MAN goeth forth to his Work, and to his Labour, until the Evening; saith the Royal Prophet, Psal. 104.23. The day of his Life is spent in a pain­ful and weary Travel, 'till the Even­ing come, 'till his declining Sun be fully set, and he fitted to lie down in Peace, and enjoy the happy Rest of a long ensuing night. But that Man, in this his day, might not disquiet himself in vain; that he might not bear the heat and burthen of the day, and yet miss of this Rest at night; the holy Apostle St. Paul writing to the Hebrews (and in them to all Christi­ans) begins his fourth Chapter, with [Page 2] an Exhortation to Fear, lest a Promise being left them of entering into God's Rest, any of them should seem to come short of it. Wherein he layes down the Ground and Motive of Hope, plainly implied in the same words; A promise being left them of entring into his Rest; concluding the whole Chapter, with a most cogent en­dearing invitation, to come boldly to the Throne of Grace, to obtain Mercy, and to find Grace to help in time of need; That so he that went on his way weeping, and bearing forth good seed, might doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him; That he that went sighing and groaning, under the weight and bur­then of his heavy load, might have no cause to faint, or despond in the way, nor start aside through the sad affrightments of hopeless fear. Hope and Fear (well temper'd together) are the two preservatives of our Safety or Spiritual Life; they are that, which keep our Faith and [Page 3] Love, from despair on the one side, and from presumption on the other; from slothful security on this hand, and tormenting distrustful anxiety on the other. Fear, as the Rudder of the Ship, diverts our Souls, in their sailings to Heaven, the Haven of their eternal Rest, from the Quick­sands and Rocks that are in the way; while Hope, as the Sails, filled with the breathings of God's Spirit, his faithful promises, carries us forward, against the tide or stream of the World, our earthly desires, and carnal inclinations: Wherefore the wise Apostle, here, as every where else, throughout this, and his other Epi­stles, seeks to temper and mix these two, in the Souls of Christians: And having exemplified the possi­bility, both of attaining, and also of losing God's Rest, in the ancient Israelites, ch. 3. v. 7. to the end; now repeats, and presseth the motives of Fear and Hope, upon the Hebrews, and in them on all Christians. Let [Page 4] us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his Rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Were the promise of Rest unconditional and absolute unto some, and not at all propounded to others, with any feazibleness of attaining it, by a true possibility of performing its conditions; the former should have no reason to fear, nor the latter to hope: But the promise being condi­tional and general, excluding none from God's Rest, that will prepare themselves for it, by faith, hope, and love unfeigned; sincere impartial persevering obedience and patience; giving them full assurance of it, upon the evidence of their integrity in these things; inclusive of none, but such as entirely, humbly, thank­fully, believe and accept it on these terms: They that as yet neglect these terms, or are in danger of fal­ling away from their former dili­gence in observing them, had need to fear, lest they miss of it; and in [Page 5] that fear, work out their own Salva­tion, give all diligence to make their calling and election sure; which as it seems by St. Peter, is not so, unless by adding to Faith Courage, to Cou­rage Knowledge, Godliness, Charity, Temperance, Patience, more and more. Having these promises, dearly be­loved, saith St. Paul, 2 Cor. 7.1. The promises of a most gracious reception, all the mercies of Heaven hereafter; with so much on Earth, as is for our good; I will receive you, and be your Father, and you shall be my Sons and Daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having these promises, let us cleanse our selves from all pol­lution of Flesh and Spirit, perfecting Holiness in the fear of God It seems then, that humble fear of offending God, and losing his promises, by not performing of their conditions (not coming out from among the wicked, or coming out, not cleansing our selves more and more, from all pollutions of Flesh and Spirit) is [Page 6] not only the beginning of Wisdom, as you have it elsewhere, but perfect­ive of Holiness, which is our only true Wisdom. Were all that profess the Name and Gospel of Christ Jesus, sincere professors; or were all that begin to be so, secured for ever from ceasing to be so, by turning back to disobedience and unbelief; Saint Paul, and St. Peter, would not thus both of them exhort to fear, lest a promise being left them of entering into God's Rest, any of them should seem to miss or fall short of it. But since it is so clear and manifest, that many professors in all Ages have been faithless, and hypocritical in their profession; and since it is so dispu­table at least, nay highly probable, both from Scripture, and from rea­son and experience, that many pro­fessors sincere at first, may prove backsliders, and fall away from their former righteousness, faith, and obe­dience; 'tis both the Duty and Wisdom of all to fear, lest any miss [Page 7] of the promises, for want of perform­ing sincerely and constantly the necessary conditions annexed to them. Scarce is there any part of Divinity more dangerously mista­ken, corrupted, debauched, by the prejudices or interests, passions or lusts of several Men, made more instrumental, to flatter and cherish that sloth in good, or security in evil, for destruction of which they were made or propounded, than that of the promises of Christ and his Gospel. Some give them the in­closure, or monopoly, as I may so say, of our faith, while the precepts and threats, which have as much right to be believed as they, his Kingly and Prophetic Office, to which he was as particularly anoin­ted, as to that of Priest, being too commonly set aside as unneces­sary; nay, with some not only look'd upon as no part of the Gospel, but as dangerous to be obtruded for the object of Faith or Duty. Some [Page 8] would perswade themselves and o­thers, that the promises of Christ are particular and absolute, confin'd to some few, and to those howsoever they be qualified; when as the whole tenor and current of Christian Doctrine proclaims directly the quite contrary, that they are general and conditional; a Picture that looks every Man in the face, that comes into the room, but cannot be imagined to eye any Man else; un­restrained to all, provided they perform the condition, and an [...]; those diffusive rich Store-houses, sealed up against all, who do not perform it. Shall we therefore have the patience, the justice and piety, yea, the wisdom and faithfulness to our selves, to resist a while these strong prejudices, to rescue the sacred object of faith from such misprisions, to set up the promises of Christ henceforth in such a posture, as may have the safest and kindest influence; the [Page 9] powerfullest and most benign aspect on our Hearts and Lives, not to swell and puff up our phansies any longer, with an opinion that we are the spe­cial favourites of Heaven, to whom the promises of Rest are consign'd unconditionally, or without possibi­lity of being forfeited; but to en­gage and oblige our Souls to that universal constant righteousness, holiness, obedience, as well as faith, which may really instate us in those promises, that may, like the Angel to St. Peter in Prison, awake us out of our sleep and dream, and shake off those gyves and manacles, which keep our feet from walking in the ways which God hath prescribed, and thereby even confine and fetter God himself, if I may so speak, from making good his promises effectually, to such indisposed unqualified per­sons. If we look on the lives of most Christians professing the Gos­pel, with great pretence at least of confidence, that they shall be par­takers [Page 10] takers of God's Rest, that the promise thereof belongs to them, though they live as those that set up their Rest in the lusts of the flesh, those lusts of the Eye, that pride of life which is directly contrary to it, and the love of the Father; we have but too great reason to fear, that unless they repent and reform speedily and effectually, they will prove such as no Rest belongs to.

And if we look on the slothful negligence in good works, yea the wilful backsliding to wicked works, to false Doctrines, to lewd practises, which are to be found too visibly and frequently even in those, who once were sincere Believers, such as had for a time obeyed both in heart and life the Gospel of Christ, received his precepts into their practice, as well as promises into their Creed; we shall have too great reason to fear, that they also may fall away finally from those condi­tions, without the renewed preseve­ring [Page 11] performance of which, there is no rest of Gods to be had. Where­fore both in respect of the former faithless Professors, and of the latter backsliding Professors, let us fear, as the Apostle exhorts us, fear in wisdom towards our selves, and fear in charity towards others; fear and watch over our selves and one ano­ther, watch and pray, labour and strive, lest a promise being left us of entering Gods rest, any of us seem to fall short of it, for want of attending to its conditions, which is not onely an outward profession but a lively faith working by love, and that not onely begun or continued for a while, but persevering to the end. Despise not then the motive of Fear, lest you despise your own Souls. To fear any mortal visible enemy, any earthly temporal danger, in an holy righteous cause, is cowardise and servile baseness: to fear the labour of study and diligence, is sloth and idleness: but to fear God and his [Page 12] righteous threats, especially that of losing his rest, of incurring his endless intolerable displeasure, this is a wise and gracious fear; not only the beginning of Wisdom and Grace, but its safety and preservation, its watchful Monitor, Exciter, and Furtherer all along; for it makes us examine and prove our selves, whether we are as yet in the faith, well settled and grounded, such a faith as works by love and sincere obedience, not a groundless or fruitless credulity, perswasion, con­fidence of all being well, on a bare profession; and when we have found that we are sincere in faith, repen­tance, love, obedience, it awakes our care to continue so, by growing in grace, and persevering against whatever allurements or terrors, lest we fall from our own stead­fastness, and hold not fast the ground of our confidence to the end. It works on our memory, and re­vives our humility for sins past; it [Page 13] works on our reason, and stirs up our care against sin for the future. The fear of missing or falling short of Gods rest, of incurring intolerable eternal trouble, anguish, and pain, restrains us from running on in the ways of destruction. In the restraint some hope of pardon shews it self; in this hope we see the mercy and love of God, and then at last perceive the horrour and ugliness of sin, not onely in its punishment, but in it self. This last hath more of love than fear in it, and the fear is now become filial; for a good Son will fear the anger of his Father so much the more, because he knows the greatness and sweetness of his love, and by that fear preserves and in­creases his filial obedience. Our Saviour commands his Apostles themselves, who sure were Sons, and had the Spirit of Adoption, to fear him that can destroy both body and soul in hell fire, that they might not fear, but choose to suffer all that [Page 14] Man could inflict on their bodies, rather than hazard the loss of his favour; for what's the fire of per­secution to that of Gods wrath? or the pains of a Rack for an hour or two, to the torments of hell for evermore? The Fathers call this fear, [...], the bridle of lusts or disorderly appetites, and not onely the entrance to Piety, but the Guar­dian of all Virtue.

S ^t Jerom confesses he owed the strictness of his life to this fear; and S ^t Ambrose says, Love it self is upheld by it. Some would confine fear to Mount Sinai, as if Mount Sion did exclude it; whereas the Apostle ha­ving compared the Law on the one, and the Gospel on the other, Heb. 12.18, 22. adds presently ver. 25. See ye refuse not him that speaketh; for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven. And then concludes [Page 15] the whole Chapter with these words, Wherefore let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire. I know that of S ^t Aug. is true, Brevis differentia legis & Evangelij, Timor & Amor. But 'tis the fear of temporal punish­ment which is proper to the Law, wherewith, as also with hope of temporal promises, they were in that Nonage allured or terrified, first to outward, then to inward spiri­tual obedience. We should indeed for the great kindness and enamou­ring amiableness of our Redeemer and Redemption, be all on fire with thankful love; but we must con­sider not onely what's the height of our duty we owe to our Lord, but what's that which at first entrance into his School we can perform, and what afterwards through the remainders of corruption we still need, and what he will be pleased to accept. Thus to be frighted and [Page 16] chased to happiness is an Argument indeed of our imperfection; but since our state is as yet imperfect, 'tis our Wisdom to use all such helps as our Lord allows of. And yet even in the state of innocency our first Pa­rents needed this motive, and had not fell if they had used it: they fell with this thought, that they should not fall. They who in this lapsed im­perfect estate, require such Christians onely as are made up of all love, do but Votum accomodare, non Historiam, nec qualis est, sed qualis esse deberet describunt. They tell us what their wish is, and our duty; but consi­der not the real History of what is, and what is likely to be effected. Thus Tully says of Cato, that optimo animo & summâ fide utens, nocet, inter­dum Reipublicae, with an honest and good meaning he did sometimes much hurt to the Commonwealth, by imposing that strictness of Laws and Manners, which 'twas not able to reach or keep. Tanquam in Platonis [Page 17] Republicâ non tanquam in faece Romuli; fitting his sentence rather to Plato's phansied Utopian Commonwealth, than to the real state of Rome. So I may say of these Perfectionists, they do not remember that they have to do with Men, in whom some remain­ders of the old Man will still be lusting against the Spirit; and those lustings must be check'd, and chil'd and supprest sometimes, with this fear of falling short of God's Rest, and falling into intolerable Trou­bles. And yet suppose they were as St. Paul, and feared Sin more than Hell, yet the height of some Mens grace is no ground for a gene­ral Doctrine; nor because Love is the best of all, therefore may Fear be made unlawful; as if that were a Sin, which God propounds to keep us from Sin. Hell I am sure is a part of our Creed as well as Heaven, and God hath propounded both a Tribu­nal and a Mercy-seat, and if we may serve God as Moses did, with [Page 18] an eye of hope to the recompence of reward, why not with an eye of fear towards him, who though a Father, will-judge every man ac­cording to his works. Our Saviour indeed, Luke 12.32. bids his flock, how little soever, not fear, because it is their Fathers pleasure to give them the kingdom; but the fear he forbids, is the fear of distrustfulness in him, or his promises, or assistances; as if he would not or could not defend his obedient Children against the numerous Herd of the wicked; not the fear of incurring his holy and just displeasure, in case they should do what must displease him. We do not fear as the Jews did, present punishment to restrain us from that lust, which otherwise we love and would willingly follow. Our grea­test motives of obedience are not from that spirit of bondage, which looks chiefly on temporal things, and thinks it self rejected for ever if chastised here, or tried with afflicti­ons; [Page 19] for the Gospel directs us to things invisible and eternal, much more clearly than the Law, and makes afflictions patiently endured, the sign of Gods favour rather than hatred; nor is it contrary to the Spirit of Adoption, to fear offending him that adopted us, lest thereby he disinherit us. Though we are received into the family of Gods children, and must love God above all as our Father, love our Redeemer so much more than all Relations, than life it self and its dearest con­tentments, as to forsake and re­nounce them for ever, rather than him: Yet we are still exhorted and enjoyned to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear, not to fear what Man, but God can do unto us. To love him as a Father, and fear to lose his love by offending him; to love the Son, and kiss him with reverence lest he be angry; to love the Holy Spirit of God, and fear to grieve, resist, and quench him, [Page 20] lest we turn his grace into wan­tonness, and make him withdraw his gracious presence, that would enable us in holiness and righteous­ness to serve him, without fear of any evil that can befall us so doing, or of any enemy that can hurt us; and yet to fear him whom we serve as our Lord and King. A good Son may fear to incur his Father's wrath by ceasing to be so, and yet cry Abba Father.

Tertullian interprets that of Saint John, Perfect love casts out fear, of lazy fear, that will not go on in the way of grace, for fear of a Lion in the way, some hazard, and difficul­ties likely to meet him; not the fear of Gods wrath possible to be incur­red by sin and backsliding, but of temporal dangers and persecutions. If our love be perfect, though with the perfection of sincerity, that is, habitually prevailing over all other loves, 'twill cast out such fear, and make us lay down our lives for the [Page 21] Brethren, to glorifie God, and en­courage others by the evidence of our faith, content to adventure any thing for Christs sake, even death it self; but sure not the displeasing of God, and the torments of Hell, that were too prodigal an alms, too wild a valour, directly contrary to the love as well as fear of God in Christ. Charity again casteth out all fear, but by degrees; as that increaseth, so fear abateth. If our Sanctification were as perfect for degrees, as universal for its parts; were our obedience like that of Angels, which cannot fail, we should need neither hope to encou­rage our love, nor fear to guard it; but while it is only in part, the best Christians in this state of imper­fection, may have use of a Deaths Head, and make Gods threats as well as promises, subordinate means to concur with the principal; But­tresses to keep the Building from swerving, while the foundation of [Page 22] Faith and Love keeps it from sink­ing: Fides & spes tuta si cauta, secura si sollicita. Tert. Fear makes our love reverent, our hope wary, our faith discreet. If the Sails be too full, they may endanger us as much as a Rock; for Fear as a Rudder guides and steers our Faith and Hope, between the gulph or sands of Despair; and the rock of Pre­sumption or proud Security. Serve we the Lord then in love, but in fear too, and rejoyce unto him with trembling, as David speaks; fear him as Lord; love and rejoyce in him as Jesus; yea, and fear him as Jesus too; fear to offend so gracious a Saviour, to vilifie and hazard such precious Salvation, sit timor inno­centiae Custos, saith St. Cyp. ut Deus qui in mentes nostras clementer in­fluxit, in animi hospitio justâ operatione teneatur.

If God hath entered into our hearts through his Son by his Spirit, let us be glad and rejoyce in his [Page 23] presence, for thankful joy is his entertainment; but let fear keep the door, that nothing enter that may displease so holy a presence. — Aiunt quidam, saith Tert. se salvo metu (vel fide) peccare; some say, they can venture on sin with­out any prejudice to faith or fear; sic ergo & ipsi (salvâ veniâ) detruden­tur in Gehennam, dum salvo metu peccant; so shall such who say and do so, be thrust into Hell, without any prejudice to God's mercy, or Christ's merit and intercession. Whether we consider the infinite eternal worth and weight of this Rest, the intolerable endless troubles of missing it, or the absolute ne­cessity of hating and shunning all evil, of loving and following all duties and graces, in order to at­taining the one, and escaping the other. Whether we look upon the weakness, inconstancy, treachery of the flesh within us; or upon the variety of temptations, alluring [Page 24] and terrifying us from the world without, set on by the Devil with all the vigilance of subtil malice; or on the shortness or uncertainty of the time wherein this Rest must be secured, or lost for ever. Whe­ther we look on the love and infi­nite mercy of God, in offering, purchasing, inviting, drawing us to this Rest at such a price, by such powerful obliging variety of means or motives; or on the deceitfulness of mans heart, willing to think the conditions of it, fewer and easier than they are; and to satisfie it self in the hopes of it on an outward profession, a speculative faith, or a partial obedience. Or lastly, whether we consider the possibility of falling away through sloth or impatience, from the sincere re­pentance and faith, love and obedi­ence, which was begun. All and every one of these call for an hum­ble watchful fear, and godly jea­lousie over our selves, solicitous [Page 25] cautions and diligence lest we fall short of it. Take heed then, of thinking this fear of missing it, either unnecessary, or unbeseeming Christian Professors or true Belie­vers; since many Professors are no true Believers, and they that are may cease to be so, unless they watch and pray assiduously, and work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. Look not upon it, as too slavish for Persons re­generate, and Children of light; since sure it is that the Spirit of God, and the holy Apostles made choice of no Arguments, but such as were fit to be made use of by Christians; and the motives of fear, are more than once the Arguments they chose, even to those who had been made partakers of Christ, and were of the House and Family of God; such as had received the Kingdom that could not be moved. Heb. 12.28. Who yet, are there exhorted [...], to have Grace, [Page 26] or to hold it fast, by making an humble diligent use of that pretious Talent. Or if you will [...], to be thankful to God, the muni­ficent donor of such a benefit, and this duty raised to the height, to the serving of God [...], whether that refer to the Persons, and signi­fie serving with cheerful alacrity; for fear and chearfulness are very consistent, the former the Guardian, the Conservator of the latter; Or whether it refer to God as we ren­der it, serving him acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, you have still in this Apostle, the mo­tives of fear annexed to this duty; for our God is a consuming fire. 'Twas wisdom then and sober piety in him that said, He would not leave his part in Hell (meaning the benefit he found in meditating on God's threats as well as promises) for all the Goods of this world; knowing how useful the flesh of the Viper was to cure its poison; the torments [Page 27] attending upon sin, to check its temptations; the apprehension of a Fever or other distemper, an­nexed by consequence, to restrain from those pleasant forbidden fruits, which courted his Senses, and sol­licit his Phansie; the deadly hook, to keep from venturing on the bait; the Sea, from the Syren.

Thus when the Apostle exhorts the Hebrews to fear, Lest any of them should seem to fall short of this Rest: The word seem, signifies not only an outward appearance of the things, without a reality of the danger or misery forewarn'd of; but in Let us take heed, is also meant a real incurring the same, without taking heed to the counsel given; or it may be, the Apostle chose to speak so, to mitigate the sharpness of that which he spake of to the Hebrews, that he might not be thought to conclude them Apo­states, but only to fear they may be so, unless they look'd in good time [Page 28] warily to it. Such charitable Rhe­toric we read him using Heb. 6.9. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that (are near or) accompany Salvation, though we thus speak. It may be also he saith Seem, to stir up their fear and caution the more, against such cold­ness, sloth, and inconstancy of mind, as began to appear among the He­brews, which if not in time bewai­led and rectified, might hazard the prize set before them, and fall to peremptory infidelity. Thus he is charitably suspicious of them, and jealous over them with a godly jealousie, as he speaks 2 Cor. 11.2. and gives withall to understand, that 'tis not enough for a wise and thankful Christian, to abhor and avoid utter Apostacies, and final missing of Gods Rest; but 'tis their safety, duty, and honour, to keep from the very approaches to it, and appea­rances of it; and not to give any occasions to others, to hear, or see, [Page 29] or think that we are fallen, or fal­ling away. Abstain from all appea­rance of evil, 1 Thes. 5.22. lest while you indulge your selves to sloth, and give your selves over as far as you may with any hopes of attaining Heaven, to the pleasures and cares, or other concerns of this Life; you do not only seem to fall short, but do so indeed, and plainly appear to do so. And this is the last sence of the word lest ye seem, that is, appear and give too great undeniable evidence, that you are of those that apostatize, and fall short of Gods Rest.

So when it is said, v. 2. The Gospel was preach'd as well to us as unto them, It does not imply that the Gospel was preach'd as clearly and fully to them as unto us; but that it was preach'd sufficiently to them, in such a manner, and measure revealed, as was most suitable to those times, by types and Prophe­sies, spiritual and eternal things, [Page 30] under the vail of external and visi­ble temporal things; yet so that the light shone through the vail on all their hearts, who were attentive to the drift and true aim, the grounds and reasons of them, and to the Prophesies that went before and along with them, to make them the clearlier understood. The Apostle by saying As well to us, speaks by a [...], or intimation, of so well at least, and much better; for to us the Gospel is preach'd, without intervention of Types and Prophesies, in its clear, full, actual exhibition, unveiling those Types, fulfilling those Prophesies, revealing the whole Mystery of Godliness, and Counsel of God much plainer, dis­pensing the Light and Grace of Gods Spirit more generally and plentifully: So that the Argument runs thus; If they that had Gods Rest promised to them more ob­scurely, and in a lower degree and measure, yet fell short of it for [Page 31] want of being sound, and constant in Faith and Obedience; how much more shall they do so, who having the Gospel preach'd unto them in its clearest fullest degree of light and power, yet do not receive, believe, and obey it, with faithful sincerity and perseverance?

Now by faith, for want of which the Word preach'd did not profit them, is meant such a firm well-grounded persuasion of Gods un­changeable all sufficient Wisdom and Truth, as to adhere and cleave thereto, against whatever appea­ring difficulties or temptations. For the ancient Israelites, they had most of them once believed God and Moses, when they slew the Passover, and sprinkled their Doors with the bloud thereof, went out of Egypt, though Pharaoh was ready to pursue them, and went through the Red Sea into the Wilderness towards Canaan, following the con­duct of the Cloud and Pillar of [Page 32] Fire; but when there arose any new difficulty or temptation, Moses his absence for 40 days, want of Water, Bread for a while, nay want of Flesh, the Allurements of Women, though Heathenish Idolaters, the news of Gyants and high Walls, they strangely forget the former evidences of Gods Faithfulness, Power, Goodness, and Truth; question and tempt him, repine and murmur, and turn back in their hearts to Egypt.

Wherefore 'twas want of con­sideration, and serious attentive frequent minding what they had formerly known and believed, which continually exposed them to fall away to unbelief and dis­obedience: Such are the grounds and motives of Faith propounded in Scripture, that they who attend impartially and seriously, cannot with any true reason, deny their assent and approbation of that Doctrine, which they prove and [...] [Page 35] and blind the heart, that final impe­nitency; and infidelity is the issue in too too many. Let no man then deceive himself with presumptious Hopes, of entring Gods Rest, on bare profession of his Gospel (for that may be counterfeit; and void of any well grounded faith; sure to fail in time of Trial.)

Thus we see the word and means of grace, though never so wisely and powerfully dispenced, may prove very generally ineffectual, for want of being mixt with faith in the partakers: And that they who enjoy the means of grace, and yet are not wrought upon by them, to faith and obedience, sincere, and durable, their call and profession, of being the People of God, does them not onely no good; but hastens and aggravates their con­demnation; is it not time then for those who live in the light of the Gospel (as never I think any Na­tion did, for Hundreds of Years, [Page 36] if this hath not) to look to their hearts and lives impartially; and thence discover what grounds and stability of faith; there is in the one, what fruits and good effects in the other; and if they find themselves at a loss, to take the blame intirely and wholly to themselves, not to the want of means and motives, Pastors or Teachers, skillful and faithful, but to the want of their own attention and consideration; their taking up their profession of Christianity on no better or surer grounds; than that which a Pagan, or Mahometan relies on, for their wicked errors. Or if they have taken it up on better, and know what, and why, they believe; then they are clearlier convinced, and condemned by their own con­science for not persevering, and increasing that faith by living sin­cerely according to it, but con­tradicting their very faith, as well as profession, untill the custom of [Page 37] sin hath darkned, if not extinguisht their former evidences; is it not high time then for any that finde it thus with them, to cast away all longer delays of self abhorrence and repentance, to return to God and their own hearts with shame and grief for their former backsli­dings, and for ever, from henceforth to be the more humble for what is past, watchful and zealous for the future in reviewing their faith, and living by it in Holiness and Righte­ousness, Purity and Peaceableness, Obedience and Patience, lest that faith which hath been deadned, and contradicted so long and often; turn to a total and final apostacy in the end.

There's nothing more clear in Holy Scripture than that they whom God vouchsafes to call by his loudest voice; and powerfullest means, to Repentance and Faith, and Obedience; are rendred there­by so much the more hainously [Page 38] guilty of willful ingratitude, un­belief, and disobedience, and there­fore liable to so much the sorer Condemnation; unless they re­pent, believe, and obey according to that light and grace which was afforded them: You have I known of all Nations, therefore you will I punish the sooner and more severely.

This is the condemnation, that light is come into the World, and ye have loved darkness rather than light. Woe unto thee Corazin, woe unto thee Bethsaida, for if the mighty works, &c. they had repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. How shall we of all others escape, if we neglect so great salvation.

It is indeed a great favour and mercy of God to send us his Gospel, to prevent us with all the means of grace, but favours and mercies abused and perverted; increase the guilt of those that receive them, but would not use them to God's glory and their own Salvation: And yet what more common and [Page 39] general for Men and Women of all sorts, to suppose themselves safe enough, and entituled sufficiently to God's Rest, because they are of the visible Church, professing that Truth which should purify and sanctify them, but doth not, because it is not aright considered and laid to heart, in its grounds and reasons, terms, and conditions, as well as its promises.

The greatest part of the Jews you see, though brought out of Egypt with many Miracles, made the peculiar People of God, the lively Oracles committed to them, and what not that could be desired to make them holy or happy, yet for want of considering and believ­ing the word of God, forfeited and lost their Title to Canaan. And the greatest part I fear of Christians; yea of the purest professors of Christianity, will forfeit and lose their Title to Heaven; unless they consider, believe, and obey the [Page 40] Gospel of Christ more sincerely, impartially, constantly than hither­to they seem to have done. And if they miss of Gods Rest, for want of considering and performing its conditions, their anguish and pain will be so much the heavier to all eternity: They that have the Ora­cles of God, the word and Sacra­ments; Pastors and Teachers gran­ted to them, and yet are never the better, and holier, are so much worse; because they disgrace, and bring a reproach on the greatest and weightiest Truth in the World, as if it had no evidence or power in it. The Israelites once were like Gideons Fleece, full of heavenly Dew in a drought; endued with those high and happy priviledges, of which we read Rom. 2.3. and Rom. 9.4. But yet because they lived not answerably to their vocation, but made their privileges occasions of Pride, and vain presumption of Gods favour; till at last they re­jected [Page 41] their very Messias, of whom they boasted as their peculiar, they are at this day like the Mountains of Gilboa barren and dry, while the Dew of Heaven hath fallen abun­dantly upon the Nations. The favours shewn to the Christian Church are greater than theirs, because the Truth is clearlier revealed, the means of grace more powerfull and less burthensom. But yet these favours, if trusted to, and yet neglected; will prove aggrava­tions of God's displeasure. To be surrounded with such helps of God from above, of Men below; ready to further us towards Heaven, of precepts to guide, promises to en­courage us, and yet to fall short of Gods Rest, is a double and treble shame and sorrow: Wherefore if not in gratitude to God, for all his mercies, yet for fear lest these mercies prove by our own willful neglect and contempt of them, the aggravations of our misery, let us [Page 42] while it is called to day; excite our selves, and exhort one another to repentance and faith, holiness, and righteousness, obedience and patience, against whatever tempta­tions arise. We have a promise infallibly sure, incomparably pre­tious, of entring Gods Rest, his word to quicken us; his Sacraments to confirm us; his Grace to prevent assist and follow us; If we hearken to his word, and resist not his grace, neither Prophane nor Idolize his Sacraments, but receive them with faith and reverence; as they were instituted in love: If we hear the Church, and watch over our selves and one another, Sin shall have no dominion over us, we shall be built up from one degree of faith and holiness to another, until we enter Gods Rest; without any fear or possibility of falling from it: But if we neglect the conditions of it, and trust to the promise as if it were absolute; to the means of [Page 43] grace, as if they were even grace it self; our sloth and confidence will end in despair; and find for ever so much the greater trouble and anguish; for having missed of God's Rest, offered unto us on such conditions. Let us awake then, and excite our selves and one another; by all the arguments of hope and fear, love and gratitude, that so God may have the honour of all his favours bestowed upon us, and we the everlasting comfort, of being thankful, and hearing that beatifical voice: Well done good and faithful Servant; enter thy Masters Joy and Rest.

Now this Rest of Gods, is not the Rest of the Sabboth or Canaan in this life, but that eternal Rest with God in Heaven, implied in­deed and preparation made for it by the Sabboth; Typified by Canaan, begun here by believers to be injoy'd in its first fruits, through faith and hope, but not to be had in its full [Page 44] harvest; its perfect peace and joy in God, 'till we come to Heaven: We which have believed, saith Saint Paul, do enter into Rest, that is, shall if we persevere in faith and holiness, enter into it perfectly; without possibility of forfeiting or losing it; do enter into it now by faith and hope in God's promises; by love and obedience of his pre­cepts, which gives us a real Title to it; yea a true, though initial imperfect defeasible admission into it, by that Rest from the guilt of Sin, which faith and the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus, re­ceives and imbraces with peace and joy, by that Rest from the power, disorder and tyranny of Sin, which faith procuring Gods Spirit, and looking upon the certainty and weight of his promises and threats, the beauty and excellency of his precepts, together with the great obligation of God's mercy in sen­ding his Son to die for our sins, [Page 45] and rise again for our justification, effects and enjoys. Thus believers, if such believers as rely on the promises of God's Rest, with faithful reso­lutions and endeavours to perform its conditions; do enter into it initially; and shall enter into it eternally. But how proves the Apostle this? the proof of it is in these words. He said I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter my Rest, who shew themselves obsti­nately unbelieving and disobedient: The Argument is taken à contrario, from the nature of contrary things; If infidelity and disobedience, be that alone which excludes from the promise of God's Rest; then faith and obedience, or such a faith as produceth obedience, is that which entitles us to enter into it, for God's promise cannot be satisfied; nor wholly norutterly disappointed, or made to become of none effect: And therefore though they who would not believe it; nor keep its [Page 46] conditions, fell short of it, yet they who believe and perform its con­conditions must enter into it: Yea his very wrath and oath against the one for their unbelief and diso­bedience, implies and inferrs his complacency, and love towards the other, his undefeasible decree and oath, that they persevering in faith and obedience shall enter, and fully enjoy his Rest; And this Rest, was not the Rest of Canaan: For if Joshua or Jesus, the Son of Nun, had given them Rest, then would not David afterwards have spoken of another Rest; from whence the Apostle inferrs, what he began with; there Remains there­fore a Rest to the People of God; another manner of Rest than that of Canaan; eternal and perfect with God in Heaven, to which the true Joshua or Jesus the Son of God; must give us entrance by faith in him; of whom Joshua the Son of Nun, was but an imperfect [Page 47] transitory Type, as that Rest of Canaan, and of the Sabboth, was of the perfect eternal Rest; which still remains for Gods People (the whole Church of true persevering obedi­ent believers.) From what the A­postle hath said we may make this observation: That Man hath no true and perfect Rest in ought but God: His Rest is Mans Rest, because he is the Rest and happiness of Man; the ultimate compleate satisfactory object of reasonable creatures; To Rest in any thing but in him, as our happiness, without dependance on him as the Author, and reference to him as the end thereof, is sinful vanity and vexation, sure to end in eternal trouble without repentance.

Canaan it self was not to be the final Rest and happiness of the Israelites, nor must any thing in this World, any thing less than God be ours: What God hath said to the Jews of old — he much more clearly hath said and proved [Page 48] to us Christians: Arise and depart, for this is not your Resting place. The Heavenly Rest and eternal life of seeing God, as he is, was but ob­scurely and imperfectly revealed to them; who lived before or under the law till Christ came, in whom the promise of it was made, when man had lost all hope of it. It was till then, wrapt up as it were in the seed and bloome of Types and Pro­phesies, implied and intimated in the Sabboth, and Canaan, and Tempo­ral blessings, attending Piety in this life rather than manifested, and brought to light in its clearest evi­dences and strongest assurances, as now our Lord Jesus hath done, who hath brought life and immor­tality to light through the Gospel, and therefore if they were obliged only in God through Christ Jesus, to place their happiness in nothing below, but to look on him through the vaile of Types, and Temporal blessings; how much more are we [Page 49] obliged, as well as enabled, to do so, to whom Christ hath been ex­hibited with all the fulness of Truth and grace, revealing the whole counsel of God, our Rest in him, and the way to attain it, without obscurity and beyond dispute? If David foresaw and foretold this Rest to be remaining; when he not only enjoy'd Canaan, and its blessings, as the other Israelites did; but the very height thereof, as a prosperous King; If he could say, Deliver me O Lord from the Men of this World, whose portion is in this life; I am a stranger and sojourner here as all my Fathers were; How much more are we obliged to think and say so, who have not such Types and Temporal blessings to vaile the Object of our Rest, and interrupt our sight of it, to whom the Son and Lord of David, hath been ex­hibited, exemplifying and teaching us, our only Rest to be in God the Father, through him the Son, by his [Page 50] holy Spirit, dying to purchase an entrance to it, rising and ascending and sitting down in a Glorious Rest at Gods Right Hand to assure us of it. It is no less than the sin of Idolatry to place our Rest, con­fidence or happiness, in pleasures or honours, possessions or riches, or any thing else that this World can gratifie us with; it is the bitter spring or Root of all sins; It con­tradicts the design of God, in giving us any Temporal blessings; he gave them to help us unto him, that reflecting upon him as their Author and end, we might be perswaded to love him incomparably above all; if we fall in love with them, instead of raising our love to him, we quite pervert the intent of his favours, and turn them into hin­derances, to his dishonour and our own ruine. He gave them to com­fort us in our journy; and shall we so mistake his meaning, as to set up our dwelling in the Inn, and [Page 51] Travaile no farther towards our Country but forget the giver, be­cause of that gift which was sent us on purpose, to mind us of him? This were to bring that curse on our selves which the Prophet fore­told, rather than prayed, might fall on Gods enemies; Let their Table be made a snare, and that which should have been for their wealth, be an occasion of falling to them. This were indeed to provoke God, either to withdraw those favours, which thus he sees rested in, instead of him, or else to embitter and curse them from yeilding any content; and if he should suffer us still to rest in them to his dishonour, 'twould prove the greatest, surest curse of all others, to live and die in this false deceitful transitory Rest, which leads to, and ends in eter­nal trouble, and sorrow of body and soul. That which is Mans true Rest, must be able to give him full and perpetual satisfaction; But [Page 52] all things below do neither satisfie us, while we have them, nor can continue with us longer, to yield us that Rest or Pleasure which we fancy. We spend much time and care to get them, and when we have gotten them, as we think, they die in the mid'st of our em­braces, and leave little or nothing behind them, but shame and loath­ing: Taedet adeptos, quod adepturos torsit, we pine for them as Ammon for Thamar, and then repine at our selves and them, that we were such fools as to seek our Rest, where 'twas not: Therefore all carnal worldly Persons, whether the sen­sual or voluptuous, the covetous, or ambitious, are fain to wander from one purstui and design to ano­ther; till having run the whole circle, they are weary and giddy, perplext and tired, and cry out, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation, no Rest to be had below, and how shall we hope for that above, who [Page 53] never sought till 'twas too late: Ahabs Kingdom seem'd as nothing, unless he might have Naboths Vineyard; and having obtained it by Perjury and Murther, it pressed him to death and Hell. Alexander had no Rest, till he Conquered, he thought, one World, and then had as little, or rather less, suspecting and killing his nearest Friends, untill he drank himself to Death and found that Poison in Intemperance, which he feared to find from his Cup-bearer. Let's consult our own experience, and hearts, hath any of us who have run through several states of life, with Hopes of Rest, when this or that were attained, found the Rest which we hoped for, and not, either quite miss'd what we sought, or miss'd of that Rest, and satisfaction which we sought and hoped to have found? Or if any of us have been so happy, and yet so miserable, so happy as to obtain our desires; and yet so miserable as to desire no [Page 54] more, no Rest in Heaven, no Peace and Joy of life eternal with God; can any of us without stupifying our very Reason, common sense, as well as faith, take Rest in that which we know we must leave e're many years, and which for ought we know may leave us e're many days? Thus we see what an hainous sin; indeed the Spring of all sins is, to seek or desire to Rest in ought but God, and withall, what a folly and madness it is against our selves, as well as a sin against God: And yet how guilty of this ingrati­tude and this folly are most Christi­ans, if we reckon them so, who carry the name and profession of Christianity? If God send Men health and wealth, peace and plenty, possessions and honours; how ready are they to set up their Rest on this side Jordan? whereas all this was given them to raise their gratitude, towards its Donor, and make them thereby long after him, that they [Page 55] might at length Rest in him: But if God send them afflictions and troubles, to wean them and drive them from this their folly; they are troubled and grieved as if they had lost their God and Saviour in losing that which they had not lost, if they would but have used it mode­rately and thankfully, as coming from God, and leading to him. But woe, and restless trouble, and anguish for ever more, must, and will be their portion; whom nei­ther prosperity can invite, nor ad­versity drive to Rest in God: Se­condly, They who believe with such a Faith in Christ Jesus as works by Love, the Love of God above all, as their perfect eternal Rest and happiness, their All-suf­ficient shield here, and exceeding great reward hereafter, they alone do enter God's Rest; Here by Faith Hope and Love, hereafter by full immediate, inseparable sight and fruition: Here they enter God's [Page 56] Rest inchoitivè, by having a Title to it, as adopted Sons and Heirs of God through Christ Jesus, by hav­ing a true, though imperfect pro­spect or foresight of it, through Faith in Gods word and the merits of Christ. Now this is a blessed Rest to the Soul, compared with that miserable toile and drudgery, fears and troubles, which all un­believing and disobedient wicked Persons lie under, how prosperous soever their outward condition in this World seems. The Rest of a Traveller, is far short of one that is come to his Country and Home, and yet it is a true Rest, compared with one that wanders through de­sarts, boggs and precipices into ruine.

He that now knows he is in the right way to his final Rest, his Fathers House, where he shall be sure of a glorious inheritance, and satisfactory eternal peace and joy, that through the way he goes also, he shall be directed in all turnings, protected [Page 57] from all dangers, refreshed and re­lieved at every Stage; with com­petent food and comfortable Rest; this Mans heart is calm and quiet from those anxieties, which the other suffers; and though he must look to his way as he goes, be thrifty and temperate in his Inn; and Travel forward with watchful dili­gence, and painful industry, yet his labours and cares have the Rest of Hope, and chearful expectance; and as he draws nearer his Country and home, so his Rest and joy in­creaseth.

This is the Rest of holy Tra­vellers towards Heaven, their Country, their God and Father: To which Christ, Matt. 11.28. Invites the weary and heavy laden, and into which, when they come unto him, they enter by Faith; if such a Faith as takes up his Yoke, and wears his burthen with meek­ness, and lowliness, as easy and gra­cious. Faith laies hold on the merits [Page 58] of Christ, and rests on him that takes away the sins of the World; by the propitiation of his obedience, for Pardon and Peace, as knowing nothing else can procure it but that. That most certainly and fully shall procure it for all that come unto God by him, for mercy and grace. God was in Christ, saith St. Paul, 2 Cor. 5.19, 21. Reconciling the World unto himself, not imputing their Trespasses to them; for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him. He might have declared his mercy to us some other way, but this was the only best way to declare his Righteousness as well as Mercy, that he might be just as well as gracious, in justifying the sinner, and punishing the sin. There­fore being justifyed by Faith, we enter into Gods Rest, having Peace with God through Christ Jesus, saith St. Paul. He that relies his [Page 59] weary Soul on this Rock and sure foundation, shall never be ashamed of his Hope, if he rely with such a Faith and Hope on it, as accepts of the Yoke, as well as the Rest; but shall by degrees, as he grows in Holiness and Righteousness, find the Rest of his Soul increased and assured unto him more and more, till he attain that [...], that fulness of Peace and Joy in believing, which St. Paul expresseth, Rom. 8.38. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect, 'tis God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? 'Tis Christ that died, or rather is risen again to God's right hand, and there makes in­tercession for us. As for afflictions that often may and do follow this Rest of Faith for justification; St. Paul shews in the next words that they rather confirm and ratifie the pardon, than question or lessen it; through that experience of Gods wise and faithful love, in [Page 60] making all things work together for good, to those that love him above all: Who shall seperate us from the love of God in Christ? shall Tribulation or Distress, Per­secution or Nakedness; Famin or Sword? in all these we are more than Conquerors through him that loved us. If weak Christians com­ing to Christ with faithful desires; and resolutions to weare his Yoke, and bear his Burthen, meekly and humbly, find not this Rest of justifi­cation, with such a degree of Peace and Joy, as St. Paul expresseth, 'tis not because Christ giveth them not what he promiseth; but because he giveth it them gradually, accor­ding as they are able and fit, by their Faith to receive it; for he saith to every Soul now, as to them in St. Matt. 9.24. Be it unto you, according to your Faith, if your Faith be strong, and lively; both in believing my promise and merit, and in undertaking that Yoke of [...] [Page 65] his Yoke; though they find not as yet that Rest and Peace which their Souls desire, pray and stay for.

Blessed is he that stayeth and waiteth with humble Prayer Gods leisure; since he hath promised who cannot fail, that he will not break the bruised Reed, but give in time the Garment of joy, for the Spirit of heaviness: and Isai. 57.15, 16. I will dwell with the contrite humble Spirit to revive it, for I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wrath, lest the Spirit should fail before me, and the Souls which I have made. Thus you have seen the first Rest which true believers enter into even here in this life, the Rest of Pardon, and Justifica­tion upon their Repentance and Faith in Christ. The second, is a Rest from the Tyrannous reign of sin, by those Motives of Hope and Fear, Love and Gratitude; which faith propoundeth from Christs [Page 66] Gospel and the Spirit of grace; holiness and comfort, which faith procureth by earnest Prayer. Now this is so necessarily joyned with the other, the Rest of Pardon, that 'tis its ordinary standing evidence, and the means to obtain it more and more. For we may not come to Christ for Pardon, to give us the Rest of justification from sins guilt, and condemning power, by his Blood, unless we so value that pardon and its price, as sincerely to hate, and be heartily willing to forsake that sin, which the wis­dom and holy justice of God could not, or would not remit or for­give, but at such a price as his own eternal infinite Sons humili­ation to, and in that humane na­ture which had offended. We must feel as well the burthen of sins loathsom filth and hateful dis­order, as well as that of its guilt and punishment, before we are those weary and laden, those poor and [Page 67] humble ones in Spirit, who have a Title to rely on Christ for Rest from both; but to those who so come unto him, our gracous Lord never denies what he invites to, Rest from the slavish service of sin, as well as from its intolerable guilt and condemnation: His blood and spirit are never sever'd; where-ever the one is actually imputed to justification, the other is always imparted also to sanctification, and therefore St. Paul joyns them to­gether, 1 Cor. 6.11. Such were some of you, but ye are washt, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God: And Rom. 8.2.9. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath set me free from the Law of sin and death. But if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is as yet none of his, though he may be his by repentance and faith.

[Page 68]And indeed this Rest from sins dominion, you will easily see to be a necessary, and great part of the Souls happiness in this life, if you will but consider the burthen­some drudgery, that wicked Men lie under until they obtain it, and enter into it by such a faith in Christ Jesus, as works by obedience. For every person living in any course of impiety, unrighteousness, intem­perance, is a self-accusing, self-condemning, divided creature, a terror and shame unto himself.

He cannot choose but wish and desire eternal Rest, yet is custo­marily drawn by his lusts and passions, to do that which certain­ly leads to eternal anxiety and tri­bulation. His reason invites him to that good which is Spiritual, im­mortal, infinite, and therefore a satisfactory Rest to his Soul; to the only God who made him at first, and who alone can make him happy. But his lust and passions [Page 69] draw him away to that which is earthly, sensual, devilish. Not only finite and fading, and so dis­appointing him, but filthy and base, and so distracting and vexing his Soul with foul disorder and guilty shame. His Spirits and conscience often tells him, that he ought to maintain an humble holy communion with God, by Faith and Hope and Love, Prayers and Praises; that so he may be prepa­red to see him in that immediate clear revelation of his glory; but his lusts and passions, so burthen and oppress him, that he cannot lift up his heart to God, nor draw near his holy presence with any delight, but studies to shun him, and live without the remembrance of his goodness and mercies; that he may forget his power and justice. To behold the Creator in the Crea­ture, and love the giver in his gifts, to contemplate his power wisdom and goodness, shining in [Page 70] his word and works; to be thank­full for his past benefits, rejoy­cing in his present favour, and panting after his blessed presence to all eternity; to fit himself for that presence, by purifying himself, as he is pure; by being righteous holy and merciful, as he is; to govern himself and those that are under him, in such order as God prescribes; this is the Rest as well as the Labour of rational Souls in this life, a pleasure and honour as well as a taske. But sin is such a burthenous Tyrant and oppressor, that it makes the sinner imploy his reason, made to serve, know, love and enjoy God: It makes him im­ploy this reason in the drudgery of covetousness, in the brutishness of lusts, and sensuality, in the devillish­ness of malice, envy, revenge, pride and ambition. His reason was given to study God and his Will, to please and delight in him here, that he may for ever see and enjoy him, [Page 71] with mutual complacency; to help others to do so by word and deed, and who is there that hath not quite unchristian'd and unman'd himself, but in sober retirement, thinks this a work that hath plea­sure in it, and Rest as well as La­bour? But sin is such a wearisom Tyrant and oppressor, that it makes the reasonable immortal Soul, that heavenly breath, that Image of God, a sneaking Pandor to his lusts; a drudging purveyor to his belly and appetite; a fawning dissembling false hearted flatterer, to his pride and ambition; a slanderous syco­phant, detractor and whisperer to his envy; a brawling railing reviler to his wrath or anger; a bloody assassinate to his revenge; a griping extortioner, or theevish cheater to his covetousness; a seducer and tempter, that is an assistant to Satan in ruining his own and other Mens Souls: And when all this is done, see what wearisom, restless toyle [Page 72] remains for the sinner. He would live for ever in this World, but sees he must die and be call'd to account; and seeing that, he would die for ever, and turn to nothing, but that he sees he cannot neither. He would have Gods favour, but dares not come near him. He would live in peace and approba­tion with himself, but a civil War and contrary desires, lusts and pas­sions, contrary each to one another, and all to reason, tear and divide him from himself. He would live at Rest and Peace with other Men, but his covetousness and pride makes him injurious, his wrath and revenge, his malice and envy makes him impatient, and quite be­reave him of this Peace: He would be rich, but either his sloth will not gather, or his lusts and vain glory scatters as fast as his industry gets. He would live in safety and ease, but his haughty ambition, makes him endure labour and dan­ger [Page 73] day and night. He would be in honour and high repute, but his sordid lusts and cowardly fears, griping covetousness or wrathfull revenge, makes him hateful and contemptible. His pride and am­bition would command all Men, but it makes him first fawn and flatter, bow and cringe to those whom he secretly hates and scorns. He would be true to his own prin­ciples and religion, not give him­self the lie, by professing what he doth not believe; but his love of the World, and fear of poverty or of death, doth so disturb the Rest of his Soul, that he coucheth un­der every load, complies and con­forms to any profession of faith or worship, which those who prevail would have him subscribe to, till he lay down his faith, hope, and conscience, at the feet of a Man, whose breath is in his nostrils, who threatens and strikes, and is no more. Thus he that serves is rest­less [Page 74] indeed, opprest and tired with contrary Tyrants, crossing and thwarting one another, till they wrack and tear the Man in pieces, and drag him to everlasting trouble, anguish and sorrow. How sweet then and highly pretious is that Rest, which faith in God through Jesus Christ enters into, when under the light and worth of that truth, which it hath received, it guides and subdues all its appetites, affections and passions from a right principle by a right rule, to a right end; which is nothing but God and his word; God as its author governour and happiness, or perfect Rest? For though the Rest be yet imperfect, because the World the Flesh and the Devil do yet oppose it; yet Christ hath promi­sed that no opposition shall over­throw it, unless we willfully and obstinately grieve that Spirit of truth, holiness and comfort, which was given us as the Seal of our faith [Page 75] and peace with God, the preserver and finisher of this Rest, the as­surance of our present adoption, and future inheritance, if we will but wisely and thankfully value that Rest, into which we are enter'd, humbly and watchfully pray unto Christ to confirm and increase it; all oppositions shall prove advan­tages, all dangers, travails and la­bours, so many evidences of Gods faithfulness to us, and ours to him; of his being our all sufficient shield and supporter here, our exceeding reward and satisfactory Rest for evermore. Now see what a blessed Rest there is in faith and holiness, and all those graces which wait on them. Faith in God gives the mind a Sabboth of Rest, from all those anxious perplexing enquiries, and self contradicting resolutions, which humane reason left to it self is vexed with; and settles the heart on that divine Wisdom and truth, which can neither deceive nor be [Page 76] deceived, humbling at once the understanding and advancing it, because it is its greatest advance­ment to be humbled under God, who never fails to honour those who honour him; and makes the conscience arise and rejoyce, to see that it hath submitted it self to such a guide. Take faith in its meanest Offices, of trusting God in our temporal affairs, resigning our selves to his wisdom, power and goodness, as one that can and will chuse better for us, than we our selves; what peace and rest is this to our Souls, from all those servile fears and cares, those base submissions, and baser oppressions, which the covetous worldling, or cowardly trembling unbeliever undergoes? Though the Waters rage and the Earth shake, yet he whose heart trusts in the Lord, that all things shall work together for good, he is the only [...], or a squar'd Man, whom no change can make a [Page 77] changeling, because his heart stands fast, and believes in the faithful God; he is gotten above this region of meteors, clouds and winds; be­cause the Lord is his sun and shield, which no cloud can intercept, no wind shake. But then in the higher Offices of faith, whereby it considers and embraces the glo­rious truth of God, our Redeemer and Saviour, and sees that they are as certainly true as gloriously great.

That former sins confessed and forsaken, are blotted out for the merits of Christ, the Law satisfied by such a surety; Satans accusa­tions silenced by such an Advocat; That afflictions and death have lost their sting, and are turned into benefits. That he who hath begun a good work will also finish it, and never leave us in life and death, untill he hath brought us to perfect Rest, and full happiness both of soul and body; what fruit can this [Page 78] produce but peace and joy in the holy Ghost, cheerful constancy and perseverance in doing and suf­fering the will of God? It rescues us from all those trembling fears, and sorrowful agonies, which else must seize upon our hearts, from the weakness of the flesh and the strength of our enemies, from the curse of the Law, and the hor­rors of conscience, from the ma­lice and subtilty of the World and the Devil. How well then might St. Paul say we that believe enter Gods Rest; do already, in good de­gree; shall compleatly and un­changeably, if we persevere. Hope, the second Christian grace, is so near of kin to Faith, that 'tis lineally derived from it, and born of it; nor can that heart but find a com­fortable blessed Rest, which hopes in the fountain of all blessedness, hopes to see and enjoy him for ever; and in that hope purifies himself: All other hopes are dead or dying, [Page 79] sure to leave him void of Rest, full of anxiety that builds on them. This is the only lively hope as Saint Peter calls it; because placed in the fountain of life and joy it self: This is that grace which applies to our selves the general promises, the Souls Anchor, which makes it ride safe and triumphant in the midst of tempests here below, be­cause it enters within the vail of Heaven it self, and takes possession before hand of all its treasures, and by its joyful expectations be­comes that helmet in St. Paul, which guards the head against all blows of the World or Devil; wherefore he bids us rejoyce in hope, be patient and cheerful in tribulation, instant in Prayer, and tells us, Coll. 1.11. That this is that which strengthens the heart with all might, to all patience, and long suffering with joyfulness. It is indeed the anticipation of Heaven on Earth, and makes the Rest of that World, our portion in this. As [Page 80] for Charity the third grace, the Image and transcript of God him­self who is goodness and love; grea­ter than either, or faith or hope, is holy charity; greater than they for Rest and joy as well as use, because the very fruit and end, the evi­dence and perfection of both. Can there be any more blessed Rest, or satisfaction in this life, than the love of him, who is infinitely a­miable, whose glorious perfections ravish the Angels, into an extasy and admiration of endless felicity? what ever we do or can love else, we can neither be sure to enjoy it long, nor if we could, would it sa­tisfie, but cloy or tire, and leave us empty and discontented: But to love God, is to Rest in him: Nor can any thing tire or finish, inter­cept or disappoint the Rest and peace, and joy of that love which is fixed on him, who is the eternal boundless good: This is Godliness, this is Holiness, to love God in all, [Page 81] and above all what we love besides, and 'tis our happiness as well as holiness, that which gives reason its throne, and proper dignity, above all those blind, violent lusts and passions within, or temptations without, which keep a Man from possessing himself with any freedom or solid peace; nor can a Man be firmly united to himself, but by being united unto God: When once the Soul loves God sincerely, and constantly above all; and hath resign'd its will to his, it hath its Rest; whether the world smile or frown, nothing can come amiss to it, come what will it cannot destroy its Rest in God. As is the Object or main end on which the Soul of Man fixes as its happiness; so is the Soul for its condition, quiet or restless, constant or wave­ring, discontented or satisfied: He that parsues earthly things as his main end, becomes vain, unstable, unsatisfied and perplexed, led up [Page 82] and down by the foolish fire of sence or phancy, changing as they and the World change, disquieted with that vexation, and vanity which they find abroad, and that sedition they find at home, 'twixt reason and unreasonable lusts, af­fections and passions. But he that rests and centers himself on God through Christ, on that one end, and sovereign good, in that way which he hath appointed, which is indeed but himself, become a suitable way to that end he hath chosen; that which will unite and reconcile him, not only to himself in all his faculties, desires, and actions or pretensions; but to all the various, providential dispen­sations in this World, which seem so intricate, perplext, and perplex­ing to flesh and blood; wherefore they that by faith have entred into the love of God above all, must necessarily have entred into Rest, in the same degree in which [Page 83] it is evident to themselves, that they have done so: And then the Charity which flows from the love of God above all, on his Image or Proxy or Neighbour, our Brother, our fellow Christian; is their any thing besides that principle, from which it flows more full of Rest, Peace and Joy, than to love and promote his virtue and happiness, to love that nature which Christ assumed and died for; to love the Image of God in Man, which is to love God himself by reflection and consequence, and so indeed to love our selves, increase and secure our own happiness? It is the voice of all Mankind not quite degenerated to beast; That Friendship and Charity is the sweetest delight of this life, next to that in God him­self.

That malice and envy, to be hate­full, and hating one another, is one of the greatest, odiousest mi­series, the very Image of Hell it [Page 84] self, where there is nothing but hatred and cursing; whereas of Heaven we understand little more, than that the blessed inhabitants of it love God above all, and one an­other as themselves; nor can their happiness fail or abate, because their Charity or Love cannot. Bounty and Mercy, the fruits of this Charity, makes a Man Gods Vice­gerent, in doing good to those that are, or may be his; in rescu­ing them from the Devils malice and wicked Men, by seasonable relief of their Soul and Body, and is so pleasant, so joyfull a duty, that it renders the giver more rest and delight, than the needy receiver, and returns with usury at the present into his bosom, by the comfortable evidence of his own sincerity, and so of his interest in many promises; both of securing his temporal welfare, and increasing his eternal. Love towards Men, especially Christians, for Christ [Page 85] sake, melting our hearts, and opening our hands, with cheerful joy to relieve their wants, free's our Souls from the chilling cold of unmerciful covetousness, which gripes it self as well as others; gives us rest from the Canker of envy, and fretful malice, which makes us take delight and content in another Mans graces, welfare and happiness, as part of our own; gives us Rest from the rack and fire of rage and revenge, gives us the peace and honour, of conquering evil with good, and then makes us rejoyce again, that this is our plea for Gods mercy towards our selves: And who then would re­fuse or neglect the Rest of Charity? Humility is another grace, which besides the Calm and Rest of Soul, which Christ hath peculiarly pro­mised to it, hath such an attractive, controlling loveliness, that 'tis the rival of Heaven and Earth. God himself that inhabits eternity, [Page 86] dwells with the humble; (as the God of Peace brings Rest and Peace wherever he dwells) and what wise or good Man, loves not to dwell with such also? So true is that of Prov. 16.19. 'Tis better to be of an humble Spirit, than to divide the spoil with the proud. How restless is pride in all its designs, and haughty pur­suits? How discontented with God and Man if it miss of them? And if it attain them, how full of in­gratitude and scornful disdain, of fears and jealousies on the one side, of tumors and swellings, of endless ambition on the other? But the humble person enjoys the Rest of thankful contentment in all condi­tions, thinks himself less than the least of Gods mercies, had rather by farr obey than rule; and if he receive contempt or injuries, is not disturbed with wrath or re­venge, but sits down in humble silence, as fearing he may have some ways deserved it. Great is [Page 87] the Rest which meekness and patience brings to the Soul of Man: Meekness is the ornament of a quiet Spirit, very pretious in Gods sight, and therefore ought to be so in ours. I appeal to the reason and experi­ence of any Man, whether it be not rest and ease, to forgive an in­jury rather than be provoked to revenge; and to lay aside the con­sideration of other Mens malice, envy and peevishness, rather than imitate it, and suffer the vexing remembrance of it, to boil and ferment in our watchful minds, until it hath conquered, and trans­form'd us into the same troublesom evil? Is it not Peace, and a bles­sed Rest to sit still, and lift up no hands, but those of Charity, and Charitable prayer, rather than labour in fighting and wounding one another? To hold ones peace, than to rail and revile? Which hath more Rest in it, to study to be quiet, and do ones own business, [Page 88] or to be prying and intermedling with other Mens office, faults or secrets? To speak evil of no Man, or to be always finding fault, and speaking the worst we can of any, who differ from us in any respect? Which is the greatest trouble and burthen, meekly to obey our Law­full Governours, in Church and State, where God hath not com­manded the contrary; or be all­ways disputing against a few harm­less indifferent ceremonies, untill we have quarre'ld our selves, and others into a causeless scandalous, pernitious separation? Then for humble contented patience, that precept of the Old Testament, but wisdom and mystery of the New: Thou shalt not covet, but be content patiently with thy own portion; what is it but a Rest rather than burthen, a purchase or priviledge, rather than duty when once learnt? Let the Carnal or Worldly Man, with his bored tub of insatiable de­sires, [Page 89] cry as the Horseleach; give, give and seek after wealth as he should after God, without bounds: Yet the Heathen Philosopher could resolve it the only way to true Rest, not to seek to raise our fortunes to our desires, but to bring down our desires to our fortunes and present condition: The one is not onely uncertain, because not in any Mans power, but impossible, be­cause his desires increase with his purchases, as fire with fewel; whereas the other is possible, and certain. Contentment and pati­ence glorifies God, by placing its wealth in his favours, who having promised him necessaries here, and a Kingdom hereafter, hath taught and obliged him to be contented, with any fare upon the way; be­cause he sees his being so, confirms and increaseth his future happiness. Nullo egere Dei est, quàm paucissimis Deo proximum. As for sobriety, temperance, chastity, reason second­ded [Page 90] by experience, assures any Man, that to drink to the quench­ing of ones thirst, or at most to the moderate cheering one Spirits; to eat to the satisfying ones hun­ger, or at most to the gratifying of festival joy, hospitality, friend­ship and thankful delight, in what God hath bountifully given, is all the good that is to be had from Meat and Drink; that 'tis a trouble as well as a sin, to swill as if one were in a Feaver, or till one brings himself to a Feaver, or Dropsy; to Eat and Drink till reason is drowned, smothered and buried under the load, and till the Phantastick, forced pleasure of two or three mispent hours, end in the pain of head and stomach for whole days after, if not in some villainous lust or passion, and bloudy quarrel, in sickness and death both of Soul and Body. The conscience finds all trouble in it, and the Body it self (for gratifying of which, God and Conscience was [Page 91] despised) find no Rest within some hours: And what comparison be­tween the rest, safety, health and honour, of either virginal or con­jugal chastity, which keeps the desires of the flesh, under the power of reason and faith, lives in the hope of seeing God, pre­serves the bond of love in Families inviolated, and the unclean shame­ful excesses of wandring lust, which are conceived with fear and an­xiety, brought forth and finisht with shame and sorrow; begin in disorder of Soul and Body, end in loathing; begin in trouble, end in worse; burn at first and consume at last the peace of the mind, if not the health of the Body also; be­sides the confusions, tumults, quar­rels it breeds in Families, and all for the sneaking brutish delight of a few minutes?

There is indeed one grace, which seems to have little Rest in it: The suffering persecutions to death, [Page 92] rather than disown the Truth, or violate duty: But God hath made so many promises to mitigate, and temper all temptations to the strength, which we either now have, or shall receive upon our prayers, of his turning to good, whatsoever seems most evil: And of his rewarding our courage and patience with so much the greater weight of glory, that these promises being believed, we are enabled as well as obliged not only to be contented but joyful also in tribulations for truth and righteousness sake; and therefore no wonder, if suffering miseries for the honour of God, and our Lord Jesus, for the furtherance of our own salvation and other Mens, hath more rest than trouble in it; without this Rest, a flow of all other good things, which this world can give, will leave a Man but a miserable wearied Traveller, un­der a heavy load and burthen of [Page 93] discontents and sorrows; and with this Rest, all labour and sorrow is inconsistent, and though we may not expect to have this promised eternal Rest, endless felicity as our deserved wages, yet we may and ought to hope for it, as our pro­mised reward. Angels — and Saints departed this life, they have it allready, the Devils and damned are past all Hope. Great pains and labour do the Men of this World take, but not in order to this Rest, and therefore a Multitude of mis­taken sinners, lay out the chief of their days and time, in pursuance of pleasures, and honours, and profits of this World, as if Heaven and Salvation were easy atchiev­ments, as if they might with a wish only at the last, come to die the death of the righteous, who had so notoriously lived the life of the wicked. 'Tis not only the doing of evil, but the not doing of good, which shall be punished at the last [Page 94] day, the judge shall then condemn for not feedings, for not clothing. Go ye cursed into everlasting fire, for I was hungry and ye fed me not, for I was naked and ye clothed me not. Not doing of good is none of the least evils; He that sits still and moves not one step towards this Rest, by wearing Christs Yoak; and bearing his burthen, shall lose Heaven as infallibly, as he that runs from it; who so hides his Ta­lent, shall receive no other wages save that of the slothful Servant. The way to Heaven is narrow, the Gate straight, it must be striving that gives us entrance; not only the hopes of Heaven but the esca­ping of Hell, makes it our duty to be doing of good, and by so doing, we express our fear, lest a promise of Rest being left, any of us should seem to fall short of it. So run that ye may obtain, is the command; and all precepts of Scripture are back'd with threats for ill (or not) [Page 95] doing, as well as promises for do­ing well, and are intended by God, as so many arguments, and strong motives to hold us to our duty; do we our part and God will cer­tainly do his, and we cannot lose the reward of Well done good and faithful Servant, enter into thy Master's joy: The last judicial sentence of Christ of which we read, Matt. 25. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World; is an invi­tation of so much mercy and love­ing kindness, that none can give, nor can any expect or require more? What can the eloquence of Man add to it, or what better assurance can be desired, than the gratious promise of so powerful, so faithful a Lord? Or what greater reward can any hope to receive, than that which the Author and dispenser of all good assures us, by letting us know what ever we do to the poor and needy, he will interpret it as [Page 96] done to himself and so reward our labour of love as to Crown it with eternal Rest; an inheritance of that Kingdom, and all its joys, as well as honours which fade not away? But we must not understand this award of eternal life, this glo­rious inheritance, to be the reward of the righteous, for the merit of their good works, as everlasting fire is to the wicked for their demerits; what ever the Romish Church pre­tends to, from those words of our Saviour in the forenamed 25th of St. Matt. ‘The particle for (say they) is as truly causal by way of merit and efficiency in the one as in the other; the form of Speech in both sentences the same: Depart ye cursed into ever­lasting fire. For I was hungry and ye gave me no meat. Come ye bles­sed inherit the Kingdom, for I was hungry and ye fed me.’

[Page 97]In answer to this, 'tis clear e­nough, that though the particle, for, be granted to signifie causa­lity in both sentences, yet need it not signifie the same kind, or de­gree of causality in both; and if it need not, then it must not, unless they resolve to contradict many other plain Scriptures, ra­ther than depart from their own vain, and proud conceit of merit­ing Heaven in strict justice: For first, The word or particle for, may signifie only the cause of our, or others knowledge, that the King­dom of Heaven is their inheritance by true title of gracious promise, or the Covenant of grace and mer­cy in Christ Jesus, which accepts and rewards repentance, and faith, working by love, whereof these works of Charity, are the fruits and signs. For every Authentick Declaration, or Revelation of any truth, before unknown, is the true cause of our knowledge of it, though [Page 98] not of the real truth which is so known: Now among such as pro­fess Christ and call him Lord, 'tis hidden to us, who are the true heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom, and who not, untill at the day of final judgment, when all Men shall be judged by their works. The first infallible certain knowledge which shall be had of this difference, is from the declarative sentence of that infallible righteous Judge, who hath declared he will proceed, with one, and the other, according to their several works, when all must appear before the Judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the Body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 2 Cor. 5.10. The ones performance of good works, declared and testified by the Judge, shall be the true cause by which Men and Angels shall know them to be the heirs of that Heavenly Kingdom, which here they sought [Page 99] and longed after, with faithful desires, and endeavours, such as prepared and fitted themselves for it. The others omission of good works, testified by the same Judge, shall be the true cause by which we shall know them to be utterly unworthy of Gods everlasting fa­vour and mercy, most worthy of death eternal. We shall then truly know, that the one are Crowned (as saith St. Cyprian) according to Gods grace, which graciously ac­cepts of faithful sincerity in stead of strict legal perfection; and that the other are condemned according to justice, because they neither ful­filled the law, nor embraced the Gospel, upon its gracious terms and conditions. That the ones omission of good works, and com­mission of evil ones, is the true meritorious cause of their condem­nation: And that the others per­formance of good works, at least in faithful resolution, and that [Page 100] hearty inward faith, hope, and love, which would have produced them, if time and space had been granted, is the testimony or decla­ration, that they are the Sons of God, heirs of everlasting life, though not the meritorious cause of their Salvation and life eternal.

We commonly come to know the cause by the effect: and there­fore this word, for, may, and doth often point out, not the cause of the thing it self, but the effect, and our knowledge of the cause by it. That's the Major, 'tis commonly said, for the Mace is borne before him: Let no Man think, that the bearing of the Mace before him, is the cause of his being Major (his lawful Election was the cause of his Ma­joralty, and his Majoralty the cause of the Mace being carried, or borne before him) but the bearing the Mace before him, is the true cause of many Mens knowing him to be the Major. And this answer to [Page 101] the question, may serve with grea­ter probability, than ought our adversaries bring for themselves. But with more clearness and evi­dence of reason, agreeing with the Analogy of Faith, and the cur­rent of Scripture, I answer, That the particle for implys a causality in both the sentences, but in one, that of the wicked, the strict meritorious sole cause of their condemnation; whereas in the Godly, and Chari­table Persons, the heirs of Heaven, the for implys such a causal in­fluence as that which they call conditio or causa sine quâ non, good works, or that faith working by love of God and Man, whence they spring, and the necessary con­ditions, without which no Man shall inherit the Kingdom; yea the necessary qualifications, without which he hath not only no worthi­ness, but no capacity, no fitness to prepare himself for that King­dom, whose happiness is to see [Page 102] God, with mutual complacency. And no Man can so see the holy, merciful, gracious God, the God of Love, and Father of Mercies, the faithful, righteous, unchange­able fountain, of all that is pure loving or lovely, unless he be like him, and bear the Image of those his perfections, though imperfectly as to degrees, yet impartially and sincerely as the transcript and resemblance of that Wisdom which comes from above, first pure, then peaceable. Unless his religion be that undefiled one before God, which visits the Fatherless and the Widow in affliction, and keeps himself vnspot­ted from the World. These and the like graces, with their fruits (if time be granted to bring them forth) are not only described and required, clearly and frequently in holy Scripture, as the necessary con­ditions, without which no Man shall, but as the necessary qualifications, without which no Man can see the [Page 103] Lord, with holy eternal love and joy. And therefore no doubt the for hath a rational inference in it, as to the acceptance, and reward of the godly, and righteous person. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you: for I was hungry, and ye fed me, &c. For ye have perform'd the conditions, which I in my Gospel (or gracious covenant) required of you, with promise to accept and reward them; for ye are qualified with those gra­ces, and holy dispositions, which are my own Image and likeness, the impress of my holy Spirit, which renders you capable of enjoying me and my Father with endless delight; which makes you (though not in strict justice worthy of my Heavenly Kingdom) yet in my gracious mercy and bounty, and through my merits, not utterly unworthy, that is, not wholly un­meet to inherit it; for these all have confest, and forsaken their [Page 104] evil ways, fled with penitent be­lieving hearts, to that propitiation which God had set forth in his only Son through faith in his blood: By doing so they have received that holy Spirit, by whose direction and assistance, they have mortified the flesh, with its lusts and affections, conquered the World with its tempta­tations, resisted the Devil, and quenched the fiery darts of the wicked, fought the good fight of faith, till they finished their course; and though the re­mainders of sin and the flesh, abide lusting and strugling against the Spirit, yet no sin hath reigned over them, and the very remainders of sin, they have bewailed, watcht over, and resisted, betaking them­selves to Christs intercession for their pardon; therefore they are heirs of the Kingdom through the merits of Christ imparted to them, whereby they are entituled to it, as the meritorious cause on his part, whereby they have an actual plea, [Page 105] title and interest in Christs merit, as the condition and qualification on their part. And thus the King­dom and eternal Rest is theirs, though not by right of justice or merit, but by right of gracious promise. And may not all this be thought sufficient to justifie the truth of the for, or causal particle, unless it be granted that it signifie meritoriously in strict justice on their part, as strictly and fully as in the other, Depart ye cursed; for ye did no good works, but many ill ones, without repentance and reformation, without faith and love to me? The goodness, and justice of Gods Majesty will not suffer him to sentence any Man to any punishment, much less to e­ternal intolerable sorrow and pain, unless it hath been strictly and fully deserved, or demerited. But the goodness and bounty and mercy of God, may without wrong to any perfection, or attribute of his, [Page 106] accept and reward any Man, that is not utterly incapable of it, but in some sincere degree qualified for it, with such an abundant measure of happiness as he thinks fit, al­though no ways merited by him. The Lord Jesus hath satisfied his Fathers justice and honour, in his Government, and holy Laws, and made it a righteous thing with him, to save the penitent sinner, upon condition of reformation and holy obedience: They that are saved have performed these conditions; and therefore they are admitted with a for. Come ye blessed, &c. For I was hungry. If a gracious Prince, of his own free goodness, proclaim a general merciful pardon, to all Rebels, Traytors, and Theeves, provided they will by such a day acknowledge their fault, and pro­fess and resolve to do so no more, and make their peace with their Neighbours, whom they have wronged: Suppose, all accept the [Page 107] pardon in outward shew, but some of them secretly practice the same wickedness against their Sovereign, and their Neighbours, when as the others perform faithfully the conditions of their pardon: If at the General Assizes, the Judge upon notice of their demeanours, should say to the one, I restore you to your former condition, state and dignity; for (or because) since your pardon proclaimed, ye have so demeaned your selves, as penitent, loyal, faithful Sub­jects: And to the other, You I con­demn to death and torments; for (or because) ye have abused your Sove­reigns clemency: No Man of sober reason, or common sence (I think) can deny, that either the condem­nation of the one, were entirely to be ascribed to their own willful choise, and vile misdemeanours, as due in justice to their demerits; or that the restoring or saving the other, were to be attributed, not to the merit of their demeanour, [Page 108] but to the Kings gracious mercy, and bountiful favour. Their good demeanour, could be at most but the necessary condition or qualifi­cation of their pardon or restora­tion, without which, it could not consist with the wisdom or honour of the Prince, his Laws, or Govern­ment, so to use them; with which, it might well consist with his wis­dom and honour so to do, and that with advantage to the glory of his mercy, without disparagement to his Justice, especially in case his Justice and honour, had been satisfied for their former misde­meanours, by the merits and inter­cession of the Prince, his Royal Son: Now just so it is in this case of which we now speak. They whom our Lord calls here to eternal life, and that with a for: For ye have fed, clothed, lodged me; are so far from this proud conceit of Romish merit by their works, that they are ready to disclaim them, as nothing wor­thy [Page 109] of such acceptance, ready to blame their sluggish backwardness. Lord, say they, when saw we thee hungry, thirsty, naked, or a stranger, or prisoner, and relieved thee?

Nor is it amiss what is observed and acknowledg'd by Jansenius, (though a Romanist, and too far engaged in this error) what Saint Chrisostom had long since observed before him; that our Saviour saith to those on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, but to those on his left hand, he saith only, depart ye cursed, but adds not, Of my Father; implying that God the Father is the Author and gracious donor of life everlasting, but every Man that doth wickedly, and dies in his wickedness without repen­tance, is the only Author and cause of his own accursed estate: The one are blessed freely, and mercifully by God the Father, for his Son Christs sake, in whom alone he is well pleased with all [Page 110] that come by him, with such a faith as works by love: But the other are accursed most justly, be­cause they sought not, or refused when it was offer'd them, that grace and mercy which would have blessed them, first with grace to do good works, then with glory, a superabundant weight of glory for doing them: And this is con­sonant to that of St. Paul, Rom. 6. v. the last: For the wages of sin is death, but the [...] or gift of God, is eternal life. Again the same Janfenius also observes, That our Saviour in the sentence of condem­nation, doth not say, depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for you, but for the Devil and his Angels: Where­as in the sentence of the righteous, it runs thus: Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom prepared for you. By this, saith he, it is implied, That the Salvation of the righteous, must be ascribed to the mercy of God, who hath prepared the Kingdom, [Page 111] and the damnation of the unrighte­ous, not to God, but to their own iniquity. How this will consist with his, and his Mother Romes proud Tenent of meriting Heaven, I can­not see; nor is it much material to see, save only that this may be seen thereby, That Wisdom and Truth is often justified, not only by her Chil­dren, but by her enemies; forced by that light sometimes to own, what by their prejudices they study and labour to deny. Such was also that final extorted confession of Bellar­mine himself, after all his disputes against the truth. Tutissimum est in solâ, Dei misericordiâ totam fiduciam reponere, but that more common, and owned saying of all their Schools and Divines, Fundamentum meriti non cadit sub merito, The Foun­dation of merits, (or the first grace by which Man is first justified) cannot be merited; and although granting this, yet they earnestly contend, that by the good use of this first [Page 112] grace, life eternal is properly meri­ted; but they say it, without, and against Scripture and reason.

For reason tells us, whatsoever any Man hath interest in, by mercy and grace, and gracious promise, it must be expected, sued for, and hum­bly accepted, on the same terms that it is granted, or else it is forfeited. But not only the first grace, but all in­crease of grace whatsoever, must be grace, and freely bestowed not meri­ted. The preparations of this heaven­ly Kingdom for us, and us for it, are the fruits of mercy. No Man can do well, unless he be first enabled by God to do so, and the more he is enabled by Gods gifts and graces be­stowed upon him, the more obliged he is to God. The least increase of grace, given after the first use of grace, exceeds the measure of our service and thankfulness, and that which creates new title of debt un­to God, cannot possibly be any ground or title of merit from God, to [Page 113] be adopted in Christ Jesus, or made the Sons of God by grace, who were by nature the Children of wrath, strangers and enemies, is a blessing, for which we become so deeply indebted, Servants to God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; that should we do abun­dantly more, and better than we do, we could not make the least recom­pence, for that he hath done for us; and yet we cannot continue, to will or do well, but by the free undeserved continuance, and in­crease of that grace, and holy Spirit which first prevented us: Yet who is there, that doth all that good so well and constantly, as that Spirit did or would have enabled him?

The manner of the Apostles question Rom. 11.35. Who hath first given to him? includes an uni­versal denial; no Man hath, no Man can give any thing to him, and therefore none can receive any thing from him; none to be sure, [Page 114] that are not only his meer creatures, but sinful creatures, can receive any thing from him, by way of merit, but of free mercy and bounty. If we view and scan the Tenor of all Gods promises made in Scrip­ture, from the first grace, to the increase and perseverance, and final accomplishment of them in glory, we shall find that he promiseth only this, to be merciful and boun­tiful unto us, and if mercy and bounty be the compleat object of all his promises, then may we not expect their accomplishment, as the merit of our service, but as the fruit of his mercy and loving kind­ness. If a loving earthly Father, should give his Son a liberal pension, before he could modesty ask, or dis­cretion expect it, and promise him also, that if he employed this pre­sent years allowance well, he would allow him more liberally the next year; in this case, how well soever the Son used his present pension, [Page 115] yet seeing the profit is wholly his own, not his Fathers, the more bountifully his Father useth him the next year, the more still he is obliged and bound unto him: Al­though this good use of his Fathers bountiful allowance, were the con­dition and some kind of motive or reason, why, and on which, he was treated: A gracious and ingenious Son, would not challenge the se­cond or third years pension, as due to him, by right of merit, more than the first, although he had his Fathers promise, for these two years, which he had not for the first: For his Fathers promise was only to be good and bountiful unto him, so he would be dutifully thankful for his bounty: Now to expect and challenge that by right of merit, which was promised out of favour and loving kindness; al­though a condition of dutiful de­meanour, and faithful diligence, especially if that demeanour, or [Page 116] diligence came after former misde­meanours, and be not such in all respects, as it should be neither, is an high degree of unthankful, undutiful pride, especially from a Son to a Father, a Son that was once a rebel and enemy. On our Heavenly Fathers part, no debt of doing us good can be laid; It was his meer free goodness, to give our first Parents such being as once they had; having lost that goodness wherein we were made, 'twas more than meer goodness, 'twas abun­dance of mercy, to make us any promise at all of restauration, to our lost inheritance, the eternal life of his favour; and after this promise made, it is the continuance and increase of the same mercy, to adopt us, and to increase his grace upon us daily, and lastly to Crown all this with an exceeding great reward, which is himself, the endless vision of him, from whom we have all we enjoy here, [Page 117] or hereafter. Non fuisti & factus es, Malus fuisti, & liberatus es, quid Deo dedisti? We may deserve the diminution or withdrawing of Gods mercy, favours, and blessings, but we cannot merit, or deserve their increase. Merit supposeth such an inducement as may not only pre­vail, but such as must oblige, and tie in strict Justice; whereas no such tie, or obligation, can be laid upon the fontal, original goodness, much less upon free mercy; which yet multiplies it self to all that pro­voke not its withdrawing or abate­ment. Methinks Men should be afraid, of this proud opinion of their own merit; because 'tis so like that of the Pharisee's, when even that Publican, whom he condemned, will rise up in judgment against them, for he went away justified, ra­ther than the other. Luke 18.4. The Pharisee absteined from many gross sins, and wanted not many good works, to alledge for himself. He gave [Page 118] Tythes of all he had, fasted and prayed, and seemed also more hum­ble than the Romanist, for ought appears, for though he thought himself better than the Publican, yet he acknowledged both his ab­stinence from sinful works, and his perseverance in good ones, to be from God. God I thank thee, for this, and for that; he saith not as they, God I thank thee, thou hast given me the first grace, only to re­strain me from such sins, as the Publi­can walks in, whereas my proficiency, in doing of good? is from my own me­ritorious choice, but I thank thee for one and the other. Yet because he so glories in Gods graces, as if they had not been received from free mercy, because he is not truly humbled by that grace, which in words he confesseth to have re­ceived from God alone, therefore is he less justified than the Publican, for the use of all the graces, which God bestows in this life, is to teach [Page 119] us true humility, not to glory in our selves, but in him, to whom all grace and glory belongs: And if we make not this use of it, if we say not with Jacob, Lord, I am less than the least of thy mercies towards me: If when we have done justice, and loved mercy, we walk not humbly with our God, and say not as our Lord hath taught us, forgive us our tres­passes, we have been but unprofi­table servants in respect of what we might, and should have been; we turn his grace into pride, and vain glory, and are worthy to lose the acceptance and reward, which was promised for Christs merits, not ours, though not without sincere performance of those conditions, to which his mercy, and grace ena­bleth us. Our good works are ac­ceptable to God, a sweet Sacrifice, but still it is through Jesus Christ. Better is it for us, to hear one Saint from Heaven, one of those Spirits made perfect, than thousands of [Page 120] daring, sinful Disputants here below. For what are all the Chairs, and Schools of Men on Earth, to the suffrage of Heaven, where not only one, but all the Saints, and perfected Spirits, cast down their Crowns before him, that sits on the Throne at the feet of the Lamb. Rev. 7.5. Saying aloud, To him that hath loved us, and washt us from our sins in his blood, and made us Kings, and Priests to God, and his Father, be glory, and power, for evermore? Thus have we seen, that 'tis not merit that will bring us to this promised eternal Rest, and yet they that will attain to it, must imploy their Ta­lent well, they must come unto Christ, as Christ came unto us, by charity and by humility. To obtain this Rest, will cost some care and pains, and therefore we must expect it, but this care and pains will be highly rewarded, and therefore 'twill be our wisdom to undergo it: The Men of this world [Page 121] are apt to think Christianity, and coming to Christ a joyless thing, because it speaks so much of holy living, of presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice, of mortifying and Sacrificing its lusts and affections, as if they were no longer to enjoy themselves, who voluntarily deny themselves in all these; but they are but false hearted Spies, that would bring this bad report upon a good land, for the mortifying the lusts of the flesh, the presenting our bodies a living Sacrifice, is not the destruction of our joys, but the increase of them, and gives assu­rances of this eternal Rest: For let the body be never so backward to be presented unto God, and offer'd up in Sacrifice to him, though it shrinke at the sight of the Altar, and tremble to see the Sacrificing Knife, yet are we not to hearken to its foolish tenderness; no cruelty like such indulgence; the life and safety, and Rest of the Soul, de­pends [Page 122] upon this disciplining, this mortifying the body: For he that mortifies and kills, and slayes his lusts, doth but Sacrifice that which would hurt, destroy, and ruine himself, 'tis but a carnal, worldly Man that is killed at most, nay 'tis but a beast, 'tis but the un­reasonable appetite that is slain; reasonable Man is saved alive, and made more reasonable by so doing, and exalted thereby to a Spiritual life. He that leaves this beast alive, and is led by his unruly passions, is hurried even in this life, to more sorrows, cares, and vexations, than any Saint or Martyr endures in his passage to Heaven, when he offers himself up unto God, by an holy life, and patient death: Therefore who so desires in good earnest, not to fail of this promised eternal Rest, must crucify the whole body of sin, must subdue and bring into subje­cton every vnruly member thereof. The lustful, covetous, disdainful [Page 123] evil Eye which hath made thee blind, or ill sighted to all that is good, must be closed up and put out, and the charitable, peaceable, contented good Eye set open; and then God will one day ravish that Eye, with Objects of eternal joy and Rest and delight in Heaven. Our Ears must be closed up and deaf to all ungodly prophane dis­courses, and unsavoury communi­cation, but open to all that is harm­less and good, sober and wise, ra­tional or Christian: If the ungod­ly wanton cruel Ear, that itches after falseshood and wrong be cut off, and the religious believing chast merciful Ear remain; then thou hast made thine Ears, the gates of Heaven and Life and Rest, for the Spirit of truth to enter in; being thus opened thou shalt hear the joys of Heaven sounding in thy Ears, such joys as God hath prepared for them that love him.

[Page 124]The Lips also must be closed, and the Tongue tied up from Oaths and Curses, prophane allusions to holy Scripture, bitter revilings, strife and clamour, open slanders and secret detractions, but they must be opened, and the Tongue loosed to all holy duties, of Prayers and Prayses towards God, wholsom counsel, admonition and instruction, towards Men. If the prophane seducing, contentious, provo­king, bitter Tongue be tied up and silenced, and the wise, pure, and peaceable and faithful Tongue, be loosened and set on work, thou art no loser by this change, because thou hast exchanged folly for wis­dom, shame for honour, strife for peace, the discord of infernal Spirits, for the musick of Angels; thou hast exchanged the Tongue of an A­theist, for the Tongue of a Prophet, or a Saint. Next, the hand must be withheld from violence and op­pression, from theft and sacriledge, [Page 125] fraud and deceit, but open to all the works of Piety and Charity. If the injurious griping, bloody hand be cut off, and the innocent holy pure hand be lifted up to God in Prayer, and stretcht out to Man in Charity; what hast thou lost, but the hand of a Murtherer, a Thief, an Usurer, or Adulterer, and hast for it, the holy hand of a Priest, the Royal hand of a Benefactor: Holy and acceptable unto God, pleasing and beneficial unto Men? The feet also must be restrained from wandering into the ways of wickedness, where we meet with temptations and vanity, snares and dangers; they are to carry us from the seducing assemblies of Schisma­ticks, the bloody Conspiraces of Rebels, the riotous assemblies of gluttons and drunkards; they must be ready and forward, to go to the place, where Gods honour dwelleth, where his word and Sacraments are dispensed, to the house where [Page 126] the Widow and Fatherless inhabit. If the wicked perverse sinful foot be cut off, and the holy charitable foot be left thee, to carry thee to thy duty towards God and Man, what hast thou lost, but the dis­consolate walk of a wilderness, amongst briers and thorns, and ser­pents the path of dismal darkness, and death and error, where no Rest is to be found: For that of truth, light, and life, and eternal happi­ness? Last of all, we must be sure to keep the heart for God; that of all the rest he chiefly expects, without which, the putting out of the Eye, the cutting off the hand, and setting a watch over our Tongue, and offering up our dearest and only Isaac, in obedience to Christs Command, will be thought but an Hypocritical mockery of God, who knows the heart and can­not be mocked.

My Son give me thy heart, Prov. 20.26. That he asks, and that he will [Page 127] have, and surely no Son will with­hold that from his Father. The heart is the Throne of the great King, where he sits and rules the whole Man; this is the most holy place of the Temple, where the Spirit of truth and holiness inhabits, and therefore he that gives him not this, gives him nothing that he will accept, or that will make for our everlasting Rest. If the heart be first presented, the rest will and must follow, a wise and holy Tongue, a diligent and liberal hand, a watchful and attentive Ear, a wary foot, obedient sober chast flesh, will not stay behind, but will all conduce to the carrying us on in peace to this desired Rest. Every part and member of the body looks to be at Rest and in perfect hap­piness in Heaven, and therefore every part must look to praise and glorify him on Earth; 'tis not e­nough that the Tongue be holy and chast, if the hand be covetous, nor [Page 128] that the Ear be diligent and atten­tive at holy duties, if the Tongue speak not, and the hand act not according to what the Ear heard. Every member must do its office, the head was made to know God, the heart to love him, the Tongue to praise him, the feet to follow him, wherefore withhold no part from him; remember he made the whole Man, and redeemed the whole, if any thing be withheld, no Rest, no happiness to be ex­pected; 'tis in our choice whilst we are here, what we will do, and which we will chuse; whether to take part with Satan, whose work it is to destroy us, or come when Christ calls us to him, who will assuredly save us; one of these we must do, there's no neutrality be­tween both; either we must be the Members of Christ the Children of God, and Heirs of Heaven, or else we must be the Children of Satan, and Heirs of intolerable endless con­demnation. [Page 129] Remember the dreadful misery of their choice, who take hell for their portion, and remem­ber that a short delight here unre­pented, will cost a lasting sorrow hereafter. Shall the Son of God, become the Son of Man, to pre­sent us unto God his Father, to give us eternal Rest, and shall we refuse, and flee from our own happiness, and become profoundly miserable in despight of all his mercy, and tender care over us? If Christ say, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you Rest: Shall we stop our Ears at this gracious call of Christ, and continue in wilful sins? What do we else then, but know­ingly prefer the whispers of Satan, before the loud cries, and calls of Christ? We chuse hell and death, and the company of infernal Spirits, before Heaven and life, and the Society of Saints and Angels. If we refuse to come now when Christ [Page 130] calls us, at the last day he will refuse to receive us. If we appear with hearts filled with iniquity, and hands full of blood, with feet that walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and stood in the way of sinners, he will not know us for his Children, having lost his Image, in which we were made, he will say unto us, Depart from me ye cursed, I know ye not. But if we carry with us the resemblance of our Maker, that Image and likeness of him which he once stamped upon us; if we can present him with a wise and pure heart, if we can lift up unto him holy hands, if we can see him with chaste Eyes, and if our feet have walked in his Commandements and trod his Courts, if our feet have stood in thy Gates O Jerusalem, then shall the Gates of Heaven open un­to us, then our Heavenly Father will take us for his obedient Sons; such as heard his voice, and such as shall hear it again, when he will [Page 131] say, Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the begining of the World, for I was hungry and ye fed me, in Prison and ye visited me, &c.

All the Sons of God from the first born, to the last, are all heirs to a Kingdom, all his invitations are to a Crown, his Sons are inheritors of those joys which fade not away and of that Rest which never shall have end. Whereas the sinful Person's immoderate desires of the things of this World, are but his torment, till he be satisfied, and then his satisfaction is his torment, because there's no Rest, nor quiet in it, and proves so much less than his ex­pectation. Thus is the restless sin­ner always sick, one while of too much, another while of too little, now of loving, then of loathing, now of want, then of satiety, for he never ceaseth to want, till he cease to desire; and Man is always desiring either the presence of som­thing [Page 132] he cannot have, or the ab­sence of somthing he cannot re­move, or else the continuance of somthing he cannot keep. Hence the sinner appears to be as the Pro­phet Esaiah speaks, Isa. 57.20. Like the troubled Sea when it cannot Rest, whose waters cast up mire and durt, The Winds within him, and the Waves and Tide without him, give him no Rest, and when his delights are at the highest floud, they do bring him the sad news of an approaching ebb. Ask but the unclean Adulterer, and let him tell you, what Rest and Peace he finds in his vice; compare but his short pleasure, with the tormenting fire of his lusts, joyn'd with the worm of his guilty conscience: Have but patience to look upon him in his nasty diseases and rotten bones, his wasted flesh, as well as estate; (for that is often the event, always the hazard) and he will have little to boast of, but will find himself [Page 133] really to endure more misery in the way to eternal death, than many a holy chast Christian finds to eter­nal life. Ask the Glutton or the Drunkard, whose highest thoughts are for the cloying, not satisfying their disordered appetites; Ask if they find not themselves uneasy, when they consider how short and low their pleasure is, compared with the irksom diseased shameful­ness of their sin. See how heavily the Ambitious proud person walks, between his eager desires and doubt­ful expectations, under his false hopes, and true fears, and then judge whether his wearisom days, and restless nights, can bring him any true content. Should I instance in the idle Gallant, whose time like a burthen lies upon his hands, or in the contentious wrangler, or un­peaceable brawler, the secret whis­perer, or the open detractor, I should tire your patience sooner than want a proof, that sin is a wearisom [Page 134] uneasy heavy restless burthen, and that it is necessary by the way of virtue to come unto Christ for ease and Rest. The Angel in Tobit, bids Tobias take out the gall of the fish, to cure his blindness; if we rip the bowels of worldly, sinful lusts, and pleasures, and take out the gall of them, that is to say, seriously look upon the bitterness they bring with them, and the gall and wormwood they leave behind them, it may prove a remedy of our Spiritual blindness; yet such is our short­sightedness, that we think we are at ease under our load, and at Rest in our sore Travel. Sin turns all things up side down, it sets Earth above, and Heaven below: Reason at the footstool, and brutish appe­tite on the Throne, and having thus lookt downward for our Rest and happiness, we are ashamed to look Heaven in the face, and having lost Heaven for Earth by sin, we look downward still, as fearing [Page 135] that Hell, which we have so well deserved; and this is it which makes Men suffer all sorts of di­seases, the Gout, the Stone, Tooth­aches, and all kind of Tortures, rather than die, because ill led lives leave Men under anxious fears and sad doubtings, what shall be their future state. When Tamberlin com­manded all Leprous persons to be put to death, lest they should lead a miserable life, the poor Lepers thought his mercy cruel, and would have endured more willingly two Leprosies than one death; not be­cause of any great comfort they took in their lives, but because they knew not what might follow after death. To lose this life with­out assurance or hopeful probabi­lity of a better, is doleful and bitter, but to lose it with assurance from Gods own Mouth of a far worse, of incurring an eternal death, an­guish and pain without mitigation, this makes death deadly indeed, [Page 136] when the sinner must die again, for the sin he dies in, when the first death leads to a second; and when all the terrors, and sorrows, and pains, of the first death, are but the evidences of more, or worse to follow; when the fire that's now begun to be kindled, will burn down to the lowest hell, Deut. 32.22. If we believe this in good earnest, why do we not hate sin, worse than death? Because sin is the cause of all this; the cause of death and all that is deadly: It makes us liable to a dreadful account at the day of Judgment, and makes our whole life restless and uneasy. This being so, how dare we trifle away one day or hour more of that term, or time of Trial, upon which, though so short, and so uncertain, depends such a life and such a death, such joys and such sorrows, such rest and such disquiet, to all eter­nity? Methinks if Heaven cannot allure us, with all the joys and [Page 137] blessed eternal Rest there to be had; Hell might affright us, with its dreadful sufferings, into our duty, and compel us to make God at least, our last refuge, if not our first choice. No loss so great as the loss of God, and the Kingdom of Heaven, and that Rest we are there invited to. No Prison so loathsom, as the bottomless pit of horror and darkness: No sight so ghastly as that of frightful fiends: No shriek­ings so terrible as those of damned Ghosts: No stench so noisom as that of the lake of fire and brimston: No fire so hot as of the wrath of God, which puts the sinner into chains never to be loosed, into dark­ness never to be enlightened, and gives him gnashing of teeth never to be remedied, gnawing vipers never to be pulled off; and this makes up such a mass of woes, such a deadly death, as exceeds all hu­mane eloquence to express, much more all patience to endure. Now [Page 138] to avoid all this St. Paul tells us, Heb. 12.1. what we must do, we must lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and run with patience the race that is set before us; running the way of Gods Commandements, which St. Paul calls here a race, is the way to this everlasting Rest; there­fore let us so run that we may obtain it, and then our recompence is, a Crown of life; if we slothfully neglect it, our punishment is, Tribulation and anguish, endless and intolerable, the worm of conscience that never dies, the fire of hell that never goes out. Were we left to the glimmering suspicious light of natural reason, as most Nations were of old, and many are still, to guess at the way that leads to this everlasting Rest, or to find it out by a painful en­quiry, through many difficulties, and impediments of a contrary erroneous Education, we were by far the more excusable, but when [Page 139] by the mercy of God, we have the Gospel sounding in our Ears, and the way to this Rest chalkt out before our Eyes in holy Scripture, and lively Oracles, with all the powerful perswasive motives of hope and love, inviting us to it on the one hand, and all the cogent constraining motives of threats and fear, to drive us to it; hearten'd on with promises, assistances, and instructions on the other hand; what pretence of excuse can we have, that we should fall short of this Rest? But some are often en­quiring, what is the lowest degree of holiness, faith, and obedience, that is consistent with the escaping of hell, or hope of Heaven? They would know, what is the lowest rate that Heaven and eternal Rest will come at? The greatest part of those that would be resolved in this enquiry, are of a most disin­genuous unworthy disposition; for when God hath obliged us, by [Page 140] so many mercies, assistances, en­couragements, and rewards, thus to beat down as low as they can, the price of all his kindness and bounty; 'tis a dangerous sign that he that seeks heaven and happiness so faintly, will not seek it long; for we Sail against Tide, in our Voyage to Heaven, and earnest diligence is required in the passage thither, but if we begin to lay aside our Sails and Oares, we shall by the very stream of our nature, (the world and the flesh) be carried backward to perdition. The way to Heaven is upward, but the ground is falling that we tread on, and the heaviness of our nature, doth per­petually expose us to relapses. 'Tis very probable, that he that is so jealous and wary, of doing ought more than is necessary to this eter­nal Rest, will never attain to do so much: He is likely to shoot short of his Mark, who is so affraid of over-shooting it. He that said: [Page 141] So run that you may obtain, meant, so diligently, so earnestly, as if you were never sure enough of obtain­ing it, but by running as fast as your Spirits can hold out, till you come to the Gaol, the high price of your calling in Christ. The slothful Servant that said his Master was an Austere Man, did but slander his Master, to hide his own negligence, thinking all too much that he did, and that eternal Salvation, which cost no less than the death of the Lord of life, the Son of God, was set at too high a price.

Such as are thus niggardly of their pains, will find at last, that by not improving their Talent, they will lose at once both Heaven and it. Take from him the Talent, saith Christ in the Parable, Matt. 25.28. and cast the unprofitable Servant into outer darkness. That this may not happen unto any one of us, let us follow the advice of the Apostle, Heb. 12.14. [Page 142] which saith, follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no Man shall see the God of peace. God is not disquieted or troubled, or angry, though for our sakes he seems to be so, when his wronged justice must punish us, unless we repent: 'Tis our sin not his wrath, which whets the Sword of the destroying Angel, and shall not we desire to be like the Angels, yea like our Heavenly Father, in being at Rest and quiet, and keeping the peace of our Spirits, in the midst of a froward generation? To be sedate and quiet in the midst of as many humours as Men? To be the same when others run several ways to break our Rest? To be humble when one scorns us? Meek when another provokes and rages? Si­lent when this Man reviles? Chari­table when the other hates and persecutes us? Not to be tran­sported with passion at others violence? To stay at home, and [Page 143] keep our selves in calmness, and peaceable Rest, when the World is gone out of order, not to pull it more in pieces, by seek­ing to settle it as we please? Not to enrage the fire that threatens us, by blowing up with violent words, but to quench it with soft answers, and to overcome evil with good, following peace with all Men, and fighting only against our lusts and passions, which War against the Soul, and disturb and hinder its rest and peace? From whence come Wars, and fightings amongst you, are they not from restless lusts and desires of all sizes, that War and rage with in you? These lusts are the spawn of the two great sensual principles, Desire and Anger. Sometimes pride, sometimes coveting that which God hath not made ones lot, and then disturbing and confounding properties, in hope of attaining it: All the unpeaceableness in the World, is forged, and managed [Page 144] by these lusts: And the graces which Christ prescribes, Matt. 5. as Humility, Meekness, Contented­ness, are sent to root them out, and to dwell with that impatience, and insatiable restless ravening, which troubles the World: But too many there are amongst us, who have not thus learnt Christ. The wrathful Malecontent, who disturbs both Church and State, sails through a stormy tempestuous Sea and Rocks and Sands ready to ruine him, that by the ruine of many others, in soul and body, estate and good name, he may arrive at his wisht-for haven of riches and power: But what doth he find at the end thereof, but a miserable Shipwrack of him­self, as well as others, horror of conscience, hatred from Men of all parties, perpetual jealousies of his being bereaved of his dearly bought, unjust acquisitions, and at last, 'tis likely, Hamans Gallows, Absalons [Page 145] Tree, or Joabs Sword? However an infamous name and memory, after an anxious perplext life, and that which is incomparably worse, eternal intolerable sorrow and pain both of Soul and Body. The like may be said of the Heretick or Schismatick, who, when he hath prided himself a while, by leading a numerous party or sect, of unstable Souls, from the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints, from the unity of peace, and order of obedience to lawful Governours, into destructive Error and Schisme, finds himself wilder'd, and those that followed him crumbled into subdivisions, 'till one and the other end in shame and self confusion, bringing them either to repentance, or intolerable endless misery. But on the other side, the peaceable, meek, obedient follower of Christ enjoys his Rest, and the benefit of good Government, with cheerful thankfulness to God and Man; [Page 146] bears the troublesom oppressions, and disorders, of an evil one pa­tiently; and if the violence of se­duced Governours, call him to the fire and fagot, imprisonment, ba­nishment, sequestration and what not, he chuseth rather, poverty and death, with torments for an hour or two, than the farr worse rack of an evil conscience, the Worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched. They that go about to build a Tower up to Heaven, if they be once confounded and divided in their Language, 'twill prove but a Babel, or shameful Chaos at best: When one builds and another pulls down, what profit have they then but labour? Eccl. 34.23. A house divided against it self, be it a Family, a Kingdom, or Church, it cannot stand to Gods glory; And it were to be wisht, that they who have the glory of God in their Mouths, when they separate from the Church (which Baptized, and [Page 147] taught them their Christianity) for matters of an indifferent na­ture, no where forbidden, would take heed of dishonouring God, and his glory, by pretending to make them the end of their groundless quarrels and jealousies. The com­mon enemies to true Religion are Atheism, and Supersttion. Where­to then serves all this ado, about gestures, and vestures, and other external rites and formalities? That for such things as these (never imposed but for decency and order) Men should clamour against the times, desert their ministerial office, fly from their Country as out of Babylon, stand at open defiance against lawful authority, in Church and State, draw their Pens and Swords against them; whereto serves all this, but to give scandal to Atheist and Romanist? The Atheist, to think there is no cer­tainty in Religion, and scoff at all; the Romanist, to think that theirs [Page 148] is the true, when their adversaries have so little unity and peace with each other? Unity and Peace, are the order and harmony, the beauty and strength, and comfort of our own Spirits, as also of Families and Neighbourhoods, Cities and King­doms, Church and State. Peace gives a seasonable opportunity of gathering wealth, and of employ­ing and enjoying it, with thank­fulness to God, and charity to Man; it gives an advantageous leisure for learning, and knowledge of all sorts; especially that which most concerns us, the Knowledge of God and Christ Jesus. But division and strife, are the ruine and misery of single Persons, the bane of private Families, publick Societies, Church and State, and all that is profitable, or comfortable to Man. When the World is out of frame, peace establisheth the pillars of it, brings every part to its own place, the sensual under the rational, the flesh [Page 149] under the beck of the Spirit. It draws the Servant under the Master, the Subject under the Magistrate. The peace of Families and King­doms, makes every part to dwell together in unity, it keeps every Man in his right place, the Master on Horseback, the Servant on the ground; the King on the Throne, the Subject in his private station; the pastors in their place of teach­ing, and the people in theirs of attention and devotion: Like an intelligence, it moves the lesser Sphere of a Family, and the greater Orb of a Commonwealth or King­dom, composedly and orderly in its happiness. Peace is so necessary in all conditions to rest and happi­ness, that without it, ones Family is a prison, or sad confinement to trouble and molestation: Neigh­bourhood, gives but the opportuni­ty of vexing and injuring one ano­ther: Towns and Cities, are but so many wildernesses of wild beasts: [Page 150] The Church no Church, more like Babel, than Jerusalem: A King­dom or State, a disorderly Chaos; yea an Aceldama, or field of blood.

By peace at home, good Laws and Orders are made and kept; Magistrates respected, Subjects re­lieved according to their necessities: By peace and agreement in the Church, Gods ordinances are duly observed, good discipline executed; Pastors and Teachers maintained and encouraged, the People edi­fied, Gods houses preserved and beautified: Who is there then that would not seek his eternal Rest hereafter, by seeking peace and ensuing it here?

Christian Religion, that leads and conducts us to this eternal Rest, is also the wisest and most power­ful preserver of peace in order to it; It commands us to study and pray for it, to follow it, with all diligence till we overtake it; we are com­manded to lose our right for the [Page 151] sake of peace, to part with Coat, or Cloak, or any thing tolerable, rather than it.

Peace levels the hills, and raises the vallies, and casts an healthful peaceable influence, on all con­ditions and qualities of Men: That as it was prophesied, Isa. 11.6. The Wolf may dwell with the Lamb, and the Leopard lie down with the Kid. And if it be not so with Christians, it is because they are so in word, but not in heart; have received the Gospel of peace in their Ears, and heads perhaps, but not in the love thereof: For were they indeed the Sons of peace, in whose hearts the peace of God takes place, were they Members of that body of which Christ is the head, then every Member of such a Kingdom or Church, would keep its place, with subordinate dependance; the rich by supplying the poor, the poor by blessing the rich, the wise by teaching the ignorant, the igno­rant [Page 152] by hearkening to the wise; every Man being as an Angel, or ministring Spirit, to another. But the restless, unpeaceable person, counts it his honour, to speak and do what he list:

To pursue his enemies till he take them, and beat them as small as the dust before the wind; to stand in the vally, and touch the Mountains till they smoak; reach at that which is above, and pull it down; divide that which is united; shake that which is esta­blisht, violate that which should not be toucht; and are ever moving and heaving upward, to gain a name, though it be by firing a Temple, or setting a Kingdom or Church in combustion. Thus are honours valued and sought among Men, the Sons of Belial, that would be yokeless. Honourable Schisma­ticks descend from Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin; from Corah, Da­than and Abiram, who rose up against [Page 153] Moses and Aaron, till they perished in their contradiction: Honourable Hypocrites, Pharisees, and the Sons of Pharisees, whose name, and pro­fession was, to separate as more holy; though the Baptist and Christ himself, condemned them as more wicked.

Honourable Murtherers, of their Father the Devil, who was so from the beginning of sins entrance into the World; ambitious, covetous, discontented, revengful, humorous, unpeaceable persons, and these would be accounted the Honourable grandees of the World; but in the Court, and Heraldry of Heaven, we find no such Titles of Honour. An Honour it is to be at peace and rest; cease from strife, Prov. 20.3. The peaceable Man, he is the Honourable Man in Scripture, and in Gods account: By peaceableness, and following peace, Men procure to themselves a sure Title to ever­lasting peace and rest; knowing [Page 154] that the merciful shall obtain mercy, the peaceable, peace, and Rest at the last. But there are amongst us, unquiet restless persons who pre­tend to inspirations, and boast themselves of the Spirit; but we are exhorted by St. John, 1 Ephes. 4.1. Not to believe every Spirit, but to try the Spirits, whether they are of God or no, because many false Pro­phets are gone out into the World: And our Saviour's direction for the discovery of them we have, Matt. 7.16. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Our Saviours meaning could not be only, nor chiefly, the fruits of their lives in their outward con­versation, for falsehood is often set off by Hypocrisy; and a shew of sanctity, goes for great purity; and pretences of Religion and Re­formation, serve to delude, and mislead unstable Souls. This is the Wool which the Wolf wraps about him, when he means to do most mischief, with least suspition. The [Page 155] old Serpent is not so silly as to think, that his Ministers (whilst they are working the works of darkness) should be able to draw a considerable party into their com­munion, should they appear in their dismal colours; therefore he puts them into a new dress, before he send them abroad in the World; transforming them, as if they were the Ministers of light; there­fore our Saviour could not mean the fruits of their lives so much, as the fruits of their Doctrine, that is to say, the necessary consequences of their Doctrines. If what is spo­ken and Taught by them, upon examination do plainly appear in­consistent with any one branch or duty of a Christian life, the words we may be sure are not wholsom words. It can be no Heavenly Doctrine, that teacheth Men to be earthly, sensual, and devi­lish, that tends to make Men unjust in their dealings, uncharitable in [Page 156] their censures, undutiful to their superiours. It was not the purpose of God, in publishing the Gospel, and thereby freeing us from the rigor and curse of the Law, so to turn us loose and lawless, to do (as when there was no King in Israel) what seemed good in our own Eyes; follow our own crooked will, gra­tify any corrupt lust; but to oblige us the faster, by these new benefits, and heavenly promises, and to bind us to our good behaviour the more strictly, allowing no liberty to the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, but to exact of us sincere sanctity and purity, both of inward affection, and outward conversation; other­wise no true Rest to be expected.

But our pretenders to the Spirit, who call the Scriptures a dead letter, boast of new inspirations, and en­danger greatly the bringing in con­fusion amongst Men, and distur­bances into States and Kingdoms; the Governours whereof, having [Page 157] no other authority, than what is either founded or agreeable to the word, or will of God, it will still be in the power of each pretender, to deliver Oracles out of his own breast, as the immediate dictates of Gods Spirit, quite contrary to the safety, and interest of that Govern­ment, which any where is, or may be established: And so the peace of Kingdoms, must be as uncertain and changeable, as the phansies of Men, and the Laws as alterable as Testaments are while the Testator lives; every illuminate breast pre­tending to come like Moses from God in Sinai, with new Tables of divine Commandements, which must abolish and exclude the old; but it is our great comfort, blessed be God, that the publick Doctrine established in the Church of Eng­land, is at this day such, that it is not chargeable, with any one thing, contrary to any part of that duty, which a Christian owes, either to God or Man.

[Page 158]Let these pretenders consider what the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. 12.7. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal: As if he should have said, let no Man pretend to the Spirit, for any other end or purpose, save for what it was given, and that was not to procure himself glory, not to separate from his Brethren, not to pride and puff up himself by de­spising and scorning others, but to advance the glory of God, and pro­mote his own and others salvation.

If what thou hast or pretends to have, be given, the honour is the givers, and the receiver must give an account how he hath used, what he hath received. Now in order to the procuring this eternal Rest, there are indeed in the Church several gifts, in several men; different Offices, and divers ope­rations, which look at first as if they proceeded from several princi­ples, and tended to division; but [Page 159] as all this variety tends to unity, so all indeed proceeds from unity, Unity in Trinity, one and the same God truly distinguisht into three Persons, but always united into the same God-head.

But what Rest may those Men expect, who dig at the foundation of our Religion, and stick not to deny that blessed Trinity, into whose worship, and in whose name we are Baptized: The name of the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost? To which three Sacred Persons we so often say, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. These are the Three which said to each other, when they made Man, Gen. 1. Let us make Man after our Image, in our likeness. These are they which manifested themselves at our Lords Baptisme; joyning again to renue that Image, in which we were made. The Father in the voice, the Son owned by that voice, the Spirit in the Dove abiding on [Page 160] him: These are that Holy, Holy, Holy, to whom the Seraphims in Isaiah, under the old Testament, gave all glory. These are they to whom the Angels and Saints in Heaven, sing that Anthem of praise in the Revelations. This is the sum of Christian Religion, and that which brings Rest and peace eter­nal to all that well understand and receive it.

And therefore the Council of Nice ordained that the Literae for­matae, or Commendatory Letters, which were the solemn warrants of entertainment, and hospitality, between Christians, should be subscrib'd by these Letters [...], denoting the Trinity, and their faith who carried those Letters. There are three (saith St. John) that bear record in Heaven, the Fa­ther, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one and the same God blessed for ever: One Essence, ac­cording to what our Lord hath said, [Page 161] I and the Father are one. Thus to believe, highly concerns us all, be­cause of all errors, none so per­nicious, none so intolerable, as those which concern the first foun­tain, whence all things flow; and the last end to which all things tend. Derive all from the blessed Trinity, ascribe and refer the glory of all to the blessed Trinity, and then we shall come to enjoy him in blessed rest and happiness, whom we thus believe, adore and honour.

St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. 12.8. That there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; differencies of administrations, but the same Lord; diversities of operations, but it is the same God, that worketh all in all.

This should stand as a great ar­gument of Unity, and Charity a­mongst our selves, Humility and Thankfulness to God, who hath made us partakers in several mea­sures, and degrees of these gifts, these administrations, these opera­tions; [Page 162] that though our gifts, and places, and works are very different and unequal, yet they come all from the same Spirit, Lord, and God; who wisely governs and or­ders all things by his Council here below: The Apostle tells us, v. 8. To one is given the word of wisdom, [a special ability of understanding] To another the word of knowledge, [to interpret the mystical senses and veiled meanings of holy Scripture] To another Faith, [or a firm belief to work all miracles] To another the gift of healing, [a peculiar power to cure diseases without the help of Physick] To another the working of Miracles, [such as was the delivering Hymineus and Philetus, to be afflict­ed by Satan; the striking Elymas blind, and Ananias and Saphira dead] To another diverse kinds of Tongues, [the gift of speaking several and strange Languages, which he was never taught;] And all this work­eth that one and the same Spirit, who [Page 163] divides his several gifts, to several Men, according to his good pleasure.

Other Scriptures tell us the same, as that of St. Matt. 25.15. The Master of the house gave to one Ser­vant five Talents, to another two, to another one, to every one according to his several ability: He gives such, and so much as he sees every Man is fit to make use of, to Gods glory and the Common good. Thus God will shew himself both a free donor, and a wise disposer of all things. For if one Man should have all abili­ties, and others few or none of any worth, the World might seem to be guided, either by blind fortune, or fatal necessity; but now that Men have their several Offices, and their several abilities, by which they are each fitted for anothers service, and all for the beauty and benefit of the whole frame; the hand of divine providence, appears in the disposing of them. God would have Men take notice of [Page 164] their gifts, and of their defects, that by the one they may learn humility, and by the other thank­fulness. For if any one had all parts, he would be too proud of his per­fections, and begin to think he needed not the supply of Gods far­ther favours, who had so much of his own already. Again, if any Man were destitute of all Gods gifts, and mercies, he would want matter to bless God for. But now that God hath given to Men a measure of good things, and hath temper'd their gifts, with many defects, they may easily see, they are both indebted to God for all they have, and depending on God for all they want. And so this dividing Gods gifts, should teach us to think humbly of our Selves, and thank­fully of God, and to set up our Rest in those gifts and graces, which his bounty hath so freely conferred upon us. Not inwardly to repine and envy, nor outwardly to disturb [Page 165] and pervert, that order which God hath made, but to let God alone with his wise and gracious dealing with us, and to rest satisfied with our own portion, and to prize and esteem the gifts of others, ac­knowledging their due worth and value where ever we find them; for if the holy Spirit of God, divide his gifts as he will, and his will is always gracious and wise, then either to deny, or envy, or debase them, is no better than to thwart God, in one especial work of his wisdom and goodness.

Some Men indeed would have greater gifts, and most Men would have greater callings and places in the Church and State; all secretly grudging against God, and envying one another; and if it were not the mercy of God, to over rule such secret swellings, they would burst out to the overthrow of peace and order, and would prove no less destructive, to our temporal quiet [Page 166] and Rest here, than to our eternal Rest hereafter. 'Twas good Counsel which Joseph gave to his Brethren, when they were returning with their Sacks of Corn to their Father in Canaan, See ye fall not out by the way. We are all Travellers re­turning to our Fathers house, the Heavenly Canaan, in which are many mansions, enough certainly for all the Sons of Adam, and God hath given to every Man, such gifts and graces, such guides and assistances, for their conduct, that were they not wanting to themselves, they need not doubt their safe arrival. But such are our fallings out by the way, such our jarrings and dissen­tions, our lingrings, delays and backslidings, that we may have cause to fear, the greater part of these Travellers will fall short of these mansions, and never take up their Rest in their Fathers house.

It is an ancient and true saying, Unum quodque est propter operationem [Page 167] suam. God hath made all that he made; ordered all things that he ordained (and there is nothing but what he made and set in order) for that work and operation, to which its nature, place and faculties, are fitted. The work and operation therefore, is the first in order of intention or design, though the last in order of execution and accomplishment. But nothing can operate or work aright, except it be gifted, or en­dued with some faculty, or hability to that work. And that this fa­culty or hability may produce its work in due order, it must have its due place and office, appointed by him who orders all things.

Now as this is true and certain in the universal body of the World, and in the particular natural body of all Men; so it is chiefly to be observed, in the Spiritual body of Christ's Church. First there are gifts to enable Men to perform the work for which God hath appointed [Page 168] them. Then there are Offices [...] or administrations, to authorize them, and give them Commission, in their several places to exercise those gifts, with which they are endued, and perform those works, for which they are gifted and authorized. Then there are works, which must be performed by Men endued with those gifts and those Commissions.

This is the wise method and order which he that hath made all things in number, measure and weight, hath prescribed, and obser­ved himself in all his works, and prescribed us in his word to observe. Gifts are first mentioned, because they are first necessary, for the qua­lifying of the Person both for his office and his work. What ever we have, what ever we are, by nature or grace, in our worldly condition, or in our spiritual, is a gift: For what are, or what have we, in any respect, if good it be; [Page 169] that we have not received, from that God, who is the only self-sub­sisting, all-sufficient fountain, and fulness of all being and life? For in him we live, and move, and have our being: From him, and through him, and to him are all things. He spake the word, Let it be thus, and thus, (by that eternal word his only Son) and it was so.

His Spirit moved upon the Waters, and all things that he pleased to have done, through this word, by this Spirit were produced; for by the word of the Lord were the Heavens made, and all the host of them by this Spirit, or word of his mouth. All then is his gift: Ab unissimo Deo manant multiformia, ab aeterno tem­poralia; All diversity comes from Unity, all times and temporal things, from the eternity, of this Trinity. It is God alone that hath made and or­der'd the dull Earth and the active Sun, distinguished the World into such diversity of Creatures, in [Page 170] order to serve one another, the Elements for the mixt bodies, herbs and grass for the living unreasonable Creatures; those for Man, and Man for his own service and glory.

If God had made but one Crea­ture, that one had proved him an infinite God, as to his power, for nothing but an Almighty power, can bring forth any thing, though but an Atom, or dust or sand out of nothing. But now that he hath made and appointed so many Crea­tures, in such a just and excellent order, this makes the riches of his wisdom and bounty, clearly appear to the Eye of reason, and then he demands of Man, who hath this reason, in all humility and thank­fulness that he adore and revere that God, who hath made so many divers Creatures to serve him, that he may learn thereby to serve and love his Creator, and gracious benefactor; and so at last come to enjoy him, whom he hath thus [Page 171] served and loved, in eternal joy and rest.

If any one should ask, why was I made a liveless Element, a senseless Plant, an unreasonable though a living Creature, but a reasonable Man, above all these, able to see, and consider what I see and know; to the honour of God? There can no account or reason be given, but the free bounty of his gift, who thus distinguisht and ordered all things. And so also amongst Men; why one is noble, another obscure; one rich, another poor; one beauti­ful, witty, and strong, another weak, dull, or less comely, what account can any one give, but that there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, Lord, God, who thus or­ders them? And this must teach us contentedness, without envying Superiors; and Charity, without despising or neglecting inferiors.

But besides these gifts, these Offices and administrations, which [Page 172] God hath placed in the World, for its Temporal Government; there are gifts supernatural and spiritual, which God hath ordain'd and placed in the Church, for the spiritual Government of Mens Souls, in order to Gods service here, and Mans eternal Rest and Salvation hereafter. And these gifts, Saint Paul in the first to the Corinthians, 12.28. reckons up to be eight in number. First Apostles, Secondarily Prophets, Thirdly Teachers. After Miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, Governments, diversities of Tongues: Whereof five were needful only at first, and so to continue but for a time: But those that were to abide for ever, are reduced to Three, Teachers, Helps, Governments. Priests or Presbyters to teach, Dea­cons to help, Bishops both to teach, help, and govern. These all, the Church had from the beginning, and our Church blessed be God, still hath them. These the Synod [Page 173] of Carthage calls the Three degrees of the Clergy; and we find frequent mention of them, in all the Monu­ments and Records of the Church, whether Provincial Synods, or general Councels, Publick Litur­gies, or private Writers, Historians or Fathers; Canons made for their several Offices and Administrations, bounding and limiting each from other, in their proper works and operations.

That of Presbyters and Deacons, hath been less questioned; but that of Bishops more disputed in late times: yet who can question, or doubt of their being placed in the Church, by the Apostles themselves, that hath with any impartial Eye, read and considered, either the Scripture, or the ancient expositers of Scrip­ture. Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus at Creet, have their Episcopal Office and duty plainly described, and or­der'd in Scripture by St. Paul. The Seven Stars in Christs hand, Rev. [Page 174] 1.20. are the Seven Angels of the Seven Churches, saith Christ him­self. And he that considers what these Churches were, of how nu­merous Christians, of what large circuit, containing several Cities and Countries, can hardly doubt of what the Ancients have said: That the Angels of these Churches were not only Bishops, but Metropolitan Arch-Bishops. Sure we are, that Church Writers and Historians, set down the very particular names of these Seven Angels or Bishops, and not only so, but their Succes­sors for several Ages.

The first general Counsel of Nice, from which the Nicene Creed hath its name, consisted of Three Hundred and Eighteen Bishops, as many as Abraham had in his Army against the Kings, in the story of Genesis, as St. Ambrose wittily alludes. And the first general Synod, calls the Government by Bishops, Arch-Bishops or Metropolitans [...] [Page 175] the antient guise: So ancient it was, that the ancient writers we have (and some we have of the next Age after the Apostles) mention it as universally spread over the Church, and from no other at first derived, than from the Apostles.

Nor could it indeed have been so early, or so generally diffused, from any less authority than theirs. These are they whom St. Paul calls [...], giving them power of ordination and of Govern­ment, Rulers and Presidents. Ig­natius every where distinguisheth them from Presbyters, and Deacons, as being above them, and calls them [...], Governours. So doth St. Cyprian, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and who not? attributing to them not only the chief place, but the highest authority and power of Government. Hierom himself, though but a Presbyter, and a zea­lous defender of Presbyters dignity, derives the difference of degrees [Page 176] no lower, than from the times of the Apostles, for so are his words; When they began to say, I am of Paul, I of Appollo, I of Cephas, then were Bishops every where placed to prevent Schism. And that we may know, that these Apostolical tra­ditions are taken from the Old Testament; what Aaron and his Sons, and the Levites, were in the Jewish Temple, that Bishops, Pres­byters and Deacons, were in the Christian Church. And therefore if we will not make so learned, and so religious a Person, plainly con­trary to himself, he must be so un­derstood in his other sayings, as not to deny what he plainly affirms, That Episcopal Government came from the Apostles.

But this hath been so fully discussed of late years in this Nation, Dr. Templer, 1676. and particu­larly by a Person of great worth and learning, at a Visitation in Cambridge, (to which I refer you) [Page 177] that I shall no longer insist upon it, only remind you, that differences there are of Administrations, that is, of Offices in the Church, as well as diversities of gifts; and all these different Administrations, high and low, as well Bishops, as Priests and Deacons, are called [...], the proper term of the lowest of the three, the Deacons; which we translate Administrations, but might as well be rendred Mi­nisteries, or Services: But why are they so called? Surely to teach the highest of them, both diligence and humility in their Office. Every honour, hath its burthen answerable to it; and the higher the Office of Government, if it be truly and con­scienciously discharged, the pain-fuller is its work and service. 'Tis an old saying [...]. The Master in a great house, is the greatest Servant; while all they serve him, in their several places, he is fain to serve them all, [Page 178] study and watch to provide for all, to govern all. In no house is this so true, as that of the Church: For whose cares, studies, dangers, watchfulness are so great, so various, so perpetual, as theirs, if they do their duty? And whose Con­demnation is so great, if they do it not? Bishops are Generals in this Spiritual Army, and yet faith St. Paul, fellow Souldiers; ac­countable to our Common Lord Christ Jesus, not only for their own Souls, but for others too; nor is the mea­nest Common Souldier, by the hundreth part, obliged to so many cares and pains, exposed to so many dangers and troubles, as these Ge­nerals. Rulers they are in Gods House, but their ruling is for Gods service, and Mans Salvation: And what a load of cares and pains, doth this ruling lay upon them? Fathers they are in place and dig­nity, but Brethren in love and humility they must be. Stars and [Page 179] Angels they are called, but how do the Stars run their course, day and night for the service of this inferior World? How do the Angels con­descend to be ministring Spirits to the poorest of Gods Family?

Read but what our Saviour saith, Matt. 20.27. Whosoever will be chief amongst you, must be your Servant, even as the Son of Man came to Minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Read what Saint Paul saith, 2 Cor. 11.23. to the 30. and you will surely confess, that the highest Offices in Gods Church, are the most painful dangerous services: Ministeries truly so called, so truly, that the Ancient Bishops entering that Office, might truly say, nolo Episcopari. But the more painful their service is, the greater ought to be their honour, both of inward respect, and outward maintenance. All that are under these Ministeries, or Administrations, ought to take heed of despising them for this [Page 180] reason, because they are Ministeries; but rather honour them because they are over you in the Lord.

The higher powers, Kings them­selves, are twice called by this very word [...], the Ministers of God, Rom. 13. The Angels are called Ministring Spirits, yet are still Principalities and Powers, Thrones and Dominions. Nay, our Lord him­self, whilst he was yet on Earth in the form of a Servant, is called by this word [...], the Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God. This must teach those in this high place, humility and diligence, but others it must teach obedience and thankfulness, to esteem them highly, for their works sake; to obey them that have the rule over you, and submit your selves, because they watch for your Souls, as they that must give an account.

He that desires the Office of a Bishop, desires a good work, saith St. Paul: Good indeed, and a work indeed. To govern and guide so many flocks [Page 181] and their Pastors, with zeal to God, and Charity to Man; with un­wearied patience and humility; without corruption or partiality, through favour or fear, of high or low, small or great, poor or rich; to govern and teach wisely and di­ligently; to look so carefully to or­dination, that all the truth, and none but the truth, be constantly preached, and the service of God be constantly performed, with all reverence, free from prophaness, with all purity, free from super­stition. That the Sacraments and discipline of the Church, be ad­ministred in their power and beau­ty; all this is a work indeed, as full of labour and care, as of honour: Even the lower Administrations, those of Presbyters and Deacons, have not they their work too? They have sure in their several places enough to spend their time, and Spirits wholly in, if they do their duty. The Presbyter hath a [Page 182] great share of all. The Bishops work is in a great part committed to him, and would the People make that use of Gods Ministers, which their Eternal Rest and Salvation re­quires, it would quickly be found, that preaching were not half of the Ministers work and care: And yet Preaching is no small work. To instruct clearly in all the Mysteries of Faith, to exhort earnestly, and affectionately, to all the duties of life and practice; to convince so many numerous errors, as daily arise; to rebuke and reprove so many sins, and sinful Persons; without fear of the great, or the many; to comfort the feeble minded; to humble the haughty; to stir up the slothful, and temper the furious; to uphold the falling, and relieve the wavering, and reduce the wander­ing; to stop the mouths of so many, and subtil gainsayers, from the Atheist to the Schismatick; from the Prophane to the Superstitious; [Page 183] to clear those Obscurities, to an­swer those difficulties, remove those scandals, which so many Men in weakness, or wilfulness are sub­ject to, and to second all this with a life unblameable; this certain­ly, is a work of great variety, study, and pains: and yet a work so necessary it is, that better for us, we had no gifts nor Ministry at all, than not to perform it: and the more it behoves the rest of the World, not to hinder, not to dis­courage, not sacrilegiously to rob, not to perplex us in this our work; but to strive to make it as comfor­table to us, and as fruitful to your selves as you can, seeing the end of these Ministeries, these services, these works, the end of all our labour, is to bring you to endless Rest.

All our abilities, all our gifts are from the same Spirit, all our works are wrought by the same Lord, who worketh all in all, that is well wrought; both in him that writes, [Page 184] and him that reads, both in him that speaks, and him that hears, in him that is governed, and in him that governs. if this be so, let us banish all pride, If our gifts, and places, and works be never so high, never so many; Envy, if our gifts and places seem never so few and low; for what are the highest amongst us, but the instruments and servants, of this supreme do­nor, and mover; receiving all from him, accountable for all to him? And how can the lowest and mea­nest murmur, or object any thing against it, since they that have the lowest and meanest, have it a gift, and could not challenge it as due, but have it by the wise disposal of that Lord, whose wisdom knoweth what is fittest for each; and whose goodness bestows that which is most fit, and the meaner, or less gifts and places any one hath, the more easily is both his work, and his account?

[Page 185]Away then with haughty Pride, or mutinous Envy. Let not one say with repining regret, I am slow in apprehension, weak in memory, shallow in judgment, whilst others are quick, tenacious and solid: I have neither wealth to buy voluminous Authors; nor arts, nor parts, as others have, to dive into those difficulties, and obscu­rities, and gain a clear solution of them, as others have.

Nor let others say in haughty contempt of their inferiors, or meaner Brethren; how mean are such and such compared with me, in graces, and places? I can lead my a­mazed Auditors, whither I will, with my eloquent Tongue; whilst others freez in their Pulpits, and tire their Auditors into wearisomness and drow­siness. But let the one and the other say, These are gifts freely bestowed, where it pleaseth the giver, and who shall say unto him, what doest thou with thy own? He owes nothing to any, who can demand any thing of him as [Page 186] his due? He is the supreme Wisdom, who shall direct him in his Counsel; where and how to dispose and bestow his gifts? The supreme Lord, who shall command him, where and how to dis­pose and order his Administrations? He is the only Almighty God, who shall accuse his work of weakness or defect?

Let the lowest and meanest re­member to say, Though God hath denied me this or that which others have, yet hath he given me something which others want. He hath not given me an high place, but he hath given me that retirement and safety, of which those that are in high places, are be­reaved. He hath denied me promotion, but given me that health, which they that are preferred before me, would willingly purchase.

On the other side, let those that have highest gifts and places, say to themselves, Why should we boast of our Lords bounty, and not rather tremble to think, of ascribing that to [Page 187] our selves, which is his free gift and dispensation; least he take it away, when he sees it abused; or if he con­tinue it, condemn us the heavier for being unthankful?

Since it is thus ordered, by the wise disposer of all things, let one, and the other remember, that all are the Spirits Almsmen in their gifts. The Lord's Ministers in their Offices, Gods Workmen in their works, and thus when every one shall be contented with his Talent, each one shall find peace and quiet, and Rest within him here, and be qualified for eternal Rest here­after.

The World hath many pretenders to this Rest, and those so contrary one to another, that their very pretences to it, shew this eternal Rest to be very desirable; but the contrariety shews, that this Rest hath so much of difficulty in it, that all that lay claim to it, cannot justifie their claim: And though [Page 188] they cry with the Mathematician [...], I have found, and I have found it; yet they are so much to seek, that their confidence, with­out evidence, hath brought many to put it to the question, Whe­ther there be any such Rest to be found? We must not be so foolish, or so slothful, as those Scepticks, who question, or deride the possi­bility of searching, and finding out this eternal Rest; but with hu­mility and diligence, humbly ap­ply our selves to those Rules, which are given us for its discovery. Some there are that lay claim to no other, nor higher felicity, than that which either natural Philosophy, or civil Policy can help them to: And these, though they have gone far, discovered and publisht many truths, pleasant and profitable for the World; yet their aims are too low, to give the soul of Man satis­faction, or acquiescense here: The light and rules they walk by, too [Page 189] weak, and too uncertain, to reach those very aims, which themselves own; much more must they needs fall short of Mans great eternal end, this endless Rest: The pursuit whereof, is our wisdom here; the attaining whereof, is our happiness hereafter.

There are in the World Men (and those not a few) who seek after wealth and honour, and great power; and weary themselves day and night, to attain their ambitious desires, and think themselves still in the way towards this eternal Rest: But our Saviour's appearing in the World, as he did, in much humility, demonstrates unto us the contrary. The innocency, righ­teousness, charity and holiness of his life, were so conspicuous, that the Scribes and Pharisees, nay, the Devil himself, could not find any true accusation against him; and he that betrayed him, went and hanged himself, because he had [Page 190] betrayed so innocent, so good, and holy a Person: Because he came not to gratifie, the wordly and carnal expectations of the Jews, with any outward pomp or splen­dor, suitable to their desires, they vilify his Person, revile his doctrine, persecute his followers, contrive his ruine: Yet what was a temporal advancement, or deliverance to an eternal redemption, from sin, death, and hell; to an eternal advance­ment, above all enemies, to those honours and joys at Gods right hand? And how contrary had it been to the design of his incarnation, which was to satisfie for Mankind's for­mer Pride and Ambition, intempe­rate voluptuousness, insatiable co­vetousness? To exemplify, as well as teach them, the grace of piety, and contentedness, with the mea­nest condition here below, by set­ting their hearts on things above? How contrary had it been to such a purpose, for our Lord to have [Page 191] appeared in the plenty of wealth, or the splendor or pomp of worldly honour, in the power of Armies, to conquer Nations, by Sword or Force, all which would have but enraged the sinful distempers of Mans Soul, which he came to cure? He had given the Jews abundant evidence, both at his birth, and throughout his life; yea, at his very death, that 'twas not weakness, or any necessity that made him ap­pear in such mean condition; but his voluntary choice, and love to Mankind; to draw them off from the love of this World, to that of God and a better life: For surely he that could command a Star, to attend him at his birth, and an Heavenly Host to sing an Anthem of Glory to God, at his Nativity; might more easily, had it pleased him, been born in another place than a Stable, with other manner of attendants, than a poor Virgin, and a Carpenter. He that could [Page 192] feed five Thousand, with a few Loaves and Fishes, might have maintained as numerous an Army, as he pleased: He that could cure the Blind, and Lame, and Deaf at a word; heal all manner of Di­seases, command the Waters, and the Wind, raise the Dead, cast out Devils, might quickly have had an invincible force, of Men and Angels, to quell the Romans and other Nations. He that could strike his apprehender to the ground, at the beck of his will; make the Sun withdraw his light, at Noon day, and full Moon; the Earth tremble, the Rocks rend, the Graves open at his death; could easily have saved himself from death; but then he should have by his Example, renowned that love of worldly riches, pleasures and ho­nours, which by his Doctrine of humility, self denial, and contempt of the World, he sought to mortify and disgrace.

[Page 193]High and lofty thoughts, do much hinder our progress towards our eternal Rest, and hide from us the true knowledge of our selves; whose first Element is but dust; Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return: Dust is our native soyl, and last home; to which we must by a firm decree, repair ere long. By soring aloft after worldly honours, we do but make our wearisom way, the longer, and more crooked; our fall more grievous (especially if suddain) and our final account after death more heavy. Aspiring ambition overthrew the Tempter, Lucifer himself. What Spirit is it then think we, which moves such young and tender Plants, as scarce thrive under the walls of Gods house; such Vines as hardly bear fruits, in the warm and well fenced vale; (I mean the retirements and vacations of a low and private con­dition;) to affect the cold and open Mountains, exposed to blasts of [Page 194] noysom winds? Is it their glory to be above others of their own rank, and education? This might be pur­chased, with less danger to them­selves, and more good to Church and State; if they sought to over­top them, more by their own pro­per height, or true growth, in all graces and good works, than by meer advantage of ground: For when every Valley shall be exalted, and every Mountain made low; that is, when all worldly differences of States, shall be laid aside, (as at the last day they will be) the fruit which hath grown in the vale of humility and contentedness, will appear both higher, and better far, than the ordinary off-spring of the Mountains or highest places of pre­ferment. Were Men so wise in heart as to consider, that the lower their place or condition is (so it be not exposed to flouds of violence) the apter it is to suck in the dew of Heaven, and bring forth fruit in its season.

[Page 195]There are in the way to this eternal Rest, great variety of Tra­vellers, furnisht with various and different abilities; whose faces dif­fer not more than their minds and manners, and these though they run contrary ways, yet all pretend they are in pursuit of the same end, and are upon their march to this eternal Rest, even then, when their backs are turned upon it.

The bloudy restless Traytor would be thought to be in search after this eternal Rest, and Life, though he seek for it in the paths of death, and works like the Mole under ground, and thinks that no Man shall see him, 'till his abomi­nable wickedness be found out, and 'till, in the same Net that he laid for others, is his foot taken, and 'till his own demerits, and the justice of the laws, halter him into a shame­full death, and swing him into another World, there to have his portion, with (the first and greatest of [Page 196] rebels) the Devil, and his Angels, and (unless prevented by a timely repentance) to remain in flames that burn to all eternity. Another sort of Rebels there are more noble, though not less bloudy than the former, of an higher and more honourable extraction; yet such as move in the same Sphere, who hide their heads aloft in the Clouds, who also think that none shall see them; but he that is higher than the highest, laughs them to scorn, and lets them drop into the same pit, which they made for others; 'till the Sanction of the Laws, strikes the Coronet from off their Heads, their Heads from their Bodies, and lays the Ax to the root of that Tree, which brought not forth good fruit, and is therefore hewn down, rieven out, as it were, and cleaved for the fire. Were Religion as much in these Mens hearts, as it hath been in their pretences; that Religion I mean, which is, first pure, then [Page 197] peaceable, they might have been gathered to their Fathers in peace, and not have pulled upon them­selves, a speedier, and a sadder mor­tality, than that which God and Na­ture had first appointed for them.

Next, The Zealous Schismatick thinks he is making sure of this eternal Rest, for himself and also for his followers, who runs, before he is called, and intrudes himself into that holy function, of which we read, Heb. 5.4. No Man taketh that honour unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. That is, no good, or holy Man, must or ought, or doth take this honour upon himself, but he that is truly called of God. Such as Corah, have too often, and too presum­ptuously taken it upon them, with­out being called, appointed, or or­dained, by lawful authority; But how hainous a sin it is so to do, may appear by the dreadful punishment thereof; the Earth opened and [Page 198] swallowed him, and his, up in a moment, Uzza may not touch the Ark, the Bethshemites may not so much as gaze into it. And though now, no such punishment be in­flicted any more; nor such a death as St. Peter inflicted on Ananias, befall Sacrilege, (for Miracles are ceased) and such Examples at the first were inflicted on purpose, to signify the guilt of that sin, and so to terrify from it for ever; yet God and his law is the same for ever, and they who prophane his holy orders, and institutions, by bold obtruding themselves upon them, will find a punishment meet for their sin, here or hereafter.

What more prophanes holy things, than that which makes them common to all, who have but the forehead to claim and take them? But since the acceptance of the office, and its work on Gods part is all in all, as that which can bring a blessing on Priest or People; [Page 199] it highly concerns us, both in wis­dom to our selves, and in duty to God, and in Charity to others, neither to take that honourable office to our selves, nor give ad­mittance, or countenance to those that do so, since it is indeed no honour, nor office, unless as it is derived from him, and is more likely, if not more certain, to bring a curse and not a blessing, on such invaders of the Priesthood, and their followers.

If God will be Sanctified by them that draw near unto him, then surely most, by them that draw nearest; by having the office of being his mouth unto the People, and theirs unto him. And sure it were a great dishonour unto Reli­gion, that all great and publick things, nay every profitable Science and Art, should in all societies be distinguisht, by their proper pro­fessors, Ministers or Artists, and only Religion should be in common, [Page 200] exposed to be bruised by the hard hands of any Mechanicks, and sullied by the rude touch of un­discerning, undistinguisht, uncon­secrated Persons. In reason the means should hold some proportion with their end; and therefore the end of this holy office, being divine and supernatural, 'tis reasonable Persons which enter into it, should be able to shew their vocation, mission and ordination; for that the very design of Religion, forces us to a distinction of Persons, and solemn call and ordination, in or­der to the office and work. And because every one is not fit to ap­proach to God in the publick ad­dresses of his Church; there must in reason be a solemn separation, and ordination, made of those Persons, whose calling peculiarly is holy, and they thereby taught, and obliged to be so. That such Persons being made higher than the People, by their calling (though our Bre­thren [Page 201] in nature) may be the in­struments of conveying the Peoples Prayers unto God, and Gods blessings unto the People.

Thus it was throughout the World, Jew and Gentile, before Christ's time, either pretendedly or really, and if Christian Religion allow otherwise, we must in effect confess, that we have the worst Religion (which is blasphemous dishonour to Christianity) and as false as its greatest infernal enemy: Or that we are the worst of Men, which is intolerable shame to our selves, and therefore to be disowned and detested, in heart and deed.

Let any favourer of these intru­ders, name if they can, but one true and sound Doctrine, which any one party, dissenting from the Church of England, hath re­commended to the World, which was not before, sufficiently and solidly, taught and proved, by [Page 202] lawful Pastors: But who can num­ber the dangerous errors, which have been multiplied and spread abroad by these dissenters? Heresies and Schismes, abroad and at home, have invaded the vnity, peace and prosperity, of almost all the reformed Churches, to the extream hazard of the Christian Faith, to the intro­ducing Sedition in State, Schisme in Church, darkness and confusion in both. While many pretend to strive for the Truth, how do they darken their own understandings, as well as others, with tumult and clamor, wrath and bitterness, amongst which truth is lost on both sides, as well as Charity? They write, and fight, as they say, for the Truth; but Truth and Love are slain in the quarrel, and prest to death, is it were in a throng, whilst they that stand by as neuters, laugh at both.

What good Christian can re­member without sorrow and de­testation, [Page 203] the horrid confusions, and dismal effects, in Church and Kingdom, which they have intro­duced and maintained? The like whereof, if not greater, threatens us daily; if God in his mercy, over­come not our evil with his goodness.

As to their several pretences to piety and holiness; what hinder'd, or yet hinders them, from living as godlily, and as holily, with thank­fulness and honour, within the Church, to its preservation; as without it, and against it, they pretend to do, to its disturbance, and destruction? A Surplice and Hood, a signing the Child with the Cross at Baptisme, a bowing to our Lord Jesus, when he is named, we have been often told, is what they bring, as their greatest proof, of superstition and will-worship; whereas the last, is manifestly no more, than to glorify with the body, or knee at sometime, that which is lawful to do at any time; [Page 204] to whom God hath commanded us to bow our souls and bodies, and that to the glory of the Father.

And to think that a Surplice is more superstitious, than a Gown or other garment, which God hath neither Commanded, nor forbid­den, is it self a great superstition: Nor can that, or the signing with the Cross, be with any colour of truth or reason, called will-worship; which the Church professeth, she useth not, as any part of Gods Worship, but as an indifferent, yet decent ceremony; to signify and teach Man with, not to Worship God with; and what is not owned as any Worship, cannot surely be called Will-worship.

But when all is done, is this all, that must keep us at everlasting difference and separation? Can they strein at such Gnats, or ra­ther startle at such shadows of Dreams in their own phansies, yet swallow such Camels, as disobedi­ence [Page 205] to lawful superiors in Church and State? The hanious breach of Unity and Charity, peace and order in one and the other, exposing both to the common enemy, first to deride, reproach and despise us, then to undermine and ruine us?

How many Papists, how many Hereticks of several sorts, yea how many Atheists, and scornful deri­ders of all Religion, have these our causeless, obstinate divisions, bred amongst us? And shall not these dreadful effects of Schism at length affright us into Unity? Wo be to them by whom these offences come; and wo be to them by whose default they still continue. Wo to them that have so torn the Church in pieces, that now the great things of the Gospel of Christ, which God hath written, with the Pen of a Diamond, or Sun beam, are either neglected, or called in question, while they contend with­out bowels of pity, mercy or piety; [Page 206] write in gall, and fight in blood, for such things as are at the best, but Hay and Stubble; compared with the precious foundation of our Religion. God grant both us and them, while it is time (if yet it be so) wisdom and grace, to know and follow the things belonging to our peace, here and hereafter; and to take Christ's Yoak upon us, and learn of him, who was meek and lowly in heart, that so we may find Rest unto our Souls.

And let us do this the rather be­cause what health is to the body, or calmness to the Sea; such is peace and concord to a Church and State. But should it be asked of us, as Joram did of Jehu, is it peace Jehu; we must answer now, as he did then; what peace so long as our rents and divisions, our separatists and dis­senters, are so many?

Our Saviour foresaw and prophe­sied of these very days in which we live, inimici domestici, ones foes [Page 207] shall be they of ones own houshold: perditio tua ex te, Jerusalems sor­rows are from her own Sons. What contentions so sharpe and lasting, as those which arise amongst Bre­thren? The nearer the Relation, the greater the feude; and the far­ther off usually from reconciliation: Witness the sad breaches, which too often happen, between persons solemnly conjoyned by the strictest ties, and bonds of amity, above, and before any other. I mean the Married Couple, who might come in, and claim their portion of this eternal Rest; who are presumed to assist each other, in all the great affairs of life; whose joys are or might be doubled, and their sorrows abated, by a mutual bearing of each others good, or adverse for­tune; insomuch that when their scene of life is come to an end, and the Curtain drawn, they may lay them down in peace, and change the labour of a weary life, for the [Page 208] joys of a blessed eternal Rest: But how much otherwise falls it often out, even between these dearest friends? What bitter complain­ings are frequently heard in our streets, from Persons joyned in holy Wedlock, when but once disaffected to one another? The unruly torrent of dissentions, oft times runs so high, that the Man hates his own flesh, and the Wo­man man makes head against her Hus­band, and these though sacredly conjoyn'd and made one, become two again, so bitterly divided, that no wholsom words, nor sage counsel, can ever sweeten, or recon­cile them.

For prevention of this great un­kind mischief, which so often hap­pens amongst us, and so much hinders that Rest and quiet here, that much conduceth to a blessed, endless Rest hereafter; Men should do well wisely to consider, that whoso enters the State of Marriage, [Page 209] casts a Dye of the greatest contin­gency, and yet of the greatest con­cern in the World (next to that of Eternity it self.) Deliberandum diu, quod statuendum semel. Men had need consider well of that, which must be resolved on once for all, and must either bring a great and lasting content and happiness, or trouble and misery, as lasting as life it self. A Woman indeed ventures most; for she hath no Sanctuary to retire to, from the sad misfortune of an ill choice; she must dwell upon her sorrow, and hath no appeal from his un­kindness, but that of Subjects from Tyrant Princes, Prayers and Tears, and though the Man hath more diversions, (yet when it comes to his turn, to lie under this unre­mediable sadness) he must return to it again, and whilst he is sitting amongst his Neighbours, he re­members the objection in his bosom, and sighs deeply.

[Page 210]It hath been the unhappy chance of many, who enter the honourable state of Marriage, upon some dis­honourable aims or other, to be bound to sorrow and vexation for many years, by the Cords of their Consorts peevish disorder; and the worst of the evil is, they are to thank their own follies, for ma­king no better choice: For God and goodness were less in their thoughts, and had less interest in their choice, than mony, to gratify their worldly covetousness; or beauty, their inordinate lust.

Men and Women change their liberty of single life, for a rich for­tune, prefer Gold before virtue, and shew themselves to be less than money, by valuing it more than the wise content, and lasting felicity of their lives: and when they have counted their money and sorrows well over, how willingly would they buy with the loss of all that money, modesty, sweetness of [Page 211] conversation, temperance and faith­fulness in their Consort.

But they are chained with the fetters they chose, and they are no whit the less chains, nor the easier, for being made of Gold or Silver, but sometimes the worse.

Nor doth he honour Marriage aright, who chooseth it only, or principally for beauty; Cui sunt eruditi oculi, sed stulta mens, Whose Eyes are judicious, but his soul and thoughts sensually foolish. A little thread of red and white, is an ill band of Conjugal affections, to tie hearts together, in all conditions till death, since their love is, nor can it be any better, or more dura­ble, than its cause: and they are fond of each other, as long as phansie and health lasts: But sick­ness, child-bearing, care, time, and any thing almost that destroys a flower, may destroy that love, which at the best is but earthly and sensual.

[Page 212]He that will find Rest and quiet in his Conjugal State here, must begin it with God and goodness, with wise and virtuous designs. Then is Marriage honourable in­deed, when good and fair intentions conduct and manage it. The pre­servation of a Family, the production of Children, the avoyding of forni­cation, the refreshment of a wise and virtuous society, all these are honourable ends. Society was the first designed, it is not good for Man to be alone. Children the next, increase and multiply. The avoiding Fornication the last; and that will be hardly avoide by Marriage, unless you chuse such a Consort, whom you can love in all condi­tions, and outward changes. The first, makes Marriage delightful; the second, necessary to the publick; the third, to this or that particular Person. The first makes the Mans heart glad; the second is a friend to Families, Cities and Kingdoms; [Page 213] Churches and Heaven; the third is an enemy to Hell, and an Antidote to the chiefest inlet to damnation.

To have a lasting quiet, and sure content in the Conjugal life, it is prudent and useful, that all offences of each other be warily avoided, at the first beginnings especially of their conversation: An infant blossom is quickly blasted, and the love of lately Married Persons is busie and tender, inquisitive and jealous, and apt to take a fright, or alarm, at every unkind word, or carriage: But after the hearts of Man and Wife are endeared to each other, by natural confidence, and experience, trifling accidents cannot disturb their united affecti­ons, but will vanish at the sight, and remembrance of weightier obligements; and so after their having lived in peace, and love, and joy, for a while on Earth, they may meet and rejoyce together in Heaven to all eternity.

[Page 214]That the Married life may prove happy, Let every one love his Wife as himself, saith St. Paul. The Husbands power over his Wife, is Fatherly and Friendly, not Magi­sterial: She that is bound to leave Father and Mother, and Brother, for thee, is miserably abused, if she find it otherwise. A Mans domi­nion over his Wife, is like that of his Soul over his body, for which it takes a wise care, and useth it tenderly; and it is often led by its tolerable inclinations and desires, save when they are evil, or dange­rously tending to that which is so.

The Government is, and ought to be divided, since the Woman also hath Gods Image stampt upon her, and may sometimes assist, and sup­ply her Husbands wisdom. And as to the Family, si tu Cajus, ego Caja, was publickly proclaimed upon the threshold of the Husband, when his Bride first enter'd under his roof; and although there is a just measure [Page 215] of obedience, due from the Wife, yet that's scarcely at all expressed, in the Husbands directions in holy Scripture; but all his duty is sig­nified by love, by nourishing and cherishing, by honouring her as the weaker Vessel, by not being bitter to her, by dwelling with her according to knowledge. [...], be not bitter against her, that's the first and lowest significa­tion of love. A civil Person is never bitter against a stranger, much less a friend that enters his roof, and is secured there by the laws of Hospitality; and he surely is strangely rude, who useth her rudely, that quits all her interest for him: and is besides, as much the same Person, as another can be the same, having the same Religion, Children, and Family, and is fled for protection, as to a Sanctuary, not only to his house, but to his bosom and heart.

[Page 216] Marcus Aurelius said well, that a wise Man will often admonish his Wife, reprove her seldom, but never lay his hands upon her. St. Chri­sostom tells us, that an Husband reviling or striking his Wife is, as if a King should use his Viceroy so, from whom most of that reverence and Majesty must needs depart, which at first he put upon him, and the Subjects will pay him the less duty, by how much the rudelier the Prince hath treated him; the loss redounds to the King himself, and the Government will be there­by disordered and ruin'd. He that loves not his Wife and Children, feeds a Lyoness, and breeds nothing but fears and sorrows to himself, nor can blessing it self make him happy: All the Commandements of God, injoyning a Man to love his Wife, are but so many invi­tations to him to be happy himself, and make her, and his Children so. If mutual love be once secured, there [Page 217] can be no great danger from any thing else, because such love as makes the Man chast, keeps the Woman also within the sober bounds of modest chastity.

Obedience is the Womans duty, which though no where expresly enjoyned the Man to exact, yet is often commanded the Woman to pay, and the less it is exacted, the better and more kindly is it, when duly paid, both in the sight of God and Man: And this proclaims her humility, and reverend esteem of his Wisdom, and is an acknow­ledgment of the injunction imposed by God; and though in sorrow she bring forth Children, yet with love and joy she may bring them up.

The Womans obedience though largely extended by St. Paul, [...], Ephe. 5.24. In every thing, yet 'tis limited, by [...], as 'tis fit in the Lord, Collos. 3.18. The Womans duty obliges her to put on the Ornament of a meek and [Page 218] quiet Spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price: Sweetness of manners, humble comportment, fair interpretation of all things, that are capable of it, an industrious hand, a silent tongue, a faithful heart, to his Person and Bed, his Purse and Estate.

And that this may be done with chearfulness, it is one excellent height of Christian Religion, above not only the Heathens and Mahome­tans, but the Mosaical allowances; that it hath provided for Union be­tween Man and Wife, by forbidding strictly Poligamy, or the having many Wifes; and also hath for­bidden divorce, except in case of Adultery. By forbidding Poligamy, our Religion hath prevented all those Domestick emulations, which would necessarily almost arise, be­tween a Leah and a Rachel, though in Jacobs Family; a Sarah and a Hagar, though in Abrahams house: The Mans love runs in a fuller [Page 219] stream, because not divided into many rivolets; and the Womans love and faithfulness is demanded more justly, because it hath an equal proportionable answer, with­out the provocation of any Corrival. And then by forbidding divorce upon any pretence, but that of Adultery, it makes peace more necessary, and contention more terrible, seeing if they will not become a mutual comfort, they must always endure that mutual torment, from which they are allowed no refuge. If all this be not enough to settle Domestick peace, turn but your Eyes upon the wildest Creatures, let the Beasts of the field, and the Fowls of the Air, shame us into it: For even the most unsociable hurtful Creatures, keep peace at home, in their own nests and dens. What bloudy Tygar is there, that doth not softly and tenderly demean himself over his Female Mate, and young Issue? [Page 220] What ravenous Kite, doth not joyn with his she partner, in Building his nest, sitting upon the Eggs, feeding his young ones? The Lyon doth not roar at home, nor tear his Lioness, nor devour his Whelps, but maintains peace at home, by his very enmity abroad: The prey of his foreign cruelty, is the com­mon food of his private den. Thus God from Heaven, Men on Earth, the Beasts of the field, and Fowls of the Air, do all teach and instruct Man and Woman how to be happy, and to go by Couples to the Ark of their eternal Rest.

Now this eternal Rest, must not be sought, (because it cannot be found) by a partial obedience, by leaving one sin, and cleaving to another; every Man is not alike inclined to every sin, nor can the pursuit of some pollutions, consist with the prosecution of others; for sins are contrary one to the other, as well as to grace: Nor is there any [Page 221] thing more usual, than for the violent unruly nature of rash Man, to run out of hatred to one extream, into another opposite to it. Super­stition dotes, prophaness is mad: And how many hating Superstition, turn prophane? Whilst others hating to be prophane, turn Super­stitious? Covetousness gathers all, prodigality scatters all; Men usually fall into one extream, whilst they run from another; either they de­spise prophesying, or think it all in all. To abhor Idols, and yet to commit Sacrilege; to worship the walls, or else to beat them down; is to drive out one Devil with another. The necessity of cleansing our selves from these enormities, is plainly seen, by those very re­proofs, which one sinner gives another contrary to him. How doth the lukewarm or prophane detest the Schismatick and Super­stitious? Or how doth the furious Superstitious, or blind Zealot, de­test [Page 222] the lukewarm or prophane?

How doth the squanderer hate the niggard? And how doth the niggard hate the prodigal? Let me take my fill of lust, saith the wanton, and I will trample upon wealth: Let me hug my Mammon, saith the Miser, and I will bid defiance to lust: Let me wash my hands in the blood of mine enemy, saith the revengeful, and I will be content to give freely to them that have not pro­voked, or injured me: Thus as the Na­tions in times of darkness, had each of them their several Idols, which they Worshipped, and neg­lected others, but all agreed in dishonouring the only true God; so every partial false hearted refor­mer, hath his bosom darling pollu­tion, which if he may cherish, he can be content to leave the rest; yea be forward and zealous against them, that he may either hide, or satisfie, or get an indulgence in what he affects. But all the virtue in the World, cannot satisfie for [Page 223] one willful, habitual pollution, indulgently cherish'd: Yea, that one indulged pollution, proves all the other seeming cleansings to be but counterfeit.

Saul slew many Amalekites, but sparing some, when God had com­manded all to the Sword, he forfei­ted his Kingdom by his hypocrisy; and one of that Nation whom he spared, became afterwards his Ex­ecutioner: Though it be but one known sin you live in, the sparing of that, shews your hatred against the rest to be falsehearted and hypocritical: For though it be but one, it is contrary to that sincere holiness, which God indispensably requires as his due; though it be but one, it is a reigning one; de­filing the purity, defacing the beauty, destroying the peace of an upright conscience; yea though it be but one in actual appearance, yet in seminal virtue it includes many, and may in time be fruitful [Page 224] of many: thus one sin weakens grace, grieves Gods Spirit, prepares matter and fuel for others. Cove­tousness and pride beget envy and strife, that, anger; that, murther. Ambition led Absalon to treasonable conspiracy against his Father, that, to open bloudy rebellion; that, to incest; any one pollution indulged unto, may introduce a whole Le­gion: And though it be but one, it is a vilifying, and dishonouring of God in all his perfections, for some unsatisfactory, transitory phansy; and if it be habitually, unrelentingly continued in, will be punished eternally with separa­tion from Gods presence, to endless miseries: And what folly is it, to lose Gods favour, and incur his intolerable, eternal displeasure, for one defiling transitory vanity? Thus you see he that will enjoy eternal Rest, must cleanse himself from all pollution, without deliberate habitual indulgence to any one.

[Page 225]And that we might not miss of this eternal Rest; the Apostles, the Embassadors of Christ, they woe and intreat us by the kindest com­pellations, as you may see, 2 Cor. 7.1. Dearly beloved: Having these promises, Dearly beloved, let us cleanse our selves from all pollution; 'Tis a Style you shall hardly find in the Old Testament, unless in the Canticles, where Christ woes his Spouse the Church, with all the endearments of kindness and love, although there are somtimes such expressions as contain the same in real effect. But the ordinary stile runs there, with more severity, agree­able to that administration, where the Spirit of bondage, was more ordinary, than that of adoption: But here in the Gospel, though threats are sometimes intermixed, yet kind intreaties, and condescend­ing invitations, are oftner found; for God most justly expects now, when his Son hath appeared, and [Page 226] given his life for us, to redeem us from all inquity, to purify us and make us zealous of holiness, that we should not need so many threats to drive us to him, as if he were only our last refuge; but that in the sense of his admirable mercies, we should be drawn with the Cords of a Man, the Bands of Love, and make him our first most acceptable choice. Wherefore we see his first Embassa­dours that he sent, transcribed the pattern of that humility, and hea­venly charity, which he had set them; and make it their humblest, earnest intreaty, that we would be reconciled unto God; that he would be blessed, in suffering them, to turn us from our iniquity; that we would be holy and pure first, and then hap­py; as if it were rather their happi­ness, and his that sent them, than theirs to whom they spake so passio­nately, so humbly, so charitably: Dearly beloved, because so dearly be­loved of God, that he sent his only [Page 227] begotten Son, to buy and reclaim us to purity & holiness, to learn of him, to learn of his messengers, to value our selves at that rate, which he hath valued us at, who thought it an ac­ceptable bargain to him, to lay down his life, with agonies of Soul, and torments of body, rather than suffer us to wallow here in filthy pollutions, which lead to eternal in­tolerable misery, and not to that eternal Rest, in the Kingdom pre­pared for the blessed of his Father.

Despise not then the goodness of God, who made you at first, after his own Image: Despise not the mercies of Christ the Son of God, who came to take your nature, and die for you: Despise not the Spirit of God, who waits, and longs, for your Sanctification: Despise not those precious promises, which yet are offer'd to all that cleanse and purify themselves; nor those endless intolerable woes, and miseries, which are threatned to all despisers.

[Page 228]He that seeks not this Rest, but walks in the ways of his own heart, 'till he can walk no longer, and thinks to delay from time to time, his faithful conversion, and refor­mation, 'till he must take Sanctuary at last, in the sighs and groans, sorrows and purposes, of sickness and his death-bed; he that 'till then retained his sins, and now when he knows, or fears at least, that he must die, is sorrowful for have­ing walked contrary to God, and a good conscience, he is in all proba­bility sorrowful only for his danger, which may possibly consist with as great an affection to sinful ways, as in perfect health; for even then, in some circumstances, he would have withstood the greatest tem­ptation; the boldest lust would re­fuse to be satisfied in the Market, such restraint is no abatement of the affection: He that grieved not, 'till death and hell pressed him hard, and doom was ready to seize upon [Page 229] him, grieved for the sad consequen­ces of sin, not for its baseness and disorder. For a remedy herein, all such Persons, had need to cure themselves of these tormenting fears of death and hell, by a timely, and early repentance; because a late repentance is seldom sound, and never save: And this repentance, which necessarily foregoes remission of sins, can no ways better be ob­tained, than by constant and fer­vent prayer: Ask and ye shall have, said our Saviour; The prayer of Faith availeth much, said St. James. God is nigh unto all them that call upon him faithfully: Seek, and ask, and beg, and sue for what you will, by fervent and faithful prayer, by prayer that goes not out of feigned lips, and it shall be given you. Prayer is the very breath of Gods Spirit, whereby our Soul draws in, and sends forth Gods grace; and its own gracious desires: Prayer, it is our very scaling Ladder, and [Page 230] Engin of battery, whereby heaven is beseiged, and suffers violence: 'Tis our arrow by which we pierce the Clouds, and having gotten au­dience above, 'tis our weapon by which we wound our enemies below: 'Tis the Rudder, and Anchor which keeps our Souls steddy in many waters, when many winds and billows beat upon us: 'Tis the Compass by which we Sail when all is clouded: 'Tis our Key, by which we open Heaven, and wrestle with God; resolving with Jacob, not to part without a blessing.

But 'tis not every lazy Prayer, born in the lips, or at most in the phansy, uttered only for fashion sake, or to quiet for a while a galled conscience: No, it is the Prayer of a righteous Man (though a Man of infirmities with others) when fervent, that availeth much; so much, that it hath shut, and opened Heaven, made the Sun stand still, and go back. Though the [Page 231] Person be righteous, if the Prayer be not fervent, God hath no re­gard to it; no reason to hear and consider that Prayer, which he himself (that makes it) scarce hears and considers.

Great reason then have all to watch and to pray, to make our calling and election sure, and wisely in time to provide, whilst the day of Salvation lasts, that our labours here, may terminate, and end in eternal Rest; because we know not how short our time is. All flesh is grass, said the Prophet Isaiah, 40.6. And all the goodliness thereof is as the flowers of the field: The grass withereth, the flowers fadeth away, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, surely the people is as grass; for as the grass, how green and flourishing soever it seems, yet it sprang from the Earth, and shortly after beasts devour it, or winds blast it, and if it come to last out its full time, even then the Sythe comes to [Page 232] cut it down: So is Mans life, with all its fresh seeming contentments, at the mercy even of every Creature; Fire and Water, Air and Sickness, Famin and the Sword, and what not almost? And though he escape all sad accidents, and casualties, to the utmost length of Mans Age, yet there is a natural Syth of Gods decree, and Mans inward corrup­tion, that will not fail to cut him down: No Age, no condition, can be exempted by any art, by any means from the stroak of death. Every Age hath proper to it self some posterns, some out-lets of death, besides those numberless open gates through which thousands yearly pass.

The bud is blasted as soon as the blown Rose; the Lamb comes to the shambles, as well as the grown Sheep; Death looks not at Mens Estates, or Degree, or Age; it comes not to the Church book to summon them by that; the Womb, [Page 233] the Cradle, protects not many, Infants die in both we know: And the Jews Proverb is daily fulfilled, in Golgotha are skulls of all sizes: Childhood is so tender, and yet so unwary of running into harms-way, that Parents Eyes, and Nurses Arms, are scarce sufficient to keep one Child, from strange and early calamities, and death it self; unless a guardian Angel be granted it, to watch its very playings and sleep­ings, eatings and drinkings.

The more uncertainty, and in­stability we find here in things below, the less ought we to rely and trust in any Creature, and so much the more ought we to put our trust in God. The very un­faithfulness of all things else, should renue and confirm our faithfulness and to God, who makes sickness and death, become life and health, by removing the vail of flesh, which intercepts the light, and sight of the fountain of life, and gives an [Page 234] immediate access to him; in whom alone this eternal Rest is to be found.

It is the honour and triumph of true Religion, that having chosen God for its Rest, it cannot be be­reaved, or defeated of its choise, by any calamities whatsoever of this life. It lifts up the Soul, above all the winds and storms of this uncertain, transitory world; and fixes the heart upon that eternal fountain of joy, and rest and hap­piness, where there is no variable­ness, nor shadow of turning.

Wish, and desire, and love, what­soever you please besides God: Put your trust in any thing less, or lower than him; and you are not only sure, that your love will be turned into hatred, your liking into loathing, your trust into de­spair, when death comes; but even while life, and health lasts, you are at uncertainties, tossed perpetu­ally betwixt the ebbs and flows of [Page 235] chance, 'twixt hopes and fears, like an unstable wave of the Sea, or hanging like a doubtful Meteor in the Air; whilst the humble, patient Christian, that trusts in God, and takes him for his Rest, and excee­ding great reward, waiting on him, as his all-sufficient shield (with re­signation) for life or death; Con­tented to live, but willing to die, and to be with Christ; he is the only fixt Star in this lower firmament: His feet stand fast, be the pavement never so slippery.

In the term of Mans life, there is a vicissitude of good and evil, a mixture of labour and rest, joy and sorrow; there is a seed-time, and an harvest; a sowing in tears, and reaping in joy; He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him: But we may not expect Summer in the Winter season, an harbour in the main Ocean; our [Page 236] portion before we are of Age, a reaping in joy 'till we have sown in tears: The Traveller cannot think to find home in his Inn, nor Heaven upon Earth. The Children of Israel had the Wilderness, and the Red-Sea to pass through, before they could arrive at the Land of Canaan, the place of their Rest. They were all labourers that were sent into the Vineyard, and could not expect their Peny, 'till the day, and their work was done; let us therefore pray the Lord of the Harvest, that our Labour and Travel, may hap­pily be turned at last into ease and Rest; that when the six days of our life are at an end, we may cease from our works, as God did from his; and enjoy with him an ever­lasting Sabboth of eternal Rest.

And the rather is this Rest here­after, to be laboured for now; be­cause whilst we are here upon Earth, we have nothing pure and unmixt; our very joys are mingled with [Page 237] sorrow; and Solomon tells us, even in laughter, the heart is sad: Ex­pences here wait upon honour; care of Education goes along with the blessing of Children; and our most comfortable hopes, are mixt with perplexing fears: But when we come to Rest in the holy City, that City which is above; we shall have a perpetual day without night, light without the Sun: Our hunger shall be satisfied without food; No need of Clothing there to cover our shame (for shame and sin shall cease together) then all sad doubtings, what shall be our condition and state hereafter, shall vanish away, and we shall agree together with one heart and mind, to sing Hale­lujahs, and perpetual Prayers to God in the highest. There will be no dissenters there, no seperatists, to break or interrupt that harmonious everlasting concord.

What wise Man then, will set his heart upon the World, when [Page 238] all things in it are but for so short an abode, so unstable and so un­satisfactory, and not rather on that abiding City above, where the joys and pleasures are durable and eternal? Christians of all others ought to remember what St. Paul saith, Heb. 13.14. Here we have no abiding City, but we seek one to come: Our very profession exposeth us to all affliction, and obliges us to live as strangers and pilgrims upon Earth: What is Canaan or Jerusalem below, to that above, whereof the other was but a Type? Things that are seen and perceptible by any bodily Eye are temporal, tran­sitory, subject to changes every day, and sure to be abolisht at length, they will be taken from us, or we from them, when death comes (which may come every day) and therefore not worthy to be looked upon by such an immortal Soul or Spirit, as constitutes Man; which being made for eternity, [Page 239] cannot be satisfied with ought that is temporal, how long soever it may abide, much less when 'tis sure to continue no longer as to us, than this uncertain short life; and therefore in respect of our own, and the Worlds end, we may be truly said to have no abiding City here, and are therefore the more carefully to seek and expect our eternal Rest and habitation from above.

While the World continues, and we in it, we have no continuing City here, because neither habita­tion nor goods, health nor wealth, honours nor pleasures, or any con­tentment is, or can he assured us for our lives: How many Villages, Towns and Cities, have Fires and Earthquakes and Wars destroyed? How many Kingdoms and Common­wealths, have civil disorders, and foreign invasions overthrown? Or rather what one in any Nation have they not? The Histories or Records [Page 240] of all Ages, all places (besides the infallible Oracles of God which we have in our hands) will give us a full induction and proof of this truth. This Island wherein we live, hath given us not only many Histo­rical, but experimental sensible proofs, that from the King to the meanest Subject, we have no con­tinuing City here, nor setled Rest and true happiness.

But besides these publick revolu­tions, vicissitudes and changes, every Family, every private Person lies continually exposed to casua­lities, to variety of sickness inva­ding their health, variety of mo­lestations from those above them, from those below them, from those about them, and also from their own follies, lusts and passions, from within them; in so much that whatsoever Men fix their hearts upon in this World, to take their greatest contentment in, they cannot be sure on reasonable [Page 241] grounds, that it shall continue with them one year longer.

The felicity and satisfactory hap­piness of this City above, in which this eternal Rest is to be found, ought to be valued so much the more, because St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. 2.9. That Eye hath not seen, nor Ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of Man to conceive, the ful­ness of those good things which God hath prepared for those that love him. A grateful and pleasant taste of these good things, God affords the Souls of the faithful here in this life; how transcendently then, unutterable and unconceivable will be the full fruition of all that, which the Gospel reveals to us but as in a glass, when enjoy'd to the height in the highest Heavens, through all eternity, when we shall see God as he is with everlasting, overflow­ing satisfaction to all the faculties of the Soul? The Eye of Mart hath seen here admirable things in Art [Page 242] and Nature; the Ear hath heard, and the Tongue hath tasted delicious things; and Mans heart can con­ceive much more than Art or Na­ture could ever present our senses with. The very pleasure of natu­ral knowledge in the judgment of Persons exercised therein, exceeds whatsoever sensuality, vain glory or covetousness pursues or enjoys; and yet the knowledge and love of God in Christ, incomparably surpass, St. Paul tells us, whatsoever the heart of the natural Man (advanced to the height) can conceive as plea­sant or delightful to it. How much more doth this City to come, and its endless unconceivable pleasures, where this everlasting Rest is to be had, exceed even our expressions and conceptions when they are at the highest?

If God hath provided such good things for Mankind here below, in this World, which was not made for the place of our happiness, but [Page 243] only to give us a transitory glimpse, of his infinit wisdom, power and goodness, and to draw our hearts after the Author of what we see; if he hath built this inferior World or City, which hath no foundations in comparison of those to come, with so much wisdom, power and bounty, and made such glorious Heavens as shine it forth to our ad­miration, and enamel'd it with such variety of pleasures, as even the best find it a matter of difficulty to part therewith; and yet God never intended when he built it, that it should continue long: If there hath been so much cost of accurate contrivance, and mighty bounty, laid out on that which was to last but for a time, what think we, must be the riches, beauty and glory of that City, which he intended should endure to all eternity? Surely this World where we now live, is but as some out-houses, to that Heavenly Palace, an [...], [Page 244] as St. Paul saith, a work-house, a place for Labour and Travel, before we come to our resting place, that [...], or place of rewards, as he calls Heaven. This is but a place to fit our selves in for the City above; a place it is wherein the greatest part of its inhabitants, have dishonour'd their maker, and him that made the World, by preferring its transitory pleasures before him; disorder'd themselves, injured their brethren, and thereby fitted themselves for that [...], that Hell, or place of everlasting punishment. And if the most wise and holy God, who made this World, and knew when he made it, that it might, and would be so abused, yet so bespangled its roof with Stars, Sun and Planets, and laid its flowery foundation so plea­santly, fragrantly, fruitfully and usefully; certainly that City which he hath erected for none but his beloved Servants to live in to all [Page 245] eternity, must vastly surpass this in glory: And because we can hardly conceive of invisible future good things, but by some resem­blance to present and visible, and Men are of several tempers, appre­hensions and desires; the Scriptures condescend thereto, and strive to express the next lifes happiness, in all the variety of several notions which either sense, phansy or reason can desire.

The voluptuous seek for pleasure and mirth; if they will have it, let them set their hearts and affecti­ons on him that made them and redeemed them, that he might sanctify them and bring them to these delights they seek in him, they shall find when enter'd the City above, a feast of new refined Wines, a feast of Marrow and all delicacies, the joy of Harvest, and of those that divide the spoil of their enemies. They shall find a celestial Paradice or Eden of God, [Page 246] whereof that which was made for Adam and his posterity, continuing innocent, was but a transitory imperfect Map. There is the hidden Manna, hidden here but revealed there; a new Song always Sung, a Garden of Lillies and Roses which never die, and whose fragrant scent never decays.

The ambitious Mans heart is set on honour and glory, but if he will set his heart on God, and that honour which comes from him, in him he shall not fail to find a Kingdom of glory and immortality, a Crown of righteousness, whose weight is exceeding and eternal, for his having preferred the God that made him, before the empty false hearted honours, which come to tempt him from his duty of hu­mility, goodness and holiness.

The covetous Mans heart is set on riches; but if he will set his heart on God, in him he shall find everlasting Treasure; Mansions [Page 247] that fail not, able to satisfie the utmost desires of him that possesses them, either for duration or abun­dance: A City whose Walls and Gates are full of all manner of pre­cious stones, an Inheritance, as St. Peter describes it, incorruptible and undefiled, that fades not away, 1 Pet. 1.4. What ever we can in­herit here is Subject to some, nay all of these; Corruption, defilement, and fading away, both we and it. The substance is embased and soi­led, by some bad thing coming to it from without. All things in their best Estate, lose their luster, and fade away: One Mans inheri­tance corrupts, by another Mans unthriftiness, and is purchased by another, another's escheated or con­fiscated.

We are weary here and then we Rest, and are quickly as weary of our Rest as of our weariness. The Creatures fail and tire, and disappoint us, that we should not [Page 248] set up our Rest in them, or in any inheritance here below, but be chased, and forced to seek our Rest in God; with whom there is an inheritance laid up for us, in danger of none of all these; uncorrupt, that shall hold its being, and none can disseize us of it; undefiled, never embased by any mixture, and we our selves become undefiled, uncor­rupt and unfading too, and what can the covetous in his largest thoughts desire more.

We have, or may have a natural certainty, by light of reason, that there is another future State, a life of Rest and joy, after labour and sorrow here. The Soul of Man which is a Spirit, whose operations are not only far above, what any body or matter is capable of, but can overrule and contradict, what ever the body most vehemently inclines to, embrace poverty, re­proach, and death, with peace and joy.

[Page 249]Since for certain, by light of rea­son, there is a God that made the World, and governs the World, and hath obliged Mankind by no­tions imprinted in his Soul, to piety and righteousness, charity and tem­perance, and yet hath left him a liberty to chuse or refuse; that he maybe rewarded for chusing good, and punished for the contrary: And since many chuse the ways of sin, who are not punished in this World; and many chuse the ways of virtue, who are not rewarded in this life; it follows by necessary consequence of reason, from the justness and holiness and goodness of God, that there must be another future life, wherein the prosperous wickedness of sinners shall be punished; the labours and sufferings of godly, righteous, temperate, charitable per­sons, abundantly rewarded.

All this the very Heathens many of them, have expresly owned, and fairly proved, by their general [Page 250] acknowledgemt, that 'twere bet­ter to suffer the loss of life, and all its comforts, than to live in the practice of hainous vice, which could not be true, if there were no other life after this: And surely the notions of good and evil, being so deeply interwoven with Mens Souls, that the consciences of those who chuse, and act that which is evil, though never so secretly, and so succesfully, reproach them with the guilt of it, and terrify them with the apprehensions of future punishment: And the con­sciences of those who chuse and act that which is good, though never so much reproached and afflicted for so doing, cheers and comforts them with joyful hopes, and ex­pectations of some future reward. The Souls and Consciences of Men being so deeply stamped with this, by him that made them, that no evasions, or arts of hypocrisy, or subtile wickedness, can blot it out; [Page 251] it necessarily follows, as necessarily, and as surely, as that the reason and conscience of Man was not made in vain, nor given him to make him the most abused, deluded, miserable Creature in the World; even in that, which is the very dignity, and excellency of his nature; that there must be a life, wherein these notions and apprehensions, so natu­ral and so general, must be verified. Thus far Reason by natural light may enable, and hath in effect em­powred many to believe, that there is a resting place for the virtuous, not to be found here but hereafter; Commorandi locum natura nobis, non habitandi domicillium dedit: No abi­ding City here, but one to come: Heaven is the proper Country for Mans Soul, which came from thence inspir'd by God, Divina quaedam particula aurae; and thither tends.

But because this light is obscure and imperfect, compared with that of Revelation; therefore the main [Page 252] irrefragable evidence, both that there is another state to come, and of its transcendent happiness, blessed Rest and tranquility, as to Soul and body, is to be fetcht from the holy Oracles, and there we have it indeed, as fully and as cleerly revealed, as this our Mortality is capable of; proved by all the demonstrations of the Spirit, which attentive reason can desire.

For, there we have the Son of God descending from Heaven, to take our Nature, and in that nature to teach and exemplify, the only way that leads thither, and purchase our admission to it, (to this Crown of life, to this resting place, to this City to come) by his death; thereby procuring for us an inheritance in­comparably more worthy, than all our labours and sufferings here can come to. This Rest is not allotted for sluggards, drowsy, slothful Per­sons, who squander away their precious hours in earthly trifles, and [Page 253] think not this glorious eternal City, and Rest there, which Christ hath bought with his own blood, worth their seeking, untill they have nothing else to seek: Yea, when this eternal Rest is offered them, by Gods preventing grace, have no heart to give him his price, when the price is only to part with that which is vain and temporal, for that which is satisfactory and eternal.

The way to this Rest, saith our Lord, is streight and narrow, through temptations without, and corrup­tions within, and therefore cannot be found but by those that seek it, with attentive heed. God indeed seeks us first, shews us this City where this happiness and Rest is to be found, and the way to it, invites and enables us to obtain it, by walk­ing in holiness, and righteousness, which qualify us for it. Even the things of this transitory life here below, its riches and honours (such [Page 254] as they are) are seldom attained but by diligent seeking; and can we think this heavenly inheritance, with all its joys, and riches, and honours, should be attained with­out a constant studious diligence? And the more we labour and suffer here, the more sweet and pleasant will be our Rest when it comes. Grata quies fessis, Rest we know is welcome to the weary Traveller: And now, Courteous Reader, I have by this time possibly wearied, and tired thee out, in a long and tedious walk; but it was, only the better to fit and prepare thee for an happy, seasonable and lasting Rest, that I have thus carried thee through a rough unbeaten path (the path of Faith, Hope, and Charity, Meekness, Patience, Temperance, Humility, Chastity and Obedience;) all which come, but as so many faithful guides, safely to conduct thee to the gates of Heaven; and give thee even in this life, by anticipa­tion, [Page 255] a tast of the joys of that other, even of that place, where Saints and Angels shall be thy Companions, and where thou shalt see God Face to Face, who is Wisdom, Purity, Holiness, and all perfections. I cannot leave thee better, than where thou hast so near an approach to this glorious prospect of eternal Rest: Only one thing I have, at parting, to remind thee of, viz. Go ye cursed into everlasting fire, or Come ye blessed inherit the King­dom; one of these two must be thy doom, and the final sentence of all flesh: Let it therefore be thy Wisdom as well as Duty, to chuse that better part, which can never be taken from thee, to chuse God and eternal life, before riches and honours and pleasures, and all that this World can give: And to prefer an eter­nal boundless good, before un­certain transitory vanities, sure [Page 256] to end in eternal sorrow; that so thy toilsom weary Travel here, may have its accomplishment in eternal Rest hereafter. Amen, Amen, Amen.