 15,) or as broken
cisterns. Cisterns, and therefore cannot hold much; broken cisterns,
and therefore cannot hold what they have long. (Jer. ii. 13.) And
withal, let it be your wisdom to look upon Christ as that everlasting
Fountain of all good which can never be drawn dry ; as that never-failing
Spring of all those blessings which will not only sweeten every condition
here, but go with us beyond death and the grave. Such fixed apprehensions of these things will be singularly useful to engage our souls in
an earnest pursuit after Christ; or, in the Psalmist's words, to " follow
hard after him;" (Psalm Ixiii. 8;) and it is his promise, that they that
come to him, he will in no wise cast out. (John vi. 37.)
2. Be speedy in coating out those inmates which, because they are
unmeet companions for Christ, may hinder his taking possession of your
souls.The ark and Dagon could not stand together in the same room ;
but if the ark stands, Dagon falls. (1 Sam. v. 4.) "Can two walk
together, except they be agreed?" (Amos iii. 3.) Christ and our corruptions are at no agreement: these two cannot dwell together under the
same roof. If you would have Christ to take up his abode in your hearts
you must prepare a place for him. It was said of David, " He would
neither give sleep to bis eyes, nor slumber to his eye-lids, till he had
found out an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob." (Psalm cxxxii. 4,
5.) The souls of most men are so crowded with other guests, that the
best entertainment they can afford Christ is but such as he found in his
first entrance into the world,an out-room, a stable, a manger. But let
it be your care to renounce communion with all things that might hinder
your communion with him, to " forget thine own people, and thy father's
SERMON XXV. BOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?
515
house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty;" (Psalm xlv. 10,
11;) o, not otherwise; he will have no rivals, no competitors; not ft
part of oar heart, bat all.
3. Be witting to accept of Christ upon Kit own term.There can be
no terms hard on which we may gain an interest in him. The great and
main condition is self-denial, together with a fall resignation of ourselves
to him; (Matt. xvi. 24 ;) and self-denial, if duly considered, is the greatest self-advantage. (I.) Because he calls us not to deny ourselves jn
any thing that is truly for our spiritual good, or at least so far as it is
for our good. (2.) Though he calls us to deny ourselves in many outward good things, yet it is not so much to part with them, as to exchange
them for what is better. (3.) The main objects of self-denial are those
things which it is our privilege to be freed from; no reason, therefore,
to be offended at such terms as these, to resign up our mistaken judgments to the guidance of Infinite Wisdom, our corrupt wills to his most
holy and gracious will, to be in all things at the command of Him whose
commands are in nothing grievous, but in all things truth and righteousness. (1 John v. is; Psalm cxix. 151, 172.) Be therefore as willing to
be his, as you are desirous he should be yours the consent must be
mutual, or else the match can never be made up betwixt Christ and your
souls.
4. Measure all things by their reference unto Christ.Of all good
things, account them the best which may promote your endeavours after
that good which is the highest; as ordinances, the means of grace, which
at how high a rate they are valued by David, may appear from his patheticaland most affectionate desires of waiting upon God in them. (Psalin xxvii.
4 ; xlii. 1, 2; Ixiii. 1, 2.) Of all evil things, account them the worst
which estrange you from Christ, the truest good; and therefore let
your only impatience be of sin, as that which only " separates between
you and your God/' (Isni. lix. 2.) The observation of this rule will
very much secure you from all diversions, and quicken you in your
endeavours after an interest in Christ.
USE ii. Be tenon in resolving thit great question,whether Christ,
who is ALL to sincere Christians, be ALL to you.It is a question of that
importance, that all your comfort depends upon the resolution of it, yea,
all your hopes. Take these two characters:
1. Are you conformable unto Christ?Is the same mind in you that
was in him ? (Bom. viii. 9; Phil. ii. 5.) Are you holy, and humble,
and self-denying, and in all things followers of that pattern which he
hath set before you in his own example ? " He that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. vi. 17.) "Old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor. v. 17.) Causes are best
known by their effects, trees by their fruits, fountains by their streams;
so is our interest in Christ by this effect thereof, our conformity unto
Christ.
2. Are you ALL to him ?It is but a just retaliation in Christians to
be so, and it is withal an evidence that " Christ is all" to them.
(1.) Are you ALL to him in your affections, in prizing him above all?
Can you, with the spouse, esteem the love of Christ " better than wine;"
!6
SKRMON XXV.
(Canticles i. 2;) with David, "better than life?" (Psalm Ixiii. 3.) Can
yon, in the midst of all your creature-comforts, account all as nothing in
comparison of him ? and say, with Aeaph, " Whom have I in heaven but
thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee ? " (Psalm
Ixxiii. 25.) So high were Moses's affections, that he esteems "the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." (Heb.
zi. 26.) And, indeed, if Christ be but an underling in our affections, it is
an argument we have no part in him. " He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt, x. 37.) The affections are
the truest pulse of the soul, the most genuine and natural symptoms
of its frame and temper. It is these that speak the proper idiom and
language of the heart. Make use of this rule therefore,Is Christ
uppermost in thy heart? Thy affection to him is an evidence of his
to thee.
(2.) Are yon ALL to him in your acknowledgments, in ascribing all to
him ? Thus St. Paul: " By the grace of God I am what I am." (1 Cor.
zv. 10.) That my condition is not better, it is from myself; that it is so
good, it is from him. (Eph. v. 20.)
(3.) Are you ALL to him in your contentment and satisfaction,
accounting you have all in him, though you have nothing beside him ?
"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in
the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shnll be no
herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God
of my salvation." (Hab. Hi. 17, 18.)
(4.) Are you ALL to him in your dependences and expectations, in
seeking all from him? The highest condition of grace needs farther
grace; but in Christ are all supplies. It is an argument of our interest
in him, when in all distresses we make him our refuge, in all weaknesses
our strength.
(5.) Are you ALL to him in your designs and aims, in seeking his
glory, beyond your private advantages ? This was St. Paul's design in
life and death, that Christ might be magnified ; (Phil. i. 20;) and if you
be thus all to Christ, it is an evidence " Christ is all" to you. And
how well are they provided for, who have Him who is all for their
portion I
SERMON XXVI. BOW SHALL MERCHANTS IN FOREIGN PARTS, &C. 517
SERMON XXVI.
BY THE EEV. JOHN JACKSON, A.M.,
OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
HOW SHALL THOSE MERCHANTS KEEP UP THE LIFE OF RELIGION,

WHO, WHILE AT HOME, ENJOYED ALL GOSPEL-ORDINANCES,
AND, WHEN ABROAD, ARE NOT ONLY DESTITUTE OF THEM, BUT
EXPOSED TO PERSECUTION?
Woe it me, that I sojourn in Meeech, that I dwell in the tent ofKedctr I
Psalm cxx. 5.
THIS Psalm is the first of those fifteen which are called "Songs
of Degrees," concerning which the conjectures of interpreters are various
and uncertain; either because they were sung by the Jews at their
several stages, in their return from the Babylonish captivity, or by the
Levites on the fifteen steps or stairs, whereby they went up to the house
of the Lord; or because they raised up their voices to a high strain in
singing them ; or because they are psalms of greatest use and excellency.
The psalm is generally thought to be composed upon occasion
of David's flying from Saul, and Doeg's false accusation of him;
(1 Sam. xxii. 23;) and it consists of three general parts:
1. David's carriage towards God in the time of his distress: " In my
distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me. Deliver my soul,
Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue." (Psalm cxx. 1, 2.)
2. David's denouncing of judgment against his slanderous, falsetongued enemy: " What shall be given ?" intimating that he expected
some great reward for his malice against David; but, saith the Psalmist,
he shall have " sharp arrows of the Almighty, with coals of juniper;"
(verses 3, 4;) as if he had said, " Whatever reward he have from men,
this shall be bis reward from God."
3. David's bewailing his present condition. (Verses 57.) The words
of the text are a branch of the third general part of the psalm ; wherein
we have David sadly breathing forth the sorrow of his heart for his
absence from the tabernacle and the company of good men, and his
dwelling among, and converse with, evil and wicked men: " Woe is
me," &c.
By " sojourning," I suppose, is implied his absence from some desired
habitation, namely, Jerusalem, and the tabernacle; for no man is said to
sojourn at home, and when he is where he would be. (Psalm xxxix. 12;
cv. 23; Heb. xi. 9.)
The word " Mesech " is taken by expositors, either, 1. For a place, as
our translation carries it from the Chaldee paraphrase, which is the first
of the ancient versions that so understand it; or, 2. For an expression
of the prolonging of his sojourning; for so the word "jffitt signifies " to
518
SERMON XXVI.
HOW SHALL MERCHANTS IN FOREIGN PARTS
draw forth or to prolong ;"* and thus the Septuagint render this place,
6\ whom the Arabic, Syriac, and Vulgar
Latin versions follow, with some others; and the next verse seems to
favour this sense: " My soul hath long dwelt," &c. (Psalm cxx. 6.) Uut
either way gives as the same ground of complaint; only the first sense
doubles the ground of the Psalmist's trouble, and the other suggests the
circumstance of the long continuance of his sojourning.
By " Kedar" is understood part of Arabia; the inhabitants whereof are called , or, "dwellers in tents," because they had no fixed
and settled habitation, but were robber, and lived upon the prey.J
Now, we are not to suppose that David did really sojourn and dwell
among these barbarous people; but he speaks this of his wandering
about from place to place without any settled habitation; and to sot
forth the cruelty and inhumanity of those among whom he dwelt, he
doth express it thus: " Woe is me, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!"
as if one living among professed Christians, who deal with him more like
savages than Christians, should say, " Woe is me, that I sojourn among
Turks and Saracens !" And thus you see David's present condition
which he bewails, is hie absence from Jerusalem and the tabernacle, or
place of God's solemn worship, and his converse with wicked and ungodly
men: and then these two truths lie plain before us in the words:
DOCTRINES.
I. It is oftentimes the lot and portion of good men to be deprived

of the society of the godly, and of opportunities of public serving God,
and to dwell among, and converse with, wicked and ungodly persons.
II. It is a real ground of trouble and sorrow to a good man to be
thus deprived, fyc.
It was that which here made David proclaim himself in A state
of woe and misery; it was that which the apostle tells us did vex
the righteous soul of Lot, (2 Peter ii. 7 8,) and which made the holy
prophet Elijah even weary of his life. (1 Rings xix. 4.) You may
easily imagine what a sad heart a poor lamb might well have, if it be
driven from the green pastures and still waters, and forced to lodge
among wolves and foxes, where it must feed upon carrion or starve,
and be continually in danger of being lodged in the bellies of its cruel
and bloody companions, unless some secret over-ruling hand do restrain
their rage, and feed it with wholesome food. And truly such is the
condition of those that follow the Lamb of God in holy, lamb-like
qualities, when deprived of green pastures and still waters of gospelordinances, and forced to converse with wicked and ungodly men.
In handling of this point I shall first lay before you the grounds
of it, and then adjoin such practical application as may be useful and
profitable.
*"' etttraJuire,lMA.xiiL22. ^to'^l *> ' Diesejusnantrahentur{that
is, non prorogabuntur.BOCHAHTI Geographia Sacra, pars L lib. iii. c. xii. p. 209.
" Meshek signifies ' to draw out, to prolong;' and it is thus rendered in Isai. xiiL 22:
' And her days shall not be prolonged;' that is, shall not be deferred or protracted."
EDIT.
{ "Alas for me, that my sojourning has been prolonged."EDIT.
J BOCHARTUS, ut supra.
KEEP UP RELIGION WITHOUT PUBLIC ORDINANCES?
519
The GROUNDS of this truth do partly refer to God, partly to wicked

men, and partly to the godly themselves; if in such a condition a
believing soul either look upwards, or outwards or inwards, he will see
much cause of grief and trouble.
1. With reference unto God ; and that upon a double account:
(1.) It is a real ground of sorrow to a believing soul to be deprived

of occasions of solemn blessing and praising God.The soul that is full
of the sense of the goodness of God, that knows how many thousand
ways the Lord is continually obliging it to lore and bless him, cannot
but be afflicted in spirit to be kept from making its public acknowledgments of divine goodness. The Psalmist tells us, that " praise waiteth
for God in Sion;" (Psalm Ixv. 1;) that is, in the public assemblies
of the church; and truly it is a grief to a believing soul, not to wait
there with his thank-offerings, not to pay his " TOWS unto the Lord in
the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord's house," &c.;
(Psalm cxvi. 18, 19;) not to declare to all that fear God what he hath
done for their souls. (Psalm Ixvi. 16.)
(2.) It is real ground of sorrow to live among those that are con
tinuatty reproaching and blaspheming the name of God.To see sinners
despise the goodness of God, and trample upon his grace and mercy, and
scorn his love and kinduess, and kick at his bowels, and spit in his
face, and stab at his heart, who is our God, our Father, our Friend, our
good and gracious Lord and King ;this must needs make the believing
eoul cry out, "Woe is me, that I live among such!"
Let us suppose a person that hath been hugely obliged by a prince to
love him, and that indeed loves him as his life ; if this prince should be
driven from his throne, and an usurper get into his place, would it not
be a great affliction, and saddening to the spirit of such a person, to live
among those who every day revile, reproach, scorn, and abuse his
gracious prince ? Why, sirs, if you and I be true believers, we know
that the Lord is our sovereign King and Prince ; such a one who hath
infinitely more obliged us to love him, than it is possible for any prince
to oblige a subject; and we do love the Lord as our lives, nay, better
than our lives, or else we love him not at all; and must it not then
be matter of grief to hear ungodly sinners, who have driven God
away from their hearts and souls, where his throne should be set up,
and who have let that grand usurper the devil set up his throne
within them, and among them, and who daily say unto God, as those
wicked ones, " Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy
ways;" (Job zxi. 14;) to hear such curse and swear and blaspheme
God, and in their lives by wicked, ungodly courses do him all the despite
and dishonour that they can ; bring'his name to the tavern, to the stews,
upon the stage, and there soot and defile the great and glorious name
of God with the worst of pollutions ? Certainly, sirs, he cannot account
God his Frieud, his Father, his good and gracious Prince, whose eye
doth not run down with rivers of tears to see men so far from keeping
God's law.
2. It is a trouble to good men to sojourn, fyc., with reference to those
wicked, ungodly persons among whom they live.It grieves their souls to
520
SERMON XXVI,
see sinners "run into all excess of riot/' eagerly pursuing hell and
damnation, greedily guzzling down full draughts of the venom of asps,
and the poison of dragons. It pities them to see sinners stab themselves
to the heart, and laughing at their own plague-sores, jesting away God,
and heaven, and eternal happiness. If any of us should see a company
of men so far besotted and distracted, as that one should rend and burn
the evidences of a great inheritance, which others labour to deprive him
of, another should cast inestimable pearls and jewels into the sea, another
eagerly drinking down that which you knew to be the juice of toada
and spiders, or hugging a viper and scorpion in hie bosom, another stabbing himself in the breast, another laughing at and licking his own
plague-sores; and all of them reviling, cursing, striking, spitting, in
the face, and stabbing at the heart, of those that any ways endeavour
to hinder them from destroying themselves, or that will not do as they
do, and be as mad as themselves; should we not pity them, and with
grief of heart say, "Woe is me, that I live among such?"
Why, sirs, he that hath had any serious thoughts of eternity, that
hnth soberly considered the worth of an immortal soul, that believes the
holiness, justice, and power of God, that understands the evil of sin,
what a plague, what a venom, what a dagger at the sinner's own heart
sin ie,he cannot but see and know that every ungodly, profane sinner
is much more an object of highest compassion than any I have now
mentioned, and therefore cannot but cry out, " Woe is me," &c.
3. It is a trouble to good men to sojourn, fyc., with reference to
themselves, and their own concernments.Because they are sensible
that such a condition lays them open to a great deal of danger; and
that,
(1.) In regard of their graces.For, the want of the society of good
men, and the ordinances of the gospel, is like the want of dew and rain
to the grass, or food to the body; and therefore those who have tasted
of the sweetness and fatness, and know what a blessedness it is to be
satisfied with the goodness of God's house, (Psalm xxxvi. 8; Ixv. 4,)
cannot but mourn over the want of gospel-ordinances; as the presence
of the sun-beams makes the flowers to be fresh and beautiful, and yield a
fragrant smell; whereas the want thereof makes them look pale and
wan, and hang the head ; even so the enjoyment of good society and
gospel-ordinances makes the graces of a believer amiable and lovely, and
give forth their pleasant smell; the want of which makes them very
much to droop and languish.
And then, on the other side, the society of wicked men, the venom
and poison of an evil example, the alluring flatteries of the world on one
hand, and its frowns and threatening^ on the other hand, are of great
force to nip and blast, to dead and dull, the graces of good men.
And therefore he who knows the worth and value of true grace, that
accounts it his riches, his treasure, his jewel, his life, (Luke xii. 21,)
and is sensible how much depends upon the life and vigour of grace and
religion in his soul, and understands how destructive the want of gospelordinances and the company of evil men are to his graces, may well
cry out, " Woe is me, that I sojouru in Mesecli," &c.
521
(2.) In regard of their person*, and the concernments of this l\fe.

The enmity that is in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the
woman, doth not only put forth itself in endeavours to ruin or weaken
their graces, but also to destroy their persons. Wicked men's malice
against that spiritual life of grace in good men which themselves do not
partake of, doth soon improve into malice also against that natural,
human life which themselves are also partakers of. Their desires to
suck the blood, as I may so say, of good men's souls and graces makes
them delight to suck the blood of their bodies. Witness Cain, the first
that learnt this bloody trade by killing his brother, for no other cause
but "because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous."
(I John iii. 12.) Witness also Ahab and Jezebel, Manasseh, &c. But
the foul-mouthed witness to this black and sad truth is the scarlet,
bloody whore of Babylon, who is " drunken with the blood of the saints,
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus;" (Rev. zvii. 6;) and
therefore, in God's due time, she shall have blood to drink. Those,
therefore, who understand what a hellish fire of rage is in the hearts
of wicked men, how great their malice is against goodness and good
men, and what combustible matter our life and the comforts of this life
be, so far as they value these mercies, have reason, with David, to cry
out, " Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech," &c.
And now the woful condition of those that are deprived of gospelordinances, and sojourn where heavenly manna doth not fall, and who
dwell among and converse with wicked and ungodly men, as it calls
upon us to bless God when it is not so with us, and to pity and pray for
those who have reason to take up such a complaint, as David here doth;
so also to bethink ourselves what we ought to do if the case were ours:
for, yon know, the life of a Christian is very oft, and very fitly, in scrip
ture compared to a warfare; and surely he is but a mean soldier, and
never like to come off with victory and triumph, who doth not prepare
himself for all kind of assaults, and doth not labour to fortify every
passage whereat he may be stormed; and therefore it is good for us
to make the condition of others our own; so that this question, or
practical case of conscience, will offer itself to our consideration:
How ekall those merchants and others keep up the life of religion who,
while they were at home, enjoyed all gospel-ordinances, but, being abroad,
are not only deprived of them, but liable to the Inquisition, and other
ways of persecution for their religion ?
Before I answer the case, I shall a little open it, and lay down some
preparatory propositions for the right understanding of it, and then
direct our practice.
By religion we do not understand any outward way or form, any
pomp and gaieties in worshipping God; but such a due sense of our
dependence upon a good and gracious, almighty, holy God for our being
and well-being, both in time and to eternity, as doth powerfully engage
the soul heartily to love God, and sincerely to serve him, in obeying his
good and holy commands made known to us.
By the life of reHgion we may understand, either, 1. The truth and
reality of it in the soul, in opposition to a soul dead in sin; or, 2. The
522
8ERMON XXVI.
BOW SHALL MERCHANTS IN FOREIGN PARTS
vigour, activity, and liveliness of religion, in opposition to a dead, dull,

languid principle; and both may be well included in the question; for
as we are all concerned to endeavour, by all fit and lawful means, not
only to have our bodies kept from rotting and putrefying by " the salt
of a living soul,"* but to have them active and vigorous, fit for the
employments of a natural life, and not stupified with lethargies and
benumbing palsies; even so we ought to endeavour, not only that our
souls may be quickened with a true principle of religion, but that we
may have such a lively, vigorous, and influencing sense of divine goodness upon them, that our religion may not be a dull, languid, lethargic
principle, but may render us fit and prompt for all the actions of a
spiritual life. And now, this life of religion the case supposeth the
person to have who needs advice; and then you will quickly perceive
that there be two things in danger :
1. The life of religion in a religious person.
2. The life of a religious person; and so the case doth resolve
itself into these two queries:
I. What should believing Christian do to support the life and vigour
of religion in their souls, when they want the ordinary means of public
ordinances, and are endangered by the leavening society of wicked men ?
II. How should they preserve their lives among persecuting enemies
without hazarding the life of their religion ?
For the clearing of and directing in this case, I shall now premise
some propositions fit to be taken notice of.
PROPOSITION i. It cannot be expected, that any rule should Be given,
according to scripture, whereby both the one and the other life may be
certainly secured.For many times God's providence brings us into
such circumstances, that, if we are resolved that, come what will, we
will keep our religion, we must lose our lives; and if we are resolved to
keep our lives, though with the hazard or shipwreck of our religion, we
must then part with our religion, and perhaps our lives too.
PROP. ii. There can be no certain and infallible course propounded
whereby the life of the body may be secured with the loss of religion.
Though [the] devil and [the] world bid fair, and promise we shall live
and do well if we will part with our religion; yet they are not able,
if willing, to make good their promise, so long as there be so many
thousand ways to death beside martyrdom; and this is the purport
of that threatening expression: " Whosoever will save his life shall
lose it," (Matt. xvi. 25,) not only that eternal life which is the only
true life, but even this temporal life: as many relations tell us.
PROP. in. The life of religion in the soul is that which, by God's
blessing and our spiritual care and industry, may be infallibly secured in
any place, among any persons, in any condition.I do not say, the
outward exercise of religion, but that which is the life and principle
of religion in the soul, may be preserved. Force and violence may deprive
those that are religious of opportunities to meet together, and pour forth
their common prayers and supplications to God, and publicly sing forth
the praises of God, and hear the great truths of the gospel preached
* Salillum aninue.PLAUTI Trinummus, actus ii. seen. iv. 91.
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523
unto then; nay, they may be hindered from speaking with their
months, either to God or for God; as many of the martyrs have been
gagged. But all the force and violence in the world cannot take away
that which is the principle and life of religion, (unless we ourselves
betray and cast it from us,) nor can they hinder the prime and principal
acts and exercises of religion. All the world cannot hinder yon or me
from haying good thoughts of God; from sanctifying the Lord God in
our hearts; from trusting in, hoping in, rejoicing in, the goodness and
mercy of God through Jeans Christ; from making holy melody in our
hearts, and such music as shall be heard beyond the spheres, though he
that stands at our elbow knows not a word we speak: so that true
religion, both in the principle and prime exercises of it, may be infallibly secured; insomuch that he who can rend the heart out of the body
cannot tear religion out of the soul.
PROP. iv. His soul cannot be quickened with the life of the religion of the
Gospel, who is not in heart persuaded, that the securing of the life of religion
in his soul is hugely more his concernment than the preserving of the life
of the body.Yea, his religion is built on a sandy foundation, who hath
not seriously considered, that, for aught he knows, his religion may cost
him his life; and hath not brought his soul to an humble resolution to
lay down his life, rather than let go his religion: thus much it clearly
imported in that passage: " Which of you, intending to build a tower,
sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost?" &c. (Luke xiv. 28, &c.)
PROP. v. The society of good men, and enjoyment of gospel-ordinances,
are of special use to preserve, quicken, and enliven the principle of religion
in the soul.They are to religion in the soul, what food is to the natural
life of the body; and therefore the ordinances in the church are compared
to " breasts of consolation." (Isai. Ixvi. 11.) The great design of God iu
appointing gospel-ordinances is, that, by the help and assistance of those
gifts and graces which he bestows upon his ministers, the souls of those
who are estranged from him should be brought home to the owning
and acknowledging of the truth; and that those who have returned to
the Lord should be more and more affected with a sense of divine
goodness, and their dependence on the Lord for all they have and hope
for; and, indeed, if preaching, and reading, and praying, and every other
ordinance, both in public and in private, do not aim at and intend this
great end,the begetting or actuating and stirring up the life of religion
in our souls, then are they, what some would fain persuade us, vain,
useless, troublesome things. If thy coming to church to hear a prayer, or
a sermon, be not by thee designed, and do not in the event tend, to make
thee better, to love God more, loath sin more, and value the world less,
and resolve more heartily to obey the gospel, thou badst as good have
been in thy bed or shop as in the church; and if, in preaching and
praying, we that are God's mouth to you, and your mouth to God, have
any other design than to stir up in your souls good thoughts of God,
affectionate workings of heart towards a loving, tender-hearted Father,
zealous and hungering desires to do the will of God, and express our
love by obeying his commandments, I seriously profess should think
myself much better employed to be working in a cobbler's stall, or raking
524
SERMON XXIV.
in the kennel, or filling a dung-cart, than preaching or praying in a pulpit.

And let those who do not intend these great ends know, that, ere long,
they will find they had better hare been employed in the most debasing
drudgery, than in the outward work of God with sinister and unworthy
ends.
These things premised, the case resolves itself into these particular
questions:
I. What should believing Christiana do to support the life of religion
in their souls, when they want the ordinary food of public gospelordinances ?
II. What should such do to preserve their outward concernments
among persecuting enemies, without hazarding their religion ?
QUESTION I.
In answer to the first question take these directions:

1. Let such humbly rejlect upon their former slighting, despising, and
abusing the means of grace which now they want.It is the usual method
of God to teach us the worth of mercies, either temporal or spiritual, by
the want of them, and to bring us to want those mercies which we abuse.
If the child play with or throw about his meat, he may well think a wise
and loving father will make him feel the want of it, and thereby know the
worth of it; and certainly we have as much reason to fear the fulfilling
of those threatenings which the ministers of the gospel have for many
years sounded in our ears, for our abuse of the means of grace; and certainly, if God's providence should call the most of us into Spain, or some
other Popish country, where we should have " a famine of hearing the
word of the Lord," might we not sadly reflect upon our despising, yea,
and loathing, the heavenly manna of God's word ? I speak not of the
profane, ungodly wretches, who scarce ever had any serious thought
of eternity, nor ever soberly considered whether they were at all beholden
unto God or no, that never knew how to value a Bible above a play-book*
or the sacrament above a drunken meeting; whose religion is to scoff and
mock at godliness and godly men, and who scarce ever knew any other
end in coming to church but to mock or carp at the preacher; who may
with trembling read their doom, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. But I speak of the
professors of religion; how have they, either by reason of new-fangled
opinions, slighted and despised gospel-ordinances!or else, by reason
of fulness of spiritual food, have loathed and trampled upon the means
of grace! to whom the Lord seems to speak, as to those, Bzek. xxxiv.
18, 19: " Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good
pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your
pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the
residue with your feet ? And as for my flock, they eat that which ye
have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled
with your feet;"or else, having enjoyed them, and made use of them
have been little the better by them; have not lived and practised the
sermons they have heard, and the prayers they have made! let such
be sure, in the first place, to give glory to God when he deprives them
of such means, by acknowledging his justice in taking away what hath
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525
been so much abused, or at beet so little improved; then let them, with
broken and bleeding hearts, reflect upon those full banquets of spiritual
dainties, the fragments of which in a time of want they would be glad of.
2. Heartily resolve, if ever the Lord bring you again to enjoy gospelordinances, you will more value, prize, and improve them.And, indeed,
that alone which can make our repentings and sad reflections upon former
miscarriages not to be mocking of God, and cozening ourselves, must
be a hearty resolution against what we profess to be sorry for; and,
therefore, that our resolution in such a case may be the more fixed, it
would be good to record it in our note-books, that so it may be a continual monitor on all occasions, minding us of our duty, and checking
us, if afterwards we prove like the Israelites, who soon forgat the Lord.
(Psalm cvi. 13.) And the truth is, a Christian's note-book is usually a
more faithful register than his heart; and it is easier for the devil to
blot a good resolution out of our minds than out of our books.
3. Labour to know, and understand well, and often remember, wherein
consists the life of true and real' religion.There be so many things in
the world that pretend to be religion, and less deserve that name than the
picture of a man deserves the name of a man, that it is an easy mistake
to nourish an enemy to religion instead of religion, unless we be serious
and wary, and more apt to regard the characters which the scriptures
give of real religion, than hasty to take up the forms and fancies of men
instead of religion. I have read of a yonng French lady, who, observing
the glorious pomp and splendour of a Popish procession, cried out,
" How fine a religion is ours in comparison of the Huguenots!" a speech
suiting her age and quality; but, indeed, if religion did consist in such
things, the question I have in hand would fall to the ground; for there
could then be no exercise of religion among those who would not admit
of such pompous solemnities. Let us therefore be often remembering,
that the religion of the gospel consists in "righteousness, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost;" (Rom. xiv. 17;) in "denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts," and living " soberly, righteously, and godly, in this
present world," and so " looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;" (Titus ii.
12, 13;) in "visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
keeping ourselves unspotted from the world." (James i. 27.) He that
hath a precious jewel which he would secure, must be able to distinguish
it well from a counterfeit stone; lest he neglect his jewel, and spend
his care and pains upon a glittering glass foisted into the room of it.
4. In all your actions, be often fixing your eye upon your great end.
Be often asking yourselves, " What is the work and business for which
God sent me into the world?" which lies in three words: (1.) Honour
God. (2.) Save your souls. (3.) Do good to others. Be often minding yourselves, that you have a better trade to drive than for the corruptible riches of this world, even for the " pearl of great price," the eternal
happiness of your souls. Religion is the way to heaven; and he that
doth not often eye his journey's end, and consider whether the way he
takes do lead unto his end, is never like to keep long in the right way.
But now he that often with seriousness considers with himself, that the
526
SERMON XXVI.
BOW SHALL MERCHANTS IN FOREIGN PARTS
God who made him expects to be honoured by him ; that the securing his
soul's welfare is bis grand concernment; and that to save the soul of one
sinner is a greater good than to save a country from drowning, or a city
from burning; and therefore on all occasions asks himself, " How may
I manage such a business so as to honour God, and promote the good
of mine own and other men's souls ? How may I prosecute such an
affair without prejudicing the grand design of my life?" this man is
like to secure religion in his soul.
5. Live up to the prof eased principles of your religion.And believe it
to be a greater glory to God, honour to your religion, and security to
your own souls, to live according to, than to argue and dispute for, your
religion; for most certain it is that self-love, worldly interest, pride,
passion, &c., may urge men to argue eagerly for the Christian or Protestant religion; whereas nothing but love to God, and care of our own
souls, and charity to the souls of others, can make a man live according
to the principles of that religion. And as it is with the principle
of natural'life, it is not made more lively, active, and vigorous by arguing
and disputing wherein it doth consist, and what are the proper acts of it,
but by putting it forth in the due acts and exercises of that life; even so
the principle of spiritual life in the soul gets no strength by zealous and
hot disputing, what and which is the true religion ? and which be true
and proper acts of religion.? but by humble practice of what we know to
be religion: not but that it is both lawful and commendable to be able
to understand and defend the grounds and principles of our religion, and
all the holy exercises of it; but I only caution against letting that sap
run out in unfruitful suckeru, which should nourish the fruit-bearing
branches.
6. Be the more careful to observe and close with the inward stirrings
of God's Spirit in your hearts, moving you to prayer, meditation, fyc.
When you are in " a valley of vision," you will have many calls and
motions from without to hear the word, and pray, and receive the sacrament ; but when you are abroad in " a land of darkness," God must not
only be your best, but your only, Friend, by his Spirit, to jog and stir you
up to holy duties; and therefore it doth more than ordinarily concern us,
at such a time, not to send away God's Spirit grieved with our backwardness to that which is our own concernment.
7. Observe and keep a register or diary of God's mercies and your own
sins.That you may be often minded what God hath been to you, and
what you have beeii to him; with how many thousand kindnesses he hath
obliged you, and with how many thousand sins you have disobliged him.
When, we enjoy public ordinances, we may there be often minded both
of God's goodness to us and our sinfulness against him; and so may
have our hearts stirred up to have very good thoughts of God, and very
low thoughts of ourselves. But when we want public ordinances, we
should labour to supply that want by a more strict observation and
recording both [of] the one and the other, that, by reviewing our register,
we may be enabled to affect our souls suitably, either to praise the Lord,
or abase ourselves.
8. Lay a charge upon yourselves to sleep and awake with the thoughts
KBKP UP RELIGION WITHOUT PUBLIC ORDINANCES?
527
of God and eternity upon your souls.And indeed though this ie exceed
ing useful for all men, yet most of all for those who are deprived
of ordinances. It is sure that the same truths which at first work upon
the soul to the begetting [of] grace, are of force afterwards to quicken
grace, and make it lively and vigorous in the soul. And certainly the
belief of what God ie in himself and to us, and the thoughts of eternity,
have a great force to persuade careless sinners to sober and serious consideration, the necessary instrument by which grace and a spirit of true
and real religion are begotten in the soul; and therefore when we want
those public ordinances which might be often presenting these great
truths to our souls, it will be of great use to charge ourselves more
severely with the daily serious thoughts of them.
9. Take heed (as for your life) of indulging any secret tin.For that
will keep down the life of religion in the midst of all ordinances, and
therefore much more in the want of them. A secret disease in the body
which spends upon the stock of the radical moisture, will keep a man
from being lively and vigorous, though he have plenty of very good
nourishing food ; much more will it endanger one in a famine: even so a
secret sin lodged within, and indulged, will weaken and enervate the principle of religion in the soul amidst the fullest provision of gospelordinances, much more when there is a famine or scarcity of the bread
of life. A tradesman that hath some secret vent, where his estate runs
waste, may prove a beggar in the midst of daily incomes by a good trade;
much more if he spends upon a dead stock: and so a man who spends
the strength of 'his soul in some close and secret sin, may prove a
spiritual beggar in the fullest trade of gospel-ordinances, and though he
have daily incomes of convictions, informations, reproofs, counsels,
solicitations, &c., from public ordinances, much more in the want of them ;
and therefore they who value the life of religion, or the life of their souls,
must take heed of indulging secret sins.
10. Be the more careful often to feel the pulse of thine own soul.We
use to say, " Every man at a competent age is either a fool or a physician ;" and though he be a fool indeed who, when be needs and may
have wiser physicians, will trust to himself; yet when he cannot have
others, a man should the more study himself, and the oftener try his own
pulse: and truly he is but a babe in spiritual things that is not something
of a physician to himself; and though we should not trust our own skill
or experience, where we need and may have the help of others, yet when
we are deprived of them, we should the more diligently converse with our
own souls, and be the oftener trying how our pulse beats towards God,
and heaven, and the things of another life.
11. Be so much the more in private secret prayer, reading, and meditation.When we want the showers of public ordinances, we should the
more diligently use the watering-pot, and water our souls " with our foot,"
as the phrase is concerning Egypt. (Deut. xi. 10.) If our lot should be
cast where there be no public markets where corn might be bought, every
one would plough and sow, reap and thrash, in his own grounds: even so,
if we should live where there be no public gospel-ordinances, where the truths
of the gospel are not publicly to be had, where we cannot partake of the
528
SERMON XXVI.
labours of the gospel-ministry, then it would concern us to be the more

diligent in ploughing and sowing, in reaping and thrashing, by our own
private endeavours; and I think it would be fit for us in such a condition
to spend that time at least in private duties, which others spend in superstitious or idolatrous services: let not us think much to give God and our
souls that time which others give to their own superstitious fancies.
12. In the use of all private helps, act faith in God, as being able to
supply the want of outward means by the gracious influence of his good and
Holy Spirit.When there was no rain from heaven, God could cause a
mist to arise and water the earth; (Gen. ii. 6;) even so, if the Lord
should bring us where there be no showers of public ordinances, he can
stir up in our souls those holy and heavenly meditations, which shall
again drop down like a heavenly dew upon the face of our souls, and
keep up a holy verdure and freshness upon the face of our souls. Egypt
is said to have no rain; * but God makes it fruitful by the overflowing
of its own river Nilus. And truly if God bring any true believer into
a spiritual Egypt, where the rain of public ordinances doth not fall, he
can cause such a flow of holy and heavenly thoughts and meditations as
shall make the soul very fruitful in a good and a holy life; and therefore we should oft, in such a condition, believingly remember, that if we
do our endeavour, by private prayer, meditation, reading, and such like,
God is able, and will, in the want of public ordinances, preserve the life
of religion in our souls, by private helps.
QUESTION II.
We proceed now to the question contained in the general case;

namely,
II. What should believing Christians do to preserve their outward
concernments among persecuting enemies, without hazarding their religion ?
Now, this question will resolve itself into two particular queries:
(I.) What should such do to secure themselves from suffering ?
(II.) What should they do to encourage themselves against and support
in suffering ?
(I.) The sum of what may be said to the first query, I suppose to be
comprised in that counsel of our Lord Jesus, who was Wisdom itself, and
Innocency itself: " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of
wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." (Matt.
x. 16.) The serpent's wisdom joined with the dove's iunocency is the true
Christian's best security: to each of which I shall speak something.
1. Get spiritual prudence and wisdom to secure from suffering, where we
have not a clear and sufficient call.The Heathens hinted wisdom as well
as strength to be needful for a soldier, when they appointed the warlike
goddess Pallas to be the patroness of wisdom. A. soldier may and ought
to guard himself, and, by winding and turning his body, avoid the
enemies' blow, so long as he doth not turn his back, forsake the field, or
betray his trust. In like manner may a good soldier of Jesus Christ, by
any lawful means, guard himself from suffering; and by any just compliance, or stepping aside, or giving back, avoid a blow or make a fair retreat,
* Terra turn \nd\ga Join*. " A country which never requites rain."EDIT.
KEEP UP RELIGION WITHOUT PUBLIC OKDIWANCEB?
529
BO long he keep the field, and doth Dot turn hi hack upon nor give
up a good and a just cause for fear of suffering. Hence the apostle advieeth: " Walk in wisdom toward them that are without;" (Col. iv. 0;)
that is, walk as those that have wisely fixed upon a good end, and do use
the most proper and likely mean to attain that end. Now, this general
direction will branch itself forth into these particulars:
(1.) Do not rashly and unnecessarily provoke those that have power to
do you a mischief.It is not wisdom to stir in a wasp's nest, nor by
bloody colours to provoke a wild bull; and certainly our life, and the
comforts and relations in this world, are such real and great blessings,
that they are not to be sacrificed to a humour, nor cast away, but upon
the most serious consideration and real necessity; and certainly, when our
Lord Jesus directed his disciples, if persecuted in one city, to flee to
another, he never intended they should throw themselves into the jaw
of roaring lions, nor provoke bears and tigers to tear them in pieces, nor
leave the quiet habitation of Sion to seek persecution, and court a martyrdom among Pagans and infidels. The holy apostle Paul, who was as willing
to die for the name of Christ as any, and was therefore fay hie love and
zeal urged to go into the theatre at Epbesus; yet he took the prudent
counsel and advice of his friends, not to venture himself, nor by his presence provoke the enraged multitude ; and afterward he made use of his
kinsman's help to secure his life from those who had bound themselves
with an oath to kill him; and at last appeals to Caesar, to avoid the mischief designed against him by the Jews. (Acts xxi. 13 ; xix. 31; xxiii.
16; xxv. 10.) This piece of spiritual prudence caused the primitive
Christians to abstain from profaning the temple of the Heathen, and
reviling their gods; and therefore they chose to discover to them the
vanity of their idolatries from the writings and records Of their own prophets, and with the greatest love and sweetness that could be. Tea, this
was so evident in Paul himself, that the town clerk of Ephesus was able
to be his and his fellow-Christians' compurgator in this matter: " Ye have
brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches," (or, a
the original, -,, " sacrilegious persons,") " nor yet blasphemers
of your goddess;" (Acts xix. 37 ;) and therefore, that which Josephua
account one of Moses's laws, " that none should blaspheme the religion
of another," though it be not a general duty, as appears by Elijah'
mocking and scoffing at the God and religion of Baal's priests, (1 Kings
xviii. 27,) yet it holds good here as a rule of prudence, to avoid needles
provoking of those that are without. And in this case I take this to be
a sure rule:" Whatever act of ours hath rationally a greater likelihood
to provoke, harden, and enrage the hearts of men, rather than to convince
and convert, is a fruit of indiscretion, not of Christian prudence; a piece
of folly, not a part of our duty." It was certainly a favour from God when
he inclined the heart of Trajan to order his proconsul Pliuius Secundus,
desiring to know his pleasure in the case, that " when any were brought
before him, and accused to be Christians, he should punish them according to law, but should not industriously search them out." * If now any
* ConquireneU rum nmt: ti dqferantur et arffitantuft
SJCCUNDUS, lib. x. eput. 98.
puniencR ran/.Puwitri
530
SERMON XXVI.
should have rushed into the judge's presence, and taken the devil's work
out of his hand, (who is the " accuser of the brethren/') it would surely
have been a sinful undervaluing the favour of God in that relaxation
of their persecution. But now this advice must be bounded with a word
of caution ; for as we should take heed lest our zeal degenerate into ambi-
tion, and foolish vain-glory in suffering; so, on the other side, lest our
prudence and Christian wisdom turn to sinful craft and policy, while, to
avoid the stroke of persecution, we take up the devil's buckler of unlawful practices. The apostle Peter was not bound to go into the high
priest's hall, and proclaim himself a disciple of Jesus; but he was obliged
not to deny and forswear it when challenged with it: and so, though I
am not always bound to proclaim my faith and religion, yet am I engaged
never to disown it; and therefore we must take heed of that which Elihu
charged Job with, the choosing iniquity rather than affliction; (Job xxxvi.
21;) and therefore, when fear or covetousness would urge us to sin, rather
than suffer, let us remember, against our fears, that it is a more fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God, than dying men; (Isai. li. 12;)
and, against our earthly desires, let us remember, that if we gain the
whole world, and lose our own souls, we shall be incomparable losers by
the bargain. (Matt. zvi. 26.) On the other side, when ambition, vainglory, or humour would urge us to unnecessary sufferings, let us remember, that God, who is Wisdom itself, " hath no pleasure in fools," (Eccles.
v. 4,) nor delights in those sacrifices which are not presented to him by
prudent consideration and sober resolution, but by the folly of a precipitate zeal; and however, where the henrt is right and full of love, God
may accept of the love, and pardon the weakness, yet he no way delights
in the sufferings which men bring upon themselves unnecessarily, by [a]
rash, imprudent carriage, whereby they betray their lives and liberties to
the lusts and rage of men, and draw-on their enemies to blood and cruelty,
and upbraid the wisdom of those who are not so rash, as being less real
to God and Christ, and make others have hard thoughts of that religion
which cannot consist with prudence and wisdom.
(2.) Be much in the exercise of those acts of true religion which are
beautiful in the eyes of all, even the worst of men.The apostle Peter
intimates the security of an evidently good and holy life: " And who is
he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?"
(1 Peter iii. 13.) The chief pieces of Christian religion are such as
Papists, Turks, and Infidels must needs acknowledge to be good: "To
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction;" to "wrong no
man;" to "do to others whatever we would that others should do to
us." Now, when we cannot without danger exercise some other, perhaps more questionable, parts of Christian religion, then it is good to be
so much the more in the practice of these undoubted pieces of a Christian life; and zeal in these things will force those without to approve:
whereas zeal in arguing for or in practising other things may cause them
to hate and persecute us : zeal in arguing and disputing brings on evil
words and evil actions; but zeal in the practice of unquestionable duties
produceth good deeds in ourselves, and forceth good thoughts and good
words, if not good deeds, from others. In a word, hot disputing and
531
cold living, or zeal in smaller and lukewarmness in greater matters, is

the ruin of grace in ourselves, the confirming of sin in others, and the
needless hazarding our outward concernments, and betraying them rashly
to the violence of wicked and ungodly men.
(3.) In your converse with those who are without, choose mostly to
insist upon common and acknowledged principles, rather than controverted
points.If I were to live among, and converse with, Papists, I would
choose much rather to urge them to abstain from lying, drunkenness,
malice, &c., and to have good thoughts of God, to have a continual sense
of their dependence upon him, and therefore continually to recommend
themselves unto him by holy prayer, to be meek and patient, and charitable ; rather than to dispute how many sacraments there be, or how the
bread and the wine are the body and blood of Christ: for good counsel
and sober exhortations speak love to men's souls; whereas disputes and
arguings are usually thought to proceed only from love to our own
notions, and a desire to oppose others; and, indeed, if men did not place
too much of their religion in opposing others, they might much more
safely, and much more profitably, converse with those of different
opinions, yea, of different religions.
(4.) When you do touch upon controverted points, rather inquire and
propound, than positively assert and violently oppose.Though I judge
the mass of Rome, as by them used, to be a piece of as gross idolatry as
the world can show, yet were I to converse among Papists, I would not
fall foul upon them as the grossest idolaters; but, as more desiring truth
should be honoured than they reproached, I would calmly and meekly
propound my reasons as grounds of doubting, rather than clear demonstrations : for, sure it is, that a sudden and violent assault will cause an
adversary to gather up his strength, as violently to oppose; whereas a
calm propounding of reasons or doubts may work him to a serious consideration, which is the first step to the discovery of error and acknowledging of truth; for the one kindles a desire of knowing, the other a
desire of opposing, yea, of persecuting.
(5.) When you think yourselves bound to reprove the sine of others, let
it be done with a due consideration of the circumstances of time, place,
and persons.And, indeed, there is scarce any part of a Christian's
converse with others that more requires prudence and wisdom than that
of reproving others ; and great care is to be had that a reproof may at the
least be well taken, if not hearkened to, and that it may do the reprover
no hurt, if it do the reproved no good.
(6.) On all occasions express a willingness to do for the best; to believe
as others believe, and to do as others do, if you could see sufficient ground
and reason for it.And, indeed, this may be a great help and security ;
for obstinacy is usually made one essential part of a heretic; and then
he that is heartily willing to close with every revealed truth may be in an
error, but cannot be an heretic; and therefore every expression of a mind
not obstinately bent upon its taken-up notions, nor doting upon its own
conceptions, but enriched with an ingenuous freedom to acknowledge its
mistakes, and own truth when once clearly discovered, though formerly
disowned, is like so much water upon the fire of rage kindled in the
532
SERMON XXVI.
hearts of persecuting enemies, to quench or abate it. For to the reason

of any that will but consider, it cannot but appear most unreasonable to
urge a person to believe what he cannot see any ground for, or to do
what he would be willing to do if it were not sin, that is, a provoking
[of] God, and hazarding his own eternal welfare.
(7.) Be sure to use no means to secure from persecution or procure the
enjoyment of public ordinances, but such as are well-pleasing to a good
and a holy God.It is not long since it was the peculiar honour of the
popish faction to depose or murder kings, blow up parliaments, subvert
states and kingdoms, to procure their liberty, or secure themselves from
suffering; and if any others have ventured upon such practices, I hope
God hath taught them by his providence, what they would not learn from
his word, that affliction is rather to be chosen than sin, and that it is
better to wait upon Him in the way of his judgments, (that is, in a way
of duty*) than to out-run God, and think to secure ourselves by sinful
and unjustifiable courses. Let those, therefore, who profess to believe

that their God is a God hearing prayer, and that bottles up the tears
of his people, and is able to do what he pleaseth,let them account
prayers and tears their best arms, seeing they call-in that God whose
power extends as far as his will.
(8.) Arm yourselves with a severe patience and a steady resolution to bear
letter affronts and injuries.Those Christians were in such a condition as
we are now speaking of, whom the apostle minds that they bad " need
of patience." (Heb. x. 36.) Let it be our wisdom, therefore, to get a stock
of that which will be so needful for us. Patience is always a part of our
duty ; but in this case it is also an instance of our prudence; for he is a
fool that will hazard the beating out of his brains, rather than bear a fillip.
(9.) Be much in prayer to that God who alone can secure from
suffering, fit for suffering, strengthen under [if], and infinitely reward
after we have suffered.
2. Let the serpent's wisdom be seconded with the dove's harmlessness
and innocency.Walk so honestly and inoffensively, that wicked men
may be put hard to it to find an occasion to quarrel or wrong you.
This was remarkable in Daniel, as you may see, Dan. vi. 4. This was
the apostle's direction: "Walk honestly toward them that are without;"
(1 These, iv. 12 ;) and it was according to his practice: "And herein do
I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God,
and toward men." (Acts xxiv. 16.) Now, this Christian innoceucy or
simplicity ought to be like a thread, to run through the whole course
of our converse with others: we should neither injure the person, good
name, estate, friend, nor any thing which another may call his: if the
lamb among wolves and foxes begin to butt and contend, no wonder
if these soon bite and devour. We should be so honest and plain-hearted
in our promises, contracts, covenants, and dealings with others, that they
may reverence our religion as teaching us to do the best things, and
suffer the worst; and not hate our religion, as being only a design to
make us the better able to deceive and injure others. It would be no
small part of our security, if our carriage towards others might speak for
us, that which the poet makes Achilles speak concerning himself and his
KEEP W RELIGION WITHOUT PUBLIC ORDINANCES?
533
tutor Chiron : " Jesus Christ is my teacher; and he hath learned me to

use simplicity and honesty in all my manners." Bat now, if neither
of these two will secure us from suffering, but God's providence doth call
us to a public owning of Him, and the religion of the gospel, we must
then join the lion's courage to the wisdom of the serpent and the
innocency of the dove, that we may be emboldened to look the greatest
danger in the face, rather than turn our back upon God and Christ, and
the religion of the gospel. And this brings me to the second branch
of the latter part of the case :
(II.) Hoia should believers encourage themselves against sufferings?
In answ er to which take these brief directions:
1. Be often remembering how infinitely more worth the soul is than the
body.Be often weighing in the scales of sober and serious consideration
a precious "soul" against a " vile body;" (Matt. xvi. 26; Phil. iii. 21;)
and then mind thyself, that the worst which persecuting enemies can do
is to destroy a corruptible body; but the worst which God can do is
to destroy thine immortal soul. Christ arms his disciples against fear
of suffering by this consideration: " Fear not them which kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt. z. 28.)
2. Think, how inconsiderable time is, compared with eternity.Spend
your thoughts upon the difference, vast and inconceivable, between those
two. The apostle tells us, that " the sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
(Rom. viii. 18.) The apostle compares himself to one that hath been
casting-up an account, where on one side he meets with nothing but
ciphers, or small petty sums, but on the other side finds thousands and
millions; and then cries out, " Alas! the one is not to be compared with
the other." Thus the apostle finds " light and momentary afflictions "
on the one side, and " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory "
on the other side ; as we find him expressing himself, 2 Cor. iv. 17.
3. Remember, that the welfare of the body doth depend upon the
welfare of the soul.Not, indeed, in this world; for here his body may
be well, and in good plight, fat and flourishing, well-fed and clothed, whose
soul is poor and naked, sick and wounded, in a sad and deplorable condition ; and, on the other side, a poor, beggarly, sick Lazarus may have a
soul fed with royal and heavenly dainties, and clothed with better robes
than purple and ermine. But then the eternal welfare of the body
depends upon the eternal welfare of the soul; it is bound up in the life
and welfare of the soul, as Jacob's life is said to be bound up in Benjamin's; (Gen. xliv. 30;) and therefore you cannot secure the welfare
of the outward man by betraying and casting away that which is the life
and welfare of the inward man.
4. Remember, that you can suffer nothing in this world, but Jesus
Christ hath suffered the same, or worse.The Lord Jesus arms his disciples against sufferings by this consideration ; (John xv. 20;) and the
apostle Paul, having experienced it himself, adviseth the believing Hebrews
to it: " Looking unto Jesus,'* &c. (Heb. xii. 13.) Now this consideration will suggest to us,
534
8KRMON XXVI.
HOW SHALL MERCHANTS IN FOREIGN PARTS, &C.
(1.) That the worst suffering* are no dishonour to us, teeing Christ
Jesus, the King of kings, hath borne them.
(2.) That the greatest sufferings do not speak us the greatest sinners.
Christ's sufferings assure us that the purest and whitest innocency may
be dyed red in its own blood.
(3.) That the greatest sufferings make us never the less amiable in the
eyes of God.For then Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, in
whom he was always well pleased, would not have suffered.
(4.) We can suffer nothing but what our Ood, our Friend, our Father;
knows we suffer, and knows that a suffering condition is the best for us.
When poor Christians are kept by the bloody Inquisition in dark holes
aud caves from the eyes of all the world, they cannot be kept from
the eye of God. " I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even
where Satan's seat is." (Rev. ii. 13.) This was the encouragement which
Christ gave his persecuted church of Pergamos : thy condition is known
to that God whose heart is as tender as his eye [is] piercing, and whose
arm can reach as far as his eye, and whose wisdom knows how to direct
the sufferings of every believer for his own, his church's, and that
believer's real good.
(5.) Be often comparing God and creatures together , that great God
who suffers in and with his suffering people, and those little, small things
called devils and men, that bring sufferings upon them.Make thy soul to
know and understand the difference between the little, trifling bubble
promisee of the world, and the great, precious, solid, and massy promises
of God ; and let faith tell thee, that the threatenings of a raging devil,
a storming Nebuchadnezzar, or a furious multitude, are but the noise of a
pot-gun, if compared with the thunder of God's dreadful threatenings.
Remember what God saith to his afflicted church: " Who art thou, that
thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man
which shall be made as grass ; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker?" &c.
j(Isai. li. 12,13.) In a word,think thus with thyself: "Man cannot do
ail that he seems able to do, nor all that he resolves and boasts that he
will do; but God can do all that he hath said he will do, and he will do
for his suffering servants more than they can hope or think." Let us
heartily believe that God can easily recompense us for whatever we may
lose for him; but all the creatures in the world are not able to make
amends for that which apostasy from God will deprive us of. 0, sirs!
could we but heartily believe this, what a sorry temptation would persecution be! If this faith were strong, persecution would be exceeding
weak; if faith could see men and devils able to do nothing, and God
able to do all things, then persecution would be able to do nothing; and
such a faith would be able to do and to suffer all things.
And thus I have spoken to both the parts of this practical case of
conscience; and shall now close up all with a word of exhortation,
That if it be such a real ground of trouble, $<?., then let us make it our
earnest prayer to God, that our land may still be a " Goshen," and a "valley
of vision," and not an " Egypt," or the " valley of the shadow of death ;"
that we may still enjoy the ordinances of the gospel, and the company
and society of good men; that our lot may never fall among EzekiePe
SERMON XXVII.
HOW 18 HYPOCRISY DISCOVERABLE, &C.
535
scorpions, or pricking briers, and grieving thorns. (Ezek. ii. 6; xxviii. 24.)
Let us heartily pray for that blessedness mentioned Psalm Ixv. 4 : " That
the Lord may choose us, and cause us to approach unto him, that we may
dwell in his courts, and be satisfied with the goodness of his house."
SERMON XXVII.
BY THE REV. ANDREW BROMHALL.
HOW 18 HYPOCRISY DISCOVERABLE AND CURABLE?
First of all, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which it hypocrisy.

Luke xii. 1.
WHEN our Lord and Saviour had finished his heavenly, soul-searching
sermon in the chapter foregoing, he came so close in the application to
the scribes and Pharisees, a proud, hypocritical people, that they, not
able to endure their pride and hypocrisy should be so soundly convinced
and openly detected, combined and contrived, by urging, and watching,
and catching words, to accuse him, and stop his mouth at least, if not his
breath. (Luke xi. 53, 54.) These contrivances and practices of theirs
were not unknown to Him that knew all things; (John zxi. 17;) and
what effect it wrought in Christ, you find in this verse of the text:
he preacheth the same things, and in the same manner and sharpness
of style at the next opportunity.
In the mean time, tv ofc, saith the Greek: in those, or in which times
that they were thus plotting and contriving, Christ is boldly preaching
the same doctrine that they were persecuting, was as bold for the truth
as they were politic against it.
And in those very days, and in the midst of these contrivements
against his preaching, the people as much loved the doctrine that the
Pharisees persecuted: an innumerable multitude were gathered together
to see and to hear him. A myriad (too many thousands to be easily numbered !) flocked and thronged so to him, that they even " trod one upon
another;" and then he began to say to his disciples, (they were nearest
to him, but so as the people heard it,) and he taught them; and that
was his intent, as yon may see, Luke xii. 40, 42.
First of all, beware of.For the adverb is not to be joined to the
verb " taught," but to the word "beware," that is, rpowov, "first of all"
is not used distributively, but eminently; as much as to say, " chiefly,
especially, beware," &c. So it is used by the apostle : " First, I thank
\
\
my God through Jesus Christ for you all," (that is, chiefly,) " that your
faith is spoken of throughout the whole world." (Rom. i. 8.)
Beware and avoid this leaven of hypocrisy wherewith the Pharisees'
doctrine and conversation is so leavened; take heed, beware especially,
chiefly, of hypocrisy.
536
SERMON XXVII.
HOW IS HYPOCRISY
In the text ie represented precione sermon in its preaching, with the

circumstances of it.
Wherein is observable,
1. The time.It was in that juncture of time when they had counselled and determined, but had not yet executed their counsels.
2. The Preacher.Christ himself, the great Prophet of the church, in
the exercise of his prophetical office.
3. The auditors,His disciples and innumerable multitude of people.
4. Hie first doctrine is, " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees."
And this doctrine is confirmed by reason, and improved by inference.
(Luke xii. 2, 3.)

Many useful lessons might be commended from the other particulars;
but my meditations are confined to the last, the doctrine, the caution,
" Beware of the leaven," &c.; and [I shall] only spend as much time in
opening the text and doctrine, as will let me in to give direction, how to
discern, and how to be delivered from, this dangerous leaven of hypocrisy;
which is according to your desires unto me for your instruction in this

particular.
DOCTRINE.
The words naturally yield you this doctrine:>

Hypocrisy is a dangerous leaven, which ministers and people are chiefly
and especially to beware of, and acquit themselves from.
Hence you have a chapter of woes against it. (Matt, xxiii.)
And it is represented as that which renders odious to the Lord, and
defiles, his choicest ordinances, and our best duties, if it cleave to them;
(Isai. i. 11, 12; Ixvi. 3;) and puts God to sad complaints and exprobrations of such a people: " 0 Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ?
Jtidah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning
cloud ;" (Hosea vi. 4 ;) all show, no truth, no showers; and [it] bath
been the ruin of many forward and glorious professors, as Balaam, Jehu,
Saul, and many other persons of great parts and many great performances, and, one would conceive, of great hopes too; but they, and
their works, and their hopes, are all perished. " The hypocrite's hope
shall perish." (Job viii. 13.)
The explication of this doctrine would lie in the speaking to these

particulars:
I. What hypocrisy is.
II. How is it resembled by " leaven ? "
III. Why called " the leaven of the Pharisees 1"

IV. Wherein is it so dangerous ?
I. What hypocrisy is. Much of the nature of a thing is many times

discovered in its name ; the name is a brief description.
The word " hypocrite" properly signifies an actor or stage-player, a
personator of other men in their speech, habit, and action. The Hebrew
word signifieth both " a wicked man" and " a deceiver." And it is
observed, that those whom David, the devoutest man, called " wicked,"
Solomon, the wisest man, calls " fools," and Job, the most upright man,
calls " hypocrites:" all is but one and the same thing under divers names.
Hypocrisy, then, is but a feigning [of] virtue and piety [which] it
DTSCOVKRABLK AND CURABUt!
537
seems to put on, and vice and impiety [which] it conceals and would
eeera to put off. It is indeed vice in a vizor; the face is vice, but virtue
is the vizor. The form and nature of it is imitation: the ends are vainglory, to be aeen of men, or some gain or carnal respects.
There is a gross hypocrisy whereby men pretend to the good [which]
they know they have not; and there is a formal close hypocrisy, whereby
men deceive others and themselves too; are hypocrites and do not know
it. In this case it is probable the Pharisee was, and those signified by
" the five foolish virgins," (Luke xviii. 11; Matt. xxv. 2,) and all formal
Christians that are not regenerated by the Spirit, nor put into Christ by
faith.
This is a subtle evil, a secret poison, a close contagion; and here it is
infinite mercy and grace that we do not all split and perish: and if we
can escape this, if we are indeed sincere, we are out of the greatest danger
of all, the leaven of hypocrisy. To direct you to find out and to purge
out this, shall be my especial endeavour at this time.
II. How is hypocrisy resembled by leaven ?Briefly thus:
1. Leaven it hardly discerned from good dough by the sight.And as
hardly is hypocrisy distinguished from piety: " Ye outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
(Matt. xxiii. 28.)
2. Leaven is very spreading."A little leaven leaveneth the whole

lamp:" (1 Cor. v. 6:) and so it is a great deal of mischief [which]
hypocrisy doeth: it spreads over all the man, and all his duties, parts,
performances ; leavens all, as we may observe, Isai. i. 1215; Ixvi. 3.
3. Leaven is of a sour taste and ungrateful smell.So is hypocrisy to
God and man: " I will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung
of your solemn feasts." (Mal. ii. 3.) All were leavened with hypocrisy,
and were accounted and savoured but as dung in the nostrils of the Lord.
How odious and loathsome was that service of Ananias and Sapphira,
both to the Holy Ghost and to the church, because it was leavened with
hypocrisy 1 (Acts v. 110.)
4. Leaven is of a swelling nature.It extends and puffs up the
dough: and so doth hypocrisy ; it is all for the " praise of men." The
scribes and Pharisees were all for pre-eminence, chief places, chief seats,
chief appellations, to be called "Rabbi, Rabbi;" (Matt, xxiii. 6, 7;)
and if others will not admire and overvalue them, they will admire and
advance themselves: "I am, not as this publican." (Luke xviii. 11.) "Ye
are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your
hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in
the sight of God." (Luke xvi. 14, 15.) They highly esteemed of themselves, they justified themselves: they derided Christ for not having
the same thoughts of them. Pride and vain-glory is the inseparable
companion, if not the mother, of hypocrisy.
III. Why is it called "the leaven of the Pharisees?" Because they
were leavened with it to purpose; they were exact and super-emiuent in
this devilish art of personating and counterfeiting to the life. The devil,
indeed, is the arch-hypocrite of the world, " transforming himself into an
angel of light:" his first-born in this generation are the scribes and
538
SRKMON XXVII.
HOW 19 HYPOCRISY
Pharisees; his next-born, the Jesuits, so like their predecessors the Pharisees, that a man may believe that Christ looked so far as to them in
Matt, xxiii., and struck at them through the Pharisees' sides; that they
were indeed the types, but the pope, cardinals, prelates, aud Jesuits, the
antitype. Their doctrines are alike leavened: they both set up traditions,
superstitious customs and forms, against and above the word of God,
when once they come in competition: they both would ordinarily suspend
and dispense with God's commands, but most rigorously impose their
own, and that under severe penalties, and both upon the account of
extraordinary holiness, and high actings of devotion. And so for their
conversation, there was gross hypocrisy in all to be seen: [they] prayed
in corners of the streets, gave alms openly, disfigured themselves, that
they might appear to fast. (Matt. vi. 46.) So the Jesuits, if we may
believe some of themselves being converted, and many of the Seculars,
that know them well enough, affect the name, but hate the reality, of true
piety and devotion. They would be accounted as Henry IY. of France
said of them, "Timothies at home in the college, Cbrysostoms in the
pulpit, and Augustines in disputation:" this they would be accounted ;
though it be nomen inane et crimen immane,* they would have the name
though not the thing; for that is the nature of " the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
IV. Wherein is this leaven of hypocrisy go dangerous, that ministers
and people ought firstly, chiefly, to beware of it ?A very little and
briefly of that:
There is great danger o/it, and great danger by it.
1. There is great danger of it:
(1.) For we have the around of the matter in ourselves.** Hearts

deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know thy
wickedness 1 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins," &c. (Jer.
xvii. 9, 10.) As if none beside the Lord knew the bottomless depths
and deceits of the heart! In the heart are those lusts and affections,
that feed and foment all the hypocrisy in the world,pride, vain-glory,
concupiscence, carnal wisdom: were it not for these, there would not be
an hypocrite living.
(2.) The devil watcheth night and day to set fire to this tow.He is
fitted to the purpose, and filled with raging desire to comply with a filthy
heart, and to engender this spurious offspring of hypocrisy. He hath in
readiness his wiles and his depths, his baits and his snares; and for a
false heart hath false ways, false doctrines, false faiths, false seasons, false
ends and aims. Fix caret effectu: when two such be agreed to such a
purpose, " hardly will they be frustrated."
(3.) And that we may not be secure, there are before our eyes and in
our view dreadful examples.Balaam, a great prophet; Judas, an apostle
familiar with Christ; Saul, Jehu, Herod, and Agrippa, famous kings;
five virgins, conspicuous and most confident; Ananias and Sapphira,
eminent converts; Alexander and Demas, confessors, and in some degree
martyrs: it may grieve and make a tender heart tremble, to think what
they became, and what is become of them! to teach him that standeth to
# "An empty name, but an egregious, crime."EDIT.
DISCOVERABLE AND CURABLE?
539
take heed lest he fall, and all of us, to our dying day, to "beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
2. And there is great danger by it:
(1.) The lose of all that is done.Christ will say, as to that yonng
roan, " Yet lackest thou one thing," (Luke xviii. 22,) sincerity: wooldest
thou have heaven too 1 why then didst thou all things for the " praise
of men ? Thou hast thy reward," and art overpaid. " Depart from me,
ye that work iniquity." (Matt. vii. 23.)
(2.) Frustrating of hopes, great hopes, hopes of glory and heaven, and
escaping eternal misery.All these hopes must "perish" to the "hypocrite;" (Joh viii. 13;) perish like a ship at the very mouth of the
haven; perish while they are crying, " Lord, Lord;" perish into everlasting horror, and eternal despair.
(3.) Full detection and manifesting of them in the sight and face of all
the world." For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed;
neither hid, that shall not be known." (Luke xii. 2.) The vizor will be
then taken off, which was feigned sanctity; and the face will appear,
which was indeed double iniquity; an'd for going about to cozen God,
and the world, and his own soul, the miserable hypocrite will be left to
eternal, intolerable confusion; to be detested and derided by God, angels,
and saints; to be insulted on by the devils and damned to all eternity.
(4.) And in hell the hypocrite "shall be beaten with many stripes*'
For he " knew his Master's will," and pretended he was doing of it, and
yet " did it not." (Luke xii. 47.) Shall he that judged others to hell lie
lower in hell, and have more of hell, than those condemned by him ?
Shall it be worse with a proud Pharisee than with a publican; nay, a
damned publican ? Is hell the portion of hypocrites ? (Matt. xxiv. 51.)
Are they the freeholders, and all others but tenants and inmates with
them ? Or else, if there be a worse place in hell, must it be theirs ? It
must be so; for the nearer heaven, the more of hell; and that will be
the hell of hell to all eternity. Surely, then, hypocrisy is a dangerous
thing; there is exceeding danger of, and danger by, this " leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
USE.
I shall commend but one use to he made of this doctrine at this time,
and it is the " beware " in the text: to stir and provoke you to put forth
your utmost care, diligence, and circumspection, to "beware of this leaven
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
Here I could show you how much you are concerned to beware of the
Pharisees' leaven in doctrinals; to beware of doctrines advancing any
thing in man or of man ; doctrines that are derived from any other fountain than the pure word of God, as traditions, enthusiasms, impulses,
beside or against the word; doctrines of will-worship, superstition, voluntary humility &c.; doctrines ascribing too much to, and laying too much
stress on, externals in worship not instituted by Christ; doctrines
of rigid imposition of things indifferent; doctrines that have a tendency
to blind obedience and implicit faith. Whoever reads the New Testament
may soon discern, such were their doctrines; and this is the leaven of the
540
SERMON XXVII.
HOW IS HYPOCRISY
Pharisee in doctrinal; and truly you had need to take care of this;
for doctrines and principles have no small influence on conversation and
practice.
But I shall choose rather to prosecute this use, by endeavouring to
give an answer and resolution to two questions, which together constitute
a great and weighty case of conscience.
QUESTION. How many we discover and find out this subtile, close evil
of hypocrisy, and convince our own and others' souls that we are guilty
of it, and under the danger of it ?
I must here first premise some general cautions, and then produce
some particular evidences and discoveries of it. I shall not meddle at all
with gross hypocrisy, which is usually known both to the hypocrite himself, and frequently apparent to others too. " Some men's sins are open
before-hand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after."
(1 Tim. v. 24.) But I shall labour to trace out and unkennel that latent,
close, and deep hypocrisy, formally self-deceiving hypocrisy, whereby the
hypocrite may cozen others and himself too.
CAUTIONS.
I. Here, first, 7 must premise these cautions and negations:
CAUTION i. That hie labor, hoc opus, " my task is very hard, my
work difficult,'* nice, and curious:That it is very difficult to find out
the hypocrisy of one's Own heart, much more to convince others of the
hypocrisy in theirs; for the heart of man " is deceitful above all things."
(Jer. xvii. 9.) And hence the most serious, inquisitive, jealous, and heartsearching Christians have used to call God in to their help in this work :
"Search me, God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts," &c. Search my heart and try my reins; examine whether
there be any way of wickedness in me. (Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24.)
CAUTION n. That as difficult as it is, yet it is possible and feasible.
For we are not commanded impossibilities, when we are required to
"search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord;" (Lam. iii. 40;)
to examine our hearts, and to " prove ourselves, whether we be in the
faith;" (2 Cor. xiii. 5;) whether " our own hearts condemn us not."
(1 John iii. 20.) David, Hezekiah, Job, and Paul,these all examined
their own hearts, and attained thereby to a knowledge and sense of their
own sincerity. (2 Cor. i. 12.) And we are not directed to absurdities,
when we are cautioned to " beware of men," to take heed of those
" that come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves." And
we are not herein bid to make brick without straw; for " the spirit
of a man which is in him knowetb the things of a man;" (1 Cor. ii.
11;) and " as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to
man." (Prov. xxvii. 19.) Nay, we have a far greater help, namely, the
Spirit of God, which " searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."
(I Cor. ii. 10.) One of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit in the primitive church, and very necessary for those times, in which Satan was
very busy, and the canon of scripture not completed, was the gift
of "discerning of spirits." (1 Cor. xii. 10.) Some think that, by virtue
of this gift, Peter discerned Ananias and Sapphira's hypocrisy; (Acts v.
DISCOVKRABLJE AND CURABLE?
541
3, 9;) and afterward Simon Mague'e too, which Philip could not do, aa
not having that gift, or each a measure of it. Bat indeed there was no
need of any extraordinary gift to discern Simon Magus by : to any man
that had reason and but common illumination, Simon Magus* hypocrisy
might easily and clearly appear in that motion of his, " Sell me this gift."
Who but a hypocrite could have thought it had been to be sold ? And
who but a hypocrite would have offered money for it ? It was easy to
conclude him " in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity."
(Acts viii. 924.)
And the ministers of the gospel have authority, calling, and commission, and therefore gifts, to detect and bewray the guiles and wiles,
the depths, and deceits, and snares of Satan, much more the workings
and turnings of men's deceitful hearts. And the word of God, which is
the main and principal weapon of their warfare, " is quick, and powerful,
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" (Heb.iv. 12;)
and it " casts down imaginations, and brings into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. x. 5.) Therefore, while we have
this word and Spirit, it is possible, though difficult, to discover the hypocrisy of our own spirits, and to direct others to find out theirs.
CAUTION in. It is not a poor tout's fearing and doubting hie hypocrisy, accusing and charging himself with it, crying out of himself aa
wretched man by reason of it, that concludes and determines he is such.
See David, in Psalm li. 1012, charging himself so; and the church
accusing herself of "erring from God's ways, and having their hearts
hardened from his fear;" (Isai. Ixiii. 17;) and yet their own expressions
in the verses before, (verses 15, 16,) manifest the frame of their spirits
to be exceeding tender and humble. Holy Mr. Bradford would many
times subscribe himself in his letters, " John the hypocrite," and " a very
painted sepulchre."* Agur, one of the wisest men living, condemns
himself for being "more brutish than any man, and not having the
understanding of a man." (Prov. xxx. 2.) And David, one of the holiest
and devoutest men living, upon an ordinary temptation, namely, the
prosperity of the wicked, was very apt to charge the ways of God with
unprofitableness: " Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed
my hands in innocency;" but afterward, seeing his error, he chargeth
it so upon himself, that he upbraids and condemns himself for " foolish
and ignorant," and a very "beast before God." (Psalm Ixxiii. 13, 22.)
It is usual with the best men to have the worst thoughts of themselves:
1. Partly, because as God will give most grace to the humble ; so there
is great need of giving more humility to those that have most grace.
2. Partly, because where there is true grace, there is an insatiable
desire of more.The children of God have never enough of communion
with God, nor of conformity to him. They seldom look back and say,
" This thon hast; but still press forward to this [which] thou hast not;
and this thou mayest, and this thou must, have." (Phil. iii. 12, 13.)
3. And partly, because as there is much difference between faith in it
direct and its reflected act, between knowing God and knowing that we
know Aim, between believing and knowing that we believe; so there is
* Fox's "Act and Monument."
542
SERMON XXVII.
BOW IS HYPOCRISY
between having sincerity and finding a feeling of it constantly, between

not being hypocrite* and a constant confidence of it , which would amount
to no less than full assurance.This is not granted to all, and seldom to
any at all times, that so there may be a season for the exercise of other
graces, humility, fear and trembling, fear of solicitude, and diligence in
making oar calling and election sure. (Phil. ii. 12; 2 Peter i. 10.)
And this is to be remembered and observed, namely, that God likes us
never the worse that Satan is so much our enemy; but much the better,
that by humility, lowliness of mind, and self-denial, we seem to be our
own enemies.
CAUTION IT. Nor are they foul failing, nor dangerous fallings into
gross ins, (if a man die not impenitently in them,) that do constitute a
hypocrite.Indeed, reigning sin doth. The falls of God's people may be
horrendee tempestates etflenda naufragia.* The grievous falls of God's
people do evidence there is hypocrisy in them; but not that they are
hypocrites. David was guilty of adultery and murder, and puffed up
with exceeding pride and vain-glory, in the multitude of his subjects, and
strength of his kingdom; but David's repenting and rising again cleared
him from being a hypocrite, so that the Spirit of God testifies from his
own mouth, that " he was upright, and kept himself from his iniquity;"
(Psalm xviii. 23;) that is, from the reign and continuance of it; aud
after his fall he was called "a man after God's own heart:" "Thou
hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and
who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in
mine eyes." (1 Kings xiv. 8.) The Lord overlooked his adultery and
murder; for, indeed, he had "put away" his sin, (or made it "pass
over," as \t is in the original,) that is, to Christ. Hezekiah's " heart was
lifted up," and he " rendered not again according to the benefit done unto
him;" but Hezekiah was humbled, and the wrath of God came not upon
him all his days: he was not a hypocrite; no, " he did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had
done." (2 Chron. xxxii. 25, 26; xxix. 2.) So Peter denied and forswore
his Master, after many warnings and many promises to the contrary ;f yet
he repented and " wept bitterly:" his fall showed him to be a weak, frail
man, but proved him not a hypocrite. Job confessed himself a sinner, and
that many were his iniquities and transgressions; but Job would never
confess himself a hypocrite; no, he would keep his integrity till he died;
(Job xiii. 23; xxvii. 5, 6;) for it is not the falling into sin, or the being
guilty of it, but " regarding iniquity in the heart," (Psalm Ixvi. 18,) that
denominates "a hypocrite;" otherwise, all men were hypocrites; for
certainly all men are sinners, all shut up under sin. (Rom. in. 19, 23.)
CAUTION v. Nor is it backsliding into the same sins that makes a man
a hypocrite.David had got into a way of lying to save his life; namely,
in the second verse [of] 1 Sam. xxi. he told one lie, in the end of the
verse another, and in the eighth verse another. He prays that God
would take from him " the way of lying." [Psalm cxix. 29.] And the
*"Dreadftil tempest and deplorable shipwrecks."EDIT.
f The fourth
edition gives this variation of the clause : " Though he had many warnings, and made
many promises to the contrary."EDIT.
543
promise of mercy and pardon ie not only to sins, bnt backsliding:

" I will heal their backslidings." (Hosea adv. 4.) And each are invited
to return to God: " Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal yonr
backelidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our
God." (Jer. iii. 22.) Indeed, to be " bent to backsliding " is a dangerous
sign of prevailing hypocrisy; and yet some in this case shall turn and
" walk after the Lord." (Hosea xi. 2, 810.) We do not read of the
people of God, that they did revolt and backslide into the same gross
sins after repentance ; nor David into adultery, nor Peter to faint-heartedness, nor Paul to persecution. But yet this may be so; and provision is
made, in that case, by the promise of healing backsliding. Though it
cost them dear to recover their peace, after revolting into gross sins, after
pardon and peace spoken, and it will lie upon their consciences as an
heavy aggravation of their sin and folly; (Psalm Ixxxv. 8;) but yet it
doth not conclude that all was done in hypocrisy before, and that they
were but mere hypocrites; no more than Solomon's falling and idolatry,
(1 Kings xi. 9,) which he repented of, (witness the book of Ecclesiastes,)
doth conclude him a hypocrite when he built the temple, and was the
Jedidiah, "the beloved of the Lord.'*
CAUTION vi. Nor is it every degree of tendency to hypocrisy that
denominate a man a hypocrite, and bring him under the condemnation to
have hi portion with hypocrite.For there is the seed of this, as well
as of all other sins, in the heart; and the holy prophet Jeremy cries out,
" The heart is deceitful," &c. (Jer. xvii. 9.) He meant his own heart, ae
well as others; and Solomon, the wisest man, gives this advice: " Keep
thy heart/* Proverbs were experiments, his own; and David the
devoutest saith, "All men are liars," all deceitful; and there are the
remain of hypocrisy in the best, the reign of it is only in hypocrites.
Hypocrisy may have its presence, but not predominance, in the sincerest
children of God. Thus you see what doth not conclude a hypocrite,
though it come very near.
II. Now I hall show what cannot clear and acquit a man from a
hypocrite, though it proceed very fairly, and very far, which make it eo
difficult to discover this " leaven of the Pharisee, hypocrisy"
1. It doth not acquit and discharge a man from this charge of hypocrisy, that they hear the word with some delight:that they believe
with some faith; so did the stony ground: (Matt. xiii. 20 :)that they
take some pains for it; so did they, John vi.:that they perform some
duties in obedience to it; so did Herod: (Mark vi. 20:)that they are
moral and without blame in some things outwardly; so was the young
man: (Matt. xix. 20:)that they are zealous against some public corruptions ; so was Jehu:that they have illumination and excellent,
knowledge, by a common work of the Spirit; so have the devils, Judas,
and those apostates, Heb. vi. 46:that they had some sweet tastes
and relishes from the word embraced; so had they in Heb. vi. 4, 5 :
and no doubt Ananias and Sapphire, had. Nor doth this acquit them,
and set them out of danger,that they have some serious cares and fears
about their salvation: so had Felix, so had "the sinners in Zion;" they
were " afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrite." They were
544
SERMON XXVII.
HOW IS HYPOCRISY
afraid of dwelling with "devouring fire," and "everlasting burnings."

(Isai. xxxiii. 14.) Judas and Spira had fears to purpose: and the spirit
of bondage is bat a common work of the Spirit, if it rest there. (Rom.
viii. 15.) In Pharaoh there was fear, but no sincerity; in the devils,
fear, but no penitency. Nor is it some reluctancy against sin by an
awakened conscience; Herod had so, and Pilate had so, Balaam so.
Nor many desires of good; Balaam desired to " die the death of the
righteous;" the five virgins desired oil; there be the desires of the
slothful, that even kill them; desires like the turning of a door upon
hinges, never the farther off; (Prov. xxvi. 14;) desires of the wavering
man, the " double-minded man," (James i. 6, 8,) when a man hath some
mind to grace, but more to lust: as Augustine that prayed for grace and
chastity, but his heart secretly prayed the while, "Not yet, Lord!"*
There may be pouring out of prayers, as the Ninevites; they "cried
mightily;" (Jonah iii. 8;) "they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them;" (Isai. xxvi. 16 ;) and yet they brought forth
but wind: "When he slew them, then they sought him: and they
returned and inquired early after God. Nevertheless they did flatter
him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues," &c.
(Psalm Ixxviii. 34,36.) Nor is it some hopes. (Matt. xxv.; Job viii. 13;
Luke xviii.) If all this cannot save a man from the guilt of hypocrisy,
and portion of hypocrites, what shall ? If these come short of heaven,
where shall they appear that come far short of them ? 0 then, who can
be saved ? " Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth
unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matt. vii. 14.) Salvationwork is to be wrought out "with fear and trembling." (Phil. ii. 12.)
Beware then, of " the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
2. How, then, may we know how it is with our fouls f-r-Whether we are
in the number of hypocrites, and tending to their portion ? whether this
deluding, destroying, predominating, damning leaven of hypocrisy be in us?
SIGN i. A loving of the world, and the things of the world,"The
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life;" (1 John
ii. 15, 16;) this is a fearful evidence of hypocrisy ; for it is inconsistent
with, and destructive of, the love of God; and the loving God above all
things is the very essence, the summa totalis, of sincerity; (Matt. xxii.
37 0 and whatsoever contraries this, is the very essence of hypocrisy.
I know there be many subterfuges and evasions, and it is a hard matter
to convince men that they love the world in St. John's sense. But if a
man make these lusts of the eye, *of the flesh, and pride of life,
honours, riches, carnal and sensual pleasures,his aim, his interest, his
chief delight; if the heart and affections be let out to these things immoderately ; if the sweetest, freest thoughts of the soul be let out to them,
either about the getting, enjoying, or desiring, or admiring, or advancing
them; if the activity and endeavours of the soul bend and are employed
chiefly this way; though there may be many excellent performances,
expressions, affections; yet the leaven of the Pharisee is there, and sours
all, and all the rest is but in hypocrisy. This leavened all Balaam's pretences, divinations, all his goodly expressions, and professions, both to
* AUGUSTINUS, in Libra Confettion.
DISCOVERABLE AND CURABLEf
515
God, the angel, and men,that he would do nothing, speak nothing,

but what God would have him; (ae much ae to say, he would be uptight
and sincere;) yet he still looked after the "reward," Balak's promotion:
this was the "error of Balaam," (Jude 11,) "he followed the wages
of unrighteousness:" and this leavened all Judas's hearing and conversing
with Christ, his over-officionsness. Some conceive, from Judas's kissing
Christ in the garden, &c., that he was more than ordinarily familiar and
officious about him, and made more pretences of love and service to him;
but he appeared "a painted sepulchre," a hypocrite; he "loved the
wages of iniquity :" it was the world and hypocrisy [that] were predominant in him; and now he is gone " to his own place," the place and
portion of hypocrites: he was, as it were, out of bis place, or in another's place, all the while before. And this leavened all the Pharisees'
alms, fastings, prayers, professions, and pretences; they were "covetous," saith one evangelist; (Luke xvi. 14 ;) and they "loved the praise
of men more than the praise of God," saith another; (John zii. 43 ;)
and that is, in effect, they loved the favour of men more than the flavour
of God: in short, they " loved the world," and " the love of the Father
was not in them." (1 John ii. 15.) There can be no serving God and
mammon: (Matt. vi. 24:) if we cannot moderate and temperate affections, both in the desires, in the affections, in the nee, in the enjoyments,
and moderate our cares and griefs in the loss and want of worldly
things ; to have them as if we had them not, to rejoice in and for them
as if we rejoiced not; to grieve for the want of them as if we grieved
not; seeing they are to us as if they were not; they are "a scheme,"
a representation that " passeth away." (I Cor. vii. 273!.) Nay, if the
world be not " crucified to us, and we to the world," (Gal. vi, 14,) we
are still in danger of this gall of bitterness, this leaven of hypocrisy.
This is exemplified in the Jews in Babylon: they would come to the prophet, "and sit before him as God's people," (with much seeming
reverence, and appearance of devotion and affection,) "and they hear thy
words, but they will not do them: for with their month they show much
love, but their heart goeth after their covetouaness." (Esek. xxxiii. 31.)
Therefore, as you love your souls, beware of the Ipve of the world; and
set not your affections on things below, but on things above; else you
will not be able to avoid the guilt and danger of hypocrisy.
SIGN ii. A not toeing the word of God, a not receiving it a the word
of God, when it comet at the word of God in power. (1 These, i. 5.)>It
is the property of the word of God to be " quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart;" (Heb. iv. 12;) to cast down "imaginations, and every high
thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. x. 5.)
This is the word of God; and this it doeth as the word of God; these
are the properties of it. Such a word of God a hypocrite cannot love,
because he loves this carnal, sinful self; he loves his lusts, which this
word opposeth. " He flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his
iniquity be found to be hateful." (Psalm xxxvi. 2.) The word in power
546
SERMON XXVTI.
HOW 18 HYPOCRISY
will show him that all is ill, when he flattereth himself that all is very
well. " Hast thou found me, mine enemy ?" saith Ahab. (I Kings
xxi. 20.) A hypocrite thinks be hath no greater enemy than a faithful
minister, because hypocrisy hath no greater enemy than the word
of truth, which will detect and make it odious. So Ahab hated Micaiah
and his ministry, because he prophesied evil to him in his evil ways ; he
spake the word of God, the truth to him, which Ahab's corrupt life and
hypocritical heart could not bear. (1 Kings xxii. 8.) Herod heard John
Baptist gladly in other things; but when he preached against his having
his brother's wife, when he came home to his conscience, to his very
darling sin, then Herod stopped his mouth, shut him up in prison.
(Mark vi. 17, 18, 20.) Felix trembles; and dismisseth Paul when he
came so close: (Acts xxiv. 25 :) a hypocrite may love to hear the same
minister on another subject. The very notion of religion is amiable and
acceptable to ingenuous persons ; nay, he may love that the word may
come to others ; but to himself, during the predominancy of hypocrisy,
the powerful word neither read nor preached can be welcome, because it
applies itself to the cutting-off of his right hand, and plncking-out his
right eye. (Matt. v. 29, 30.)
SIGN in. A long and continual unprofitableness under the powerful
word of God is a fearful sign of hypocrisy.What warnings and instructions had Judas! What convictions and reprehensions had Ahab and
Herod! And yet, as to those things which the word opposed, they
were still the same men. If men that hear much, mind nothing;
if there be no change, no alteration, but they are still where and what
they were; where they are still as carnal, as earthly, as they were
ten, twenty years ago, though they hear much, and are as " the earth
which drinketh in the rain," nay, though they " have tasted the good
word of God, and the powers of the world to come," if yet they bring
not forth meet fruit for him that dresseth it, that ground is rejected, that
heart is near to cursing and burning; (Heb. vi. 58;) there is some
guile and hypocrisy there, there would be some growing else. (1 Peter
ii. 2.) When the word is " precept upon precept, line upon line,'* (that
is, very plentiful,) and .yet no amendment, there is hypocrisy; they will
"fall backward, be broken, and snared and taken.'* (Isai. xxviii. 10, 13;
Hosea vi. 4, 5.) it is no small matter to be dead, unprofitable,
unaltered hearers t It is a fearful sign of hypocrisy, and that there
are many hypocrites in the bosom of the church.
SIGN iv. The principles and ends of men's actions and performance
are a great discovery of the sincerity or insincerity of men's hearts.-
If men's principles be no higher than good education, and being con-
versant with good or strict men ;which seems to be Paul's case;

(Acts xxvi. 5 ; Phil. iii. 5, 6;)or no higher than good-nature and
moral qualifications;this seems to be the young man's case; (Mark x.
20 ;)they are no farther than those were at that time, in an ignorant
and insincere condition. He that is really and sincerely a good Christian
doeth all as from God and Christ: He "is all, and in all." (Col.
iii. 11.) Christ is "wisdom and sanctification" to him. (i Cor. i. 30.)
He acts and performs duties not only from strength of parts, and
547
Acquired qualifications, but from strength of grace, and infused habits,

from God, and for God, from " a new heart" from the " lav written in
the heart/' from the "love of God shed broad in the heart/' and
"constraining** to lore, from the "divine nature" communicated to
the heart from Christ by his Spirit " dwelling in the heart," from the
fear of God possessing and establishing the heart. (Ezek. xxxvi. 26 ;
Bom. xi. 24; Jer. xxxi. 33; Rom. v. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 14; 2 Peter i. 4;
Eph. iii. 17 2 Cor. xiii. 5 ; Jer. xxxii. 40.) These be the springs and
principles of a sincere Christian's spiritual life and actions ; and where
they act and bear rule, it is no wonder if such motions and performances
be produced as the world may admire, but not imitate. Saul's life, after
his conversion, was a kind of constant miracle; so much he did, and so
much he suffered, and so much denied himself, that if he lived in these
days, his life would be a miracle. But yet, if we consider the principles
that he was acted by, the great wonder will be, not that he did so much,
but that he did no more; for, saith he, " Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God," &c.
(Gal. ii. 20.) And so the ends of a man's actions are a great discovery
of sincerity or hypocrisy. If a man's ends be lower than God himself,
and obeying, glorifying, walking with, and enjoying God; if either
praise, gain, reputation, nay, acceptation with good people; nay, if a
man's end be to stop the mouth of natural conscience only, or only to
avoid danger and wrath to come; these may be the works of a saint,
but yet the ends of a hypocrite. And omni actio nisi modifteata a fine
MO qua* averteret amittit laude*.* Balaam spake religiously, multiplied altars and sacrifices; but his end was not God, but " the wages
of iniquity." Jehu destroyed Ahab's house, executed vengeance,
God's judgments, against that wicked family, resolutely and thoroughly
destroyed Baal, &c.; but bis ends were carnal, the establishment of the
kingdom to him and his family. Ahab and the Ninevites fasted in
sackcloth; but it was merely to avoid the judgment threatened. The
Israelites cried and prayed; but they did but " howl for corn and
wine." (Hosea vii. 14.) The Jews in captivity fasted ; but " did ye at
all fast unto me, even to me?" saith the Lord. (Zech. vii. 5.) It
seems men may pray, and yet not cry to the Lord; fast, and yet not to
the Lord. It is the end [which] dignifies or debaseth the action, rectifies or adulterates it. Look to your ends, if yon would not be hypocrites. If your end be less than God, his glory and pleasing of him,
you are but " empty vines, and bring forth fruit to yourselves." (Hosea
x. 1.) Simplicity in one's ends accompanies sincerity in the actions;
when not " fleshly wisdom, but the grace of God," carries and governs
the action, then we may have "rejoicing;" else aU may be in hypocrisy.
(2 Cor. i. 12.)
SIGN v. If thou canst not bring thy heart to suffer for the name
of Chrit, when thou heut a good cause, and a good call, and amonyst
the good people of God, though thou " hear the word, and recewett it
* " TJnleee every action be methodically performed in accordance with the end proposed, it loses all the praise to which it would have been entitled, had it not been thin
turned aside-or perverted."EDIT.
548
SERMON XXVII.
HOW IS HYPOCRISY
with joy for a time, yet when persecution ariseth because of the word, by
and by thou art offended;" (Matt. xiii. 21 ;) if there be no more deep root"
ing of it in thee, but "in temptation thou fall away ;" (Luke viii. 13 ;)
it is apparent thy heart is but stony ground, and thou art leavened with
hypocrisy.If your faith cannot bear the trial, if it be not furnace faith,
tried faith, it is not precious faith, it is but common faith, counterfeit
faith; it will not " be found unto praise and honour and glory at the
appearance of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter i. 7.) Nay, if thou canst not, in

some cases, choose " rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach
of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt;" it is apparent
thy faith and thy heart are not right, thou hast not a thorough " respect
unto the recompense of the reward," thou dost not " see Him who is
invisible." (Heb. xi. 2527.) That man that cannot, will not " deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Christ," he is not a true disciple of Christ; and in the end will find, that in " saving his life he
hath lost it." (Matt. xvi. 24, 25.) Satan and antichrist must be "overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of the testimony, and
by not loving our lives unto the death," &c.; (Rev. xii. 11;) and lie that
will not " suffer" with Christ, shall not " reign" with Christ; (2 Tim.
ii. 12;) and if tribulation occasion men to go "oat from us," it is
because " they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would
no doubt have continued with us." (1 John ii. 19.) Tribulation is the
touchstone; it will distinguish sincerity from hypocrisy ; and though it
is true a hypocrite may sometimes suffer, (1 Cor. xiii. 3,) yet he that
will never suffer must be a hypocrite : if we " suffer " not with Him, we
shall not "reign with Him." (Rom. viii. 17.)
SIGN vi. If thou embracest and favourest any "iniquity in thy
heart;" (Psalm Ixvi. 18;) if there be any corrupt lust or ungodly
way that thou art so wedded to, that thou canst not, wilt not, le
divorced from, but huggest it in thy bosom, hidest if, pleadett for it,
though it seem never so harmless and tolerable, yet if it be against God1
law, though thou makest " many prayers" with the Jews, and performest
many services, (Isai. i. 1115,) and doest "many things" with Herod,
(Mark vi. 20,) and hast many glorious and gracious expressions, with
Salaam ; yet " thou art in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity"
Thy " heart" is a " divided " heart; (Hosea x. 2 ;) thou art a
" double, unstable" person ; (James i. 8;) thy prayers will not be
regarded, and all thy services will be rejected by the all-seeing, jealous
God, before whom " all things are naked and opened, and with whom
thou hast to do ;" (Heb. iv. 13 ;) because, " if tbou regardest iniquity
in thy heart," the rise and root of all thy duties and performances is but
the " leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Methinks, beloved,
this should startle us \. and I wish it may. If any of you should be
" pricked at the heart," and " tremble at this word " of God, and ask
me, " What shall we do, that we may acquit ourselves from this leaven
of hypocrisy, and be saved from the wrath it exposeth us to?" I should
answer,
1. " Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many will seek to enter
DISCOVERABLE AND CURABLE f
549
in, end ehall not be able" (Luke xiii. 24.)That is, be very serious,
and thoroughly resolved and industrious in a case of this weight and
concernment. " Be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace."
(2 Peter iii. 14.) Set your hearts to these things; " for it is not a vain
thing for you; because it is your life/' &c. (Deut. xxxii. 46,47.) It is so
weighty a business, that it is work enough for all your life; and it will
be your life of consolation from which will flow peace, and joy, and
assurance. Make but this out clearly, that them art no hypocrite, that
hypocrisy is not predominant in thee; but that " in simplicity and
godly sincerity of heart thou hast thy conversation, not with fleshly wisdom ;" (2 Cor. i. 12;) thou hast then occasion of much rejoicing ; bat
if thou art negligent in this, thy doubts and fears will hang upon and
keep thee low to thy dying day. Nay, it were well if that were all; for
to be negligent in this business is as good as to do nothing ; for it is to
do nothing to purpose, and that is to have all thy work undone, and to
be undone thyself for ever. Most hypocrites did seek to enter in:
Balaam, Herod, the five foolish virgins,had they striven, they had
entered in at the " strait gate." Wisliings, and wouldinge, and slothful
desires to heaven, will not place you out of danger of hypocrisy; for
very hypocrites have done as much. But striving indeed, setting your
whole heart to it, being very diligent to purge out this leaven, " working
out your own salvation with fear and trembling," (Phil. ii. 12,) "giving
diligence to make your calling and election sure,"this will place you
out of danger, and give yon " an abundant entrance into the kingdom
of our Lord." (2 Peter i. 10, 11.) If ever that of the English proverb be
true, it is here: " As good never a whit, as never the better." Indeed,
there is so much work on our hands, such commands, such promisee
to believe, such corruptions to subdue, such temptations to resist, (the
carelessness of carnal failing in any of which will charge us with hypocrisy,) so many such subtle and powerful adversaries to conflict withal,
such a world, such a flesh, such principalities, and powers, and spiritual
wickednesses in high places, such deceitful hearts, deceitful above all
things, to search, and sift, and purge from this leaven, that it is impossible to be free of it without mighty striving, contending, and giving
much diligence.
2. If you would take heed of hypocrisy, take heed- of security.There
are no greater flatterers, and no greater deceivers of themselves and
others, than hypocrites; they " flatter themselves in their own eyes,"
(Psalm xxxvi. 2.) All flattery is dangerous; but self-flattery of all other
most dangerous, and, of all others, in the business of salvation most
pernicious. It is the advice of the devil, and thy own hypocrisy, to
favour thyself, flatter thyself, hope well, &c. The advice of God ie,
"Search and try your ways;" "Examine yourselves;" "Work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Lam. iii. 40; 2 Cor. xiii.
5 ; Phil. ii. 12.) Yea, call upon God to search you. (Psalm cxxxix.
23.) It is a fear of carefulness and solicitude, a trembling of jealousy
and suspicion as to our own hearts, not of diffidence or despair as to
God, that we are directed to. Had the foolish virgins had but this care
this fear, they had had oil in their vessels, as well as lamps. Had
550
SERMON XXVII.
BOW IS HYPOCRISY
those glorious professors in Matt. vii. 22, had but this jealousy and suspicion, they might have escaped that dismal sentence: " Depart from me,
ye that work iniquity." Perhaps your faith may be but a fancy, your
hopes but presumptions, "a spider's web;" (Job vin. 14 ;) perhaps your
fruit may be but that of " an empty vime," to yourself; (Hosea x. 1;) perhaps your prayers may be but " bowlings for corn and wine;" (Hosea vii.
14 ;) perhaps your fasting may not be to God. (Zcch. vii. 5.) " Commune
much with your own heart," and let your " spirit make diligent search."
(Psalm Ixxvii. 6.)
" Keep your heart with all keeping," be jealous
of every thing your heart bath to do with; your affairs, friends, comforts,
recreations, thoughts, solicitudes, graces. 0 blessed, or " happy, is the
man that" thus " fearetb alway;" (Prov. xxviii. 14 ;) he shall never do
amiss; this is to be " in the fear of the Lord all the day long ;" (Prov.
xxiii. 17;) and this " fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,"
the end of wisdom, and wisdom itself; (Prov. i. 7; Eccles. xii. 13;
Job xxviii. 28;) for this will make a man wise to escape the wiles
of Satan, and the hypocrisy of his own heart, and so make him wise
to salvation.
3. Keep God always in your mind.If we have all from him, we
should be all to him. (Bom. xi. 36.) If we live and move in him, our
hearts and minds should be always on him. This is the cause of all the
wickedness and hypocrisy in the world,men " will not seek after God:
God is not in all their thoughts." (Psalm x. 4.) And this is the ground
of all the glorious performances of the saints,they " saw Him that was
invisible;" as Micaiah "saw the Lord on his throne;" and therefore
feared not to deal plainly and sincerely with Ahab, though on his
throne. (Heb. xi. 26 27; 1 Kings xxii. 19.) When the Psalmist had
convinced and reproved the wickedness and formal hypocrisy of ungodly,
presumptuous men, he concludes: " Now consider this, ye that forget
God," &c,: (Psalm 1. 22:) intimating this to be the reason of all
ungodly, hypocritical conversation, a forgetting [of] God. The remedy
must be contrary to the disease: if we would be no hypocrites, we
must much remember, think of, and observe, and eye God by faith.
" Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall
come unto thee." (Job xxii. 21.) If men were acquainted with God,
and did not forget him,acquainted with his omnisciency; (Psalm
cxxxix. 1,2;) with his all-sufficiency; (Gen. xvii. 1;) with the power
of his anger; (Psalm xc. 11;) the infiniteness of his goodness; (Isai,
Iv. 7, 8; Micah vii. 18, 19;) they would conclude, and live under the
awe and power of such conclusions :" 0, then, He is too great to be
tempted and provoked, too excellent to be slighted and undervalued,

too good to be lost, too wise to be deceived!" and this would suppress
and supplant the leaven of the Pharisees' hypocrisy.
4. Be much and daily in the renewing [of] faith and repentance,
If there be such danger of hypocrisy, there is necessity of renewing faith
and repentance, for fear hypocrisy may be in them. Rise and return, as
soon as thou art convinced of thy sin: so did Paul; (Gal. i. 16;) so
did Peter, as soon as the Lord turned and looked upon him. (Luke xxii.
61.) If repentance were hastened after sin, and thou wouldest take
DieCOVEBABLK AND CUBABLK?
551
eare and pains to break thy heart constantly for sin, this would break
it from in. A man should find that it were "an evil thing and bitter
to forsake the Lord, and that his fear was not in thee ;" (Jer. ii. 19;)
and "a broken heart God would not despise," (Psalm li. 17,) because it
is apparent that is no hypocritical heart. And though former faith and
repentance may be counterfeit and hypocritical, yet ensuing and renewed
faith may be sound and sincere; and we have much ground to renew
those acts, whose soundness and validity we have much ground to sue
pect: if all have been false, or feigned, or partial, formerly, we have the
more cause in a new act to give up and bind our souls sincerely to it;
and this will free you from hypocrisy.
5. Put forth your greatest strength and eare to mortify those lusts
and corruptions that are the fuel to hypocrisy, pride, vain-glory, worldlymindedness, self-love.These are the fuel of hypocrisy; they beget it,
and they nourish it. If the love of the world and worldly favour
did not prevail much over men, there would be no hypocrisy in the
world. And cherish and strengthen the graces which cannot consist with
it, but will be always fighting against and opposing it, as love to God,
humility, self-denial, heavenly-mindedness, mortifying the flesh, much
communion with God: " if these be in you, and abound, they make
you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful," but shall " make
your calling and election sure," and so be out of the peril, yea, and
much out of the fear, of hypocrisy.
6. Press the Lord much, and urge him close, with the promisee of a
" new heart," of " circumcising your hearts," and causing you " to low
the Lord with all your heart," of "putting hie fear into your heart"
(Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26; Dent. xxx. 6; Jer. xxxii. 40.)If he urge and
press you in his word, with his precepts, and your duty, do you urge
and press him as much in your prayers, with his promises; spread his
own hand-writing and seals before him, as Augustine relates his mother
did in her prayers for his conversion.* Say, " Lord, these promises
were made to be made good to some; and why not to me ? I hunger,
I need, I thirst, I wait; here is thy hand-writing in thy word; and, in
the hut sacrament, I had thy seal affixed to it. I am resolved to be as
importunate till I have obtained, and as thankful afterwards, as by grace
I shall be enabled. Being convinced I am utterly lost and undone,
if thou nearest not * the desire of the humble' in this particular; (Psalm
z. 17;) and if thou dost hear and grant, I am so well acquainted with
myself, and mine own heart, that I have nothing to glory in, but I shall
wholly 'glory in the Lord,' and I do resolve and believe I shall, to
eternity, celebrate and magnify the riches of the glory of thy grace.
Thy promises are the discovery of thy purposes, and vouchsafed as
materials for our prayers; and in my supplications I am resolved every
day to present and tender them back to thee every day; and if thou
wilt have regard to them there, and appear to be a God of truth to my
soul, a poor creature that hath long feared to burn in hell for hypocrisy will be made, secured, and made happy for ever. I am resolved to
wait upon thee, and to cast my soul upon thee in this way, and thou
* Chiroyrapha tua ingerebattibi,AUGUSTINI Confessionee,Wo. v. cap. 9.
552
SERMON XXVII.
HOW 18 HYPOCRISY DISCOVERABLE, &C.
hast nssnred me thou art a 'God of judgment;' thou didet promise

in judgment, thou knewest what thou didst in making each promises;
and thou wilt be 'a God of judgment/ thou knowest when and where
to make them good; and thou hast pronounced, ' Blessed are all they
that wait for thee;' (Isai. xxx. 18;) and on thee I will wait, and for
this blessing I will hope and look." 0, beloved, if there be but such
an heart in us, and such wrestlings, as Ambrose told Monica, a soul
of such prayers and tears should not perish.*

I could have added much more : but if these characters and directions
be carefully observed, you will beware of and shall escape the leaven
of hypocrisy. And that you may be careful to observe them, consider,
1. That the purging out this leaven is the great care and business of a
Christian's life.This will afford him fear and trembling work to his
dying day ; this, till it be done, makes the gate so strait, and the way so
narrow to life, that few find it; (Matt. vii. 14 ;) and if it be done,
renders all the service of Christ ever after an easy yoke and a light
burden. (Matt. xi. 30.)
2. This, if it be done, gives us actual possession of the *' kingdom
of God " in grace, which consists of " righteousness, and peace, and joy
in the Holy Ghost," (Bom. xiv. 17,) and administers an assured and
"abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ"
in glory. (2 Peter i. 11.)
3. This will prevent the devils everlasting insulting over us." Is tins
the end of all thy praying and hearing, &c., and defying me ? " Nay,
upbraiding Christ, as a learned and holy man feared :f **' I have him, I
have gotten him from thee, for all thy blood, thy miracles, thy gospel,
thy wooing, thy beseechings, thy knocking, and strivings of thy Spirit;
for all thy illuminating [of] them, and making them taste of the powers
of the world to come: I have cozened thee of them at thy very gates
of heaven, and by my devices shipwrecked them in the very mouth
of the haven.' 0 I would not give the devil occasion to upbraid and
insult thus against Christ at the last day for the world." $ And this
would prevent conscience's gnawing and galling to eternity: " What are
all my desires, my seekings and knockings, prayers, fasts, sacraments,
hearing in season, and out of season, waiting at the posts of God's
house early and late ? Have I forsaken so many sins, denied myself so
many contents and pleasures, subduid so many lusts, borne so many
scoffs, suffered so much in my body and estate, and all for hell at last?"
This would be the hell of hell; and all this may be prevented, if we
would " beware of the leaven of hypocrisy," and seriously observe those
Characters, and carefully practise those Directions.
4. Consider the means you have long had, and yet do enjoy.God's
admirable forbearance and patience, a powerful ministry's incessant

labours and pains, an awakened conscience's clamours and warnings; a
danger and evils (if you be negligent) intolerable; a reward (if you
observe the " BEWARE " in the text) eternal and inconceivable; your life
short and uncertain, your death appointed most certain, and you know
* Fieri enim non potett, ul filius istarum lachrymarum pereaA-AUGUSTIVI Confessiones, lib. iii. cap. 12.
+ BASIL.
Idem.
SERMON XXVIII.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, &C.
553
not how near; the world and the lusts thereof (even those that feed and
foment hypocrisy) passing away, (1 John ii. 17.) and that 'now is the
accepted time, now is the day of salvation :" (2 Cor. vi. 2:) and, if you
were ever serious in your lives, now be so; and if ever God spake to your
hearts and consciences, the Lord in mercy speak this!" Beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
SERMON XXVIIT.
BY THE REV.
DAVID CLABKSON, B.D.,
FB1LOW 07 CLARK-HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THE INFLUENCE OF THE

ORDINANCES MAY ABIDE UPON THEM ?
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for
ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people^
and prepare their heart unto thee.1 Chronicles zxix. 18.
IN the preceding chapter we have David's oration, or, if you will, bis
sermon ; the design of which was, to excite the people to a contribution
for the erecting of a temple, and promoting the public worship of God.
It begins verse 2 of that chapter, and is continued to verse 6 of this
chapter.
This sermon was effectual upon the auditory. David had the happiness (which the best orators and most powerful preachers often want)
not only Aeyeiv, but reidiiv ; " he not only spoke what was in
itself persuasive, but did actually persuade " his hearers to comply with
his design. The effect thereof is expressed verses 68: " They
offered," and, which was the marrow and fatness of their offering, " they
offered willingly**
Though will-worship be the worst service of all
other, yet those that serve God willingly are the best worshippers; and
therefore David in this sermon commends such service to his son:
" And thou, Solomon my .son, know tbou the God of thy father, and
serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind." (1 Chron.
xxviii. 9.) None serve God with a perfect heart, but those who serve
him with a willing mind. To such a temper were the people wrought
by this powerful exhortation, " with perfect heart they offered willingly
to the Lord/' (1 Chron. xxix. 9.) Hereupon David, much affected with
his success in this affair, (" David the king also rejoiced with great joy,")
his soul being now upon the wing, he flies to God by prayer, and therewith concludes his sermon. The prayer consists of petition and thanksgiving ; both of them, not conformed to any common model, but suiting
the particular occasion now before him.
He blesseth God for making
such an impression upon the hearts of the people, as moved them to
554
SERMON XXVIIi.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THE
offer, and " after this sort" to offer, so cheerfully, so generously; (verses
1018;) and beseecheth God still to keep their hearts in such a
temper, to make this holy impression durable and abiding: " 0 Lord
God of Abraham," &c., " keep this for ever in the imagination," &c.:
(verse 18:) where we have the enforcement of the petition, and the
matter of it. It is enforced from the covenant of God, by virtue
of which he was " the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel," and had
laid an obligement on himself to have a gracious respect to their
posterity; hence this expression is frequently used, being no small
encouragement to the faithful, to pray for covenant-mercies, and to pray

in faith.
The matter of the petition, that which he prays for, is, that the effect
which his words had upon the people might be durable and continuing;
that the efficacy thereof might abide upon their souls, and every part
thereof; that it might sink into the depths of their hearts, and stick
fast there; that it might pierce through their fancies and " imaginations " into their minds and " thoughts," and through their " thoughts "
into their " hearts" and affections; that the Lord would continue it
there, and continue it long there, even " for ever."

David was apprehensive what a slippery and inconstant thing the
heart of man is, how like a deceitful bow, to which he elsewhere compares it, how apt to slacken on a sudden, when it hath been bended to
any good inclinations or resolutions, by the power of the word, or any
other ordinance. What an unhappy womb it is! how ordinarily holy

motions miscarry before the heart hath gone out its full time with them!
What danger there was, lest their righteousness, which now made such a
flourishing appearance, might prove like the morning cloud, or the early
dew ! And therefore having raised their hearts to so good a posture, he
takes the best course to fix them there. His words having had a
powerful influence upon their souls, he useth the best means to render it
durable and abiding. Hence observe,
DOCTRINE.
The people of God should endeavour to keep the influence of the ordinances abiding upon their touts.
I must not prosecute this doctrine in the usual method, but mention
it only, as leading us to the practical case at this time to be resolved. A
conscientious hearer, observing what his duty is, will be presently inquisitive how he may perform it; the duty is made known in the observation
the inquiry is in the case before us :
What must be done, that the influence of the ordinances may abide
upon us?
By " the ordinances" we understand those principally which are public,
the word, sacraments, and prayer. The text and this exercise lead us to
have a more special respect to the word, which we shall a tittle observe,
hut so as not to exclude the rest. By the " influence of the ordinances,"
is meant the effect they have upon us, while we are employed in them ;
their gracious or comforting efficacy, that which tends to make our hearts
and lives more holy or more comfortable; that whereby our souls are
INPLVXNCK OF * ORDINANCES MAT ABIDE UPON fHBllf
555
qaickeoed, strengthened, restored, or refreshed. By its " abiding on as,"

understand the continuance of this effect after the duty is done, that so
the ordinances of God be not like those human ordinances the apostle
speaks of, which " perish with the using." (Col. ii. 20, 22.) If you
would have it stated clearly and more at large, take it thus: What course
must we take, that the gracious and comforting efficacy of public ordinances may not only reach us while we are employed in them, but may
continue on us afterwards j so as we may walk under the sense and power
thereof all along ?
To resolve this without further preamble : the course you must take
for this purpose lies in the practice of some things, and the avoiding
of others. The things to be practised take notice of in these severals:>
1. Get new hearts, and get them daily more and more renewed.An
old heart is a heart of stone; (Ezek. xi. 19;) and the hardness of it is
not removed but by degrees. Now that which will sink deep into a tender
heart, " a heart of flesh," (Ezek. xuvi. 26,) will glide off from an old
heart as water from a stone, without leaving any impression; and where
none is left, none can continue. The good seed which fell on stony
grouud,-Mt sprang up indeed, but it continued not, as soon as it sprang
up it withered away; (Luke viii. 6 ;) but they who with an honest and
good heart heard the word, they "kept it," and brought forth fruit with
patience, that is, with perseverance; (verse 15;) the fruitful influences
of the word abode upon them. " A good and honest heart" not only
hears tbe word, but keeps it; not only brings forth fruit, but persists
[in] so doing. The more tender, humble, and spiritual the heart is, the
more spiritual fruit and advantage doth it reap from the ordinances, and
the longer doth it continue in possession of those advantages; the less
the soul is renewed, the more resistance doth it offer to the ordinances;
and the more they are resisted, the weaker is their efficacy; and the less
their efficacy is, the less while doth it continue. A heart thoroughly
sanctified is to the ordinances like tinder, which soon takes fire, and is
apt to keep it till it be forced out; whereas a carnal, unmodified heart
is like green wood, whose moistness, giving check to the activity of the
fire, is not soon kindled, and will soon go out, if it be not well looked to.
Naturalists observe, that transmutation is easy in symbolical elements,
such as agree in some prime qualities; water is more easily turned into
air than into fire. A holy and spiritual heart will be easily wrougbt-on
by holy and spiritual ordinances, for here is an agreement in qualities;
and the more agreement, the less opposition; and the less the opposition
is, the more easily will it be mastered: the power of the ordinances will
more easily both take place and keep possession. Holiness makes the
soul both receptive and retentive of holy impressions. Make it but your
great business to grow every day more holy, and it will not be so hard a
matter to have the ordinances work effectually on you, or to have their
efficacy continue with you.
2. Labour to be much affected with the ordinances while you are
employed in them,Slight impressions will be soon worn out; and weak
influences will quickly spend themselves, and vanish. If the ordinances
have but little effect upon you while you are under them, it is not like
556
SERMON XXVIII.
to last long; for that which is little is near to nothing, and that which
is so near to it may soon come to nothing. It is not enough that your
hearts he a little warmed, but they must burn within yon, while Christ is
speaking to you, or you are speaking to him, (Luke xxiv. 32,) if you
would have that heavenly beat to be lasting. The good seed miscarried
upon one sort of ground in the parable, because it had no " deepness
of earth ;" it quickly withered, because it took no deep root. (Matt. xiii.
5, 6.) If the ordinances pierce no further than the surface of the soul,
if the work of them be but superficial, if they do not penetrate into the
depths of the heart, the efficacy of them is not like to continue. Therefore, prepare your hearts before you draw near to God, get them so disposed as they may be capable of lasting influences. The text directs us to
this: "O Lord, keep this for ever in the imagination," &c., " and prepare
their heart unto thee." Then is the heart prepared to the Lord when it
is made tender, and sensible, and open.
Bring tender hearts to the ordinances, get them broken up beforehand:
" Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." (Jer. iv. 3;
Hosea x. 12.) A tender heart drinks-in divine influences; they insinuate
themselves more easily into the intimate recesses of it. That which can
make no impression at all upon a flint, will sink deep into softened wax.
Come with sensible hearts, apprehensive of your spiritual wants and
necessities, burdened with your lusts and corruptions, pained with your
inward distempers and soul-grievances. I cannot commend to you any
thing more effectual, to make you capable of great and lasting advantages.
Such a quick sense of your spiritual condition will open your hearts,
and make them ready to receive so much from the ordinances as will not
be soon spent. " Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." (Psalm Ixxxi.
10.) Now it is desire that opens the heart; and the stronger the desire
is, the wider is it opened: then is the soul wide open, when it pants and
breathes after God; when it hungers and thirsts after holiness, as appears
by equivalent promises: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled." (Matt. v. 6; Psalm cvii. 9.)
That which we get by holy duties, is soon spent because it is so little;
and we get so little, because we desire no more. We come to the ordinances tanquam cants ad Nilum, too like the Egyptian dog, which laps a
little as he runs by the side of Nilus, but stays not to drink; we take but
a taste of them as in transitu, too little and too cursorily; whenas Christ
invites us to eat and drink abundantly. (Canticles v. 1.) Such cursory
tastes may cheer you a little; but they will not furnish you with strength
for continual service; you must feed, and feed hungrily, and come with
a strong appetite, that you may be capacious of much: a little will not
serve yon long.
3. Mind the ordinances after your use of them.Be much in meditation
if you would have the efficacy of ordinances to continue long. Be often
considering what you have heard, what you have prayed for, what you
have received and are obliged to by the sacraments. Much of heaven and
holiness is engraved on these ordinances; and the seal is, as it were, set
upon the heart, while you arc under them; but after-consideration lays
INFLUKNCK OF THK ORDINANCES MAT * UPON THEM ?
557
more weight on it, and hnpreaeeth it deeper, and so makes the characters
both more plain and more durable ; for the deeper they are, the longer
will it be ere they be defaced.
Most men lose their souls, and the best men lose great advantages for
their souls, for want of consideration. There is a quickening, a healing,
a comforting, a strengthening, virtue in the ordinances; and this virtue
may fall upon your souls, while you are employed in them ; but yon cannot expect it will stay with you, unless you fix it there; and, no better
way to fix it than consideration. This will rouse it up, when it lies dormant and unactive; this will put spirits into it, when it grows weak and
languid; this will both diffuse and fasten it, yea, it will heighten and
improve it. " My heart was hot within me," saith David : " while I was
musing the fire burned." (Psalm xxxix. 3.) The heart takes fire at the
mind; and it is " musing," or consideration, that kindles it, and keeps it
in, and blows it up: those sparks which 'fall from heaven upon your
hearts, while you are hearing, or praying, &c.,they will die, they will go
out, and come to nothing, unless you do unless " you blow
them up" by meditation. (2 Tim.i. 6.) " He sent his word, and healed
them." (Psalm cvii. 20.) The word hath a salve for every soul-distemper;
but that it maybe effectual, the plaster must be laid on, and kept on too,
till the cnre be wrought: the preacher may apply it, and lay it upon the
distempered part; but it will not be kept on without meditation. " How
sweet are thy words unto my taste!" saith David. (Psalm cxix. 103.) How
came they to be still so sweet ? Why, they were his " meditation day and
night;" the delicious relish of them still continued, because he kept them
still upon his palate, by ruminating and musing on them.
The word of God in the scripture is as honey in the comb; there is
that which is incomparably sweeter: now, by meditation you squeeze out
this sweetness, and it will be still dropping comfort and sweet refreshment
upon your souls, while you are pressing it by consideration. " I have
written unto you, young men, beca .se ye are strong, and the word of God
adideth in you." (1 John ii. 14.) If you would be strong, and continue
so, the word of God must " abide" in you: now how can it abide in you,
if it have not leave to stay in that which is but the portal of the soul,>
if it abide not in your minds ? Yon lose all for want of consideration :
both the gracious and comforting influences of the ordinances slide from
you through this neglect. And no wonder it is so great a damage to you,
since it is so great a sin: you cast the word behind your backs, and throw
the ordinances at your heels, when you do not mind them after you have
done with them; and will the Lord encourage any with a durable blessing
under such guilt ? Will not this provoke him rather to curse your blessings, and blast them in the bud? Meditation is a known duty, and
commonly insisted on, and therefore you may be tempted to slight it;
whereas, indeed, upon this account, you should the more regard it; for
since it is a known duty, the neglect of it is a known sin: now to say
nothing how inconsistent it is either with grace or comfort to live in a
known sin, how can you expect the efficacy of ordinances should be continued, while you neglect the means which the Lord hath appointed and
commended to you, as most effectual for the continuance thereof? The
558
SERMON XXV11I.
"WHAT MOST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THE
blessing of the ordinances will not abide upon Mm who continues in sin
especially when his sin is the neglect of that medium which should fix the
blessing upon him.
4. Let the efficacy of the ordinances be pursued presently into act.If
they convince you of any neglected duty, fall immediately upon the practice of it. If they make you more resolute against any carnal or worldly
lust, betake yourselves presently to the mortifying of it. If they kindle
any holy affection to Christ or his people, give some real expression
thereof without delay. If they revive any languishing grace, let it be
forthwith exercised. This was David's practice. (Psalm cxiz. 60.) You
will find this one of the best expedients for the fixing and securing
of those good notions which are raised in your minds and hearts by the
ordinances. When the blossoms of a fruit-tree are once knit, though
the flourish thereof be gone, and you see nothing but the bare rudiment
of the expected fruit; yet yon think it more secured from the injury
of frosts and winds than if it were still in the flower. Good motions,
when they are once reduced into act, are thereby, as it were, knit, and
brought to more consistency. They are then well past one of their
critical periods, where most miscarry, and so are more like to live and
continue with you. Besides, the act strengthens that good motion and
disposition which leads to it, and so makes you more ready for another
act; and that disposeth to more acts, and those to better; and repeated
acts beget a habit; and this, as the philosopher tells us, is povifjuvrspov ,
" something that will stay by you." The hearts of the people being
raised by Hezekiah's zealous speech, they were kept up in that posture,
till the work designed by him was finished, till religion was restored and
reformed: and how came this to pass? Why, "the thing was done
suddenly:" he pursued the people's good inclinations, and brought
them into act suddenly; he struck while the iron was hot. (2 Chron.
ixix. 310, 36.) When your hearts are heated by the ordinances, set
immediately upon your work: the primus impetus [" first impulse "] affords
a great advantage if it be improved; possibly in the vigour of it, you
may overcome those great difficulties and oppositions which have been
too hard for you formerly, and may otherwise give yon impediment hereafter ; and, this being mastered, your progress will be easier, you may
go on towards heaven under the power of the ordinances, with less
interruption and fewer intercisions of these divine influences: " But be
ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer," that is, if he do it
not presently, as appears by what follows, "he is like unto a man
beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was."
(James i. 2224.) The glass discovers what spots and sullages are in
his face, that he may wash them off; or what is disordered about him,
that he may correct and compose it; but if he do not this presently,
if he put it off till some occurrence divert him from the thoughts
and remembrance of it, his looking in the mirror will prove but a loss
of time, a vain curiosity. Your use of the ordinances is like to prove no
better, if you practise not what they lead you to without delay: it is
INFLUENCE OF THE ORDINANCES MAT ABIDE UPON THE)? 559

like to be no other than such a viewing of yourselves in a glass, a mere
fruitless speculation.
5. You must take much pain with your hearte, if you would have them
retain the virtue and efficacy of the ordinance.The effect of them
should be as a nail fastened in a sure place: but the heart is so hard and
knotty a piece* that you cannot drive it in without many blows; it will
require all your strength to force it in far enough, and all your care and
watchfulness to keep it in when it is there. They grossly mistake
Christianity who take it to be consistent with our carnal ease and sloth
fulness ; who place it in notions or opinions; in fair shows, and a
specious profession; in forms, gestures, or external observances; in conforming to this or that mode of worship or discipline. It were well for
the world if one could be a Christian at such an easy rate; but they that
please themselves with such conceits, " they err, not knowing the scriptures." The action of a Christian is, all along in the New Testament,
expressed by "striving, wrestling, running, and combating, exercises;"
wherein he that will not be worsted, must intend all hie spirits, stretch
all his sinews, put forth all his strength ; he that is a Christian indeed,
he must eraXamv, (Eph. vi. 12,) Sicoxttv, (Phil. iii. 1214 ;' Heb.
xii. 14,) (0: (Luke xiii. 24:) his daily course must be "a
combating" as for victory, " a running" as for a crown, " a striving"
as for life. The power and life of holiness can neither be attained nor
upheld without an effectual use of the ordinances; the ordinances will
never be effectual to purpose, unless the virtue of them abide upon the
heart. Now, it meets with such reluctancy and opposition from the
heart, so far as it is unrenewed, that it can never be fastened there,
without striving, and struggling, and earnest contending: it must be
done in despite of our own ease, and carnal humours, and natural inclination, and all the resistance of the body of death. If yon think this
too much, you think much to be Christians indeed, however you pretend
to the name. Those that are acquainted with their own hearts find it
very hard to get them raised to a spiritual and heavenly temper, very
difficult to get them pullied up, though they have the advantage of the
most powerful ordinances, to any good posture; and, when with much
ado they are got up, exceeding difficult to keep them there. Alas 1 we
seem to be forcing a weighty stone up a steep hill; when, with much
toil we have got it near the top, take but our hands off a little, leave it
but to itself, and down it runs further in a moment than we can get it
up again in some hours. Our way to heaven lies up the hill; that
which is spiritual and heavenly is above us; the natural bent and
tendency of our hearte is downwards: as there is no getting them up
without toil and pains, so, when we have raised them a little, leave them
but to themselves, grow but a little remiss and negligent, and down they
run on a sudden; we shall quickly find them at the bottom of the hill,
in a carnal, lukewarm, earthly temper. When our hearts are effectually
touched, and raised, and moved in the use of ordinances, there is no
keeping them in a quick and lively motion, without striving and struggling, and, as it were, forcing them on with might and main. The
influence of the ordinances falling upon a slothful soul is quite lost, and
560
SERMON XXVIII.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THB
merely thrown away upon it: " The slothful mail roasteth not that
which he took in hunting." (Prov. xii. 27.) So he loseth all his former
labour, because he will not take a little more pains; a slothful soul
loseth all the advantages he gets by following the ordinances, for want
of care and industry to retain and improve what he hath gotten.
6. Comply with the Spirit of God.These influences, both as to the
rise and continuance of them, are from him. When you comply not
with him, you grieve the Spirit, and provoke him to withdraw; and
when he withdraws, these influences will be discontinued. If you detain
the truth in unrighteousness, if you confine it to your minds, so as the
power thereof descends not upon your hearts and affections, comes not
forth in your lives and actions, you do , " imprison " the truth;
and that is a great affront to the Spirit of truth. If, when the Spirit
of God calls you to take up the cross, to leave all to follow Christ contentedly and cheerfully in a low, reproached, afflicted condition; or if,
when he calls you up to a higher degree of self-denial, mortification, and
holiness, you hang back, or turn aside, and refuse to follow his conduct,
this grieves the Spirit of holiness. If you decline his institution for other
devices, shrink back from the work you are engaged to when it grows
hazardous, strain your consciences to secure your outward enjoyments,
will not be influenced by Him further than is consistent with your ease,
credit, safety, and worldly interest, you dishonour the Spirit of wisdom.
This provokes the blessed Spirit to withdraw; and when the fire is gone
out, the heat will not long continue. If you refuse to continue under
the influences of the Spirit in some things, it is righteous with him not
to continue them upon you in others. If you fear the displeasure
of man more than the grieving of Him; if you lean more to the hopes
of this life than his supports, and consult with flesh and blood, instead
of being directed by the wisdom which is from above; it will be no wonder if he give yon over to your own conduct, and, intermitting bis own,
leave you under the influences of your carnal fears and worldly hopes.
7. Be frequent in the use of ordinance, Good impressions do most
usually wear off in the intervals of holy duties; and the longer these are,
the more danger there is; therefore make these interims as short as may
be by quick returns to the ordinances. It is observed that places under
the line are not so hot as some climates at a further distance from it;
and this reason is given for it:Those under the equinoctial, though they
have the sun more vertical, and the beams, falling perpendicularly, cause
a more intense heat; yet the nights being of equal length with the days,
the coolness of those long nights doth more allay the heat than where the
nights are shorter. Long intermissions of holy duties are like long
nights; you may find them by experience to be great coolers; if you live
under more powerful ordinances than some others, yet if they be more
frequent and diligent in the use of what they have, they are like to have
more spiritual warmth than you, and that with less allay and intermission.
Besides, when the advantage you have got by one ordinance is declining
and wearing off, the use of the same, or of some other, may revive and
recover it, if you take it speedily before it be too far gone.
Further: a
slight impression, such as is not like to last long, may be re-inforced fur
INFLUENCE OF THE ORDINANCES MAY ABIDE UPON THEM?
561
a longer continuance if you lay yourselves quickly under the instrument

that first made it. When Elijah had once tasted of the provision the
Lord made for him in the wilderness, he " laid him down/' saith the
text, as having enough; but the angel calls him to it again; for, saith he,
" The journey is too great for thee." Hereupon he arose once more,
" and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty
days and forty nights." (I Kings xix. 68.) Once tasting will not serve
your turn; a little will not be enough; so long a journey as yours is
will spend much; nothing but a frequent and often-repeated use of the
ordinances will furnish you with such strength as will last yon many
days.
8. Finally: Look up to God for the continuance of thit influence.
Pray, and pray in faith. Seek him, and depend on him for it. He will
be found of those that seek him. (Matt. vii. 7.) You have his promise
for it; and dependence on him obligeth him, too: "The expectation
of the poor shall not perish/* (Psalm ix. 18.) It is not for his honour
to fail those whom he hath encouraged to rely on him: an ingenuous
man will not do it, much less the faithful God. This course David
takes in the text; he prays, and encourageth his faith while he is praying,
by that interest which the faithful have in the Lord by virtue of the
covenant: " 0 Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep
this for ever." Yea, the Lord himself leads us to this, in Deut. v. 24,
27, 29: the people were much affected, in that they had heard the
Lord's voice ; (verse 24 ;) this brought them up to a noble resolution :
" Speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee;
and we will hear it, and do it." (Terse 27.) Hereupon the Lord thus
expresseth himself: " 0 that there were such a heart in them, that they
would fear me, and keep all my commandments always," &c. (Verse 29.)
What greater encouragement can we have to desire this of God, than
that he expresseth himself desirous we should have it ? Faith is the
main strength of prayer; and the great supports of faith are these two,
that he is able, and that he ie willing. These are to faith like the two
pillars of the temple, 1 Kings vii. 21 ; and the names of them there
expressed are very apposite: " He set up the right pillar, and called
the name thereof Jachin;" that is, "he will establish," he is willing:
"and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boas s"
that is, " in him is strength," he is able. Now, faith hath both these
pillars to support it in this business. That the Lord if able to continue
his influences, you will not question, I hope: he " is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in us;" (Eph. iii. 20 ;) and that he i willing, he puts it out
of question, when he useth such an expression as, amongst men, signifies
a passionate desire, "O that there were such a heart in them," &c.
Now, saith the philosopher, ; 3 , &c., " That which
one is both able and willing to do shall be done." Both reason and
faith see ground enough to conclude this. Pray then, and pray believing;
for as the Lord is able to do it, so it is according to his will; and
whatsoever you ask according to his will, believing, it shall be done.

(Matt. xxi. 22.)
562
SERMON XXVIII.
WHAT MOST CHRISTIANS DO, THAT THE
Thus much for what you are to practise : there are some things to be
avoided, if you would have the influence of the ordinances to be lasting:
these we shall comprise in four particulars:
1. Take heed you perform not holy duties negligently.A heartless,
formal, negligent attendance on the ordinances will be so far from procuring a durable blessing, that it will fix a curse upon you : " Cursed be
he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently," [or " deceitfully"J.
(Jer. xlviii. 10: see Mal. i. 8, 14.) If you invert the apostle's advice, and
deal with the things of God, as you should do with those of the world;
(1 Cor. vii.;) if you pray as though you prayed not, and hear as though
yon heard not, and use the ordinances as though you did not use them;
they will be no otherwise effectual than if there were no efficacy in them ;
it will continue on you as though it continued not; like that of the sun
in a winter day, which thaws the earth a little at noon, but so as it is
harder frozen up the next night. Therefore let your hearts be engaged
in every holy duty: " Who is this that engaged his heart to approach
unto me ? " (Jer. xxx. 21.) You must hear as for life : " Set your hearts
unto all the words which I testify among you this day. For it is not a
vain thing for you; because it is your life," &c. (Deut. xxxii. 46, 47.)
You must wrestle in prayer; your hearts in this duty should be, as it
were, in a conflict, in an agony; is the apostle's word:
" Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for
the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to
God for me." (Rom. xv. 30.) Your prayers should be such as the other
apostle describes: " The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much:" (James v. 16.) The word rendered "effectual fervent,"
is evepywpevy.
Now is " one possessed with a spirit," and
acted by it. If the word here used look that way, then, suitable to the
matter to which it is applied, it imports a possession in a good sense.
And 8sij<ns eve/jyowftevi) will be a prayer full of the Holy Ghost, wherein
that blessed Spirit is operative, exerting its force and energy; such a
prayer as shows the soul to be possessed of the Holy Spirit and acted by
it, so as all the powers of that soul are set a-work and put upon motion
towards God "effectually." Such a prayer "avails much," procures
great advantages, and of long continuance.
Generally, in all holy ordinances your souls should stretch out themselves to reach the Lord; they should spring up to him in acts of love
and desire, and clasp about him with delight and complacence, and lay
hold on him with a humble and filial confidence, and stir up themselves
to lay hold on him. " We do ail fade as a leaf," saith the church;
(both their persons and their righteousness did so;) and the reason
thereof follows: " There is none that stirreth up himself to take hold
of thee." (Isai. Ixiv. 6, 7.)
2. Beware of the world.Meddle not with it more than needs must;
and when it is needful, engage not therein but with fear, caution, and
vigilance. Carry yourselves amongst worldly objects and employments,
as though'you were amongst cheats and thieves: they have the art to
pick your hearts slily, and to rob them of that which is more precious
than gold, when you little think of it.
563
Let not your minds and heart plunge themselves in the world:
nothing sooner, nothing oftener, extinguished divine influences than this
puddle. The cares, and delights, and employments of the world, when
they are immoderate or unseasonable,they " choke the word," (Matt,
xiii. 22,) they stifle the issue of holy ordinances, so as it becomes like
the untimely birth of a woman.
When your hearts are warmed in holy duties, you should be as
cautious and wary how you venture into the world, as you are of going
into the frosty air when you are all in a sweat. What is kindled by the
word or prayer, &c., how quickly is it puffed out by the world, when
you rush into it unwarily! It requires as much care to keep it in, as to
keep a candle in, when you would carry it through the open air in a
rainy, blustering night. The further you are above the world, the
longer may you retain any spiritual impressions. Geographers write of
some mountains whose tops are above the middle region of the air;
and there lines and figures being drawn in the dust, have been found,
say they, in the same form and order, untouched, undefaced, a long time
after; and the reason is, because they are above those winds, and
showers, and storms, which soon wear out and efface any such draughts
in this lower region. The lower your minds and hearts and conversations are, the more in the hurry of this boisterous world, the less will
anything that is heavenly and spiritual abide upon them. Let the soul
be brought into never so good order by the help of holy duties, yet a
little unwary engaging in earthly business will ruffle, disturb, and quite
discompose it.
When your souls are, by power of the ordinance, set on motion
towards Christ and heaven, if you would hold on in a continued course,
you must beware of worldliness, and keep free as much as may be from
earthly incnmbrances and entanglements: " Let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us/' (Heb. zii. 1.) Let us persevere and hold out in that gracious and heavenly course which the gospel
hath put us on: but that this may be done, one great impediment
must be removed; "the sin which doth so easily beset us" must be
shaken off. Now, that sin, as some expositors conceive, is worldliness ;
and it is probable: for -;, being " a circumstance,"
, if we render it literally, is " the sin that hath goodly
circumstances." And no sin sets off itself with more goodly circumstances than worldliness; no sin hath more specious pleas and pretences to excuse, vindicate, and justify itself. No sin hath more
fig-leaves to cover its nakedness, and to shroud it from discovery and
conviction, than worldliness. This must be shaken off: it is the great
defacer of heavenly impressions, the chief interrupter of holy motions:
if you would hold on when the impetus which is impressed on you
by any ordinance hath set you a-going, beware of the world, beware
of worldliness.
3. Take heed of any inordinacy in ejection, inclination, or design,
Such inordinacies give the heart a strong bias; holy duties check it but a
little, give it but as it were a small rub: when this is once passed over,
564
SERMON XXVIII.
it will hold on in that course to which it is most swayed. The ministry

of John Baptist had some influence upon Herod: " He heard John
gladly, and did many things :" (Mark vi. 20 :) but, sensuality being predominant, those better inclinations were quite overpowered. The word
had some effect upon Simon Magus: " He believed," and being taken for
a believer, " was baptized," and afterwards " continued with Philip," &c.;
(Acts viii. 13;) but a strong affectation of vain-glory suppressed those
better motions, and the worst got upmost. Take heed of any inordinacy
as to lawful things; your relations, studies, ordinary callings, &c. : this
will not suffer you to come so often to holy duties, to stay so long in
them, or to be so intent upon them, as is requisite for the deep impressing of their efficacy; and, after they are done, this will hurry your souls
from under those thoughts and exercises which should fix and settle their
virtue and influence upon your minds and hearts. Natural bodies follow
the tendency of that element which is predominant in them: a stone
moves downwards, it would be at the centre ; that which stops it, offers
it violence, and when the force is removed, down it falls freely. Just
thus doth the heart follow the tendency of these inordinacies: if it meet
with a stop in an ordinance, that is but an ungrateful violence to it;
it will struggle to break through it, will be restless till the force be
removed, till the power of the ordinance be shaken off, which checks an
inclination natural and acceptable to it: and what hopes in this case that
the efficacy of any holy duty will long continue ?
4. Rett not in the best performance of any duty, nor in any assist'
ances you find therein, though they be special and more than ordinary.
If this satisfy and exalt you, you will be apt to grow secure and careless,
not looking to the improvement of ordinances when once they are over ;
and that is the way to lose all. We are apt to take the most dangerous
colds, when we are in the greatest heats. And it is observed that some
professors have had the foulest falls, after they have been most elevated
in holy employments. The resting upon the opus operatum, " the
mere outward performance of a duty," when the heart is not engaged
therein, is an open pit which none fall into save those that are blind;
but the resting upon the opus operantis, "a duty affectionately performed," is a more secret, and so a more dangerous, snare. He that
makes account he hath done enough, because he hath done well, may be
apt to think he is not obliged to look further after it; and so the
continued influence of the duty upon his heart and life, which is indeed
the principal advantage of it, may be neglected and, consequently, lost
for want of looking to.
5. To conclude: Make not the ordinances your end, but use them as
the means to attain it,They are not enjoined us for themselves, but
in order to something more desirable; their end is something further
than their use. Take heed you place not all your religion in hearing,
praying, communicating, &c.; neither count yourselves religious enough,
because you are much and often in these duties. This is to make them
your end ; and then you will rest therein, without proceeding further;
for the motion of the agent is terminated in his end : and so you will
stay short of that for which they were principally intended, namely,
56$
the keeping of your hearts and minds in a settled posture of holiness

and righteousness; and neglect that by which this main end of the
ordinances is only to be attained, namely, the continuing of their influence
upon you.
So much for the case propounded, which I have endeavoured to
resolve, as the nature of it requires, practically; and therefore as there
is no time for, so there will be less need of, application. But that I may
not dismiss you without something of this nature, having laid your duty
before yon in the observation, and showed you how it may be performed
in satisfying the case; let me now press you to the performance of it by
one consideration, which will have the force of a motive, where there is
any sense of soul-concernments:
If the efficacy of the ordinances abide not on you, you cannot be fruitful
under them, at least you cannot " briny forth fruit to perfection," as the
expression is. (Luke via. 14.)You may bring forth buds, or leaves,
or blossoms, &c.; but if their influence continue not, that which you
bring forth will never come to ripeness and perfection ; it will be crude
and sour at best: and sour grapes are as bad as no fruit, in the Lord's
account; and unfruitfulness will provoke the Lord to deprive yon
of the gospel and ordinances: " He looked that it should bring forth
grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now go to; I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof. I will
lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged: I will also command the
clouds that they rain no rain upon it." (Isai. v. 2, 5, 6.) The meaning
of this parable, so far as concerns our purpose, is expressed by another
threatening denounced for the same sin: " The kingdom of God," that
is, the gospel of the kingdom, " shall be taken from you, and given to
a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." (Matt. zzi. 43.) And
Christ's threatening of Ephesus amounts to as much: " Nevertheless I
have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." The
first impressions of the gospel were worn off and vanished. And what
follows? "I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent." (Rev. ii. 4, 5.) So that this
sin will pull up your hedge, and break down your wall, level all your
securities, and so lay you open to the boar of the wood, and the wild
beasts of the field: such as, instead of digging and pruning you, will
devour and lay you waste, and Sbaron will become a desert. This sin
will provoke Christ to let the stars fall out of his right hand; so as you
will be left to perish for want of vision. This sin will provoke the Lord
to take the gospel of the kingdom from you, and leave yon under the
hellish influences of the prince of darkness. This sin will overturn your
candlestick*, and extinguish your lights, and leave you nothing but the
snuffs. This sin will deliver your strength into captivity, and your glory
into the enemies' hand. This sin will smite the shepherds, and scatter
the flocks, and lay the heritage of God desolate. This sin will cause your
sun to set at noon, and turn the day of your gracious visitation into a sad
and dismal night. This sin will turn the place which hath been "a
valley of vision " into a seat of darkness, and a " valley of the shadow
of death."
566
SERMON XXVIII.
WHAT MUST CHRISTIANS DO, &C.
If, then, yon would avoid a judgment which strikes not only at your
estates and lives, but at your souls; if you would prevent that dreadful
stroke which may not only reach yourselves, but your posterity, your
children and children's children; if you would not have them and yourselves, and thousands and millions with you, bereaved of the gospel, and
the means of grace and life; take all care and pains, that the influences
of the ordinances do not slide from you, that they be not as water spilt
upon the ground. Be faithful and diligent in the use of the forementioned directions, and all other means which may be effectual to fix
them. And if hereby your hearts are wrought up to such a resolution,
the " Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, keep this for ever in the
imagination of the thoughts of your hearts."
A SUPPLEMENT
TO
THE HOMING EXEECISE

AT CRIPPLEGATE:
OB,
SEVERAL MORE CASES OF CONSCIENCE

PRACTICALLY RESOLVED,
BY SUNDRY MINISTERS.
Our rejoicing ia this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly
sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our convenation in the world,2 Corinthians i. 12.
Conscientia est nescio quid divinum, et nunquam peril, officium nostrum nobis
temper ad memoriam revocat.DOKOTHEUS, Biblioth. Patrum torn. iv.
" Conscience is an inexpressible and divine something, which never dies, but which i
constantly employed in recalling our duty to our recollection."EDIT.
Qvarimus, quomodo animus semper aqualis, seettndoque eursu eat, et propitiue sibi sit,
et sua latus adspioiat: et hoe gaudium turn interrumpat, sed placido statu maneat,
nee attoHens se unquam, nee deprimens.SENECA!)* Tranquillitatc Anmue,f. 678.
" This, then, is the subject of our inquiry: How the mind of man may be always calm
and equable, proceed onward in a prosperous course, may not be vindictive but
benignant towards itself, and may contemplate its endowments and possessions with
a joy of complacency; how it may avoid the interruption of this joy, and may
itself continue in a state of placid tranquillity, being at no time unduly elated or
depressed."EDIT.
TO THAT PART OF CHRIST'S FLOCK TO WHICH

I AM MORE SPECIALLY RELATED,
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jena
Christ our Saviour.
BELOVED CHRISTIANS,
As I called-in a contribution of help for the composing of a
legacy for others, before my civil death: so I now tender yon a
Supplement to that Exercise, for your better liveliness of spiritual
life.
I shall say nothing to commend these Sermons to yon; my
brethren are all herein unanimous, to seek the church's profit, not
their own applause; only this I must say, to prevent mistake,
namely, if any curious reader shall find matter of exception, (beside
the errors of printing, which I confess are too many,) the blame
must be personal, because this joint-work is no otherwise social,
than as single pearls strung together make one neck-lace. I easily
grant, here is not yet a stating of all important cases; yet be this
known to you, whosoever shall follow these directions shall neither
be barren nor unfruitful in the work of the Lord, nor miss of an
abundant entrance into his everlasting kingdom. Live up to what
you have attained, and you may be confident that what is further
wanting, God will, as you want it, supply it. Be assured of this,
that you will get more skill and strength for all necessary graces
and duties by an humble, serious, constant course of godliness,
than you possibly can do by captious criticisms, and wrangling
contentions about lesser things, in which too many spend their
lives. I herein appeal to your consciences, should not these Sermons answer expectation, but, according to your judgment, either
the cases are ill chosen, or not well stated, in that the matter is
either defective or redundant, the language too curious or too
careless, the directions too common or too singular: I appeal
from your passions to your consciences, and down-right charge
you in the name of my Master, who must be your Judge, that
you read with other spectacles. These are not calculated to
humour you, but to better you. These are not duties to be
cavilled at, but to be practised. that you may be effectually
persuaded, (SERMON I.) That your love to God must be predominant, and growing, or you degrade yourselves below the beasts;
(II.) That your love to man must be universal and spiritual,
570
THE EPISTLE.
or you cannot evidence your love to God; (III.) That your love
to the world must truckle under both, be subservient to both,
and never be otherwise j for if the world master you, it will ruin
you. that your awakened consciences may now alarm you,
(IV.) To catch at salvation while it is offered, lest you perish for
ever. Though it is a vexed problem, (V.) What knowledge is
necessary to salvation; yet can you satisfy your consciences without
diligent endeavours to proportion your knowledge to the means
you enjoy? and to bring forth fruits every day, as those that in
some measure feel, (VI.) What it is to be in the spirit on the
Lord's day; and that the word (VII.) Preached, and (VIII.)
Bead, may be so impressed upon heart and life, that it may be an
infallible evidence you are taught of God? And when through
weakness of the flesh your duties may prove wearisome, (IX.)
Learn to refresh yourselves with the songs of Zion. But would
you have more particular directions ? They are before you. Here
you may learn true Christianity, (X.) In the daily improvement
of your baptism. Here you may learn, (XI.) How to propagate
religion to posterity, by riveting truth upon your own hearts, and
teaching it to others. But while you are giving milk to babes,
(XII.) Excuse not yourselves upon any account whatsoever from
frequent and hungry feeding upon stronger meat. Be you as willing to seal to the conditions of the covenant, as you are desirous
God should seal to the promises of it. But who is sufficient for
these things ? Pour out your hearts therefore, and lift up your
souls to God in all manner of prayer. (XIII.) Let extraordinary
prayer answer that title, (XIV.) Your secret prayer speak secret
communion with God. (XV.) Let your family prayer bring down
blessings upon your family, that you be neither holy nor happy
alone, but that when your family relations shall cease, they may
bless God to eternity that ever there were such relations between
you. Now therefore, (XVI.) Let husbands and wives be the liveliest emblems in the world of Christ and his church. (XVII.) Let
parents and children be the evidences and pledges of God's special
presence with this and the next generation. (XVIII.) Let masters and servants adorn the Gospel by their exemplary faithfulness
to their heavenly Master. Thus doing, (XIX.) Your thoughts will
be cured, and in them you will enjoy God: (XX.) Your tongues
will in some sense be God's glory as well as yours. But then,
(XXI.) You must cautiously avoid the catching canker of detraction : (XXII.) So you shall by your conversations convince the
world there is an excellency in Christianity. And that all this
THE EPISTLE.
571
may be as well acceptable to God as approved of men, (XXIII.)

Bo all in the name of Christ; and while you thus embark with
Christ, (XXIV.) He will steer you safe between presumption and
despair, those rocks upon one of which most perish. Hereby also,
(XXV.) You will make your port with the cheering joys of an
heroic faith; (XXVI.) And keep above all vexing discontents with
your worldly condition. (XXVII.) And what afflictions God's
wise love shall inflict, you will be able to bear them with more than
a Roman courage. (XXVIII.) And though reproachful reproofs
may bear hard upon you, you will not fret, but welcome them as a
precious balm. But when you have done your best, yet, through
the remainders of corruption, guilt will be contracted; (XXIX.)
You cannot but be restless till it be removed. (XXX.) Then you
may rather hope for than fear death; and (XXXI.) Grace, thus in
exercise, is but one degree from glory. Now, Christians, though
there are many particular cases wherein you will need direction,
yet let me close with this request: Try your utmost, what the
practical transcript of these directions into your hearts and lives
will produce, ere you complain for more. That these may be useful to you (whoever else censures them as useless) shall be the
hearty prayer of
Your worthless servant,
SAMUEL ANNESLEY.
June 1
, 1674.
SUPPLEMENT
THE MORNING EXERCISE.

SERMON I.
BY THE EEV. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL.D.
HOW MAY WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEARTS,
SOULS, AND MINDS?
Jems said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment.Matthew xxii. 37, 38.
IT is fit this Exercise should begin -with a general introduction, thai
may indifferently serve every sermon that shall be preached. I should
be much mistaken, and so would you too, should we think this text
unsuitable: let us therefore, not only in the fear, but also in the love,
of God, address ourselves to the management of it.
This command you have in Dent. vi. 5: " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might." This command is not found in Exodus, nor in Leviticus, but
only in Deuteronomy; that is, " the second law of Moses," which, as
some express it, bore a type of the second law, namely, the evangelical,
to which this command is proper: for the old law was a law of fear
tending to bondage, and therefore Moses mentions the incussion of terror
in the giving of it; which when he hath dispatched, he begins the
following chapter with love, noting that the Holy Ghost will cause the
law of love to succeed the law of fear. And it is observable that the
Jews read this place with the highest observation; and their scribes write
the first and last words of the preface to it with greater letters than
ordinary, to amplify the sense, and to note that this is the beginning and
the end of the divine law; and they read this scripture morning and
evening with great religion.*
THE OCCASION.
The occasion of Christ's pressing this command upon them at this

time was this: When the Pharisees heard how he had baffled the Sadduceee, and stopped their mouths with so proper and fit an answer that
they had no more to say, they consult how they may show their acumen
* JANSENH Ifarmonia.
SERMON I.
BOW MAT WK ATTAIN TO LOTS GOD, &C.
573
and sharpness of wit, to diminieh Christ' credit concerning his doctrine

and skill in scripture; and therefore they choose oat one of their most
accomplished interpreters of the law, captiously to propose an excellent \ /

question. They call him " Master," whose disciples they will not be; V
they inquire after the "great" commandment who will not duly observe ^
the " least;" they thought Christ could not return such an answer but
that they might very plausibly except against it.* If Christ should have
named any one command to be the greatest, their exception was ready:
"Why not another as great as that?" But Christ's wisdom shames
their subtilty; Christ doth not call any command great, with the lessening of the rest; bat he repeats the sum of the whole law, and distingaisheth it into two great commands, according to the subordination,
of their objects. " Thou shalt love,"f &c.
Though the excellency of the subject calls for the enlargement of your
hearts, yet the copiousness of it requires the contracting of my discourse.
To save time, therefore, let me open my text and case both together.
The case is this:
CASE.
What ie it to love God with all the heart, and with all the soul, and
with all the mind; and how may we be able to do it ?
\/
In short, we must love God, as near as it is possible, infinitely.
/\
For directions in this case, I shall follow this method:
I. Show you, what it is to love God with all the heart, and with all
the soul, and with all the mind.
II. I shall endeavour to demonstrate, that it is our unquestionable
and indispensable duty o to love God.
III. I shall acquaint you what abilities are requisite for the welldischarging of this duty, and how to attain them.
IV. I shall give you directions how to improve and augment all the
abilities we can get, that we may have a growing love to God.
Y. I shall close with the best persuasives I can think of, that you
would be graciously ambitious of such qualifications, and vigorously diligent in such duties.
I. What is it to love God with all the heart, soul, and mind?
We must not be too curious in distinguishing these words: the same
thing is meant, when the words are used singly; as David is said to
follow God " with all his heart:" (1 Kings xiv. 8 :) and doubly; Josiah
made his people, as well as himself, to covenant " to walk after the Lord
with all their heart and all their soul:" (2 Kings xxiii. 3:) and where
three words are used; as, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might:" (Deut. vi. 5:)
and when four words are used ; as, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with
all thy strength." (Mark xii. 30.)
Love to God must go through and possess our whole nature, and all
V'
the powers of it. The mind must think of God; the will must delight '.,
in God; in short, our whole strength must be employed to please him. /^*
We must love nothing more than God, nothing equal with God; we
* CAHTWHIGHT'S " Harmony."
AUTHOR imperfect* opera.
574
X
y
SERMON I.
HOW MAY WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD
most love God above all, and that for himself; but all other things in
God, and for God.* We must be willing to lose all, yea, life itself, rather
than to admit any thing contrary to the love of God. All these expressions denote the inteneeuess of our affections, the unexpressibleness of oar
obligation, and the contemptibleness of every thing that shall challenge
a share in our love. All these expressions admonish us of our infirmity,
provoke us to humility, and set us a-longing after a better life.f It is a
notable expression of one: | " The love of the heart is not understood,
but felt; the love of the soul is not felt, but understood; because the love
of the soul is its judgment. He that loves God as he is here commanded,
believes that all good is in God, and that God is all that is good; and that
without God there is no good. He believes that God is all power, and
wisdom; and that without God there is neither power nor wisdom," &c.
But notwithstanding all that hath been spoken, no doubt but there is
a singular emphasis in the words; and the Holy Ghost intends a more
full declaration of the manner of our love by these several expressions.
Though to be over-critical in the distinguishing of these words will rather
intricate than explicate this great command; yet to follow a plain scriptural interpretation will give light into the duty.
Let us inquire therefore, 1. What it is to love. 2. What it is to
love God. 3. What it is to love God in that manner here expressed.
WHAT LOVE IS.
1. What i love?"Love is an affection of union, whereby we desire

or enjoy perpetual union with the thing loved."
It is not a carnal love I am now to speak of. The philosopher could
observe, that there can be no true love among wicked men.
It is not a natural love ; for that may as well be brutish as rational;
and divine love is transcendently rational.
It is not a merely moral love; for that consists in a mean; but
divine love is always in an extreme.
Divine love is a compound of all the former; but it adds infinitely
more to them than it borrows of them. Divine love is supernaturally
natural; it turns moral virtues into spiritual graces. It engageth men
to attempt as much for the glorifying of God as all the creatures besides,
from the highest angel to the most insensible stone.
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD.
2. What is love to God ?Methinks a lax description best suits my

design. This divine lover,it is the unspeakable enlargement of the
heart towards God; it is the ecstasy and ravishment of the heart in God;
it is the soul's losing itself in God; it is the continual working of the
heart towards God. Every faculty of the soul is actually engaged ; the
mind is musing and plodding how to please God, and enjoy him; the
will is graciously obstinate, the policy of hell cannot charm it off its
object; the affections are all passions in their eager motions towards
God; the conscience is a busy-body, necessitating the whole man to
a jealous watch. I said, this loveit is the enlargement of the heart
* BUCERUS.
f GERHARDI Harmonia.
MARTIN LUTHER.
AUTHOR imperfecti opens,
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, AMD MINDS?
575
towards God: when the " love of God is shed abroad in the heart," it is \/
ae the breaking of a ball of lightning, it sets all on a flame immediately. /*
It is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God; the highest
rhetoric is too flat to express it, as is obvious in that Song of Songs, that
Song of Loves. I have no way to set this out unto you but by words:
the plainest and most intelligible expressions I can give you shall be by
several similitudes, which I shall pursue till they leave me to admiration.
I shall borrow metaphors from things without life, from plants, from
sensitive creatures, from man.
METAPHORS TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD.
(1.) The eouVs love to God may be a little shadowed forth, by the love
of the iron to the loadstone,Which ariseth from a hidden quality;
though to say so, is but the hiding of our ignorance. The motion
of the iron toward the loadstone is slow while at a distance, but quick
when near: and when it but touches it, it clings so fast, that, unless
forced, it will never part; and when it is parted, it will, to the farthest
part of the world, retain the virtue of its touch. So the soul: while
at a distance from God,it moves slowly; but as the Father draws, W
it runs; and when once it comes to be graciously united, the apostle
asks, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" (Rom. viii. 35 ;)
not only, "Who shall hinder us from partaking of God's love?" but,
"Who can take us off from our loving of God?*' Christ gives the
answer, their union with God, their enjoyment of God, is inseparable;
(John x. 28, 29;) and though they may (as sometimes they will in their
imperfect state) have some warping on their parts, and some withdrawing ^r
on God's, yet their love to God, in the lowest ebb, tremblingly hankers y\
after him; the soul cannot forget its alone resting-place. (Psalm cxvi. 7.)
(2.) Our love to God is like the love of the flower of the sun to the
mm.It springs of a very little seed. It is not only our faith, but our
love, that is at first like a "grain of mustard-seed;" it grows the fastest
of any flower whatsoever. It is not only faith, but love, that " groweth
exceedingly." (2 Thess. i. 3.) It always turns and bows itself towards
the sun. Our love to God is always bowing and admiring; always turning to and following after God. It opens and shuts with the
sun's rising and setting. Our love, when it is what it should be, opens
itself to God, and closes itself against all other objects. It brings forth
seed enough for abundance of other flowers: love to God is the most
fruitful grace, that when it " blossoms and buds, it fills the face of the
world with fruit." (Isai. xxvii. 6.)
(3.) Our love to God is like the love of the turtle to her mate.God's
people are his turtle. (Psalm Ixxiv. 19.) I grant, they most properly
resemble brotherly love; but why not our love to God? They never
associate with other birds: the loving soul keeps fellowship with God,
and, out of choice, with him only, and those that bear his image. The
turtle never sings and flies abroad for recreation, as other birds; but they
have a peculiar note for each other: the soul that loves God flutters not \J
about for worldly vanities; no recreation so sweet as communion with
/
God; the soul's converse with God is peculiar. When one dies, the
576
SERMON I.
other droops till it dies, so that they do, as it were, live and die in the
embraces of each other: so the soul that loves God,his " loving-kind
ness is better than life;" (Psalm Ixiii. 3;) and there is nothing makes a
saint more impatient of living, than that he cannot while he lives have a
full enjoyment of God.
(4.) Our love to God should be like, though exceed, Jacob1'* love to
Benjamin. (Gen. xlii. 38.)He will starve rather than part with Benjamin ; and when hanger forced him from him, and he was like to be by
a wile kept from him, Judah offers to purchase his liberty with his own,
because his father's "life was bound up in the lad's life:" (Gen. xliv.
30:) so the soul that loves God is not able to bear the thoughts
of parting with him; his life is bound up in enjoying the presence
of God. I have been too long; but 0 that I could affect your hearts
as well as inform your judgments, what it is to love God!
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD WITH THE HEART.
3. (1.) Now then let us re-assume the inquiry, What it is to love the
Lord our God "with all our heart."Some refer this to the thoughts,*
some to the vegetative soul,t some to the understanding, that it may be
free from error, J others, as if he had said, " Lay up all these things in
your hearts/' But the other words will take-in most of these; and
therefore, according to scripture, we must understand the will and
affections; and so the word is taken, Joshua xxii. 5 : " Moses the servant
of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God with all your heart."
As out of the heart proceeds life, so from the will proceed all operations ; the will ought to be carried towards God with its whole force;
all the affections of a pure and holy heart are directed to the only love
of God. || Love riaeth from the will. Now there is a two-fold act of the
will: ^[ " that which is immediately drawn forth of the will itself," the will's
own act; and such an act the will exerts in loving God; and then there is
" the commanded act of the will," which is the act of some other power
moved to that act by the will. Where the will is filled with the love
of God, it moves the understanding to meditate of God whom we love,
and to inquire after the excellency of the object loved.
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD WITH THE WHOLE HEART.
We must not love God only with the heart, but with the whole heart.
Pray mark this: perfect hatred and perfect love know no such thing as
the world calls** prudence. If you perfectly hate any one, all things
about him displease you; whatever he says or does, though it be never
so good, it seems to you to be evil: so if you perfectly love any one, all
things about him please you. Some expound this totality by this distinction : We are to love God with the whole heart positively and negatively : positively, where all powers of the will are set to love God; and
this we cannot perfectly do while we are travellers, till we come to our
heavenly country: but, negatively, thou shalt so love God, that nothing
* AUGUSTINE.
f GREGORY NYSSEN.
J ANSELH.
ORIOEX.
II GERHARDI Harm, c. 156.
II F.licitus et imperatus.
** Judicium rerun
non cognoscit.AUTHOR imperfecii opens. " It does not call into exercise that faculty
by which we attempt to form a right judgment of things."EDIT.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS f
577
contrary to the love of God shall be entertained in thy heart; and this V
Me may attain to a pretty tolerable perfection of in this life.*
'
The whole heart is opposed either to a divided and dispersed heart, or
to a remiss and a sluggish heart: God doth as much abominate a part
nership in our love, as a husband or wife abhors any such thing in their
conjugal relation. We must love nothing but God, or that which may AJ
please God. He that loves God with his heart, and not with his whole
heart, loves something else, and not God.
As the whole heart is opposed to a remiss and sluggish heart, the
meaning is this,the care of our heart should be set upon nothing so
much as upon the loving and pleasing of God; we must prefer God
alone before all other objects of our love, and there must be an ardency V
of affection: whatever we do, it must be for his sake, and according to '
his will.f
(2.) "Thou ehalt love the Lord thy God with all thy *oul."l
forbear to mention the different conjectures of those that try the acuteness of their parts to produce some peculiar interpretation which others
have not. By comparing scripture with scripture, the sensitive life, or
the sensitive appetite, is here meant. Thus: " His soul clave unto
Dinah, and he loved the damsel." (Gen. xxxiv. 3.) Again: *'Thy
POU!" (thy sensual affections) "longeth to eat flesh." (Deut. xii. 20.)
And because " the soul" is in many places taken for " life," as Exod.
iv. 19: "All the men are dead that sought thy life;" (Heb. "thy
soul;") so Exod. xxi. 23: "Thou ehalt give 'life for life;" (Heb.
*' soul for soul;") and so we may take it here intensively for the sensitive appetite, and extensively for the life. The soul is here taken for the w*
animal life, which comprehends both the vegetative and sensitive part. /\
To love God with the soul is to subject nil those works that pertain to
an animal life unto the love of God. Plainly, and in short: it is not % /
enough to love God in our will, but we must not admit any thing con- A
trary to the love of God in our sensual delights. Whatsoever sensualists
do for the gratifying of their lusts and desires, let those things be \/
drained from the dregs of sin, and consecrate them all unto God. /
Whatever use wicked men make of their souls in a way of hatred of God, Xs
we must make the contrary use in a way of loving of God. And then,
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL THE SOUL.
Thou must love God "with all thy soul."We must be ready to lay
down our lives for God.J If any one should be asked what in all the
world was most dear unto him, he would answer, his life; for life-sake
tender mothers have cast off the sense of nature, and fed upon their own
children. It is life that affords us being, sense, motion, understanding,
riches, dominions. If a man had the empire of the world, he could
enjoy it no longer than he hath his soul in his body : when that is gone,
he presently becomes a horrid carcass, or rather a loathsome dunghill.
Now then, if a man love his life so much, why should he not love God
more, by whom he lives, and from whom he expects greater things than
this life ? God is the soul of our soul, and the life of our life; he is
* C A JET AN.
f CHEMNITII Harmonia, cap. cv. Ac.
,/
/""
&
578
SERMON I.
BOW MAT WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOO
nearer to us than our very souls: " In him we live, and move, and have
our being." (Acts xvii. 28.) He that doth but indifferently weigh these
things, will acknowledge that it is no rashness to call that man a monster that loves not God: how, then, can we think of it without grief,
that the whole world is full of these monsters ? Almost all men prefer
their money, or pleasures, or their honours, or their lusts, before God.
So oft as you willingly break any law of God to raise your credit or
estate, you prefer the dirt and dust of the world before God. Alas!
what use does a wicked man make of his soul, but to serve his body ?
Whereas both soul and body should be wholly taken up with, not only
the service, but the love, of God. Then may you be said to love God
with all your souls, when your whole life is filled with the love of God,
when your worldly business truckles under the love of God: the love
of the dearest relations should be but hatred when compared with your
love to God. When you eat and drink to the glory of God, sleep no
more than may make you serviceable unto God; when your solitary
musings are about the engaging your souls1 to God; when your social
conference is about the things of God; when all acts of worship endear
God to you; when all your duties bring you nearer to God; when the
love of God is the sweetness of your mercies, and your cordial under
afflictions; when you can love God under amazing providences, as well
as under refreshing deliverances; then you may be said to love God with
all your souls.
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD WITH THE MIND.
(3.) " Thou shah love the Lord thy God with all thy mind."
Though Anselm take this for the memory, that we should remember
nothing whereby we are hindered in our thinking of God; yet generally
this is taken for the understanding; * and so the evangelist Mark expressly
interprets it, when he renders this command in these words: E ?
-, " With all the understanding." (Mark xii. 33.) To love
God with our minds, is to have the understanding moved and commanded by the love of God, to assent unto those things that are to be
believed, and to admit nothing into the understanding which is contrary
to the love of God.f The mind should let nothing go in or out but
what pays tribute of love to God. There is one [who] interprets the word
by the etymology of the word " mind," from " measuring." t The mind
must be so full of love to God, that love must measure all our works.
When we eat, we should think how hateful it is to God that we should
indulge our palate, and thence shun gluttony; when we drink, we
should think how abominable drunkenness is in the sight of God, and
thence drink temperately; (1 Cor. x. 31;) so that "whether we live,
we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord:
whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." (Rom. xiv. 8.)
Our life and our death must be measured by our love to God.
* MUSCULUS.
f CAJETAST. ORIGEN. Nihilcogitantes^ vel proferentes nisi
ea gue Dei sunt. " Thinking and speaking of nothing but of the things of God."
.
Mens dicitur a metiendo, Qc.AVENDANUS.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?
579
WHAT IT 18 TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR MIND.
We must love God "with all our mind"We most always convene V
with God in oar minds and thoughts; our thoughts must kindle our /\
affections of love. Love to God makes the hardest commands easy:
while our thoughts are immersed in love to God, love to enemies will
be an easy command ; the keeping under of our bodies by mortification y
will be an easy work; persecution for righteousness will be a welcome / *
trial. Love will change death itself into life.
There is another word added by Mark, which, indeed, is in Dent. vi.
5 ; whence this is taken : " Thou halt love the Lord thy God with all thy
strength"Now, because this word doth not express any other species
or power of the soul, but only notes the highest and most intense degree
of love that flows from all the faculties of the soul, I will close this
inquiry with a word of this. We are to love God with all the powers \ /
of our soul, with all the members of our bodies. Our understandings, X
wills, inward and outward senses, appetite, speech, whatever we have, / ^
whatever we are, must be all directed into the love of God, and into
obedience flowing from love. You commonly hear that of Bernard,
" The cause of loving God is God himself, and the only measure is to
love him without measure.4' We must love God strongly, because with
all our strength. Our love to God must get above interruptions; no
threatenings, calamities, or discommodities whatsoever, most pull us away
from God, but that all the powers of soul and body must be taken up
into his service; that our eyes, beholding the wonderful works of God,
the sun, moon, and stars, the clear evidences of his Divinity, we may be
in love with him; that our ears, piously hearkening to his instructions,
may be in love with him ; that our mouth may love to praise him, our
bands to act for him; that our feet may be swift to run the way of his
commandments; that our affection* may be withdrawn from earthly
things, and delivered over to the love of God; that whatever is within
us, " it may be bound over to the service of God."41 He that thus loves
God, need not trouble himself how to order and dispose the several words .
here used,his heart, soul, mind, will; whatever he is, hath, knows,
understands, obtains, is all due to God; neither is there any thing in the
whole world to be valued before God. And thus I have given you a
Lime account, what it is to love God, &c.
IT IS OUR INDISPENSABLE DUTY THUS TO LOVE GOD.
II. The second thing I undertook was, demonstratively to prove, that

it is our indispensable duty thus to love God.To love God is our great
,
natural duty. Man would more naturally love God than himself, were X.
it not for sin. Neither angels nor men were at first commanded to love
God; nature wanted no spur to this duty. The law of love was
implanted in nature. " Thou hast made me, 0 Lord," saith Augustine;
" and my heart is unquiet till it come to thee." " my heart," saith
he, " every creature expels thee from them, and that not without shame,
* Id omne Deo obsequio mancipettir, $c.CHEMNITIUS.
580
SERMON I.
that thoa mayest go to God. They do, as it were, say, ' 0 miserable
wretch! why dost thoa adhere to me ? I am not the good which them
requirest.' 0 my soul, why dost thon go thirsting among the creatures
to beg some drops that will rather provoke than quench thy thirst?
Why dost thou leave that everlasting Fountain, where thou mayest be
perfectly satisfied ? What canst thou desire that is not fully and perfectly to be had in God?"*
THIS IS THE GREAT COMMAND.
I shall at present urge no other demonstration than Christ's reason in
the following verse: " This is the first and the great commandment.1*
Not that any command of God is small. The commands in scripture are
like the stars in the firmament; which, though to ignorant persons they
are but like twinkling candles, yet are greater than the whole earth: so
these commands, that careless persons overlook as inconsiderable, are
such as without respect unto them there is no salvation. I grant there
is a difference in the commands; for example: the command about
" paring the nails " is of lesser moment than that of having " no other
God;" (Dent. xxi. 12; v. 7;) nay, in the same kind Christ threatens
the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, that they were so exact in
tything their gardens, and so remiss in looking to their hearts. (Matt,
xxiii. 23.) But among the commands and the diversity of them, Christ
tells us this is the greatest. The Jews (some of them) counted the command about sacrifice to be the greatest, as is hinted in the scribe's saying, This command of loving God is " more than all whole burnt-offerings
and sacrifices." (Mark xii. 33.) Others counted that of circumcision to
be the greatest; others, that of the sabbath.) Origen observes: " It is
well that Christ decides the controversy; though the truth is, he that
willingly breaks the least commandment will not stick to break the
greatest." While only one sin makes us to forbear another, (for men's
lusts cross one another,) when occasion serves, that sin will be ventured
upon that is now forborne. But this, upon a manifold account, is " the
great command."
I. Rations objecti, "In respect of the object."It is God, the
Chiefest Being, the First and Chiefest Good: "What am I, Lord," saith
Augustine, " that thou commandest me to love thee, and threatenest me
with misery if I do not love thee ?" This is no small aggravation of the
devil's torments,that he cannot love God. God may require many
things of us; but he requires nothing like this of our love, because
this is the only thing wherein we can answer God; " in other things we
cannot, or we may not, render God like for like." $ God created us,
and gave us our being; but we can do nothing like this for God. God
preserves us in safety, and daily confers innumerable benefits upon us:
God delivers from innumerable dangers both of soul and body. There
is none of all this to be done for God; God is infinitely above all such
returns; and there are other things wherein we may not render God like
STELLA De Amore Dei.
non ex quo reddere.
+ " English Annotations."
t Et vioem licet
WITH ALL OUR HEAftTS, SOULS, AND MINDS f
581
for like. If God be angry with us, we may not be angry with him;
if he reprove us, we must not quarrel with him ; if God judge us, we /
must not censure him. But now God loves us, and through grace we are
able to love him again ; and he loves us, and God commands us to love
him again. It is true, there is no equality between God's loving of us,
>
and our loving of God. God's love does infinitely overcome ours; * but V
yet our love to God speaks interest and union; the thing loved gives /
the name to the love. Love is but an indifferent passion, till it be united
to the thing loved, and then it gets a denomination. For example: If the
object be earthly, it is an earthly love ; if sensual, it is a brutish love;
,
if it be man, it is a human love; if God, it is a divine love: so that by X.
our love we are changed and transformed into a thing more noble, or
more vile. We therefore debase ourselves in loving any thing but God :
there is nothing else worthy of our love. Whatsoever we love, we give
it a kind of dominion over us, so that the will loseth its dignity and excellency when it loves inferior things; we are, as it were, married to that
we love. " Suppose," saith Raymundns, " a poor man, of mean stock
and no reputation, have six daughters: they are all equal by birth as to
reputation and esteem, but they are all differenced by their marriage. The
eldest marries a farmer, the next a citizen, the third a knight, the fourth
a duke, the fifth a king, the sixth an emperor: by these marriages there
is a very great inequality. So here, by the object of your love you are
dignified or debased." But there is more yet in God's being the object
of our love: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God;" THY GOD, and
therefore thou must love him.
Give me leave to enlarge a little on this, and I will be the briefer in
the other considerations, How this is the great command: " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God" Those things that are ours, though they are not
always lovely, yet we love them; our own children, whether of our
bodies or our minds, our own estates. We are more troubled at the loss
of any thing wherein our own propriety [property] is concerned, than in all
the world besides. A small thing of our own is a thousand times more
to us than a thousand times as much of another's. We are more concerned for the cutting off our own finger, than the cutting off another
man's head. Propriety [proprietorship] doth exceedingly heighten love.
But then, when there is a speciality upon the propriety, that it is impossible to have the want repaired : for example, " my child, and mine only
child." Whatever you say of God, you may put an only to it. God so
loves every gracious soul, as if he had no other person to bestow his love
upon ; therefore thou must so love God, as if there were nothing eke in
the world to bestow thy love upon. Alas! what is thine to-day, as to
outward things, mny be none of thine to-morrow : thou canst not say so
of God : God once thine, and for ever thine.
But perhaps you will say, " Were God mine, you should need to say
no more to inflame my heart to love him. Propriety in God! could I
attain this, I had enough. This is it I wait for, I pray for. I think
nothing too much for it. I only fear I shall never attain it. The very
comforts of my life are embittered for want of it."
* RAYMUNDUS.
$61
SERMON 1.
HOW MAY WE ATTATN TO T.OVE COD
To this I answer: We cannot shake off God's sovereignty over us, nor
propriety in us : this you will grant. God is, and will be, thy God, thy
Lord, thy Sovereign, thy Commander, let thy carriage be what it will.
The vilest wretches in the world cannot sin themselves from under God's
dominion. " Bat there is no comfort in this." Well, then, I will therefore add: Thou that mournest after propriety in God, God is thy God;
thy gracious God, and Father; thy God in covenant; thy God in mercy
and loving-kindness. Dost thou unfeignedly desire to love God ? Then
tbou mayest be sure God loves thee ; for God loves first. (1 John iv. 19.)
Dost thou not out of choice prefer the service of God before all other
service? Then you shall abide in the love of God.
(John xv. 10.)
Brethren, love God as if he were peculiarly yours, and you will thereby
have an evidence that he is peculiarly yours. It is reported of one that
[he] continued a whole night in prayer, and said nothing but this: " My
God, and my all," or, " God is mine, and all is mine;" repeating this
a thousand times over.3" Let this be the constant breathing of thy soul
to God: " My God, my all."
2. This is the "first and great command," ratione ordinit et dignitatie, " in respect of order and dignity."This is the great command,
because we must place this before all others in the very yelk [yolk]
of the heart,f as the only foundation of piety. Whatsoever is taught in
the law and in the prophets flows from this, as from a fountain ; grows
upon this, as upon a root. J If 1 forget not, this is somewhere Augustine's
metaphor: "This is to the other commands as the needle to the
thread,it draws all after it."
3. This is the " first and great command," ratione debiti, " in respect
of obligation."To love God is so indispensable, that, let me with reverence say, God cannot dispense with it. As God first bestows his love
upon us before any other gift, and then, whatever he gives afterwards, he
gives it in love ; so God requires that we first give him our hearts, our
love, and then do all we do out of love to God.
Sometimes God will
have mercy, and not sacrifice ; divine duties shall give place to human ;
nay, sometimes duties to God must give way to duties to a beast. (Luke
xiv. 5.) But, however duties to God and men may be jostled to and
fro, yet there is not any duty can warrant the intermitting of any love
to God so much as one moment.
4. This is the "first and great command," ratione materia, *'in
respect of the matter of it."Love to God is the most excellent of all
graces. (I Cor. xiii. 13.) Love among the graces is like the sun among
the stars, which not only enlightens the lower world, but communicates
light to all the stars in the firmament t so love to God does not only its
own office, but the offices of all other graces. The apostle names four
graces that are necessary to government, which love doth all their
offices :for example; " Beareth all things;" that is, love parteth with
something of its right, beareth the weaknesses of friends to preserve con* Deus meut et omnia meet.AVENDANUS, p. 382.
ANSELMUS.
Museums.
f In intimo cordis.,
Eirteuceu, candor, lemtas, patienlia.,
MELANCTHON in loo. " Equity or moderation, unsuspicious candour, mild amenity,

and patient meekness."EDIT.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS SOTJL8, AND MINDS?
583
cord:"Beliereth all thing ;" that is, candidly makes the beat interpretation of all things; is not distrustful or suspicioua upon light and , /
frivolous occasions:" Hopeth all things;" that is, gently waits for the X
amendment of that which is faulty :" Endureth all things;" that is, '
patiently bears injuries, &c. (1 Cor. xiii. 7) If you except, " This is
spoken of love to men," I readily answer, that surely lore to God, for
whose image in men, and command concerning men, we lore them, will
do greater things.
5. This is " the first and great command," ratiane amplitvdinu, "in \S
respect of the laraenees of it."This requires the whole man, the whole /\
heart, the whole soul, the whole mind, the whole strength. Whatever eke
we entertain, some other room may be good enough for it: let the heart
be kept for God's peculiar presence-chamber. God requires the whole \/
toul: all the inferior powers of the soul, our whole life, must be spent in J\
the love of God. This command reaches the whole mind; God expect
that we should in judgment reason down every thing into contempt that V'
should pretend a loveliness to justle out God.
\
6. This is the " first and great command," ratione capacitate, " in
respect of its capacity" because it contains all commands.No man V
can love his neighbour, unless he love God; and no man can love God, / ^
bnt he must observe all his commandments. Origen makes inquiry,
how the commands about legal purification may be reduced to the love
of God. Every command of God hath its peculiar obligation; bnt this
law of love hath a super-engagement over them all. For instance : men
may accept and commend several duties to them that have not one drop
of love in them. For example: if I give bread to one that is ready to
famish, or physic to one that is dangerously sick, these things do good
according to their own natures, and not according to the good-will of the
giver. Alas! man needs relief, and catcheth at it; and never examine
the heart, or end, whence it comes. But now God is infinitely above
needing any thing from us; it is his gracious condescension to receive
any thing from us ; and .therefore God never accepts of any thing we do
but what is done out of love to him.
7. This is the "first and great command," ratione dijfficultatis, "in S/
respect of the difficulties " of it, because through our infirmities (not to /
mention worse) we cannot presently love God.The prime difficulty is, the
spirituality of it. This " wisdom is too high for foolish sinners." (Prov.
xxiv. 7.) Though it is most rational, yet it is the most spiritual, and, eon
equently, the most difficult, part of religion. Some commands may be
observed without special grace; as all the outside ofreligion. Yea.
some commands may be observed without so much a8(6ommon graced) as
duties merely moral. But this must have a great measure of the Spirit.
It speaks much acquaintance with God through experience of his ways;
and much conformity to Christ in a well-composed conversation: in
short, it includes the highest perfection possibly attainable in this life.
Yet let not this difficulty fright yon; for through Christ our sincere
love, though weak, is accepted; and our imperfect love, because growing,
shall not be despised.
8. This is the " first and great command," ratione Jinie, " in respect
584
SERMON I.
of the end"All the commands of God are referred to this as their end
and last scope, which was first in the mind of the Lawgiver.
9. This is the "first and great command," rations pcrpetuifatu, "in
respect of the lastingness" of it."Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God:" it is not only spoken after the Hebrew way of commanding,*
but it notes singular perseverance. Moat of the other commands expire
with the world, as all or most of the commands of the second table; but
this remains and flourishes more than ever. When repentance and mortificationr which now take up half our life; when faith, which is now, as
it were, mother and nurse to most of our graces ; when hope, which now
upholds weak faith in its languors; when ait these shall, as it were, die
in travail, perfection of grace being then in the birth ; love to God shall
then be more lively than ever. That love which, as it were, passed
between God and the soul in letters and tokens, shall then be perfected
in a full enjoyment. Our love was divided among several objects, that
cut the banks, and weakened the stream; henceforth it shall have but
one current. Our love is now mixed with fear, fear of missing or losing
what we love; but that fear shall be banished. There shall never be
any distance, never any thing to provoke jealousy, never any thing to
procure cloying, never any thing more to be desired than is actually
enjoyed. Is not this, then, the " first and great commandment ? " Is
it not our privilege and happiness to be swallowed up in it ? This may
suffice to evidence it to be our duty; but then,
WHAT ABILITIES ARE REQUISITE FOR THE WELL-PERFORMANCE OF
THIS DUTY, AND HOW WE MAY OBTAIN THOSE ABILITIES.
III. \What abilities are requisite to the performance of this duty, and
how may we attain those abilities?This we must be experimentally
acquainted with, or all I can say will at best seem babbling; and there-
--
fore let me at first tell you plainly, nothing on this side regeneration can
capacitate you to love God; and it is God alone that giveth, worketh,
infuseth, impresseth the gracious habit of divine love in the souls of his
people. Our love to God is nothing else but the echo of God's love
to us. Through the corruption of our nature, we hate God. God
implanted in our nature an inclination to love God above all things
amiable; but by the fall we have an headlong inclination to depart
from God, and run away from him; and there is in every one of us a
natural impotency and inability of turning unto God. The grace of love
is no flower of nature's garden, but a foreign plan^ We may possibly
do something for the merely rational inflamingôr our hearts with love to
God. For instance : God may be represented as most amiable, we may
be convinced of the uneatisfyingness of/ine creature, we may understand
something of the worth of our souj^fand what a folly it is to expect that
any thing but God can fill themXand yet this will be, at the utmost, but
like a solid proof of thetitith of the Christian religion, which may
nonplus our cavils, bujxiot make us Christians. This may make love to
* Futurum prastmperativo. " The future tense instead of the imperative mood."
EDIT. _^^ secundum bona naturalia, sed secundum dona gratuita. " It is
notacaertung to the goods of nature, but according to the gifts of grace."EDIT.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOU Li, AND MINDS f
585 V'
God appear a rational duty, bat it will not of iteelf beget in at this
spiritual grace. It is the immediate work of God to make us love him;
I do not mean immediate in opposition to the use of mean, but imme- ~ ^
diate in regard of the necessary efficacy of his Spirit, beyond what all X
means in the world, without his powerful influence, can amount unto.
It is the Lord alone that can " direct our hearts into the love of God." *
(2 These, iii. 5.) God is pleased in a wonderful and înexpressible manner to draw up the heart in love to him. God makes use of exhortations, and counsels, and reproofs; but though he works by them and
with them, he works above them and beyond them: " The Lord thy God
will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord
thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."
And again: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that
I have set before you life and .death, blessing and cursing: therefore
choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest
love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that
thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy
days." (Deut. xxx. 6, 19, 20.) " He is thy life ;" that is, effectively, and
that by love, saith Aquinas. It is reported, that " it oftens happens among
partridges, that one steals away another's eggs; but the young one that
is hatched under the wing of a stranger, at her true mother's first call,
who laid the egg whence she was hatched, she renders herself to her true
mother, and puts herself into her covey."f It is thus with our hearts :
though we are born and bred up among terrene and base things, under
the wing of corrupted nature; yet at, and not before, God's first quickening call, we receive an inclination to love him ; and upon his drawing,
" we run after him." (Cactides i. 4.) God works a principle of love in
us, and we love God by that habit of love he hath implanted; hence the
act of love is formally and properly attributed to man as the particular
cause:I "I will love thee, 0 Lord, my strength;" and, "I love the
Lord, because he hath heard my voice." (Psalm xviii. 1; cxvi. 1.) The
soul works together with God in his powerful working; the will, being
acted of God, acteth. It is a known saying of Augustine, " The wheel
doth net run that it may be round, but because it is round." The
Spirit of God enables us to love God: but it is we that love God with a
created love; it is we that acquiesce in God in a gracious manner. What
God doeth in the soul doth not hurt the liberty of the will, but
strengthens it, in sweetly and powerfully drawing it into conformity
with the will of God, which is the highest liberty: " Where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2 Cor. iii. 17.) It is a poor liberty
that consists in an indifferency. Do not the saints in heaven love God
freely ? Yet they cannot but love him.
As the only efficient cause of our loving God is God himself, so the
only procuring cause of our loving God is Jesus Christ, that Son of the
Father's love who by bis Spirit implants and actuates this grace of love,
* Exoptat Deo quod nan ambigit posse preestari.AM no si us.
" He asks of God
that concerning which he entertains no doubt in reference to God's ability to perform.*'.

EDIT.
f SALES "Of the Lore of God," page 63.
t VOETIUS.
No
idea fane cvrrit rota ut rotunda sit, sed quia rotunda est.
586
8ERMON I.
which he hath merited for us. Christ hath " made peace through the
blood of his cross." (Col. i. 20.) Christ hath as well merited this grace
of love for us, as he hath merited the reward of glory for us.
Plead
therefore, dear Christians, the merit of Christ for the inflaming your
hearts with the love of God, that when I shall direct to rules and means
how you may come to love God, you may as well address yourselves to
Christ for the grace of love, as for the pardon of your want of love
hitherto. Bespeak Christ in some such, but far more, pressing language:
" Lord, thou hast purchased the grace of love for those that want and
crave it: my love to God is chill, do thou warm it! My love is divided,
Lord, do thou unite it! I cannot love God as he deserves, 0 that thou
wouldest help me to love him more than I can desire! Lord, make me
sick of love, and then cure me! Lord, make me in this as conformable
to thyself, as it is possible for an adopted son to be like the natural, that
I may be a son of God's love, both actively and passively, and both, as
near as it is possible, infinitely i"
Let us, therefore, address ourselves to the use of all those means and
helps whereby love to God " is nourished, increased, excited, and
exerted."*
I will begin with removing the impediments; we must
clear away the rubbish, before we can so much as lay the foundation.
IMPEDIMENTS OF OUR LOVE TO GOD.
IMPED, i. Self-love,This the apostle names as captain-general of the

devil's army, whereby titular Christians manage their enmity against
God. In the dregs of the " last days," this will make the times dangerous : " Men shall be lovers of their own selves." (2 Tim. iii. 1, 2.)
When men over-esteem themselves, tbeir own endowments of either body
or mind; when they have a secret reserve for self in all they do, selfapplause, or self-profit; this is like an error in the first concoction. Get
your hearts discharged of it, or you can never be spiritually healthful.
The best of you are too prone to this; I would therefore commend it to you
to be jealous of yourselves in this particular: for as conjugal jealousy ia
the bane of conjugal love, so self-jealousy will be the bane of self-love.
Be suspicious of every thing that may steal away or divert your love
from God.
IMPED, n. Love of the world.This is so great an obstruction, that

the most loving and best-beloved disciple that Christ had, said, " Love
not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love
the world, the love of the Father is not in him;" (1 John ii. 15 ;) and
the apostle James makes use of a metaphor, calling them "adulterers
and adulteresses" that keep not their conjugal love to God tight from
leaking out toward the world. He chargeth them, as if they knew
nothing in religion, if they knew not tbis, tbat " the friendship of the
world is enmity with God;" and it is an universal truth, without so
much as one exception, that "whosoever will be a friend of the world,"
must needs upon that very account be God's " enemy." (James iv. 4.)
The apostle Paul adds more weight to those that are even pressed to hell
already: " They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and
* Fovetur, anêtur, eichatur, et e,ieritur.
*
f
"*
'
587
into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and
perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while
some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thon, 0 man of God, flee these
things," &c. (1 Tim. vi. 9.) When men will be somebody in the
world, they will have estates, and they will have honours, and they will
have pleasures! What variety of vexatious distractions do unavoidably /\
hinder our love to God! When our hearts are hurried with hopes and
fears about worldly things, and the world hath not wherewithal to satisfy s/
us; how doth the heart fret under its disappointments! And how can '
it do otherwise ? We would have happiness here. Sirs, I will offer yon
fair: name me but one man that ever found a complete happiness in the
world, and 1 dare promise yon shall be the second; but if yon will
flatter yourself with dreams of impossibilities, " this your way will be
your folly," though, it is like, " your posterity will approve your sayings,"
(Psalm xlix. 13,) and try experiments while they live, as yon have done.
But where is your love to God all this while ? It is excluded; by what
law? By the law of sin and death; by the love of the world and destruc- \/
tion; for Christ tells us, all that " hate him love death." (Prov. viii. 36.) -A
IMPED, in. Spiritual sloth, and carelessness of spirit.When men do
not trouble themselves about religion, nor any thing that is serious. Love
is a busy passion, a busy grace. Love among the passions is like fire
among the elements. Love among the graces is like the heart among
the members. Now that which is most contrary to the nature of love
must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it. The truth is, a
careless frame of spirit is fit for nothing; a sluggish, lazy, slothful,
careless person never attains to any excellency in any kind. What is it
you would intrust a lazy person about? Let me eay this, (and pray
think on it twice, ere you censure it once,) Spiritual sloth doeth
Christians more mischief than scandalous relapses. I grant, their grosser
falls may be worse as to others: the grieving of the godly, and the
hardening of the wicked, and the reproach to religion, must needs be so
great as may make a gracious heart tremble at the thought of falling.
But yet, as to themselves, a slothful temper is far more prejudicial. For
example: those gracious persons that fall into any open sin, it is but
once or seldom in their whole life; and their repentance is ordinarily as
notorious as their sin, and they walk more humbly and more watchfully
ever after: whereas spiritual sloth runs through the whole course of our
life, to the marring of every duty, to the strengthening of every sin, and
to the weakening of every grace. Sloth (I may rather call it nnspiritual
sloth) is a soft moth in our spiritual wardrobe, a corroding rust in onr
spiritual armoury, an enfeebling consumption in the very vitals of religion. Sloth and carelessness without an epithet, bare sloth without
any thing to aggravate it, ordinarily doeth the soul more hurt than all
the devils in hell, yea, than all its other sins. Shake off this, and then
you will be more than conquerors over all other difficulties. Shake
off this, and there is but one sin that I can think of at present, that yon
will be in danger of, and that is spiritual pride. You will thrive so fast
in all grace, you will grow up into so much communion with God, that
588
SERMON I.
HOW MAY VtK ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD
unless God sometimes withdraw to keep you humble, yon will have a
very heaven upon earth.
IMPED, iv. The love of any sin whatsoever.The love of God, and
the love of any siu, can no more mix together than iron and clay.
"Every sin strikes at the being of God."* The very best of saints
may possibly fall into the very worst of pardonable sins; but the least
of saints get above the love of the least of sins. We are ready to question God's love unto us, as Delilah did Samson's love to her, if he do not
gratify us in all we have a mind to; but how could Delilah pretend
love to Samson, while she complied with his mortal enemy against him ?
How can you pretend to love God, while you hide sin, his enemy, in
your hearts? As it was with the grand-child of Athaliah, stolen from
among those that were slain, and hidden; though unable at present to
disturb her, ere long [he] procures her ruin: (2 Kings xi. 1, 2, &c.:)
so any sin, as it were, stolen from the other sins to be preserved from
mortification, will certainly procure the ruin of that soul that hides it.
Can you hide your sin from the search of the word, and forbear your sin
while under the smart of affliction, and seem to fall out with sin when
under gripes of conscience; and return to sin as soon as the storm is
over ? Never pretend to love God: God sees through your pretences,
and abhors your hypocrisy : " His eyes are upon the ways of man, and
he seeth all his goings. There is no darkness, nor shadow of death,
where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves." (Job xxxiv.
21, 22.) Come, sirs, let me deal plainly with you : you are shameful
strangers to your own heart, if you do not know which is your darling
sin or sins; and you are traitors to your own souls, if you do not
endeavour a thorough mortification ; and you are wilful rebels against
God, if you do in the least indulge it. Never boggle at the Psalmist's
counsel: "Ye that love the Lord, hatevil." (Psalm xcvii. 10.)
IMPED, v. Inordinate love of things lawful.And in some respect
here is our greatest danger. Here persons have scripture to plead for
their love to several persons and things; that it is a duty to bestow
some love upon them, and the meref-stones are not so plainly set as
easily to discern the utmost bounds of what is lawful, and the first step
into what is sinful; and here, having some plausible pretences for the
parcelling out of their love, they plead " Not guilty," though they love
not God with all their hearts, souls, and minds: whereas they should
consider that the best of the world is not for enjoyment, but use; not
our end, but means conducing to our chief end. Here is our sin, and
our misery, our foolish transplacing of end and means. Men make it
their end to eat, and drink, and get estates, and enjoy their delights;
and what respect they have to God,I know not whether to call [it] love
or service,they show it but as means to flatter God to gratify them

in their pitiful ends.
Having warned you of some of the chief impediments, I shall propose
some means to engage your hearts in love to God, which you may confidently expect to be effectual through the operation of the Holy Ghost,
* Deicidium.
+ In the old meaning of boundary-stones; mere, according to
Kersey, being "a line or boundary, dividing ploughed laud in a common."EDIT.
%
>
ALL HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?

589
and you may likewise expect the operation of the Spirit in the use of such
means.
MEANS TO ATTAIN LOVE TO GOD.
The means are either directing, promoting, or conserving.

1. Directing.And that is spiritual knowledge : this is beyond what
can be spoken in its commendation: a clear and distinct knowledge of the
love and loveliness of God in the amazing, yet ravishing, methods of its
manifestations, and the clear understanding of the heavenly privilege
of having our hearts inflamed with love to God, this will do,I would
fain persuade you to try,I am not able to say how much, to direct you
in this case. Plainly, get and exercise this twofold knowledge:
(1.) The knowledge of spiritual things.Did we but perfectly know
the nature of the most contemptible insect; nay, did we but know the
nature of atoms; this would lead us to admire and love God. But,
then, to know those things that no graceless person in the world cares
for the knowledge of;for instance, the inward workings of original
sin, and how to undermine it; the powerful workings of the Spirit
of grace, and how to improve it; what are the joys of the Holy Ghost,
and how to obtain them;would not such things insinuate the love
of God into you ? Add then,
(2.) The knowledge of ordinary things in a spiritual manner, so as to
make the knowledge of natural things serve heavenly designs.Thus
Christ in all the metaphors, in all the parables, he used. To value no
knowledge any further than it is reducible to such an use,this would
lead us into the loving of God. Thus I name but one directing means.
2. Promoting means are various.Not but that spiritual knowledge
doth singularly promote the love of God, but its proper work lies in
directing.The several things I shall name for inward means, your way
of managing mtlfct make them so.
-This is so necessary that no other grace can supply
is among the graces of the soul, as among the
members of the body,one member may supply the want of another;
the defect of the lungs may be supplied by other parts. The want
of prudence may be supplied with gospel-simplicity, which looks like
quite another thing; but nothing can supply our want of love to God ;
nor can any thing supply our want of self-denial in order to our loving
of God. We can never have too low thoughts of ourselves,* provided
we do not neglect our duty and let go our hold of Christ. Those very
things that not only we may love but we must love, it is our duty to
love them, and our sin not to love them: yet all these must be denied
when they dare to stand in competition with our love to God. " If any
man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot
be my disciple." (Luke xiv. 26.) Christ would have us count what
religion will cost us before we meddle with it.
(2.) Contempt of the world.As love of the world is a great irape* Ego foetidistimut mm, ego AomW/iwimwm torottt, et wrmt* neouittimus.BOWAVKW . Stimut. Amor. p. 153. " I am a most disgusting object, nothing better than
a filthy dunghill, a vile and wretched worm.'*EDIT.
590
SERMON f.
HOW MAY WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOO
diment, so contempt of the world is a great promoter, of our love to

^l God: may not our contempt of the world be best expressed by oar
)\ worldly diffidence? We have no confidence in it, no expectation
of happiness from it. I take both the understanding and will to be the
seat of faith: now, to have both these against the world, is to have our
understanding satisfied that the world cannot satisfy us; to look upon
the world as an empty drum, that makes a great noise, but hath nothing
in it; and therefore the will doth not hanker after it, hath no kindness
for it. That person is a good proficient in divine love that can make the
world serviceable to devotion; by drawing arguments from his worldly
condition, be it what it will, to promote piety. For example : " Have I
any thing considerable in the world ? I will manage it as a steward;
blessed be God [that] he hath intrusted me with any thing whereby I
may show my love to him, in my love to his! Have I nothing in the
world ? Blessed be God for my freedom from worldly snares! God
knows I need food and raiment; and I am of Jacob's mind, if God will
give me no more, he shall be my God; (Gen. xxviii. 20, 21;) and I will
be content, whatever my condition be in the world: it is better than
Christ's was; and 0 that I could love God as Christ did I"
(3.) Observation of God's benefits to us.It is goodness and beneficence that draws out love.* God is our infinite Benefactor. The very
brutes love their benefactors : " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass
his master's crib : but my people doth not consider." (Isai. i. 3.) Who
can reckon-up the benefits he receives from God? The commonest
of our mercies deserves a return of love; how much more our spiritual
mercies ? Those very mercies that are troublesome to us, deserve our
love. For example : Trouble for sin, though to a degree of horror;
hungering after Christ, though unto languishing; disappointments in
the world, though without satisfaction any where else; lamenting after
God, though with fear [that] we shall never enjoy him :such-like throes
of anguish make way for spiritual joy and comfort; and the soul that
goes through such exercises grows in love to God every day. As for
other kinds of benefits, I will say but this: God doth more for us every
hour of our lives, than all our dearest friends or relations on earth,
than all the saints and angels in heaven, can do, so much as once,
should they do their utmost: and can you do less than love him ?
(4.) Watchfulness over our own hearts.When we love God, we are
to remember that we love a jealous God. This will restrain the straggling of our affections. We should keep as careful a watch over our own
\7 hearts, as we should over a rich heiress, committed to our guardianship:
/ we reckon she is undone, and we shall never be able to look God or man
in the face, if she be unworthily matched through our default. Chrie. tians, your hearts, through the condescension of God, and blood and
\v Spirit of Christ, are a match for the King of glory; several inferior
^ objects not worth the naming are earnest suitors. We are undone,
if any but God have our supreme love. If you be not severely watchful,
* Qui benejicia invenit, compedes invenii.SENECA, " He who finds himself to be

in the receipt of additional benefits, discovers that he is bound with ftesh fetters of
gratitude."EDIT.
WITH ALL OUR ARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?
591
this heart of yours will be stolen away. Be persuaded, therefore, to

examine every thing that you have cause to suspect; call yourselves /
often to an account. Be jealous of your hearts, and of every thing ^
whereby you may be endangered.
(5.) Prayer.All manner of prayer is singularly useful to inflame
the heart with love to God. Those that pray best, love God best. Mistake me not: I do not say, Those that can pray with the most florid
expressions, or, Those that can pray with the most general applause; but,
They that most feel every word they speak, and every thought they
think, in prayer; they whose apprehensions of God are most overwhelming ; whose affections to God are most spiritually-passionate; whose
prayers are most wrestling, and graciously impudent; this is the man
that prays best, and loves God best. I grant these are the prayers of a
great proficient in the love of God; hut you may pray for this frame,
when you cannot pray with it. The soul never falls sick of divine love
in prayer, but Christ presently gives it an extraordinary visit: so soon as
ever Christ's spouse says she is "sick of love," the next words she
speaks are, that " his left hand is under my head, and his right hand
doth embrace me." (Canticles ii. 5, 6.) Compare that with those words:
"Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me." (Canticles vi. 5.) Christ speaks as of being overcome and conquered. Rouse
up yourselves, therefore; give yourselves unto prayer. Pray for a more
spiritual discovery of God's amiableuess. Did you know God better, you
could not but love him more ; and none can discover God to us, as he
discovers himself, so spiritually, so powerfully. Take no denial; God will
never be angry with your being importunate for hearts to love him.
"0 my God, it is thyself I love above all things; it is for thyself;
in thee my desires are terminated; and, therefore, what wilt thou
give me ? If thou wilt not give me thyself, thou wilt give me nothing.
If I find thee not, I find nothing; thou dost not at all reward me, but
vehemently torment me. Heretofore, when I sought thee finally, for
thyself, I hoped that I should quickly find thee, and keep thee; and with
this sweet hope I comforted myself in all my labours. But now, if thou
deny me thyself, what wilt thou give me ? Shall I be for ever disappointed of so great a hope ? Shall I always languish in my love ? Shall
I mourn in my languishment ? Shall I grieve in my mourning ? Shall
I weep and wail in my grief ? Shall I always be empty ? Shall I always
disconsolately sorrow, incessantly complain, and be endlessly tormented ?
my most good, most powerful, most merciful, and most loving God,
thou dost not use, so unfriendly and like an enemy, to despise, refuse,
wound, and torment those that love thee with all their heart, soul, and
strength; that hope for full happiness in thee! Thou art the God
of truth, the beginning and end of those that love thee; thou dost at
last give thyself to those that love thee, to be their perfect and complete
happiness. Therefore, 0 my most good God, grant that I may in this
present life love thee for thyself above all things, seek thee in all things,
and in the life to come find thee, and hold thee to eternity." *
(6.) Meditation.A duty as much talked of, and as little practised,
* BaADWAKDixus De Causa, Dei, lib. i. pp. 118,119.
f\
\y
f\
X
X
592
SERMON I.
as any duty of Christianity. Did you but once a day (in that time
of the day which, upon experience, you find to be fittest for each a work)
solemnly place yourselves in God's presence ; beg of him the fixing and
the flowing of your thoughts, that your thoughts might be graciously
fixed, yet as graciously enlarged; let the subject-matter of them be
something spiritual; endeavour to fill your heads and affect your hearts
with holy Housings, till you come to some resolution, which resolution
close with prayer, and follow with endeavours ; 0 how would this, even
ere yon are aware, engage your souls to love Ood ! Though you cannot
methodize your meditations to your mind, yet inure yourselves to a holy
thoughtfulness about things above. Endeavour, as you are able, to tie
your thoughts together, and so fasten them that they may not be lost,
that your musing-time may not be reckoned among your lost time. I
distinguish between meditation and study. Study is for knowledge;
meditation is for grace. Study leaves every thing as we find it; meditation leaves a spiritual impress upon every thing it meddles with. Though
I will not assert, I may inquire, whether meditation be not one of those
duties of which the very constant performance speaks the soul to be
gracious; that is, though I dare not say, they are not gracious that do not
every day solemnly meditate, yet whether may I not say, they are gracious
that do. Try, therefore, whether you may not say, with the Psalmist,
"Whilst I was musing the fire burned;" (Psalm xxxix. 3;) whether
while yon are musing, your heart may not be inflamed with love to God.
(7.) Choice of friends.I dare appeal to all experienced Christians,
whether ever they met with lively Christians, that carried it like Christians,
without some warming of their hearts with love to God and godliness.
The truth is, Christian conference hath the most speedy and effectual efficacy of any ordinance of God whatsoever. Do, therefore, in religion as
you do in other things. For example : If you meet with a physician, all
your discourse shall be something about your health. If you meet with
a traveller, you are presently inquisitive about the places he hath seen.
Why should not Christians, when they meet, converse like Christians,
and presently fall into a heavenly dialogue ? Christians, this you know,
there must be a forsaking of all wicked company, ere you can pretend
the least love to Christ. Mistake me not: I do not mean that the bonds
of family-relations must presently be broken; that husbands and wives,
parents and children, masters and covenant-servants, must presently
separate if one of them be ungodly. No, where the relation is such as
cannot be dissolved without sin, then those that are godly must converse
with the ungodly, as physicians with their sick patients. But this is it I
say, You must not willingly and out of choice make God's enemies your
familiar friends. Those that are always speaking well of God insensibly
draw out our hearts in love to him. When Christ's spouse had told
the daughters of Jerusalem what Christ was more than others, they
presently offer themselves to seek him with her. (Canticles v. 9; vi. 1.)
As " evil communications corrupt good manners," (I Cor. xv. 33,) so
good communication corrects evil manners. In short, you cannot but
observe, that none is able to hear any one spoken against whom they
love; and that every one delights to speak and hear of whom they love ;
WITH ALL OCR HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?
593
o that here you have a means to inflame, an employ to exercise, and a

touchstone to try, your lore to God.
(8.) Thanksgiving.That person that makes conscience of thanksgiving will thereby grow in love to God. That person that takes every
thing kindly and thankfully from God, cannot but love him ; and,
Christians, if we be not basely wanting to ourselves, we may by thankfulness make every thing a help to promote divine love. For example:
I hear a man swear, and curse, and blaspheme God* " 0 what cause
have I to love God, that he hath not left me to do so!" I am under
the rebukes of God, I feel his anger in such a providence. " 0 what
cause have I to love God, that he will take any pains with me, and give
me medicinal correction, not giving me up to my own heart's lusts till I
perish I" " Alas! I am not so spiritual as to make such inferences;
yet, blessed be God, I really value it as a privilege to be able to put a
good interpretation on all God's dealings. 0 that I could love God for
the very means, and helps, and encouragements to love him!" I shall
name no more (though I might many) promoting means. But,
3. Sustaining and conserving means.Here several graces are singularly
useful. I shall name only three.
(1.) Faith, whereby we are persuaded that what God hath spoken ie
true and good." If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him
that believeth." (Mark ix. 23.) Now, then, take some particular
promise,'why not that which hath already affected thy heart? You
cannot press a promise as you squeeze an orange, to extract all that is in
it; no; it is called drawing water out of a fountain : (Isai. xii. 3:)
though you draw-out never so much, there is no less behind. Well, then,
take that promise: " I love them that love me; and those that seek me
early shall find me." (Prov. viii. 17.) I may here, by my love to God, y
make out God's love to me, and so, by these claspings of love, have my X s
love inflamed and preserved. But, Christians, be sure to remember this:
Whenever you lay one hand on a promise, lay the other on Christ: you
will thereby get your objections answered, and your fears removed. For
instance: "I am unworthy of Divine Love:" but so is not Christ. "I
know not how to come to God:" our access is by Christ. "Though I
come, I know not how to believe:" thy coming is believing. (John vi. 37.)
0 for more acquaintance with the life of faith! it is mostly with us in
spirituals according to our faith.
(2.) Hope, whereby we expect a future good.Hope is the daughter
of faith. Many a time the weak mother leans upon the daughter. Hope
(at least to our apprehensions) hath not so many obstructions and
hinderances as faith. I dare say, " I hope" what I dare not say, "I
believe." Though I must tell you, that which the over-modest Christian
calls a weak hope, God often calls a strong faith : "Remember the word
nnto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope." (Psalm
cxix, 49.) There is a prayer of hope; and here is a promise-answer to
faith: " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on f^
thee: because he trusteth in thee," &c. (Isai. xxvi. 3.) So that, in a
word, as to the present case, though I yet cannot love God as I would,
I hope God will help me, that my love shall be always growing.
594
SERMON I.
HOW MAY W ATTAIN TO LOTS GOD
(3.) Patience." Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may he
perfect and entire, wanting nothing/' (James i. 4.) And do but with
patience go on with your work, and no necessary grace shall be wanting
onto you. Look that you be patient in waiting, and patient in bearing.
Do not misinterpret God's dealings with you. There are two passages
I would have you take special notice of: that ground that brought
such fruit as answered expectation, was "an honest and good heart,
which kept the word, and brought forth fruit with patience." (Luke
viii. 15.) The other is: "In your patience possess ye your souls."
[Luke xxi. 19.] Patience contributes much to both fruitfulness and
comfort.
Let us make an essay:Thou wouldeet have God manifest
his love to thee in a more raviebing manner: stay a while, thou wantest
another kind of dispensation first and most, namely, to feel more of the
evil of sin, that thou mayest be more watchful and more holy.So soon
as a trial comes, thou wouldest have it removed: stay a while; it hath not
done the work for which God sent it. God in kindness binds-on the
plaster, till he hath effected the cure.Thou art at a loss; thou knowest
not what God will do with thee: be it so, it is not fit thon shouldest;
God doth not use to tell his children beforehand what he will do with
them; God expects we should gather-up our duty from the precepts
of his word, and from the hints of his providence. We read that when
the prophet Elisha had given king Joash a promise, and a sign of deliverance from Syria, God expected that his own reason and faith should
prompt him so to improve a second sign, as to pursue the victory to a
conquest; but he understood it not, and so miscarried. (2 Kings xiii.
1719.) Do you learn to hold-on in the use of all means for the
engaging of your hearts more to God. " We desire that every one of you
do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end :
that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and
patience inherit the promises;" (Heb. vi. 11, 12;) not expecting to
obtain the promise till you have patiently endured. And the same
apostle, in the same epistle, tells us that "ye have need of patience, that,
V" after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise."
/V (Heb. x. 36.) Thus much for the inward means of loving God. Outward means for engaging our hearts to love God, are either directing or
exemplary.
1. Directing.The only directing means is the word of God; but
seeing you shall in the following sermons have particular directions
X
X
about both hearing and reading of the word, I shall only hint these few
things :
(1.) Prize the word.Though our estimation of it will be exceedingly
heightened by a further acquaintance with it, yet you will find it singularly advantageous to the inflaming of your hearts to get your hearts, a
it were, graciously forestalled with the valuation of the word. When we
can count the word sweeter than honey to the taste; better than gold
for a treasure; more necessary than food for our sustenance; (Job
xxiii. 12;) how can the soul choose but love God, whose love indited it ?
Shall filthy books provoke carnal love, and shall not the book of God
provoke divine love? Endeavour to get but as spiritual a sense and
WITH ALL OUR HI ARTS, SOULS, AMD MINDS?
595
relish of divine truth, answerable to men's carnal gust and feeling

of other things: do but dwell upon truths till they affect you. Only
here observe this necessary caution : Dwell not so upon difficulties as to
hinder your further inquiry into things more easily understood, but wait
in a course of diligence, and you will be able to master those difficulties
which it is next to impossible suddenly to fathom. Do but steer an
even course between a careless neglect, and an anxious perplexity, about
what you read or hear; and you will certainly attain a deep knowledge
of the things of God, and a high measure of love to God.
(2.) Set immediately upon the practice of those thing which you shall
be convinced to be your duty.Let not your affections cool upon any
duty pressed upon you. Do something like that of Nebuchadnezzar.
God revealed to him something of moment; he had lost the matter, and
understood not the meaning; but was, as others thought, unreasonably
importunate to recover both, and that presently, before the impression
wore off, and the heat went over. (Dan. ii. 8, &c.) So, my brethren,
fix the word by speedy practice. Though the seed of the word is long
in growing to perfection, yet it presently takes root in order to growth.
Were I, therefore, now exhorting you to repentance, and could bring yon
to no nearer a resolution than to repent to-morrow, my exhortation were
lost: so now, while I press you to love God, and demonstrate from
scripture that it is your duty, offer you scripture-helps that may be
effectual, provoke you with scripture-encouragements that may be overcoming, if you now pat off all this till a fitter time, it is a thousand to
one you put it off for ever. Bead this over again; and then think,
" Why should not I now believe this ? And how can I say, I now believe
it, if I do not now put it in practice ? And how can I say, I practise it,
if I omit any one direction ?"
2. Exemplary mean.And here I shall give you as short a touch as
may be of men, angels, and Christ himself. We are much drawn by
examples. Examples,they are not only arguments, but wing. They
give us a demonstration that precepts are practicable.
(1.) Men.Why should not we love God as well as ever Abraham

did? God gives the word: "Abraham, take note thy SOB, thine only
eon Isaac, whom thou lovest; and offer him for burnt-offering. And
Abraham rose up early in the morning," &c. (Gen. xxii. 13.) Had
he not loved God, so far as the creature can love God, infinitely, every
word would have been as a dagger to his heart. As if he had said:
AbrahamI gave thee that name, from thy being *' a father of many
people;" but now be thou the death of that seed which I intended to
multiply. God seemed to change his name to Abraham, as Solomon
named his son Rehoboam, "an enlarger of the people," who enlarged
them from twelve tribes to two!
Take nowNo time to demur upon it.
Thy tonSo many years prayed for, and waited for.

Thine only onAll the rest of thy children re not worth thy owning.
IsaacThe son of thy laughter, now the son of thy sorrow.
Whom thou lovestMore than ever Cither toted a child, and that
upon several justifiable accounts.
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SERMON 1.
And get thee into the land of MoriahThough no time to deliberate
before thou reeolvest, yet time enough for repentance before thou executest thy resolutions.
And offer him therefor a burnt-offeringIt is not enough to giro him
up to be sacrificed by another, bat thou thyself mast be the priest to kill
thy lovely child, and then to burn him to ashes.
And Abraham rose up early, tyc.He quarrels not with God : " What
doth God mean to give me such a command, as never to any one else in
this world?" He consults not his wife: "O what will Sarah say?"
He sticks not at what might expose religion: " What will the Heathen
say?" You may well suppose great stragglings between nature and
grace; but God seemed to press upon him with this question: " Whether dost thou love me or thy child most?" Abraham doth, as it were,
answer, " Nay, Lord, if that be the question, it shall soon be decided,
how and where thou pleasest."
Another instance we have in Moses, if you will compare two or three
scriptures : Moses,at first he inquires of God, as we do of a stranger,
"What is his name?" Upon God's further discovery, he begs more
of his special presence; and upon God's granting of that, his love grows
bold, and he said, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." Upon his
finding God propitious, he begs that God would remove the cloud, and
show him as much of his glory as he was possibly able to bear the sight
of. (Exod. iii. 13; xxxiii. 15, 18.)
Take one instance more; and that is of Paul, who, thinking God
might have more glory by saving of many than by saving of him, was
willing to quit the happiness of salvation; for not the least grace, much
less grace in the height of it, could possibly choose a necessity of hating
and blaspheming God, which is the venom of damnation; but his love
to God is greater than his lore to himself; and so he will reckon

himself happy without glory, provided God may be more glorified.
And thus I have produced three examples,of one before the law, one
under the law, and one under the gospel. How will yon receive it, if I
shall venture to say ?" We have in some respect more cause to love God
than any, than all these persons put together." What singular gleams
of warm love from God they had more than we, are in some respects
exceeded by the noon-daylight and heat,of gospel-love that we have
more than they. What love-visits God was pleased to give them, are
excelled by Christ's (as to them) extraordinary presence among us.
What was to them a banquet, is to us our daily bread. God opens the
windows of heaven to us. God opens his very heart to us. We may
read more of the love of God to us in one day, than they could in their
whole life.
(2.) Angels, that umeeariedly behold the face of God.
(Matt, xviii.
10.)They refuse nothing that may evidence their love to God. It is

ordinarily the devil's work to be the executioners of God's wrath. It is
said, " He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them;" (Psalm Ixxviii.
49;) but the good angels will not stick at it when God requires it:
" The angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assy-
597
nan* an hundred fourscore and five thousand." (2 Kings xix. 35.) But
now we hare more cause to love God than the angels. God hath
expressed greater love to us in Christ than he hath to them. " He took
not hold of angels," &c.; (Heb. ii. 16;) not any one of them received so
much as the pardon of any one sin. God would not bear with them in
so much as the least tittle. So soon as they ceased to love God with a
perfect love, God hated them with a perfect hatred. And, for the blessed
angels, " are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for
them who shall be heirs of salvation ?" (Heb. i. 14.) But none of the
saints are to minister to the angels in any thing. How should we love such
A Master!
But I have a pattern to commend to you above the angels.
(3.) Christ.Aud 0 that the mention of Christ's love to his Father

might transport us! Though Christ did nothing but what pleased his
Father, (John viii. 29,) Christ suffered every thing that might please him.
(Phil. ii. 8.) Christ obeyed every command, endured every threatening,
that it was possible to endure, and that to the intensive extent of them;
yet God dealt more hardly with Christ than ever be doth with any of us:
" It pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief:" (Isai. liii.
10:) whereas the church in the midst of her lamentations must acknowledge, " He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men,"
(Lam. iii. 33,) yet Christ prayed " that the world may know that thou
hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." (John xvii. 23.) Should not
we then pray, and strive to love God, as near as it is possible, as Christ
loved him ? Christ had not one hard thought of God's severe justice;
no, not when he endured what was equivalent to the eternal torments
of the damned: and shall our love shrink at God's fatherly chastisements?
Christ's love to God did not abate, while God poured out his wrath: and
shall ours abate under <tffeclicinal providencesj) Whatever our outward
condition is in this world, it is better than Christ's.
Thus I have endeavoured to acquaint you what abilities are requisite,
and how to attain them, that you may love God, &c.
HOW TO IMPROVJC AND AUGMENT OUR LOVE TO GOD.
IV. How to improve and augment all our possible abilities to love God
with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.And for this I shall give
you one general, yet singular, direction, though I must inform, direct,
and press several things under it; and that is, set yourselves to love God.
Set upon it as you are able. Do for the engaging of your love to God,
as you would do for engaging your hearts in love to a person commended
to you for marriage. Here is a person commended to you whom you
never saw nor before heard of. All the report you can hear speaks a
great suitableness in the person, and consequently happiness in the
match: you thereupon entertain the motion, and a treaty, to see whether
reports be true and affections feasible; though at first you find no
affection on either side, yet, if you meet with no discouragements, you
continue converse, till, by a more intimate acquaintance, there arlseth a
more endearedness of affection: at length a non-such love becomes
mutual. Do something like this in spirituals. I now solemnly bespeak
your highest love for God. Perhaps God and thy soul are yet strangers j
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598
SERMON I.
tbou hast not yet met with him in hi ordinances, nor savingly heard of
him by hie Spirit. Do not slight the overture; for from thy first entertainment of it, thoo wilt be infinitely happy. Every thing of religion is
<v/ at first uncouth; the work of mortification ie harsh, and the work of
A .holiness difficult; but practice will facilitate them, and make thee in love
with them; so the more thou acquaintest thyself with God, the more
thou canst not but love him, especially considering that God is as importunate with thee for thy love, as if bis own happiness was concerned;
whereas he is infinitely above receiving benefit from us: but seeing he is

so earnest with thee for thy love, beg it of him for him ; God is more
willing to give every grace than thou canst be to receive it.
" Acquaint
thyself," therefore, with God, " and then shalt thou have thy delight in
the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy
prayer unto him, and be shall hear thee." (Jobxxii. 21, 26, 27.) What,
though thou beginnest at the lowest step of divine love; thou mayest,
through grace, mount up to the highest pinnacle! I willingly wave so much
as mentioning the several methods proposed; and shall, from a modern
author, commend to you these five steps or degrees of love to God;
DEGREES OF LOVE TO GOD.
1. The first degree, is to love God for those good thing which we do
or hope to receive from him.To love God as our Benefactor. " love
the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful." (Psalm
xxxi. 23.) Though I name this as the lowest degree of our loving
of God, yet the highest degree of our loving God is never separated
from the loving of God as our Benefactor, It is mentioned in Moses's
commendation, that he esteemed " the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence
of the reward." (Heb. xi. 26.) To love God for hopes of heaven ie
not a mercenary kind of love; it is not only lawful that we may, but
it is our duty that we must, love God for the glory that is laid up for
us. Where is the man that will own the name of Christian, who dare
charge Christ with any defect of love to God ? while the scripture saith
expressly, that " for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
(Heb. xu. 2.) Is it not (no question but it is) an infinite kindness
of God to make promisee ? And is it not grossly absurd to say, It is
a sin to believe them ? When our love shall be perfected in heaven,
shall we then love God ? And shall not we then love God, as well for
our perfect freedom from sin, for our perfection of grace, for the society
of saints and angels, as for himself? If you question this, surely you
will startle more at what I shall farther assert; namely, to love God
for temporal benefits does infallibly evidence us eminently spiritual;
nay, further yet I shall commend to the consideration of the most

considerate Christian, Whether our loving of God for the good things
of this life doth not evidence a greater measure of love to God than to
love God only for the gracious communication of himself unto the soul ?
I speak of truly loving God, not of bare saying you love him. Now I
evidence it thus: God's gracious communications of himself naturally
WITH ALL OUR HEART, SOULS, AND MINDS?
599
tend to the engaging of the soul to love him; but the things of the
world do not so. God's gracious communications of himself speak
special love on God's part, and that draws out love again; but, alas!
common mercies speak no such thing. Now, then, that soul that is so
graciously ingenious as to love God for those lower kinds of mercies, that
do not of themselves speak any love from God to us, that love of God
looks something like,though it is infinitely short of it, (for it is impossible to prevent* God in his loving of us,)but it looks somewhat like
our being beforehand with God in the way of special love. To love God
spiritually for temporal mercies,how excellent is this love! Though to
love a benefactor may be but the love of a brute; yet to love God thus,
as our Benefactor, cannot but he the love of a saint. Yon see, therefore,
that though you begin your love to God at below what is rational, it may
insensibly grow up to what is little less than angelical.
2. The second step of our love to God, is to love God for Mnuelf,
because he t* the most excellent good.You may abstract the consideration of his beneficence to us from his excellency in himself; and then,
when the soul can rise thus: " Lord, though I should never have a
smile from thee while I live, and should be cast off by thee when I die,
yet I love thee." Alas! why is this named as the second step?
Surely there are but few can rise so high. Fray, Christians, mind this:
there is many a gracious soul loves God for himself, who dares scarce
own it, that he loves God at all: for instance, when the soul is in perplexing darkness, and cannot discern any covenant-interest in God; but,
as the church bemoans herself, " God hath filled me with bitterness, he
hath made me drunken with wormwood. My strength and my hope is
perished from the Lord. When I cry and shout, he shutteth out my
prayer," &c. (Lam. iii. 8, 15, 18, &c.) In short, it is the case of every
soul that is under sore temptations or long desertions. Yet, mark you,
while they thus "walk in darkness, and see no light," yet then a
discerning Christian may see their love to God, like Moses's face, shine
to others' observation, though not [to] their own; as may be parti-
!
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cularly thus evidenced: When God smites them, they love him ; for
they are still searching what sin it is that he contends for, that they may
get rid of it, not hide it, nor excuse it. When they fear God will damn
them, then they love him; for they then keep in the way of holiness,
which is the way of salvation ; yea, they will not be drawn out of it,
though carnal friends, like Job's wife, bid them " curse God, and die;"
though Satan tell them they strive in vain; though their discouragements are multiplied, and their diligence is disappointed; yet they are
resolved, like Job, who said, " Though God hath taken away my judgment, and the Almighty hath vexed my soul; I will not remove mine
integrity from me. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go:
my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live." (Job xxvii. 2, 5, 6.)
As if he had aid: " I will delight in the Almighty, or nothing; I will
always call upon God, though he should never regard me." Or, though
the soul under trouble will not own so much goodness in itself as to say
thus, yet the conversation of such Christians speaks it plainly ; and can
* In it old signification, " to be beforehand," " to precede."EDIT.
600
SFTRMON T.
such a frame proceed from any thing but love to God ? Doth not grace
work in the soul like physic in the body ? The mother gives her child
physic ; the physic in its working makes the child sick ; the child, when
sick, instead of being angry with the mother for the physic, makes all its
moan to the mother, hangs about her, lays its head in her bosom : is
not this love to the mother, though she gave this sick-physic ? So, my
brethren, God deals with his children. What, though some of his
dealings make them heart-sick ? yet they cling to him, fearing nothing
but sin, and can bear any thing but his displeasure. Is not here love ?
And do not these love God for himself? It is true, God's love to them,
all this while is great ; but they perceive it not.
3. The third step is, to love nothing out for God1 sake, in him,
and for Mm, and to Mm. It is said to be Teresia's maxim, " All that is
not God is nothing." Indeed, the very word that Solomon uses for
" vanity," which he endorseth upon the best of creature-happiness in the
very notion of it, proclaims it ; " It is not God, therefore it is vanity." *
It is a noble employment to try experiments upon every lovely object, to
reduce our love to them to the love of God, to be still musing upon
spiritual cases, still supplying of spiritual wants, still longing for spiritual enjoyments, that I may not only love other things in subordination
to God, but to love nothing but for God.
For example ; In all outward enjoyments. " Have I an estate ? I
will honour God with my substance, because I love him. Have I any
thing pleasant or delightful in this world ? I will run it up to the fountain." 0 how pure and satisfying are the loving soul's delights in
God ! " Have I any esteem in the world ? I am no way fond of it ; but
so far as it may make my attempts for the honour of God more successful, I will improve it, and upon all other accounts decline it. Nearer
yet : My relations are dear unto me. I truly love them ; but yet my
love to God shall animate my love to them. For instance : I truly love
my friend ; but this shall be my love's exercise, to persuade him to love
God. I dearly love my parents ; but O, no father like God ! My soul
is overcome with that expression of Christ's, ' Whosoever shall do the
will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister,
and mother/ (Matt. xii. 50.) My conjugal relation is dearest to me ;
but my heart is passionately set upon this, that we may both be infallibly espoused unto Christ. My heart yearns towards my children ; but
I had rather have them God's children than mine."
Nearer yet : as to inward qualifications. For instance : for natural
parts " I bless God that I am not an idiot, that I have any capacity
of understanding ; but I am resolved, to the utmost of my capacity, to
endeavour the convincing of all I converse with, that to love and enjoy
God is most highly rational, and most eminently our interest. Have I
any acquired endowments of learning or wisdom ? I bless God for them;
but I count all wisdom folly, and all learning dotage, without the knowledge of God in Christ:" "If any man think that he knoweth any
thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man
vanitta, quasi N N no Detw.MERCEKue e< PAGN i us.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, AND MTNM?
601
love God, the same is known of him." (1 Cor. viii. 2, 3.) Higher
yet: for gracious qualification* that capacitate me for glory: *' I lore
grace the best of any creature, wherever I see it; but it is for the sake
of the God of all grace, without whom my grace is inconsiderable."
Once more, higher yet, and higher than this I think we cannot go:
To love those things that are not lovely, merely for God's sake, or out
of love to God.For example : how many have you heard complain for
want of afflictions, for fear God does not love them!though, by the
way, those betray their weakness who thus complain; for did they but
observe their want of evidence of divine love, and did they more sympathize with the church of Christ under the cross, they would find they
need not complain for want of afflictions:but, be it so: complain they
do, and that for want of afflictions. Afflictions are no way lovely, we
are no where bid to pray for them : but it is our duty to pray for preventing and removing them; and yet the gracious soul is, through love
to God, in some respect in love with them. Here is a notable degree
of divine love, that the soul would upon any terms experiment the love
of God; and engage the heart in love to God again, and to love nothing
but for God.

4. The fourth step of our love to God is, for our highest love of every
thing to be hatred in comparison of our love to God.The truth is, we
can never so plainly know to what a degree we love God, as by weighing
it against whatever stands in competition with it. Why should I so far
debase my love to God as to weigh it in the same balance with love to
sin ? But, alas! why do besotted sinners so dote upon sin, as if love to
God were not worthy to be compared with it ? Methinks, I may a little
more than allude to that passage of Isaiah: "They lavish gold out
' of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith ; and
he maketh it a god," &c. (Isai. xlvi. 6.) They give out their gold by
handfuls, without weighing, for matter of their idols; but they will be
good husbands in their expenses about the workmanship of them. Man
cares not at what rate he loves his idols, those lusts upon which they
bestow their affections, due to God alone; though in all other things
they are wary enough. But why should I waste time in speaking to
these ? They have not yet gone one step towards the love of God; and,
therefore, are so far behind, that they are not within learning of what is
spoken to good proficients in the love of God.
Let me only leave with
them this parting word : From a person's first sincere and ardent love to
God, he can neither speak nor think of sin without abhorrency. From
the first infusion of grace, there is a graciously-natural antipathy against
sin. Sin receives its death's wound : it is too true, it may struggle for
life, and seem to be upon recovery; but grace will wear it out, and
will never leave the conflict till it has obtained the conquest. But this is
not the thing I intended to speak to in this particular: it is otherguese*
things than sin that the soul that loves God is afraid to spill his love
upon. He prizeth those ordinances wherein he meets with communion
with God, but is afraid his love should terminate there; he values them
but as windows to let-in the light: though something excellent may be

* Or olherguise, that is," other kinds of things."EDIT.
602
SERMON I.
written there, as with the point of a diamond, yet it is neither writing

nor window [which] is prized, bat the light; when that is gone, shut up
the window as if it were a dead wall that is no more regarded till the
light returns. It is the light of God's countenance that is better than
life itself. Perhaps you will say, this comes not up to what I asserted,
that our highest love to every thing is to lie hatred in comparison of our
love to God. Well, let this be warily considered: One whose love to
God is at this height, is exactly curious in the management of his graces;
and while he is so, he is as curiously jealous lest grace should warp, to
rob God of his glory. He loves inherent grace heartily. " 0," saith he,
" that my soul were more enriched with it!" But yet while he is breathing after perfection in grace, he admiringly prefers God's wise love in
saving him by Christ, before salvation by inherent grace: he utterly
renounceth the best of his graces, when pride would have them jostle
with Christ for the procuring of acceptation. In short, a soul that is
overcome with God's method of salvation, is unable to bear any thing
that darkens it. " Would God have me to be as watchful against sin, as
if there were no Christ to pardon it ?" " My little children, these things
write I unto you, that ye sin not." (1 John ii. 1.) Our first care must
be not to sin, "0 that I could perfectly comply with God in this!
But, alas! I cannot! Would God have me to rest as entirely upon
Christ after my utmost attainments, as that wretch who pretends to
venture his soul with him out of an ill-spent life ? 0 Lord, I trust no
more to my good works than he can to bis bad ones, for his meriting
of salvation!* As I would not ungratefully overlook any thing the
Spirit hath done in me, so I would not have any thing which I have
almost marred in the Spirit's doing of it, to draw a curtain whereby
Christ should be lens looked on."
5. The most eminent degree of our love to God, is ecstasy and ravishment.We need not go down to the legends of the Philistines to sharpen
our incentives to the love of God.
I could over-match what can be said,
with truth, of Ignatius [Loyola] and Xaverius, with several, whom many
of you knew, whose unparalleled humility hid them from observation,
whose communion with God was often overwhelming: but I forbear.
Take a scripture-instance of this kind of love; compare but these three
passages in the Song of Songs: " I am sick of love." (Canticles ii. 5.)
This is upon Christ's first overcoming discovery of himself. " I charge
you, 0 daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell him,
that I am sick of love." (Canticles v. 8.) This charge is from her spiritual languishment, through earnest desire of reconciliation, after some
negligence and carelessness in duty. Canticles viii. 6 : This is when she
hath had the highest communion with God that an imperfect state
affords; when she was, as it were, upon the threshold of glory; and
* Let not this be mistaken, as if I made no difference between good works and evil.
The apostle hath taught me better: " This is a faithful saying, and these things I will
that thpu affirm constantly, that they which have believed in Ood might be careful to
maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." And: "Let
ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful."
(Titus Hi. 8,14.) Good worksthey are genuine fruits, though not meritorious causes,
of justification.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULS, ANZ MINDS?
603
then she eaitb, Love it strong a death. As if she had said, " I shall die
unless thou grant my desire;" or, "Let me die, that my desire may
be granted." Jealousy is cruel a the grace: "That as the grave is
never satisfied, so neither will my love without the utmost enjoyments
of thyself." The coal* thereof are coal of fire, which hath a moet vehement Jtame : " My love burns up my corruptions, shines in holiness, and
mounts upwards in heavenly-mindedness." Many water cannot quench
love: " The waters of afflictions are but as oil to the fire." If a man would
give all the substance of hi house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
(Canticles viii. 6, 7.) She scorns all things that would force or flatter
her out of her love to Christ. Now, if you except against this as spoken
of love to Christ, and not of love to God essentially, to Ood the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost; I readily answer, We cannot see God lovely but
in Christ. If any will be so curious as to assert they look upon Christ
himself as but a means to bring them to God; it is God essentially,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, when Christ shall have given up his mediatory kingdom, (1 Cor. zv. 28,) that must be their complete happiness:
the means is not to be rested in, in comparison of the end: this may
well be compared to " a sea of glass," (Rev. xv. 2, 3,) slippery standing.
that I could but discover what my soul should long for; namely, how
to look beyond Christ to God, in whom alone is my complete happiness,
and then to look in some respect beyond God to Christ, to give the
Lamb his peculiar honour, when I shall be with the Almighty, and with
the Lamb as in a temple; when the glory of God and of the Lamb shall
be the light, (Rev. xxi. 22, 23,) whereby I shall see that God, who
dwelleth in such light, as no mortal eye can behold. (1 Tim. vi. 16.)
That will be a blessed vision indeed. " When that which is perfect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away." (1 Cor. xiii. 10, &c.)
We have yet but childish apprehensions of these things, to what we shall
have when we come to " a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ." (Eph. iv. 13.) Now we see "darkly, through
the glass" of ordinances; but then " we shall see face to face." Now
we "know but in part;" but then "we shall know God," according to
our measure, as God knows us; and then the greatest grace will be love,
perfect love, that will cast out all fear; fear of not attaining, and fear of
losing, that joy of our Lord into which we are taken. But, alas ! all I
can say in this matter is rather the restless fluttering of the soul towards
God, than the quiet resting of the soul in God. Let me close the paragraph with that [which] I call a rapture of profound Bradwardine: "
Lord my God! tbou art the good of every good; good above all good
things, a good most infinitely infinite. How, therefore, should I love thee 1
How shall I proportionably love thee infinitely ? that I could! But
how can I, that am so very little and finite, love thee infinitely ? And
how otherwise will there be any proportion between thy loveliness and
my loves ? My God, thou art super-amiable; thou infinitely ezceedest
all other things that are lovely. Perhaps, Lord, I should love thee infinitely as to the manner, when I cannot as to the act. It pertains to the
manner of loving, to love thee finally for thyself; and no other good
finally for itself, bat for thee, who art the Chiefeet Good, and the Begin-
604
SERMON I.
ning and End of all good things. But perhaps I may, in some sort, love
thee infinitely, as to the act both intensively and extensively; intensively,
in loving thee more intensely, more firmly, more strongly, than any finite
good, and when I love nothing but for thy sake; extensively, when I
compare thee, Lord, with all other great and good things, and had rather
they, and myself also, had no being, than once to offend my good God.
But yet, most loving Lord! when I consider a proportion of love, I am
greatly troubled. If love should be according to the worth of the object;
by how much thou art better than I am, and more profitable to me than
I am to myself, I should love thee more than thou lovest me ; but that I
never can. 0 Lord, I beseech thee, how much dost thou love me ? Is
it weakly and remissly, according to my goodness ? That be far from
thee, Lord! Thou lovest thine incomparably more than thou art loved
of them; as thou art incomparably greater and better than they. But,
0 great and good God! that filleat heaven and earth, yea, the heaven
of heavens cannot contain thee; why dost thou not fill my poor little
soul ? 0 my soul, why dost thou not open all thy little doors ? Why
dost not thou extend thy utmost capacity, that thou mayest be wholly
possessed, wholly satiated, wholly de-ebriated with the sweetness of so

great love ? especially when, though thou art so little, yet thou canst not
be satisfied with the love of any lesser good. Many questions might be
proposed to expostulate my soul into a flame of love. But I see, Lord,
it is easy to speak and write these things ; but it is hard to do and
perfect them in effect. Thou, therefore, most good and Almighty Lord, to
whom nothing is difficult, grant, I pray thee, that I may more easily do
these things with my heart, than profess them with my mouth," &c.*
And thus, having, after my poor manner, put you upon practice, and
pointed you the way from the lowest to the highest step of divine love, I
am sensible that both good and bad have their exceptions ready against
what I have delivered. The humble, trembling Christian,he fears that
if the lowest degree of love to God hath such heights in it, he shall never
be able to reach it; and he is grieved whom God would not have made
sad. On the other hand, those that call themselves Christians, though
there is no reason for their usurping that title, without any consideration
of either the duty or themselves, will bear you down, that they love God
with jail their hearts, souls, and minds, and that they have always done
so, and [that] they are unworthy to live that do not love God; and if
you inquire into any particulars whatsoever about their love to God, they
will rather quarrel with you than give you any satisfying answer. If I
could, therefore, propose any thing that would apply itself, that is, by
its own evidence work itself into the conscience, I might hope to dissolve
their self-flatteries. I cannot at present think of a more compendious
way of undeceiving both these, and of further persuasively urging the
love of God, than by plainly naming the infallible PROPERTIES and constant EFFECTS of this love; hereby those that despondingly fear they
want it will find they have it; and those that groundlessly boast of it
will find they want it; and both be instructed what must be done to
evidence and exert it.
* BRADWARDINUS De Causa Dei, lib. ii. cap. xxxiv. pp. 627629, eparsim.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOULB, AND HINDS?
605
PROPERTIES OF LOVE TO GOD.
(I.) I shall begin with the PROPERTIES of our love to God.

And here, aa in all the rest, I must study contraction; and therefore
dare not particularly mention Gerson's fifty properties of Divine Love.
I shall rather follow Voetius's method, who ranks the properties
of Divine Love thus: They are, 1. Partly negative and privative;
2. Partly positive and absolute ; 3. Partly comparative and transcendent.
I shall speak briefly of each of these: your consciences may manage it
as if it were a use of examination.
1. Negative properties or adjunct* are such as these; and these may
prevent the mistakes of drooping Christians; and, alas! a great part
of Christ's family are such upon one account or other.
(1.) This divine love it not at all in the unregenerate, unleta only in
ehow and imitation.That soul that is solicitous about loving of God,
that soul loves him. This is proper and peculiar to all those, and only
those, that are born of God, that are the adopted children of God. Let
it be considered, whether the devil can counterfeit love to God, as he
can other graces. Their faith works by fear, not by love: " The devils
believe, and tremble." (James ii. 19.) It is true, he doth not only
suffer, but promote, an hypocritical divine love in some,* and he may
appear in a "love-mask"f to others, as to Adam in Paradise: "God
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods." (Gen. iii. 5.) He pretends he hath more
kindness for them than God himself, and the like to Christ; (Matt. iv. 3;)
but did he himself ever pretend so much as to love God? I grant,
wicked men pretend to love God; but the ridiculousness of their die
course plainly evidences, they neither understand what they say, nor
whereof they affirm.
And whereas thou eomplainest that thou fearest thy love is not sincere,
because it is selfish; be not discouraged: while thou studiest to please
God, fearest to offend him, prizest his presence, mournest for his absence,
thy love to God is infallibly sincere, though there be an ingredient
of self in it; nay, let me say more, it could not be sincere, if thon didst
not mind thyself. As in the very quintessence of conjugal love, it is
impossible to abstract it from self-love; so the more we love God, the

more we cannot but love ourselves, yea, even then when we most deny
ourselves out of love to God.
(2.) Thi* divine love it far from perfection.It is subject to more
sensible languishments and infirmities than any other grace, though it
can never be totally and finally extinguished. What, though sometimes, to
thy own apprehension, thou canst not tell whether thou lovest God at
all ? And what, though at all times thon complainest of fickleness and
inconstancy? What, though the time of thy fear be longer than the
time of thy love ? Yet while thine heart can say, it is unquiet in this
temper, and it is thy restless desire to love God more perfectly, these
very complaints speak love: we never complain of want of love to those
persons whom we do not already love. This, as well as other graces, is
* [" form or appearance"].
f Larva amerie.
606
SERMON I.
here but in part; (1 Cor. ziii. 10;) while we are in this lower world,
our very graces will have their neap- as well as their spring-tides. We
cannot yet be so wise as to foresee all our hinderances, nor so watchful
as to avoid all Satan's ambushes, nor so perfect as to maintain a spiritual
frame of heart. Though this grace is always in motion, yet it doth not
always nor equally go forward.
(3.) Our love to God shall never be abolished." Love never faileth;" *
the same kind of love, the same numerical love that was in gracious
persons on earth, shall be continued in heaven, and receive its perfection
presently after its delivery from the body of death. There will be a
greater change in all our graces than in our love. A great part of our
life is taken up in the exercise of those graces, that, I mny in some
respect say, die with us. The one-half of our life is, or should be, spent
in mortification. The whole of our time needs the exercise of our
patience. Our life, at best, is but a life of faith. Much of our sweet
communion with God is fetcbed-in by secret prayer. But now, in
heaven, there shall be no sin to be mortified, nothing grievous to be
endured. Faith shall be swallowed up in enjoyment, and your petitions
shall be all answered. So that now, Christians, set yourselves to love
God, and you shall no way lose your labour. Other graces are but as
physic to the soul,desirable for something else, which when obtained,
they are useless; but love to God is the healthful constitution of the
soul,there is never any thing of it in any sense useless. Most Of the
graces of the Spirit do by our souls as our friends by our bodies, who
accompany them to the grave, and there leave them; but now love to
God is the alone grace, that is to our souls the same that a good conscience [is],our best friend in both worlds.
(4.) This divine love is so unknown to the world, that when they
behold the effect* and flames of it, in those that love God in an extraordinary manner, they are ready to explode it as mere vanity, folly, madness,
ostentation, and hypocrisy.When Paul managed his audience more like
a sermon than a defence, Festus cries out upon him as mad. (Acts xxvi.
24.) Yea, when Christ himself, in love to God and souls, is more hungry after converts than food, his nearest relations think him crazed.
" And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so
much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to
lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself." But were they
any other brt his carnal and graceless relations that did this? See:
" Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee." (Mark
iii. 20, 21, 32.) No marvel, then, that enemies reproach you, friends for
sake yon, relations slight you, and the world hate you. (1 John iii. 13.)
Christ tells us, " If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before
it hated you." (John xv. 18, 23.) But how can the world hate Christ,
who in love to it came to die for it ? Christ tells his hearers the true
reason: " I know you," (this is no groundless surmise, nor censorious
rashness, but I know you,} " that ye have not the love of God in yon."
* I Cor. xiiL 8. Non quoad formam, nee quoad modum tendendi in oljeetum,
VOETIUS, ibid. "Love never faileth either with reepect to its form, or to its mode
of tending toward it object"EDIT.
WITH AUL OVft HEARTS, 8ODL8, AND MINDS?
607
(John . 42.) Let what will appear at the top, this lie at the bottom. And therefore judge, I pray you, who more fanaticthose that
hate God when they pretend to love him, or those that are counted
frantic for their serious love to God ? I shall neither name more, nor
enlarge farther, on this first rank of characters, bat be brief also in the
second.
2. The absolute properties of lore to God are, among many, some
of them such as these:
(1.) It is the aunt ingenious of all grace.In poor, inconsiderable
lores, not worth the mentioning, how do persons contrive ways for the
expressing and exciting of love! And there is no way to prevent it.
how much more, when the soul loves God ? There is nothing meliorates
the parts like grace. Divine love makes the best improvement of wit,
parts, time. When a person loves to pray, though he can scarce speak
sense to men, he can strenuously plead with God. A person that loves
to meditate,though he knows not how to make his thoughts hung together in other things, they multiply on his hand with a spiritual and
profitable consistency. In short, to do any thing that may engage the
heart to God, what gracious stratagems doth love abound with! That
as he that beholds his face in a glass makes the face which he sees;his
very look is the pencil, the colour, the art;so he that loves God sees
such a reflexion of God's love to him, that a proud person doth not more
please herself in her own fancied beauty, than this gracious soul is graciously delighted in the mutual dartings of Divine Love.* Keep from
will-worship and human inventions in the things of God, especially from
imposing upon others your prudentials of devotion; and then I will commend it to you, to try aU the experiments which the scripture will
warrant, to increase the flame of your Divine Love.
(2.) Love to God is the most bold, strong, constant, and daring grace,
of all the graces of the Spirit of God."Love is strong as death:"
(Canticles viii. 6:) every one knows what work death makes in the
world. It is not the power of potentates, nor the reverence of age, nor
the usefulness of grace, can prevent its stroke: it conquers all. So
doth love to God. Nothing can stand before it. What dare not love to
God attempt? It designs impossibilities, namely, perfection; and is
restless for the want of it. I may in some sense say, It would fain have
contradictions true; namely, to be without the body, while in it; the
body's being a clog is so wearisome. Love to God not only baffles
Satan, but, through God's gracious condescension, it even prevails with
God himself, that God will deny nothing to the soul that loves him.
(3.) Love to God is the only self-emptying and satisfying grace.^
Love,it is selfs egress; it is a kind of pilgrimage from self: he that
loves is absent from himself, thinks not of himself, provides not for himself. But, 0 how great is the gain of renouncing ourselves, and thereby
receiving God and ourselves! We are, as it were, dead to ourselves, and
live to God; nay, more, by love we live in God: " God is love; and he
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John
* JOHAK. EUSKB. Df Arto VokntK, p. 114.
p. 382, &c., tparnm.
t Idem,
608
SERMON I.
HOW HAY WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD
iv. 16.) By faith we lire upon God; by obedience we live to God; bat
by love we Uve in God. It is herein alone that we can give something
like a carnal (though it is indeed a highly spiritual) answer to Nicodenms's question, " How can a man be born when he is old ? can he enter
the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John iii. 4.)
We have our souls immediately from the Father of spirits; by regeneration we return to God again, from whom by sin we are estranged; and
by love we live in him, in some little resemblance to the child's living in
the mother's womb. What the mother loves, the child loves; what the
mother longs for, the child longs for; in the mother's health the child is
well. The child lives there in a far different manner from how it lives
in the world: though it cannot stir out of its enclosure, yet it never
cries nor complains of its imprisonment. So the soul that entirely loves
God hates what God hates, and loves what God loves; its life is far
above the life of others, and it desires no greater liberty than to be, as it
were, imprisoned in God, to have no will of its own, no one motion but
what God graciously concurs in: yet it is so far from esteeming this a
restraint, that it counts it the highest happiness of its imperfect state.
He feels a sweetness in that beyond what the Heathen that spake it ever
thought of, " In God we live, move, and have our being."
(4.) The love of God makes us anxiously weary of life itself.In this
love there is one death and two resurrections: " I am crucified with
Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal.
ii. 20.) Christ lives, and the soul lives; and both by love. I must
acknowledge, all manner of love is apt to be extravagant and irregular;
our very love to God is, in this, blind, when it comes to any considerable
height; it is apt to overlook (not in a way of neglect, but ecstasy) what
is to be done and suffered, and would fain be at the enjoyment of God
in heaven. By the way, let not doubting Christians be discouraged,
because it is not thus with them. Though these properties be but in
the bud, they may in time be full blown; therefore believe and wait;
heights of grace are ordinarily as well the work of time, as of the
Spirit of God. Besides, you know, there is nothing more common than
for lovers to dissemble their love; so here, it is too common for gracious persons rather to belie the Spirit of God, than thankfully to own
their love to God, because they are afraid of being mistaken, and they
are afraid of boasting of a false gift; and here, though love, when it is
perfect, it casteth out fear, yet while it is imperfect, fear proveth our
love.
3. Thus much of the positive properties; I will be very brief in the
transcendent properties of our love to God.
(1.) Love to God is the great general directing grace, containing all
other particular graces in it, and most intimately goes through the acts
of all of them.* (1 Cor. xiii.)Love in the soul is as the pilot in the
ship, who steers the ship and all its passengers. Love steers the soul,
and all its operations. Love is the needle in the compass, that is
till trembling towards its divine loadstone. J. Eusebius Nierembergius
compares other graces to bullion uncoined; which, though it have an
* VOETIUS, ibid.
i,
w
WITH ALL HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINDS?
609
intrinsic value, yet it is not that money that answer all things. What
shall I say? Find oat a thousand transcendent metaphors, love ill
answer them all.
(2.) It is in a singular manner infinite.Among all the faculties of the
soul, there is none bat the will that can, in any sound sense, be said to be
infinite: all the other faculties are more bounded than the will. Now love
is the natural act of the will; and love to God is the supernaturallynatural act of the renewed will. Its desires, which is the love of desires,
are to be united unto God, the Fountain of all blessedness. And here,
those that love God least, so it be sincerely,their desires are infinite.
For example: desires are the feet of the soul: their love will creep when
it cannot go. Desires are the wings of the soul: love will flutter when it
cannot fly. Desires are the breathings of the soul: love will pant, and
groan, and gasp, where it can do no more. Again : the contentment and
satisfaction of the will, which is the love of complacency, is infinite, in as
large a sense as that word can be ascribed to creatures. Desire are the
motion and exercise of love; delight is the quiet and repose of it. My
beloved, to have the heart to delight in God, or to ache and tingle with
the discourse of the love of God, through reflection upon the want of it,
as unable to stand nnder his own thoughts,this infallibly shows great
love; and this soul's satisfaction in God is in some sort infinite.
EFFECTS OF LOVE TO GOO.
(II.) EFFECTS of love to God,they relate either to God himself, or

to ourselves, or they are mutual. I will speak briefly of each.
1. Effect that relate to God are such as these; I do not only say
these, but these, and such at these :
(1.) Hatred of and flight from all that is evil.Joseph may be our
instance. His mistress would have inveigled him into sin; but though
" she spake to him day by day," yet he " hearkened not onto her, to lie
by her, or to be with her." (Gen. xxxix. 10.) He that fears sin will get
as far as he can out of the reach of a temptation. Hatred of sin always
holds proportion with our love to God ; our inward hatred of sin, with
our inward love of God ; our return to sin, with the decay of our love to
God. The renewing of our repentance answers the reviving of oar love
to God. Every one that doth not love God, loves sin, plain, down-right
sin, sin without any excuse; for instance, either some moral wickedness,
or a resting in their own righteousness.
(2.) The fear of God.A reverential tenderness of conscience, lest we
I
\
\
\
sin against God. It is not only fear of hell, but fear of God's goodness.
" They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the hitter days." (Hosea
iii. 5.) The soul that loves God is troubled that he either does or omits
any thing for fear of hell, and that he is no more affected with lovearguments. Though, pray take notice, by the way, that all fear of hell
doth not presently argue a spirit of bondage : hopes and fears poise the
soul while in this world. I would therefore leave this charge upon you;
namely, be sure that you love God better than the blessed apostle loved
him, before yon censure any for want of love who are diligent in duty
upon this motive* lest they be at last cast-aways. (I Cor. ix. 27.) But,
610
SERMON I.
ROW MAT WE ATTAIN TO LOT GOD
to return : though God's gracious condescension be so great us to allow

those that love him a non-such familiarity, yet that never breeds the least
contempt. Sense of distance between God and the soul, between the
holy God and a sinful soul, between the faithful God and the fickle soul,
this cauaeth holy tremblings, and humble apologies in our most
familiar pleadings with God. The father of the faithful, whom God
honoured with the title of his " friend," (of whose love to God you have
already heard,)when he pleaded with Christ face to face in so familiar
A way, (never any like him !) see how he then prefaced bis prayer:
" Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am
but dust and ashes/' Again : " let not the Lord be angry, and I will
speak." (Gen. xviii. 27, 30.) " God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about
him." (Psalm Ixxxix. 7.) Methinks that passage of Christ to his disciples,
with the circumstance of time when he spake it, just upon the most servile
action of bis life, may for ever keep an awe upon our hearts: " Know ye
what I have done to you ? ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well;
for so I am." (John xiii. 12, 13.) When God deals most familiarly with
us as with friends, let us carry it reverently as becomes servants.
(3.) Obedience to the commands of God, and to those command* which
would never be obeyed but out of love to God." For this is the love
of God, that we keep his commandments : and his commandments are
not grievous;" (1 John v. 3 ;) that is, to obey those commands that are
unpleasing and troublesome, those commands that thwart our carnal reason, and so part with things present for the hopes of that we never saw,
nor any man living that told us of them. "Whoso keepeth his word, in him
verily is the love of God perfected : hereby know we that we are in him/'
(I John ii. 5.) Once more: hear what Christ saith: " He that hath my
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him." And again: " If a man love me, he will keep
my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him." (John xiv. 21, 23.)
(4.) Resignation of ourselves to God.Whereby we devote ourselves
wholly to God, to be wholly his,* to be every way disposed of as he
pleaseth. " The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge,
that if one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him
which died for them," &c. (2 Cor. v. 14, 15.) This resignation is like
that in the conjugal relation: it debars so much as treating with any
other; it, as it were, proclaims an irreconcilable hatred to any that
would partake of any such love. God doth not deal with us as with
slaves, but takes us into that relation which speaks most delight and
happiness; and we are never more our own than when we are most
absolutely his.
(5.) Adhesion and cleaving unto God, in every case, and in every con
dition." In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth
hard after thee." (Psalm buii. 7, 8.) Methinks we may say of the law
* Quoad el quoad . " Both to possession and enjoyment."EDIT.
611
concerning birds, (Deut. xxii. 6,) what the apostle eaith of the law concerning oxen: " Doth God take care for birds ? For our sakes, no doubt,
it is written," to instruct us against cruelty; but may we not learn a further
lesson ? The bird was safe while on her nest: our only safety is with God.
Now, to cleave to God in all conditions, not only when we fly to him as
our only refuge in our pressures, but, in our highest prosperity and outward happiness, when we have many things to take-to whence the
world expects happiness; this is a fruit of great and humble love, this
demonstrates an undervaluing of the world, and a voluntary choosing
of God ; this is somewhat like heavenly love.
(6.) Tears and sighs through desire and joy.When the spiritual,
love-sick soul would, in some such, but an unexpressible, manner, breathe
out its sorrows and joys into the bosom of God : " Lord, why thus loving
to me, and why is my heart no more overcome with Divine Love ? Those
that never received so much from thee love thee more. 0 I am weary
of my want of love! 0 I am weary of my distance from God! 0 I am
weary of my unspiritual frame!" "We that are in this tabernacle do
groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (2 Cor. v. 4.)
Here, when the heart is ready to die away through excess of love, it is
passionately complaining of defects: " Dear Lord! what shall I say ?
What shall I do ? What shall I render ? 0 for more endearing communications of Divine Love! 0 for more answerable returns of love to
God!" Thus much of effects as to God.
2. The only effect I shall name as to us, is, a seeking of heaven and
things above, with contempt of the world, and all worldly excellencies.
One that loves God thinks he can never do enough in heavenly employments. A person that abounds in love to God is too apt to neglect
secondary duties, which are in their places necessary: they are apt to
justle out one duty with another. For example: those duties wherein
they have most sensible communion with God bear down lesser duties
before them ; whereas, could we keep within scripture-bounds, and
mind every duty according to its moment, then this is an excellent effect
of Divine Love: for instance, to be afraid of worldly enjoyments, lest they
should steal the heart from God; yet, at the same time, not to dare to
omit any worldly duty lest I should prove partial in the work of Christianity : to make conscience of the least duties, because no sin is little;
but to be proportionably careful of the greatest duties, lest I should
prove an hypocrite: such a carriage is an excellent effect of Divine Love:
this is fruit that none who are not planted near the tree of life can bear.
3. Mutual effects are these, and such like as these:
(1.) Union with God.Union is the foundation of communion, and
communion is the exercise of union. The Spirit of God is the immedi-
ate efficient cause of this union, and faith is the internal instrument on
our part; but love is the internal instrument both on God's part and
ours. Christ "dwells in our hearts by faith, we being rooted and
grounded in love." (Eph. iii. 17.) This union is most immediately
with Christ, and, through him, with the Father and Holy Ghost. It is
an amazing and comfortable truth, that our union with Christ does
612
81RMON I.
BOW MAY WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOO
much resemble the personal union of the two natures in Christ. I

grant it is unlike it in more considerations, because of the transcendency
of the mystery ; but yet there is some resemblance. For example : the
human nature in Christ is destitute of its subsistence and personality, by
its union with and its assumption to the divine; so the gracious soul
hath no kind of denomination but what it hath from its union with
Christ: its gracious being is bound up in its union with Christ. Other
men can live without Christ; but so cannot the gracious soul. Again:
in Christ there is a communication of properties, that is, that which is
proper to the Divine Nature is attributed to the human; and, coiitrarily, that which is proper to the human nature is attributed to the
Divine: so here, in the soul's union with Christ, Christ is made sin for
us, and dealt with as if he were a sinner; we are made the righteousness of God in him, and privileged as righteous persons. Christ's
riches are ours, and our poverty his; yea, more, the offices of Christ
are attributed to believers; they are " an holy and a royal priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;"
(1 Peter ii. 5, 9;) and Christ "hath made us kings and priests unto his
Father." (Rev. i. 6.) Christ hath a stock of created grace : it was for
us: " Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." (John
i. 16.) The apostle bids us "be strong in the grace that is in Christ
Jesus." (2 Tim. ii. 1.) What shall I say? Is Christ the natural Son
of God? They are the adopted. Is Christ the beloved Son of God?
Believers, in their measure, are so too. They are dead with Christ,
buried with Christ, risen with Christ, sit together in heavenly placed
with Christ, fellow-heirs with Christ. In short, as there never was such
another union in the world as the union of the two natures in Christ,
so there never was, nor ever can be, such another union in the world as
between Christ and the believer. It is beyond what any metaphors
from art or nature can folly express. That of a foundation and building,
of a vine and branches, of head and members, of soul and body, are
but dark shadows of this union. But I must not enlarge.
(2.) Communion with God.Communion consists in communication ;*
when there is a kind of community of propriety [property]; I might run
over the former particulars, and enlarge them; but the subject is not
BO barren, that I need name one thing twice. Christians, I beg of you
that you would be careful of receiving, because I can be but brief in
delivering, a few hints of the communication of divine love between God
and us. For example: God communicates " the divine nature" to us
through his fulfilling "exceeding great and precious promises."
(2 Peter i. 4.) We make returns as those that are born of God, in
obeying his commands. Because God loves us, he communicates unto
us his communicable properties of holiness, wisdom, goodness. Seeing
we have nothing to return, we prostrate ourselves at his feet, [and]
ingenuously acknowledge our unholiness, folly, and badness. God and
the soul hold communication in all gracious actions: God communicates strength to the doing of those things which he cannot do, but
* Cum ret nit sit alteriut. "When that which belongs to one person becomes,
by participation with another, joint property."EDIT.
WITH ALL OV& HEARTS, SOULS, AND MINIMI?
613
[which] we must: * to repent, believe, obey God,these are oar actions

through' his strength. Again: we exercise our graces npon God for
those his actions which we cannot do, hut [which] we may, through his
covenant-engagement, with humble thankfulness say he must. For example : for the pardon of sin, speaking peace to the conscience, giviug-out
of gracious influences, &c.; for these we admire God, we praise him,
rejoice in him. Once more: in those things wherein we can make no
return to God, but may to others for God's sake ; our love to God necessitates us to do it. For instance: God pities us, is merciful and kind
to us ; God is infinitely above all such returns. Ay, but so are not the
members of Christ, who are the best visible image of God in the world t
I will give them not only my alms, but my very bowels, &c. In short,
in this communication, God and the gracious soul have the same interest,
drive on the same design, (the advancement of Christ and the gospel,)
have the same friends, and the same enemies. They communicate secrets
to each other: none but the loving soul knows the secrets of Divine Love;
and none but God hears all the secrets of the soul without a reserve.
Among the dearest friends in the world, there is some reserve. Some
things we will rather speak to a stranger than to our dearest bosom-friend;
we think them not fit to mention, or we are loath to trouble them: but
there is none of this between God and the soul: God tells us all that
may benefit, not overcharge, us: we tell God all the very worst of our
own hearts, which we are ashamed to mention to those that most love
us. God deals with us according to our capacities; our bottles would
break should God over-fill them ; but we deal with God according to the
utmost of our active graces: God is both compassionate to pity and
pardon what is no way acceptable, and even incredibly condescending to
accept of what none but hie infinite grace would accept.
(3.) Familiar love-visits.When God makes sad visits to the disquieting of conscience, and the breaking of our peace; yet even then the
soul, under trouble of conscience, would not change its spiritual trouble
for the best of the world's peace, no, not for its former peace, with
which it was so well pleased before conversion. The soul that loves God.
cannot construe that to be a visit which others count so. The soul
never goes to God as we go to visit those we care not for, that we are
glad at their being from home; so the visit be but paid, we care not,
Pray compare some passages in that Song of Loves: one while you have
the spouse inquiring of Christ, " Tell me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth,
where tbou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for
why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy comparuons?" (Canticles i. 7.) As if he had said: "Tell me, 0 Lord, my
love and life, where I may have both instruction and protection in an
hour of trouble; lest through thy absence I be seduced by those that
only pretend to love thee." Christ gives a present answer, and quickly
after returns an invitation : " 0 my dove, that art in the clefts of the
rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me
hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely."
(Canticles ii. 14.) As if he had said: " 0 my mourning dove, that
* Through his perfection, not defect.
614
SERMON I.
darest not stir out of thy secret place, stir up tby faith, hold up thy face
with comfort, let me hear thy prayers and praises: though others censure them, I esteem them; though others count thee deformed, thou art
in my eyes beautiful." Here is something of affection ; but see more:
" Let my beloved come into his gnrden, and eat his pleasant fruits."
(Canticles iv. 16.) As if he had said : " 0 my Lord, what I have from
thee, I return to thee: accept, I beseech thee, the fruits of obedience
and praise." Christ presently accepts the invitation : " I am come into
my garden, my sister, my spouse i I have gathered my myrrh with my
spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my
wine with my milk: eat, 0 friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, 0
beloved." (Canticles v. 1.) As if he had said, "Thou shalt no sooner
ask, than be answered; I accept thy graces and duties, thy titter
repentance and thy fragrant holiness: they are most sweet to me, notwithstanding their imperfections. And ye, 0 my friends, whether
blessed angels, or gracious souls, do you cheer yourselves with the same
spiritual dainties wherewith I am refreshed." This is much ; but there
is more in the next expression I shall name: " Turn away thine eyes
from me, for they have overcome me:" (Canticles vi. 5 :) as if he had
said, " I am ravished and vanquished by thy fixed eye of faith." In short,
see the spouse's closing request: " Make haste, my beloved, and be thou
like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices." (Canticles viii. 14.) As if he had said, "As I began this song, my dearest
Saviour, with passionate desires of thy first coming by the preaching
of the gospel; so, though I thankfully praise thee for all the communion
I have had with thee, yet I cannot, my Lord, but more passionately long
for tby glorious coming, to take me with thee from these bottoms of
death and valleys of tears, to those eternal heights where nothing springs
but life and glory; that, instead of this song, I may sing a new one to
the Lamb, and to Him that sits upon the throne unto all eternity."
Thus, but in a far more seraphic manner than I am able to express, the
soul-loving God, as the God-loving soul, are rejoicing in each other with
joy, till they rest in each other's love. (Zeph. iii. 17.) In short, the
soul that loves God is never so well as when most immediately with him;
and while there is any distance, many a love-glance passeth between
God and the soul, even in the greatest crowd of business and diversions.
(4.) A putting a love-interpretation upon all things.God looks upon
the very miscarriages of those whom he loves as their infirmities, and
puts a better interpretation npon them, than they dare do themselves.
The disciples slept when Christ bade them watch ; they wist not what
to answer him: Christ himself excuseth it better than they could, in
saying, " The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak," (Mark xiv.
37, 38, 40.) And the loving soul is as loath to take any thing ill at the
hands of God : when it is never so bad with the soul, he blesseth God
that it is no worse. God and the loving soul do those things towards
each other, which nothing but love can put a good interpretation upon t
the truth is, without love it were intolerable. For example] God require
that service of the gracious soul that he requires of no other; namely, to
bless God when persecuted, to rejoice in tribulations, to hope against
WITH ALL OUR. HEARTS, SOOL8, AND MINDS?
615
hope, &c. God pats the soul that loves .him upon those trials that he
puts upon no other; namely, those chastisements from himself, those
reproaches from men, those bufferings from Satan, which are peculiar to
saints. But the soul heartily loveth God under all these. Again : the
soul grows upon God in prayer; and the more it receives from God, the
more insatiable it is, and God lores the soul the better for it. When
afflictions are extreme, those that love God put the affliction upon the
account of God's faithfulness: on the other hand, when the poor soul is
foiled, and Satan runs with the tidings of it to set God against him, God
pities the soul, and rates the accuser: " And he showed me Joshua the
high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at
his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord
rebuke thee, Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke
tbee. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments: Take away the
filthy garments from him," &c. (Zech. iii. 14.) Here is Joshua the
high'priest: while executing his office in offering sacrifices and prayers
for the people, Satan arraigns him as a prisoner at the bar, and the
accusation being true and vehement, Satan takes the upper hand; but
now, Jesus Christ, as well the Patron as the Judge of saints, cuts him
short with a vehement reproof, and tells him those sins could not make
void that choice, which they could not at first hinder; and, farther,
Christ, as it were, tells him they had been severely punished, half burnt
and wasted by the heat of God's displeasure; and would he now re-kindle
that fire? No, Satan, thy charge is, as it were, thrown out of the court:
his sins shall be pardoned, his graces multiplied, and upon the well-discharging of his office he shall have " places to walk among them that
stand by;" alluding to the walks and galleries about the temple. As if
he had said, " Thou ehalt walk with these glorious angels: -they shall he
thy companions and guardians, where Satan hath no place.'* So that
Christ loves a soul the more, not the less, for Satan's accusations.
CONCOMITANTS.
To all these effects add these concomitants, or those things that have
agreement with, or are near of kin to, Divine Love; which do not really
differ from it, only express some part or manner of it. In short, it is love
under some other form or notion. I shall only mention two concomitants:
1. Devotion, which is an absolute delivering up of ourselves to God's
worship and service, so as by no flatteries or danger to be diverted."
" Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy
profiting may appear to all." (1 Tim. iv. 15.) Herein lies the strength
of religion, and the spiritual pleasure of it: herein the soul can say, with
some kind of triumph, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not
be afraid : for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is
become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the
wells of salvation." (Isai. xii. 2,3.) Christians, we must not only be barely
frequent in religions actions ; but we must act as those that are given
up to God, we must mind the fervour of religion. We must be exceeding
watchful over our thoughts, to keep them from vanity; and over oar
Affections, to keep them from entanglement. I would therefore commend
616
815RMON 1.
HOW MAY WB ATTAIN TO LOVB GOD
it to you, to single out, every morning, some short passages of scripture,

or some encouraging promise that hath affected you, to roll in your minds,
or to lie upon your hearts all day, to maintain this holy fervour: nothing
works and keeps such an impression upon the heart as scripture.
2. The other concomitant is zeal, which is the most intense degree
of desire and endeavour to please and honour God.It is the boiling-up
of the affections to the greatest heat: this must be the companion,

of every grace. Now, zeal is expressed against sin, or in duty.
(I.) In the exercise of zeal against sin, I beg of you to observe this
rule; namely, Whatever act of zeal you express toward others, double
it first upon yourselves. Whatever evil you reprove, or would reform in
others, be doubly strict against it in yourselves. This is Christ's counsel : " Cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matt. vii. 5.)
Mine eye is not capable of having a beam in it; but a mote in mine own
eye should be to me as a beam, in comparison of what it is in another's.
Take a few scripture instances ; for this had need to be inculcated in the
present age. In case of dishonour done to God and yourselves, compare
Moses's carriage. " Mirinm and Aaron spake against Moses. And they
said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses ? hath he not spoken
also by us ? And the Lord heard it;" but Moses was as if he beard it
not; for he was " very meek, above all the men that were upon the face
of the earth." (Num. xii. 13.) We was so indeed; but it was only
in his own cause: when the glory of God is concerned, you will find him
of another temper: "As soon as he saw the calf, and the dancing, Moses's
anger waxed hot. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt
it in the fi re, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water
and made the children of Israel drink of it. Then Moses stood in the
gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side ? let him come
unto me. And be said, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in
and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his
brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour," &c.
(Exod. xxxii. 19, 20, 26, 27.) Here is one ice-cold in his own cause, firehot in God's. Take another instance, of Paul: " Brethren, I beseech you,
be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all." (Gal. iv.
12.) As if he had said,' The wrong you have done me, I count as nothing."
But to Elymas, that would hinder the entertainment of the gospel, he
saith, " Thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness," &c.;
(Acts xiii. 10;) and he strikes him blind. I instance in these now, because
I mentioned them before, as singularly eminent for their love to God.
(2.) For zeal about duties I commend unto you this rule: In every
duty you take in hand, endeavour to do it above your strength 3 not only
to the uttermost of your strength, but above it. I bottom this rule
upon the commendation given to the churches of Macedonia : " For to
their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing
of themselves." (2 Cor. viii. 3.) My brethren, it becomes us in every
thing of piety to pant after the utmost perfection attainable: " Not a
though I were already perfect: but I labour after, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which
WITB ALL OUR HEARTS, SOOL8, AND MINOS?
617
re before," &c. (PhU. iu. 1214.) And David eaith,' The zeal of thine
home hath eaten me up." (Psalm Ixix. 9.) In a word, we mast not only
he sometimes zealous under pangs of conscience, hut always in the whole
frame of our conversation: " It is good to be zealously affected always
in a good thing;" (Gal. iv. 18 ;) and not only when a minister or some
other is present who may commend you.
V. The last thing I first proposed was, to urge tome persuasives to
be graciously ambitious or such qualifications, and as graciously diligent
IN such exercises.And here I must pass-by more arguments than I
can so much as mention. For the truth is, yon can name nothing in
the world, but it may be an argument to promote our love to God.
1. Consider, God is our great Benefactor.I mention this twice, that
it may be often in your thoughts. Who can reckon up the benefits we
receive from God ? If love be to be recompensed with love, greater love
was never shown than this, that God hath given his Son to die for hi
enemies. If love be to be purchased at any rate, who can give more for
it than eternal life ? If love be to be bestowed gratis, who more worthy
of it than God ? And canst thou, then, do less than love him ? It
is commended as an expedient to overcome the worst of our enemies:
" If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for
in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head." (Bom. xii. 20.)
what hearts have we, that mercies will not melt them! Reflect a little
upon yourselves: we use to indent [bargain] with little children for their
love: if we give them but an apple, or a plum, we presently ask, " Will
you love me?" And if they promise to love us, we then inquire,
"Where will you love me?" 0 dear Christians, turn-in upon your
own hearts a little 1 how many, how great mercies do you receive from
God! Solomon tells us, that " a gift whithersoever it turneth, it prospefeth;" (Prov. xvii. 8;) shall God's gifts be the only exception to that
proverbial maxim ? For shame, Christians! let us strive who shall be
first in crying, " 0 come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel
before the Lord our Maker." (Psalm xcv. 6.) " Know ye that the Lord
he is God : it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his
people, and the sheep of his pasture." (Psalm c. 3.) " love the Lord,
all ye his saints : for the Lord preserveth the faithful/' (Psalm xxxi. 23.)
God is pleased to give us in actual possession what hi wise love thinks
fittest for us; and God is pleased to give us promises suitable to every
condition we can be in in this world. For instance: in case of want,

" Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ?
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or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" Surely, if we may be solicitous

about any worldly concern, it is about food and raiment; but Christ
cbargetb us, upon our Christianity, not to be thoughtful about them:
" For after all these things do the Gentiles seek." But if we do not take
care for food and raiment, we must starve. Christ doth, as it were, say,
"Nay; there is no danger of that; 'for your heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things.'" (Matt, vi. 3133.) Were this
believed, men should lay aside their callings. No warrant for that: Christ
layeth down a rule for our practice, as the condition of the promise t
" Seek ye first," not only, but first, " the kingdom of God and his righte-
618
SERMON I.
HOW MAT WE ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD
ousnees," and then, in a way of diligence, not negligence, " all these things
shall be. added unto you." This in respect of want. Take another in
case of danger: " The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous
runneth into it, and is safe." (Prov. xviii. 10.) 0 how safe is that person
that is, as it were, garrisoned in the divine attributes! In case of suffering:
" Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren,
or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands,'for my
sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundred fold now in this
time;" (Mark x. 29, 30;) an hundred fold more comfort in parting with
all for Christ, than he could have had in keeping all, and denying of him.
But why should I name particulars ? There is enough in one scripture
whence to form many incentives to love God : " We know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose." (Rom. viii. 28.) Pray mark this place.
WeIt is not only the apostle,' but all believers.
KnowIt is not, " We only think or hope," but, we know.
That all thingsAll those afflicting providences which are most
grievous to be borne ; all those dark providences which we know not
what to make of.
Work togetherThough we cannot presently anatomize every particular providence, yet in their contexture we cannot but say they are
gracious, and for goodfor the spiritual and eternal good of all them
that love God. " 0, but here I stick, I cannot say I love God." Read
on: the next clause is the best interpreter of this.
To them who are the called according to his purposeThat is plainly,
to those that obey Christ's call in his word, to all that are converted, to
all that are willing to be taught and ruled by Jesus Christ. And though
thou darest not own thy conversion, yet thou darest not deny this evidence of it; namely, that thou wouldest fain comply with Christ in
every thing.
2. Love to God ennoble ail other graces.I will not meddle with
the controversy about faith's being informed by love, or love being,
as it were, the soul of faith. The scripture tells that " faith worketh
by love;" (Gal. . 6;) and it is by loving nothing so much as God.
Love is the most ingenuous grace, the most heavenly grace, the most
god-like grace: all other graces are more or less excellent, as they are
enlivened with love to God. Sales illustrates it thus : " The general
of an army having gained some renowned victory, will have all the glory
of it; for he ordered the battle, and led them on : we name the services
of the several parts of the army, both the vanguard, the body, the
wings, the rear. So here, some Christians are singular for faith, others
for alms-deeds; some for prayer, others for humility; but love to God
commands all these; love commands patience to bear, and hope to wait,
and faith to believe."* Elsewhere he compares love to scarlet, which
is a royal cloth not for the wool, but for the dye; so a soul, as it
were, double-dipped in love to God, is the most excellent Christian.
3. Love to God rectifieth all other loves, and keeps them in due bounds.
The same author hath this other illustration; namely, " I may love
* SALES " Of the Love of God," p. 670, Ac. parrot.
WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, SOOL8, AND MINDS?
619
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my servant: but if I do not love my child better than I love my servant,

I am defective in my love. Well, then, I must love my child; but if I
do not love my wife better than I love my child, I am defective in my

love. Well, then, I must love my wife ; but if I do not love God infinitely more than I love my wife, I am defective in my love. You shall
see," saith he, " a mother so busy about her child, as if she had no love
for any one else, as if her eyes were for nothing else but to look upon it,
and her month for nothing else but to kiss it. But now, if she must lose
her child or her husband, her love to her husband is so great as if she had
no love for her child at all. So when God and those we most dearly love
stand in competition, you may soon see the subordination of our love."
Though, let me add this for your encouragement: God never calls for the
hating of other things for love to himself, but he doth most singularly
make up in himself whatever any one parts with for him. When God
requires the banishment of other objects, it is to communicate bimself more fully, more clearly, more sweetly. Look over what Martyrology
you please, I think you will scarce find so much as one dying for Christ
any other way than triumphing ; whereas many, of as eminent graces as
they, die in their beds, little less than despairing. What encouragement
may this be for the worst of times!
4. Our love to God doth more sensibly quiet our heart, than God's love
to us.For though God's love to us be infinitely greater than our love to
God; yet, till bis love to us have drawn out our love to him, we do more
abuse his kindness than -other persons do whom he doth not so love.
This is most evident in a person just upon the borders of conversion, but
yet unconverted: God is abundant in his love of benevolence; he is now
engaged upon the making of means effectual for his thorough regeneration. But now in this work there are several thing to be done, which
though they speak greater love on God's part than ever he before showed
him, yet while God is at work, the person quarrels with God more than
about any former providences of his life. God, to tame him, brings him
under great afflictions; upon which he either flies in his face, or lie
sullen at his feet, and thinks he may well do so. Well, but God will
not thus leave him: God follows him with terrors of conscience; " the
arrows of God stick fast in him, and the poison thereof drinketh up his
spirits." But he will not yet yield ; he holds fast his iniquity, which he is
as loath to part with as his life, and rather hates than loves God for all this
kindness: so that till he is brought to love God, God's love to him doth
no way quiet him. By which you may plainly see, that, let God' love
to us be never so great, we misinterpret all till we love God again ; and
then, let God do what be will, he is quiet; let his suffering be next
to hell-torments,* he will not allow one hard thought of God. Therefore, be persuaded to get, increase, and exercise this love to God with all
your hearts, souls, and minds.
I have been too long already, and therefore will be as brief as may be
in answering these two complaints :
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* Da mihi, Domine, sanctum amorem tuum ; et unite me, ti vis, in ignem inferni, e.
STELLA De Amore Dei, p. 314, &c. Bestow on me, Lord, thy holy love; and
then, if that be thy will, east me into the fire of helL"EDIT.
620
SERMON I.
HOW MAY WX ATTAIN TO LOVE GOD, &C.
COMPLAINT i. "All that hath been said makes me fear, I have no

true love to God at all: I cannot say, I love God more than the creature.
I feel my heart more sensibly warping towards the world in the service
of God, than springing towards God in my worldly affairs."
To this I answer by these distinctions :
DISTINCTION I. We must distinguish between the estimation of ovr

love and the commotion of it.The commotion may be greater, where
the estimation is less. One whose love is fixed upon God, though he is
so far from forsaking God, that he will forsake all things for God; yet
he may, till he recollect himself, be more moved with some petty loss.
In short, he may have some violent gust of affection after other things;
but the constant breathings of his soul are after God.
Dis. ii. We must distinguish between the solidity of our love, and the
flashiness of it.Between a superficial and a lasting joy. For instance:
a covetous man may laugh more when he is tickled than when you give
him a thousand pounds; but he is a thousand times more joyful of his
thousand pounds than of his being tickled. The soul's love to God is
well-rooted. (Eph. iii. 17.) As a sick man is pleased with one that will
sit with him, and alleviate his pains by diversion ; but he is more pleased
with that man that shall cure him. While our souls are in a sickly frame,
we are pleased a little with variety of diversions ; but we soon see their
emptiness, and charge our souls to return unto God for a perfect cure.
Die. in. We must distinguish between our spiritual love and our sensible love.While we live in this world, such is our weakness through the
remainders of sin and imperfection of grace, that our animal and vital
spirits are more affected with sensible things than with spiritual. The
things of the world are near to us, and we cannot live without them ; but
yet he that loves God never says, upon the enjoyment of them, " Soul, take
thine ease." (Luke xii. 19.) 0 no; he is angry, and grieved that he ie
at all pleased about such things.
COMPLAINT n. "I hope I am not wholly destitute of this excellent
grace; yet I am afraid to own that I have it. Is it impossible to get my
heart above this uncomfortable uncertainty? 0 that my heart were more
raised and fixed above this anxious temper!"
I will close all with an essay to answer this complaint; only premise,
let not any thing that shall or can be spoken be wrested to give the least
encouragement imaginable to any thing of sin. Take heed you do not,
upon any account, gratify your sloth or indifferency of spirit, or any sins
of omission. Keep off this rock, and then thy solicitude about thy
fickleness gives thee grounds of hope to get above it. Take, therefore,
these short directions, how to get and keep the most certain, constant,
comfortable, spiritual frame of divine love that is to be had upon earth :
1. Keep a severe watch against all sins.Yet give not way to drooping
fears, because of unavoidable infirmities. " If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, 0 Lord, who shall stand ? But there is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayest be feared." (Psalm cxxx. 3, 4.)
2. Observe your own temper.What it is that most draws out your
love to any person or thing in this world, and improve that very induce
ment to love God: " He is altogether lovely;" (Canticles v. 16;) that is,
BOW OUGHT WE TO LOVE GOD, &0.
621
imagine or name any thing that is most desirable, most worthy to be loved
and admired; and that ie he.
3. Endeavour to love God out of duty, when, to your own apprehension,
you cannot love Mm out of grace.I would commend this to you for all
your gracious carriage towards God, and for all the kindness you would
receive from God. For instance : repent, as it is a duty, even while you
fear you want the grace of repentance. Believe, as it is duty, while
you think you cannot act faith as a grace. So justify God, (that is,
acknowledge God to be righteous, though he condemn you,) when you
fear God will not justify you. Sanctify God, (that is, celebrate God's
holiness,) when you fear he will not sanctify yon ; that is, not make you.
holy. So set yourselves to love God; that is, take heed you do not
offend him ; do all you can to please him; take up with nothing on this
side himself. In short, let God find you in a way of duty, and you will
find God in a way of grace.
4. Study Christ.What divine love we either receive or return, it is
through Christ. You may look for encouragement from Christ for every
thing but sin. In every thing have recourse to Christ, for the performance of every duty, for the attaining of every grace; when you fear grace
is withering, Christ will revive it. In a word: pray and strive that you
may feel what it is for " Christ to be all in all." (Col. iii. 11.)
Christians, practically mind these four directions, and they will he as
the wheels of Christ's chariot that is " paved with love," to bring his
beloved to glory. (Canticles iii. 10.)
SERMON II.
BT THE REV. JOHN MILWARD, A.M..
VBLLOW OF CORPUS-CHRIST! COIXEOB, OX7ORD.
BOW OUGHT WE TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES?
Thou thalt love thy neighbour a thyself.Matthew xxii. 39.
THE apostle bids us consider Christ, " who endured SUCH " (that is,
90 great*) "contradiction of sinners against himself." (Heb. xii. 3.)
It was from a great spirit of this kind, that his adversaries used to propose so many captious questions to him. We find him no less than three
times opposed in this one chapter: First by the disciples of the Pharisees,
and the Herodians,f about the lawfulness of giving tribute unto Caesar:
* Toutvrw emphatiKwt potmt, declarant magnitvdinem *.AACTIUB. M He
lias given an emphasis to the epithet tueh ; thu declaring the magnitude oi that 'contradiction ' which Christ endured."EDIT.
f Fortitan in populo tuna qm dicebant
oportere dare tributum Catari, vooabantur Herodiani, ab hi qui hoc faoere recutabant
Vide DRUSII Comment, ad Foot Novi Testament*. " Perhaps among the popu-
622
SERMON II.
HOW OUGHT WE TO LOTS
Again, the same day, by the Sadduceee, with a question about the resurrection, which they denied. When he had so well acquitted himself
of both these, that the first marvelled and left him, and the last were put
to silence; behold, he is again set upon by the Pharisees, who seem to
have chosen out one of their number to oppose him with a question:
" Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting
him.'* (Matt. xxii. 35.) The same person is by another evangelist
called " a scribe :" "One of the scribes came," &c. (Mark xii. 28.)
There were two sorts of scribes among the Jews; namely, scribes of the
people, who were actuaries in and about matters of public concernment;
and scribes of the law, whose business was to read and interpret the
law of God unto them: * such an one was Ezra, who is said to be " a
ready scribe in the law of Moses:" (Ezra vii. 6 :) and upon this account
they are said to " sit in Moses's seat." (Matt, xxiii. 2.) Of this last sort
was the person in the text, as plainly appears by joining both evangelists together: Mark says, he was .,, " one of the
scribes:" Matthew says, he was ;, "a lawyer." If we put them
both together, they say, he was a scribe of the law. And the question
that he tempted Christ with, is concerning the law: " Master, which is
the great commandment in the law ? " (Matt. xxii. 36.) He who was
able at twelve years of age to dispute with the doctors, in such a manner
as that all that heard him " marvelled at his understanding, and answers,"
(Luke ii. 46, 47,) was not like, at this time, to go far to seek for an
answer to such a question. We have him therefore speaking roundly and
directly to it: Jesus said unto him, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is
the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matt. xxii. 3739.) The latter
part of this answer falls under our present consideration: " Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself." This is said to be " like unto the first,"
that is, a "great commandment;" because as that comprehends all the duty
we owe to God immediately, so this includes all that duty we owe to man.
The Jewish doctors f were wont to call it, " the universal great precept :" sometimes again, "the head," sometimes, "the foot, of the law;"
alluding possibly to the total sum in accounts. For as in adding many
particulars together, if you begin below, and go upward, the total sum is
set above, and called " the head of the account:" if above, and proceed
downward, it is set below, and called "the foot of the account," containing in it as much as all the rest: so if you begin at Moses, and go down
to the prophets ; or at the prophets, and go up to Moses ; of all that is
spoken by any or all of them, about our duty to man, this is the sum:
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
When Christ, commanded his disciples to love one another, he charged
lace, the men who refused to pay tribute to Gem called the opposing partisans, who
maintained the duty and propriety of submitting to taxation, Herodians."EDIT.
* L. DE DIEU.
f HitLEL Senex: Lex nostra unopede continetttr: "Diliges
proximum tuum tmtgwm teipsum." Uno pede, hoe est, uno captte, quod vacant waversale magnum.DRUBIT Apophthegmata Ebree. lib. i. " Hillel the elder says, ' Our
law is contained in one foot: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself!' In one foot
that is, in one head, which they call the great universal.''*EDIT.
OVE NEIGHBOUR A (rUBjtKLVMf
623
them with many things in that one thing: " These thing I command yon,
that ye love one another:" (John xv. 17:) and who can tell how many
things are required of us in Mi one thing ? " Whatsoever things are
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things re lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report." (Phil. iv. 8.) All these WHATSOEVER* are required in
it; .yea, whatsoever else that is good and virtuous, " if there be any virtue,
any praise," it is comprehended in this one command, "Love one another,"
and also in this saying, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." *
It cannot be expected, that, in so short a time as is allotted to this
exercise, we should speak of all things contained in these words: we can
but take up a few drops out of the ocean, or a handful of sand from the
shore. It is only He that "measures the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure," (leai. xl. 12,)
that is able to give us the true dimensions of them. As there is height and
depth, a length and a breadth, in the love, so also in the law, of God,
which passeth knowledge. (Eph. iii. 18,19.) This David acknowledged
when he said, " I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad." (Psalm cxix. 96.)
Neither is it our scope to speak of the words in the way of a treatise.
We shall therefore give you the doctrine, and proceed with as much speed
as well we may to the query, the resolution of which is our main business at this time.
DOCTRINE.
It the duty of every man to love hi neighbour a himeelf.

When God says, " Thou shalt," he intends thee and me, and every man
else of what rank, state, or condition soever he be.
Before we propound the query it will be requisite,
I. That we show who is our neighbour.
II. That we speak something of the lawfulness of a man's loving himself.
III. That we lay down some conclusions, which are to be taken along
with us, as a thread that must run through the whole contexture of our
ensuing discourse.
I. Who is our neighbour ?Our neighbour is, not only he who lives
near to our habitation, in the same street, or city; nor he only that is
of the same country or nation that we are of; but every man, of what place
or nation soever he be; whether he be one of our acquaintance or a stranger,
a friend or an enemy. You find this question put somewhere to Christ bimself, by a certain lawyer, (whether he were the same we have here ia this
chapter, it matters not,) and there you have Christ answering him by a
parable, to this effect: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him, and wounded him,
and left him half dead. There came a priest that way, and saw him, and
* Deeahyui contirut doetrinam tarn eopioum et ntbtimtm, tU tmow *otu pertpiai,
nunquam Mouriri postit,MELAWCTHONUS. The decalogue contain doctrine
of such boundless amplitude and sublimity as can neither be adequately grasped by the
human mind, nor ever be exhausted."DIT.
624
SERMON IT.
BOW OUGHT WE TO LOVE
passed by on the other side. After him, a Levite in like manner. Bat
a Samaritan, seeing him, had compassion on him, bound up his wounds,
and brought him to his inn, &c. " Now which of these three was neighbour
to him?" He answers: " He that showed mercy on him." What says
Christ? "Go and do thou likewise." (Luke x. 2937.) As if he
should have said, " Thou art a Jew, and, as such, hast little or no dealing
with a Samaritan, or indeed with any man of another nation. There is
a partitionwall between you and them; so that you look on them as
strangers, if not enemies, and none of your neighbours; * but I tell thee,
a Samaritan, or a man of any other nation, whatever he be, is one of thy
neighbours; and therefore, if he be in misery, and come within thy reach,
be sure thou show mercy to him."
This God required of the Jewish nation of old: " If a stranger sojourn
with thee in your laud, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that
dwelleth with you shall be as one born among you, and thou shall love
him as thyself." (Lev. xix. 33,34.) Yea, although he be an enemy, the
case is the same; for so Christ resolves it: " Ye have heard that it hath
been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I
say unto you, Love your enemies." (Matt. v. 43, 44.) Ye have heard
The scribes and Pharisees might have taught them thus, blotting the
text with their false interpretation ; but Christ better informs them, and,
wiping away their blots with his sponge, restores the law to its primitive
beauty and perfection: " I say unto you, Love your enemies." And
doth not the law say the same also ? We find a very fair text in the law
to this purpose: " If thou meet thine enemy's ox or bis ass going astray,
thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him
that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help
him, thou shalt surely help with him." (Exod. xxiii. 4, 5.) Doth God
take care for oxen ? For man's sake doubtless this is written; and so it
appears plainly in the text: " Thou shalt surely help with him: thou
shalt bring it back again to him." It was to be done, not only in mercy
to the beast, but in love to the man.
Besides, how can we think that God would require us to bring back a
straying ox, and to relieve an ass oppressed with his burden, and lay no
duty on us to a man in such a condition ? Doubtless if we are bound to
bring back an ox that goeth astray, we are much more obliged to bring
back a man, when we find him going astray from God; and if we are to
help an ass that lieth under his burden, much more a man, when we see
him oppressed with his.
We see then whom we are to account Qur neighbour: it is any -man
whomsoever, friend or enemy, that lives nigh to us, or at a greater
distance from us.
II. We come now to speak of the second thing propounded; and that
is, the lawfulness of a man's loving himself.Every man may; yea, it is
a duty lying on every man to love himself.
* Ipse entm est proximus, quern nan solam conformis natura conjvnxerit, tedetiam
misericwdia copuiaverit.AMjmosius De Pamit. lib. i. cap. . " For that man is my
neighbour with whom I am not only conjoined by conformity of nature, but who is also
united to me by the ties of mercy."EDIT.
OUR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES.
625
This may seem strange, when we see self-love every where branded in
the scripture; so that there is hardly any sin described in so black a
character as this. It is a sin indeed, that includes many others in the
bowels of it. We may say of it, as the apostle James doth of the tongue,
it " is a fire, a world of iniquity. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly
poison." (James iii. 6, 8.)
Unbelief and self-love are the immediate parents of all the mischiefs
and abominations that are in the world; and therefore we have this set
in the front of all the evils that make the last times perilous : " In the
last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisera of those that are good, traitors,
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," &c.
(2 Tim. iii. 14.) And if you can find a larger catalogue of abominations than you have here set down to your hand, self-love is the mother
of them all. It is this that makes all the stir that is in the world. It
is this that disturbs families, churches, cities, kingdoms. In a word, this
is the grand idol that is set up to be worshipped all the world over;
greater by far than Diana of the Ephesians, whom yet " all Asia and the
world" were said to worship. (Acts xix. 27.) It is that idol which
every man must endeavour to take down; for until that be done, we
shall find little peace within ourselves, or quietness among men.
Notwithstanding this, we must say, that it is lawful, and a duty incumbent on every man to love himself.
There is a two-fold self: 1. A natural self; 2. A sinful self. This is
to be hated, the other loved. We cannot hate sinful self too much,
though it be to the destruction of it; this is that which we are bound to
kill, mortify, and utterly destroy. Christ came into the world, purposely
to help and assist us in the destruction of it: " For this purpose the
Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the
devil." (1 John iii. S.) But we may lawfully love natural self, soul and
body; because these are the works of God, and therefore good.
He that came to destroy " the works of the devil," came to save the
soul and body, the works of God: " The Son of man is come to seek and
to save that which was lost." (Luke xix. 10.)
1. A man may love hie own body, and is bound to preserve the life
of it." No man ever yet hated his own flesh." (Bph. v. 29.) We read
indeed of one out of the tombs, who " was night and day in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones;"
(Mark v. 5;) and of the idolatrous Baalites, (who sacrificed to the devil,
and not to God,) that " they cut themselves, after their manner, with
knives, and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." (1 Kings
xviii. 28.) But who in his right wits ever did such a thing ? Or where
did God require it at any man's hands ? The Lord forbids the Israelites
to make such barbarous cuttings and manglings of their flesh, after the
manner of the Heathen, because they were his servants. (Lev. xix. 28.)
A man may sin against his own body many ways ; as, by excessive
labour, neglecting to take necessary food or physic, intemperance, and
626
SERMON II.
BOW OUGHT WE TO LOVB
the like: "He that committeth fornication einneth against hie own
body." (I Cor. vi. 18.)
2. A man may and ought chiefly to love hie own soul.Every man's
care should be that it may be well with his better part, both here and
hereafter. And to this purpose it is every one's great concern, (1.) To
get into Christ, who is that ark in which only souls can be safe. They
who, after all tbe calls, invitations, and beseechiugs of God in the
Gospel, will persist and go on in impenitency and unbelief, are murderers of their own souls, and their blood will be upon their own heads:
" He that einneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate
me love death." (Prov. viii. 36.) (2.) He that hath closed with
Christ must endeavour to abide in him, by putting forth fresh and
renewed acts of faith. (John xv. 4.) He must feed daily on the promises, which are the food of his soul; and look to it, that he keep
alive the grace which is wrought in his heart. (Prov. xix. 8.)
The new nature, or spiritual self, is the best self we have; and should
be most of all loved by us. They that have the charge of others' souls,
are a part of their own charge: " Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the
flock." (Acts xx. 28.) They who are under the inspection of others,
must look to themselves also. So John chargeth that elect lady and her
children, to whom he wrote his second epistle: " Look to yourselves."
(Verse 8.) As pastors must give an account of their flock, so every
sheep of the flock must give an account of himself: " Every one of us
shall give account of himself to God." (Bom. xiv. 12.)
QUESTION. "If love to ourselves be not only lawful, but a duty, why
is there no direct and express command for it in the scripture?"
ANSWER i. There is no such need of an express command for this.
Though the law of nature since the fall be very much defaced and
obscured, that much of that which is our duty is hardly discerned by
us ; yet there is no man whom the light of nature doth not move to love
himself.* We find a law of self-preservation stamped upon the whole
creation of God: it is plainly to be seen in all the creatures, whether
animate or inanimate; and in man in a special manner. To this end
God hath placed affections in man's soul, that he might use them as
feet, to carry him forth readily to that which is good, and from that
which is evil or hurtful to him. Hence it is that when any thing is
represented as good, there is not only an inclination to it, but 8ioif,
" a pursuing of it;" when evil and destructive, there is not only an
aversation, but , " a flight from it." It is said of the " prudent
man," that he "foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself;" (Prov. xxii. 3';)
and of Noah, that, being " moved with fear, he prepared an ark." (Heb.
xi. 7.) And even Christ himself, who was altogether void of sin, when
they sought to destroy him, "withdrew himself;" (Mark iii. 6, 7;) as
* Nunquid est uttus hominum, qui nan omnia qua faeit, vel salutis sva, vel certi
utilitatis gratia facial 9 Omnes enim ad affeetum atque appetitum utililatis suce, nature
ipsius mayisterio atque impulsions ducuntur,SAL vi AN us Contra Avaritiam, lib. ii.
" la there any man in the world who, in the variety of his acts, does not perform every
thing with a due regard to his own welfare, or undoubtedly to his own benefit ? For,
through the dictation and impulse of nature herself, all men are led to manifest desires and
longing after those things which are useful and advantageous to themselves."EDIT.
OUR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES?
627
he did hide himself at another time, when " they took up stones to cast
at him." (John viii. 59.) Thus he did till the hour was come when he
was to lay down his tile, according to a command that he had received
from the Father. (John x. 18.)
ANSWER n. Although there be no direct and express command,
saying, "Thou shall love thyself;" yet all the commands of God do
virtually and implicitly enjoin it. No man can comply with that first
and great command, of loving God with all his heart, but in so doing
he loves himself; because in the fruition of God is a man's greatest
happiness.* The like may be said of every other commandment in
proportion; for as it is good in itself, so it will be found to be good
for us. David had experience of it when he said, that " in the keeping
of them there is great reward;" (Psalm xix. 11;) and when he
prayed, that as God was good, and did good, he would teach him his
statutes. (Psalm cxix. 68.)
Yea, all the promisee and threatenings in the book of God do suppose,
that a man may and should love himself. In the promises God showeth
us something that is good for us, and so draweth us to himself, by " the
cords of a man." When he threatens, he shows us something that is
evil, and bids us fly from present wrath, or wrath to come. Whether be
threatens or promiseth, it is that we choose the good, and refuse the evil:
" I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore
choose life." (Deut. xxx. 19.) It is the will of God, that every man
should make the best choice for himself ;f and every man doth so, when
he is regulated in it by the will of God ; the sum of which is this,that
we love him above all, and our neighbour as ourselves.
III. We come now, in the third place, to lay down four short conclusions about our love to God, our neighbour, and ourselves.
CONCLUSION i. The first is this: That as God is to be loved above all
things else, so he is to be loved for himself."There is none good but one,
that is, God;" (Luke xviii. 19;) none originally, independently, essentially, and immutably good but He; and therefore He only is to be loved
for himself. It was well said by one of the ancients, J Causa diligendi
Deum Deus est: modus, sine modo diligere: " The cause of loving God,
is God himself: the measure is, to love him without measure."
CONCLUS. . That creatures may be loved according to that degree
of goodness which God hath communicated to them, not for themselves,
but for God, who " made all things for himself" (Prov. xvi. 4.)As all
waters come from the sea, and go through many places and countries,
not resting any where till they return to the sea again; so our love,
if it be right, hath its rise in God, acts towards several creatures in due
* DUigere Deum est diligere se ; ergo cum praoipHur ttf Deum diligamut, pracipitur
e&dem opera ut notmefipgos diligamut.DAVENANTIUS. "To love God is to love
ourselves; when therefore the precept
is delivered for us to love God, we ere at the same
time commanded to love ourselves.1*EDIT.
-\- Non tarn lex tibi, homo, qttam
tu leyi adversaria ; two ilia pro te est, tu contra \Jlam ; nee contra itlam lantum, sed
etiam contra te.SALVIANUS De Gubernattone Dei, lib. iv. " For the lav is not so
much opposed to thee, man, as thou art opposed to the law. Nay, the law is favourable
to thee, yet thou placest thyself in opposition to it; and thus thou art not only advene to
it, but inimical to thyself!"DIT.
J BERNARDUS.
628
SERMON II.
HOW OUGHT WE TO LOVE
manner and measure, but rests in God at last, bringing into him all the
glory of that goodness which he hath derived to the creatures. " Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. x. 31.) We may
neither love ourselves, nor our neighbours, for our- or them-selves, but
for God;* "that God in all things may be glorified." (1 Peter iv. 11.)
I do not say, that, in every act of love we put forth, it is necessary that
we actually mind the glory of God; but that our hearts be habitually
disposed and framed to glorify God in all.
CONCLTTS. in. No man can love himself or his neighbour aright
while he remains in a state of sin. Until a man come to himself, he
cannot love himself or any other man as he ought: the reason is manifest from what was said before ;f he doth not, he cannot, love either, in
God and for God. When the prodigal came to himself, and not till
then, he said, " I will return to my father."
Love is a " fruit of the Spirit;" (Gal. v. 22 ;) and therefore is never
found in any who are destitute of the Spirit. The grace of love flows
from faith; and therefore the apostle prayed for the Ephesians, that
they might have "love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ." (Eph. vi. 23.)

CONCLUS. iv. The most gracious souls on earth, though they may
and do love God themselves, and their neighbours truly and sincerely,
yet, by reason of the relics of corruption in their hearts, there are many
defects in their love to God, and much inordinacy in their love to themselves and to their neighbour.^ As there is always something " lacking
in our faith," (1 These, iii. 10,) so also in our love.
QUERY.
We now come to the question:How ought we to love our neighbour
as ourselves f
For the resolution of this question, we shall, FIRST, lay down these
two general propositions:
I. In the tame things wherein we show love to ourselves, we ought to
show love to our neighbour.
II. After the same manner that we love ourselves, we ought to love
our neighbour.
I. In and by the things that we do and may show love to ourselves, we
ought to show love to others.It is not possible to enumerate all the
particular instances wherein we show love to ourselves: it shall suffice
therefore that we speak of such things as are inducive of many more.
We shall reduce them to these four heads:
1. Our thoughts of, and the judgment we pass upon, ourselves.
2. Our speeches concerning ourselves.
* Amor fruendi quibuscunque ereaturis, tine more Creatoris, nan est a Deo.
AUGUSTIXUS Contra Julianum, lib. iv.
f Amor Dei quo peroenitur ad Deum,
turn est nisi a Deo Patre, per Jesum Christum, cum Spiritu Sancto.Idem. ibid.
" The love of God by which we approach to him, has no other source than God the Father,
through Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit."EDIT.

QuaKs est fidei habitus,
talis est et charitalis ; si fidei habitus esset perfeolus, charitatis habitus esset etiam perfectus.CAMZRO. " Such as is the habit of faith, such also is that of charity; tor if
the habit of our faith were perfect, that of our love would likewise be perfect."EDI r.
In the first impression the word in this place is inclusive, perhaps with greater propriety.EDIT.
OTTR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSKLVKS?
629
3. Our desires after that which it good for ourselves.

4. Our actual endeavours, that it may be well with us.
1. Let us consider what thoughts we have of, and what judgments we

pass upon, ourselves.We do not ordinarily nor ought we at any time
to censure ourselves with too much rigour and severity: we are indeed
required, again and again, to judge ourselves; (1 Cor. xi. 31;) and it is
our duty to do it strictly and severely. (Luke vi. 41, 42.) Yet we
ought not, without cause, to judge or condemn ourselves for any thing;
nor are we very forward so to do. Our love to our neighbour should be
exercised in this matter: if he doeth or speaketh any thing that ii
capable of a double sense and interpretation, let us take it as done or
spoken in the best sense it is capable of, unless the contrary doth manifestly appear by some very convincing circumstances; * for it is the
property of charity to think no evil. (1 Cor. xiii. 5.) We maybe much
more bold to judge ourselves than others. We are privy to our own
principles, from whence our words and actions flow, and to our own
intentions in all we speak or do. But the case is otherwise when we
take upon us to judge others: their principles and intentions are known
only to themselves, until they, some way or other, declare them. The
heart, being the hidden man, is known only to God, before whom " all
things are naked and opened," (Heb. iv. 13,) and to a man's self:
" What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which
is in him?" (1 Cor. ii. 11.) Moreover, inordinate self-love hath often
too great an influence on the judgment we pass upon ourselves; and the
corruption of our wills and affections, on the judgment we pass upon other
men, [so] that we seldom judge aright. As he that hath the jaundice,
be the object never so white, judgeth it yellow, his eye being ill-disposed;
eo the eye of the mind, being affected with the corruption of the heart,
puts another colour upon that which is most candidly spoken or done.
Were our hearts principled with true love to others, we should be as
cautious about the judgment which we pass on them, as about that we
pass upon ourselves; and there is great reason we should be more, from
the fore-mentioned considerations.
2. We show our love to ourselves, in and by our speeches concerning
ourselves.And it is our duty so to do. As we ought not to pass too
severe a judgment on ourselves, in our own minds; so we may not speak
that which is false of ourselves: and it is seldom known, that any man's
tongue falls foul upon himself. Yea, our love to ourselves is, and ought
to be, such as not to suffer our tongue to blab and send abroad all the
evil we certainly know by ourselves. It is our duty then in the same
matter to show our love to others. Our tongue, which is apt to speak
the best of ourselves, should not frame itself to speak the worst we
can of our brethren. The apostle chargeth Titus to put Christian
in mind of this, among other duties, " to speak evil of no man." (Titui
Hi. 2.)
* Defaetis media, qua postunt bono vel malo animo fieri, temeranwA erf jutlioare,
masnmi ut condemnemtu.AUGUSTINUS. "Concerning middle action, which are
capable of having been done either in a good or bad spirit, it is rath in us to form a judgment, especially for the purpose of censuring them."EDIT.
630
SERMON II.
There are several way* and degrees of evil-speaking:

(I.) The first and most notorious is, when men are spoken against a
evil-doer*, for doing that which \ii] it their duty to do ; when they are
condemned for that, for which they ought to be commended.Thus was
Jeremiah dealt with in his time when he faithfully declared the mind
of God to the people: " Come," say they, " and let us smite him with the
tongue." (Jer, xviii. 18.) The same lot had John from Diotrephes, who
prated against him "with malicious words," because he had written to
have the brethren received,a work of Christian love and charity which
he had no heart unto. (3 John 10.) To speak evil of others for that
which is their duty, is a common thing among men; and too ordinary
among some professors. If they be told of a truth, or exhorted to a
duty, that doth not agree with their private opinion, and comport with
their carnal interest, how do their hearts rise, and their mouths begin to
open, against such as declare it to them! We may well conceive, that
the apostle Paul observed some such thing in his days, when we find him
beseeching Christians to "suffer the word of exhortation;" (Heb. xiii,
22;) and the apostle Peter also, by his enlarging them (in hearing) " to
lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil
speakings." (1 Peter ii. 1.)
(2.) A second way of evil-speaking, and a great sin against love and
charity, is, when men raise up false reports of others, or set them for'
ward when others have maliciously raised them.To offend in this kind
is a great breach of a Christian's good behaviour; as the apostle intimates, when he saith, " That they be in behaviour as becometh holiness,"
jtti) 8iaoXouf, "not false accusers." (Titus ii. 3.) It doth not at all
become the profession of a Christian, whose Master is the God of truth,
to speak that which is false of any man whatsoever: and therefore these
" false accusers " are called , by a name which is usually given to
the father of lies. (John viii. 44.)
(3.) There may be evil-speaking in speaking of such evils as others
are really guilty of; as,
(i.) First. When a man doth industriously search out such things as are
evil in others * for this very purpose, that he may have something to
*ay against them.Of this David complains : " They search out iniquities ; they accomplish a diligent search." (Psalm Ixiv. 6.) It is a sign
that malice boils up to a great height in men's hearts, when they are so
active to find matter against their neighbours. Love would rather not
see or hear of others' failings ;f or if it doth and must, busieth itself in
healing and reforming them to its power.
(ii.) They also are guilty, and more guilty, of evil-speaking than
the former, who endeavour to bring others into sin, rather than they will
want matter against them,Thus the malicious Pharisees did their
utmost to cause Christ himself (had it been possible) to offend, " urging
* Facilius est unicuique nostrum, aliena curiost inquirers, quam propria nostra
inspioere. " It is far more easy for every one of us to institute curious inquiries into
other men's matters, than strictly to investigate those which relate to ourselves."EDIT.
f* Qui ben& vull vitam peragere, neque videre multa, neque audire, studeat.JUST IN 8
MARTYR De Vita Christi ad Zenam Eptst. " He who is desirous of passing his life in
comfort, should try to avoid seeing and hearing much about common occurrences."EDIT.
631
bim vehemently, and provoking him to speak of many things, seeking

to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him."
(Luke xi, 53, 54.)
(iii.) A man may be guilty of evil-speaking, and offend against the law
of love, when he makes a fault greater than it it; when he represent a
mole-hill as big as a mountain, thinking that he can never aggravate
another's fault too much.*You may have seen how boys, by continual
blowing with a reed in their nut-shells, have raised a little bubble to the
bigness of a small globe, which yet was but a drop of water stuffed with
a vapour ; even so do some men blow .up others' faults, till they seem very
great; but if you examine them, you will find, that that which made them
so was only this,that they were filled up with the others' malice. Some
may think themselves excusable in this, as if they showed thereby their
zeal against sin.f But let them look more narrowly into themselves,
and possibly they may find more malice than true zeal, lying in the
bottom.
(iv.) We may offend in speaking of the faults of others, if we be not
duly affected in speaking of them.It is too common a thing to speak
of others* sins in mirth, and with some kind of rejoicing, as if we were
tickled with it :J "all such rejoicing is evil." (James iv. 16.) If Christ
should step into your company, as he did into the disciples', while they
were walking sadly one with another, and say unto you, while you
are speaking of other men's sins, to make yourselves merry, " What
manner of communication have you here?" (Luke xxiv. 17;) could
you approve yourselves to bim in this matter? It was a fault among
some of the Corinthians, that when they heard of the great sin of the
incestuous person, they were "puffed up," when they should have
" rather mourned." (1 Cor. v. 2.)
(v.) A man may be guilty of evil-speaking when he speaks of others*
faults, if his end be not good.As when he doeth it to please another's
liumour, or satisfy his own, or to lay the person spoken of open to contempt, or the like. Our end in speaking of others' faults, if it be not
the reforming of the persons themselves, nor the securing and safeguarding [of] others from being hurt by them, or ensnared in them, is
not like to be good.

* Fir centesimus reperiefur. qui aliorum fama ita clementer pareat, ut sibi cttptat,
etiam in mantfestii vitiit, ignotci.CALVINUS in Deut. v. 10. " Scarcely will one man
in a hundred be found, who, in the exercise of his clemency, will be so sparing of the
reputation of others, as to wish them to be forgiven, even when their vicious conduct ha
been open and manifest"EDIT.
Obtrectatio, xeli ae teveritatit pr<ete*tu, stipe
laudatur. Hinc fit ut *anc:is quoque se intinuet hoc vitium atque obrepat virtutit
non-ine.CAL VIN us. " Detraction or slander is often applauded when it displays itself in
the garb of zeal and severity. Hence, in the same manner, this vice insinuate itself also
into holy people, and creeps upon them unawares under the name of some virtue."EDIT.
$ Kgwttem permuttos novi. qui propter eonscientia et animorum impuritatem prammonm
delictis gaudent.JUSTINUS MARTYR De Vita Christi. "Indeed I have known many
men who, through the impurity of their minds and consciences, have evinced much joy
end exultation on beholding the crimes into which their neighbours have fallen."EDIT.
Obse<vamus proximorum peccata, non ut lugeamus, ted ut exprobremut: nan ut
vuremus ted ut percutiamus.GREGOH. NAZIANZ. " We are observant of the sins
of our neighbours, not for the purpose of lamenting over them, but of venting our
reproaches; not that we may heal them, but that we may mite them."EDIT.
632
SERMON II.
3. The third thing, by which we show our bve to ourselves, is, &y
our desires, which are always after something that ur good, or conceived to
be good, for us.Every man wisheth himself well. Should we go
through the congregation, and ask every man severally what he would
have; every one's desire would be after something that is good, or
thought to be so. Then, this is that by which we should manifest our
love to others, even by desiring their good in all things as our own;*
that all things temporal and spiritual may prosper and succeed well with
them, as with ourselves, to the glory of God, and their eternal happiness;
that they may thrive in their estates, bodies, souls, as well as we in ours.
Thus it ought to be with us, even in reference to such as do not bear the
same good-will to us. Tt is our Lord's command, that we should " pray
for them that despitefully use us, and persecute us ;"f (Matt. v. 44 j) and
herein he has left us an excellent example: When his enemies were about
that black piece of work, busying themselves in taking away his life,
some piercing him, others blaspheming him, he breathes out this request
for them: " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
(Luke rxiii. 34.) The like copy is set before us in Stephen, the protomartyr: while his adversaries were throwing stones thick about his ears,
he kneeled down and prayed for them: " Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge." (Acts vii. 60.)
How contrary is the spirit of many that profess Christianity, to the
spirit that appeared in Christ and the primitive Christians; who, upon
every provocation, can be ready to desire the utmost evil to such as
do offend them !J Were not the Jews Paul's greatest enemies wherever
he came ? Who so cruel to him as his own countrymen ? Yet see what
desires were in his heart for them: " Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." (Rom. x. 1.)
So when he stood at the bar, before a heathen judge, surrounded with
many enemies; what are his wishes for them? He desires that they
might all participate in the good he enjoyed, but not in the evil he
endured: " I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear
me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these
bonds." (Acts xxvi. 29.)
4. Our love to ourselves doth appear by our endeavours."We do not
content ourselves with wishings and wouldings; but we do actually and
* eori & oierat , KCUOV ivtica, - .
ARISTOTELES. " To love is for us to wish another possessed of that which he deems
to be good, and to desire it only for his sake, without any personal consideration in
reference to ourselves."EDIT.
t Quis pro inimicis suis ista qua Dens jussit, non
dice votis, sed verbis saltern, agere dignetur ? Aut eiiam siquis se cogit ut facial, facit
tamen ore, non mente.SAL AN us De Gub. Dei, lib. Hi. "What man is there
who deignsI will not say in his inward de&ires, but at least in hit wordsto perform
those kind offices toward his enemies which God has enjoined ? If, however, any one
offers violence to himself, and proceeds thus far, he does it only in word, not in mind
and intention."EDIT.
J In omni animorum indignantium motu votis malts pro
armis utimur; unde unusquisque evidentissime probat, guicquid fieri adversaries suis
optat, Mum se facere velle, si possit.Idem, ibid. " In the ruffled emotions of our
indignant spirits we always employ evil wishes as our weapons of attack; by which every
one gives most demonstrative proof, that, whatever may be his passionate imprecations
against those who have offended him, he would gladly devote himself to have them fulfilled, were it at all within his power."EDIT.
OTJR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES?
633
industriously endeavour that it may be well with us. If a man be

hungry, and his stomach calls for meat; or if he be pinched with cold,
and hie back calls for clothing; his hand is ready in all good ways to
procure it; and so it is in all things else. By this, therefore, ought we
to manifest onr love to others, even by our endeavours, in our capacity,
and according to our ability, to do them good, supplying their wants
spiritual and bodily.* God hath disposed men into several ranks. He
hath set some to move in a higher, some in a lower, orb. He hath dispensed his talents, to some more, to some fewer. They that are in a
higher place, and have more talents, may and ought to do more than
others. They that stand in a lower place, and have fewer talents, may
and ought to do something for the good of others. " Every man as he
hath received the gift," (in what kind or degree soever it be,) so he must
" minister the same" to the souls and bodies of others. (1 Peter iv. 10.)
" If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one
of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things that are needful to the body;
what doth it profit?" (James ii. 15, 16.) A man would find little
profit in it himself, if he should feed himself only with good words and
wishes. True love is "not in word and tongue" only, "but in deed
and in truth." (1 John iii. 18.) Contrary to this endeavouring others'
good, is to stand up in the way, and stop the passage wherein good
should flow-in upon them, and to be envious at the prosperity of others,
if they be able, without our help, to attain it.f Many men think themselves not well, unless it be ill with others: it is not enough for them to
be happy, unless they see their brethren miserable.|
II. We have seen now in what things we do and may show love to
ourselves : we come now to speak of the manner of loving ourselves, and
to show that after the same manner we ought to love others also.
1. We do or should love ourselves holily, that is, in and for God,We

may not have a divided interest from God. Though God allows us to
love ourselves, it must be in order to him and to his glory. Our love to
ourselves, as it must be regulated by the will of God, and extended or
restrained according to that; so God must be our utmost end in it,
whether it be exercised about the obtaining things temporal or spiritual,
for body or soul. Salvation itself, although it be our end, must not be
our last or utmost end ; but that God by it, as by all things else, maybe
glorified. Therefore in this manner we must love others, as God hath an
* Habttit Christus in eorde charitatem, quam nobis opere exhibuii, ut exhibition
forma not ad diliyendum instrueret.LOMBARDUS, lib. iii. diet 17 " Love had its
residence in the heart of Christ; and He exhibited it to us in beneficent operation, that
we might be instructed in the proper exercise of love by the form of his divine exhibition. "EDIT.
f Invidentia est aegritudo, suscepta propter alieriuf restecundas,
qua nihil nocent invidenti.CICERONIS Tusculan. Qtuest. lib. iv. c. 8. " Envying is
a grief arising from the prosperous circumstances of another, which are in no way detrimental to the person that envies."EDIT.
Nooum ac inastimabile nunc in
plurimit malum eat: parum alicui est, si ipse sit felix, nisi alter fuerit infelite.
SALVIANUS De Gubernatione Dei. " In our days a new and incalculable vice has
infested many minds. It is now viewed as a matter of small importance for any one to
be in a felicitous condition, unless he can gratify himself by the sight of the unhappiness
of some other person."EDIT.
634
BXttlfON II.
BOW OUGHT WE TO X.OVK
interest in them, and is or may be glorified by them: and there is no

man in the world but God is or may be glorified by him. Every man is
a creature upon whose soul there is, in a sort, the image of God, and
doeth him some service in the place wherein he stands. God calleth
Cyrus, a Heathen, his " shepherd," and his " anointed;" (Isai. xliv. 28 j
xlv. 1;) and he did him eminent service in his generation. The same
may be said of every other man, in some degree and proportion : God
hath given him some gifts, whereby he is and may be serviceable to him,
at least in the affairs of his providential kingdom. Besides, all men,
having immortal souls within them, are capable of blessedness with God
for ever in the kingdom of glory. They who are at present enemies to
God, may be reconciled and made friends. What was the most glorious
saint now in heaven, but an enemy to God once, when here on earth ?
" We ourselves also," saith the apostle, " were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and
envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and
love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by
the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus
iii. 3, 4.)
OBJECTION. " How could David then say, ' Do not I hate them,
Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up
against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred.' (Psalm cxxxix. 21,
22.) He says, that he hated them perfectly, and approves himself to
God in the thing: ' Do not I hate them, 0 Lord ?'"
ANSWER. There is a twofold hatred, odium simplex, et odium redundant in personam, a the Schools speak : " a simple hatred, and a hatred
redounding to the person." A simple hatred which is of the sin of any
man, is our duty: "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." (Psalm xcvii. 10.)
But to hate the person of the sinner would be our sin: as we are to
" abhor that which is evil," so we must " cleave to that which is good."
(Rom. xii. 9.) David, who was a man after God's own heart, knew how
to distinguish between the sin and the person. See how he expresseth
himself elsewhere: "I hate the work of them that turn aside;" not
them, but the work of them; he hated their sin, saying, " It shall not
cleave to me." (Psalm ci. 3.)
Hear him again: " I hate every false way." (Psalm cxix. 104.) This
shows us plainly, that he hated sin perfectly: he hated sin so, as that it
should not cleave to him : he hated it wherever he found it; " every
false way." For what is perfect hatred ? Austin describes it very well:
Hoc eat perfecto odio odisse, ut nee homines propter vitiu oderis, nee vitia
propter homines diligas: " This is to hate with perfect hatred, not to
hate men for their sin's sake, nor to love the sin for the men's sake."
This is one manner how we ough.t to love our neighbour as ourselves:
it must be holily.
2. Our love to ourselves is or should be orderly : we must first and
chiefly love our souls, and then our bodies.The soul is of far greater
worth than the body. A world of things for the body will stand a man
in uo stead if his soul be lost; and where the soul goes, either to a place
635
of blies or torment, the body must follow after : and therefore when we
are charged to take heed to ourselves, we are charged to keep our souls
diligently: " Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently."
(Deut. IT. 9.) If the soul be safe, all is safe ; if the soul be lost, all is
lost. In like manner we ought to love our neighbour: we must desire
and endeavour that it may be well with him in every respect, both as to
his body and outward estate, but chiefly that his soul may prosper; and
his outward concerns, as they may be consistent with that third epistle
of John : " I wish above all things that thon mayest prosper and be in
health, even as thy soul proepereth." (Verse 2.)
(1.) We must seek the conversion of those that are unconverted, lest
their souls be lost for ever.If we can be instrumental in this, we show
the greatest love imaginable. To give a man bread when he is hungry,
or clothing when he is naked, is something; but to convert a soul to
God is a greater kindness by much. " Brethren, if any of you do err
from the truth, and one convert him ; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death."
(James v. 19, 20.) He speaks of it as a great thing, when he says,
" Let him know, that he shall save a soul from death."
(2.) We should show our love to the touts of others, by seeking and
endeavouring the increase of their faith, holiness, and comfort.As we
should not be content to go to heaven alone, but carry along with us as
many as we can, so we should not satisfy ourselves to see them creep
lamely thither; but gird up the loins of their minds for them, that they
may more strenuously, and with the more cheerfulness and comfort, walk
thither. Thus John endeavoured to bring the saints to higher degrees
of fellowship with God: " That which we have seen," said he, " and
heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ." (I John i. 3.) They had this fellowship before, in measure and
degree; but he would bring them to higher degrees of it, as doth appear
by what follows: " These things write we unto you, that your joy may
befall." (Verse 4.)
3. Our love to ourselves goes out freely.What we have at hand we
are ready to take, when we stand in need of it. The Wise Man observed
it to be a gift which God ordinarily gives the children of men, " to eat
and to drink, and to enjoy the fruit of all his labour that he taketh under
the sun all the days of his life." (Eccles. iii. 13; v. 18, 19.) In the
like manner, we should go forth to others: if our neighbour stands in
need of forgiveness, we should forgive freely, as we expect that God or
man should forgive us.* If he need a gift from us, we should give
freely, and open our hearts readily to supply his wants according to the
ability [which] God hath given us, as we expect that God or man should
give to us, if we were in the like necessity. The apostle commends the
* Quomodo in quotidianA prece wnquam dutimtu $ Dimitie nobis debita nostra, sicut
el not dimillimus debitoribus nostris : animo ditcrepante cum verbit, oratvme ditsidente
cum factii9HIERONYMUS ad Castorinam. " How in it that in our daily prayers we
continue to utter these words ? * Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtor;' our
minds being in titter discrepancy with our expressions, and our prayer dissenting from
our practice ! "EDIT.
636
8ERMON II.
Macedonians for this, that when their brethren stood in need of their
charity, *' to their power, yea, and beyond their power they were willing
of themselves." (2 Cor. viii. 3.) To give freely and readily, adds much
to the goodness of a good work.* The way to be "rich in good works,"
is to "be ready to distribute, willing to communicate." (I Tim. vi. 18.)
4. We love ourselves unfeignedly.No man useth to dissemble with
himself, or endeavours to feed himself with good words only; but is very
real and cordial to himself in all things. And thus it is required we
should be to others. God desireth truth in the inward parts; (Psalm
li. 6 ;) he would have us true to him, and true to one another. " My
little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed
and in truth." (1 John in. 18.) "Let love be without dissimulation."
(Rom. xii. 9.) Outward and dissembled love is little better than inward
and real hatred. If blessing be only in the mouth, cursing is not like to
be far from the heart. " They bless with their mouth, but they curse
inwardly." (Psalm Ixii. 4.) Such a blessing with the mouth had Christ
from the Pharisees in this chapter: " Master, we know that thou art
true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any
man : for thou regardest not the person of men :" very well said! " But
Jesus perceived their wickedness." (Matt. xxii. 16, 18.) They came
with words of love and respect to cover the wickedness of their hearts,
and wanted that " inward affection" that Titus is commended for toward
the Corinthians. (2 Cor. vii. 15.)
5. We do not only love ourselves truly and sincerely, out with
tome fervency.There is always some heat, as well as heart, in love to
ourselves. You may observe it ordinarily, that when self is concerned
in any thing, that affection which is moved about it hath some heat in
it; if it be anger, there is heat in anger; if it be love, there is heat in
love. Indeed, all men are very apt to exceed, and go much beyond their
bounds, when self is concerned; as if they were to love themselves with
all their hearts, with all their soul, and with all their mind. However,
it is allowable that a man be warm in love to himself, especially to his
soul, which is the best part of himself. Well then, our love to others
must not be cold; (1 Sam. xviii. 1;) when the matter of love is good, it is
good to be zealously affected in it. (Gal. iv. 18.) When Paul understood
the " fervent mind" of the Corinthians towards him, as he was a servant
of Christ for the good of their souls, it did affect him with great joy.
(2 Cor. vii. 7.) Let our love to others be first pure, and then it is not
like to be too fervent. " Seeing ye have purified your souls, in obeying
the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see
that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently." (1 Peter i. 22.)
6. We love ourselves very tenderly." No man ever yet hated his own
flesh; but nourisheth it and cherisbeth it." (Eph. v. 29.) If the body
be wounded or pained, how tender are we of it! The eye will look to it
* Multum detrahit beneficio, qui nolentem tribuisse se ips& cunctatione testatus est;
ao nan tarn dedisse quam no retinuisse.SENECA De Beneficns, lib. ii. c. 1. " From
the commendation attached to a prompt benefaction he detracts greatly who, by his dilatory
manner, proves that he has been unwilling to bestow the expected benefit; and, when at
length the ungracious act is completed, it proves not so much that he has conferred 8
favour, as that he has not detained it any longer."EDIT.
637
very carefully, and, it may be, weep over it. The band will diligently keep
off any thing that might hart or offend it, and is ready to apply any thing
to it for the cure of it, with the greatest tenderness that may be. After
the same manner we ought to express our love to others : it is required
of us, that we " be kind one to another, tender-hearted." (Eph. iv. 32.)
(1.) When other are under sufferings, we should be so tender as to
have a quick sense of them in ourselves.Others' sufferings should work
compassion, and cause a fellow-feeling in us, so as to make us " weep
with them that weep," and to be " bound with them that are in bonds."
(Rom. xii. 15 ; Heb. xiii. 3.) When Nehemiah heard of the affliction
of his people, though he himself was in a better condition, he "eat down
and wept, and mourned certain days." (Neh. i. 4.) We see that beasts
themselves are touched with the sufferings of any of their kind : if oue
of the herd make an outcry, or declare his sufferings by his moaning,
how sensible are the rest of it! How do they come about him, and
show their readiness to yield him help if it were in their power! How
much more should humanity cause men to show what a tender regard
they have of the sufferings and afflictions of other men !
(2.) We should be tenderly affected towards others when they are overtaken in a fault, and not be too rigid and severe in dealing with them.*
And the more tender we ought to be, the more afflicted they are with it
themselves. We should consider how we would desire to be dealt with
ourselves, if we should be found in the same or the like fault, and
accordingly behave ourselves towards them: " If a man be overtaken

in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an onef in the spirit
of meekness, considering thyself." (Gal. vi. I.)
(3.) We should show ourselves tenderly affected towards others in their
wants and necessities, and yield them relief with a feeling of their wants
ourselves.Job, when he was in a full and plentiful condition and estate
himself, was deeply affected with the necessitous condition of other men:
" Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved
for the poor?" (Job xxx. 25.) The way to get this tenderness towards
others is, to put ourselves in this or that man's case, (hungry, thirsty,
naked,) until we find our hearts to grow soft and tender towards them,
and we are able to " draw out" our own " souls " to them,J: in giving
them bread, or what else they need. (Isai. Iviii. 10.) But the greatest
tenderness is to be exercised toward such persons as labour under soultroubles and necessities; because the soul is of a quick sense, and more
capable of feeling than the body. Christ's greatest sufferings were in his
soul; so all men spiritually distressed, as under some temptation or soulaffliction, are deeply distressed. Therefore as they stand in need of coun* Solemu propriorum elemente esse jutRce, oKenoru/a* verb etricti inquititoret..
QBEQ. NAZIAKZ. " We are usually inclined to be very favourable judge in the cause*
in which we are personally concerned, and at the same time strict inquisitor into thone
matters which relate to other people."EDIT.
f Karaprtrrc rov - id eat,
Jfitimini eum qiioti luxatum membrum suo loco reponere.BEZA. " Restore such an
onThat is, Strenuously strive to re-instate him in his former station, as you would
restore a luxated
joint into its proper socket"EDIT.
t Ays wcuwxri
}* >Septuagint. Give to the hungry man bread from thy very souL**
EDIT.
638
SERMON II.
eel or comfort, our souls should go forth in administering it to them; aa

Paul was ready " to have imparted, not the gospel of God only," but
" his own soul/' to them who were dear unto him. (1 These, ii. 8.)
DEGREES OF LOVE.
Yon have seen in what things, and after what manner, we may and
ought to love ourselves; and that it is our duty to show our love to
others in the same (hinge, and in like manner. It may be requisite that
we speak something also about the degrees of love ; which we shall do in
answering two questions.
QUESTION i. "Whether it be our duty to love our neighbour as
much as ourselves?"
ANSWER. The command to love our neighbour as ourselves doth not
require that our love should be every way as much to our neighbour s
ourselves. The word " as" in the commandment, doth not denote a
parity, but a similitude: it is not as natch as, but like as. It is indeed
our duty to desire and endeavour that others may be blessed in the full
enjoyment of God to all eternity, which is as much as we can desire for
ourselves; but every man more intensely desireth this happiness to
himself than to another.* If that grace which any man hath received
of God would save another man, and he could communicate it to him,
he were not bound to part with it to that end and purpose. When the
foolish virgins said to the wise, "Give us of your oil;" they answered :
" Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you : but go ye rather to
them that sell, and buy for yourselves." (Matt. xxv. 9.) So it is in
reference to temporal things. We are charged with this as a duty, to
communicate to others in need. But if our own necessities be (really
and not in pretence) so great, that we should not have enough for our
own subsistence if we did impart to them, we are not bound, in that
case, to yield it to them.f When the multitude asked John the Baptist
what they should do, he answered, " He that hath two coats, let him
impart to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." (Luke iii. 11.) By which he gave them to understand, that it
was their duty to impart to others in extreme necessity, if they had any
more than was necessary for themselves.
Notwithstanding what hath been said, there are several cases in which
a man is bound to exercise his love to another, more than to himself.
1. A man is bound to hazard his own life, to save the life of another
who would certainly perish, if he did not hazard himself in his behalf.
(1 Sam. xix. 1, 2; xx. 30, 33.)
* Prius etintensius unusquisque Dei fmitionem sibi optat qnam alteri ; ita ut si non
possit pluribus dart, malit unusquisque sibi, quam cuilibet alii, illam a Deo communi-
ear.DAVESAUTiue. "Every man desires the fruition of God for himself principally, and with greater iatenseness, than for another, so that if it were impossible for
that high enjoyment to be granted but to one person, each would prefer the communication of it to be made to him, rather than to any other, as the favoured individual."
EDIT.
Ordo charitatis postulat ut primum necessitate proprue, deinde, de non
necessariis, efiam necessitate provideatur aliena.ESTIUS, lib. iii. diet 29, sect ii.
The order of Christian charity enjoins us, first, to make provision for our own necessities, and then, out of what is not absolutely required for ourselves, to provide a supply
for the wants of others."EDIT.
M
639
2. Upon the same reason that a man is bound to prefer the public
advantage of a community before hie own private,* he if bound to seek
the safety of public person, in whom the welfare of the community is
bound up, more than his own safety.One man of public capacity may
be of more value than thousands of other men. So said the people
of David, "Thou art worth ten thousand of us." (2 Sam. xviii. 3.)
Priscilla and Aquila thought the life of such an apostle as Paul was,
upon whom lay " the care of all the churches," (2 Cor. xi. 28,) to he
of greater concernment than theirs; and therefore " for his life they laid
down their own necks;" (Bom. xvi. 4 ;) for which they had the thanks
of all the Gentile churches. A man also that is of a public spirit, and lays
out himself in doing much good in the place and country where he lives,
although he be of a private capacity, is worth many other men. " For
a good man some would even dare to die." (Rom. v. 7.) We might
instance in many other cases ; but let it suffice that we say in general,
that when the glory of God is more concerned in another than ourselves,
we ought to show a greater love to him than ourselves, upon the principle
laid down above, that we ought to love ourselves, and our neighbour, in
and for God. And when there is a competition between an incomparably
greater good to our neighbour, (especially if many be concerned in it,)
and a less to ourselves, it is evident that our love to ourselves must yield
to the love of our neighbour.
QUESTION . " Whether ought we to love every other man with the
same degree of love ?"
ANSWER i. All men, good and bad, should thus far be loved equally
by us, in that we should desire, that both the one and the other might
come to perfect blessedness in the enjoyment of God for ever: the first,
by persevering in faith and holiness to the end; the last, by being
brought through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance from
dead works, to the same blessed communion.)
ANSWER n. Goodness, which is the object of love, being more or less in
this or that subject, we may and ought to love, more or less, according
to the degrees wherein every one excels another.J God is the giver
of " every good and perfect gift." (James i. 17.) As there are divers
kinds of good gifts, so divers degrees of them.
(1.) There are natural gifts and abilities.As wisdom and understanding in several matters, which are very beneficial to mankind; and
therefore God threatens it as a judgment, that he will " take away the
* Conruletaitiempra ee quisqueutilitaficommuniter omnium.JUSTINUS MARTYR
De Vita Christ. " But every one must be careful for the common advantage of
all, in preference to himself."EDIT. Omnis prasidentia ille debet ease finis, ubique
pra aliorum utilitate commodum tuum despicere.GREGORIUS. " This ought to be
the end and aim of all government Every ruler ought, on all occasions, to disregard
his personal convenience, and to prefer the general good of others."EDIT.
f- Diligit Christianus inimicum, ut hoc ei v/elit pervenire quod sibi ; hoe eet, ut ad regnum
eahrum correcttts renovatutque perveniat.AUGUSTINUS, De Serm. Dom, in Monte,
lib. i. " A Christian loves his enemy, so as to wish him to obtain that great benefit
which has been conferred on himself; that is, after the correction of his faults, and the
renewal 01 his nature, he wishes his enemy to attain unto the kingdom of heaven."
EDIT.
t Ille justi et tanete vivit yui idoneut rerun ottimator et.AuousTINUS. " He lives righteously and piously who form a candid and equitable estimate
of human affairs."EDIT.
640
SERMON II.
HOW OUGHT WE TO LOW
honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the
eloquent orator." (Isai. in. 3.) Such persons as are qualified with gifts
of this kind are to be loved according to the degree in which they excel.
(2.) There are also moral endowment, by which men do become more
fit for human society, and nigher to the kingdom of God, than other
men.These virtuous dispositions are very lovely things in any man;
and the more he excels in them, the more we are to love him. Christ
himself, who never misplaced hie affections, looking on such a person, is
said to have " loved him." (Mark x. 21.)
(3.) There are gracious and holy qualifications of the soul, from a more
than common work of the Spirit upon the hearts of men.These are the
best gifts; and for these we ought more especially to love men; and
that, according to the degree wherein they excel: as David was wont to
let-out his love "to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent."
(Psalm xvi. 3.) Although a man be not so like us, in this or that
point of opinion or practice, yet if he be more like God than such as are,
we should give him the pre-eminence in our love.9"
ANSWER in. As to the signs and effects or our love in bestowing
temporal good things, although the general rule must be observed by usf
to "do good unto all;" yet there are some specialities in the case, which
must also be observed by us :
(1.) They that are opposed with the greatest and extremest necessity,
are to be considered by us before such as are not so deeply distressed.
If one man be so poor that he cannot subsist unless he be relieved by
us, we ought to extend our charity to him before another, who, although
he be poor, is not in that degree of poverty.
(2.) Though we ought to do good to all, yet the poor members of Jesus
Christ ought in a special manner to be regarded by its. (Gal. vi. 10.)
As Christ expects this at the hands of all that bear his name; so he
takes particular notice of what is done to them, as done to himself; and
will greatly reward the kindness that is shown to the least of his brethren,
with a " Come, ye blessed," another day. (Matt. xxv. 3436.)
(3.) They of our own house, and such as are near to us in blood, are,
csrteris paribus, to taste the effects of our love in this kind before others.
(1 Tim. v. 8.)$And in proportion to these, they that are our near
neighbours, and our own countrymen.
(4.) Although they who are enemies to God and us, cannot well
expect that we should, and though we be not bound to show our love to
* Ego dico me neque esse Zuinglianum, neque Lutheranum, neque Calvinianum,
neqne JJuceriannm; sea Christianum : Lutherum quidem atque Zuinglium. Bucerum
et Calvmum, Bullingerum et Mattyrem, tanquam egregia Spiritus sancti organa
veneror, atque suspicio, &c.ZANCHII Opera, torn. vu. p. (m\h\) 262. " I avow
myself to be neither a Zuinglian nor a Lutheran, neither a Galvinist nor one of
Bucei's adherents, but a CHRISTIAN. With deep veneration indeed and respect
I look up to Luther and Zuinglius, Bucer and Calvin, Bullinger and Peter Martyr, and
regard them all as most eminent instruments of the Holy Spirit"EDIT.
f In
omnibus communiter naturam diligamus, quam Deus fecit.LOMBARD us. " In every
man let us love that nature which is common to all of us, and which God Almighty has
formed."EDIT.
Vult cognates viduarum admonendos qfficii, ut Was ad
Ecolesiam non amandent.BEZA. " In this passage the apostle is desirous 01 admcuishing the near kindred of widows of their duty, and of showing that they should not
consign them over to the care of the church for maintenance.".EDIT.
OVK NEIGHBOURS A8 OURSELVES?
641
them, in doing good to them equally with other who are Gotfe friende
and tervant*; yet there more due to them, by the will of Oodt than
we are ordinarily willing to allow, or tome think we are bound to bettow
upon them.For I cannot assent to them who would restrain the
duty of doing good to oar enemies to "cases of extreme necessity;"*
as if we were bound only to keep them from perishing. Christ proposeth God's example to us, who " is kind unto the unthankful and to the
evil:" (Luke vi. 35:) so kind as not only to give them "rain," but
" fruitful seasons," thereby " filling their hearts with food and gladness;"
(Acts xiv. 17;) and therefore his goodness to them is called "the riches
of his goodness." (Bom. ii. 4.) And we may be well assured, that
when the apostle charged the Romans, " not to be overcome of evil, but
to overcome evil with good ;"f (Bom. xii. 20, 21;) he intended that they
spend greater store of that kind of ammunition in order thereunto, than
some of them [were] then (I fear, than most of us now are) willing to allow.
(Prov. xxv. 21, 22.)
We have now seen a little, and but a little, of the duty that is required
of us in this great commandment; yet enough to convince us, that " in
many things we offend all." (James iii. 2.) Let us humble ourselves
that we have been so little in observing of it, and endeavour to come up
to a more full and exact performance of the duties therein required.
This will be a good evidence of our love to God; (1 John ii. 3;) which
we cannot so well make out to ourselves or others to be sincere, by any
other way or means, as by this. (1 John iii. 14.) " If we love not our
brethren whom we have seen," how shall we think we can "love God
whom we have not seen?" (1 John iv. 20.) Without this, all our
external performances in religion will signify nothing with God. All our
hearing, praying, fasting, and whatever else it be, will be of little or no
account with him. (Isai. Iviii. 35 ; Mark xii. 33.)
The apostle calls the way of love, an " excellent way:" (1 Cor. xii.
31 :) it is an excellent way to overcome enemies, and make them friends.
This was the way God took to overcome us; he drew us "with cords
of a man, with bands of love;" (Hosea xi. 4;) and he prescribes the
same way to us. 0 let us try and see, whether more may not be done
in this than any other way! This hath been an approved way: the
primitive Christians tried it, and found it a good way. What made way
for the gospel through the world ? How came Christians to make such
large conquests in the first times ? Look, and you will find, that it
"wt&faciendo bonum, etpatiendo malum; "by doing well, and suffering
evil." What made for the restoring of the gospel to England, but the
patience of the saints of God under their sufferings, and their fervent
* In articuio necessitatis.AQUINAS, Secunda Secunda, Quest xxv. art 8.
-f Per
panem et aywun intellige omne victus genus, ut alia* in tcriptura, et omne benefioii gemu
quo euinjuvarepoleris.MERCERUS in locum. "Here by the words bread and water
understand all kinds of victuals, as in other passages of scripture, and benefits of every
description by which you are able to assist your enemy."EDIT.
J Vincit mala
perlintue bonittu, nee quisquam tarn dun infestique adversus diligenda animi ett, ut
etiam vi tractut bonot non amet. EC A De Beneficiis, lib. viL c. 31. " Bad men re
conquered by acts of untiring kindness; and no one possesses a disposition so morose
and obstinate, and so hostile to all that is lovely, as not to be almost irresistibly attracted
to manifest his love for good men."EDIT.
642
8ERMON III.
WHEREIN THE LOVE OF THE WORLD
charity, whereby they prayed ardently for their enemies, in the midst
of the fire ? This convinced many, and turned them to the profession
of the troth. The way of love is an excellent way to edify the church,
which edifies itself in love. (Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 2.) There is nothing
to be done without it: this is the cement aad mortar that holds the
stones of the building together.*
To conclude: it is an excellent way, to unite all that is good in the
world, to promote the interest of God in the world. If we did but
observe what good is to be found in any sort of men, and not only
acknowledge it, but make use of it for God as we ought; we should
quickly see another face of things in the world. " Love," saith one, " is
that which reconciles the jarring principles of the world, and makes them
all chime together." How pleasing would this be to God! and bow
delightful to all good men! I shall say no more; but desire that God
would " make us to increase and abound in love one toward another, and
toward all men." (1 These, iii. 12.)
SERMON III.
BY THE EEV. THEOPHILUS GALE, A.M.,
FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.
WHEREIN THE LOVE OF THE WORLD IS INCONSISTENT WITH THB

LOVE OF GOD.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him 1 John ii. 15.
SECTION I.
THE EXPLICATION OF THE TEXT.
NOT to detain you with the connexion of these words, which are in
themselve complete and entire; the better to understand their theologic sense, it will be necessary that we a little inquire into their grammatic and logic sense. As for the grammatic sense of the words, we
may take notice in the general, that John the Divine, who is generally
reputed to be the author of this epistle, has a peculiar phraseology,
idiom, or manner of writing, as it will appear to any that diligently considers his writings, and particularly this text. The first term that
occurs, and ought to be more diligently inquired into, is the affection
and act prohibited, "Love not." The Greek admits of a
double sense: 1. It is taken in a more large and general notion, for a
simple act of love, without regard to the measure or degree thereof ; and
so it is of the same import with . 2. It is taken in a more strict
eat res arte comjnngere ul nesnt indissolubili cohareant.ARETIUS.
" The signification of this Greek word in Col. ii. 2, is to fasten with exquisite art separate
things to each other, that they may cohere together by a juncture or tie which is Indiasoluble,"EDIT.
IB INCONSISTENT WITH TBB LOVE OP GOD.
643
and confined sense, for each an act of love a proceedeth from a

plenitude of will, or full bent of heart, and so carries the whole soul
with it, either in the prosecution of some chief good when absent, or in
the fruition of and satisfaction in the same when present. For love,
in this strict notion, has two main acts: 1. An active vigorous prosecution of its chiefest good, when absent. In which regard (and so
) is derived, by the Greek etymologist, and Phavorinus out of him,
from erv, or , which implies the force
and activity of love, in the pursuit after its chiefest good. 2. Love in
this strict notion implies also an acquiescence, repose, and satisfaction in
its chiefest good, when present and enjoyed. In which regard
is made to be the same with rauecrdai, " greatly to acquiesce or
rest satisfied " in its best beloved, when enjoyed; which they explicate by
^ , fnjSsv tsrXeov |}, " to rest contented and satisfied
in any object, so as not to seek out for any thing more," in point of happiness. In this strict and peculiar notion, considered as to both its
branches, we must understand " love " here both as to " the world " and
"the Father." And so "the love of the world" and " the love of the
Father" are perfectly opposite, and therefore inconsistent each with
other, in this strict notion wherein John takes them.
This is farther evident from that great aphorism of our Lord: " No
man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other," &c. (Matt. vi. 24.) Where we find ? used in the same
strict notion, and confined either to God or the world, so as both cannot
share therein. Thence our Lord instructs us that love, in this proper
limited sense, belongs to God alone: " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart," &c. (Matt. xxii. 37.) Where ^, " Thou
shalt love," is taken by our Lord in this strict notion, and explicated by
what follows, " with all thine heart," &c.; that is, with the plenitude
or bent of thy will, which in moral estimation passeth for the whole
heart. So that when John saith, "Love not the world," it must be
understood in this proper notion of love, as it includes a predominant and
prevalent degree; and carries with it the bent and force of the will,
either in a way of active prosecution of the world if absent, or delightful
complacential acquiescence therein if enjoyed. Such a love to the world
is no other than concupiscence or lust, and so altogether inconsistent
with " the love of the Father," as John argueth. All this will be more
evident, when we come to explicate the things contained under these
terms, namely, love to God and the world.
The next thing to be explicated by us, is the objert of this prohibition;
which is "the world" and "the things" therein. The Greek name
XOCTJUO; was, as it is said, first given to the world by Pythagoras, from
,), " to adorn ;" it being, as it were, a house, hung with all manner
of rich and beautiful ornaments, of divine wisdom, power, and goodness;
(Bom. i. 20;) and in this regard the world is, in its kind and measure,
amiable and love-worthy. But John seems to take " the world " here in
a more limited and narrow sense, as it is the fuel of lust, and repugnant
to and incoherent with " the Father." For, as I before premised, it is
usual with John to make use of notions which are of a lax and general
644
BERMON III. WHEREIN THE LOVE OP THE WORLD
import in a more strict and confined sense. Thus: " Whosoever is born
of God doth not commit sin." (1 John iii. 9.) Which must be understood in a strict, confined sense, that is, with a plenitude of will, as
wicked men do. So in our text, " Love not," that is, in a strict sense,
with a plenitude and bent of heart. " The world," that is, for itself, as
the fuel of lust, and contrary to God. There is a regular and lawful
love of the world, when it is in an inferior degree, and in subordination
to God; but that which John here prohibits is an irregular and inordinate lore to the world for itself, in competition with or opposition to the
love of the Father, as verse 16.
Hence it follows : " Neither the things that are in the world.'*
1. Here we are again to take notice of another peculiar idiom frequent
with John, both in his Gospel and Epistles, namely, to reiterate the same
thing under different expressions, partly by way of exegesis, and partly
to give an emphatic plenitude. It might have sufficed that he had said,
"Love not the world:" but the more fully to explicate his mind, as also
to give an emphase* and accent to what he had said, he adds: " Neither
the things that are in the world." He contents not himself with generals, but descends to particulars; which he more fully specifies, verse 16.
2. By "things that are in the world," we may, in a more strict and
confined notion, understand those things which worldly men do most
magnify and idolize ; mundane grandeur, pomp, glory, riches, pleasures,
honours, friends, whatever else may captivate the hearts of degenerate
men. In sum: by " the world, and the things that are in the world,"
must be understood all sensible, natural, civil, yea, mental goods, or
whatever is inferior to God, so far as it may stand in opposition to or
competition with him, and so prove matter of abuse and fuel for lust, as
verse 16.
It follows: " If any man love the world.'* , " if," here is causal
and rational, signifying as much as "for," or "because if:" and so it
pointe-out and nshers-in the main cause or reason, why we are not to
love the world, namely, because he that loves the world bath not the love
of the Father in him. As if he had said: " Alas! are not the world and
the Father perfectly opposite? Do they not both require the whole
heart, yea, the whole man, as Matt. vi. 24 ? Is it possible then, that he
who loves the world at such a rate, can love the Father?" Or we may
take the words thus: " If any man love the world," &c., that is, so far
as any man loves the world, "the love of the Father is not in him."
And in this sense it will reach all, both saints and sinners; though I
take the words chiefly to be understood of predominant love to the world,
which is altogether inconsistent with love to God.
Lastly. There lies something peculiar in that phrase: "The love
of the Father is not in him." I. Here we find another idiom or manner
of speech proper to John, who frequently makes use of antithesis, and that
both of things, words, and sentences, for illustration and confirmation ;
whereof many instances might be given, as John i. 5, 13, 17, 20, &c.
So here he opposeth the Father to the world; and then " the love of the
Father," to "the love of the world;" which gives great illustration and
* Our old writers used both emphase and emphasy instead of
18 INCONSISTENT WITH * LOVK OF GOD.
645
demonstration to hit discourse: for opposite* illustrate and demonstrate

each other. 2. Another thing to be considered herein is the object,
, "of the Father;" where the article "the" deserve a peculiar
regard: and so indeed do the various articles in this text, the world, the
things, &c. For albeit these articles sometimes, in other parts of scripture, are not significative or emphatic, yet here they seem to give some
emphase. So that " the Father " is here mentioned to specify both the
proper object and formal reason of evangelic love, as distinct from that
natural love which Adam in Paradise had towards God as Creator.
First. By " the Father " here is specified the proper object of evangelic
love; namely, that it most terminate on God, as a gracious Father in and
through Christ; whereas Adam's natural love in innocence terminated on
God only as Creator, Secondly. By " the Father " also the formal reason
of evangelic love is specified; namely, that God's love towards us in
Christ ought to be the formal reason or proper motive of our love to
him. 3. As for the act, "the love," it may be taken either passively
and objectively, for the Father's love shed abroad in the heart, as Rom.
v. 5 ; or else subjectively and actively, for our love to the Father. This
latter I take to be primarily intended.
The words thus explicated admit this logic division. We find in
them first a prohibition ; and then the reason thereof annexed. In the
prohibition we have, 1. The act, "Love not." 2. The object , and this,
(1.) In the general: " The world." (2.) In its particularities: " Neither
the things that are in the world." The chief whereof are specified,
verse 16.
As for the reason of the prohibition, it is wrapped up in an hypothetic
proposition, which is easily reduced to a categoric syllogism thus: Two
loves perfectly opposite cannot consist together in one and the same
heart: But love to the world and love to the Father are perfectly opposite : Therefore he that loves the world hath not the love of the Father
in him.
SECTION II.
A GENERAL CHARACTER OF LOVE.
What love in its general idea imports.

The words thus explicated contain in them this great truth, that a
prevalent predominant love to the world is altogether inconsistent with
the love of God. Hence also there is offered to us this practic case
of conscience, Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the love
of God?
The resolution of this so weighty a case depends much on the explication of its parts; which we shall endeavour to examine and open under
these three questions :1. What love in its general idea or nature doth
import ? 2. What it is to love the world? 3. What it is to love God?
These questions being explicated, the resolution of our case will be facile
and obvious.
QUESTION i. What love in its general idea or nature doth import t
This question being more philosophic than theologic, we shall not much
insist thereon. But to clear up our way to the following questions, we
may take-up this concise character or idea of love, as abstracted from
646
SERMON .
WHEREIN THE LOVE OV THE WORLD
this or that subject. Love ie the most vigorous, potent, imperious, and
sovereign affection of the human soul; which has its royal seat in the
will, or rather in the soul aa willing what is good. For albeit I cannot
conceive bow the will and understanding may be really distinguished,
more than by their formal objects and acts; yet I can easily grant the
soul, as willing what is good, to be the proper subject and seat of love.
Not but that there is also passion of love, or something analogous to
love, in the sensitive soul, or animal part. But this is -more passionate,
that in the human soul more rational; this more rash, that more deliberate ; this more superficial and transient, that more rooted and fixed;
this more confused and difform, that more uniform and equal; this more
carnal, that more spiritual, in its objects and motions; this more brutish
and servile, that more human and voluntary, specially if regular.
Now love thus seated in the will, or soul as willing, governs the
whole soul, with all the faculties, or rather acts, thereof. As the will
governs all inferior faculties, so is she governed by her love; which
renders her what she is, as to good or evil. What the love is, that the
man is: and where the love is, there the man is. If thy love be in
heaven, there thou art; and if thy love be in hell, thou art there. For
where the treasure is, there the love, heart, and man is. (Matt. vi. 21.)
And as love governs the whole soul in general, so has she a more particular influence on the affections, both rational and passionate. Love
indeed is not only the prime but also the original source and spring
of all human affections; which owe their being, life, and motion thereto.
What are all affections but the several forms and shapes of love?
Whence have they their tincture and colour but from it ? For, look, as
the object beloved is affected with this or that circumstance, so is love
proportionably invested with this or that form. If the object beloved be
absent, love goes forth to meet it by desire; if present, love solaceth
itself therein by fruition and delight; if it be under hazards, lore waxeth
pale with fear; if the enjoyment thereof be impeded or obstructed by
others, love grows angry; if it be lost, love clotheth herself with black
sorrow; if there be a probability or but possibility sometimes of enjoying it, love moves towards it by hope. Thus love puts on sundry forms
and aspects, which we call affections, according to the sundry postures
of its beloved. In short: look, as the wife changeth her condition into
that of her husband, and becomes noble or ignoble according to his condition, so love changeth her condition according to that of the object she
doth espouse; if love espouse God for her husband, then doth she
become1 spiritual, noble, and divine, according to the quality of God; but
if she elect and adhere to the world, then doth she become carnal, base,
and worldly. So much for the general idea of love, of which more in
what follows.
SECTION III. WHAT IT 18 TO LOVE THE WORLD.
QUEST, ii. What it is to love the world f

Love to the world may be considered as predominant, and so altogether inconsistent with the very being and existence of love to God; or
else as infirm and in part subdued. We shall here treat of it in the
IB INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOT OV GOD.
647
former respect only, which seem chiefly intended by John. And so

love to the world may be described, "a certain habitual pondu or
'weight* of concupiscence and last, whereby the soul is strongly
impelled and inclined towards the fruition of and satisfaction in the
world, as its last end, and chiefest good." In this description of lore to
the world, we find its OBJECT, SUBJECT, END, PRINCIPLE, ACT, and
MEASURE ; which will all fall under a more particular consideration in

the following propositions.
THE OBJECT OF PREDOMINANT LOVE TO THE WORLD.
PROP. i. To love the world i to affect tome private, particular, inferior good, for ittelf, a the chiefeet good and last end.This proposition
states and specifies the proper formal object of worldly love; which is
some private, particular, inferior good, loved for itself, as the chiefest
supreme good and last end. Now the world may be constituted the
chiefest good and last end two ways: 1. Positively ; when it is loved for
itself as a total supreme good, unto which ajl things are referred.
2. Negatively ; when, though it be loved only as a partial good, yet it is
loved for itself, and not referred to God, either actually or habitually, as
the Supreme Good. Such is the cursed love of many worldly professors,
who love the world only as a partial good, yet so as they refer it not to
God the Supreme Good; and therefore may be said to love it for itself,
as their last end and chiefest good, negatively, though not positively.
This love to the world for itself, as the last end and chiefest good, is
fully described by John in the verse following our text: " For all that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John ii. 16.) These
words give much light and evidence to our text and present subject;
wherefore we shall a little insist on the explication of them.
And, 1. We are to consider their rational connexion with the words
precedent, included in the particle "for;" which gives us the genuine
reason and cause, why the love of the world is inconsistent with the love
of God, namely, because all that is in the world, whether sensible, civil,
or mental goods, so far as they are the fuel of lusts, are " not of the
Father, but of the world." 2. We are to observe here, that John, die
coursing of worldly goods as the fuel of our lust, expresseth the things
themselves by the lust in us. He saith not, " pleasures, riches, honours,"
though these be the things he means; but the hut of these things;
because the poison and evil of these things comes not from the things
themselves, but from our lusts, that run into and live upon them, as
our last end and choicest good. And in this sense, saith John, they
are " not of the Father, but of the world;" that is, God never made or
appointed these inferior goods to be our last end, chiefest good, or matter
of fruition and satisfaction. No: it is the lusts of worldly men that
have put this crown upon the heads of pleasures, profits, preferments,
&c. Hence it naturally follows, that all love to these lower goods, for
themselves, as our last end and chiefest good, is but concupiscence or
inordinate lust. For, indeed, what is lust, but desire to or fruition of the
creature for itself? 3. We are to consider likewise the distribution,
648
SERMON III.
which John here makes, of all that is in the world, into " the last of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." This, as they say, is
the worldly man's trinity which he doth so much idolize and adore.
Philo the Jew, who was greatly versed as well in the Grecian as Judaic
learning, makes all evil to consist " in the lust of pleasures, riches, or
glory ; " * which seems to answer to John's distribution here. For by " the
lust of the flesh " is usually understood pleasures ; by " the lust of the
eyes," riches; and by "the pride of life," vain-glory, or honours. We
shall treat concisely of each, as the fuel of worldly love.

(1.) To Jove the world, is to lust after the pleasures of the flesh, as our
last end or sovereign good, and so amiable for themselves. And 0 what
a brutish piece of lust is this ! And yet, lo ! how common, even among
those who would be accounted generous and noble ! Yea, how many
great professors come under this condemnation ! For by " the lusts
of the flesh " we must understand all inordinate love to and delight in
sensual pleasures of any kind, be it in eating, drinking, recreations, or

unclean objects. What Empedocles said of the Agragantines, holds too
true of many now-a-days : " They give themselves to luxury, as though
they would die to-morrow ; and yet they build houses, as if they were to
live for ever."} 0 how happy would it be for England, if those sumptuary
laws, commended by Plato in his " Commonwealth," J were established
among us, for regulating our excesses in feasts, habits, houses, and other
sensual pleasures ! 0 what seeds and causes of sorrow are there in sensual pleasures ! How is the love of sensual sinners inveigled with the
world's golden pleasures ! Such there were in the apostles' times, even
in the churches.
So, James v. 5 : "Ye have lived in pleasure ;" that
is, as the fish liveth in the water. Pleasures have been your element, the
food of your sensual life : your hearts have been steeped, immersed,
drowned in them, as the spring of your life and happiness. Thence it
follows : " Ye have nourished your hearts, as in the day of slaughter."
Or we may by a metonymy read it, " as in the day of feasting." So the
Syriac, NnDD3T, which answers to the Hebrew 31, may be rendered.

And so it alludes to the solemn feasts after sacrifices, so commom among
the Gentiles as well as Jews ; their great days both of slaughter and
feasting : for when the sacrifice was slain and offered, they feasted on
part, thereby to denote their communion with the god they sacrificed
unto. And so the sense is this : " You nourish your sensual appetites
daily with feasting, as those that feast on part of the sacrifice, in the day
of slaughter." 0 how much doth this pampering of the flesh tend to

the starving of the soul ! And what is this but to make pleasures our
god ? So, Phil. iii. 19 : "Whose belly is their god ;" and, 2 Tim. iii. 4 :
" Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." Which refers to sensual
professors in these last perilous days. Unto which also our Lord seems to
refer, Matt. xxiv. 38, 39.
{2.) To love the world is to lust after riches for themselves, as our last
end and choicest good. This John includes under " the lust of the eyes,"
* Ef ij , i\ Jtofjjr 1 Pair.o in Decalog.
TIUS in Empedocle.
PLATO Repub. lib. iii.
Gentiles," part i. book ii. c. 9, sect. 10.
t LAER-
See " Court of the
18 INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOV OF GOD.
649
which ie well interpreted by that character which Solomon give* of the

avaricinu man: "Neither is his eye satisfied with riches." (Eccles. iv. 8.)
0 how greedy is the covetous man's eye after gold and silver and other
riches! and what complacence doth he take in the view thereof! It is
true, riches do not immediately affect or pamper the flesh, yet are they
the caterers of the flesh; they lay-in provision for it. For money is the
measure of all things. And albeit riches are remote as to the flesh, yet
are they the proper object of the eye's lusting, which takes-in things
remote.
(3.) To love the world, is to lust after or pride ourselves in any worldly
grandeur, or finite excellence, a our last end and best good.So much
" the pride of life " denotes. For primarily signifies " a vain
gloriation or boasting of having or doing great things,"* from , "a
boaster;" which grammarians derive from at\r), "a wandering," and ,
" liver;" such as your mountebanks and vagabonds are, who go from
place to place, boasting what great things they can do. It here signifies
a vain-glorious affecting or assuming to ourselves [of] some created
excellence, as the chief matter of our happiness. This is the great lust
of more elevated, refined, generous spirits ; who, peradventure, scorn to
defile themselves with sensual pleasures or riches, yet are not without
violent and impetuous lustings after some worldly grandeur or human excellence. Under this " pride of life " we may comprehend also the mind's
lusting after knowledge, or any other mental perfection, for itself as our
last end ; which is the grand lust of philosophers, schoolmen, and other
great wits of the world. This Jansenius rangeth under the former
particular, " the lust of the eye."f
PROP. ii. Predominant love to the world, in regard of its subject,
consists in an habitual pondus, " weight" or violent bent of heart toward
some inferior good, for itself.Look, as in nature there is a centre
of gravity under which all ponderous, weighty bodies, by their gravity
and weight, naturally tend; so, in corrupt nature, love to the world
or concupiscence is that lustful pondus or " weight" whereby the heart
is violently impelled and inclined towards the world, as its centre
of gravity. This seems lively expressed, Heb. xii. 1: " Let us lay aside
every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us." This verse,
with [and] the three following, are wholly agonistic, alluding to the
Grecian games, as it appears by the several terms. They who ran in the
race, were to lay aside every thing that might burden or hinder them
therein. Thence, saith the apostle, " Let us lay aside every weight:"
properly signifies "a ponderous, weighty, gross, heavy body;"
and it is here applied, as the learned conceive, to the love of the world;
which, as a great pondus, or " weight," presseth down the heart towards
the earth, as its centre of gravity; and so hinders its Christian race
heaven-ward. 0 what an infinite weight is love to this dirty world!
With what an impetuous and violent force doth it press the heart
* AaiSTOTELis, RheL lib. ii. describeth : "When any boast what they
have, and rashly promise great things of themselves, arrogating to themselves the deeds
of others.*' f JANSENII Augustinus, torn. ii. lib. ii. cap. 8, fol. 132.
$ Gaelics,
and Hammond out of him.
650
SERMON HI.
downward, even unto belli This also is well expressed by a lent:

"And my people are bent to backsliding from me." (Hosea xi. 7.)
That is, their heart stands strongly bent towards their beloved idols, and
worldly allies. Their hearts were in suspense as to God, (so the word
signifies,) but strongly bent towards the world. How doth the voluptuous man's heart stand bent towards his pleasures; the avaricious man's
heart towards his riches; the ambitious man's heart towards his honours,
as his god! This bent of the heart towards the world discovers itself in
an insatiable, infinite thirst after worldly good, for itself. This we find
greatly exemplified in profane Esau : " Or profane person, as Esau, who
for one morsel of meat sold his birthright." (Heb. xii. 16.) What
birth-right was it that Esau sold? Why, it was his birth-right to
the promised hind, Canaan in the type, but heaven in the antitype.
And for what did he sell Canaan and heaven ? " For a morsel of meat;"
for a poor, sensible pleasure, which his greedy lust thirsted after. You
find the story at large, Gen. xxv. 3034 : " And Esau said unto Jacob,
Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage." (Verse 30.) It is
in the original, tnn }, "of that red, that red," namely, pottage: note here, that the repetition of the adjective signifies Esau'
insatiable and greedy appetite after Jacob's red pottage. The like also
is implied in his omitting the word " pottage;" which notes the haste
and greediness of his lust, increased by the red colour ; whence he was
called Edom. And what was it that Esau's insatiable lust thus longs
for ? That follows, verse 34 : " pottage of lentiles:" which were a kind
of pulse, much like to vetches, or small peas, very coarse food, such as
men in their sorrow and mourning were wont to eat. what a vile
profane wretch was Esau, to part with his celestial birth-right and
dignity, for a mess of such coarse pottage! Well might Moses conclude:
" Thus Esau despised his birth-right." (Gen. xxv. 34.) An insatiable
greedy thirst after any inferior good argues a predominant love to the
world.
PROP. in. To love the world is to have the heart bound-up in and
made one with the world.All love tends to union; and to have the
heart planted in and incorporated with the world, argues a predominant
love thereto. Thus in our text, , " Love not the world ;"
that is, let not your hearts be implanted, glued, or nailed to the world :
let not your thoughts and affections run so deep into the world, as
to become one with it. The more any love the world, the more their
hearts are united to and incorporated with it. The alligation and
adherence of the heart to the creature is the natural effect of predominant
love thereto. Love to the world is the nail or glue, whereby the heart is
fastened to it. Thus : " Ephraim is joined to idols." (Hosea iv. 17.)
TQn "is fastened or glued," so as to become one therewith. Whereby
the prophet teacheth us that Israel's heart was bound fast by indissoluble
bonds to his idols, so that it could not be plucked thence.
PROP. iv. To have the heart under the dominion of the world argues
predominant love thereto.Such is the nature of love, that it subjects
the lover to the thing beloved ; specially if it be loved for itself. It is
true, love to God gives us a dominion over all things beneath us; but
18 INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOVE OF GOD.
651
love to the world brings the heart into subjection to it. what an
imperious, tyrannic sovereignty has the world over those that love it!
What slaves are worldlings to the world, through love to it! Whatever
the heart inordinately cleaves unto, it is under the dominion of: so Hosea
iv. 11: "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart."
There is a great emphase in the Hebrew rrps, " will take away;" which
notes first a contest or conflict, and then the conquest which these
sensual objects make over the heart that adheres to them.
PROP. v. To spend the beat of our time, thoughts, studies, core, and
endeavour for the procuring or conserving [pf~\ worldly goods, denotes
predominant love to the world.This seems to be the case of some carnal
Jews, after the return from Babylon : " Is it time for you, 0 ye, to dwell
in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?" (Haggai i. 4.) In your
ceiled homesOr houses curiously wainscotted, and adorned, not only for
use, but luxury and pleasure. Whence it is aptly rendered, by the LXX.,
/tfcoif. As if he had said : " Is this time a time for yon, ye
sensualists, to spend so much time, study, care, cost, and other expenses,
in trimming and adorning your stately houses, not only for use, but
delight and luxury, while the house of the Lord lies waste?" This piece
of love to the world our Lord cautions professors of these last days
against: " And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and
so that day come upon you unawares." (Luke xxi. 34.) , 'to
overcharge," answers to "lODfr, " to harden," as it appears by the LXX.
on Exod. viii. 15, 32; which is also rendered by -^, Exod. x. 1.
So that jSapwveorflai here signifies such an overcharging of the heart, with
complacential thoughts and amusements about worldly things, as takes
away all sense of divine concerns: thence it follows, " with surfeiting and
drunkenness." These two denote all sensual pleasures. Then follows,
" and cares of this life :" hereby are signified all distracting, distrustful,
anxious cares about provision for this life; which are elsewhere styled "the
cares of this world," as Matt. xiii. 22. This part of predominant love to
the world is termed, " minding the things of the flesh." (Rom. viii. 5.)
4>f oveiv, " to mind," according to Paul's phraseology, doth not so much
regard the simple act of the mind, as the complacential thoughts, studious
contrivements, and solicitous cares of the heart; such as naturally follow
a carnal constitution or frame of heart, and bespeak the man to be under
the dominion of predominant love to the world. For when all a man's
thoughts, inclinations, affections, studies, and cares pay tribute to the
flesh, what is he but a slave to the flesh ? Thence it follows: To , tijs (verse 6;) * the complacential amusement, contrivement, study, and care of the flesh. here is the same with
IXs, Gen. vi. 5 ; " the figment" or contrivement of the heart. These
carnal world-minders are well described by Paul: " Who mind earthly
things:" (Phil. iii. 19 :) , that is, they amuse themselves in the
complacential thoughts and study of terrene things: they have no gust,
savour, or relish, but of such; they are under the serpent's curse,to
lick the dust.
* The marginal rendering is, " For the minding of the flesh " is death.EDIT.
652
SERMON III.
PROP. vi. Another branch of predominant love to the world is, to make
the creature the object or matter) not only of our use, but also of our
supreme fruition, complacence, and satisfaction.So much is implied in
our text, , Make not the world the object of your entire
contentment, acquiescence, and satisfaction ; draw not your choicest
comforts and delights from terrene goods. There is some kind of contentment and complacence in worldly goods, which may consist with the
love of God; hut when the heart makes any worldly good the entire
or main object of its fruition and satisfaction, this denotes predominant
love to the world. For Divine Wisdom hath put this law or order into
things,that all creatures are to he the object of our use, but God
himself the supreme object of our fruition and satisfaction : whence, to
make any creature the chief matter of our fruition and satisfaction, what
is it but to violate and pervert the order of the creation, and set up the
creature in the place of the Creator 1 And doth not this bespeak predominant love to the creatures ? This our Lord elegantly describes in
that parable of the rich glutton, Luke xii. 1519. You have the scope
of the parable in verse 15 : " Beware of covetousness." here,
as elsewhere, signifies an avaricious greedy humour or desire of having
abundance, not only for use, but to pamper lust, the metaphor being
taken from the plethora or excess of any humour in the body. And our
Lord adds the reason of this caution : " For a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possessetb." The sense seems
this: All these lower things, which man's covetous heart doth so much
lust after, are not the matter of our fruition and satisfaction, but use
only; therefore our life doth not consist in the abundance of them, but
in an ordinate love to and moderate use of them ; to use them in that
measure, and with that mediocrity, as becomes them: whence they who
make them the chief matter of their fruition and satisfaction, are possessed with a predominant love unto them. This is exemplified in the
following parable of the rich man, specially in verse 18:" All ray fruits
and my goods." He calls them his " goods," as they were the main
object of his complacence and delight. So, verse 19: "I will say to my
soul," that is, I will then recreate and satiate mine heart with mine
acquired goods: whence it follows : " Take thine ease ;" Avetvotuov,
Recreate, refresh thine heart, acquiesce in them. Poor man! he had
felt sufficient anxiety, solicitude, and vexation in the acquirement of his
goods, but now he hopes the fruition will crown all with sweet repose,
rest, and satisfaction. Thence he adds: " Eat, drink, and be merry."
The last term, , " be merry," seems to refer to all manner
of sensual pleasures, in which voluptuous, luxurious persons take so much
complacence and delight. This fruition of and complacence in worldly
goods, our Lord doth express in plain, naked terms, in the reddition
of the parable in verse 21 : " So is he that layeth up treasure for himself ;" that is, in worldly goods, which he makes the main object of his
satisfaction; "and is not rich toward God;" that is, and doth not
make God his treasure, and chief matter of fruition, complacence, and
satisfaction. And what is this but rank, predominant love to the world?
PROP. vn. To be qflicted and troubled for the loss of any creature-
18 INCONSISTENT WITH LOVB OF GOD.
653
comfort, more than for the low of God and things epiritualt denote* predominant love to the world.A our love is, such is our sorrow for the
loss of what we love. Immoderate affliction for the loss of any worldly
thing argues inordinate affection to it when enjoyed : and if the heart be
more afflicted and troubled for the loss of the creature than for the loss
of God, it is a sure sign that the enjoyment of it did more affect and
please the heart, than the enjoyment of God. This was Israel's case,
Isaiah xvii. 10, 11; where the prophet compares the state of Israel, in
her apostasy, to a curious lady, that delighteth in beautiful flowers,
choice fruits, and pleasant plants. But he concludeth: "The harvest
shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." Now this
" desperate sorrow," or " deadly pain," (as tinax 3N3 importeth,) for the
loss of her pleasant idols argues predominant love to them. This also
was the case of the young man in Luke xviii. 23: " And when he heard
this," that is, verse 22, that he must part with all his riches for a
treasure in heaven, "he was very sorrowful." FlefiXuiro;, "He was
sorrowful in a superlative degree;" for so here in composition
signifies, which is not (as some conceive) a preposition, but adverb
intending* the sense. And what filled him with this extreme desperate
sorrow? Why, surely, thoughts of parting with his goodly treasure,
which he valued and loved, more than treasures in heaven. They that
cannot support themselves under the privation of any temporal good
[which] God calls for, but choose rather to part with heaven than with
their beloved idol, are under predominant love to the world.
But here, to obviate mistakes, we must distinguish, 1. Between
predominant principle or habit, and a prevalent act of love to the world;
as, 2. Between a rational and passionate love or sorrow. 1. One that
loves God may, under a fit of temptation, be under a prevalent act,
though not under predominant principle or habit of love to the world.
2. Hence his passionate love to, and sorrow for the loss of, some temporal good may be greater, under some distemper of heart, when his
rational love to, and sorrow for the loss of, God and things spiritual is
greater, at least in the root and habit, if not in the act.
SECTION IV.
WHAT IT IS TO LOVE GOD?
QUEST, in. What it is to love God?

This question receives much evidence and light from what precedes,
touching love to the world. For contraries illustrate each other; and
love to God moves in the same manner as love to the world moves. So
that to love God, is to transfer the actions and passions of our love from
the world to God, as our last end and cbiefest good. In short, the love
of God implies a superlative preference of God above all lower goods;
(Luke xiv. 26;) a divine weight or bent of heart towards God, as our
centre. (Deut. vi. 5.) Its proper acts are chiefly two: 1. An amorous,
vehement direct motion towards God: 2. A complacential fruition
of and repose in God as its best Beloved. (Psalm cxvi. 7.) As for the
adjuncts of this divine love, it must be, 1. Sincere and cordial: (Eph.
vi. 24:) 2. Judicious and rational: (Psalm xvi. 7:) 3. Intimate and
* That is, giving intensity to the meaning. See the note in p. 600.EDIT.
654
SERMON III.
passionate: 4. Pare and virgin: (Canticles v. 3:) 5. Regular and uniform:

6. Generous and noble: 7. Permanent and abiding: 8. Vigorous and
active: 9. Infinite and boundless. Divine love thus qualified brings the
soul into, 1. An inviolable adherence unto and amorous union with God.
(Eph. v. 31, 32.) 2. It works the heart to an amorous resignation
of all concerns unto God. 3. It commands the whole soul into the
obedience of God. (John xiv. 21, 23.) 4. It is exceeding submissive
unto God's providential afflictive will. (Lev. x. 3.) 5. It is extremely
vigilant, cheerful, and diligent in the service of God. 0 how officious is
love to God! (Luke vii. 37.) 6. It useth all things in subordination to
God. (Matt. vi. 33, 34.) 7. It winds up the soul to a divine life; it
transforms the lover into the image and imitation of God, whom he
loves. (Eph. v. 1.) These particulars I intended to have handled more
fully; but, understanding that this case touching the love of God is the
proper task of another,* I shall refer thee to the resolution of that
reverend divine's case.

SECTION V.
WHEREIN THE LOVE OF THE WORLD IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOVE OF GOD.
QUEST, iv. Wherein the love of the world is inconsistent with the love
of God ?
Having explicated the sundry parts of our case, we now come to the
connexion of the whole; namely, to demonstrate the inconsistency
of love to the world with the love of God. What love it is that is inconsistent with the love of God, we have already fully opened, in the second
question, touching predominant love to the world. Wherefore the only
thing at present incumbent on us is, to show wherein predominant love
to the world is inconsistent with the love of God.
PROP. i. Predominant love to the world is contrary to and therefore
inconsistent with the love of God.This seems evidently implied in our
text: " If any man love the world," &c. John brings this as a reason
of bis prohibition; namely, that predominant love to the world, and
love to God, are perfectly opposite, and therefore, by the rule of contraries, incoherent, and inconsistent. The like [does] Matthew vi. 24:
" No man can serve two masters : for either he will hate the one, and
love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon." These words are a good comment
on our text, and clearly demonstrate the inconsistence of love to the
world with the love of God. I shall therefore a little insist on them.
The design of our Lord here is the same with that of John in our text;
namely, to take-off professors from inordinate, predominant love to the
world, and bring them to a divine affection unto and living on God, as
their portion and treasure; as Matt. vi. 1923. And in verse 24, he
shows the inconsistence of love to the world with love to God, in that
the world and God are contrary lords, who require each the whole heart
and man. This will more fully appear if we examine the particulars.
He saith, No man can serveIt is not s%siv, "have," but ,
"serve." Now to serve another, according to the laws and customs
of those times and nations, was to have no power or right to dispose
*See the first sermon in this " Supplement," by Dr. Annesley, pp. 572621.EDIT.
I INCONSISTENT WITH THB LOVK OF GOD.
655
of himself, or any thing that belonged to him; bat to live and depend
merely on the pleasure of his master. Such a service could not be
given to God and the world. Why? 1. Because they are two masters;
that is, in eolidum, each of which require the whole heart and man.*
2. Because they are two contrary masters: [one of] which commands us
to esteem, love, and endeavour after worldly treasures, more than
heavenly: God commands us to esteem, love, and endeavour after heavenly treasures, more than earthly.f The world commands you to
engage no farther -in matters of religion than may consist with its
interest: but Christ commands you to part with all worldly interest for
himself. The world commands you to take your fill of the creature; to
suck-out the sweets thereof, and feed your hearts therewith: but Christ
commands you to use this world as if you used it not; (1 Cor. vii. 31;)
to affect an universal privation of these lower goods, even whilst you

enjoy them ; to give [to] perishing things, perishing thoughts,
esteem, and desires; to bid farewell to all things, so far as they are a
snare to yon, or a sacrifice that God calls for. Again: the world commands you to endeavour the greatening of your names and reputation :
but Christ commands you to glory in nothing but his cross, to accouut
abasement for Christ your greatest honour. Lastly: the world commandeth you not to be scrupulous about small sins, but to take your
liberty and latitude: but Christ commandeth you to dread the least sin,
more than the greatest suffering. Now, how contrary and inconsistent
are these masters in their commands! Is it possible, then, that we
should be masters of such contrary loves? 0 how doth love to the
world eat-out love to God t
PROP. ii. Predominant love to the world it inconsistent with the love
of God, in that it robe God of that love and honour which is due to him
a the Sovereign Chirfeet Good.According to what measure the heart
turns to the world and its concerns, in the same measure it turns from
God and his concerns. When the heart is full of the world, how soon is
all sense of and love to God choked! how is the mind bemisted, and
will charmed, with the painted, heart-bewitching shadows of the world!
This was Israel's case: " Israel is an empty vine," ppO }> (Hosea
z. 1.) Expositors have variety of conceptions on these words; but the
most simple sense seems this: Israel is " an evacuant, luxuriant vine," $
which seems to bring forth such abundance of fruit, as if she would
empty herself of all her juice and fruits at once; so richly laden with
fruit doth she seem to be.
Ay, but what fruit is it?
unto herself," rotten, corrupt fruit.

on God, but on her idols.
Surely "fruit
Her heart and love is not bestowed
So it follows in verse 2: " Their heart is
* Inielligendum ett hoe proverbium de dominie in soRdum , quomodo et jurisconsult*

dicunt non posse duos ease dominos ejusdem rei.GBOTIUS. " This proverb must be
understood concerning those masters who hold the full and entire property in any thing or
person: in which manner, the professors of law declare, two men cannot be complete
lords over the same thing.".EDIT.

OvScts Swarm Swrt * 9w\tvtur ciwria
yof firiToerTowriv. \tyci, Kfvwrov cnrtp . Meyt/uwar Aryw, Aaffe
KOI mrtp mat e;*cij.CHHYSOSTOMUS. "'No man can serve two masters;' for their
commands are opposite and conflicting. Christ says to his servant,' Part with all thy possessions.' Mammon says to his, 'Grasp even those things which thou dost not yet pos-
sess.'".EDIT.
j Vitis evacuans.
656
SERMON III.
divided;" that is, this beloved idol hath one part, that another; and
thus God is robbed of that esteem and love which is due to him.
PROF. in. Love to the world breeds confidence in the world, whereby
the heart is turned oft from its dependence on God, as its first Cause.
And 0, how inconsistent is this with the love of God! God, as he is
our Last End in point of fruition, so also our First Principle or Cause in
point of dependence. Now love to the world turns the heart from God
to the world, not only as the last end, but also as the first cause. They
that love the world cast the weight of their souls and cbiefest concerns
on the world; and so bid adieu to God. This confidence in worldly
things is inconsistent with salvation, and so with the love of God; as:
" How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom
of God!" (Mark x. 24.) This rhetoric interrogation implies a logic
negation; namely, that it is impossible for one that in a prevalent
degree trusteth in his riches, to enter into the kingdom of God. So :
" Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in
the abundance of his riches, and strengthened," or fortified, " himself in
his wickedness," or substance. (Psalm lii. 7.) The like [see in] Prov.
xi. 28; Ezek. xvi. 15; 1 Tim. vi. 17.
PROP. iv. Love to the world is fiat idolatry, and herein also inconsistent with the love of God.So Eph. v. 5 : " Nor covetous man, who is
an idolater." The same [in] Col. iii. 5 : " And covetousness, which is
idolatry." Covetousness is, in a peculiar manner, branded with this
black mark of idolatry, in that it doth expressly proclaim a love to the
world as its last end, and confidence in it as its first cause. So Paul
saith of voluptuous persons, they that make "their belly their god,"
(Phil. iii. 19,) because they love pleasures more than God. (2 Tim. iii. 4.)
And indeed every lover of the world is a god-maker: so many lusts as
men have, so many gods. The lust of the flesh makes pleasures its god;
the lust of the eye worships riches as its god; and the lust of pride
exalte some created excellence in the place of God. 0 how do worldlings
lose the true God in the crowd of false gods!
PROP. v. Love to the world is spiritual adultery, and thence incoherent
with the love of God.The jealousy of God will not admit of any corrival
in the bent of the heart. But 0, how doth love to this world run
a-whoring after other lovers! So Ezek. xvi. 18, 38; xxiii. 5, 11 : "And
Aholah played the harlot when she was mine," &c. The like, James iv.
4: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God?" Which implies, that love to and
friendship with this whorish world is spiritual adultery, and so hatred
against God. how soon are those that love the world killed by its
adulterous embraces! Hence,
PROP. vi. Love to the world is a deliberate, contrived lust, and so
habitual enmity and rebellion against God.Acts of lust, which arise from,
sudden passions, though violent, may consist with the love of God; but a
deliberate bent of heart towards the world, as our supreme interest, cannot. The single act of a gross sin, arising from some prevalent temptation,
speaketh not such an inveterate bitter root of enmity against God, as predominant love to the world. " Whosoever therefore will be the friend of
18 INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOVB OF GOD.
657
tile world is the enemy of God." (James IT. 4.) bow much of con
tempt, rebellion* and enmity against God, is there in friendship and love
to the world!
PROP. TII. Love to the world form our profession into a subservience
unto our worldly interest, and so make religion to stoop unto, yea, truckle
under, lust.Now, what can be more inconsistent with the love of God
than this? This was the case of the carnal Jews: "With their month
they show much love but their heart goeth after their covetoosness."
(Ezek. xxziii. 31.) They show mnch love in profession; but, how little
have they of sincere affection! And why? Because their avaricious
hearts made the whole of their profession to conform to their worldly
interest. Thus also it was with unbelieving Jews in our Lord's time:
" But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yon." (John v. 42.)
I know you.There lies a great emphase in that YOU : You who profess
so mnch, and yet have so little love in you. They had much love to God
in their month, but none in their heart: this appeareth by verses 43, 44,
where our Lord tells them in plain terms, that their worldly honour and
interest was the only measure of their profession. This also was the
measure of Judas's religion, (John xii. 5, 6,) where he pretends mnch love
to the poor, but really intends nothing bnt the gratifying his avaricious
humour. The like Hosea z. 11: " Epbraim loveth to tread out the corn,"
&c.: because there was profit, liberty, and pleasure in that. But Ephraim
loved not ploughing work, because that brought her under a yoke, and
bronght-in no advantage to her. Love to the world brings us under subjection to it, and so takes us off from the service of God. What we inordinately love and cleave unto, we are soon overcome by. Now subjection
to the world, and subjection to God, are inconsistent. (Matt. vi. 24.)
PROP. vin. Love to the world i the root of all tin ; and therefore
what more inconsistent with the love of God?To love God is to hate
evil; (Psalm zcvii. ID;) therefore to love evil, either in the cause or
effect, is to hate God.
Now love to the world has not only a love for, bnt also a causal influence
on, all sin. And that, 1. As it exposeth men to the violent incursion and
assault of every temptation. So, 1 Tim vi. 9: "But they that will be
rich," O! St /SowXoftevoi, they that have their wills biased with a violent
bent or vehement weight of carnal love towards riches* This Solomon
expresseth, (Prov. xxviii. 22,) by hasting to be rich. What befalls such ?
Why, saith Paul, " such fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition:" and then he gives the reason and cause of it: "For the love
of money is the root of all evil," &c.; (1 Tim. vi. 10;) that is, there
is no sin bnt may call the love of money " father:" whence Philo calls it
; fwjTpo*oXif, " the metropolis of evil."
2. Love to the world is the cause of all sin, in that it blind and darken the mind, which opens the door to all sin.Tt is an observation of the
prudent moralist, " that every lover is blind about that he loves ;"* which
he himself interprets, of love to lower goods. And how true is this
of those that love the world! What a black veil of darkness is there on
* w*pt /?.PL DT AKCHUS.
658
SERMON III. WHEREIN THE LOVE OF THE WORLD
their minds as to what they love! Hence Paul calls each men's lore
"foolish lusts." (I Tim. vi. 9.) They are indeed foolish, not only
eventually, but causally, as they make men fools and sots.
3. Love to the world stifle all convictions, breaks all chains and bars
of restraining grace, and so opens a more effectual door to all sin.We
find a prodigious example hereof in Balaam, Num. xxii. 2240: where

you see at large, how his predominant love to " the wages of unrighteousness0 (2 Peter ii. 15) stifled all those powerful convictions of and
resolutions against sin [which] he lay under.
4. Love to the world is the disease and death of the soul, and therefore
the life of sin." She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth."
(1 Tim. v. 6.)
5. Love to the world pollute our whole being.*Animal passions
defile the soul: inordinant lustings after things lawful pollute the most
of professors, more or less.
6. Love to the world puts the whole soul, yea, world, into wars, confusion, and disorders.So, James iv. 1: " From whence come wars and
fightings among you ? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in
your members?" Ex ifiovcov, "of your pleasures/' that is, by a
metonymy, from your lusts after pleasures and superfluous things. That
war in your members.Hence note, that all extern wars and confusions
come from the wars and confusions of intern lust in the heart. Now all
intern wan and disorders are inconsistent with the love of God, which is
peaceable and orderly. In these regards, love to the world impedes and
hinders the love of God.
PROP. ix. Love to the world is inconsistent with the love of God, in
that it causeth apostasy from God.The conversion of the heart to the
creature always implies its aversion from God. He that cannot part with
the world, will soon part with God. The world draws men from God at
pleasure; because it doth engross your best time, thoughts, affections, and
strength in its service. How many professors, by being bewitched with
love to the world, have lost many hopeful blossoms and beginnings of love
to God! How little do spiritual suavities savour with carnal hearts!
Yea, do not the flesh-pleasing sweets of this world make all the delices
of heaven seem bitter to a sensual worldling! What makes the heart
poorer, as to things divine, than the love of worldly riches? How is the
honour of Christ and religion degraded in that heart, which affects worldly
honours! What more powerfully stains the glory of a Christian profession,
than an ambitious affectation of mundane glory ? Where is that professor,
who has his heart engaged in the world without being defiled by it, if not
drowned in it ? The world is filled with such a contagious air, as that
our love is soon poisoned and infected by it. Love to the world is the
devil's throne, where he lords it; the helm of the ship, where he sits and
steers the soul hell-wards. This was the bitter root of Lot's wife [in] her
apostasy from God. So, Gen. xix. 26: " But his wife looked back from
* Amor et quidam ingressus animi in rem amatam, qua, sifverii ipso amante ignobi.
Kor, pollnit dignitatem ejus.JAHSENII Augustinus. "Love is a kind of entrance
of the soul into something which is the object beloved, and which, if fa. less noble nature
than the lover himself, pollutes his worthiness and dignity."EDIT.
659
behind him." She had left her heart in Sodom; and thence she looks
back after it, contrary to God's command in verse 17. And what was
the issue of her apostasy? "She became a pillar of salt;" that is, she
partook of Sodom's plague, which was " brimstone, and salt, and burning." (Dent. xxix. 23.) The storm which fell on Sodom overtook her,
and turned her into " a pillar of salt," as a standing monument of God's
justice on apostates, who love the world more than God. Whence saith
our Lord, " Remember Lot's wife." (Luke xvii. 32.) What made Judas
and Demas apostatize, but love to the world ? As man at first fell from
God by loving the world more than God, so he is more and more engaged
in this apostasy by love to the world.
PROP. x. Love to the world transforms a man into the spirit and humour
of the world, which is inconsistent with the love of God.Love makes us
like to, and so one with, what we love. For all love aims at unity; and
if it comes short thereof, yet it leaves similitude, which is imperfect unity :
whence, by love to the world, men become like to and one with it.
" He that loves the earth is earthly."911 (Rom. viii. 8, 9.) A worldly man
is called a fleshly man; because his very soul becomes fleshly. His heart
is drowned in and incorporated with the world; his spirit becomes incar-
;
.
nate with the flesh.

PROP. xi. Tea, love to the world transforms a man into a beast, and
to makes him altogether incapable of love to God.So, Psalm xUx. 20 :
" Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that
perish." This verse is an epiphonema to the psalm, with which he concludes, that a man, though never so great in the world, yet, if his heart
cleave unto it, he is no better than a beast. Albeit he be a man by
nature, yet he is a beast by affection and operation. Yea, what shall I
say ? Love to the world transforms a man into worse than a beast. For
it is better to be a beast, than like to a beast. As love to God, the Best
Good, makes us better than the best of other men ; so love to the world,
which is the worst evil, makes men worse than the worst of beasts.
Love to the world is ecstatic as well as love to God: and the more the
heart cleaves to the world, the less power has it to return to God, or itself.
I
\
\
\
!
SECTION VI.
I
>
[
THE APPLICATION OF THE SUBJECT.
Having stated and explicated the case before us, we now descend to
the several improvements that may be made thereof, both by doctrinal
corollaries, and practic uses,
\
I. DOCTRINAL COROLLARIES.
\
.
;
I
1
\
I
\
As for the doctrinal corollaries or inferences that may be deduced from

the precedent discourse, they are various and weighty. I shall only mention such as more immediately and naturally flow therefrom.
1. By comparing the love of God with the love of the world in their
universal ideas and characters, we learn how much the love of God doth
excel and transcend the love of the world.Our love is by so much the
more perfect, by how much the more noble and spiritual its object is;
and by how much the more eminent degree it obtains in the subject.
\
* Si terram anuu, terra ee.AUGUST IN us.
660
SERMON III.
WHEREIN THE LOVE OP THE WORLD
The greatness of the object intendeth* the affection; and how much
doth this raise the value of love to God above worldly love!
Is not God the most absolutely necessary simple Being, very Being, yea,
Being itself, and therefore most perfect? Whence, is he not also our
Last End, our Choicest Good, every way desirable for himself? Then,
what an excellent thing is love to God, who is so amiable! But as for
this world, what a dirty whore, what an heart-ensnaring thing, is it! And
thence, how much is our love abased by terminating thereon! The love
of God is pure and unspotted. But, 0 how filthy and polluted is love
to the world! What more cordial and sincere than love to God ? But,
alas! how artificial, painted, and hypocritic is love to this deceitful world!
0 how judicious, wise, and discreet is love to God! What abundance
of solid, deep, and spiritual reason has it in its bowels I But 0 what a
brutish, sottish passion is love to the world I How foolish are all its lusts!
(I Tim. vi. 9.) What a generous and noble affection is love to God I
But what more sordid and base than love to this vile world ? Love to God
is regular and uniform. But, 0 what irregularities and confusions
attend love to the world! How masculine, puissant, and potent is love
to God! But, alas! how effeminate, impotent, and feeble is love to the
world! What more solid and substantial than love to God? and what
more vain and empty than love to the world? It deserves not the name
of " love," but " lust." Worldly-minded men have a world of lusts; but
what have they to fill them, save a bag of empty wind, and vexatious
vanities ? Love to God is most temperate, natural, and so beautiful. But,
ah! what preternatural, excessive, and prodigious heats are there in love
to the world! How is the mind clarified and brightened by love to God!
But how is it Demisted and darkened by love to the world! Divine
love is the best philosopher, and master of wisdom. The love of God
amplifies and widens the heart. But the love of the world doth confine
and narrow it. By love to God we become lords over all things beneath
ourselves. But love to the world brings us into subjection to the most
base of persons and things. Worldly-minded men can neither obey nor
command their lusts: they cannot obey them, because they are infinite and
oft contrary: they cannot command them by reason of their own feebleness. Love to God is tranquil and serene; but love to the world, tempestuous and turbulent. Love to God gives repose and quiet to the soul;
but love to the world fills it with perpetual agitations, inquietude, and restless motions, without end. Worldly love is a leesive-f passion, but divine
love perfective of him that loves. In sum, love to God is of the same
nature with God, and therefore the most express character of the image
of God; the first-born of faith, the soul of other graces; the rule of our
actions, a summary of the law; an angelic life; a prelibation of heaven;
a lively mark of a child of God; for we may read God's love to us in our
love to him. But, 0 how opposite and black are the characters of love
to the world! Nothing deserves the name of love, but that to God.
* Gives intensity to " the affection. EDIT.
f In the signification of hwtfnt>
or prejudicial. This old word in too good end expressive to come into neglect end
desuetude; the only surviving branch of the family with us being the legal term fesio,
an "injury."EDIT.
661
2. Hence also infer, that love to God, and love to the world, divide
all mankind.There ia no middle state between theee two oppoeites;
neither can they ever consist together in their perfect degrees. If tbou art
a lover of the world, in John's sense, thou art a hater of God; and if thou
lovest God, thou art a hater of the world. Hereby, then, thou mayest make
a judgment of thy state, whether thou art a saint or a sinner, a godly or
worldly man. And remember this, that to love any worldly good more
than God, is, in the scripture's sense, to hate God. (Matt. vi. 24.)
3. This also instructs us, that all natural, irregenerate men's love ie but
concupiscence or lust.Do not all men in their natural state prefer the
creature before the Creator ? Are not the pleasures, profits, and honours
of this world the worldly man's trinity, which he adoreth, and sacrificeth
unto? Have not all men, by nature, a violent, impetuous bent of heart
towards some one or other worldly idol ? Are not their souls bound up
in something below God? Do not all men naturally esteem,,love, use,
and enjoy the creature for itself, without referring it to God ? And what
is this but lust ?
4. We are hence likewise taught, that a regular and ordinate love to
and use of this world's good it very difficult and rare.Alas! how soon
doth our lore to creatures grow inordinate, either as to its substance,
quantity, quality, or mode! Yea, how oft and how soon doth our love
to things lawful grow irregular and unlawful! What an excess are most
men guilty of in their love to and use of things indifferent! How few are
there who, in using this world, do not abuse it, as I Cor. vii. 31! Where
is that person that can say, with Paul ?" Every where and in all things
I am instructed both to abound and to suffer want." (Phil. iv. 12.)
5. This also informs us, that where predominant love to the world is
notorious, visible, and manifest, we cannot, by any rule of judicious
charity, count such a godly ma.It was a canon common among the
Jews, mentioned by Rabbi Salome, that " the people of the earth are not
called godly;"41 that is, "The lovers of the world may not be called
saints." And, how many worldly professors are cut off from the
number of visible saints hereby! It is to me a dismal contemplation, to
consider how many follow Christ in profession, and yet have the black
mark of worldings on their foreheads. 0 how much love to the world lies
hid under the mask and vizard of professed love to God! It is not the
having or possessing of the world's goods, but the over-loving of them,
that bespeaks you worldlings. It is true, a saint may foil under many
preternatural heats, yea, fevers, of love to the world ; yet, in time, love to
God, as a stronger fire, expels such violent heats and noxious humours.
6. Hence in like manner we may collect, that worldly-minded
professor* are composed of a world of contradiction and inconsistencies.
Such love God in profession; but hate him in truth and affection.
Their tongues are tipped with heaven; but their hearts are drenched in
the earth. They pretend to serve God; but they intend nothing but to
serve their lusts. They make a show of confidence in God ; but place
their real confidence in the world. They make mention of God in
name; but exalt the world in heart. They conform to the laws of God
* Popuivt terra non voeatur vsn, hasti.
662
SERMON III.
in outward show ; but conform to, yea, are transformed into, the world in
spirit. Finally: they hate sin, and love God, in appearance ; but they
hate God, and love sin, in reality. (Ezek. xxxiii. 31.)
7. This also instructs thus, that for professors of love to God to be
deeply engaged in the love of this world is a sin of deep aggravation.0
^hat a peculiar malignity is there in this sin! How much light and
love do such sin against! What a reproach and disparagement is cast
on God hereby! Are not profane worldlings justified in their earthlymindedness by the worldly love of professors ? Yea, do they not hereby
take occasion to blaspheme the holy name of God? "Lo!" say they,
" these are your professors, who are as covetous, as over-reaching
their dealings, as much buried in the earth, as any other." And is not
God hereby greatly dishonoured ? Do not such worldly professors live
below their principles, profession, convictions, covenant-obligations, and
the practice of former professors ?
8. This gives us the genuine reason and cause why the word of God, and
all the good things contained therein, find so little room in the hearts
of many great professors.It is to me a prodigious thing to consider,
among the crowd of notional professors and hearers of God's word, how
few entertain the same in a honest heart. And where lies the main
bitter root of this cursed infidelity, but in love to the world ? So, Mark
iv. 18, 19: "And these are they which are sown among thorns; such
as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and
it becometh unfruitful." It deserves a particular remark, that the thornyground hearers, here characterized, are ranked in the highest form
of notional hearers, as much surpassing the highway-ground or stonyground hearers. For in these thorny-ground hearers the word takes
some root, yea, with some depth; and so springs up into a blade, and
green ears; and so endures a cold winter, yea,' a scorching summer's
heat: and yet, after all, it is choked. How so ? Why, by " the cares
of this world," ;., the amorous, distracting, anxious cares. " And
the deceitfulness of riches." 0 what deceitful things are riches! How
soon do they choke the word! " And the lusts of other things,"
namely, pleasures, which deserve not to be named: " For so the
Hebrews were wont to express vile, abominable things, by Other
things.' " * Thence they termed swine, tmrm " other things."
9. Hence also conclude, that such as love the world hate God and
their own souls.That predominant love to the world, in its proper
notion, includes the hatred of God, is evident from the whole of our
discourse. That it implies also hatred of ourselves, is manifest, because
the hatred of God includes love to death, and so, by consequence, the
hatred of our own souls. As, Prov. viii. 36 : " All they that bate me
love death ;" that is, in its causes. 0 how cursed are such as cry up
the world, and cry down Christ!
10. Lastly: this case, as before stated, is a good key to open tome
dark and hard sayings in scripture.As that, Matt. xix. 24: " It is
* Solenne fuit Hebrms uti voce 1ft " /it " quotiescunque rem abominandam taoiti
iimuunt.HOITINGERI Thesaurus Philologicus, p. 51.
IB INCONSISTENT WITH THE LOVE OP GOD.
663
easier for ft camel to go through the eye-of a needle, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God." Which is a proverbial speech,
denoting how difficult a thing it is for any rich man, but how impossible
it is for him that has a predominant love to his riches, and so confidence
in them, to enter into the kingdom of God ; as Mark z. 24.
II.
PRACTIC USES.
But to close up this discourse with a few practic improvement and

use.
1. This case, as before stated, serves for the conviction and condemnation of suck who profess love to God, and yet love the world more than God.
Our apostle saith, " Love not the world ;" and yet what do these love
but the world ? Where is the love which these owe to God ? And what
hopes can each have of God's love to them ? Alas! how poor and narrow
is the love of most professors to God! If they have some good liking to
him, yet Tiow far short do they come of fervent love to him! Perhaps
their light and profession are broad; bat, how narrow is their love to
Christ! And do not such as want love for Christ fall under the most
dreadful curse that ever was ? even an Anathema Maranatha, (1 Cor. xvi,
22,) which was the formule of the highest excommunication among the
Jews, mentioned in Enoch's prophecy, (Jude 14,) and imports a bindingover to the great day of judgment at the coming of our Lord. And,
how soon will Christ meet such in a way of judgment, who will not now
meet him in a way of love! Alas! what an hungry Paradise have they
whose love feeds not on Christ, but the things of time! Is there not a
sting in every creature our love dotes on ? what abundance of ingratitude and injustice lies wrapped up in this love to the world I Can there
be greater ingratitude than this, to spend our choicest love on love-tokens,
conferred on us by God to wind up oar hearts to the love of himself?
Is it net also the greatest injustice to give that measure of affection to
the creature which is due to none but the Creator ?
Having so fair an opportunity, I cannot but enter this solemn protestation against all such as, under a profession of love to God, conceal an
adulterous affection to this world. think how soon this world will
hug you to death in its arms, if your hearts attend to its bewitching
charms. Alas! why should sick dreams run away with your hearts?
What are all those things your hearts lust after, but the scum, froth,
dross, and refuse of the creation ? Ah, poor fools! why are your hearts
so much bewitched with the night-visions, whorish idols, or cursed
nothings of time ? Remember how dear you pay for your beloved idols,
how much they are salted with the curse of God.
2. Here is matter of doleful lamentation, that, in days of so much
light, and profession of love to God, men should so much abuse themselves
and the world, by over-loving of it,0 that painted shadow and dirty
clay should run away with our love! Is it not a deplorable case, that
the golden pleasures of this idol-world should find so much room in our
hearts ? Yea, what matter of humiliation is this, that professors of love
to God should lavish away so much time, study, care, and affection on
this perishing world! Would it not make any serious heart to bleed,
664
SERMON III.
WHEREIN THE LOTS OP THB WORLD, &C.
when it considers how much the professors of this age are conformable
to the fashions, humours, and lusts of this world ? 0 what an abominable thing is it, that professors should fall down and worship this great
idol, the world! that the sons of Qod should commit folly with this old
whore, which the sons of men have lusted after so many thousand years!
Alas! what chains and fetters are there in the world's blandishments!
what real miseries in all her seeming felicities! What do all her allurements serve for, but to hide Satan's baits ? Who are they that are most
in love with the world, but those that least know it ? Alas! how little
can this world add to or take from our happiness? What hath this
world to feed our love, but smoke and wind ?
3. Here is also a word of caution for professore, to take heed hew they
make religion and the concerns thereof subservient to worldly interest.
0 what a curse and plague is this, to make the highest excellence subserve the vilest lusts! And yet how common is it! I tremble to think
how far many professors will be found guilty hereof at the last day.
4. But that which I mostly design as the close of this discourse, it
some few words of exhortation and direction unto Christians.
(1.) To labour offer a holy contempt of this dirty, soul-polluting world.
0 what an essential obligation do we all lie under, to contemn the

grandeur and sun-burnt glory of this fading world! What is there in
this world you can call yours ? Can you be content to have your heaven
made of such base metal as mire and clay ? 0 what a transient thing is
all the glory of this perishing world! Consider the argument which our
apostle useth in the words following our text: (1 John ii. 17 :) And the
worldThat is, all the splendour, pomp, beauty, pleasures, and grandeur
of the world. Passeth away, As a scene, whereon men acted
their parts, and then passed away, as 1 Cor. vii. 31. Alas! were the
world guilty of no other defect but this, that it passeth away, what a
strong argument is this for the contempt thereof! Again : remember,
this world is but your prison, and place of pilgrimage. And, 0 how
scornful and disdainful is the pilgrim's eye! With how much scorn doth
he behold other countries! And ought not Christians, with a more
generous disdain, [to] cry out ?" Fie, fie! This dirty world is not like
my celestial Canaan 1" Alas! what have we here to rejoice in but fetter
and chains? How soon doth "the fashion of this world pass away!"
(1 Cor. vii. 31;) that is, the pageant or scene of worldly glory!
(2.) As for you who are rich in this world, consider seriously the
exhortation of Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 1719 ; where having closed his epistle,
he has this divine inspiration injected by the Spirit: " Charge them that
are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to
enjoy ; that they do good, that they be rich in good works," &c. There
were many rich merchants at Ephesus, where Timothy was, who needed
this exhortation; as, I think, many among us.
(3.) Here is a more particular word for merchants, tradesmen, and all
such as are much engaged in the affairs of this world, that they would
take diligent heed that the world do not insinuate and wind itself into
their hearts.0, I beseech yon, keep your hearts far from the walls
SERMON IT.
NOW IS THE TIME.
665
of this pest-house, this love-polluting world. Keep your love in heaven

while your persons are engaged in the world. Let not your hearts smell
of the smoke of this lower house, but of heaven. Beware that your love
do not make its nest in this world, but let it take wing, and rest
nowhere short of heaven, where its treasure is. Follow not the guises
of this soul-polluting world. Let this idol-world be nothing to you; but
God be all in all. Take heed that the multiplicity of worldly affairs
choke not the sense of God. Remember, your best riches consist in the
poverty of your desires. Make use of prosperity to prepare you for
afflictions. Enow, the dearest things must be parted with when God
calls for them; and therefore keep your hearts loose from them. Bring
your natural desires into a narrow compass; but let your hearts be
enlarged towards God. Amuse not your hearts, as children, at the
glistering outside of things; but fear a snare in every comfort. Feed
much on spiritual delights, and that will kill carnal pleasures.
Let your hearts be as the mother-pearl; which, they say, receives no
water but what comes from heaven: let your hearts be open towards
heaven, but shut against the world; let not this great idol enter into
God's temple.
(4.) Lastly: let us all be exhorted, to be in nothing more curious than
about the right placing of our love ; that it be fixed on it right object,
and in a, right manner.Let us get a stamp of grace on all our love, and
then it will become divine. Let us love nothing greatly, but what we
shall love for ever. It was the saying of a serious Jansenist: " I would
never begin to love that which, one day, I must cease to love." Let us
labour after the highest strain of love to God, which is, to love God for
himself, and to love ourselves in God. Our best being lies in God; and
therefore our best love, is to love ourselves in God. As one extreme heat
burns-out another; so let our love to God burn-out our love to the world.
SERMON IV.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM JENKIN, A.M.
MOW is THE TIME: OR, INSTRUCTIONS TOR THE PRESENT
IMPROVING THE SEASON OF GRACE.
We then, a worker* together with him, beseech you oho that ye receive
not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a
time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee .
behold, now is the accepted time j behold, now is the day of salvation.2 Corinthians vi. 1, 2.
SECTION I.
PAUL'S epistles excel both in matter and in method. Their matter is

principally reconciliation through Christ. What subject so sweet, so
profitable ? Their method is by way of doctrine and use: a method
666
SERMON IT.
NOW IS THE TIME.
which if it be despised Paul's writings cannot be duly valued. In the

foregoing verse, the last words of it, he positively asserted the great
doctrine of reconciliation through Christ, and doctrinally propounded it
in these words: " He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
This was his
doctrine. In these two verses immediately following he applieth the
doctrine: " We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also
that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard
thee in a time accepted," &c. In which two verses, there are contained
these three parts:
I. The first is AN EXHORTATION, that they would not "receive the
grace of God in vain," or a caution against their " receiving it in vain."
II. Secondly, THE REASONS that the apostle produceth to back the
exhortation. Those reasons are two:
The first is the reason of his propounding this exhortation; that is,
because " he was a worker together with God."
The second is the reason of their embracing this exhortation ; and that
is in verse 2: " For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and
in the day of salvation have I succoured thee," as it is in Isaiah xlix. 8.
III. Thirdly, you have here THE ACCOMMODATION, or THE APPLICATION of this second reason unto the present state of the Corinthians;
"Behold, now" saith the apostle, "is the accepted time, now is the day
of salvation," that God of old promised unto Christ. Ye enjoy it, ye

live under it; and therefore yon must now improve it to the best advantage of your souls. Now we shall go over these three parts in the way
of explication, that so we may the more profitably handle that part,
which I principally design to insist upon.
I. We shall explain THE EXHORTATION, or the caution that he layeth

down, which is, Not to receive the grace of God in vain. Here we shall
explain two things:
1. We shall show you, what is meant by the grace of God.
2. What is meant by receiving, or not receiving, the grace of God in
vain.
SECTION IT.
1. First. What is meant by the grace of God.

Yon are here to understand by " grace" the doctrine of the gospel,
frequently and fitly in the scripture called "grace;" as in Eph. iii. 2 ;
Col. i. 6 ; Acts xx. 32 ; Titus ii. 11; and in sundry other scriptures the
doctrine of the gospel is called " grace."
And it is called by that name,
for these three reasons:

(1.) Because it is graciously, and out of the free favour of God,
bestowed.Why it is bestowed at all, it is from "grace:" why it is
bestowed upon one age or place rather than another, it is only from God's
free grace and favour. (Rom. xvi. 25, 26.) It is there said to be a
" mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest."
And that in Isai. Ixv. 1: " I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation
that was not called by my name." To these God was pleased by the
gospel to say, " Behold me." He was " found of those that sought him
SERMON IT.
NOW IS THK TIME.
667
not.*' God's argument to bestow the gospel of life upon a person, or a

family, or a place, is merely from his own free good-will.
(2.) The gospel itt catted "grace" because the subject-matter of the
gospel is grace.Whatever it is [which] the gospel promiseth, whatever
privilege or saving benefit is contained in the gospel, is all from grace:
we are "justified freely by his grace." (Rom. iii. 24.) Forgiveness of sin.
It is said to be from " hie rich grace." (Eph. i. 7.) Eternal life.It
is the free gift of God. Effectual vocation.Saving conversion is merely
from grace. We are " called according to his own purpose and grace;
not according to our works." (2 Tim. i. 9.) " Unto you it is given to
believe." (Phil. i. 29.) God giveth repentance. (2 Tim. u. 25.) He
" called me by his grace." (Gal. i. 15.) The saints are "heirs of grace."
(1 Peter iii. 7.) Christ himself, that obtained all the privileges of the
gospel for us, was sent as a token of free grace, free favour, " through
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath
visited us." (Luke i. 78.) " So God loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son." (John iii. 16.) Christ's whole work was to love,
and his whole love was free. We purchase nothing without leaving
of our money behind us. All his saved ones have nothing of their own
but impotency and antipathy, nothing of their own to move God to save
them. The law discovers God's will, and the gospel discovers his good-will.
(3.) The gospel is called "grace" because it is the instrument, under the
Spirit of God, of bestowing the benefits of free grace upon us.It is an
invitation to the benefits of free grace: and it is our warrant of receiving
those benefits, and of applying them. The gospel is not only a story
to tell us what is done, and what is obtained, for believers; but it is a
testament, to cause and to show unto us our interest in them by faith.
We shall lay hold upon it, when He who ordained the gospel doth accompany it. The gospel brings salvation ; (Titus ii. 11;) therefore the
gospel is called " the ministration of righteousness," and " the ministration of the Spirit;" (2 Cor. iii. 8, 9;) the instrument made use of by
the Spirit of God for enabling us to apply the righteousness of Christ,
and all the benefits of free grace contained in it. And so I have opened
the first thing in the exhortation, and shown what we are to understand
by " the grace of God," even the doctrine of the gospel.
SECTION III.
2. The second particular in the exhortation to be opened is, the

receiving thereof in vain.
How is the doctrine of the gospel said to be received in vain ? In the
Greek it is ets xevov. The word signifies to receive it " emptily, unfruitfully unprofitably;" and, indeed, so it is too often received. It is true,
the gospel is to be received, and it cannot save us unless it be received;
and therefore you read several times in the scripture of " receiving " it:
the receiving of the " seed into good ground." (Matt. xiii. 23.) " They
received the word " of God "gladly." (Acts ii. 41.) And, in Acts xi. 1:
"The Gentiles received the word." And, in Acts xvii. l i t "They
received the word with all readiness of mind," with all cheerfulness. So,
in 1 These, i. 6: they " received the word in much affliction."
But as the gospel must be received, so it may be received unprofitably,
668
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIME.
ineffectually, and in vain. And for the opening of this, the gospel may
be said to be received in vain in two respects:
First. In regard of the manner of receiving.
Secondly. In regard of the event or the issue of receiving it.
First. It is received in vain in regard of the manner of receiving it.
1. And that is, when we receive the gospel, but not with an empty
hand.When the grace of the gospel is not so received, as to be empty
of the opinion of onr own works and righteousness. This is a vain,
empty reception; for " the rich " are " sent empty away." (Luke i. 5)
2. It is received in vain when it is not received with the highest estimation and valuation.When it is not looked upon to be " worthy of all
acceptation," as the apostle expresseth it, 1 Tim. i. 15; when it is not
received as a pearl, as a jewel of greatest price. If all be not sold for it,
eoon will it be left for any thing.*
3. When it is not received with the greatest ardency of desire, with
hungering and thirsting after the benefits contained in it.All the inclinations of our souls towards all earthly objects we owe to the benefits
of the gospel; which, if we pursue not ardently, we shall never procure

successfully.)
4. When we do not receive it with a particular fiducial application
of Jesus Christ upon the warrant of the infallible gospel, but only by
a general assent.When we receive it into our heads by light, but do
not receive it into our hearts by faith. When we do not believe with
the heart, but only assent with the head. When we receive it only into
our ears, and into our lips, and into onr professions; but do not receive
it as the good seed, which is to be laid-up in the furrows and the soil
of the soul.
Thus the gospel is received in vain in regard of the manner of receiving it.
Secondly. It is received in vain in regard of the issue, the event,
of receiving its and that several ways:
1. When it is not received so as to purify the heart, as to kill corruption.When this grace of God doth not teach us effectually to " deny
ungodliness and worldly lusts;" when men will have an angelical gospel,
but will live diabolical lives; when they are not thrown into the mould
of the gospel, and have not hearts and practices suitable to it.
2. When it doth not quicken us to new obedience.When there is a
receiving without returning, without any activity for God in holy walking; where there is no "delight in the law of God;" when "his
commandments are grievous;" when the law doth only compel, but the
spirit of the gospel doth not incline, our wills to the obedience of the
gospel; when, by the receiving of the gospel, we are not made a
"willing people," to give up ourselves to God in the ways of duty;
" when faith is not made incarnate," as Luther speaks, " by maintaining
good works." (Titus iii. 8.)
* This sentence, the concluding clause in the next paragraph, and the quotation from
Luther at the bottom of the page, formed no part of die first impression.EDIT.
f The sentiment which the author wished to convey, seems to have been this: " The
same appetency or inclination of the soul which we naturally manifest toward all earthly
object, is due by us, with greater reason, to the benefits of the gospel." &c.EDIT.
SERMON IT.
NOW IS THB TIME.
669
3. When we so receive grace at that it doth not sustain v in our

trouble*, nor bear us up in our sufferings.When it is not a "word
of patience/' as it is called, Rev. iii. 10: "Thou hast keep the word
of my patience." The gospel duly received as to the issue of its reception, maketh us patient to bear whatever is displeasing and ungrateful
unto sense. When we see that the justice of God is satisfied, we can
easily bear the injustice of men. When we see that God's wrath is
appeased towards us, we shall look upon the wrath of man, yea, all
outward troubles, to be cold and feeble.
4. When we to receive grace as not to impart it and communicate it
unto others.If we be living we shall be lively Christians; if we have
the life of grace in us, we shall warm others. If we do no good, it is
a sign we have got no good. If there be a spiritual life bestowed upon
us by the gospel, there is always a seminal virtue, an inclination to
disseminate and to scatter grace among others.
5. And, lastly: Grace is received in vain as to the issue of our receiving
of it, when it is so received, as that thereby we do not obtain salvation.
It is "the gospel of salvation :" but a mere visible owning of the gospel
saveth none. The receiving of it into your houses, into your heads, into
your mouths, brings not any to heaven. Christ will profess to those
that are empty professors, and only have externally, and as to the outward privileges of grace, received the gospel: " I never knew you:
depart from me." (Matt. vii. 23.) We are not only to receive the
privileges of grace, but grace by the privilege, if we expect glory.
Thus I have shown what is meant by the grace of God, and what by the
receiving of it in vain. And this shall serve for explaining the exhortation,
(the first part,) " Eeceive not the grace of God in vain."
SECTION IV.
II. The second part to be opened, is that which contains THB

REASONS of this exhortation: and they are these two:
I. The FIRST is the reason of the apostle's giving this exhortation or
caution against the receiving of the grace of God in vain; namely,
because we are, saith he, " workers together." We read it, " workers
together with him." But in the Greek it is only " workers together,"
not with him. And there are several expositions given of this expression,
" workers together." Calvin thinks that this " working together " doth
intend the working together with the doctrine delivered by the apostle:
as if the apostle intended, that it was his duty, not only to deliver the
truths and the doctrines of the gospel, but to work together with those
truths and doctrines, by way of urging and exhorting, or by urging those
doctrines with exhortations to make them effectual; and therefore, saith he,
Non satis est docere nisi urgeas: " It is not enough doctriually to inform
people what is the truth ; but we must urge it upon them with motives,
inducements, and persuasions," that may make the doctrine embraced.
And the Syriac seems to favour this exposition, which renders the
word , " working together," promoventes hoc negotwm as

if " the work " of doctrinal information " were to be promoted " by arguments and incitements to the embracing of the truth. Others conceive
670
SERMON IV.
NOW 18 THE TIME.
that this " working together" is to be referred to the common mutual

endeavours of ministers, who are to be "fellow-helpers" one with
another: as if the apostle had said, " All we ministers, working together
to further our Master's work in the conversion and salvation of your
souls, beseech you," &c. Chrysostom refers this "working together"
to the mutual endeavours of ministers and people: as if Paul had said,
" We apostles work together with you, to whom we preach, in this work
of your receiving the grace of God, by our exhortations to incite you to
comply with the duties propounded in the gospel." Our English interpreters, by putting- these words "with him," understand the apostle
to intend a working together with God; and indeed ministers are called
"labourers with God." (1 Cor. iii. 9.) I see no reason why we should
reject this exposition, if we take it with tbese two cautions:
(1.) First. Ministers in this working with God must be looked upon
so to use their abilities, as not implanted in them by nature, but bestowed
on them by grace, that so they may be made apt and fit instruments by
the grace of God to work. Therefore the apostle saith, " Who also hath
made us able ministers of the New Testament." (2 Cor. iii. 6.) And so
in 1 Cor. xv. 10: " By the grace of God," aith he, " I am what I am; but
I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me." His power and ability to work he attributes
merely to the grace of God. And all "our sufficiency is of God."
(2 Cor. iii. 5.)
(2.) Secondly. If you take this to be the meaning of it, that we are fellow-workers witA God; you must understand, that what is the main and
principal in this work, which is the bestowing of spiritual life and growth^
must be looked upon as only the work of God, and to come from him ;
and that therein man had no share at all, nor is a co-worker with God
in it. And, as Beza well notes on 1 Cor. iii. 9, we must always observe
carefully a difference between causes subordinate, and causes co-ordinate.
Ministers are to be considered as purely in subordination to God, and as
those whom God is pleased to make use of in the way of his appointment ; not in the way of effectual concurrence with God, as if they could
communicate any power or strength to the working of grace by the
preaching of the word. Subordinate causes ministers are to, not coordinate causes with, God in the great work of producing of our salvation, which God only hath in his own hand, both as to the internal
working of grace in the soul, and the eternal bestowing of glory upon us
in the life to come. There is the first reason opened; that is, the
reason why the apostle doth here give them his exhortation, namely,
" We are workers together with God."
SECTION v.
2. The SECOND is, the reason why the apostle doth put them upon
this great duty of "not receiving the grace of God in vaiu." And that
is taken from that text in Isai. xlix. 8, where there is this promise made
unto Christ: "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in a day
of salvation have I succoured thee." These are the words of the promise
that God the Father maketh unto Christ as Mediator; which is, that, in
SERMON IV.
MOW IS THE TIME.
671
his discharging of the great work of saving his church, God the Father
will answer and succour him, as the Head of the church, and show it by
granting him a day and a time for the bestowing of efficacious grace
upon his members, by making the means of grace effectual for their
salvation;'* which time is here called "an accepted time," and "a day
of salvation:" because this time, and this day, is the time and the day
of God's free favour, in which he will so accept of sinners, as to show
his gracious good-will unto them in accepting of them to life, and in
working by his Son Jesus Christ salvation and deliverance for them.
Now this is a very forcible argument and reason against the receiving
of the grace of God in vain; namely, because there was such a rich
treasure and measure of saving and efficacious grace in the time of the
gospel to be dispensed to the church; therefore they should labour to
have their share in it, and not to receive the gospel of grace vainly and
unprofitably, as they would approve themselves to be the members
of Christ, and those for whom Christ hath prayed unto the Father
that they might have saving grace bestowed upon them. And this
shall serve for opening the second part of this text; namely, the reason
of the apostle's laying down this exhortation, both in regard of himself,
because he was a worker with God; and in regard of the Corinthians,
it was because God the Father had made a promise to Christ the Head
of the church, that grace should be bestowed, saving, effectual grace;
not grace in vain, but grace bringing forth salvation should be afforded,
" in an accepted time and in a day of salvation," by the administration
of the gospel.
SECTION VI,
III. The third part, which is that which I intend to insist upon, is the
apostle's ACCOMMODATION, or his APPLICATION of the foregoing reason,
taken out of Isai. xlix. 8, unto the present state and time of the Corinthians, by giving them this quickening counsel; that, since the
present season of grace which they enjoyed now was " the accepted
time " and " the day of salvation " promised unto Christ for his people,
they should therefore now regard, and for the present improve, it profitably. The sum of the apostle's application is this: Since God hath in
the foregoing reason assigned a certain time and day for the exhibition
and the bestowment of his grace, it followeth, that all times and all days
are not fitted for that purpose, but only the time and the day foretold
by the prophet, in which God would freely accept of sinners and briug
them to salvation; and therefore Paul putteth the Corinthians upon the
present improvement of the season of grace, because God had now
bestowed upon them that accepted time and the day of salvation foretold
in the foregoing reason, which they could not neglect without hazarding
the loss of divine acceptation, and their own eternal salvation.
All that I have further to do is to handle this third part, which is the
apostle's accommodation, or application of the former reason, taken out
of the prophet Isaiah, unto the present state of the Corinthians, by giving
them this quickening counsel; namely, to improve .this present season
of grace, which the prophet foretold of old should be bestowed upon the
672
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIME.
church in the days of the goepel: "Behold, now is the accepted time;
behold, now is the day of salvation." Now this quickening counsel hath
two parts:
1. An awakening incitement to improve the present season of grace.
This awakening incitement is contained in the repeated note thereof
" Behold!" " Behold!" The present season of grace is intended in the
repeated note thereof " Now," " now."
2. A double argument to convince us of the fitness and necessity of this
duty, NOW, FOR THE PRESENT, to improve the season of grace.The
first argument is taken from the fitness of the season for working in it,
and so it is called " the time," " the day."
The second argument is
taken from the advantageousness of the present season to the worker, and
so it is called the " time accepted " and the " day of salvation."
Now all that I shall further do shall be to handle these two arguments : and in the handling of them I shall only endeavour these two
things:
I. To open the sense and meaning of these two arguments.
II. To show the force and strength of both these arguments to engage
8 to improve the present season of grace.
OPENING OF THE FIRST ARGUMENT.
I shall explain the sense of these first two arguments in their order.
And,
FIRST. The sense of the first argument taken from the fitness of the
season for working, as it is called " the time " and " the day."
And,
herein, first, I shall explain the word " time," secondly, the word " day."
SECTION VII.
First. By " time " is not here meant the flux, succession, or continua*
tion of time by minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, which we
call " the space " of time; but by " time," according to the signification
of the word in the Greek, I understand the tempestivity or opportunity
of time. For in the Greek it is , which signifies "season or
opportunity, a time accommodated and fitted to employment;" in which
we may undertake our heavenly business with hope of success. When
time and means meet together in conjunction, then they produce opportunity. This seasonableness or tempestivity of time is therefore, not
unfitly, called by some " the grace of time," " the flower of time," and
" that to time which the flower is to the stalk," vfloj ,
which cream is to the milk, which lustre is to the metal. In civil
undertakings, as trading, ploughing, and sowing, " opportunity is," as one
saith, " the grace of time;" but in spiritual undertakings, opportunity is
the time of grace, the time fitted and suited by God for the benefiting
of our souls by the means of grace. It is as the angel's stirring in the
water, into which he that stepped first was healed. It is as the day of a
prince's audience for the answering of petitions. It is as the opening
of heaven-gates unto them that strive for entrance. It is as the spiritual
market-day for the procuring of saving provisions for our souls, upon
which we are to live for ever.
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIME.
673
SECTION Till.
2. Secondly. The season of grace is called " a day." For the open
ing of this: the word " day " in scripture is sometimes taken for the
natural day, consisting of twenty-four hours, including also the night;
and so it is taken in Christ's directory for prayer, which we commonly call "the Lord's Prayer:"Directory, I say; for I conceive,
with learned Grotius, Christ doth not command verba recitari, " the
words thereof to be repeated;" but " he commands us only to draw
all the matter of our prayers out of it," materiam precum hinc promi
preecipit;wherein, when we pray for our daily bread day by day,
doubtless we pray for what is needful for the night too as well as the
day; for sleep is the bread of the night. Therefore by " day " there,
must be meant the whole natural day, consisting of twenty-four hours.
Sometimes the word " day " is taken for an artificial day distinguished
from the night: " In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost
by night." (Gen. xxxi. 40.) Sometimes the word "day" is taken
improperly and figuratively in the scriptures; and so sometimes it
is taken for an age, and for a year; sometimes for a fit occasion or
season of doing any thing; as in John ix. 4: " I must do the work
of him that sent me, while it is day." And so the season of receiving
good, as well as doing good, is called a day: " If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that concern thy peace:"
(Luke xix. 41, 42 :) that is, in the season wherein they have been
manifested unto thee by roe. So here by " day " I understand the fit
season of procuring salvation by improving the means for obtaining
thereof.
<
t
This briefly for the opening of the first argument, which is the fitness
of the present season of grace for our working : it is called " the time,"
" the day."
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SECTION IX.
OPENING OF THE SECOND ARGUMENT.
SECONDLY. To open the second argument, and that is the advantageousness of the present season to the worker.And it is called " the
accepted time" first, and, secondly, "the day of salvation." I shall
open both these in then: order; and,
1. First. This time is called accepted.The word for "accepted,"
in the Greek -;, in this its composition imports "a well'
pleasing," yea, "a very much accepted time." The Hebrew word
"jlsn ratson, from whence it is taken, signifies "the time of free-grace,
free-favour, or free good-will." It is taken out of Isaiah xlix. 8; and the
Seventy Interpreters, they render it, in Psalm Ixix. 13, ,
" a time of free favour, free good-will;" and Symmachus renders it
XXayijf, "a time of reconciliation;" a time wherein God will graciously accept sinners out of free-grace to be reconciled unto them. For
when time is said here to " be accepted," and " an accepted time," it is
to be understood figuratively, as intending the time wherein God will by
free grace accept of man, or wherein God is pleased, out of his free good
will, to show himself benevolentem hominibus, as Grotius expresseth it.
674
SERMON IV.
MOW 18 THE TIME.
" gracious and favourable to man/' in that way of accepting him through
Christ.
SECTION X.
2. The season of grace is called " the day of salvation" further to

show the advantayeousness of this season unto the improvers thereof.We
must not take " salvation " here so largely as for " deliverance from any
evil or danger," or "the preservation from any trouble or distress."
Nor must we take " salvation" here so strictly and narrowly as to
import only " eternal salvation in heaven;" as it is taken in Rom. xiii.
11:" Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed;" and
" heirs of salvation." (Heb. i. 14.) Nor must you take it so strictly as
to import only " the means of salvation/' as it doth often in the scripture : " The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles." (Acts xxviii.
28.) But salvation in this place comprehends both that happiness
which is perfect and complete in heaven, and also the entrance into it,
and the beginning of it in this life; fitness for salvation here, and tbe
fulness of salvation hereafter. In which sense the Gospel is called the
"gospel of salvation," in Eph. i. 13 ; and "the word of salvation," in
Acts xiii. 26 ; and the " long-suffering of our Lord " is to be accounted
" salvation," in 2 Peter iii. 15: by " salvation" in these places being
meant fitness for eternal salvation by receiving the gospel and improving
the long-suffering of God and the means of grace, and our being brought
to the full fruition of it in glory. So, in this place, " the day of salvation " is that season wherein God bestows an entrance into salvation
here, followed with a full perfection of it hereafter.

And so I have opened the sense of these two arguments, whereby the
apostle urgeth us to the present improvement of the season of grace,
both as this is a season of fitness for working, and so called a time,
a days and as it is a season of advantageousness to tbe worker, and so
called an accepted time, wherein God accepts of sinners to be reconciled
to them, and a day of salvation, by the improving whereof God will
certainly bring his people to the fruition and the perfect participation
of life and salvation in heaven.
THE FORCE OF THE TWO ARGUMENTS.
Now having thus explained and opened the sense of these two arguments, I shall only, IN TBE SECOND PLACE,
Show you the force and strength of them both distinctly, to engage
us to a present improvement of the season of grace.
SECTION XI.
FORCE OF THE FIRST ARGUMENT.
(I.) And, FIRST, I shall show you the force of the first argument;
and that is the fitness of this present season of grace for our working and
employment.It is, saith the apostle, 1. The time, 2. The day.
1. It is the time.I showed you, in the explaining of the sense of the
first argument, the meaning of the word " time." I told you it did
clearly import tempestivity, opportunity, the flower, the cream, the lustre
the beauty, of time. But how doth this consideration, that the present
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THB TIMK.
67&
season of grace is the time of opportunity, nrge and enforce tbe doty
of a present improving of the season of grace ? In answer whereonto I
offer these following considerations:
The Pint is this: The time of opportunity is that which we may easily
let flip. It is tempus labile, " a time that may easily slip between oar
fingers/' especially in spiritual concernments. It is needful therefore
now, instantly, to lay hold upon it. Opportunity is hardly embraced.
The learned Pharisees could not discern their opportunity by discerning
the signs of Christ's coming, as you have it in Matt. xvi. 3, and the
beginning. Nor could the Jews know their opportunity; it was " hidden
from their eyes." (Luke xix. 42.) " Who is as the wise man t" saith Solonoon, in Eccles. viii. 1 ; that is, how rarely is the wise man to be found ?
Where is he to be found ? But why so ? " The wise man's heart,"
saith he, "discerneth both time and judgment;" (Eccles. viii.. 5 ;) that
is, he is able to judge when things are to be done; and therefore it is
rare to find such a wise man. Embracing of opportunity is a wisdom
that God alone must teach us, by considering the shortness of our time,
to be so wise as to improve it. (Psalort xc. 12.) And God concealeth the
season, the nick, the juncture of time, wherein he will bestow grace
upon us; because he would have us always watchful, and dependent
upon him, humble and serious in regarding every season. It is easy to
know seasons for civil affairs; easy to know the season of a trade, to
sow, to reap, to buy, to sell. But, in those affairs that concern our souls,
it is hard to find out when they are to be performed. Opportunity is so
very short and sudden, and men art so blinded with avocations, pleasures, prejudices, and vain hopes, that sometimes these make the season
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of regarding their souls appear too soon. Sometimes they are so blinded
with fear and discouragements, by dangers and difficulties, and seeming
impossibilities, that they think it too late. So that, indeed, between
sinful hope and fear, it is hard to pitch upon the right season and nick
of time for the saving of our souls. In every business, but especially
saving business, the most difficult part of the work is the due limiting
of it. In onr voyage to heaven it is hard to save our tide: not one of a
thousand but lets it slip.
Secondly. Opportunity mutt be presently embraced and improveet,
because the improving of it is a man's greatest wisdom.They are called
wise, who so consider their latter end, as that - they pursue the present
season of duty. (Deut. xxxii. 29.) They are the wise that " discern
both time and judgment;" (Eccles. viii. 5;) that is, that discern the
opportunity so as to have judgment for the embracing of it. Therefore,
in Eccles. x. 2, the "wise man's heart is" said to be "at his right
hand;" that is, the wisdom of his heart teacheth him to dispatch his
affaire judiciously and dexterously both for manner and season. The
want of this wisdom in discerning the season maketh a man like unto a
beast. (Psalm xlix. 20.) It is worse to be like a beast than to be beast
To be a beast is no sin, and comparatively no punishment; but to be
like a beast is both, in a high degree. Yea, the very brute creatures,
they are far wiser than is he that neglects his opportunity of grace.
"The stork, the turtle, the crane, and the swallow observe " their seasons
676
SERMON iv. NOW is THE TIME.
of *' coming" into several countries. (Jer. viii. 7.) They know their
appointed season; " but my people know not the judgment of the
Lord;" [do] not discern the course or manner of God's dealings, so as
to embrace duty and avoid danger. It is called a fool's property to want
a heart, when he hath a price, that is, an opportunity, put into his " hand
to get wisdom." (Prov. xvii. 16.) And therefore the-five virgins, even
for this piece of folly, are called " foolish " even to a proverb ; because
they were not so wise as to know their opportunity. And let a man be
never so prudent for the world, if he knoweth not the season of grace,
he is a mere scripture-fool, and will appear so to himself, and others too,
to all eternity. And when he comes to die he shall be compelled to say,
*' Never was I wise, who was wise for every thing but to save my soul I"
Thirdly. Opportunity uroeth us to the present improvement of it,
because it facilitates and maketk easy every action and employment,
making a work come off sweetly, smoothly, and with facility.It is as
the laying of the knife upon the joint, when we would divide the bone.
It is wind and tide to the oars of industry. It is as when blowing and
rowing go together. God in an opportunity offereth to work with us.
That which is done with another's help is easily done when both parties
join in the doing of it. Two men lifting at a burden make the lifting
more easy. The less of opportunity in our transactions, always the more
of difficulty. The top of time is flour; but the deeper you go, the further yon depart from opportunity, there is the more of bran, the more
of dregs. It was observed by Seneca in this very case, Non tantbm
minimum in imo, sed pessimum: " There is not only the least, but the
worst, in the bottom of opportunity; and the best of opportunity is at
the top."
Fourthly. Opportunity must presently be embraced, because it maketk
every action look beautiful.It makes all our performances look with a
lovely aspect, and with a grace. " God hath made every thing beautiful
in its time," or "in his time." (Eccles. Hi. 11.) "Fruit brought forth
in season" is the pleaeantest fruit. The wine of grapes gathered in
their vintage and season,how grateful and generous is it to the taste!
Bnt if the grapes be rotten, and hang beyond their season, their liquor
loseth its gratefulness and deHghtfulness. Esau's tears, after the season
of giving the blessing was past, were nothing worth: they were as
the juice of grapes that were rotten. " A word spoken in season " is a
"word upon the wheel;" it cometh readily and acceptably unto the ear.
To seek after God and the good of our souls in the season of grace,
how lovely is it! When season is gone, our endeavours are unpleasant
to God, as well as unprofitable unto us.
Fifthly. Opportunity must be presently improved, because we are deeply
accountable for every opportunity.Not only for the actions we do are
we countable, but for the time which be had to do them in. Jezebel was
plagued for her neglecting the time of repenting, in Rev. ii. 21: "I gave
her space to repent; and she repented not." For the neglecting youthful seasons the young man must " be brought into judgment." (Ecclee.
xi. 9.) If you must give account for every idle word, surely for every
idle sermon, for every idle sabbath, for every idle ordinance; I mean,
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SERMON IT.
MOW IS 1.
677
under which you have been idle. If for every idle word you speak,
much more for every unprofitable sermon you make the minister preach.
Sixthly. Opportunity must be presently improved: for the neglecting
of opportunity destroy* the most.All our salvation dependeth upon
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Christ, as to the meriting of it; but it dependeth upon opportunity as to the

obtaining of it. The neglecting of opportunity is the greatest destroyer
in the world. It is not so much the being bad, as the delaying to be
good, that undoeth the most. It was not riotousness, but sleepiness,
that excluded the foolish virgins. " The misery of man is" therefore
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" great" upon the earth; because he doth not understand judiciously
his "time" required "to every purpose." (Eccles. viii. 6.) It is not
flat denial, but foolish delaying, that ruin Christians. All that the devil
pretends to desire is your note, your present opportunity; he will offer
God thy to-morrow. He seemeth to be mannerly and modest in bringing
men to damnation: Da ntihi quod nune, et Deo fyturum: " Let me have
but the present time, and give Ood all the future." We miss of heaven
by saying to God, as Felix did to Paul, " Go thy way for this time."
(Acts xxiv. 25.) Few deny, but most delay, to be saved: and hereby
Satan doeth his work both plausibly and effectually. Delays put the
likeliest and the handsomest cheat in the world upon a sinner. Most are
damned by delaying to be saved. And because every age hopes to live
that which u to come, it liveth not that which is now present.
Seventhly. Opportunity must be presently improved for the soul,
because it is embraced, by all, in lowest concernments for the body.The
husbandman, the merchant, the lawyer, the seaman,they all mind their
opportunity, their season. Yea, for the very cutting of trees we observe
our times. Yea, the fittest seasons are embraced for sinful undertakings : the thief observeth the removal of the watch, the sleepiness of the
inhabitant; the harlot, like the owl, fiieth abroad in the twilight; yea,
the devil makes use of the shortness of his time to increase his rage.
And shall opportunities for our salvation be only neglected? What,
Christians, only fools' for our souls? I have read a story in an old
author concerning a devout man, who, after the sun was some hours up,
went to the chamber-door of an old bishop, and the bishop being asleep
in his bed, the good man knocked at his door, using these words, " The
sparrows are awaked and a-cbirping; and is it fit for bishops to be sleep
ing ?" And may not I rather say, The men of the world, persons of all
employments and trades, yea, the sons of violence,they embrace their
season, they are up betimes; and shall the people of God, shall professors, then be asleep when these are awake and active ?
SECTION XTI.
2. The season of grace is called " a day;" and as it is here so called
it eminently engageth us to the present improving of the season of grace,
and that in two regards:
(1.) In regard of the nature of the season, it is here called " a day."
(2.) In regard of those who are or should be workers in that day.
(1.) FIRST. In the regard of the nature of the season, it is called
day.And this urgeth us to the present improving of it: for,
678
SERMON IV.
NOW 18 THE TIME.
First. It is a day, and it is but a day; and that is but a short time.
It is not called " a year, a month." It doth not last long. It is but for
a while. Had Jonah prophesied to the Ninevites, that within forty years
Nineveh should be destroyed; if the Ninevites had not derided him, yet
it is very probable they would have delayed their repentance. But when
he told them " yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown," this
startled and quickened them unto a present repentance. Our season is
here expressed by the term of "a day," one day. Yea, our day ia
but a short one. We have indeed a summer's day for clearness ; but it
is a winter's day for shortness. "While it is called to-day/' saith
ft
the apostle, "exhort one another." (Heb. iii. 13.) We have not so
much time that yon should be prodigal of it. He that i profuse of a
minute in this day, (poor prodigal!) spendeth above his estate. Time, ia
the whole compass of it, is but short; (I Cor. vii. 29;) the time of particular persons is shorter; and the time of season and present opportunity
is the shortest of all. Our precious season, our day,it is but like the few
sands in the little middle hole of the hour-glass, The sand in the upper
glass is uncertain whether ever to run one sand more, or uo; that is the
time to come. That in the lower glass is as the time spent and past.
But the few sands in the narrow middle hole are as the present season,
and only ours. Non tarn liberate nobie dedit tempus natura, ut aliguid
ex eo liceat yerdere, saith Seneca: ** Nature hath not dealt so liberally
with us, as that it doth allow us to mis-spend any of the little time it hath
given us/' We are prodigal of time, though covetous of a penny. We
are more profuse of our time, cujus unius honesta eat ovaritio, " of which
alone there is an honest covetousness." You may have many pieces of
gold together in your hand; but you can have but one day of grace at
once : it is but one day.
Secondly. It is a day; and therefore that which cannot be recalled
when it ia epent and done."The loss of a day is an irrecoverable loss.
Who can restore the loss of a day ? Nee cursum tupprimit, nee revocat,
tempus: " Time doth neither suppress its course, nor recall it; neither
doth it slack it, nor revoke it." As time stops not, so time returns not.
If thy house be burnt, or thy goods stolen, or thy lands forfeited, friends
can make a supply of those losses. But if all thy friends, nay, creatures
in heaven and in earth, should conspire to make tbee happy, they cannot,
with all their combined industry aud united forces, restore to tbee one
of those good hours in the day of grace that thou hast foolishly mis-spent.
Esau lost his day, and he could not recall it with tears. The knocking
of the foolish virgins could not break open the shut door of heaven.
When thy sun is set, and thy day completely ended, thy sun will never
rise more. I have heard of one that wantonly threw a jewel into the
sea; and they say the jewel was brought to him in the belly of a fish
that was served up to his table. I know not how true this is : but who
or what shall ever bring back to thee the jewel of thy lost day ? None
shall ever bring back this jewel to thy table, if thou wilt throw it away
by wantonuess and negligence. God will not turn thy glass when it is
once out. What the fall was to angels, that is death to man.
Thirdly. It is a day; and this should put us upon the present improv*
SBBMOH IV.
NOW IS THE TIM.
679
ing of it; for it it dear day, a lightsome day." The Sun of righteousness" is risen. "The day-spring from on high hath netted" our
horizon with the light of the gospel. Now a lightsome, a sun-shiny day
is to be regarded, improved, for the present. It is a dark day indped,
compared with heaven; hut it is light, compared with the shadows
of Judaism, or the fogs of Popery. Work, work! work apace, you that
have the sun-shine of the gospel! I wish I could not say, "I see a cloud
far bigger than a man's hand, and I hear a noise of much rain." Now
you have sun-shine: cock your hay; shock your com. apace; wanton not
away your summer, lest you beg in winter. God, by giving of yon so
fair a day, showeth not that your sun will always shine, but that now
thou shouldest work. Slumber not away a sun-shiny day in harvest.
The day, and such a day, is surely intended for working. " Man goeth
forth to his work till the evening:" the night is for sleep; but the day,
especially a sun-shiny day, a clear day, for working.
Fourthly. It is a day and therefore putt us upon the present improving
of it; because it a watting day, a day that passeth and runneth apace.
We usually say, " The day is far spent." The day goeth, whether
you sit still or no. The sun runs, yea, like a giant, like a strong man,
though thou creepest like a cripple. Though the passenger sleeps in the
ship, the ship carrieth him apace towards his haven. Thou art idle; but
time hurrieth thee to the grave. Time is winged: thy hour-glass needs
no jogging: there is no stopping the stream of time. It was a notable
speech of one once to a person that was in a fit of anger: " Sir," saith
he, Domine, solad occasttm: "The sun is going down." This is my caution
to every lazy Christian : if the sun must not go down upon your wrath,
surely it must much less go down upon your loitering. If the sun in
the heavens must not go down upon your wrath, the sun of your life
should not be suffered to go down upon your laziness. Cum celeritate
temporis utendi velocitate certandum est, saith Seneca: " Our swiftness
in work must contend with the swiftness of the time in which we work."
Thou dost not see thy time going; but shortly thou wilt see it gone; like
the insensible moving hand of a dial, which, though thou dost not see it
moving, yet thou seest it hath moved.
Fifthly. It it a day; and therefore put* us upon the present improving
of it.For it is possible yet, that in this thy day, thy work may be done,
before sun-set, if thou beest speedy. Despair not; for then industry will
be frozen. The bridge of mercy is not yet drawn: there is yet a possibility for thee to get over to a blessed eternity. It is bad to say, " It is too
soon," though most have said so too often; but it is worse to say, " It is
too late." 1 confess, thy morning was thy golden hour, and had been
far the fittest for thy employment; but the evening time is better than
no time. I dare not write DESPAIR upon any man's forehead. If God
will help us, much work may be done in a little time; but yet God must
step-in with a miracle almost, if thon shouldest run back the mis-spent
age of forty or fifty years in an hour or two: surely, you must fly rather
than run.
Sixthly. It if a day, and, for aught you huno, it may be your last days
and therefore improve that present day.You have no assurance of ano-
680
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIM.
ther: from the tipper glass of the hour-glass, thou canst not he assured
of one sand more. Often say thou, therefore, to the day wherein thou
livest, "Art tbou my last, or may I look for another?" Though tboa
art young, it may prove thy last day : death taketh us not by seniority.
The new pitcher may be as easily broken as the old. And, which ie a
more severe consideration, the Spirit of God possibly may never knock at
the door of thy heart again, never strive in tbee, never strive with thee!
Death may knock next; and, remember, he will easily break into thy
body, though thy minister could not get into thy soul. Death never
cometh without a warrant; yet it often comes without a warning. We
do not live by patent, but we live at pleasure. How knowest thou that the
candle of the ministry shall shine one sabbath longer? The message shall
always live, but the messenger is always dying. The clods of the earth
may soon stop that month that so frequently and unfruitfully hath given
thee the word of life. He, the light now of his place and of his people,
may be blown out by violence as well as burnt out by death. Thou canst
not say but God may soon make that ear of thine deaf that now thou
stoppest: God may soon blind those eyes which now thou shuttest. It
is a peradventure whether God will ever give repentance or no. God hath
made many promises to repentance; but he hath made none of repentance. If to-day thou sayest thou wilt not, to-morrow thou mayest say thou
canst not, pray. It is just with God, that he who while he liveth forgets
God, when he dies should forget himself. I have heard of a profane
miscreant, that being put upon speedy repentance and turning to God,
scoffingly answered: " If I do but say three words when I come to die,"
(Mieerere mei, Doming: " Lord, have mercy upon me!") " I am sure to
be happy." This miserable wretch shortly after, falling from his horse,
and receiving thereby a deadly wound, had indeed time to speak three
words, as the relation informed me ; but those three words were these:
Diabolus capiat omnia, " Let the devil take all." Thou dost not know
what thy last words shall be: the very motions of thy tongue and of thy
heart are all in the hands of that God whose grace thou hast despised.
Seventhly. It is a day : thai reqitireth present improvement; because
it is followed with a night, a night that is dark as pitch," The night
coraeth wherein no man can work." So saith our Lord, John ix. 4.
There is neither work nor invention in the grave. In the dark thou
mayest see to bewail thy not working in the light; but in the dark there
is no working. Sorrow then will not help thee, couldest thou make hell
to swim with thy tears. Thy tears are only of worth in time. Put not
off your working, till the time wherein you must leave work. It is perfect madness, not to think of beginning to work till the time of working
is at an end. Nemo, finitis nundinis, exercet mercaturam: " What man,

after the fair, will go then to buy and sell? There is no negotiation,
but in the time of the fair," the season of grace. The spiritual manna
of grace is only to be gathered in the six days of thy life. The time
after this is a time of rest, wherein there is no more work to be done to
procure salvation. If this be the day of thy death, to-morrow cannot
be the day of thy repentance. It is miserable to have that to do for lack

of time, which is to do for loss of time.
SERMON IV.
NOW 18 TIM .
68l
Thus I have shown yon, how we are put upon present improving the
season of grace, as it is here termed a day, or in respect of the nature
of the season.
Jk
SECTION XIII.
(2.) SECONDLY. In regard of the worker* in thi day, we are

urged from hence to a preeent improving of the season of grace.
First. How little have we wrought in this day of grace !What a pitiful account (and yet an account must be given) of this day can we give
unto God, of thousands of sabbaths, and repetitions of ordinances, and
opportunities of life, that we have enjoyed! You hare been perhaps long
in the world and under the means of grace; but can you say, you have
lived long ? It is one thing for passengers in a ship to be a great while
tossed in the sea, and another thing for them to sail a great way. Yon have
been long in the world, tossed up and down with many temptations, and
impetuous corruptions, and violent affections; but which of you have
sailed much, or gone forward in your course to heaven with any considerable progress ? Little is to be seen in the copies of your lives beside blots
and empty spaces. Much paper hath been spent with wide lines. Had
you not need now, toward the end of the side, to write the closer, to
"redeem the time," as the apostle expresseth it? (Eph. v. 16.) We
should redeem our time out of the hands of those that have taken it captive, out of the clutches of those vain employments that have so often
taken it captive. Now, in all redemptions there is the laying down a
price for the party that is redeemed. But what is that price you are to
lay down for your time, when it is to be redeemed ? I will tell you: Id
quod perdu pretium est, saith Augustine: " That which you lose " in
your worldly employments, in your idle recreations, in your vain visits, in
your exorbitant eatings and drinkings, that time that you take from these
to give to God and your souls, " that is the price that you lay down" for
the redeeming of seasons for your souls, It is miserable for our work to
be undone for want of time when we are dying, when it is undone for the
loss of time while we are living.
Secondly. How great is the woe of those whose day is done, and yet
their work is not done, but still to do !You have seen their end upon
earth; but you have not heard their cries and their self-bewailings in hell.
How many have been cut off before your eyes, who ceased to be before
they began to live! Improve examples, lest you become examples. Your
schooling is cheap, when it is at the cost of another. Let the lashes
of divine severity that have fallen upon others, quicken thee in thy
\
i
i
I
(
,
'
I
spiritual pace and travelling towards heaven. Why should God stay for
you rather than for them ? Thou canst not mis-spend thy time at so
cheap a rate, as they did by whom God hath warned thee. Hell is not
so full of souls as it is of delayed purposes. What would not lost souls
give for a crumb of that time of which now in this world they make
orts ? * If the foresight of their tears for neglecting the day of grace
fetched tears from Christ, (Luke xix. 41, 42,) how great shall the feeling
be of the eternal effects of their inexcusable folly! How exuberant, but
I
* Refuae, or fragment*.EDIT.
682
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIMB.
unfruitful, shall be the flood of their own tears for their former slothfulnese, never enough to be bewailed, because never at all to be repaired!
Surely a small loss could not draw tears from so great a person as the
Sou of God!
Thirdly. Many, by beginning betimes in the morning of their clay, have
done more work than thou, a delayer, canst now accomplish.They
should provoke thee to a holy jealousy. They, setting forth for heaven
in the morning, have travelled further in that morning than thou hast
done in that long summer's day wherein thon hast been slothful. What
a shame is it that some should be green-headed saints, and thou a
grey-headed sinner? Julius Csesar, as Suetonius reports, reading that
Alexander had conquered the world in his youthful age, professed his
shame that he, who was so much older than Alexander, should come
so far behind him in obtaining victorious glory: this fired Caesar with
noble emulation to exceed him. Envy is ever bad; but emulation may
be holy. Envy is a trouble for another's eminency, but emulation
is a troubling of ourselves for not arriving to another's commendable
excellency.
Fourthly. In this thy day of working, and in thy working, thou art but
a slow worker.Thou hast a great journey, and art a slow, sluggish passenger. Thou hast a load of corruption that presseth thee down. Thou
sailest against the tide of corrupt nature. Thou haat an encumbering
body of death, that will hinder thee from doing even what thou art
a-doing; a long garment that hindereth and hampereth thee, when thou
endeavonrest to be speediest in thy course for heaven. "The flesh lusteth against the spirit; so that tbou canst not do the thing that thou
wouldest." (Gal. v. 17.) There are many thieves in thy candle of time,
which daily waste it; sleeping, eating, drinking, visiting, being visited,
and a great many other worldly avocations, employments, enjoyments,
that must be regarded together with thy soul. These are as so many
places, at which we must call-in, as we are in our journey; and the dispatching of every errand in every one of these places will take us np
much time. Hard it is for our hearts to be preserved from too deep an
engagement in them; the world more frequently bewitching from God,
than admonishing us of God; too often proving as bird-lime to the wings
of our affections to hinder their flight heavenward. And many also are
the retarding discouragements that all the people of God must meet with
all in their course to heaven: as they have the tide of nature against
them, so they have the wind of opposition from men and devils against
them. Earhness and eagerness in the ways of God are the two things
principally opposed by the god and men of this world. It is the
galloping passenger at whom the dogs of the town most bark, and whom
they most pursue. All that travel heavenward have the wind in their
faces, though the happiness of their journey's end infinitely more than
countervails for the greatest both industry and opposition.
Fifthly. The longer thou delay eat thy working in this day, the harder
it will be for thee to begin.Si is as deceitful to detain, as it is to
draw. Every moment thoa delayest to leave it, it tieth a knot on the
cord wherewith it holdeth thee, making thereby thy freedom from it the
8KRMON IV.
MOW IS THE TIME.
683
more difficult. Lust and delay know no measure: and delay knows no
measure, because lust knows none. The further you go on, the harder
it is, and the more unwilling will you be to go back. The deeper the
engagement, the more difficult is the retreat. By delay sin is the more
strengthened, the devil the more emboldened, and God the more provoked. That which in thee to-day is regaruletunees, to-morrow may be
unwillingness, and the next day obstinateneee. Dunt consuetudini no
reeistiiur, fit necessitae: " Custom in sin will at length turn into necessity
of sinning." Penenata non patiuntur iriducitu: " Antidotes against
poisons must not be delayed." The longer a bad tenant forbears payment of his rent, the harder it will be for him to get it up. A nail
driven into wood is with more difficulty drawn out when it is driven up
to the head, than when with a few blows it is weakly fastened. The
longer the wood lieth soaking in the water, with the greater difficulty
doth it burn. The longer Satan's possession hath been, the more difficult will hie ejection be. Every delay makes thy return to God look
more like to an impossibility. Goliath must be smitten in the forehead,
and Satan opposed betimes. Old age ie atas indisciplinabilis, "an
indisciplinable age." Childhood is the age of learning. Old age is the
time wherein men desire more to teach than be taught.
Sixthly. As to thy working in this day ; the sooner thou beginnest and
the fatter thou workeet in this day of grace, the sweeter will thy sleep be
in the evening, when thy day is consummate.After thou newest thy
early and thy earnest working for God, in the end of thy life, thou wilt
have a sabbath in thy thoughts. None ever repented them either of
early beginnings, or constant proceedings, in the ways of holiness. It
was a humbling to Paul, that Christ appeared last of all to him; (1 Cor.
xv. 8;) and that "Audronicne and Jtuiia were in Christ before him;"
that they were his seniors in the faith. (Rom. xvi. 7.) How sweet is it
in age to feed upon the comforts of a well-spent youth and manhood!
Never put that off to the last that cannot be done too soon. Early
beginnings in godliness make an easy death-bed; and acquaintance with
God betimes makes thee the more confident to go to him. God will
never forget thee in the end, who rememberest him in the beginning,
of thy life. Should you at length look heavenward, yet how will it grieve
you that you did not make a more early beginning! The better thou
art when thou diest, the more it will trouble thee thon wert holy so late.
Early holiness spareth abundance of death-bed trouble. That man who
puts off his repentance to his end, dies at the best with little comfort.
Incertue moritur, gui in fine peenitet: " If he should repent at last, yet
he dies uncertainly," as to future happiness. He rarely knows whither
he is going. It is comfortable for a man to be able to say to God when
he dies, as one did, Pcenitentiam egi quando peccarc potui: " Lord, thou
knowest, I then repented of sin, when I had strength, and time, and
ability, and opportunities to sin."
Thus I have shown you the strength and the force of the first
argument, whereby the apostle engageth us to a present improvement
of the season of grace; as it is, for its fitness for working, the time, the
day.
684
SERMON IV.
SECTION XIV.
NOW IS THE TIME.
FORCE OF THE SECOND ARGUMENT.
(II.) Briefly now, in the SECOND place, to show you the force of the
second argument, taken from the advantaoeousnese of improving the present season of grace to the worker and improver of it; it being here called,
1. The time of acceptation:
2. The day of salvation. The first shows the freeness; the second
the fulness. The first shows how cheap the commodity is, that we get
by working, and the second how rich it is. The first shows how costless
it is, the second how costly it is; both contained in this golden expression, " The accepted time," and then " the day of salvation."
1. It is "the accepted time"That is, the time of God's free grace
and good-will in accepting of sinners; not so much the accepting
of time, as the accepting of sinners in such a time. This expression
of God's free good-will in accepting sinners in the season of grace doth
notably instruct us to a present improvement of it; and that especially
for these two reasons,
(1.) Because, it being "the accepted time," or time of free grace and
good-will, we must for the present improve it upon the account of gratitude and ingenuity.
(2.) Because, it being " the accepted time," and the day of God's free
grace in accepting of sinners, we must presently improve it upon the
account of real self-interest.
(1.) Upon the account of ingenuous gratitude.The terms upon which
reconciliation is bestowed are all free; it is free not only in respect
of the persons upon whom it is, bestowed, who are weak, and unworthy,
and polluted, and opposite to God; but in respect of the terms on which
it is bestowed. The terms are free terms. The old friendship between
God and man was kept up by doing; but restoring to friendship, or
reconciliation, is bestowed in the way of believing. We do not .buy the
favour of God.
It is not afforded secundum pretium, but secundum pactum: " It is not by laying down any valuable consideration for the
meriting and purchasing of it; but it is in the way of doing that which
God appoints," and by his free grace is pleased to condescend unto, and
that is humble and thankful acceptation. If we buy it, it is with
another's purse. Jesus Christ only bought it. We part with nothing
for the favour of God, but what is our bane if we keep it. We may keep
all but what will kill and damn us. Nor doth our obedience to God,
when we accept of reconciliation with him through Christ, make our
reconciliation less free; for the pardon of a traitor may be free, though
it be under the condition of future loyalty. Now, then, what is more
suitable to ingenuous gratitude, than to embrace the season of God's
bestowing so free a favour ? Surely, the least we can do is, to accept of
that God that accepteth of us, to accept of him that is so full of loveliness
and rewards, we having nothing to bring him but deformity and beggary!
Not to accept his favour presently, argues the height of proud ingratitude ; concerning which God may say, " Have I this for my good-will,
for my free grace ? What, not so much as accept of my favour that
shall cost thee nothing? Surely, the least spark of holy ingenuity
BRMQN IV.
NOW IB THK TIM*.
685
[ingenuousness] would prompt us to say, with him in a case of infinitely

lower concernment, "Lord, 'we accept it always, with all thankfulness;'
what thou offerest freely I accept it readily." What beggar doth not
accept of a free alms without delay or disputation ?
SECTION XT.
(2.) As the season of grace is the accepted time, or the time of God's
free acceptation of sinners, it engageth us to a present improvement
of this season of grace upon the account of self-interest; for the neglecting
of free grace makes the divine vengeance,
First, unavoidable; and, Secondly, insupportable.
First. Neglecting of free grace makes vengeance unavoidable.If grace
be neglected, what shall save you ? If grace shall not save thee, works
cannot save thee. The neglecter of grace concludes himself under a
necessity of damnation; he rendeth the book of mercy; he throweth
away the remedy, the cordial that serveth for his reviving. He fhat
accepts not of life and salvation by free gift, must have it by earning,
must have it by working; and earn it we cannot. Thou canst not
obtain reconciliation with God upon easier terms for thyself, than Christ
obtained it for believers: and what terms were those, but even perfect,
and to thee impossible, obedience ? You cannot dig; perfect doing is
impossible: you are lost, if ashamed to beg at the door of free grace for
the dole of mercy.*
Secondly. The neglecting of free grace makes divine vengeance insupportable.It discovereth the malignity of the heart against that which
by free grace is bestowed; for if we cannot dislike the price, which is to
bring "neither money nor price/' you must then dislike the wares,
which are heaven with holiness. And how great a scorn do we then put
upon the Lord Jesus, the purchaser of free grace! It was Christ's payment that made all free to us. Who can excuse the contempt of such
both love and cost at once ? There is no liquor that scalds so tormentingly in hell, as the oil of mercy. Grace turned into fury is the most
killing enemy. Freeness invites all worldly customers. Who loveth not
costly things that cost him nothing ? Who shnnneth an interest in a
thousand pounds a year, to be had for taking up at the court ? And why
alone, my brethren, should Jesus Christ want customers ? Are there any
commodities so rich as his ? Are there any commodities to us so cheap
as his ? Why should they alone be slow that go to take the favour and
love of God through him ? especially considering, that they have paid so
dear for " that which is not bread," yea, for that which is their bane.
Free grace tendered and neglected is condemnation heightened. You
cannot have the favour of God by doing; what, will you not have it for
receiving neither? You will not then have it at all.
It is that hell
of hells, that free grace is despised, hath been neglected i
Thus much for the first branch of the second argument: the season
of grace is a time of acceptation, and therefore in respect of that advantage it requires our present improving thereof.
* In the first edition, the sentence is: "You cannot dig: by doing yon axe lost, if
you are shamed to beg at the door, or rather for the dole, of free grace in this thy day.'*
686
SERMON IV.
NOW IS THE TIME*
SECTION XVI.
2. For the second branch of this second argument: The won of grace
is also called the day of salvation.But why doth this second branch
put us upon the present improving of the season of grace ? For answer,
take these considerations:
(I.) It is a day of salvation; and salvation is a work that must be
regarded: it is a matter of absolute necessity.Other things are
may-be s, at the best, matters of mere conveniency; but salvation is a
business of peremptory and indispensable necessity. A fair day is con
venient to ride in; but the journey itself being of life and death is absolutely necessary. You may be excused at the day of judgment for
leaving any thing in the world undone beside the getting of salvation.
You may be excused, if you never had time to get the riches or honours
of the world, or great endowments or employments. But what shall
excuse you, if you have not looked after eternal life ? Can you say,
"We had another employment more, or as, necessary?" Can you say,
"We were taken up about something more needful, more useful?"
No, you cannot. Now remember, that which must be done should be
most done aud first done. First attend [to] necessaries, and then look
after circumstantials: " first seek the kingdom of God." Here it is no
measuring cast whether you should obtain salvation : it is a must-be.
Tempus perdimus dum teternitatem non queerimus: " You lose all thut
time that is not spent in looking after a happy eternity." First get
bread for thy starving children ; and then, if thou hast time, look after
rattles for them. A work of necessity must not be put off to a time
of uncertainty. If thou delayest, delay in looking after riches and
honour, and the vanities of the world: 0, but now, now, now pursue
salvation! It is a must-be; and if the present time be gone, you may be
undone for ever.
(2.) Salvation is that which imports rest and satisfaction.Salvation!
it is the soul's quietation and ease. Heaven is that centre of the soul:
you are never at rest till you come there. Now the object of rest is
speedily to be pursued. How doth every thing hasten to its rest, its
centre! How doth the stone with eagerness hasten to the earth, when
thrown from the top of a high steeple! How swiftly doth the fire fly
upwards to its rest, to its centre! With what a rapid motion, with
what a fierce career, do the rivers run into the sea! They are going to
their place, the place of waters. Is heaven thy reat? Is heaven thy
centre ? Why is thy tendency to it so sluggish ? Yon owe unto life
eternal all those propensions and all those inclinations, wherewith all the
things of the world are carried to the centres. The speed that the
wicked make in getting to hell, proclaims that hell is their proper place
and centre, though not for rest, but restlessness. Shall every thing
hasten to rest, but thy soul? It was the speech of Naomi to her
daughter: " My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee ?" (Ruth iii.
1.) that every one would say unto his soul, " My soul, shall I not
look after rest for thee in the bosom of God, and the eternal fruition
of himself?" The little infant that cries for sleep will rise up in judg-
8BRMON IT.
MOW 18 THE T1MB.
687
meat gainst a inner that doth not look after the rett of hi tool.
That little infant that cries for sleep out-goeth thee in wisdom.
(3.) It it day of ealvation; and the pursuing of salvation it opus

grande, "a great work" a vast employment.Many things are required
to accomplish it; many lusts to be subdued, many duties to be discharged, many temptations to be resisted, many relations to be filled.
Now a great work must be begun betimes. If yon had but a little to do
in the day, you might lie in bed a great while in the morning. But you
have a .vast work to do; and therefore get up early. Some poor creatures will rise up early to washing; a pitiful work to the cleansing
of thy soul; a far greater work surely than to wash clothes 1 If you had
a thousand souls, they might all be employed for the obtaining of salvation. If every finger were a hand, they might all be employed in
getting of salvation. He that hath many children to look after and a
small estate, many to feed and clothe,he saith, " I must rise early and
sit up late." None have so much business as a Christian. The work
of Christianity is never at an end.
The art of religion is never learned.
There is still an et cetera; still something remaining to be done.
Blessed Paul thought himself far from perfection : " I do not look upon
myself at having attained" The best have much more to Jae done,
than they have already done. I have read of a famous limner, who,
when he had wrought his picture in the best and most curious manner,
would never write at the bottom, Fed, but, Faciebam; " I did it," not,
" I have done it;" because he judged he had never wrought any picture
so well, but be might work it better, and add something more of art to
it. A Christian's art is never complete while he liveth in this world,
nor ever did a saint think himself a complete artist. How exceeding
large are the commands of God! How little is our most, and how bad
is our best, compared with the rule!
(4.) Thi* delaying in the pursuit of salvation it a delaying to be freed
from'the greatest evil.What is that? The wrath of God, guilt,
damnation, hell. Delaying to be freed from extreme miseries is confuted by constant experience. What condemned malefactor will delay
to get free from his chains, from his dungeon, from the sentence
of death ? What tormented person upon the rack will say, " I must
consider before I accept of ease?" And when ease and riddance from
the rack are offered, if instantly he will accept thereof, will say, " I will
consider of it, I will give answer of it hereafter?" If a dust fly into
the eye, thou bastest to get it out: and wilt thou not haste to ease tby
soul? Who ever deliberated, whether he would come out of the fire or
no ?
It is more mad to deliberate whether thou wilt be saved or no,
and get out of the state of damnation. Here is no plaoe for deliberation ; it is no measuring cast.
(5.) Salvation,it it our own concern ; it it opus proprium, " our own
business" it it not another't.It may be, a slothful apprentice wiM be
backward to rise in the morning, when he is to do his master's business;

but when he sets up for himself, and is to gather an estate for himself,
he will go about his business speedily. Salvation is a work for yourselves ; tiie gain thereof is your own gain. Whatever yon get here goes into
638
SERMON IV.
MOW 18 THE TIME.
your own purse. Here, " if you are wise, you are wise for yourselves."
(Prov. ix. 12.) 0 that we had more true self-love! The common selflove in the world is employed about our bodily self, the shell, the sheath
of the true self, which is the body. Few men truly love their true self:
it is a common proverb, " Interest will not lie ;" yet the soul that delays
salvation,his interest lies; he walks contrary to it, and neglects that
wherein all his blessedness doth consist, makes orts* of his own
salvation.
(6.) It tea day of salvation / and salvation recompenses for all earlinese
and earnestness.Salvation maketh amends for all the sufferings and
services of time. How poor, how short and slight, is our work, compared
with our wages ! If there could be any trouble in heaven, it would be
this,that we have laboured for it no more and no sooner upon earth.
Thou hast no more to live on to eternity, than what thou layest up here.
As our obedience is small, compared with our rule prescribed; so it is
very small compared with our recompense promised. Though nothing
can recompense for the neglect of salvation; yet salvation can recompense for the neglecting of all other things. Nor only doth it recompense for our neglecting of all things, but for our being neglected of all
persons, and for all our reproaches for our early pursuing it: all which
will easily be confuted with this answer: It is better to be reproached
and derided for being too speedy, than damned for being too slow, in
entering into heaven's way. It is more easy to bear the scorns of the
world, than the scourges of conscience. I conclude: we can never
regard salvation too soon ; for we can never either enjoy it, or think we
can enjoy it, too long.
* See note in page 681.EDIT.
B2O> OF THK FIRST VOIiUMB.
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PURITAN SERMONS

THE MORNING EXERCISES

CRIPPLEGATE, ST. GILES IN THE FIELDS,

SEVENTY-FIVE MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL

with Notes and Translations by James Nichols

RICHARD OWEN ROBERTS, PUBLISHERS

THE MOENING EXEKCISE

SEVERAL CASES OF CONSCIENCE

MOST UNFEIGNEDLY BELOVED PARISHIONERS

THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

From the preceding enumeration it will be perceived, that " The

THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

church in Milk-street, from whence it was removed to the other distant

Two of the volumes here described were published prior to the

I subjoin a List of tuck word* a are slightly changed far other,

Here also is subjoined a Collection of the principal words which,

THE EDITOR'S PREPACK.

attempt to render faithfully, into intelligible English, abrupt clauses

MORNING EXERCISE AT CRIPPLEGATE.

Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.-Ezekiel xviii. 32............................. 88

HOW MAT WE BE 80 SPIRITUAL, AS TO CHECK SIN IN THE FIRST RISINGS

Trust in him at all times, ye people.-Psalm IxiL 8....................................... 369

Quicken thou me in thy way..Psalm cxix. 37............................................. 434

WHEREIN ARE WE ENDANGERED BT CBXNGS LAWFUL?

HOW MUST WE MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS?

WHETHER WELL-COMPOSED RELIGIOUS TOWS DO HOT EXCEEDINGLY PROMOTE

HOW ARE WE COMPLETE IN CHRIST?

OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

First of all, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which i hypocrisy.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE MOBNING EXERCISE

HOW OUGHT WB TO LOVE OUB NEIGHBOURS AS OUE8ELVES?

Thou shalt lore thy neighbour as thyselfMatthew xxii. 39............................ 621

THE HORNING EXERCISE.

Bt THE BEV. SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL.D.

HOW MAY WB BE t)NI VERBALLY AMD EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?

And herein do 1 exercise myself, to Katie always a conscience void of offence

toward God, and toward men.Acts xxiv. 16.

THIS sermon is but preliminary to some select cases of conscience :

and THEREFORE ^[ ' with me it is a very small thing that I should be

HOW MAY WE BE UNIVERSALLY

an eye to the resurrection and last judgment,* I exercise myself to

employment, to get, to keep, and use, a conscience void of offence," &c.

AND KXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?

1. Conscience w man's judgment of himself,* that is, of his estate

HOW MAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY

"heart" and "spirit." HEART,' in Pro*, iv. 23 ij^ cor tuuat.

him, and to entreat with him in behalf of itself and others."EDIT.

AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?

HOW MAT WE BE UNIVERSALLY

AND EXACTLY CONSCIENTIOUS?

xx. 22,) lovingly constrained, (2 Cor. . 14,) graciously necessitated;

HOW- MAY WK BE UNIVERSALLY

(Bom. viii. 13;)

THE SLEEPY CONSCIENCE,

definition of my own invention."EDIT.

tori 6s owe of enrol, >. rivos &, vft/s, ,