Chapter III (part 2 of 2)…

Chapter III (part 2 of 2)

Direct. I. Understand well how great this duty is, in the nature of the thing, but especially how the very design and tenor of the gospel, and the way of our salvation by a Redeemer, bespeaketh it as the very complexion of the soul, and of every duty.--A creature that is wholly his Creator's, and is preserved every moment by him, and daily fed and maintained by his bounty, and is put into a capacity of life eternal, must needs be obliged to incessant gratitude. And unthankfulness among men is justly taken for an unnatural, monstrous vice, which forfeiteth the benefits of friendship and society: 2 Tim. iii. 2, the "unthankful" are numbered with the "unholy," &c. as part of the monsters which should come in the last times (and which we have lived to see, exactly answering that large description of them). But the design of God in the work of redemption, is purposely laid for the raising of the highest thankfulness in man: and the covenant of grace containeth such abundant, wondrous mercies, as might compel the souls of men to gratitude, or leave them utterly without excuse. It is a great truth, and much to be considered, that gratitude is that general duty of the gospel, which containeth and animateth all the rest, as being essential to all that is properly evangelical. A law, as a law, requireth obedience as the general duty: and this obedience is to be exercised and found in every particular duty which it requireth. And the covenant with the Jews was called, The Law, because the regulating part was most eminent: and so obedience was the thing that was eminently required by the law, though their measure of mercy obliged them also to thankfulness. But the gospel or new covenant is most eminently a history of mercy, and a tender and promise of the most unmatchable benefits that ever were heard of by the ears of man: so that the gift of mercy is the predominant or eminent part in the gospel or new covenant: and though still God be our Governor, and the new covenant also hath its precepts, and is a law, yet that is, in a sort, but the subservient part. And what obedience is to a law, that thankfulness is to a benefit, even the formal answering of its obligation: so that though we are called to as exact obedience as ever, yet it is now only a thankful obedience that we are called to. And just as law and promises or gifts are conjoined in the new covenant, just so should obedience and thankfulness be conjoined in our hearts and lives; one to God as our Ruler, and the other to him as our Benefactor: and these two must animate every act of heart and life. We must repent of sin; but it must be a thankful repenting, as becometh those that have a free pardon of all their sins procured by the blood of Christ, and offered them in the gospel: leave out this gratitude, and it is no evangelical repentance. And what is our saving faith in Christ, but the assent to the truth of the gospel, with a thankful acceptance of the good which it offereth us, even Christ as our Saviour, with the benefits of his redemption. The love to God that is there required, is the thankful love of his redeemed ones: and the love to our very enemies, and the forgiving of wrongs, and all the love to one another, and all the works of charity there required, are the exercises of gratitude, and are all to be done, on this account, because Christ hath loved us, and forgiven us, and that we may show our thankful love to him. Preaching, and praying, and sacraments, and public praises, and communion of saints, and obedience, are all to be animated with gratitude; and they are no further evangelically performed, than thankfulness is the very life and complexion of them all. The dark and defective opening of this by preachers, gave occasion to the antinomians to run into the contrary extreme, and to derogate too much from God's law and our obedience; but if we obscure the doctrine of evangelical gratitude, we do as bad or worse than they. Obedience to our Ruler, and thankfulness to our Benefactor, conjoined and co-operating as the head and heart in the natural body, do make a christian indeed. Understand this well, and it will much incline your hearts to thankfulness.

Direct. II. Let the greatness of the manifold mercies of God, be continually before your eyes.--Thankfulness is caused by the due apprehension of the greatness of mercies. If you either know them not to be mercies, or know not that they are mercies to you, or believe not what is said and promised in the gospel, or forget them, or think not of them, or make light of them through the corruption of your minds, you cannot be thankful for them. I have before spoken of mercy in order to the kindling of love, and therefore shall now only recite these following, to be always in our memories. 1. The love of God in giving you a Redeemer, and the love of Christ in giving his life for us, and in all the parts of our redemption. 2. The covenant of grace, the pardon of all our sins: the justification of our persons: our adoption, and title to eternal life. 3. The aptness of means for calling us to Christ: the gracious and wise disposals of Providence to that end: the gifts and compassion of our instructors: the care of parents: and the helps and examples of the servants of Christ. 4. The efficacy of all these means: the giving us to will and to do, and opening of our hearts, and giving us repentance unto life, and the Spirit of Christ to mortify our sins, and purify our nature, and dwell within us. 5. A standing in his church, under the care of faithful pastors: the liberty, comfort, and frequent benefit of his word and sacraments, and the public communion of his saints. 6. The company of those that fear the Lord, and their faithful admonitions, reproofs, and encouragements: the kindness they have showed us for body, or for soul. 7. The mercies of our relations, or habitations, our estates, and the notable alterations and passages of our lives. 8. The manifold preservations and deliverances of our souls, from errors and seducers; from terrors and distress; from dangerous temptations, and many a soul-wounding sin; and that we are not left to the errors and desires of our hearts, to seared consciences, as forsaken of God. 9. The manifold deliverances of our bodies from enemies, hurts, distresses, sicknesses, and death. 10. The mercies of adversity, in wholesome, necessary chastisements, or honourable sufferings for his sake, and support or comfort under all. 11. The communion which our souls have had with God, in the course of our private and public duties, in prayer, sacraments, and meditation. 12. The use which he hath made of us for the good of others; that our time hath not been wholly lost, and we have not lived as burdens of the world. 13. The mercies of all our friends and his servants, which were to us as our own; and our interest in the mercies and public welfare of his church, which are more than our own. 14. His patience and forbearance with us under our constant unprofitableness and provocations, and his renewed mercies notwithstanding our abuse: our perseverance until now. 15. Our hopes of everlasting rest and glory, when this sinful life is at an end. Aggravate these mercies in your more enlarged meditations, and they will sure constrain you to cry out, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies," Psal. ciii. 1-4. "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful to him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations," Psal. c. 4, 5. "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy to them that fear him," Psal. ciii. 8, 11. "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever," Psal. cxxxvi. 1, &c. "O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the people. Sing ye unto him, sing psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek him," Psal. cv. 1-3.

Direct. III. Be well acquainted with the greatness of your sins, and sensible of them as they are the aggravation of God's mercies to you.--This is the main end why God will humble those that he will save; not to drive them to despair of mercy, nor that he taketh pleasure in their sorrows for themselves; but to work the heart to a due esteem of saving mercy, and to a serious desire after it, that they may thankfully receive it, and carefully retain it, and faithfully use it. An unhumbled soul sets light by Christ, and grace, and glory: it relisheth no spiritual mercy: it cannot be thankful for that which it findeth no great need of. But true humiliation recovereth our appetite, and teacheth us to value mercy as it is. Think therefore what sin is, (as I have opened to you, direct, viii.) and think of your manifold aggravated sins: and then think how great those mercies are that are bestowed on so great, unworthy sinners! Then mercy will melt your humbled hearts, when you confess that you are "unworthy to be called sons," Luke xv.; and that you are "not worthy to look up to heaven," Luke xviii. 13; and that you are "not worthy of the least of all the mercies of God," Gen. xxxii. 10. The humble soul is the thankful soul, and therefore so greatly valued by the Lord.

Direct. IV. Understand what misery you were delivered from, and estimate the greatness of the mercy, by the greatness of the punishment which you had deserved.--Misery as well as sin must tell us the greatness of our mercies. This is before opened, chap. i. direct, ix.

Direct. V. Suppose you saw the damned souls, or suppose you had been one day in hell yourselves, bethink you then how thankful you would have been for Christ and mercy.--And you were condemned to it by the law of God, and if death had brought you to execution you had been there, and then mercy would have been more esteemed. If a preacher were sent to those miserable souls to offer them a pardon and eternal life on the terms as they are offered to us, do you think they would make as light of it as we do?

Direct. VI. Neglect not to keep clear the evidences of thy title to those especial mercies for which thou shouldst be most thankful: and hearken not to Satan when he would tempt thee to think that they are none of thine, that so he might make thee deny God the thanks for them which he expecteth.--Of this I have spoken in the directions for love.

Direct. VII. Think much of those personal mercies which God hath showed thee from thy youth up until now, by which he hath manifested his care of thee, and particular kindness to thee.--Though the common mercies of God's servants be the greatest, which all other christians share in with each one; yet personal favours peculiar to ourselves, are apt much to affect us, as being near our apprehension, and expressing a peculiar care and love of us. Therefore christians should mark God's dealings with them, and write down the great and notable mercies of their lives (which are not unfit for others to know, if they should see it).

Direct. VIII. Compare thy proportion of mercies with the rest of the people's in the world. And thou wilt find that it is not one of many thousands that hath thy proportion.--It is so small a part of the world that are christians, and of those so few that are orthodox, reformed christians, and of those so few that are seriously godly as devoted to God, and of those so few that fall not into some perplexities, errors, scandals, or great afflictions and distress, that those few that are in none of these ranks have cause of wondrous thankfulness to God; yea, the most afflicted christians in the world. Suppose God had divided his mercies equally to all men in the world, as health, and wealth, and honour, and grace, and the gospel, &c.; how little of them would have come to thy share in comparison of what thou now possessest! how many have less wealth or honour than thou! how many thousands have less of gospel and of grace! In reason therefore thy thankfulness should be proportionable and extraordinary.

Direct. IX. Compare the mercies which thou wantest, with those which thou possessest, and observe how much thy receivings are greater than thy sufferings.--Thou hast many meals' plenty, for one day of scarcity or pinching hunger; thou hast many days' health, for one day's sickness: and if one part be ill, there are more that are not; if one cross befall thee, thou escapest many more that might befall thee, and which thou deservest.

Direct. X. Bethink thee how thou wouldst value thy mercies, if thou wert deprived of them.--The want of them usually teacheth us most effectually to esteem them. Think how thou shouldst value Christ and hope, if thou wert in despair! and how thou wouldst value the mercies of earth, if thou wert in hell! and the mercies of England, if thou wert among bloody inquisitors and persecutors, and wicked, cruel heathens or Mahometans, or brutish, savage Americans! Think how good sleep would seem to thee, if thou couldst not sleep for pains! or how good thy meat, or drink, or clothes, or house, or maintenance, or friends, would all seem to thee, if they were taken from thee! and how great a mercy health would seem, if thou wert under some tormenting sickness! and what a mercy time would seem, if death were at hand, and time were ending! and what a mercy thy least sincere desires, or measure of grace, is, in comparison of their case that are the haters, despisers, and persecutors of holiness! These thoughts, if followed home, may shame thee into thankfulness.

Direct. XI. Let heaven be ever in thine eye, and still think of the endless joy which thou shalt have with Christ.--For that is the mercy of all mercies; and he that hath not that in hope to be thankful for, will never be thankful aright for any thing; and he that hath heaven in promise to be thankful for, hath still reason for the highest, joyful thanks, whatever worldly thing he want, or though he were sure never more to have comfort in any creature upon earth. He is unthankful indeed, that will not be thankful for heaven; but that is a mercy which will constrain to thankfulness, so far as our title is discerned. The more believing and heavenly the mind is, the more thankful.

Direct. XII. Look on earthly and present mercies in connexion with heaven which is their end, and as sweetened by our interest in God that giveth them.--You leave out all the life and sweetness, which must cause your thankfulness, if you leave out God and overlook him. A dead carcass hath not the loveliness or usefulness as a living man. You mortify your mercies, when you separate them from God and heaven, and then their beauty, and sweetness, and excellency are gone; and how can you be thankful for the husks and shells, when you foolishly neglect the kernel? Take every bit as from thy Father's hands: remember that he feedeth, and clotheth, and protecteth thee, as his child: it is to "Our Father which is in heaven," that we must go every day for our "daily bread." Taste his love in it, and thou wilt say that it is sweet. Remember whither all his mercies tend, and where they will leave thee, even in the bosom of Eternal love. Think with thyself, how good is this with the love of God! this and heaven are full enough for me. Coarse fare, and coarse clothing, and coarse usage in the world, and hard labour, and a poor habitation, with heaven after all, is mercy beyond all human estimation or conceiving. Nothing can be little, which is a token of the love of God, and leadeth to eternal glory. The relation to heaven is the life and glory of every mercy.

Direct. XIII. Think oft how great a mercy it is, that thankfulness for mercy is made so great a part of thy duty.--Is it not the sweetest employment in the world to be always thinking on so sweet a thing as the mercies of God, and to be mentioning them with glad and thankful hearts? Is not this a sweeter kind of work than to be abusing mercy, and casting it away upon fleshly lusts, and sinning it away, and turning it against us? Yea, is it not a sweeter work than to be groaning under sin and misery? If God had as much fixed your thoughts upon saddening, heart-breaking objects, as he hath (by his commands) upon reviving and delighting objects, you might have thought religion a melancholy life. But when sorrow is required but as preparatory to delight, and cheerful thanksgiving is made the life and sum of your religion, who but a monster will think it grievous to live in thankfulness to our great Benefactor? To think thus of the sweetness of it will do much to incline us to it, and make it easy to us.

Direct. XIV. Make conscience ordinarily of allowing God's mercies as great a room in thy thoughts and prayers, as thou allowest to thy sins, and wants, and troubles.--In a day of humiliation, or after some notable fall into sin, or in some special cases of distress, I confess sin and danger may have the greater share. But, ordinarily, mercy should take up more time in our remembrance and confession than our sins. Let the reasons of it first convince you, that this is your duty; and, when you are convinced, hold yourselves to the performance of it. If you cannot be so thankful as you desire, yet spend as much time in the confessing of God's mercy to you, as in confessing your sins and mentioning your wants. Thanksgiving is an effectual petitioning for more: it showeth that the soul is not drowned in selfishness, but would carry the fruit of all his mercies back to God. If you cannot think on mercy so thankfully as you would, yet see that it have a due proportion of your thoughts. This course (of allowing mercy its due time in our thoughts and prayers) would work the soul to greater thankfulness by degrees. Whereas, on the contrary, when men accustom themselves to have ten words or twenty of confession and petition for one of thanksgiving, and ten thoughts of sins, and wants, and troubles, for one of mercies, this starveth thankfulness and turneth it out of doors. You can command your words and thoughts if you will; resolve, therefore, on this duty.

Direct. XV. Take heed of a proud, a covetous, a fleshly, or a discontented mind; for all these are enemies to thankfulness.--A proud heart thinks itself the worthiest for more, and thinks diminutively of all. A covetous heart is still gaping after more, and never returning the fruit of what it hath received. A fleshly mind is an insatiable gulf of corporal mercies; like a greedy dog that is gaping for another bone when he hath devoured one, and sacrificeth all to his belly, which is his god, Phil. iii. 18. A discontented mind is always murmuring and never pleased, but findeth something still to quarrel at; and taketh more notice of the denying of its unjust desires, than of the giving of many undeserved mercies. Thankfulness prospereth not, where these vices prosper.

Direct. XVI. Avoid as much as may be a melancholy and over-fearful temper; for that will not suffer you to see or taste your greatest mercies, nor to be glad or thankful for any thing you have, but is still representing all things to you in a terrible or lamentable shape.--The grace of thankfulness may he habitually in a timorous, melancholy mind; and that appeareth in their valuation of the mercy. How glad and thankful would they be, if they were assured that the love of God is towards them! But it is next to impossible for them, ordinarily, to exercise thankfulness, because they cannot believe any thing of themselves that is good and comfortable. It is as natural for them to be still fearing, and despairing, and complaining, and troubling themselves, as for froward children to be crying, or sick men to groan. Befriend not therefore this miserable disease, but resist it by all due remedies.

Direct. XVII. Take heed of unthankful doctrines, which teach you to deny or undervalue mercy.--Such is, 1. The doctrines of the Pelagians, (whom Prosper calleth the Ungrateful,) that denied faith and special grace to be any special gift of God; and that teach you, that Peter is no more beholden to God than Judas, for his differencing grace. 2. The doctrine which denieth general grace, (which is presupposed unto special,) and tells the world, that Christ died only for the elect, and that all the mercy of the gospel is confined to them alone; and teacheth all men to deny God any thanks for Christ or any gospel mercy, till they know that they are elect and justified; and would teach the wicked, (on earth and in hell,) that they ought not to accuse themselves for sinning against any gospel mercy, or for rejecting a Christ that died for them. 3. All doctrine which makes God the physical, efficient predeterminer of every act of the creature considered in all its circumstances; and so tells you, that saving grace is no more, nor any otherwise caused, of God, than sin and every natural act is; and our thanks that we owe him for keeping us from sin is but for not irresistible premoving us to it. Such doctrines cut the veins of thankfulness; and being not doctrines according to godliness, the life of grace and spiritual sense of believers are against them.

Direct. XVIII. Put not God off with verbal thanks, but give him thyself and all thou hast.--Thankfulness causeth the soul to inquire, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?" Psal. cxvi. 12. And it is no less than thyself and all thou hast that thou must render; that is, thou must give God not only thy tithes, and the sacrifice of Cain, but thyself to be entirely his servant, and all that thou hast to be at his command, and used in the order that he would have thee use it. A thankful soul devoteth itself to God; this is the "living, acceptable sacrifice," Rom. xii. 1. It studieth how to do him service, and how to do good with all his mercies. Thankfulness is a powerful spring of obedience, and makes men long to be fruitful and profitable, and glad of opportunities to be serviceable to God. Thus law and gospel, obedience and gratitude, concur. A thankful obedience and an obedient thankfulness are a christian's life. "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows to the Most High: and call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, I will show the salvation of God," Psal. 1. 14, 15, 23.

I beseech thee now that readest these lines, be so true to God, be so ingenuous, be so much a friend to the comfort of thy soul, and so much love a life of pleasure, as to set thyself for the time to come to a more conscionable performance of this noble work; and steep thy thoughts in the abundant mercies of thy God, and express them more in all thy speech to God and man. Say as David, "O Lord, truly I am thy servant; thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord," Psal. cxvi. 16, 17. "I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to thee for ever," Psal. xxx. 1-4, 11, 12. "I will praise the name of God with a song, and magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox," Psal. lxix. 30, 31. "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; to show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night," Psal. xcii. 1, 2. "At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee, because of thy righteous judgments," Psal. cxix. 62. "Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence," Psal. cxl. 13. Remember that you are commanded "in every thing to give thanks," 1 Thess. v. 18. When God is scant in mercy to thee, then be thou scant in thankfulness to him; and not when the devil, and a forgetful, or unbelieving, or discontented heart, would hide his greatest mercies from thee. It is just with God to give up that person to sadness of heart, and to uncomfortable, self-tormenting melancholy, that will not be persuaded by the greatness and multitude of mercies, to be frequent in the sweet returns of thanks.

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[Sidenote: To glorify God.]

Grand Direct. XV. Let thy very heart be set to glorify God, thy Creator Redeemer, and Sanctifier; both with the estimation of thy mind, the praises of thy mouth, and the holiness of thy life.

The glorifying of God, being the end of man and the whole creation, must be the highest duty of our lives; and therefore deserveth our distinct consideration. "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," 1 Cor. x. 31. "That God in all things might be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen," 1 Pet. iv. 11. I shall therefore first show you what it is to glorify God, and then give directions how to do it.

To glorify God is not to add to his essential perfections, or felicity, or real glory.[127] The glory of God is a word that is taken in these various senses: 1. Sometimes it signifieth the essential, transcendent excellencies of God in himself considered; so Rom. vi. 4; Psal. xix. 2. 2. Sometimes it signifieth that glory which the angels and saints behold in heaven: what this is, a soul in flesh cannot formally conceive or comprehend. It seemeth not to be the essence of God, because that is every where, and so is not that glory; or if any think that his essence is that glory, and is every where alike, and that the creature's capacity is all the difference betwixt heaven and earth, he seems confuted in that the glory of heaven will be seen by the glorified body itself, which it is thought cannot see the essence of God. Whether, then, that glory be the essence of God, or any immediate emanation from his excellency, as the beams and light that are sent forth by the sun, or a created glory for the felicity of his servants, we shall know when with the blessed we enjoy it. 3. Sometimes it is taken for the appearance of God's perfections in his creatures, either natural or free agents, as discerned by man, and for his honour in the esteem of man. John xi. 4, 40; 1 Cor. xi. 7; 2 Cor. iv. 15; Phil. i. 11; ii. 11; Isa. xxxv. 2; xl. 5, &c. And so to glorify God is, 1. Objectively, to represent his excellencies or glory; 2. Mentally, to conceive of them; 3. and Verbally, to declare them. I shall therefore distinctly direct you, 1. How to glorify God in your minds. 2. By your tongues. 3. By your lives.

Directions for glorifying God with the Heart.

Direct. I. Abhor all blasphemous representations and thoughts of God, and think not of him lamely, unequally, or diminutively, nor as under any corporeal shape; nor think not to comprehend him, but reverently admire him.--Conceive of him as incomprehensible and infinite: and if Satan would tempt thee to think meanly of any thing in God, or to think highly of one of his perfections, and meanly of another, abhor such temptations; and think of his power, knowledge, and goodness, equally as the infinite perfections of God.[128]

Direct. II. Behold his glory in the glory of his works of nature and of grace, and see him in all as the soul, the glory, the all of the whole creation.--What a power is that which made and preserveth all the world! What a wisdom is that which set in joint the universal frame of heaven and earth, and keepeth all things in their order! How good is he that made all good, and gave the creatures all their goodness, both natural and spiritual, by creation and renewing grace! Thus "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work," Psal. xix. 1. "His glory covereth the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise," Hab. iii. 3. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth," Psal. xxix. 3; cxlv.

Direct. III. Behold him in the person, miracles, resurrection, dominion, and glory of his blessed Son:--"who is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person; upholding all things by the word of his power, and having by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made better than the angels," Heb. i. 3, 4. "By him" it is that "glory is given to God in the church," Eph. iii. 21. "God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father," Phil. ii. 9-11. "Pray," therefore, that the "God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the acknowledgment of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his right hand in the celestials, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be Head over all things to his church," Eph. i. 17, &c. "The Father hath glorified his name in his Son," John xii. 28; xiii. 31, 32; xiv. 13; xvii. 1.

Direct. IV. Behold God as the end of the whole creation, and intend him as the end of all the actions of thy life.--You honour him not as God, if you practically esteem him not as your ultimate end; even the pleasing of his will, and the honouring him in the world. If any thing else be made your chiefest end, you honour it before him, and make a god of it.

Direct. V. Answer all his blessed attributes with suitable affections, (as I have directed in my "Treatise of the Knowledge of God," and here briefly direct. iv.) and his relations to us with the duty which they command, (subjection, love, &c.) as I have opened in the foregoing directions. We glorify him in our hearts, when the image of his attributes is there received.

Direct. VI. Behold him by faith as always present with you.--And then every attribute will the more affect you, and you will not admit dishonourable thoughts of him. Pray to him as if you saw him, and you will speak to him with reverence. Speak of him as if you saw him, and you dare not take his name in vain, nor talk of God with a common frame of mind, nor in a common manner, as of common things. "By faith Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing him that is invisible," Heb. xi. 27. God is contemned by them that think they are behind his back.

Direct. VII. Think of him as in heaven where he is revealed in glory to the blessed, and magnified by their high, everlasting praise.--Nothing so much helpeth us to glorify God in our minds, as by faith to behold him where he is most glorious. The very reading over the description of the glory of the New Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. and xxii. will much affect a believing mind with a sense of the gloriousness of God. Suppose, with Stephen, we saw heaven opened, and the Ancient of days, the great Jehovah, gloriously illustrating the city of God, and Jesus in glory at his right hand, and the innumerable army of glorified spirits before his throne, praising and magnifying him with the highest admirations, and joyfullest acclamations, that creatures are capable of; would it not raise us to some of the same admirations? The soul that by faith is much above, doth most glorify God, as being nearest to his glory.

Direct. VIII. Foresee by faith the coming of Christ, and the day of the universal judgment, when Christ shall come in flaming fire with thousands of his holy angels, to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that do believe, 2 Thess. i. 10.

Direct. IX. Abhor all doctrines, which blaspheme or dishonour the name of God, and would blemish and hide the glory of his majesty.--I give you this rule for your own preservation, and not in imitation of uncharitable firebrands and dividers of the church, to exercise your pride and imperious humour, in condemning all men, to whose opinions you can maliciously affix a blasphemous consequence, which either followeth but in your own imagination, or is not acknowledged, but hated, by those on whom you do affix it. Let it suffice you to detest false doctrines, without detesting the persons that you imagine guilty of them, who profess to believe the contrary truth as stedfastly as you yourselves.

Direct. X. Take heed of sinking into flesh and earth, and being diverted by things sensible from the daily contemplation of the glory of God.--If your belly become your god, and you mind earthly things, and are set upon the honours, or profits, or pleasures of the world, when your conversation should be in heaven, you will be glorying in your shame, when you should be admiring the glory of your Maker, Phil. iii. 18-20; and you will have so much to do on earth, that you will find no leisure (because you have no hearts) to look up seriously to God.

Directions for glorifying God with our Tongues in his Praises.

[Sidenote: How great a duty praising God is.]

Direct. I. Conceive of this duty of praising God according to its superlative excellencies, as being the highest service that the tongue of men or angels can perform. To bless, or praise, or magnify God, is not to make him greater, or better, or happier than he is; but to declare and extol his greatness, goodness, and felicity. And that your hearts may be inflamed to this excellent work, I will here show you how great and necessary, how high and acceptable a work it is.

1. It is the giving to God his chiefest due.[129] A speaking of him as he is; and when we have spoken the highest, how far fall we short of the due expression of his glorious perfections! Oh how great praise doth that almightiness deserve, which created and conserveth all the world, and overruleth all the sons of men, and is able to do whatsoever he will! "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise his works to another and declare his mighty acts: I will speak of the glorious honour of thy Majesty, and of thy wondrous works; and men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness," Psal. cxlv. 3-5. What praise doth that knowledge deserve which extendeth to all things that are, or were, or ever shall be! and that wisdom which ordereth all the world! He knoweth every thought of man, and all the secrets of the heart, Psal. xliv. 21; xciv. 11. "Known unto God are all his works, from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18. "His understanding is infinite," Psal. cxlvii. 5. What praise doth that goodness and mercy deserve, which is diffused throughout all the world, and is the life, and hope, and happiness of men and angels! "His mercy is great unto the heavens, and his truth unto the clouds," Psal. lvii. 10. "Oh how great is his goodness to them that fear him!" Psal. xxxi. 19; and therefore how great should be his praise! "Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord, and who can show forth all his praise?" Psal. cvi. 2. "For great is the glory of the Lord," Psal. cxxxviii. 5.

2. It is the end of all God's wondrous works, and especially the end which man was made for, that all things might praise him objectively, and men (and angels) in estimation and expression. That his glorious excellency might be visible in his works, and be admired and extolled by the rational creature: for this all things were created and are continued: for this we have our understanding and our speech: this is the fruit that God expecteth from all his works. Deny him this, and you are guilty of frustrating the whole creation, as much as in you lieth. You would have the sun to shine in vain, and the heavens and earth to stand in vain, and man and all things to live in vain, if you would not have God have the praise and glory of his works. Therefore, sun, and moon, and stars, and firmament, are called on to praise the Lord, Psal. cxlviii. 2-4, as they are the matter for which he must by us be praised. "O praise him therefore for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness," Psal. cl. 2. "Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare his wondrous works for the children of men," Psal. cvii. 8, &c. Yea, it is the end of Christ in the redemption of the world, and in saving his elect, that God might, in the church, in earth and heaven, have the "praise and glory of his grace," Eph. i. 6, 12, 14. "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name," Heb. xiii. 15. "And let the redeemed of the Lord say, that his mercy endureth for ever," Psal. cvii. 2. For this, all his saints "are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should show forth the praises of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light," 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9.

3. The praise of God is the highest and noblest work in itself. (1.) It hath the highest object, even the glorious excellencies of God. Thanksgiving is somewhat lower, as having more respect to ourselves and the benefits received; but praise is terminated directly on the perfections of God himself. (2.) It is the work that is most immediately nearest on God, as he is our end: and as the end, as such, is better than all the means set together, as such, so are the final duties about the end greater than all the immediate duties. (3.) It is the work of the most excellent creatures of God, the holy angels: they proclaimed the coming of Christ, by way of praise, Luke ii. 13, 14, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men:" see Psal. ciii. 20; cxlviii. 2. And as we must be equal to the angels, it must be in equal praising God, or else it will not be in equality of glory. (4.) It is the work of heaven, the place and state of all perfection; and that is best and highest which is nearest heaven; where "they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.--Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created," Rev. iv. 8, 10. Chap. xix. 5, "A voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great." Ver. 6, 7, "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluiah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready."

4. It beseemeth us, and much concerneth us, to learn and exercise that work, which in heaven we must do for ever; and that is, to love and joyfully praise the Lord: for earth is but the place of our apprenticeship for heaven. The preparing works of mortifying repentance must in their place be done; but only as subservient to these which we must ever do: when we shall sing the "new song" before the Lamb, "Thou art worthy;--for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us kings and priests unto our God," Rev. v. 9, 10. Therefore the primitive church of believers is described as most like to heaven; Luke xxiv. 53, "With great joy they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God." "O praise the Lord therefore in the congregation of the saints: let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King," Psal. cxlix. 1, 2. "Let the saints be joyful in glory: let the high praises of God be in their mouths," ver. 5, 6.

5. Though we are yet diseased sinners, and in our warfare, among enemies, dangers, and perplexities, yet praise is seasonable and suitable to our condition here, as the greatest part of our duty, which all the rest must but promote. Pretend not that it is not fit for you because you are sinners, and that humiliation only is suitable to your state. For the design of your redemption, the tenor of the gospel, and your own condition, engage you to it. Are they not engaged to praise the Lord, that are brought so near him to that end? 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9;--that are reconciled to him?--to whom he hath given and forgiven so much? 1 Tim. i. 15; Tit. iii. 3, 5; Psal. ciii. 1-3;--that have so many great and precious promises? 2 Pet. i. 4;--that are the temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in them, and sanctifieth them to God?--that have a Christ interceding for them in the highest? Rom. viii. 33, 34;--that are always safe in the arms of Christ; that are guarded by angels; and devils and enemies forbidden to touch them, further than their Father seeth necessary for their good?--that have the Lord for their God? Psal. xxxiii. 12; iv. 8;--that have his saints for their companions and helpers?--that have so many ordinances to help their souls; and so many creatures and comforts for their bodies?--that live continually upon the plenty of his love?--that have received so much, and are still receiving? Should we not bless him every day with praise, that blesseth us every day with benefits? Should we not praise the bridge that we go over?--the friend that we have tried so oft? And resolve, as Psal. cxlv. "Every day will I bless thee: I will praise thy name for ever and ever." Psal. lxiii. 3, 4, "Because thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee: thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name." Are they not bound to praise him on earth, that must reign with Christ for ever in heaven? Rom. viii. 17, 33; Rev. i. 5, 6; Col. i. 12; 1 Pet. i. 4.

6. The praises of God do exercise our highest graces: praise is the very breath of love, and joy, and gratitude: it tendeth to raise us above ourselves, and make our hearts to burn within us, while the glorious name of God is magnified: it hath the most pure, and spiritual, and elevating effect upon the soul; and therefore tendeth most effectually to make us more holy, by the increase of these graces.

7. To be much employed in the praise of God, doth tend exceedingly to the vanquishing all hurtful doubts, and fears, and sorrows. Joy and praise promote each other. And this it doth, (1.) By keeping the soul near to God, and within the warmth of his love and goodness, Psal. cxl. 13. (2.) By the exercise of love and joy, which are the cordial, reviving, strengthening graces, Psal. xciv. 19; cxvi. 1. (3.) By dissipating distrustful, vexing thoughts, and diverting the mind to sweeter things, Psal. civ. 34. (4.) By keeping off the tempter, who usually is least able to follow us with his molestations, when we are highest in the praises of our God. (5.) By bringing out the evidences of our sincerity into the light, while the chiefest graces are in exercise, 2 Cor. iii. 18. (6.) And by way of reward from God, that loveth the praises of his meanest servants. And here I would commend this experiment, to uncomfortable, troubled souls, that have not found comfort by long searching after evidences in themselves. Exercise yourselves much in the praises of God: this is a duty that you have no pretence against. Against thanksgiving for his grace, you pretend that you know not that you have received his grace; but to praise him in the excellency of his perfections, his power, and wisdom, and goodness, and mercy, and truth, is the duty of all men in the world. While you are doing this, you will feel your graces stir, and feel that comfort from the face of God, which you are not like to meet with in any other way whatsoever. Evidences are exceeding useful to our ordinary stated peace and comfort; but it is oft long before we confidently discern them: and they are oft discerned when yet the soul is not excited to much sense of comfort and delight: and we quickly lose the sight of evidences, if we be not very wise and careful. But a life of praise bringeth comfort to the soul, as standing in the sunshine bringeth light and warmth: or as labouring doth warm the body: or as the sight and converse of our dearest friend, or the hearing of glad tidings, doth rejoice the heart, without any great reasoning or arguing the case. This is the way to have comfort by feeling, to be much in the hearty praises of the Lord. When we come to heaven we shall have our joy, by immediate vision, and the delightful exercise of love and praise. And if you would taste the heavenly joys on earth, you must imitate them in heaven as near as possibly you can; and this is your work of nearest imitation.

8. To live a life of praising God, will make religion sweet and easy to us, and take off the wearisomeness of it, and make the word of God a pleasure to us. Whereas they that set themselves only to the works of humiliation, and leave out these soul-delighting exercises, do cast themselves into exceeding danger, by making religion seem to them a grievous and undesirable life. This makes men backward to every duty, and do it heartlessly, and easily yield to temptations of omission and neglect, if not at last fall off through weariness: whereas the soul that is daily employed in the high and holy praises of his God, is still drawn on by encouraging experience, and doth all with a willing, ready mind.

9. No duty is more pleasing to God, than the cheerful praises of his servants. He loveth your prayers, tears, and groans; but your praises much more: and that which pleaseth God most, must be most pleasing to his servants; for to please him is their end: this is the end of all their labour, that "whether present or absent, they may be accepted of him," 2 Cor. v. 9. So that it is a final enjoying, and therefore a delighting duty.

10. To be much employed in the praises of God, will acquaint the world with the nature of true religion, and remove their prejudice, and confute their dishonourable thoughts and accusations of it, and recover the honour of Christ, and his holy ways, and servants. Many are averse to a holy life, because they think that it consisteth but of melancholy fears or scrupulosity: but who dare open his mouth against the joyful praises of his Maker? I have heard and read of several enemies and murderers, that have broke in upon christians with an intent to kill them, or carry them away, that finding them on their knees in prayer, and reverencing the work so much as to stay and hear them till they had done, have reverenced the persons also, and departed, and durst not touch the heavenly worshippers of God. This life of praise is a continual pleasure to the soul; clean contrary to a melancholy life. It is recreating to the spirits, and healthful to the body, which is consumed by cares, and fears, and sorrows. It is the way that yieldeth that "mirth which doth good like a medicine, and is a continual feast," Prov. xvii. 22; xv. 15. Therefore saith the apostle, "Is any merry, let him sing psalms," James v. 13. He cannot better exercise mirth, than in singing praises to his God. This keeps the soul continually on the wing, desiring still to be nearer God, that it may have more of these delights: and so it overcomes the sense of persecutions and afflictions, and the fears of death, and is a most excellent cordial and companion in the greatest sufferings. Was it not an excellent hearing, to have been a witness of the joy of Paul and Silas, when in the prison and stocks, with their backs sore with scourges, they sang at midnight the praises of the Lord? Acts xvi. 25; so that all the doors were opened, and all the prisoners' bonds were loosed, that had been their auditors; so great was God's acceptance of their work. Oh that we would do that honour and right to true religion, as to show the world the nature and use of it, by living in the cheerful praises of our God, and did not teach them to blaspheme it, by our misdoings!

I have said the more of the excellency and benefits of this work, because it is one of your best helps to perform it, to know the reasons of it, and how much of your religion, and duty, and comfort consisteth in it: and the forgetting of this, is the common cause that it is so boldly and ordinarily neglected, or slubbered over as it is.

Direct. II. The keeping of the heart in the admiration and glorifying of God, according to the foregoing directions, is the principal help to the right praising of him with our lips.--For out of the heart's abundance the mouth will speak: and if the heart do not bear its part, no praise is melodious to God.

Direct. III. Read much those Scriptures which speak of the praises of God; especially the Psalms: and furnish your memories with store of those holy expressions of the excellencies of God, which he himself hath taught you in his word.--None knoweth the things of God, but the Spirit of God; who teacheth us in the Scripture to speak divinely of things divine. No other dialect so well becometh the work of praise. God, that best knoweth himself, doth best teach us how to know and praise him. Every christian should have a treasury of these sacred materials in his memory, that he may be able at all times, in conference and in worship, to speak of God in the words of God.

Direct. IV. Be much in singing psalms of praise, and that with the most heart-raising cheerfulness and melody; especially in the holy assemblies.--The melody and the conjunction of many serious, holy souls, doth tend much to elevate the heart. And where it is done intelligibly, reverently, in conjunction with a rational, spiritual, serious worship, the use of musical instruments are not to be scrupled or refused; any more than the tunes or melody of the voice.

Direct. V. Remember to allow the praises of God their due proportion in all your prayers.--Use not to shut it out, or forget it, or cut it short with two or three words in the conclusion. The Lord's prayer begins and ends with it: and the three first petitions are for the glorifying the name of God, and the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will, by which he is glorified: and all this before we ask any thing directly for ourselves. Use will much help you in the praise of God.

Direct. VI. Especially let the Lord's day be principally spent in praises and thanksgivings for the work of our redemption, and the benefits thereof.--This day is separated by God himself to this holy work; and if you spend it (ordinarily) in other religious duties, that subserve not this, you spend it not as God requireth you. The thankful and praiseful commemoration of the work of man's redemption, is the special work of the day: and the celebrating of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, (which is therefore called the Eucharist,) was part of these laudatory exercises, and used every Lord's day by the primitive church. It is not only a holy day, separated to God's worship in general; but to this eucharistical worship in special above the rest, as a day of praises and thanksgiving unto God: and thus all christians (ordinarily) should use it.

Direct. VII. Let your holy conference with others be much about the glorious excellencies, works, and mercies of the Lord, in way of praise and admiration.--This is indeed to speak to edification, and as the "oracles of God," Eph. iv. 29; "that God in all things may be glorified," 1 Pet. iv. 11. Psal. xxix. 9, "In his temple doth every one speak of his glory." Psal. xxxv. 28, "My tongue shall speak of thy righteousness, and of thy praises all the day long." Psal. cxlv. 6, 11, 21, "And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts.--They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power: to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.--My mouth shall speak of the praises of the Lord; and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever." Psal. cv. 2, 3, "Talk ye of all his wondrous works: glory ye in his holy name."

Direct. VIII. Speak not of God in a light, unreverent, or common sort, as if you talked of common things; but with all possible seriousness, gravity, and reverence, as if you saw the majesty of the Lord.--A common and a holy manner of speech are contrary. That only is holy which is separated to God from common use. You speak profanely, (in the manner, how holy soever the matter be,) when you speak of God with that careless levity, as you use to speak of common things. Such speaking of God is dishonourable to him, and hurts the hearers more than silence, by breeding in them a contempt of God, and teaching them to imitate you in slight conceits and speech of the Almighty: whereas, one that speaketh reverently of God, as in his presence, doth ofttimes more affect the hearers with a reverence of his Majesty, with a few words, than unreverent preachers with the most accurate sermons, delivered in a common or affected strain. Whenever you speak of God, let the hearers perceive that your hearts are possessed with his fear and love, and that you put more difference between God and man, than between a king and the smallest worm: so when you talk of death or judgment, of heaven or hell, of holiness or sin, or any thing that nearly relates to God, do it with that gravity and seriousness as the matter doth require.

Direct. IX. Speak not so unskilfully and foolishly of God, or holy things, as may tempt the hearers to turn it into a matter of scorn or laughter.--Especially understand how your parts are suited to the company that you are in. Among those that are more ignorant, some weak discourses may be tolerable and profitable; for they are most affected with that which is delivered in their own dialect and mode: but among judicious or captious hearers, unskilful persons must be very sparing of their words, lest they do hurt while they desire to do good, and make religion seem ridiculous. We may rejoice in the scorns which we undergo for Christ, and which are bent against his holy laws, or the substance of our duty: but if men are jeered for speaking ridiculously and foolishly of holy things, they have little reason to take comfort in any thing of that, but their honest meanings and intents; nay, they must be humbled for being a dishonour to the name of godliness. But the misery is, that few of the ignorant and weak have knowledge and humility enough to perceive their ignorance and weakness, but they think they speak as wisely as the best, and are offended if their words be not reverenced accordingly. As a minister should study and labour for a skill and ability to preach, because it is his work; so every christian should study for skill to discourse with wisdom and meet expressions about holy things, because this is his work. And as unfit expressions and behaviour in a minister do cause contempt instead of edifying, so do they in discourse.

Direct. X. Whenever God's holy name or word is blasphemed, or used in levity or jest, or a holy life is made a scorn, or God is notoriously abused or dishonoured, be ready to reprove it with gravity where you can; and where you cannot, at least let your detestation of it be conveniently manifested.--Among those to whom you may freely speak, lay open the greatness of their sin. Or, if you are unable for long or accurate discourse, at least tell them who hath said, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." And where your speech is unmeet, (as to some superiors,) or is like to do more harm than good, let your departing the room, or your looks, or rather your tears, show your dislike.[130]

Directions for the glorifying God in our Lives.

Direct. I. Our lives then glorify God, when they are such as his excellencies most appear in: and that is, when they are most divine or holy; when they are so managed, that the world may see, that it is God that we have chiefly respect unto, and that HOLINESS TO THE LORD is written upon all our faculties and affairs.--So much of GOD as appeareth in our lives, so much they are truly venerable, and advanced above the rank of fleshly, worldly lives.[131] God only is the real glory of every person, and every thing, and every word or action of our lives. And the natural conscience of the world, which, in despite of their atheism, is forced to confess and reverence a Deity, will be forced (even when they are hated and persecuted) to reverence the appearance of God in his holy ones. Let it appear therefore, 1. That God's authority commandeth you, above all the powers of the earth, and against all the power of fleshly lusts. 2. That it is the glory and interest of God that you live for, and look after principally in the world, and not your own carnal interest and glory: and that it is his work that you are doing, and not your own; and his cause, and not your own, that you are engaged in.[132] 3. That it is his word and law that is your rule. 4. And the example of his Son that is your pattern. 5. And that your hearts and lives are moved and acted in the world, by motives fetched from the rewards which he hath promised, and the punishments which he hath threatened, in the world to come. 6. And that it is a supernatural, powerful principle, sent from God into your hearts, even the Holy Ghost, by which you are inclined and actuated in the tenor of your lives. 7. And that your daily converse is with God, and that men and other creatures are comparatively nothing to you, but are made to stand by, while God is preferred, and honoured, and served by you; and that all your business is with him, or for him in the world.

Direct. II. The more of heaven appeareth in your lives, the more your lives do glorify God.--Worldly and carnal men are conscious, that their glory is a vanishing glory, and their pleasure but a transitory dream, and that all their honour and wealth will shortly leave them in the dust; and therefore, they are forced, in despite of their sensuality, to bear some reverence to the life to come. And though they have not hearts themselves to deny the pleasures and profits of the world, and to spend their days in preparing for eternity, and in laying up a treasure in heaven; yet they are convinced, that those that do so, are the best and wisest men; and they could wish that they might die the death of the righteous, and that their last end might be like his. As heaven exceedeth earth, even in the reverent acknowledgment of the world, though not in their practical esteem and choice; so heavenly christians have a reverent acknowledgment from them, (when malice doth not hide their heavenliness by slanders,) though they will not be such themselves. Let it appear in your lives, that really you seek a higher happiness than this world affordeth, and that you verily look to live with Christ; and that as honour, and wealth, and pleasure command the lives of the ungodly, so the hope of heaven commandeth yours. Let it appear that this is your design and business in the world, and that your hearts and conversations are above, and that whatever you do or suffer, is for this, and not for any lower end; and this is a life that God is glorified by.

Direct. III. It glorifieth God, by showing the excellency of faith, when we contemn the riches and honour of the world, and live above the worldling's life; accounting that a despicable thing, which he accounts his happiness, and loseth his soul for.--As men despise the toys of children, so a believer must take the transitory vanities of this world, for matters so inconsiderable, as not to be worthy his regard, save only as they are the matter of his duty to God, or as they relate to him, or the life to come. Saith Paul, 2 Cor. iv. 18, "We look not at the things which are seen," (they are not worth our observing or looking at,) "but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." The world is under a believer's feet, while his eye is fixed on the celestial world. He travelleth through it to his home, and he will be thankful if his way be fair, and if he have his daily bread: but it is not his home, nor doth he make any great matter, whether his usage in it be kind or unkind, or whether his inn be well adorned or not. He is almost indifferent whether, for so short a time, he be rich or poor, in a high or in a low condition, further than as it tendeth to his Master's service. Let men see that you have a higher birth than they, and higher hopes, and higher hearts, by setting light by that, which their hearts are set upon as their felicity. When seeming christians are as worldly and ambitious as others, and make as great a matter of their gain, and wealth, and honour, it showeth that they do but cover the base and sordid spirit of worldlings, with the visor of the christian name, to deceive themselves, and bring the faith of christians into scorn, and dishonour the holy name which they usurp.

Direct. IV. It much honoureth God, when his servants can quietly and fearlessly trust in him, in the face of all the dangers and threatenings which devils or men can cast before them; and can joyfully suffer pain or death, in obedience to his commands, and in confidence on his promise of everlasting happiness.--This showeth that we believe indeed that "there is a God," and that "he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6; and that he is true and just; and that his promises are to be trusted on; and that he is able to make them good, in despite of all the malice of his enemies; and that the threats or frowns of sinful worms are contemptible to him that feareth God. Psal. lviii. 11, "So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth," and that at last will judge the world in righteousness. Paul gloried in the Thessalonians, "for their faith and patience, in all their persecutions and tribulations which they endured; as a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that they might be accounted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which they suffered. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble us, and rest with his saints to those that are troubled," 2 Thess. i. 4-7. "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified," 1 Pet. iv. 14. "If any man suffer as a christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf," ver. 16. When confidence in God, and assurance of the great reward in heaven, Matt. v. 11, 12, doth cause a believer undauntedly to say as the three witnesses, Dan. iii. "We are not careful, O king, to answer thee in this matter: the God whom we serve is able to deliver us:" when by faith we can go through the trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprisonment, to be destitute and afflicted, yea, and tortured, not accepting deliverance, (upon sinful terms,) thus God is glorified by believers. "Lift up your voices," O ye afflicted saints, "and sing, for the majesty of the Lord. Glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea," Isa. xxiv. 14, 15. Sing to his praise with Paul and Silas, though your feet be in the stocks. If God call for your lives, remember that "you are not your own, you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies and spirits which are his," 1 Cor. vi. 20. Rejoice in it, if you "bear in your bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus," Gal. vi. 17; and if you "always bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in your bodies," 2 Cor. iv. 10. And "with all boldness," see that "Christ be magnified in your bodies, whether it be by life or death," Phil. i. 20. He dishonoureth and reproacheth Christ and faith, that thinks he is not to be trusted even unto the death.

Direct. V. It much honoureth God, when the hopes of everlasting joys do cause believers to live much more joyfully than the most prosperous worldlings.--Not with their kind of doting mirth, in vain sports and pleasures, and foolish talking, and uncomely jests; but in that constant cheerfulness and gladness, which beseemeth the heirs of glory. Let it appear to the world, that indeed you hope to live with Christ, and to be equal with the angels. Do a dejected countenance, and a mournful, troubled, and complaining life, express such hopes? or rather tell men that your hopes are small, and that God is a hard master, and his service grievous? Do not thus dishonour him by your inordinate dejectedness; do not affright and discourage sinners from the pleasant service of the Lord.

Direct. VI. When christians live in a readiness to die, and can rejoice in the approach of death, and love and long for the day of judgment, when Christ shall justify them from the slanders of the world, and shall judge them to eternal joys: this is to the glory of God and our profession.--When death, which is the king of fears to others, appeareth as disarmed and conquered to believers; when judgment, which is the terror of others, is their desire; this showeth a triumphant faith, and that godliness is not in vain. It must be something above nature that can make a man "desire to depart and be with Christ, as best of all," and "to be absent from the body and present with the Lord," and to "comfort one another" with the mention of the glorious coming of their Lord, and the day when he shall judge the world in righteousness, Phil. i. 21; 2 Cor. v. 8; 1 Thess. iv. 18; 2 Thess. i. 10.

Direct. VII. The humility, and meekness, and patience of christians, much honour God and their holy faith; as pride, and passion, and impatience dishonour him.--Let men see that the Spirit of God doth cast down the devilish sin of pride, and maketh you like your Master, that humbled himself to assume our flesh, and to the "death of the cross," and to the contradiction and reproach of foolish sinners, and "made himself of no reputation," but "endured the shame" of being derided, spit upon, and crucified, Phil. ii. 7-9; Heb. xii. 2; and stooped to wash the feet of his disciples. It is not stoutness, and lifting up the head, and standing upon your terms, and upon your honour in the world, that is the honouring of God. When you are as little children, and as nothing in your own eyes, and seek not the honour that is of men, but say, "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name be the glory," Psal. cxv. 1; and are content that your honour decrease and be trodden into the dirt, that his may increase, and his name be magnified; this is the glorifying of God. So when you show the world, that you are above the impotent passions of men, not to be insensible, but to be "angry and sin not," and to "give place to wrath," and not to resist and "avenge yourselves," Rom. xii. 19; and to be "meek and lowly in heart," Matt. xi. 29. It will appear that you have the wisdom which is "from above," if you be "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and hypocrisy," James iii. 17. "But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth," as if this were the wisdom from above which glorifieth God; for this "wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish," ver. 14, 15. "A meek and quiet spirit is of great price in the sight of God," 1 Pet. iii. 4; an ornament commended to women by the Scripture, which is amiable in the eyes of all.

Direct. VIII. It honoureth God and our profession, when you abound in love and good works; loving the godly with a special love, but all men with so much love, as makes you earnestly desirous of their welfare, and to love your enemies, and put up wrongs, and to study to do good to all, and hurt to none.--To be abundant in love, is to be like to God, who is love itself, 1 John iv. 7, 11; and showeth that God dwelleth in us, ver. 12. "All men may know that we are Christ's disciples, if we love one another," John xiii. 35. This is the "new" and the "great commandment; the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii. 10; John xv. 12, 17; xiii. 34. You will be known to be the "children of your heavenly Father, if you love your enemies, and bless them that curse you, and pray for them that hate and persecute you, and despitefully use you," Matt. v. 44. Do all the good that possibly you can, if you would be like him that doth good to the evil, and whose mercies are over all his works. Show the world that you "are his workmanship, created to good works in Christ Jesus, which he hath ordained for you to walk in," Eph. ii. 10. "Herein is your Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit," John xv. 8. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven," Matt. v. 16. "Honour God with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thy increase," Prov. iii. 9. "And those that honour him he will honour," 1 Sam. ii. 30; when barren, worldly hypocrites, that honour God only with their lips, and flattering words, shall be used as those that really dishonour him.

Direct. IX. The unity, concord, and peace of christians, do glorify God and their profession; when their divisions, contentions, and malicious persecutions of one another, do heinously dishonour him.--Men reverence that faith and practice which they see us unanimously accord in. And the same men will despise both it and us, when they see us together by the ears about it, and hear us in a Babel of confusion, one saying, This is the way, and another, That is it; one saying, Lo here is the true church and worship, and another saying, Lo it is there. Not that one man or a few must make a shoe meet for his own foot, and then say, All that will not dishonour God by discord, must wear this shoe: think as I think, and say as I say, or else you are schismatics. But we must all agree in believing and obeying God, and "walking by the same rule so far as we have attained," Phil. iii. 15, 16. "The strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please themselves; but every one of us please his neighbour for good to edification; and be like-minded one towards another, according to Christ Jesus, that we may with one mind and one mouth glorify God: receiving one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God," Rom. xv. 1, 2, 5-7.

Direct. X. Justice commutative and distributive, private and public, in bargainings, and in government, and judgment, doth honour God and our profession in the eyes of all: when we do no wrong, but do to all men as we would they should do to us, Matt. vii. 12: that no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter; for the Lord is the avenger of all such, 1 Thess. iv. 6.--That a man's word be his master, and that we lie not one to another, nor equivocate or deal subtilly and deceitfully, but in plainness and singleness of heart, and in simplicity and godly sincerity, have our conversation in the world. Perjured persons and covenant-breakers, that dissolve the bonds of human society, and take the name of God in vain, shall find by his vengeance that he holdeth them not guiltless.

Direct. XI. It much glorifieth God to worship him rationally and purely, in spirit and in truth, according to the glory of his wisdom and goodness; and it dishonoureth him to be worshipped ignorantly and carnally, with spells, and mimical, irrational actions, as if he were less wise than serious, grave, understanding men.--The worshippers of God have great cause to take heed how they behave themselves; lest they meet with the reward of Nadab and Abihu, and God tell them by his judgments, "that he will be sanctified in all them that come nigh him, and before all the people he will be glorified," Lev. x. 1-3. The second commandment is enforced by the jealousy of God about his worship. Ignorant, rude, unseemly words, or unhandsome gestures, which tend to raise contempt in the auditors; or levity of speech, which makes men laugh, is abominable in a preacher of the gospel. And so is it to pray irrationally, incoherently, confusedly, with vain repetitions and tautologies, as if men thought to be heard for their babbling over so many words, while there is not so much as an appearance of a well composed, serious, rational, and reverent address of a fervent soul to God. To worship God as the papists do, with images, Agnus Dei's, crucifixes, crossings, spittle, oil, candles, holy water, kissing the pax, dropping beads, praying to the Virgin Mary, and to other saints, repeating over the name of Jesus nine times in a breath, and saying such and such sentences so oft, praying to God in an unknown tongue, and saying to him they know not what, adoring the consecrated bread as no bread, but the very flesh of Christ himself, choosing the titular saint whose name they will invocate, fasting by feasting upon fish instead of flesh, saying so many masses a day, and offering sacrifice for the quick and the dead, praying for souls in purgatory, purchasing indulgences for their deliverance out of purgatory from the pope, carrying the pretended bones or other relics of their saints, the pope's canonizing now and then one for a saint, pretending miracles to delude the people, going on pilgrimages to images, shrines, or relics, offering before the images, with a multitude more of such parcels of devotion, do most heinously dishonour God, and, as the apostle truly saith, do make unbelievers say, "They are mad," 1 Cor. xiv. 23, and that they are "children in understanding," and not "men," ver. 20. Insomuch as it seemeth one of the greatest impediments to the conversion of the heathen and Mahometan world, and the chiefest means of confirming them in their infidelity, and making them hate and scorn christianity, that the Romish, and the eastern, and southern churches, within their view, do worship God so dishonourably as they do: as if our God were like a little child that must have pretty toys bought him in the fair, and brought home to please him. Whereas, if the unreformed churches in the east, west, and south were reformed, and had a learned, pious, able ministry, that clearly preached and seriously applied the word of God, and worshipped God with understanding, gravity, reverence, and serious spirituality, and lived a holy, heavenly, mortified, self-denying conversation, this would be the way to propagate christianity, and win the infidel world to Christ.

Direct. XII. If you will glorify God in your lives, you must be above a selfish, private, narrow mind, and must be chiefly intent upon the public good, and the spreading of the gospel through the world.--A selfish, private, narrow soul brings little honour to the cause of God: it is always taken up about itself, or imprisoned in a corner, in the dark, to the interest of some sect or party, and seeth not how things go in the world: its desires, and prayers, and endeavours go no further than they can see or travel. But a larger soul beholdeth all the earth, and is desirous to know how it goeth with the cause and servants of the Lord, and how the gospel gets ground upon the unbelieving nations; and such are affected with the state of the church a thousand miles off, almost as if it were at hand, as being members of the whole body of Christ, and not only of a sect. They pray for the "hallowing of God's name," and the "coming of his kingdom," and the "doing of his will throughout the earth, as it is in heaven," before they come to their own necessities, at least in order of esteem and desire. The prosperity of themselves, or their party or country, satisfieth them not, while the church abroad is in distress. They live as those that know the honour of God is more concerned in the welfare of the whole, than in the success of any party against the rest. They pray that the gospel may have free course and be glorified abroad, as it is with them, and the preachers of it be "delivered from unreasonable and wicked men," 2 Thess. iii. 1, 2. The silencing the ministers, and suppressing the interest of Christ and souls, are the most grievous tidings to them: therefore they "pray for kings, and all in authority," not for any carnal ends, but that "we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty," 1 Tim. ii. 1-3. Thus God must be glorified by our lives.

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Grand Direct. XVI. Let your life on earth be a conversation in heaven, by the constant work of faith and love; even such a faith as maketh things future as now present, and the unseen world as if it were continually open to your sight; and such a love as makes you long to see the glorious face of God, and the glory of your dear Redeemer, and to be taken up with blessed spirits in his perfect, endless love and praise.

My Treatise of "The Life of Faith," and the fourth part of "The Saints' Rest," being written wholly or mostly to this use, I must refer the reader to them, and say no more of it in this direction.

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Grand Direct. XVII. As the soul must be carried up to God, and devoted to him, according to all the foregoing directions, so must it be delivered from carnal selfishness, or flesh-pleasing, which is the grand enemy to God and godliness in the world; and from the three great branches of this idolatry, viz. the love of sensual pleasures, the love of worldly wealth, and the proud desire and love of worldly honour and esteem: and the mortifying of these must be much of the labour of your lives.

Of this also I have written so much in a "Treatise of Self-denial," and in another called "The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ," that I shall now pass by all, save what will be more seasonable anon under the more particular directions, in the fourth part, when I come to speak of selfishness, as opposed to the love of others.[133]

* * * * *

I have now given you the general grand directions, containing the very being and life of godliness and christianity; with those particular subdirections which are needful to the performance of them. And I must tell you, that as your life, and strength, and comfort principally depend on these, so doth your success in resisting all your particular sins: and therefore, if you first obey not these general directions, the more particular ones that follow will be almost useless to you, even as branches cut off from the stock of the tree, which are deprived thereby of their support and life. But upon supposition that first you will maintain these vital parts of your religion, I shall proceed to direct you first in some particulars most nearly subordinate to the forementioned duties, and then to the remoter branches.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Laert. saith of the magi, that they did Deorum vacare cultui: signa statuasque reprehendere: et eorum imprimis, qui mares esse deos et fœminas dicunt, errores improbare. Signa et statuas ex disciplinæ instituto è medio tulisse: and that some thought that the Jews came from them, p. 4, 6. And Laertius himself saith to those that make Orpheus the first philosopher, Videant certe qui ita volunt, quo sit censendus nomine, qui Diis cuncta hominum vitia, et quæ rarò à turpibus quibusque et flagitiosis hominibus geruntur, ascribit, p. 4. He saith also that the said magi held, and Theopompus with them, that men should live again, and become immortal. The like he saith of many other sects. It is a thing most irrational to doubt of the being of the unseen worlds, and the more excellent inhabitants thereof; when we consider that this low and little part of God's creation is so full of inhabitants: if a microscope will show your very eyes a thousand visible creatures which you could never see without it, nor know that they had any being, will you not allow the pure intellectual sight to go much further beyond your microscope?

[81] Thales' sayings in Laert. are, Animas esse immortales: Antiquissimum omnium entium Deus; ingenitu senim: Pulcherrimum mundus, à Deo enim factus: Maximum locus; capit enim omnia: Velocissimum mens; nam per universa discurrit: Fortissimum necessitas; cuncta enim superat. Sapientissimum tempus: invenit namque omnia. Q. Utrum prius factum nox an dies? R. Nox, una prius die. Q. Latet ne Deos homo male agens? R. Ne cogitans quidem. Q. Quid difficile? R. Seipsum noscere. Q. Quid facile? R. Ab alio moveri. Q. Quid suavissimum? R. Frui. Q. Quid Deus? R. Quod initio et sine caret. p. 14, 20, 21.

[82] Conjungi vult nos inter nos, atque connecti per mutua beneficia charitatis: adeo ut tota justitia et præceptum hoc Dei, communis sit utilitas hominum. O miram clementiam Domini! O ineffabilem Dei benignitatem! Præmium nobis pollicetur, si nos invicem diligamus; id est, si nos ea præstemus invicem, quorum vicissim indigemus: et nos superbo et ingrato animo, ejus remittimur voluntati, cujus etiam imperium beneficium est. Hieron. ad Celant. See my book of the "Reasons of the Christian Religion."

[83] Vel propter unionem inter creaturam et Creatorem necessaria fuit incarnatio. Sicut in Divinitate una est essentia et tres personæ; ita in Christo una persona et tres essentiæ, Deitas, anima, et caro. Christus secundum naturam divinitatis est genitus; secundum animam creatus; et secundum carnem factus. Unio in Christo triplex est; Deitatis ad animam; Deitatis ad carnem; et animæ ad carnem. Paul. Scaliger Thes. p. 725. Christus solus, et quidem secundum utramque naturam dicitur caput ecclesiæ. Id. p. 726.

[84] Ex apostolica et veteri traditione, nemo baptizatur in ecclesia Christi, nisi prius rogatus, an credat in Deum Patrem, et in Jesum Christum Dei Filium, et in Spiritum Sanctum, responderit, firmiter se credere: quantum vis ergo heres sit, si judicii aliquid habet, et ita rogatur, et ita respondet prorsusque ita expresse credere jubetur: namque implicite et involute non isthæc solum, sed quæcunque Divinæ literæ produnt, credit, de quibus tamen non omnibus interrogatur, quod ea expresse scire omnia, illi minime opus sit. Acosta, 1. 5. c. 6. p. 461. Christian religion beginneth not at the highest, but the lowest: with Christ incarnate, teaching, dying, &c. Dr. Boy's postil. p. 121. out of Luther.

[85] Sane omnium virtutum radix et fundamentum fides est; quæ certantes adjuvat, vincentes coronat, et cœlesti dono quosdam defectu signorum remunerat: nihil enim quod sinceræ fidei denegetur, quia nec aliud à nobis Deus, quam fidem exigit: hanc diligit, hanc requirit, huic cuncta promittit et tribuit. S. Eulogius Mart. Arch. Tolet. Memorial. Sanct. p. 4. Notandum, quod cum fides mortua sit præter opera, jam neque fides est: nam neque homo mortuus, homo est.--Non enim sicut spiritum corpore meliorem, ita opera fidei præponenda sunt, quando gratia salvatur homo, non ex operibus sed ex fide: nisi fortè et hoc in quæstione sit, quod salvet fides quæ cum operibus propriis vivit; tanquam aliud genus operum sit, præter quæ salus ex fide proveniat: nec autem sunt opera quæ sub umbra legis observantur. Didymus Alexand, in Jac. cap. 2.

[86] Dilectio Dei misit nobis salvatorem: cujus gratia salvati sumus: ut possideamus hanc gratiam, communicatio facit spiritus. Ambros. in 2 Cor. xiii. 13.

[87] O Domine Jesu doles non tua sed mea vulnera! Ambros. de Fide ad Grat. l. 2. c. 3. Nos immortalitate male usi sumus ut moreremur: Christus mortalitate bene usus est ut viveremus. August. de Doct. Christ. l. i. c. 14.

[88] Scrutari temeritas est, credere pietas, nosse vita. Bernard. de Consid. ad Eugen. 1. 5.

[89] Deus est principium effectivum in creatione refectivum in redemptione, perfectivum in sanctificatione. Joh. Combis comp. Theol. 1. 4. c. 1.

[90] Rejectis propheticis et apostolicis scriplis, Manichæi novum evangelium scripserunt: et ut antecellere communi hominum multitudini et semi-dei viderentur, simularunt enthusiasmos seu afflatus, subito in turba se in terram objicientes, et velut attoniti diu tacentes; deinde tanquam redeuntes ex specu Trophonio et plorantes, multa vaticinati sunt; prorsus ut Anabaptistæ recens fecerunt in seditione monasteriensi. Etsi autem in quibusdam manifesta simulatio fuit, tamen aliquibus reipsa à diabolis furores immissos esse certum est. Carion. Chron. 1. 3. p. 54.

[91] Nemo magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit. Cicero 2. de Nat. Deor.

[92] Laertius in Zenone, saith, Dicunt Stoici Deum esse animal immortale, rationale, perfectum ac beatum, à malo omni remotissimum, providentia sua mundum et quæ sunt in mundo administrans omnia: non tamen inesse illi humanæ formæ lineamenta. Cæterum esse opificem immensi hujus operis, sicat et patrem omnium.--Eumque multis appellari nominibus juxta proprietates suas.--Quosdam item esse dæmones dicunt quibus insit hominum miseratio, inspectores rerum humanarum; heroas quoque solutas corporibus, sapientum animas.--Bonos aiunt esse divinos, quod in seipsis quasi habeant Deum. Malum vero impium et sine Deo esse, quod duplici ratione accipitur, sive quod Deo contrarius dicatur, sive quod aspernetur Deum: id tamen malis omnibus non convenire. Pios autem et religiosos esse sapientes, peritos divini juris omnes. Pietatem esse scientiam divini cultus. Diis item eos sacrificia facturos, castosque futuros. Quippe ea quæ in Deos admittuntur peccata detestari, Diisque charos ac gratos fore quo sancti justique in rebus divinis sint.

[93] De diis ita ut sunt loquere. Bias in Laert. Leg. Pauli Scaligeri Theses de Archetypo Mundo Ep. Cath. 1. 14. God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. Lord Bacon, Essay 16. p. 87. Deus est mens soluta, libera et segregata ab omni concretione mortali, omnia sentiens, movens, &c. Cicero 1. Tuscul.

[94] Persuasum hoc sit à principio hominibus, dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores Deos: eaque quæ gerantur eorum geri ditione atque numine--Et qualis quisque fit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua pietate colat religionem, intueri, piorumque et impiorum habere rationem. Cicero 2. de Leg.

[95] Deorum providentia mundus administratur, iidemque consulunt rebus humanis neque solum universis, verum etiam singulis. Cicero 1. de Divin.

[96] Aristippus rogatus aliquando quid haberent eximium philosophi? Si omnes, inquit, leges intereant, æquabiliter vivemus. Laertius.

[97] If προσευχη in Luke vi. 12, do signify an oratory, it yet importeth that he continued for prayer in it.

[98] Maxime pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.

[99] Animi labes nee diuturnitate evanescit, nec manibus ullis elui potest--Non incestum vel aspersione aquæ vel dierum numero tollitur. Cicero 2. de Legib.

[100] See Plutarch's Tract, entitled, "That vice is sufficient to make a man wretched." Si non ipso honesto movemur ut viri boni simus, sed utilitate aliqua, atque fructu, callidi sumus, non boni; si emolumentis, non suapte natura, virtus expetitur, vana erit virtus, quæ malitia rectè dicitur. P. Scal. p. 744.

[101] Voluntarium est omne peccatum. Tolle excusationem: nemo peccat invitus. Martin. Dunilens. de Morib. Nihil interest quo animo facias, quod fecisse vitiosum est, quia acta cernuntur, animus non videtur. Id. ibid.

[102] Sick bodies only suffer ill; but sick souls both suffer ill and do ill. Plutarch's Mor. p. 314.

[103] See the Assembly's Larger Catechism about aggravations of sin.

[104] See my treatise of "Crucifying the World," and of "Self-denial."

[105] Of the Temptations to hinder Conversion, see before, chap. i.

[106] Vide Pool's Synopsis, Critic, in Levit. i. 77. In these latter the word "spirit" signifieth the ill disposition, which Satan as a tempter causeth, and so he is known by it as his offspring.

[107] See my "Treatise against Infidelity," as before cited.

[108] Animi molles et ætate fluxi dolis haud difficulter capiuntur.

[109] See my two sheets for the Ministry.

[110] Vir bonus est qui prodest quibus notest, nocet autem nemini. P. Scalig. Ne pigeat evangelicum ministrum, ægrotum visitare, venio aliquo recreare, familicum cibario saltem pane pascere, nudum operire, pauperem, cui non est adjutor, à divitum calumniis et potentia eripere, pro afflictis principem magistratumve convenire: rem familiarem consilio augere, morientibus sedulo et benigne astare, lites et dissidia componere, &c. Acosta, 1. 4. c. 18. p. 418.

[111] Some think they merit by curing the hurts which they have caused themselves. Sed nequitia est, ut extrahas mergere, evertere ut suscites, includere ut emittas. Non enim beneficium injuriæ finis; nec unquam id detraxisse meritum est, quod ipse qui detraxit intulerat. Senec. de Benef.

[112] "Sell all and give to the poor, and follow me." But sell not all, except thou follow me: that is, except thou have a vocation, in which thou mayest do as much good with little means, as with great. Lord Bacon's Essay 13.

[113] Absurdum est unum laute vivere, cum multi esuriunt. Quanto enim gloriosius est multis benefacere, quam magnifice habitare? Quanto prudentius in homines quam in lapides, et in aurum impensas facere. Clem. Alexand. 2. Pædag. 12.

[114] Nobilius et præstantius est charitatem exercere in Deo, quam virtutes propter Deum. Charitas compendiosissima ad Deum via est per quam celerrime in Deum pervenitur; nec sine charitate aliqua virtus supernaturaliter homini sapit: charitas enim forma omnium virtutum est. Per hoc charitatis exercitium, homo ad tantam sui abominationem venit, ut non solum seipsum contemnat, verum etiam se ab aliis contemni æquo animo ferat; imo etiam ab aliis contemptus gaudeat.--Thaulerus, flor. c. 7. p. 114.

[115] Austin, (Tract. 9. in John,) having showed that among men, it maketh no one beautiful to love one that is beautiful, saith, Anima nostra fœda est per iniquitatem: amando Deum pulchra efficitur: qualis amor qui reddat pulchrum amantem? Deus semper pater est: amavit nos fœdos, ut ex fœdis faceret pulchros: pulchri erimus amando eum qui pulcher est. Quantum in te crescit amor, tantum crescit pulchritudo; quia ipsa charitas animæ pulchritudo est.

[116] O orator, in tua oratione plus dilige Deum quam teipsum et alia: et si hoc facis, justus es et prudens, et de charitate et sanctitate habituatus: Qui habitus est amicus tuus in oratione--O Orator! quando orabis pro commissis, justitiam, Dei tecum teneas diligendo; non autem odiendo: quia si sic, misericordia Dei non posset esse tua amica, eo quia injustus esset; et tuus habitus esset crudelis et à spe et charitate prolongatus et tuum amare in odire esset perversum, de quo odire esset in æternum habituatus. Raim. Lullius, Arte Magna de Applic. cap. 114. p. 557, 558.

[117] Read Julian Toletan. his Prognosticon. Si in cœlis fidelibus hæc servatur hæreditas, frivola quædam et tepida proferunt aliqua, putantes eam se percipere in terrena Jerusalem; mille annis existimant esse deliciarum præmia proprietate recepturos: qui interrogandi sunt, quomodo astruant delicias corporales, dum dicatur hanc hæreditatem nec corrumpi posse nec marcescere. Didymus Alexand. in Petr. 1. cont. Millenar.

[118] Of the nature of affiance and faith, I have written more fully in my Disputation with Dr. Barlow, of Saving Faith.

[119] SOLA fide Deo SOLI constanter adhaere. A SOLO cunctis eripiere malis. Peucerus his Distich, in his ten years' imprisonment. Scult. Curric. p. 22.

[120] Of hope and assurance I have spoken afterward.

[121] Of enthusiastic impressions I have said more in my Directions for the Cure of Church Divisions, and in the defence of it, and in other books.

[122] 1 Chron. xvi. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13; Psal. xxxi. 7; lxxxvi. 5; cviii. 3, 4; xcii. 4, 5; cxxxvi. 4; cxlv. 5-7, 11, 12; cxix. 64; Job xxxvi. 24, 26; Psal. cvii. 22; civ. 31; lxvii. 6; Rev. i. 5; John xv. 9; Gal. ii. 20; Eph. i. 17, 18; ii. 6, 7; iii. 18, 19; Psal. cxxx. 6, 7; xci. 2, 9; xciv. 22; lix. 16; lxii. 7, 8; lvii. 1; xlvi. 1, 7, 11; lxxxix. 1; cxvi. 1-3; ciii. 1-3; lxvi. 13, 16, 17; xxxiv. 1-3.

[123] Phil. iii. 1; Isa. lviii. 19; Job xxii. 26; Isa. lv. 2, 3; Psal. iv. 7; Acts xiv. 17; Deut. xxvii. 7; xii. 12, 18; 1 Pet. i. 3, 4, 6; John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26; Isa. liii. 3, 4; 1 Pet. i. 8, 9; Matt. xi. 28; Isa. lv. 1; Rev. xxii. 17; 1 Thess. v. 11, 14, 16; Phil. iv. 4; Psal. xxxiii. 1; 1 Pet. v. 7; John v. 40.

[124] Isa. lxiii. 9; 2 Cor. ii. 7; Zeph. iii. 17; Deut. xxx. 9; x. 15; Isa. lxii. 5; James ii. 13; John xiv. 13, 18.

[125] Lætari in Deo est res omnium summa in terris. Bucholtzer.

[126] Tres sunt virtutis conditiones, tentationis remotio, actuum multiplicatio, et in bono delectatio. P. Scaliger.

[127] Heb. i. 3; Acts vii. 55; Rom. iii. 23; Rev. xxi. 11, 23; Jude 24; 1 Pet. iv. 13; 2 Cor. iii. 18.

[128] Lege Gassendi Oration, inaugural, in Institut. Astronom.

[129] Christianus est homo dicens et faciens ingrata diabolo; et ornans gloriam Dei, autoris vitæ et satis suæ. Bucholtzer.

[130] Of prayer I have spoken afterward. Tom. 2, &c.

[131] Turpissimum est philosopho secus docere quam vivit. Paul Scaliger. p. 728.

[132] Nam ilia quæ de regno cœlorum commemoranter à nobis, deque præsentium rerum contemptu, vel non capiunt, vel non facile sibi persuadent cum sermo factis evertitur. Acosta, lib. iv. c. 18. p. 418.

[133] I pass not this by as a small matter, to be passed by also by the reader. For I take the love of God kindled by faith in Christ, with the full denial of our carnal selves, to be the sum of all religion. But because I would not injure so great a duty by saying but a little of it; and therefore desire the reader, who studieth for practice, and needeth such helps, to peruse the mentioned books of "Self-denial," and "Crucifying the world."

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Appendix

The true doctrine of love to God, to holiness, to ourselves, and to others, opened in certain propositions; especially for resolving the questions, What self-love is lawful?--what sinful?--Whether God must be loved above our own felicity, and how?--Whether to love our felicity more than God, may stand with a state of saving grace?--Whether it be a middle state between sensuality and the divine nature, to love God more for ourselves than for himself?--Whether to love God for ourselves be the state of a believer as he is under the promise of the new covenant?--And whether the spirit and sanctification promised to believers, be the love of God for himself, and so the divine nature, promised to him that chooseth Christ and God by him out of self-love for his own felicity?--How God supposeth and worketh on the principle of self-love in man's conversion?--With many such like. To avoid the tediousness of a distinct debating each question.

Though these things principally belong to the theory, and so to another treatise in hand, called "Methodus Theologiæ;" yet because they are also practical, and have a great influence upon the more practical directions, and the right understanding of them may help the reader himself to determine a multitude of cases of conscience, the particular discussion and decision of which would too much increase this volume, which is so big already, I shall here explain them in such brief propositions as yet shall give light to one another, and I hope contain much of the true nature of love, which is the mystery of the christian religion.

Prop. 1. The formal act of love is complacency, expressed by a placet; which Augustine so oft calleth delectation.

2. Benevolence, or desiring the good of those we love, is but a secondary act of love, or an effect of the prime, formal act. For to wish one well is not to love him formally; but we wish him well because we love him, and therefore first in order love him.

3. Their definition of love is therefore inept, and but from an effect, who say it is, Alicui bene velle, ut ipst bene sit.

4. Love is either merely sensitive and passionate, which is the sensible act and passion of the sensitive and fantastical appetite; or it is rational, which is the act of the rational appetite or will. The first is called sensitive in a double respect; 1. Because it followeth the apprehension of the senses, or fantasy, loving that which they apprehend as good; 2. And because it is exercised passionately and feelingly by the sensitive appetite. And the other is called rational, 1. Because it is the love of that which reason apprehendeth as good; and, 2. Because it is the complacency of that will which is a higher faculty than the sensitive appetite.

5. Sensitive love is oft without rational, (always in brutes,) but rational love is never totally without sensitive, at least in this life; whether it be because that the sensitive and rational are faculties of the same soul, or because they are so nearly connexed as that one cannot here move or act without the other?

6. But yet one is predominant in some persons, and the other in others.

7. Love is the complacency of the appetite in apprehended good. Good is the formal object of love. Sensitive love is the complacency of the sensitive appetite in sensible good (or in that which the sense and imagination apprehendeth as good). Rational love is the complacency of the rational appetite in that which reason apprehendeth good: the same thing with primary volition.

8. Good is not only a man's own felicity and the means thereto, called mihi bonum, good to me; either as profitable, pleasant, or honourable (as some think that have unmanned themselves): but there is extrinsic good, which is such in itself, in others, or for others, which yet is the natural object of man's love (so far as nature is sound). As the learning, and wisdom, and justice, and charity, and all other perfections of a man at the antipodes, whom I never saw, nor hope to see, or to receive any benefit by, is yet amiable to every man that hath not unmanned himself. So also is the good of posterity, of countries, of kingdoms, of the church, of the world, apprehended as future when we are dead and gone; yea, if we should be annihilated, desirable, and therefore amiable to us; when yet it could be no benefit to us.

9. Self-love is sensitive or rational. Sensitive, as such, is necessary and not free; and it is purposely by the most wise and blessed Creator planted in man and brutes, as a principle useful to preserve the world, and to engage the creature in the use of the means of its own preservation, and so to bring it to perfection, and to endue it with those fears and hopes which make us subjects capable of moral government.

10. The rational or higher appetite also hath a natural inclination to self-preservation, perfection, and felicity; but as ordinable and ordinate to higher ends.

11. The rational powers cannot nullify the sensitive, nor directly or totally hinder the action of them; but they may and must indirectly hinder the act, by avoiding the objects and temptations, by diverting the thoughts to higher things, &c.; and may hinder the effects by governing the locomotive power.

12. Sensitive self-love containeth in it, 1. A love of life, and that is, of individual self-existence; 2. And a love of all sensitive pleasures of life; and, 3. Consequently, a love of the means of life and pleasure.

13. In sensitive self-love, therefore, self, that is, life, is both the material and formal object: we love ourselves even because we are ourselves; we love this individual person, and loathe annihilation or dissolution.

14. Though the will (or higher faculties) are naturally inclined also to love ourselves, and our own felicity, yet they exercise this inclination with a certain liberty; and though the act of simple complacency or volition towards our own being and felicity be so free as yet to be necessary, yet the comparative act (by which comparing several goods, we choose one and refuse another) may be so free as not to be necessary; that is, a man may will his own annihilation rather than some greater evil, (of which anon,) not as good in itself, and therefore not willed for itself, but as a means to a greater good; and so he may less nill it than a greater evil.

15. Also a tolerable pain may on the same account be willed, or less nilled, and so consented to, for the avoiding a greater evil; but intolerable pain cannot possibly be willed or consented to, or not nilled, because it taketh away the exercise of reason and free-will: but what is to be called intolerable I determine not, it being variously measurable according to the patient's strength.

16. The soul as intellectual, by its rational appetite, hath also a natural inclination to intellectual operations (to know and love) and to intellectual objects as such, and to intellectual perfections in itself. Yet so that, though it necessarily (though freely) loveth the said acts and perfections while it hath a being; yet doth it not necessarily love all the said objects, nor necessarily choose the continuance of its own being, but in some cases, as aforesaid, can yield or consent to an annihilation as a lesser evil.

17. The rational soul being not of itself, nor for itself alone, or chiefly, is naturally inclined not only to love to itself, and that which is for itself, but also to love extrinsic good, as was aforesaid; and accordingly it should love that best which is best: for a quatenus et ad omne et ad gradum, valet argumentum. If we must love any thing or person because it is good, (as the formal reason,) then we should love all that is good, and love that best which is best, if so discerned.

18. Though I must love greater, simple, extrinsic good above myself, with that love which is purely rational, yet it cannot ordinarily be done with a more sensitive and passionate love.

19. I am not always bound to do most good to him that I love better than others, and ought so to love, nor to him that I must wish most good to. Because there are other particular laws to regulate my actions, diverse from that which commandeth my affections: as those that put children, relations, families, neighbours, under our special charge and care; though often others must be more loved.

20. That good which is the object of love, is not a mere universal or general notion, but is always some particular or single being in esse reali, vel in esse cognito. As there is no such thing in rerum natura, as good in a mere general, which is neither the good of natural existence, or of moral perfection, or of pleasure, profit, honour, &c.; yea, which is not in this or in that singular subject, or so conceived; so there is no such thing as love, which hath not some such singular object. (As Rada and other Scotists have made plain.)

21. All good is either God, or a creature, or a creature's act or work.

22. God is good infinitely, eternally, primitively, independently, immutably, communicatively, of whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things: the beginning, or first efficient, the dirigent and ultimately ultimate cause of all created good; as making and directing all things for himself.

23. Therefore it is the duty of the intellectual creature to love God totally, without any exceptions or restrictions, with all the power, mind, and will, not only in degree above ourselves and all the world, but also as God, with a love in kind transcending the love of every creature.

24. All the goodness of the creature doth formally consist in its threefold relation to God, viz. 1. In the impresses of God as its first Efficient or Creator; as it is his image, or the effect and demonstration of his perfections, viz. his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. 2. In its conformity to his directions, or governing laws, and so in its order and obedience. 3. And in its aptitude and tendency to God as its final cause, even to the demonstration of his glory, and the complacency of his will.

25. All creative good is therefore derivative, dependent, contingent, finite, secondary, from God, by God, and to God, receiving its form and measure from its respect to him.

26. Yet as it may be subordinately from man, as the principle of his own actions, and by man as a subordinate ruler of himself or others, and to man as a subordinate end; so there is accordingly a subordinate sort of goodness, which is so denominated from these respects unto the creature, that is himself good, subordinately.

27. But all this subordinate goodness (bonum a nobis, bonum per nos, bonum nobis) is but analogically so; and dependently on the former sort of goodness, and is something in due subordination to it, and against it, nothing, that is, not properly good.

28. The best and excellentest creatures, in the foresaid goodness related to God, are most to be loved; and all according to the degree of their goodness, more than as good in relation to ourselves.

29. But seeing their goodness is formally their relation unto God, it followeth that they are loved primarily only for his sake, and consequently God's image or glory in them is first loved; and so the true love of any creature is but a secondary sort of the love of God.

30. The best being next to God is the universe, or whole creation, and therefore next him most to be loved by us.

31. The next in amiableness is the whole celestial society, Christ, angels, and saints.

32. The next, when we come to distinguish them, is Christ's own created, glorified nature in the person of the Mediator, because God's glory or image is most upon him.

33. The next in amiableness is the whole angelical society, or the orders of intellectual spirits above man.

34. The next is the spirits of the just made perfect, or the triumphant church of saints in heaven.

35. The next is all this lower world.

36. The next is the church in the world, or militant on earth.

37. The next are the particular kingdoms and societies of the world, (and so the churches,) according to their various degrees.

38. The next, under societies and multitudes, are those individual persons who are best in the three forementioned respects, whether ourselves or others. And thus, by the objects, should our love that is rational be diversified in degree, and that be loved best that is best.

39. The amiable image of God in man is (as hath oft been said): 1. Our natural image of God, or the image of his three essential properties as such, that is, our vital, active power, our intellect, and our will. 2. Our moral image, or the image of his said properties in their perfections, viz. our holiness, that is, our holy life or spiritual vivacity and active power, our holy light or wisdom, our holy wills or love. 3. Our relative image of God, or the image of his supereminency, dominion, or majesty; which is, 1. Common to man, in respect to the inferior creatures, that we are their owners, governors, and end (and benefactors); 2. Eminently in rulers of men, parents, and princes, who are analogically sub-owners, sub-rulers, and sub-benefactors to their inferiors, in various degrees. By which it is discernible what it is that we are to love in man, and with what variety of kinds and degrees of love, as the kinds and degrees of amiableness in the objects differ.

40. Even the sun, and moon, and frame of nature, the inanimates and brutes, must be loved in that degree compared to man, and to one another, as their goodness before described, that is, the impressions of the divine perfections, do more or less gloriously appear in them, and as they are adapted to him the ultimate end.

41. As God is in this life seen but darkly and as in a glass, so also proportionably to be loved; for our love cannot exceed our knowledge.

42. Yet it followeth not that we must love him only as he appeareth in his works, which demonstrate him as effects do their cause; for both by the said works improved by reason, and by his word, we know that he is before his works, and above them, and so distinct from them as to transcend, and comprehend, and cause them all, by a continual causality; and therefore he must accordingly be loved.

43. It greatly hindereth our love to God, when we overlook all the intermediate excellencies between him and us, which are much better, and therefore more amiable, than ourselves; such as are before recited.

44. The love of the universe, as bearing the liveliest image or impress of its cause, is an eminent secondary love of God, and a great help to our primary or immediate love of him. Could we comprehend the glorious excellency of the universal creation, in its matter, form, parts, order, and uses, we should see so glorious an image of God, as would unspeakably promote the work of love.

45. Whether the glory of God in heaven, which will for ever beautify the beholders and possessors, be the divine essence, (which is every where,) or a created glory purposely there placed for the felicity of holy spirits, and what that glory is, are questions fittest for the beholders and possessors to resolve.

46. But if it be no more than the universal, existent frame of nature, containing all the creatures of God beheld uno intuitu in the nature, order, and use of all the parts, it would be an unconceivable felicity to the beholders, as being an unconceivable glorious demonstration of the Deity.

47. It is lawful and a needful duty, to labour by the means of such excellencies as we know, which heaven is resembled to in Scripture, to imprint upon our imaginations themselves, such an image of the glory of the heavenly society, Christ, angels, saints, and the heavenly place and state, as shall help our intellectual apprehensions of the spiritual excellencies which transcend imagination. And the neglect of loving God as foreseen in the demonstration of the heavenly glory, doth greatly hinder our love to him immediately as in himself considered.

48. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his glorified, created nature, is crowned with the highest excellency of any particular creature, that he might be the Mediator of our love to God; and in him (seen by faith) we might see the glory of the Deity. And as in heaven we shall have (spiritual, glorified) bodies as well as souls, so the glorified, created nature of Christ will be an objective glory, fit for our bodies (at least) to behold in order to their glory, as the divine nature (as it pleaseth God in glory) revealed, will be to the soul.

49. The exercise of our love upon God as now appearing to the glorified, in the glorious created nature of Christ, (beheld by us by faith,) is a great part of our present exercise of divine love: and we extinguish our love to God, by beholding so little by faith our glorified Mediator.

50. We owe greater love to angels than to men, because they are better, nearer God, and liker to him, and more demonstrate his glory; and indeed also love us better, and do more for us, than we can do for one another. And the neglect of our due love and gratitude to angels, and forgetting our relation to them, and receivings by them, and communion with them, and living as if we had little to do with them, is a culpable overlooking God, as he appeareth in his most noble creatures, and is a neglect of our love to God in them, and a great hinderance to our higher more immediate love. Therefore by faith and love we should exercise a daily converse with angels, as part of our heavenly conversation, Phil. iii. 20, 21; Heb. xii. 22; and use ourselves to love God in them: though not to pray to them, or give them divine worship.

51. We must love the glorified saints more than the inhabitants of this lower world, because they are far better, and liker to God, and nearer to him, and more demonstrate his holiness and glory. And our neglect of conversing with them by faith, and of loving them above ourselves, and things on earth, is a neglect of our love to God in them, and a hinderance of our more immediate love. And a loving conversation with them by faith, would greatly help our higher love to God.

52. Our neglect of love to the church on earth, and to the kingdoms and public societies of mankind, is a sinful neglect of our love to God in them, and a hinderance of our higher love to him; and the true use of such a public love, would greatly further our higher love.

53. If those heathens who laid down their lives for their countries had neither done this for fame, nor merely as esteeming the temporal good of their country above their own temporal good and lives, but for the true excellency of many above one, and for God's greater interest in them, they had done a most noble, holy work.

54. Our adherence to our carnal selves first, and then to our carnal interests and friends, and neglecting the love of the highest excellencies in the servants of God, and not loving men according to the measure of the image of God on them, and their relation to him, is a great neglect of our love of God in them, and a hinderance of our higher immediate love. And to use ourselves to love men as God appeareth in them, would much promote our higher love. And so we should love the best of men above ourselves.

55. The loving of ourselves sensually, preferring our present life and earthly pleasure before our higher spiritual felicity in heaven, and our neglecting to love holiness, and seek it for ourselves, and then to love God in ourselves, is a neglect and hinderance of the love of God.

56. Man hath not lost so much of the knowledge and love of God, as appearing in his greatness, and wisdom, and natural goodness in the frame of nature, as he is the Author of the creatures' natural goodness, as he hath of the knowledge and love of his holiness, as he is the holy Ruler, Sanctifier, and End of souls.

57. The sensitive faculty and sensitive interest are still predominant in a carnal or sensual man; and his reason is voluntarily enslaved to his sense: so that even the intellectual appetite, contrary to its primitive and sound nature, loveth chiefly the sensitive life and pleasure.

58. It is therefore exceeding hard in this depraved state of nature, to love God or any thing better than ourselves; because we love more by sense than by reason, and reason is weak and serveth the interest of sense.

59. Yet the same man who is prevalently sensual, may know that he hath a rational, immortal soul, and that knowledge and rectitude are the felicity of his soul; and that it is the knowledge and love of and delight in God, the highest good, that can make him perpetually happy: and therefore as these are apprehended as a means of his own felicity, he may have some kind of love or will unto them all.

60. The thing therefore that every carnal man would have, is an everlasting, perfect, sensual pleasure; and he apprehendeth the state of his soul's perfection mostly as consisting in this kind of felicity: and even the knowledge and love of God, which he taketh for part of his felicity, is principally apprehended but as a speculative gratifying of the imagination, as carnal men now desire knowledge. Or if there be a righter notion of God and holiness to be loved for themselves, even ultimately above our sensual pleasure and ourselves; yet this is but an uneffectual, dreaming knowledge, producing but an answerable lazy wish: and it will not here prevail against the stronger love of sensuality and fantastical pleasure, nor against inordinate self-love. And it is a sensual heaven, under a spiritual name, which the carnal hope for.

61. This carnal man may love God as a means to this felicity so dreamed of; as knowing that without him it cannot be had, and tasting corporal comforts from him here: and he may love holiness as it removeth his contrary calamities, and as he thinks it is crowned with such a reward. But he had rather have that reward of itself without holiness.

62. He may also love and desire Christ, as a means (conceived) to such an end; and he may use much religious duty to that end; and he may forbear such sins as that end can spare, lest they deprive him of his hoped-for felicity. Yea, he may suffer much to prevent an endless suffering.

63. As nature necessarily loveth self and self-felicity, God and the devil do both make great use of this natural pondus, or necessitating principle, for their several ends. The devil saith, thou lovest pleasure, therefore take it and make provision for it. God saith, thou lovest felicity, and fearest misery: I and my love are the true felicity; and adhering to sensual pleasure depriveth thee of better, and is the beginning of thy misery, and will bring thee unto worse.

64. God commandeth man nothing that is not for his own good, and forbiddeth him nothing which is not (directly or indirectly) to his hurt: and therefore engageth self-love on his side for every act of our obedience.

65. Yet this good of our own is not the highest, nor all the good which God intendeth, and we must intend; but it is subordinate unto the greater good aforementioned.

66. As a carnal man may have opinionative, uneffectual convictions, that God and his love are his spiritual felicity (better than sensual); yea, and that God is his estimate end above his own felicity itself; so the sanctifying of man consisteth in bringing up these convictions to be truly effectual and practical, to renew and rule the mind, and will, and life.

67. Whether this be done by first knowing God as the beginning and end, above ourselves, and then knowing (effectually) that he is man's felicity; or whether self-love be first excited to love him as our own felicity, and next we be carried up to love him for himself, as our highest end, it cometh all to one when the work is done; and we cannot prove that God tieth himself constantly to either of these methods alone. But experience telleth us, that the latter is the usual way; and that as nature, so grace beginneth with the smallest seed, and groweth upward towards perfection; and that self-love, and desire of endless felicity, and fear of endless misery, are the first notable effects or changes on a repenting soul.

68. And indeed the state of sin lieth both in man's fall from God to self, and in the mistake of his own felicity, preferring even for himself a sensible good before a spiritual, and the creature before the Creator: and therefore he must be rectified in both.

69. And the hypocrite's uneffectual love to God and holiness is much discovered in this, that, as he loveth dead saints, and their images and holidays, because they trouble him not, so he best loveth (opinionatively) and least hateth (practically) the saints in heaven, and the holiness that is far from him, and God as he conceiveth of him as one that is in heaven to glorify men; but he hateth (practically, though not professedly) the God that would make him holy, and deprive him of all his sinful pleasures, or condemn him for them: and he can better like holiness in his pastor, neighbour, or child, than in himself.

70. Therefore sincerity much consisteth in the love of self-holiness; but not as for self alone, but as carrying self and all to God.

71. As the sun-beams do without any interception reach the eye, and by them without interception our sight ascendeth and extendeth to the sun; so God's communicated goodness and glorious revelation extend through and by all inferior mediums, to our understandings, and our wills, and our knowledge and love ascend and extend through all and by all again to God. And as it were unnatural for the eye illuminated by the sun, to see itself only, or to see the mediate creatures, and not to see the light and sun by which it seeth (nay, it doth least see itself); so it is unnatural for the soul to understand and love itself alone, (which it little understandeth and should love with self-denial,) and the creatures only, and not to love God, by whom we know and love the creature.

72. It is possible to love God, and holiness, and heaven, as a conceited state and means of our sensual felicity, and escape of pain and misery; but to love God as the true felicity of the intellectual nature, and as our spiritual rest, and yet to love him only or chiefly for ourselves, and not rather for himself as our highest end, implieth a contradiction. The same I say of holiness, as loved only for ourselves. The evidence whereof is plain, in that it is essential to God to be not only better than ourselves and every creature, but also to be the ultimate end of all things, to which they should tend in all their perfections. And it is essential to holiness to be the soul's devotion of itself to God as God, and not only to God as our felicity: therefore to love God only or chiefly for ourselves, is to make him only a means to our felicity, and not our chief end; and it is to make ourselves better, and so more amiable than God, that is, to be gods ourselves.

73. This is much of the sense of the controversy between the Epicureans and the sober philosophers, as is to be seen in Cicero, &c. The sober philosophers said, that virtue was to be loved for itself more than for pleasure; because if pleasure as such be better than virtue as such, then all sensual pleasure would be better than virtue as such. The Epicureans said, that not all pleasure, but the pleasure of virtue was the chief good, as Torquatus's words in Cicero show. And if it had been first proved, that a man's self is his just, ultimate end, as the finis cui or the personal end, then it would be a hard question, whether the Epicureans were not in the right as to the finis cujus or the real end (which indeed is but a medium to the personal, cui). But when it is most certain, that no man's person is to be his own ultimate end, as cui, but God, and then the universe, and societies of the world as before said, it is then easy to prove that the sober philosophers were in the right, and that no man's pleasure is his ultimate end, finis cujus; because no man's pleasure is either such a demonstration of the divine perfection as virtue is, as such; nor yet doth it so much conduce to the common good of societies or mankind, and so to the pleasing and glorifying of God. And this way Cicero might easily have made good his cause against the Epicureans.

74. Though no man indeed love God as God, who loveth him not as better than himself, and therefore loveth him not better, and as his absolutely ultimate end; and though no man desire holiness indeed, who desireth not to be devoted absolutely to God before and above himself: yet is it very common to have a false, imperfect notion of God and holiness, as being the felicity of man, and though not to deny, yet to leave out the essential superlative notion of the Deity; and it is more common to confess all this of God and holiness notionally, as was aforesaid, and practically to take in no more of God and holiness, but that they are better for us than temporary pleasures. And some go further, and take them as better for them, than any (though perpetual) mere sensual delights; and so make the perfection of man's highest faculties (practically) to be their ultimate end; and desire or love God and holiness (defectively and falsely apprehended) for themselves, or their own felicity, and not themselves, and their felicity and holiness, ultimately for God. Which showeth, that though these men have somewhat overcome the sensual concupiscence or flesh, yet have they not sufficiently overcome the selfish disposition, nor yet known and loved God as God, nor good as good.

75. Yet is it not a sin to love God for ourselves, and our own felicity, so be it we make him not a mere means to that felicity, as our absolutely ultimate end. For as God indeed is, 1. The efficient of all our good; 2. The dirigent cause, that leadeth us to it; 3. The end in which our felicity truly consisteth; so is he to be loved on all these accounts.

76. If God were not thus to be loved for ourselves, (subordinated to him,) thankfulness would not be a christian duty.

77. Our love to God is a love of friendship, and a desire of a kind of union, communion, or adherence. But not such as is between creatures where there is some sort of equality: but as between them that are totally unequal; the one infinitely below the other, and absolutely subject and subordinate to him.

78. Therefore, though in love of friendship, a union of both parties, and consequently a conjunct interest of both, and not one alone, do make up the ultimate end of love; yet here it should be with an utter disproportion, we being obliged to know God as infinitely better than ourselves, and therefore to love him incomparably more, though yet it will be but according to the proportion of the faculties of the lover.

79. The purest process of love, therefore, is, first thankfully to perceive the divine efficiencies, and to love God as communicative of what we and all things are, and have, and shall receive, and therein to see his perfect goodness in himself, and to love him as God for that goodness; wherein is nothing but the final act, which is our love, and the final object, which is the infinite good. So that the act is man's, (from God,) but nothing is to be joined with God as the absolutely final object; for that were to join somewhat with God as God.

80. And though it be most true, that this act may be made the object of another act, and (as Amesius saith, Omnium gentium consensu dicimus Volo velle, so) we may and must say, Amo amare, I love to love God, and the very exercise of my own love is my delight, and so is my felicity in the very essential nature of it, being a complacency, and being on the highest objective good: and also this same love is my holiness, and so it and I are pleasing unto God; yet these are all consequential to the true notion of the final act, and circularly lead to the same again. We must love our felicity and holiness, which consisteth in our love to God, but as that which subordinately relateth to God, in which he is first glorified, and then finally pleased; and so from his will which we delight to please, we ascend to his total perfect being, to which we adhere by perfect love. In a word, our ultimate end of acquisition (and God's own, so far as he may be said to have an end) is the pleasing of the divine will, in his glorification; and our ultimate end of complacency, objectively, is the infinite goodness of the divine will and nature.

81. There is, therefore, place for the question whether I must love God, or myself, more or better? as it is resolved. But there is no place for the question, whether I must love God or myself? Because God alloweth me not ever to separate them; though there is a degree of just self-loathing or self-hatred, in deep repentance. Nor yet for the question, whether I must seek God's glory and pleasure, or my own felicity? for I must ever seek them both, though not with the same esteem. Yea, I may be said to seek them both with the same diligence; because by the same endeavour and act that I seek one, I seek the other; and I cannot possibly do any thing for one, that doth not equally promote the other, if I do them rightly, preferring God before myself, in my inward estimation, love, and intention.

82. Though it be essential to divine love, and consequently to true holiness, to love God for himself, and as better than ourselves, (or else we love him not as God, as is before said,) yet this is hardly and seldom perceived in the beginning in him that hath it; because the love of ourself is more passionate, and raiseth in us more subordinate passions, of fear of punishment, and desires of felicity, and sorrow for hurt and misery, &c. Whereas, God being immaterial, and invisible, is not at all an object of our sense, but only of our reason and our wills, and therefore not directly of sensitive, passionate love: though consequently while the soul is united to the body, its acting even on immaterial objects, moveth the lower sensitive faculties, and the corporeal spirits. Also God needeth nothing for us to desire for him, nor suffereth nothing for us to grieve for, though we must grieve for injuring him, and being displeasing to his will.

83. I cannot say nor believe (though, till it be searched, the opinion hath an enticing aspect) that the gospel faith which hath the promise of justification, and of the Spirit, is only a believing in Christ as the means of our felicity, by redemption and salvation, out of the principle of self-love alone, and for no higher end than our said felicity; because he is not believed in as Christ, if he be not taken as a reconciler to bring us home to God. And we take him not to bring us to God as God, if it be not to bring us to God as the beginning and end of all things, and as infinitely more lovely than ourselves. And our repentance for not loving God accordingly above ourselves, must go along with our first justifying faith. Therefore, though we are learners before we are lovers, and our assent goeth before the will's consent, yet our assent that God is God, and better than ourselves, must go together with our assent that Christ is the Mediator to save us, by bringing us to him; and so must our assent that this is salvation, even to love God above ourselves, and as better than ourselves; and accordingly our consent to these particulars must concur in saving faith.

84. He, therefore, that out of self-love accepteth Christ as the means of his own felicity, doth (if he know practically what felicity is) accept him as a means to bring him to love God perfectly, as God above himself, and to be perfectly pleasing to his will.

85. Yet it is apparent that almost all God's preparing grace consisteth in exciting and improving the natural principle of self-love in man; and manifesting to him, that if he will do as one that loveth himself, he must be a christian, and must forsake sin, and the inordinate love of his sensuality, and must be holy, and love God for his own essential as well as communicated goodness. And if he do otherwise, he will do as one that hateth himself, and seeketh in the event his own damnation. And could we but get men rationally to improve true self-love, they would be christians, and so be holy.

86. But because this is a great, though tender point, and it that I have more generally touched in the case, Whether faith in Christ, or love to God as our end, go first? and because, indeed, it is it for which I principally premise the rest of these propositions; I shall presume to venture a little further, and more distinctly to tell you, how much of love to God is in our first justifying faith, and how much not; and how far the state of such a believer is a middle state between mere preparation, or common grace, and proper sanctification or possession of the Holy Ghost. And so, how far vocation giving us the first faith, and repentance, differeth from sanctification. And the rather because my unriper thoughts and writings defended Mr. Pemble, who made them one, in opposition to the stream of our divines. And I conceive that all these following acts about the point in question, are found in every true believer, at his first faith, though not distinctly noted by himself.

(1.) The sinner hath an intellectual notice, that there is a God, (for an atheist is not a believer,) and so that this God is the first and last, the best of beings, the Maker, Owner, Ruler, and Benefactor of the world, the just end of all created beings and actions, and to be loved and pleased above ourselves: for all this is but to believe there is a God.

(2.) He is convinced that his own chief felicity lieth, not in temporary or carnal pleasure, but in the perfect knowing, loving, and pleasing this God above himself: for if he know not what true salvation and felicity is, he cannot desire or accept it.

(3.) He knoweth that hitherto he hath been without this love, and this felicity.

(4.) He desireth to be happy, and to escape everlasting misery.

(5.) He repenteth, that is, is sorry, that he hath not all this while loved God as God, and sought felicity therein.

(6.) He is willing and desirous for the time to come, to love God as God above himself, and to please him before himself; that is, to have a heart disposed to do it.

(7.) He findeth that he cannot do it of himself, nor with his old carnal, indisposed heart.

(8.) He believeth that Christ, by his doctrine and Spirit, is the appointed Saviour to bring him to it.

(9.) He gladly consenteth that Christ shall be such a Saviour to him, and shall not only justify him from guilt, and save him from sensible punishment, but also thus bring him to the perfect love of God.

(10.) He had rather Christ would bring him to this by sanctification, than to enjoy all the pleasures of sin for a season, yea, or to have a perpetual sensitive felicity, without this perfect love to God, and pleasing of him.

(11.) God being declared to him in Jesus Christ, a God of love, forgiving sin, and conditionally giving pardon and life to his very enemies, as he is hence the easilier loved with thankfulness for ourselves, so the goodness of his nature in himself is hereby insinuated and notified with some secret complacency to the soul. He is, sure, good, that is so merciful and ready to do good, and that so wonderfully as in Christ is manifested.

(12.) So that as baptism (which is but explicit, justifying faith, or the expression of it, in covenanting with God) is our dedication by vow to all the Three Persons; to God the Father, as well as to the Son and Holy Ghost; so faith itself is such a heart-dedication.

(13.) Herein I dedicate myself to God as God, to be glorified and pleased in my justification, sanctification, and glorification, that is, in my reception of the fruits of his love, and in my loving him above all, as God: or to be pleased in me, and I in him, for ever.

(14.) In all this the understanding acknowledgeth God to be God, (by assent,) and to be loved above myself, and the will desireth so to love him: but the object of the will here directly, is its own future disposition and act. It doth not say, I do already love God, as God, above myself; but only I would so love him, and I would be so changed as may dispose me so to love him; I acknowledge that I should so love him, and that I do love him for his mercies to myself and others. Nor can it be said, that Volo velle, or Volo amare, a desire to love God as such, is direct love to God. Because it is not all one to have God to be the object of my will, and to have my own act of willing or loving to be the object of it. And because that a man may for other ends (as for mere fear of hell) will to will or love that, which yet he doth not will or love, at least for itself.

(15.) In this case, above all others, it is manifest, that every conviction of the understanding doth not accordingly determine the will. For in this new convert, the understanding saith plainly, God is to be loved as God, above myself: but the will saith, I cannot do it though I would: I am so captivated by self-love, and so void of the true love of God, that I can say no more, but that Propter me vellem amare Deum propter se; I love my own felicity so well, that I love God as my felicity; and love him under the notion of God the perfect good, who is infinitely better than myself; and desire a heart to love him more than myself; but I cannot say, that I yet do it, or that I love him best or most, whom I acknowledge to be best, and as such to be loved.

(16.) Yet in all this, there is not only semen amoris, a seed of divine love to God as God, but the foundation of it laid, and some obscure, secret conception of it beginning, or in fieri, in the soul. For while the understanding confesseth God to be most amiable, and the will desireth that felicity which doth consist in loving him above myself, and experience telleth me, that he is good to me, and therefore good in himself, it can hardly be conceived, but that in all this there is some kind of secret love to God, as better than myself.

87. In all this, note, that it is one thing to love God, under the notion of the infinite good, better than myself and all things, and another thing for the will to love him more, as that notion obligeth.

88. And the reason why these are often separated, is, because besides a slight intellectual apprehension, there is necessary to the will's just determination, a clear and deep apprehension, with a right disposition of the will, and a suscitation of the active power.

89. Yea, and every slight volition or velleity will not conquer opposing concupiscence and volitions: nor is every will effectual to command the life, and prevail against its contrary.

90. Therefore, I conceive, that in our first believing in Christ, even to justification, though our reason tell us that he is more amiable than ourselves, and we are desirous so to love him for the future, and have an obscure, weak beginning of love to God as God, or as so conceived: yet, 1. The strength of sensitive self-love maketh our love to ourselves more passionately strong. 2. And that reason, at least in its degree of apprehension, is too intense in apprehending our self-interest, and too remiss in apprehending the amiableness of God as God: and so far, even our rational love is yet greater to ourselves, though, as to the notion, God hath the pre-eminence. 3. And that in this whole affair of our baptismal covenanting, consent, or christianity, our love to our own felicity, as such, is more powerful and effectual, in moving the soul, and prevailing for our resolution for a new life, than is our love to God, as for himself, and as God.

91. And therefore it is, that fear hath so great a hand in our first change: for all that such fear doth, it doth as moved by self-love; I mean the fear of suffering and damnation: and yet experience telleth us, that conversion commonly beginneth in fear. And though where self-love and fear are alone, without the love of God as good in and for himself, there is no true grace; yet I conceive that there is true grace initial in those weak christians, that have more fear and self-love in the passionate and powerful part, than love to God, so be it they have not more love to sin, and to any thing that stands in competition with God.

92. Therefore, he that hath a carnal self-love (or inordinate) inclining him to the creature, which is stronger in him than the love of God, is graceless; because it will turn his heart and life from God. But he that hath only a necessary self-love, even a love to his own spiritual, eternal felicity, operating by strong desire and fear, conjunct with a weaker degree of love to God as good in himself, I think hath grace, and may so be saved: because here is but an unequal motion to the same end, and not a competition.

93. If any dislike any of this decision, I only desire him to remember, that on both hands there are apparent rocks to be avoided. First, it is a dangerous thing to say that a man is in a state of grace and salvation, who loveth not God as God, that is, better than himself. And on the other hand, the experience of most christians in the world saith, that at their first believing, (if not long after,) they loved God more for themselves than for himself, and loved themselves more than God, though they knew that God was better and more amiable; and that the fear of misery, and the desire of their own salvation, were more effectual and prevalent with them, than that love of God for himself. And I doubt, that not very many have this at all, in so high a degree as to be clear and certain of it. And if we shall make that necessary to salvation, which few of the best christians find in themselves, we either condemn almost all professed christians, or at least leave them under uncertainty and terrors. Therefore, God's interest speaking so loud on one hand, and man's experience on the other, I think we have need to cut by a thread, and walk by line, with greatest accurateness.

94. By this time we may see, that, as Christ is the way to the Father, and the Saviour and recoverer of lapsed man from himself to God; so faith in Christ, as such, is a mediate and medicinal grace and work: and that faith is but the bellows of love: and that our first believing in Christ, though it be the regenerating work, which generateth love, yet is but a middle state, between an unregenerate and a regenerate: not as a third state specifically distinct from both, but the initium of the latter; or as the embryo, or state of conception, in the womb, is as to a man and no man. Faith containeth love in fieri.

95. As the love of ourselves doth most powerfully (though not only) move us to close with Christ as our Saviour, so, while hereby we are united unto him, we have a double assistance or influx from him for the production of the purer love of God. The one is objective, in all the divine demonstrations of God's love; in his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, in his doctrine, example, intercession, and in all his benefits given us; in our pardon, adoption, and the promises of future glory. The other is in the secret operations of the Holy Spirit which he giveth us to concur with these means, and make them all effectual.

96. The true state of sanctification, as different from mere vocation and faith, consisteth in this pure love of God, and holiness; and that more for himself and his infinite goodness, than for ourselves, and as our felicity.

97. Therefore, when we are promised the Spirit, to be given to us if we believe in Christ, and sanctification is promised us, with justification, on this condition of faith, this is part of the meaning of that promise;--that, if we truly take Christ for our Saviour, to bring us to the love of God, though at present we are most moved with the love of ourselves to accept him, he will, by his word, works, and Spirit, bring us to it, initially here, and perfectly in heaven; even to be perfectly pleased in God, for his own perfect goodness, and so to be fully pleasant to him. And thus, (besides the extraordinary gifts to a few,) the Spirit of holiness or love, which is the Spirit of adoption, is promised by covenant to all believers.

98. Accordingly, this promise is so fulfilled, that in the first instant of time we have a relative right to Christ, as our Head and the sender of the Spirit, and to the Holy Spirit himself as our Sanctifier by undertaking, according to the terms of the covenant. But this doth not produce always a sensible or effectual love of God above ourselves in us, at the very first, but by degrees, as we follow the work of faith in our practice.

99. For it is specially to be noted, that the doctrinal or objective means of love, which Christ doth use, and his internal, spiritual influx, do concur. And his way is not to work on us by his Spirit alone, without those objects, nor yet by the objects without the Spirit, nor by both distinctly and dividedly, as producing several effects; but by both conjunctly for the same effect; the Spirit's influx causing us effectually to improve the objects and reasons of our love; as the hand that useth the seal, and the seal itself, make one impression.

100. As Christ began to win our love to God by the excitation of our self-love, multiplying and revealing God's mercies to ourselves, so doth he much carry it on to increase the same way. For while every day addeth fresh experience of the greatness of God's love to us, by this we have a certain taste that God is love, and good in himself; and so by degrees we learn to love him more for himself, and to improve our notional esteem of his essential goodness into practical.

101. Though faith itself is not wrought in us, without the Holy Ghost, nor is it (if sincere) a common gift, yet this operation of the Spirit drawing us to Christ, by such arguments and means as are fitted to the work of believing, is different from the consequent covenant right to Christ and the Spirit, which is given to believers, and from the Spirit of adoption, as recovering us, as aforesaid, to the love of God.

102. In this last sense it is that the Holy Ghost is said to dwell in believers, and to be the new name, the pledge, the earnest, the first-fruits of life eternal, the witness of our right to Christ and life, and Christ's agent and witness in us, to maintain his cause and interest.

103. Even as a man, that by sickness hath lost his appetite to meat, is told that such a physician will cure him, if he will take a certain medicinal food that he will give him; and at first he taketh it without appetite to the food or medicine in itself, but merely for the love of health; but after he is doubly brought to love it for itself, first, because he hath tasted the sweetness of that which he did but see before, and next, because his health and appetite are recovered: so is it with the soul, as to the love of God procured by believing; when we have tasted through the persuasion of self-love, our taste and recovery cause us to love God for himself.

104. When the soul is risen to this habitual, predominant love of God and holiness as such, for their own goodness, above its own felicity as such, (though ever in conjunction with it, and as his felicity itself,) then is the law written in the heart; and this love is the virtual fulfilling of all the law. And for such it is that it is said, that the law is not made; that is, in that measure that they love the good for itself, they need not be moved to it with threats or promises of extrinsic things, which work but by self-love and fear. Not but that divine authority must concur with love to produce obedience, especially while love is but imperfect: but that love is the highest principle, making the commanded good connatural to us.

105. And I think it is this Spirit of adoption and love which is called "The divine nature" in us, as it inclineth us to love God and holiness for themselves, as nature is inclined to self-love, and to food, and other necessaries. Not that the specific, essential nature, that is, substance or form, of the soul is changed, and man deified, and he become a god that was before a man; but his human soul or nature is elevated or more perfected (as a sick man by health, or a blind man by his sight) by the Spirit of God inclining him habitually to God himself, as in and for himself. (And this is all which the publisher of Sir H. Vane's notions of the two covenants and two natures, can soundly mean, and seemeth to grope after.)

106. By all this you see, that as the love of God hath a double self-love in us to deal with, so it dealeth variously with each: 1. Sensual, inordinate self-love it destroyeth; both as it consisteth in the inordinate love of sensual pleasure, and in the inordinate love of self or life. 2. Lawful and just self-love it increaseth and improveth to our further good, but subjecteth it to the highest, purest love of God.

107. By this you may gather what a confirmed christian is, even one in whom the pure love of God as God, and all things for God, is predominant and more potent than (not only the vicious, but also) the good, and lawful, and necessary love of himself.

108. Though christians therefore must study themselves, and keep up a care of their own salvation, yet must they much more study God, his greatness, wisdom, and goodness, as shining in his works, and word, and in his Son, and as foreseen in the heavenly glory; and in this knowledge of God and Christ is life eternal. And nothing more tendeth to the holy advancement and perfection of the soul, than to keep continually due apprehensions of the divine nature, properties, and glorious appearances in his works upon the soul, so as it may become a constant course of contemplation, and the habit and constitution of the mind, and the constant guide of heart and life.

109. The attainment of this would be a taste of heaven on earth: our wills would follow the will of God, and rest therein, and abhor reluctancy: all our duty would be both quickened and sweetened with love: self-interest would be disabled from either seducing us to sin, or vexing us with griefs, cares, fears, or discontents. We should so far trust soul and body in the will and love of God, as to be more comforted that both are at his will, than if they were absolutely at our own. And God being our all, the constant, fixing, satisfying object of our love, our souls would be constantly fixed and satisfied, and live in such experience of the sanctifying grace of Christ, as would most powerfully conquer our unbelief; and in such foretastes of heaven, as would make life sweet, death welcome, and heaven unspeakably desirable to us. But it is not the mere love of personal goodness, as our own perfection, that would do all this upon us.

110. The soul that is troubled with doubts whether he love God as God, or only as a means of his own felicity in subordination to self-love, must thus resolve his doubts. If you truly believe that God is God, that is, the efficient, dirigent, and final cause, the just end of every rational agent, the infinite good and chiefly to be loved, in comparison of whom you are vile, contemptible, and as nothing; if you feelingly take yourself as loathsome by sin; if you would not take up with an everlasting sensual pleasure alone, without holiness, if you could have it; no, nor with any perfection of your intellectual nature, merely as such, and for yourselves, without the pleasing and glorifying God in it; if you practically perceive that every thing is therefore, and so far, good and amiable, as God shineth in it as its cause, or as it conduceth to glorify him, and please his will; if, accordingly, you love that person best, on whom you perceive most of God, and that is most serviceable to him, though not at all beneficial to yourself; if you love the welfare of the church, the kingdom, the world, and of the heavenly society, saints, angels, and Christ, as the divine nature, interest, image, or impress maketh all lovely in their several degrees; and would rather be annihilated, were it put upon your choice, than saints, angels, kingdoms, church should be annihilated; if your hearts have devoted themselves, and all that you have, to God, as his own, to be used to his utmost service; if your chief desire and endeavour in the world be to please his blessed will; and in that will, and the contemplation of his infinite perfections, you seek your rest; if you desire your own everlasting happiness in no other kind, but as consisting in the perfect sight of God's glory, and in your perfect loving of him, and being pleasant or beloved to him, and this as resting more in the infinite amiableness of God, than the felicity which hence will follow to yourselves, though that also must be desired; if now you deny your own glory for his glory; if your chief desire and endeavour be to love him more and more, and you love yourselves best when you love him most; in a word, if nothing more take up your care than how to love God more, and nothing in the whole world (yourselves or others) seem more amiable to your sober, practical judgment, and your wills, than the infinite goodness of God as such;--if all this be so, you have not only attained sincerity, (which is not now the question,) but this divine nature, and high, confirmed holiness; though, withal, you never so much desire your own salvation, which is but to desire more of this love; and though your nature have such a sensitive, selfish desire of life and pleasure, as is brought into subjection to this divine love.

If any be offended that so many propositions must be used in opening the case, and say that they rather confound men's wits than inform them; I answer, 1. The matter is high, and I could not ascend by a shorter ladder. Nor have I the faculty of climbing it per saltum, stepping immediately from the lowest to the highest part. If any will make the case plainer in fewer words, and with less ado, I shall thankfully accept his labour as a very great benefit when I see it. 2. Either all these particulars are really diverse, and really pertinent to the matter in question, or not: if not, it is not blaming the number that will evince it, but naming such particulars as are either unjustly or unnecessarily distinguished or inserted. And if it be but repeating the same things that is blamed, I shall be glad if all these words, and more, would make such weighty cases clear; and do confess that, after all, I need more light, and am almost stalled with the difficulties myself. But if the particulars can be neither proved false nor needless, but the reader be only overset with multitude, I would entreat him to be patient with other men, that are more laborious and more capable of knowledge: and let him know, that if his difficulties do not rather engage him in a diligent search, than tempt him to impatience and accusation, I number him, not only with the slothful contemners, but therefore also, with the enemies of knowledge; even as I reckon the neglecters, and contemners, and accusers of piety among its enemies.

But ere I end, I must answer some objections.

Object. I. Some will say, Doth not every man love God above himself and all, while he knoweth him to be better, and so more lovely? For there is some act of the will, that answereth this of the understanding.

Answ. You must know that the carnal mind is first captivated to carnal self and sensuality; and therefore the most practical and powerful apprehensions of goodness or amiableness in every such person, doth fasten upon life and pleasure, or sensual prosperity. And the sense having here engaged the mind and will, the contrary conclusions (that God is best) are but superficial and uneffectual like dreams, and though they have answerable effects in the will, they are but uneffectual velleities or wishes, which are borne down with far stronger desires of the contrary. And though God be loved as one that is notionally conceived to be best, and most to be loved, yet he is not loved best or most. Yea, though ordinarily the understanding say God is best, and best to me, and for me, and most to be loved; when it cometh to volition or choice, there is a secret apprehension which saith more powerfully, et hic nunc, this sensible pleasure is better for me, and more eligible. Why else is it chosen? Unless you will say that the motion is principally sensitive, and the force of the sensitive appetite suspendeth all forcible opposition of the intellect, and so ruleth the locomotive faculty itself. But whether the intellect be active or but omissive in it, the sin cometh up to the same height of evil. However it be, it is most evident that while such men say God is most to be loved, they love him not most, when they will not leave a lust or known sin for his love; nor show any such love, but the contrary, in their lives.

Object. II. But do not all men practically love God best, when they love wisdom, honesty, and goodness in all men, even in strangers that will never profit them? And what is God but wisdom, goodness, and greatness itself?

Answ. They first idolize themselves and their sensual delights; and then they love such wisdom, goodness, and greatness, as is suitable to their selfish, sensual lust and interest. And it is not the prime good which is above them, and to be preferred before them, which they love as such, but such goodness as is fitted to their fleshly concupiscence and ends. And therefore holiness they love not. And though they love that which is never like to benefit them, that is but as it is of the same kind with that which, in others nearer them, may benefit them, and therefore is suitable to their minds and interest. And yet we confess that the mind of man hath some principles of virtue, and some footsteps and witnesses of a Deity left upon it; but though these work up to an approbation of good, and a dislike of evil, in the general notion of it, and in particular so far as it crosseth not their lust, yet never to prefer the best things practically before their lust; and God is not loved best, nor as God, if he be not loved better than fleshly lust.

Object. III. But it seems that most or all men love God practically best. For there are few, if any, but would rather be annihilated, than there should be no God, or no world. Therefore they love God better than themselves.

Answ. 1. They know that if there were no God or no world, they could not be themselves, and so must also be annihilated. 2. But suppose that they would rather be annihilated, than continue in prosperity alone, were it possible, without a God, that is but for the world's sake, because the world cannot be the world without a God; which proveth but that they are so much men, as to love the whole world better than themselves. But could the world possibly be what it is, without a God, I scarce think they would choose annihilation, rather than that there should be no God. 3. But suppose they would, yet I say that some sensual men love their lusts or sensuality better than their being; and had rather be annihilated for ever, so they might but spend their lives in pleasure, than to live for ever without those pleasures. And therefore they will say, that a short life with pleasure, is better than a long one without it. And when they profess to believe the life to come, and the danger of sinning; yet will they not leave their sinful pleasures to save their souls. Therefore, that man that would rather be annihilated than there should be no God, may yet love his lusts better than God, though not his being. 4. And I cannot say that every one shall be saved, that loveth God under a false idea or image better than himself; no more than that it will save a distracted, melancholy, venereous lover, if he loved his paramour or mistress better than himself. For God is not loved as God, if he be not loved as infinitely great, and wise, and good, which containeth his holiness, and also as the Owner, and holy Governor and end of man. If any therefore should love God upon conceit that God loveth him, and will indulge him in his sins; or if he love him only for his greatness, and as the fountain of all natural, sensible good; and love him not as holy, nor as a holy and just Governor and end, it is not God indeed that this man loveth; or he loveth him but secundum quid, and not as God.

Object. IV. But suppose I should love God above all, as he is only great, and wise, and good in the production of all sensible, natural good, without the notion of holiness, and hatred of sin, would not this love itself be holy and saving?

Answ. Your love would be no holier or better, than the object of it is conceived to be. If you conceive not of God as holy and pure, you cannot love him with a pure and holy love. If you conceive of him but as the cause of sun and moon, light and heat, and life and health, and meat and drink, you will love him but with such a love as you have to these: which will not separate you from any sin as such, but will consist with all sensuality of heart and life. And it is not all in God, that nature, in its corrupted state, doth hate, or is fallen out with: but if you love him not so well as your lusts and pleasure, nor love him as your most holy Governor and end, you love him not as God, or but secundum quid; but if you love him holily, you love him as holy.

Object. V. God himself loveth the substance or person more than the holiness; for he continueth the persons of men and devils, when he permitteth the holiness to perish, or giveth it not.

Answ. As the existence and event, and the moral goodness, must be distinguished; so must God's mere volition of event, and his complacency in good as good. God doth not will the existence of a reasonable soul in a stone or straw; and yet it followeth not, that he loveth a stone or straw for its substance, better than reason in a man: for though God willeth to make his creatures various in degrees of goodness, and taketh it to be good so to do, and that every creature be not of the best; yet still this goodness of them is various, as one hath more excellency in it than another. The goodness of the whole may require that each part be not best in itself, and yet best respectively in order to the beauty of the whole. As a peg is not better than a standard, and yet is better to the building in its place; and a finger is not better than a head, and yet is better to the body in its place, than another head would be in that place. The head therefore must be loved comparatively better than the finger, and the finger may be cut off to save life, when the head must not: so God can see meet to permit men and devils to fall into misery, and thieves to be hanged, and use this to the beauty of the whole, and yet love a true man better than a thief, and a good man better than a bad.

And either you speak of goodness or holiness existent or non-existent. In a devil there is substance, which is good in its natural kind, and therefore so far loved of God; but there is no holiness in him, and that which is not, is not amiable: but if you meant existent holiness, in a saint, then it is false that God loveth the person of a devil better than the holiness of a saint. Nor is it a proof that he loveth them equally, because he equally willeth their existence; for he willeth not they shall be equal in goodness, though equally existent: and it is complacency, and not mere volition of existence, which we mean by love.

Otherwise your arguing is as strong if it run thus: that which God bringeth to pass, and not another thing, he willeth and loveth more than that other; but God bringeth to pass men's sickness, pain, death, and damnation, and not the holiness, ease, or salvation of those persons: therefore he loveth their pain, death, and damnation better than their holiness: therefore we should love them better, than the devils or miserable men should love their misery better than holiness. God showeth what he loveth oft by commanding it, when he doth not effect it; he loveth holiness in esse cognito, and in esse existente, respectively as his image.

Object. But at least it will follow, that in this or that person as the devils, God loveth the substance better than holiness; for what he willeth he loveth: but he willeth the substance without the holiness; therefore he loveth the substance without the holiness.

Answ. It is answered already. Moreover, 1. God willed that holiness should be the duty of all men and devils, though he willed not insuperably and absolutely to effect it. 2. The word "without" meaneth either an exclusion or a mere non-inclusion. God willeth not the person excluding the holiness: for he excludeth it not by will or work; but only he willeth the person, not including the holiness as to any absolute will. And so God loveth the person without the holiness; but not so much as he would love him if he were holy.

Object. But you intimate, that it is best as to the beauty of the universe, that there be sin, and unholiness, and damnation; and God loveth that which is good as to the universe, yea, that is a higher good than personal good, as the subject is more noble, and therefore more to be loved of us as it is of God.

Answ. 1. I know Augustin is oft alleged as saying, Bonum est ut malum fiat. But sin and punishment must be distinguished: it is true of punishment presupposing sin, that it is good and lovely, in respect to public ends, though hurtful to the person suffering; and therefore as God willeth it as good, so should we not only be patient, but be pleased in it as it is the demonstration of the justice and holiness of God, and as it is good, though not as it is our hurt. But sin (or unholiness privative) is not good in itself, nor to the universe: nor is it a true saying, that It is good that there be sin; nor is it willed of God, (though not nilled with an absolute, effective nolition,) as hath been elsewhere opened at large. Sin is not good to the universe, nor any part of the beauty of the creature: God neither willeth it, causeth it, nor loveth it.

Object. At least he hath no great love to holiness in those persons, that he never giveth it to; otherwise he would work it in them.

Answ. He cannot love that existent which existeth not. Nor doth he any further will to give it them than to command it, and give them all necessary means and persuasions to it. But what if God make but one sun, will you say that he hath no great love to a sun, that will make no more? What if he make no more worlds? doth that prove that he hath no great love to a world? He loveth the world, the sun, and so the saints, which he hath made: and he doth not so far love suns, or worlds, or saints, as to make as many suns, or worlds, or saints, as foolish wits would prescribe unto him. Our question is, What being God loveth, and we should most love, as being best and likest him, and not what he should give a being to that is not.

Object. VI. Holiness is but an accident, and the person is the substance, and better than the accident; and Dr. Twiss oppugneth, on such accounts, the saying of Arminius, That God loveth justice better than just men, because it is for justice that he loveth them.

Answ. Aristotle and Porphyry have not so clearly made known to us the nature of those things or modes which they are pleased to call accidents, as that we should lay any great stress upon their sayings about them. Another will say that goodness itself is but an accident, and most will call it a mode; and they will say that the substance is better than the mode or accident, and therefore better than goodness itself. And would this, think you, be good arguing? Distinguish then between physical goodness of being, in the soul, both as a substance, and as a formal virtue; and the perfective, or modal, qualitative or gradual goodness; and then consider, that the latter always presupposeth the former: where there is holiness, there is the substance, with its physical goodness, and the perfective, modal, or moral goodness too; but where there is no holiness, there is only a substance deprived of its modal, moral goodness. And is not both better than one, and a perfect being than an imperfect?

And as to Arminius's saying, He cannot mean that God loveth righteousness with a subject or substance, better than a subject without righteousness; for there is no such thing to love, as righteousness without a subject (though there maybe an abstracted, distinct conception of it). If therefore the question be only, Whether God love the same man better, as he is a man, or as he is a saint, I answer, he hath a love to each which is suitable to its kind. He hath such complacency in the substance of a serpent, a man, a devil, as is agreeable to their being; that is, as they bear the natural impressions of his creating perfections, yet such as may stand with their pain, death, and misery. But he hath such a complacency in the actual holiness, love, and obedience of men and angels, as that he taketh the person that hath them to be meet for his service, and glory, and everlasting felicity, and delight in him, as being qualified for it. So that God's love must be denominatively distinguished from the object; and so it is a love of nature, and a love of the moral perfections of nature: the first love is that by which he loveth a man because he is a man, and so all other creatures; the second love is that by which he loveth a good man, because he is good or holy. And if it will comfort you, that God loveth your being without your perfections or virtue, let it comfort you in pain, and death, and hell, that he continueth your being without your well-being or felicity.

Object. VII. All goodness or holiness is some one's goodness or holiness (as health is). And as it is the person's welfare and perfection, so it is given for the person's sake: therefore the person, as the finis cui, and utmost end, is better than the thing given him, and so more amiable.

Answ. That all goodness is some one's goodness, proveth but that some one is the subject or being that is good, but not that to be is better than to be good, as such. And as he is in some respect the finis cui, for whom it is, and so it is good to him; yet he and his goodness are for a higher end, which is the pleasing of God in the demonstration of his goodness: that therefore is best which most demonstrateth God's goodness. And there is no subject or substance without its accidents or modes; and that person that is not good and holy, is bad and unholy. Therefore the question should be, Whether a person bad and unholy, be more amiable than a person good and holy, that hath both physical and moral goodness. And for all that the name of an accident maketh action seem below the person: yet it must be also said, that the person and his faculties are for action, as being but the substance in a perfect mode, and that action is for higher ends than the person's being or felicity.

Object. VIII. Love is nothing but benevolence, velle bonum alicui ut ei bene sit. But who is it that would not wish good to God, that is to be blessed as he is? But how can holiness then be loved, but rather the person for his holiness; because we cannot wish it good, but only to be what it is.

Answ. 1. The definition is false, as hath been showed, and as the instance proveth; else a man could not be said to love learning, virtue, or any quality, but only to love the person that wanteth it, or hath it. But love is a complacency, and benevolence is but its effect or antecedent. 2. The unholy wish not good to God, for they would all depose him from his Godhead: they would not have him to be a hater of their sin, nor to be their holy and righteous Governor and Judge.

Object. IX. It is better to be a man, though a sinner and miserable in hell, than not to be at all. Else God would never ordain, cause, or permit it.

Answ. It is better to the highest ends, God's glory, and the universal order, to be a punished man, than to be nothing (when God will have it so); because punishment, as to those highest ends, is good; though it is not best for the poor miserable sinner: but the same cannot be said of sin. It is indeed better also to those highest ends, to be a man though a sinner (while God continueth humanity); but not to be a man and a sinner: for the latter implieth some good to be in the sin which hath no good, and therefore God neither causeth it, nor willeth it, though he permit it. But though a sinful man is better than no man to God's ends, it followeth not, that to be a man is better than to be a good man.

Object. X. If that be best and most amiable which is most to the glory of God, then it is more amiable to be a sinner in hell torment glorifying his justice, than not to be at all, or to be a brute.

Answ. It is neither of these that is offered to your love and choice, but to be holy. All good is not matter of election; but that good which is in hell is not the sin, but the punishment. For the sin doth reputatively, and as much as in it lieth, rob God of his glory, and punishment repaireth it. Therefore love the punishment if you can, and spare not, so you love holiness better; for that would honour God more excellently, and please him more.

Object. XI. If I must love to be like God, I must love to be great, and I must love the greatest as most like him.

Answ. You must love to be like him in those perfections which you are capable of, and the ends and uses of your proper nature: therefore you must be desirous to be like him in your measure, even in such power and greatness as are suitable to the nature and ends of a rational soul. Not in such strength as he giveth a horse, or such magnitude as he giveth a mountain, which is not to be most like him; but in the vital activity and power of an intellectual free agent: to be powerful and great in love to God and all his service, and in all good works, to be profitable to the world, to be lively and ready in all obedience, strong to suffer, and to conquer sin and all temptations; in a word, to be great and powerful in wisdom and true goodness. Thus seek even in power to be like God in your capacities.

Object. XII. God himself doth not love men only for their goodness, nor love that best which is best. For he loveth his elect while enemies and ungodly; and he telleth Israel he loved them because he would love them, and not because they were better than others; and in the womb he loved Jacob best, when he was no better than Esau.

Answ. 1. Distinguish between God's complacence and benevolence. 2. Between the good that is present, and foreseen good with a present capacity for it.

1. God had a greater benevolence to Jacob than Esau, and to the Israelites than to other nations that were perhaps not much worse. And it is not for our goodness that God decreeth to make us good, or to give us a double proportion of any of those mercies, which he giveth not as Rector, but as Dominus and Benefactor, as an absolute Owner and free Benefactor. And with this love of benevolence he loveth us when we are his enemies, that is, he purposeth to make us good; but this benevolence is but a secondary love and fruit of complacency, joined with the free, unequal distribution of his own.

2. But for complacency, which is love in the first and strictest sense, God so loveth the wicked though elect, no further than they are good and lovely, that is, (1.) As they have the natural goodness of rational creatures: (2.) And as they are capable of all the future service they will do him, and glory they will bring him; (3.) And as his infinite wisdom knoweth it fit to choose them to that service. Or, if the benevolence of election do go before his first complacence in them above others, as being before his foresight that they will serve and love better, yet still this proper love, called complacence, goeth not beyond the worth of the thing loved.

Object. Doth God love us complacentially in Christ, beyond the good that is in us?

Answ. Not beyond our real and relative good, as we are in ourselves, by his grace, and as we are in Christ related to him, and both ways such as demonstrate the divine perfections, and shall love, and glorify, and please him for ever.

So much for the opening of the true nature of love to God, ourselves, and others, and of man's ultimate end, and of the nature of holiness and goodness, and those mysteries of religion which are involved in these points.

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Chapter IV

SUBORDINATE DIRECTIONS AGAINST THOSE GRAND HEART SINS, WHICH ARE DIRECTLY CONTRARY TO THE LIFE OF GODLINESS AND CHRISTIANITY.

[Sidenote: The recital of such sins as the former positive directions do detect, and afford help against.]

The positive directions to the essential duties of godliness and christianity have already given you directions against the contrary sins: as, in the first grand direction you have helps against direct unbelief. In the second you have directions against unbelief, as it signifieth the not using and applying of Christ according to our various needs. In the third you have directions against[134] all resisting or neglecting the Holy Ghost. (Which were first, because in practice we must come by the Son and the Spirit to the saving knowledge and love of the Father.) In the fourth you have directions[135] against atheism, idolatry, and ungodliness. In the fifth you have directions against self-idolizing, and self-dependence, and unholiness in alienating yourselves from God. In the sixth you are directed against rebellion and disobedience against God. In the seventh you have directions against unteachableness, ignorance, and error. In the eighth you have directions against impenitency, unhumbleness, impurity, unreformedness, and all sin in general as sin. In the ninth you are directed against[136] security, unwatchfulness, and yielding to temptations, and in general against all danger to the soul. In the tenth you are directed against barrenness, unprofitableness, and sloth, and uncharitableness; and against mistakes in matter of duty or good works. In the eleventh you are directed against all averseness, disaffection, or cold indifferency of heart to God. In the twelfth you are directed against distrust, and sinful cares, and fears, and sorrows. In the thirteenth, you are directed against an over sad or heartless serving of God, as merely from fear, or forcedly, without delight. In the fourteenth, you are directed against unthankfulness. In the fifteenth, you are directed against all unholy or dishonourable thoughts of God, and against all injurious speeches of him, or barrenness of the tongue, and against all scandal or barrenness of life. In the books referred to in the sixteenth and seventeenth, you are directed against selfishness, self-esteem, self-love, self-conceit, self-will, self-seeking, and against all worldliness, and fleshliness of mind or life. But yet, lest any necessary helps should be wanting against such heinous sins, I shall add some more particular directions against such of them as were not fully spoken to before.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] Of the sin against the Holy Ghost, I have written a special treatise in my "Unreasonableness of Infidelity."

[135] Since the writing of this, I have published the same more at large in my "Reasons of the Christian Religion," and in my "Life of Faith."

[136] Of presumption and false hope, enough is said in the "Saints' Rest," and here about temptation, hope, and other heads afterward.

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Part I

Directions against Unbelief.

[Sidenote: Whether not to believe that my sins are pardoned, be indeed unbelief?]

I know that most poor troubled christians, when they complain of the sin of unbelief, do mean by it, their not believing that they are sincere believers, and personally justified, and shall be saved. And I know that some divines have affirmed, that the sense of that article of the creed, "I believe the remission of sins," is, I believe my sins are actually forgiven. But the truth is, to believe that I am elect or justified, or that my sins are forgiven, or that I am a sincere believer, is not to believe any word of God at all: for no word of God doth say any of these; nor any thing equivalent; nor any thing out of which it can be gathered: for it is a rational conclusion; and one of the premises which do infer it, must be found in myself by reflection, or internal sense, and self-knowledge. The Scripture only saith, "He that truly believeth is justified, and shall be saved." But it is conscience, and not belief of Scripture, which must say, I do sincerely believe: therefore the conclusion, that I am justified, and shall be saved, is a rational collection from what I find in Scripture and in myself, set together; and resulting from both, can be no firmer or surer than is the weaker of the premises. Now certainty is objective or subjective; in the thing, or in my apprehension. As to objective certainty in the thing itself, all truths are equally true; but all truths are not equally discernible, there being much more cause of doubting concerning some, which are less evident, than concerning others, which are more evident. And so the truth of God's promise of justification to believers, is more certain; that is, hath fuller, surer evidence to be discerned by, than the truth of my sincere believing. And, that I sincerely believe, is the more debile of the premises, and therefore the conclusion followeth this in its debility; and so can be no article of faith. And as to the subjective certainty, that varies according to men's various apprehensions. The premises, as in their evidence or aptitude to ascertain us, are the cause of the conclusion as evident, or knowable. And the premises, as apprehended, are the cause of the conclusion as known.

[Sidenote: Whether a man can be more certain that be believeth, than he is that thing believed is true?]

Now it is a great doubt with some, Whether a man can possibly be more certain that he believeth, than he is that the thing believed is true; because the act can extend no further than the object; and to be sure I believe, is but to be sure that I take the thing believed to be true. But I shall grant the contrary, that a man may possibly be surer that he believeth, than he is that the thing believed is true; because my believing is not always a full subjective certainty that the thing is true, but a believing that it is true. And though you are fully certain that all God's word is true; yet you may believe that this is his word, with some mixture of unbelief or doubting. And so the question is but this, Whether you may not certainly, without doubting, know, that you believe the word of God to be true, though with some doubting. And it seems you may. But then it is a further question, Whether you can be surer of the saving sincerity of your faith, than you are that this word of God is true. And that ordinarily men doubt of the first, as much as they doubt of the latter, I think is an experimented truth. But yet grant that with some it may be otherwise, (because he believeth sincerely, that so far believeth the word of God, as to trust his life and soul upon it, and forsake all in obedience to it: and that I do so, I may know with less doubting, than I yet have about the truth of the word so believed,) all that will follow is but this, that of those men that doubt of their justification and salvation, some of their doubts are caused more by their doubting of God's word, than by the doubting whether they sincerely though doubtingly believe it; and the doubts of others, whether they are justified and shall be saved, is caused much more by their doubting of their own sincere belief, than by their doubting of the truth of Scriptures. And the far greatest number of christians seem to themselves to be of this latter sort. For no doubt, but though a man of clear understanding can scarcely believe, and yet not know that he believeth; yet he may believe sincerely, and not know that he believeth sincerely. But still the knowledge of our own justification is but the effect or progeny of our belief of the word of God, and of our knowledge that we do sincerely believe it, which conjunctly are the parents and causes of it: and it can be no stronger than the weaker of the parents (which in esse cognoscibili is our faith, but in esse cognito is sometimes the one, and sometimes the other). And the effect is not the cause; the effect of faith and knowledge conjunct, is not faith itself. It is not a believing the word of God, to believe that you believe, or that you are justified; but yet, because that faith is one of the parents of it, some call it by the name of faith, though they should call it but an effect of faith, as one of the causes. And well may our doubtings of our own salvation be said to be from unbelief, because unbelief is one of the causes of them, and the sinfullest cause.

[Sidenote: The article of remission of sin to be believed applyingly.]

And that the article of remission of sin is to be believed with application to ourselves, is certain: but not with the application of assurance, persuasion, or belief that we are already pardoned; but with an applying acceptance of an offered pardon, and consent to the covenant which maketh it ours. We believe that Christ hath purchased remission of sin, and made a conditional grant of it in his gospel, to all, viz. if they will repent, and believe in him, or take him for their Saviour, or become penitent christians. And we consent to do so, and to accept it on these terms. And we believe that all are actually pardoned that thus consent.

By all this you may perceive, that those troubled christians which doubt not of the truth of the word of God, but only of their own sincerity, and consequently of their justification and salvation, do ignorantly complain that they have not faith, or that they cannot believe: for it is no act of unbelief at all, for me to doubt whether my own heart be sincere: this is my ignorance of myself, but it is not any degree of unbelief; for God's word doth no where say that I am sincere, and therefore I may doubt of this, without doubting of God's word at all. And let all troubled christians know, that they have no more belief in them, than they have doubting or unbelief of the truth of the word of God. Even that despair itself, which hath none of this in it, hath no unbelief in it (if there be any such). I thought it needful thus far to tell you what unbelief is, before I come to give you directions against it. And though the mere doubting of our own sincerity be no unbelief at all, yet real unbelief of the very truth of the holy Scriptures, is so common and dangerous a sin, and some degree of it is latent in the best, that I think we can no way so much further the work of grace, as by destroying this. The weakness of our faith in the truth of Scriptures, and the remnant of our unbelief of it, is the principal cause of all the languishings of our love and obedience, and every grace; and to strengthen faith, is to strengthen all. What I have fullier written in my "Saints' Rest," part 2, and my "Treatise against Infidelity," I here suppose.

Direct. I. Consider well how much of religion nature itself teacheth, and reason, (without supernatural revelation,) must needs confess: (as, that there is another life which man was made for, and that he is obliged to the fullest love and obedience to God, and the rest before laid down in the Introduction.) And then observe how congruously the doctrine of Christ comes in, to help where nature is at a loss, and how exactly it suits with natural truths, and how clearly it explaineth them, and fully containeth so much of them as is necessary to salvation; and how suitable and proper a means it is to attain their ends; and how great a testimony the doctrines of nature and grace do give unto each other.[137]

Direct. II. Consider, that man's end being in the life to come, and God being the righteous and merciful Governor of man in order to that end, it must needs be that God will give him sufficient means to know his will in order to that end; and that the clearest, fullest means must needs demonstrate most of the government and mercy of God.

Direct. III. Consider, what full and sad experience the world hath of its pravity and great corruption; and that the natural tendency of reason is to those high and excellent things, which corruption and brutishness do almost extinguish or cast out with the most; and that the prevalency of the lower faculties against right reason, is so lamentable and universal, to the confusion of the world, that it is enough to tell us, that this is not the state that God first made us in, and that certainly sin hath sullied and disordered his work. The wickedness of the world is a great confirmation of the Scripture.

Direct. IV. Consider, how exactly the doctrine of the gospel, and covenant of grace, are suited to the lapsed state of man; even as the law of works was suited to his state of innocency: so that the gospel may be called the law of lapsed nature, as suited to it, though not as revealed by it; as the other was the law of entire nature.

Direct. V. Compare the many prophecies of Christ, with the fulfilling of them in his person. As that of Moses recited by Stephen, Acts vii. 37; and Isa. lviii; Dan. ix. 24-26, &c. And consider that those Jews which are the christians' bitterest enemies, acknowledge and preserve those prophecies, and all the Old Testament, which giveth so full a testimony to the New.

Direct. VI. Consider, what an admirable suitableness there is in the doctrine of Christ, to the relish of a serious, heavenly mind: and how all that is spiritual and truly good in us, doth close with it and embrace it from a certain congruity of natures, as the eye doth with the light, and the stomach with its proper food. Every good man in reading the holy Scripture, feeleth something (even all that is good) within him bear witness to it. And only our worse part is quarrelling with it, and rebels against it.

Direct. VII. Consider, how all the first churches were planted by the success of all those miracles mentioned in the Scripture. And that the apostles and thousands of others saw the miracles of Christ: and the churches saw the miracles of the apostles, and heard them speak in languages unlearned; and had the same extraordinary gifts communicated to themselves. And these being openly and frequently manifested, convinced unbelievers; and were openly urged by the apostles to stop the mouths of opposers, and confirm believers; (Gal. iii. 1-3;) who would all have scorned their arguments, and the faith which they supported, if all these had been fictions, of which they themselves were said to be eye-witnesses and agents. So that the very existence of the churches was a testimony to the matter of fact. And what testimony can be greater of God's interest and approbation, than Christ's resurrection, and all these miracles.

Direct. VIII. Consider, how no one of all the heretics or apostates, did ever contradict the matters of fact, or hath left the world any kind of confutation of them, which they wanted not malice, or encouragement, or opportunity to have done.

Direct. IX. Consider, how that no one of all those thousands that asserted these miracles, are ever mentioned in any history as repenting of it, either in their health, or at the hour of death: whereas it had been so heinous a villany to have cheated the world in so great a cause, that some consciences of dying men, especially of men that placed all their hopes in the life to come, must needs have repented of.

Direct. X. Consider, that the witnesses of all these miracles, and all the churches that believed them, were taught by their own doctrine and experience, to forsake all that they had in the world, and to be reproached, hated, and persecuted of all men, and to be as lambs among wolves, in expectation of death; and all this for the hope of that blessedness promised them by a crucified, risen Christ. So that no worldly end could move them to deceive, or willingly to be deceived.

Direct. XI. Consider, how impossible it is in itself, that so many men should agree together to deceive the world, and that for nothing, and at the rate of their own undoing and death: and that they should all agree in the same narratives and doctrines so unanimously: and that none of these should ever confess the deceit, and disgrace the rest. All things well considered, this will appear not only a moral, but a natural impossibility; especially considering their quality and distance, there being thousands in several countries that never saw the faces of the rest, much less could enter a confederacy with them, to deceive the world.

Direct. XII. Consider the certain way by which the doctrine and writings of the apostles, and other evangelical messengers, have been delivered down to us, without any possibility of material alteration. Because the holy Scriptures were not left only to the care of private men, or of the christians of one country, who might have agreed upon corruptions and alterations; but it was made the office of the ordinary ministers to read, and expound, and apply them. And every congregation had one or more of these ministers: and the people received the Scriptures as the law of God, and that by which they must live and be judged, and as their charter for heaven. So that it was not possible for one minister to corrupt the Scripture text, but the rest, with the people, would have quickly reproved him; nor for those of one kingdom to bring all other christians to it throughout the world, without a great deal of consultation and opposition (if at all); which never was recorded to us.

Direct. XIII. Be acquainted as fully as you can with the history of the church, that you may know how the gospel hath been planted, and propagated, and assaulted, and preserved until now: which will much better satisfy you, than general, uncertain talk of others.

Direct. XIV. Judge whether God, being the wise and merciful Governor of the world, would suffer the honestest and obedientest subjects that he hath upon earth, to be deceived in a matter of such importance, by pretence of doctrines and miracles proceeding from himself, and which none but himself (or God by his special grant) is able to do, without disowning them, or giving any sufficient means to the world to discover the deceit.[138] For certainly, he needeth not deceit to govern us. If you say that he permits Mahometanism, I answer, 1. The main, positive doctrine of the Mahometans, for the worshipping of one only God, against idolatry, is true: and the by-fancies of their pretended prophet, are not commended to the world upon the pretence of attesting miracles at all, but upon the affirmation of revelations, without any credible seal or divine attestation, and obtruded on the world by the power of the sword. 2. And God hath given the world sufficient preservatives against them, in the nullity of the proof of them, and the evident foppery of the writings and the things themselves. So that honesty and diligence will easily escape them.

Direct. XV. Observe the supernatural effects of the gospel upon the souls of believers: how it planteth on man the image of the holy God; powerfully subduing both sense and the greatest interest of the flesh, to the will of God; and making men wise and good; and putting an admirable difference between them and all other men. And then judge whether it be not God's seal, having his image first upon itself, which he doth use and honour to be the instrument of imprinting his image upon us.[139]

Direct. XVI. Mark well the certain vanity of all other religions that prevail on the earth. Idolatry and Mahometanism, which openly bear the mark of their own shame, have shared between them almost all the rest of the earth; for mere deism is scarce any where in possession; and Judaism hath no considerable inheritance; and both of them as sensibly confuted by man's corruption, necessity, and desert.

Direct. XVII. Mark the great difference between the christian part of the world, (those that receive christianity seriously and in sincerity,) and all the rest.[140] Those that are furthest from christianity, are furthest from piety, honesty, civility, or any laudable parts or conversations: most of them are beastly and ungodly; and the rest are but a little better: and ignorance and brutishness cannot be the perfection of a man. Nay, among professed christians, the multitudes that have but the name, and hate the nature and practice of it, are like swine or wolves; and some of the worst, near kin to devils. When all that receive christianity practically into their hearts and lives, are heavenly and holy, and (in the same measure that they receive it) their sins are all mortified, and they are devoted to God, and possessed with justice, charity, and patience to men, and are carried up above this world, and contemn that which the rest do make their felicity and delight. So that if that be good which doth good, then is the goodness of the christian faith apparent to all, that have any acquaintance, reason, and impartiality to judge.

Direct. XVIII. Bethink you what you should have been yourselves, if you had not been christians? Yea, what would yet be the consequent if you should fall from the christian faith? Would you not look at the life to come as doubtful? and resolve to take your pleasure in the world, and to gratify the flesh, and to neglect your souls, and to venture upon almost any vice, that seemeth necessary to your carnal ends? Christianity hath cleansed and sanctified you, if you are sanctified: and if (which God forbid!) you should forsake christianity, it is most likely you would quickly show the difference, by your dirty, fleshly, worldly lives.[141]

Direct. XIX. When you see the evidence of divine revelation and authority, it is enough to silence your doubts and cavils about particular words or circumstances. For you know that God is true and infallible; and you know that you are silly, ignorant worms, that are utterly at a loss, when you have not one at hand to open every difficulty to you: and that all arts and sciences seem full of difficulties and contradictions to ignorant, unexperienced novices.

Direct. XX. Allow all along in your learning, for the difficulties which must needs arise, from the translation, ambiguity of all human language, change and variety of words and customs, time, place, and other circumstances, and especially from your own unacquaintedness with all these: that so your own infirmities, and ignorance, and mistakes in reasoning, may not be ascribed to the truth.

Direct. XXI. Understand the proper use of holy Scripture, and so how far it is divine; that so you be not tempted to unbelief, by expecting in it that which never was intended, and then finding your causeless expectations frustrate. It is not so divine as to the terms, and style, and order, and such modal and circumstantial matters, as if all the exactness might be expected in it, that God could put into a book: nor is it intended as a system of physics, or logic, or any subservient sciences or arts: but it is an infallible revelation of the will of God, for the government of the church, and the conducting men to life eternal: and it is ordered and worded so as to partake of such human infirmity, as yet shall no way impeach the truth or efficacy of it; but rather make it more suitable to the generality of men, whose infirmity requires such a style and manner of handling. So that as a child of God hath a body from parents, which yet is of God, but so of God, as to partake of the infirmities of the parents; or rather, as Adam had a body from God, but yet from earth, and accordingly frail; but a soul more immediately from God, which was more pure and divine: so Scripture hath its style, and language, and method so from God, as to have nothing in it unsuitable to its ends; but not so from God, as if he himself had showed in it his own most perfect wisdom to the utmost, and as if there were nothing in it of human imperfection. But the truth and goodness which are the soul of Scripture, are more immediately from God. The style and method of the penmen may be various; but the same soul animateth all the parts. It is no dishonour to the holy Scriptures, if Cicero be preferred for purity of style, and phrase, and oratory, as for other common uses; but certainly it is to be preferred as to its proper use: that being the best style for an act of parliament, which is next to the worst in an oration. The means are for the end.

Direct. XXII. Consider how great assistance apparitions, and witchcrafts, and other sensible evidences of spirits conversing with mankind, do give to faith. Of which I have written in the forementioned treatises, and therefore now pass it over.

Direct. XXIII. Consider what advantage faith may have, by observing the nature and tendency of the soul, and its hopes and fears of a life to come, together with the superior, glorious worlds, which certainly are possessed by nobler inhabitants.[142] He that seeth every corner of the earth, and sea, and air inhabited, and thinks what earth is in comparison of all the great and glorious orbs above it, will hardly once dream that they are all void of inhabitants, or that there is not room enough for souls.

Direct. XXIV. The ministry of angels, of which particular providences give us a great probability, doth give some help to that doctrine which telleth us, that we must live with angels, and that we shall ascend to more familiarity with them, who condescend to so great service now for us.

Direct. XXV. The universal, wonderful, implacable enmity of corrupted man to the holy doctrine, and ways, and servants of Christ, and the open war which in every kingdom, and the secret war which in every heart, is kept up between Christ and Satan through the world; with the tendency of every temptation, their violence, constancy, in all ages, to all persons, all making against Christ, and heaven, and holiness, do notoriously declare that the christian doctrine and life do tend to our salvation; which the devil so maliciously and incessantly opposeth: and thus his temptations give great advantage to the tempted soul against the tempter. For it is not for nothing that the enemy of our souls makes so much opposition. And that there is such a devil, that thus opposeth Christ and tempteth us, not only sensible apparitions and witchcrafts prove, but the too sensible temptations, which, by their matter and manner, plainly tell us whence they come. Especially when all the world is formed as into two hostile armies, the one fighting under Christ, and the other under the devil; and so have continued since Cain and Abel to this day.

Direct. XXVI. The prophecies of Christ himself of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the gathering of his church, and the cruel usage of it through the world, do give great assistance to our faith, when we see them all so punctually fulfilled.

Direct. XXVII. Mark whether it be not a respect to things temporal that assaulteth thy belief; and come not with a biassed, sensual mind to search into so great a mystery. Worldliness, and pride, and sensuality are deadly enemies to faith; and where they prevail they will show their enmity, and blind the mind: if the soul be sunk into mud and filth, it cannot see the things of God.

Direct. XXVIII. Come with humility and a sense of your ignorance, and not with arrogance and self-conceit; as if all must needs be wrong that your empty, foolish minds cannot presently perceive to be right. The famousest apostates that ever I knew, were all men of notorious pride and self-conceitedness.

Direct. XXIX. Provoke not God by wilful sinning against the light, which thou hast already received, to forsake thee, and give thee over to infidelity. 2 Thess. ii. 10-12, "Because men receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; for this cause God sends them strong delusions to believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Obey Christ's doctrine so far as you know it, and you shall fullier know it to be of God, John vii. 17; x. 4.

Direct. XXX. Tempt not yourselves to infidelity, by pretended humility in abasing your natural faculties, when you should be humbled for your moral pravity. Vilifying the soul, and its reason, and natural free-will, doth tend to infidelity, by making us think that we are but as other inferior animals, incapable of a life above with God: whenas self-abasing, because of the corruption of reason and free-will, doth tend to show us the need of a physician, and so assist our faith in Christ.

Direct. XXXI. Judge not of so great a thing by sudden apprehensions, or the surprise of a temptation, when you have not leisure to look up all the evidences of faith, and lay them together, and take a full, deliberate view of all the cause. It is a mystery so great as requireth a clear and vacant mind, delivered from prejudice, abstracted from diverting and deceiving things; which, upon the best assistance and with the greatest diligence, must lay altogether to discern the truth. And if, upon the best assistance and consideration, you have been convinced of the truth, and then will let every sudden thought, or temptation, or difficulty seem enough to question all again, this is unfaithfulness to the truth, and the way to resist the clearest evidences, and never to have done. It is like as if you should answer your adversary in the court, when your witnesses are all dismissed or out of the way, and all your evidences are absent, and perhaps your counsellor and advocate too. It is like the casting up of a long and intricate account, which a man hath finished by study and time; and when he hath done all, one questioneth this particular, and another that, when his accounts are absent: it is not fit for him to answer all particulars, nor question his own accounts, till he have as full opportunity and help to cast up all again.

Direct. XXXII. If the work seem too hard for you, go and consult with the wisest, most experienced christians; who can easily answer the difficulties which most perplex and tempt you. Modesty will tell you, that the advantage of study and experience may make every one wisest in his own profession; and set others above you, while you have less of these.

Direct. XXXIII. Remember that christianity being the surest way to secure your eternal hopes; and the matters of this life, which cause men to forsake it, being such transitory trifles, you can be no losers by it; and therefore if you doubted, yet you might be sure that is the safest way.

Direct. XXXIV. Judge not of so great a cause in a time of melancholy, when fears and confusions make you unfit. But in such a case as that, as also whenever Satan would disturb your settled faith, or tempt you at his pleasure to be still new questioning resolved cases and discerned truths, abhor his suggestions, and give them no entertainment in your thoughts, but cast them back into the tempter's face. There is not one melancholy person of a multitude, but is violently assaulted with temptations to blasphemy and unbelief, when they have but half the use of reason and no composedness of mind to debate such controversies with the devil. It is not fit for them in this incapacity to hearken to any of those suggestions, which draw them to dispute the foundations of their faith, but to cast them away with resolute abhorrence; nor should any christian, that is soundly settled on the true foundation, gratify the devil so much as to dispute with him whenever he provoketh us to it, but only endeavour to strengthen our faith, and destroy the remnants of unbelief.

Direct. XXXV. Remember that Christ doth propagate his religion conjunctly by his Spirit and his word, and effecteth himself the faith which he commandeth. For though there be sufficient evidence of credibility in his word, yet the blinded mind, and corrupt, perverted hearts of men, do need the cure of his medicinal grace, before they will effectually and savingly believe a doctrine which is so holy, high, and heavenly, and doth so much control their lusts. See therefore that you distrust your corrupted hearts, and earnestly beg the Spirit of Christ.

Direct. XXXVI. Labour earnestly for the love of every truth which you believe, and to feel the renewing power of it upon your hearts, and the reforming power on your lives; especially that you may be advanced to the love of God and to a heavenly mind and life. And this will be a most excellent help against all temptations to unbelief; for the heart holdeth the gospel much faster than the head alone. The seed that is cast into the earth, if it quicken and take root, is best preserved; and the deeper rooted the surer it abideth; but if it die, it perisheth and is gone. When the seed of the holy word hath produced the new creature, it is sure and safe; but when it is retained only in the brain as a dead opinion, every temptation can overturn it. It is an excellent advantage that the serious practical christian hath, above all hypocrites and unsanctified men: love will hold faster than dead belief. Love is the grace that abideth for ever; and that is the enduring faith which works by love. The experienced christian hath felt so much of the power and goodness of the word, that if you puzzle his head with subtle reasonings against it, yet his heart and experience will not suffer him to let it go. He hath tasted it so sweet that he will not believe it to be bitter, though he cannot answer all that is said against it. If another would persuade you to believe ill of your dearest friend or father, love and experience would better preserve you from his deceit than reasoning would do. The new creature or new nature in believers, and the experience of God's love communicated by Jesus Christ unto their souls, are constant witnesses to the word of God: he that believeth hath the witness in himself; that is, the Holy Ghost which was given him, which is an objective testimony or an evidence, and an effective. Of this see my "Treatise of Infidelity." Unsanctified men may be easilier turned to infidelity; for they never felt the renewed, quickening work of faith; nor were ever brought by it to the love of God, and a holy and heavenly mind and life. They that never were christians at the heart, are soonest turned from being christians in opinion and name.

Quest. By what reason, evidence, or obligation, were the Jews bound to believe the prophets? Seeing Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, &c. wrought no miracles, and there were false prophets in their days; how then could any man know that indeed they were sent of God, when they nakedly affirmed it?

Answ. I mention this objection or case, because in my book of the "Reasons of the Christian Religion" (to which for all the rest I refer the reader) it is forgotten; and because it is one of the hardest questions about our faith.

1. Those that think every book of Scripture doth now prove itself to be divine propria luce, by its own matter, style, and other properties, will accordingly say, that by hearing the prophets then, as well as by reading them now, this intrinsic, satisfactory evidence was discernible. All that I can say of this is, that there are such characters in the prophecies as are a help to faith, as making it the more easily credible that they are of God, but not such as I could have been ascertained by (especially as delivered by parcels then) if there had been no more.

2. Nor do I acquiesce in their answer who say that, Those that have the same spirit, know the style of the spirit in the prophets. For, 1. This would suppose none capable of believing them groundedly that had not the same spirit; 2. And the spirit of sanctification is not enough to our discerning prophetical inspirations, as reason and experience fully prove. The gift of discerning spirits, 1 Cor. xii. 10, was not common to all the sanctified.

3. It is much to be observed that God never sent any prophet to make a law or covenant on which the salvation of the people did depend, without the attestation of unquestionable miracles. Moses wrought numerous open miracles, and such as controlled and confuted the contradicters' seeming miracles in Egypt; and Christ and his apostles wrought more than Moses. So that the laws and covenants by which God would rule and judge the people were all confirmed beyond all such exception.

4. It must be noted that many other prophets also wrought miracles to confirm their doctrine, and prove that they were sent of God, as did Elias and Elisha.

5. It must be noted, that there were schools of prophets, or societies of them, in those times, 1 Sam. x. 10; xix. 20; 1 Kings xx. 35, 41; xxii. 13; 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 7, 15; iv. 1, 38; v. 22; vi. 1; ix. 1; 1 Cor. xiv. 32; who were educated in such a way as fitted them to the reception of prophetical inspirations, when it pleased God to give them. Not that mere education made any one a prophet, nor that the prophets had at all times the present, actual gift of prophecy; but God was pleased so far to own men's commanded diligence, as to join his blessing to a meet education, and at such times as he thought meet, to illuminate such by visions and revelations above all others: and therefore it is spoken of Amos as a thing extraordinary, that he was made a prophet of a herdsman.

6. Therefore a prophet among the Jews was known to be such, usually, before these recorded prophecies of theirs, which we have now in the holy Scriptures: 1. The spirits of the prophets which are subject to the prophets, were judged of by those prophets that had indeed the Spirit, and so the people had the testimony of the other prophets concerning them. 2. The Lord's own direction to know a true prophet by, Deut. xviii. 22, is the coming to pass of that which he foretelleth. Now it is like that before they were received into the number of prophets, they had given satisfaction to the societies of the prophets, by the events of things before foretold by them. 3. Or they might have wrought miracles before to have satisfied the members of the college of their calling, though these miracles are not all mentioned in the Scripture. 4. Or the other prophets might have some divine testimony concerning them, by visions, revelations, or inspirations of their own. So that the people were not left to the credulity of naked, unproved assertions, of any one that would say that he was sent of God.

7. There were some signs given by some of the prophets to confirm their word. As Isaiah's predictions of Hezekiah's danger, and remedy, and recovery, and of the going back of the shadow on Ahaz's dial ten degrees, &c.; and more such there might be, which we know not of.

8. All prophecies were not of equal obligation. The first prophecies of any prophet who brought no attestation by miracles, nor had yet spoken any prophecy that had been fulfilled, might be a merciful revelation from God, which might oblige the hearers to a reverent regard, and an inquiry into the authority of the prophet, and a waiting in suspense till they saw whether it would come to pass; and the fulfilling of it increaseth their obligation. Some prophecies that foretold but temporal things (captivities or deliverances) might at first (before the prophets produced a divine attestation) be rather a bare prediction than a law; and if men believed them not, it might not make them guilty of any damning sin at all, but only they refused that warning of a temporal judgment, which might have been of use to them had they received it.

9. But our obligation now to believe the same Scripture prophecies is greater; because we live in the age when most of them are fulfilled, and the rest are attested by Christ and his apostles, who proved their attestations by manifold miracles.

10. When the prophets reproved the known sins of the people, and called men to such duties as the law required, no man could speed ill by obeying such a prophet, because the matter of his prophecies was found in God's own law, which must of necessity be obeyed. And this is the chief part of the recorded prophecies.

11. And any man that spake against any part of God's law (of natural or supernatural revelation) was not to be believed, Deut. xiii.; xviii.; because God cannot speak contrary to himself.

12. But the prophets themselves had another kind of obligation to believe their own visions and inspirations, than any of their hearers had; for God's great extraordinary revelation, was like the light, which immediately revealed itself, and constrained the understanding to know that it was of God: and such were the revelations that came by angelical apparitions and visions. Therefore prophets themselves might be bound to more than their bare word could have bound their hearers to; as, to wound themselves, to go bare, to feed on dung, &c.: and this was Abraham's case in offering Isaac. Yet God did never command a prophet, or any by a prophet, a thing simply evil, but only such things as were of a mutable nature, and which his will could alter, and make to be good. And such was the case of Abraham himself, if well considered.

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