'If these,' saith he, may be saved, for all such and such sins, what cause have I to fear? O wretched, unprofitable, scandalous professor! When we have studied and preached for men's conversion many a year, you go and undo all that we have done, by the scandal, or levity, or imprudence of an hour! When we have almost persuaded men to be Christians, you unpersuade them, and turn them back again, and do more harm by the weakness and scandal of your lives, than many of us can do good by life and doctrine. When we have brought sinners even to the door of life, you prove their enemies, and take them out of our hands again, and bring them back to their old captivity, doth it not pierce your very hearts to think on it, that ever one soul, much more so many, should be shut out of glory, and burn in everlasting misery, and you should have a hand in it? Consider of this, and methinks you should desire confirming grace. 12. And methinks it should be very grievous to you, to be so like to the ungodly yourselves, and that satan should still have so much interest in you. Holiness is God's image; and doth it not grieve you that you are so little like him! By his grace he keeps possession of you; and doth it not grieve you that God hath no more possession of you; but that satan and sin should so defraud him of his own! Will he condescend to dwell in so low a worm, so oft defiled with the dung of his iniquities; and doth it not wound you to think, that even there he should be so straitened, and thrust into corners, by a hellish enemy, as if that simple habitation were too much for him, and that dirty dwelling were too good for him! And as if you grudged him so much of the leavings of satan, that had taken up the beginning of your days in sin! Your corruption is the very image of the devil, and doth it not affright you to think that you should be so like him! You are charged not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed or metamorphosed" by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, that acceptable, that perfect will of God;" Rom. xii. 2. And yet will you stop in a state so like to those that perish? He that hath the least measure of saving grace, is likest to the children of the devil of any man in the world, that is not one of them. Seek, therefore, to increase. 13. And I beseech you consider, that your excellency, and the glory and lustre of your graces, is one of God's appointed means for the honour of his Son, and Gospel, and church, and for the conviction and conversion of the unbelieving world. And, therefore, if you use not these means, you rob God and the church of that which is their due, and deprive sinners of one of the means of their salvation. You are commanded to "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven;" Mat. v. 16. Christians, be awakened in the name of God, to consider what you have to do with your graces! You have the living God to please and honour by them! As the excellency of the work doth honour the workman, so must your graces and lives honour God. You have the souls of the weak to confirm by your lives, and the souls of the ungodly to win by your lives. You should all be preachers, and even preach as you go up and down in the world, as a candle lighteth which way ever it goeth. As we are sent to save sinners, as ambassadors of Christ, by public proclamation of his will; so are you sent to save them as his servants and our helpers, and must preach by your lives and familiar exhortations, as we must do by authoritative instruction. A good life is a good sermon; yea, those may be won by your sermons, that will not come to ours; or will not obey the doctrine which they hear. Even to women, that must keep silence in the church, doth Peter command this way of preaching; "That if any of them have husbands that obey not the word, they may, without the word, be won by the conversation of the wives;" 1 Pet. iii. 1,2. Thousands can understand the meaning of a good life, that cannot understand the meaning of a good sermon! By this way you may preach to men of all languages, though your tongues had never learnt but one. For a holy, harmless, humble life, doth speak in all the languages of the world, to men that have eyes to read it. This is the universal character and language, in which all sorts may perceive you speak the wondrous works of the Holy Ghost. I charge you, therefore, Christians, deprive not God of the honour you owe him, nor the church, or souls of wicked men, of this excellent, powerful help which you owe them, by continuing in your weakness, and unsettled minds, and spotted lives; but grow up to that measure that may be fit for such a work. As you durst not silence the preachers of the Gospel, so do not dare to silence yourselves from preaching by your holy exemplary lives. And alas, do you think that feeble, giddy, scandalous professors, are like to do any great matters by their lives? Would you wish the poor world to write after such a crooked and blotted copy? Will it win men's hearts to a love of holiness, to talk with a Christian that can scarce speak a word of sense for his religion? Or to see a professor as greedy for a little gain as the veriest worldling that hath no other hope? Or to hear them rail, or lie, or slander? Or to see them turn up and down like a weathercock, according as the wind of temptation sits and to follow every new opinion that is but put off with a plausible fervency? Do you think that men are like to be won by such lives as these? 14. Do you consider what great things you must make account to suffer for Christ? You must "forsake all that you have;" Luke xiv. 33. You must not save your lives if he bid you lose them; Matt. xvi. 25. You "must suffer with him, if you will be glorified with him;" Rom. viii. 17. You may be called to "confess Christ before the kings or judges" of the earth; and then, "if you deny him, he will deny you," and if you be "ashamed of him he will be ashamed of you," (unless you be brought to a better state); Luke ix. 26. Mark viii. 38. You may be called to "the fiery trial," and "to suffer also the spoiling of your goods;" and in a word, the loss of all. And do you think that you shall not find use for the strongest graces then? Have you not need to be confirmed, rooted Christians, that must expect such storms? Are infants meet for such encounters? Have you not seen how many that seemed strong, have been overthrown in a time of trial? And yet will you stop in a weak estate? Perhaps you will say, 'We cannot stand by our own strength, and, therefore, Christ may uphold the weakest, when the strongest may fall.' To which I answer, it is true; but it is God's common way to work by means, and to imitate nature in his works of grace; and, therefore, he useth to root and strengthen those that he will have to stand and conquer; yea, and to arm them as well as strengthen them, and then to teach them to use their arms. nally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power "Fi of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand;" Ephes. vi. 10-13. You must look "when you are illuminated, to endure a great fight of afflictions; to be made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and to be companions of them that are so used; and, therefore, you have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, you may receive the promise;" Heb. x. 32, 33.36. If you will endure, in the time of persecution, the word must take deep root in your hearts; Matt. xiii. 5. 20,21. and you must be founded on a rock, if you look to stand in time of storms; Matt. vii. 24, 25. In the mean time, it is a fearful thing to see in what a wavering condition you seem to stand, like a tree that shakes, as if it were even falling, or like a cowardly army, that are ready to run before they fight; and like cowardly soldiers, you are still looking behind you, and a small matter troubleth, and perplexeth, and staggereth you, as if you were ready to repent of your repentings. And must God have such servants as these, that upon every rumour, or word, or trouble, are wavering or looking back, and ready to forsake him? 15. Consider also, that the same reasons that moved you at first to be Christians, should now move you to be confirmed, thriving Christians. For they are of force as well for this, as for that. You would not have missed your part in Christ for all the world, if indeed you have the least degree of grace. And if the beginning be good and necessary, the increase is neither bad or needless. If a little grace be desirable, sure more is more desirable. If it was then but a reasonable thing that you should forsake all for Christ and follow him, it is sure as reasonable that you should follow him to the end, till you reach that blessedness which was the end for which at first you followed him. What! Christian, hast thou found God a hard master, a barren wilderness to thee? or his service an unprofitable thing? Say so, and I dare say thou art a bastard (to use the apostle's phrase, Heb. xii. 8.), and not a Christian. Some trial thou hast made of him. What evil hast thou found in him? or what wrong hath he ever done thee, that thou shouldst now begin to make a stand, as if thou wert in doubt, whether it be best to go further? If ever Christ were needful, he is needful still. And if ever heaven and holiness were good, they are good still. And, therefore, go on till thou hast obtained more,and forget not the reasons that first persuaded with thee. 16. Nay, more than so, you have the addition of much experience, which should be an exceeding help to quicken your affections. When you first repented and came in to Christ, you had never had any experience in yourselves of his saving, special grace before; but you came in upon the bare hearing and believing of it. But now you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and you have received at his hands the pardon of sin, the Spirit of adoption, the hope of glory, which before you had not! You have had many a prayer answered, and many a deliverance granted; and will you make a stand when all these experiences do call you forward? Should not new motives and helps thus added to the old, be the means of adding to your zeal and holiness? Surely more wages and encouragement, doth bespeak more work and diligence. And, therefore, see that you increase. 17. And most, or many of you have cause to consider how long you have been in the family and school of Christ. If you are but newly entered, I may well exhort you to increase, but I cannot reprove you for not increasing. But, alas! what a multitude of dwarfs hath Christ, that are like infants at twenty, or forty, or threescore years of age. What! be so many years in his school, and yet be in the lowest form. "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, that by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil;" Heb. v. 12-14. O poor weak, diseased Christian! hast thou been so many years beholding the face of God by faith, and yet art thou no more in love with him than at the first? so long in making trial of his goodness? Hast thou been see it, and savour it no more than in the beginning? Hast |