The Usefulness and Excellency of Christ, Section 17
SECT. 17.
Of Businesse, the sixth Let.
6. THe last impediment is Busines: 6. Impediment. Businesse.For as some worldly people are so busie and greedy still, as that they will afford themselves no time to provide or to gather roses to preserve them against a time of need: so there are not a few, who plunge themselves so deeply in a sea of businesses, as that they can never be at leisure to thinke seriously either on Christ himselfe, or on the gracious meanes whereby they should labour to get Christ; and hence it comes to passe, that they also goe still without Christ. See Luke 14. 18. 19. how some that were invited to the foresaid great and blessed supper, put it off; one saith, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs goe, marke, needs goe, and see it, I pray thee have me excused, and another said, Vnde V…sus V…a, boves, uxor c…nam cl…us…re …calu, …, cu…a, … …l…us…e … 16. fo. 157.I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I goe to prove them, I pray thee have me excused, both are wholly for this world, and wholly taken up with the cares of this life; and therefore they cannot come to taste how sweet the Lord Christ is, who is the cheare provided for those that come to that most happy supper of the great God of heaven. Wherefore that the same may not befall you, doe not you pretend businesse, saying, as once Antipater, King o… Macedon, said to one who ….profered him a treatise tending to happinesse, I am not at leasure: so we are not nor can be at leisure to thinke on this matter. For lo I tender unto you such a subject and theme, as tendeth to everlasting happinesse, and therefore you ought to be at leisure, and put off all businesse rather then Christ, who is that one most needfull rose of Sharon, which you must prefer b…fore a thousand worlds, were they all composed of the finest gold, and brimfull with the richest orient pearls. I pray you thinke on it, that you may put your selves indeed upon the use of those gracious meanes, which in great mercy the God of mercy hath by his unworthiest messenger made knowne unto you, for the getting of the Lord Jesus Christ, blessed for ever, putting aside all other imployments whatsoever: For then, and not till then there is hope that so many words (spoken now, and heretofore) will not be as water split upon the ground, and as a sound vanishing in the ai…e; but rather that you will labour for Christ with all the might and strength you can.
To it then, to it, my deare friends, 2 Branch.whom now it concernes in the second place to follow all these my perswasions: As I said at first, that as I must labour to remove the Lets now discovered by speaking and perswading: so you must pull them away by obeying. You have heard how blindnesse, blockishnesse, basenesse, brutishnesse, businesse, bitternesse, are the posts whereupon your tottering wils doe stand; and you know how earnestly I have exhorted you all this while to pull them downe, and that is all I can doe; but now you must not thinke that all is done when I have done, No, No, but you must then begin to be most busie, when you neither heare nor see me at home in your closets, as I told you: you must thinke on this matter seriously, ponder all things understandingly, and labour to yeeld obedience in all things conscionably, that so consequently you may carry away Christ for your labour most joyfully, having devolved and overcome all those unhappy Lets most blessedly; and therefore when you come home doe not, as you were wont, call for meat, drinke, worke, company, sports, delights; but rather call upon your poore soules, to whom this word of exhortation is sent, and let them recount all that you have heard, and are able to recall, and so fall to the worke which I provided for you at this time, that is, fall a pulling, and shaking; and see if by any means you may pull away these sixe postes or Lets, labouring as for life to see a difference between Christ * and foreign, or Recapitulation annexed to this finall exhortation.all earthly things whatsoever, by comparing one with the other, and to be seriously mindfull of your latter end, and to be truly sensible of the odiousnesse of your most filthy sinnes, and to weane your selves from your former brutishnesse, which you have too too much discovered by your most eager pursuite after sensuall and brutish delights, who have hitherto kept you from Christ, and to cast of all businesse whatsoever for Christ his sake; and if you find this to be a taske too heavy for you, then, as Sampson being minded to throw downe the house in the which the Lords of the Philistines were, besides three thousand men and women, and finding himself too weake and unable for so great a worke, prayed unto the Lord his God, and said, ô Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, onelyonly this once, ô God, Judg. 16. 27, 28, 29, 30.that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes, and so tooke hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up the one with his right hand, and the other with his left, and bowed himselfe with all his might, and threw down the house, which fell upon the Lords, and upon all the people that were therein, and slew them? so pray ye unto the same God, saying, O Lord God, remember us this time, O God, that we may be able to pull downe these sixe pillars or postes whereon our tottering wils doe stand, that they may come down, and thereupon we may be fitted, as being dejected for the Lord Jesus Christ blessed for ever, and so lay hold on all the sixe postes or Lets, and pull them with all your might, and then see whether, if you be both earnest and constant in your endeavours, your wils and all these Lets will not come downe? and whether all your lordly sinnes will not thereupon be even crushed, Like the Philistines by the mighty power of Christ, of whom Sampson was a type, there being no blocke in the way, to keep him from you, or you from him. The Lord strengthen you, that you may be able to goe through this great and mighty worke, which must bring you along to Christ, for Jesus Christ his sake, our alone most deare and glorious Redeemer, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Rom. 11. 36.