Post by Admin on Oct 26, 2024 13:13:41 GMT -5
THE CONQUEST OF FAITH over this conflicting world.
This I shall dispatch in showing,
1. How far forth, or in what sense every believer hath overcome the world.
2. Wherein the victory stands.
1. How far forth or in what sense, every believer hath overcome the world, this in 4 particulars.
1. He is actually interested in Christ's victory.
2. He is radically endued with Christ's conquering power.
3. He hath actually broken the head design of the world.
4. He is effectually marching on, in the pursuit of the victory.
1. He is actually interested in Christ's victory: he hath overcome in capite:
a believer is in Christ, and as such, whatsoever Christ hath done, as
redeemer of the world, is his and for him, Joh. 16:33, aforementioned; Be
ye of good comfort, I have overcome the world. Christ's victory is a
believer’s security. why what
CHAP VI. – The Conquest of Faith over this conflicting world.
What comfort is that to us? If an unbeliever had asked, what comfort is that to
me? It must have been answered, none at all, whilst thou continuest in
unbelief; thou hast no part in Christ, nor art like to reap any profit by him?
While he is a conqueror thou art a captive still; its lusts fetter thee, its thorns
choke thee, its pollutions cleave to thee; thou art at present, and thou mayst
die a worldling, and from this temporal, it may carry thee down to an
eternal bondage.
But if it be asked, what comfort is it to a believer, that Christ hath
overcome? Its great comfort. In him thou hast overcome; his victory is thy
victory; Christ says to thee, not only as Joh. 14:19, because I live ye [shall]
live also; because I have overcome ye [shall] overcome; but because I have
overcome ye [have] overcome. 1 Joh. 4:4, ye are of God little children and
[have] overcome.
2. He is radically endued with Christ's conquering power: he hath
overcome in causa: he hath that within him which will be the death of his
enemies, he is not only interested in Christ, and what he hath done; but
Christ is in him, the spirit of Christ, which is the power of the living God, is
in him. He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his. Rom. 8:9. The
same power by which Christ overcame, is already communicated to the
Soul of a believer: and thence may he be said, to have already conquered,
because he hath received that spirit of power, which will certainly work for
him the victory.
What can a living child, new born do? He is as weak as water; he cannot
speak, he cannot stand, he cannot conquer a flea: but what may not this
child do, when he is grown up? There is the spirit of a man in him, there's a
Soul in him, which in time will do wondrous things: a dead child, neither
can do anything, neither is there hope that ever he should; but a living child
hath a soul, hath that within him that in time will do much.
How small are the appearances of the Saints in the Infancy of their New birth?
How low are their hopes, that they should ever come to anything?
’Tis a weak Enemy indeed, and a weak assault, that is not too strong for
them: a little wind may blow away a small twig; but despise not this day of
small things, consider their Root, the Spirit of Christ that is in them, and
thence you may expect great things.
Are there any of you that are grown Christians, strong in the Lord, and in
the power of his might? That are able for service, and mighty for sufferings;
that can stand against the temptations of Satan, and endure the
contradictions of sinners, and not be weary and faint in your minds? Yet
look back, and consider what you were in your original; time was when it
was as low water with you as with others, when you were as weary and
weak as the weakest: But behold what that mighty Spirit that was in you is
at length grown up to, the same spirit is in every new-born Saint.
What contemptible things were Joshua, and Gideon, and Samson, and
David, when they were children? But when they were grown, and the Spirit
of the living God came upon them, what Victories did they obtain? The
Sons of Anak, the Armies of the uncircumcised, the great Goliath, were then
but children to them.
You that are yet little children; but of little time, and but of little strength,
that are newly begotten by the Gospel, and brought forth into a tempestuous
world; let not the greatness of your work, nor the potence of your enemies,
nor those astonishing tempests that meet you at the threshold of
Christianity, discourage or dismay you, as weak as you are, as many fears
and fainting’s as you are surprised by, as many doubts as arise in your
hearts, what shall I do? How shall I stand? How shall I go through? Yet
comfort your hearts; greater is he that is in you, then he that is in the world:
ye are of God little children, and [have] overcome them.
Mat. 13:31,32. The Kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed,
which is indeed the least among seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest
among herbs. This greatest of herbs, is virtually in this smallest of seeds:
Who knows what a little grace may grow to? What is there in that bitter root
of sin? All those monstrous wickedness’s, and prodigious villainies which
infest this earth, and fill up hell; all the drunkenness’s, adulteries, murders,
rapines, and most barbarous inhumanities, which are the plague of this
earth, and the fuel of that Furnace; they all lie in that little bitter root, Jam.
1:15. And so on the other side, all the beauty and glory of holiness, all the
powers, victories and triumphs over sin, the world, and the devil, are
seminally contained in the first grace begotten in the heart: The whole
Harvest of Glory is in the least seed of grace: The least drop from the
Fountain of Life, is a Well of water springing up to life eternal, Joh. 4:14.
Beloved, are you in Christ? Hath the day-spring from on high visited you?
Is the Spirit of the living God within you? Then whatever your doubts,
difficulties, hazards, temptations, or weaknesses are, the victory hath
already passed on your side. Death where is thy sting? Sin, devil, world,
where is thy victory? Here are thy Armies, here is thy power, here are thy
policies, thy fury, thy fawning’s, on every hand; before us, behind us, on the
right hand, and on the left; here are thy Armies, but where is thy victory?
Thanks be to God that hath given [us] the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ: Thanks be to God who maketh us always to triumph in Christ Jesus;
from the first time, in the worst time, when we are hardliest bestead, hotliest
pursued, nearest to a fall, yea even when we fall, (for though we fall we
shall rise again) thanks be to God, which causeth us always, even when we
despair in ourselves, to triumph in Christ Jesus.
3. He hath broken the Head design of the world: this is, to keep Christ and
the soul apart, to keep the soul from ever coming to Christ. Herein, as hath
been said already, stands the deadly enmity of the world against souls, in
holding them under its dominion, and thereby under the damnation of hell.
When we are once come over to Christ, this great design is broken; when
we are conquered, we are Conquerors. A soul subdued unto the Lord, is the
world conquered to the soul: every Convert to Christ is a Captive set at
liberty, a soul broken out of prison: that's the word that Christ hath to
preach, Isa. 49:9. To say to the prisoners go forth, and to them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. And that's the work that Christ hath to do, To
bring forth the prisoners out of prison, Isa. 42:7. Every Convert to Christ is
a prisoner broken loose.
It is a sufficient Conviction that thou art a worldling still, that thou art no
Convert to Christ, and it is a sufficient Conviction that thou art no Convert,
if thou be still a worldling: he that is come to Christ is come off from the
world, Joh. 15:19, and he that is still under the world, is not come to Christ.
That's the great contest betwixt Christ and the World, who shall carry the
heart: Come along with me, says Christ, give me thy heart, be my servant,
be my Disciple: No, no, saith the World, stay with me, be my servant; or at
least, if thou wilt not any longer be wholly mine, then it says as the Harlot,
be neither his nor mine, but suffer thyself to be divided; let him take one
half, and let the other half be for me; halt betwixt Christ and the world;
keep both worlds; what hinders, but thou mayst have thy gains and thy
pleasures here, and yet have Christ too?
When the heart is convinced; that there is no compounding betwixt Christ
and the world, that Christ is the better Master, and that it cannot serve two
Masters, but must necessarily take to the one, and let the other go, and
hereupon yields itself to Christ: Lord I am thy servant, and will follow thee
whatsoever become of the world; whether I sink or swim, want or abound,
prosper or suffer; whatever my condition be here, thine I am, and thee will I
love and serve; when the soul is come to this, there's conversion; there's the
Head design of the world broken.
4. He is effectually marching on in the pursuit of his victory; he is
overcoming: So the word in the Text, he overcometh the world; he hath
already gotten the better, and he is pressing on after a total victory; he hath
his foot on the neck, and his hand still in the fight.
He keeps his enemy in his eye, and stands upon his guard daily; he
dispatches messengers, his prayers, his sighs, his tears, to fetch down fresh
supplies from above: his prayers speak, his sighs cry, his tears have a
tongue, and all go up with the same message, as the Gibeonites sent to
Joshua, Josh. 10:6. Slack not thine hand from thy servant, come down to me
quickly, save and help me.
He sets all his graces, his faith, his love, his hope, his patience, in battle
array against it.
He is still making sure the party that the world hath within him; keeps lust
under, keeps pride, and covetousness, and sensuality low; that is, more or
less, according as he acts as a Believer.
He secures the strong hold; keeps his heart, keeps his Farms, and his
oxen, and his pleasures, at the greatest distance he can from his heart: he
sends his heart far enough away out of their reach, he conveys it into the
other world, where it dwells, and builds, and plants, and sows, and gathers,
and lays up a better treasure; where it rejoices and recreates itself; where it
hath better work, and better company, and better pleasures to wean it from
these below; he lives in the view and contemplation of God, in the Society
and Communion of Saints and Angels, and is so satisfied with the Fountain
of Living Waters, that he be neither thirsty after the waters, nor choked with
the mud of these broken cisterns.
He studies the world more, and comes to a better understanding of it; of
its vanity, of its enmity, of its treachery, power and policy: and the more he
knows it, the more he fears it: the more he knows of God, the more he loves
and thirsts and longs after him; the more he knows of the world, the less he
loves, and the more he fears it. He fears not so much its anger as its
kindness: he fears his worldly pleasures, his carnal friends, his earthly
businesses and his prospering in them: he carries a sense of the danger he is
in by them, and a fear of the snare they may be to him, wherever he goes:
whilst he is necessarily detained and busied here, he carries this fear as his
guard to secure his Soul, whither ever he walks: to his table, to his bed, to
his shop, in his journeys; he feeds with fear and works with fear, and travels
with fear, and trades with fear, lest whilst he is thus necessarily conversant
in the world, he be again entangled with its temptations.
And in this warfare he grows, and gathers strength daily; is more able to
contemn the world, it becomes every day less and less to be a temptation to
him. Time was when, whenever the world came enticing him after it,
hearken to me, mind thy earthly concernments, and thou shalt be rich and
prosper and abound; follow Christ and this holiness and twill be thine
undoing; time was, when these were arguments of great weight with him;
that could command his heart, control conscience, conjure his affections,
and persuade him to anything; but now they come too late, they are scarce
temptations to him: his heart is so set upon the securing his eternal interest,
and so transported with the sense of the importance of that great
concernment; those higher things are so great in his eye, and so much upon
his heart, that it seems but a very small thing to be possessor of all things
here, and to make but a small difference upon his condition, whether he
hath or wants.
2. Wherein this victory stands: which I shall answer,
Negatively, Positively.
1. Negatively, and this in 4 particulars.
1. A believer hath not so overcome the world, as to be above all need of
the world: though man lives not by bread only, as Math. 4. Yet he must have
bread, yea and must work for his bread, and therefore must diligently
follow his calling, wherein he may provide things honest; provide him an
honest livelihood.
2. Not so but that he is still free to use the world in his need: every
creature of God is good, good for use, being sanctified by the word of God
and Prayer. 1 Tim. 4:4. Both necessaries and the abundance of the things of
this life, are a blessing from God; and the free use of them, so far as to fit us
for service, is not only lawful but a duty; that self-denial, that over-sparing
use of the creatures, which impairs our strength, or dulls our Spirits, is not a
virtue, but usually, is either the fruit of a melancholic distemper, or a
temptation.
3. Not so, as to be forever freed from all noxious temptations of the
world: This world is an enemy still, and this enemy will be still fighting
against the Soul. A Christian will never be such a conqueror here, but he
must still keep on his armor, and stand upon his guard; hereafter, when the
victory shall be complete, he shall sit down. Rev. 3:21. To him that
overcometh will I give to [sit] with me in my throne: at present we must:
stand, Ephes. 6:13. And having done all to stand; stand upon our watch,
stand to our arms; but hereafter we shall sit down: we are yet in our march
with our Lord, in his Chariot of war; for our place in his triumphal Chariot,
for sitting down with him in the throne, we must wait till hereafter.
4. Not so, as to be forever free from all surprises, and falls by these
temptations. The world will assault us, and in these assaults too often gets
the better of us: though it cannot command us quite back from Christ, yet it
may turn us aside, and much hinder us in our following of him; though it
cannot now destroy us, yet it may distract and disturb us; though it cannot
recover its absolute dominion over us, yet it may lay our feet again in the
Stocks. We may love it too much, and fear it too much, and mind it too
much, and follow it too hard, and our souls may become great losers by it:
God may be forgotten, Souls may be neglected, Conscience may be defiled,
Duties omitted or shuffled over, and all sense of Eternity for a time, buried
in a heap of worldly cares or delights. We have experience enough to give
in evidence to this, and much more.
2. Positively; and thus our victory over the world stands, in our having
attained,
1. A power to possess the things of the world, without placing our
happiness in them.
2. A power to manage our worldly affairs, without the prejudice of our
Souls.
3. A power to use this worlds good things, to their proper ends.
4. A power to want this worlds good things, and bear the worlds evil
things; and to keep our hearts and our way, whether we prosper or suffer.
5. A willingness to be gone from this, and to take our flight to the other
world.
1. Victory over the world stands in our having attained to a power to
possess the things of the world, without placing our happiness in them. The
Supremacy of the world is founded, in its apprehended sufficiency, to bless
us and make us happy: Whilest we hold it our treasure, we resign ourselves
to it as our Governor, Mat. 6:21. Where the treasure is, there the heart will
be also. The heart will never dwell in, or serve this world, when it hath
chosen another treasure; the world can never hold the dominion of a Lord,
longer than it can hold the reputation of our God. The soul will not be
governed or commanded by it, unless it be content to take it as its reward;
when the heart hath said to the Lord, Thou art my portion, it can say to the
world, Stand thou as my footstool: when we neither promise ourselves
contentment in our expectations, nor feel ourselves at rest in our
possessions of the world; when the heart is fixed on an higher good, and so
strongly working upward, that it will not be detained from the pursuit of it,
by anything it either hath or hopes for here, then the world is vanquished.
Now in this is included,
1. Our making God our happiness. Its vain for any man to say or think,
the world is not, who cannot truly say, The Lord is my happiness and
Heritage. Its natural to man to desire happiness, and to pitch somewhere or
other, where he hopes ’tis to be had: what he apprehends to be the best of all
he knows, most suitable and most satisfactory to his desire and appetite,
there he fastens.
Worldly men, that know no better, promise to themselves a worldly
happiness, and here they fix; and it is impossible for them to loosen hence,
till they discover and close with some higher good; till God comes in, the
World will not out. The Psalmist could never but have envied, and Idolized
the portion, and prosperity of the ungodly, had not God been his portion.
First, he must say, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And then he can add,
There's none in earth that I desire besides thee, Psal. 73.
2. The due limiting our desires after, and moderating our delights in the
things of this world; and a subordination of them all to our great end. If the
world be not our happiness, we shall love it and seek it thereafter. The
world, if it be anything to us, it must be either our end, or our means; if God
be our portion, he is our end; if God be our end, the world ceases to be
such; two last ends no man can have, till he have two souls; if the world be
not our end, it must be either our means, or nothing to us.
Our desires and delights are proportionable to our conceits of, and our
expectations from the objects of them: that which is apprehended, and
accepted as our end, is desired accordingly, hath the stream and strength of
the soul running out after it; there it desires and loves without limit: that
which is apprehended only as a means, is so far only amiable and desired,
as it subserves our end. Whenever the world ceases to be accounted our
happiness, it will necessarily be judged only as a means to it; and thence
will follow this limiting our worldly desires, and moderating of our worldly
delights; we shall desire them no farther, nor delight in them otherwise, then
as they are conducible to God.
2. Victory over the world, stands in a power to manage our worldly affairs
and businesses, without the prejudice of our souls. Psal. 112:5. He will
guide his affairs with discretion: and his discretion herein appears:
1. That in the multitudes of the thoughts he hath in his heart, and the
businesses he hath in his hand, he hath still an eye to the main. He's a
discreet man that rightly understands, and duly minds his great
concernment: the world must be minded, the Plough must be followed, the
seed must be sown, the Flocks must be kept, the Oxen and the Asses must
be cared for; But what is the world to my soul? What is my food to my life?
This must be chiefly looked to, that I perish not, that I run not upon an
eternal undoing, that my soul may live, and it may be well with me
hereafter; I must first seek the Kingdom of God, and then let other things be
minded as they may. He that said, Be diligent to know the state of thy
flocks, and to look well to thy herds, Prov. 27:23, said also with an
Emphasis, Deut. 4:9. Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul
diligently; above all keeping keep thy heart, Prov. 4:23. And therefore to
this he hath a most special eye; his eye looks most inwards; its well with me
without, or whether it be or no, how is it within? How goes the work of
Faith and Repentance on? How goes the work of Mortification and
Sanctification on? Here he bestows his special labor, in working out his
salvation, in laying up treasure in heaven. I shall never count myself to
prosper, whilst my soul prospers not; I shall never count myself a good
husband, whilst mine own Vineyard hath not been kept; and I shall never
count myself poor, while I am growing rich unto God; I shall never count
myself an ill husband, whilst I have been wise and busy for Eternity.
2. That to this end, he overcharges not; pulls no more of business upon
him, then he can go through with, without neglecting his soul; though he
must employ himself, yet he will not entangle himself in the affairs of this
life, 2 Tim. 2:4.
His Lord hath given him fair warning, Luke 21:34. Take heed lest at any
time your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life; and he's willing
to take the warning: He's wary how he undertakes more business then God
calls him to; if God put him upon a more busy life, and lays on a greater
load of work or care upon him, he cheerfully sets his shoulders to it,
knowing that where God sets him on work, he will be with him in the work,
and help him out; but he would have no more to do, then God sets him
about.
Christians, besides the Call of God, there are too often other Masters call
us to work: ’tis not seldom, that men's lusts set them on work; as their lusts
call them off from work, call them to play, or to sleep, or to be idle; so
sometimes also men's lusts call them to work. Some men's pride sets them
on work; many a hard days work they have, to get something to maintain it:
Some men's prodigality sets them on work, that they may have to spend on
their throats, their bellies or companions; but most of all, men's
covetousness sets them on work; this is an hard and cruel Master; oh what a
laborious weary life do such men live? Their life is a mere drudgery, rising
early, going to bed late, eating the bread of carefulness. How many irons
hath the covetous man in the fire? How many cares? How many projects is
he ever loaden withal? He never rests, his hands are ever full, his thoughts
are ever busy; whatever he hath done or gotten already, yet there's still more
work coming in, more load laying on; tother house, or tother field is in his
eye; tother groat, or tother penny more to be gotten: the Ephah is not yet
full, his large heart, that daughter of the Horse-leech, is still a crying upon
him; Get, get; Gather, gather.
But whilst thou hast been so busy here and there, what's done for thy
soul? How does that work prosper? What trade has been driven for
Eternity? O the Lord forgive me, I never thought of that; I had so many
other things to do, that I had no time to mind it.
But who set thee on work about these other things? Who hath hired thee?
Oh my necessities have hired me; my back, and my belly, and the
necessities of my family; God hath set me on work. I but consider, art thou
not mistaken? It may be ’tis the Devil that hath set thee on work, thy pride,
or thy covetousness, that hath put thee upon this busy life all the while.
But now a Christian resolves, I will hearken what the Lord God will
speak; when he says go, I will go; when he says do this, I will do it; I will
have nothing to do, but what I may answer for it; this is that which the Lord
would have done: God says, Look diligently to thy soul, Deut. 4:9. God
says, What will it profit a man to win the whole world, and to lose his own
soul? Matth. 16:26. God says, Lay-up in store for thyself a good foundation
against the time to come. Provide thee bags that wax not old, a treasure in
heaven that faileth not. God says, Mat. 6:33. First seek the Kingdom of
God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto thee.
God never said, first seek food and raiment, and the Kingdom of heaven
shall be added to thee; Christ shall be added, righteousness shall be added,
salvation shall be added to thee; but first make sure the principal, and the
appurtenances shall be cast in.
And hereupon, a Christian will do accordingly, will look to the main,
whatever become of anything else; and will not engage further in any other
affairs, then will consist with the securing his great concernment: whatever
business he hath, he must have room for duty; he must have his praying
times, and reading times, and hearing times; he must have his daily seasons
for special converse with God, for communing with his own heart; he must
duly set his watch, and walk the rounds, through his thoughts, affections,
conscience, and all the powers of his soul; and finding so much work, and
of so great consequence of this kind, whatever wants, this must have his
daily attendance.
I must have bread, I must have clothes, I must not starve? I, and I must
have Christ, I must have grace: whether I have bread or no, clothes or no,
whether I starve or no, I must not be damned; a praying time is more
necessary then an eating, or drinking, or sleeping time, and therefore much
more than a working time.
'It is not the least part of a Christians Victory over the world, to have the
command of himself in his lawful affairs and businesses. In licitis perimus
omnes. When he hath such power over himself, that he can assign to
everything their proper places, measures and seasons, then he is Conqueror.
Christians, how sadly doth this speak concerning many of you? What say
you, Conquerors or Captives? Let your care of duty speak. Do not your
oppressed and curtailed duties cry out, We are beaten, we are beaten! We
are beaten out of the field: we are not regarded when the world hath any
work to be done: Is this your care of the main? Believe it Brethren, when
business gets the upper hand of duty, the world hath gotten the upper hand
of the soul.
Consider therefore, how is it with you? Do you allow duties their proper
time and place? Do you first seek the Kingdom of God? Is the world made
to give place to prayer, or is prayer ordinarily made to give place to the
world?
Do you set your times for daily duty? And do you allow sufficient time?
Do you not put the Lord off with short and hasty duties, and then tell him,
Lord, this is all the time I can spare thee; Soul, this is all the time I can
allow thee. Hasty duties are next to none. Do you allow your souls room to
make the best of their suits? Room for enlargement and importunity, or are
they not mostly forced to shuffle over and shut up, almost as soon as they
have begun.
Is there not too great a fault among Professors, on this account? Do not
their businesses borrow of their duties; borrow, but never pay? Conscience,
I pray thee lend me this praying hour? Soul, I pray thee spare me this
reading time: I want time to dispatch my business, hereafter I will pay it
again? How little of your time must ordinarily serve the turn for your
attendance on God; a short prayer, short meditations are all you will allow,
and your souls ordinarily fare thereafter; you are too much in hast to speed
well, God will be waited on, and wrestled with ere he will hear. We read,
Gen. 34:26, when Jacob was wrestling with God, he held at it so long, that
God said, Let me go; enough Jacob, let me go, for the day breaketh; but he
resolved, I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me. But is it not with us
the quite contrary? By that we have been at it a little while, Let me go Lord,
I must be gone: Whether thou hear me or not, whether thou bless me or not,
let me go, I am in hast, and must be gone, give me leave quietly to depart,
and that shall serve for this time instead of a blessing.
Oh Brethren, if we would trace ourselves into our Closets, and observe
our short stay there, the slight and hasty work we make before the Lord, and
our quick returns we make to the world; sure methinks it should make us
say, I am afraid this world is still too hard for me, I am afraid it hath me still
under its dominion; it will not trust me to be long alone with my God, its
presently calling me off; and when it calls once, I must presently take my
leave, away I must. Consider this Brethren, do you allow your selves
sufficient time for duty?
If you have appointed your set times, and sufficient time, do you keep
your times? Does not the world ordinarily steal away your hours of prayer:
when the time draws nigh for the worship of God, does not the world use to
step in, But I must be first served, my Cattle must be first served, my
Customers must be first served, I have a friend that must be first waited on?
And when one business is dispatched, another falls in, and another, and
another, till it be too late and time to go to bed, and so God and the Soul
must wait their time till tomorrow; and when tomorrow comes, that is as
this day, and much more busy.
Judge Brethren, whether it be not too ordinarily thus with us, and then tell
me, which do ye think hath the greater interest, God or the world?
Prayer is one of our weapons, wherewith we are to maintain the fight
against the world, Ephes. 6:18. Exod. 17:11. When Moses hands are lift up,
this Amalek falls: And can you think the world hath you not sure enough,
when it can at pleasure command your weapons out of your hands: or if it
leave them with you, can so blunt their edge, that they are good for nothing?
No man that is a Soldier will lay aside his weapons, but one of these,
either a Conqueror, or a Captive, or a Fool. A Conqueror (whose victory is
complete) needs his Arms no longer; the work is done, the Enemy is fallen,
and shall no more be able to rise. A Captive (who is totally and
irrecoverably lost) hath no further use of his Arms; they will now stand him
in no stead; ’tis too late to fight, the field is lost. He that is yet in the fight,
and will lay down his Arms, is a fool: in laying by his weapons, he gives his
enemies the day: he is a fool, that thinks to stand in the fight, and will not
stand to his Arms.
In heaven, when our warfare is accomplished, no more need of praying
then; no more watching, no more fighting, no more exercises of faith and
patience then; the Enemy is under our feet; the triumph is all that then
remains; the Robes, and the Palms, and the Crowns, singing, and shouting,
and rejoicing; no more need of praying and watching.
In Hell, when the captivity is irrecoverable, there's no more use of
weapons; tis too late then, they will stand them in no stead: tis too late to
pray, and watch, and wrestle; the day is lost. The shame the contempt, the
prison, the mill, the dungeon, the torments of their captivity is all that there
remains. Prayer, that men now make to give place to lust and vanity, to
laughing or laboring; God will then make it to give place to cursing’s, and
ravings, and roaring’s; to tearing of hairs, and gnawing of tongues, and
gnashing of teeth: you that now count it a trouble and a cumbrance to attend
on praying, and fasting, and such like duties; if you ever fall into that
prison, you shall have your liberty from these burdens; you shall live an
eternity of days and nights, and never be put to the trouble of one Prayer
more, of one Sermon more, of one exercise of religion more: there's an
everlasting end of Prayer in Heaven and Hell.
But now, though the perfect conqueror may, though the perfect captive
must, lay by his weapons, have done with prayer forever; yet he that is yet
in the fight, is a fool, if he stand not to his arms: either he triumphs before
the victory, or else cares not on which side the victory goes. Thou art a fool
with a witness, that either slightest such a potent enemy, or holdest thyself
little concerned in the victory.
May all his cost and labor be spared? Canst thou stand in thine own
strength? Needest thou not be beholding to the Lord for his help? Or is the
help of the Lord so cheap, as to he had without seeking for: or will any
slight seeking now and then serve? Serve thy governor so. Will the world
give thee leave to take sufficient time for seeking God, if thou wilt not take
whether it will or no?
Brethren, learn hence forth, not to put God off with the world’s leavings,
but let the world be content to take God's leavings: if time fall short for
anything, see that it be not for your Souls: let God have his daily due, and
your Souls have theirs, whatever go without. Let not the world any longer
say, give place Bible, stand aside Prayer, I have no leisure for you; but let
your Souls daily say, stand aside world, business, trade, I must serve the Lord.
Never look to be other than worldlings, whilst anything below hath so
much power with you, as to keep God and your Souls asunder; to hold you
either under a total neglect, or ordinary remissness in your religious duties:
whilst it can keep you either so busy, or so slothful, that you restrain prayer,
it hath you sure enough: if the Devil can but keep you out of your closets,
he will not fear to meet you in the field; he will not doubt your standing on
your feet, if he can but keep you from falling on your knees.
Because there is so much depending on this, both as to the issue of our
conflict, and the evidence of our victory over the world, give me leave to
press you the closer to it, by giving you a short view, of the sum of what I
have here suggested, in these following propositions and advice.
1. The death of the world will never be either compassed or witnessed, but
by the life of religion.
2. The life of religion cannot be maintained, but by keeping up the life of
duties: no prayer no holiness, little prayer and but little holiness. The vigor
of grace is maintained from above; and nothing will come down unless we
often look up.
3. The life of duty will not be kept up, unless there be set and sufficient
time allotted to it: occasional duties will be but short and seldom.
4. Seldom recesses from the world, and sudden returns to it, short and
hasty prayers the Devil will allow us, and the world will be no looser by
them.
5. If business, or slothfulness ordinarily get the upper hand of duty,
whatever time be allotted for it, little enough will be bestowed on it. If we
never pray but when we have list or leisure, there will be but little done; the
world will either fill us with work or weary us into sloth. Therefore,
6. Resolve whatever the countermands of the world or Devil, of your busy
or weary Spirits are, to set and keep up your daily duties: if time fall short,
yet let not your Souls fail of their due; be constant, be instant in prayer. If
this counsel be not accepted, I look not that any other of the counsels of
God should prosper with you. Are you worldlings? Are you in bondage to
your carnal and earthly hearts? There I look to find you to your dying day, if
constant and instant prayer do not fetch you off.
3. That in the multitude of his businesses he neglect not the Souls of his
Relations: He that neglects his families Souls, sins against his own Soul.
Worldlings hold all they have in the same bondage with themselves; the
sons of these bondmen are seldom suffered to be freemen: like the Scribes
and Pharisees, Math. 23:13. They neither enter into the kingdom of God
themselves, nor suffer those that would to enter in. Like Pharaohs
taskmasters, Exod. 5:17. Ye are idle, ye are idle, is their word, when any of
theirs will worship God: an hour spent in prayer or reading, by such as
belong to them, is as great a crime, as so much time wasted in play or
idleness: to your work to your work; any work that's done for God is
counted lost to them.
He that fears God would have God served by all his, and never counts
himself served, when God is neglected.
He sees that the education of those that are under him in the knowledge
and worship of God is necessary work and excellent work: a godly family is
a nursery for Heaven: he counts it his best husbandry to be husbanding up
such choice plants, as will afterwards be for trees to be here and there
transplanted in the vineyard of the Lord: he would train up a new generation
that may rise up in his room to bear the name of God in their generations;
whereby the Lord may have a seed preserved to show forth his praises from
generation to generation, Gen. 18:17. I know Abraham that he will
command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the
way of the Lord. It may be written over the sayings of the seed of the
righteous as Prov. 31:1. The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy which his
mother taught him: over others it may be written, not the prophesies but the
profaneness, the oaths the lies the scoffs that his mother taught him; the
covetousness and the oppression that he hath learned of his Father.
What’s the reason of that rudeness, and those debaucheries, that
Ignorance, Atheism and Irreligion, that abounds in worldly families: tis all
they have been bred up to; they have learned to be wicked, of Children: the
iniquity of their Fathers covetousness would not allow them time, to teach
them better things.
He whose own foot is escaped out of the snare, would not leave any of his
in prison behind him. It is a vain argument for the Devil to use with such:
thou wilt never thrive, if thou spendest so many thoughts and words and
hours about such matters: thou wilt if thou takest this course bring thyself to
a morsel of bread; and wilt teach all thine the way to the same poverty, and
make them all as bad husbands as thyself: this would do something with
earthly minds; but he that fears God, if it must be, had rather be undone
then to preserve or increase his estate by the murder of Souls. This may be
my way to increase my store; for what is labor without a blessing, and what
blessing where God is not known? This may be my best husbandry for
[this] world, but whether it be or no, God must be served.
Oh what dark and dismal holes are the dwellings of worldlings: their
habitations are full of violence; cruelty and blood lodges in them: they live
by murder and rapine, the blood of Souls, is their meat and drink: the lives
of their Children must be sacrifices to their lust; they buy them livings and
raise them portions out of their own ruin; all the purchases they make for
them, they may call the Potters field, for they are the price of blood: they
will suffer them to run down to Hell, for fear they should leave them
beggars on earth: they will make them too good husbands to be ever good
Christians: they are bondmen themselves, and they sell all theirs for
servants to the same master.
Christians, you that hope you are gotten free, prove that you are so by
being zealous of getting that freedom entailed upon your posterity; leave
them no longer at the brick kiln, but bring them away with you to serve the
Lord.
1. Bring them with you before the Lord: lay them often at his feet: pray
over them; Here be my blind (Lord) and my lame, my cripples and my
captives. Lord open their eyes and bring forth these prisoners out of prison:
behold the Souls which thou hast given me, here they are before thee, Oh
that they might live in thy sight, let all mine be thine. Hast thou delivered
thy servant? O let all these be as the Soul of thy servant: hast thou brought
me out of bondage, O let me not leave a Child behind.
2. Bring the Lord to them, let these poor prisoners hear of a redeemer;
make Christ known to them; and that they may accept of his redemption,
make them first known to themselves? Instruct them often, make them to
know their sin and their misery; the dreadful bondage that they are under at
present, and the dreadful pit they are hastening to; and then tell them of that
redeemer that is come out of Zion.
3. Bring them over to the Lord: be an Ambassador for Christ to them;
cease not to warn them to command, persuade beseech them in Christ's
stead, till they consent and be reconciled to God.
Be industrious, be at pains with them: lie at them from day today; bethink
not your time and labor. And if the world step in and reprove you; this is not
the way to thrive, these hours spent in thy trade or calling would turn thee
and them to more profit, then prove thyself to have broken its yoke from off
thy neck, by turning away thine ear from its suggestions.
. That in all his dealings in the world, he have respect to truth,
righteousness, and mercy. He would not live by lying, he would not get by
unrighteousness, nor save by unmercifulness.
The worlds vassals must stick at nothing that will serve their turns; must
lie, defraud, oppress, extort, grind the faces, starve the bowels break the
bones of their poor brethren, this is for their interest.
1 Tim. 6:10. The love of money is the root of all evil: whence is it that
there is so little faith, or truth, or righteousness, or mercy among men? So
little truth in their words, so little faith in their promises, so little
righteousness in their dealings, no more bowels of compassion? We may be
ashamed to think how little, we may fear and tremble to think how little; so
much praying, and hearing, and professing, and yet so much falsehood and
wrong? So much knowledge of God and yet so little conscience towards
men? Such pretenses to faith, and yet so little exercise of charity? This is
dreadful; but whence is all this? The love of money is the root of all evil:
this is the liar, this is the oppressor this is the barbarian, the love of money:
there had been more faith, and more truth, and more mercy, had there been
less of this love: where this root is dried up, where the world is no longer
loved, it will be no longer served or obeyed; nothing of it will be regarded
but what comes in, in a way of truth and righteousness.
He that loves truth above the best trading, righteousness above the
greatest riches, that counts mercy the best good husbandry; he that had
rather stand to a bad bargain, then break promise; make a bad market, then
advance his gain by a lie; suffer bad wares to lie on his hands, then say they
are good; he that had rather have no blessing in his hand, then no bowels to
lay it out for God; He that however he hath this world about him, has an
estate, houses, lands, money in greatest abundance; he that however he
labors in all fair and innocent ways, to preserve and improve what he has;
yet chooses rather to be poor then not to be honest, to have nothing then not
to be a good steward of what he has; he that will not be tempted to be false,
unrighteous, or unmerciful, for the getting or saving an estate, the world
hath not much in the heart of that man.
Oh brethren, if this be to overcome the world, then how many more
captives hath it still then the most are aware of? What trade is there driven
almost anywhere in the world, wherein the trade of lying hath not a great
stock going? Are there not even among men pretending to religion, too
many found, who instead of using the Psalmists prayer, Keep me from the
way of lying, will rather content themselves with the Syrians prayer, The
Lord pardon me in this thing; the Lord forgive me, I know not how to help
it. It's true that men of great dealings have great temptations to it, and is it
not as true, that they are taking temptations?
But how can you then take yourselves to be any of Christ's disciples? Or
how can you stand here praying with the same mouth, that it may be within
a day or two, will be found in the market lying? Can the same fountain send
forth sweet water and bitter, Jam. 3:11. Deceive not yourselves, you do but
lie unto God in your duties, that make it your practice to lie unto men in
your dealings. If any man seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue
(from lying as well as other ill language) that man's religion is in vain, Jam.1:26.
And as little truth as there is in men's words, is there not as little
righteousness in their ways? The lying tongue and the oppressing hand are
animated from the same heart. How very few are there that weigh their
actions on that unerring beam, Do unto others as you would they should do
unto you? Wouldst thou be oppressed? Thou wouldst not: why then doest
thou oppress? Wouldst thou not be defrauded? Why then dost thou defraud?
Wouldst thou not over-buy nor undersell? Why dost thou then in the same
kinds, go about to overreach thy brother?
Brethren you do not know your own generation you live in, if you do not
understand, how commonly and how greedily men are everywhere heaping
up to themselves the gains of unrighteousness, and for mercy there's little
hope of finding that, where righteousness is departed.
And now Soul, where is thy victory over the world? Thou pretendest to
Christ, takest thyself to be a believer, and hopest thou hast chosen God for
thy portion, and renounced this present world; what and yet lie for a little
worldly advantage? Be unrighteous that thou mayst be rich: sell thy
conscience for a penny, and bless thyself in thy good bargain? Hath the
world such power of thee, that for its sake thou wilt be thus false and
deceitful and cruel, and yet hast thou overcome it?
Is this thy Faith? Is this your Christianity, to be disciples of Christ so far
as it may be for your profit? Was there any such reserve in your engagement
to be the Lord's, I will be thine so thou wilt abate me lying? I will serve thee
in anything, so thou wilt allow me, the gain of unrighteousness? I will
profess thy name, and I’ll pray and I’ll hear, and I’ll be godly in all things
wherein my gain is not concerned? In these things the Lord pardon thy
servant, in these things let me have the liberty to be as other men, and in
anything else command me what thou wilt?
Brethren, be plain hearted throughout: be able to say with the Apostle,
Heb. 13:18. We trust that we have a good conscience, willing to live
honestly in all things: convince the world that you are none of theirs, but are
come out from among them, and are of Christ indeed, by being in all things
as he was in the world, who did no sin, neither was any guile found in his
mouth.
3. Victory over the world stands, in a power to use our worldly goods to
their proper ends. What is there on this side Hell, (sin only excepted) but
being well used, will prove our blessing? Rom. 8:28. All things shall work
together for good to them that love God. What is there on this side Heaven,
(grace only excepted) but being ill used may degenerate into a curse? Psal.
69:22. Let their table be made a snare and that which was given to them for
their wealth be an occasion of falling.
All things in the world, as they have their various particular uses, and
intermediate ends, so they have but one common end, in which they all
concenter. God who made man, hath made all things else also for himself:
and man only of all these lower creatures, is made capable, both of
understanding the end to which all things are, and of directing them to it,
and accordingly is obliged so to do.
Then only may we be truly said to enjoy what we have, and are secured
from the mischiefs of it, when we have so much power over it, as to use it
aright: he that hath not an heart to use what he hath, and to use it well, is
rather possessed by it, then the possessor of it: upon this account are
worldly men the worlds servants; servants of their estates rather than the
masters of them: will you call him a master that is under the command of
his servant? That cannot govern nor order nor dispose of himself, and what
he has, but is always governed by it? When the world says go he must go,
when this says come he must come, when it says work he must work, and
till it says sit still, he must not rest; who must neither eat, nor drink, nor
give, nor lend, but where the world gives him leave? Who is a slave if this
be a freeman?
He that understanding his dominion of all that is in his hand, and his way
to use it aright, accordingly exercises his dominion, this man is Lord and
the world his servant.
Now (as I hinted but now) the proper end to which all we have should be
lastly directed, is God. God made all things for himself; and he hath put us
in possession that we may use them for him, for whom they are made. All
we have are our talents entrusted in our hands by our Lord, with this charge,
Occupy till I come, Luk. 19:13. Occupy till I come, as those that must give
an account to me when I come; that I may receive mine own with
advantage, v. 23, twill be but a lame account we shall give of what we have
received, if we bring not in, every talent employed for God.
We must work for God, and get for God, and lay up for God, and lay out
for God: he that works for bread or for clothes, or for money; he that works
for wife or for children, and doth not therein work for God; he that bestows
anything of what he has, on himself for food or raiment; he that bestows
anything on his wife or his children, for their present provision, or their
future portions, and doth not bestow it there for God, is an evil steward and
unfaithful to his trustAnd as we must work for God, and bestow for God, so we must keep for
God and save for God: A good steward must see there be no wastes made
on his Lord's estate. He must not save anything from God; when God calls
for a penny, or a pound, or all that he hath, he must let it go and keep
nothing back.
He must consider, that God hath more mouths to feed, and more backs to
clothe, then his own or his families. There's a poor neighbor by thee, that
wants bread, go and feed him; there's a poor orphan by thee, go and take
care of him, and what thou layest out, put it on account to me: he must
consider, that God hath other ways to dispose of his estate, then on backs
and bellies; There are a company of poor children by thee, that are like to be
bred up for Hell; to be bred up in ignorance and profaneness; go and be at
charges with them, put them to School, or help to the disposing of them, so
that they may be bred up as Christians, in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord: and other like ways has God for the bestowing what he has.
He that must save for God, and see that there be no waste made, that
nothing be spent upon strangers, upon his pride upon his gluttonous
appetite, upon his vain companions; he that must not be thus prodigal of his
estate, to satisfy his own or others lusts and humors, must neither be a
miser, and think to save anything from God: He that spends and not for
God, and he that saves from God, will both prove but evil stewards. This
saving will in the end prove the greatest wasting: as Christ saith, Math.
16:25. He that saveth his life shall lose it; so upon the same account, he that
saveth his estate; he that saveth his bread or his money, shall lose it: there is
not a shorter cut to beggary, then sinful parsimony: tis ill saving from God's
poor: that bread thou savest from the mouth of the poor, whom God would
have thee feed, that bread will become an eater; that penny which should
have gone for an alms, may rust out all thy pounds.
Thou thinkest thou art more provident then others, who are so free and
liberal; and blessest thyself in thy better husbandry; when God calls for an
alms thou shiftest him off with an answer, I have nothing for thee; when
God calls for a liberal alms, some of thy pounds, thou puttest him off with a
penny or a groat; and then pleases thyself to think how well thou camest
off, and what a good husband thou hast been; but boast not too soon.
On the other side, thou that art a prodigal of thy estate, that swillest it
down thy throat, that spreads thy table with it, or trimmest thy carcass or
debauches thy companions with it; thy costly fare, thy gorgeous apparel,
thy riotous company, thy sumptuous buildings, must devour all thou hast;
what answer wilt thou give to thy Lord, when he shall require thee, Give an
account of thy talents? How will thy account be taken whereof this is the
total sum, All spent in sin and vanity?
These things I have spoken, to give you a short account how we are to use
our worldly comforts, namely all for God: and he that hath power thus to
use the world; yea he that doth charge this on himself, and is heartily
resolved on this course, making it his ordinary care thus to dispose of
himself and what he has; though in many things he fall short, and too often
transgress his rule, may without arrogance write himself, By the grace of
God, crucified with Christ and conqueror over the world.
Christians, if these things were considered and well weighed, how much
would our bill of expenses, on ourselves, and our flesh be shortened; and
how greatly might it abound to our account?
O how many superfluities would be parred off, even from such of us, who
have been the best stewards for God? How much is there daily wasted of
our Lord's talents? How much of what we have, doth our flesh totally
consume, whereof the Lord hath no share at all? How much is there spent
daily, concerning which we cannot have the face to say, this hath been spent
for God? How much hath been lost to God by our full bellies and pampered
flesh? Do we never eat to unwieldiness, drink, though not to drunkenness,
yet to drowsiness? How many times have we been cheering ourselves into
sottishness, recreating ourselves into uselessness, whilst we have pretended
to be fitting ourselves for service? How many a prayer and praise hath the
Lord lost by a feast? We have been feeding our wantonness, clothing our
pride, nourishing up ourselves into mere frothiness and vanity, whilst we
have professed to be refreshing and comforting our hearts for God.
Hath not the Lord had the less for his bounty to us? Should we not have
been like to have served the Lord better in hunger and thirst, then we have
sometimes done, in the abundance of all things?
Have we indeed used all for God?
Our estates for God?
Our liberties for God?
Our interest and esteem in the world for God?
Might not God have been often better served in a prison, then we have served him in our liberty?
Might not God have been better served in our sickness and weakness, then
we have served him in our health and strength? Hath not the Lord been
often as it were forced to resolve concerning us, well I must even smite
them with sickness, that they may serve me better, I must take away their
talents that they may be better stewards!
What use hath been made of that esteem and respect we have had from
men? Hath our care been, what the resolution of a worthy servant of Christ,
now with God, once was? I would (said he) entitle God to every inch of
Ground I get upon the opinions of men; I would make my advantage to be
dealing for God with them, to be pleading for God with them, I would
improve all my interest with them so, that if it be possible, God may
become of the acquaintance of all my friends.
Oh how very few of us are there, whose aim and care is, to live at the rate
and in the way that God would have us live? Who resolve, Religion shall
have the whole ordering of me; this shall choose my company and govern
my whole behavior with them: this shall appoint me my habitation; this
shall furnish my house and my table; shall appoint me the quality and limit
the proportion of my daily food: this shall order me for my habit, both the
cost and the fashion of my raiment: this shall direct me in the visiting and
entertaining my friends: this shall set me my business, and allow me my
recreations; this shall measure my days and my nights, and set me my times
for my sleep, my watch, and my work: this shall dispose of my estate while
I live, and make my will when I die. This shall give, myself mine
allowance, my wife her dower, my children their portions, and God's
children, his poor orphans theirs. I would so feed, and so clothe and so
recreate myself, so work and so rest as God would have me. I would never
spend nor save but for the Lord. I would visit whom God would have me
visit, I would entertain as God would have me entertain; I would never visit
a friend, but to whom God sends me, nor entertain but as God bids me; I
would put it into the hands of the Lord to divide mine estate; no more to my
children, and no less to his, then my conscience tells me he would have.
O how few are there who are thus resolved? And why is it not thus with
us? Oh these worldly hearts hinder us; these put in for a share; they would
carry all, but if that may not be, they will divide with God: something for
thyself, something for thy flesh, something for thy friends, and let God take
the rest: and as the heart would have it, so ordinarily it goes; insomuch that
it often comes to pass, that by that everyone else is served, he to whom all
is due, hath little or nothing left; God shall be last served, and by that his
turn comes the store is spent!
Oh these false and treacherous hearts! Is the Lord our God or not? To
whom do we owe anything but to him? Is not all his? Is not he Lord of all?
Is there anything in our hands, concerning which we can say, this is mine
own, this is none of his. Do we not eat his bread and dwell in his houses,
and wear his clothes, his wool and his flax? Is not the earth the Lord's and
the fullness thereof? And may he not require of his own what he will?
And what doth the Lord require? Doth he not require all? Doth God
reserve only a chief rent to himself, and let the rest go which way it will?
Hath he allowed any part to be bestowed on his enemies? Would God, that
the Devil and lust go sharers with him? Do we not know and these tongues
confess, that all is his due and expectation? What then is this flesh, what are
these lusts, that we should hearken to them, when they put in for a part?
O rebuke and repel these imperious beggars: you shall have a whip and a
scourge, but no alms at my door; you are none of the beggars that God
would have me feed and clothe. Did God ever allow me to clothe my pride
or feed my covetousness or nourish this unruly and greedy appetite? Away,
away, nothing is allowed you, but a cup of cold water to quench your
flames. The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God, my sovereign and supreme
proprietor? Of him and through him and to him are all things: his I am and
to him I owe and devote whatever I am or have; my streams shall fall into
no other channels but what will convey them into the Ocean: he is my
Ocean who is my fountain, O my God my springs do all rise and rest in
thee.
O what a strange change would this doctrine and the practice of it make
upon us: then we should live like Christians indeed, and be able to say with
the Apostle Philip. 1:21. To me to live is Christ.
O what exemplary Christians should we be, had we nothing to do but to
bring forth fruit unto God; how rich should we grow were all our business
to lay up treasure in Heaven; how roundly would the work of our salvation
go on, were all our works made to fall into this? What a tribute of praise
and honor would be raised to the name of the Lord, if our united streams
ran all upward, how glorious should the Lord be, if God should thus
become all in all?
4. Victory over the world stands, in a power to want the worlds good
things, and to suffer the worlds evil things, and to keep our hearts and our
way, whether we prosper or suffer.
Philip. 4:12. I know both how to be abased and how to abound;
everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be
hungry, to abound and to suffer need. It is one thing to know [what] tis to
abound, and what to want; and another thing to know [how] to do both: it
may be, though the Apostle knew sufficiently [what] tis to want and to be
hungry, yet he knew but little what tis to be full and to abound; but he had
learned [how] to want and how to abound,
To know how to want and how to abound, is to know how to carry it as a
Christian in both estates. Poverty and riches have each of them their
temptations. Prov. 30:8. Lest I be full and deny thee, or lest I be poor and
steal and take the name of my God in vain: both estates have their
temptations, and he knew how to deal with either of them, so that neither
the one nor the other should put him besides his duty, or draw him to
anything unworthy of a Christian.
He is a Christian, that neither, beholding to the world for his religion (he
hath other arguments to persuade him to be godly, then that godliness is
gain) and that will not be forced out of it, by all that the world can give or
take away: he that is not beholding to the world for his religion, will be the
more like to be religious in spite of the world: if the loaves were not they
that drew him to Christ, neither will the want of bread drive him away;
those that come to Christ in hopes of a temporal Kingdom, will when they
see themselves disappointed, go back from him again: those that found
nothing but Christ to draw them after him, will find nothing whilst Christ is
Christ to draw them off.
A Christian counts Christ sufficient: a sufficient reward and a sufficient
safeguard, enough to satisfy him and to secure him; and thereupon can be
content in all his wants and patient in all he suffers: we seldom depart from
God, but it is either from discontent or impatience; either we think it
intolerable abiding with him, or at least, that we may have a better being
elsewhere; our turning aside from God to the world, is in hopes some way
or other to mend our condition; either to be better provided for or better
pleased: when God is accepted as a sufficient portion, so that we need not
the world to make us happy, when God is accounted our sure refuge, so that
we fear not that the world can make us miserable, then twill be all one as to
our godliness, whether the world be with us or against us.
He that can say God is my portion whether I want or abound; I have never
so much but I have need of a God, I have never so little but a God will
suffice; He that can say God is my refuge whether I be in safety or in
danger; I am never in such hazards but in God I am secure, I am never so
out of hazard but I need his security; how little is it that the world with all
its glory on the one hand, or all its fury on the other, can do upon that Soul?
Thou mayst then go on thy way rejoicing, thou mayst serve the Lord
without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of thy life.
He that knows and feels what God is, can want or suffer whatever is in the
world; in him he finds a supply of every vacuity, and a salve for every sore;
He that knows what pinching want and piercing sufferings are, will
understand that nothing but God can hold him up or bear him through. You
are mistaken if you think, that natural hardiness and self-confidence will do,
without divine supports in pressing cases. He that hath this power, hath
gotten it from above; he that hath this power, may be whatever the Lord will
have him.
Then are we more eminently endued with this power when we have
attained to,
1. Self-denial under the greatest opportunities of self-seeking or self satisfaction.
2. Contentment under the greatest straits.
3. Patience under the greatest pressures of affliction.
4. Humility in the height of honor.
5. Magnanimity in the depth of danger or difficulty.
6. Equanimity in the greatest turns and changes of our outward condition.
1. Self-denial under the greatest opportunities of self-seeking and selfsatisfaction.
Self-denial properly, is the neglecting the interest, and the
crossing the inclinations of our flesh, in order to service or the preventing of
sin. Then only self-denial is a virtue, or a duty, when our allowance of our
flesh in its liberty, would be either a sin, or an occasion of sin, or a
hindrance of duty; when it would be a preferring the advantages of the flesh
above the service and honor of Christ.
Now by how much the greater our opportunity to please our flesh, by so
much the greater virtue it is to deny it. He that might be full and yet for
Christ's sake is content to be empty; he that might be rich and yet is content
to be poor; he that might live at ease or in honor, and yet for Christ's sake is
content to be vile or in trouble? He that chooses rather to be serviceable
then to be safe, to be holy then honorable, he that upon the account of
Christ, flies from fleshly advantages when these fly after him, this is the
man.
It is a virtue to be quiet when Providence denies us; to be content to be
poor and in affliction, when it comes unavoidably upon us: tis something to
be able to say, I cannot help it and therefore will be quiet. But when we can
let Conscience deny us, let love to Christ, let zeal for God straiten us, when
Providence allows us our liberty and our fill, this is something to purpose.
To neglect the world when the world neglects us or flies from us; not to
seek great things for ourselves, when we have no hope of obtaining; not to
mind the pleasing our pride or our appetite, when we have not wherewith to
maintain them; to spare from our flesh when we have nothing to spend upon
it; to fast when we have no bread, to put on sackcloth when we have no
better raiment, not to contend for our wills when we see we cannot have our
wills, there is not so very much in all this, though it be more then everyone
hath attained to; But voluntarily to lay down all at the foot of Christ, to part
with all for the sake of Christ, when we might have even what we would in
a way of sin; to keep our flesh short when it is in our power to make it a
larger allowance; this is a great testimony how high the interest of Christ is
exalted, and how low the world is brought in us.
One great instance of this self-denial, you may read in Moses, Heb.
11:24,25. By faith Moses when he came to years, refused to be called the
son of Pharaohs daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Observe it, fairer opportunities of flesh pleasing, of living in the splendor
of worldly glory, and the Grandeur of a prime favorite in the court, few of
the sons of men ever enjoyed; he was adopted the Son of Pharaohs
daughter, nursed up upon her knee and in her heart, and upon this account,
what his hopes and advantages might be, tis easy to imagine.
But at once he forsook all; he had a service to do for his God, and such an
affection to the people of God, that away he goes, puts himself out of
Pharaohs favor, and casts in his lot among his suffering brethren.
I shall consider divers circumstances, which all heighten this noble
instance.
1. The circumstance of time,
[When he came to years] ‘twas not a childish folly, done when he was so
young, that he knew not what he did; but when he came to age, when he
came to understand himself; whilst he was a child, he suffered himself to be
dandled on the lap of these carnal pleasures, but when he came to age, and
understood what these things were, and had gotten those higher things of
the other world in his eye; when he came to age he put away these childish
things: this world is a paradise only to children and fools; pictures, and
babies, and rattles will please children, men must have manly delights; thou
that art so taken with the embraces, and dalliances of this world, thou that
makest thyself sport with images and rattles, when thou comest to have the
understanding of a man, thou wilt wonder at thy childish folly.
2. When he was (upon the matter) newly come to age; a young man, in the
prime and vigor of his time; when he had but begun to taste the sweet of his
youthful pleasures; the pleasures of this life are most taking at the first
tasting, the first draught is the sweetest; when they grow more common,
and ordinary, they sour and become less savory.
Oh how rare a thing is it, to see young men, in their prime to disgust and
despise the world: Old men, whose strength is gone, whose spirits are dead,
who have been glutted and tired out with pleasure, have lost their appetite, 2
Sam. 19:35. I am this day fourscore years old, and can I discern between
good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat or drink; can I hear anymore
the voice of singing men, or singing women? Are these any longer a
pleasure to me? The world ceases to be such a temptation to old men, it is a
dead and a dry tree to them, in the winter of their age, which looked so
green and so beautiful in the spring of their youth.
But behold Moses whilst he was a young man, whilst all looked fresh and
green, yet even then he rejects it. Young men, you whose wanton and
sprightful hearts cry in your ears, in the words of the Preacher, Eccl. 11:9.
Rejoice O young man in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee in the days
of thy youth, walk in the way of thine own heart, and in the sight of thine
own eyes; eat, drink, be merry, take thy pleasure, take thy liberty: Behold
here's an instance that preaches another Doctrine to you; and what does it
preach? The next Text you find after the former, Chap. 12:1. Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth. Remember my Creator? So I will in time, I
intend it hereafter; ’tis for old men to be serious, the Grave will teach
gravity; I cannot be old while I am young, time enough to think of the other
world, when I am leaving this; I am but newly come into the world, I cannot
receive my welcome, and my farewell together; I mean to think on God
hereafter, but you must give me leave to mind myself, and please myself a
while. No, no, ’tis another manner of Doctrine then this, Moses though
dead, yet speaketh; Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth;
make thy present choice, and let this be it, Choose rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Oh
that young men would set this Copy before their eyes; see what this young
Moses did, and do likewise.
Give me leave to take the hint, and in a short digression, to speak a few
words to young men, to persuade them to make Moses his choice betimes,
to renounce the world, and to remember their Creator in the days of their
youth, and to consecrate their first time to God. This I shall press to by the
following arguments.
1. Otherwise this is like to be the worst time of their lives. Such is the heat
and strength of their lusts, that nothing but a God will be a bridle to them,
Jam. 3:3. Behold we put bits in the horse’s mouths. What ruling a horse
without a bridle? What bridle will hold these wild horses, but the memory
of a God?
Some young men are so head-strong, that they catch the bit in their teeth,
and run on their course with full career; though God be set before their
eyes, and all the terrors of the Lord be put as a bridle in their jaws, yet all
will not do to stop them, but on they run, as the horse rusheth into the battle.
Young men living without God, are as Esau, wild men; wild-headed and
wild-hearted, they run a wild Race.
Young men will do more work for the Devil in a day, then afterwards is
done in many days; and therefore Satan uses to hire his laborers in the first
hour of the day; when they are but newly started out of the shell, he stands
ready to press them for hell. And O what haste do they make on their way?
Like swift Dromedaries, like the wild Ass, which none can tame, or turn her
back.
Youth is the Devils seed time. All the tares that grow ripe in thine age,
these were the seed of thy youth; all the Frogs and Toads of the Summer,
were from the Spawn of the Spring.
O friends, this world hath been afore-hand with Christ, and is gotten first
in, and there its busy in complementing your hearts, showing you its
treasures, entertaining you with its carnal delights, insinuating into your
affections, captivating and entangling your souls, building Forts and strong
holds against Christ, that he be not suffered to enter, and filling you with all
wickedness, that you may become a loathing and abomination to him.
O hearken, and open to the Lord, make room for the King of glory, who
stands at the door and knocks: Will you say to him, Go away today, and
come again tomorrow, let Christ stand a while longer? Let his Enemy be
first served? Let me be wanton, and foolish, and fleshly a while longer? I
am not vile enough yet, not wretched enough yet? A little more of this
madness, let me be a fool and a beast a little longer, let this Lust and this
Devil alone yet a while? Let me be laid faster in the Stocks, let my prison
be double locked, let my soul, and my life, and the everlasting Kingdom, be
brought to more desperate hazards? A few days more of bondage and
misery, no Redemption yet, no Reconciliation yet, no pardon, nor grace, nor
hope; no God nor Christ come here a while? Will you speak thus to the
Lord?
O open to Christ, this day open; while sin is yet but a youngling, while the
world is yet but a new Comer, before you be rivetted into such acquaintance
and friendship with it, as may never be broken off.
2. Youth is the fittest time. Young men have many advantages which old
men have lost, and will never recover; they have this threefold advantage.
1. Youth is more docile and tractable. Old men are more dull and hard to
learn, more refractory and hard to be persuaded; therefore you know its the
practice of men to put theirs to Schools, and to Trades, in their younger
time. Prov. 20:6. Train up in the way that he shall go, and when he
is old he will not depart from it. What's the reason that old men are so
tenacious of their customs and ways? O they were trained up in them of
children.
That which is learned in youth, is easier gotten, and longer retained: Old
men's capacities are dull, and their memories slippery; they are hard of
hearing, and as hard to remember what they hear. Old men's hearts are
preoccupated, the Devil (as before) hath been beforehand with them; they
are so over-grown with tares, that the good seed comes too late, to be like to
take any root in them.
And therefore the Lord charges Parents, Eph. 6:4. To [bring them up] in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In the morning sow thy seed; our
evening is usually the harvest of our morning seed; the lusts of youth are
ripe in age, and the graces of the Aged, are ordinarily the fruits that are
grown up out of the seed of their youth.
Hence is it, that ’tis such a blessing to be the children of godly Parents:
they have not only the blessing of the Covenant, the promise entailed upon
them: To Abraham and his seed was the promise made; and therefore it was
a blessing to be a child of Abraham; but they have also the blessing of holy
Education; I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his
household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, Gen. 18:19.
Paul commends Timothy, or rather his Mother in him, that he had of a child
known the Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:15. David begun with Solomon, whilst he
was a young man, 1 Chron. 28:9. And thou Solomon my Son, know thou
the God of thy Fathers.
And as the Lord charges parents to give holy education, so is it the duty
and the happiness of children to receive and submit to it: a towardly and
tractable childhood promises a gracious and fruitful age. When he is old he
will not depart from it, that is, there's hopes he will not: tis true it does not
always prove so; sometimes there's too much truth in that proverb, A young
Saint and an old Devil. Some there are, whose youth is the winter that
withers all the buds of their childhood, or at least their age is the grave, that
buries all the flowers of their youth: who however it was with them, whilst
they were under the influences of instruction, and the restraint of discipline;
no sooner do they get their neck from under the yoke, and feel the reins of
government loosened, but presently they grow wild and wanton; and fall to
pulling down what hath been built, to rooting up what hath been planted,
and razing out those holy principles they have sucked in, and so letting
themselves loose to all manner of rudeness and debauchery: these are
monsters; a degenerate brood; and of all persons in the world, most likely,
after this first step from Saints to brutes, to take their next from brutes to
Devils. O let all such tremble, whose youthful lusts have gotten the head of
their religious education; the Devil hath broken into God's nursery, and
snapped off those twigs, to engraft them in his own Orchard, among those
trees that are only for the fire.
I say, thus it may happen; (and look to it, that this be the case of none of
you) that those who have been trained up whilst children, in the good way
of the Lord, depart from it when they are come to age; yet there is such a
flexibleness in young ones, and such an aptness to receive and retain the
impressions of their holy education, that there's great hope it may abide by
them all their days. If it should wear out, its usually worse with such, then
with those that have been born and bred up in the dark; but there's hope it
will abide.
2. Youth is more vigorous and sprightly; of warm affection, and full of
action; , there's life in its action: it is not clogged
with the infirmities, nor depressed with the weakness and unwieldiness that
creeps on with age. In this morning the Soul is free and fresh, the spirits are
quick and lively, the edge is sharp and keen, which in time grows more
blunt and dull. We may now both act more for God, and taste more of God;
there would be more service, and we should find more sweetness in it, did
we begin betime, before our native warmth is cooled, and our edge turned.
What work do rude young men make in the world? How much service do
they to the Devil in a little time? Laughing and mocking, drinking and
gaming, rioting and reveling, giving themselves to lasciviousness, to work
all uncleanness with greediness? What haste do they make to undo
themselves? How hot are they in their lusts, how heady in their ways, how
swiftly and violently does the torrent run down towards the burning lake? In
how little time are the plants and flowers rooted out, which had been setting
and nursing up all their time, and how suddenly are their weeds sprung up,
and how rank are they grown? What might not this heat and activity have
brought forth to God, had it been but set right? How greatly might God
have been honored, how much might Souls have been advanced, what a
treasure might have been laid up in Heaven, had the stream in this spring tide been running towards God, as it hath been towards Hell?
You that have thus foolishly lost your season, and run out the flower of
your days, oh be ashamed and bewail your loss; you that have yet your day
before you, be warned, let others folly make you wise: know in your season
what a price you have in your hand.
O ’tis pity such a treasure should be lost and wasted: what is God, that he
must have only the last and worst? Sin and the world must have the first and
best, and only the lees and dregs left for him, to whom all is due; the Devil
must have our marrow, and if God will accept our dry and weary bones,
that's all we ordinarily design for him.
Brethren, how many of our morning hours are already run out, and what
hath the Lord had of them? How few early Christians are there of us? Who
of us are there that came along into the vineyard, at the first hour of the
day? We think the last hour the best, and enough for our work; soon enough
to come into the vineyard, when we are going out of the world; we will not
bear the burden and heat of the day, but choose rather to come in the cool of
the evening. Unworthy Spirits; we’ll first make ourselves good for nothing,
and then we’ll be the servants of God.
3. Young men have day before them: he that hath a long journey to go,
had need set out early; he that hath much work to do had need be at it
betimes: he that goes an Apprentice to a trade when he is old, is not like to
do any great matter at it; either to get any great skill, or to make any great
gain: they are never like to come to much, who are so long ere they come to
anything: the journey of a Christian is long, ; the
work of a Christian is great. Young men, if you would come to Christ this
day, the youngest of you would find work enough, to hold him the longest
day he has to live: these strong holds which have been so long a fortifying
against Christ, will not be battered down in a day; your evil customs and
evil habits which have been so long growing and rooting in you, will
require time to be well changed and rooted out; grace and peace and
assurance are ordinarily the fruits of many years labor and travail: when
you have wrought yourselves out of work, then wish you had staid longer
out of the vineyard.
3. The first time is the acceptable time. 2 Cor. 6:2. Behold now is the
accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation. The present season is the
blessed season. [the accepted time] that is the time wherein you may be
accepted, and which God will take well at your hands, if you will accept.
Now you may be accepted, for behold he calleth you; tis a question whether
hereafter you may or no: if you will not accept today, it may be God will
not accept tomorrow.
Its very acceptable to the Lord, he likes it, and takes it well at our hands
that we give him a present answer: delays are as unpleasing to him, as they
are dangerous to us: Wilt thou say, when he calls thee, suffer me first to go
and bid them farewell that are at my house? Yea wilt thou say, when he says
come and be my servant, suffer me first to go and serve my belly and my
appetite, and afterwards I will be thine? Suffer me first to get me an estate,
to get more money or lands and then I will be for getting grace? How do ye
think God will take such an answer?
The Lord loves to see a willing people; of a ready and forward mind; that
will offer up their first fruits unto God. It is recorded to the perpetual honor
of that good King Josiah 2 Chron. 34:3. That in the eighth year of his reign,
while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.
He was but 16 years old, when he began to look heavenward; and you may
perceive how well the Lord took it, by his recording the very year.
O it is a pleasant thing to see the buds of grace putting forth in the
morning of nature; to see men growing up in grace, as they grow up in
stature; this is by so much the more beautiful, by how much the more rare
and seldom found. A godly young man is a Jewel, that sparkles forth a
luster, among all the gravel and pebbles of the earth: what a vast difference
is there, betwixt a humble meek sober gracious young man or woman, and
the rude proud wanton riotous brutish of that age? Old age is a crown, and
this crown will be much more glorious, if it be decked with the flowers of
the spring.
4. If the Devil hath the first time, he will endanger to have the last too. It
is seldom seen, that those that pass over their youth and their strength, in
the service of sin, do ever become the servants of God at last: those that
stand out against Christ, to their last day, do mostly stand it out in their last
day. How seldom do we hear of an old overgrown sinner, ever prove a
sincere Convert at last?
The experiences of the Ministers of the Gospel do testify, that the success
of their Ministry is ordinarily most upon the younger sort; a twig is more
easily bowed, or plucked up, then an old tree: if thy heart be too hard for the
Word, whilst it is young and tender, how difficult will the case be, when its
brawned and crusted by age?
Zophar in Job, speaking of an old sinner says, Job 20:11. His bones are
full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
Observe here these two things.
1. That age doth often pay the scores of youth; the pains of age are often
the reward of the pleasures of youth; the wantonness of youth is often
revenged by the weakness and diseases of age; men's aged bones do
remember them of their wasted marrow. Sinners, though you think you can
never fill your bellies with your lusts, while you are young, yet God will fill
your bones with them when you are old; and ’twill be but a sad meeting,
when young sins and old bones meet together. O what a strange difference
will there be betwixt feeling our aged aching bones, full of the duties of our
youth, our praying’s, watching’s, fasting’s, laboring’s and sufferings, and
having them filled with our youthful lusts and lewdness?
This I shall dispatch in showing,
1. How far forth, or in what sense every believer hath overcome the world.
2. Wherein the victory stands.
1. How far forth or in what sense, every believer hath overcome the world, this in 4 particulars.
1. He is actually interested in Christ's victory.
2. He is radically endued with Christ's conquering power.
3. He hath actually broken the head design of the world.
4. He is effectually marching on, in the pursuit of the victory.
1. He is actually interested in Christ's victory: he hath overcome in capite:
a believer is in Christ, and as such, whatsoever Christ hath done, as
redeemer of the world, is his and for him, Joh. 16:33, aforementioned; Be
ye of good comfort, I have overcome the world. Christ's victory is a
believer’s security. why what
CHAP VI. – The Conquest of Faith over this conflicting world.
What comfort is that to us? If an unbeliever had asked, what comfort is that to
me? It must have been answered, none at all, whilst thou continuest in
unbelief; thou hast no part in Christ, nor art like to reap any profit by him?
While he is a conqueror thou art a captive still; its lusts fetter thee, its thorns
choke thee, its pollutions cleave to thee; thou art at present, and thou mayst
die a worldling, and from this temporal, it may carry thee down to an
eternal bondage.
But if it be asked, what comfort is it to a believer, that Christ hath
overcome? Its great comfort. In him thou hast overcome; his victory is thy
victory; Christ says to thee, not only as Joh. 14:19, because I live ye [shall]
live also; because I have overcome ye [shall] overcome; but because I have
overcome ye [have] overcome. 1 Joh. 4:4, ye are of God little children and
[have] overcome.
2. He is radically endued with Christ's conquering power: he hath
overcome in causa: he hath that within him which will be the death of his
enemies, he is not only interested in Christ, and what he hath done; but
Christ is in him, the spirit of Christ, which is the power of the living God, is
in him. He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his. Rom. 8:9. The
same power by which Christ overcame, is already communicated to the
Soul of a believer: and thence may he be said, to have already conquered,
because he hath received that spirit of power, which will certainly work for
him the victory.
What can a living child, new born do? He is as weak as water; he cannot
speak, he cannot stand, he cannot conquer a flea: but what may not this
child do, when he is grown up? There is the spirit of a man in him, there's a
Soul in him, which in time will do wondrous things: a dead child, neither
can do anything, neither is there hope that ever he should; but a living child
hath a soul, hath that within him that in time will do much.
How small are the appearances of the Saints in the Infancy of their New birth?
How low are their hopes, that they should ever come to anything?
’Tis a weak Enemy indeed, and a weak assault, that is not too strong for
them: a little wind may blow away a small twig; but despise not this day of
small things, consider their Root, the Spirit of Christ that is in them, and
thence you may expect great things.
Are there any of you that are grown Christians, strong in the Lord, and in
the power of his might? That are able for service, and mighty for sufferings;
that can stand against the temptations of Satan, and endure the
contradictions of sinners, and not be weary and faint in your minds? Yet
look back, and consider what you were in your original; time was when it
was as low water with you as with others, when you were as weary and
weak as the weakest: But behold what that mighty Spirit that was in you is
at length grown up to, the same spirit is in every new-born Saint.
What contemptible things were Joshua, and Gideon, and Samson, and
David, when they were children? But when they were grown, and the Spirit
of the living God came upon them, what Victories did they obtain? The
Sons of Anak, the Armies of the uncircumcised, the great Goliath, were then
but children to them.
You that are yet little children; but of little time, and but of little strength,
that are newly begotten by the Gospel, and brought forth into a tempestuous
world; let not the greatness of your work, nor the potence of your enemies,
nor those astonishing tempests that meet you at the threshold of
Christianity, discourage or dismay you, as weak as you are, as many fears
and fainting’s as you are surprised by, as many doubts as arise in your
hearts, what shall I do? How shall I stand? How shall I go through? Yet
comfort your hearts; greater is he that is in you, then he that is in the world:
ye are of God little children, and [have] overcome them.
Mat. 13:31,32. The Kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed,
which is indeed the least among seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest
among herbs. This greatest of herbs, is virtually in this smallest of seeds:
Who knows what a little grace may grow to? What is there in that bitter root
of sin? All those monstrous wickedness’s, and prodigious villainies which
infest this earth, and fill up hell; all the drunkenness’s, adulteries, murders,
rapines, and most barbarous inhumanities, which are the plague of this
earth, and the fuel of that Furnace; they all lie in that little bitter root, Jam.
1:15. And so on the other side, all the beauty and glory of holiness, all the
powers, victories and triumphs over sin, the world, and the devil, are
seminally contained in the first grace begotten in the heart: The whole
Harvest of Glory is in the least seed of grace: The least drop from the
Fountain of Life, is a Well of water springing up to life eternal, Joh. 4:14.
Beloved, are you in Christ? Hath the day-spring from on high visited you?
Is the Spirit of the living God within you? Then whatever your doubts,
difficulties, hazards, temptations, or weaknesses are, the victory hath
already passed on your side. Death where is thy sting? Sin, devil, world,
where is thy victory? Here are thy Armies, here is thy power, here are thy
policies, thy fury, thy fawning’s, on every hand; before us, behind us, on the
right hand, and on the left; here are thy Armies, but where is thy victory?
Thanks be to God that hath given [us] the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ: Thanks be to God who maketh us always to triumph in Christ Jesus;
from the first time, in the worst time, when we are hardliest bestead, hotliest
pursued, nearest to a fall, yea even when we fall, (for though we fall we
shall rise again) thanks be to God, which causeth us always, even when we
despair in ourselves, to triumph in Christ Jesus.
3. He hath broken the Head design of the world: this is, to keep Christ and
the soul apart, to keep the soul from ever coming to Christ. Herein, as hath
been said already, stands the deadly enmity of the world against souls, in
holding them under its dominion, and thereby under the damnation of hell.
When we are once come over to Christ, this great design is broken; when
we are conquered, we are Conquerors. A soul subdued unto the Lord, is the
world conquered to the soul: every Convert to Christ is a Captive set at
liberty, a soul broken out of prison: that's the word that Christ hath to
preach, Isa. 49:9. To say to the prisoners go forth, and to them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. And that's the work that Christ hath to do, To
bring forth the prisoners out of prison, Isa. 42:7. Every Convert to Christ is
a prisoner broken loose.
It is a sufficient Conviction that thou art a worldling still, that thou art no
Convert to Christ, and it is a sufficient Conviction that thou art no Convert,
if thou be still a worldling: he that is come to Christ is come off from the
world, Joh. 15:19, and he that is still under the world, is not come to Christ.
That's the great contest betwixt Christ and the World, who shall carry the
heart: Come along with me, says Christ, give me thy heart, be my servant,
be my Disciple: No, no, saith the World, stay with me, be my servant; or at
least, if thou wilt not any longer be wholly mine, then it says as the Harlot,
be neither his nor mine, but suffer thyself to be divided; let him take one
half, and let the other half be for me; halt betwixt Christ and the world;
keep both worlds; what hinders, but thou mayst have thy gains and thy
pleasures here, and yet have Christ too?
When the heart is convinced; that there is no compounding betwixt Christ
and the world, that Christ is the better Master, and that it cannot serve two
Masters, but must necessarily take to the one, and let the other go, and
hereupon yields itself to Christ: Lord I am thy servant, and will follow thee
whatsoever become of the world; whether I sink or swim, want or abound,
prosper or suffer; whatever my condition be here, thine I am, and thee will I
love and serve; when the soul is come to this, there's conversion; there's the
Head design of the world broken.
4. He is effectually marching on in the pursuit of his victory; he is
overcoming: So the word in the Text, he overcometh the world; he hath
already gotten the better, and he is pressing on after a total victory; he hath
his foot on the neck, and his hand still in the fight.
He keeps his enemy in his eye, and stands upon his guard daily; he
dispatches messengers, his prayers, his sighs, his tears, to fetch down fresh
supplies from above: his prayers speak, his sighs cry, his tears have a
tongue, and all go up with the same message, as the Gibeonites sent to
Joshua, Josh. 10:6. Slack not thine hand from thy servant, come down to me
quickly, save and help me.
He sets all his graces, his faith, his love, his hope, his patience, in battle
array against it.
He is still making sure the party that the world hath within him; keeps lust
under, keeps pride, and covetousness, and sensuality low; that is, more or
less, according as he acts as a Believer.
He secures the strong hold; keeps his heart, keeps his Farms, and his
oxen, and his pleasures, at the greatest distance he can from his heart: he
sends his heart far enough away out of their reach, he conveys it into the
other world, where it dwells, and builds, and plants, and sows, and gathers,
and lays up a better treasure; where it rejoices and recreates itself; where it
hath better work, and better company, and better pleasures to wean it from
these below; he lives in the view and contemplation of God, in the Society
and Communion of Saints and Angels, and is so satisfied with the Fountain
of Living Waters, that he be neither thirsty after the waters, nor choked with
the mud of these broken cisterns.
He studies the world more, and comes to a better understanding of it; of
its vanity, of its enmity, of its treachery, power and policy: and the more he
knows it, the more he fears it: the more he knows of God, the more he loves
and thirsts and longs after him; the more he knows of the world, the less he
loves, and the more he fears it. He fears not so much its anger as its
kindness: he fears his worldly pleasures, his carnal friends, his earthly
businesses and his prospering in them: he carries a sense of the danger he is
in by them, and a fear of the snare they may be to him, wherever he goes:
whilst he is necessarily detained and busied here, he carries this fear as his
guard to secure his Soul, whither ever he walks: to his table, to his bed, to
his shop, in his journeys; he feeds with fear and works with fear, and travels
with fear, and trades with fear, lest whilst he is thus necessarily conversant
in the world, he be again entangled with its temptations.
And in this warfare he grows, and gathers strength daily; is more able to
contemn the world, it becomes every day less and less to be a temptation to
him. Time was when, whenever the world came enticing him after it,
hearken to me, mind thy earthly concernments, and thou shalt be rich and
prosper and abound; follow Christ and this holiness and twill be thine
undoing; time was, when these were arguments of great weight with him;
that could command his heart, control conscience, conjure his affections,
and persuade him to anything; but now they come too late, they are scarce
temptations to him: his heart is so set upon the securing his eternal interest,
and so transported with the sense of the importance of that great
concernment; those higher things are so great in his eye, and so much upon
his heart, that it seems but a very small thing to be possessor of all things
here, and to make but a small difference upon his condition, whether he
hath or wants.
2. Wherein this victory stands: which I shall answer,
Negatively, Positively.
1. Negatively, and this in 4 particulars.
1. A believer hath not so overcome the world, as to be above all need of
the world: though man lives not by bread only, as Math. 4. Yet he must have
bread, yea and must work for his bread, and therefore must diligently
follow his calling, wherein he may provide things honest; provide him an
honest livelihood.
2. Not so but that he is still free to use the world in his need: every
creature of God is good, good for use, being sanctified by the word of God
and Prayer. 1 Tim. 4:4. Both necessaries and the abundance of the things of
this life, are a blessing from God; and the free use of them, so far as to fit us
for service, is not only lawful but a duty; that self-denial, that over-sparing
use of the creatures, which impairs our strength, or dulls our Spirits, is not a
virtue, but usually, is either the fruit of a melancholic distemper, or a
temptation.
3. Not so, as to be forever freed from all noxious temptations of the
world: This world is an enemy still, and this enemy will be still fighting
against the Soul. A Christian will never be such a conqueror here, but he
must still keep on his armor, and stand upon his guard; hereafter, when the
victory shall be complete, he shall sit down. Rev. 3:21. To him that
overcometh will I give to [sit] with me in my throne: at present we must:
stand, Ephes. 6:13. And having done all to stand; stand upon our watch,
stand to our arms; but hereafter we shall sit down: we are yet in our march
with our Lord, in his Chariot of war; for our place in his triumphal Chariot,
for sitting down with him in the throne, we must wait till hereafter.
4. Not so, as to be forever free from all surprises, and falls by these
temptations. The world will assault us, and in these assaults too often gets
the better of us: though it cannot command us quite back from Christ, yet it
may turn us aside, and much hinder us in our following of him; though it
cannot now destroy us, yet it may distract and disturb us; though it cannot
recover its absolute dominion over us, yet it may lay our feet again in the
Stocks. We may love it too much, and fear it too much, and mind it too
much, and follow it too hard, and our souls may become great losers by it:
God may be forgotten, Souls may be neglected, Conscience may be defiled,
Duties omitted or shuffled over, and all sense of Eternity for a time, buried
in a heap of worldly cares or delights. We have experience enough to give
in evidence to this, and much more.
2. Positively; and thus our victory over the world stands, in our having
attained,
1. A power to possess the things of the world, without placing our
happiness in them.
2. A power to manage our worldly affairs, without the prejudice of our
Souls.
3. A power to use this worlds good things, to their proper ends.
4. A power to want this worlds good things, and bear the worlds evil
things; and to keep our hearts and our way, whether we prosper or suffer.
5. A willingness to be gone from this, and to take our flight to the other
world.
1. Victory over the world stands in our having attained to a power to
possess the things of the world, without placing our happiness in them. The
Supremacy of the world is founded, in its apprehended sufficiency, to bless
us and make us happy: Whilest we hold it our treasure, we resign ourselves
to it as our Governor, Mat. 6:21. Where the treasure is, there the heart will
be also. The heart will never dwell in, or serve this world, when it hath
chosen another treasure; the world can never hold the dominion of a Lord,
longer than it can hold the reputation of our God. The soul will not be
governed or commanded by it, unless it be content to take it as its reward;
when the heart hath said to the Lord, Thou art my portion, it can say to the
world, Stand thou as my footstool: when we neither promise ourselves
contentment in our expectations, nor feel ourselves at rest in our
possessions of the world; when the heart is fixed on an higher good, and so
strongly working upward, that it will not be detained from the pursuit of it,
by anything it either hath or hopes for here, then the world is vanquished.
Now in this is included,
1. Our making God our happiness. Its vain for any man to say or think,
the world is not, who cannot truly say, The Lord is my happiness and
Heritage. Its natural to man to desire happiness, and to pitch somewhere or
other, where he hopes ’tis to be had: what he apprehends to be the best of all
he knows, most suitable and most satisfactory to his desire and appetite,
there he fastens.
Worldly men, that know no better, promise to themselves a worldly
happiness, and here they fix; and it is impossible for them to loosen hence,
till they discover and close with some higher good; till God comes in, the
World will not out. The Psalmist could never but have envied, and Idolized
the portion, and prosperity of the ungodly, had not God been his portion.
First, he must say, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And then he can add,
There's none in earth that I desire besides thee, Psal. 73.
2. The due limiting our desires after, and moderating our delights in the
things of this world; and a subordination of them all to our great end. If the
world be not our happiness, we shall love it and seek it thereafter. The
world, if it be anything to us, it must be either our end, or our means; if God
be our portion, he is our end; if God be our end, the world ceases to be
such; two last ends no man can have, till he have two souls; if the world be
not our end, it must be either our means, or nothing to us.
Our desires and delights are proportionable to our conceits of, and our
expectations from the objects of them: that which is apprehended, and
accepted as our end, is desired accordingly, hath the stream and strength of
the soul running out after it; there it desires and loves without limit: that
which is apprehended only as a means, is so far only amiable and desired,
as it subserves our end. Whenever the world ceases to be accounted our
happiness, it will necessarily be judged only as a means to it; and thence
will follow this limiting our worldly desires, and moderating of our worldly
delights; we shall desire them no farther, nor delight in them otherwise, then
as they are conducible to God.
2. Victory over the world, stands in a power to manage our worldly affairs
and businesses, without the prejudice of our souls. Psal. 112:5. He will
guide his affairs with discretion: and his discretion herein appears:
1. That in the multitudes of the thoughts he hath in his heart, and the
businesses he hath in his hand, he hath still an eye to the main. He's a
discreet man that rightly understands, and duly minds his great
concernment: the world must be minded, the Plough must be followed, the
seed must be sown, the Flocks must be kept, the Oxen and the Asses must
be cared for; But what is the world to my soul? What is my food to my life?
This must be chiefly looked to, that I perish not, that I run not upon an
eternal undoing, that my soul may live, and it may be well with me
hereafter; I must first seek the Kingdom of God, and then let other things be
minded as they may. He that said, Be diligent to know the state of thy
flocks, and to look well to thy herds, Prov. 27:23, said also with an
Emphasis, Deut. 4:9. Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul
diligently; above all keeping keep thy heart, Prov. 4:23. And therefore to
this he hath a most special eye; his eye looks most inwards; its well with me
without, or whether it be or no, how is it within? How goes the work of
Faith and Repentance on? How goes the work of Mortification and
Sanctification on? Here he bestows his special labor, in working out his
salvation, in laying up treasure in heaven. I shall never count myself to
prosper, whilst my soul prospers not; I shall never count myself a good
husband, whilst mine own Vineyard hath not been kept; and I shall never
count myself poor, while I am growing rich unto God; I shall never count
myself an ill husband, whilst I have been wise and busy for Eternity.
2. That to this end, he overcharges not; pulls no more of business upon
him, then he can go through with, without neglecting his soul; though he
must employ himself, yet he will not entangle himself in the affairs of this
life, 2 Tim. 2:4.
His Lord hath given him fair warning, Luke 21:34. Take heed lest at any
time your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life; and he's willing
to take the warning: He's wary how he undertakes more business then God
calls him to; if God put him upon a more busy life, and lays on a greater
load of work or care upon him, he cheerfully sets his shoulders to it,
knowing that where God sets him on work, he will be with him in the work,
and help him out; but he would have no more to do, then God sets him
about.
Christians, besides the Call of God, there are too often other Masters call
us to work: ’tis not seldom, that men's lusts set them on work; as their lusts
call them off from work, call them to play, or to sleep, or to be idle; so
sometimes also men's lusts call them to work. Some men's pride sets them
on work; many a hard days work they have, to get something to maintain it:
Some men's prodigality sets them on work, that they may have to spend on
their throats, their bellies or companions; but most of all, men's
covetousness sets them on work; this is an hard and cruel Master; oh what a
laborious weary life do such men live? Their life is a mere drudgery, rising
early, going to bed late, eating the bread of carefulness. How many irons
hath the covetous man in the fire? How many cares? How many projects is
he ever loaden withal? He never rests, his hands are ever full, his thoughts
are ever busy; whatever he hath done or gotten already, yet there's still more
work coming in, more load laying on; tother house, or tother field is in his
eye; tother groat, or tother penny more to be gotten: the Ephah is not yet
full, his large heart, that daughter of the Horse-leech, is still a crying upon
him; Get, get; Gather, gather.
But whilst thou hast been so busy here and there, what's done for thy
soul? How does that work prosper? What trade has been driven for
Eternity? O the Lord forgive me, I never thought of that; I had so many
other things to do, that I had no time to mind it.
But who set thee on work about these other things? Who hath hired thee?
Oh my necessities have hired me; my back, and my belly, and the
necessities of my family; God hath set me on work. I but consider, art thou
not mistaken? It may be ’tis the Devil that hath set thee on work, thy pride,
or thy covetousness, that hath put thee upon this busy life all the while.
But now a Christian resolves, I will hearken what the Lord God will
speak; when he says go, I will go; when he says do this, I will do it; I will
have nothing to do, but what I may answer for it; this is that which the Lord
would have done: God says, Look diligently to thy soul, Deut. 4:9. God
says, What will it profit a man to win the whole world, and to lose his own
soul? Matth. 16:26. God says, Lay-up in store for thyself a good foundation
against the time to come. Provide thee bags that wax not old, a treasure in
heaven that faileth not. God says, Mat. 6:33. First seek the Kingdom of
God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto thee.
God never said, first seek food and raiment, and the Kingdom of heaven
shall be added to thee; Christ shall be added, righteousness shall be added,
salvation shall be added to thee; but first make sure the principal, and the
appurtenances shall be cast in.
And hereupon, a Christian will do accordingly, will look to the main,
whatever become of anything else; and will not engage further in any other
affairs, then will consist with the securing his great concernment: whatever
business he hath, he must have room for duty; he must have his praying
times, and reading times, and hearing times; he must have his daily seasons
for special converse with God, for communing with his own heart; he must
duly set his watch, and walk the rounds, through his thoughts, affections,
conscience, and all the powers of his soul; and finding so much work, and
of so great consequence of this kind, whatever wants, this must have his
daily attendance.
I must have bread, I must have clothes, I must not starve? I, and I must
have Christ, I must have grace: whether I have bread or no, clothes or no,
whether I starve or no, I must not be damned; a praying time is more
necessary then an eating, or drinking, or sleeping time, and therefore much
more than a working time.
'It is not the least part of a Christians Victory over the world, to have the
command of himself in his lawful affairs and businesses. In licitis perimus
omnes. When he hath such power over himself, that he can assign to
everything their proper places, measures and seasons, then he is Conqueror.
Christians, how sadly doth this speak concerning many of you? What say
you, Conquerors or Captives? Let your care of duty speak. Do not your
oppressed and curtailed duties cry out, We are beaten, we are beaten! We
are beaten out of the field: we are not regarded when the world hath any
work to be done: Is this your care of the main? Believe it Brethren, when
business gets the upper hand of duty, the world hath gotten the upper hand
of the soul.
Consider therefore, how is it with you? Do you allow duties their proper
time and place? Do you first seek the Kingdom of God? Is the world made
to give place to prayer, or is prayer ordinarily made to give place to the
world?
Do you set your times for daily duty? And do you allow sufficient time?
Do you not put the Lord off with short and hasty duties, and then tell him,
Lord, this is all the time I can spare thee; Soul, this is all the time I can
allow thee. Hasty duties are next to none. Do you allow your souls room to
make the best of their suits? Room for enlargement and importunity, or are
they not mostly forced to shuffle over and shut up, almost as soon as they
have begun.
Is there not too great a fault among Professors, on this account? Do not
their businesses borrow of their duties; borrow, but never pay? Conscience,
I pray thee lend me this praying hour? Soul, I pray thee spare me this
reading time: I want time to dispatch my business, hereafter I will pay it
again? How little of your time must ordinarily serve the turn for your
attendance on God; a short prayer, short meditations are all you will allow,
and your souls ordinarily fare thereafter; you are too much in hast to speed
well, God will be waited on, and wrestled with ere he will hear. We read,
Gen. 34:26, when Jacob was wrestling with God, he held at it so long, that
God said, Let me go; enough Jacob, let me go, for the day breaketh; but he
resolved, I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me. But is it not with us
the quite contrary? By that we have been at it a little while, Let me go Lord,
I must be gone: Whether thou hear me or not, whether thou bless me or not,
let me go, I am in hast, and must be gone, give me leave quietly to depart,
and that shall serve for this time instead of a blessing.
Oh Brethren, if we would trace ourselves into our Closets, and observe
our short stay there, the slight and hasty work we make before the Lord, and
our quick returns we make to the world; sure methinks it should make us
say, I am afraid this world is still too hard for me, I am afraid it hath me still
under its dominion; it will not trust me to be long alone with my God, its
presently calling me off; and when it calls once, I must presently take my
leave, away I must. Consider this Brethren, do you allow your selves
sufficient time for duty?
If you have appointed your set times, and sufficient time, do you keep
your times? Does not the world ordinarily steal away your hours of prayer:
when the time draws nigh for the worship of God, does not the world use to
step in, But I must be first served, my Cattle must be first served, my
Customers must be first served, I have a friend that must be first waited on?
And when one business is dispatched, another falls in, and another, and
another, till it be too late and time to go to bed, and so God and the Soul
must wait their time till tomorrow; and when tomorrow comes, that is as
this day, and much more busy.
Judge Brethren, whether it be not too ordinarily thus with us, and then tell
me, which do ye think hath the greater interest, God or the world?
Prayer is one of our weapons, wherewith we are to maintain the fight
against the world, Ephes. 6:18. Exod. 17:11. When Moses hands are lift up,
this Amalek falls: And can you think the world hath you not sure enough,
when it can at pleasure command your weapons out of your hands: or if it
leave them with you, can so blunt their edge, that they are good for nothing?
No man that is a Soldier will lay aside his weapons, but one of these,
either a Conqueror, or a Captive, or a Fool. A Conqueror (whose victory is
complete) needs his Arms no longer; the work is done, the Enemy is fallen,
and shall no more be able to rise. A Captive (who is totally and
irrecoverably lost) hath no further use of his Arms; they will now stand him
in no stead; ’tis too late to fight, the field is lost. He that is yet in the fight,
and will lay down his Arms, is a fool: in laying by his weapons, he gives his
enemies the day: he is a fool, that thinks to stand in the fight, and will not
stand to his Arms.
In heaven, when our warfare is accomplished, no more need of praying
then; no more watching, no more fighting, no more exercises of faith and
patience then; the Enemy is under our feet; the triumph is all that then
remains; the Robes, and the Palms, and the Crowns, singing, and shouting,
and rejoicing; no more need of praying and watching.
In Hell, when the captivity is irrecoverable, there's no more use of
weapons; tis too late then, they will stand them in no stead: tis too late to
pray, and watch, and wrestle; the day is lost. The shame the contempt, the
prison, the mill, the dungeon, the torments of their captivity is all that there
remains. Prayer, that men now make to give place to lust and vanity, to
laughing or laboring; God will then make it to give place to cursing’s, and
ravings, and roaring’s; to tearing of hairs, and gnawing of tongues, and
gnashing of teeth: you that now count it a trouble and a cumbrance to attend
on praying, and fasting, and such like duties; if you ever fall into that
prison, you shall have your liberty from these burdens; you shall live an
eternity of days and nights, and never be put to the trouble of one Prayer
more, of one Sermon more, of one exercise of religion more: there's an
everlasting end of Prayer in Heaven and Hell.
But now, though the perfect conqueror may, though the perfect captive
must, lay by his weapons, have done with prayer forever; yet he that is yet
in the fight, is a fool, if he stand not to his arms: either he triumphs before
the victory, or else cares not on which side the victory goes. Thou art a fool
with a witness, that either slightest such a potent enemy, or holdest thyself
little concerned in the victory.
May all his cost and labor be spared? Canst thou stand in thine own
strength? Needest thou not be beholding to the Lord for his help? Or is the
help of the Lord so cheap, as to he had without seeking for: or will any
slight seeking now and then serve? Serve thy governor so. Will the world
give thee leave to take sufficient time for seeking God, if thou wilt not take
whether it will or no?
Brethren, learn hence forth, not to put God off with the world’s leavings,
but let the world be content to take God's leavings: if time fall short for
anything, see that it be not for your Souls: let God have his daily due, and
your Souls have theirs, whatever go without. Let not the world any longer
say, give place Bible, stand aside Prayer, I have no leisure for you; but let
your Souls daily say, stand aside world, business, trade, I must serve the Lord.
Never look to be other than worldlings, whilst anything below hath so
much power with you, as to keep God and your Souls asunder; to hold you
either under a total neglect, or ordinary remissness in your religious duties:
whilst it can keep you either so busy, or so slothful, that you restrain prayer,
it hath you sure enough: if the Devil can but keep you out of your closets,
he will not fear to meet you in the field; he will not doubt your standing on
your feet, if he can but keep you from falling on your knees.
Because there is so much depending on this, both as to the issue of our
conflict, and the evidence of our victory over the world, give me leave to
press you the closer to it, by giving you a short view, of the sum of what I
have here suggested, in these following propositions and advice.
1. The death of the world will never be either compassed or witnessed, but
by the life of religion.
2. The life of religion cannot be maintained, but by keeping up the life of
duties: no prayer no holiness, little prayer and but little holiness. The vigor
of grace is maintained from above; and nothing will come down unless we
often look up.
3. The life of duty will not be kept up, unless there be set and sufficient
time allotted to it: occasional duties will be but short and seldom.
4. Seldom recesses from the world, and sudden returns to it, short and
hasty prayers the Devil will allow us, and the world will be no looser by
them.
5. If business, or slothfulness ordinarily get the upper hand of duty,
whatever time be allotted for it, little enough will be bestowed on it. If we
never pray but when we have list or leisure, there will be but little done; the
world will either fill us with work or weary us into sloth. Therefore,
6. Resolve whatever the countermands of the world or Devil, of your busy
or weary Spirits are, to set and keep up your daily duties: if time fall short,
yet let not your Souls fail of their due; be constant, be instant in prayer. If
this counsel be not accepted, I look not that any other of the counsels of
God should prosper with you. Are you worldlings? Are you in bondage to
your carnal and earthly hearts? There I look to find you to your dying day, if
constant and instant prayer do not fetch you off.
3. That in the multitude of his businesses he neglect not the Souls of his
Relations: He that neglects his families Souls, sins against his own Soul.
Worldlings hold all they have in the same bondage with themselves; the
sons of these bondmen are seldom suffered to be freemen: like the Scribes
and Pharisees, Math. 23:13. They neither enter into the kingdom of God
themselves, nor suffer those that would to enter in. Like Pharaohs
taskmasters, Exod. 5:17. Ye are idle, ye are idle, is their word, when any of
theirs will worship God: an hour spent in prayer or reading, by such as
belong to them, is as great a crime, as so much time wasted in play or
idleness: to your work to your work; any work that's done for God is
counted lost to them.
He that fears God would have God served by all his, and never counts
himself served, when God is neglected.
He sees that the education of those that are under him in the knowledge
and worship of God is necessary work and excellent work: a godly family is
a nursery for Heaven: he counts it his best husbandry to be husbanding up
such choice plants, as will afterwards be for trees to be here and there
transplanted in the vineyard of the Lord: he would train up a new generation
that may rise up in his room to bear the name of God in their generations;
whereby the Lord may have a seed preserved to show forth his praises from
generation to generation, Gen. 18:17. I know Abraham that he will
command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the
way of the Lord. It may be written over the sayings of the seed of the
righteous as Prov. 31:1. The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy which his
mother taught him: over others it may be written, not the prophesies but the
profaneness, the oaths the lies the scoffs that his mother taught him; the
covetousness and the oppression that he hath learned of his Father.
What’s the reason of that rudeness, and those debaucheries, that
Ignorance, Atheism and Irreligion, that abounds in worldly families: tis all
they have been bred up to; they have learned to be wicked, of Children: the
iniquity of their Fathers covetousness would not allow them time, to teach
them better things.
He whose own foot is escaped out of the snare, would not leave any of his
in prison behind him. It is a vain argument for the Devil to use with such:
thou wilt never thrive, if thou spendest so many thoughts and words and
hours about such matters: thou wilt if thou takest this course bring thyself to
a morsel of bread; and wilt teach all thine the way to the same poverty, and
make them all as bad husbands as thyself: this would do something with
earthly minds; but he that fears God, if it must be, had rather be undone
then to preserve or increase his estate by the murder of Souls. This may be
my way to increase my store; for what is labor without a blessing, and what
blessing where God is not known? This may be my best husbandry for
[this] world, but whether it be or no, God must be served.
Oh what dark and dismal holes are the dwellings of worldlings: their
habitations are full of violence; cruelty and blood lodges in them: they live
by murder and rapine, the blood of Souls, is their meat and drink: the lives
of their Children must be sacrifices to their lust; they buy them livings and
raise them portions out of their own ruin; all the purchases they make for
them, they may call the Potters field, for they are the price of blood: they
will suffer them to run down to Hell, for fear they should leave them
beggars on earth: they will make them too good husbands to be ever good
Christians: they are bondmen themselves, and they sell all theirs for
servants to the same master.
Christians, you that hope you are gotten free, prove that you are so by
being zealous of getting that freedom entailed upon your posterity; leave
them no longer at the brick kiln, but bring them away with you to serve the
Lord.
1. Bring them with you before the Lord: lay them often at his feet: pray
over them; Here be my blind (Lord) and my lame, my cripples and my
captives. Lord open their eyes and bring forth these prisoners out of prison:
behold the Souls which thou hast given me, here they are before thee, Oh
that they might live in thy sight, let all mine be thine. Hast thou delivered
thy servant? O let all these be as the Soul of thy servant: hast thou brought
me out of bondage, O let me not leave a Child behind.
2. Bring the Lord to them, let these poor prisoners hear of a redeemer;
make Christ known to them; and that they may accept of his redemption,
make them first known to themselves? Instruct them often, make them to
know their sin and their misery; the dreadful bondage that they are under at
present, and the dreadful pit they are hastening to; and then tell them of that
redeemer that is come out of Zion.
3. Bring them over to the Lord: be an Ambassador for Christ to them;
cease not to warn them to command, persuade beseech them in Christ's
stead, till they consent and be reconciled to God.
Be industrious, be at pains with them: lie at them from day today; bethink
not your time and labor. And if the world step in and reprove you; this is not
the way to thrive, these hours spent in thy trade or calling would turn thee
and them to more profit, then prove thyself to have broken its yoke from off
thy neck, by turning away thine ear from its suggestions.
. That in all his dealings in the world, he have respect to truth,
righteousness, and mercy. He would not live by lying, he would not get by
unrighteousness, nor save by unmercifulness.
The worlds vassals must stick at nothing that will serve their turns; must
lie, defraud, oppress, extort, grind the faces, starve the bowels break the
bones of their poor brethren, this is for their interest.
1 Tim. 6:10. The love of money is the root of all evil: whence is it that
there is so little faith, or truth, or righteousness, or mercy among men? So
little truth in their words, so little faith in their promises, so little
righteousness in their dealings, no more bowels of compassion? We may be
ashamed to think how little, we may fear and tremble to think how little; so
much praying, and hearing, and professing, and yet so much falsehood and
wrong? So much knowledge of God and yet so little conscience towards
men? Such pretenses to faith, and yet so little exercise of charity? This is
dreadful; but whence is all this? The love of money is the root of all evil:
this is the liar, this is the oppressor this is the barbarian, the love of money:
there had been more faith, and more truth, and more mercy, had there been
less of this love: where this root is dried up, where the world is no longer
loved, it will be no longer served or obeyed; nothing of it will be regarded
but what comes in, in a way of truth and righteousness.
He that loves truth above the best trading, righteousness above the
greatest riches, that counts mercy the best good husbandry; he that had
rather stand to a bad bargain, then break promise; make a bad market, then
advance his gain by a lie; suffer bad wares to lie on his hands, then say they
are good; he that had rather have no blessing in his hand, then no bowels to
lay it out for God; He that however he hath this world about him, has an
estate, houses, lands, money in greatest abundance; he that however he
labors in all fair and innocent ways, to preserve and improve what he has;
yet chooses rather to be poor then not to be honest, to have nothing then not
to be a good steward of what he has; he that will not be tempted to be false,
unrighteous, or unmerciful, for the getting or saving an estate, the world
hath not much in the heart of that man.
Oh brethren, if this be to overcome the world, then how many more
captives hath it still then the most are aware of? What trade is there driven
almost anywhere in the world, wherein the trade of lying hath not a great
stock going? Are there not even among men pretending to religion, too
many found, who instead of using the Psalmists prayer, Keep me from the
way of lying, will rather content themselves with the Syrians prayer, The
Lord pardon me in this thing; the Lord forgive me, I know not how to help
it. It's true that men of great dealings have great temptations to it, and is it
not as true, that they are taking temptations?
But how can you then take yourselves to be any of Christ's disciples? Or
how can you stand here praying with the same mouth, that it may be within
a day or two, will be found in the market lying? Can the same fountain send
forth sweet water and bitter, Jam. 3:11. Deceive not yourselves, you do but
lie unto God in your duties, that make it your practice to lie unto men in
your dealings. If any man seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue
(from lying as well as other ill language) that man's religion is in vain, Jam.1:26.
And as little truth as there is in men's words, is there not as little
righteousness in their ways? The lying tongue and the oppressing hand are
animated from the same heart. How very few are there that weigh their
actions on that unerring beam, Do unto others as you would they should do
unto you? Wouldst thou be oppressed? Thou wouldst not: why then doest
thou oppress? Wouldst thou not be defrauded? Why then dost thou defraud?
Wouldst thou not over-buy nor undersell? Why dost thou then in the same
kinds, go about to overreach thy brother?
Brethren you do not know your own generation you live in, if you do not
understand, how commonly and how greedily men are everywhere heaping
up to themselves the gains of unrighteousness, and for mercy there's little
hope of finding that, where righteousness is departed.
And now Soul, where is thy victory over the world? Thou pretendest to
Christ, takest thyself to be a believer, and hopest thou hast chosen God for
thy portion, and renounced this present world; what and yet lie for a little
worldly advantage? Be unrighteous that thou mayst be rich: sell thy
conscience for a penny, and bless thyself in thy good bargain? Hath the
world such power of thee, that for its sake thou wilt be thus false and
deceitful and cruel, and yet hast thou overcome it?
Is this thy Faith? Is this your Christianity, to be disciples of Christ so far
as it may be for your profit? Was there any such reserve in your engagement
to be the Lord's, I will be thine so thou wilt abate me lying? I will serve thee
in anything, so thou wilt allow me, the gain of unrighteousness? I will
profess thy name, and I’ll pray and I’ll hear, and I’ll be godly in all things
wherein my gain is not concerned? In these things the Lord pardon thy
servant, in these things let me have the liberty to be as other men, and in
anything else command me what thou wilt?
Brethren, be plain hearted throughout: be able to say with the Apostle,
Heb. 13:18. We trust that we have a good conscience, willing to live
honestly in all things: convince the world that you are none of theirs, but are
come out from among them, and are of Christ indeed, by being in all things
as he was in the world, who did no sin, neither was any guile found in his
mouth.
3. Victory over the world stands, in a power to use our worldly goods to
their proper ends. What is there on this side Hell, (sin only excepted) but
being well used, will prove our blessing? Rom. 8:28. All things shall work
together for good to them that love God. What is there on this side Heaven,
(grace only excepted) but being ill used may degenerate into a curse? Psal.
69:22. Let their table be made a snare and that which was given to them for
their wealth be an occasion of falling.
All things in the world, as they have their various particular uses, and
intermediate ends, so they have but one common end, in which they all
concenter. God who made man, hath made all things else also for himself:
and man only of all these lower creatures, is made capable, both of
understanding the end to which all things are, and of directing them to it,
and accordingly is obliged so to do.
Then only may we be truly said to enjoy what we have, and are secured
from the mischiefs of it, when we have so much power over it, as to use it
aright: he that hath not an heart to use what he hath, and to use it well, is
rather possessed by it, then the possessor of it: upon this account are
worldly men the worlds servants; servants of their estates rather than the
masters of them: will you call him a master that is under the command of
his servant? That cannot govern nor order nor dispose of himself, and what
he has, but is always governed by it? When the world says go he must go,
when this says come he must come, when it says work he must work, and
till it says sit still, he must not rest; who must neither eat, nor drink, nor
give, nor lend, but where the world gives him leave? Who is a slave if this
be a freeman?
He that understanding his dominion of all that is in his hand, and his way
to use it aright, accordingly exercises his dominion, this man is Lord and
the world his servant.
Now (as I hinted but now) the proper end to which all we have should be
lastly directed, is God. God made all things for himself; and he hath put us
in possession that we may use them for him, for whom they are made. All
we have are our talents entrusted in our hands by our Lord, with this charge,
Occupy till I come, Luk. 19:13. Occupy till I come, as those that must give
an account to me when I come; that I may receive mine own with
advantage, v. 23, twill be but a lame account we shall give of what we have
received, if we bring not in, every talent employed for God.
We must work for God, and get for God, and lay up for God, and lay out
for God: he that works for bread or for clothes, or for money; he that works
for wife or for children, and doth not therein work for God; he that bestows
anything of what he has, on himself for food or raiment; he that bestows
anything on his wife or his children, for their present provision, or their
future portions, and doth not bestow it there for God, is an evil steward and
unfaithful to his trustAnd as we must work for God, and bestow for God, so we must keep for
God and save for God: A good steward must see there be no wastes made
on his Lord's estate. He must not save anything from God; when God calls
for a penny, or a pound, or all that he hath, he must let it go and keep
nothing back.
He must consider, that God hath more mouths to feed, and more backs to
clothe, then his own or his families. There's a poor neighbor by thee, that
wants bread, go and feed him; there's a poor orphan by thee, go and take
care of him, and what thou layest out, put it on account to me: he must
consider, that God hath other ways to dispose of his estate, then on backs
and bellies; There are a company of poor children by thee, that are like to be
bred up for Hell; to be bred up in ignorance and profaneness; go and be at
charges with them, put them to School, or help to the disposing of them, so
that they may be bred up as Christians, in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord: and other like ways has God for the bestowing what he has.
He that must save for God, and see that there be no waste made, that
nothing be spent upon strangers, upon his pride upon his gluttonous
appetite, upon his vain companions; he that must not be thus prodigal of his
estate, to satisfy his own or others lusts and humors, must neither be a
miser, and think to save anything from God: He that spends and not for
God, and he that saves from God, will both prove but evil stewards. This
saving will in the end prove the greatest wasting: as Christ saith, Math.
16:25. He that saveth his life shall lose it; so upon the same account, he that
saveth his estate; he that saveth his bread or his money, shall lose it: there is
not a shorter cut to beggary, then sinful parsimony: tis ill saving from God's
poor: that bread thou savest from the mouth of the poor, whom God would
have thee feed, that bread will become an eater; that penny which should
have gone for an alms, may rust out all thy pounds.
Thou thinkest thou art more provident then others, who are so free and
liberal; and blessest thyself in thy better husbandry; when God calls for an
alms thou shiftest him off with an answer, I have nothing for thee; when
God calls for a liberal alms, some of thy pounds, thou puttest him off with a
penny or a groat; and then pleases thyself to think how well thou camest
off, and what a good husband thou hast been; but boast not too soon.
On the other side, thou that art a prodigal of thy estate, that swillest it
down thy throat, that spreads thy table with it, or trimmest thy carcass or
debauches thy companions with it; thy costly fare, thy gorgeous apparel,
thy riotous company, thy sumptuous buildings, must devour all thou hast;
what answer wilt thou give to thy Lord, when he shall require thee, Give an
account of thy talents? How will thy account be taken whereof this is the
total sum, All spent in sin and vanity?
These things I have spoken, to give you a short account how we are to use
our worldly comforts, namely all for God: and he that hath power thus to
use the world; yea he that doth charge this on himself, and is heartily
resolved on this course, making it his ordinary care thus to dispose of
himself and what he has; though in many things he fall short, and too often
transgress his rule, may without arrogance write himself, By the grace of
God, crucified with Christ and conqueror over the world.
Christians, if these things were considered and well weighed, how much
would our bill of expenses, on ourselves, and our flesh be shortened; and
how greatly might it abound to our account?
O how many superfluities would be parred off, even from such of us, who
have been the best stewards for God? How much is there daily wasted of
our Lord's talents? How much of what we have, doth our flesh totally
consume, whereof the Lord hath no share at all? How much is there spent
daily, concerning which we cannot have the face to say, this hath been spent
for God? How much hath been lost to God by our full bellies and pampered
flesh? Do we never eat to unwieldiness, drink, though not to drunkenness,
yet to drowsiness? How many times have we been cheering ourselves into
sottishness, recreating ourselves into uselessness, whilst we have pretended
to be fitting ourselves for service? How many a prayer and praise hath the
Lord lost by a feast? We have been feeding our wantonness, clothing our
pride, nourishing up ourselves into mere frothiness and vanity, whilst we
have professed to be refreshing and comforting our hearts for God.
Hath not the Lord had the less for his bounty to us? Should we not have
been like to have served the Lord better in hunger and thirst, then we have
sometimes done, in the abundance of all things?
Have we indeed used all for God?
Our estates for God?
Our liberties for God?
Our interest and esteem in the world for God?
Might not God have been often better served in a prison, then we have served him in our liberty?
Might not God have been better served in our sickness and weakness, then
we have served him in our health and strength? Hath not the Lord been
often as it were forced to resolve concerning us, well I must even smite
them with sickness, that they may serve me better, I must take away their
talents that they may be better stewards!
What use hath been made of that esteem and respect we have had from
men? Hath our care been, what the resolution of a worthy servant of Christ,
now with God, once was? I would (said he) entitle God to every inch of
Ground I get upon the opinions of men; I would make my advantage to be
dealing for God with them, to be pleading for God with them, I would
improve all my interest with them so, that if it be possible, God may
become of the acquaintance of all my friends.
Oh how very few of us are there, whose aim and care is, to live at the rate
and in the way that God would have us live? Who resolve, Religion shall
have the whole ordering of me; this shall choose my company and govern
my whole behavior with them: this shall appoint me my habitation; this
shall furnish my house and my table; shall appoint me the quality and limit
the proportion of my daily food: this shall order me for my habit, both the
cost and the fashion of my raiment: this shall direct me in the visiting and
entertaining my friends: this shall set me my business, and allow me my
recreations; this shall measure my days and my nights, and set me my times
for my sleep, my watch, and my work: this shall dispose of my estate while
I live, and make my will when I die. This shall give, myself mine
allowance, my wife her dower, my children their portions, and God's
children, his poor orphans theirs. I would so feed, and so clothe and so
recreate myself, so work and so rest as God would have me. I would never
spend nor save but for the Lord. I would visit whom God would have me
visit, I would entertain as God would have me entertain; I would never visit
a friend, but to whom God sends me, nor entertain but as God bids me; I
would put it into the hands of the Lord to divide mine estate; no more to my
children, and no less to his, then my conscience tells me he would have.
O how few are there who are thus resolved? And why is it not thus with
us? Oh these worldly hearts hinder us; these put in for a share; they would
carry all, but if that may not be, they will divide with God: something for
thyself, something for thy flesh, something for thy friends, and let God take
the rest: and as the heart would have it, so ordinarily it goes; insomuch that
it often comes to pass, that by that everyone else is served, he to whom all
is due, hath little or nothing left; God shall be last served, and by that his
turn comes the store is spent!
Oh these false and treacherous hearts! Is the Lord our God or not? To
whom do we owe anything but to him? Is not all his? Is not he Lord of all?
Is there anything in our hands, concerning which we can say, this is mine
own, this is none of his. Do we not eat his bread and dwell in his houses,
and wear his clothes, his wool and his flax? Is not the earth the Lord's and
the fullness thereof? And may he not require of his own what he will?
And what doth the Lord require? Doth he not require all? Doth God
reserve only a chief rent to himself, and let the rest go which way it will?
Hath he allowed any part to be bestowed on his enemies? Would God, that
the Devil and lust go sharers with him? Do we not know and these tongues
confess, that all is his due and expectation? What then is this flesh, what are
these lusts, that we should hearken to them, when they put in for a part?
O rebuke and repel these imperious beggars: you shall have a whip and a
scourge, but no alms at my door; you are none of the beggars that God
would have me feed and clothe. Did God ever allow me to clothe my pride
or feed my covetousness or nourish this unruly and greedy appetite? Away,
away, nothing is allowed you, but a cup of cold water to quench your
flames. The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God, my sovereign and supreme
proprietor? Of him and through him and to him are all things: his I am and
to him I owe and devote whatever I am or have; my streams shall fall into
no other channels but what will convey them into the Ocean: he is my
Ocean who is my fountain, O my God my springs do all rise and rest in
thee.
O what a strange change would this doctrine and the practice of it make
upon us: then we should live like Christians indeed, and be able to say with
the Apostle Philip. 1:21. To me to live is Christ.
O what exemplary Christians should we be, had we nothing to do but to
bring forth fruit unto God; how rich should we grow were all our business
to lay up treasure in Heaven; how roundly would the work of our salvation
go on, were all our works made to fall into this? What a tribute of praise
and honor would be raised to the name of the Lord, if our united streams
ran all upward, how glorious should the Lord be, if God should thus
become all in all?
4. Victory over the world stands, in a power to want the worlds good
things, and to suffer the worlds evil things, and to keep our hearts and our
way, whether we prosper or suffer.
Philip. 4:12. I know both how to be abased and how to abound;
everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be
hungry, to abound and to suffer need. It is one thing to know [what] tis to
abound, and what to want; and another thing to know [how] to do both: it
may be, though the Apostle knew sufficiently [what] tis to want and to be
hungry, yet he knew but little what tis to be full and to abound; but he had
learned [how] to want and how to abound,
To know how to want and how to abound, is to know how to carry it as a
Christian in both estates. Poverty and riches have each of them their
temptations. Prov. 30:8. Lest I be full and deny thee, or lest I be poor and
steal and take the name of my God in vain: both estates have their
temptations, and he knew how to deal with either of them, so that neither
the one nor the other should put him besides his duty, or draw him to
anything unworthy of a Christian.
He is a Christian, that neither, beholding to the world for his religion (he
hath other arguments to persuade him to be godly, then that godliness is
gain) and that will not be forced out of it, by all that the world can give or
take away: he that is not beholding to the world for his religion, will be the
more like to be religious in spite of the world: if the loaves were not they
that drew him to Christ, neither will the want of bread drive him away;
those that come to Christ in hopes of a temporal Kingdom, will when they
see themselves disappointed, go back from him again: those that found
nothing but Christ to draw them after him, will find nothing whilst Christ is
Christ to draw them off.
A Christian counts Christ sufficient: a sufficient reward and a sufficient
safeguard, enough to satisfy him and to secure him; and thereupon can be
content in all his wants and patient in all he suffers: we seldom depart from
God, but it is either from discontent or impatience; either we think it
intolerable abiding with him, or at least, that we may have a better being
elsewhere; our turning aside from God to the world, is in hopes some way
or other to mend our condition; either to be better provided for or better
pleased: when God is accepted as a sufficient portion, so that we need not
the world to make us happy, when God is accounted our sure refuge, so that
we fear not that the world can make us miserable, then twill be all one as to
our godliness, whether the world be with us or against us.
He that can say God is my portion whether I want or abound; I have never
so much but I have need of a God, I have never so little but a God will
suffice; He that can say God is my refuge whether I be in safety or in
danger; I am never in such hazards but in God I am secure, I am never so
out of hazard but I need his security; how little is it that the world with all
its glory on the one hand, or all its fury on the other, can do upon that Soul?
Thou mayst then go on thy way rejoicing, thou mayst serve the Lord
without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of thy life.
He that knows and feels what God is, can want or suffer whatever is in the
world; in him he finds a supply of every vacuity, and a salve for every sore;
He that knows what pinching want and piercing sufferings are, will
understand that nothing but God can hold him up or bear him through. You
are mistaken if you think, that natural hardiness and self-confidence will do,
without divine supports in pressing cases. He that hath this power, hath
gotten it from above; he that hath this power, may be whatever the Lord will
have him.
Then are we more eminently endued with this power when we have
attained to,
1. Self-denial under the greatest opportunities of self-seeking or self satisfaction.
2. Contentment under the greatest straits.
3. Patience under the greatest pressures of affliction.
4. Humility in the height of honor.
5. Magnanimity in the depth of danger or difficulty.
6. Equanimity in the greatest turns and changes of our outward condition.
1. Self-denial under the greatest opportunities of self-seeking and selfsatisfaction.
Self-denial properly, is the neglecting the interest, and the
crossing the inclinations of our flesh, in order to service or the preventing of
sin. Then only self-denial is a virtue, or a duty, when our allowance of our
flesh in its liberty, would be either a sin, or an occasion of sin, or a
hindrance of duty; when it would be a preferring the advantages of the flesh
above the service and honor of Christ.
Now by how much the greater our opportunity to please our flesh, by so
much the greater virtue it is to deny it. He that might be full and yet for
Christ's sake is content to be empty; he that might be rich and yet is content
to be poor; he that might live at ease or in honor, and yet for Christ's sake is
content to be vile or in trouble? He that chooses rather to be serviceable
then to be safe, to be holy then honorable, he that upon the account of
Christ, flies from fleshly advantages when these fly after him, this is the
man.
It is a virtue to be quiet when Providence denies us; to be content to be
poor and in affliction, when it comes unavoidably upon us: tis something to
be able to say, I cannot help it and therefore will be quiet. But when we can
let Conscience deny us, let love to Christ, let zeal for God straiten us, when
Providence allows us our liberty and our fill, this is something to purpose.
To neglect the world when the world neglects us or flies from us; not to
seek great things for ourselves, when we have no hope of obtaining; not to
mind the pleasing our pride or our appetite, when we have not wherewith to
maintain them; to spare from our flesh when we have nothing to spend upon
it; to fast when we have no bread, to put on sackcloth when we have no
better raiment, not to contend for our wills when we see we cannot have our
wills, there is not so very much in all this, though it be more then everyone
hath attained to; But voluntarily to lay down all at the foot of Christ, to part
with all for the sake of Christ, when we might have even what we would in
a way of sin; to keep our flesh short when it is in our power to make it a
larger allowance; this is a great testimony how high the interest of Christ is
exalted, and how low the world is brought in us.
One great instance of this self-denial, you may read in Moses, Heb.
11:24,25. By faith Moses when he came to years, refused to be called the
son of Pharaohs daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Observe it, fairer opportunities of flesh pleasing, of living in the splendor
of worldly glory, and the Grandeur of a prime favorite in the court, few of
the sons of men ever enjoyed; he was adopted the Son of Pharaohs
daughter, nursed up upon her knee and in her heart, and upon this account,
what his hopes and advantages might be, tis easy to imagine.
But at once he forsook all; he had a service to do for his God, and such an
affection to the people of God, that away he goes, puts himself out of
Pharaohs favor, and casts in his lot among his suffering brethren.
I shall consider divers circumstances, which all heighten this noble
instance.
1. The circumstance of time,
[When he came to years] ‘twas not a childish folly, done when he was so
young, that he knew not what he did; but when he came to age, when he
came to understand himself; whilst he was a child, he suffered himself to be
dandled on the lap of these carnal pleasures, but when he came to age, and
understood what these things were, and had gotten those higher things of
the other world in his eye; when he came to age he put away these childish
things: this world is a paradise only to children and fools; pictures, and
babies, and rattles will please children, men must have manly delights; thou
that art so taken with the embraces, and dalliances of this world, thou that
makest thyself sport with images and rattles, when thou comest to have the
understanding of a man, thou wilt wonder at thy childish folly.
2. When he was (upon the matter) newly come to age; a young man, in the
prime and vigor of his time; when he had but begun to taste the sweet of his
youthful pleasures; the pleasures of this life are most taking at the first
tasting, the first draught is the sweetest; when they grow more common,
and ordinary, they sour and become less savory.
Oh how rare a thing is it, to see young men, in their prime to disgust and
despise the world: Old men, whose strength is gone, whose spirits are dead,
who have been glutted and tired out with pleasure, have lost their appetite, 2
Sam. 19:35. I am this day fourscore years old, and can I discern between
good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat or drink; can I hear anymore
the voice of singing men, or singing women? Are these any longer a
pleasure to me? The world ceases to be such a temptation to old men, it is a
dead and a dry tree to them, in the winter of their age, which looked so
green and so beautiful in the spring of their youth.
But behold Moses whilst he was a young man, whilst all looked fresh and
green, yet even then he rejects it. Young men, you whose wanton and
sprightful hearts cry in your ears, in the words of the Preacher, Eccl. 11:9.
Rejoice O young man in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee in the days
of thy youth, walk in the way of thine own heart, and in the sight of thine
own eyes; eat, drink, be merry, take thy pleasure, take thy liberty: Behold
here's an instance that preaches another Doctrine to you; and what does it
preach? The next Text you find after the former, Chap. 12:1. Remember thy
Creator in the days of thy youth. Remember my Creator? So I will in time, I
intend it hereafter; ’tis for old men to be serious, the Grave will teach
gravity; I cannot be old while I am young, time enough to think of the other
world, when I am leaving this; I am but newly come into the world, I cannot
receive my welcome, and my farewell together; I mean to think on God
hereafter, but you must give me leave to mind myself, and please myself a
while. No, no, ’tis another manner of Doctrine then this, Moses though
dead, yet speaketh; Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth;
make thy present choice, and let this be it, Choose rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Oh
that young men would set this Copy before their eyes; see what this young
Moses did, and do likewise.
Give me leave to take the hint, and in a short digression, to speak a few
words to young men, to persuade them to make Moses his choice betimes,
to renounce the world, and to remember their Creator in the days of their
youth, and to consecrate their first time to God. This I shall press to by the
following arguments.
1. Otherwise this is like to be the worst time of their lives. Such is the heat
and strength of their lusts, that nothing but a God will be a bridle to them,
Jam. 3:3. Behold we put bits in the horse’s mouths. What ruling a horse
without a bridle? What bridle will hold these wild horses, but the memory
of a God?
Some young men are so head-strong, that they catch the bit in their teeth,
and run on their course with full career; though God be set before their
eyes, and all the terrors of the Lord be put as a bridle in their jaws, yet all
will not do to stop them, but on they run, as the horse rusheth into the battle.
Young men living without God, are as Esau, wild men; wild-headed and
wild-hearted, they run a wild Race.
Young men will do more work for the Devil in a day, then afterwards is
done in many days; and therefore Satan uses to hire his laborers in the first
hour of the day; when they are but newly started out of the shell, he stands
ready to press them for hell. And O what haste do they make on their way?
Like swift Dromedaries, like the wild Ass, which none can tame, or turn her
back.
Youth is the Devils seed time. All the tares that grow ripe in thine age,
these were the seed of thy youth; all the Frogs and Toads of the Summer,
were from the Spawn of the Spring.
O friends, this world hath been afore-hand with Christ, and is gotten first
in, and there its busy in complementing your hearts, showing you its
treasures, entertaining you with its carnal delights, insinuating into your
affections, captivating and entangling your souls, building Forts and strong
holds against Christ, that he be not suffered to enter, and filling you with all
wickedness, that you may become a loathing and abomination to him.
O hearken, and open to the Lord, make room for the King of glory, who
stands at the door and knocks: Will you say to him, Go away today, and
come again tomorrow, let Christ stand a while longer? Let his Enemy be
first served? Let me be wanton, and foolish, and fleshly a while longer? I
am not vile enough yet, not wretched enough yet? A little more of this
madness, let me be a fool and a beast a little longer, let this Lust and this
Devil alone yet a while? Let me be laid faster in the Stocks, let my prison
be double locked, let my soul, and my life, and the everlasting Kingdom, be
brought to more desperate hazards? A few days more of bondage and
misery, no Redemption yet, no Reconciliation yet, no pardon, nor grace, nor
hope; no God nor Christ come here a while? Will you speak thus to the
Lord?
O open to Christ, this day open; while sin is yet but a youngling, while the
world is yet but a new Comer, before you be rivetted into such acquaintance
and friendship with it, as may never be broken off.
2. Youth is the fittest time. Young men have many advantages which old
men have lost, and will never recover; they have this threefold advantage.
1. Youth is more docile and tractable. Old men are more dull and hard to
learn, more refractory and hard to be persuaded; therefore you know its the
practice of men to put theirs to Schools, and to Trades, in their younger
time. Prov. 20:6. Train up in the way that he shall go, and when he
is old he will not depart from it. What's the reason that old men are so
tenacious of their customs and ways? O they were trained up in them of
children.
That which is learned in youth, is easier gotten, and longer retained: Old
men's capacities are dull, and their memories slippery; they are hard of
hearing, and as hard to remember what they hear. Old men's hearts are
preoccupated, the Devil (as before) hath been beforehand with them; they
are so over-grown with tares, that the good seed comes too late, to be like to
take any root in them.
And therefore the Lord charges Parents, Eph. 6:4. To [bring them up] in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In the morning sow thy seed; our
evening is usually the harvest of our morning seed; the lusts of youth are
ripe in age, and the graces of the Aged, are ordinarily the fruits that are
grown up out of the seed of their youth.
Hence is it, that ’tis such a blessing to be the children of godly Parents:
they have not only the blessing of the Covenant, the promise entailed upon
them: To Abraham and his seed was the promise made; and therefore it was
a blessing to be a child of Abraham; but they have also the blessing of holy
Education; I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his
household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, Gen. 18:19.
Paul commends Timothy, or rather his Mother in him, that he had of a child
known the Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:15. David begun with Solomon, whilst he
was a young man, 1 Chron. 28:9. And thou Solomon my Son, know thou
the God of thy Fathers.
And as the Lord charges parents to give holy education, so is it the duty
and the happiness of children to receive and submit to it: a towardly and
tractable childhood promises a gracious and fruitful age. When he is old he
will not depart from it, that is, there's hopes he will not: tis true it does not
always prove so; sometimes there's too much truth in that proverb, A young
Saint and an old Devil. Some there are, whose youth is the winter that
withers all the buds of their childhood, or at least their age is the grave, that
buries all the flowers of their youth: who however it was with them, whilst
they were under the influences of instruction, and the restraint of discipline;
no sooner do they get their neck from under the yoke, and feel the reins of
government loosened, but presently they grow wild and wanton; and fall to
pulling down what hath been built, to rooting up what hath been planted,
and razing out those holy principles they have sucked in, and so letting
themselves loose to all manner of rudeness and debauchery: these are
monsters; a degenerate brood; and of all persons in the world, most likely,
after this first step from Saints to brutes, to take their next from brutes to
Devils. O let all such tremble, whose youthful lusts have gotten the head of
their religious education; the Devil hath broken into God's nursery, and
snapped off those twigs, to engraft them in his own Orchard, among those
trees that are only for the fire.
I say, thus it may happen; (and look to it, that this be the case of none of
you) that those who have been trained up whilst children, in the good way
of the Lord, depart from it when they are come to age; yet there is such a
flexibleness in young ones, and such an aptness to receive and retain the
impressions of their holy education, that there's great hope it may abide by
them all their days. If it should wear out, its usually worse with such, then
with those that have been born and bred up in the dark; but there's hope it
will abide.
2. Youth is more vigorous and sprightly; of warm affection, and full of
action; , there's life in its action: it is not clogged
with the infirmities, nor depressed with the weakness and unwieldiness that
creeps on with age. In this morning the Soul is free and fresh, the spirits are
quick and lively, the edge is sharp and keen, which in time grows more
blunt and dull. We may now both act more for God, and taste more of God;
there would be more service, and we should find more sweetness in it, did
we begin betime, before our native warmth is cooled, and our edge turned.
What work do rude young men make in the world? How much service do
they to the Devil in a little time? Laughing and mocking, drinking and
gaming, rioting and reveling, giving themselves to lasciviousness, to work
all uncleanness with greediness? What haste do they make to undo
themselves? How hot are they in their lusts, how heady in their ways, how
swiftly and violently does the torrent run down towards the burning lake? In
how little time are the plants and flowers rooted out, which had been setting
and nursing up all their time, and how suddenly are their weeds sprung up,
and how rank are they grown? What might not this heat and activity have
brought forth to God, had it been but set right? How greatly might God
have been honored, how much might Souls have been advanced, what a
treasure might have been laid up in Heaven, had the stream in this spring tide been running towards God, as it hath been towards Hell?
You that have thus foolishly lost your season, and run out the flower of
your days, oh be ashamed and bewail your loss; you that have yet your day
before you, be warned, let others folly make you wise: know in your season
what a price you have in your hand.
O ’tis pity such a treasure should be lost and wasted: what is God, that he
must have only the last and worst? Sin and the world must have the first and
best, and only the lees and dregs left for him, to whom all is due; the Devil
must have our marrow, and if God will accept our dry and weary bones,
that's all we ordinarily design for him.
Brethren, how many of our morning hours are already run out, and what
hath the Lord had of them? How few early Christians are there of us? Who
of us are there that came along into the vineyard, at the first hour of the
day? We think the last hour the best, and enough for our work; soon enough
to come into the vineyard, when we are going out of the world; we will not
bear the burden and heat of the day, but choose rather to come in the cool of
the evening. Unworthy Spirits; we’ll first make ourselves good for nothing,
and then we’ll be the servants of God.
3. Young men have day before them: he that hath a long journey to go,
had need set out early; he that hath much work to do had need be at it
betimes: he that goes an Apprentice to a trade when he is old, is not like to
do any great matter at it; either to get any great skill, or to make any great
gain: they are never like to come to much, who are so long ere they come to
anything: the journey of a Christian is long, ; the
work of a Christian is great. Young men, if you would come to Christ this
day, the youngest of you would find work enough, to hold him the longest
day he has to live: these strong holds which have been so long a fortifying
against Christ, will not be battered down in a day; your evil customs and
evil habits which have been so long growing and rooting in you, will
require time to be well changed and rooted out; grace and peace and
assurance are ordinarily the fruits of many years labor and travail: when
you have wrought yourselves out of work, then wish you had staid longer
out of the vineyard.
3. The first time is the acceptable time. 2 Cor. 6:2. Behold now is the
accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation. The present season is the
blessed season. [the accepted time] that is the time wherein you may be
accepted, and which God will take well at your hands, if you will accept.
Now you may be accepted, for behold he calleth you; tis a question whether
hereafter you may or no: if you will not accept today, it may be God will
not accept tomorrow.
Its very acceptable to the Lord, he likes it, and takes it well at our hands
that we give him a present answer: delays are as unpleasing to him, as they
are dangerous to us: Wilt thou say, when he calls thee, suffer me first to go
and bid them farewell that are at my house? Yea wilt thou say, when he says
come and be my servant, suffer me first to go and serve my belly and my
appetite, and afterwards I will be thine? Suffer me first to get me an estate,
to get more money or lands and then I will be for getting grace? How do ye
think God will take such an answer?
The Lord loves to see a willing people; of a ready and forward mind; that
will offer up their first fruits unto God. It is recorded to the perpetual honor
of that good King Josiah 2 Chron. 34:3. That in the eighth year of his reign,
while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.
He was but 16 years old, when he began to look heavenward; and you may
perceive how well the Lord took it, by his recording the very year.
O it is a pleasant thing to see the buds of grace putting forth in the
morning of nature; to see men growing up in grace, as they grow up in
stature; this is by so much the more beautiful, by how much the more rare
and seldom found. A godly young man is a Jewel, that sparkles forth a
luster, among all the gravel and pebbles of the earth: what a vast difference
is there, betwixt a humble meek sober gracious young man or woman, and
the rude proud wanton riotous brutish of that age? Old age is a crown, and
this crown will be much more glorious, if it be decked with the flowers of
the spring.
4. If the Devil hath the first time, he will endanger to have the last too. It
is seldom seen, that those that pass over their youth and their strength, in
the service of sin, do ever become the servants of God at last: those that
stand out against Christ, to their last day, do mostly stand it out in their last
day. How seldom do we hear of an old overgrown sinner, ever prove a
sincere Convert at last?
The experiences of the Ministers of the Gospel do testify, that the success
of their Ministry is ordinarily most upon the younger sort; a twig is more
easily bowed, or plucked up, then an old tree: if thy heart be too hard for the
Word, whilst it is young and tender, how difficult will the case be, when its
brawned and crusted by age?
Zophar in Job, speaking of an old sinner says, Job 20:11. His bones are
full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
Observe here these two things.
1. That age doth often pay the scores of youth; the pains of age are often
the reward of the pleasures of youth; the wantonness of youth is often
revenged by the weakness and diseases of age; men's aged bones do
remember them of their wasted marrow. Sinners, though you think you can
never fill your bellies with your lusts, while you are young, yet God will fill
your bones with them when you are old; and ’twill be but a sad meeting,
when young sins and old bones meet together. O what a strange difference
will there be betwixt feeling our aged aching bones, full of the duties of our
youth, our praying’s, watching’s, fasting’s, laboring’s and sufferings, and
having them filled with our youthful lusts and lewdness?