The Christian Life, Chapter 4 · Section 2
SECT. II. Wherein some Motives are urged to persuade men to the Practice of those Duties that are proper to the Beginning of the Christian Warfare.
HAVING in the former Section given a brief Account of those Duties which are necessary to the well Beginning of our Christian Warfare, I shall now, for a close of that Argument endeavour to press and persuade those who have not as yet begun, to enter immediately upon it, by putting in practice these Initial Duties of it. You who have been hitherto warring against God, and striving against your Duty and your Happiness, be at last persuaded to make a Stand for a while, and to listen to the voice of Reason and Religion, which do both call aloud to you to face about, to desert the Party wherein you are ingaged, and come over to the Side of Virtue. And that I may if possible prevail, I do here earnestly beseech you even by all that is dear and precious to you, by the Love of God and by the Lives of your Souls, and by all your Hopes of Happiness in the world to come, seriously to consider with me these following Motives.
1. That there is a vast Necessity of beginning this our Spiritual Warfare one time or other.
2. That 'tis unspeakably most secure and advantagious for us to begin it now.
3. That the final Success of it doth very much depend upon the well Beginning of it.
4. That when once we have well begun it, the main Difficulty of it is conquered.
I. CONSIDER the vast Necessity there is of beginning this Spiritual Warfare one time or other. For that which is necessary for us to accomplish at last, is necessary to be undertaken by us one time or other. Now it is as necessary for us to oppose and vanquish the Temptations of the World and the Corruptions of our own Nature, as it is not to go to Hell, or not to miss of Heaven. For in this great Battel the everlasting Fate of our Souls is to be decided, and if we come off Victors, we are made, if vanquished, we are undone to eternity. So that in this spiritual Warfare we do not contend like the Warriors of this World for a Triumphal Wreath that will wither upon our Brows, or for Fame and Renown which is nothing but the Breath of a company of talking People, or for the enlarging of our Empire over the next handful of a Turf; but we are contending with Enemies that are pursuing us to Hell, and binding us in Chains of everlasting Darkness. We are to fight for our Immortality, for all our hopes of Happiness and Well-being in a never-ending Life a; nd when so much depends upon the Success of our Conflict, and we must conquer and be crowned or die; win the Field and Heaven or yield our selves captive to eternal Misery, I leave you to judge whether we are not obliged under the vastest Necessity one time or other to begin. And if we must begin one time or other, why not now as well as hereafter? and to what purpose should we defer entring upon that Work, which we all confess we must at last not only begin but accomplish? For to have accomplished a necessary Work, especially when it is difficult and important, is a great Satisfaction to the Mind; and whereas while it is yet to do, the prospect of the pain and labour of it creates in us a great deal of Trouble and Anxiety; when once it is done, or the main Difficulty of it is over, every Reflection on our past pains sweetens our present Repose, and crowns it with Joy and Triumph. And thus it is in our Entrance into the Christian Life, which we all confess to be both necessary and difficult; and it being so, what do we else by our delaying it, but only prolong the pain and trouble of it? And whereas by one brave Attempt we might ease our selves and set our Souls at Rest for ever; we languish away our life in misery, and are sick with the Fear of our Remedy. Just like poor men that are under the torment of the Stone, they know they must be cut or die, but out of a frightful Apprehension of their Remedy they put it off from time to time; they promise they will endure it rather than lose their Lives, but when they come to the Trial their Hearts fail, and they must needs have a little longer Respit; but all the while they endure not only the pain of their Disease, but also the Apprehensions of their Cure, which at last they must also actually endure, or Death which is much more terrible to them. Whereas had they been cut at first, they might have saved themselves all that Torment and Fear of farther Torment, which they endured in the time of their Delay. And just thus it is with those who defer their Repentance, which had they begun at first when they fell into their sinful Courses, their Hearts might have been at Ease a great while ago, and they might have saved themselves all those Gripes and Twinges of Conscience, and all those painful Apprehensions of the Smart and Difficulty of repenting at last, which they have been forced to endure in the several periods of their Delay. But alas, Repentance is a sad Remedy! Well, be it never so sad, you know you must endure it or that which is a thousand times worse. Why then you will endure it, that you are resolved upon, but fain you would have a little longer Respite. Ah foolish Souls! why will you prolong your Misery and linger out your Lives in Torment, when as by enduring now what you must endure at last, you might be presently at Ease, not only from the Pain of your past Guilt, but from the Fear of your future Repentance.
II. CONSIDER that 'tis unspeakably most secure and advantagious for us to begin our Christian Warfare now. For this Life is the only time of our Trial and Probation, the Field in which our spiritual Warfare is to be fought, and from which we must all go off triumphing Conquerors or eternal Slaves. And alas such a slippery and uncertain thing is this our present Existence, that there is no one part of it we can call our own, but what is present. For all our Futurity is in Gods Hand and Disposal, and how he will shorten or prolong it we are not able to prognosticate. So that for ought we know the next moment may finally determine our everlasting Fate, and the Hopes of eternity which are now in our hands may slip through our fingers before to morrow morning, and leave us desperate for ever. What a dreadful Venture therefore do those men run, that delay from time to time the securing their Salvation by a timely Repentance? When 'tis now in their own Power, would they but lay hold on the present Opportunity, to secure their Victory and Crown, they rather chuse to go to cross or pile for them, and to stake them upon a Contingency that is not in their Power to dispose of.
BUT suppose they could secure that hereafter to themselves to which they do so venturously defer their Repentance, yet still there is another Venture of which they can never be secure, and that is, whether when that hereafter comes, God will not out of a just Resentment of their present Despite to, and Contempt of his Grace withdraw it from them. Which if he should, they would be left in as great an incapacity of repenting as if he had withdrawn their Lives from them; it being as possible for us to repent without Life when we are dead, as without Gods Grace while we are living. So that promising that we will repent hereafter, we promise not only for our selves but for God too; we promise that he shall wait our leisure and dance Attendance after us through all the tedious Stages of our Delays and Procrastinations; that he shall tamely put up all those Affronts and Provocations which between this and our hereafter we are resolved to offer him, and in the end be as much at our beck, and as ready to come in to our Assistance, when we shall think fit to call for him, as if we had never given him the least Offence or Provocation to the contrary. For unless we can secure our selves of this, it will be every whit as uncertain whether we repent hereafter if we live, as whether we live to hereafter to repent. And what a madness is it for men that have now their Lives and Souls in their own hands, to stake and venture them upon two such contingent Issues, that are both of them so far out of their Power and Disposal?
BUT suppose there were no Hazard in either of these, that we were as secure both of our own Lives and Gods Grace as we are of the present Moment, yet we can never hope to begin our Christian Warfare so advanaagiously as now. For all the time we are deferring it, our Enemies are gathering Strength and mustering up their Forces against us; our bad Inclinations are ripening and improving, and our evil Habits are growing more inveterate; and so many Degrees of Strength as these get, we lose; and so proportionably as their power to offend us increases, ours to defend our selves against them decreases. What a madness therefore is it for men who pretend to be resolved to ingage in the Christian Warfare, to defer it as they do from time to time, when they cannot but be sensible, if they take any notice of themselves, how much every further Delay improves their Lusts and impairs their Reason, how it fortifies their Enemy, and weakens themselves. You say you are convinced of the Necessity of this Warfare, and resolved to undertake it one time or other, though as yet you cannot prevail with your selves to enter upon it. And why not yet? why for some reason or other forsooth you find your selves averse to it; and do you imagine that if you are averse to it to day, you will be less averse to it to morrow or next day? No, fond Men, do not abuse your selves, for if you will not enter upon it now, be assured of this you will never find your selves either so willing to it, or so fit and able for it again as long as you live. For your Lusts will grow every day dearer and dearer to you, and so twine and wrap themselves by degrees about your Hearts and Affections, that you will every day find your selves more and more unwilling to part with them; and at last they will cling so fast, that there will be no pulling them from ye without pulling away your Souls with them. Wherefore talk no more, I beseech you, of repenting hereafter, but resolve once for all that you will repent now or never.
III. CONSIDER the final Success of this your spiritual Warfare doth very much depend upon your well beginning of it. By what hath been said you plainly see there is an absolute Necessity of beginning it one time or other, and that you can never begin it so securely and advantagiously as now; but unless you begin it well now, that is with a through Preparation of Heart, you were e'en as good sit still and not begin at all. For when once you come to the Trial, to encounter the Oppositions of a corrupt Nature, and contend with the Difficulties of a holy Life, you will then quickly find your sappy Resolutions sink, and like so many rotten Banks yield and give way at every spring-tide of Temptation. But as the well laying the Foundations of a house secures the Superstructures against the violences of all future Storms and foul weather, so the first setling of your Resolution upon a firm and stedfast Basis will be a mighty Safeguard to it against all ensuing Storms of Temptation. That well-grounded Faith and through Consideration which induced us to it, will go along with it and guard it through the Enemies Quarters with such invincible Reasons as no sinful Motive will be able to disprove or cope with. That hearty Shame and bitter Sorrow and Regret which we felt in the forming our Resolution will animate and render it more firm and inexorable against all the Solicitations of sin for the future. Those fervent and earnest Prayers which preceded and accompanied it, will not only ingage us to take the more care and regard of it, but ingage God also to contribute more aid and assistance to it in all its ensuing Conflicts and Encounters. And when in the framing of our Resolution we have taken effectual care before-hand not to resolve upon any thing but what we have considered the difficulty of, or against any thing but what we have felt the shame and smart of, or upon any Reason, but what we have throughly pondered and do firmly believe, and together with all this have ingaged by our earnest Prayers the God of all Grace to aid and assist us, we may with some Assurance promise our selves a blessed Issue and Success. For now we are forewarned of, and fore-armed against all that can happen to us in our spiritual Warfare; now there is no Difficulty can arise in our way which we did not foresee and provide against when we first set forward to Heaven. So that if from henceforth we do but take an honest care to watch the Motions of our Enemy, and to keep up our own Hearts and Courage, we cannot miss of a glorious Victory, and after that an everlasting Triumph.
BUT if we make a rash Beginning, and resolve precipitantly without observing the above-named Rules and Directions, in all probability our hasty Purposes will end in a leisurely Repentance. So that unless we intend to take a great deal of pains in Religion to no purpose, to weave a Penelope's web, and do and undo as long as we live, and only to dance round in an eternal Circle of sinning and resolving against it, resolving and sinning again, without ever making a step forward but still wheeling about to the same Point; let us now at last resolve to begin in that prudent Method which God hath prescribed us.
IV. CONSIDER that when once we have begun it well, we have conquered the main Difficulty of this our spiritual Warfare. For though it be an easie matter to begin ill, to resolve against our sins in a sudden Pet, or transient Heat of Passion; yet it must be confessed that to resolve well and wisely, that is, with that firm Belief and through Consideration of things, with that Shame and Sorrow and those earnest Cries to Heaven for Aid and Assistance, which are necessary to the founding of a strong and lasting Resolution, is no so easie a matter. For in all those preparatory Exercises, we have a roving Mind, a hard Heart, and a perverse Nature to contend with; and we shall find it a very hard matter to call in our wandering Thoughts and unite them together into a fixt and steady Consideration of the Evidences of the Truth of Religion, and of the Duties and Motives and Difficulties of it. And whilst we are entertaining them with this unwonted Argument, there are a thousand Objects with which they are better acquainted that will be calling them away; so that without a great deal of Violence to our selves we shall never be able to keep them together so long, as is necessary to the forming a firm Assent to the Truth, and the passing a true and impartial Judgment upon the Proposals of Religion. And when we have fixt our Thoughts into a serious Consideration of the Evidences of Religion, we shall find that our Lusts will object much more against them than our Reason; that they will be casting mists before our Eyes and bribing and biassing our Understanding the other way, and that thereupon 'twill be more difficult than we are aware to convince our selves throughly of the truth of a Religion that is so diametrically opposite to our vicious Inclinations. But when this is done and we proceed to consider the Duties of Religion, and to ballance the Motives with the Difficulties of them▪ in order to the obtaining of our selves a full and free Consent to them; here again we shall find our selves at a mighty Plunge. For though the Motives to our Duty are at first View infinitely greater and more considerable than the Difficulties of it; though it be unspeakably more intolerable to lose the Joys of Heaven and incur the Pains of Hell than to endure the sharpest Brunts of this spiritual Warfare; yet these being present and sensible have a more Immediate Access to us, and consequently are apter to move us than either of those Motives which are both of them future and invisible. So that unless we do earnestly press and urge our selves with those Motives, and imprint them upon our minds in the most lively and real Characters, we shall find our selves overruled in despight of them by these present and sensible Difficulties that are before us. But when we have effectually convinced our selves that those Difficulties of our Duty are much less considerable than the Motives to them, we shall find it a hard Task to persuade our Wills into a free and explicit Consent to all the Particulars of it. For now we shall find a strong Aversation in our Natures to sundry of those Duties that call for our Approbation, and there will be a mighty Counterstriving between our Reason and Inclinations. Our darling Lusts, those bosom Orators within us, will now employ all their Rhetorick to dissuade us from parting with them; they will clasp about our Souls, like departing Lovers, and use all their Charms and Allurements to hold us fast and reconcile themselves to us; and under these Circumstances, though we have all the reason in the world on our side, we shall find it will be no such easie matter effectually to dispose our Wills to close with so many offensive Duties, and part with so many beloved Sins. But when this is done, which to be sure will cost us many a violent Struggle and Contention with our selves, there are other Difficulties to be mastered. For now we must reflect upon our past ill Life, and expose it to our own Eyes in all its natural Horror, Turpitude and Infamy, and never leave reproaching our selves with the Foulness and Disingenuity, the Madness and Folly of it, till we find our hearts affected with Shame and Sorrow for and Indignation against it. And for us that have been so long used to cokes and flatter our selves, to paint and varnish our Deformities▪ and crown our Brows with forced and undeserved Applauses; for us to condemn and upbraid our selves, to strip our Actions of all their artificial Beauty, and set our selves before our own Eyes in all our naked, undisguised Ugliness, and not look off till we have lookt our selves into Shame and Horror and Hatred of our selves, will be, at first especially, a very ungrateful Employment; and yet it may be a good while perhaps before our hard and unmalleable Hearts will yield to the impressions of godly Sorrow and Remorse. But when this Difficulty is conquered, our Work is not yet totally finished. For now we must come off from our selves and all our presumptious Dependances upon our own Ability and Power, and in a deep sense of our own most wretched Weakness and Impotency throw our selves wholly upon God, and with earnest and importunate Outcries implore his gracious Aid and Assistance. And let me tell ye, to men that have been all along inured to such glorious Conceits of themselves, such mighty Confidences in their own Abilities; that have promised themselves from time to time that at such and such a time they would repent and amend, as if without Gods Help 'twere in their Power to repent when they pleased; for such men as these, I say, to come out of themselves and their own self-confidences, and wholly cast themselves upon a foreign Help; so sensibly to feel, and ingenuously to own their own Inability, as to fly to God, and confess themselves lost and undone without him, is a much harder matter than we can well imagine till we come to make the Experiment. And yet this, all this, must be done bfore we can be well prepared to resolve upon the Christian Warfare.
THIS I have the longer insisted on, because I would deal plainly with you, and shew you the worst of things. For whether you are told of it or no, you will find it, if ever you make the Experiment, that all your good Resolutions without these Preparations will soon unravel in the Execution; and that after you have resolved a thousand times over you will be just where you are, and not one step farther in Religion. But for your Encouragement, know that when with these necessary Preparations you have solemnized your Resolution, you have won the main and toughest Victory in all your spiritual Warfare; a Victory by which you have pulled down your Sin from its Throne, and broken and disarrayed its Power and Forces; so that now you are upon the pursuit of a flying Enemy, and if you do but diligently follow your Blow, and pursue your brave Resolution through all Temptations to the contrary, and do not suffer your vanquished Enemy to rally and reinforce himself against ye, you will sensibly perceive his Strength decay; and those Lusts which seemed at first invincible, will languish away by degrees from weak to weaker, till at last they expire into the Habits of their contrary Virtues; and so proportionably those Virtues which through our vicious Aversations to them seemed at first impossible, will grow on by degrees from possible to easie, and from easie to necessary; and then the Sins will be more impossible to us than the Virtues.
NOW what a mighty Encouragement is this to make a good Beginning of the Christian Warfare, that in so doing we are sure to conquer the main Difficulty of it; that when we have broke through all those Oppositions that lie in the way to a wise and good Resolution, we are past the Frontiers of Religion, and having gotten over those steep Alps at its Entrance shall be sure to find the Region round about a plain and an easie Champain, in which the further we go, the smoother 'twill be, and so smoother and smoother till at last 'twill be all sweet and delightful, like the flowry Walks of Paradise. Let us therefore be persuaded, without any farther Delay, to enter immediately upon this our holy Warfare, and by Faith and Consideration, &c. to lay the Foundations of a religious Resolution; that so when we are actually ingaged against our spiritual Enemies we may be able to stand our ground against all Temptations, and that having finally conquered and subdued them we may receive that Immortal Crown which God the righteous Judge hath laid up for the victorious.
AND so I have done with the First Part of our Christian Warfare, viz. our Entrance into it.