The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Chapter 4
CHAP. IV. A Survey of the Mischiefs arising from Partial Consideration.
NEXT to the stupid and meerly vegetable state of total incogitancy: we may rank that partial and peece-meal consideration, by which Christianity is mutilated and deform'd, depriv'd of all its force to attract and subdue mens hearts: for as in artificial Movements, there is such a dependance of one part upon another, that the substracting of any one destroys the whole frame: so in this spiritual Machin design'd to raise our dull mortality to heaven; the divine wisdom of its maker has combin'd its several parts, that he who severs ruines, he that applies it not in its united strength will find no aid from its unjoynted scattered particles. S. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 12. that in the natural body the making it all Eye, or Hand, the reducing the many members to one is destructive to its being (if they were all one member where were the body v. 20.) and we in reason must expect the same event will follow here. If we advance one part of our Christian Faith to the annihilation of the rest, 'tis impossible that should supply the place of the whole; but the more that member is swoln above its native size, the more unwildy, not the more strong it grows: and loses that active vigor, which it receiv'd by a social communication with the other parts.
'TIS Gods charge against the Priests, Mal, 2. that they have been partial in the Law, foreign lifters up of faces in it; preferr'd some more agreeable parts, and discountenanc'd others; were not only judges of the Law, but unjust judges too. And I fear the enditement may now run more generally against the People also; that they have been partial in the Gospel: culled and chosen out those softer and more gentle dictates which should less grate and disturb them: like well the Oil that makes them have a cheerful countenance, but are not so forward to deal with the Wine which should search and cleanse their sores. We make all our addresses to the promises, hug and caress them, and in the interim let the commands stand by neglected. A divinity indeed fitly apportion'd to the devotion of these times, which loves to make an offering to God of that which costs them nothing, and yields a preference to that way of worship which assures Salvation best cheap, and at the easiest terms; but would men consider, they would find, that the commands are the supreme and most eminent part of the Evangelical Covenant, the promises come but as hand-maids and attendants: an honourable retinue to invite the more respectful entertainment, and it should be remembred that of this sort are the threatnings too; and therefore they have surely an equal right to our regard especially when many of them have the accession of Gods Oath, to bind and strengthen their performance. And what a scandalous and absurd partiality is this, that when the precepts come with this solemnity the more to command our reverence, we single out this one part of the Train and pay our homage unto it; lay hold on the Promises, not those that speak damnation to impenitence, but the other half of them which give assurances of favour. And like the Benjamites to the daughters of Shiloh, run away with them, possess our selves of these by rape, in spight of all the incapacities we lye under; though God has sworn, that no disobedient provoker, shall enter into his rest.
THAT this is really the case of many is more than probable, for by what other artifice is it possible for them to reconcile their large hopes, with their no purifying, their confident expectations of heaven, with their greedy rapacious pursuits of Earth: their secure dependance on the Bloud of their Saviour with their remorsless effusions of that of their Brethren? did they consider the inseparable connexion between the Precepts and the Promises, 'twere hard for them to be so wicked, but impossible to be so sanguine. Did the unclean person believe that none but the pure in heart shall see God, if he could be so much Swine, as still to chuse the mire: yet sure he could not expect to be Rapt from thence into heaven. Did the Drunkard consider the sentence of the Apostle excluding all such from the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6. 10. if he can be content so sadly to oberbuy his sin; as to pay that Kingdom for his shot: yet certainly even he cannot be sot enough to expect the possession of what he has so sold, or hope that from one of his drunken trances, he shall awake to glory: did the Covetous extortioner observe that he is involv'd in the same sentence, remember that such Violents shall take not heaven, but hell, by force; if the terrors of the Lord could not have force enough to melt his bowels, to unclutch his griping hand, or disseize him of his prey: yet sure it must discourage him from grasping of heaven too, from hoping to defraud God as he has done men, and striking himself into an estate in the land of the living; and in like manner all other hoping sinners if they would ruine, yet must cease from flattering themselves, must chuse damnation bare-faced, and not fancy that their posting on in the broad way shall ever bring them to life. And sure this discovery of their estate, were a very good step to the curing it: for though 'tis possible some few may be of so sturdy an impiety as to chuse their sin with all its consequents, yet sure all sinners are not of that strong complexion, and therefore Satan is put to his wiles and artifices, is fain to hoodwink those that are apt to start: and disguises the danger when he sees the true appearance of it will terrifie and avert. This was his old policy with our first parents; he dazles their eyes with the glorious but abusive proposal of becoming like Gods, that they might not discern how near they were approaching to become like Devils: and this under the pretence of confidence and friendship, discovering as it were a secret to them, that God envied them that promotion, which his greater kindness was solicitous to procure for them. And as if the ruine of mankind, in Massa had been too slight a Trophey for that one Stratagem, he repeats it again to the individuals, perswades men that the path of obedience which God has chalkt out is strait, and narrow, rugged and incumbred; that there is a shorter cut, an easier passage to life: that they may be led into Canaan a nearer way, step into it immediately from the flesh pots of Egypt, and scape the tedious weary March in the Wilderness: never so much as call at Mount Sinai, or be affrighted with the Thunders of the Law. In a word, they need not work out their Salvation, but be they never so slothful they may inherit the promises, Heb. 6. 12. this is his one grand Conclusion, though he has several mediums to infer it by: wherewith as with so many tools and Engines he furnishes men for the filing or breaking of that sacred link between duty and reward; and of these he has great variety fitted to the hands, and skill of those that manage them. I shall not undertake to ransack his workhouse, or give an inventory of his utensils, but shall rather in general beseech all those, who have made this unhappy separation to remember from whose Forge they took their Instruments: and then consider whether his officiousness in supplying them, can argue any thing but that 'tis his work they are about. Can any think that he whose eternal pastime it will be to torment men, can really be solicitous of their ease that he would chuse out for them the pleasantest paths, were it not that he knows they lead to the chambers of death? when Christ whose sole business it was to save mens souls, has prescrib'd us a course which shall assuredly conduct us unto happiness, what can it be but phrensie to resort to Abaddon, the destroyer for an easier method, or expect more gentleness and compassion from the roaring Lion than from the Lamb of God.
NAY indeed this is not only to attribute to him more tenderness, but fidelity too: to believe him in opposition to all the express affirmations of God; and when he who is truth its self has told us, that except we repent we shall all perish, Luk. 13. 5. and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, Heb. 12. 14. to disbelieve this only upon his bare credit, who was a lyar from the beginning: This indeed is a prodigious composition of blasphemy and folly: a strange contumely to God, but fatal treachery to our selves: For alas Satan entertains us all this while but with a trick of Leger de main, and as Iuglers make us believe we have cut the string, which yet presently after they shew us whole: so he perswades us he has thus sever'd the Condition from the Promises, when to our grief it will finally appear their union was inviolable. 'Tis not all our vain confidence that can reverse the immutable divine Law, we may, 'tis true, delude our selves, keep up our spirits high; in a secure jollity eat and drink, and rise up to play, and so not only loyter, but revel out our day, till the night overtake us wherein no man can work, but we shall never be able to propagate the deceit, where only it could avail us, to perswade God to pay the hire to those that have been no labourers, or give the prize to any who have not run to obtain it. Let every man therefore in a just tenderness to his own Soul, strictly examine his hopes, try not how high they towre, but how deep they are founded; whether on the sand or on the rock; the flattering delusions of Satan, and the dreams of his own Phancy, or on the Promises of God: for though all pretend to build on the latter, yet God knows, a multitude of foolish Architects there are, which mistake their ground, take that for assurance that is not: and this truly is a thing deserves to be soberly consider'd, they that most greedily catch at the Promises, do often embrace a cloud instead of the Deity which they so eagerly grasp, and thereby think to enjoy. But faithful obedience, and not insolent hopes, commend us unto God. The Gospel indeed describes to us great and inestimable felicities, but he that can think this gives him Title to them, may as well pretend to the whole World, because he has the Map of it in his house: for though it mentions them to all, yet it promises them to none but the obedient. And those Israelites which fled from the sight of Goliah, 1 Sam. 17. 25. might as reasonably challenge the reward propos'd to the victor, as men can pretend to enter into life without keeping the Commandments: this then is the one Criterion, by which a man may judge of his hopes; if they be but proportionable to his obedience, they are then regular, and such as will not make him asham'd, but prove incentives and engagements to every good work. Let him obey as much as he can, and then he need not deny himself the comfort of hoping as much as he can too. But if his hopes exceed this measure, and square themselves only by his wishes; if he look for Heaven, not because he is qualified for it, but because he wants or covets it; this is rather to dream than hope, and such whimsies will as soon invest the begger in wealth, the defam'd in honour, the sick in health, or any man in any thing he has but a mind to, as compass Heaven for the bold Fiduciary.
IT is indeed like those Lunacies wherein mens fancies adopt them Heirs to those Kingdoms, they know nothing more of, than the names: and sure the Analogy holds as well in the cure as the disease; let these Patients awhile be kept dark, taken from the dazling contemplations of their imaginary priviledges, to the sad reflection on their sins: and as God expostulates with Israel, Ezek. 33. 26. Ye stand upon the sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every man his neighbours wife, and shall ye possess the land? So let them recite to themselves the Catalogues of their impieties, and then ask their own hearts, whether these be the qualifications of those that shall rest in Gods holy hill? Whether these marks of the Beast can ever rank them among the followers of the Lamb? And let these Considerations be prest home, reiterated so often, till by repeated strokes they have made good the other part of the method, made their Souls bleed, and by that Spiritual Phlebotomy, temper'd their swelling veins, allayed the over-sanguiness of their constitution: and then there remains but one thing more to complete the course, and that is bringing them into the Work-house, setting them really to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, which they had so near played away by confidence and presumption: And when they have done thus, they have verified their hopes, and then may safely reassume them: They are return'd again with advantage to their first point, and are that in soberness and reality, which they then were only in fiction and imagination.
AND now would God men would once be content to be thus disabus'd, that they would not be so in love with deceit, as in the Prophets phrase, Ier. 8. 5. to hold it fast: that they would not chuse Chymaera's and phantastick Images before real and substantial Felicities: and prefer that hope which will be sure to ship-wrack them, before that which will be an Anchor of the Soul, sure and stedfast, Heb. 6. 19. and if this so reasonable a proposal may be embrac't; if the World should, as the Spaniard said, but rise wise one morning, what a deal of dead merchandize would Satan have upon his hands: Many of those they call the comfortable Doctrines would want vent, which are now the staple commodity of his Kingdom. What those are, 'tis no part of my design to examine, it will be every mans particular concern to do it for himself; which he may do by this one test; whether they more animate men to hope well, than to live well? Whether they bring Alexanders sword to cut asunder the Gordian knot, to sever between the promise and the condition? Or the sword of the Spirit to subdue all to the obedience of Christ? If the former, we may expect the fruits of such will be all that licentiousness which St. Paul describes, as the works of the flesh, Gal. 5. 19. it being not to be imagin'd, that the precepts of the Gospel, which they divide from the promises only, that they might fall off, shall then be voluntarily taken up in meer good nature and heroick Generosity; that those who are so industrious to avoid the necessity of Christian practice, will make it their free-will-offering. If there should happen to be some few of so ingenuous a gratitude; yet 'tis certain, that is not our common mould; few men will be better than they think their interest bids them be, and therefore such principles are dangerous Seminaries of Libertinism: and 'tis mens very important concernment not to admit them. Let not then their cheerful aspect recommend them to our embraces; men may be kill'd with too much Cordial; that which seems to refresh the Spirits may enflame the Blood, and though cold poisons have gotten the fame of being the most malignant, yet there are hot that are as infallibly mortiferous. Let it be our care in opposition to both, to keep our selves in that moderate, equal temper, which belongs to healthy Souls: and since that is the vitallest heat which is gotten by exercise, set to our business, employ our selves diligently in all those duties the Gospel exacts, and then we shall not want such an hope as may warm our hearts, keep us in a cheerful expectation, till we come to the glorious fruition of that Eternal Salvation which God has promised to all them, and only them that obey him. And till we do thus, till we consider as well what we are to do, as what we are to receive: there will be no hope of restoring Christianity to its native vigour; we shall make it evaporate all its strength in unsignificant hopes, convert it into Air, to bear up our Bubbles, instead of that firm ground, whereon we should build virtue here, and glory hereafter.