GENERAL DIRECTIONS

FOR A

COMFORTABLE WALKING WITH GOD.

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BUT NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD. THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF NOAH: NOAH WAS A JUST MAN AND PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS, AND NOAH WALKED WITH GOD.—Gen 6:8-9.

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In this dreadful and dismal story of the old world's degeneracy and destruction, falling away, and final ruin, here stands in my text a right orient and illustrious star, shining full fair with singularity of heavenly light, spiritual goodness, and God's sincere service, in the darkest midnight of Satan's universal reign, and amidst the strangest confusions, idolatrous corruptions, cruelties, oppressions, and lust, that ever the earth bore. Noah, a very precious man, and preacher of righteousness, and his family, were alone excepted. The true worship of God was confined to them, when all the world besides lay drowned in idolatry and paganism, ready to be swallowed up in a universal grave of waters, which was already fashioned in the clouds by the angry, irresistible hand of the all-powerful God, who was now so implacably, but most justly, provoked by those rebellious and cruel generations, that he would not suffer his Spirit to strive any more with them; but inexorably resolved to open the windows or floodgates of heaven, giving extraordinary strength of influence above, and abundance to the fountains of the great deep, commanding them to cast out the whole treasure and heap of their waters; and taking away the retentive power from the clouds, that they might pour down immeasurably, for the burying of all living creatures which breathed in the air. From whence, by the way, before I break into my text, take this note.

Doctrine. The servants of God are men of singularity. I mean it not in respect of any fantasticalness of opinion, furiousness of zeal, or turbulency of faction, truly so called; but in respect of abstinence from sin,

purity of heart, and holiness of life.

Reasons. 1. God's holy word exacts and expects from all that are new born, and heirs of heaven, an excellency above ordinary, Prov 12:26; Matt 5:20,47. Being taken forth as the precious from the vile, Jer 15:19, by the power of the ministry, they must not only go beyond the highest civil perfections of the exactest moral purity amongst the most honest heathens, Heb 12:14, but also exceed the righteousness and all the outward religious conformities of the devoutest pharisees, whose sufficiencies, Luke 18:11-12, many thousands in these times come short of, and yet hope to be saved or they can in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. But, lest any be proudly puffed up with a sense of this singularity and excellency above his neighbour, let him know that humility is ever one of the fairest flowers in the whole garland of supernatural and divine worth; and that self conceit would poison even angelical perfection.

2. They must upon necessity differ from a world of wicked men, by a sincere singularity of abstinence from the course of this world, the lusts of men, the corruptions of the times, familiarity with graceless companions, the worldling's language, profane sports, all wicked ways of thriving, rising, and growing great in the world, and so forth.

3. They make conscience of those duties and Divine commands, which the greatest part of men, even in the noontide of the gospel, are so far from taking to heart, that their hearts rise against them. As, to be warm in religion, Rev 3:16; to be zealous of good works, Titus 2:14; to walk precisely, Eph 5:15; to be fervent in spirit, Rom 12:11; to strive to enter in at the strait gate, Luke 13:24; to pluck out their right eyes; that is, to abandon their bosom delights, Matt 5:29; to make the sabbath a delight, Isa 58:13; to love the brotherhood, 1 Pet 2:17; with a holy violence to lay hold upon the kingdom of heaven, Matt 11:12.

4. Experience, and examples of all ages, from the creation downward, clearly prove the point. At this time, as you see, the saints of God were all harboured under one roof, and yet not all sound there. Survey the ages afterward: the time of Abraham, who was as a brand taken out of the fire of the Chaldeans; the time of Elijah, when none appeared to that blessed man of God; the time of Isaiah, who cried, "Who hath believed our report?" Isa 53:1; the time of Manasseh, who built altars for all the host of heaven, in the two courts of the house of the Lord; the time of Antiochus, when he commanded the sanctuary and holy people to be polluted with swine's flesh, and unclean beasts to be sacrificed, the abomination of desolation to be set up upon the altar; that darksome time when the glorious Daystar, Christ Jesus himself, came down from heaven to enlighten the earth; the time of Antichrist, when all the world wondered after the beast; our times, wherein, of six parts of the earth, probably scarce one of the least is Christian. And how much of christendom is still overgrown with popery, and other exorbitant distempers in point of religion; and where the truth of Christ is purely and powerfully taught, how few give their names unto it! and of those who profess, how many are false-hearted, or merely formal.

5. Methinks worldly wisdom should rather wonder that any one is won unto God, than cry out and complain, Is it possible there should be so few? since all the powers of darkness, and every devil in hell, oppose, might and main, the implanting of grace in any soul; since there are more snares upon earth to keep us still in the invisible chains of darkness and sin, than there are stars in heaven; since every inch, every little artery of our bodies, if it could, would swell with hellish venom to the bigness of the greatest Goliath, the mightiest giant, that it might make resistance to the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost; since our souls, naturally, would rather die and put off their immortality and everlasting being, than put on the Lord Jesus: in a word, since the new creation of a man is held to be a greater work of wonder than the creation of the world.

6. First, let us set aside in any country, city, town, family, all atheists, papists, and distempered exorbitants from the blessed truth of doctrine taught in our church: secondly, all whoremongers, drunkards, swearers, liars, revelers, worldlings, usurers, and fellows of such infamous rank: thirdly, all merely civil men, who come short of Cato, Fabricius, and other honest heathens, and, wanting holiness, shall never see the Lord, Heb 12:14: fourthly, all gross hypocrites, whose outsides are painted with superficial flourishes of holiness and honesty, but their inward parts filled with rottenness and lust, who have their hands in godly exercises, when their hearts are in hell: fifthly, all formal hypocrites, who are deluded in point of salvation, as were the foolish virgins, and that proud pharisee, Luke 18:11: sixthly, all final backsliders, of which some turn sensual epicures, and plunge themselves into worldly pleasures with far more rage and greediness, by reason of former restraint by a temporary profession; others become scurrilous deriders of the holy way; some, bloody goads in the sides of those with whom they have formerly walked into the house of God as friends: seventhly, all unsound professors for the present, of which you would little think what a number there is:—I say, let these and all other strangers to the purity and power of godliness be set apart, and tell me how many truehearted Nathaniels we are likely to find.

Uses: 1. Try then the truth of thy spiritual state by this mark of a sober and sincere singularity. If thou still holdest correspondence with the world, and conform to the fashions thereof, if still thou swimmest down the current of the times, and shiftest thy sails to the turn of every wind; if thine heart still hankers after the tasteless fooleries of good fellowship, and follow the multitude to do evil; if thou be carried with the swing and sway of the place where thou livest, to uphold, by a boisterous combination, lewdness and vanity, to profane the Lord's day, to scorn profession, oppose the ministry, and walk in the broad way; in a word, if thou doest as the most do, thou art utterly undone for ever. But if with a merciful violence thou art pulled out of the world by the power of the word, and happily weaned from the sensual, insensible poison of all bittersweet pleasures, and fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness; if, by standing on God's side, and hatred of all false ways, thou art become the drunkard's song, as David was, and a byword amongst the sons of Belial, as was Job; if the world lower and look sour upon thee for thy looking towards heaven, and thy good-fellow companions abandon thee as too precise; if thy life be not like other men's, and thy ways of another fashion, as the epicures of those times charged the righteous man when the Book of Wisdom was written; in a word, if thou walkest in the narrow way, and be one of that little flock which lives amongst wolves, and therefore must needs be little; so that by all the leopards, lions, and bears about thee, I mean all sorts of unregenerate men, thou art hunted for thy holiness as a partridge on the mountains, at least by the poison and persecution of the tongue;—I say then thou art certainly in the high way to heaven.

2. If the saints of God be men of singularity in the sense I have said, then away with those base and brainless cavils against those who are wise unto salvation. What! are you wiser than your forefathers? than all the town? than such and such learned men? than your own parents? are you wiser than your head? may the husband say, etc. Nay further, to Noah it might have been said by the wretches of those times, Art thou wiser than all the world? He, out of the height of his heroical resolution, easily endured and digested the affronts and indignities of this kind from millions of men. But take thou these spiteful taunts, and bind them in the mean time as a crown unto thee, and advance forward in thine holy singularity with all sweet content and undauntedness of spirit, towards that glorious immortal crown above; and let those miserable men, whose eyes are hood winked by Satan, and so blinded with earthly dust that they cannot possibly discern the invisible excellences and true nobleness of the neglected saints, follow the folly of their worldly wisdom, and sway of the greater part, to endless woe, and then give losers leave to talk.

3. Let every one, who in sincerity of heart seeks to be saved, ever hold it a special happiness and his highest honour to be singled out from the universal pestilent contagion of common profaneness, and the sinful courses of the greatest part, and to be censured as singular in that respect. Neither is this a singular thing that I now suggest, but it hath been the portion of the saints in all ages to be trod upon with the feet of imperious contempt, as a number of odd despised underlings; whereas indeed they are God's jewels, and the only excellent upon earth. "Behold," saith Isaiah, Isa 8:18, "I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel." "I am as a wonder unto many," saith David, Ps 71:7. "I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me," saith Jeremiah, Jer 20:7. "We are made," saith Paul, "a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men," 1 Cor 4:9. "We are made as the filth of the earth, the offscouring of all things," 1 Cor 5:13. In Augustine's time, those that made conscience of their ways, durst not plunge into the corruptions of the times, and play the good fellows, were scornfully pointed at, not only by pagans, but even by unreformed professors, professors at large as we call them, as fellows that affected a preciseness and purity above ordinary and other men: they would thus insult and scoffingly fly in the face of such a holy one, "You are a great man, sure you are a just man, you are an Elias, you are a Peter, you come from heaven!" In after times, if a man were but merely civil, ingenuous, chaste, temperate, he was made a byword and laughingstock to those about him. They presently said, He was proud, singular, beside himself, hypocrite, etc. Thus it was, is at this time, and will be to the world's end, that every vile whoremonger, beastly drunkard, ignorant scoundrel, scoffing Ishmael, and self-guilty wretch, will have a bitter sneer or reproach to throw, like the madman's firebrand, into the face of God's people, as though they were a company of odd-humoured fellows, and a contemptible generation. This, I say, ever was and ever will be the world's opinion of the ways of God's people. The children of darkness ever harbour such conceits, and peremptorily pass such censures upon the children of light.

It is strange, men are content to be singular in anything save in the service of God, and the salvation of their souls! They desire, and labour too, to be singularly rich, and the wealthiest in a town; to be singularly proud, and in fashion by themselves; to be the strongest in the company to pour in strong drink. They would, with all their hearts, be in honour alone, and adored above others. They would dwell alone, and not suffer a poor man's house to be within sight. They affect singularity in wit, learning, wisdom, valour, worldly reputation, and in all other earthly precedences; but they can by no means endure a loneness and singularity in zeal and the Lord's service. In matters of religion they are resolved to do as the most do, though in so doing they certainly damn their own souls, Matt 7:13. Basest cowardliness and fearfulness fit for such a doom! Rev 21:8. They are afraid of taking God's part too much, of fighting too valiantly under the colours of Christ, of being too busy about the salvation of their souls, lest they should be accounted too precise, fellows of an odd humour, and engrossers of more grace than ordinary. It is one of Satan's dreadful depths, as wide as hell, and brimful with the blood of immortal souls, to make men ambitious and covetous of singularity in all other things but in godliness and God's services; not to suffer it in themselves, and to persecute it in others.

Now, in this story of Noah, so highly honoured with singularity of freedom from the sinful contagion of those desperate times, and happily exempted from that most general and greatest judgment upon earth that ever the sun saw,—a universal drowning,—gloriously mounting up upon the wings of salvation, and safety both of soul and body, when a world of giant-like rebels sunk to the bottom of that new sea as a stone or lead, I consider,

1. The cause of such a singular blessed preservation, which was the free grace and favour of God; "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," Gen 6:8.

2. The renown and honour of Noah's name; in that he stands here as the father of the new world, the holy seed and progenitors of Jesus Christ; "These are the generations of Noah," Gen 6:9.

3. The description of Noah's personal goodness, preservation, and posterity. These latter two follow. His personal description stands in the end of Gen 6:9; "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations; and Noah walked with God:" where we find him honoured with three noble attributes, which make up the character of a complete Christian—honesty, uprightness, and piety. And they receive much excellency and lustre from a circumstance of time; "In his generations," which were many and mainly corrupt.

Without any further unfolding my text's coherence and dependence upon either precedent or following parts, (for historical passages are plainer, and do not ever exact the length and labour of such an exact resolution as other Scriptures do,) I collect from the first point, wherein I find God's free grace to be the prime and principal cause of Noah's preservation, this

Doctrine. The free grace and favour of God are the first mover and fountain of all our good. Consider for this purpose such places as these: Jer 31:3; Hos 14:4; Deut 7:7-8; Rom 9:11-13; John 3:16; Josh 24:2-3; Eph 1:5.

And it must needs be so. For it is utterly impossible that any finite cause, created power, or anything out of God himself, should primarily move and incline the eternal, immutable, uncreated, omnipotent will of God. The true original and prime motive of all gracious, bountiful expressions and effusions of love upon his elect, is the good pleasure of his will. And therefore to hold that election to life is made upon foresight of faith, good works the right use of free will, or any created motive, is not only false and wicked, but also an ignorant and absurd tenet. To say no more at this time, it robs God of his all-sufficiency, making him go out of himself, looking to this or that in the creature, upon which his will may be determined to elect. The schoolmen, though otherwise a rotten generation of divines, yet are right in this.

That distinction which I learn from my master[1] in his heavenly sermons, published since his death, doth lead unto aright, and truly enlighten this headspring of all our good. "1. Some actions of God's love unto us," saith he, "are so in Christ, that they are wholly suspended on him, and his merits are the only procuring cause of them: for example, forgiveness of sins is an action of God's love unto us, and yet this wholly depends upon Christ and his merits; so that his precious blood must either procure this mercy for us from God, else they will never be forgiven; and this and the like love of God is both in Christ and for Christ. 2. There are some other actions of God's love which arise merely and only out of the absolute will of God, without any concurrence of Christ's merits; as the eternal purpose of God, whereby he hath determined to choose some men to salvation: this is an action of God's love, merely rising out of his absolute will, without Christ's merits. For Christ is a Mediator, and all his merits are the effects of his love, not the cause of it. And yet this love, though it be not for Christ, yet is it in Christ. 'According to the eternal purpose which he wrought in Christ Jesus our Lord,' Eph 3:11, that is, in regard to the execution of it; for even this eternal purpose, and all the actions of God's love, which arise from his absolute will, are effected and brought to pass in and through Christ." We may take an estimate of the absolute and infinite freeness of this inconceivable love of God to his, which reacheth from everlasting to everlasting, by looking upon the description of Jerusalem in Ezek 16. In the beginning of the chapter she lies most filthy and foul in her own blood, pitied by no eye, abhorred of all; which loathsomeness should rather have begot loathing than love; aversion and hatred, than affection and liking; yet God himself doth there profess, out of a melting pang and overflowing abundance of his free grace, that that time was unto him the time of love: he spread his skirt over her and covered her nakedness: in a word, after she was dressed and adorned with God's most skilful, merciful hand, she became a most lovely thing; first, washed with water, cleansed from blood, anointed with oil; then clothed with embroidered work, shod with badgers' skin, girded about with fine linen, covered with silk, decked with ornaments of silver and gold; with bracelets upon her hands, a chain on her neck, a jewel on her forehead, ear rings in her ears, and a beautiful crown upon her head; fed with fine flour, honey, and oil; so that she became exceedingly beautiful, and renowned through the whole world for her perfect comeliness, "even mine own comeliness which I put upon her, saith the Lord God." [cf. Ezek 16:14]

Uses. 1. All praise then is due unto Jehovah, the Author of all our good, the Fountain of all our bliss, the Wellspring of immortality and life, "in whom we live and move, and have our being;" our natural being, the being of our outward state; our gracious being; the everlastingness of our glorious state. Were the holiest heart upon earth enlarged to the vast comprehension of this great world's wideness; nay, made capable of all the glorious and magnificent hallelujahs and hearty praises offered to Jehovah, both by all the militant and triumphant church, yet would it come infinitely short of sufficiently magnifying, admiring, and adoring the inexplicable mystery and bottomless depth of this free, independent mercy, and love of God, the Fountain and First Mover of all our good. We may, and are bound to bless God for all the means, instruments, and second causes, whereby it pleaseth him to confer and convey good things unto us; but we must rest principally, with lowliest thoughts of most humble and hearty praisefulness, at the well head of all our welfare, Jehovah, blessed for ever. We receive a great deal of comfort and light from the moon and stars, but we are chiefly indebted to the sun; from the greater rivers also, but the main sea is the fountain. Angels, ministers, and men may please us, but Jehovah is the principal. Let us then imitate those lights of heaven and rivers of the earth; do all the good we can with those good things God hath given us by his instruments; and then reflect back towards, and return all the glory and praise unto, the Sun of righteousness and Sea of our salvation. The beams of the moon and stars return as far back to glorify the face of the sun, which gave them their beauty, as they can possibly; so let us ever send back to God's own glorious self the honour of all his gifts, by a fruitful improvement of them, in setting forth his glory, and by continual fervent ejaculations of praise to the utmost possibility of our renewed hearts.

And here I cannot forbear, but must needs most justly complain of the hateful, intolerable unthankfulness of us in this kingdom, the happiest people under the arch of heaven, had we hearts enlarged to conceive aright of God's extraordinary love, and such miraculous mercies as never nation enjoyed. Walk over the world, peruse the whole face of the earth from east to west, from north to south, and from one side of heaven to another, thou shalt not find such another enlightened Goshen as this island wherein we dwell. Of six parts of the earth, five are not Christian; and in christendom, what other part is so free from the reign of popery, the rage of schism, or the destroying sword? Or where besides doth the gospel shine with such glory, truth, and peace? Or in what nook of the world are there so many faithful souls who cry unto God day and night against the abominations of the times, for the preservation of the gospel, that God's name may be gloriously hallowed, his kingdom come, his will be done in every place, and who themselves serve him with truth of heart? And yet we are too ready, if we have not the height of our desires, and our wills to the full, instead of patience, tears, and prayers, which best become the saints, to embitter all other blessings, and to discover most horrible for them, by repining, grumbling, and discontent; by not rejoicing, as we ought, in every good thing which the Lord our God hath given unto us, and by not improving the extraordinariness of his mercies to our more glorious service of him, and more humbly and precisely walking before him. Away then with all sour, melancholy, causeless, sinful discontent; and "praise ye the Lord; sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds," Ps 149:1-2,4-5. In a word, let us of this island, as we have just cause above all the nations of the earth, and above all ages of the church, from the very first creation of it, praise Jehovah most heartily, infinitely, and for ever.

2. Never reproach any for deformity of body, dulness of conceit, weakness of wit, poorness in outward state, baseness of birth, etc. "For who makes thee to differ from another?" 1 Cor 4:7; either in natural gifts, as comeliness of body, beauty, feature, stature, wit, strength, etc.; see Job 10:10-11; Ps 139:13-15; in civil endowments, or any artificial skill, until it come even unto matters of husbandry; see Isa 28:24-28; in outward things; see Ps 127; more particularly in preferment and promotion, see Ps 75:6-7; in children, 1 Sam 1:27; Ps 127:3; in a good wife; see Prov 19:14; in spiritual things; see Ezek 16; in any thing thou canst name. We are all framed of the same mould, hewed out of the same rock, made as it were of the same cloth, the shears as they say only going between; it is therefore only the free love and grace of God which make all the difference. Whereupon it was an excellent speech of a French king, as his chronicler reports: "When I was born, there were a thousand other souls more born; what have I done unto God more than they? It is his mere grace and mercy which doth often bind me more unto his justice; for the faults of great men are never small."

Let none then, I say, overlook, disdain, or browbeat their brethren, by reason of any extraordinary gifts, eminence of parts, singularity of God's special favour, or indulgence towards him in any good thing, which he denies to others. Especially, thyself being vouchsafed the mercy of conversion, never insolently and imperiously insult over those poor souls who are beside themselves in matters of salvation, who, like miserable drudges, damn themselves in the devil's slavery, and suffer their corrupt nature to carry them to any villany, lust, or lewd course. Alas! our hearts should bleed within us at beholding so many about us imbruing their cruel hands in the blood of their own souls, by their ignorance, worldliness, drunkenness, lust, lying, scoffing at profession, hating to be reformed, etc. What heart, except it be hewed out of the hardest rock, or hath sucked the breasts of merciless tigers, but would yearn and weep to see a man made of the same mould with himself wilfully, as it were, against the ministry of the word, a thousand warnings, and God's many compassionate invitations, cast himself, body and soul, into the endless, easeless, and remediless miseries of hell? And the rather should we pity and pray for such a one who follows the swing of his own heart to his own everlasting perdition, because the matter whereof we were all made is so nearly alike; only the free mercy, goodness, and grace of God make the difference. If God should give us over to the unbridled current of our corrupt nature we might be as bad, and run riot into a world of wickedness as well as he: if the same God visit him in mercy, he may become every way as good, or better than we.

3. If the free love of God be the fountain of all our good, away then with that feigned foresight of faith, right use of free will, and good works, which should move God to elect before all eternity; and that luciferian self-conceit of present merit, a fit monstrous brood of that beast of Rome, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God," 2 Thess 2:4. For works meritorious foreseen are equally opposite to grace as works meritorious really existing. Here you must call to mind those eight considerations which I opposed against that wicked tenet of merit, which doth justly deserve never to taste of God's free mercy.[2]

From the second point, in these words, "These are the generations of Noah." [Gen 6:9] Whereas the fame and memorial of all the families upon earth besides lay buried and rotting in the gulf of everlasting oblivion, as their bodies in the universal grave of waters, the family of Noah, a righteous and holy man, is not only preserved in safety from the general deluge, but his generations registered and renowned in the book of God, and conveyed along towards the Lord Jesus, as his progenitors and precedent royal line: I observe this point—

Doctrine. Personal goodness is a good means to bring safety, honour, and many comfortable blessings upon posterity; see Deut 5:29; Exod 20:6; Ps 37:25; Ps 112:1-3; Prov 20:7; Prov 11:21; Acts 2:39.

Reason 1. Parents professing religion in truth make conscience of praying for their children before they have them, as did Isaac and Hannah; when they are quick in the womb, as did Rebecca; when they are born, as did Zacharias; in the whole course of their lives, as did Job; at their own death, as did Isaac: Gen 25:21; 1 Sam 1:10; Gen 25:22; Luke 1:64; Job 1:5; Gen 27:4. And prayers, we know, are, for the procuring of all favour at the hands of God, either for ourselves or others, the most undoubted sovereign means we can possibly use.

2. Godly parents do infinitely more desire to see the true fear of God planted in their children's hearts, than, if it were possible, the imperial diadem of the whole earth set upon their heads. And therefore their principal care is, and the crown of their greatest joy would be, by good example, religious education, daily instruction, loving admonitions, seasonable reproofs, restraint from wicked company, the corruptions of the times, etc., by all dearest means and utmost endeavours, to leave them gracious when they go out of this world. And "godliness," saith Paul, "hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come," 1 Tim 4:8. It gives right and full interest to all the true honour, blessings, and comforts, which are to be had in heaven or in earth.

3. Children are ordinarily apt, out of a kindly instinct of natural lovingness, from many and strongest motives, to imitate and follow their parents either in baseness or better carriage, to heaven or hell.

4. A father that truly fears God dare not for his heart heap up riches or purchase high stations for his children by wrong doing, or any wicked ways of getting; whereupon both he and his fare far the better, and happily avoid the flaming edge of those many fearful curses denounced in God's book against all unconscionable dealers. Such as that, Eccles 5:13-14, "There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand." And Hab 2:9-10, "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul."

Use. 1. Wouldest thou, then, have thy little babes thou lovest so dearly, blessed upon earth, truly noble, God's favourites, and meet thee in heaven? be holy thyself. Men are very careful and curious to have their seed-corn and breed of cattle choice and generous; and will they not endeavour to nurture, manage, and conduct the immortal souls of their children with grace, by godly education, to the highest advancement of which those noble natures are capable, to everlasting bliss, fruition of all heavenly joys, and world without end?

2. This may also serve to reprove and correct those covetous madmen that labour more to have their children great than good, rich than religious. It is a madness of that kind which wanteth terms to express it: that a man should go to hell himself, and fit his children to follow him, in seeking to establish his house and raise his posterity by sacrilege, simony, bribery, usury, oppression, depopulation, or any other course of cruelty and wrong. For so they lay their foundation in fireworks, which is able to blow up themselves and their posterity, body and soul, root and branch.

3. Let this fill the heart of the dying Christian with sweetest peace. For, whereas the bloody knife of profane men's unconscionable and cruel negligence in training up their children religiously doth stick full deep in their souls, and, leaving this life, they bequeath unto them the curse of God, together with their ill-gotten goods, the Christian happily finds his conscience, by reason of his former thirsty desire and sincere endeavour to do his children good spiritually, freed from the horror of such bloodguiltiness, and leaves them to that comfortable outward estate which no injury or usury hath empoisoned, and to that never-failing providence of our heavenly Father, which then is wont to work most graciously and bountifully for us, when we, renouncing the arm of flesh, the favour of man, riches of iniquity, and all such broken staves, depend most upon it. If we will needs be our own carvers for things of this life, either by right or wrong, fraud or fair dealing—all is one, so that we may thrive and grow great in the world—then we are justly cast off from all merciful care over us, and exposed to ruin and curse. But, if we rest sincerely for ourselves and ours upon the all-powerful Providence, it will never fail nor forsake us, but ever exercise and improve its sweetness and wisdom for our true and everlasting good.

In the third point, we have a description of Noah's spiritual state, which is the complete character of a true Christian, consisting of three attributes: 1. Justness. 2. Sincerity. 3. Piety. I collect from the first this note:—

Doctrine. Every truly religious man is also a righteous and true dealing man. From the second, this:—

Doctrine. Sincerity is the sinew and touchstone of true Christianity.

But these two I have so often pressed in the course of my ministry, that I will pass by them at this time.

Look what kind of honesty to men that is which is not accompanied with religion towards God; the same is that religion towards God which is not attended with honesty to men. Dishonest religion, irreligious honesty, insincere religion and honesty, are all in one predicament, as they say, and all out of the right path. If thou hast respect only to the commandments of the first table, and outward performance of religious services, but neglect duties of the second, and conscientious carriage to thy brethren, thou art but a pharisee and formal professor. If thou dealest justly with thy neighbour, and yet be a stranger to the mystery of godliness, canst not pray, nor sanctify the Lord's day, nor submit to a sincere and searching ministry, which the first table enjoins, thou art but a mere moral man. If thou put on a flourish and outward face only of obedience and conformity to both, and yet be true-hearted in neither, as did the pharisees, Matt 23:14-23, thou art but a gross hypocrite. Bear thyself holy towards God, honestly towards man, and true-heartedly towards both, or thou art nothing in Christ's kingdom, but still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. Put on righteousness and true holiness in this life, Eph 4:24, or thou shalt never put on a crown of glory in the life to come.

"In his generations," which were many, and mainly corrupt, Noah stood out, and stuck unto God through so many ages, and against so wicked a world; from which we may learn—

Doctrine. That constancy is ever an inseparable attendant upon true Christianity. But because a double constancy is here implied,—1. One in respect of continuance of time; 2. Another in respect of opposition to the corruptions of the times,—I may observe two points.

1. Grace once truly rooted in the heart cannever be removed. See for this purpose, Matt 24:24; 1 John 2:19,27; John 10:28; Rom 8:35,38-39; Luke 22:32; 2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 4:30, etc.

Reasons may be taken from, 1. The dearness, strength, constancy, inviolableness of God the Father's love unto his children. It is dearer than a mother's to her sweetest babe, Isa 49:15; it is stronger than the mountains, Isa 54:10; it is as constant as the courses of the sun and moon and stars; of the day and of the night, Jer 31:35-36, and Jer 33:20-21; it is as sure as God himself, Ps 89:33-35. 2. Christ's triumphant sitting down and intercession at his Father's right hand; which may for ever, with sweetest peace, and freedom from slavish trembling, assure us of our rootedness in Christ, constancy in grace, and everlasting abode with him in the other world. Being once implanted into Christ by a lively fruitful faith, and blessedly knit unto him by his Spirit, as fast as the sinews of his precious body are knit unto his bones, his flesh to his sinews, and his skin to his flesh, he that will rend us from Christ's mystical body, must pull him out of heaven, and remove him from the right hand of his Father. What furious or infernal power can or dare lay a finger on us in this kind? Christ hath taken the poisoning power out of every thing that would hurt us, or drag us back to hell. He hath conquered, led captive, carried in triumph, and chained up for ever, all the enemies of our souls, and enviers of our salvation. They may, in the mean time, exercise us for our good, but they shall never be able to execute their malicious wills, or mortally hurt us, either here, or in the next life. 3. The irrevocable sealing of the blessed Spirit, Eph 1:13-14, and Eph 4:30. And who or what can or dare reverse the deed, or break up the seal of the Holy Ghost? Here then, as you see, the blessed Trinity is the immovable ground of our going on in grace. 4. The lasting and immortal power of the word when once rooted in a good and honest heart, Luke 8:15; 1 Pet 1:23. 5. The certainty and sweetness of promises to this purpose, Jer 32:39-40; Zech 10:12; John 8:12; 2 Sam 7:14-15; Ps 89:33-37. 6. The force and might of faith, 1 Pet 1:2-9. 7. The efficacy of Christ's prayer, Luke 22:32; John 17:15-20; Rom 8:34. 8. The durable vigour of saving graces, John 4:14; Rom 11:29. 9. The inability, nay, impossibility, of all causes or creatures to pluck out of God's hand, John 10:29, or to draw any of his to a total or final falling away. It is not the devil himself can do it, 1 John 5:18. It is not the world, 1 John 5:4; John 16:33. It is not the concurrent fury and united forces of all the powers of darkness, Matt 16:18. It is not sin, 2 Sam 7:14-15; Ps 89:31-32. It is not weakness of faith, or other graces, Matt 12:20. It is not the imposture of false prophets, Matt 24:24. It is no creature, or created power, Rom 8:38-39.

Use 1. This point, thus confirmed, doth confound that forlorn tenet of the popish doctors, which tells us that a justified and sanctified man may fall finally and totally from grace. In which I have heretofore upon another occasion, in your hearing, punctually refuted those which I conceived Bellarmine's best arguments. I will not now trouble you with his sophistry again.

2. This sweet and precious truth may crown the hearts of all those that are truly Christ's with joy unspeakable and glorious. Let new converts and babes in Christ, who are wont to be very fearful and much troubled lest they should not hold out, because upon their first entrance into the ways of Christianity they are cunningly and concurrently encountered with so many oppositions:—from the devil, who then rageth extraordinarily; from the world, which then tendereth more and more alluring baits; from the flesh, which naturally is very impatient of any spiritual restraint; from carnal friends, who cannot endure their change; from their old companions, who cry out, They are turning puritans; from the times, which lower and look sour upon their zeal: sometimes from the father who begat them; from the mother who gave them suck; from the wife who lies in their bosom; from a world of enemies to grace:—I say, in such a case, let them grasp in the arms of their faith the proofs and promises in the present point, and ride on, because of the word of truth. Let them sweetly, with full assurance and unconquerable resolution, repose upon that everlasting encouragement, for the finishing of their spiritual building, which Zerubbabel received from the mouth of God himself, for success of the material building, a type of this: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the head stone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it," Zech 4:6-7. And that they may more comfortably and constantly go on, let them cast their eyes betimes upon these and the like cautions, at their very first giving their names unto Christ.

(1.) Propose such interrogatories as these to thine own heart: Art thou content to abandon thy bosom sin, and the sensual froth of former pleasures, hereafter to delight in God, as thy chief joy? Canst thou take up thy cross, and follow Christ, his truth and holy track, amidst the many bypaths that lead to hell, and different opinions of multitudes of men? Art thou willing to suffer adversity, disgrace, and discountenance with the righteous, and contemned godly ones? Canst thou endure to have things laid unto thy charge thou never didst, thoughtest, or dreamedst on; to become the drunkard's song; a byword to those that are viler than the earth; to be music at the feasts of those that sit in the gate? Lam 3:63. In a word, canst thou, for Christ's sake, deny thyself, thy worldly wisdom, natural wit, carnal friends, old companions, pleasures, profits, preferments, ease, excellency of learning, acceptation with the world, outward state, liberty, life, or whatever else thou canst name dearest unto flesh and blood? If thine heart answer not affirmatively, (I mean, out of the resolution of a well-advised regenerate judgment; for I know the flesh will grumble and reclaim,) thou wilt certainly fall away, or end in formality.

(2.) Look to thy repentance that it be sincere, universal, constant, from the heart, for all known sins, to thy dying day. 1. If some worldly cross be the continued principal motive: 2. or the humour of melancholy: 3. if it be confusedly only for sin, and in general: 4. or for some one special notorious sin only: 5. or for some lesser sins, with neglect of greater, as for tithing mint, etc.: 6. if it be only legal: 7. but for some sins, of what kind soever; leaving but so much as one known sin not taken to heart: 8. or but for a time;—all will come to naught. A foundation of godly sorrow, deliberately, advisedly, and sincerely laid at first, will be for ever after a comfortable encouragement to faith, spiritual joy, well-doing, and walking with God.

(3.) Take the touchstone of fruitful, powerful, and special marks, to discern and distinguish justifying saving faith from all false and insufficient faiths; for a temporary faith may go far.

(4.) Let knowledge and affection grow up together in thee, and mutually transfuse spiritual vigour into each other. Presume not upon any knowledge, without a humble inflamed affection; neither build too much upon the heat of zeal, without the light of knowledge: either of these may be single and superior in some, who afterwards may shamefully fall away.

(5.) Above all things, look unto thy heart. If thy change were angelical, in words, actions, and all outward carriage, and yet thy thoughts still the same and reserved, thou art but a gilded tomb, and canst not be saved. Let a man take a wolf, beat it black and blue, break its bones, knock out its teeth, cut away its claws, put upon it a sheep's skin, yet still it retains its wolfish nature: let a man become ever so harmless outwardly, yet without a new heart all is in vain.

(6.) Incorporate thyself into the company of God's people, by all engagements and obligations of a profitable, intimate, and comfortable fellowship in the gospel. There is a secret tie unto constancy in the communion of saints. He is not likely to walk long that walketh alone, especially if he might enjoy good company. Shunning society with the godly is a plain sign of a temporary faith.

(7.) Consider well (for the contrary is a notable discovery of counterfeits) that thy calling to grace must settle thee more surely in thine honest particular calling; and make thee therein more faithful, conscientious, and laborious.

Let Christians also of longer standing, and more strength in their assaults about perseverance, have recourse unto this tower of truth, and labour to prevent that which they fear:—

1. By constancy, in a careful use of all the means; the word, prayer, conference, meditation, sacraments, etc. To which, let them preserve their love, and practise what they hear, without omission or delay. He that gives way to a heartless neglect, or customary hardness of heart, in the use of the ordinances, may justly suspect his nearness to some fearful sin, or fierce temptation, to some heavy judgment, or dangerous apostasy.

2. As soon as they discover any spiritual weakness or decay, assault or temptation, let them complain betimes unto the throne of grace, and mightily oppose with the most fervent prayers of extraordinary private humiliation.

3. Let them keep perfection still in their eye and aim; and, towards the attainment thereof, acquire and acquaint themselves with rules of holy life, daily directions, courses of most mortified men, etc.

4. Let them watchfully decline all occasions of falling back: spiritual pride, known hypocrisy, desire to be rich, undervaluing and declining the most searching means, form and negligence in religious duties, discontinuance of intimateness with the godly, neglect of distractions upon the Lord's day, etc.

5. Let them consider that all which is past is lost, if they fall off, 2 John 8.

This former point of constancy in grace did arise from a consideration of blessed Noah's continuance in goodness through so many ages. Now, in that he did not conform to the iniquities of the times, but did stand unstained, amidst the most wicked generations that ever dwelt upon earth, I collect the necessity of another constancy, and that is in respect of opposition to the corruptions of times.

Doctrine. The servant of God must not serve the times. Or thus: The true Christian ought to stand at a distance from the corruptions of the times.

Reason. He is bound unto it by his baptism. Of such as profaned themselves, being Christians, with irreligious delight in the ensigns of idolatry, as heathenish spectacles, shows and stage-plays, Tertullian, to strike them the more deep, claimeth the promise which they made in baptism. He is not of the world, John 15:19; his life is hid with Christ in God, Col 3:3. There is a secret, heavenly vigour infused into every gracious soul by the sanctifying Spirit, which deadens it to the world, and makes it delight in God. He ought to shine in the world, as a light "in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation," Phil 2:15. Light and darkness cannot endure one another; neither the power of grace those works of darkness in which the world lies drowned. He is by no means to be conformed to this world, Rom 12:2, nor to run with the wicked to the same excess of riot, 1 Pet 4:4. He is now newborn, and become a child of eternity; whereby his heart is fallen in love with new and everlasting delights, and the eye of his soul turned from the dung of this world towards the glory of the second life. As the worldling cannot relish the sweet joys of gracious exercises, so neither can the Christian the frothy pleasures of carnal fellowship. You can as hardly draw the sound professor to an assembly of swaggering companions, as a lover of pleasure to a day of humiliation.

Use 1. Howsoever, then, thou mayest seem to stand on God's side, by an artificial acting of some affected forms in religion, by countenancing the ministry, if thou art a great man, and outwardly conforming to the ordinances; yet, if in thy practice thou art plunged into the corruptions of the present, and thine heart still hanker and hunt in secret after youthful delights, the lusts of men, the most applauded fashions of the greater part, thou art not a Christian in truth, but a counterfeit. Assure thyself, if thou swim down the current, and sail with the tide of the times, thou mayest justly look every moment to fall upon the sudden, perhaps, in the height of thy temporal happiness, and hottest gleam of thy worldly glory, into the irrecoverable and everlasting lake of brimstone and fire.

2. Let every one who hath given his name unto Christ, ever hold it his crown and comfort to hold a strong and unconquerable countermotion to the courses of the world. Let him still discover the true nobleness of his Christian spirit, and of a mind spiritually generous, by gathering vigour, and growing invincible, from the very oppositions of the wicked, and villanies of the age. See Ps 119:126-127; 1 Kings 19:14; 1 Thess 2:2.

It was the saying of a moral heathen, "that to do well where was no danger was a common thing;

but to do well where was both peril and opposition was the peculiar office of a man of virtue:" much more, say I, of a man of God. "And Noah walked with God." [Gen 6:9] Walking with God was the top and flower of all Noah's excellences and spiritual felicities upon earth. Whence note,—

Doctrine. That walking with God is the crown of the Christian's character.

It is the duty and property of every true Christian to walk with his God. By walking with God, I mean, a sincere endeavour, punctually and precisely, to manage, conduct, and dispose all our affairs, thoughts, words, and deeds, all our behaviour and conversation, in reverence and fear, with humility and singleness of heart, as in the sight of an invisible God, under the perpetual presence of his all-seeing, glorious, pure eye; and, by a comfortable consequence, to enjoy, by the assistance and exercise of faith, an unutterable sweet communion and humble familiarity with his holy Majesty: in a word, to live in heaven upon earth.

God's covenant and commandment to Abraham, and in him to all the faithful unto the world's end, require it, Gen 17:1. The practice and protestations of the saints and servants of God seal unto it. Enoch's walking with God, Gen 5:22,24, was a happy preparative to his extraordinary translation to glory. "The Lord, before whom I walk," saith Abraham, Gen 24:40, will do thus and thus. "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living," saith David, Ps 116:9. "O Lord God of Israel," saith Solomon, "there is no God like thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and showest mercy untothy servants that walk before thee with all their hearts," 2 Chron 6:14. "I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart," saith Hezekiah. 2 Kings 20:3 "And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men," saith Paul, Acts 24:16; which sounds the same way. "Let their money perish with them who esteem all the gold in the world worth one day's society with Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit,"[3] said that noble Marquess of Vico, well skilled and experienced in a heavenly conversing with his God.

Reason 1. And it must needs be so: for howsoever natural men and worldlings, out of their obnoxiousness and secret terrors, slavishly retire, they do not willingly, neither dare they, draw near to that God, who to them is "a consuming fire," Heb 12:19; yet all those who have truly tasted how gracious and glorious he is, will find their hearts, out of a secret sense of God's love unto them first, kindly inflamed with infinite desire to live under the comfortable influence of his pleased countenance, to enjoy his holy Majesty with constant peace, and a humble spiritual access and acquaintance continually. The spirit of prayer, infinite love, exercise of repentance, temptations, and troubles from Satan; pressures and oppressions from the world, loss of inward peace, faintness of faith, want of spiritual strength, assault of some special sin, sweetness of meditation, daily favours showered down upon him without number and above measure; forethought of the great and last account, motions of the blessed Spirit, spiritual desertion, etc., but above all, the inexplicable blessedness, goodness,and excellency of the highest Majesty himself, drive him to his God many times a-day.

2. All God's love unto us, his loving kindnesses, protections, preservations, bounty, patience, divine illuminations, spiritual blessings; in a word, every link of that golden chain of mercy, grace, and glory, far thicker set with sweetest blessings in all kinds than the heaven with stars, which our happy souls have, do, or shall enjoy, from the first springing of it up (if everlasting could have any beginning) out of the adored fountain of his free grace, to the last moment of eternity in highest heavenly bliss, (if eternity could possibly ever determine,) should be so many keen spurs, deepest obligations, strongest chains, to draw our hearts most eagerly to this infinite delight in him, and thus with a humble familiarity to converse with his holy Majesty.

3. Consciousness of our former walking comfortably with God, sanctified by the life of faith, will mightily and incredibly support our spirits and courage in the times of confusions and fear. The hearts of sensual worldlings, for want of reconcilement and acquaintance with God in calm and comfortable times, sink and tremble in the day of distress and God's dreadful visitations, as the heart of a woman in her pangs, and fall asunder in their breasts like drops of water. But that happy one, who in his prosperity hath made God his portion, and walked humbly in his presence, will in the time of trouble stand like a strong immovable mountain, impregnable against the rage of wind and weather, against the cruel incursions of all adverse power: when the wicked, with useless cries, shall call upon the mountains to cover them, he will be able to say with David, "The Lord is my refugeand my strength, therefore will I not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea," Ps 46:2. He shall, by the mercies of God, and humble dependance upon his omnipotent arm, encounter and entertain the terrors even of the evil day, of the hour of temptation, of the king of terror, and last judgment, with confidence and peace.

4. Thy walking with God will make thee extraordinarily powerful, and mightily to prevail in prayer; one of the greatest blessings, and sweetest comforts, which can be named or enjoyed in this life. As the king's favourite, who still stands in his presence, and under the immediate and gracious influence of his royal eye, doth far sooner and much more easily obtain both his own and friends' suits, than those who are more estranged from the court, so it is in this case.

5. But, above all, that which should most quicken and urge us to this duty, is that particular interest we have, by Jesus Christ, in Jehovah himself, blessed for ever;—a mystery which, if I should offer to open and enlarge, I should be endless, and yet come infinitely short.

Oh, then, let us infinitely love, and learn exactly the most sweet and heavenly art of walking with God! For a more comfortable enlightening and guiding us wherein, before I come to give some general instructions, give me leave to premise these quickening preparatives.