Decline idleness, the very rust and canker of the soul, the devil's cushion, pillow, chief reposal; his very tide-time of temptation, as it were, wherein he carries with much ease, and without all contradiction, the current of our corrupt affections to any cursed sin. Be diligent, with conscience and faithfulness, in some lawful, honest, particular calling, (a good testimony, if other saving marks concur of truth, and true-heartedness, in thy general calling of Christianity) not so much to gather gold and engross wealth, as for necessary and moderate provision for family and posterity; and in conscience and obedience to that common charge, laid upon all the sons and daughters of Adam to the world's end, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground," Gen 3:19. 1. But ever go about the affairs of thy calling with a heavenly mind, seasoned and sanctified with habitual prayer, ejaculatory elevations, and willingness, if God so please, to be dissolved, and to be with Christ; filled with heavenly matter and meditation, picked out of the passages of thy present business. For instance, let the husbandman, in seedtime, collect this sacred soliloquy and heavenly thought:—If I now take not the season, I shall have no harvest, but starve in winter; so, proportionably, if I gather not grace in this sunshine of the gospel, and day of my visitation, I shall find nothing but horror upon my bed of death, and burn in hell for ever hereafter, etc. 2. In all the civil businesses of thy personal calling, let thy eye and aim be upon God's glory, as the prime and principal end of allthy actions, 1 Cor 10:31, and in them seek and serve the glorious end of God's honour, not so much in procuring thine own, as the good of the church, commonwealth, neighbours, and family. 3. By earthly employments do not become an earthworm. In using the world, grow not a worldling, and such a one as finds more sweetness and pleasure in worldly dealings, and the coming-in of thy profits, than in thy heavenly traffic and treasures through the practice and business of Christianity.

PARTICULAR DIRECTIONS.

These preparatives thus premised, I proceed to some general directions for a more comfortable walking in the way that is called holy.

I. ON FAMILY DUTIES.

First, and before all other things, have a special eye and attendance to a sincere, constant, and fruitful performance of holy duties, of God's services. I say nothing particularly at this time of private reading the Scriptures, public hearing the word, personal prayer, and with thy yokefellow, if thou live in that state, singing of psalms, meditation, conference, days of humiliation, etc., of which thou must proportionably make conscience in their due place, observing also in them the ensuing cautions; for a known gross customary neglect of any holy duty, religious exercise, divine ordinance, in its season, may bring a damp upon the rest, and a consumption upon the whole body of Christianity. To leave these and the like, in their courses and turns also, to be performed with all good conscience and following cautions, I only at this time purposely advise, for the better sanctifying thyself and all about thee to a more comfortable and successful managing of all affairs, businesses, and undertakings, either spiritual or civil, that thou, being master of a family, (for I single out such a one for instance) be ever sure to glorify God amidst thy family, by morning and evening sacrifices of prayers and praises to his heavenly Highness.

In the discharge of which important duty of Christianity, utterly neglected by the most, and empoisoned to many, by their resting only in the work wrought, take heed of growing into form, customariness, carelessness, which will most certainly draw the very lifeblood and breathing out of those holy businesses; being ever the canker and cutthroat of all true godliness, and gracious acceptation with God. Labour, therefore, by a reverend collecting all the powers of thy soul, and fresh renewing and strengthening thy watch at every several time, to preserve heart and spirit in those daily devotions and family duties: which thou shalt the better do if thou look to, 1. A right disposition before; 2. A spiritual behaviour in the doing; 3. A holy carriage afterward.

1. For the first: 1. Come not before God with any sin lying upon thy conscience unrepented of, or delighted in; see Ps 66:18. 2. Neither with passion, wrath, or heart-burning against any. 3. Stir up and quicken the activeness and particular apprehensions of thy faith about the things desired and deprecated; in a word, in the apostle's language, for that is my meaning, "Lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting." [1 Tim 2:8] Bring resolution against all sin, in respect of God; peace and appeased passions, in respect of men; assurance to be heard, in respect of thyself. Or thus, before thou fall upon thy knees, shake off three empoisoning and heavy hinderances, which will clog and clip the wings of thy prayers, that they will never be able to ascend up into heaven,—sin, anger, distrust; and possess thy heart of three excellent helps and inflaming furtherances: a right apprehension of God's dreadfulness, purity, power, etc.; a true sense of thy own vileness, abominableness, nothingness, etc.; a hearty survey of the infiniteness and inexpressibleness of God's bounty, blessings, and many compassionate forbearances towards thee.

2. For the second, 1. Repel, with an undaunted spirit and resolute contempt, Satan's blasphemous infections, if he be busy that way, (and he is ordinarily most spiteful against the best businesses,) and the rather because, if they be heartily abominated and abandoned with heart-rising and loathing, they are put upon the devil's score, and are only thy crosses, not thy sins. 2. Watch over the world with all care and timely opposition, that, if it be possible, not an earthly thought may creep into thy heart all the while. 3. Strive to hold thy heart in a lively frame, as well in confession as deprecation; in deprecation as petition; in intercession as for personal blessings; as well for purity of heart, as pardon of sin, throughout; though there may be difference of fervour, and crying unto God, according to the necessity and nearness of the passage in the prayer to our particular, or the more universal good desired. Prayer is the creature of the Holy Ghost, every part whereof we should heartily wish, and earnestly wrestle for, that He would proportionably animate, as it were, and thoroughly enliven, even as the soul doth the body.

3. For the third, with all intention and watchfulness pursue and press after the things prayed for, by a timely apprehension, fruitful exercise, and utmost improvement of all occasions, ordinances, helps, and heavenly offers, which may any ways concur to the compassing of them. For instance: thou prayest for knowledge; walk then, when thou hast prayed, with a constant endeavour, in the strength of thy prayer, through all the means, reading, hearing, conferring, practising, (for even that also is a means to increase knowledge, John 7:17, especially experimental,) catechising, etc., for the storing of thy understanding, with all sacred illuminations and holy senses of God's saving word. Let no opportunity pass, be earnest in catching all occasions for the enriching of thy mind with such heavenly knowledge, and hoarding up in thine heart such hidden treasures. "If thou criest after knowledge," saith Solomon, "and liftest up thy voice for understanding;" there is the prayer: "if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hidden treasures;" there is the endeavour: "then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God;" there is the blessing, Prov 2:3-5 see Ps 27:4. Again, thou prayest to be preserved out of ill company; thou doest well: but, when thou hast done, dost thou make conscience of the counsel of Solomon, Prov 4:14-15, and, by the power and impression thereof, confront and oppose the cunning enticements and cursed importunities of thine old companions and brethren in iniquity? "Enter not," saith Solomon, "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." He that makes prayer the end of prayer, prays only to pray, and rests in his prayer, thinking, when that holy duty is done, that there is no more to be done, prays to no purpose. There must be good doings as well as good duties. He that doth not earnestly, and in good spirit, afterwards set himself against sins deprecated, and pursue with zeal and conscience the graces and good things petitioned, his prayer is worth nothing.

GENERAL PREPARATIVES.

1. Look that thou livest not in any one known sin against thy conscience, hating to be reformed. Do not cherish, allow, or go on in any lust, corruption, or lewd way in thine heart, life, or calling. Suffer not any work of darkness, or service of Satan, to reign and domineer in thee; for, if so, thou art so far from ability, or possibility of walking with God, or delighting in him, that thou wearest the devil's brand, and art yet most certainly one of his. See and search the true meaning of such places as these 1 John 3:3,6,8-9; James 2:10; Ezek 18:21,30; Ps 66:18, and Ps 119:6,101; Matt 18:8-9; 2 Cor 7:1.

Suitable hereunto is the concurrent judgment and doctrine of our best divines and worthiest writers, graciously instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. These are their several assertions to the same sense, in their own words:

1. "A man can have no peace in his conscience that favoureth and retaineth any one sin in himself against his conscience."

2. "A man is in a damnable state, whatsoever good deeds seem to be in him, if he yield not to the work of the Holy Ghost, for the leaving but of any one known sin, which fighteth against peace of conscience."

3. "So long as the power of mortification destroyeth thy sinful affections, and so long as thou art unfeignedly displeased with all sin, and dost mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit, thy case is the case of salvation."

4. "A good conscience stands not with a purpose of sinning; no, not with an irresolution against sin."

5. "The rich and precious box of a good conscience is polluted and made impure, if but one dead fly be suffered in it." (He means, any one known sin, allowed and delighted in impenitently.)

6. "Where there is but any one sin nourished and fostered, all our other graces are not only blemished, but abolished; they are no graces."

7. Most true is that saying of Aquinas, that "all sins are coupled together, though not as to seeking the same temporal good; for some look to the good of gain, some of glory, some of pleasure, etc., yet, in regard of aversion from eternal good, that is God; so that he that looks but toward one sin, is as much averted and turned back from God as if he looked to all. In which respect St. James says, 'He that offendeth in one point, is guilty of all.'"

8. "Every Christian should carry in his heart a constant and resolute purpose not to sin in anything; for faith and the purpose of sinning can never stand together."

Thou seest, then, if Satan keep possession but by one reigning sin, it will be thy everlasting ruin. Thou shalt, then, be so far from ever enjoying any humble, holy, acquaintance with our God, that thou art gone, body and soul, for ever. One breach in the walls of a city exposeth it to the surprise of the enemy: one leak in a ship neglected will sink it at length into the bottom of the sea: the stab of a penknife to the heart will as well destroy a man as all the daggers that killed Cesar in the senate-house: if thou hedge thy close as high as the middle region of the air in all other places, and leave but one gap, all thy grass will be gone: if the fowler catch the bird, either by the head, or the foot, or the wing, she is surely his own. It is so in the present case: if thou live and lie with allowance and delight, in any one known sin, without particular remorse or resolution to part with it, thou as yet carriest the devil's brand; he hath thereby marked thee out for his own. As obedience is universal and catholic, if sincere, so repentance, if true, is also general. "It strips us stark naked," as a worthy divine says well, "of all the garments of the old Adam, and leaves not so much as the shirt behind: in this rotten building it leaves not a stone upon a stone. As the flood drowned Noah's own friends and servants, so must the flood of repentant tears drown our sweetest and most profitable sins."

The premonition, therefore, I tender in the first place is this: thou canst never possibly be fitly qualified, either for the right understanding or saving practice of this sacred and sweetest art of walking with God, except thou resolve to stand for ever sincerely at the sword's point against all sin. Even thy bosom-sin must be abandoned, if thou look for any blessing in this kind.

And because this darling pleasure, this minion delight, is Satan's stronghold, his tower of greatest confidence and security, when he is driven out elsewhere, and so consequently is most powerful and peremptory in keeping a man's heart estranged, with largest distance and incompatible aversion from all holy acquaintance with God; I will, in short, labour to enlighten and disentangle any one who unfeignedly desires an utter divorce from this bosom-devil by telling him, 1. What it is: 2. The marks to discover it: 3. How he may be deceived about it.

1. As in every man there is one element, one humour, and ordinarily one passion predominant; so also one work of darkness, and way of death. And it is that which his corrupt and original crookedness, upon the first elective survey and prospect over the fool's paradise of worldly pleasures, fleshly lusts, and vanities of this life, by a secret, sensual inclination, and bewitching infusion of Satan, singles out, and makes special choice of, to follow and feed upon with the greatest delight and predominant sweetness: afterward, by custom and continuance, grows so powerful and attractive, that it extraordinarily endears and draws unto it the heat of all his desires, and strongest workings of his heart, with much affectionate impatience and headlongness: and at the height, by an irresistible tyranny, it makes all occasions and occurrences, friends and followers, the deepest reach of policy, and utmost projects of wit, religion, conscience, credit with the world, the universal possibility of body, soul, outward state, serviceable and contributory unto it, as the captain and commanding sin; as to the devil's viceroy, domineering in the wasted conscience. In some it is worldliness, wantonness, ambition, opposition to godliness, usury, pride, revenge, or the like: in others, it may be drunkenness, the swaggering vanity of good fellowship, gluttony, pleasures of playhouse haunting, gaming, scurrilous jesting, obstinate insatiableness in allowed recreations, idleness, or such like.

2. Thou mayest discover it by such marks as these:—

(1.) It is that which thy truest friends, thine own conscience and the anger of God in the ministry, many times find out, meet with, and chiefly check thee for.

(2.) It is that which if it break out into act, and be visible to the eye of the world, thine enemies most eagerly observe and object, as matter of their chief insult, and thy greatest disgrace.

(3.) That which thou art loth to leave, art oftenest tempted unto, hast least power to resist, and which most hinders the resignation and submission of soul and body, of all thy courses and carriage, heartily and unreservedly to the word and will of God.

(4.) It is that which God oftenest corrects in thee, even in the interpretation and guilty acknowledgment of thy self-accusing heart. It may be, at several times thou hast been afflicted with some heavy cross in thine outward state, loss of a child, some fits and pangs of bodily pain, terrors and troubles of mind, or some such proportionable visitations: now in all these and like afflictions, upon the first smarting apprehension, thy conscience, if any whit awaked, on its own accord seized upon that sin we now seek for, as the principal Achan and author of all thy misery.

(5.) If ever thou wast so sick, as out of extremity to receive sentence of death against thyself, and despair of recovery; if thy conscience was stirring, this sin affrighted thee most, and gave the deadliest blow to drive thee to final despair. And, if thou shouldest die in it without repentance, (which God forbid,) it would infuse most hellish vigour and venom into the never-dying worm, which would thereby more mightily gnaw upon thy conscience through all eternity. If ever the sword of the Spirit shall cleave it from thy bosom, (which is infinitely to be desired,) and strike through thy sensual heart with true repentance, it will cost thee the bitterest tears, most sighs, and deepest groans.

(6.) It is that which thou art most loth to have known. If it were possible, thou couldest be well content that no John Baptist should ever hear of thy Herodias. And therefore thou beatest thy brains, and improvest thy wit, to devise (if it be capable of daubing) distinctions, evasions, excuses, extenuations, whole cartloads of fig-leaves, to colour and cloak this foul fiend, though favourite to thy bewitched soul.

(7.) That which thou art in a bodily fear the minister will meddle and meet with when thou art going to a faithful and searching sermon. For thou thinkest with thyself, If this day he disclose my bosom, I shall both be disgraced amongst my neighbours that know it, and cast also into melancholy by his denouncing of terror against it.

(8.) Thoughts, plots, and projects about it, a thousand to one, ordinarily seize upon thine heart, with first and most acceptable entertainment at thy very first waking; if they have not broken off thy sleep, and troubled thee in thy dreams.

(9.) The cares, pleasures, and appurtenances of it are wont to thrust and throng upon thee on the Lord's day with extraordinary eagerness, importunity, and irresistibleness. For the devil, that desires to have thy mind most distracted upon that day, makes choice of the fittest and most pleasing baits to draw away and detain thy heart, and the most alluring objects for diversion.

(10.) In the darkness and discomforts of the night, if thou art suddenly awakened with some dreadful thunder, lightning, or terrible tempest, the guilt and accusations of thy beloved sin are wont to come into thy mind in the first place, and with greatest terror.

3. A man may be deceived, in conceiving that he is utterly divorced and quite delivered from his bosom sin, and yet it may be but a mere exchange, or some other mistake. This gross, affected self-imposture may be seen in such cases as these:—

(1.) He may change only the outward and visible form of it. For instance: whereas the same sin of covetousness doth utter and express itself by usury, simony, sacrilege, bribery, grinding poor men's faces, crushing, and unmercifully keeping under the poorer of the same trade, stealing, overreaching by tricks of wit, all manner of wrongdoing, all kinds of oppression, detaining ill-gotten goods without restitution, etc., he may insensibly glide out of one gulf of griping cruelty into another; he may fall from one of these, being a more notorious and cursed trade of hoarding, to some other of them less observed and odious in the world, and yet still abide in the chambers of death, and under the tyranny of a reigning sin. The foul sin of uncleanness doth actuate itself by fornication, adultery, and other impurities. Now, he may pass from one of these pollutions, more crying and abominable, to some other of them, not affrighting the conscience with such grisliness and horror, and yet still lie in the impenitent and damnable snares of lust.

(2.) He may cease and refrain from the outward gross acts of such hateful villanies, and yet his inward parts be still defiled with insatiable sensual hankerings after them, delightfully revolving them in his mind, and contemplative commission of them. For instance, he may hold his hand both from the crying violence of oppressions and wrong, and the closer conveniences of cunning and fraud, and yet covetousness may still reign in him by the earthly exercise of the heart. He may forbear the external acts of uncleanness, and yet lie and languish abominably in speculative wantonness and adulteries of the thought; the visible executions of revenge, and yet nourish in his distempered affections the hellish vipers of heartburning hatred and spite; all indirect ambitious climbing into high rooms, and yet be passingly proud and over greedy of precedence.

(3.) Nay, he may every way change the kind of his bosom sin in respect of matter, form, object, and yet, upon the matter, it is but the exchange of one foul fiend for another. For instance, wantonness may be his sweet sin in youth, and worldliness in old age; revelling in his younger years, downright drunkenness in his declining time; prodigality may sway in some part of his life, pinching in some other; hypocrisy may reign at one time, apostacy at another; furious zeal for one while, profane irreligion for another.

(4.) When the blasting frosts and feebleness of old age have, with a sottish deadness and listlessness, wasted the ambitious vigour of his mind, and the boisterous heat of his affections have dried and drunk up the milk in his breasts, and marrow in his bones, his darling sin may then at length bid him adieu, without any penitent discharge, and he may say unto it, I have no more pleasure in thee. Whereupon he may falsely conclude a mortification and final conquest over it; a secure deliverance from the guilt and curse of it.

(5.) He may unsoundly please himself with an involuntary and enforced cessation from it, when there is no want of good will, as they say, but only of matter, means, opportunity, enticement, company, provocation, or something for the full and free acting and enjoyment of it. So, want of money may restrain a man, but full sore against his will, from strange apparel, gaming, alehouse haunting, buying of benefices, offices, high places, etc.

(6.) He may for a time pull his neck out of the strongest yoke of Satan, only out of a melancholic pang of slavish terror, serious forethought of death, and lying everlastingly in hell, and true apprehension of the impossibility of being saved without abandoning it; upon some desperate horror of bringing again his beloved sin in his bosom to the communion, after so many causeful provocations of Divine justice; observation of some remarkable vengeance seized upon his fellow delinquents; or sensible smart of some terrible blow from God's visiting hand in one kind or other: I say, upon some such occasion, he may for a time forbear his vile oaths, usury, drunkenness, gaming, playhouse haunting, impurity, or what other sin soever doth reign in him, and retain him strongest in the devil's slavery. But, because it is not the work of the word, humbling him soundly under God's mighty hand, planting faith, and infusing mortifying power, he is not able to hold out long; but the unclean spirit returns, and rules in him again far more imperiously and sensually, out of indignation of its discontinuance, and proportionably to the party's new collected strength and eagerness to recommit it, after his extraordinary and impatient forbearance. I know it is not impossible but that a man, after his conversion, by the sudden surprisal of some violent temptation and cunning train of Satan, may be dragged back to commit his sweet sin again; especially if it be of some nature, (though it be a very heavy case, and to be lamented, if it were possible, with tears of blood;) yet he never doth nor can return to wallow in it again, or allow it. After such a dreadful relapse, his heart bleeds afresh with extraordinary bitterness of penitent remorse, he abhors himself in dust and ashes, as exceedingly vile, cries more mightily unto God in a day of humiliation for the return of his reconciled countenance, repairs and fortifies the breach with stronger resolution, and more invincible watchfulness against future assaults and all attempts to reenter. But the temporary professor I talk of, after his formal enforced forbearance, ingulfs himself again with more greediness into the pleasures and sensuality of his bosom sin, lies and delights in it again as the very life of his life, and hardens himself more obstinately in it, as a thing impossible to leave, and live with any comfort. Upon his return, the unclean spirit rages more than before, Matt 12:45.

Thus, to lend thee some light for a more full discovery, and thorough disentanglement out of its pleasing snares, I have intimated briefly what a beloved sin is, what thine may be, and how thou mayest be deceived about it. For if thou wouldest truly taste how gracious and glorious the Lord is in a sweet communion with his blessed Majesty,—if thou wouldest be intimately acquainted with the mystery of Christ, wherein are hid infinite heavenly treasures, and such pleasures as "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," 1 Cor 2:9,—if thou wouldest ever be fitly qualified to walk humbly with thy God in the way which is called holy,—as thou must fall out for ever with all sin, so must thou principally and impartially improve all thy spiritual forces and aid from heaven, utterly to demolish and beat to the ground the devil's castle; to dethrone and depose from its hellish tyranny over thee, that grand impoisoner of thy soul, and the strongest bar to keep out grace, and all acquaintance and sweetest intercourse with God,—thy bosom sin.

Take notice, by the way, that since we concurrently and constantly teach that justifying faith doth purify the heart from the reign and allowance of any lustful or evil course, and plants, by the power of the Holy Ghost, a sincere universal new obedience, and regular respect to all God's commandments, to all good works of justice, mercy, and truth; and that we neither do nor dare give any comfort to any man of his being justified and assured of God's love, who goes on impenitently in any one known sin against his conscience, hating to be reformed; I say, since it is thus, take notice how unworthily and wrongfully the antichristian doctors, having received foreheads from the whore of Babylon, deal with us in this point. Hear them speak: "So that their justification," (meaning ours,) saith Fitzherbert, "may, according to their opinion, stand with all wickedness." "These words," saith Arnoux, (meaning of the French confession,) "are set down to assure the most wicked man that is, of the righteousness of the Son of God." "By the application of Christ's satisfaction by faith," saith Lessius, "he (meaning the protestant) is reputed just before God, though he find no change of will at all within." The scarlet fathers in the Trentish conventicle say, that Luther, from justification by faith alone, collected not only that good works are not necessary, but also that a dissolute liberty in observing the law of God and of the church will serve the turn. Bellarmine also says, "They seem altogether to think that a man may be saved, although he do no good works, nor observe God's commandments:" which he there only seems and assays to prove, but indeed plays the calumniating sophister. "The justifying faith of the adversaries," saith he in another place, "takes clearly away prayer, sacraments, good works, and whatsoever God hath instituted for our salvation." "The Protestants," saith Stapleton, "will have certainty of grace to be in a man, not only without any respect, necessity, consequence, presence, or convenience of good works, but also whatsoever sins being present." The Rhemists also most slanderously affirm, that we "condemn good works as unclean, sinful, hypocritical." Arnoldus also swells with malicious popish poison and the rancour of a slanderous spirit when he fathers upon us such falsehoods as these; as though we should teach that all men are bound to believe that they are elected to eternal life; that we bid all wicked men be secure as those who can fall from salvation by no wickedness.

Now the Lord rebuke thee, Satan, who sittest with such extreme malice and falsehood in the foul mouths of the popish proctors and Rabshakehs of Rome, that they should with such prodigious lies and villanous slanders revile the Lord's champions, and traduce the glorious heavenly truth of our most holy and righteous religion.

But to my purpose, and to conclude the point; thou must either, with a resolute and everlasting divorce, abandon and abominate thy bosom sin, thy darling delight, to the pit of hell, whence it hath formerly received much enraged sensual poison, to the woful wasting of thy conscience, and the stronger and longer barring thee from grace; or else thou must continue an everlasting stranger from all communion and conversing with God: thou shalt never be able to meet him in his ordinances with true reverence and delight, or look him in the face with comfort at the last day.

II. Scorn with an infinite and triumphant disdain to serve the mighty Lord of heaven and earth servilely, slavishly, or formally, for selfish and private ends, or any thing save his own sweet, gracious, glorious self. Hate hypocrisy from the very heart-root; which foul fiend, painting himself more unobservedly in the warm sun and shining prosperity of the gospel's flourishing estate with an outward gilt and superficial tincture, doth with greater variety and stronger imposture deceive both men's own souls and others in the glorious noontide thereof: nay, this great agent for the prince of darkness is so politic, that he prevails too much many times in causing the decline and damp of profession and Christian zeal. For though at this day professors of the gracious way be in greatest disgrace with the most; and a drunkard, a swaggering good fellow, a usurer, a son or daughter of Belial, shall find more favour, applause, and approbation with the world, than a man who makes conscience of his ways; so that it may seem the greatest madness to make profession of religion hypocritically,—yet, even in these times, there are some causes in which the devil takes occasion to cause some to play the hypocrite notoriously.

Some there may be, who, being weak and worthless, yet vainglorious and over greedy of reputation, finding that they obtain no acceptation and applause with worldlings, by reason of their worthlessness, and that natural men entertain them not with that estimation and account proportionable to their proud expectation; and conceiving also that, by their association and siding with the saints, (who in preciousness of regard and dearness of love ever infinitely prefer the poorest Christian before the proudest Nimrod,) they shall be prized above vulgar esteem and ordinary valuation, purposely put on a mask of outward conformity to the courses of Christianity, that thereby they may procure and purchase some special credit and remarkable respect, and with some, at least, be accounted somebody in the world.

Others there are, who, seeing they cannot so easily and excessively satisfy and glut their greedy humours by their commerce, dealings, and mutual negotiations with natural men; for such are well able with equal cunning to countermine against their crafty and cozening underminings; their consciences will serve them to encounter and retaliate their unconscionableness, with like overreaching retributions of circumvention and wrong; they can well enough sound and fathom with the crooked line of their own deceitful hearts the invincible depths of their Machiavellian projects, and plots, and knavery;—I say, others there are, who upon such occasion, that they may thrive in the world, and grow in wealth more easily and unobservedly, put on a cloak of outward profession, and in policy only and hypocrisy draw towards the better side, mix and join themselves with God's children, hang upon and adhere unto true Christians; because they pitch upon them, make special choice of, and single out such upon purpose, as those from whom, by reason of the singleness and simplicity of their hearts, the unsuspiciousness of their charity, the equity and conscionableness of their dealings in these cozening, supplanting, and undermining days, they may most fairly and easily suck out the greatest advantage, and prey upon most plentifully with the devouring teeth of covetousness and craft, gilded over only with a veil of seeming, and varnish of hypocrisy.

Some there may be, whom only the very terrors and sting of slavish fear, and forethought of the wrath and torment to come, may drive and restrain from the execution of grosser villanies, excite and enchain to the outward exercises of holy duties, and many actual religious conformities. For instance, some may repair to the house of God on the Lord's day, not for any such great love to God's truth or a searching ministry, but for fear that, being then alone, or walking idly abroad, their guilty consciences should work more fearfully and fiercely upon them; and that thoughts of their sins, death, hell, damnation, and other such terrible considerations would come into their minds with affrighting forms and apparitions of horror. Some, it may be, for fear they should be justly censured and marked out by men acquainted and experienced in the mystery of grace and ways of God, with the odious deserved brand of prayerless and atheistical sinners; or lest they should be seized upon with some remarkable judgment in their own persons, families, or goods, by fire, robbery, tempest, ill success, death, horror, despair, or other fearful accident, dare not for their lives but continue a course and formal task of prayer, evening and morning, in their houses. Some also, in times of trouble and terror especially, as of extraordinary thunders, impetuous tempests, dreadful appearances in the air, etc., fly into the company and communion of Christians, driven thither by the fearfulness of their spirits, and hope to receive protection of their guiltiness and preservation from wrath, by the prayers, presence, and acceptation of such holy ones. We see in men's conduct, as to human laws, that even fear of them restrains many from many lawless outrages, and constrains to many civil conformities, against which their sensual hearts and humours do rise up against with much distaste and aversion. Do you not think that many drunkards would as well live in murder and upon the spoil, as in their present abominable swinishness, did they not hold it a more horrible thing to be hanged than to pay five shillings, or sit in the stocks? Would not many at sermon-time rather be in the alehouse than in the house of God, were not the constitutions of men a curb unto their corruptions? Would not some desperate wretches as well strike through at once, and quite despatch those they hate, as kill them all the year long with their cruel thoughts and dreadful malice, were not thought free, and actual murder death by the laws of men? It may be so proportionably in men's behaviour towards divine laws, the holy statutes of heaven, and that highest tribunal. But as in the former we ought to be subject "not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake," Rom 13:5, so in the latter much more, not only for terror of God's judgments, but also for love of his truth.

A worthy divine sums up all I would say in this point thus: "Sometimes the fear of God's judgments, as of the rack of an accusing conscience, of the torments of hellfire, etc., holdeth men in a slavish obedience."

I fear there are too many abroad in the world, especially great ones, who by forbearance of other gross sins, to which their sensual affections are not so endeared, by outward performance of some holy duties, formal presence at religious exercises, or by countenancing and patronage of godly ministers and good men, hope to make amends, as it were, and to purchase protection and dispensation for the vengeance due unto the sinful pleasures of some bosom and beloved lust wherein they secretly lie. And, therefore, their outside conformity in other things is caused by fear of being horribly and remarkably plagued for that close darling delight.

Others there are, who, by reason of respect to, correspondence with, dependance upon, or gainful expectation from, some gracious great one, Christian friend, reverend pastor, patron, landlord or governor, religious rich kindred, etc., or other such by-respects, conform to the outward forms of religion, and live reservedly under the canopy of a counterfeit profession. The false and hollow hearts of men many times harbour many private ends in their outward services of God; and howsoever they openly pretend religion, yet they secretly intend, and plot the satisfaction of their humour and serving of their own turns, by an artificial, enforced, temporary taking part with the better part. Such servile professors as these, ordinarily in the mean time stand at a stay in an external conformity to Christian courses; for no spiritual life warms their affections, no root of grace grows in their hearts. Formality of this kind is ever void of all vital vigour, vegetation, and activity; such men are constant only in a heartless, plodding course and coldness; and many times, at length, when the motive of their religious representations and shows is removed, and the end compassed for which they counterfeited, they put off their visors, and appear again plain carnal men and lewd fellows, as they were before.

Some there may be, who, out of a greedy pursuit of a general applause from all sorts of men, and ambitious hunting after a promiscuous reputation, and equal acceptance both with professors of religion and men of this world, put on a show of religious deportment, at least, in the company of such as are ready and forward to commend their conformity, and forwardness that way, and by relation abroad, to enrol their names amongst the number of those who are noted to be on the best side. In a word, such fellows as these, out of a base and unblessed ambition to be well spoken of by all, though a woe waits upon such, Luke 6:26, furnish themselves both with a form of profession to content Christians, and flourishes of good fellowship to please the profane.

Others there are, who may gloriously pretend and protest, with great bravery and confidence, their assent and assistance to the best and holiest courses; put on a temporary counterfeit profession, and fashionable conformity to the communion of saints; that thereby they may pass more fairly and plausibly out of one calling into another: from a baser, lower, more neglected, and toilsome trade, into some other of more liberty, acceptation, and ease; or else break out of all callings, and so by the unhallowed mystery of a sacred cozening, if I may so call it, live upon their profession; and by amusing the tender consciences of weak Christians, with the controlling and countermanding tyranny, as it were, of an affected furious zeal, suck out of them no small advantage, and prey too plentifully upon the people of God. Such as these are ready to pretend and intimate that such base, earthly, and worldly employment and spending of their time is disgraceful and derogatory to the providence of God and their Christian liberty; that unworthy detainments and avocations interrupt them in the pursuit of their general calling, disable and hinder them in the discharge of holy duties. But let them know, that Christianity, if sound and true, doth not nullify, but sanctify our particular callings. Thou oughtest to continue with conscionableness and constancy in that personal calling wherein thy calling to grace did find thee, if it be warrantable and lawful: see 1 Cor 7:20. No comfortable change of a calling, but in case of private necessity, or common good; and that truly so, not hypocritically, pretended, or for by-respects.

If any man, then, upon giving his name to religion, shall grow into neglect, distaste, or dereliction of his honest particular calling, we may ever strongly suspect him of hollowness and hypocrisy. It is the confident conclusion of a very learned and holy divine, "Though a man be endued with excellent gifts, and be able to speak well, conceive prayer, and with some reverence to hear the word and receive the sacraments, yet, if he practise not the duties of godliness within his own calling, all is but hypocrisy."[1]

(1.) What son or daughter of Adam can challenge and plead exemption from that common charge laid upon them by the Lord of heaven, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground," Gen 3:19; either by travail of body or toil of mind, or both?

(2.) Diligence in a civil calling is necessary for a comfortable provision of earthly necessaries.

(3.) He is a cursed drone, a child of idleness and sloth, the very tennis-ball of temptation, most unworthy the blessings and benefits of human society, who doeth not, one way or other, cooperate, as it were, and contribute to the common good, with his best endeavours, in some honest particular calling.

(4.) A seasonable employment in a civil calling is a sovereign preservative and curb for prevention of infinite swarms of idle, melancholy, and exorbitant thoughts; and for restraint from many wicked and unwarrantable meddlings and miscarriages.

(5.) An honest calling is a school of Christianity, in which a man, performing duties for the Lord's sake, may daily profit in the practice and increase of many heavenly graces, faith, obedience, patience, meekness, constancy, truth, fidelity, invocation, thanksgiving, experience of God's providence, etc.

A true convert, therefore, is so far from casting off his personal calling, that, after his calling to Christianity, he is wont to discharge the duties thereof with far more care and conscience, though with a better mind, more moderate affections, and for a more blessed end.

Some there may be, who, seeing the iniquity of these last and worst times, lying in wait for the surprise and suppression of forwardness and zeal, and that they may gain, or grow into credit with the world by some special service against the forwarder sort, serve themselves in the mean time (plausibleness of profession taking away the sense of their intrusion) into the company and communion of the most noted religious people, that at length they may do them the more mischief, and drive to the head the bitterness of their lurking malice with a more desperate and deadly sting. These are men of great imposture and cunning in their carriage. They inform themselves thoroughly and exactly in the ways and zealous behaviour of profession, and so, with great satisfaction and contentment, apply and accommodate themselves for a time to their desires and devotions. But if once they pry into a point of seeming advantage, which by their wresting and outfacing may create matter of molestation, and spy their supposed season to win by betraying, they turn Turks and traitors to those which are true of heart, to serve their own turns.

Many there are, who, out of a fond and groundless conceit that only an outward conformity to the word, sacraments, and other religious exercises, will serve their turn for salvation, give their names to profession, and so walk on plodding in the comfortless, unzealous forms of a frozen, outside Christianity, even unto their dying day. These men mar and unsanctify themselves by making moderation in religion a saint; and undo their souls by adoring discretion as an idol. Moderation and discretion, truly so called, and rightly defined by the rules of God, are blessed and beautifying ornaments to the best and most zealous Christians; but being tempered with their coldness, and edged with their eagerness against forwardness and fervency in spirit, which the apostle enjoins, Rom 12:11, become the very desperate cutthroats to the power of godliness, and pestilent consumption of the spirits, heart, and life of true zeal. These fellows are most insolent and confident in their pharisaical brags, spiritual security, and hopes for heaven. They admire and applaud, with much self-estimation of their singular skill and rare felicity, in pitching just upon the golden mean, as they conceive, between profaneness and preciseness, infamous notoriousness and persecuted strictness. But that proverb, in the mean time, falls pat upon their pates, "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness," Prov 30:12. And at length, most certainly, the just execution of that terrible threatening, Rev 3:16, will crush their hearts with everlasting horror, confusion, and woe.

But I should be endless in the discovery of this hidden and hellish gulf of hypocrisy, wherein thousands are swallowed up, even in this glorious midday of the gospel. For a man may as soon find out the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, and the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, as to track the cunning and crooked footsteps of this foul fiend in the false hearts of Satan's followers. Only take notice, that thou canst never possibly delight in God, nor ever comfortably come near him, if thou give any entertainment unto it, in what form soever it represents itself, or whatsoever visor it offers unto thee, though ever so fairly varnished, and gilded over with the devil's angelical glory.

III. Build and erect all thy resolutions and conclusions for heaven and God's service upon that strong and purest pillar, that main and most precious principle of Christianity,—self-denial, Luke 14:26-27. No walking with God, no sweet communion and sound peace at his mercyseat, except for his sake, and, keeping a good conscience, thou be content to deny thyself, thy worldly wisdom, natural wit, carnal reason, acceptation with the world, excellence of learning, favour of great ones, credit and applause with the most; thy passions, profit, pleasures, preferment, nearest friends, ease, liberty, life, every thing, any thing. And fear no loss; for all things else are nothing to the least comfortable glimpse of God's pleased face.

From this principle sprung all those noble resolutions and replies of God's worthiest saints and soldiers. That of Esther for the preservation of the people of God; Well, saith she, "I will go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish," Esther 4:16. That of Micaiah, when solicited strongly by the messenger to temporize in managing his ministry with suitableness and conformity to the king's pleasure, and plausibleness of the false prophets; "As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me that will I speak," 1 Kings 22:14. That of Nehemiah; "Should such a man as I flee?" Neh 6:11; as if he should have said, Tell not me of fleeing, my resolution was fixed long ago, if need require, to lay down my life and lose my blood in the Lord's battles. That of Paul, when his friends were weeping and wailing about him; "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus," Acts 21:13. That of Jerome; "If my father stood weeping on his knees before me, and my mother hanging on my neck behind me, and all my brethren, sisters, children, kinsfolk, howling on every side to retain me in sinful life with them, I would fling my mother to the ground, despise all my kindred, run over my father and tread him under my feet, thereby to run to Christ when he calleth me." That of Luther, when dealt with earnestly and eagerly, not to venture himself amongst a number of perfidious and bloodthirsty papists; "As touching me," saith he, "since I am sent for, I am resolved and certainly determined to enter Worms in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; yea, although I knew there were as many devils to resist me as there are tiles to cover the houses in Worms." That of a most renowned Italian marquis, Galeacius Carracciolus, when tempted by a Jesuit with a great sum of money to return from God's blessing at Geneva to the warm sun in Italy; "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." That of George Carpenter, martyr; "My wife and my children are so dearly beloved unto me that they cannot be bought from me for all the riches and possessions of the duke of Bavaria; but for the love of my Lord God I will willingly forsake them." That of Kilian, a Dutch schoolmaster, to such as asked him if he loved not his wife and children; "Yes," said he; "if the world were gold, and were mine to dispose of it, I would give it to live with them, though it were but in a prison; yet my soul and Christ are dearer to me than all."

IV. Exercise thyself continually, and be excellent in that only heaven upon earth, and sweetest sanctuary to a tried soul,—the life of faith; which to live, in some good measure, is the duty and property of every living member of Christ Jesus. Love therefore, and labour to live by, the power of faith, which is the life of salvation, sanctification, preservation. 1. Of salvation—thus: let thy truly humbled soul, grieved and groaning under the burden of sin, throw itself into the meritorious and merciful arms of Jesus Christ, wounded, broken, and bleeding upon the cross, and there let it hold and hide itself for ever, in full assurance of eternal life by virtue of that promise, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," John 3:36. For, having thus laid hold upon him, he, by his Spirit, doth communicate first himself unto thee; then both the merit of his death, for remission of thy sins, and of his active obedience, for thy right to salvation and happiness: and withal, the power of his Spirit to quicken thee to the life of grace in this world, and to raise up thy body to the life of glory at the last day.

2. Of sanctification: if thou keep thy faith, the fountain, root, and heart, as it were, from which all thine other graces spring, in life and vigour, thou shalt pray more comfortably, be more courageously patient, hear the word more fruitfully, receive the sacraments more joyfully, pass the sabbaths more delightfully, confer more cheerfully, meditate more heavenly, walk in all the ways of new obedience with more strength, and conquest over corruptions. For, ordinarily, every Christian shall find the exercise of other graces to be comfortable or cold, according to the liveliness or languishing of his faith.

3. Of preservation, both temporal and spiritual.

In crosses, afflictions, and all God's outward, angry visitations, by the power of such promises as those, Ps 89:33, and Ps 50:15; Heb 12:7-8,11; 1 Thess 3:3; Acts 14:22; Luke 9:23; Isa 63:9. In the course and carriage of thy particular calling, the duties and works whereof if thou discharge with conscience, diligence, and prayer, thou mayest go on with comfort, contentment, and freedom from that torturing and racking thoughtfulness; from those restless and cursed carkings of carnal worldlings, wherein they basely languish and lose their souls; and leave the success, issue, and event of all thy labours and undertakings unto the Lord, whatsoever it may be, resting sweetly and ever relying upon that gracious promise, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," Heb 13:5.

In ordering and guiding the affairs of thy family, depend by faith upon God's blessing, the strength and sinew of all sound comfort and true contentment that way: see Ps 127.

In the loss of outward things for thy love and service unto God, by believing that man of God, "The Lord is able to give thee much more than this," 2 Chron 25:9. Nay, in the loss of all earthly things in every kind, see Hab 3:17-18; "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 shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." Consider also for this purpose Job's patient blessing of God upon the surprise and concurrence of a universal misery, Job 1:21.

In pangs of the new birth, spiritual infancy, weaknesses of faith, prayer, godly sorrow, and other graces; by those cordial refreshing promises, Rev 21:6; Matt 5:6; Isa 40:11, and Isa 42:3, and Isa 57:15. In oppositions against the raising or restoration of spiritual buildings by the ministry of the word; or in temptations against a man's personal progress, and holding out against God's ways unto the end; by renouncing our own strength, disclaiming the arm of flesh, and crying in every encounter, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain?" etc., Zech 4:6-7.

In languishings and tremblings after relapse into some old, or fall into some new sin; by such precious places as these, Luke 17:4; 1 Sam 12:20; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:1. From this last place a reverend divine collects this comfort: "If we see our unworthiness, and with broken hearts acknowledge it, God is faithful and just to forgive it, be it ever so great." But this is a jewel fit only for the ear of a sincere Christian, when, out of the fearfulness of his distrustful spirit, he puts off all comfort, though truly humbled, after ensnarement in some more special affrighting sin. Let no swine trample upon it.

In all kinds of temptations, by the power of that promise, 1 Cor 10:13. Nay, even amidst a variety of them by obeying that precept, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations," James 1:2.

In spiritual desertion, by refreshing, and resting thy sinking soul, in the mean time until the Lord return, upon that sure rock, "Blessed are all they that wait for him," Isa 30:18. Most blessed, dear, and sweetest sanctuary! If the Christian die in that waiting state, he shall be certainly saved; for the Holy Ghost pronounceth him blessed.

In the deep and almost despairing apprehensions of thine extreme vileness, and, as it were, nothingness in grace, by apprehending that most merciful promise from God's own mouth, Isa 43:25.

In thy perplexed and troubled thoughts about return after backsliding; by those comfortable encouragements, Jer 3:1,12-14,22; Hos 14:1-2,4.

In doubts of losing the love of God, and life of grace; by consideration of those passages in God's book, where it appears that the love of God unto his child, in respect of tenderness and constancy, is infinitely dearer than that of a most loving mother to her little one, Isa 49:15; stronger than the stony mountains and rocks of flint, Isa 54:10; as constant as the courses of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars, and of the day, and of the night, Jer 31:35-36, and Jer 33:20-21; as sure as God himself, Ps 89:33-35.

In the hailstorms of slanderous arrows, and empoisoned darts of disgrace, by cleaving to most glorious promises, 1 Pet 4:14; Matt 5:11.

In the valley of the shadow of death, by an assurance of God's merciful omnipotent presence, Ps 23:4.

In the extremity and depth of such desperate distresses and perplexities, wherein in thy present feeling thou canst see, and find no possibility of help from heaven or earth, God or man, but art both helpless and hopeless, as the church complains, Lam 3:18, by such like places as those, Isa 33:9-10; 2 Chron 20:12; Gen 22:14; Exod 14:13; Ps 78:63-65.

In every thing, or any thing that shall or can possibly befall thee; prosperity or poverty; cross or comfort; calmness of conscience or tempests of terror; life or death, etc.; by extracting abundance of unconquerable patience and peace of soul, from those three heavenly golden conduits of sweetest comfort, Rom 8:18,28,32.

Thus, in any trouble of soul, body, good name, outward state, present or to come, thou mayest, by the sovereign power of faith working upon the word, not only draw out the sting, and expel the poison of it, but also create a great deal of comfort to thy truly-humbled soul, and maintain it, in despite of all mortal or infernal opposition, in a constant spiritual gladness. For all those promises, whereupon thy heavy heart in such cases may repose and refresh itself, have their being from the blessed name Jehovah, (see Exod 6:3,) and therefore are as sure as God himself; they are sealed with the bloody sufferings of his only Son, and therefore as true as truth itself; and, if thou be in Christ, are all as certainly thine, as the heart in thy body, or blood that runs in thy veins. Nay, and a little more for thy comfort, the glory of God's truth is mightily advanced, and himself extraordinarily pleased, by thy more resolute, stedfast, and triumphant cleaving unto them. What a blessed, sweet, and heavenly life, then, is the life of faith!

V. Apprehend in thy mind, and settle in thine heart, a true estimate and right conception of the substance and power, inward nature and materials, of Christianity.

This doth not consist, as too many suppose, in outward shows, profession, talking; in holding strict points, defending precise opinions, contending against the corruptions of the times; in the work wrought, and external forms of religious exercises, set tasks of hearing, reading, conference, and the like; in some solemn, outward, extraordinary abstinences and forbearances, censuring others, etc.; but in righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost; in meekness, tenderheartedness, love; in patience, humility, contentedness; in mortification of sin, moderation of passion, holy guidance of the tongue; in works of mercy, justice, and truth; in fidelity, painfulness in our callings, conscientious conversing with men; in reverence unto superiors, love of our enemies, an openhearted, real, fruitful, affectionateness, and bounty to God's people; in heavenly-mindedness, self-denial, the life of faith; in disesteem of earthly things, contempt of the world, resolute hatred of sin; in approving our hearts in God's presence, a sweet communion with him, comfortable longing for the coming of the Lord Jesus, etc.

Yet mistake me not; thou must make a show, profess, and talk, if thou wouldst have Christ Jesus to own thee at that last and dreadful day, Mark 8:38.

It is therefore an idle and brainless cavil of some lewd ignorant men to say, "We can by no means endure these shows; cannot a man be religious to himself, except he hang out his flag, and let all the world know it?" For where the power of religion is, there will be the show also. Painted fire shines not, ascends not, heats not; but true fire is ever inseparably attended with these properties. We cannot put a candle in a lantern but the light will show itself through; if true grace be planted in the heart, it will shine forth in our words, gestures, actions, and our whole conversation. He that will take show from the substance of religion, let him take brightness from the sun, glittering from gold, breathing from a live body. Show and profession of Christ before men is commanded, as well as the substance and soundness of heart, Rom 10:9-10.

Thou must be a patron, and in some good measure a practiser, of precise points, if ever thou wilt have true peace and assurance of walking in the narrow path that leads unto life; as, of walking circumspectly, Eph 5:15; being fervent in spirit, Rom 12:11; striving to enter in at the strait gate, Luke 13:24; self-denial, Luke 14:26; surpassing the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, Matt 5:20; laying violent hands and hold upon the kingdom of heaven, Matt 11:12: in a word, of the way which is called holy, and yet so spoken against everywhere, Acts 28:22. For I mean only that preciseness which is commended unto us, and commanded by the blessed Spirit in God's pure and holy word. I know that all passages of sanctification are too precise in the interpretation of worldly wisdom, and paradoxes intolerable and burdensome to flesh and blood, which, notwithstanding, are easy and sweet to mortified men.

Thou must stand opposed against the sins of the times, and, like the eagle, prune up thyself against a storm, or else thou art a temporizer.

Outward exercises of religion are, as it were, the body, without which the soul of Christianity hath no existence.

Thou must be content to abridge and confine thy Christian liberty at any time, according to opportunities and exigences, for the enlargement of God's glory, the building up of thy brother, and curbing thine own rebellious nature.

Thou mayest, and must judge by the fruits. It is Christ's rule, Matt 7:16. If, therefore, thou seest the abominable and unsavoury fruits of lying, swearing, drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, usury, scoffing at religion, etc., hanging out in the sight of the sun, thou mayest justly censure the tree to be rotten, and, for the present, fuel for the fire of hell. Thou mayest judge no man rashly, nor of his final estate. If we see a malefactor cast and condemned for some grievous crime, yet reprieved unto the next assize, no man can say that he shall be certainly hanged, because a pardon may be procured, and come from the king in the mean time; it is so in the present case. But thou mayest call a spade, a spade; a drunkard, a drunkard; a usurer, a usurer. Otherwise, if thou daub and dissemble, how shalt thou ever be able to escape liableness to that abomination, "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord," Prov 17:15. And to the sting of that woe, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter," Isa 5:20. Yet know, that speaking the evil thou certainly knowest of another, must be seasonable, charitable, and discreet; not out of humour, spleen, imperiousness, at thy pleasure; but for God's honour, the good of the party, thine own discharge, upon a warrantable calling, etc., according to the rules I shall hereafter deliver for guiding the tongue.

My meaning, then, in this point is, that those greater matters be most dearly prized, and principally plied proportionably to their worth and weight; and yet these lesser things not neglected. It is too true, that those who are more fierce and forward about the ceremonials and circumstantials, than truly hot and zealous in the essentials and substantials of Christianity, prove, too often, vaingloriously and proudly mounted upon that foul, hellish fiend, hypocrisy, and posting apace towards some fearful apostacy or frenzy.

VI. Let thy spirit, mindful of its own heavenly birth, immortal nature, and everlasting home, ever generously fortify itself with victorious resolution against worldliness, (the canker and cutthroat of all heavenly-mindedness,) and hearty conversation above. Of all the foul fiends that haunt the hearts of carnal men, there is none that holds a stronger opposition and countermotion to walking with God than covetousness. Ambition, sensuality, and other ways of death, cut off their slaves with an accursed disacquaintance and estrangement far enough from all comfortable access unto the throne of grace; but affections nailed and glued to the earth have this pestilential precedence, that they hold the remotest point of declination from the warmth and influence of any sweet communion with the Sun of righteousness and God's glorious face. All earthly-minded men ordinarily, howsoever they may be outwardly restrained and reserved, are secret deriders of the power of godliness, holy strictness of the saints, and mysteries of grace. "And the pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him," Luke 16:14; even mocked, and made themselves merry with the searching and heart-piercing sermons of the Son of God. Their hearts and hopes are wholly anchored upon the earth, and locked up in their chests; and therefore they dream of no other heaven than their golden hoards, heaps of wealth, and present temporal happiness. Whereas, notwithstanding, one refreshing glimpse shining and shed into our hearts from God's reconciled face, and well-grounded assurance of being his, is infinitely more worth than all the gold in the world.

VII. Let thy holy affections be ever thoroughly warmed and extraordinarily enraptured with the love of God; to which there are infinite inflaming motives and obligations.

1. God, being absolutely considered, is immeasurably lovely. The most attractive objects of insatiable love, and all-amiable excellences, are eminently and transcendently triumphant in him, eternally; beauty, glory, worth, wisdom, greatness, goodness, holiness, purity, any thing, every thing, that is in any ways admirable and love-worthy.

2. Or consider him in relation to thyself; and shouldest thou every moment, through an interminable time, lay down ten thousand lives for his sake, thou couldest never come near the requital of the least part of his infinite love towards thee, which reacheth from everlasting to everlasting. (1.) He bore thee in the bosom of this his free love from all eternity; and that so dearly, that from the same eternity he decreed that his own dear Son should die for thee. (2.) He brought thee out of the abhorred state of being nothing, into the rank of his reasonable and noblest creatures. (3.) He bought thee, when thou hadst wilfully lost thyself, with the heart's blood of his only Son. (4.) He preserves thee every day from a thousand dangers, a thousand deaths, which might seize upon thee, both from within and from without. (5.) He will shortly crown thee with everlasting life, fulness of joy, and pleasures at his right hand for evermore.

3. Consider the unquenchable nature of Christ's inflamed love unto thee, if now washed with his blood, and beautified with his grace. "Thou hast ravished my heart," saith he to the church, and by consequence to every true Christian, "my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck," Song 4:9. Now, love is of that alluring nature, that many times it will draw love from a man when there is no lovely part in the party loving. How much love, then, doth the sovereign Lord of all goodness, the wellspring of all beauty, excellence, and sweetness, require of us! especially since we are his mere creatures, in respect both of our natural being, outward state, gracious state, and state of glory. See how his spiritual amiableness is shadowed by outward beauties, Song 5:10.

VIII. Prize the fruition of God's reconciled face, a nearer communion and acquaintance with his blessed Majesty, the love and light of his countenance, and thereupon a free and frequent access, with humble boldness, unto the throne of grace, at a far higher and more invaluable rate than heaven and earth, as a very real, fruitful foretaste of eternal joys. For, to say no more at this time, if thou hold a holy familiarity with thy God, and he look pleasedly upon thee, thou shalt grasp Jesus Christ more sweetly and feelingly in the arms of thy faith; partake more plentifully of the joyful freedom, presence, and communication of his comforting Spirit; be guarded more strongly and narrowly by his glorious angels; gain more sweetness and heavenly manna out of the ministry, and his other blessed ordinances; walk in safety amongst the creatures like an unconquerable lion. "Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee: when thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest thou shalt not stumble: when thou liest down, thy sleep shall be sweet; thou shalt dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Thou shalt never more be afraid of any evil tidings, or of destruction that wasteth: when thou passest through the waters, thy God shall be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee," Job 5:23; Prov 4:12; Prov 3:24; Prov 1:33; Ps 112:7; Ps 91:6; Isa 42:2. And if, at any time, thou art seized upon with any cross or calamity from any of the creatures, any trouble or temptation from man or devil, any lowering or cruelty from the iniquity of the times, or persecutors of the truth; yet the refreshing beams of God's reconciled face shining upon thy heart, through the darkness of such discomforts, will sweetly mitigate, revive, and infinitely make amends for all. The poison and curse of them shall never come near thy soul. The Lord, in the mean time, like an eagle fluttering about her nest, will most tenderly defend and protect thee, Deut 32:11; Isa 31:5; and at length most certainly come, like a young lion roaring on his prey, for thy rescue and glorious enlargement, Isa 31:4.

IX. Labour, by a constant watch, to keep thy heart in a spiritual temper still, and still sweetly content and fruitfully conversant in the mystery of Christ, and the secrets of his kingdom, which thou shalt more easily do, if thou first rejoice in God, his word, and graces, as thy chief joy and greatest advantage. Secondly; by all earthly things, be drawn to the love of heavenly. For though God hath appointed but one Sabbath in seven days for his more solemn public worship, yet, to a Christian, every day is sanctified to be a rest from all the deeds of the flesh, wherein he is to walk with his God, and show forth the religious keeping of his heart and good conscience in every action of his whole life; so making every passage of his particular calling a part of Christian obedience and duty unto God. Thirdly; let the nobleness of thine enlarged spirit as infinitely disdain to be any ways, upon any terms, in bondage to the corruptions of the times; so find a far sweeter relish, and take incomparably more contentment, in the services of thy Lord and his holy ordinances, than in all the outward benefits and favours of this life. For as the best of these abused, will most certainly, at the bar of God, turn scourges and scorpions to the worldling's conscience; so the other will prove unto the Christian, having been conscientiously exercised in them, as a rich stock, to bring in comfort, patience, and inward peace in his greatest need. Fourthly; as soon as thou discoverest any spiritual weakness or decay, any extraordinary assault, temptation, deadness, etc., complain betime, cry mightily unto God, give him no rest, neither give over seeking until he return unto thy soul with power and life again. If ordinary means will not prevail, press upon him with extraordinary; if then he do not revive thee with wonted quickening vigour, wait with a patient wakeful longing of all the powers of thy soul, and then all this while thy soul will be still in its true spiritual temper, and a most blessed state, see Isa 30:18. Fifthly; watchfully decline all occasions of falling from thy first love, fervency, and heavenly-mindedness; as spiritual pride, known hypocrisy, desire to be rich, discontinuance of thine
intimateness with the godly, neglect of thy particular calling, or daily watch over thy heart, ungodly company, form in religious duties, coldness and customariness in the use of the means, etc. Sixthly; suffer not thine affections to be chained down and set too much upon those things which the common sort and greatest part of men seek after insatiably, and slavishly sink under; praise, profit, credit, acceptation with the world, favour of the great ones, mirth, pleasure, ease, fear, sorrow, earthly contentment, preferment, wealth, long life, or any worldly thing; but debase and disesteem all other delights, in respect of doing God's will, which should ever be unto thee thy meat and drink, thy chief and choicest recreation, and thy only paradise upon earth.

X. Let thy soul full often soar aloft, upon the wings of faith, unto the glory of the empyrean heaven, where God dwelleth, and bathe itself beforehand with many a sweet meditation in that everlasting bliss above. Oh, think with thyself, (though it far pass the reach of any mortal thought,) what an infinite, inexplicable sweetness it will be to look for ever upon the glorious body of Jesus Christ, shining with incomprehensible beauty; and to consider that even every vein of that blessed body bled to bring thee to heaven; and that it, being with such excess of glory hypostatically united into the second Person in the Trinity, hath honoured and advanced thy nature in that respect far above the brightest cherub. To say nothing of the beauty and brightness of that ever-blessed place, that unapproachable light which besets God's dreadful throne, the walking in closest fellowship with the angels of God, that everlasting joyful communion and conversing with the dearest Christian friends and all the crowned saints, and innumerable felicities more, which infinitely surpass in excellence and sweetness the comprehension of the largest heart, and expression of an angel's tongue. Contemplate principally the fountain of all thy bliss, how the mighty Jehovah, God blessed for ever, will pour out of himself, by the influence of beatifical vision, perpetual rivers of unutterable joys and pleasures upon thy glorified body and soul through all eternity; even as the sun pours out his beams and shines every day afresh upon the world, without emptiness or end; and with such variety, (for He is infinite,) that they shall be unto thee as fresh, as new, as sweet, as enrapturing, millions of years after thou hast dwelt in those mansions of rest, as they were the very first moment thou enteredst that blissful place. Such fixed considerations as these of things above will serve as notable helps to draw and keep thy heart heavenward, and may mightily move thee to delight in God, and to hold it the sweetest life upon earth to walk with him in the ways of purity and peace. Methinks, if a man do but once a day seriously and solemnly thus cast up the eye of his faith upon that never-fading crown of life, which, after an inch of time, shall eternally rest upon his head, the goodly splendour thereof, and beams of that incomparable joy, should be able to dispel those mists of fading vanities and hurtful fumes of honours, riches, and earthly pleasures, which this great dunghill of the world, heated by the fire of inordinate lust, doth evaporate and interpose between the sight of the soul and celestial bliss; so that he might, with more affectionate freedom and contempt of earth, have his conversation above, and turn the current of all his delights, love, and longings, with more resolution and constancy, towards his heavenly home.

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.

[Comment from 1837 editor —]

[In this edition the obsolete words have been exchanged for others of the same meaning, and a few sentences, unsuitable for modern readers, have been omitted.]

General Directions

for a

Comfortable Walking

with God
by

Robert Bolton, B.D.

Minister of the Gospel

AD 1626

TO

THE RIGHT HON. AND TRULY NOBLE,

EDWARD, LORD MONTAGUE,

OF BOUGHTON:

A fruitful increase of all heavenly graces; and all watchful preparation for the glory that shall be revealed.

Much honoured and noble lord,

Although the eminence of your other personal worth, great wisdom, and noble parts, a sufficient attractive to every honest heart, by reason of the particular interest it hath in the common state of goodness; or your special bounty to myself, which ought to stir up an ingenuous mind to apprehend any opportunity of due and deserved acknowledgment; or your public deportment in the face of our country, so worthy and honourable; and managed, with such true honesty, grave moderation, and of spirit, which cannot but draw from every heart truly sound to our great Lord in heaven, and his royal deputy our highest sovereign upon earth, a great deal of reverence and love; I say, though any of these severally might draw from me a more exact and able demonstration of the thankful devotions of my heart, yet, my lord, (and you may believe me,) there is another thing besides all these, which was the strongest and most predominant motive to quicken me to this duty and dedication, even your sincere and invincible affection to the gospel of Jesus Christ, his faithful ministers, and most precious ways. And this, to tell you the truth, is far the fairest and most orient flower in the garland of all your goodness, and incomparably above all your greatness, were you advanced even to desert, nay, to the highest top of all earthly felicities and mortal honour. For, however the world, ever beside itself in point of salvation, and stark blind in the right apprehension of heavenly things, doth dote upon gilded miseries, stinging vanities, golden fetters; and wickedly deems pursuit of purity the height of folly; yet I can assure you, in the word of life and truth, the richest and rarest confluence of all human happiness, the most exquisite and variety of the greatest worldly pomp and that ever the sun saw since the first moment of its creation, or shall look upon while it shines in heaven, is but dust in the balance to one grain of grace; it is but dross to an humble mind, enlightened with a foretaste but of the least glimpse of that incomprehensible endless glory which shall shortly be revealed. It is all, in the true valuation, but as a vain smoke, which doth not only vanish as it riseth, and utterly loseth itself at the highest, but also draws tears from a man's eyes; nay, at last wrings the very heartstrings of every impenitent soul with that extreme everlasting horror which would burst ten thousand hearts, seriously and sensibly to think upon beforehand.

It is not only "vanity," but also "vexation of spirit." Let worldly wisdom say what it will, and hold them melancholy and mad, who, by the help of the Holy Ghost, hold a constant countermotion to the course of the world, and corruptions of the time,—that they may keep a good conscience, (the richest treasure and dearest jewel that ever the heart of man was acquainted with;) who infinitely desire rather to be religious, than rich; to be good, than great; to enjoy the favour of God, than the sovereignty and pleasures of all the kingdoms of the earth;—yet assuredly, when all is said, and truly summed up, it is only the true fear of God's blessed name, a zealous forwardness for his glory, (at this day, unhappily, and to the ruin of immortal souls, called by the world , and too much preciseness,) which can truly beautify and adorn both all other personal , and indeed sanctify and bless all public and services of state.

For the first. A professor, even something popish, doth yet truly teach, that " nobility is an illustrious eminency shining in a man by the heavenly infusions of supernatural grace, whereby he is made by adoption the son of God, the spouse of Christ, the temple of the Holy Ghost; without which all other nobilities are nothing." Suppose a fair and goodly horse to the eye, as exquisitely featured, coloured, paced, as that feigned by Bartas to be managed by Cain, yet if he wanted mettle, he were worth nothing to a man of spirit. The most magnificent glorious that ever trod upon earthly , richly crowned with all the ornaments and of nature, art, policy, preferment, or what heart can wish besides, yet without the life of grace to animate and ennoble them, he were to the eye of heavenly wisdom but as a rotten carcass stuck over with flowers, magnified dross, gilded rottenness, golden damnation! And that which is more dreadful, when the sun of his short summer's day is set, the hot gleam of transitory prosperity past, and the bitter tempestuous winter's night of death approaches, from which all the gold and pearl of east and west can no more deliver him than can a handful of dust; I say, then shall be poured upon his head a terrible shower of snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, 11:6. His soul sinks in a moment into the depth of misery, and is desperately plunged for ever into the bottom of the burning lake. His body descends into the grave as into a dungeon of rottenness and horror, arrested, as it were, by the second death, in the devil's name; and, at length, hailed and dragged unto the terror of that great and last day, where no creature can rescue him, no mountain cover him, from that unquenchable wrath, and never-dying worm, which shall everlastingly, day and night, feed upon his soul and flesh. Whereas now, on the other side, that poor neglected one, who hath in truth given his name unto Christ and his profitable service, perhaps by the world most disdainfully and contemptuously trampled upon, even into the dust, with the feet of cruelty and pride; at least, most certainly ever made extremely vile and contemptible by the villainy of tongues, and cruel , yet is such a one as the world is not worthy of, 11:36-38. In the mean time, in the meaning of the Holy Ghost, a crown of glory in the hand of Jehovah, 6:1-3, as beautiful and amiable as the blood of Christ and his righteous robe can make him, crowned full gloriously with God's own comeliness which he hath put upon him, 16:14, designed from all eternity in due time, for so his sanctification now assures him, to wear an everlasting crown of bliss. And when his pilgrimage is past, death is to him the daybreak of eternal brightness. Upon his last bed, his blessed soul shall find that fresh-bleeding fountain for sin and for uncleanness set wide open unto it, by the hand of faith, ready now at its departure to raze out the last sinful stain. It may confidently, in the name of Christ, cast itself into the open arms, enlarged bosom, and dearest of the Father of all mercies; it may feel the glorious presence of the sweetest Comforter, presenting unto it a foretaste of heavenly joys; it shall have the last sweetness, and triumphant truth of all the promises of life, able to confront and confound the utmost rage of all the powers of darkness, made good unto it: a mighty guard of blessed angels shall attend upon it, waiting with longing and joy to bear it triumphantly into the bosom of Abraham. His body shall go into the grave as into a chamber of rest, and bed of down, sweetly perfumed unto it by the sacred body of the Son of God lying in the grave; locked there full fast with the bars of the earth, and fenced with the omnipotent arm of God, as a rich jewel in a casket of gold, until the resurrection of the just. And then, after their meeting and glorious reunion, they shall both be for ever filled with all those unmixed pleasures, blessed , and crowned joys, which the dwellingplace of God, the glory of heaven, and the fountain of all bliss, Jehovah himself blessed for ever, can afford.

Now let the opponent to the power of godliness tell me, in cold blood, whether that wretch, or this honest man, be more truly noble and happy.

For the second. "So natural," saith Hooker, "is the union of religion with justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not. For how should they be just, whom religion doth not cause to be such; or they religious, which are not found such by the proof of their just actions? If they which employ their and travail about the public administration of justice follow it only as a trade, with unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in the business, the sentence of right God's own verdict, and themselves his priests to deliver it; formalities of justice do but serve to smother right, and that which was necessarily ordained for the common good, is, through shameful abuse, made the cause of common misery." Full well did this learned man perceive, and rightly apprehend, that the purity and power of religion alone, doth truly honour all honours, dignify all dignities, actuate with acceptation and life all moral virtues and endowments of art, sweeten all government, strengthen all states, settle fast all imperial crowns upon princes' heads. It is no humorous conceit, but a matter of sound consequence, that all, either personal duties, or of state, are by so much the better performed, by how much the men are more religious from whose abilities the same proceed. When heaven is made too much to yield to earth, piety to policy, public good to private ends, there authority is embittered, inferiors plagued, and, too often, law and justice turned into wormwood and rapine. He truly intimates what a deal of hurt is done, what a world of mischief is many times wrought, insensibly and , when a wicked wit and wide conscience wield the sword of authority. For it is easy and ordinary for a man so mounted by legal flights, putting foul businesses into fair language, and by a dissembled pretence of deeper reach, to compass his own ends, either for promotion of iniquity, or oppression of ; especially, since he knows himself backed with that principle in policy—It is not safe to question or reverse transactions of state, though tainted perhaps with some impressions of miscarriage and error; and that it is a solecism in state wisdom, and unseemly for private , to contest too busily with passages of public tribunals.

These things I thus discourse and declare unto your lordship, to represent unto you the vanity of that honour which is not directly and sincerely subordinate to the honour of God: at the best, it is but a breath, and yet not able to blow so much as one cold blast upon ungodly great ones, when, being suddenly carried from their stately and sumptuous dwellings, they shall be cast into unquenchable flames. To let you see the and worth of those happy ways to which it hath pleased the Lord of heaven, out of his special mercy, to bend the eye of your noble mind; and that you may know what it is alone hath had power, and the prerogative (and shall for ever, in whomsoever takes God's part) to make you both more truly in yourself, and more faithfully serviceable to our king and state; both to cast a diviner upon your personal virtues, and to make your managing of public businesses (many times most swayed awry, by that foul fiend, faction, partiality, and private ends) worthy, conscionable, and just. For which, every honest eye in our country that looks upon you blesseth you; and shall mourn most bitterly for your absence from amongst us, when you shall be gloriously gathered to your fathers. So let all that truly love the Lord Jesus, his blessed gospel, and servants, "be as the sun, when he goeth forth in his might," [judg 5:31] and at last full sweetly set in the boundless ocean of immortal bliss. In these ways of life, my noble lord, which in the opinion of truth itself are ways of pleasure, and paths of sweetest peace, Prov 3:17; it is the infinite desire of my heart, and drift of this treatise I now offer into your honour's hands, that you would still advance forward, and do more nobly still. That you would improve to the utmost the height of your excellent understanding to a further and more full comprehension of the mystery of Christ; which, though it be a sealed book to the sharpest sight of the most piercing human wisdom, yet reveals to every truly humble, spiritual eye, the rich and royal treasures of all true sweetness, contentment, and peace. That you would hold it your greatest honour and happiness, as it is indeed, to grow still in fruitfulness, in every good work, Col 1:10; in fervency of spirit, Rom 12:11; in purity, 1 John 3:3; in heavenly mindedness, Phil 3:20; Col 3:2; in precise walking, etc. Eph 5:15; with singular watchfulness, and the more punctual and frequent search and perusal of your spiritual state; both because the depths and delusions of Satan are most intricate and infinite, and because "not many noble are called," 1 Cor 1:26. That you would hold on in that valiantness for the truth, and all good causes, which ordinarily gather vigour and strength proportionably to the swelling fury of all adversaries, either mortal or infernal powers. Ever patiently passing by, with generous magnanimity and brave contempt, all the vile railings and contradictions of Satan's revelers, and popish insolency; for vainly to affect the acclamations and applause of worthless men, or to be dejected unmanlily with their unjust accusations and anger, are both equally ignoble, and most unworthy a man of honour and virtuous resolution. Yours shall be the crown and comfort, when all popery and profaneness shall lie buried in the dust and dungeon of hell. In a word, the thirsty longing of my heart, and heartiest prayer shall ever be, that you may shine every day, more and more gloriously in all personal sanctity, a plantation of godliness in your own family, and where you have any thing to do; and in a holy zeal for setting forward the affairs of God, when and wheresoever you have any power or calling. That when the last period of your mortal abode in this vale of tears, which draws on apace, shall present itself, you may look death in the face without dread; into the grave without fear; upon the Lord Jesus with comfort; and upon Jehovah blessed for ever, with everlasting joy. Thus let all the saving blessings of our most bountiful heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost, be plentifully and for ever upon your honourable self, and all your sweet and noble children.

Your honour's most truly in all services for the salvation of your soul,

Robert Bolton.