The Saints Everlasting Rest, Treatise 3 · Chapter 5

The Saints Everlasting Rest · Treatise 3 · Chapter 5

p. 339CHAP. V. The Second Vse, Reprehending the general neglect of this Rest, and exciting to diligence in seeking it.

SECT. I.§. 1.

I Come now to the Second Use which I shall raise from this Doctrine of Rest. If there be so certain and glorious a Rest for the Saints, why is there no more industrious seeking after it in the world? One would think that a man that did but once hear of such unspeakable glory to be obtained, and did believe what he heareth, to be true, should be transported with the vehemency of his desires after it, and should almost forget to eat or drink, and should minde and care for nothing else, and speak of, and enquire after nothing else, but how to get assurance and possession of this Treasure! and yet people who hear of it daily, and profess to believe it undoubtedly as a fundamental Article of their Faith, do as little minde it, or care, or labour for it, and as much forget and disregard it, as if they had never heard of any such p. 340thing, or did not believe one word that they hear; And as a man that comes into America, and sees the Natives regard more a piece of Glass, or an old Knife, then a piece of Gold, may think, sure these people never heard of the worth of Gold, or else they would not exchange it for toyes: so a man that looked onelyonly upon the lives of most men, and did not hear their contrary confessions, would think, either these men never heard of Heaven, or els they never heard of its excellency and glory; when alas, they hear of it till they are weary of hearing; and it is offered to them so commonly, that they are tired with the tidings, and cry out as the Israelites, Numb. 11.6. Our soul is dried away, because there is nothing but this Manna before our eyes: And as the Indians who live among the golden Mynes do little regard it, but are weary of the daily toyl of getting it, when other Nations will compass the world, and venture their lives, and sayl through storms and waves to get it: So we that live where the Gospel groweth, where heaven is urged upon us at our doors, and the Manna falls about our tents, do little regard it, and wish these Mynes of gold were further from us, that we might not be put upon the toyl of getting it, when some that want it, would be glad of it upon harder tearms: Surely, though the Resurrection of the Body and Life everlasting be the last Article in their Creed, it is not the least, nor therefore put last, that it should be last in their desires and endeavors.

§. 2.SECT. II.

I shall apply this Reproof more particularly yet to … several sorts of men. First, To the carnal worldly-minded man, who is so taken up in seeking the things below, that he hath neither heart nor time to seek this Rest.

Sic errant aliqui, & in tantum oblivionem & spiritualem phrenesin devenerunt, ut tanquam mortui a corde, omnem insumunt operam suam circa carnem; sic intendentes tabernaculo suo, acsi nunquam putent esse cas…rum. Veruntamen cadat necesse est, atque id quidem in brevi. A…non seipsos nescire videntur, qui sic dedeti sunt carni & sanguini, acsi omnino nihil aliud quam carnem solam se esse reputent: Sic in vano accipientes animas suas tanquam prorsus ignorent anim…s se …abere. Ber. …er. …37.May I not well say to these men, as Paul to the Galathians in another case? Foolish sinners! who hath bewitched you? It is not for nothing that Divines use to call the world a Witch▪ for as in VVitchcraft mens lives, senses, goods, or cattle are destroyed by … … secret unseen power of the Devill, of which a man can give no natural Reason; so here, men will destroy their own souls in a way quite against their own knowledg; and as VVitches will make a man dance p. 341naked, or do the most unseemly, unreasonable actions; so the world doth bewitch men into bruit beasts, and draw them some degrees beyond madness. VVould not any man wonder that is in his right wit, and hath but the spiritual use of Reason, to see what riding and running, what scrambling and catching there is for a thing of naught, while eternal Rest lyes by neglected! what contriving and caring, what fighting and bloodshed to get a step higher in the world then their brethren, while they neglect the Kingly dignity of the Saints! what insatiable pursuit of fleshly pleasures, whilest they look upon the Praises of God, which is the joy of Angels, as a tiring burden! what unwearied diligence there is in raising their posterity, in enlarging their possessions, in gathering a little silver or gold? yea, perhaps for a poor living from hand to mouth? while in the mean time their Judgment is drawing neer; and yet how it shall go with them then? or how they shall live eternally, did never put them to the trouble of ones hours sober consideration; what rising early, and sitting up late, and labouring, and caring year after year to maintain themselves and their children in credit till they dye, but what shall follow after that they never think on, as if it were onelyonly their work to provide for their bodies, and onelyonly Gods work to provide for their souls, whereas God hath promised more to provide for their bodies without their care, then for their souls; though indeed they must painfully serve his Providence for both; and yet these men can cry to us; May not a man be saved without so much ado? And may we not say with more reason to them? May not a man have a little Air, or Earth? a little credit or wealth without so much ado? or at least, may not a man have enough to bring him to his grave without so much ado? O how early do they rowse up their servants to their labour? up, come away to work, we have this to do, or that to do; but how seldom do they call them, Up, you have your souls to look to, you have Everlasting to provide for, up to prayer, to reading of the Scripture; Alas, how rare is this language! what a gadding up and down the world is here, like a company of Ants upon a Hillock? taking uncessant pains to gather a treasure, which death, as the next passenger that comes by, will spurn abroad? as if it were such an excellent thing, to dye in the midst of wealth and honors! or as if it would be such a comfort to a man at death, or in another world, to think that he was a Lord, or a Knight, or a Gentleman, or a Rich man on earth? For my part, whatever these men may profess or say to the contrary, I cannot but strongly suspect that in heart they are flat Pagans, and do not believe that there is an eternal glory and misery, nor what the Scripture speaks of the way of obtaining it; or at least, that they do but a little believe it, by the halves, and therefore think to make sure of Earth, lest there be no such thing as Heaven to be had; and to hold fast that which they have in hand, lest if they let go that, in hope of better in another world, they should play the fools and lose all. — I fear, though the Christian Faith be in their mouths, lest that this be the faith which is next their hearts; or else the lust of their Senses doth overcome and suspend their Reason, and prevail with their Wils against the last practical conclusion of their Understanding. What is the excellency of this Earth, that it hath so many Suiters, and Admirers? what hath this World done for its Lovers and Friends, that it is so eagerly followed, and painfully sought after, while Christ and Heaven stand by, and few regard them? or what will the world do for them for the time to come? The common entrance into it is through anguish and sorrow: The passage through it is with continual care, and labor, and grief; the passage out of it is with the greatest sharpness and sadness of all. What then doth cause men so much to follow & affect it? O sinful, unreasonable, bewitched men! Will mirth and pleasure stick close to you? Will gold and worldly glory prove fast friends to you in the time of your greatest need? will they hear your cries in the day of your calamity? If a man should say to you at the hour of your death, as Elias did to Baals Priests, Cry aloud, &c. O, Riches, or Honor, now help us! will they either **Yet Christs saying [that it is as hard for a rich man to be saved, as a Cammel to go through the eye of a Needle] is not to be understood literally; it being a Proverb which the Jews used of a thing very difficult. vid. Christ. Cartwright in praefat. ante Annota. in Genesin.answer, or relieve you? will they go along with you to another world, and bribe the Judg, and bring you off clear? or purchase you a room among the blessed? why then did so rich a man want a drop of water for his tongue? or are the sweet morsels of present delight and honor, of more worth then the eternal Rest? and will they recompense the loss of that enduring Treasure? Can there be the least hope of any of these? why, what then is the matter? Is it onelyonly a room for our dead bodies, that we are so much beholden to the world for? why, this is the last and longest courtesie that we shal receive from it: But we shal have this, whether we serve it or no; and even that homely dusty dwelling, it will not afford us alwayes neither: It shall possess our dust but till the great Resurrection day. Why, how then doth the world deserve so well at mens hands, that they should part with Christ and their salvation to be its p. 342followers? Ah, vile deceitful world! How oft have we heard thy faithfullest servants at last complaining, Oh the world hath deceived me, and undone me! It flattered me in my prosperity, but now it turns me off at death in my necessity! Ah, if I had as faithfully served Christ, as I have served it; He would not thus have cast me off; nor have left me thus comfortless and hopeless in the depth of misery! Thus do the dearest friends and favorites of the world complain at last of its deceit, or rather of their own self…deluding folly: and yet succeeding sinners will take no warning. So this is the first sort of neglecters of Heaven which fall under this Reproof.

SECT. III.

2. THe second sort to be here reproved, are the **Vtinam et nos assequamur sanitatem qui dissoluti sumus et ad omne bonum opus immobiles, neque habemus hominem, hoc est, humanam rationem, utpote comparati cum jumentis, ut portet nos in piscinam poenitentiae lacrimarum, in quam qui primus ingreditur, sanatur. Nam qui poenitentiam differt in tempora posteriora, non festinat hic poenitere: qui procrastinat non assequitur sanitatem. Primus igitur festina ingredi ne mors te praeoccupet. Theophylact. in Joan. c. 5John 5prophane, ungodly, presumptuous multitude, who will not be perswaded to be at so much pains for salvation, as to perform the common outward duties of Religion. Yea though they are convinced that these duties are commanded by God, and see it before their eyes in the Scripture, yet wil they not be brought to the constant practice of them. If they have the Gospel preached in the town where they dwell, it may be they will give the hearing to it one part of the day, and stay at home the other: or if the master come to the congregation, yet part of his family must stay at home. If they want the plain and powerful preaching of the Gospel, how few are there in a whole Town that will either be at cost or pains to procure a Minister; or travell a mile or two to hear abroad? Though they will go many miles to the market for provision for their bodies. The Queen of the South shall rise up in Judgment with this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth, to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a greater then Solomon doth by his messengers preach to them. The King of Nineve shall rise up in Judgment with them, and shall condemn them; for he repented at the preaching of Jonas, but when Jesus Christ sendeth his Embassadors to these men, they will sarce go to hear them, Mat. 12.41, 42. And though they know that the Scripture is the very Law of God, by which they must live, and by which they must be acquit or condemned in Judgment, and that it is the property of every blessed man, to delight in this law, and to meditate in it day and night, Psal. 1.2. Yet will they not be at the pains to read a chapter once in a day, nor to acquaint their families with this doctrine of Salvation: But if they carry a Bible to Church and let it lye by them all the week, this is the most use that they make of it. And though they are commanded, to pray without ceasing. 1 Thes. 5.17. And to pray alwayes and not waxe faint, Luk. 18.1, 2, 3, &c. to continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving, Col. 4.2. Yet will they not be brought to pray constantly with their families, or in secret: Though Daniel would rather be cast to the Lyons, then he would forbear for a while praying openly in his house where his enemies might hear him three times a day; yet these men will rather venture to be an eternal prey to that roaring Lyon that seeks to devour them, then they will be at the pains thus to seek their safety. You may hear in their houses two oathes for one prayer. Or if they do any thing this way, it is usually but the running over a few formal words, which they have got on their tongues end, as if they came on purpose to make a jest of prayer, and to mock God and their own souls. If they be in distress, or want any thing for their bodies, they want no words to make known their mind; but to a Physitian when they are sick, to a griping Landlord when they are oppressed, to a wealthy friend when they are in want, they can lay open their case in sad complaints, and have words at will to press home their requests: Yea every beggar at their door can crave relief, and make it their daily practice and hold on with importunity, and take no denyal; necessity filleth their mouthes with words, and teacheth them the most natural prevailing Rhetorike: These beggars will rise up Judgment against them and condemn them. Doubtless if they felt but the misery and necessities of their souls, they would be as forward to beg relief of God, and as frequent, as fervent, as importunate, and as constant till they were past their streights. But, alas, he that only reades in a book that he is miserable, and what his soul stands in need of, but never felt himself miserable, nor felt particularly his several wants, no wonder if he must also fetch his prayer from his book only, or at furthest from the strength of his invention or memory. Solomons request to God was, That what prayer or Supplication soever should be made by any man, or by all the people, when every man shall know his own sore and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands before God, that God would then hear and forgive, &c. 2 Chron. 6.29, 30. If these men did thus know and feel every one the sore and the grief of his own soul, we should neither need so much to urge them to prayer, nor to teach them how to perform it, and what to say: Whereas now they do invite p. 343God to be backward in giving, by their backwardness in asking; and to be weary of relieving them▪ by their own being weary in begging relief; and to be seldome and short in his favors, as they are in their prayers; and to give them but common and outward favors, as they put up but common and outside requests; Yea their cold and heartless prayers do invite God to a flat denial: for among men it is taken for granted, that he who askes but slieghtly & seldom, cares not much for that he askes. Do not these men judge themselves unworthy of Heaven, who think it not worth their more constant and earnest requests? If it be not worth asking for, it is worth nothing. And yet if you should go from house to house through Town and Parish, and enquire at every house as you go, whether they do morning and evening call their family together, and earnestly and reverently seek the Lord in prayer? how few would you finde that constantly and conscionably practice this duty? If every door were marked where they do not thus call upon the name of God, that his wrath might be powred out upon that family, our towns would be as places overthrown by the plague, the people being dead within, and the marke of judgment on the door without: I fear where one house would escape, ther's ten would be marked out for death: and then they might teach their doors to pray, Lord have mercy on us; because the people would not pray themselves. But especially if you could see what men do in their secret chambers, how few should you finde in a whole Town, that spend one quarter of an hour morning and night in earnest supplication to God for their souls? O how little do these men set by this eternall Rest? Thus do they slothfully neglect all endeavors for their one welfare, except some publike duty in the congregation, which custom or credit doth engage them to. Perswade them to read good books, and they will not be at so much pains: perswade them to learn the grounds of Religion in some Catechisme, and they think it a toilsome slavery, fitter for Schoolboyes or little children then for them: Perswade them to Sanctifie the Lords day in holy exercises, and to spend it wholly in hearing the word, and repeating it with their families, and prayer, and meditation, &c. and to forbear all their worldly thoughts and speeches; And what a tedious life do they take this to be? and how long may you preach to them, before they will be brought to it? as if they thought that heaven were not worth all this ado. Christ hath been pleading with England these fourscore yeers and more by the word of his Gospel, for his worship and for his Sabbaths, and yet the inhabitants are not perswaded. Nay, he hath been pleading these six yeers by threatnings,How many of those twelve deplorable abuses, which are the pillars of Satans Kingdom, which Cyprian mentioneth, are not common in England? 1. A man of knowledg without works. 2. An old man without Religious devotion. 3. A young man without obedience. 4. A rich man without alms. 5. A woman without chastity. 6. A Gentleman without vertue. 7. A Christian contentious. 8. A beggar proud. 9. A Bishop negligent 10. A congregation without discipline. 11. A Nation without Law. 12. A King unjust. Read Jer. 9.12, 13, 14.Jer 9:12Jer 9:13Jer 9:14 and fire, and sword, and yet can prevaile but with very few: And though these bloody arguments have been spread abroad, and brought home to people from Parish to Parish, almost as far as the word hath gone, so that there is scarce a Parish in many counties where blood hath not been shed & the bodies of the slain have not been left, yet the generality of England is no more perswaded, then they were the first day of their warning; and they have not heard the voice of the rod, which hath cryed up and down their streets, Yet O England, will ye not sanctifie my Sabbaths, nor call upon my name, nor regard my word, nor turn from your worldliness and wickedness? God hath given them a lash and a reproof, a wound and a warning; he hath (as it were) stood in their blood with the sword in his hand, and among the heapes of the slain hath he pleaded with the living, and said, What say you? Will you yet worship me, and fear me, and take me for your Lord? And yet they will not: Alas, yet to this day England will not; Let me here write it, and leave it upon record, that God may be justified, and England may be shamed; and posterity may know, if God do deliver us, how ill we deserved it, or if he yet destroy us, how wilfully we procured it: And if they that passe by shall ask, Why hath God done thus to a flourishing and prosperous land? You may give them the true, though sad answer, They would not hear, they would not regard: He smit them down, he wounded them, he hewed them as wood, and then he beseeched the remainder to consider and return, but they never would do it: They were weary of his wayes, they polluted his Sabbaths they cast his word and worship out of their families, they would not be at the pains to learn and obey his will, nay they abhorred his Ministers, and servants, and holy paths, and all this to the last breath: When he had slain five thousand or eight thousand at a fight, the rest did no more reform, then if they had never heard of it: Nay, such a spirit of slumber is faln upon them, that if God should proceed and kill them all save one man & ask that one man, Wilt thou yet seek me with all thy heart, he would rather slight it. Lord have mercy upon us! What is gone with mens understanding and sense? Have they renounced Reason as well as Faith? Are they dead naturally as well as spiritually? Can they not hear, nor feel, though they cannot believe? That sad judgment is fal… p. 344upon them, mentioned in Isai. 42.24, 25. Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel (England) to the robbers? Did not the Lord? He against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his wayes, neither were they obedient to his Laws: Therefore he hath poured upon them the fury of his anger, and the strength of battel, and it hath set them on fire round about, yet they knew it not; it burned them, yet they laid it not to heart. Yea this much more let us leave upon Record against England. They have been so far from Reforming, and taking up the Worship of God with delight, after all this, that they have contrarily aaPervicaces & obstinatos vocamus cos, non qui ab infirmitate carnis superati in peccatum aliquod prolapsi sunt; sed qui fibi placent in peccatis, in ijsque toli volutantur; quos non pudor, non metus, non objurgatio, non ipsae denique Dei comminationes ipsa Dei judicia, possunt a p…cando revocare. Sadeel in Psal. 32. pag. 55.Ps 32abhorred it at the very heart, and fought against it as long as they could stand, and when they have been wounded and overthrown in one Fight, they have been as forward to the next; and when they have been quite subdued in all parts of the Land, they are as ready again for another war, as if they had never felt the hand of God at all; and to root out the sincere Worshippers and Worship of God, they are ready to dye to the last man. Lord, how hast thou deserved so much ill at these mens hands! what harm hath praying, and reading, and preaching painfully, and sanctifying the Sabbath, and fearing to offend done to England? Have they suffered for these, or for their enmity to these? what evil do these wretches discern in the everlasting Kingdom, that they do not only refuse to labor for it, but so detest and resist the holy way that leads to it? It is wel for them that they live in Gospel times, when the patience of God doth wait on sinners, and not in those severer days, when fire from heaven destroyed the Captaines and their Companies that were commanded by the King to bring but one Prophet before him; or when the **2 King. 1. 2 King. 2.23, 24.2 Kgs 12 Kgs 2:232 Kgs 2:24Lyons destroyed fourty two children for calling a Prophet of God Bald-head: Or rather it had bin better for these men to have lived in those times, that though their temporal Judgments had been greater, yet their eternal plagues might have bin the less. Yet this much more let me leave upon Record to the shame of England; That all this is not meerly through idleness, because they will not be at the pains to serve God, but it is out of a bitter enmity to his Word and wayes; for they will be at more pains then this in any way that is evil, bbDeus non alienis assertionibus, sed suis aestimandus est vocibus. Ambros. de poenit. l. 1. c. 4. Deus diserte docet ea tantum in Deo colendo adhibenda esse, quae ipse praecepit, Summè Deo displicet omnis, foreign & simulata religio, & cultus ex inventione humanâ profectus. Doctor Sutlive advers. Bellarm. de Monach. Chap. 25. p. 130.or in any worship of mans devising: They are as zealous for Crosses, and Surplices, Processions and Perambulations, reading of a Gospel at a cross way, the observation of Holidays, and Fasting days, the repeating of the Letany, or the like forms in the Common Prayer, the bowing at the naming of the word Jesus (while they reject his Worship) the receiving of the Sacrament when they have no right to it, and that upon their knees, as if they were more revererent and devout then the true laborious servants of Christ; with a multitude of things which are onelyonly the traditions of their Fathers; I say, they are as zealous for these, as if eternal life consisted in them. Where God forbids them, there they are as forward as if they could never do enough; and where God commands them, they are as backward to it, yea as much against it, as if they were the commands of the Devil himself; and for the discipline of Christ, though all parts of the world have much opposed it, yet where hath it been so fiercely and powerfully resisted? The Lord grant that this hardned, wilful, malicious Nation fall not under that heavy doom, Luke 19.27. But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.

§. 4.SECT. IV.

3. THe third sort that fall under this Reproof, are those self-couzening, formal, lazie Professors of Religion, who will be brought to any outward duty, and to take up the easier part of Christianity, but to the inward work, and more difficult part, they will never be perswaded: They will Preach, or hear, or read, or talk of heaven, or pray customarily and constantly in their Families, and take part with the persons or causes that are good, and desire to be esteemed among the godly, but you can never bring them to the more spiritual and difficult duties, as to be constant and fervent in secret Prayer, to be conscionable in the duty of self-examination, to be constant in that excellent duty of Meditation, to be heavenly minded, to watch constantly over his heart, and words, and wayes; to deny his bodily senses their delights, to mortifie the flesh, and not make provision for it to fulfil its lusts, to love and heartily forgive an enemy, to prefer his brethren heartily before himself, and to think meanly of his own gifts and worth, and to take it well of others that think so too, and to love them that have low thoughts of him, as well as those that have high; to bear easily the injuries or undervaluing words of others against him, to lay all that he hath at the feet p. 345of Christ, and to prefer his Service and Favor before all; to prepare to die, and willingly to leave all, to come to Christ, &c. This outside Hypocrite will never be perswaded to any of these. Above all other, two notable sorts there are of these Hypocrites. First, The superficial, opinionative Hypocrite.Matth. 13.5.Matt 13:5 Secondly, The worldly Hypocrite. First, The former entertaineth the Doctrine of the Gospel with Joy, but it is onelyonly into the surface of his soul, he never gives the seed any depth of earth; It changeth his opinion, and he thereupon ingageth for Religion, as the right way, and sides with it as a party in a Faction, but it never melted and new molded his heart, nor set up Christ there in full Power and Authority; but as his Religion lyes most in his Opinion, so he usually runs from Opinion to Opinion, and is carried up and down with every winde of Doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in weight to deceive; and as a childe is tossed too and fro; for as his Religion is but Opinion, so is his Study, and Conference, and chief business all about Opinion: He is usually an ignorant,Ephes. 4.14.Eph 4:14 **Confidentiâ astra petimus, ruimus in praecipitia. Albe…eric. Gentilis d Jur. Interpraet. lib. 4.proud, bold, unreverent enquirer and babler about controversies, rather then an humble embracer of the known truth, with love and subjection; you may conjecture by his bold and forward tongue, and groundless conceitedness in his own Opinions, and sleighting of the Judgments and persons of others, and seldom talking of the great things of Christ with seriousness and humility, that his Religion dwelleth in his brain, and not in his heart; where the winde of Temptation assaults him, he easily yieldeth, and it carrieth him away as a Feather, because his heart is empty, and not ballaced and stablished with Christ and Grace. If the Temptation of the Times do assault mens Understandings, and the sign be in the Head, though the little Religion that he hath lyes there, yet a hundred to one but he turneth Heretick, or catcheth the Vertigo of some lesser errors, according to the nature and strength of the seducement: If the winde do better serve for a vicious conversation, a hundred to one but he turns a purveyor for the flesh, and then he can be a Tipler, and yet religious, a Gamster, a Wanton, a neglecter of Duties, and yet religious: If this mans Judgment …ead him the Ceremonious way, then doth he imploy his chiefest zeal for Ceremonies, as if his Religion lay in Bowing, Kneeling, observation of Dayes, number, and form of words in Prayer, with a multitude of Traditions and Customs of his Forefathers. If his Judgment be **Facile cersuadeas senem ut sellam deserat, si baculum prius quo niti possit, in manum dederis; qui te alioqum nunquam auditurus est, sed insidiatorem potius judicaturus, ut qui cupias pronum ad silicem cranium frangere. Sic mentes humanae ante omnia sunt ad infallibilem Dei cognitionem adducendae. quam ubi at…gerint jam facilè dimittent sallacia, &c. Zuinglius de vera & falsa Relig. pag. 406.against Ceremonies, then his strongest zeal is imployed against them, studying, talking, disputing against them, censuring the users of them, and perhaps fall into a contrary superstition, placing his chief Religion in Baptism, Church Combinations, and forms of Policy, &c. For having not his soul taken up with the essentials of Christianity, he hath onelyonly the Mint and Cummin, the smaller matters of the Law, to lay out his zeal upon. You shall never hear in private conference any humble and hearty bewailings of his souls imperfections, or any heart bleeding acknowledgments of his unkindnesses to Christ, or any pantings and longings after him, from this man,; but that he is of such a Judgment, or such a Religion, or Party, or Society, or a Member of such a Church, herein doth he gather his greatest comforts; but the inward and spiritual labours of a Christian he will not be brought to.

Secondly, The like may be said of the worldly Hypocrite, who choaketh the Doctrine of the Gospel, with the thorns of worldly cares and desires; His Judgment is convinced, that he must be Religious, or he cannot be saved, and therefore he reads, and hears, and prays, and forsakes his former company and courses; but because his belief of the Gospel-Doctrine is but wavering and shallow, he resolves to keep his hold of present things, lest the promise of Rest should fail him, and yet to be religious, that so he may have heaven when he can keep the world no longer, thinking it wisdom to have two strings to his bow, lest one should break. This mans Judgment may say, God is the chief good; but his heart and affections never said so, but look upon God as a kinde of strange and disproportionate Happiness, to be tollerated rather then the flames of hell, but not desired before the felicity on earth.Phil. 3.9.Phil 3:9 In a word, the world hath more of his Affections then God, and therefore is his God, and his Coveteousness is Idolatry. This he might easily know and feel, if he would judg impartially, and were but faithful to himsef: And though this man do not gad after Opinions and Novelties in his Religion as the former, yet will he set his sails to the winde of worldly advantage, and be of that opinion which will best serve his turn▪ p. 346And as a man whose spirits are seised on by some pestilential malignity, is feeble, and faint, and heartless in all that he does; so this mans spirits being possessed by the plague of this malignant worldly disposition, O how faint is he in secret prayer! O how superficial in Examination and meditation! How feeble in heart-watchings, and humbling, mortifying endeavours! how nothing at all in loving and walking with God, rejoycing in him, or desiring after him! so that both these, and many other sorts of lazy Hypocrites there are, who though they will trudge on with you in the easie outside of Religion, yet will never be at the pains of inward and spiritual duties.

SECT. V.§. 5.

4. ANd even the godly themselves deserve this Reproof, for being too lazie seekers of their everlasting Rest. Alas, what a disproportion is there betwixt our Light and our Heat? our Professions and Prosecution? who makes that haste, as if it were for heaven? How still we stand! how idly we work! how we talk, and jest, and trifle away our time! how deceitfully we do the Work of God! how we hear, as if we heard not, and pray, as if we prayed not, and confer, and examine, and meditate, and reprove sin as if we did it not, and use the Ordinances as if we used them not,1 Cor. 7.29, 30, 31.1 Cor 7:291 Cor 7:301 Cor 7:31 and injoy Christ, as if we injoyed him not, as if we had learned to use the things of heaven, as the Apostle teacheth us to use the world! Who would think that stood by us, and heard us pray in private or publike, that we were praying for no less then everlasting glory? should heaven be sought no more earnestly then thus? Me thinks we are none of us all in good-sadness for our souls. We do but dally with the Work of God, and play with Christ, as children, we play with our meat when we should eat it, and we play with our clothes, and look upon them, when we should put them on and wear them; we hang upon Ordinances from day to day, but **Reade Mr. Whitfields excellent Sermon on this Text.we stir not up our selves to seek the Lord: I see a great many very constant in hearing and Praying, and give duplicate page p. 346duplicate page us some hopes that their hearts are honest, but they do not hear and pr…y as i… it were for their lives: O, what a frozen stupidity hath benummed us! The judgment of Pharaoh is among us, we are turned into Stones and Rocks, that can neither feel nor stir; The plague of Lots wife is upon us, as if we were changed into liveless, unmoveable Pillars: we are dying▪ and we know it, and yet we stir not; we are at the door of eternal Happiness or Misery, and yet we perceive it not: Death knocks and we hear not, Christ calls and knocks, and we hear not, God cries to us, To day if you will hear my voyce, harden not your hearts; work while it is day, for the night cometh, when none shall work; Now ply your business, now labour for your lives, now lay out all your strength and time, now do it, now or never, and yet we stir no more then if we were half asleep; What haste doth Death and Judgment make? how fast do they come on? they are almost at us, and yet what little haste make we? what haste makes the Sword to devour, from one part of the Land to another? what haste doth Plague and Famine make? and all because we will not make haste: The Spur of God is in our sides, we bleed, we groan, and yet we do not mend our pace; The Rod is on our backs, it speaks to the quick; our lashes are heard through the Christian world, and yet we stir no faster then before: Lord, what a sensless, sottish, earthly, hellish thing is a hard heart! that we will not go roundly and cheerfully toward heaven without all this ado! no nor with it neither! where is the man that is serious in his Christianity? Methinks men do every where make but a trifle of their eternal state; they look after it but a little upon the by, they do not make it the taske and business of their lives. To be plain with you, I think nothing undoes men so much as complementing, and jesting, in Religion. O, if I were not sick my self of the same disease, with what teares should I mixt this Ink? and with what groans should I express these sad complaints? and with what hearts-grief should I mourn over this universal deadness? Do the Magistrates among us seriously perform **It is a frivolous dream, to think that a Judg or Lawyer hath one conscience as a Judg, and another as a Christian, for he hath but one soul, &c. And how can that seem just according to Law, which appeareth to a mans conscience to be unjust? Fulbecks direction, pag. 33. Rara virtus est inter principes, non timori esse rectè factis: h. e. non obsistere veritati, & his qui se ad Evangelii veritatem & normam componunt non odiosius imminere; & contra familiare est principibus quibusdam, pessimos quosque dignitatibus, honoribusque admovere, non aliâ causa quam ut immanissime tractent veridicos. Zuing. de ver. & fals… Relig. de Scandalo pag. 392.their portion of the work? p. 347Are they zealous for God? Do they build up his House? and are they tender of his Honor? Do they second the Word? and encourage the Godly? and relieve the Oppressed? and compassionate the Distressed? and let fly at the face of sin and sinners, as being the disturbers of our peace, and the onelyonly cause of all our miseries? Do they study how to do the utmost that they can for God? to improve their power and parts, and wealth, and honor, and all their interests for the greatest advantage to the Kingdom of Christ, as men that must shortly give account of their Stewardship? or do they build their own houses, and seek their advancements and stand upon, and contest for their own honors, and do no more for Christ then needs they must, or then lyes in their way, or then is put by others into their hands, or then stands with the pleasing of their friends, or with their worldy interests? which of these two courses do they take? and how thin are those Ministers that are serious in their work? Nay, how mightily do the very best fail in this above all things!Isa. 58.1.Isa 58:1 Do we cry out of mens disobedience to the Gospel in the evidence and power of the Spirit, and deal with sin as that which is the fire in our Towns and houses? and by force pull men out of this fire?Jude 23.Jude 1:23 Do we perswade our people, as those that know the terrors of the Lord,2 Cor. 5.11.2 Cor 5:11 should do? Do we press Christ and Regeneration, and Faith, and Holiness, as men that believe indeed, that without these they shall never have Life? Do our bowels yearn over the Ignorant, and the Careless, and the obstinate Multitude,Matth. 9.36. Negligentes non sunt negligendi. Just. Martyr.Matt 9:36 as men that believe their own Doctrine? that our dear people must be eternally damned if they be not timely recovered? When we look them in the faces, do our hearts melt over them, lest we should never see their faces in Rest? Do we, as Paul, tell them weeping, of their fleshly, and earthly disposition? and teach them **Longe graviori debito tenentur astricti, qui pro multi… animabus reddituri sunt rationem. Quid ego infoelix, quo me vertam si tantum thesaurum, si pretiosum depositum illud quod sibi Chris…us sanguine suo pretiosius judicavit, contigerit negligentiùs custodire? si stillantem in cruce Domini sanguinem collegissem, essetque repositus penes me, in vase vitreo quod & portari saepius opporteret, quid animi habiturus essem in discrimine tanto? & certe id servandum accepi pro quo mercator non insipiens, ipsa utique sapientia, sanguinem suum dedit. Accedit sane ad solicitudinis cumulum, quod cum meam & proximi conscientiam servare necesse sit, neutra mihi satis est nota: utraque abyssus, utraque mihi nox est, at exigitur a me custodia utriusque. Bern. Serm. 3. de tempore.publikely,Phil. 3.18, 19. Acts 20.20.31.Phil 3:18Phil 3:19Acts 20:20Acts 20:31 and from house to house night and day with tears? And do vve intreate them, as if it were indeed for their lives and salvation? that vvhen vve speak of the Joys and Miseries of another world, our people may see us affected accordingly, and perceive that we do indeed mean as we speak? Or rather, do vve not study vvords, and neat Expressions, that vve may approve our selves able men in the judgment of critical Hearers? and speak so formally, and heartlesly of Eternity, that our people can scarcely think that vve believe our selves? or put our tongues into some affected pace? and our language into some forced Oratorical strain? as if a Ministers business were of no more weight, but to tell them a smooth tale of an hour long, and so look no more after them till the next Sermon! Seldom do vve fit our Sermons, either for Matter or Manner to the great end, our peoples salvation; but we sacrifice our studies to our own credit, or our peoples content, or some such base inferiour end; Carnal discretion doth controll our fervency; It maketh our Sermons like beautiful Pictures, which have much pains and cost bestowed upon them, to make them comely and desirable to the eye; but life, or heat, or motion there is none: Surely as such a conversation is an Hypocritical conversation; so such a Sermon is as truly an hypocritical Sermon. O the formal frozen lifeless Sermons which we daily hear preached upon the most weighty piercing Subjects in the world! How gently do we handle those sins, which will handle so cruelly our poor peoples souls? And how tenderly do we deal with their careless hearts? not speaking to them as to men that must be wakened or damned. We tell them of heaven and hell in such a sleepy tone, and sleighty way, as if we were but acting a part in a Play; so that we usually preach our people asleep with those subjects which one would think should rather endanger the driving of some besides themselves if they were faithfully delivered. Not that I commend, or excuse that reall indiscretion, and unseemly language, and nauseous repetitions, and ridiculous gestures, whereby many do disgrace the work of God, and bring his ordinances in contempt with the people, nor think it fit that he should be an Embassador from God on so weighty a business, that is not able to speak sense or reason: But in a word, our want of seriousness about the things of Heaven, doth charme the souls of men into formality, and hath brought them to this customary, careless hearing, which undoes them: The Lord pardon the great sin of the Ministery in this thing; and in particular, my own.

And are the people any more serious then Magistrates and Ministers? How can it be expected? Reader, look but to thy self, and resolve the question. Ask conscience, and suffer it to tell thee truely: Hast thou set thine Eternal Rest before thine eyes, as the great business which thou hast to do in this world? Hast thou studied and cared, and watcht, and labored, and laid about thee with all thy might, lest any should take thy Crown from thee? Hast thou made hast,Matth. 6.21.Matt 6:21 lest thou shouldest come too late, and dye before the work be done? Hath thy very heart been set upon it, and thy desires and thoughts run out this way? Hast thou pressed on through crowdes of opposition towards the Mark, for this price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus?Phil. 3.13, 14.Phil 3:13Phil 3:14 still reaching forth unto those things which are before? When you have set your hand to the work of God,Eccles. 9.10.Eccl 9:10 have you done it with all your might? Can conscience witness your secret cries, and groans, or teares? Can your families witness that you have taught them the fear of the Lord? and warned them all with earnestness and unweariedness to remember God and their souls, and to provide for Everlasting? Or that you have done but as much for them, as that damned Glutton would have had Lazarus do for his brethren on earth, to warn them that they come not to that place of Torment? Can your Ministers witness, that they have heard you cry out, What shall we do to be saved? and that you have followed them with complaints against your corruptions, and with earnest enquiries after the Lord? Can your neighbors about you witness, that you are still learning of them that are able to instruct you? and that you plainly, and roundly reprove the ungodly, and take pains for the saving of your brethrens souls? Let all these witnesses Judg this day between God and you, Whether you are in good sadness about the affaires of Eternall Rest. But if yet you cannot discern your neglects; Look but to your selves, within you, without you, to the work you have done: you can tell by his work, whether your servant have loytered, though you did not see him; so you may by your selves: Is your love to Christ, your faith, your zeal, and other graces strong or weak? What are your joyes? what is your Assurance? Is all right, and strong, and in order within you? Are you ready to dye, if this should be the day? Do the souls among p. 348whom you have conversed, bless you? Why, Judg by this, and it will quickly appear whether you have been Labourers, or Loyterers.

O Blessed Rest! how unworthily art thou neglected! O glorious Kingdom! how art thou undervalued! Little know the careless sons of men, what a state they set so light by! If they once knew it, they would sure be of another minde.