Directions for Weak Distempered Christians, Table of contents 2
The Contents.
THE Characters of a strong confirmed Christian.
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1. He liveth by such a Faith of unseen things as governeth his soul instead of sight.
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2. He hath cogent Reasons for his Religion.
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3. He seeth the well-ordered frame of sacred verities, and the integral parts in their harmony or consort; and setteth not up one truth against another.
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4. He adhereth to them, and practiseth them, from an inward connatural principle, called, The Divine Nature, and The Spirit of Christ.
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5. He serveth not God for fear only, but for Love.
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6. He loveth God, 1. Much for his Goodness to himself. 2. And more for his Goodness to the Church. 3. And most of all for his essential Goodness and perfection.
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7. He taketh this Love and its Expressions, for the heart and height of all his Religion.
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8. He hath absolutely put his soul and all his hopes into the hand of Christ, and liveth by faith upon him as his Saviour.
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9. He taketh Christ as the Teacher sent from God, and his Doctrine for the truest wisdom, and learneth of none but in subordination to him.
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10. His Repentance is universal and effectual, and hath gone to the Root of every sin.
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11. He loveth the Light, as it sheweth him his sin and duty; and is willing to know the worst of sin, and the most of duty.
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12. He desireth the highest degree of Holiness, and hath no sin which he had not rather leave than keep, and had rather be the Best, though in poverty, than the Greatest in prosperity.
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13. He liveth upon GOD and HEAVEN as the End, Reward, and Motive of his Life.
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14. He counteth no cost or pains too great for the obtaining it, and hath nothing so dear which he cannot part with for it.
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15. He is daily exercised in the practice of Self-denial as (next to the Lovers of God) the second half of his Religion.
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16. He hath mortified his fleshly desires, and so far mastereth his senses and appetite, that they make not his obedience very uneasie or uneven.
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17. He preferreth the means of his holiness and happiness, incomparably before all provisions and pleasures of the flesh.
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18. He is crucified to the world, and the world to him by the Cross of Christ, and contemneth it through the belief of the greater things of the life to come.
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19. He foreseeth the End in all his waies, and judgeth of all things as they will appear at last.
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20. He liveth upon God alone, and is content with his favour and approbation, without the approbation and favour of men.
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21. He hath absolutely devoted himself, and all that he hath to God, to be used according to his will.
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22. He hath a readiness to obey, and a quick and pleasant compliance of his will to the will of God.
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23. He delighteth himself more in God, and Heaven, and Christ, and Holiness, than in all the world: Religion is not tedious and grievous to him.
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24. He is conscious of his own sincerity, and assured of his Justification, and title to Everlasting Joyes.
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25. This Assurance doth not make him more careless and remiss, but increaseth his love and holy diligence.
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26. Yet he abhorreth Pride as the first born of the Devil, and is very low and vile in his own eyes, and can easily endure to be low and vile in the eyes of others.
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27. Being acquainted with the deceitfulness of the heart, and the methods of temptation, he liveth as among snares, and enemies, and dangers, in a constant watch; and can conquer many and subtil, and great temptations (through grace.)
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28. He hath counted what it may cost him to be saved, and hath resolved not to stick at suffering, but to bear the Cross, and be conformed to his crucified Lord, and hath already in heart forsaken all for him.
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29. He is not a Christian only for company or carnal ends, or upon trust of other mens opinion, and therefore would be true to Christ, if his Rulers, his Teachers, his Company, and all that he knoweth should forsake him.
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30. He can digest the hardest Truths of Scripture, and the hardest passages of Gods Providence.
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31. He can exercise all his Graces in harmony, without neglecting one to use another, or setting one against another.
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32. He is more in getting and using Grace, than in enquiring whether he have it (though he do that also in its place.)
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33. He studieth Duty more than Events, and is more carefull what he should be towards God, than how he shall (here) be used by him.
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34. He is more regardfull of his duty to others, than of theirs to him, and had much rather suffer wrong, than do it.
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35. He keepeth up a constant Government of his Thoughts, restraining them from evil, and using them upon God, and for him.
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36. He keepeth a constant Government over his passions, so far as that they pervert not his judgement, his heart, his tongue or actions.
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37. He governeth his tongue; imploying it for God, and restraining it from evil.
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38. Heart-work and Heaven-work are the principal matters of his religious discourse, & not barren controversies, or impertinencies.
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39. He liveth upon the common great substantials of Religion, and yet will not deny the smallest Truth, or commit the smallest sin, for any price that man can offer him.
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40. He is a high esteemer, and carefull Redeemer of Time, and abhorreth Idleness and Diversions which would rob him of it.
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41. His heart is set upon doing all the good in the world that he is able: It is his daily business and delight.
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42. He truly loveth his neighbour as himself.
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43. He hath a special love to all godly Christians as such, and such as will not stick at cost in its due expressions; nor be turned into bitterness by tollerable differences.
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44. He forgiveth injuries, and loveth his enemies, and doth them all the good he can; from the sense of the love of Christ to him.
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45. He doth as he would be done by; and is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men, as in acts of piety to God.
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46. He is faithful and laborious in his outward trade or calling, not out of covetousness, but obedience to God.
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47. He is very conscionable in the duties of his several Relations, in his family or other society, as a superiour, inferiour or equal.
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48. He is the best subject whether his Rulers be good or bad, though Infidel and ungodly Rulers may mistake & use him as the worst.
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49. His trust in God doth overcome the fear of man, and settle him in a constant fortitude for God.
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50. Judgement and Zeal conjunct are his constitution: His Judgement kindleth Zeal, and his Zeal is still judicious.
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51. He can bear the infirmities of the weak; and their censures and abuses of himself; and requiteth them not with uncharitable censure or reproach.
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52. He is a high esteemer of the Unity of Christians, and abhorreth the principles, spirit and practises of Division.
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53. He seeketh the Churches unity and concord not upon partial, unrighteous, or impossible, but upon the possible righteous terms here mentioned.
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54. He is of a mellow peaceable spirit: not masterly, domineering, hurtfull, unquiet or contentious.
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55. He highliest regardeth the interest of God, and mens salvation in the world; and regardeth no secular interest of his own, or any mans, but in subserviency thereto.
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56. He is usually hated for his Holiness by the wicked, and censured for his Charity and Peaceableness by the factious and the weak; and is moved by neither from the way of Truth.
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57. Though he abhor ungodly soul-destroying Ministers, yet he reverenceth the Office as necessary to the Church and world; and highly valueth the holy, faithfull Labourers.
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58. He hath great Experience of the Providence, Truth, and Justice of God, to fortifie him against temptations to Unbelief.
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59. Though he greatly desireth lively Affections and gifts, yet he much more valueth the three Essential parts of holiness. 1. A high estimation in the Understanding of God, Christ, Holiness and Heaven, above all that be set in any competition. 2. A resolved choice and adhesion of the Will, to these above and against all competitors. 3. The seeking them first, in the endeavours of the life. And by these be judgeth of the sincerity of his heart.
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60. He is all his life seriously preparing for his death, as if it were at hand; and is ready to receive the sentence with joy; but especially he longeth for the blessed day of Christs appearing, as the answer of all his desires and hopes.
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Six Uses of these Characters.
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THE CHARACTER OF
1 A Sound Confirmed Christian,
2 And of the Weak Christian,
3 And of the Seeming Christian.
IN the Explication of the Text, which I made the ground of the foregoing discourse, I have shewed you that there is a Degree of Grace to be expected and sought after by all true Christians, which putteth the Soul into a sound, confirmed, radicated state, in comparison of that weak, diseased, tottering condition, which most Christians now continue in. And I have shewed you how desireable a state that is, and what calamities follow the languishing unhealthfull state even of such as may be saved. And indeed did we but rightly understand, how deeply the errors and sins of many well-meaning Christians, have wounded the interest of Religion in this age; and how heynously they have dishonoured God, and caused the enemies of holyness to blaspheme, and hardened thousands in Popery and Ungodliness, in probability to their perdition: Had we well observed when Gods Judgements have begun, and understood what sins have caused our Warres, and Plagues and Flames, and worse than all these, our great heart-divisions, and Church-distractions and convulsions; we should ere this have given over the flattering of our selves and one another, in such a Heaven-provoking state; and the ostentation of that little goodness, which hath been eclipsed by such lamentable evils. And instead of these, we should have betaken our selves to the exercise of such a serious deep Repentance as the quality of our sins, and the greatness of Gods Chastisements do require. It is a dolefull case to see how light many make of all the rest of their distempers, when once they think that they have so much Grace and Mortification, as is absolutely necessary to save their souls: And expect that Preachers should say little to weak Christians, but words of comfort, setting forth their happiness: And yet if one of them, when he hath the Gout, or Stone, or Collick, or Dropsie, doth send for a Physitian, he would think himself derided or abused, if his Physitian instead of curing his disease, should only comfort him by telling him that he is not dead. What excellent disputations have Cicero and Seneca, the Platonists and Stoicks, to prove that Virtue is of it self sufficient to make Man happy? And yet many Christians live as if Holiness were but the way and means to their felicity, or at best but a small part of their felicity it self; or as if felicity it self grew burdensome, or were not desireable in this life; or a small degree of it were as good as a greater.
And too many mistake the will of God, and the nature of Sanctification, and place their Religion in the hot prosecution of those mistakes: They make a composition of error and passion, and an unyielding stiffness in them, and siding with the Church or party which maintaineth them, and an uncharitable censuring those that are against them, and an unpeaceable contending for them; And this composition they mistake for Godliness, especially if there be but a few drams of Godliness and Truth in the composition, though corrupted and over-powered by the rest.
For these miscarriages of many well-meaning zealous persons, the Land mourneth, the Churches groan; Kingdoms are disturbed by them; Families are disquieted by them; Godliness is hindered, and much dishonoured by them; the Wicked are hardened by them, and encouraged to hate and blaspheme and oppose Religion; the glory of the Christian Faith is obscured by them; and the Infidel, Mahometan and Heathen World, are kept from Faith in Jesus Christ, and many millions of Souls destroyed by them. I mean, by the miscarriages of the weaker sort of Christians, and by the wicked lives of those carnal Hypocrites, who for custome or worldly interest do profess that Christianity which was never received by their hearts.
And all this is much promoted by their indiscretion, who are so intent upon the consolatory opening of the safety and happiness of Believers, that they omit the due explication of their Description, their Dangers and their Duties.
One part of this too much neglected work I have endeavoured to perform in the foregoing Treatise; Another I shall attempt in this second Part: There are five Degrees or ranks of true Christians, observable: 1. The Weakest Christians, who have only the Essentials of Christianity, or very little more: As Infants that are alive, but of little strength or use to others. 2. Those that are lapsed into some wounding sin, though not into a state of damnation; Like men at age, who have lost the use of some one member, for the present, though they are strong in other parts. 3. Those that having the Integral parts of Christianity in a considerable measure, are in a sound and healthfull state; though neither perfect, nor of the highest form or rank of Christians in this life, nor without such infirmities, as are the matter of their daily Watchfulness and Humiliation. 4. Those that are so strong as to attain extraordinary degrees of grace, who are therefore comparatively called Perfect, as Mat. 5.45.5. Those that have an absolute Perfection without sin, that is, The Heavenly Inhabitants.
Among all these, it is the third sort or degree, which I have here characterized, and upon the by, the first sort and the Hypocrite. I meddle not now with the Lapsed Christian as such, nor with those Giants in holiness of extraordinary strength, nor with the perfect blessed Souls in Heaven: But, it is the Christian who hath attained that confirmation in grace, and composed, quiet, fruitfull state, which we might ordinarily expect, if we were industrious, whose Image or Character I shall now present you with: I call him ofttimes A Christian indeed, in allusion to Christs description of Nathaniel, Joh. 1.47. and as we commonly use that word, for one that answereth his own profession without any notable dishonour or defect: As we say, such a man is a Scholar indeed; and not as signifying his meer sincerity. I mean one whose heart and life is so conform to the Principles, the Rule and the Hopes of Christianity, that to the Honour of Christ, the true Nature of our Religion is discernible in his conversation, Mat. 5.16. In whom an impartial Infidel might perceive the true nature of the Christian Faith and Godliness. If the World were fuller of such living Images of Christ, who like true Regenerate Children represent their Heavenly Father, Christianity would not have met with so much prejudice, nor had so many enemies in the World, nor would so many millions have been kept in the darkness of Heathenism and Infidelity, by flying from Christians, as a sort of people that are common and unclean.
Among Christians, there are Babes, that must be fed with milk, and not with strong meat, that are unskilfull in the word of righteousness; 1 Joh.. 2.2.12, 13, 14. Heb. 5.12, 13, 14. and Novices, who are unsetled, and in danger of an overthrow, 1 Tim. 3.6. Joh. 15.3, 5, &c. In these the nature and excellency of Christianity, is little more apparent, than Reason in a little childe. And there are strong, confirmed Christians, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil, Heb. 5.13, 14. and who shew forth the glory of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light: of whom God himself may say to Satan and their malicious enemies, as once of Job, Hast thou not seen my servant Job, &c. This Christian indeed I shall now describe to you, both to confute the Infidels slanders of Christianity, and to unteach men those false descriptions which have caused the presumption of the profane, and the irregularities of erroneous Sectaries; and to tell you what manner of persons they be, that God is honoured by; and what you must be if you will well understand your own Religion. Be Christians indeed, and you will have the Comforts indeed of Christianity; and will finde that its Fruits and Joyes are not dreams and shadows and imaginations, if you content not your selves with an imagination, dream and shaddow of Christianity, or with some clouded spark or buryed seed.