V
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THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
REV. RICHARD BAXTER.
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THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
THE REV. RICHARD BAXTER
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
AND
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HIS WRITINGS,
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM ORME,
AUTHOR or "the life of john owen, d.d.j" " bibliotheca biblica," etc.
IN TWENTY-THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. X.
LONDON:
JAMES DUNCAN, 37, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCXXX.
CI
fff^O
-r
LONDON :
PRINTED BY MILLS, JOWtTT, AND MILLS,
BOLT-COURT, FLEET-STREET.
THE
PRACTICAL WORKS
OF THE
REV. RICHARD BAXTER.
VOLUME X.
OONTAININO
A SAINI^ OR A BRUTE; THE ONE THING NECESSARY j
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
VOL. X
nicnARD Eo^vAnDs, cuanf counr, fleet street, London.
CONTENTS
OF
THE TENTH VOLUME.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
THE FIRST PART.
PAGE
Admonitory epistle iii
The contempt of Godliness rebuked 9
Godliness described : what it containeth j and what I mean
by Godliness throughout this treatise 12
Signs of true Godliness 19
Directions for such as will be soundly and sincerely godly . . 22
The design of the treatise 26
The text explained 28
1. Obs. Nearest natural relations are not always of one mind
in the matters of salvation . 33
2. Obs. When Christ cometh into the house, he is presently at
work for the hearers' souls ibid.
3. Obs. When the word is preached we must hear 34
4. Obs. The humility of disciples in those times 35
The sense of the text in seven doctrines ibid.
Doci. 1. One thing is needful : it is one thing that is absolute-
ly necessary j but they busy themselves about many, that
neglect this one 36
In what respect it is one, and but one ibid.
How the troubling matters of the world are many 38
How far the one thing is necessary 40
Quest. Are not other things needful in their places ? 43
The application, I . By way of inquiry, how you have sought
the one thing necessary 45
How a true Christian dififereth from all hypocrites 47
^ CONTENTS.
PAGE
1 . Whatever you have been doing in the worlds you have but
lost your time, if you have not done the one thing needful 50
2. And you have lost all your labour 51
3. You have been busily undoing yourselves 54
4. You have unmanned yourselves, and lived below your rea-
son, and as beside your wits 57
The madness of them that are afraid of being godly, lest it
make them mad 59
5. You have but abused and lost all your mercies 63
6. You have neglected Christ, his grace and Spirit 65
7. Your hopes and peace are but delusions and irrational . . 66
Use 2. To lament the distracted course of worldlings .... 6S
Use 3. Exhortation : what course will you take for time to
come ? 74
Consider 1. It is necessity that is pleaded with you 76
2. It is but one thing that God hath made necessary ... 82
3. This one thing is that good part S4
4. This good part is offered you, and you have your choice,
whether God or the world, heaven or earth, shall be
your portion 87
Quest. How is it in our choice } have we freewill ? . . . 88
5. If you choose it, it shall never be taken from you ... 91
A full confutation of those ungodly ones that deny the neces-
sity of a holy life in Thirty Queries 95
Object. It is not godliness, but your precise way that we call
needless. The particulars of a holy life examined 109
1 . Much preaching and hearing ...• Ill
2. Reading the Scriptures 112
3. Fervent prayer 113
4. 5. Diligent instructing families 114
6. The holy observation of the Lord's day justified .... 116
7- Strictness of life in avoiding sin II9
8. The rigour of church discipline I'^l
Object. It is but few that are so strict 124
(X)NTENTS.
THE SECOND PAllT.
CHAPTER 1.
PAGE
Holiness and its fruits are the best part : wherein the liappi-
ness of saints consisteth 1'25
Why most men choose it not. What is set in the balance
against it 134
The excuses of refusers answered 136*
CHAPTER II.
What he must do in reason, that will be resolved which is the
best part and way : and who shall be the judge 13H
CHAPTER III.
Twenty Queries for the full conviction of all rational men
that are willing to understand the truth, that there is a life
to come of happiness to the godly, and misery to the un-
godly : with fifteen Queries for the conviction of infidels,
that the Gospel is the infallible word of God 165
(Those that have not read the second part of my " Saints'
Rest," and '' Treatise against Infidelity," and doubt of
the truth of the Scripture or the life to come, may read
this third chapter first, and so proceed to the rest of
the book.)
Clem. Writer's Objections answered 181
CHAPTER IV.
Holiness is best for all societies . 184
1. It uniteth all in one head and centre ibid.
*2. It hath the most uniting, excellent, powerful end of duty 185
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
3. It takes away the ball of the world's contention that
breaketh societies 186
4. It destroyeth selfishness, which is the destroying principle ibid,
5. It hath the most righteous laws 187
6. It is contrary to all disturbing evil ibid.
7. It efifectually disposeth the mind to duty 188
8. It cleanseth the very heart, and killeth secret sin . . . ibid.
9. It cementeth societies with unfeigned love ibid.
10. It maketh princes and rulers a double blessing : mani-
fested in five particulars ibid.
1 1 . It maketh the most loyal and obedient subjects .... 191
For, 1. It makes them know themselves ibid.
2. And to see God in theif rulers 192
3. And to obey and submit for conscience sake .... ibid.
4. And destroyeth self-seeking 193
5. And consisteth in charity ibid.
6. Procureth divine blessings ibid.
7. And makes men meek, and patient^ and forbearing . ibid.
8. Disposeth to concord ibid.
9. Assure th of the greatest rewards of obedience .... 194
10. And confirmeth against all temptations to disobedience ibid.
Object. Have not the greatest rebellions been caused by
your godly men, as the Waldenses, Bohemians, French,
and others nearer us ? Answered ibid.
Specially to Papists 198
12. Godliness makes men true to their covenants 199
13. It teacheth the true method of obeying 200
14. It maketh men of public spirits ibid.
15. It maketh it their business to do good 201
16. It makes men love enemies, and forgive wrongs . . . ibid.
17. It interesteth societies in the favour and protection of
God ibid.
18. It is the surest way to all supplies ibid.
19. It is the honour of societies 202
20. It must be best that is so heavenlv ibid.
CHAPTER V.
Times of holiness are the best times 203
Those tliut say it never was a good world since there was so
much godliness, and so much preaching, are fully confuted
by twenty Arguments : and their cavils answered 206
CONTENTS. vii
pagf
CHAPTER VI.
Holiness is the only way of safety 2^1
CHAPTER VII.
Holiness is the only honest way. The dishonesty of the un-
godly proved '. 230
CHAPTER VIII.
Holiness is the most gainful way : proved 245
CHAPTER IX.
Holiness is the most honourable way. A reproof of the re-
proach of holiness in England : and full proof of the ho-
nour of a godly life 258
Object. It tends to make the godly proud to tell them of their
honour. Awsw. Many reasons for full confutation of this
objection 284
The baseness of the ungodly 291
CHAPTER X.
Holiness is the most pleasant life 295
Proved, I. From the nature of the thing j and,
1 . From the revelations of God, and the knowledge of
believers 296
2. From the will and affections ; the nature and opera-
tions of grace therein 303
3. From the quality of external holy duties 309
4. From the objects of holy acts 329
Objections answered 334
II. From the helps and concomitants 337
viii CONTENTS.
PAGE
III. From the effects 336
The tiggravations of the delights of holiness compared witli
the delights of sin 341
Object. Of the sad lives of believers, answered 350
Object. Doth not God command men to fast and mourn ? . . 256
Use I. Reproof to those that can find no matter of pleasure
in a holy life 357
The greatness of their sin and misery 359
Directions, shew^ing such graceless persons w^hat to do, that
they may come to delight in God and godliness 365
Use II. Reproof to those self-troubling Christians, who live
as sadly as if there were little pleasure to be found in God 370
Considerations fit to cure this sad disease 371
Quest. Whether it be not hypocritical affectation, to seem
conformable, for fear of discouraging men from religion :
fully answered 37C
Object. I could rejoice, if I knew my title to the promises . . 379
Object. I have cause of sorrow 380
The Considerations prosecuted 381
Twelve Directions to sad, self-troubling Christians, how they
may live a joyful life, and find delight in God and godliness 890
THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
Preface « • • • • » cccciii
The text opened 407
I. What Martha's sin m particular was 408
II. Whether we are not like to be more guilty of the like . . ibid.
III. In what kind this sin is usually committed 409
Quest. What are these needless, sinful things ? answered 413
IV. What are the common excuses of this sin 415
V. What is the evil of it that deserveth such reproof 417
VI. What use we should make of Christ's reproof 420
Directions how to judge of needless things 427
Cases of conscience answered 428
Obs. That they that choose unnecessary or less necessary em-
ployments, are apt to account religious exercises less neces-
sary, and to censure those that choose them 434
CONTENTS. ix
PACE
Doct. That when wiser Christians and their better choice and
work, are accused by them that preferred less needful
things, Christ will be the Advocate and Judge, and will
defend and justify the wrongfully accused .... 442
Commended to the consideration of I. The accusers of
the godly for their duty to God • - •• . 443
How great a sin malignant and false accusing is 451
II. To the accused 453
III. To those that are yet in doubt what cause to choose 457
Use 1. That all men would take this sure and necessary direc-
tion of Christ for the choice of their comforts, hopes and
happiness 4fi3
Use 2. Be thankful for that grace of Christ which caused you
to make the wisest choice 467
Use 3. If none can take it from us, let us not cast it away
ourselves 469
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
To THE READER CCCClxXV
CHAPTER I.
A lamentation for the case of the deluded, malignant, mili-
tant world 481
CHAPTER II.
Whom I mean by godly persons, and whom by malignant
enemies to godliness 504
CHAPTER III.
Undeniable reasons against malignant enmity to serious god-
liness 520
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER IV.
Objections and false accusations answered 537
CHAPTER V.
A humble expostulation with the English Papists, who by
information and prosecution seek our ruin 556
SAINT OR A BRUTE.
THE CERTAIN NECESSITY AND EXCELLENCY OF HOLINESS. &e. SO
PLAINLY PROVED, AND URGENTLY APPLIED. AS, BY THE
BLESSING OF GOD, MAY CONVINCE AND SAVE THE MI-
SERABLE, IMPENITENT, UNGODLY SENSUALISTS.
IF THEY WILL NOT LET THE DEVIL HINDER
THEM FROM A SOBER AND SERIOUS READ-
ING AND CONSIDERING.
TO BE COMMUNICATED BY THE CHARITABLE, THAT DESIRE THE
CONVERSION AND SALVATION OF SOULS, WHILE THE PATIENCE
OF GOD, AND THE DAY OF GRACE AND HOPE
CONTINUE.
VOL, X.
ADMONITORY EPISTLE,
To my dearly beloved Friends , the Inhabitants of Kidderminster
in Worcestershire: and my late Auditors in the City of Lon-
don. Confirming grace, with patience, love, and peace, be
multiplied.
Dear Friends,
Once more, through the great mercy of God, I have liberty
to send you a preacher for your private families, which may
speak to you (truly and plainly, though not elegantly) when
I cannot, and when Ilie silent in the dust. I take it for no
small mercy, that I have been so much employed about the
great and necessary things, in despite of all the malice of sa-
tan, who would have entangled me, and taken up my time, in
personal vindications and barren controversies. As I never
knew that I had one enemy in the world that ever was ac-
quainted with me ; so those that know me, dissuading me
from apologies against the accusations of those that know
me not, have spared my time for better work. Though there are
about fifty writings (in whole or part) against me published
(by Infidels, Seekers, Familists, Enthusiasts, Quakers, Pa-
pists, Antinomians, Levellers, Covenant-breakers, State-sub-
verters. Church-dividers, besides impatient dissenting bre-
thren, and dependents that took it for the rising way), I yet
find no cause (as to the present age, and those that know
me) to be at any great care or pains for a defence ; while
malicious lies do make men wonder, that wrinkled envy
should be so mad as to come so naked on the stage, and
shew her ugly deformities to the world, and could not stay
at least till wit had helped her to a cloak.
I was also, when I first intended writing, under another
temptation ; being of their mind that thought that nothing
IV ADMONITORY EPISTLE.
should be made public, but what a man had first laid out his
most choice art upon; I thought to huve acquainted the
world with nothing but what was the work of time and dili-
gence. But my conscience soon told me, that there was
too much of pride and selfishness in this ; and that humility
and self-denial required me to lay by the affectation of that
style, and spare that industry, which tended but to advance
my name with men, when it hindered the main work, and
crossed my end. And providence drawing forth some po-
pular, unpolished discourses, and giving them success be-
yond my expectation, did thereby rebuke my selfish
thoughts, and satisfy me that the truths of God do perform
their work more by their divine authority, and proper evi-
dence, and material excellency, than by any ornaments of
fleshly wisdom. And (as Seneca saith) though I will not
despise an elegant physician, yet will I not think myself
much the happier, for his adding eloquence to his healing
art. Being encouraged then, by reason and experience, I
venture these popular sermons into the world ; and especi-
ally for the use of you, my late auditors, that heard them.
I bless God that, when more worthy labourers are fain to
weep over their obstinate, unprofitable, unthankful people,
and some are driven away by their injuries, and put to shake
off the dust of their feet against them ; I am rather forced to
weep over my own unthankful heart, that did not sufficient-
ly value the mercy of a faithful flock, who parted with me
rather as the Ephesians wdth Paul (Acts xx. 37.), and who have
lived according to this plain and necessary doctrine which
they had received. Among whom. Papists, that persuade
men that our doctrine tendeth to divisions, can find no divi-
sions or sects, who have constantly disowned both the am-
bitious usurpations which have shaken the kingdom ; and
the factions, censoriousness, and cruel violence in the
church, which pride hath generated and nourished in this
trying age. Among whom I have enjoyed so very large a
proportion of mercy, in the liberty of so long an exercise of
my ministry, with so unusual advantage and success, that I
must be disingenuously unthankful if I should murmur and
repine at the present restraining hand of God. But I must
say with David, (2 Sam. xv.25.) " If I shall find favour in the
eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me the
ark and habitation (there or elsewhere use me in his service).
ADMONITORY EPISTLE. V
But if he say, I have no delight in thee, behold here I am,
let him do to mfe as it seemeth good unto him."
And now with this treatise, let me leave you these few
seasonable requests.
1. Be faithful to your faithful pastors. Think not that
you can live in order and safety without their ministry.
When you can, attend their public ministry ; refuse not their
more private help. Read well my two sheets for the Minis-
try. Where the lawful pastor is, there the church is. Be
not either impiously indifferent in your worshipping of God,
or peevishly quarrelsome with what is commanded or prac-
tised by others, nor disobedient to authority in lawful things.
2. Maintain still your ancient love, and unity, and peace
among yourselves, and improve your company and converse
to the advantage of your souls. Be daily interlocutory
preachers to one another. Speak as the oracles of God ;
and preach by a holy, patient, harmless, charitable and hea-
venly life. This kind of preaching none can silence but
your own corruptions.
3. Improve the profitable books which are among you.
1. Read them frequently, and reverently, and seriously to
your families, when you have called them together, and
prayed for God*s blessing. 2. Carry them abroad with you,
and when you fall into company where you cannot better
spend your time, read to them some seasonable passage of
such writings. 3. Give or lend them to those that need,
and want either purses or hearts to provide them ; and get
them to promise you to read them, and inquire after the suc-
cess. By such improvement, books may become such se-
conds or substitutes for public preaching, as that they may
not be the least support of religion, and means to men's edi-
fication and salvation.
4. Make special and diligent provision ta satisfy your-
selves and others against popery, which is like to be none
of the least of your temptations. To this end I pray you
read well the single sheet against Popery which I published,
and give of them abroad to others where there is need. Read
also my other books against it : my " Safe Religion," and
" Key for Catholics," and " Dispute with Mr. Johnson," and
Dr. Challoner's ** Credo Sanctam Ecclesiam CathoHcam ;"
and when their sophistry puzzleth you, 1. Call your able
pastors to debate it. 2, And remember that they have the
Vi ADMONITORY EPISTLE.
Scripture and the far greater part of the universal church,
and the senses af all the world to confute, before they can
make good the cause of their ambitious clergy. If you are
but sure you know bread and wine when you see, and feel,
and smell, and taste them, then you are at the end of con-
troversy with the Papists. Above all, see that you maintain
the love of God, and a heavenly mind, and mortified affec-
tions, and grow not opinionative, superficial, or loose in your
religion. For he that is heartily of no religion, is prepared
to be of any religion. And it is because men are false to
the acknowledged truth, that they are given up to make a
religion of deceit and falsehood. Your fidelity to your king
and country, obligeth you to do your part to preserve the
subjects from a disease so injurious to them. Saith Dr.
Sherman, in his late " Account of Faith" against the Papists,.
Pref. p. 4,5. * If kings would think upon it, there might be
no popes ; since if popes could well help it, there should be
no kings.'
6. Take heed of all temptations to turbulent resisting of
authority, or other unlawful means in the obeying of your
passions or discontents. As God chose most eminently to
glorify his power under the law of works, and the spirit of
bondage to fear did much prevail ; but under the Gospel he
hath chosen most eminently to magnify his goodness, love,
and mercy ; so accordingly is the impress made upon his
servants' hearts. They are animated by love, for the propa-
gating of love, and therefore must work with instruments of
love. And if we had well learned the doctrine and example
of our Lord, and made it our work to love all, and to do good
to all, and hurt to none, and with meekness and patience to
let any hurt us, rather than do any thing for our own de-
fence, which is against the law of love, we should see that
Christianity would better thrive, when it would be better un-
derstood by the practice of the professors. Often have I
noted that a whole flock of sheep will run away from the
smallest dog, and yet there are few of them killed by dogs,
because they are under their master's care ; whereas, a wolf
or fox is pursued by all, and few of them suffered to live.
And oft have I observed, that when men that shift for them-
selves can scarce pass the streets, yet children play in the
way of carts and coaches without hurt, while every one takes
it for his care to preserve them, that cannot take care of, and
••
ADMONITORY EPISTLE. VII
preserve themselves. And though the deer that is within
the park is killed when the owner please, yet he is preserved
there from others, when the wild and straggling deer that are
abroad, are a prey to any man that can catch or kill them.
He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth it for
Christ shall save it.
The Lord establish, strengthen, direct, and preserve you
to his kingdom, and keep you from the passions of corrupt-
ed nature, and from the snares and rage of a deceitful, ma-
licious world. I beseech you continue yet your prayers for
him that desireth no greater advancement in the world, than
to be
The servant of Christ, and
Helper of your joy,
RICH. BAXTER.
.Tune 7, 166*.
*t
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
THE FIRST PART.
Shewing the Necessity of Holiness.
INTRODUCTION.
TO ALL SUCH AS NEGLECT, DISLIKE, OR QUARREL AT A LlFE
OF TRUE AND SERIOUS GODLINESS
It hath been the matter of my frequent admiration, how
it can be consistent with the natural self-love and reason-
ableness of mankind, and the special ingenuity of some above
others, for men to believe that they must die, and after live
in endless joy or misery, according to their preparations in
this life, and yet to make no greater a matter of it, nor set
themselves with all their might to inquire what they must
be, and do, if they will be saved ; but to make as great a
business and bustle to have their wills and pleasure for a
little while, in the small impertinent matters of this world,
as if they had neither hopes or fears of any greater things
hereafter. That as some melancholy persons are * csetera
sani,' as rational as other men in all matters saving some
one, in which yet their deliration maketh them the pity or
derision of observers ; so many that have wit enough to
avoid fire and water, and to go out of the way from a wild
beast or a madman, yet have not the wit to avoid damnation,
nor to prefer eternal life before a merry passage unto hell.
Yea, that some that account themselves ingenious, and men
of a deeper reach than the unlearned, can see no further
through the promises or threatenings of God, than through
a prospective or a tube, and have no wit thatlooketh beyond
a grave ; yea, are ready to smile at the simplicity of those
10 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
that care whether they live in heaven or hell, and use but as
much diligence for their salvation, as they use themselves
for that which Paul accounted dung.
Many a time I have wondered how the devil can thus
abuse a man of reason, and such as think themselves no
fools ! and how such inexpressible dotage can stand with
either learning, ingenuity, or common understanding ; and
what shift the devil and these men make to keep them from
seeing, that have eyes, or from seeing the heavens, that can
see the smallest dust or atom. But my admiration is abated,
when I consider that the wit that serveth to move a pup-
pet is not enough to rule a kingdom ; and that sleeping rea-
son is as none ; and that it is the very art and business of
the devil to charm sinners to sleep and wake at once.
' Dormire Deo, at mundo vigilare ;' to be asleep to God,
and awake to the world. And that present things engage
the senses, and call off reason from its work ; and that the
seeming distance of the life to come, occasioneth the neglect
of stupid, half-believing souls, till they find it is indeed at
hand ; even as death, though certain, affecteth few in youth
and health, as it doth when they perceive that they must pre-
sently be gone. And withal, that a man is not a man in act
till he be considerate ; and that it is as good to be without
eyes, as still to wink. We know what detained ourselves
so long in sleep and folly, and we know what makes us yet
so slow, and therefore we may know what it is that thus un-
maneth others.
Reader, if thou be one of these unhappy souls ; Whether
thy brain be so sick as really to think that there is no life
to come for man, or that there needs no such care and dili-
gence to prepare for it ; or whether thy heart be so corrupt
and bad as to be against the things which thou confessest
to be good and necessary ; or whether thy reason be cast so
fast asleep, as never soberly to consider of the only thing
of everlasting consequence and concernment to thyself; or
whether thy heart be grown so dead and stupid, as to be
past feeling, and never moved or affected with the things
which thou hearest and knowest, and considerest to be so
great and necessary; which ever of these be thy sad condi-
tion, I have now this one request to thee, as a friend that
truly desireth thy salvation ; and 1 tender it to thee with a»
earnest a desire, as if thou sawest me upon my knees en-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 11
treating thee for the Lord's sake, and for thy souPs sake,
and as ever thou hopest for the comfort of ii dying man,
and as ever thou carest what becomes of thy soul for ever,
and as ever thou wilt answer it to Christ and thy own con-
science with peace at last, that thou neither deny me, nor
put me off with a careless reading, nor with contempt or
disregard. My request to thee is but this reasonable thing.
That thou wilt so long make a stand in thy way, and grant
me so much of thy time, as once to read throughout this
treatise, and seriously to consider of what thou read-
est, and heartily to beg of God upon thy knees, to teach
thee and lead thee into the truth, and then to be true to
God and to thy conscience, and resolvedly to do that which
thou art convinced is right, and best, and necessary. This
is all my request to thee at the present. Put me not off
with a denial or neglect, as thou wilt answer it to God, and
as thou wilt not be a wilful self-condemner. Hast thou
spent so many hours and days in vain, and cannot I beg a
few hours of thee, to read and think of thy everlasting state ?
If thou darest not read and think of what can be said about
such things as these, it is a sign thy case is indeed so bad,
that thou hast more need than others to read and think of
them. I know the devil dare not give thee leave to do it, if
he can hinder thee ; for fear lest thy eyes should be opened
to see, and thy heart awakened to feel the things which he
so laboureth to keep away from thy sight and feeling, till it
be too late. And wilt thou grant him his desire to thy dam-
nation, or Christ and his servants their desire to thy salva-
tion ? Think of it well before thou answer it by word or
deed.
Being in hope that thou hast granted my request, (to
read, consider, pray for help, and faithfully do what God
shall teach thee,) I shall now begin to open thee the way to
the matter of this treatise. The sum of my business is to
teach thee, (1 Tim.iv.8.) that " bodily exercise (in religion)
profiteth little, but godliness is profitable to all things,
having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which
is to come." I think it meet therefore to tell thee here in
the beginning, what Godliness is, which the apostle distin-
guisheth from * bodily exercise,' in matters of religion, and
which I have proved so necessary and excellent in this trea-
tise. And this 1 must do ; 1. Lest thou deceive thy soul by
12 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
taking something else for Godliness. 2. And lest thou lose
thy labour in the reading of this book, and hearing what
Scripture and preachers say for Godliness. And 3. Lest
thou wrong me and thyself, (according to the custom of this
malicious age,) by imagining that by Godliness, I mean
either superstition, or hypocrisy, or schism, or that I am
persuading thee to sedition, humour, or needless singu-
larity, under the name of Godliness and religion. I shall
therefore tell you distinctly here. What Godliness is indeed;
and what it is not.
In general. Godliness is our devotedness to God.
And all these things following are essential to it, and of in-
dispensable necessity to salvation.
I. That materially it contains these three things.
1. The true internal principle, soul, and life of Godli-
ness ; which is the Spirit of God ; Rom. viii. 9. The Di-
vine nature ; 2 Pet. i. 4. The new, and soft, and single
heart ; Jer. xxxii. 39. Ezek. xi. 19. The seed of God abid-
ing in us ; 1 John iii. 9.
2. The intention of the true ends of Godliness ; which is
the reward in heaven; Matt. v. 11, 12. Luke xviii. 22.
Matt. vi. 20,21. Rom. viii. 17, 18. The pleasing of God
and the beatifical vision and fruition of him with Christ and
his triumphant church in the New Jerusalem for ever.
3. The reception and observation of the true rule of God-
liness ; which is the will of God revealed partly in nature,
and fully in the Holy Scriptures. This must be in our very
hearts; Psal. xxxvii. 31. Jer. xxxi. 33. and with delight
we must meditate in it day and night; Psal.i. 2. To cast
away and despise the law of God, is the brand of the rebel-
lious ; Isa. V. 24.
II. It is essential to Godliness that it formally contains
these three relations.
1. It is adevotedness of ourselves, as his own, to God
as our OWNER, or Proprietary, or Lord; quitting all pretence
to any co-ordinate title to ourselves, and resigning ourselves,
absolutely, (and all that we have) to him that by the right of
creation and redemption is our Lord ; Psal. c. 3. cxix.94.
John xvii. 6.
2. Godliness containeth a devotedness of ourselves as
subjects, to God as our supreme and absolute Governor, to
rule us by his laws, his oflScers, and his Spirit ; to give up
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. IS
ourselves to be ruled by him as our King ; to learn of him as
our Teacher ; to work for him as our Master ; to fight under
him and follow him as our Captain and Commander ; Isa.
Ixiii. 19. ix. 6. Luke xix. 27, &c.
3. Godliness containeth a devotedness of ourselves as
beneficiaries to God in Christ as our great Benefactor in
love and gratitude ; or as children to our reconciled Father,
to love him, and thankfully obey him, and depend on him,
and be happy in his love.
III. It is essential to Godliness, and necessary to salva-
tion, that this devotedness to God be with a true renuncia-
tion, resistance, and forsaking of three great contraries or
enemies to God and us.
1. Of the devil ; as the deceiver and principle of wick-
edness.
2. Of the world (its profits, honours, and pleasures), as
the bait by which the devil would deceive us, and steal away
our hearts from God, and take up our time, and turn our
thoughts from the one thing necessary.
3. Of the flesh, as the rebelling faculty that would exalt
itself above our reason, and be pleased before God, and so
would take its pleasure as our felicity and end, instead of
the true felicity and end.
IV. It is essential to Godliness subjectively, that God
have the preeminence above all creatures ; 1. In the habi-
tual estimation of our judgments, preferring him as the
Most Great, and Wise, and Good, before all others. 2. In
the wilFs habitual consent and choice ; refusing all in com-
parison of him, and choosing him as our Lord, our Ruler, and
our Best, and consenting truly to the relations in which he
is offered to us. 3. In the will's resolution to seek him and
obey him, and endeavour to express these inward principles,
so as to prefer no competitor before him.
V. The soul, or internal part of Godliness consisting es-
sentially in the things already mentioned ; the body of it, or
Godliness expressive and visible consisteth in these three
things.
1. In our covenant with God the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost ; our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier ; our Owner,
Governor, and Father (or Benefactor). It is essential to vi-
sible, expressive Godliness, that there be such a covenant
made ; and regularly it is to be solemnized by baptism. And
14 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
those that are baptized in infancy, must necessarily renew,
and perform it themselves when they come to age, and that
understandingly, deliberately, freely, and seriously.
2. Godliness visible and expressive consisteth in our pro-
fession of that devotedness to God, and that forsaking of the
devil, the world, and the flesh, which we have before describ-
ed as the essence of internal godliness, and to which in the
holy covenant we oblige ourselves. Christ will be confess-
ed before men, and will be ashamed of them before God
and angels, who are so far ashamed of him before men, as
ordinarily to refuse to own him and confess him. Thepub*-
lic worshipping of God in Christ, in prayer, thanksgiving,
praises, and sacrament, is appointed as the professing acts,
by which we openly own our Lord. And therefore ordina-
rily the assembling ourselves together for this public wor-
ship is not to be forsaken, through negligence or fear ; but
with Daniel we must pray though we are sure to be cast to
the lion's den. For though no duty be at all times a duty,
yet the disowning of our God, or denying him, or being
ashamed of him, or inordinately afraid of man, is at all times
a sin. And ordinarily and seasonably to profess true god-
liness, our subjection and devotedness to God, is essential
to external godliness.
3. Visible, expressive Godliness doth essentially consist
in the practice of our fore-described covenant and profes-
sion. That our faces be truly heavenwards, and that our
walk be in the way of God, though we sometimes slip and
stumble, and if we step aside, that we turn not back again,
but return by repentance in our way. That the drift, and
aim, and bent of our lives be for God and our salvation, and
that there be in us no sin, which truly and habitually we had
not rather leave than keep. And that our great business in
the world be the pleasing of God, and the saving of our
souls. And that neither honours, nor profits, nor pleasures
of the flesh, have the preeminence, and be preferred. That
Christ be not put under the great ones of the world, nor put
after your commodity, nor put off with the leavings of the
flesh, but that all be made to stoop to him, and take his leav-
ings. All this is of necessity to salvation, and essential to
expressive godliness.
By this time, reader, thou must easily see, 1. That God-
liness is not an ineffectual opinion, or dead belief. If thou
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 16
wert the most orthodox professor, or preacher in the world,
thou art ungodly if thou have no more. All have not faith
that say the creed. The notional apprehension, and the prac-
tical judgment are often contrary. The opinion that is in-
sufficient to change the heart, to move the will, to renew the
life, shall prove insufficient to save the soul.
2. You may see that Godliness is not the adhering to a
party, though such a party as pretendeth to some special ex-
cellency, or calls itself the only church, or the purest church.
It is a sin to make and cherish parties, divisions, and fac-
tions, in the universal church, and it is not godliness to sin.
A godly man, through weakness, may be of a sinful party,
but that is contrary to his godliness. He will worship God
with his best, and be where he may have best advantage to
his soul, and therefore if he can, will hold personal local
communion with the best and purest congregations ; but not
as separating from the rest, and betaking himself to a party
set against the church universal, or a party sinfully distant
from others in the church universal. The grand design of
the devil is, when men will needs look after religion, to
make them believe that to be of such a church, or party, is
to be religious, and to trust to that instead of godliness for
the saving of their souls. And carnal, self-seeking teachers
are the principal instruments of this deceit ; who for their
honour or commodity would draw away disciples after them,
and make poor souls believe that they must be their follow-
ers, or of their side, or opinion, or church, if they will be
saved. The Papist saith. You must follow the pope, and be
of our church, or you are no true catholics, nor in the true
church, and cannot be saved. And some other sects say the
like of their churches. And how many thousand ungodly
wretches do think to be saved, because they are of such a
church or party. But the catholic, or universal church is
the whole company of believers headed only by Christ ; and
godliness must prove thee a living member of this society,
unless thou wilt be burnt with the withered branches. And
God will never condemn any one that is truly godly be-
cause he is not of this sect or party, or of that. And the
Papists that are the most notorious sect and grand dividers
of the church, and condemners of the justified, shall know
one day, that ambition was not true religion ; and that the
name of unity, and universality and antiquity, were unmeet
16 A SAINT OR A BRUTF.
instruments to be used to the destruction of unity, and con-
tradiction of universality and antiquity ; and that God hath
s€t apart himself the man that is godly, though the accuser
of the brethren would cast such out ; Psal. iv. 3. And who
shall condemn when itiis Christ th at justifieth? Rom. viii.33.
3. You may see now, that Godliness is not any mere ex-
ternal act of worship. External worship there must be, and
that with all decency and reverent behaviour. But it is hy-
pocrisy if there be nothing but the corpse without the inter-
nal godliness which is the life and soul. Bodily exercise is
here by the apostle distinct from godliness.
4. You may now see that Godliness is not the mere for^
bearance of the outward acts or practice of any sin. For
else a sleep, or a prison might make a man godly by restrain-
ing him from the acts of sin. He is ungodly that would ra-
ther live in the sin which through some restraint he doth
forbear. If you would do it, you have done it, in God's ac-
count.
5. You may see also that whatsoever religiousness, obe-
dience, or endeavours subject Christ to the flesh and world,
and make him give place to them and come behind, do not
deserve the name of Godliness. You are not godly, how far
soever else you go, if God and your salvation take not place
before all the honours, profits, and pleasures of the world.
As he is not God that hath any greater, wiser, or better than
himself; so that is not Godliness which giveth the preceden-
cy practically to any thing but God ; that pretendeth never
so highly to honour him, and yet more esteemeth their own
honour with the world : or that professeth love and obedi-
ence to him, and yet loveth and obeyeth a lust before him,
and sets more by love and obedience to themselves, than by
their own or other men's love or obedience to God. All
these are the cheating counterfeits of Godliness.
6. And if none of these be Godliness, much less doth it
consist in any sin ; in superstition, idolatry, or in cruelty,
blood, and persecution through a carnal zeal ; in a bringing
all others by violence to our proijd, impious wills, in mur-
muring, sedition, rebellion, or resisting lawful powers, under
pretence of propagating religion. Godliness consisteth not
in Jesuitical contrivances, and undermining others, and equi-
vocations and pious frauds. In disturbing kingdoms, kill-
ing kings, blowing up parliaments, absolving subjects from
A SAINT OK A BKUTE. 17
allegiance, and giving away the dominions of temporal lords,
if they will not obey the pope in exterminating their here-
tics (as is decreed to be done in the Approved General Coun-
cil at the Lateran under Innocent 111. Can. 3.) ; nor doth it
consist in murdering thirty thousand or forty thousand trea-
cherously in a few weeks, as in France, or much above twice
as many in Ireland ; nor in butchering Christians by hun-
dreds or thousands, as they did long ago by the Waldenses
and Albigenses, and Bohemians ; nor in racking and tormient-
ing them by inquisition ; nor in frying them in the flames of
fagots, as in Queen Mary's days, and frequently elsewhere.
This is the religion of the father of malice, that thirstg for
blood, and not of the merciful Prince of Peace. Godliness
is not the running to arms, and pulling down governments
to set up the proud, selfconceited actors, under pretence of
setting up Christ and preparing for his kingdom ; snatching
in their dream at crowns and kingdoms, and finding when
they awake that they have caught a gallows. When the Friars
had spawned the turbulent people among us in England,
that thought they must do any thing, and overturn the go-
vernments of the world to make Christ the fifth monarch,
and bring him from heaven to reign visibly on earth before
he is willing to come, I must confess I oft thought that their
cunning was much more wonderful to keep these people
from being undeceived, than at first to deceive them. To
keep them (in despite of all our discoveries and warnings)
in such furious blindness, as to go on and do their father's
work, and rage against these that told them their original,
and whither they were going. The poor seduced people ne-
ver read such books as Friar Campanella's ** de Regno Dei,
et sacerdotio Christi," &c. wherein he brings up all the pro-
phetical texts in Isaiah, Daniel, &c. which these men use,
laboureth to shew what a golden age is coming, in which di-
visions shall cease, and unity become the strength and beau-
ty of the world, and this by the universal reign of Christ ;
and what a happy people the saints will be, and how they
shall then judge and rule the world (and, O the comfort ! the
time is near), and just such words he useth for his fifth most
glorious, universal monarchy, as others now do. But when
all comes to all, the mystery unveiled is but this ; that Christ
must reign by the pope his deputy; and that all princes and
VOL. X. c
18 A SAINT OR A BUUTE.
nations must submit and stoop ; and their kingdoms must
all become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, to be
governed by his deputy, the pope ; and (the power falsely
called spiritual, being first well settled) the other key or
sword also (the temporal), must for unity sake be put into
the same hand. The heavens therefore should rejoice, and the
earth be glad, for the Lord thus cometh to judge the world.
The fifth monarchy is at hand : the universal, holy reign of
Christ, not by profane princes, but by his Holiness the Pope,
and by the saints (the Friars, Jesuits, Monks, and Clergy),
that shall judge the world, to whom ere long all knees shall
bow.
But you will say. We are so far from joining with these
Friars, that we hate the pope much more than you do. I
answer. You have received their frame of doctrine of the uni-
versal fifth monarchy that is at hand. There is but one thing
to do, and you are theirs ; which is, to convince you that he
is not to come and reign here personally, but by his great
vicegerent. And they that could bring you to believe things
more improbable, may more easily bring you to them from
your unreasonable conceit.
Pardon this digression ; I thought meet to tell you that
Godliness lieth not in breaking the law of God, nor in obey-
ing pride, nor being the enemies of government and order in
the world, nor in an impatient striving by right or wrong, to
break away from the yoke of suffering, that God for our sin
(or for his cause) shall lay upon us. And now I have fully
and distinctly told you, what Godliness is, and what is not.
And now go thy way, malicious soul, and say if thou
dare, (as the deviFs informers frequently do) that it is sedi-
tion, or faction, or schism, or disobedience, that we draw the
people to under the name of Godliness. Hold on if thou wilt
a little longer in such impudent calumniations against me
and other ministers of Christ. But know that thy day is
coming, and that for all these things thou shalt come to judg-
ment ; and if thou justify the ungodly, yet remember, that
" It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment ; and
he that saith to the wicked. Thou art righteous ; the people
shall curse him, nations shall abhor him ;" Prov. xxiv. 23, 24.
♦* He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the
just, even they both are abomination to the Lord ;" chap.
xvii. 16. *' Woe unto them that call evil good, and good
A SyVINT OR A BKUTE. 19
evil; that put darkness for light, and light for aarKness ;
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ; — which jus-
tify the wicked for reward, and take away tlie righteousness
of the righteous from him. Therefore as the fire devoureth
the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root
shall be rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as the
dust ; because they have cast away the law of the Lord ot
Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel ;"
Isa. v.20.23,24. Let the malicious serpent accuse Job
before God ; in the end it shall turn to his own confusion.
And if any of the princes of the earth, will by dogs be pro-
voked to destroy the priests, or by jealousy kindled by ma-
licious whisperers, be incited to do by the servants of Christ,
as they did by the Waldenses, Bohemians, and Protestants
in many places, &c. we will remember the memorable words
of David, 1 Sam. xxvi. 18, 19. and let the sufferers imitate
him in the submissive part, " Wherefore doth my Lord pur-
sue after his servant? For what have I done, or what" evil is
in my hand ? Now therefore I pray thee let my Lord the
King hear the words of his servant. If the Lord have stirred
thee up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it be
the children of men, cursed be they before the Lord ; for
they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inhe-
ritance of the Lord, saying, Go serve other gods." (By go-
ing where they are served.)
Having fully shewed you what Godliness is, I now be-
seech thee, reader, to inquire, Whether this described case
be thine ? Art thou devoted to God without reserve, as be-
ing not thine own but his? And hast thou devoted all thou
hast to him with thyself, to be used according to his will?
Art thou more subjected to his authority, and observant of
his laws and government, than of man's ? And can his word
do more with thee, than the word of any mortal man, or than
the violence of thy lusts and passions ? Art thou heartily
engaged to him as thy felicity, and dost thou give up thyself
to him in filial love, dependance, and observance, as to thy
dearest friend and father ? Dost thou most highly esteem
him, and resolvedly choose him, and sincerely seek him, pre-
ferring nothing in thy estimation, choice, resolution, or en-
deavour before him ? Try by these and the other particulars
in the description, whether you are godly or ungodly; and
do it faithfully. For the day is at hand, when the ungodly
20 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of
the just;" Psal.i.5.
And besides the marks expressed in the description, let
me offer you some from the plain words of the text, that you
may see what God accounteth Godliness, and consequently
how to judge yourselves.
1. In John iii. 3. 5, 6. it is written, " Verily, except a man
be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. —
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit." " If any man be in Christ, he
is a new creature ; old things are passed away, behold all
things are become new ;" 2 Cor. v. 17. ** If any man have not
the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his ;" Rom. viii.9.
From these texts you may see, that a heart and life made
new by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, is absolutely necessary to
true Godliness.
2. " O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes ;"
Psal. cxix. 5. "To will is present with me ;" Rom.vii. 18.
" Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none on
earth, &c. ;" Psal. Ixxiii. 25. " The desire of our soul is to
thy name, and to the remembrance of thee ;" Isa.xxvi. 8.
From these and such like texts it is evident, that the
principal desires of a godly man, and the choice of his will
is to be what God would have him be.
3. *' His delight is in the law of the Lord, and therein
doth he meditate day and night ;" Psal. i. 2. *' As newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow
thereby;" lPet.ii.2.
From these and such like texts it is manifest. That all
the godly do love the word of God, as the food of their
souls, and the director of their lives.
4. " Lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, &c.
For where your treasure is, there will your hearts be also.
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness ;"
Matt. vi. 20, 21.33. "Enter in at the strait gate — strive
to enter in — for many shall seek and shall not be able ;" chap,
vii. 13. Luke xxiv. " Give diligence to make your calling
and election sure ;" 2 Pet. i. 10.
From these and such texts you may discern, that Godli-
ness consisteth in such diligence for salvation, as to seek it
before any earthly things, and not think the labour of a holy
life too niucli for it.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 21
5. Rom. viii. 1 . 5. 6—8. 13. Gal. v. 18, 19. Read them,
and you will see that Godliness consisteth in living after the
Spirit, and not after the flesh, and in mortifying the deeds
of the body by the Spirit, living not by sensuality, but by
faith.
6. " And this is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, be-
cause their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the
light," &c. John iii. 19, 20. " And the king of Israel said to
Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah, by whom we
may inquire of the Lord. But I hate him ; for he doth not
prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat
said. Let not the King say so ;" 1 Kings xxii. 7,8.
From these and such like texts you see, that the godly
love the discovering light, and the most certain, faithful
preacher ; but the ungodly cannot endure the light which
sheweth them their sins, nor love the preachers that tell them
their sin and misery.
7. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if you love one another ;" 1 Cor. xiii. John xiii. 35. " We
know that we have passed from death to life, because we
love the brethren ;" 1 John iii. 14. ** In whose eyes a vile
person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the
Lord ;" Psal. xv. 4.
From these and such like texts it is evident, that all
that are truly godly, have a special love to those that are
godly. They love and honour Christ in his image of saints.
8. Acts ii. 42. and iv. 32. You may see, that the godly
love the communion of saints, to join with them in holy
doctrine, fellowship, and prayers.
9. " Pray continually ;" 1 Thess. v. 17. " Christ spake
a parable to them to this end, that men ought always to pray,
and not to wax faint ;" Luke xviii. 1. " Behold he prayeth ;"
Acts ix. 1 1 . "I will pour out — the spirit of prayer and sup-
plication— ;" Zech. xii. 10. " The Spirit helpeth our infir-
mities ; for we know not what to pray for as we ought," &c.
Rom. viii. 26.
From all these and such like it is evident, that prayer is
the breath of a godly man. He is a man of prayer. When
he wanteth words, he hath desires with tears or groans.
22 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
10. *'This people draweth near me with their lips, but
tb6ir hearts are far from me— ;" Matt. xv. 8,9. "God is a
Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth;" John iv. 23, 24.
From such texts it is evident, that every godly man doth
make the inward exercise of his soul the principal part of
his worship unto God, and doth not stick in bodily exer-
cise, or lip service.
11. "As forme and my household, we will serve the
Lord;" Josh. xxiv. 15. So Deut. vi. and xi. and 1 Pet.ii.
17, 18. and iii. 10. and Eph. v. and vi.
From many such texts it is evident, that godly men de-
sire the sanctification of others, and make conscience of the
duties of their relations, and would have their households or
friends to serve the Lord as well as they.
12. Luke xi V. 26. 33. xviii. 22. Matt. x. 37. Rom. viii.
17,18.
From these and other texts it is evident, that all things
are below Christ and heaven in the practical esteem of a
godly man, and that he will forsake them all rather than he
will forsake him. All these are Scripture marks of Godli-
ness.
Having hastily run over these things to help you in the
trial, I will add some directions to help you in the practice,
and therein yet more fully to acquaint you. Wherein true
Godliness doth consist.
Briefly to lay down before you first the mere enumeration
of the chief points wherein sound Godliness doth consist, to
help your memories, while you see them close together. 1.
Sound Godliness consisteth in a solid understanding of the
substantial points of religion. 2. In a sound belief of the
truth of God's word, and the reality of the unseen things.
3. In an adhering to the holy Scriptures as the divine rule
of faith and life. 4. In the love of God in Jesus Christ, ex-
cited by the belief of his love revealed by Jesus Christ. 5.
In true humility, and low thoughts of ourselves, and low ex-
pectation from others. 6. In a heavenly mind that most re-
gardeth the things above, and seeketh them as our only fe-
licity at home. 7. In self-denial, and mortification, and
temperance, and victory over the desires of the flesh. When
we can deny our own conceits, and interests, and wills for
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 23
God j and are dead to the world, and are not servants to our
fleshly appetites or senses, or to the things below. 8. In
thankfulness for received mercies, and praising the glorious
name of God. 9. In the willing and diligent use of the
means that God hath appointed us for salvation. 10. In
charity or love to all men, even our enemies ; and a special
love to true believers. 11. In a love to the holy commu-
nion of saints, especially in public worship. 12. In a ten-
der desire of the unity of the saints, and their concord and
increase of charity ; and a trouble at their discord and divi-
sions. 13. In dealing justly in our places with all men, and
carefully avoiding all that may be injurious to any. 14. In
studying to do all the good we can, and doing it to our
power; especially to the household of faith. 15. Inacon-
scionable discharge of the duties of our relations, as rulers,
teachers, parents, masters, subjects, and inferiors. 16. In
watchfulness against temptations, and avoiding occasions of
!>in. 17. In serious preparations for sufferings and death,
and patient bearing them when they come. These are the
things that Godliness doth consist in.
And now out of all I will draw up ten practical direc-
tions, which in a special manner I would entreat you to prac-
tise, if you would be solidly godly, and not be deceived
with names or counterfeits.
Direct. 1. Be sure to live upon the substantial of re-
ligion, and let them receive no detriment by a pretence of
zeal for lesser points : lay not your religion in uneffectual
opinions ; and let lower truths and duties keep their places,
and not be set above the higher.
Direct. 2. See that your religion be principally seated in
the heart. Understand it as well as you can (lest it be taken
from you) ; but never think it is savingly your own while it
is but in the brain. So much you believe indeed as you
love, and as hath imprinted the image of God upon your
hearts. Ever see that your wills be resolved for God and
holiness ; and that you be able truly to say, I would be per-
fect ; and I would fain be better than I am.
Direct, 3. Be sure you take up with God alone, as your
whole felicity, and think not that there is a necessity of the
approbation of men, or of liberty, plenty, life, or any thing
besides God. Do not only think that there is a God, and
a life of glory for you, but live upon them, and be moved
24 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and actuated by them ; trust to them, and take them for
your part. Live by faith, and not by sight.
Direct. 4. Live dfiily upon Christ as the only Mediator,
without whom we have no access to God, acceptance with
him, or receivings from him. Look for all that you have
from God to come by him ; live on him for reconciliation,
for teaching, for preservation, for communication, for con-
solation, and for salvation. Let Christ make your thoughts
of God more familiar, as now reconciled and condescending
to us.
Direct. 5. Obey the sanctifying motions of the Spirit:
and if you have disobeyed, repent ; not despairing, but re-
turning to obedience ; but see that you live not in any
known sin, which a sanctified will can enable you to avoid.
Resist sins of passion; but most carefully take heed of sins
of interest, deliberately chosen, and kept up as necessary or
good.
Direct. 6\ Make it the principal work of your religion and
your lives, to inflame your hearts with the love of God, as
he is presented amiable in his wonderful grace in Jesus
Christ. Strive no further to affect your hearts with fears
or griefs, or other troubling passions, than as tendeth to the
work, of love, or is a just expression of it. Go daily to pro-
mises, and mercies, and Christ, and heaven, of purpose for
fuel to kindle love : be much therefore in thankfulness and
praise, which are works of love. All goeth on sweetly, and
easily, and acceptably that is carried on by love. That is
the best soul, and most like to God, that hath most of love
to God and godliness. And that is the best service, and
most like to the work of heaven, that hath most of love.
Let the principal striving and pleading with your hearts be
to kindle love ; and your principal complaints, for the want
of it.
Direct, 7. Keep up charity to all, even unto enemies ;
and special love to all the godly. And therefore hate back-
biting and slandering, and making the worst of other men's
actions : take them as thieves that come to rob you of your
charity. He that speaks evil of another, persuadeth you so
far to hate him, (unless it be in charity, persuading you to
seek his cure.) Hear the reproacher and backbiter under-
$tandingly, as if he said in words, as he doth in sense, * I
pray you hate such a man, or abate your love to him.' As
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 25
the way to cause love is to represent the object lovely, which
doth much m^re than command me to love it ; so the way
to cause hatred, is to represent the object hateful or unlove-
ly, which is more than to bid us hate our brother. And he
that hateth his brother is a manslayer ; and none such have
eternal life abiding in them. Away therefore with those
volumes of learned slanders and reproaches, begotten be-
twixt uncharitableness and self-love, (or pride ;) and take
them as the devil's books, that are written to draw thee to
hate thy brother. Frown also upon the censorious : take
heed also of divisions and parties, because they are enemies
to universal love, and are but imposthumes or boils of the
church, where zeal and love are diseasedly drawn into a nar-
row compass ; and that is appropriated to a few, that should
be common to all believers. Cherish meekness and pa-
tience, and reject all that carnal zeal or envy, contention
and animosities, which are contrary to love. Read and
study well the third chapter of St. James, and the epistle of
St. John.
Direct. 8. Understand the preciousness and use of time.
Love diligence the better, because it is a redeeming of time ;
a doing much in a little time. Hate that which would rob
you of so precious a commodity.
Direct. 9. See that there be no predominant selfishness
or worldly interest unmortified at the heart. Study duty,
and do it faithfully, and trust God with life, estate, and
events ; and shift not for yourselves by sinful means.
Direct, 10. Maintain your authority over your sense and
fleshly appetites. Captivate not reason to the brutish part ;
especially under pretence of liberty. Use your bodies as
may strengthen them, and best fit them for the work of
God : let them have so much delight in things allowed as
conduceth to this; but take heed of making the delights of
flesh and sense your end, or allowing yourselves in an unpro-
fitable pleasing of your enemy ; or of corrupting your minds,
and relishing too much sweetness in the things of the flesh,
and losing your relish of spiritual things. Set not the bait too
near you : keep the gunpowder from the fire. He that believ-
eth that if ever he be damned, it will be for pleasing his flesh
before God, and if ever he be saved, he must be first and
principally saved from the inordinate pleasures of the flesh.
2(5 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
will not be so forward as brutish infidels are, to seek out for
delights, and plead for all that pleaseth them as harmless.
Having thus in the introduction shewed you what God-
liness is, and how it may be known, and what you must
do to be soundly and gjincerely godly, I hope you are pre-
pared for the following discourse, of the Certain Necessity
and Excellency of Godliness, which tends to fetch over the
delaying, resisting, unresolved wills, of those that are yet in
the BRUTISH state, and are strangers to the dispositions,
employments, desires, hopes, and joys of true believers.
The Lord concur effectually with his blessing. Amen.
LUKE X. 41,42.
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou
art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing
is needful ; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall
not be taken away from her.
In order to the decision of the great controversy practically
managed through the world. Whether Godliness or Worldli-
ness and Sensuality be better? I have already performed
the first part of my task, in proving the certainty of the
principles of Godliness and of Christianity ; which of itself
will infer the conclusion, which I undertake to prove, that
the reasons for Godliness are so sure, and clear, and great,
that every one must be a saint or a brute. He that will
not choose a life of holiness, hath no other to fall into but
a life of sensuality. Either the superior faculties proper
to a rational nature must be predominant ; and then we can
be no less than saints : or else the inferior, brutish facul-
ties will be predominant; and then, (though from your na-
tural powers you are called men, yet) if you may be deno-
minated from your intended end and from the use of your
faculties in order to that end, you are but an ingenious
kind of brutes ; exceeding apes and monkies in the cun-
ning contrivance of your unhappy designs, but incompara-
bly worse in your successes ; because you were indeed in-
trusted with the noble faculties and gifts of men, while you
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 27
captivated them unto your appetites and sense, and lived but
to the END of BEASTS.
The second thing that I have to do, for the conquering
all opposition to this conclusion, is to prove the N ecessity
of holiness, which (beingnow to speak to such as profess
to believe the Holy Scriptures,) I may easily do from this
plain and pregnant text. To which I shall annex such co-
gent reasons as may silence those that will not acquiesce
in the authority of the holy word.
So great is the difference between a dreaming opinion
in religion, (called a dead faith,) and a serious, hearty, prac-
tical belief, that if they that say (and do but say) they be-
lieve the Holy Scriptures, and yet are ungodly, had soundly
believed, considered, and digested this very text, it would
have made such a change both in their hearts and lives, as
would have told them by happy experience, that the Gospel
is not a dead letter, nor saving faith a lifeless, ineffectual
thing ; and that God sent not his Son into the world only to
be complimented with, and reverently treated with a few
good words ; nor his Gospel and ministers merely to be en-
tertained with a demure, silent, and respectful audience ;
nor hath proposed his kingdom to be merely the matter of
commendation or discourse. But that as man is a creature of
a noble and capacious nature, so he hath a high and noble
end, and consequently the highest employment for his rea-
son ; and that religion is the most necessary and must be
the most serious business in the world. Did they believe
this text, as verily they pretend to believe the Gospel, it
would help to the recovery of the understandings of the
ambitious, and make the proud ashamed of their glory, and
settle the drunken, aspiring minds of those that think ^ it
worth more than their salvation, to sit upon the highest
perch. It would call off the covetous worldling his immo-
derate seeking provisions for the flesh, and save them that
are drowned in the cares of this life, by shewing them the
true and necessary treasure. It would spare them many a
vexatious thought, and a great deal of unnecessary labour,
and prevent the shame and horror that must befal them, when
in the end they find their labour lost, and all their expecta-
tions frustrated. It would quickly stop the mouths which
prejudice, ignorance, malignity, enmity and deliration have
opened against a life of faith and serious godliness ; and
28 A SAI>^T OR A BRUTF..
cause them that scorn it as a needless thing, to make it their
daily business and delight. It would tell the sluggish, sense-
less sinner, that he hath work of everlasting consequence
upon his hand, and that it is no time to dream or loiter : and
it would tell the brutish sensualist that there are more sweet
and durable delights ; and the time-wasting fool that time
is precious, and he hath none to spare and cast away, having
so great a work to do. It would set men on seeking with
greatest diligence, the kingdom which before they did but
dream of; and would turn the very stream of their hearts
and lives on that which before they minded but as on the
by. In a word, it would make the earthly to become hea-
venly-, and the fleshly spiritual, and the slothful to be dili-
gent, and rotten-hearted sinners to become renewed saints,
as all must do that ever will be saved. And if these words
of Christ be not thus received by you, and work not such
wonders on men's hearts, it is not because there is any want
of fitness in the text, but because men's hearts are hardened
into a wilful contempt of the most precious truths, which in
themselves are apt to change and save them.
Of all ways of teaching, history is accounted one of the
most effectual ; because it hath the greatest advantage on
our apprehensions, as setting our lesson before our eyes in
the great character of example, and not only in the smaller
letter of a naked precept. And of all history, what can be
more powerful, than, 1. Where one of the actors is the eter-
nal Son of God ; and that not above our reach in heaven,
but here in our flesh, on the stage of this sublunary world ?
2. And the other actors are such as most fitly represent the
different actions of all the world, at least that live within
the sound of the Gospel ; and lay open the great question
about which the world is so much divided. 3. And when
the matter itself is of the greatest consequence that can be
imagined ; even concerning the present choice and resolu-
tion of our hearts, and that expending of our time, and that
business and employment of our lives, on which our endless
life dependeth. All this you have here set out even to the
life, before your eyes, in the glass of this example in my text :
and the Lord of life doth call you all to see your faces in
it ; and here plainly sheweth you what will be expected from
you ; and what you must be, and do, and trust to ; and this
not in any long and tedious discourse, that might overwhelm
A SAINT OR A BKUTIl. 29
your memories, or weary your attentions; but in very brief,
though full expressions.
As Jesus entered into Bethany, Martha (who it seems
wias the owner of the house) received and entertained him.
No doubt but a great company followed Jesus ; or his disci-
ples, that ordinarily accompanied him, at least. Martha
thinks that having entertained such a guest, it were a great
neglect, if she should not provide for him and for his fol-
lowers ; and therefore she is busy in doing what she can ;
but the number is so great, that she is oppressed with the
care and trouble, and findeth that she hath more to do than
she is able : her sister, that she thought should have helped
her in such a case, is sitting with the disciples at the feet of
Christ, to hear his word. Martha seeing this, is offended at
her sister, and seems to think thatChrist himself is too neg-
lective of her, or partial for her sister ; and therefore thus
pleads her cause with Christ, " Lord, dost thou not care
that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? Bid her there-
fore that she help me." As if she had said, * Is it a fit thing
that both thyself and all this company should be unprovided
for, and have neither meat nor drink ? Or is it fit that all
should be laid on me, even more than I can do, while she
sits hearing with the disciples ? Deal equally and merci-
fully, and bid her help me.' And indeed most people would
think that this was but a reasonable motion, and that when
Christ was made the judge between them, he should have
decided the case on Martha's side ; but he did not so : But,
1. Instead of commending Martha for her care and diligence,
he sheweth her error, by a gentle, but yet a close reproof:
*' Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many
things." 2. Instead of reproving Mary for negligence of
her duty in the house, he highly commendeth her for the
seasonable doing of a greater work : " Mary hath chosen
the good part." 3. He groundeth the reason of his judg-
ment on the different nature and use of their employments :
** One thing is needful ;" in comparison of which, the rest
were all unnecessary things, and such as then might have
been neglected. 4. And so he passeth sentence on Mary's
side, that the good part which she hath chosen, " shall not
be taken away from her :" in which he not only answereth
Martha with an express denial, as if he should say, ' I will
not take off Mary from the work which she hath chosen ;'
30 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
but also on that occasion doth point out the durable nature
of the good which she had chosen, and promise the con-
tinuance of it.
Concerning Martha, some expositors run into two ex-
tremes. Some think that she was an unregenerate world-
ling, and savoured only fleshly things, and that these words
of Christ describe her state as one that had not yet made
choice of the one thing needful, and the better part. But
it is only her present action that Christ doth reprehend and
censure, and not her state. Her entertainment of Christ,
and speeches to him, and other passages, give us great pro-
bability that she was a true disciple, as after it is said that
Jesus loved her ; John xi. 5.
On the other side, one learned annotator thus paraphras-
eth the words of Christ to Martha, * Thou takest a great
deal of unnecessary, though not culpable pains;' as if
Christ's words were no reprehension of her, nor her course
blameworthy.
But the plain truth lieth between these two extremes.
Martha, though most probably a true disciple, was here to
blame, in preferring a lesser duty before a greater, and doing
that unseasonably, which in due time was to be done, and
in neglecting an opportunity for the hearing of Christ's word,
which Mary took. It was not only blameless, but a duty in
itself to make provision for Christ and his attendants ; but
she should have been hearing first while he was preaching,
and taken that opportunity for the benefit of her soul. It
was no ordinary preacher that was come under her roof:
his stay was not like to be long : his doctrine concerned her
salvation : she knew not whether ever she should have the
like opportunity again ; and therefore she should have rather
stayed for his own direction, when to go make provision for
their bodies, than to have omitted the hearing of his word.
But you will ask perhaps, * When a sermon and other
worldly business fall out at once, are we always bound to
hear the sermon?'
I answer, no, not always ; for else in great cities that have
frequent preaching, you should do nothing else but hear.
We have a body as well as a soul, and must have meet em-
ployment for both ; and must make due provision for both ;
and must be serviceable to the bodily welfare of others, and
to the common good. Our bodily labour and temporal em-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 31
ployment must be conscionably followed, as well as our spi-
ritual ; for God hath determined that ** in the sweat of our
faces we shall eat our bread ;*' Gen. iii. 19. And even in
innocency Adam was put into the garden to dress or till and
keep it ; Gen. ii. 15. With quietness we must ** labour and
eat our own bread ; and if any will not work, neither should
he eat ;" 2 Thess. iii. 10. 12. See PauFs example, " Neither
did we eat any man's bread for nought ; but wrought with
labour and travail night and day, that we might not be
chargeable to any of you ;" 2 Thess. v. 8. We must " la-
bour, working with our hands, that we may have to give to
him that needeth ;" Ephes. iv. 28. And if our bodies have
not competent employment, they will grow such rusty, unfit
instruments for the soul to work by, that when melancholy
or other diseases have disabled them, the soul itself will have
the loss ; and he that will do nothing but hear, and pray,
and meditate, is likely shortly to be scarce able to pray and
meditate at all, (unless it be one of a very strong and health-
ful constitution).
No one therefore from this determination of Christ to
Martha, is to be driven from their lawful calling into a con-
trary extreme. But this was not the case between Mary and
Martha : it was a special opportunity which then was to be
taken. We must first seek God's kingdom, and its righ-
teousness, and prudently take such opportunities for our
souls as we can, without omitting greater duties, and as our
case requireth ; not taking as much food as we can ingest,
but as much as we can digest : it is possible to eat too much,
but not to digest too well. A Christian must have prudence
when two duties come together, to know which at that pre-
sent time is the greatest, and to be preferred ; which de-
pendeth much on the necessity, and the ends ; the good that
will follow the doing of them, and the hurt that will follow
the omission. And without this prudential discerning of
time and duty, we shall never order our conversations right,
but shall live in a continual sin when we are doing that,
which in its own nature and season is our duty.
A poor man may not read and hear so frequently as a
rich (ordinarily) ; nor a servant as the master ; because there
would greater evils follow the omission of their common la-
bour at that time.
Thus much being said for the explication of the text,
32 A SAINT OR A BUUTE.
there is no more necessary but what will fall in most conve-
niently with the matter. The sense is, as if Christ should
have said, 'Martha, Martha, I know thou dost all this in
love to me, and meanest well in it ; and it is no more than
what is thy duty in its proper season ; but O ! what is the
food that perisheth in comparison of that which endureth to
everlasting life ! It is my meat and drink to do the will of
him that sent me, in feeding and in saving souls. Thou hadst
now an opportunity to hear my word, the word of the Son of
God, thy Saviour, and thereby to have promoted thy ever-
lasting happiness, as Mary doth ; and this should have been
preferred even before this provision for our bodies ; and if
for this thou hadst now omitted thy care and labour about
meat and drink, I would not at all have been offended with
thee : thou hadst thy choice, and Mary had her choice ; thou
hast chosen care and trouble about many things, and made
thyself a great deal ado ; but Mary hath chosen that one
thing that was necessary, which is the better part, and there-
fore it shall not be taken from her, but she shall possess the
benefit of her choice,*
Where note, for the fuller understanding of it, the true
opposition between the case of Mary and Martha.
1. As to the matter ; Martha had many things in hand,
a multifarious care and trouble ; but Mary had but one.
2. As to the manner and effects of their employments ;
Martha was full of care and troubles, distracted or disturbed
by the cumbrance of her businesses ; but Mary was quietly
hearing and learning how to be free from care and trouble,
and how to attain everlasting rest.
3. As to the quality of their business ; Martha's was of
less necessity or concernment, though good and honest in its
place ; but Mary's was about the thing of absolute necessity.
Also Martha's was good in its season, but a lesser good ;
but Mary's was that good part, which containeth all other
good or referreth to it, and therefore was to be preferred.
4. And therefore as to the continuance ; Mary's being a
more eligible employment, and about an everlasting treasure,
shall not be taken from her, when the fruit of Martha's em-
ployment will quickly have an end.
Yet in these different cases, each one had her choice ;
had Martha chosen better, she had had better. And the
choice much proceeded from the judgment and disposition :
A SAINT OR A BUUT£. 33
Had she judged better, and been inclined better, Martha
would have chosen better.
Before we come to the principal Doctrines, we may pro-
fitably note these observations by the way :
1. Note here, that the nearest natural relations (as bro-
thers and sisters, yea, parents and children) are not always
of one mind or way in thematters of their salvation. Greater
diiference may be between them, than this between Martha
and Mary in the text. They may rise up against each
other, and seek each others' lives, as Christ foretold, Mark
xiii. 12. And therefore father, mother, brother, sister, and
all are to be denied for Christ (that I say not hated, as Christ
saith, Luke xiv. 26.) when they stand in opposition to him.
The same parentage and education made not Esau and Ja-
cob of a disposition, or of one mind or way ; nor Isaac and
Ishmael ; nor Shem and Ham ; nor would restrain Cain, the
first man born into the world, from cruelly murdering his
brother, upon a difference about their religions, caused by
his own ungodly mind ; even because his ** own works were
evil, and his brother's righteous and acceptable to God ;"
1 John iii. 12. And therefore parents must patiently submit
(having done their duty), if even the children of their bodies
should prove reprobates. And brothers and sisters must
submit, if these in so near a relation be castaways. God
hath not promised that all our kindred shall be saved. Re-
joice that you are not yourselves forsaken ; and be glad that
anjT and so many are sanctified, though further from you in
the flesh ; and love them in their more excellent relation to
Christ and you.
2. Note here, how our Lord doth spend his time in the
place and company where he is. When he entereth into a
house, he is presently at work in teaching poor souls the
way to God ; or else how could Mary have been employed
in hearing him ? In our places and measure we should imi-
tate him in this. Can you come into any house or company
and find nothing to say or do for God ? Are there none wiser
than yourselves that you may learn of, as Mary did of Christ?
Nor none more ignorant whom charity requireth you to
teach ? Nor none that need a quickening word, to mind
them of their everlasting state ? As soon as worldly, or vain
ungodly people get together, they are presently upon some
VOL. X. D
34 A SAINT OR A BKUTE.
worldly, or vain discourse. And if you be indeed a heaven-
ly and spiritual people, should you not be mor€ ready when
you come together, for heavenly, spiritual discourse ? Have
you not a thousandfold more to set your tongues on work?
The necessities of the hearers, the hopes of doing good, the
presence of God, the sense of the duty, the sweetness of the
subject, th€ avoiding of sin, and the blessing of God's ac-
ceptance to yourselves ? O had we but the skill, and will,
and diligence, that this interlocutory preaching by holy con-
ference doth require, what a supply-party would it be for
the promoting of men's salvation, where the more public
preaching of the Gospel is wanting ? Who can forbid us
by familiar discourse to exercise our charity, in minding
poor, regardless sinners of the life to come ? and exhorting
them to due preparation and repentance ? and to open to
them the riches of Christ, and set forth his love, and draw
them to embrace him ?
3. Note here, how carefully we should take the present
opportunities of our souls, to hear and learn as Mary did.
She stands not cavilling like our full-stomach hearers, that
ask. How can you prove that I am bound to hear such a lec-
ture, or to come to church and hear a sermon twice on the
Lord's day, or to come to the minister to ask advice, or be
instructed by him ? No more than a hungry man will ask.
How prove you that it is my duty to eat every day ? Or
than a sick man will say. How prove you that I am bound
to seek to the physician, to go or send to his house, and to
look after him? As there is much in the very new nature, and
health, and relish of a gracious soul, to decide such contro-
versies as these without any subtlety of argument, so a
Christian's prudence and care of his salvation will tell him,
that when Christ hath a voice to speak to him, it beseemeth
him to have an ear to hear ; and that the sermon telleth the
hearer the season of his duty, and the offer of a mercy telleth
when it is our duty to accept it, without any other more par-
ticular obligation ; unless when we can truly say as before
God, that some duty that at that time is greater, hindereth
us. These are easy questions to those that savour the things
of the Spirit. When Christ is speaking, Mary will be hear-
ing ; and lesser things shall not call her off.
If any shall say, * So would we too, if we could hear
Christ/ I answer. Remember that he never intended to
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 35
abide himself on earth, and teach his church personally by
his own mouth ; but hath appointed messengers and officers
to proclaim his law unto the world, and tender them his
grace, and saith, ** He that heareth you heareth me ; and he
that despiseth you despiseth me" (Luke x. 16.), and he that
'* despiseth, despiseth not manbut God ;" 1 Thess. iv. 8. And
he that will not now believe and hear Christ speaking by his
ministers, when he is acknowledged to be the Son of God,
and his sealed word halh had so long possession in the world,
would hardly have regarded Christ himself in a time when he
appeared in the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as
a man, and was believed on but by a few persons then count-
ed but inconsiderable.
4. Note also, the humility and teachableness of disciples
in those times, who were wont to sit learning at their teach-
er's feet. Which was then an ordinary case, and not of
Christ's disciples only. Paul was brought up " at the feet
of Gamaliel;" Actsxxii. 3. Not like the proud and self-
conceited part of our hearers in these times, that come to
hear somewhat for their malicious or contentious minds to
quarrel with, and expect that their teachers tell them nothing
but what is agreeable to their own conceits, and think us to
be injurious to them, if we would heal their ignorance or im-
piety, and make them any wiser or better than they are ; and
that reproach us and set themselves against us as their ene-
mies, if we will not be ruled by them, and humour them in
all our administrations, as if we were the patients and they
the physicians, we the learners and they the teachers, yea,
we their servants, and they our guides and rulers in the mat-
ters of our own office.
But let us come closer to the words themselves, and con-
sider of the instructions which they afford us. Which are
these.
Doct, I. It is but one thing that is of absolute necessity,
but it is many things tjjat those are taken up with, that neg-
lect that one.
Doct. II. The one] thing needful leadeth to content ; but
the many things of the world do trouble, and disquiet, and
distract the soul.
Doct. III. All men where the Gospel is preached, have
their choice whether they will seek and have the one thing
36 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
necessary, or trouble and distract themselves with the many
things that are unnecessary.
Doct, IV. They that choose the one thing necessary, do
choose the good part ; and they that choose any other, do
make an evil and unhappy choice.
Doct. V. The one thing needful shall not be taken from
them that choose it ; but they that choose it not, shall have
no better than they choose.
Doct, VI. Those that make the bad unhappy choice, are
apt to grudge at them that choose better, and will not think
and do as they.
Doct, VII. When the matter is brought before the Lord
Jesus Christ, he will not take part with those that murmur
at his servant's choice, and speak against them ; but will
commend their choice, and condemn the contrary.
All this you see lie plain here in the text, and it is all
worthy our larger consideration. But the first is like to
hold me so long, that to avoid proxility, the rest shall be but
touched under that.
Doct, I. One thing is needful. It is one thing only that
is absolutely necessary j but many things that men busy
themselves about, that neglect this one.
In handling this, I must shew you,
I. In what respect it is that this needful thing is said to
be but one.
II. How it is that the troublesome matters of the world
are called many.
III. Whereto and how far this one thing is necessary.
IV. Whether the rest are indeed unnecessary.
V. I shall assist you in the application of it to yourselves,
that it may reach the end to which I do intend it.
I. In what respect is the needful thing but one ?
Which will be the easier understood, when you know
what the one thing needful is. And it is, most directly, that
which is our end. To be saved, and to please the Lord, or to
glorify God and enjoy him in glory for ever. Which com-
prehendeth or implieth the necessary means.
And this blessed state is one, considered, 1. Objective-
ly. It is one God that we have to please, and to behold, and
love, and praise for ever. 2. It is one formally ; that is. It
is only the soul's fruition of this one God that is our end
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 37
and blessedness. And thus the end being principally meant,
it is said that one thing is necessary ; though the means may
be more than one that are necessary to obtain it.
And yet even with respect unto the means, it may be
said that one thing is necessary, by a general, comprehen-
sive speech, as one containeth many parts. As to cure a
sickness may be said to be the one thing needful to preserve
a man's life ; when yet that cure must be done by many acts
and means. The means are but one thing as denominated
from their end ; even our everlasting happiness. And they
are but one as denominated from their original, they being all
but the will of God revealed in his word for man's direction
to salvation. And they are all one in the principal stock that
proceedeth from this original or root ; and that is, the Lord
Jesus Christ himself, who is therefore eminently called * the
way ;' because there is no other way or means, but what
standeth in a due subordination to the Redeemer as the chief
means, as well as to the pure Godhead as the end.
Also as all the means of God's appointment have a union
of nature or similitude with the end. And as God's image
is one in all his children, so is it, in their kind and measure,
in all his ordinances and means. They also in their kind
and place are partakers of the Divine nature. The name of
God is as it were written upon them, and his blessed nature
legible in them.
Also the means are all but one, as all are parts of one
holy frame, which most harmoniously concur to the doing
of one work : as all the wheels and other parts are but one
coach which carryeth us to our journey's end. As Christ
and his church are one body (1 Cor.xii. 12.), so Christ and
all subordinate means for the recovery and salvation of his
own, are one kingdom of God, and one way to the Father, and
one salvation ; I shall more fully open it under the next head.
And now for the negative, you may discern by what is
said, 1. That here is no such unity as even in the end must
confound God and man, or his glory and our salvation.
2. Nor is here any such unity as doth confound the end
and means ; no, not the Godhead with the manhood of the
Redeemer, much less with the inferior kind of beings.
3. Nor is there any such unity as doth confound all the
means among themselves, and make all one ; or exclude the
rest by exalting one ; but rather each one doth suppose the
38 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
rest to constitute the perfect frame. Christ doth not exclude
faith, nor faith exclude repentance ; nor faith and repentance
exclude obedience ; nor doth the office of one of these e^^-
clude the use and office of the rest. Public duties exclude
not private, nor do private exclude public. One part ex-
cludeth not another. Reading excludeth not preaching, nor
both of them praying ; but their nature and use bespeaketh
a conjunction. The whole body is not an eye or hand ; nor
doth the unity exclude but include even the smallest mem-
bers.
4. Nor is there such a unity as excludeth difference of
degrees. For one means may be more necessary and excel-
lent than another. And the same person by growing doth
differ from himself as he was before ; and one will hereafter
excel another in glory, as they do in holiness and faithful
improvement of their talents.
II. Let us next lay both together, and see how the trou-
bling matters of the world are called ' many' in opposition
to this one.
And 1. Every creature to a sensual man, is made by him
in some sort his end and god. For he doth not use it only,
and refer it as the godly do, to an end that is one ; but he
would enjoy it and make it objectively his end itself, and so
idolize it. And therefore though in the general notion of
delight they all agree ; yet materially, what abundance of
ends and gods have carnal men ? Every sense must have
its own delight ! The eye must have its delight, and the
appetite its delight ; and so of the rest.
2. And also these fleshly baits and pleasures are discor-
dant even among themselves. They draw the sinner several
ways ; and one of them fighteth against the other. The
riches of the sensualist do usually contradict his ease ; and
often his voluptuous humour ; and his ambition and pride
doth bridle his disgraceful lusts ; and one sin will not let
another have its end, but robbeth him of the poor expected
fruit. And thus they do distract the sinners, and tear their
very hearts in pieces; and divide and dismember them,
where God would heal them and unite them in himself. And
the toilsome cares and labours by which these things must
be obtained, are many, and oft contrary to each other ; and
a great deal of stir it is that a deluded sinner makes to little
purpose.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 1)0
The sum then of both these heads is this. The matter
of a Christian's faith, and religion, desire, hope, and love, is
therefore called one thing, because God who is one, is the
sum of all. It is but one sun, though it hath many beams,
and all those beams are nothing but the emanations of the
sun ; and have nothing but what they have from it. God
is all to the religion and soul of a true believer ; and there-
fore all to him is one. Creatures, and duties, and ordinan-
ces, which are many, are all but one to him in God. His
faith beholdeth them, and his affections relish them, as unit-
ed all in God. 1. As their spring from whom they flow.
2. And as the life by whom they are all animated ; and as
the matter and sense which they signify and import. 3. And
as their end to which they tend, and in which they all ter-
minate and agree.
Many branches are but one tree, and have one stock ; and
many members are one body, because they are animated
with one soul. Many letters, syllables, and words may
make one sentence ; and many leaves may make one book,
and treat but of one subject. Many actions of a plough-
man are called ploughing, and of a weaver, weaving, &c. as
being all united in one end. I know these similes have their
dissimilitude, but this is the sum; that It is God that the
believer seeth, and seeketh, and loveth, and converseth with,
and intendeth in all the ordinances of grace, in all his duties,
and in all the creatures ; and in God they are united, and
one thing to him. He hath nothing to do at church, or at
home, in private or public, but live to God, and seek after
the everlasting enjoyment of him. If weakness and temp-
tation put any other business into his hands, he is so far
stepped out of the Christian way. In his very common la-
bours and mercies (so far as he is holy), God is to him, the
spring, the life, the sweetness, the beauty, the strength, the
meaning, and the end of all, and therefore all in all.
But the creatures in the hands and use of the ungodly, or
of the godly, so far as they use them sinfully, have no such
unity. Though in themselves they so depend oh God, that
none can make a separation, nor can they at all exist with-
out him ; yet in the sense, estimation, ends, and use of the
ungodly, the creatures are separated from God, and are as
branches cut off from the tree ; and departing from God,
these men are gone from unity, and are lost, distracted and
40 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
confounded in the multitude of the creatures ; and will tie*
ver have unity till they return to God.
III. In the next place let us consider. What is the ne-
cessity that is here spoken of, and how far this one thing is
necessary to us.
And 1. One thing is necessary morally, for itself, which
is our ultimate end. When other things are necessary but
for that.
2. Comprehensively of the means we may say, that one
thing, that is, sanctification, is necessary to the pleasing of
God ; which is to be regarded, 1. As the end of obedience^
and 2. As the end of love ; by the obedient soul in way
of duty ; and by the loving soul devoted to God, as its de-
light.
The world hath many contrary masters, and therefore
hath many things to do to please them ; and when they have
done their best, they cannot please them all, but may leave
more displeased than they please. For those that they must
please, expect impossibilities ; and many a single person
perhaps may look for as much as you can give to all. And
they have such contrary interests, which you must humour,
that the same things that one expects to please him, will ve-
hemently displease another ; and perhaps the more displease
the other, because it is pleasing to that one.
And ourselves have our contrarieties in ourselves, and
are as hard to be pleased by others or ourselves. We have
our sensual desires which are unreasonable and inordinate,
unseasonable and importunate, and will take no nay. A
sensual, covetous, ambitious fancy, is a bottomless vessel :
your pouring in doth no whit fill it. It is a devouring gulf;
a consuming (that I say not an unquenchable) fire. Like the
horseleech it crieth. Give, give, and the more you give, the
more it craveth, and is never less satisfied than when it hath
glutted itself with that from which it seeketh satisfaction.
But God is one, and with this one thing is he pleased ;
even with a holy heart and life. He hath no contradictory
interests or assertions ; and therefore hath no contradictory
commands ; that which must please him, must be suitable
to his blessed nature. He is infinite in wisdom, and there-
fore hath no pleasure in fools, that bring him sacrifice, and
refuse obedience, and *• know not that they do evil ;" Eccles.
V. 1. And have not the wit to know what they do, and
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 4l
whom they speak to ; and to know that which only is worth
the knowing. How often do we read him rejecting the sa-
crifice of the wicked, and casting their most costly offerings
in their faces, as things that he abhorreth, when they come
to him without that humble, loving, and obedient heart, which
herequireth ! " Their oblations are vain, the multitude of their
sacrifice is to no purpose, and incense is an abomination to
him ; their feasts and sabbaths his soul hateth, they are a
trouble to him, he cannot bear them" (Psal. 1. 8. &c. Isa. i.
11, 12—20.), if they come without the " one thing neces-
sary." Without this he careth not for their fastings, or for-
malities ; Isa. Iviii. 5. It is not *' thousands of rams, or ten
thousand rivers of oil, nor the fruit of their body, if they
would give it for the sin of their soul," that he will accept.
" But he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. And
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?" Mich. vi. 7, 8.
The conclusion of the whole matter is this : " Fear God, and
keep his commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man ;"
Eccles. xii. 13.
You are never the better beloved of God for being rich,
or honourable in the world, nor yet because you are poor,
or in a mean condition, nor because you are sick or well,
weak or strong, comely or uncomely ; but because you love
him through his Son, and " believe in him whom the Father
hath sent ;" John xvi. 27. ** Without faith it is impossible
to please God ;" Heb. xi.6. The " new man must be put on,
which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that
created him, where there is neither Greek, nor Jew, Barba-
rian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all ;" Col.
iii.lO, 11. "For in Christ Jesus circumcision availeth no-
thing, nor uncircumcision, but anew creature, and faith that
works by love, and the keeping of the commands of God ;"
Gal.v. 6. vi. 15. ICor.vii. 19.
This one thing (** even Godliness which is profitable to all
things) is necessary in us, (supposing the necessaries in
Christ) to render us acceptable to the holy God. And with-
out this all the accomplishments imaginable will make us
but as " sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal;" 1 Cor.
xiii. 1.
"■ 3. One thing is needful to the saving of our souls ; with-
out which all things else are vain. There are many ways to
42 A SAINT OR A BKUTK.
hell; but to heaven there is but one. There are a thousand
ways to delude and blind a soul, but only one for its true
and saving illumination. Erroneous sectaries are blinded in
some particular points, by the seducing words of men. And
ungodly sensualists are blinded in the main, and damnably
err from the necessary, practical doctrines of salvation, be-
ing deceived by the inclination of their own concupiscence.
Errors are multifarious, and abound even in many that in-
veigh most fiercely against the erroneous. But truth is sim-
ple. We have one Teacher to instruct us, one Spirit to en-
lighten us, one word of God to be our rule, one light to
guide us through all the darkness and mazes of the world,
and recover our deluded, darkened minds. Thousands are
ready to draw us away from God. Temptations lie thick on
every hand. Within us, and without us ; before us, and on
each side. Which way can you look or go, but you will
meet with baits and snares. And if Eve be once deceived,
Adam is the more easily overcome. When the appetite and
senses are ensnared by their objects, and imagination cor-
rupted, the understanding is in danger of deceit. You may
go into a hospital, and see a variety of diseases; but health
is one and the ^ame. One hath the pestilence, and another
hath the leprosy, and another a palsy, arid another is dis-
tracted ; but among a thousand people in health, you see no
such difference. Health only is formally the cure of all.
What abundance of miserable sinners be in the world,
that are almost at hell already ? But only one sort of men,
even the regenerate, are rescued by grace, and shall be saved
from it. Many inventions have men found out for their de-
struction ; but there is no way but by Christ, through faith
and holiness, to their salvation. Set as light by Christ and
holiness as you will, and deride it as foolishly and perverse-
ly as you please, you will find at last, that this /way or none
must bring you to heaven. Either ignorance, or pride, or
covetousness, or malice, or gluttony, or voluptuousness, or
lust, or any one sin of a hundred may be your ruin. But
there is only one salve to heal these sores ; and only one
cordial or antidote that can expel these several sorts of poi-
son from your hearts. " Godliness is profitable to all things ;"
1 Tim. iv. 8.
Drudge for the world as long as you will, and gape after
honour, and applause from men, and try a thousand ways for
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 43
your content ; but when you have all done, you must return
by sound repentance into the way of holiness, or you are
lost for ever. When you have slighted grace, you must give
up yourselves to the power of that grace. When you have
set light by a life of holy love to God, and the fruition of
him in glory, you must make it your treasure and delight,
and your hearts must be upon it, or you are undone ; Matt,
vi. 21. When you have made a jest of a holy life, you must
come about, and take yourselves that course that you jested
at, though you be as much jested at by others ; yea, and
make it the principal business of your lives, or perish in hell
under the vengeance of the Almighty, whose justice you pro-
voked, and whose mercy you neglected. Choose you whe-
ther, but one of them will be your part. Even as Saul, that
was " exceeding mad against believers, and persecuted them
even to strange cities" (Acts xxv. 10, 11.), was glad to be-
come one of them himself, though he suffered as much as he
had caused them to suffer; and accounted it the greatest
mercy of his life, that God vouchsafed him such a change,
whatever it cost him.
IV. Quest. ' But is nothing necessary but this onp ? Are
not other things also needful in their places V
Answ. I told you that other things are not other, so far
as they stand in due subordination to this one, or are the
parts of it. He that saith to a sick man, * You would do
well if you had such a skilful man for your physician/ doth
not by these words intend to exclude his apothecary, or his
medicines, or the taking of them, or the instruments and
means by which they are applied ; but rather includeth and
implieth all these in the one thing mentioned to which they
do subserve. So all God's graces, and all the means of
grace, and Christian duties, are contained or implied in the
one thing necessary, or supposed to it. Because it is one
thing that is necessary as the end, therefore many means are
necessary to the obtaining of it. Though there be also a
kind of unity (as hath been shewed) among those means.
Quest, ' But are not outward things also necessary ? Must
we not have food and raiment? and must we not labour and
provide it, and take care for our families, and follow our call-
ings? Must we not by lawful means avoid reproach and
poverty in the world V
44 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Atisxu, In the way of duty it is as necessary that we la-
bour in our callings, and provide things honest, and sub-
serve God's providence for the maintenance of ourselves and
others ; and the things of this life are needful so far as life is
needful, that we may have time and strength to do our
works, and be supported while we seek the one thing need-
ful. But that which is not necessary for itself, but for ano-
ther thing, is not simply or principally necessary. So far
as heaven may be obtained, and the work of Christianity
done without the accommodations of the flesh, so far these
worldly things are needless. There is no necessity that you
be rich or honourable ; or that you live in health or wealth ;
or that you escape the hatred, and reproach, and trouble of
a malicious world ! There is no necessity that you should
save your lives when Christ requireth them. For he that so
saveth his life shall lose it ; Matt. xvi. 25. And that use-
fulness (which you may in a lower sense call necessity) that
any of these things are of, is but in their respect to the one
thing necessary, as they are sanctified means to the service
of God and our salvation. If your daily bread be to be call-
ed necessary, it is not for itself, or for fleshly pleasure, nor
ultimately for your life itself; but to sustain your life while
you are seeking after life eternal, and serving him that is the
Lord of life. Your credit, or honour, or pleasure in the
world, are no further necessary or useful to you, than they
promote this great end for yourselves or others. Nothing
but God is simply necessary for himself, and nothing else is
any way truly necessary but for him.
And therefore as by necessity of precept you must labour
in your callings, and seek provision for yourselves and fa-
milies, you must most carefully watch your hearts that your
desires and labours be not carnal, as tending only to carnal
ends ; but that you sincerely subject the things desired, to
the one thing necessary, for which you must desire them ;
and therefore that you desire but such measures and propor-
tions, as are most suitable to that end which is only for it-
self desirable : even life itself must not be desired simply
and ultimately for itself.
As you must pray but for your daily bread, and be con-
tent with food and raiment, so you must see, that these be
but for better things ; even in order to the doing of the will
A HAINT OR A BRUTE. 45
of God, the promoting of his kingdom, and the hallowing of
his name, which mu^t be first and most desired. The order
of your duty is, to **seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness," and then other things are promised with it;
Matt. vi. 33. And therefore for it, must be desired and
sought.
And if your very food and life must be desired but for
this everlasting end, then it is still but one thing that is ne-
cessary, and finally to be desired. For the means is willed
but with an imperfect willing, because not for itself; and
that only hath our full and perfect love, which is loved for
itself. Even in the act of love unto the means, it is more
properly the end that is loved than the means, and the
means is chosen for that end. So that you see that for all
the necessity of creatures, and of diligence in our callings,
the truth is still clear, that it is only one thing that is truly
necessary.
V. Use 1. The understanding is the subservient faculty,
to let in that light, which may by direction and excitation,
guide the will. Having shewed you the truth, I am next to
shew you how you may improve it, and so to apply it, as
may best help you to apply it to yourselves.
And if I should here fall upon things impertinent, or
make it my work to tickle your ears, or exalt myself in your
esteem, by an unseasonable ostentation of learning or elo-
quence, or carry on any such corrupt design, while I should
faithfully do the work of God, my text itself w^ould openly
condemn me. If one thing be needful, it is that one that I
must do myself, while I am exhorting you to do it. And
woe be to^ me, if I should lay by that, to do any other unne-
cessary work, even to fish for the applause of carnal wits,
while my very subject is the reproofs of Christ against a
much more tolerable error.
And as to the manner of my admonition, if one thing be
needful, I hope you will allow me to be as plain and serious
as I can, about this one. And my first address to you shall
be for trial.
And I shall make it now my earnest request to you, that
you will bethink you how much you are concerned, to com-
pare your hearts and lives with this passage, and judge your-
selves by the word of God that is now before you. And for
your own sakes do it seriously and faithfully, as passengers
4(3 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
that are hasting to the great assize. What say your con-
sciences, sirs, to this question? Have you indeed lived in
the w^orld as men that believe that one thing is necessary ?
Hath this one had your chiefest care and labour, and have
you chosen rather to neglect all other things than this ?
Look behind you, and judge of the course that you have ta-
ken by the light of this one text. I do not ask you. Whether
you have heard that one thing is necessary ; nor whether you
have talked of it, and confessed it to be true ; nor whether
you have been called Christians by yourselves and others,
and have come to church, and forborne those sins that would
have most blemished your honour in the world. This is no-
thing to the question. Thus many thousands do, that were
never acquainted with the one thing necessary. Nor do I
ask you, Whether you have used to allow God half an hour's
lip-service, or formal, drowsy prayer at night, when you have
served the world and flesh all day ? Nor whether you have
been religious on the by, and given God some lean devotions
which cost you little, and which your flesh can spare without
any great diminution or detriment in its ease, and honour, and
profit, and sensual delights. Nor whether you run to some
kind of duties of religion, to make all whole, when you come
from wilful reigning sin ; and so make religion a fortress to
your lusts, to quiet your consciences while you serve the
flesh. I confess such a kind of religiousness as this, the
world is acquainted with. But this is unanswerable to the
rule before us.
But the question is. Whether this one thing hath been
the treasure and jewel of your estimation; the darling of
your affections ; the prize of your most diligent endeavours,
and the only felicity of your souls ?
Sirs, as lightly as you hear this question now, you will one
day find that your lives, yea your salvation, lieth upon your
answer to it. Can you truly say, as before the Searcher of
hearts, that it is he that hath had your hearts ? That this
one thing hath been more esteemed by you, than all the
world besides ? That other things have all stooped unto
this one, and served under it? And that this hath had the
stream of your most hearty affections, the drift of your en-
deavours, and hath been the matter that you have had first
to do, and the thing for which you have lived in the world ?
If this be not so, never talk of your Christianity for
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 47
Bhame. Your religion is vain, if this be not your religion.
Alas, I know that we have all of us yet too much of the flesh,
and are too cold in our affections, and too slow and uneven
in our endeavours for our end. But yet for all that 1 must
still tell you, (as I have often done because it is necessary)
that here lieth the diflference between the truly sanctified
soul, and all the hypocrites and half-Christians in the world.
Every true Christian is devoted unto God, and hath made a
hearty and absolute resignation of himself and all that he
hath unto him; and therefore loveth him with his superla-
tive, most appretiative love, and serveth him with the best
he hath, and thinks nothing too good or too dear for God,
and for the attainment of his everlasting rest. Christ hath
the chiefest room in his heart, and the bent and drift of his
life is for him. He studieth how he may best serve and
please him with his time, his interest, and all that he hath ;
and if he fall, as it is contrary to the habitual resolution of
his soul, and contrary to the scope and current of his heart
and life, so he riseth again by repentance with sorrow for
his 8in, and loathing of himself, and sincerely endeavours to
amend, and goeth on resolvedly in his holy course. This is
the state of every one that is in a state of life.
But for all hypocrites and half-Christians, their case is
otherwise. The world and flesh is dearest to them, and
highest in their practical estimation, though not in their
speculative ; and it hath their highest affections of love and
delight, and the very bent and stream of heart and life,
while God is served heartlessly on the by, for fear lest they
be damned when they can enjoy the world and sin no longer,
and is put off with the leavings of the flesh, and hath no
more of their hearts, their tongues, their time, their wealth,
than it can spare. They ask their flesh how far they shall
be religious, and will go no further than will stand with their
prosperity in the world. With the first and best they serve
the flesh, and with the cheapest and the refuse they serve
the Lord. When they go highest in their outside carnal re-
ligiousness, they go not beyond this hypocritical, reserved
state ; and usually, as Cain, they hate Abel for offering a
more acceptable sacrifice. God must take up with this from
them, or be without. They always serve him with this re-
serve, though it be not always explicit and discerned by them,
* Provided that it may go well with me in the world, and I
48 A SAINT OR A BHUTK.
may have some competent proportion of honour, profit or
pleasure, and rehgion may not expose me to be undone.' If
God will not take them on these terms (as most certainly he
never will), he must go look him other servants; and so he
will ; and make them know at last unto their sorrow, that he
needed not their service, but it was they that needed him,
and the benefits of his service.
I thought meet (though I have done it oft before) to give
you this diflference between the hypocrite and the sincere.
And now it is my earnest request unto you all, that you will
presently call your souls to an account, and know which of
these two courses you have taken ; and which of these two
is your own condition.
If nature had made you such strangers to yourselves, as
that you were unable to answer such a question, I would ne-
ver trouble you with it ; but I suppose by faithful inquiry,
you may know this much of yourselves, if you are but will-
ing. You know where it is that you have dwelt, and what it
is that you have been doing in the world, and you can review
the actions of your lives, though they have been of smaller
consequence. Why then may you not quickly know if you
will, so great a thing, as What hath been the end and busi-
ness for which you have lived in the world till now ? Have
you been running so long, and know not yet what is the
prize that you have run for ? Have you forgot the errand
that you have been so long going on? Have you been busy
all your days till now, and know not about what or why?
Certainly this is a thing that may be known, if you are willing
and diligent to know it. It is for one of these two that you
have lived ; for the world, or for God. To please your flesh,
or to please God and be saved. Either to make provision
for earth or heaven. Which of these is it? Deal plainly
with yourselves, for your salvation is deeply concerned in
the account.
Perhaps you will say, that it was for both ; for as you
have a soul and body, so you must look to both. Yea, but
so as one that knoweth, that one thing is needful. As your
body is but the prison, the case, the sei-vant, of your souls,
so it must be provided for and used but as a servant, and
maintained only in a fitness for its work. But the question
is. Which of them hath had the preeminence ? Which hath
had the life of your aflfections and endeavours. Which of
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 49
them was your end ; about which hath been the chief busi-
ness that you have most carefully and diligently carried on?
This is the great question.
You cannot have two masters, though you may have ma-
ny instruments and fellow-servants. You cannot accepta-
bly serve God, if you serve mammon. Every wicked man
may do something in religion, and every good man may do
something that is contrary to religion. A carnal man may
do something for God, and for his soul ; and a spiritual man
ought to do something subordinately for his body, and too
often, alas, doth something for it inordinately. But which
bears the sway? and which is first sought? and which comes
behind, and but the leavings of the other ?
" Be not deceived : God is not mocked. Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he reap. If you sow to the flesh, of
the flesh you shall reap corruption ; but if you sow to the
Spirit, of the Spirit shall you reap everlasting life;" Gal.vi.
7, 8. " Love not the world, nor the things that are in the
world (for themselves). For if any man love the world (with
his chiefest love), the love of the Father is not in him ;"
1 Johnii. 15. Is it not a wonder that any reasonable man
can be such a stranger to himself, as not to know what he
lives for, and what hath had his heart, and what hath been
the principal business of his life? Some by matters you
may easily forget or overlook ; but can you do so by your
end, which hath been your chiefest care and business ?
If indeed you no more know your own minds, nor what
you have all this while been doing in the world, ask those
that you have conversed with ; and judge by the effects and
signs. Others can tell what you have most seriously talked
of. They may conjecture by their observation, what you
have most carefully sought, and resolutely adhered to:
whether it be God or the flesh ; this world or heaven? The
one thing needful, or the many troubling trifles in your way.
It is like that wise and godly observers can help you to dis-
cern it ; though sensualists will but deceive you.
A man's love, at least his chiefest love, cannot be hid,
but will appear in his behaviour. If you love God above the
world, you will seek him and his glory before the world ;
and if you do so it may partly be discerned, if you have con-
versed with discerning men. Heaven and earth are not so
VOL. X. E
50 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
like, nor the way to each of them so like, but it may partly
be discerned which way men are going, and what they drive
at in their daily course.
But I will urge you no further to the trial. I will take
it for granted that your consciences are telling many of you,
that you have been troubled about many things, while the
one thing needful hath been neglected. And if indeed this
be your case, suffer me to tell the guilty plainly, what it is
that they have done.
1. Whatever you have been doing in the world, you have
lo^t your time, if you have not been seeking the one thing
necessary. If you have been gathering riches, or growing
up in honour as the rush groweth in the mire (Job viii. 11.),
or filling your purses or your barns, or pleasing your fancies
and flesh ; you have but fooled away your time, and done
just nothing, and much worse. Nothing is done, if the one
thing necessary be undone. Believe it, time is a precious
thing, and ought not to have been thus cast away. When
you come to the end of it, the worst and proudest of you
shall confess it is precious. Then, O for one year more ! O
for a few days or hours more, to make sure of this one thing
which you should have spent your lives in making sure of.
Will you then think thus, and yet can you now afford to
cast away twenty or thirty years upon nothing? If time be
worth nothing, your lives are worth nothing. And why
should a man desire to live for nothing ? You love your
lives too much, and yet will you so contemptuously cast
them away ? He hath lost his life, who hath lost the end of
his life. The loss of a hundred pounds in money is not (to
yourselves) so great a loss, as the loss of a day's or an hour's
time. What then is the loss of so many years? Did you
ever well consider of this ? If you live a thousand years, it
is all lost, if you have not spent it in making sure of the one
thing necessary. For is not that lost, and worse a thousand
times than lost, that is spent in crossing the end that it is
given for? and which is no comfort, but terror in the review,
and which leaveth no fruit, but grief and disappointment?
Let me tell you. If you hold on thus unto the end, you will
wish and wish a thousand times, either that you had never
had an hour's time, or else that you had had hearts, to have
better perceived the worth and use of it, than to cast it away
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 51
tas you have done upon nothing. It is but one thing that is
worth your time and lives.
2. Whatsoever else you have been doing, you have lost
all your labour with your time, if this one thing needful have
been neglected. No doubt you have been busy since you came
into the world ; but to little purpose. You might as well
have been idle, as so laboriously doing nothing. No doubt
many a journey you have rode and gone, and many a hard
day's labour you have taken, and sharpened perhaps with
care and grief. But you have lost it all, if it were a hun-
dred times more, if it have not been laid out upon the one
thing necessary.
And is it not a pitiful thing that men of reason, should
vex themselves, and toil their bodies, and suffer hunger, and
thirst, and weariness, and make such a stir and pudder in
the world, and all for nothing, and in a vain show ? How
many mornings have you risen to your labour, and how ma-
ny days and years have you spent in it, and now it is all lost!
How many thoughts and fears, and cares have possessed and
pestered your minds, and now they are all lost ! Some of you
have followed your trades, and some your husbandry, and
some have run up and down after recreations. Some of you
have been scraping riches, and some contriving to keep up
their reputation, and some to satisfy their appetites, and live
in pleasure and contentments to the flesh ; and now look
back upon all that you have done and gotten, and tell your-
selves whether all this be not lost, yea, alas ! much worse
than lost. If you be not ready to pass this conclusion at
the very heart, it is because your hearts are yet blinded and
hardened in sin ; but God will soon bring that to your hearts
that shall convince you of it. If God have made use of any
worldly, sensual person of you, for public good, of church
or state, as men do of thorns for hedging to their lands, or
of briars to stop a gap, or of firewood to warm their family ;
yet as to any durable benefit to yourselves, I may well say
that all your labour is lost.
And this is not all ; but the pains also that you have ta-
ken in your formal, hypocritical religion, your hearing, read-
ing, receiving sacraments, and pretended prayer, all the
thoughts that ever you had of death, and judgment, and the
life to come, and all that you have done with reservations
and by halves for youf own salvation, this also is all lost.
52
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Except as a less measure of misery may go for gain. If you
miss of the one thing necessary, you do but lose your labour,
whatever else you seem to gain.
A great stir you make in seeking for preferment, or do-
minion over others, or about your lands, your honours, or
your delights ; so great that your neighbours can scarce live
quietly by you ; and the kingdom cannot be quiet for some
of you, nor your own consciences be quiet within you for
the desperate work that you engage them in, which they
know must be heard of another day. And when all is done
you will find you have been but hunting of a feather. You
would see this now if God would open your eyes by grace.
But if you miss of so seasonable an information, you will see
it too late in the land of darkness. When death hath open-
ed your eyes, and your impenitent souls do suddenly awake
in another world, you will understand that you made all this
stir but in your sleep. As busily and seriously as you act-
ed the part of lords and ladies, of gentlemen, tradesmen, or
husbandmen in the world, if you did not seriously and first
do the work of true believers for the world to come, you will
then find too late that your labour is lost, and all was acted
but as in a dream.
Do you believe this now, or do you not? If you do, will
you yet go on ? If you do not believe it, shew me now what
you have gotten by all this stir that you have made in the
world, that will follow you one step further than the grave,
and that you can say shall be your own to-morrow ? If you
were to die this hour, will it be any lasting comfort to you,
that you have laboured to be rich or honourable, or that you
have attained it ? or that you had your glut of sensual de-
lights ; and a merry life as to the fleshly pleasure as long as
it would last ? Will you die the more comfortably for any
of this ? or much the less ? That yet you are alive, is the
great mercy of God, and not to be ascribed to any of these.
And when you cease to live, then these will be your grief
and torment.
Beloved hearers, I have no desire, the Lord knows, to
discompose your minds, or to disquiet you with any molest-
ing, unnecessary scruples ; nor causelessly to dishonour either
you or your employments. But I must needs say that it is
a doleful case, that men in their wits should spend a life of
precious time, and also a great deal of care and labour, in
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 5;3
doing nothing, and much worse than nothing, when they
have a work of everlasting consequence to do, and they
know that the devil's chiefest hopes do consist in the suc-
cess of these diversions ! I must seriously profess to
you, that I am constrained by the word and teachings of
God, and by undeniable reason itself, to look upon all the
labour of your lives, the highest, and the busiest, but as the
picking of straws, of playing with a feather, or riding upon
a staff or a hobby-horse, or such like actions as children,
fools, or madmen use, as long as you mind not, and seek not
after the one thing necessary. Whatever they may be to
others, they are no wiser or better to yourselves. This is my
judgment; yea, this is the judgment of the Spirit of God;
Phil. iii. 8. If Paul was not mistaken, your gain itself is to
be accounted loss, and all but dung, in comparison of the
knowing and winning of Christ, that you might be found
in him, and have his righteousness. Think not the name
of dung too base, which God himself hath written here upon
your highest endowments and honours, by his Spirit. And
indeed what will they all do more than dung to procure you
the favour of God, or the pardon of your sins ? If you offer
him gold, will it do any more than if you offered him so
much dirt ? Is not the prayer of a beggar heard as soon as
of a lord or gentleman? If they would do any thing to buy
you peace of conscience, or everlasting life, or if they would
but keep you alive on earth, I should not marvel at your
course. But when they will do none of this, but make your
way to heaven more difficult, yea, your salvation a thing im-
possible while you thus live after the flesh (Rom. viii. 13. X
how then can any easier sentence be passed upon your
choice? Be you the greatest or the wisest in your own es-
teem, or in the esteem of others of your mind, I believe, yea,
I am sure, that you are all this while but laboriously idle,
and honourably debasing yourselves, and delightfully tor-
menting yourselves, and wisely befooling yourselves, and
thriftily undoing yourselves for ever. I have reason to say
that your rising, and honourable, and voluptuous employ-
ments, are not only like children's play in the sand, and
making them houses with sticks and stones ; but so much
more pitiful, as the reason which you abuse exceedeth theirs*
And could you all attain to be lords and ladies, I should
look upon you but as a king or queen upon a chess-board, as
54 A SAINT OR A iJRUTE,
to any felicity that it bringeth to yourselves ; whatsoever
U9e the overruling providence of God may make of you for
his churches. The wise merchant is he that seeking pearls
doth find this one of greatest price, and selleth all that he
hath and buyeth it ^ even all the worldly treasures which
you so highly value ; Matt. xiii. 45,46. There is more true
riches in this one pearl, than in a thousand loads of sand or
dirt If you will load yourselves with mire and clay, con-
ceiting it to be your treasure, your back will he broken be-
fore you will have enough to make you rich.
O sirs, with what eyes, with what hearts do you use
to read such passages of Christ that speak so plainly to you,
as if he named you, and so piercingly as one, would think
should make you feel, Luke xiii. 19 — 21. " Soul, thou hast
much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat,
drink, and be merry. But God said to him. Thou fool, this
night shall thy soul be required of thee ; and then whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided ? So is he
that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not ricli towards
God." Would you have Christ speak plainer to you ; or
more closely apply it, that you may perceive he speaks to
you ? You have lost all the labour of your lives ; but that
is not all.
3. But furthermore consider, that if the one thing need-
ful have been neglected, whatever else you have been doing
or whatever you have got (unless as preparatory to this), you
have not only lost your labour, but you have all this while
been busily undoing yourselves, and labouring for your own
perdition.
If it were but the loss of your time and labour, you would
then die but as brutes, and be as if you had never been ; and
to those that have brutified themselves, this will seem more
tolerable, than to live in holiness to God. But alas, you
have done much worse than this ! You have not only been
digging your own graves, but barring up against yourselves
the doors of heaven, and kindling the unquenchable fire to
torment you ; Mark ix. 4.
I beseech you give me a considerate hearing, you ambi-
tious gentlemen, you covetous worldlings, and you that
»erve your lusts and pleasures ! Do you think you had been
doing the work of wise men, if you had all this while been
burning your own fingers, or cutting your own flesh, or set-
A SAINT OR A BRUTK. 56
ting your own or your neighbours* houses on fire ,' What
would you have us call that man that would live in such em-
ployments as these, and yet would be accounted wise or ho-
nourable? Do I need to tell thee, as Nathan did David,
that " thou art the man ?" Do I need in so plain a case to
tell you, that you have been doing worse (I speak not rash-
ly), a thousand times worse against your souls, than this
would have been which is supposed to be only against your
bodies ? Alas ! self-destroyers, what do you mean ? Did
God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle
and blow the tire of his wrath, and fall into it when yon have
kindled it ? Have you no better work in the world to do,
than to prepare yourselves a place in hell, and with a great
deal of care, and cost, and stir, to labour for damnation, as
if you were afraid of losing it?
I know you will say, * God forbid, we hope better, we in-
tend no such thing.' But alas, the question is not. What
you intend, but what you are doing ? Not whether it be
your desire that everlasting death should be the wages of
sin, but whether it be the law and unchangeable will of God?
Rom. vi. 23. If you seek not first God's kingdom and his
righteousness, and look not after the one thing needful, with
your chiefest estimation, resolution, and endeavour, as sure
as Christ is true, this will prove your case at last, though
now you wink, and wilfully go on, and will not believe it.
As sure as the Gospel is true, this is true. There are but
two ends, heaven and hell ; and if you miss the former, you
fall into the latter. ** If you live after the flesh, you shall
die," whatever you imagine ; and you must " mortify the
deeds of the flesh by the Spirit," if you "will live ;" Rom.
viii. 13. If you see a man cutting his own throat, and you
ask him, ' What are you doing, man? — will you kill your-
self ?' and he answereth you, * No, God forbid ; I have no
such meaning ; I will hope better ;* would you think that
this would save his life ? or that his hopes and meanings
would prove him ever the wiser man ? I tell you, from the
word of God, it is one of the plainest truths that is there
contained, that if you value not, choose not, and seek not
the one thing needful above all other things whatsoever, you
are all this while but sowing the seeds of endless misery,
whose fruit you must reap in ** outer darkness, where will be
weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth ;" Matt. xiii.
56 A SAINT OK A BRUTi:.
42.50. You are " treasuring up wrath against the day of
wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
who will give to every man according to his works ;" Rom.
ii. 5, 6. You are sowing in pleasure to the flesh, in eating .
and drinking, and mirth, and honour ; but you shall reap
in corruption, lamentation, and woe ; Gal.vi. 7, 8. ** For
woe to you that now laugh, for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you that are rich (and have no better, but want the
everlasting riches), for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you that are full (and yet are empty of Christ and
grace), for you shall hunger i" Luke vi. 24,25. These are
the words of Christ himself, and therefore true if Christ be
true.
Yea, more than this ; let me have leave to tell you, (for
why should I not tell you of your greatest folly, and that
which is necessary for you to know?) as long as you
neglect the one thing necessary, you are acting the part of
■ the most deadly enemies against yourselves. No enemy
that you have in all the world, could do that against you, as
you do against yourselves. You abhor the devil ; and I
blame you not ; for his malice and enmity deserveth it : but
you do much worse against yourselves than the devil him-
self could ever do. To tempt you to sin is not so much as
to consent to it and commit it. He can but entice you, and
constrain you. It is you that are the neglecters of your
Maker and Redeemer, and the wilful rejecters of your own
felicity. Satan doth bad enough against you by temptation,
but you do worse by yielding and sinning ; much worse than
all the devils in hell could do against you. For God hath
not given all of them so much power over you, as he hath
given you over yourselves.
Lord, what a distracted case is the ungodly world in ! *
They hate any man else that they do but imagine is their
enemy ! Though he do but diminish their worldly wealth
or honour, they cannot forgive him. If a man give one of
them a box on the ear he cannot bear it. And as for the de-
vil, who is the common enemy, they spit at his name, and
think they bless themselves from him. And yet these same
men do spend all their care, and time, and labour, in doing
more against themselves, than all their enemies could do in
earth or hell ; and are worse than devils to themselves ; and
yet they never fall out with themselves for it ; but can for-
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 57
give themselves as easily as if they did themselves no harm.
This is true, too true, sirs, as harsh as it seemeth to your
ears. And if it displease you to hear of it, bethink your-
selves what it is to do it ; and how God and all wise men
must judge of you that have no more mercy on yourselves.
Certainly it is much worse to do it, than to tell you what
you do. God tells men of their sin, and God doth nothing
but what is good ; but it is themselves only that commit it.
I beseech you do but understand what you are doing, as long
as the one thing necessary is neglected by you.
4. Consider also, that whatsoever else you have been do-
ing in the world, if you have not done the one thing need-
ful, you have unmanned yourselves, and lived below your
reason, and in plain English, you have lived as besides your
wits.
I give you no harder language than God himself hath
frequently given you in his word, and than you will shortly
give yourselves, if you repent not; yea, and sooner if you
do repent. If you have (in this) the use of your reason,
you must needs know what you have your reason for. And
I beseech you tell me for what you have it, if not to serve
and please your Maker, and prepare for your everlasting-
state ? Is it only that you may know how to plough and
sow, and follow your trades and pleasures in the world, and
satisfy your flesh a little while, and then die as the beasts
that perish ? None of you, I suppose will say so, that calls
himself a Christian. If God had made you for no higher
things than beasts, he would have given you no higher fa-
culties and endowments. As they be not made to enjoy
God, so they have no knowledge of him ; he sendeth not his
word to them, and calleth them not to learn the knowledge
of his will. But you know, or may know, that there is a
God, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him ; and are capable of loving him, attending him, and
serving him, and therefore of enjoying him. Beasts are not
ruled by the hopes and fears of a life after this. For their
nature and end do not require it. But men must be thus
ruled, or else there can be no sufficient ruling of them, in an
ordinary way : which shews that the nature of men is ca-
pable of the things which are the matter of their hopes and
fears.
Verily, sirs, 1 think as to any good that cometh by it.
58 A SAINT OR A IJRUTE.
there is very little difference between having reason, and
having none, if we had nothing to do with it, but cunningly
to lay up our food, and make provision for this corruptible
flesh, and had not another life to mind. It were no such
great difference, in my opinion, as it commonly goes for,
whether we were men or dogs, if it were only for the matters
of this transitory life. For though I may not deny but yet
man were the nobler creature, yet alas the difference would
be but gradual and small, as an ape or dog excels a swine.
And as to his happiness, it is doubtful whether man would
not have the worst of it. For as brutes have not man's
knowledge, so they have not his toil and trouble of mind,
his care, and fear, and griefs, and disappointments. Nor
have they so terrible forethoughts of death through all their
lives, as man must have, much less such fears of what w ould
follow after death.
And therefore I may boldly say, that you have thrown
away your wits, and laid by your reason as to the principal
use of it, if you have forgot, or have not chiefly sought the
one thing necessary. Where were your wits when a lump
of flesh was preferred before immortal souls ? and when the
trouble and dung of a transitory world, was more esteemed
than God and endless glory ? Where were your wits when
you might have had Christ, and life in him, and his pardon-
ing, healing, sanctifying grace, and you had no mind of him,
and were not sensible of your necessity, and passed him by
with as much neglect, as if you could have been saved with-
out him ? When you might long ago have made sure of
heaven ; and now you are even ready to drop into hell, and
stay but for a fever, or consumption, or some other disease
to cut the thread, and turn the key, unless a speedy, sound
conversion shall yet prevent it. What have you done in all
your lifetime that should make a wise man judge you rea-
sonable ? Is that your reason to be ' Penny wise and pound
foolish ;' to be wise to do evil, and to have no knowledge to
do good? Jer. iv.22. To run up and down for I know not
what, and to leave that undone that you were created and
redeemed for? Can you think that it is reasonable to make
such ado for the air of dying men's applause, and to be well
thought of, or to live like gentlemen, or to the contentment
of a fleshly mind, when you know that you are just ready to
pass out of this world into an endless life of joy or torment.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 61>
(yea, certainly of torment, it' you thus hold on) t Where ah
these things will afford you no relief or benefit ; but the me-
mory of your course will be the fuel of your misery. Can
that man be wise that damns his soul ? Can he deserve the
name of a sober man, that will sell his salvation for so short,
so small, so filthy a pleasure as sin affordeth ? Is he worthy
the name or reputation of a wise man, that hath not wit
enough to escape eternal fire ? nor wit enough to forbear
laying hands upon himself, and doing all this against his
own soul ? What think you, is not the case plain enough ?
Be not offended if I speak yet plainer to you ; for in a
case so lamentable, how can we be too plain or serious ?
Suppose you knew a prince or lord, that had an itch upon
him, which the physician offereth speedily and easily to
cure ; but he hath so much pleasure in scratching, that he
doth not only refuse the cure, lest it deprive him of his de-
light, but he will give his kingdom or lordship to one that
will scratch him but a little while, though he be sure to live
a beggar after, all his days. I put it to yourselves. What
name you would give this man, or what esteem you would
have of him. Do you think that any ungodly, worldly per-
son is wiser than this man ? Alas, their case is so much
worse, that thepe is no comparison. They are more foolish
than your hearts can now conceive, or than I am able fully
to express. You have now the itch of pride and lust; and
your throats must be pleased in your meats and drinks; and
you itch after riches, and honour, and recreations ; and
Christ telleth you by his word, that these are but your sick
desires, and that the pleasing of them tends to kill you ;
and he offereth you for nothing a safe, and certain, and spee-
dy cure. But you refuse it, and will not hearken to him.
You must be scratched, whatever it cost you. You must
have your riches, and honour, and fleshly pleasure, as the
felicity which you cannot part with, though it cost you your
salvation. Though God be neglected, and his favour lost,,
and your souls be lost, and the one thing needful cast aside,
you must have your carnal imaginations gratified. And is
this your wisdom ? The Lord bless us from such a kind of
wisdom.
Yet this is not the worst. I will shew you one strain more
of the distraction of the ungodly world. If these men do but
see one person of a hundred that are more diligent for hea-
60 A SAINT OR A BKUTE,
ven than earth, to fall into melancholy, or distress of soul ;
or suppose it were into some loss of reason, they presently
cry out against religion, and strictness, and preciseness, and
making so much ado to be saved ; and say it is the way to
make men mad. Hence comes the proverb of the Papists
(* Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus') ; and of
the profane among ourselves, that ' A Puritan is a Protes-
tant frightened out of his wits.' They dare not study the
Scripture so much, nor meddle with such high matters as
their salvation, nor* be so godly, nor meditate on the world
to come, lest it should drive them out of their wits. O mi-
serable men ! As if it were possible for you to be more dan-
gerously mad than you are already ! (Unless by growing
unto greater wickedness !) Do you lay out your wit, and
strength, and time in feeding a corruptible body for the
grave, and spend your lives in running after your own sha-
dows, while your everlasting life is forgotten or neglected ?
Do you sell your Saviour with Judas for a little money ; and
change your part in God and glory, for the brutish pleasures
of sin for a season ? And are you afraid of altering this
course of life, and turning to God, lest it should make you
mad ? Lord, what a besotting thing is sin ! What a cunning
cheater is the devil ! What a deluded, distracted sort of
people are the ungodly ! Will you run from God, from
Christ, from grace, from mercy, from Scripture, from the
godly, and from heaven itself for fear of being mad ? Why
what greater madness can you fear than this ? What worse
is human nature capable of? Unless it be the addition of a
further measure of the same, and unless it be to hold on in
that way, and persecute the contrary with such like aggrava-
tions of your madness, I know not of any worse that you
should fear. Will you run to hell to prove yourselves to be
in your wits ? Again I say, the Lord bless us from such
a kind of wit. Nay, hell itself hath no such distractedness
as yours. The difference between the one thing needful,
and your many things, is there better, though too late, un-
derstood ! Is loving God the way to be mad ? and loving
the world and fleshly pleasures the way to be wise ? Is con-
versing with God in humble prayer, and believing his love,
and loving him, and delighting in him, and speaking of his
name, and word, and works unto his praise, and hoping to
live with him for ever, 1 say is this (which is the work of a
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 61
believer) a liker course to make men mad, than serving the
devil, and drudging in the world, and living under the curse
of God, and in continual danger of damnation ? What men
are they that dare entertain such horrid, and unreasonable
suggestions ?
I confess we are not unacquainted with the sadness and
melancholy that some persons have contracted by religious
employments ; and perhaps one of a thousand may lose their
wits. But I must tell you all these following points, that
will shew you that religion is not to be blamed for it, nor
avoided.
1. It is ordinarily persons of the weaker sex, or of very
weak brains, and very strong passions, that are naturally in-
clined to it, and are not able to bear any long and serious
thoughts, about matters of that moment, which are apt to
make the deepest impressions. But persons that naturally
are of sound and calm dispositions, are seldom troubled with
any such effects.
2. It is usually the case of persons that mistake the na-
ture of religion, though not in the main, yet in some parti-
culars of great concernment ; that study not sufficiently
the love of God declared to us in our Redeemer, but feed
their grief and troubles only by the thoughts of their own
infirmities , and that consider not that the chief part of reli-
gion doth consist in love, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and in
thanksgiving and delightful praising our Creator. So that
it is not long of religion if men will leave out the chief part
of religion, and make themselves a religion of so much only
as may break their troubles.
3. And I must further tell you, that as I have had oppor-
tunity of knowing the state of as many troubled, distemper-
ed minds as any one of you, whoever he be ; so I must needs
bear witness, that I have met with many that have been dis-
tracted by worldly cares, or sorrows, or discontents, for one
that ever I knew distracted with the cares about the matter
of their salvation. And yet though it be worldly care and
sorrow that most commonly bringeth death and madness,
you will not therefore give over your callings, and resolve
that you will meddle no more with meat, or drink, or clothes,
or houses, or lands, or friends, or children. Nay, it were
well if you would be brought to moderation, and taken off
your inordinate desires.
62 A SAINT OK A BRUTi?.
And yet in the conclusion I must tell you, that, though
i know that the loss of a man's understanding is a very
grievous affliction, and such as I hope God will never lay
upon me, yet I had a thousand times rather go distracted to
Bedlam with the excessive care about my salvation, than
be one of you that cast away the care of your salvation for
fear o( being distracted, and will go among the infernal
Bedlams into hell for fear of being mad. The height of your
carnal wisdom is more deplorable than their distraction.
For God will condemn no man because he is distracted, nor
so much as blame him for it, unless as it is the fruit of sin,
no more than he will condemn or blame an idiot or a beast
because they have no use of reason. If David had been
what he feigned himself to be, (1 Sam. xxi. 13, 14.) it would
not have cast him out of God's favour, so far as one sin
did, much less so far as the ungodly are. A man may go to
heaven for such a madness. But you that have reason for the
world, but none for God ; that are wise to do evil, that have
wit to destroy yourselves, and serve the flesh, but none to
look after your recovery and salvation ; it is you that shall
have the stripes, the many, the great, the endless stripes.
You that have so much wit as that you glory in it, and think
yourselves wiser than the rest of the world, and yet have not
wit to know, and love, and serve your Maker ; nor to value
and seek first the one thing necessary, it is you that will
prove the miserable fools.
If you had not a natural capacity of understanding, you
had had no sin. But now you have no cloak for your sin,
when you have the worldly wisdom, which is foolishness with
God, and have a sinning, selfdestroying wit, and are wilful-
ly void of the wisdom that should save you (1 Cor. i. 25.
iii. 19. Jer. viii.9.), when you have not a necessitated, but
a voluntary distraction ; and " this is your condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and you have loved dark-
ness rather than light, because your deeds were evil ;" John
iii. 19.
If you think this wilful and senseless neglect of the one
thing needful is not a sufficient evidence to prove that mi-
serable distraction which I charge upon yon, will you but
believe your Maker, and let the word of God be judge be-
tween us, and mark what language it giveth to such as I
now describe, 2 Thess. iii. 2. Jer. iv. 22. Eccles. vii. 25.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 6B
2 Pet. ii. 12. Psal. xcii. 6. xciv. 8. Jer. x. 8. 14. Deut.
xxxii. 6. Psal. Ixxiii. 3. 22. 2 Sam. xiv. 10. In these
places your course hath no better titles, than * unreasona-
ble, foolish, brutish, sottish,' &c. even from the God of wis-
dom himself, who is the fittest to give you the character
that you deserve. When you have truly considered of your
way, if indeed you find that you have dealt like wise men,
hold on and say so at the last, when you have eaten the fruit
of your doing, and have seen the end.
5. Furthermore consider, that whatever else you have
been doing in the world, if the one thing necessary be yet
undone, you have lost and abused all the mercies that God
hath bestowed on you. Many a thousand precious mercies
have been given you. And to what use, but to help you to
everlasting mercy, and to prevent your everlasting misery !
This is the end, and this is the life and excellency of all your
mercies. For all present mercies have the nature of a means
to a further end. And the goodness and nature of the means
consisteth in its fitness to promote the end. And therefore
you have lost all the mercies that you have received, if you
are never the nearer your end for them, and if they have not
promoted the love of God, and your salvation. You have
had health, and strength, and time, and peace, and liberty,
and some of you also wealth and honour in the world. But
you have lost them all, if your salvation be not furthered by
them. Many a preservation you have had, when others have
been cut off before your faces ; and many a deliverance from
dangers known or unknown, and much of the fruit of that
patience of God, which hath till now attended you in your
sin. Many a sermon you have heard, and many a warning
you have had, and you have been planted in God's vineyard,
and daily watered with the ordinances of grace. But all
these are lost, if the one thing necessary hath been neglect-
ed. Nothing in this world doth you good indeed, any fur-
ther than it promoteth your everlasting good. And do you
think that you have dealt kindly or justly with God, to deal
so contemptuously with all his mercies, as to cast them
away, and tread them under foot ? When you want but food,
or raiment, or liberty, or health, you value them and pray
for them; and when you have them what do you do with
them, but throw them as in the channel, and sacrifice them
to your lusts and enemies ? When death looketh you in the
64 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
face, you begin to know the worth of time, and then, O what
would you not orive for a little more, and that God would try
you a few years longer. And when you have time, what do
you with it, but serve the devil, and cast it away for nothing,
and spend it in preparing for everlasting sorrows ! How can
you for shame cry to God for mercy in your next distress,
when you have contemptuously thrown away the mercies of
twenty, or thirty, or forty years already. If your own chil-
dren should ask you for meat or drink, and when they have
it should throw it to the dogs ; or ask you for money, and
cast it into the dirt, and do thus a hundred and a hundred
times over, would you go on to give it them because they
cry for it ?
O sirs, that you could but use your reason in the matters
for which it was given you by your Maker ! Either time
and mercy is worth something, or nothing ! If it be worth
nothing, never beg for it, and never be sad when it is taken
from you. Why make you such a stir for that which is no-
thing worth ? (1 mean your corporal mercies, for spiritual
merqies you can be too well content to be without.) But if
they be worth any thing, why do you cast them away, and
make no better use of them? What good do you with them?
or what good do they do you ? Believe it, sinners, God
doth not despise his mercies as you do. He will not always
give you meat, and drink, and health, and strength, and life
to play with, and do nothing with. He will teach you bet-
ter to value them before he hath done with you. Not that
he thinks them too good for you, but he would have them
be better to you than you will let them be. Ho would have
every bit you eat, to be used to strengthen you in your walk
to heaven, and every hour of your time to help you towards
eternal happiness, and every present mercy to further your
everlasting mercy ; that so by the improvement their value
might be advanced, and they may be mercies indeed to you.
Be ruled by God, and you shall receive more in one mercy,
than you do now in a thousand. But if you will do nothing
with them, blame him not if he take them from you, and leave
you destitute of what you knew not how to use.
^i^y* your sin is greater than merely to cast away your
mercies. You do not only lose them, but turn them all into
a curse, and undo your souls with that which is given for
the SMStentation of your bodies. While you know no bet-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 65
ter use of mercies, than to please your senses, and accom-
modate your flesh, and forget the one thing needful, which
is the end of all, you turn them all into sin, and fight against
God by them, and strengthen his enemy and your own, and
block up your way to heaven by them, and treasure up wrath
for the dreadful day, when your wealth shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire ;Jas. v. 1 — 3.
Rom. ii. 5. You contemptuously cast that bread to dogs, which
he giveth you to supply your own necessities. You treacher-
ously carry over his provision to the enemy. Consider this,
you that say you hope to be saved, because God is merciful.
You have found indeed that God is merciful, by large expe-
rience. But if you do not learn, and quickly learn to make
a better use of his mercies, abused mercy will prove your
everlasting misery. O what a reckoning will you have !
What a load to press you down to hell ! Unless you would
have used them better, it had been easier for you, if these
temporal mercies had been denied you. Can that man look
to be saved by mercy, that would not be entreated to con-
sent that mercy should save him in the day of salvation ; in the
accepted time ; but served the devil with those very mercies
that would have saved him ? God sendeth you his mercies
to kill your sins, and sanctify you, and engage you to him-
self; and if you will feed your sins with them, and make
them your idols, and forsake God for them, and be false to
him, to your covenant, and your duty, and neglect that one
thing for which he gave them to you, you do not only lose
them but turn them to a curse. And alas, poor sinners,
what will you have to fly to, to trust in, or to comfort you,
when mercy abused hath not only forsaken you, but falls
upon you as a mountain, and feedeth your aggravated, end-
less misery ?
6. Moreover, whilst you neglect the one thing necessary
you neglect Christ himself, and reject the saving benefit of
his bloodshed, and refuse the healing work of his Spirit, and
the precious benefits which he hath offered you in the Gos-
pel. And how can you escape if you neglect so great sal-
vation ? Heb. ii. 3. How will you be saved when you refuse
the only Saviour ? There is indeed enough in Christ to heal
and save the humbled soul, that thirsteth for his righteous-
ness and salvation, and valueth and seeketh him as a Sa-
VOL. X. F
66 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
viour; and if you would thus come to him, you might have
life: John V. 40. But while you give yourselves to please
the flesh, and follow the world, and look so little after Christ,
or after the ends and benefits of his sufferings and grace,
Christ is as no Christ to you ; and grace is as no grace to
you ; and the Gospel is as no Gospel to you ; and you will
be never the more saved, than if there had no Saviour ever
come into the world, or there had never grace been given to
the world, or there had never been promise made, or Gospel
preached to the world. For Christ will not save them that
continue to neglect him, and set light by all the mercy that
he ofFereth, and the salvation which he hath purchased, and
do not esteem and use him as a Saviour, and cannot find
enough in God and glory, to take off their hearts from the
pleasures and idols of the flesh. If Christ " would have ga-
thered you as a hen gathereth her chickens imder her wings
and you would not" (Matt, xxiii. 37.), you will be as far from
being saved by him, as if you had never heard of his name.
And yet that is not all : if you prevent it not by true
conversion, you will wish a thousand and a thousand times
that this were all. But there is worse than this ; for Christ
will not leave a man of you as he finds you. If you are so
far in love with worldly wealth and fleshly pleasure, that you
can taste no sweetness in his grace, and see no desirable
glory in his kingdom, he will make you taste the bitterness
of his wrath, and feel the w^eight of his severest justice. The
most compassionate Saviour is the most dreadful Judge to
those that will not be saved by his grace. It will be easier
for Sodom and Gomorrah' in the day of judgment, than for
those that were the obstinate refusers of his Gospel ; Matt,
vi. 11, 12. " He that despised Moses' law, died without
mercy, under two or three witnesses ; of how much sorer
punishment shall he be thought worthy, that hath trodden
underfoot the Son of God?" Heb.x.28,29. " See therefore
that ye refuse not him that speaketh : for if they escaped not
that refused him that spake on earth, how much more shall
not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from
heaven?" Heb. xii. 23.
7. As long as you neglect the one thing needful, what-
ever good conceits of yourselves you have entertained, and
whatever hopes, or peace, or comfort you have built upon
those conceits, they are all but mere delusions, and irrational,
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 67
like the laughter oC a madman, that is no comfort to the
slanders by, who know that it is but the fruit of his distem-
per, and maketh him an object of more compassion. What
wisdom is it to look high and carry it gallantly in the world,
when you know not but vengeance may overtake you the
next hour ? Alas man, thou hast to do with God ! Though
thou see him not, it is he that upholds thee, and observeth
thee, and looketh for love and duty from thee, and will be
glorified by thee, or thou shalt dearly answer it. God will
not be neglected and abused at so cheap a rate as sottish
infidels imagine ; " He despisetli thee, if thou despise him ;*'
(1 Sam. ii. 20.) and thou despisest him if thou despise his
messengers, and word, and ways ; Luke x. 16. 1 Thess. iv. 8.
And if God despise thee, what honour is it to thee to be
stout-hearted and high in thy own conceit, and to live ap-
plauded by thyself and others ? Think of yourselves as well
as you will, God counteth you worse than the basest brutes,
as long as you make yourselves so by neglecting the one
thing for which you have your reason. When you swagger
it out in the world, you do but gingle your fetters, and glory
in your shame ; Phil. iii. 18, 19. While fools admire you,
God abhorreth you ; he '* laugheth you to scorn, and hath
you in derision," as he expresseth himself after the manner
of men ; Prov. i. 26 — 28. Psalm ii. 4. When you are
proud of your riches, or honour, with such as yourselves,
you are but proud of the bonds of your captivity ; 2 Tim.
ii. 26. Though you live as carelessly and merrily, and laugh
as heartily, and sport yourselves as fearlessly as if all were
safe, and nothing ailed you, yet your mirth is but your mad-
ness ; (Eccles. vii. 4. 6. ii. 2.) and God seeth that your day
(a woful day) is coming, (Psal. xxxvii. 13.) ; and you know
not but you may the next hour be tormented in hell, that
this hour are so pleasant and confident on earth. And is this
a desirable or rational kind of mirth ? Did you but now
foresee the end, did you see what you must see, or feel a
little of what you must feel, you would presently be far from
mirth or laughter ; it would spoil your sport, and turn your
tune to doleful lamentations. O short, unsatisfactory plea-
sure ! O endless, easeless woe, how quickly wilt thou sur-
prise them that little dream of such a change ! You say re-
ligion is a melancholy thing ; but verily your condition is so
much worse than melancholy, that it may make a man me*
08 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
lancholy to think of men in so sad a case. If any thing in
the world will make a man melancholy, methinks it should
be to stand in your unhappy state, and thence to look into
eternity, and to think of your enmity to heaven, and that you
have no part in Christ, no title to his kingdom ; and to think
what haste you are making to your infernal home, and how
fast the wheels of night and day do hurry your unprepared
souls to judgment, and that your "judgment lingereth not,
and your damnation slumbereth not," as the Holy Ghost
speaketh ; 2 Pet. ii. 3. Whether you sleep or wake, be sure
it sleepeth not. In a word, to neglect the one thing need-
ful, is to neglect heaven itself and your salvation ; to neg-
lect heaven is to lose it ; and lose heaven and lose all. And
what comfort can the forethoughts of life everlasting afford
a soul in a state of sin, that is passing to everlasting misery ?
And what comfort can any thing in this transitory life afford
that man, that hath no matter of comfort in the life to come,
yea, that must there live in endless sorrows ? O let me not
taste of that frantic and unreasonable mirth, that tendeth
to such heaviness, and driveth away those wise, recovering
thoughts that are necessary to prevent it I For the Lord's
sake, and for your soul's sake, all you that neglect the one
thing needful, will you but search the Scriptures, and soberly
consider whether all this be not certain truth ; and if it be,
how it should affect you, and what a change in reason it
should make upon you ! I have done with this Use. If you
have taken a survey of your own hearts and lives, will you
next, for the exercising of your compassion, look a little
further.
Use 2. If one thing be needful, and the neglect of this be
so unreasonable, so unmanly, and so dangerous as we have
seen it proved, then what an object of compassion and la-
mentation is the distracted world ! Look upon this text of
Scripture, and look also upon the course of the earth, and
consider of the disagreement, and whether it be not still as
before the flood, that all the imaginations of man's heart are
evil continually ; Gen. vi. 7. Were it but possible for a man
to see the affections and motions of all the world at once, as
God seeth them, what a pitiful sight would it be ! What a
stir do they make, alas poor fools, for they know not what !
while they forget, or slight, or hate the one thing necessary.
What a heap of gadding ants should we see, that do nothing
A SAINT OK A BKUTE. 69
but gather sticks and straws ! Look among persons of eve-
ry rank, in cities and country, and look into the families
about you, and see what trade it is that they are most busily
driving on, whether it be for heaven or earth ! and whether
you can discern by their care and labours that they under-
stand what is the one thing necessary ? They are as busy as
bees, but not for honey, but in spinning such a spider's web,
as the besom of death will presently sweep down ; Jobviii.
14. They labour hard ; but for what ? for the food thatperish-
eth, and not for that which will endure to everlasting life ;
John vi.27. They are diligent seekers ; but for what? Not
first for God, his kingdom and righteousness ; but for that
which they might have had as an addition to their blessed-
ness ; Matt. vi. 33. They are still doing ; but what are they
doing ? even undoing themselves by running away from God,
to hunt after the perishing pleasures of the world. Instead
of providing for the life to come, they are making provision
for the flesh to fulfil its lusts ; Rom. xiii. 14. Some of them
hear the word of God ; but they choke it presently by the
deceitfulness of riches, and the cares of this life; Lukeviii.
14. They are careful and troubled about many things ; but
the one thing that should be all to them, is cast by as if it
were nothing. Providing for the flesh and minding the
world, is the employment of their lives. They trouble them-
selves with it, and trouble their families, and their nearest
relations, and ofttimes trouble the whole town or place
where they live ; so that unless we will let them have their
bone to themselves, and give them our cloak when they
have taken our coat, and say as Mephibosheth ' Let
him take all,' there is no living quietly by them. A dog at
his carrion, or a swine in his trough, is not more greedy than
many of these sensualists, that labour of the ' Caninus appe-
titus' to their trash. But to holiness they have no appetite,
and are worse than indifferent to the things that are indeed
desirable. They have no covetousness for the things that
they are commanded earnestly to covet; They have so
little hunger and thirst after righteousness, that a very lit-
tle or none will satisfy them. Here they are pleading al-
ways for moderation, and against too much, and too earnest,
and too long. And all is too much for them that is above
stark naught, or dead hypocrisy ; and all is too earnest and
too long, that would make religion seem a business, or would
70 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
engage them to seem serious in their own profession, or put
them past jest in the worship of God, and the matters of
their salvation. Let but their servants or children neglect
but their worldly business (which 1 confess they should not
do), and they shall hear of it with both ears. But if they
sin against God, or neglect his word or worship, they shall
meet with more patience than Eli's sons did. A cold re-
proof is usually the best ; and it is well if they be not en-
couraged in their sin ; and if a child or servant that begins
to be serious for their salvation, be not rebuked, derided,
and hindered by them. If on their days of labour they over-
sleep themselves, they shall be sure to be called up to work
(and good reason) ; but when do they call them up to
prayer? when do they urge them to read, or consider, or
confer of the things that concern their everlasting life ?
The Lord's own day, which is appointed to be set apart for
matters of this nature, is wasted in idleness or worldly talk.
Come at any time into their company, and you may have
talk enough, and too much, of news, or of other men's mat-
ters ; of their worldly business, sports, and pleasures. But
about God and their salvation, they have so little to say,
and that so heartlessly and on the by, as if they were things
that belonged not to their care and duty, and no whit con-
cerned them. Talk with them about the renovation of the
soul, and the nature of holiness, and the life to come ; and
you shall find them almost as dumb as a fish, as dry as a
chip, or as erroneous or insensible as those that speak but
words by rote, to shew you how little they savour or mind
the things of the Spirit. The most understand not matters
of this nature, nor much desire or care to understand them.
If one would teach them personally, they are too old to be
catechised or to learn, though not too old to be ignorant of
the matters which they were made for, and are preserved for
in the world. They are too wise to learn to be wise, and
too good to be taught how to be good ; though not too wise
to follow the seducements of the devil and the world, nor
too good to be the slaves of satan, and the despisers and ene-
mies of goodness. If they do any thing which they call a
serving of God, it is some cold and heartless use of words to
make themselves believe that for all their sins they shall be
saved ; so that God will call that a serving of their sins and
abominations, which they call a serving of God. Some of
A SAINT OR A BKUTE. 71
them will confess that holiness is good ; but they hope God
will be merciful to them without it And some do so hate
it, that it is a displeasing, irksome thing to them, to hear
any serious discourse of holiness, and they detest and deride
those as fanatic, troublesome precisians, that diligently seek
the one thing necessary. So that if the belief of the most
maybe judged by their practices, we may confidently say,
that they do ;not practically believe that ever they shall be
brought to judgment, or that there is any heaven or hell to
be expected ; and that their confession of the truth of the
holy Scriptures, and their profession of the articles of the
Christian faith, are no proofs that they heartily take them
to be true. Who can be such a stranger to the world, as
not to see that this is the case of the greatest part of men ?
And which is worst of all, they go on in this course against
all that can be said to them, and will give no impartial, con-
siderate hearing to the truth which would recover them to
their wits, but live as if it would be a felicity to them in hell
to think that they came thither by wilful resolution, and in
despite of the remedy. And is it not a sad prospect to a
man that believeth in the word of God, and life to come, to
look upon such a distracted world ? O sirs, if Jesus Christ
be wise that condemneth their course and them, then cer-
tainly all these men are fools. And if Christ knew what he
said, we must needs think that they know not what they do.
O what is the matter that reasonable men should have no more
use of their reason in things of such importance, than thus
to neglect their everlasting state for a thing of naught?
Did God make them unreasonable, or give them understand-
ings incapable of things of such high concernment ? Or
rather, have they not drowned their reason in sensuality, and
wilfully poisoned it with malicious averseness to God and
holiness ? What is the matter that the one thing needful is
no more regarded ? Hath God made them believe that they
shall dwell here for ever, and never die ? No, surely ; this is
so gross a lie, that the devil himself cannot make them be-
lieve it. They know that they must die, as sure as they are
alive. And yet they prepare not, but waste their days in
scraping in this dunghill world, as if they were to go no fur-
ther. Did God never warn them by a sermon, or sickness,
to prepare for th« life which they must live for ever ? Yes,
many a time ; but they would take no Svarning. Did God
72 A SAINT OR A ijR
UTE.
never tell them that after this life there is another, where
they must live in endless joy or torment? Yes, and they
professed that they did believe it. They heard it a hundred
times over, till they were weary of hearing it. Did God
make them believe that they shall die like beasts that have
no further to go, nor any other life to live ? No ; if they do
believe this, it is the devil and not God that maketh them
believe it. What then is the matter that the one thing
needful is no more regarded ? Hath God shut up their souls
in desperation, so that it is in vain to seek, or trouble them-
selves for that of which there is no hope ? O no ! his com-
passion hath provided them a full remedy ; by the death of
his Son redemption is procured, and he hath made them a
deed of gift of Christ, and pardon, and eternal life, and ten-
der^ it to them, that upon their acceptance it may be theirs.
Many a time he hath offered this mercy to them, and many
a time hath he urged them to accept it. He hath set before
them life and death, and given them their choice, and di-
rected and persuaded them to choose aright. Impossibility
of attainment is not their hindrance ; for mercy beseecheth
and importuneth them to accept it, and grace and salvation
are brought unto their hands. Owonderful! What then is left
to take off a reasonable creature from minding and preferring
its own everlasting, great concernments ? Is it because they
have done their work already, and having made sure of heaven,
have time to turn themselves to other matters ? Alas, no,
the most are far from any such asssurance ; and have done
but little to procure it. If they were to die this hour, they
know not where their souls shall be the next. And if death
even now should lay its terrible hands upon them, they have
no other comfort than to yield unto necessity, and leave
their souls by a short security, to try the passage of their
unavoidable change, unless they are comforted by such pre-
sumptuous self-deceit, which the next moment after death
will vanish, and never return unto them more ; Job viii. 13,
14. xi.20. xxvii.8. Prov. xi. 7.
This is the case of the miserable world ; but they have
not hearts to pity themselves, nor can we make them wil-
ling to be delivered, because we cannot make them know
their case. If a man fall into a pit, we need not spend all
the day to persuade him that he is there, and to be willing
to be helped out of it. But with these fleshly, miserable
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 73
souls, the time that should be spent by themselves and us
for their recovery, must be spent to make them believe that
they are lost ; and when all is done we leave them lost, and
have lost our labour, because we cannot prevail with them
to believe it. Drown they will, and perish everlastingly, be-
cause the time that should be spent in saving them, must be
spent in making them know that they are sinking, and after
all they will not believe it; and therefore will not lay hold on
the hand that is stretched forth to pull them out. The narrative
of the savage people of Soldania doth notably represent their
stnte. Those people live naked, and feed upon the carrion-
like carcases of beasts, and hang the stinking guts about
their necks for ornaments, and wear hats made of the dung,
and carve their skins, and will not change these loathsome
customs. Some of them being drawn into our ships, were
carried away for England. When they came to London and
saw our stately buildings, and clothing, and provisions, they
were observed to sigh much, which was thought to have
been in compassion of their miserable country, which so
much differed from ours. When they had stayed long among
us, and got so much acquaintance with our civility and or-
der, and all that belongs to the life of man, as that they were
thought fit to communicate it to their countrymen, the next
voyage they were brought back, and set on shore in their
own country, to draw some of the rest to come into the
ships, and see and enjoy what they had done (who had pur-
posely been used as might most content them). But as
soon as they were landed, they leaped for joy, and cried,
* Soldania,' and cast away their clothes, and came again in
the sight of our ships, with dung on their heads and guts
hanging about their necks, triumphing in their sordid nak-
edness. Just so do worldly, sensual men, in the matters of
salvation^ If against their wills they are carried into cleaner
ways and company, and the beauty of holiness, and the joys
of heaven are opened to them, they are weary of it all the
while ; and when we expect they should delight themselves
in the felicity that is opened to them, and draw their old ac-
quaintance to it, and be utterly ashamed of their former base
and sinful state, they are gone when the next temptation
comes, and return with the dog unto their vomit, and with
the washed swine to wallow in the mire (2 Pet. ii. 21, 22.),
74 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and glory in their filth and shame, and only mind their earth-
ly things ; Phil.iii. 18.
Use 3. By this time you may see yourselves that the dis-
ease of sinners is in their own hearts, and it is that that must
be healed if they will be saved. But what should we do to
get into those hearts, to search your sores and work the
cure ? 1 come now to the principal part of my message to
you; but will you indeed entertain it, if it prove itself to be
from God ? How the case standeth with mankind, you have
heard in my text from Christ himself. How one thing is
needful ; and how the busy, idle world is diverted from this
one thing, by many needless, troublesome things to their
own destruction. If hence I warn you of your danger, and
tell you of your duty, and exhort you to take another course
than you have done, I hope you will confess I do but what is
needful both for you and me, and what you have no reason
to contradict. Come then for the Lord's sake, and let us
treat practically and successfully about so great a business ;
and make something of it before we leave it ; and end not
till we amend what we find amiss. What course then will
you take for the time to come? Will you go on to trouble
yourselves about many things, and neglect the one thing
needful, as you have done ? Dare you harbour such a pur-
pose ? or dare you stifle those thoughts and motions that
would tend to better purposes ? Or may I not hope that the
light hath ashamed your sleepiness and works of darkness,
and that you are grieved at the heart for the sinful negli-
gence of heart and life, and resolved now to be new men ?
For God's sake resolve, sirs. What will you do ? Waver
not, but resolve ! It is more than a thousand lives that lieth
on your resolution. I come to you this day as the minister
of the great Pastor of the flock, that spake these words, not
only to acquaint you, if you know not, or to remember you
if you know, that one thing is needful ; but also with au-
thority to command you in his name, to value it, to love it,
to choose it, to seek it, and labour for it as the one thing
needful. What say you, will you or will you not ? This
unspeakable mercy I offer you from the Lord. He is wil-
ling to put up at your hands all that is past, and to lay all
your sins on the score of Christ, and freely to forgive you
through the virtue of his blood, if you will now at last be-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 75
think you better, and come to Christ, and live as men that
know what they have to do. If you will but see your for-
mer folly, and heartily bewail it, and set your hearts on the
one thing needful, he will encourage you, and help you, and
bid you welcome, and number you with his sons, though
you have lived as his enemies. Though you have lived like
swine and serpents, he will put you in his bosom, if you will
but be washed and changed by his grace. Though you have
set more by your worldly riches than by his glory, and have
set more by the favour of mortal man, than by his favour,
and though you have set more by your bellies, and your
brutish pleasures, and little toys, than you have done by
everlasting life, he will yet be merciful to you, and put up
all these indignities at your hands, and take you into his
dearest love, if you will but now become new creatures, and
give your hearts to him that made them, and seek that first
that is worth the finding, and lose not the rest of your lives
and labour upon unprofitable things. What can you say
against this offer ? Is it not inconceivable and unspeakable
mercy ? O what would the damned give another day for
such an offer ? O what would you yourselves give another
day for such an offer, if you now neglect it ? What say you
then, will you accept of this offer of mercy while it may be
had, and close with grace, while gl-ace would save you, or
will you not ? As ever you look for mercy in the hour of
your distress when nothing but mercy can stand your souls
in any stead, take mercy now while it maybe had. Refuse
it not when it is offered you, as you would not be refused
by it when hell and desperation would devour you. If you
slight it because it is free, you slight it because it is great,
and therefore greatly to be valued. Think not hereafter to
have it at your beck, if you neglect it now when it seeks for
your acceptance. Do not say, I will a little longer keep my
sins, and a little longer enjoy my pleasures, for I can have
Christ's offer at any time before I die. O little dostthouknow
what a stab such a trifling purpose may give to the very
heart of all thy hopes and happiness ! and how terribly God
may make thee know how ill he taketh thy unthankfulness
and contempt ! and how dear one other week of sinful plea-
sure may cost thy soul ! In the name of God I warn you,
do not so despise everlasting happiness ! Do not so tram-
ple on the blood of Christ, if you would be saved by it 5
'mH^^M^
76 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
Do not abuse the Spirit of grace, if you would be sanctified
by it! Play not any longer with the consuming fire, the
wrath of a jealous and Almighty God ! Jest not with dam-
nation ! Though grace be now offered you, it will not be at
your command. Despise this motion, and you may be out
of hearing before the next. What can you expect, if you
will slight such mercy, but either that death should shortly
bring you to your reckoning, or that God should leave you
to yourselves, and give you up to the hardness of your
hearts. And if you will needs choose the world, and fleshly
pleasure, and God and glory shall be thus contemptuously
passed by, you may take your choice, and see what you will
get by it. But remember what an offer you had this day^
and that heaven was once within your reach, and that it
might have been yours for ever if you would.
But because I am loath to leave you so, I will try by
some such arguments as the reason of man must needs ap-
prove. Whether yet you may not be brought to yourselves,
and yield to grace that you may be saved. And they shall
be the arguments that lie before you here in the text.
1. Remember, it is necessity that is pleaded with you in
my text. One thing is necessary. Necessity, and your own
necessity, is such an argument, as one would think of itself
should turn the scales, and fully resolve you, and put you
past any further deliberation or delay. If necessity, your
own necessity, and so great necessity to so great an end,
will not prevail with you, what will ? Necessity is that *in-
o;ens telum,' that natural reason taketh to be irresistible.
Men think they may do almost any thing, if they can say
necessity commandeth it. * Omnem legem frangit, magnum
illud humanaB imbecillitatis patrocinium,' saith Seneca.
What is it that necessity seemeth not sufficient to justify
with the most ? And we will grant the argument to be un-
deniable, if it be from absolute necessity indeed, and if men
will not dream that it is more necessary to be rich, or ho-
nourable, or to live, than to be holy, and to be blessed with
God, and to please him that created them. * Ubi necessitas
incumbit, non ultra disputandum est, sed celerrime et forti-
ter agendum * Words signify nothing against necessity.
Reason is but hindering, troublesome folly, when it pleadeth
against necessity. ' Omni arte> omni ratione efficacior ne-
cessitas. Curt.* In worldly matters how quick-sighted, -
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 77
how resolute, how active is necessity ! What conquerable
difficulties will it not overcome ! what labour will it not en-
dure, if it have but the encouragement of hope ! And yet
this necessity is indeed no true necessity at all. For that
which is necessity but to my credit, or estate, or health, or
life, can be no more necessary than is my credit, and estate,
and health, and life itself. When men do but fancy a ne-
cessity where there is none, yet that will carry them through
thick and thin. But O sirs, you have a real, undeniable ne-
cessity to be holy, and to set yourselves to the work of your
salvation ; such a necessity as is founded in your nature,
and laid on you by your Maker, and as all the true reason in
the world will confess, to be indispensable necessity.
' Faxis ut libeat quod est necesse.
Make no more words then, but resolve and stir when it is
a matter that must be done. It is pity and shame that the
amiableness of God and holiness will not prevail with you
of themselves. But if you cannot yet perceive them to be
delectable, acknowledge them to be necessary. Be asham-
ed that pretended necessity for the body should be more
powerful with others, than real necessity for salvation is
with you. Look upon almost all the travail and labour that
is under the sun, and all the diligence that is used here in
the world, and consider whether it be not a thousandfold
smaller necessity than I am now pleading with you, that
setteth almost all on work ? The rich will not toil and la-
bour, but will take their ease, because they think they are
under no necessity ; but the poor will labour, because they
must. Though the command of God to rich and poor should
make them equally diligent in their several callings, in obe-
dience to their Creator ; yet many thousands that labour all
the year in obedience to their own necessities, would soon
give it over and take ease, if they could but be well maintain-
ed without it, notwithstanding the commands of God. And
the poor that reproach the rich for idleness, would be idle
themselves if they were but rich. The tradesman followeth
his trade, and the husbandman his hard labour all the year,
and what reason will they give you, if you ask them why
they do it, but this, * We cannot live else. We must do it
to maintain ourselves and families.' And is not the reason
78 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
a thousand times Btronger for our souls ? May we not bet-
ter say, * We must please God, and set our hearts on the life
to come, and mind and seek the one thing needful, whatever
becomes of other things ; for we cannot live else ; we can-
not be saved else/
Necessity makes the traveller trudge from morning till
night ; and the carrier to follow his horses through fair and
foul from year to year. It makes some dig into the bowels
of the earth, in mines and coal-pits ; and some to hale barges ;
and some to cut through the terrible ocean, and venture
their lives among the raging waves and storms ; and some
even to beg their bread in rags from door to door. And O
what will not necessity do that can be done ? And yet how
many thousands trifle or do nothing for their souls, as if there
were no necessity of being saved ; or no necessity of being
holy that we may be saved. When alas, all the necessity in
the world is no necessity at all, in comparison of this. You
must beg, or starve, or famish, if you do not work. But
you must burn in hell, if with fear and diligence you work
not out your own salvation ; (for all that it is God that work-
eth in you.) Phil. ii. 12. You must lie in prison if your debts
be not paid. But you will be cast into outer darkness, if by
the pardon of your sins, you be not discharged from your
debt to God. You may become beggars if you be idle in
your callings. But you will be the prisoners of hell, and
shut out of all the happiness of the saints, if you labour not
for the food that doth not perish, and strive not to enter in
at the strait gate, and give not diligence to make your call-
ing and election sure; John vi. 27. Matt. vii. 13. Luke
xiii.24. 2Pet. i. 10. You must suffer hunger and naked-
ness if you have not food and raiment. But you must suf-
fer everlastingly the wrath of God, if you have not the one
thing necessary. You will be the scorn and laughingstock
of men, if you fall under their contempt, and lose your ho-
nour. But you will be the enemies of God, and hated by
him, if you continue to contemn his grace.
O had you but seen the life to come, you would say,
there is a necessity of attaining it! Had you been one
hour in hell, you would think that there is a necessity of es^
caping it, and that there is no necessity to this.
What say you to all this ? Is it not of truth and weight ?
Can you deny it ? Or should you make light of it ? None
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 79
but an infidel can deny it ; and none but a deadhearted nin-
ner can make light of it. Believe the word of God, and the
truth of it will be past question with you. Consider but
that you are men that have immortal souls, and the weight
of it will appear inestimable to you; above contempt ; above
neglect. Believe it, sirs, you may as well see without light,
and be supported without earth, or live without food, as be
saved without holiness, or happy without the one thing ne-
cessary; Heb. xii. 14. Johniii.3.6. Matt, xviii. 3. And
when this is resolved of by God, and established as his stand-
ing law, and he hath told it you so oft and plainly, for any
man now to say, * I will yet hope for better ; I hope to be
saved on easier terms, without all this ado,' is no better than
to set his face against the God of heaven, and instead of be- ^
lieving God, to believe the contradiction of his own ungod-
ly heart ; and to hope to be saved whether God will or not ;
and to give the lie to his Creator, under the pretence of trust
and hope. It is indeed to hope for impossibilities. To be
saved without holiness, is to see without eyes, and to live
without life. And who is so foolish as to hope for this ?
Few of you are so unreasonable as to hope for a crop at har-
vest, without ploughing or sowing ; or for a house without
building ; or for strength without eating and drinking ; or
to sleep and play, when you have nothing to maintain your
families, and say. You hope that God will maintain both you
and them. And yet this were a far wiser kind of hope, than
to hope to be saved without the one thing necessary to sal-
vation ; and without a heart that is set upon it, and a life
that is employed for it. It is the Holy Ghost that calleth
you to answer the question, " How shall we escape if we
neglect so great salvation?" If you know how, then enter
the lists with God, and dispute the cause with him. How
will you escape, if you be neglecters of the only way that he
hath provided for your escape ? Is there any power or in-
terest of men or angels that can procure your escape ? How
can that be done, that God hath resolved shall not be ?
I beseech you now, beloved hearers, to remember this
urgent motive of necessity, and use it when you are tempted
to delay or trifle about the business of your salvation, as if
it were some indifferent, needless thing. Without worldly
riches you may be rich in faith : without worldly honours,
you may have the honour of being the sons of God ; and
80 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
without worldly pleasures, or health, or life, you may have
the favour of God and life eternal. But without the one thing
needful, you have nothing that is durably or satisfactorily
good, but are undone for ever. Without the things of the
world, you live in want for a little while, and then you will
be equal to the greatest princes. But without this one thing,
you must live in endless woe and misery, and be far worse
than the basest prisoner in the dungeon, or than the toads
and vermin that lie in the most unclean holes or sinks of the
earth. And yet dare you delay another day before you
make so necessary a change ? You have hearts of stone, if
your own necessity thus urged upon your consideration will
not awake you. If your hearts were not dead within you,
while you hear these things, one would think such a neces-
sity should make you feel, and resolve upon a speedy change,
and make you stir in the diligent performance. Can you go
on in security, in negligence, and worldliness, when you hear
of your necessity, that you must change, or you are lost for
ever? O stupid souls, that will not be moved with necessi-
ty of everlasting consequence ! O what hath God, or Christ,
or heaven, or holiness done against these men, that will ra-
ther lie in hell for ever, than they will live in the love and
service of this God, and in the practice of holiness, and in
the hopes of heaven ! How meet are they for hell, that will
venture upon it deliberately and upon choice, to escape the
trouble of living in the holy love, delight, and service
of the ever blessed God ! that is, to escape the trouble of
heaven. Is it so great a sin to shut up the bowels of com-
passion against our brother in his need ? And it is not more
unnatural to deny compassion to yourselves in your own ne-
cessity, and in the greatest necessity ? O poor sinners, re-
member your necessities I Your own, your great, your abso-
lute necessities. When you hear men that gather alms cry,
' Remember the poor,' doth it make thee think. What a poor,
necessitous soul have I to remember ? As Paul saith of
preaching to others, I may say much more to you, of
minding and practising this great work of your salvation ;
" Necessity is laid upon you, and woe to you if you do it
not ;" 1 Cor. ix. 16. Woe to you that ever you were born,
and that ever you were reasonable creatures, or rather, that
ever you so abused your reason, if you neglect and miss of
the one thing necessary.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 81
I know you have other wants to be supplied, and other
matters to look after in the world. But alas, how small are
they ! God will supply all your other wants, if you will first
and faithfully look after this; Phil. iv. 19. Matt. vi. 33.
1 Pet. V. 7. Or if life and all go, you will find all in heaven.
But if you miss of this one thing, nothing in the world can
make supply, or do you good. And though now your feel-
ings tell you not these things, alas how quickly will God
make you feel, and teach you by that sensible way that you
would needs be taught by !
Awake then, you sluggish, careless souls ! Your house
over your heads is on a flame ! The hand of God is lifted
up ! If you love yourselves, prevent the stroke. Vengeance
is at your backs. The wrath of God pursueth your sin ; and
woe to you if he find it upon you when he overtaketh you :
Away with it speedily. Up and be gotie, return to God ;
make Christ and mercy your friend in time, if you love your
lives. The Judge is coming ; for all that you have heard of
it so long, still you believe it not. You shall shortly see
the Majesty of his appearance, and the dreadful glory of his
face, and yet do you not begin to look about you, and to
make ready for such a day ? Yea, before that day, your se-
parated souls shall begin to reap as you have sowed here.
Though now the partition that stands between you and the
world to come, do keep unbelievers strange to the things
that most concerneth them, yet death will quickly find a
portal to let you in ; and then sinners, you will find such do-
ings there as you little thought of, or at least did sensibly
regard on earth. Before your corpse can be wrapped up in
your winding-sheets, you will see and feel that which will
tell you to the quick, that one thing was necessary. If you
do die without this one thing necessary, before your friends
can have finished your funerals, your souls will have taken
up their places among the devils in endless torment and des-
pair ; and all the wealth, and honour, and pleasure, that the
world afforded you, will not ease you. This is sad, but it
is true, sirs, for God hath spoken it.
Up therefore, and bestir you for the life of your souls !
Necessity will awake the sluggard. Necessity, we say, will
break stone walls. The proudest will stoop when they per-
ceive necessity. The most slothful will bestir them when
VOL. X. tJ
82 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
they feel necessity. The most careless will look about them
and be industrious in necessity. Necessity is called the ty-
rant of the world, that can make men do any thing that is
possible to be done. And yet cannot necessity make you
cast away your sins, and take up a holy and heavenly life ?
Necessity will make men fare hard, and work hard, and tra-
vel hard ; go bare, and suffer much ; yea it will even cut off
a leg or arm to save their lives. And yet can it not prevail
with reasonable creatures, to cast away the poison of a fruit-
less, filthy, deceitful sin, and to be up and doing for their
salvation ! O poor souls ! Is there, think you, a greater
necessity of your sin than of your salvation ? and of pleas-
ing your flesh for a little time, than of pleasing the Lord,
and escaping everlasting misery ? I beseech you consider
your own necessities.
2. Consider also, that it is but one thing which God hath
made necessary for you. And I shewed you before, how that
the means themselves, though they are many, have a certain
unity in their harmony and connexion, and as they centre in
the ultimate end, which is one. If God had sent you upon
such a multitude of errands as the flesh and the world doth,
and set you on such disagreeing, contrary works, then you
had been excusable if you had neglected some of them.
But he hath sent you but upon one errand; even to seek
and make sure of everlasting life ; and therefore if you neg-
lect this one, you are inexcusable. If the world be divided
into a thousand opinions, or go a thousand several ways,
they may thank themselves, who are the authors of this con-
fusion ; but God is no cause of it, or friend to it. He hath
made them but one work, and set them but one way to hea-
ven, and given them one Master, Jesus Christ, to teach that
way ; and written but one law, even his hx>ly Scripture, to
be their sure and constant guide. And if men would stick
to this one Master, and not make flesh and blood their mas-
ter, or the multitude their master, or the rulers of the world,
or the custom of their forefathers the master of their faith ;
and if they would stick to this one word of God, and not
run after the traditions of men, they would not be in such a
maze, nor of so many minds as now they are. But they do
in their doctrines as they do in their practice. God hath
marked them out but one way in the holy Scripture, which
is the good and the sure way, the way that Peter and Paul,
A SAINT OR A BttUTE. 83
and the rest of the apostles went to heaven in, and this way
will not serve men's turns, but will run a hundred ways in-
stead of this one : and they must make new ways which the
apostles of Christ were never acquainted with.
If God had loaded your memories with many things you
might possibly have said, we cannot remember them all ;
but he hath set you finally but one thing to remember, even
to lay hold on everlasting life, and press on to the crown
that is set before you ; and he hath an ill memory that can-
not remember one thing, and such a thing as this too.
It may be you are ignorant and cannot learn many things ;
but God hath set you but this one thing to learn as of abso-
lute necessity : and he is dull indeed that cannot learn one
thing, and such a thing too. If you cannot understand the
depths of sciences, nor reach the height of learning that
others do attain, yet learn this one thing, to know God in
the Redeemer ; and if you know this, you know all. Paul
was not only contented with this knowledge, but " resolved
to know nothing else but Christ and him crucified ;" that is,
nothing that is wholly alien to this : nothing but what doth
keep its due subordination to this, and so may be reduced
to the knowledge of Christ; ICor.ii. 2. He would not
own any other knowledge as knowledge, but disclaimeth it
as ignorance and foolishness, though it seemed wisdom in
the eyes of the world : chap. iii. 19, This seeming know-
ledge and wisdom of the world, that is totally disjunct from
Christ, is part of the all that we must sell to buy the pearl, if
we will obtain it ; Matt. xiii. 46. And part of the " all things"
which Paul accounted dung and loss, that he might " win
Christ and be found in him ;'* Phil. iii. 7 — 10. For they
that know not this one thing, know nothing, whatsoever they
may seem to know : and they that would go beyond the
knowledge of Christ, and think it too low for them, and
trouble their brains and the church with their speculations,
they do not know indeed, but dream. And if they would
see their faces in the glass of Scripture, 1 Tim. vi.4. " They
are proud, knowing nothing, but doating about questions
and strifes of words ; whence cometh envy, railing, evil sur-
misings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and
destitute of the truth."
Moreover, if your strength be so small that it will not
84 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
suffice for every thing, at least you should lay it out on this
one thing.
Your time, I know, is small, your lives are short, and
therefore you may say. We have not time for many things ;
but when you have but one thing given you to do, that must
be done, you may sure find time for this, for which you have
your time.
If you set your servant to work, and bid him be sure to
do one thing, whatever else he do, you will not take it well
if that one shall be neglected. If you send him on an errand,
and bid him be sure to remember one thing whatsoever he
forget, you will not take it well if he forget that one. If
you trust him but with one thing, and bid him be sure to
keep that one, you will not take it well if that be lost ; es-
pecially if he wilfully throw it away.
O consider whether this be not your case. God hath
sent you into this world but on one errand, even to make
sure of everlasting life, and will you neglect that one? He hath
trusted you with one thing, and will you cast away that one ?
He hath given you one lesson to learn, even to please him
and to save your souls, and will you not learn and remember
that one. If you had forgot your food and raiment, or for-
got the houses you dwell in, it had been a small matter in
comparison ; but to forget that one work that must be done,
that one friend that you must always trust to, that one place
that you must live in for ever, this is most unreasonable ;
and when you have recovered your understandings, you
shall confess it to be so.
3. Consider further, that this one thing is that good
part: you see it is here called so. *' Mary hath chosen
that good part — ." Other things seem good to sense, and
to perverted reason that is blinded by sense ; but this is it
that seemeth good to reason illuminated by the spirit of
faith. Other things seem good for a while, but this is that
good that will still be good.
I may not only say, that the good of other things is small
in comparison of this, but that it is nothing at all, but as it
is related unto this. This is that good that makes all things
else good that are good. As they come from God^ and re-
veal God to us, and lead us up to God, and are means to
this eternal life, so they are good ; but otherwise there is
no goodness in them.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 85
And therefore, seeing that goodness is naturally the ob-
ject of man's will, one would think you should quickly be
resolved of your choice. Sensual good is but a nominal
good, if it reacli not higher. All that you hunt after so
eagerly in the world, is nothing but real vanity and vexation,
a sliadow of good, a picture of profit, a dream of delight,
which one frown of God will turn into astonishing horror
and despair : like a tender flower that is nipt with one frosty
night, or withered with one scorching day : but it is only
this one thing, that is the solid, substantial, and enduring
good. The pleasure of the flesh is a good that is common
to men with brutes ; they can eat, and drink, and play, and
satisfy their lusts, and master one another as well as you.
But it is the spiritual good that is proper to a reasonable
creature. The pleasure of the flesh may melt you into fool-
ish mirth, and make you like drunken men, that are gallant
fellows in their own eyes, while sober men are ashamed of
them, or pity them, or they become a laughingstock to
others. But it is this one thing only which is that good
which wisdom itself will justify. A man that is tickled may
laugh more than he that is possessed of a kingdom, or hath
the desires of his heart ; but he is not therefore to be ac-
counted the happier man, nor will any wise man so account
him. O sirs, one would think that to men that have read
and heard what we have done, and have had that experience
which we have had, these things should be plain and past
all question; and that spiritual, heavenly, everlasting things
should be confessed by us all to be that good part that
should possess all the fervent desires of the soul.
But O that we could see the truth of this belief in the
choice of your wills, and the drift of your endeavours! If
God would open your eyes and shew you things as they
are, and save you from your wilful blindness, you would
then see which is the better part, and you would be ashamed
that ever you should make any question of it. That is the
good part, which beareth the most lively image of God,
which is goodness itself, yea, which possesseth us of thi&
good. That is the good part which will make us good, and
not that which deceiveth us and makes us worse. That is
the good part which the wisest and best men judge to be so,
yea, which God himself doth judge to be so; and not that
86 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
which the most blind, deluded sinners do judge the best.
That is the good part which is best at last, and which is an
enduring good, and not that which perisheth in the using,
and flieth from us when we have greatest need. That is the
good part which all men will say is good in the conclusion;
which the wicked themselves, that are now of another mind,
will confess at last to be the best ; and not that which is
commended only in prosperity, while the frensy or dream
of sensuality doth beguile men, and which they will all cry
out against at last. If you would know which is the best
part, take counsel of God, and see what he saith, and ask men
of wisdom and of greatest experience, that have tried both,
and men that have staid the end, and seen what fleshly plea-
sures, and profits, and honours can do for them : for how
can men make so true a judgment that do not either stay the
end, or else foresee the end by faith ? Do not take their
judgments that are drunk with their sensual delights, and
that will confess they must repent themselves, and there-
fore confess they must be of another mind. Take not their
judgments that neither have seen, nor yet foresee the end ;
the worst is yet to come with them. Their states and minds
are near a change. The day is near when they will say,
that heaven was the better part, and be convinced by pun-
ishment, that would not be convinced by instruction.
Surely, sirs, it is so easy a question to reason itself,
where sin hath not blinded it, whether God or the world be
the better part, that one would think there should be left
no room for doubting. Dare any of you speak out and say,
that earth is better than heaven, or sin than grace, or tem-
poral pleasure than eternal happiness ? I think you dare
not. Shame will forbid you, and conscience will contradict
you, if you should say so. And will you commend God by
your words, and discommend him by your lives ? Will you
say heaven is best, and yet seek the world before it ; and
not let it have the best of your affections and endeavours ?
Shall it be highest in your mouths, and lowest in your hearts
and lives ? Shall it have the first place in your prayers,
and the last in your labours ? Why then you commend God
but to his dishonour, and your condemnation. You extol
heaven and heavenly things but to the confusion of your own
faces, that yourX)wn confessions may be brought in hereaf-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 8i7
ter as witnesses against you. In the name of God therefore
I charge you, if you know which is the better part, condemn
not yourselves by making choice against your knowledge.
4. Consider also, that this good part is offered you, and
you have your choice, whether God or the world, whether
heaven or earth shall be your portion.
It is not purchasing, or proper meriting, but choosing
the good part, that you are called to. It is not, Mary hath
purchased or merited the better part, but, hath chosen the
better part.
Two things are here contained. (1.) That it is not mat-
ter of impossibility that you are called to : you are not ex-
cluded from the hopes of salvation, by any exceptions that
God hath put in against you in his promises ; but it is con-
ditionally made as well to you as to others.
(2.) And the condition is not any thing unreasonable,
but your own consent. Christ and salvation are offered to
your choice. If you will but prefer them before the trifles
of the world, you may have them. The door of grace is
open to you as well as to others. If you will but enter you
may live. You are not left in a remediless case, nor given
over to desperation. You cannot say, * Repenting and be-
lieving will do us no good ; we cannot have Christ though
we were never so willing.' You cannot say, * We would
fain have Christ and his Spirit to sanctify us, but we can-
not ; we are willing to be his disciples, but he is not willing
to accept us, and to be our Saviour.' You cannot say so,
and say truly. You cannot say he is set to sale to you, and
that he expecteth such a price as you are unable to give, ;
for you are called to take him freely ; and though this be
sometimes called buying, yet it is " a buying without mo-
ney and without price ;" Isa. Iv. 1 — 4. And though you
must " sell all you have" for this valuable pearl (Matt, xiik
46.), yet that is but a metaphorical selling, a parting with
your sin and fleshly pleasure, as troubles and impediments
that would ke^p you from salvation. As a sick man sells
his diseases for health ; or at least, as he hath health by for-
bearing some hurtful things that please him ^ or as a pri-
soner purchaseth the liberty that is freely given him, by
consenting to come forth and cast off his fetters. Your
hands are full of dirt, and God offers you gold, and you can-
nqt receive it till you throw away the dirt. This is your
88 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
purchase. You give God nothing as a valuable price for
his mercy, but you throw away the sin that is inconsistent
with your happiness. Still I shall tell you, you may have
Christ if you will. Pleasures and profits are flattering you
to your destruction, and God calls you from them, and of-
fereth you his Son and everlasting life, and entreateth you
to accept them. And here you have your choice. The offer
is, " Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life free-
ly ;" Rev. xxii. 17. And if you will but choose that happi-
ness that is offered you, and Christ the way to that happi-,
ness, all the world cannot bereave you of your choice. It
is brought to your hand and urged on you. You have now
your choice, whether you will have Christ or the flesh, grace
or sin, heaven or hell. As you choose, so you shall have.
And if you miss of life, it will be because you did not choose
it. Even because you " would not come to Christ that you
might have life" (John v. 40.), and " would not have him to
rule over you" (Luke xix. 27.), and " would not have the Lord
indeed for your God" (Psal.lxxxi. 11.), and " did not choose
the fear of the Lord" (Prov. i.29.) ; yea, when ** Christ would
have gathered you, would not be gathered;" Matt. xxiii.
37. It is this "turning away of the simple that doth slay
them, beoau&e they refuse when Christ calls them, and re-
gard not when he stretcheth forth his hand, but set at naught
his counsel, and will have none of his reproof;" Prov. i.24,
25. 32. See therefore that you refuse not him that speak-
eth ; for if you turn away from him that speaks from heaven,
and neglect or make light of so great salvation, how do you
think it possible you should escape? Heb. xii.25. ii. 3.
Matt. xxii. 5.
But perhaps some of you will think to excuse yourselves
for want of freewill, and say, ' How is it in our choice, when
. God must give us to will and to do ? and we can do nothing
of ourselves ? Have we freewill or power to choose the bet-
ter part? You must not set up the power or will of man too
high.'
Answ, No ; it is you that would set up your wills too
high, in making us believe that you are not wilfully ungod-
ly and impenitent, but omit all the good, and do all the evil
that you do, because you cannot help it. You cannot but
know that he is the sinner to be blamed and punished, that
can and will not, rather than he that would but cannot do
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 89
good, and forbear the contrary. You know that it is wilful-
ness, and not unwilling impotency that the venom of ma-
lice and naughtiness lieth in ; and therefore you are excus-
ing your wills, and laying all upon your impotency, which is
but to excuse your faults. I would make you know the base-
ness of your wills, and that it is long of your badness that
you are like to be undone, if grace prevent it not by your
thorough conversion. I do not say that you have any power
but what you have from God ; but I say you have the na-
tural and legal power, and more than power, even a grant
and offer of such a mercy from God. You have human fa-
culties, and leave, and offers, and entreaties ; and you may
have Christ and life as he is offered if you will. When I
say it is in your choice, I do not say that you have the wit
or the heart to make a right choice. No ; if you had but so
much wit and grace, I need not use all these words to you
to persuade you to choose the better part. Your wills are
free from any force that God puts upon them to determine
them to sin ; or from any force that satan or any enemy you
have can use to determine them to sin. All they can do is
morally to entice you. God doth not make you sin. If
you choose your death, and forsake your own mercy, it is
not God that determineth your wills to make this choice.
Yea, he commandeth, and persuadeth, and urgeth you to
make a better choice. And though satan tempt you, he can
do no more. You have so much power, that you may have
Christ if you will. You cannot say, I am truly willing to
have Christ, and cannot. Thus much freewill undoubtedly
you have.
But I must confess that your wills are not free from the
misguiding of a blinded mind, nor from the seduction of a
sensual inclination ; nor from a base and wicked disposition
of your own. This kind of freewill you shew us that you
have not. But is your wickedness your excuse ? and is
your wilfulness your innocency'.' What then can be culpa-
ble?
Sirs, I would not have you abuse God, and befool your-
selves with names and words, saying, you have not power
and freewill, as if you might thus excuse your sin. I have
opened the matter in plain terms to you, that children may
understand it, though learned men have endeavoured to ob-
scure it. God giveth you your choice, though your own
90 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
wickedness do hinder you from choosing aright. You have
a price in your hands, but fools have not a heart to their
own good ; Prov. xvii. 16. I know that you want both
wisdom and a sanctified will ; and I know that your minds
and wills are contrarily disposed. You need not tell me that
you are wilful and wicked, when there must be so many
words spoken, and so many books written, and so much
mercy and patience of God, and so many afflictions from his
hand, and all will not serve to make you choose the better
part. But if you were willing, if you were truly willing,
the principal part of the work were done. For if you are
willing, Christ is willing ; and if Christ be willing, and you
be willing, what can hinder your salvation ?
Having laid this groundwork from the plain word of
God, methinks I may with this advantage now plead the
case, even with common reason. One thing is needful ; the
good part is that one ; and this is tendered to you by the
Lord. What is it then that you do make choice of? and
what do you resolve ? May you have Christ, and pardon,
and everlasting life, and will you not have them ? Shall it
be said of you another day, that you had your choice, whe-
ther you would have Christ and life, or sin and death ; and
you chose destruction and refused life ? I beseech thee,
reader, whosoever thou art that readest these lines, that thou
wouldst a little turn thine ears to God, and withdraw thy-
self from the delusions of the flesh and world, and use thy
reason for thy everlasting peace ; and consider with thyself
what a dreadful thing it will be, if thou be everlastingly shut
out of the presence of God, upon thy own choice ? And if
thou lose thy part in Christ, and pardon, and everlasting
glory upon thy own choice. And if thou must lie in hell-
fire, and conscience must tell thee there for ever. Thou hast
but the fruit of thine own choice. Heaven was set open to
me as well as others. I had life, and time, and teaching,
and persuasions as well as others ; but I chose the pleasure
of sin for a season, though I was told and assured that hell
would follow ; and now I have that which I made choice of,
and taste but the fruit of my own wilfulness ! Will not
such gripes of conscience be a hellish torment of themselves,
and an intolerable vexation, if thou hadst no more ? Had
you rather have sin, than Christ and holiness ? Alas, I see
by your lives you had ! But had you rather have hell than
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 91
God and glory ? If not, then choose not the way to hell.
Why do you give God such good words, and prefer your sin
when you have done, before him ? Why do you speak so
well of Christ and heaven, and yet refuse them ? Why do you
speak so ill of sin and hell, and yet choose them to the loss
of your salvation? Surely if you were soundly persuaded
that Christ is better than the world, and holiness than sin,
you would choose that which you say is the best. For that
which men think indeed to be the best, and best for them,
they will choose and seek after. And therefore, when you
have said all that you can in commendation of grace and a
holy life, no wise men will believe that you are heartily per-
suaded of the truth of what you say, as long as you run
away from Christ, and follow the flesh, and take that course
that is contrary to your profession. For that which you
like best you will certainly choose and seek with the great-
est care and diligence. Now you have your choice ; if you
would have the better part, now choose it.
5. I have one other motive yet from the text to persuade
you to choose the better part. If you choose it, it shall ne-
ver be taken from you. You hear this is the resolution of
Christ himself concerning Mary's choice, and that which is
spoken of her will be as true of you, if you make the same
choice. If all the enemies you have in the world should
endeavour to deprive you of Christ and your salvation, they
cannot do it against your choice. If by power or by policy
they would rob you of your portion, they cannot do it. For
which way should they do it ? They cannot turn the heart
of God against you, nor make him break his covenant with
you, nor repent him of his gift and calling which he hath ex-
tended to you. For he is unchangeable, and loveth you
with an everlasting love ; Mai. iii. 6. Jer. xxxi. 3. Isa. liv.
8. Jer. xxxiii. 20,21. 23. 1.5. Rom.xi.29. They cannot
undermine the rock that you are built upon, nor batter the
fortress of your souls, nor overcome your great Preserver
and defence, nor take you out of the hands of Christ ; Psal.
Ixxiii. 26. xxxi. 2, 3. Ixii. 2. lix. 9. 16. John x. 28.
Cast not away the salvation that is offered you, and then
never fear lest it be taken from you. See that you choose
the better part, and resolvedly choose it, and it will be cer-
tainly your own for ever. For man cannot take it from you,
nor devils cannot take it from you, and God will not take it
92 A SAINT OR A BRUTK.
from you. Rust and moths will not corrupt this treasure ;
nor can thieves break through and steal it from you ; Matt.
vi. 19,20.
But you cannot say so of worldly riches. If you choose
to be lords and princes on the earth, you cannot have your
choice ; but if you could, you cannot keep it. If you choose
the wealth and credit of the world, and were sure to p-et it.
you were as sure to leave it. For naked you came into the
world, and naked you must go out ; Job i. 21 . If you choose
your ease, and mirth, and pleasure, these will be taken from
you. If you choose the satisfying of your fleshly desires,
and all the delight and prosperity that the world can afford
you, yet all must be taken from you, yea quickly and easi-
ly taken from you. Alas ! one stroke of an apoplexy, or a
few fits of a fever, or the breaking of a small vein, or many
hundred of the like effectual means, are ready at the beck of
God, to take you from all that you have gathered for your
flesh. And then whose shall all these things be ? None of
yours I am sure, nor will they redeem your souls from death
or hell; Luke xii. 20. Psal.xlix. 7. If you be in honour,
you abide not in it, but are (as to your body) as the beasts
that perish. If you think to perpetuate your houses and
your names, this your way is but your folly, though your
posterity go on to approve your sayings, and succeed you
in your sins \ Psal. xlix. 11 — 13. "The worldly wise man
doth perish with the fool : as sheep they are laid in the grave.
Death shall feed on him, and the upright shall have domi-
nion over them in the morning ;" ver. 10. 14. " They shall
soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green
herb;" Psal. xxxvii. 2. "I have seen the wicked in great
prosperity, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree; yet
he passed away, and lo he was not ; yea, I sought him, but
he could not be found ;" ver. 35, 36.
You think it a fine thing to have the fulness of the crea-
ture, to be esteemed with the highest, and fed and clothed
with the best, and fare deliciously every day, as the rich
man, Luke xvi. But hath he not paid dear, think you for
his riches and pleasure by this time ? His feeding and ful-
ness was quickly at an end ; but his torment is not yet end-
ed, nor ever will be. You think it a brave thing to clamber
up to riches, and that which you call greatness and honour
in the world ; but how quickly, how terribly must you come
A SAINT OU A BRUTE. 93
down ! " Go into the sanctuary of God and understand your
end. Surely God hath set them in slippery places, and
casteth them down into destruction. How are they brought
to desolation as in a moment ! They are utterly consumed
with terrors. As a dream when one awakeneth, so at the
awakening, shall their image (or shadow of honour) be des-
pised ;" PsaLlxxiii.17— 20.
How short is the pleasure, and how long is the pain !
How short is the honour, and how long is the shame ! What
is it under the sun that is everlasting? You have friends,
but will they dwell with you here for ever ? You have houses,
but how long will you stay in them ? It is but as yesterday
since your houses had other inhabitants, and your towns
and countries other inhabitants, and where are they all now?
You have health, but how soon will you consume in sick-
ness? You have life, but how soon will it end in death?
You have the pleasure of sin ; you say unto yourselves, "Eat,
drink, and be merry," but how soon will all the mirth be
marred, and turned into sadness, everlasting sadness !
When youhear, ** Thou fool, this night shall they require thy
soul, and then whose shall these things be ?" Luke xii. 20.
O miserable wretch ! If thou hadst chosen God instead
of thy sin, and the everlasting kingdom instead of this world,
thou wouldst not have been thus cast off in thy extremity.
God would have stuck better to thee. Heaven would have
proved a more durable inheritance. For it is a " kingdom
that cannot be moved ;" Heb. xii. 28. The day is near when
thy despairing soul must take up this lamentation, ' My
dearest friends are now forsaking me. I must part with all
that I laboured for, and delighted in. I have drunk up all
my part in pleasure, and there is no more left. My merry
company, and honours, and recreations are past and gone ;
I shall eat, and drink, and sport no more. But God would
not have used me thus, if I had set my heart upon him and
his kingdom. O that I had chosen him and made him my
portion, and spent these thoughts, and cares, and labours,
for the obtaining of his love, and pi*omised glory, which I
spent in the pleasing and providing for the flesh ; then I
should have had a happiness that death could not deprive
me of, and a crown that fadeth not away. Neither life, nor
death, nor any creature could have separated me from his
love. I need not then have gone out of the world as a pri-
94 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
soner out of the gaol, to the bar, and to the place of exe-
cution. My departing soul should not then need to have
been afraid of falling into the hands of an tmreconciled God,
and so into the hands of the devils as his executioners, nor
of passing out of the flesh to hell.'
O poor sinners, for how short a pleasure do you sell
your hopes of everlasting blessedness, and run yourselves
into endless pains ! O what comparison is there between
the time of your pleasure, and the everlastingness of your
punishment ! How short a while is the cup at your mouths
or the drink in your bellies! or the harlot in your em^
bracements ! or the wealth of the world in your possession !
And how long a time must you pay for this in hell ! How
quickly are your merry hours past! but your torments will
never be past. When your corpses are laid in the grave,
men can say, * Now he hath done his satisfying the flesh
and following the world,' but never man can truly say, ' Now
he hath done suffering for it.' Your life of sin is passing as
a dream, and your honours as a shadow, and all your busi-
ness as a tale that is told ; but the life of glory which you
rejected for this, would have endured for evermore. Sup-
pose as many thousand years as there are sands on the sea,
or piles of grass on the whole earth, or hairs on the heads of
all the men in the world, yet when these many are past, the
joy of the saints, and the torments of the wicked are as far
from an end as ever they were. The eternal God doth give
them a duration, and make them eternal.
When our joys are at the sweetest, this thought must
needs be part of that sweetness, that their sweetness shall
never have an end. If our short foretaste be joy unspeaka-
ble and full of glory, what shall we call that joy which flows
from the most perfect fruition and perpetuation? 1 Pet. i.
7,8. We have joy here, but alas how seldom! alas, how
small in comparison of what we may there expect ! Some
joy we have, but how oft do melancholy, or crosses, or losses
in the world, or temptations, or sins, or desertions interrupt
it ! Our sun is here most commonly under a cloud, and too
often in an eclipse ; and we have the night as often as the
day. Yea, our state is usually a winter ; our days are
cold and short, and our nights are long. But when the flou-
rishing state of glory comes, we shall have no intermissions
nor eclipses. " The path of the just is as the shining light,
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 95
that shineth more and more unto the perfect day ;" Prov.
iv. 18. And the perfect day is a perpetual day, that knows
no interruption by the darkness of the night. '* For there
shall be no night there, nor need of candle or sun ; for the
Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever
and ever ;" Rev. xxii. 5. This is the life that fears no death,
and this is the feast that fears no want or future famine ; the
pleasure that knows nor fears pain ; the health that knows
nor fears sickness ; this is the treasure that fears no moth,
or rust, or thief; the building that fears no storm nor de-
cay ; the kingdom that fears no changes by rebellion ; the
friendship that fears no falling out ; the love that fears no
hatred or frustration ; the glory that fears no envious eye ;
the possessed inheritance that fears no ejection by fraud, or
force, or any failings ; the joy that feels or fears no sorrow;
while God who is life itself is our life ; and while God who
is love, is the fountain and object of our love, we can never
want either life or love. And whilst he feeds our love, our
joyful praises will never be run dry, nor ever go out for want
of fuel. This is the true perpetual motion, the circulation of
the holy blood and spirit from God to man, and from man
to God. Being prepared and brought near him, we have
the blessed vision of his face, by seeing him ; and by the
blessed emanation of his love, we are drawn out perpetually
and unweariedly to love him and rejoice in him ; and from
hence incessantly to praise and honour him. In all which,
as his blessed image and the shining reflections of his re^
vealed glory, he taketh complacency, which is the highest
end of God and man, and the very term of all his works and
ways.
I thought here to have ended this first part of my dis-
course ; but yet compassion calls me back. I fear lest with
the most I have not prevailed ; and lest I shall leave them
behind me in the bonds of their iniquity. I daily hear the
voice of men possessed by a spirit of uncleanness, speaking
against this necessity of a holy life, which Christ himself so
peremptorily asserteth. I hear that voice which foretelleth
a more dreadful voice, if in time they be not prevailed with
to prevent it. One saith, * What need all this ado ? This
strictness is more ado than needs.' Another saith, * You
would make men mad, by poring so much on matters that
are above them/ Another saith, * Cannot you keep your
9(j A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
your neighbours be V Another saith, * I hope God is
more merciful than to damn all that be not so precise/
Another saith, * I shall never endure so strict a life, and
therefore I will venture as well as others.' The sum of all
is, they are so far in love with the world and sin, and so
much against a holy life, that they will not be persuaded to
it ; and therefore to quiet their consciences in their misery,
they make themselves believe that they may be saved with
out it, and that it is a thing of no necessity, but their com-
ing to church and living like good neighbours may serve
the turn without it, for their salvation. And thus doth the
malicious serpent, in the hearts of those that he possesseth,
rise up against the words of Christ. Christ saith that this
is the one thing needful. And the serpent saith. It is more
ado than needs ; and What needs all this ado ? Though
I have fully answered this ungodly objection already in
my " Treatise of Conversion ;" and more fully in my
** Treatise of Rest," part 3. chap. 6 ; yet I shall once
more fall upon it. For death is coming, while poor delud-
ed souls are loitering ; and if satan, by such senseless rea-
sonings as these, can keep them unready in their sin, till the
fatal stroke hath cut them down, and cast them into endless,
easeless fire, alas, how great will be their fall ! and how un-
speakably dreadful will be their misery ! Whoever thou be,
whether high or low, learned or unlearned, that hast dislik-
ed, opposed, or reproached serious, godly Christians, as Pu-
ritans, and too precise ; and that thinkest the most diligent
labour for salvation to be but more ado than needs, and hast
not thyself yet resolvedly set upon a holy life, I require at thy
hands so much impartiality and faithfulness to thy own im-
mortal soul, as seriously to peruse these following Questions,
and to go no further in thy careless, negligent, ungodly
course, till thou art able to give such a rational answer to
them, as thou darest stand to now at the bar of thine own
conscience, and hereafter at the bar of Christ.
Quest, 1. ' Canst thou possibly give God more than is his
due ? or love him more than he deserveth ? or serve him
more faithfully than thou art bound, and he is worthy of?'
Art thou not his creature, made of nothing? and hast thou
not all that thou art and hast from him ? and if thou give
him all, dost thou give him any more than what is his own ?
If thou give hiai all the affections of thy soul, and all the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 97
most serious thoughts of thy heart, and every hour of thy
time, and every word of thy mouth, and every penny of thy
wealth (in the way that he requireth it), is it any more than
is his due ? Should not he have all, that is Lord of all ?
Quest. 2. ' Is it not the first and great commandment,
** Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
soul, and might ?'* ' And do not heathens confess this by
the light of nature? And hath not thy tongue confessed it
many a time? And doth not thy conscience yet bear wit-
ness that it is thy duty ? And is it possible thou shouldst
thus love him, with all thy heart, and soul, and might, and
yet not seek and serve him with all thy heart, and soul, and
might? or can the most sanctified person do anymore, if he
were perfect ?
Quest, 3. * Dost thou not confess that we are all sinners?
And that the best is still too bad ? And that he that loveth
and serveth God most, doth yet come exceeding short of his
duty V And yet wouldst thou have such men come shorter ?
and darest thou persuade them to do less ? Must not the
best confess their daily failings, and beg pardon for them
from the Lord, and be beholden to the blood of Christ, and
lament their imperfections ? And yet wouldst thou have them
be such odious hypocrites, as to think they serve God too
much already, while they confess that they come so short ?
Shall they confess their failings, and reproach those that
endeavour to avoid the like ? Shall the same tongue say,
* Lord be merciful to me a sinner,' and ' Lord, I am good
enough already. What need there so much ado to please
and serve thee any better?* What would you think of such
a man ? '
Quest. 4. ' Is it not an unquestionable duty to grow in
grace ? and to press towards perfection as men that have not
yet attained it?' 2Pet.iii. 18. Phil.iii. 12— 14. And must
Paul, and Peter, and the holiest on earth, still seek to grow
and labour to be more holy ? and shall such a one say,
' What need I be more holy?' that are utterly unsanctified.
Quest. 5. ' Is it not one of the two grand principles of faith
and all religion, without which no one can please God V
Heb. xi. 6. Whoever cometh to God must believe first that
God is; (that there is a God, most powerful, wise and good).
Secondly, that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
VOL. X. H
98 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
him. This is one of nature's principles. It is the diligent
seekers of God that he will reward. And yet dare a fleshly,
negligent sinner reproach the diligent seeking of God, and
take it for a needless thing, and say, * What needs all this
ado?' Are not these the atheist's seconds; even next to
them that deny that there is any God, or that blaspheme
him? And indeed, if he be not worthy of all the love and
service that thou canst give him, he is not the true God !
Consider therefore the tendency of thy words, and tremble.
Quest, 6. * Doth not that wretch set up the flesh and the
world above the Lord, that thinks not most of his thoughts,
and cares, and words, and time, and labour for the world to
be too much ado, and yet thinks less for God and heaven to
be too much?' And dost thou think in thy conscience that
the flesh is better worthy of thy love, and care, and labour,
than the Lord ? Or that earth will prove a better reward to
thee than heaven ? Who, thinkest thou, will have the better
bargain in the end ? The fool that laid up riches for him-
self, and was not rich to God, and shall lose all at once that
he so much valued, and so carefully sought (Luke xii. 20,
21.), or he that laid up his treasure in heaven, and there set
his heart, and sought for the never-fading crown ? (Matt. vi.
20, 21. 33.) and counted all as loss and dung for the excel-
lent knowledge of Jesus Christ? Phil. iii. 8. Do you think
that there is any thing more worth your care, and time, and
labour, or can you more profitably lay it out ?
Quest. 7. * Have you not immortal souls to save or lose?'
And are not your bodies for their service, and to be used and
ruled by them? And should not your souls then have more
of your care and diligence, than corruptible flesh that must
turn to dirt?
Quest. 8* * Dare any one of you say that you are wiser
than the all-knowing God ?' Is not thy wisdom less to his,
than a glowworm's light is to the sun ? And hath not God
most plainly and frequently in his word commanded thee a
holy life ? Yea every part and parcel of it is nothing else
but the obeying of that word; for if it be not prescribed by
the Lord, it is not holiness, nor that which I am pleading
for. And when the living God hath told the world his mind
and will, shall a sinful man stand up and say, * I am wiser
than my Maker ; I know a better way than this ; what need
there all this stir for heaven?' What dost thou less than
A S>iUNT OR A BRUTE. 4)9
thus blaspheme, and set up thy foUy above the Lord, when
thou condemnest or reproachest holinesa which he com-
mandeth ?
Quest* 9. * Dare you say that God is not only so unwise,
but so unrighteous and tyrannical, as to give the world un-
necessary laws, and set them upon a needless work V What
king so tyrannical as would require his subjects on pain of
death to go pick straws against the wind ? What master or
parent so foolishly cruel as to command their servants or
children, to weary themselves with hunting butterflies, and
following their own shadows ? And darest thou impute
such foolish tyranny to the God of heaven, as if he had made
a world, and set them upon a needless work, and command-
ed them to tire themselves in vain ?
Quest. 10. * Can a man be too diligent about that work
which he was made for, and is daily preserved and maintain-
ed for, and for which he hath all the mercies of his life?'
Thou hadst never come into the world but on this business,
even to serve and please God, and prepare for everlasting
happiness. And are you afraid of doing this too diligently ?
Why is it, thinkest thou, that God sustaineth thee ? Why
diedest thou not many years ago, but only that thou might-
est have time to seek and serve him ? Was it only that thou
mightest eat, and drink, and sleep, and go up and down, and
fill up a room among the living ? Why, beasts, and fools,
and madmen do all this, as well as thou. Why hast thou
thy reason and understanding, but to know and serve the
Lord ? Is it only to know how to shift a little for the com-
modities of the world? or is it not to know the way to life
eternal ? Look round about thee on all the creatures, and
on all the mercies which thou dost possess ; every deliver-
ance, and privilege, and accommodation ; every bit of bread
thou eatest, and every hour of thy precious time, are all giv-
en thee for this one thing needful. And yet wilt thou say
that this one thing is needless, for which thou hast all things ?
Thoumayest then say, that God made the world in vain ; and
preserveth and governeth it in vain. For all this is but for
his service, which thou callest vain.
Quest. IL * Doth not reason tell thee, that the place in
which thou must live for ever, should be more diligently
minded and prepared for, than this in which thou must con-
tinue but for a while V Alas, it is so short a time that w;»
100 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
must be here, that it makes all the matters of this world (as
such) to be inconsiderable things, as dreams and shadows.
What great matter is it for so short a time, whether we be rich
or poor, well or sick, in credit or in contempt ; whether we
laugh or weep, when our part will be so quickly acted, and
we must go naked out of the world as we came into it I
For so short a time, a poor habitation may serve the turn, as
well as the most splendid palace. A painful, obscure, afflict-
ed life may do as well as the most plentiful provisions, and
the greatest ease and worldly honours. The purple and fine
linen, the silks and bravery will be soon forgotten ; and the
soul in hell will be no more the better for them than the rot-
ten carcase in the grave. The taste of the delicious meats and
drinks will quickly be forgotten ; and sportful youth will be
turned into cold and languid age ; and the most confirmed
health into dolorous sickness ; and mirth and laughter into
mournful groans. And is such a transitory life as this more
worthy of your care and greatest diligence, than life eternal ?
O ! one would think that the world that you must be ever,
ever in, should never, never be forgotten ! There is the
company that you must live with for ever. There is the
state that you shall never change. There is the joy or tor-
ment that shall have no end ; and while you forget it you
are posting to it, and are almost there. And can you be too
careful for eternity ?
Quest, 12. ' Consider also but the infinite joys of heaven,
and tell me, whether thou dost think they are not worthy the
greatest cost or pains that thou canst be at to get them ?
Dost thou think that heaven is not worthy of the labour
that is bestowed for it by the most holy saints on earth ?
Will it not requite them to the full ? Will any that come
thither repent that they obtained it at so dear a rate ? If
now thou couldst speak with one of those believers mention-
ed in Heb. xi. that " lived as strangers and pilgrims on
earth," as ** seeking a better, even a heavenly country ;" that
preferred the " reproach of Christ before the treasure of
the world," and chose " affliction with the people of God,"
before the " pleasures of sin for a season ; that were tortur-
ed, not accepting deliverance, that they might receive abet-
ter resurrection ; that had trial of cruel mockings and scourg-
ings, and of bonds and imprisonments, and were stoned,
sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 101
about in sheep-skins, and goat-skins, being destitute, af-
flicted, and tormented, though men of whom the world was
not worthy :" Would any one of these now tell you, that
they did or suffered too much for heaven ? or that it was not
worth ten thousand times more ? If thy tongue dare say
that heaven is not worth the cost or trouble of a holy life,
(or if thy life say so, though thy tongue dare not) thou
judgest thyself unworthy of it, and sentencest thyself unto
damnation.
Quest. 13. ' And are the torments of hell so small and to-
lerable, that thou thinkest a holy life too dear a means for
to prevent them?' Dost thou believe the threatenings of the
Lord, that he will " come in flaming fire to take vengeance
on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glo-
ry of his power ;" 2 Thess. xviii. 9. And yet canst thou say,
' What needs all this ado to escape such endless misery?'
Thou wilt take any medicine to cure but the gout or stone,
if once thou have felt them. Thou wilt draw out a tooth to
prevent the pain of it. And is holiness so hateful or griev-
ous a thing to thee, that thou will venture on hell itself to
avoid it? If so much of hell be in thy heart already, blame
none but thyself if thou have thy choice.
Quest. 14. ' Why wast thou baptized into the covenant of
holiness, to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, if thou
think it needless to perform thy covenant V A holy life is
no more than in baptism thou wast solemnly engaged to.
There didst thou renounce the flesh, the world, and the de-
vil ; and tookest God for thy portion and absolute Lord,
and gavest up thyself to be ruled by him, and saved by
Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit ; and dost thou
now say, * What needs all this ado V Are we all by our
baptismal vow engaged to a needless thing ? I tell thee,
there is not the most holy man on earth, that doth any more
than what he is bound to by the covenant relations which
he undertook in baptism.
Quest. 15. Moreover, What a hypocrite art thou to pro-
fess thyself a member of the holy catholic church, if holi-
ness, which is the life of the church, seem needless to thee I
Why dost thou profess to believe and desire the communion
of saints, if the life of saints seem needless to thee, and thou
102 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
wilt not have communion with them in their sanctity ? Dost
thou not plainly renounce thy covenant, and faith, and du-
ty, when thou renouncesta holy life as a thing unnecessary ?
Qjiest. 16. *Dost thou think, or darest thou say, that the
bloody death, and holy life of Jesus Christ were more than
needs in order to thy salvation V Unless thou be a profess-
ed infidel, I know thou darest not say so. And if thy soul
were worth the sufferings of the Lord of life, is it not worth all
the cost and labour of thy duty ? Christ lived a life of per-
fect holiness ; he never sinned ; he fulfilled all righteous-
ness ; he prayed all night, and with greatest fervency ;
preaching and doing good was his employment. Though
he hated pharisaical superstition, and the teaching for doc-
trines the commandments of men, and serving God according
to men's traditions, yet was there never so holy, and pure,
and precise, and strict, and heavenly a life as Jesus Christ's.
And this was for our redemption, and our example. And
darest thou say that this was needless? Should we not en-
deavour to imitate our pattern ? Are they better that are
most like Christ, or they that are most unlike him ? And
which dost thou think is most like Christ, the lioly or the un-
holy ? Sure we that fall so short of the example that Christ
hath given us, are far from being more diligent than needs,
when Christ went not too far, nor was too strict, that went
so very far beyond us.
Quest. 17. ' Look upon all the institutions of the Lord.
On magistracy, and ministry, and the great works of their
office. On prayer, and preaching, and sacraments, and dis-
cipline, and all other ordinances of God ; and also on all the
frame of the holy Scriptures ; and also on all the workings
and graces of the Holy Ghost ; and tell me whether thou
darest say, that all or any of these are in vain ? and whether
that holiness which all these are appointed for, can be a vain
and needless thing?'
Quest, 18. ' Darest thou say that Christ doth more than
needs in his intercession for us with the Father now in hea-
ven V It is he that sendeth the Spirit to sanctify us. It is
he that prayeth that we may be sanctified by the truth ?
We have no grace and holiness but what we have from him.
And darest thou say he doth too much ? It is he that sends
his ministers to call men to a holy life. Look into his word
and see whether the doctrine which they preach be not there
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 10,1
prescribed to them ; and the duties of holiness there com-
mended. If therefore it were erroneous or excessive, it
would be long of Christ, and not of his messengers or dis-
ciples, that speak and do no more for holiness than he bids
them ; but fall exceeding short.
Quest 19. * Art thou wiser in this, and more to be believ-
ed, than all the ancient prophets, and apostles, and servants
of God in former ages, and than all that are now alive on
earth, that ever tried a holy life?' The Scripture will tell
thee that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and all the rest of
the saints that were then most dear to God, were so far from
thinking that a holy life was more than needs, that they
thought they could never be holy enough, and blamed their
defects when they excelled such as now thou blamest as too
precise. And if thou wilt prefer the words and example of
a worldling, or of a sottish, sensual man, before the judg-
ment and example of these saints, the company that thou
choosest, and the deceivers whom thou followest, shall be
also thy companions in calamity, where shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see the saints from east
and west, from north and south, sit down with Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God,
and you, and such as you, thrust out. Even when the last
in time (whom you here despised) shall be equal to the first
and ancient saints ; Luke xiii. 27 — 30. Why do you hypo-
critically honour the names and memorials of the prophets,
apostles, and other former saints, and keep holydays for
them, and yet reproach their holy co urse, and prefer the j udg-
ment of a drunkard or a malignant enemy of godliness before
theirs ? For so you do when you argue against a holy life.
Quest, 20. * Dost thou think that there is now one soul
in heaven or hell, that is of thy profane opinion, and would
say,that a diligent, holy life is more ado than needs formenV
salvation?' Certainly those in heaven have more know-
ledge, and experience, and love to God and man, and good-
ness, than to be of so impious a mind, or once to entertain
such beastly thoughts. And those in hell, though still un-
holy, have learned to their cost to know the great necessity
of holiness ; and would tell you, if they could speak with
you, that the most strict and heavenly life for millions of ages
were not too dear for the escaping of the everlasting misery.
Why else do we find one of them in Luke xvi. described
104 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
as to be desirous, that one from the dead might be sent to
his brethren, to warn them that they come not to that place
of torment? And what is it that he would have had them
warned of, but that they should live a holy, self-denying
life, and with all their diligence lay up a treasure in the life
to come instead of living so sensual, and voluptuous, and
ungodly a life as he had lived. The scope of the story tells us,
that this would have been his message, if he might have sent.
. Quest, 21. * Dost thou think in thy conscience that at the
hour of thy death, or at least at judgment, thou shalt think
thyself that holiness was imnecessary V Doth not thy heart
tell thee that then thou shalt be of another mind? and wish
with the deepest desires of thy soul, that thou hadst lived
as strictly, and prepared for everlasting life as seriously, and
served God as diligently as ever did any saint on earth ?
But alas, those wishes will be then too late. Now is thy
day ; and now thou takest thy work to be needless : and
to see the necessity when time is gone, will be thy torment,
but not thy remedy. Not one in this congregation, or town
or country, not one in England, or in all the world, but shall
be forced at last, whether lie will or no, to justify the wis-
dom of the godly, and the worst of you shall then, with ten
thousand fruitless groans, desire that you had imitated the
most holy persons that you knew. Not a tongue then shall
say, * What needs all this ado for heaven V Not a man there
dare call his neighbour Puritan, nor take up a contemptu-
ous jeer against the diligent servants of the Lord.
Quest. 22. * Is not that man at the heart against the Lord,
that reproacheth his serious, diligent servants, and counts
his work a needless thing V Men are more willing to please
those that they love, and more ready to do the works they
love. If your son or servant speak against your service,
but as you do against God's, what would you think of their
affections? Doubtless it is no better than a secret hatred
to the holiness of God, and a serpentine enmity to his holy
ways, that causeth all these senseless cavils, and impious
speeches, against the life that he hath commanded us to live.
Quest. 23. * Is it not most unreasonable impiety, for that
man to speak against too strict, exact obedience, and against
serving God too much, that hath served the world, the flesh
and the devil in the vigour and flower of his days, and tliis
with pleasure, and never said. It is too much?* When thou
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 105
wast drinking and sporting thou wast not weary. When it
comes to a matter of riches, or honour, or ease, or pleasure,
to gratify thy worldliness, pride, laziness, and voluptuous-
ness, then thou never sayest. It is too much ! And is all too
little for sin and the devil, and all too much for thy soul and
God? Let conscience tell thee whether this be just.
Quest. 24. ' Is it not a foolish wickedness for that man
to cry out against making haste to heaven, and going so fast
in the ways of God, that hath loitered already till the even-
ing of his days, and lost so much time as thou hast done V
If thou hadst begun as soon as thou hadst the use of reason,
and remembered thy Creator in the days of thy youth, and
never lost an hour of thy time since then till now, thou hadst
done no more than what thy God, thy soul, and all right
reason required of thee ! For surely he that made thee,
hath in wisdom proportioned thy time to thy work, and hath
not given thee an hour too much. A long life is short
enough to prepare for everlasting. And shall a loitering re-
bel that hath wasted so much of his little time, cry out.
What needs so much ado ?
Quest. 25. ' Is it not the graceless, miserable sort of men
that cry out. What needs all this ado V Certainly it is. For
Scripture and reason, and experience tell us, that all that
are godly, are of another mind. The more grace they have,
the more they would have. The more they love God, the
more they would love him. The more good they do, the
more they would do. Do you not see how they labour af-
ter more grace ? and hear how they complain that they are
no better ? O how it would glad them to be more holy and
more heavenly ! It is therefore the strangers and despisers
of grace, that never knew by experience, the nature, and
power, and sweetness of it, that say, * It is more ado than
needs.' And is it not a most unreasonable thing for a man
that hath no saving grace and holiness at all, to cry out
against excess of holiness ? And for a man that is in the
captivity of the devil, and ready suddenly to drop into hell
if death do but strike the fatal blow before he be regenerate,
to talk against doing too much for heaven ? And for a man
that never did God one hour's pleasing service (Heb. xi. 6.)
to prate against serving God too much ? O poor wretch !
were thine eyes but opened, thou wouldst see that of any
man in the town or country, this language ill beseemeth
106 A SAINT OR A BKUTi:.
thee. When God hath been so long offended, and thy soul
is almost lost already, and death and hell is hard at hand,
and may swallow thee up in endless desperation for aught
thou knowest, before thou hast read this book to the end,
or before thou see another year, or month, or day, is it time
for such a one as thee to say, * What needs so much ado V
One would think if there be any life in thee thou shouldst
stir as for thy life ; and if thou have a voice to cry, thou
shouldst cry out to God both day and night in fervour of thy
soul, even now while mercy may be had, lest time should
overslip thee, and thou be shut up in the place of torment.
If hell-fire will not make thee stir, what will ? Should a
weak Christian that is cast behindhand by his negligence
but once speak against a diligent life, he were exceedingly
to blame. But for thee that art yet in the gall of bitterness,
and the misery of an unregenerate state, to speak against
holy diligence for salvation, when thou art in such great and
deep distress, and like a man that is drowning, or a house
on fire, that must presently have help or perish ; this is a
madness that hath no name sufficient to express it by ; which
it is a wonder that a rational soul should be guilty of.
Quest. 26. ' Art thou not afraid of some sudden ven-
geance from the Lord, for thus making thyself his open ene-
my, and contradicting him to his face ? Mark his language,
and then mark thine. Christ saith, " Enter in at the strait
gate ; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth
to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat ; be-
cause strait is the gate, and norrow is the way, which lead-
eth unto life, and few there be that find it ;" Matt. vii. 13, 14.
" Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; for many, I say unto
you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able ;" Luke xiii.
24. '' See then that ye walk circumspectly (or exactly), not
as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time -" Ephes. v. 15, 16.
" For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt. v. 20.
** Wherefore brethren, give all diligence to make your call-
ing and election sure ;" 2 Pet. i. 10. " Work out your sal-
vation with fear and trembling ;" Phil. ii. 12. " Seeing then
all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, look-
ing for and hasting to the coming of the day of God ;"
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 107
2 Pet. iii. 11, 12. *' And if the righteous scarcely be saved,
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ;" 1 Pet. iv. 18.
** Lay not up for yourselves a treasure on earth, &c. but lay
up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, &c. For where your
treasure is there will your hearts be also ;" Matt. vi. 19 — 21.
*• Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ;"
Matt. vi. 33. *' Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but
for that which endureth to everlasting life ;" John vi. 27.
** The kingdom of heaven sufFereth violence, and the violent
take it by force ;" Matt. xi. 12. " Know ye not that they
which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize ?
So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth
for the mastery, is temperate in all things. Now they do it
to obtain a corruptible crown ; but we an incorruptible. I
therefore so run, not as uncertainly : so fight I, not as one
that beateth the air ; but T keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection ; lest that by any means when I have
preached to others, I myself should be castaway ;" 1 Cor.
ix. 24 — 27. " Wherefore do ye spend your money for that
which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, eat ye
that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fat-
ness; incline your ear, and come unto me ; hear and your
soul shall live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant
with you ," Isa. Iv. 1 — 3. " Be fervent in spirit, serving the
Lord ;" Rom* xii. 11. " For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation, hath appeared to all men ; teaching us that deny-
ing ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,
righteously, and godly in this present world ; looking for
that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave himself for us,
that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and sanctify to
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works ;" Tit. ii.
11 — 14. " Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord de-
ceitfully ;" Jer. xlviii. 10. " Whatsoever thy hand findeth
to do, do it with thy might. For there is no work, nor de-
vice, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou
goest ;" Eccles. ix. 10.
These and such like are the sayings of God, by which
thou mayest easily understand his mind concerning the ne-
cessity of a serious, diligent, holy life. And shall a blind
and wretched worm come after, and dare to contradict him,
and unsay all this, and say, * What needs so nmch ado V
108 A SAINT OR A BRUTK.
What! darest thou thus openly resist God to his face?
What art thou ? and what is thy word, that we should regard
it before the word of God ?
Quest. 27. * Dost thou not know that by thy speaking
against a diligent, holy life, thou gratiiiest the devil, and
openly servest him, and sayest the very things that he would
have thee say V What can more please him, and advance his
kingdom, and suit his malicious ends, than to stop and cool
men in the service of the Lord, and make them believe that
holiness is but a needless thing ? If the devil might have
leave to walk visibly among men, and speak to them in their
language, he would speak to them as thou dost, and say the
same things, which he puts into thy mouth ; and would do
all that he could to keep men from a holy life. And darest
thou thus openly play his part ?
Quest. 28. * Canst thou think (when eternal life is at the
stake) that a man so weak in the midst of so many hindrances
and enemies, hath cause to count his diligence unneces-
sary?' When satan, like a roaring lion, is seeking day and
night to devour thee (1 Pet. v. 8.), when his malice, subtlety
and diligence is so great, and so unwearied ; when his in-
struments are so many, so subtle, and so powerful ; when
the world aboundeth round about thee with such dangerous
enticing snares and baits ; when thy traiterous flesh so near
thee is thy most perilous enemy, incessantly drawing thee
from God unto the creature ; and when thou art so impotent
to resist all these assaults ; art thou then in a condition fit to "
cry out against the greatest diligence for thy soul ? Should
a man going up the steepest hill, when it is for his life, be
afraid of going too fast? When thou hast done all thou
canst, it is well for thee that ever thou wast born, if it suf-
fice. If weaknesses and enemies cause such a difficulty
that the righteous themselves are scarcely saved (that is,
with much ado), is it then time for thee to ask. What needs
so much ado.
Quest. 29. ' Dost thou not deal exceeding unthankfully
and unequally with God ? When he thinks not the sun and
moon, and all the creatures too good to serve thee, nor all
his mercies too great for thee ; no, not the blood of his be-
loved Son, nor his Spirit, nor heaven itself if thou wilt ac-
cept them in his way ; wilt thou think thy best too good for
him ? and thy most diligent service to be too much ? When
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 109
thy all is next to nothing ; and thy best doth not profit the
Almighty, but thyself, and the gain will be thy own. If
a man should think it too much to put off his hat and thank
thee, when thou hast given him a thousand pounds ; or to go
a mile for thee, when thou hast saved his life ; thou wouldst
say he were not a man, but a monster of ingratitude. But
thy unthankfulness is ten thousandfold worse to God, who
would deliver thee from everlasting torments, and give thee
everlasting glory, and save thee from satan and all thy sins,
if thou wilt but take his safe remedies ; and thou churlishly
refusest, as if all were not worth so much ado.
Quest. 30. ' Dost thou know what a life it is that thou
accountest an unnecessary toil V It is a life of the greatest
safety, commodity, honour, and delight, (besides the justice
and honesty of it) of any in the world ; and indeed thou
canst not choose any other but at thy peril, and to thy
greatest loss and ruin, and to thy present and everlasting
shame and sorrow. It is the sweetest and most pleasant life
on earth, that thou ignorantly accountest such a tedious
toil. The manifestation of this shall be my work in the se-
cond part of this discourse.
And now I dare affirm, that when the dreadful God shall
shortly judge thee who hast read or heard these words, it
will be found indelibly written upon thy conscience, that
thou hadst here such reasons laid before thee, to prove the
necessity of a serious, diligent, holy life, as all the wit in
earth or hell is not able solidly to confute ; and that an un-
godly, sensual life is most unreasonable ; and that, if after
this, thou continue in an unsanctified, fleshly state, thou
shalt justly perish as one that wilfully refused salvation,
as in dispute of God, his mercies, and his messengers, and of
the plainest, undeniable truth and reason : and that in refus-
ing to be a SAINT, thoumadest thyself in the greatest matters
no better than a brute, wilfully subjecting thy reason to thy
sensuality, and judging thyself unmeet for everlasting hap-
piness.
But here I know the self-deceiving hypocrite will object,
* That all this that I am proving so diligently is confest, and
nothing to the point in question : which is not, Whether
one thing be needful, and holiness be of necessity to salva-
tion '? For who denieth this ? But the question is, Whe-
110 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ther it be this puritanical, precise way of serving God which
only deserves the name of holiness ? and whether they be
not as truly godly and sanctified that say their prayers morn-
ing and night, and go to church on Sundays, and follow
their businesses the rest of the week, without any more ado V
Answ, Either it is the substance of holy duties, or but
the circumstances, which you quarrel at as puritanical and
precise. If it be only the circumstances (as whether we
should receive the Lord's supper standing, or kneeling, or
sitting ? whether we should pray publicly without book,
or in the book? and whether a Scripture form or another be
better? and whether a continued speech, or versicles, an-
thems, and oft-repeated words and sentences be better ?
What form of church government is best? by diocesan bi-
shops, or by all the pastors ? and the like), it is not such
things as these that I am pleading with thee. Though
some of them are matters of considerable moment for the
helping or hindering men in godliness ; yet it is greater mat-
ters than these that I am now contending for. Agree with
us practically in the substance ; in faith, repentance, love,
obedience, mortification, heavenliness, humility, patience,
and serious diligence and zeal in all, and then I am none of
those that will condemn or censure you ; but one that will
rejoice in you, as those that I hope to rejoice with for ever.
But if it be the substantial duties of godliness that you
resist, while you own but the name of godliness in the ge-
neral, I must tell you that it is not names and generals that
will save you ; nor prove that you have yourselves one spark
of grace. Nothing more easy and common than for the
most ungodly to say, they are all for a godly life ; and God
forbid that any should be against it ; when yet they hate
and reject it indeed, when it comes to the practice of those
particular duties in which it doth consist. It is not godli-
ness that they hate and reproach, but it is fervent prayer,
holy conference, meditation, self-denial, mortification of the
desires of the flesh, heavenlymindedness, &c. In general,
they will say that God's law must be obeyed, and his will
preferred before their own. But when it comes to the par-
ticulars, they love him not above all, they take his name in
vain, they keep not holy his day, they disobey superiors that
would reform them, they are envious, malicious, covetous,
lustful, and break all the commandments in particular, which
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. HI
in general they profesB to keep. As if your servant should
promise to do your work ; and when you set him to it, one
thing is too hard, and another he is not used to, and so he
hath iiis exceptions against the greatest part which he un-
dertook. As if one should wound one of you in the head,
and stab you to the heart, and cut off an arm or a leg, and
say, * I wish the man no harm. It is not the man that I hate
or hurt, but only the head, the heart, the arm, &c.' Even so
it is not holiness that these men hate, and speak against ;
but it is so much praying, and meditating, and reading the
Scriptures, and making such a stir about religion when less
ado may serve the turn.
But, wretched soul, if thou have not the wit to see the
contradictions of thy deceitful tongue, and the venom of thy
malignant heart, dost thou think that such sottish shifts as
these will blind the eyes of heavenly justice, and save thee
from the vengeance of a holy God, which he hath denounc-
ed against rebellious hypocrites ? But come on ; let us try
whether the several parts of godliness which thou question-
est, or callest Puritanism or preciseness, are not most ex-
pressly and peremptorily commanded in the word of God.
1. Is it so much preaching and hearing sermons that
thou quarrellest with ? Hear then how Christ and his apos-
tles preached, and how they required men to hear : " And in
the morning rising up a great while before day, he went out
and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And
Simon, and they that were with him followed after him ; and
when they had found him, they said unto him. All men seek
for thee. And he said. Let us go unto the next towns, that
I may preach there also ; for therefore came I forth ; and
he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee ;"
Mark i. 35. 37 — 39. " And straightway many were gather-
ed together, insomuch that there was no room to receive
them ; no, not so much as about the door, and he preached
the word unto them ;" chap. ii. 2. " And they went into a
house, and the multitude cometh together again, so that they
could not so much as eat bread : and when his friends heard
of it, they went out to lay hold on him ; for they said. He is
beside himself;" chap. iii. 19 — 21. " And daily in the tem-
ple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach
Jesus Christ ;" Acts v. 42. *' They that were scattered went
every where preaching the word;** chap.iv.4. " I kept
112 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
back nothing that was profitable to you, but have shewed
you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house.
Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock
over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to
feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his
own blood Therefore watch, and remember that by the
space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night
and day with tears ;" chap. xx. 20. 28. 31. " How shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall
they hear without a preacher?" Rom. x. 14, 15. "Every
way whether in pretence or in truth Christ is preached, and
I do therein rejoice, yea and will rejoice ;" Phil. i. 18. " It
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe ;" 1 Cor. i. 21. "Whom we preach, warning
every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we
may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus," &c. Col. i.
28, 29. " I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his
appearing and his kingdom, preach the word ; be instant in
season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-
suffering and doctrine ;" 2 Tim.iv. 1,2. " Necessity is laid
upon me ; yea, woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel ;"
ICor.ix. 16.
What say you now ? do we not fall much short of those
that we should imitate, rather than do too much in preach-
ing ? But what need we more than the text itself, where for
hearing, Mary is so commended, and her sister blamed for
neglecting it, though it was to make provision for Christ
himself and those that were with him? "And upon the
first day of the week, when the disciples came together to
break bread, Paul preached to them, being to depart on the
morrow, and continued his speech until midnight ;" Acts
XX. 7. " Let every one be swift to hear;" James i. 19.
" He that hath an ear, let him hear;" Rev. ii. 7, &c. " Je-
sus said, My mother and my brethren are those which hear
the word of God and do it ;" Luke viii. 21. I hope you see
this duty is past question.
2. Is it the reading of the Scripture that is the Puritan-
ism, or too much ado that you blame? Or is it the frequent
meditating on such high and holy things? Hear what the
Spirit saith of this. " Blessed is the man that walketh not
in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 113
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his de-
light is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he medi-
tate day and night. — The ungodly are not so — ;" Psal. i.
1, 2. " O how 1 love thy law ! it is my meditation all
the day. Thy testimonies are my meditation. Mine eyes
prevent the night-watches, that I might meditate in thy
word ;" Psal. cxix. 97. 99. 148. *' 1 have esteemed the words
of his mouth more than my necessary food ;" Job xxiii. 12.
*• The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of
gold and silver;" Psal. cxix. 72. " Have ye not read the
Scriptures ?" Markxii. 10. The eunuch " sitting in his cha-
riot read Esaias the prophet;" Acts viii. 28. ** Give atten-
dance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine ;*' 1 Tim. iv. 13.
I hope you see also that this part of godliness is past question*
3. Is it much and fervent prayer that is the preciseness
or too much ado that you make question of? Hear then
what the Holy Ghost doth say of that. " In every thing by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God ;" Phil. iv. 6. " Pray without ceas-
ing. In every thing give thanks ; for this is the will of God
concerning you ;" 1 Thess. v. 17, 18. " And he spake a para-
ble to them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not
to faint ;" Luke xviii. 1 . "I say unto you, though he will not
rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his
importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
And I say unto you. Ask and it shall be given you ; seek
and ye shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you ;"
Luke xi. 8, 9. " He went out into a mountain to pray, and
continued all night in prayer to God ;" Luke vi. 12. Daniel
would not give over praying three times a day in his house,
for thirty days* space at the king's command, no, not to
save his life from devouring lions. David saith, '* Seven
times a day do I praise thee ;" Psal. cxix. 164. " Arise,
cry out in the night ; in the beginning of the watches pour
out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord ;'* Lam.
ii. 19. It is part of the wicked atheists* description that
" they call not upon the Lord ;" Psal. xiv. 4. " Pour out
thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and the fa-
milies that call not on thy name ;" Jer. x. 25. " The Lord
is nigh to all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in
truth;" Psal. cxlv. 18. When Paul was converted, the
VOL. X. 1
114 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Lord lets Ananias know it by this token, " for behold he
prayeth ;" Acts ix. 11. " These all continued with one ac-
cord in prayer and supplication;" Acts i. 14. The three
thousand converts *' continued stedfastly in the apostles'
doctrine, and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and in
prayers ;" Acts ii. 42. *' Continue in prayer, and watch in
the same, with thanksgiving ; withal praying also for us,
that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the
mysteries of Christ ;" Col. iv. 2. '* Continuing instant in
prayer;" Rom. xii. 12. ''The effectual, fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much ;" James v. 16. " For every
creature is sanctified by the word of God and prayer ;" 1 Tim.
iv. 5^ " She that is a widow indeed and desolate, trusteth
in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night
and day;" 1 Tim. v. 5. "Praying in the Holy Ghost;"
Jude 20. ** Night and day praying exceedingly ;" 1 Thess.
iii. 10. " Praying always with all prayer and supplication
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance
and supplication for all saints ; and for me, &c." Ephes. vi.
18. " What prayer or what supplication soever shall be
made of any man, or of all thy people Israel, when every
one shall know his own sore, and his own grief, and shall
spread forth his hands in his house, then hear thou from
heaven, &c." 2 Chron. vi. 29.
I hope by this time, if you have eyes, you see that more
frequent and fervent prayers than any of us use (and that
without book), were used by the ancient servants of the
Lord, and were not thought too much ado, nor more ado
than God requireth of us.
4. Is it constant, diligent teaching, instructing and ca-
techising your families, and labouring that yourselves and
they may understand and practise the law«of God ? Hear
also what the Spirit saith of this; and then judge, whether
it be too much preciseness.
** My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my
commandments with thee, so that thou incline thine ear
unto wisdom, and apply thy heart to understanding ; yea, if
thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for un-
derstanding ; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for
her as for hidden treasures ; then shalt thou understand the
fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God;" Prov. ii.
1 — 5. •* And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. n«5
heart, and with all tliy soul, and with all thy might. And
these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy
heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy chil-
dren, and shalt talk of them when tliou sittest in thy house,
and when tliou walke«t by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets be-
tween thine eyes; and thou shalt write them upon the posts
of thy house, and on thy gates;*' Deut. vi.5— 7. 11. 18—20.
" For I know Abraham that he will command his children
and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of
the Lord ;" Gen. xviii. 19. " But as for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord ;" Josh.xxiv. 15. " Train up a child
in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not de-
part from it ;" Prov. xxii. 6. ** Bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord ;" Eph. vi.4. These and many
such passages shew you that the most diligent instructing
of your families is not more ado than God requireth, but a
most weighty, needful part of godliness.
5. Is it the meeting of divers neighbours together (dis-
tinct from church meetings) that you question ? Why, if it
be schismatical in opposition to the public meetings, or to
do any unlawful work, we are against it as well as you.
But if it be but for the redeeming of their time, for their
spiritual advantage, and orderly, peaceably, and soberly
observed, by some that have more time, or care of their
souls, than the rest of their neighbours ; sure you will not
for shame imagine, that neighbours may lawfully meet to
make merry, and feast, and sport, and confer about their
worldly business, and yet may not meet to pray, and praise
God, and repeat what instructions they have received of
their teachers, and prepare for and improve the public or-
dinances? Hear what the Spirit saith also to this. In the
text here you find just such a meeting, where Christ was
teaching, and Mary and his disciples hearing, and Martha
cumbered with providing for the company, and blamed for
neglecting the advantage for her soul. Peter came out of
prison to the house of Mary, where many were gathered to-
gether praying; Acts xii. 11?. Cornelius ** called together
his kinsmen and near friends" to hear Peter, who there
preached to them, converted and baptized them ; Acts x.
24. I need to instance in no more, because this was the
116 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ordinary practice of Christ and the apostles. If you say.
Those were times of persecution ; I answer. True; but, 1.
Yet such times in which public assemblies were ordinarily
held, and public preaching used. 2. And as the good of
men's souls required it in times of persecution, so when the
good of souls requires it, in times of liberty, it is from the
same general reason a duty ; but never forbidden by Christ
in any times of greatest prosperity and peace.
6. Is it the holy observation of the Lord's day that is the
preciseness that you cannot away with ? Of all men, it be-
seems not them to quarrel at this, that own our homilies,
and with the Common Prayer, use after the fourth com-
mandment to say, ' Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline
our hearts to keep this law ;' when they have heard, * Re-
member that thou keep holy the sabbath-day, thou, thy son,
thy daughter, thy man-servant, thy maid-servant, thy cattle,
and the stranger that is within thy gates.' You see all the
aforesaid duties must be performed, and public assemblies
for God's worship and our instruction continued : and there-
fore there must be some known appointed time for these.
And do you know any other day that is fitter ? I think you
will not pretend to that. You would not have another day
instead of this ; but you would have no day at all for such
holy works, but a day for ease, and idleness, and sports,
and vain discourse, and pleasures, with some little formal
public worship intermixed to cheat your souls. It is not
then the day, but the serious, diligent, holy employment
and duty that you are against ; and that I have proved to be
God's will before. Doubtless, if you leave all men to serve
God when they will, without any stated time, his worship
will soon be brought to nothing, and they that pretend to
keep every day holy, will keep none. Look upon the places
where the Lord's day is kept holy, and see whether godli-
ness flourish not there incomparably above all other places.
And I think none can doubt but that more souls have been
converted and brought home to God on that day than on
any day of the week, if not than all the rest beside. And
there is not the most peevish, malignant soul of you, that
can with any show of reason pi^ove that the holy observation
of the Lord's day is unlawful, if it were not necessary ; so
that we are at least on the safest side of the hedge. For we
can say that we can take a most happy opportunity for the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 117
good of our own souls, and the worshipping of God ; and
that we are sure to do that which is no sin. Our adversaries
themselves do nob charge us with doing that which is for-
bidden, but that which they conceit unnecessary. But if we
should do as they, and neglect this day, we are not sure but it
may be a great sin ; (nay, indeed, we are sure it would be so.)
But what saith the Holy Ghost now to this question ?
To pass by the fourth commandment at this time, the letter
of it, and the equity and reason of a seventh day, the ad-
vantage of reason why there should be no less under the
Gospel, and such like; I shall only now say these two
things. (I.) It is plain in Scripture that (* de facto') the
apostles and churches used to meet for holy communion in
God's worship on the Lord's day ; and consequently that
this was appointed by the apostles, or immediately by Christ
himself, there being then no other who pretended to any
such authority; and that apostolical allowance no man
questioneth. The apostles then having the extraordinary
gift of the Spirit, by which they were enabled infallibly to
make known the will of God, and being commissioned as
well as enabled hereunto ; as their writing of the Holy Scrip-
tures, so their constitutions for the ordering of the church,
being the effects of that authority received from Christ, and
that ability given them by the Spirit, are divine, and princi-
pally the acts of Christ and the Holy Ghost, whose agents
the apostles were. Now that the first churches did by their
appointment observe the Lord's day for holy actions, is ap-
parent. As Christ first laid the groundwork by rising on
that day, so he began that very day to preach unto Mary the
comfortable doctrine of his ascension in words that deserve
to be written in gold, or rather in the deepest room of every
true believer's heart; " Go to my brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God;" Johnxx. 17. The first sermon that
ever was preached on a Lord's day, even on the first Lord's
day by Christ himself, even to a beloved penitent woman,
whom he chose to be as it were his apostle to his apostles,
to deliver them this message as from him.
On the same day the disciples being assembled, he owned
and blessed their assembly, and gave them the Holy Ghost
and apostolical power.
When Thomas being absent from the assembly the first
118 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Lord's day, did miss the sight of Christ and was unbelieving,
Christ left him a whole week in his unbelief, and would not
heal him till the next Lord's day, which he honoured with
that cure. Then the disciples being met again, Christ came
among them, and convinced Thomas.
On another Lord's day they were all with one accord in
one place, and the Holy Ghost was in the extraordinary
measure given them. And Acts xx. 7. it is mentioned as
the custom of the disciples, to come together on the first
day of the week to break bread ; and Paul then preached to
them even till midnight. And 1 Cor. xvi. 1,2. the collec-
tions for the saints were made every first day of the week in
all the churches of Galatia, and at Corinth, because they had
then their holy assemblies. And therefore Rev. i. 10. it is
called peculiarly The Lord's day.
(2.) But to clear this past all rational doubting, we find
in all the writings of the ancients, and histories of the
church, that all the churches through the world unanimous-
ly observed the Lord's day as instituted by Christ, or the
Holy Ghost in the apostles ; none ever questioning or con-
tradicting it, that I ever read of. He that hath read the
writings of the ancients, and denieth this, is unworthy to
be disputed with. The practice of the universal church is a
full exposition of the forecited Scriptures ; and though it
be no law to us itself, yet is it a full discovery of the fact,
(telling us what was the primitive practice,) and so a disco-
very of the law. And shall any private ignorant man come
in after one thousand, six hundred and twenty-six years,
and say the apostles and all the churches in the world have
been deceived till this day, and we must rectify the mistake?
Shall these fellows come in at the end of the world, and call
the apostles and all t^e churches of all ages Puritans, for
keeping holy the Lord's day ? Or will any but a brain-sick
person hearken to such shameless men as these ?
Object. * But the ancient churches did not keep that day
as a sabbath, but only as a day for public worship.'
A71SW. We will not stick with you for the name. We
urge you not to call it the sabbath, (though the ancients
sometimes did so : see our Homilies " Of the Place and
Time of Prayer,") if you will call it as Scripture and the
churches did, by the name of the Lord's day. And it was
then the custom of the churches to spend almost all the day
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 1 11>
in public worship and holy communion, and therefore they
had but little time for any private duties that day. And
yet (though the private practices of particular persons on
that day belittle mentioned in church-history,) no man can
prove that they used to spend any remaining hours of that
day as common time in common business. So that to quarrel
against the holy observation of the Lord's day, is but to quarrel
with the Holy Ghost and the apostles, and all the churches of
all ages since, and with the happiest season for the worship-
ping of God,and seeking our own and other men's edification.
7. What is there yet remaining then that you quarrel
with as too much preciseness ? Is it the strictness of men's
lives in forbearing sin, and not doing as their neighbours
do, in rioting, and vain recreations, and delights? For this
I need not stand to justify them, with any impartial, sober
man. If sin be evil, and displease God, and deserve dam-
nation, he that most fully and carefully avoideth it, is the
honestest and the wisest man. You will not blame your
child or servant for being loath to offend and disobey you,
even in the smallest matter. You like not him that offereth
you the least abuse, so well as him that offereth you none.
You had rather be well than have the least disease. You
will not take a little poison ; nor would you feel a little of
hell. Why then should we not avoid the least sin so far as
we are able ? If sinning be good, then devils are the best
creatures, and angels and Christ (in his manhood) the worst.
But if sin be the greatest evil, what will you call those men
that do not only wilfully commit it, but plead for it, and re-
proach those that would fain avoid it? Or what if some of
those that you reproach, are mistaken in some point, and
take that to be a sin that is none ? Or what if you think it
to be no sin which they scruple ? Will you blame a man
that loves God, to be afraid of that which he suspecteth may
offend him? Or will you blame him that cares for his sal
vation, to make as sure of it as he can, and to keep as far
from the brink of hell as he is able ? How is it that you
observe not that your very reproaches do confute them-
selves ? What is it that you are offended at in the servants
of the Lord? Is it good or evil? Surely it is some fault
or other of theirs, that you will pretend to be the cause.
For scarce any but the devil himself will openly and pro-
fessedly oppose goodness under the name of goodness.
120 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
And if it be a (real or supposed fault that you speak against
them for, doth it not intimate that they should avoid all
faults, as far as they are able ? And yet will you at the same
time reproach them for being too strict, and fearful to offend
as if it were their fault that they are unwilling to be faulty ?
But let us hear what God saith of this. " Fools make a
mock at sin ;" Prov. xiv. 9. **' Righteousness exalteth a
nation ; but sin is a reproach to any people ;" ver. 34. And
yet you make the avoiding it a reproach. "If thou doest
well, shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door ;" Gen. iv. 7. " Be sure your sin
will find you out;" Numb, xxxii. 23. "Sin when it is
finished bringeth forth death ;" James i. 15. " Abstain
from all appearance of evil ;" 1 Thess. v. 22. " But I say
unto you, that for every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For
by thy words thou shalt be justified ; and by thy words thou
shalt be condemned j" Matt. xii. 36. 37. " Whosoever shall
break one of the least of these commandments, and shall
teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven ;
but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt. v. l9. " But
I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment but
whosoever shall say. Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-
fire ;" ver. 22. " I say unto you, that whosoever looketh
on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery al-
ready with her in his heart ;*' ver. 28. " I say unto you,
swear not at all : neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool : but let your com-
munication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil ;'* ver, 34 — 37. " But above all
things, my brethren, swear not ; neither by heaven, neither
by the earth, nor by any other oath ; but let your yea be
yea, and your nay, nay, lest you fall into condemnation ;"
" But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it
not be once named amongst you as becometh saints : neither
filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not con-
venient; but rather giving of thanks;'* Ephes.v. 3, 4. An
hundred such passages of Scripture I might recite, that
might quickly satisfy you what Godexpecteth, and whether
it be too much preciseness to feur the smallest sin.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. HI
8. But perhaps it is the rigor of their church discipline
that maketh you offended with those that you count too
pure and precise; because they will not let other men alone,
but are reproving them, and bringing them to open peni-
tence and confession of their open sins, and casting those
out of the communion of the church, which do refuse it.
Aiisw. But do they do this of themselves, or doth God com-
mand it them ? Do you think that the communion of
sainO. is to be turned into a rabble of impiety ; and the
church into a swine-sty ? Do you not know that the canons
of the ancient churches for many hundred years after Christ,
are stricter in this discipline by far, than those that now of-
fend you by their strictness? And hear what the Holy
Ghost saith, " Thou shaltnot hate thy brother in thy heart;
thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer
sin upon him;" Lev. xix. 17. " If thy brother trespass
against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him
alone ; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But
if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more,
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may
be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell
it unto the church ; but if he neglect to hear the church,
let him be unto thee as a heathen man or a publican ;"
Matt, xviii. 15 — 17. " For I verily as absent in body, but
present in spirit, have judged already as though I were pre-
sent concerning him that hath done this deed, that in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered toge-
ther, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to deliver such an one to satan, for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus — Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole
lump ? Purge out therefore the old leaven Now I have
written to you not to keep company ; if any man that is
called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater,
or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an
one no not to eat therefore put away from among your-
selves the wicked person ;" 1 Cor. v. " Now we command
you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disor-
derly, and not after the tradition which he received of us
And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note
that man, and have no company with him, that he may be
122 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ashamed ;" 2 Thess. iii. 6. 14. " If there come any unto you,
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him God speed ; for he that biddeth him God
speed, is partaker of his evil deeds ;" 2 John 10,11. ** Confess
your faults one to another;" James v. 16. " Give, I pray
thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession
unto him, and tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not
from me ;" Josh. vii. 19. " He that covereth his sins shall
not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh ther dshall
have mercy;" Prov. xxviii. 13. Doth not all this justify
the exercise of discipline, and condemn the neglect of it?
9. But, (saith the impious person,) why make they such
a difference between themselves and other men ; extolling
themselves as the only servants of the Lord, and condemn-
ing others as ungodly and children of the devil, and terrify*
ing men's consciences with the fears of hell ?
Ansv). If any do so against such as are sanctified and
renewed, and have the Spirit of Christ, and live to God,
they deal uncharitably : and if you dislike their censorious-
ness, so do I, and so do all the sober, considerate servants of
the Lord. But if it be only against the carnal, unsanctified
world that they do thus, it is God that maketh the differ-
ence, and not they. Do you not find the whole Scripture
dividing all the world into two ranks, the godly and the un-
godly ? the regenerate and the unregenerate ? the converted
and unconverted ? the sanctified and unsanctified ? the car-
nal and the spiritual ? the earthlyminded and the heavenly-
minded? the pardoned and unpardoned ? the justified and
unjustified? the children of God and the enemies of God?
the servants of God and of the devil ? the heirs of heaven
and the heirs of hell ? To prove this would be to repeat the
Bible. Read Psalm i. x. xv. xxvii. Matt. v. Rom. viii.
John iii. Matt. xiii. 1 John iii. &c. Do you not find
Christ himself acquainting you beforehand that one sort
shall be set at his right hand in judgment, and the other at
his left? and one part sent to life everlasting, and the other
to everlasting punishment? Matt. xxv. Do they speak
any more of the everlasting torments, the worm that dieth
not, the fire that is unquenchable, than Christ himself hath
done? Matt. xiii. 2. 2 Thess. i. &c. Do you love to be
flattered into hell, and deceived in a matter of everlasting
consequence ? Is it not better for you to search your hearts.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 123
and try whether you have the Spirit of Christ or not ; and
then search the Scripture, and try whether any man be his
that hath not his Spirit (Rom. viii. 9.), or can be saved that
is not converted and born again of the Spirit? Matt, xviii.
3. John iii. 3. 6. " Examine yourselves whether you be in
the faith. Prove your ownselves. Know ye not your own-
selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be repro-
bates?" 2Cor. xii. 5.
10. But you will say that the reason of your distaste
against these that are so forward in religion is, that they are
inwardly as bad as others, and as proud and worldly ; and
why do they not excel others in good works, as much as
they do in their devotions?
Answ. 1. So they do, according to their ability. Twen-
ty years' trial and more I have had of them since I was a
minister of Christ, and I can truly say that, ordinarily, I
have known of many a shilling, if not pounds, that have
come from the purses of these that you call Puritans and
precise, for one groat or penny that I have known come from
most others about me of their rank, to any pious and cha-
ritable use. But all that are godly, are not rich ; and though
Christ extolleth the widow's two mites, the standers-by re-
garded them not; Matt. xii. 42,43. " If there be first a
willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath,
and not according to that he hath not ;" 2 Cor. viii. 12.
And he that hath said, " Take heed that you do not your
alms before men to be seen of them ; otherwise you have no
reward of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. vi. 1.) ;
hath hereby kept his servants from making the world ac-
quainted with much of their deeds of charity. And for the
sins of the heart that you charge them with, they are known
to none but God, unless they be discovered in their lives.
But malice in all ages hath been used to such unproved
slanders of the servants of the Lord.
2. But suppose them as bad as malice doth imagine : is
that any reason why both they and you should not be bet-
ter ? It is holiness and not sin that I am pleading for. Is
their godliness and care of salvation necessary, or not ? If
it be, why do you not imitate them in that ? And if you
know any fault in them, take warning and avoid it. But be
not so mad as to run into hell, because some fall in the way
to heaven, or some miss the way that seemed to go thither.
124 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Imitate not the Judas in Christ's family, but the rest of his
disciples, and that not in their falls, but in their faith and
piety. All that shall be saved, have both holiness towards
God, and justice and charity to men. *' The wisdom from
above is firs;t pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be en-
treated, full of mercy and good fruits ;" James iii. 17. If you
want the first, you are ungodly ; if the latter, are hypocrites.
And if the hypocrite and the ungodly will stand snarling here
at one another, they shall perish together, in that misery
that will convince them that neither of them were the heirs
of life ; when saints, and none but they, shall live with Christ.
Object. * But it is but a few that are of so strict a mind
and life; and shall none be saved but these few?*
Arisw. Christ hath told you whom he will save. He will
not falsify his word, nor take the unsanctified into heaven
for want of company. He hath told you that the gate is strait,
and the way narrow that leads to life, and few there be that
find it ; Matt. vii. 14. and that it is a little flock to whom the
Father will give the kingdom ; Lukexii. 32. You shall not want
company in heaven, nor find comfort in your company in hell.
But if you would have the number of the godly to be
greater, why do you not increase it by your joining with
them ? Why do not all the town and parish agree together,
and bind themselves in a covenant to serve and seek the
Lord, as the Israelites ; Josh. xxiv. 2 Chron. xv. 12, 13. O
happy people that will thus accord, and heartily perform it !
And now, beloved hearers, I have finished this first part
of my task, and proved to you the necessity of a holy life.
That " one thing is needful," while you pitifully cumber
yourselves about " many things," is the message that from
Christ I have been hitherto delivering to you. What say
you? Are you yet resolved to seek this one thing with the
chiefest of your desires, and care, and labour, or are you
not? Dare any one of you say that you have not heard that
which should resolve a sober, considerate man ? I think
you dare not. But if you dare, I am sure you shall never
be able to make it good, and justify your words to God, or
to your consciences at last, or to any wise, impartial per-
son. Now take your choice, whether you will now be
SAINTS, and for ever like angels ; or now belike brutes,
and for ever like devils. For one of these must be your
case, as sure as you have heard these words.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
THE SECOND PART.
Clearly proving by Reason as well as Scripture : I.
In general, that Holiiiess is best, and necessary to
our felicity, II. Particularly, that it is best, 1.
For Societies. 2. For Individual Persons, And
more distinctly, (1.) T'hat it is the only way to
Safety, (2.) Of Honesty, (3.) The most Gain-
ful way, (4.) The most Honourable. (5.) The
most Pleasant, and therefore to be chosen by all that
will obey true Reason and be happy.
CHAP. I.
Holiness and its fruits are the best part. Wherein the Happi-
ness of Saints consisteth.
LUKE X. 4
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen the good part,
which shall not be taken from her,
1 HOUGH I have before taken up this latter part of the text
by way of motive, in the conclusion of the former part of
this Treatise, I am very loath that a subject of so great im-
portance should be so lightly passed over. And therefore,
by God's assistance, I shall attempt a fuller handling of it.
The Necessity of Holiness I have spoken of already. It is
the Goodness of it that I am next to speak of.
12G A SAINT OR A BUUTE.
And before I enter upon it, let me entreat thee reader, who-
ever thou art that openest this book, to remember that I am
writing, and thou art reading of the greatest and highest
matters in the world ; and therefore come not to it with
common affections, and read not this as thou wouldst do a
history, or a rhetorical oration, to find delight for a curious
mind ; but confessing thyself a scholar to Christ, with re-
verence take thy lesson from him, as that which thou cam-
est into the world to learn, and which all thy comforts, thy
hopes, thy safety, and thy everlasting happiness depend
upon.
And here in the entrance, I will freely tell you what
raoveth me to fall upon this subject, and be so earnest with
you in this point. One thing is the observation of the care-
lessness and wilfulness of the most, that live in the neglect
of holiness and everlasting life, for all that can be said to
persuade them to a wiser course. While they all profess
themselves to be Christians, and to take the Scripture for
the word of God, and confess this word in particular to be
true, that it is heaven and holiness that are the most neces-
sary, and most to be desired and sought after, yet will they
not be moved to live according to this profession, nor to
love that most which they confess to be the best, nor to seek
that first which they confess to be most needful. They have
the case here decided by the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ
himself, and as plainly, and fully, and peremptorily decided
as they could wish. If they were infidels, and understood
but the law of nature, even reason might tell them that there
is no doubt of it, but that eternal life is more to be sought
after than transitory things. And yet they live as if the
case had never been decided by Christ or by reason ; or as
if they had never heard of any life but this. Look into most
towns, and see whether there be not more at Martha's work
(and worse) than at Mary's. Look into most families, and see
whether they be not with Martha, troubling themselves with
many things, when the good part is almost cast aside. Even
in the families of lords, knights, and gentlemen, that are
doubly obliged to God, and pretend to be wiser than the
ignorant vulgar, the matters of their salvation are turned out
of doors, or thrust into a corner, and the matters of their
bodies do take up the day. How many Marthas for one
Mary shall we find among both rich and poor !
A SAINT OR A HUUIE. 127
Yea, that is not the worst, but they that are so blind and
wicked as to choose the worse part themselves, would have
all about them do so too. And as Martha grudged at Ma-
ry's practice, and complaineth to Christ against her, so
these repine at the choice of the godly, and think them but
melancholy, crack-brained people, that make more ado for
their salvation than they need. And they are not content to
keep such ungodly thoughts in their breasts, to their own
damnation, but they must be the devil's mouth to spit re-
proach in the face of holiness, and consequently in the face
of Christ, as if they bid defiance to the Lord, and would
make it their employment to jeer and scorn men's souls
from heaven. If one in a family do with Mary choose the
better part (though without any neglect of their calling in
the world), the rest make a wonder of them, and some de-
ride them ; and some hate, and vilify, and threaten them,
and few will imitate them. And who more forward to dis-
taste and despise them than the masters of the families that
are bound to teach and lead ihem in that way ! So that a
poor soul (even in a land and age that countenanceth holi-
ness more than almost any other in the world) can scarcely
sit at the feet of Christ, and learn his word, and seek his
kingdom and righteousness first, but they are gazed at, and
censured and derided, as if they did some very foolish, need-
less, yea, or wicked thing ! As if it were the only folly for
a man to follow Jesus Christ, and obey his God, and save
his soul, and do that work with greatest diligence, for which
he is a man, for which he hath his life, and time, and mer-
cies, and which if he neglect, he is lost for ever ! The Lord
have mercy upon the poor deluded world ! Whence comes
this general damp and dotage upon the understandings and
the hearts of men ; of great men, of learned men, of men that
are accounted wise in the world !
It is good and evil that constituteth all that wonderful
difference that is between the reasonable creatures, both
here and hereafter. The good of holiness, and the evil of
sin do make the difference between the godly and the wick-
ed. The good of everlasting happiness, and the evil of ever-
lasting misery, doth make the difference between the glori-
fied and the damned. Goodness in general is so naturally the
object of man's will, that evil as evil cannot be desired, and
good as good cannot be hated. What then is the matter that
128 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
few attain the greatest good, and few will escape the greatest
misery? It is because they would not choose that good,
and refuse the way and cause of misery. But how cometh
it to pass that men will make no wiser a choice ? Is the
case so doubtful that they cannot be resolved in it ? Every
man would have that which he thinks is best for him. Why
do men follow after wealth, or pleasure, or credit in the
world, but because they take it to be best for them ? Why
do they set so light by holiness, and Christ, and heaven, but
because they apprehend them not to be best for them?
Would men refuse, and obstinately against all persuasions
refuse a holy life, if they took it practically to be best for
them ? What ! will they contrive their own destruction ?
Do they long to do themselves a mischief, and the greatest
mischief in the world ? No, that is not the case ; but the
matter is this : Their senses draw them another way ; their
eye, their ear, their taste, their feeling, every sense hath a
pleasure of its own, and this sense or flesh is violent and un-
reasonable, and would fain be satisfied ; and reason that was
given us to rule it, is bribed, and blinded, and perverted by
it, and so is ready as a servant to obey it, and to take its
part ; and the fleshly mind discerneth not the things of God,
for they are spiritually discerned. The will also, and the
aflections are, by the bias of a fleshly inclination, corrupted
and habitually lean to the fleshly part. And that which
men love, they will easily think well of, and are glad of any
thing like reason to defend it ; and that which is against the
inclination of the will, will hardly be thought well of, and
any thing like reason will serve against it. This depravation
of the mind and will of man, enslaved and ruled by the flesh
or sensuality, is the very cause that most men will not
choose the better part, and so the cause of their perpetual
misery. And till the Holy Ghost send in a heavenly light
of wisdom into the mind, to shew them the true difference
between the good and the evil ; and a new inclination into
the will, that shall turn their hearts from the evil to the
good, they will still go on, and the matters of God will seem
foolishness to them, and they will take those men for the
veriest fools that follow the wisdom of the Lord, and pro-
vide carefully for eternal life ; and they will take those for
the wisest men, that are most contrary to the God of wis-
dom, and that dare leap most fearlessly into hell. Or if this
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 129
be not their opinion, but conviction force them to a wiser
kind of language, yet will it be their practical estimation,
and their hearts, as their choice and lives will easily declare.
For " that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit ;" John iii. 6. The fleshly man
will have a fleshly mind and will, and openly or secretly will
live after the flesh, and such are the heirs of death ; Rom.
viii. 5. 7. 13. Fleshly generation cannot make a spiritual
mind or heart in any, but it must be by spiritual regenera-
tion. And therefore "except a man be born again of the
Spirit," as well as of "water, he cannot enter into the king-
dom of heaven ;" John iii. 3. 5.
This inward ditference of inclination is the true cause of
the difference of the judgments, and the courses of men,
about the matters of God and their salvation.
This is it that makes so many to think none wise but
those that are more dangerously mad than men in Bedlam ;
and that makes so many others stand in doubt as men unre-
solved what to choose, and what course to follow. As if it
were really a difficult point for a man to be resolved in, whe-
ther it be best and wisest to follow the teachings of God or
of the flesh ; and to seek first the kingdom and righteous-
ness of God or to make a pudder for nothing in the world ;
and to tickle this itching flesh awhile, though they must
smart for it for ever, or to master the flesh and live to God !
In a word, the world are half unresolved. Whether it be
better to be holy with God's promise of eternal glory, or to
take the pleasures of sin for a season, and neglect this holi-
ness, though this course be threatened by the living God
with everlasting; torments ? This is the true state of the
question, which I say one part of the world doth seem to be
unresolved in, and another part are resolved on the worser
side, against their souls and a holy life ; and onlythose that
the illuminating, sanctifying Spirit hath resolved, do choose
the needful, better part.
The reason of this distracted judgment of the moat, is
within themselves. It is not because that there is any such
difficulty in the case, as should put a wise man to a stand ;
nor is it because they have not sufficient evidence in the
word, or that God denied them teachers, books, or any ne-
cessary means for their information. The light is among
VOL. X. K
130 A SAINT OR A BRUTE
them, but they love it not because their hearts and deeds are
evil, and their darkness doth not comprehend it ; and this is
their delusion, and their condemnation ; Johni. 6 — 8. iii. 19.
When I am preaching to a congregation of many hundred
or thousand souls, if the salvation of all that people did lie
upon any other question no harder than this that we have in
hand, so it were such as fleshly interest, and corrupted minds
and wills had no quarrel against, how easily, how surely
should I save the souls of all that heard me ! Reader, let me
have thy judgment. If the question were. Whether light or
darkness be the better ? — Whether a dead corpse be better
than a living man ? — Whether a cottage for a day, or a rich
habitation for term of life be better — Whether as much drink
as will make thee drunk, or a night's lodging with a whore,
be better than lands and lordships for thy lifetime, or for a
thousand years ? — Whether one sweet cup with shame and
beggary all thy life after, or one bitter draught with perpe-
tual prosperity, should be rather chosen ? — Whether a sick
man were better take an unpleasing medicine that would
cure him, or a pleasant poison that would kill him ? — Whe-
ther he were better pay a little to the physician, or die to
save his money? — Whether that prince be wise that will sell
his kingdom for a cup of wine, or for children's rackets? —
Or whether that child be virtuous that cannot abide his fa-
ther's sight, or house, or commands, but loveth better to do
that which he knows displeaseth him, or tumble in the dirt
with swine?— I say, if any of these were the question to be
resolved, and the salvation of all that heard me lay upon the
true resolution, I leave it to your own judgments, whether I
were not like to save the souls of all that heard me? And
yet in a case as clear in itself, and much more clear, how
few do we prevail with ! Is not the question, Wliether God or
the creature, holiness or sin, earth or heaven, short or ever-
lasting pleasures should be preferred? as plain to a wise man
as any of those that I mentioned before? Is it not as plain
a case to a man of judgment. Whether holiness, with ever-
lasting joys, be better than fleshly pleasures with damnation?
as Whether a kingdom be better than a jail, or gold than dirt,
or health than sickness ? Yet do your salvations lie upon this
question, this easy question. I must again repeat it : All
your salvations lie upon the practical resolution of this easy
question. Be but resolved once that God is best for you.
A SAINT OK A J3KUTE. 131
and heaven is best for you, and accordingly make your re-
solute choice, and faithfully prosecute it, and God will be
yours, heaven vi^ill be yours as sure as the promise of God is
true. But if you will not choose God and glory as your
best, but will choose the world and simple pleasures as better
for you, you shall have no better than you choose, and shall
suffer a double condemnation for neglecting and refusing so
great salvation.
You hear now by men's talk, and you see by their lives
that the world is divided upon this question. What it is that
is best for a man, and which is his best and wisest course.
One part (and the greater) think in their hearts that present
prosperity is best, because they think that the promised
happiness of the life to come is a thing uncertain ; or if
there be such a thing, they may have it after the pleasures
of sin : These are the infidels.
Another part have a superficial dead opinion, that hea-
ven and holiness are best ; but the love of the flesh and
the world lieth deeper at their hearts, and beareth the greater
sway in their lives ; and these are the hypocrites ; that is.
Christians in opinion and profession, and so much of their
practice as will stand with their fleshly interest, but infidels
in their practical estimation, and at the heart, and in the re-
serves and secret bent of their lives.
Another part, being illuminated and sanctified from
above, believe the certainty and excellency of glory, and see
the vanity and vexation of this life, and taste the sweetness
of the love of God, and perceive the necessity and sweet-
ness of that holiness, which others so abhor, and hereupon
give up themselves to God, and set themselves to seek for
the immortal treasure, and make it the principal care of their
hearts and business of their lives to escape damnation, and
live with Christ in endless glory.
All the world consisteth of these three sorts of men, in-
fidels, hypocrites, and true believers. Now the question is.
Which of these three are in the right ? Both the other do
condemn the hypocrite that halteth between two opinions ;
and one thinks that Baal is God, that the world is best, and
therefore he gives up himself to it ; and the other thinks
that the Lord is God, and heaven is best, and therefore he
gives up himself to it. And if it would do any thing with
those that doubt, towards the turning of the scales, to teH
132 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
you which side Christ is on, it is told you here in my text,
as plain as the tongue of man can speak, ** One thing is
needful. Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not
be taken away from her."
The doctrine which 1 am now to handle to you from the
plain words of the text, is this ;
Doct. * That those that prefer the learning of the word of
Christ, to guide them by holiness to everlasting happiness,
before all the lower matters of this world, are they that
choose the better part, even that which shall never be taken
from them.'
If now the word of Christ alone would serve your turn,
I had done my work, I needed not to go any further. You
would be now resolved, that heaven and holiness is best,
and would set your hearts and lives to seek it ; and so it
would be your own for ever. But this text hath long stood
in the Gospel, and men have heard and read it often, and yet
the most are not persuaded ; and therefore I must try to
open it a little further to you, and plead it with you, and
work the reason of it upon your minds.
Reader, our business is but to inquire. What it is that is
best for man to set his heart on and seek after in his life, and
enjoy for ever? I say, it is the everlasting enjoyment of
God in heaven. For Christ saith so. If thou think other-
wise let us debate the case. If thou believe as I do, live as
thou professest to believe. If men did but deeply and
soundly know what it is that is best for them, it would set
right their hearts and lives, and make them happy. But
not knowing this, is it that keepeth them from God and ho-
liness, and everlastingly undoes them.
Though I have often opened this heretofore on oth^r oc-
casions, yet my present subject now requireth. I. That I
tell you what that is that here is called " The good part."
II. What it is that is set against it, and by fleshly minds
preferred before it. And having briefly opened these two
things, I shall come to the comparison, and shew you which
is the better part.
I. That which Christ calls here, that good part, is, 1.
Principally the end of man, or our everlasting happiness
with God in heaven. 2. Subordinately, the means by which
it is attained. 3. That happiness which is the end, compre-
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. J 33
hendeth in it these particulars, which if you distinctly appre-
hend, you will much the better understand the nature and
excellency of it,
1. The true believer hath the small beginnings and earn-
ests, and foretastes of the everlasting blessedness in this life
in his approaches to God, and living upon him by faith and
love, and in his believing apprehensions of the favour of
God, the grace of Christ, and the happiness which in heaven
he shall enjoy for ever.
2. At death the souls of true believers do go to Christ,,
and enter upon a state of happiness.
3. At the last day, the body shall be raised and united to
the soul, and the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory to
judge the world, where he will openly absolve and justify
the righteous, when he condemneth the ungodly, and will be
glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that do be-
lieve, and the saints shall also judge the world, and be them-
selves adjudged to everlasting glory.
4. Their everlasting habitation shall be in the heavens,
even near unto God, and in the presence of his glory.
5. Their company will be only blessed spirits, even the
holy angels and glorified saints, with whom we shall be one
body, and constitute the new Jerusalem and be perfectly one
in God for ever.
6. Their bodies shall be perfected and made immortal,
spiritual, incorruptible, and glorious bodies, shining as the
stars in the celestial firmament. No more subject to hun-
ger, and thirst, or cald, or weariness, or shame, or pain, nor
any of the frailties that now adhere unto them, but be made
like the glorified body of Christ.
7. The souls of the saints united to these bodies shall
also be perfected, having far larger capacity to know God,
and enjoy him than now we have; being freed from all ig-
norance, error, unbelief, pride> hardheartedness, and what-
soever sin doth now accompany us ; and perfected in every,
part of the image of God upon us.
8. The eyes of the glorified body shall in heaven have a
glory to behold that is suitable to their bodily capacity.
Heaven being not a place where the essence of God is con-
fined, but where a prepared glory will be manifested to make
happy the angels and saints with Christ. And whatever
other senses the glorified bodies shall then have (whether for.
134 A SAINT OR A BRUTE-
mally or eminently, we cannot now conceive what they will
be) they will all be satisfied with suitable delights from God.
9. The blessed person of our Redeemer in our nature
glorified, will there be the everlasting object of our delight-
ful intuition and fruition. An object suitable to the eye of
the glorified body itself. We shall for ever live in the sight
of his face, and in the sense of his unspeakable love.
10. The glorified soul (whether mediately or immediately)
shall behold the infinite, most blessed God, and by knowing
him, be perfected in knowledge. As we shall see the person
of Jesus Christ, and the glory of God with open face, and not
as in a glass, as now we do, so we shall know so much of
the essence of the Deity as we are capable of, to our felicity.
11. With the knowledge of God, and the beatifical vi-
sion will be joined a perfect love unto him, and closure with
his blessed will. So that to love him, will be the everlast-
ing employment of the soul.
12. This love will be drawn forth into everlasting praise;
and it will be our work before the throne of his glory, to
magnify the Lord for ever.
13. In all this love, and praise, and glory, and in the full
fruition of the eternal God, we shall rejoice with full and
perfect joy, and we shall have full content, delight, and rest.
14. In all this blessedness and glory of the saints, the
glory of God himself will shine, and angels shall admire it,
and the condemned spirits with anguish shall discern it, that
God may be glorified in our glory.
15. In all this happiness of believers, and his own glory,
the Lord will be well pleased, and that blessed will which is
the beginning and the end of all, will be accomplished, and
will have an eternal complacency, as the saints shall have an
endless complacency in God.
This is the glory promised to the saints j this is that
good part which they choose. 1 cite not the texts of Scrip-
ture that prove all this, because the things are all so plainly
and frequently expressed in the premises. And I shall have
occasion to do somewhat of this anon. And so (in brief) I
have told you what the good part is.
II. We are next to inquire. What it is that is put by world-
ly, carnal men, into the other end of the scales, and is set
up in comparison with all this everlasting glory ? Yea, what
it is that is preferred by ungodly men before it ? What it i&
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 105
that sin and the world will do for men? What do they tind
that lose the Lord ? What do they get that miss of heaven ?
What do they choose, that refuse the needful, better part ?
And here I am even amazed at that which I must give
you an account of. O wonderful, astonishing thing, that
ever such base, unworthy trifles should, by reasonable men,
be put into any comparison with God ! Wonderful, that so
much madness and wickedness can enter into the mind and
heart of man, as to let go all this glory for a toy ! And yet
more wonderful, that this should be the case of the greatest
part of men on earth I And yet more wonderful, that so ma-
ny make so mad a choice, even when the case is opened to
them, and plainly opened, and frequently opened ; and when
they are carefully entreated to be wiser, and importuned to
make a better choice !
In a word, all that is set against the Lord, and all that is
preferred before this everlasting life, and all the portion of
ungodly men, is no more than this : The pleasure of sin for
a season ; the satisfying of the flesh. A little ease, and pelf,
and fair words from men as miserable as themselves ; and all
this but for a little, a very little time, when temperance is as
sweet at least ; a little that is excessive or forbidden, in
wealth, or meat, or drink, or clothes, or lust, or other fleshly
pleasures, is the joy, and the heaven, and the god of the un-
godly. The fleshly pleasures which are common to the beasts,
and a little vainglory among men, and this for a short uncer-
tain time (and then to pass to everlasting punishment), this is
the chosenportionof the wicked. This is all for which they^re-
fuse the Lord, and for which they refuse a holy life. This is all
for which they part with Christ, and part with their everlasting-
peace ! This is all that they have for heaven and their salvation!
and all for which they sell their souls! To the everlasting shame
of sin and sinners, it shall be known that this was all ! To the
abasing of our own souls, that sometime were guilty of this
madness, I shall tell you again that this is all ! To the hum-
bling of the best, to the confounding of the wicked, and the
amazement of us all, I must say that this is all ! This dirt,
this dream, this cheat is all that the wicked have for God
and glory ! This nothing is all that they obstinately prefer
and choose before him that is all in all ! O wonderful mad-
ness, stupidity, and deceit! so common! so wilful ! and so
136 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
incurable ! till tender mercy and grace shall cure it, in them
that shall be saved.
Well, the balance is now set before you. You see what
is in the one end and in the other. You see the part that be-
lievers choose, and the part that is chosen by the rest of the
world. And are you not yet resolved which is best, and
which to choose ?
Two sorts I look to meet with here, to whom I shall ap-
ply myself distinctly before I come to the comparative work.
First some will tell me, that all these are needless words ;
and that there is no man so senseless as to think that tem-
poral things are better than eternal, or the world than God,
or sin than holiness.
Answ. O that this were true ! how happy then were all
the world ! I grant that many are superficially convinced,
that are not converted ; and that many have a slight opinion
that heaven and holiness is best, that yet have no love to it,
and will not seek it above all. But their practical judgment
doth not go along with their opinions. They relish the world
as sweetest unto them. In the prevailing, deepest thoughts
of their hearts, they set most by the pleasures of this world.
Why else is their hearts most towards them? Why else do
they choose them, and refuse to live a holy life ? Why have
they no delight in God ? and why have we so much ado
with them, to bring them to a heavenly mind and life, and
all in vain ? What ! will not men be persuaded to choose
that which they know is best for them ?
Object, ' Temptations are strong, and men are weak, and
so men go against their knowledge.'
Answ. 1. What do temptations prevail with you to do?
Is it not to think well of sinful pleasures, and to think more
hardly of the ways of God ? Is it not to like a worldly, flesh-
ly life better than a holy life? If not, how can you follow
those temptations ? And if it be so, then they draw you for
that time to think that fl;eshly pleasures are the better part.
2. But if indeed it be as you say, you are the most inexcus-
able miscreants in the world. What! do you know that God
is best for you, and yet will you fly from him ? Do you know
that heaven is the only happiness, and yet will you seek this
world before it. Do yau know what is best for you, aad will
not have it? and what is worst, and yet will keep it? Will
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 137
you go to hell, and know whither you are going. And will
you run from heaven and damn yourselves, and know that
you do so ? yea, and that while we day by day entreat you
to the contrary? If this be the case of any one of you, the
God of justice shall teach you to know what you are doing,
by his everlasting vengeance. Heaven and earth shall be
witness against you , your own consciences, and such con-
fessions of your own shall bear witness against you ; that
you justly perish, and are damned, because you would be
damned, and are shut out of heaven because you would not
be persuaded to come thither.
Object. * But we hope we may have both pleasure liere,
and heaven hereafter ; and that we may be saved by the mer-
cy of God and the blood of Christ, without the sanctification
of the Spirit, and though we do not live a holy life.'
Answ. And who gave you these hopes ? Is it God, on
whom you pretend to trust ? or the devil that doth deceive
you ? Certainly not God ; for he hath told you over and
over, that he will save none but the sanctified (Acts xxvi. 18.),
and *' that except a man be born again, even of the Spi-
rit as well as of water, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God" (Johniii. 3. 5.), and that " without holiness none shall
see the Lord ;" Heb. xii. 14. And is it God that persuadeth
you that his word is false? Doubtless it is the devil. When
God had told Adam and Eve, " that in the day that they
did eat the forbidden fruit, they should die the death," was
it not the serpent that gave them hopes of living, and told
them that they should not die ? If you be at that pass that-
you will take on you to trust in God, and yet will rot believe
him, but your trust is but trusting that God is a liar, you are
as foolish in your presumption, as heathens are in their infi-
delity. For who is worse, he that believeth that there is no
God (as Atheists do), or he that believeth that God is a liar,
which is to be no God, and worse ?
If therefore you do believe indeed that heaven is best,
you must needs believe that holiness is necessary ; yea, and
best too, when heaven consisteth so much in perfected holi-
ness. And therefore you must choose and seek with the
greatest diligence, that happiness which you confess is best,
or never hope that it will be yours. O did you at the heart
believe it to be best, and that for you, you would love it, and
1«>8 A SAINT Oil A BRUTK.
seek it, and be a holy people without delay. You cannot
so turn away from that which you heartily judge to be best
for you indeed.
But the most that I have to deal with, are they that cannot
be persuaded at the heart, but that feasting, and drinking,
and lust, and wealth, and worldly honour are better for them
than a holy life, with such promises of heaven as God hath
left us. For all or most ungodly men have this persuasion
next their hearts, whether they observe it, and know of it or
not.
Now with such deluded, unbelieving souls, I am next to
plead this weighty cause. If thou that readest this be one of
them, that takest a worldly felicity, with God's threatenings,
to be better, and rather to be chosen than holiness, with his
promise of future happiness, I will now debate the case with
thee, and undertake by the light of Christ, to open the hor-
rible folly of thy mistake. And if I do not give thee such
sound and weighty undeniable evidence, that no man of
reason should resist, to prove the choice of holy persons to
be the wisest, and their part the best, I will give thee leave
to call me a liar, and a deceiver for ever.
CHAPTER II.
What in Reasofi he must do that would be certainly resolved
which is the best part and way. And who shall be Judge.
But before we come to the debate, I have two questions to
put to thee, that in reason must be first resolved.
The first is. Whether thou art willing to know the truth,
and resolved to choose the best part when thou knowest it ?
It is in vain for me or any man to reason with thee, if thou
wouldst not know ; and to shew thee the truth, if thou hate
it, and wilt not acknowledge it when thou seest it ; and to
bring thee in the clearest light, if thou be beforehand resolv-
ed to shut thy eyes. And if thou wilt not choose that which
thy conscience shall be convinced thou shouldst choose, as
being absolutely best, to what purpose then should it be re-
vealed to thee? Wouldst thou be a happy man or not ?
Wouldst thou have joy or sorrow? good or evil ? Stop here.
1
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 139
and before thou goest any further, make me this promise be-
fore the Lord, That thou wilt not wilfully resist the light,
and that thou wilt choose, and presently, and resolvedly
choose, that part that thy conscience shall tell thee upon cer-
tain evidence is the best. Promise but this, which no man of
reason should refuse, and then we may make something of
our debate.
My second question is, Who it is that shall be judge be-
tween us in this debate? or whose witness it is that you will
take for current ?
I am willing to stand to the judgment of any that under-
stand the case, and are impartial. 1 hope you will consent,
that we shall take the most competent witnesses and judge.
And if so, 1. You know that the devil is no competent judge.
It is he that persuadeth you that present delights are the
better part, and rather to be chosen than a holy life. But
he is God's enemy, and therefore no wonder if he speak
against him. He is your deadly enemy ; and therefore no
wonder if he would deceive you. He is cast out of heaven
himself, and would not have you possess the room that he
hath lost. He is a wicked, lying spirit, and therefore is not
to be believed. He is a murderer from the beginning, and
therefore will not speak for your salvation ; Job viii. 44. If
the devil be to be believed, then none are wiser than the un-
godly, sensual, worldly men ; and none are in a worse con-
dition than those that are despised by the world for holiness,
and that suffer all things for a life unseen. But the enmity
that is planted in your very natures against the devil, I hope
will help you to confess, that he must not be the judge.
2. And truly ignorant, ungodly men are unmeet judges.
And it is they that bawl against religion, and speak against
they know not what. 1 . They are blind by nature, and more
blind by customary sin. And must a blind man be your judge
or witness in a case of everlasting moment? 2. They are in-
experienced in the ways of God. How can they judge of a
state that they were never in, and of a way that they never
went ? They never tried the work of the new birth, nor ne-
ver tried the holy exercise of faith, or love, or any grace, and
therefore you may as well take the judgment of a simple man
concerning another country, that was never there, or con-
cerning navigation, that never was at sea, or concerning
learning that never read a book, or concerning music that
140 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
never touched an instrument, as the judgment of anunsanc-
tified man concerning holiness, and communion with God ;
unless it be those that have a common convincing light, that
causeth them to approve of that which they neglect them-
selves.
3. And certainly your own sensuality and fleshly minds
are unfit judges of the case, for they also are blind and in-
experienced. They are not suited unto spiritual things.
To which I may add, 3. That they and ungodly men are par-
tial in the case, and therefore unfit to be witnesses or judges.
All the Scripture speaks against the devil, and the wicked,
and the lusts of the flesh ; and therefore tthey are a party,
even the party that is to be ejected. 4. Yea, they are ene-
mies, and therefore their testimony or judgment is not to be
regarded. And what else will speak a word against a holy
life, but the devil, the flesh, and wicked men? Not any.
And therefore let it be concluded that these are incompetent
judges in the case.
But who then shall be judge? Let God be judge, let
Christ be judge. Who can, who dare refuse this Judge?
Refuse him not ; for none but he is fit and competent. Re-
fuse him not ; for he will be Judge whether you will or no ;
and therefore your refusal will be vain. 1. He is most wise,
and knoweth all things ; and therefore cannot be deceived.
2. He is infinitely good, and therefore cannot do any wrong.
He is impartial, and respecteth not the persons of the great-
est. He is most just, and therefore cannot pass an unjust
sentence. 3. He only is the Judge that hath full authority
to make a final decision of the case. 4. And in a word, he
is so absolutely perfect, that he is liable to no just exceptions,
nor can men or devils have any thing to say against his judg-
ment. Are you agreed then that God shall be your Judge ?
Will you take that for the better part, which he calls better?
If so the controversy is at an end. The living God hath
given us his judgment long ago. If you ask me. Where ; I
will tell you anon, when I have examined some of the wit-
nesses of the case.
And though I am resolved to own no proper final judge
but God, yet under him there are many witnesses that are
worth the hearing. Indeed I am content to refer the cause
to any one that doth but know what he saith, and is not un-
faithful; (reserving to God the final judgment.)
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 141
And 1 . Go to the wisest men on earth, and let them be
witnesses. What think you of all the prophets and apos-
tles, and of all the ancient fathers of the church? Were not
these men wiser than you, or than the sottish scorners that
revile the ways which they never went, and speak evil of
that which they understand not? [f prophets and apostles
were not for holiness against a fleshly, worldly life, then I
will be of your mind. But if they all as with one heart and
mouth do cry down sin, and cry up holiness, why should
you then refuse their testimony? Are you wiser than all
these?
2. What think you of all the godly, able ministers of
Christ that are now alive, or ever were? Are they not wiser
than you, and a few drunkards that have scarce wit enough
to do the devil's service, without such sottishness as shames
his cause ? Have none of Christ's ministers, that spend their
days in studying and searching after knowledge, more wit
even in the matters of God, than a carnal gentleman, or
ignorant, malicious wretch, that never used the means for
knowledge as these have done ? In any other matter you
will allow men that have made it the study of their lives, to
know more than you. If you want counsel for your estates,
you will go to one that hath studied the law. If you are
sick, you will sooner seek advice of one that hath made it
the business of his life to understand diseases and remedies,
than to one that never studied it. You will sooner take the
judgment of every tradesman in his trade, than your own or
another's that never learned it. Allow but those men to be
competent witnesses that have bent their thoughts and
prayers, and cares this way, and the controversy is resolved.
For what is it that all our sermons plead for, but holiness in
order to everlasting happiness? What is it that so many
thousand books are written for, but for holiness ? Open the
books of the wisest men, and see which side it is that they
are on ? Go to the wisest, ablest ministers, and ask them
which is the better part?
3. If wisdom suffice not, let the best and most honest
men be witnesses. Who better than Christ, than his apos-
tles, than all the holy martyrs and confessors of the church,
and all the doctors and faithful ministers of Christ ? Which
side think you were they on that laid down their lives for
the cause of Christ? Sure they that would rather burn at a
142 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
stake, or suffer all the scorns and torments of the world,
than forsake a holy, heavenly life, did take it to be better
than all the pleasures or profits of the world. Sure all the
holy doctors and pastors of the church that lived such holy
lives themselves, and spent their days in praying, and watch-
ing, and meditating, and preparing for the life to come, con-
temning all the vanities of the world, did think that this was
the better part, which they followed after with so much dili-
gence and patience as they did.
Hear me a few words, you proud and self-conceited sin-
ners, that will plead for your ungodly ways, and plead
against a holy life, and quarrel with the most faithful admi-
nistrations of your pastors. It is a matter of everlasting
moment that you and me do differ about ; and which of us
is most likely to be in the right? I confess I am a weak
and ignorant man; but is the sottish, ungodly quarreller
any wiser than I am ? How camest thou man to thy know-
ledge, that thou thinkest thyself wiser than me, and all the
pastors of the church ? My knowledge, that is but little,
hath cost me almost forty years hard study. Hast thou read,
and meditated, and studied more ? Hadst thou better helps
and means of knowledge? God usually giveth his gifts in
the painful use of means. If I should think myself wiser in thy
trade, and able to control thee, thou wouldst judge me a self-
conceited fool. What hast thou done for thy knowledge that
I have not done ? Hast thou prayed for it day and night ?
So have I. Hast thou had any private way of learning that
no man knoweth ? Truly I have marvelled at the faces of
many ignorant, careless men, that they do not blush when
we have thus expostulated with them, when they quarrel
with their teachers, and set against them with as brazen a
face as if they were all doctors, or had studied forty years,
and we were as they are ; yea, as if they were wiser than all
the apostles, doctors, and pastors of the church. Were it
not a wonder indeed if God should give more knowledge
about the matters of salvation to a sensual, voluptuous gen-
tleman, or to an idle drone, or a fellow that scarce ever read
over the Bible, and to such as live a worldly, fleshly, and
ungodly life, than to all his ministers and servants that love
his laws, and meditate in them day and night, and live in
prayer, and other holy exercises, and make it their daily
care and business, to conform their hearts and lives to tlie
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 143
holy doctrine which they study ? Surely God will sooner
reveal liis mind to a diligent searcher, that feareth and lov-
eth him, than to a lustful epicure, or a drunken, swearing,
worldly sot. He that every day abuseth the Holy Ghost
that should be his Teacher, is not so likely to come to know-
ledge, as he that humbly learneth and obeyeth him. It is a
strange evidence that most wicked men do give us to prove
themselves wiser than their teachers ; when they can scarce
give us a wise account of the principles of religion contain-
ed in a catechism, they will prove themselves wise by des-
pising wisdom, and railing at the wise. They prove them-
selves learned by reproaching the learned. They prove
themselves godly enough to be saved, by hating and scorn-
ing them that are godly ; and prove themselves the servants
of Christ, by speaking against his service. They prove
themselves wise enough to teach or quarrel with their
teachers, by refusing to learn, and to be any wiser, and by
babbling out their sinful folly. And when the}'^ have done,
they prove that their hearts for all this are as good as the most
precise, by prating against that holiness which is the only
health and goodness of the heart, and by shewing us to our
grief that they neither know what goodness is, nor what is
in their hearts. They prove to us that they have hopes for
all this, of being saved and seeing the face of God, by hating
them that are pure in heart, that have the promise of seeing
his face ; Matt. v. 8. and by reviling or forsaking the way
of salvation, and by shewing us on their souls the open
marks of the wrath of God, and of a state of condemnation.
This is the devil's logic ; and this is the wisdom of the wick-
ed. They may next go further, and prove that they are
chaste by reviling chastity ; and prove that they are sober by
speaking against sobriety, and by wallowing in their vomit ;
or prove that they know all arts, and trades, and sciences
by reviling them. And as they now prove that they are the
freemen of Christ by shewing us the devil's fetters upon
them, so if they hold out, they will shortly have nothing to
prove themselves in heaven, but by shewing us the flames of
hell which they endure.
If therefore all the holiest and wisest men on earth may
be admitted to be witnesses, then holiness must be your best,
and all things else be nothing worth in comparison of it.
5. Moreover, if yet you would have more witnesses, shall
144 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
those be heard that have tried both states, the state of sin,
and the state of holiness ? and that have gone both ways ;
and therefore are able to speak to us by experience ?
If you were to take advice about any worldly business,
you would choose a man of experience for your counsellor ;
an experienced physician for your bodies ; and an expe-
rienced tradesman for your work. You will sooner believe
a traveller that hath seen the places he speaks of, (if he be
honest,) than another. Godly men have tried both ways :
alas ! they have known, and too much known the way of
sin ; and they have tried the holy way that you dislike. I
think therefore that they are competent witnesses. And if
their witness be worth any thing, the cause must go against
the ungodly ; for their lives tell you their judgment.
Their hatred to sin, their diligent seeking after God, their
constant endeavours in a holy course, their suffering any
thing rather than forsake this holy way, when once they have
sincerely chosen it ; all these do fully acquaint you with
their judgment. Do you think it is for nothing that the
holy servants of the Lord, do stick so close to him, and la-
bour so constantly in his work ? Surely if they had not
found that this way is beyond comparison the best, you might
draw them from it, into a state of ungodliness again ; at
least fire, and sword, and torment might persuade them to
forsake it. Something he findeth in it that is good, that
will let go his life and all the world for it.
What say you now ? have you any just exceptions against
the testimony of these experienced men? The ungodly can-
not be competent witnesses ; for they have tried but one
side : they have had experience of a profane, a fleshly, world-
ly life ; but they never yet tried a holy life. And therefore
how should they be fit to tell you what good is in the way
of God, which they never travelled in ? Or what gain is in
the heavenly treasure, which they never traded for? Or
what beauty is in the face of Christ and glory, which they
never had an eye of faith to see ? Or what sweetness is in the
hidden manna, which they never tasted? If you say that
many that have tried the way of godliness, have turned from
it, and are against it ; I beseech you weigh my answer.
1. It is not one of a hundred that doth so, no, not in
the«e apostatizing times, when all seducers are let loose.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 146
And is one man's judgment more regardable than a hundred,
yea, many hundred ?
2. Nay, it is no one at all ! Those that you say turn off,
are only such as tried an opinionative religiousness, and
some of the outward duties of Christianity, but they never
tried the power of a living, rooted faith, nor the predomi-
nant love of God in the soul, nor a living hope of the hea-
venly glory, nor the sweetness of a heavenly life, nor the
mortitication of the fleshly interest, and true self-denial.
These are the vital parts of Christianity, which these few
apostates never tried ; though some of them have had some
acquired counterfeits of them, and some good gifts of com-
mon grace, and think that none had more than they had.
Sinner, I beseech thee for the Lord's sake, deal faithfully
with thy poor soul, when all lies at the stake. Wilt thou
take the judgment of a swaggerring gallant, or a scoffing,
worldly, or ungodly sot, that none of them ever truly tried
a state of holiness: and wilt thou refuse the judgment of
God, and of all his servants that have tried it? Go to any
godly man, and ask, him which of these ways he hath found
by experience to be best; and hear what he will say to thee.
He will be ashamed to hear thee make a question of it. He
will tell thee, * Alas ! friend, I was once deceived by sin,
and deceived with the pleasure of my flesh, and the glittering
glory and riches of this world, as you are now. I once was
a stranger to the life of faith, and the hopes of heaven, and
the holiness of the saints. But it was by the mere delusion
of the devil, and it was the fruit of the blindness and dead-
ness of my heart. I knew not what 1 did, nor where I stood,
nor what I chose, nor what I set light by ! I never well
considered of the matter, but carelessly followed the sway of
my fleshly inclination and desires ! But now I see I was
the devil's slave, and my pleasures were my fetters, and my
own corrupt affections were my bondage ; and now I find
that I did but delude my soul ; I got nothing by all that the
world did for me, but provision for my after-sorrows ; I had
been now in torments if I had but died in that condition. I
would not be again in the case that I was in for all this
world, or a thousand such worlds! That life that once I
thought the best, hath cost me dear, even the breaking of
my heart ; and a thousand thousandfold dearer would have
VOL. X. r.
146 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
cost me, if the dearest blood and recovering grace of my
dearest Lord had not prevented it. O had I not been un-
speakably beholden to the mercy of the Lord, even to that
mercy which I then made light of, I had been undone for
ever ; I had been laid under everlasting desperation before
this. Now I find that there is no life so sweet as that which
I then was so loath to choose ! Now it is my only grief that
I was holy no sooner, and can be no more holy than I am.
O that I had more of that quickening, comforting, saving
grace ! O that I were further from my former sinful, fleshly
state ! O that I could get nearer God, though I parted with
all the prosperity of this world ! I now find what 1 lost by
my continuing in sin so long ; but then I knew it not. O
friend, as you love your soul, take warning by me, and make
use of my experience, and give up yourself to God betimes !'
This, or to this purpose, would the answer of an experienced
person be, if you should ask him, which is the better way ?
But if you say, that ' thus we would be ourselves the
judges, and bring the matter into our own hands ; I answer
you, 1. It is true we would be ourselves your helpers, and
do the best we could for your salvation : and if you will
neither help yourselves, nor give us leave to help you, take
what you get by it ; we have done our part.
But 2. I will not yet so part with you. I will further
make you this reasonable offer. I demand of thee, whoever
thou art that readest these words, Whether thou know of
any man on earth that thou thinkest to be a wiser man than
thyself? If not, thou art so like the devil in pride, that no
wonder if thou be near him in malignity and misery. If
thou do know of any wiser than thyself, go with me, or with
some faithful minister to that man, and ask him. Whether a
diligent, holy life be not much better than any other life on
earth? And if he do not say as 1 say here, and^ as Christ
saith in my text, that * the godly choose the better part,' or
else if I prove him not a very sot before thy face, I will give
thee leave to brand my understanding in thy esteem, with
the notes of infamy and contempt.
Yea, more than so, I will allow thee to go to one that
differeth from me in the way of his religion. Ask an Ana-
baptist, if thou think him more impartial, whether a holy
and heavenly heart and life be not the best ? and try whe-
ther he will not say as 1 do. Ask those that you call Epis-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 147
copal, or Presbyterian, or Independents, or Separatists :
ask an Arminian, or one of the contrary mind : yea, ask a
Papist, and see whether he will not say as I do. It is true,
they are every one of them of minds somewhat different
about some points in the order and manner of their seeking
God. But all of them, that are but sober men, will confess
as with one mouth, that God should be loved above all, and
sought and served above all, and that all should live a holy,
diligent, heavenly life.
2. But yet if all this will not satisfy you, I will come yet
lower. Who is it that you would have to be judge or wit-
ness in this case ? Is it thy malignant, or worldly, or drun-
ken, and ungodly friend ? I am contented that the case be
referred even to him, and to as many of them as thou wilt,
upon condition that he will but first try the way that he is
to judge of. Let him but make an unfeigned trial of a life
of holy faith, and love, and obedience, and self-denial, as
long as I have done, and we will receive his testimony.
Nay more, let him thus try a life of holiness, (inwardly and
outwardly,) but one year ; yea, or but one month, or day, or
hour, and we will take his testimony. But to be judged by
a man in a matter of salvation, that speaks of what he never
knew nor tried one hour, but speaks against he knows not
what, this i« a motion too bad to be made to a very bedlam,
6. If yet you are not resolved which is the better part
and way, to whom do you desire to refer it? Shall heathens,
Jews, and Infidels be judges? Why if they be, they will
give the cause against you. Jews and most of the heathen
world do profess to believe a life to come, where some are
happy and some are miserable ; and they commonly profess
that all men should obey their Maker, and make it their
chiefest care and labour in this life to be happy in the next :
heathens will confess this. And yet I suppose you will
easily confess that these men are none of the fittest judges.
The way to life by Jesus Christ they do not understand.
But that the world is vanity, and nothing to be preferred be-
fore our happiness in the world to come, this they will com-
monly acknowledge. And if the* lives of the most of them
contradict this profession, yet still they are forced to con-
fess the truth; and truth is not the less truth, because they
that confess it will not obey it. Nay, what greater testimo-
ny can you wish to silence your unbelieving thoughts, than
148 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the witnesses of the enemies of the truth, who as they con-
demn themselves by bearing witness to that which they re-
fuse to practise, so shall their witness aggravate your con-
demnation, if you will live below it. What, are you Chris-
tians, and yet refuse to come up in your choice and lives to
the doctrine of heathens and infidels ?
7. I know you will think at least that those heretics that
are daily bawling against us, will not be partial on our side.
If you think that this doctrine is contrived by us for any ends
or interests of our own, hearken then to our enemies. These
railing Quakers that can scarce tell how to speak a word of
the ministers of Christ, but what is the spawn of venom-
ous, fiery, bitter malice, do for all this cry up holiness of
life. Though they corrupt the doctrine of Christ so odi-
ously, and speak like heathens in many of their ecstasies and
writings, yet do they openly cry down your sensual, worldly
ways. Do you not hear how they rail at us for your sakes
that are vicious and ungodly, and tell us that you are the
fruit and shame of our ministry ? Though these words be the
fruit and shame of their malicious heresy (for all the world
may know that it is our daily work to procure your conver-
sion, and that you keep your sins and refuse a holy, heavenly
life, in despite of us), yet I must tell you that these wretches
shall condemn you. The streets and congregations have
heard them cry out against your ungodly lives, and yet you
will not turn to God. Must good and bad, must ministers
and raging heretics give in their testimony against you, and
yet will you not be satisfied and come in ?
8. If yet you know not the better part, to whom will you
appeal ? Will you go to the multitude and put it to the vote,
not only aihong Christians, but throughout the world ? Truly
there is no great reason for this, when most men are so blind
and wicked ; but yet if you should, they would go against
you, twenty, if not a hundred to one. I know well enough
that when it comes to practice, they will not live a holy life,
and shew thereby a root of bitterness. But if you ask them
what their judgment is, whether God or the world, whether
heaven or earth, whether holiness or sin be best and to be
chosen, most men are against you, and would give it you as
their judgment under their hands, that God and everlasting
life should be first sought. Though by this confession they
condemn themselves, yet is it their confession. As I told
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 149
you before, the Jews are for this doctrine ; the Turks and
other Mahometans are for it ; most of the heathen world is
for it, doctrinally, though they will not practise it. Only
there are three sorts against it in the world, that ever I heard
of. One sort are the Cannibals that eat men's flesh, and go
naked, and live like beasts, and never heard of another life ;
and some such savages as they. Another sort are a few of
the heathen philosophers and their followers, that differ in
this from all the rest. A third sort is here and there a de-
bauched apostate, that by the righteous judgment of God
are so far forsaken by his grace, for their pride and falsehood
against the truth, that they have lost the belief of a life to
come, and live under the visible plagues of God upon their
souls, as men that have sinned wilfully against the truth, and
have " no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of
judgment and fire that shall devour the adversary;*' Heb. vi.
6,7. X.26. And are near the state of the devils themselves
that are reserved in the chains of spiritual darkness to the
judgmentof the great day ; Jude6. Jobxxi. 30. And will
you take the judgment of here and there a forlorn wretch, a
deplorate apostate, an epicure, or a country of inhuman can-
nibals, before the judgment of the most wise and godly, and
of almost all the world? What excellency hath the under-
standing of these singular men, that it should be so valued
above all others ? You know partly in this place, who they
be that are of this opinion. And is their number, or wisdom,
or conversation such as should move you to be of their opi-
nion? Shall half a dozen desperate apostates of ungodly lives
seem wiser to you than all the world? And yet I am per-
suaded that if you go to any, even of these few apostates,
whatever they think, they will confess that a holy life is best.
And yet have you not witness enough against yoiL?
9. Who then shall be the judge? Shall we appeal to
the very things themselves, and to the daily experience of
the world ? You see that worldlings labour for the wind.
You see that all their care and pains will not avoid the stroke
of death, that turneth the proudest flesh into a clod, and mak-
eth dirt of the greatest prince. You see that wealth and ho-
nour do but mock men, and leave them in the grave to dark-
ness and corruption. And when you are sure that this will
be the upshot of all your fleshly pleasure and worldly gains,
are you not satisfied past all doubt, that the smallest hopes
160 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
or possibility of another life should be sought with far more
care than this ?
10. If none of these witnesses be regarded by thee, I
know not whom to appeal to, but thyself ! And wilt thou
needs thyself decide the case? Hast thou knowledge and
experience, honesty and impartiality enough to fit thee to be
judge ? If thou hadst, thou wouldst make no doubt of it,
but have been resolved for heaven and holiness ere this. Thy
unresolvedness proves thee blind and partial, and very much
forsaken by the Spirit of light. And should such a one be
judge? But go to, I will much refer thy case to thyself
(reserving still the final judgment to the Lord) upon these
just and reasonable conditions.
(1.) Wilt thou first thyself but use those necessary means
for knowledge, in reading, fasting, praying, watching, medi-
tation, conference with the wise, and such like, as all those
do that come to ripe and saving knowledge ? If I refer my
health to thee as my physician, thou must not refuse to
try my pulse, and use the means to find out the disease.
Wouldst thou be my lawyer, and refuse to read my evi-
dences, and study my case? And wilt thou needs be
judge thyself of the matters of thine own felicity or misery,
and yet refuse to read, and hear, and pray, and meditate, and
use the necessary means of understanding ? Wilt thou lie
in bed and work out thy salvation ? Wilt thou make use of
no ones eyes but thy own, and yet wilt thou wink or draw
the curtains, or shut the windows, and cast away thy spec-
tacles, and neither come into the sunshine, nor use a candle ?
This is but to say, I will wilfully condemn my soul, and none
shall hinder me.
(2.) But yet another condition I must propose. If thou
wilt but (as I said before of others) a while make trial of a
holy life, and try in thyself what faith, and hope, and charity
are, and try what self-denial is, I will then refer the matter
to thyself. Go back from God if thou find any reason for it;
and turn from Christ, and heaven, and holiness, if thou do
not like them. But if thou wilt needs be the judge, and wilt
not be persuaded to try the thing, thou art a partial, self-de-
ceiving judge.
(3.) But if this much cannot be obtained, at least be con-
siderate in thy judging. If thou wilt but take thyself aside
from the noise of worldly vanities and deceits, and commune
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 151
seriously with thy heart, and bethink thee as before the Lord,
and as one that knows he must shortly die, whether heaven
or earth should be sought most carefully, and whether God
or thy flesh should be served most resolvedly and diligently;
and if thou wilt but dwell so long upon these manlike thoughts
till they are digested, and truth have time to shew its face,
I dare then leave the question to thyself. The next time that
the sermon or any affliction comes near thee and awakeneth
thy conscience, do but withdraw thyself into secret, and so-
berly bethink thee of the matter, what hopes thou hast from
the world, and what thou mayst have from God ; what time
is, and what eternity is, and give but conscience leave to
speak, and then I will venture the issue upon thy conscience.
For thee I mean, though I must stick to a better judge my-
self. Doth not conscience sometimes tell thee, that the ho-
liest persons are the wisest, and that thy labour is more like
atlast to be lost and repented of, than theirs ? Doth not con-
science sometimes make thee wish that thou wert but in as
safe a case as they; and that thou mightestbutdie the death
of the righteous, and that thy last end might be as theirs ?
(4.) But if all this will not serve the turn, thou shalt be
judge thyself; but it shall be when thou art more capable of
judging. If God by grace shall change thy heart, I will
stand to thy judgment. If he do not, when thy graceless,
guilty soul shall pass out of thy pampered, dirty flesh, and
appear before the dreadful God, I will then leave the case to
thy conscience to judge of. To all eternity it shall be part-
ly left to the judgment of thy conscience, whether sin or ho-
liness be better ? and whether saints or careless sinners were
the wiser? and whether it had not been better for thee to
have spent that life in preparing for thy endless life, which
thou spentest in slighting it, and caring for the world and
flesh. Then thou shalt be judge thyself of these matters ;
but under a more severe and righteous Judge. And so as
shall make thy tearing heart to wish with many a thousand
groans, that thou hadst judged wiser in time.
But because that judgment will be to desperation, and
too late for hope or any help, let conscience speak when thou
liest sick, and seest that thou art a dying man. Then judge
thyself whether a holy or a worldly life be better ; and whe-
ther it had not been thy wiser course to have sowed to the
Spirit, that so thou mayst reap everlasting life, than to have
152 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
sowed to the flesh, from which thou now lookest to reap no
better than corruption. Be not deceived. God is not mock-
ed. " Whatsover a man soweth, that shall he also reap :"
Gal.vi.6,7.
But because it will be very late to stay till thy own death
draw so near thee, go but to thy neighbours that lie in sick-
ness, looking for the stroke of death. Yea, to thy compa-
nions in sin and folly, and ask them then which way is bet-
ter. Ask them then which is the better part. Whether now
they had rather be the most holy saints, or such as they have
been ? Whether now they had not rather they had spent
their time in the most careful seeking for everlasting life,
than in doing as they have done ? Say to thy old companion
now, * Brother, I see you are near your end ; the mortal
stroke of death is coming ; you are now leaving all the plea-
sures of this world. I pray you tell me now your judgment,
whether mirth, and sport, and feasting, and drinking, and
wealth, and honour, be more to be sought than life eternal ?
and whether hearing and reading the word of God, and pray-
ing, and meditating, and flying from sin, be as bad or as
needless a thing as we have formerly taken it to be ? Had
you rather appear before the Lord in the case of those that
we derided as Puritans, and too precise for making such ado
about salvation, or in the case that you and I have lived in V
Ask but this question to thy old companions, and try whe-
ther the consciences of almost all that reproach their end, do
not bear witness against ungodliness, and do not justify the
holy diligence of the saints. It is but two days since, a poor
drunkard of a neighbouring parish being ready to pass out
of this world, did send hither, and to other parishes, in the
terrors of his soul, to desire our congregations to take warn-
ing by him, and to strive with God if possible, for some mer-
cy for his soul, that was passing in terrors into another world
because of the guilt of his odious sin.
Well, sirs, I have gone along with you to all the creatures
in this world, that have any fitness to judge in this case, and
if all these will not serve, we must go to another world for
judgment, or stay till you come there.
11. And really do you think if we could speak with angels
or departed souls, that they would not consent with God and
all believers in their testimony ? O how they would rebuke
their madness, that make any doubt of so great, so plain, so
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 153
sure a truth as this, of the necessity and the excellency of a
holy life. None are so fully resolved of this question as they
that have tasted the end of both, and past the righteous judg-
ment of the Lord. They that are feeling the anguish of their
consciences, and the tormenting displeasure of Almighty
God, are satisfied by this time, whether the godly or ungod-
ly were the wiser men, and whether sanctity or sensuality
were the better course. They that are rejoicing with Christ
in glory, are satisfied perfectly in this question, and are far
from repenting of their choice ; Luke xvi. Christ tells you
enough, in the case of the rich man and Lazarus, how men
judge in the life to come.
12. But if all these witnesses will not serve you, what
shall we say to you? Whom will you choose to be your
counsellor? There is none left that I remember, unless you
will go tp the devil for advice. But against this I have told
you enough before. Will he speak for holiness that is a spi-
rit of uncleanness ; and will he shew thee heaven that labour-
eth purposely to hide it from thee, till thou have lost it ? or
will he let thee see 'the odiousness and danger of thy sin,
when it is the snare and bait hf which he hopeth to undo
thee ? But yet for all this, let me tell thee that thou mayst
learn even from the tempting enemy himself, the truth of that
which I am now asserting. For as the devil himself believ-
eth it when he persuadeth thee not to believe it, so the very
nature and manner of his temptations may help thee to per-
ceive that heaven is attainable, and holiness is the only way.
Would he make so much ado about it, to keep thee from the
believing it, and seeking it, if there were not a heaven for
thee to find ? Why is he so eager to draw thee unto sin, if
sin be not hurtful to thee ? Dost thou not feel the importunity
of his temptations ? It is easy to observe them. Why is he
so much against a holy doctrine, and a holy life, and a holy
people, if it were not that he knows the necessity and worth
of holiness for thy good ? The actions of a knowing enemy
may do very much to acquaint us with the truth. Besides
this, he hath oft appeared in bodily shapes (as I am able to
prove by undeniable evidence); sometimes to entice men
to sin, and sometimes to be God's executioner to afflict them
for it, and sometimes to make a covenant with witches and
conjurers for their souls, as many a hundred of them have
confessed at their death. And why should he be so desirous
154 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
of thy soul, if thou hadst none to lose ? or so desirous to de-
ceive thee, and deprive thee of salvation, if there were none
for thee to lose ? and if this were not the chief concernment
of thy soul, why should thy chief enemy so much regard it?
Thou seest that he is not so careful to deprive thee of thy
fleshly pleasure. He careth not how much thou hast of this.
The more the glutton is pleased with his cheer, and the more
the drunkard delighteth in his cups, and the more the forni-
cator is pleased in his filthiness, and every voluptuous per-
son in his voluptuousness, the devil is pleased so much the
more. He cares not if thou have all the kingdoms of the
w^orld, if he can deprive thee of the everlasting kingdom. Nor
will he grudge thee the glory and honour of the world, if he
can but keep thee from the heavenly glory. He will allow
thee the hypocrite's reward, which is the applause of men, if
he can but keep thee from the saint's reward, which is the
favour of God. He cares not how much of thy good things
thou hast here, if he can deprive thee of the everlasting good.
It is his desire that thou have thy portion in this life, that
thon mayst miss the believer's portion in the next. Cer-
tainly the devil himself, by his temptations, apparitions, and
contracts, doth plainly tell us of a life to come, and what it is
that conduceth most to our good or hurt, our joy or torment ;
and consequently teacheth us what to choose, by tempting
us so palpably and eagerly to refuse it.
You see now what a jury of witnesses I have brought in,
to testify which is the better part. The devil and the wicked
are added to the rest, because you will hear no better wit-
nesses. If you will, here are enough whose testimonies are
unquestionable.
But when all is done, it is the Lord that is and will be
Judge. All these are but witnesses to dispose thee to receive
his sentence. Thou art no believer, till the authority of the
word of God will serve to satisfy and resolve thee.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 1«>5
CHAPTER III.
Full proof (in twenty Queries) from Reason itself that tliere is a
Life to come, and Holiness is the way to it, and the Better
Fart. And that the Gospel is the certain word of God (in
ffteen Queries more) with Answers to the Injidel's Objections.
And by this time I come somewhat nearer to the infidel,
and am ready to answer his foregoing question, * Where shall
I find the judgment or testimony of the Lord?' * O,' saith
the unbeliever, * if I were but sure that there were a life here-
after, where the godly and wicked shall be differently reward-
ed, as the Scripture speaks, then I must confess he were no
better than a madman that would prefer this world, or wil-
fully live in sin, and would not seek heaven with all his might,
and be as earnest in holiness as the strictest saints ! But I
am not sure that this is true, and that there is any such dif-
ference after death, to be expected.'
Answ, Alas, poor wretch ! Art thou at that pass? Hast
thou so far lost the knowledge of God, and of thyself, and of
thy end and business here, and of the word and works of
God, as to turn worse than Jew, or Turk, or heathen, even to
think thyself a beast, that hath no life nor happiness but this ?
If this be thy case, I cannot now stand to deal with thee ac-
cording to thy necessity. I am now dealing with them that
confess a life hereafter. And because we cannot in all our
writings repeat over the same things, I desire thee to peruse
what I have already written for such as thee, in the second
part of" The Saint's Rest," and in a treatise called, *' The
Unreasonableness of Infidelity ;" and at present take only
some brief advertisements for thy conviction.
Query 1. And first, whereas you say, you are not sure of
a life hereafter, I demand of you. Whether you are sure that
there is not such a life ? I am sure you are not. If you think
you are (which none but a debauched man can think, that
hath put out the eye of natural light), let us hear your proof,
and you shall soon be told the vanity of it. But if you are
not sure that there is no such life, then I would know of you.
Whether a possibility of such everlasting things deserve not
greater care and diligence than is used by the most holy saint
on earth ? You say, you are not sure that there is a heaven
156 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
for saints. But what if it prove true (as nothing more true),
will you sit still, and lose it for you know not what? or for
want of a little care in seeking it ? You say, you know not
whether there be a hell for ungodly men, or no. But what
if it prove true (as certainly it will), where are youthen?
Will you venture yourselves upon the possibility of such an
endless loss and torment, which now you might on reasona-
ble terms escape? You will confess that a possibility of a
kingdom should be more regarded than the certainty of a pin
or a feather. And a possibility of some tormenting disease
but for twenty years, should be more carefully avoided than
the certain stinging of a nettle.
Query 2. You say. You are not sure that there is a life
to come. But are you sure to continue the life you have ?
Or is it any great matter that you are called to lose, for the
obtaining of that life, that you are not sure of? You know
the contrary, or easily may do. You are sure that you have
not long to be here. Nothing more sure than that you will
shortly die. And you are not sure but it may be to-morrow.
And while you are here, it is nothing worth the naming (but
what hath reference to another life) that you do possess.
What have you to your flesh, but meat, and drink, and sleep,
and lust, and such kind of bestial delights, which is better to
be without than have, if we could also be without the need
of them. Can you call these by the name of happiness, with-
out renouncing your reason and experience ? You say, you
know not what God will do for you hereafter. But you know
what sin and the world will do for you here. Even nothing
but hold you in a transitory dream, and then dismiss you in-
to rottenness and dust. If you were not certain of another
life, as long as you are most certain of the vanity of this,
doth not reason tell you, that a possible everlasting glory,
should be preferred before a certain vanity ? If you were
not sure to get any thing by God and a holy life, yet as
long as you are sure, even as sure as you live, that you can
lose nothing by it, that is worth the talking of, is not the
case then resolved, which way is the better? If you say, you
shall lose your fleshly pleasures ; I answer. They are not
worth the having. The pleasure doth not countervail the
trouble ; no more than the delight of scratching (as I said
before) doth countervail the trouble of the itch. Moderation
and temperance is sweeter than excess. If too much be bet-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 167
ter than enough, and that which hurteth nature better than
that which helpeth it, then self-destroying and fighting
against your bodily welfare, would be best. Is not a tempe-
rate meal more pleasant than a gluttonous surfeit, that is
worse to the feeling of the glutton the next day ? Is not com-
mon food that costeth not much, and kindleth no trouble-
some itch in a man's appetite, more pleasant than enticing,
costly dainties ? Is not so much drink as nature requireth,
much better than that which makes the stomach sick, the
brain witless, if not the purse pennyless, and breedeth many
noisome diseases to the flesh, and hasteneth death, that hast-
eth of itself? By that time the gaudy apparel, the dainty
fare, and drink is paid for; and by that time the flesh hath
suffered all that pain and sickness that are the ordinary fol-
lowers of excess, methinks you should say, that if there were
no hell, your sin were a punishment itself, and that in this
life, it brings more pain than pleasure, and that suc'hkind of
pleasure was not worth the keeping, to the hazard of the least
possibility of an everlasting life. Wouldst thou under thy
hand and seal, give away thy hopes and possibility of ever-
lasting life, and run the hazard of an everlasting torment for
the pleasures of sin, or to avoid the trouble of a holy life ?
Why then thou mayst as well even sell it all for pins, or
points, or children's rackets. Then thou art as foolish as the
worst of witches, that sell their souls to a lying spirit, that
whatever he doth promise them, doth pay them with nothing
but calamity and deceit. When thou comest to know bet-
ter what it is that the world can do for thee, thou wilt then
confess there was nothing in it, that should not have been
slighted for the smallest hopes of an everlasting life. Dost
thou think the world will be much better to thee for the time
to come than hitherto it hath proved? Deceive not thyself;
it will prove the same ; yea, and worse at last. Look back
now upon all the pleasures of thy life, from thy infancy to
this day, and tell me what the better thou art for them. If
this were the hour of thy death, would all the profits or plea-
sures of thy life be any comfort to thee, or make thy death a
whit the easier ? Have the dust or bones of the carcases of
voluptuous sinners any comfort or benefit now, by all the
pleasure of their former sin ? Surely I need not all these
words to a man of common understanding, to convince him
that if heaven were as uncertain as the infidel doth imagine.
I5B A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
a man of reason should venture all that he hath upon the
mere possibility ; because his all indeed is nothing, and he
is sure he can be no loser by the bargain, it being not so
much as the venture of a pin for the possibility of a crown.
Query 3. But that is not all. What if I shall prove to
thee past all denial, that even in this life, holiness is far the
most delightful, gainful, honourable life, and that the ungod-
ly live in a continual misery? Will not this serve turn to
convince thee that a holy life should be undertaken for a
mere possibility of heaven, if we had no more? Read but
the proofs of this anon, and if I make it not good to thee,
call me a deceiver. But if I prove that holiness is the sweet-
est life on earth, and heaven the sure reward hereafter ; and
that sin is a misery itself to the sinner, and hell the certain
punishment hereafter, then see that thou confess that God is
a good Master, and the devil a bad one ; for at last thou
shalt be forced to confess it.
Query 4. Well ! You say, you are not sure that there is
another life for man. But have you used the means to make
it sure to you, and to be well resolved ? If you have, then
you have impartially searched, and prayed, and meditated on
the word of God, and heard what can be said by wiser men,
for that which you say you are not sure of; but if you have
trusted to your own understanding, and neglected medita-
tion, prayer, inquiry, and other needful means, what wonder
then if you be uncertain, even whether there be a heaven or
hell? It is no disgrace to physic, or astronomy, or music,
or languages, or navigation, but to you, if you say that you
are uncertain of all their conclusions, when you never stu-
died them, or at least never studied them with that diligence
and patience as those must do that will attain a certain sa-
tisfying knowledge.
Query 5. Moreover, if you are so uncertain of a life to
come, I would ask you. Whether in all your search and stu-
dy, you have behaved yourselves as learners, or rather as
proud, self-conceited men, that think themselves wise enough
before they learn, to try and judge their books and teachers.
If this be your case, no wonder if you be infidels. If you
come with such a disposition to read a book of astronomy,
or physic, you will never learn. If you go to any schoolmas-
ter, or to learn any language or science, and think yourselves
able before you have learnt them, to try and .judge your
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 159
teacher and all the books you read, and so will reject all that
you do not understand, or agreeth not with your former con-
ceits, you will sooner prove doting fools than scholars, and
sooner be the derision of rational men, than come to the
knowledge which you pretend to seek. Come to Christ's
school as little children in meekness and humility, and a
willingness to be taught, and patiently contiuue in the use
of means till learning can be obtained, before you think your-
selves fit to censure the truth of God which you are learning,
and then tell me whether God doth not resolve you.
Query 6. Moreover, I would know of you that doubt so
of tlie life to come. Whether you have been true to so much
light as you received, and have lived in obedience to the
truth which God revealed to you. Or rather whether you
have not wilfully and knowingly lived in some secret or open
sin, and striven against the light and Spirit of Christ, and
abused the truth which you have known, and used violence
with your own consciences ? If so (which it is ten to one is
your case), it is no wonder if you are infidels, forsaken of
God, whom you first forsook, and given up to pride and self-
conceit.
Query 7. If man have no life to live but this, and no fur-
ther end of his actions than a beast, nor any further account
to give, then he is indeed but one of the higher sort of beasts,
differing but gradually from a dog, as a dog doth from a
swine. And if this be indeed thy judgment of thyself, I de-
mand. Whether or no thou be content to be used as a beast?
Wilt thou not take it ill to be called or judged a beast by
another l Or wouldst thou have others judge better of thee
than thyself? Wouldst thou have no man regard thy pros-
perity or life any more than a beast is to be regarded? A
beast hath no property, no not of that which nature hath
given him. You accuse not yourselves of doing him any
wrong, when you deprive the sheep of his fleece, nor when
you make a constant drudge of your horse or ox. And do
you think it lawful before God, for any one that can but
master you, to do the like by you? To strip you naked, and
to make packhorses of you, and use you as their slaves ?
We take it to be no sin to take away the lives of beasts, if it
be but for our own commodity. We kill oxen, and calves,
and sheep, and swine, and fowl, and fishes for our daily food.
And is it lawful before God for others to do so by you ?
160 A SAINT OR A BI^UTE.
Should nothing restrain them butwant of powerto overcome
you? If you say that you are beasts, as beasts you should
be used.
Query 8. Moreover J would know of you. Whether you
think that there is any other world, which spiritual inhabi-
tants do possess ? If you say no, you go against all reason
and experience. Against experience, because that many a
hundred witches, and many apparitions and haunted houses
have put the matter out of question (for all that many reports
of such things have been false). And against all reason, be-
cause we see that this inferior world is every where replen-
ished with inhabitants. The earth hath men and beasts, the
air hath birds, the water hath fishes. And can a man of com-
mon reason then, think that the superior regions which we
see, and which we see not (which for greatness, and for
splendour and excellency, are a thousandfold above this
earth), should all be uninhabited and destitute ! and that
there are not creatures also there, for excellency and number
incomparably beyond the inhabitants of this lesser, lower
world ! Certainly nothing is made in vain, nor are the works
of God so monstrously disproportioned and discomposed, as
for the more noble parts to be only for the baser. The hea-
vens that are over us, and all the vast and most excellent
parts of the creation, have a use that is answerable to their
excellency. God makes not cottages to be inhabited, and
palaces and cities to lie waste and desert to no use.
But if you grant there is another world proportionably
replenished with creatures, you may easily see from thence
a probability, that man shall be translated thither. Why not
the soul of man, as well as those spirits that in assumed
shapes have made their appearance unto man? As all things
ripen to their perfection, why should it seem any more im-
probable that the soul shall pass hence into the world of spi-
rits, than that the chicken shall come out of the shell, and
the infant out of the womb, into so wide and light a world
as this, when before they were shut up in a narrow darkness,
and never heard nor knew any thing of that world which they
enter into ?
Query 9. Do you know why it is that God hath given
man that knowledge, and freewill, and capacity to seek ano-
ther life which beasts have not, if he be intended for no other
life than beasts ? If God be not most wise, he is not God.
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 161
If he be, then he maketh not so excellent faculties as these
in vain, but fitteth all his creatures to their uses. Every
workman will do so by his work. Why is a knife made keen,
but to cut with ? And what are the wheels of your watch
or clock made for but to shew you the hour of the day ?
Look now into the whole frame of the soul of man, and
judge by its aptitude what it is made for.
(1.) Man is capable of knowing that there is a God, and
knowing his attributes, which beasts are not, because they
be not made to enjoy him.
(2.) Man is capable of knowing his relation to this God,
that he is our Creator, and we his creatures ; he our Lord,
and we his own ; he our Ruler, and we his subjects ; he our
Benefactor, and we his beneficiaries. And we are capable
of knowing our duty in these several relations. And cer-
tainly all this is not in vain.
(3.) Man is capable of knowing that the everlasting love
of God is that alone that can make him happy. And why
would God shew him this, if he were not capable of enjoy-
ing it ? Reason tells men that nothing here can make us
happy, and that God can do it.
(4.) Man is capable of knowing that certain duties are
to be performed in order to the pleasing of his Lord, and
what those duties are ; which would not be if we were not
capable of pleasing him, and so of being happy in him.
(5.) Man is made capable of desiring after the everlasting
love of God ; and that above all things in this world. And
God hath not made such desires in vain.
(6.) Man is capable of loving God as an object everlast-
ingly to be enjoyed, and that above all other things.
(7.) Man also is capable of referring all the creatures un-
to God, and using all things but as means to this everlasting
end. Thus to believers. And surely all this is not in vain.
(8.) Man is a creature that cannot regularly be moved
according to his nature, to the performance of his duty to
God and man, unless it be by motives fetched from the life
to come. Take off that poise, and all his orderly motions
will soon cease. Nothing below such everlasting things are
fit or sufficient morally to govern him, and cause him to live
as man should live.
(9.) He is possessed of actual fears of everlasting punish-
VOL. X. M
162 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ment, and shall never perfectly overcome these fears by his?
greatest unbelief.
(10.) He is capable of fetching his highest pleasures from
the forethoughts of everlasting happiness, and receiving from
hence his encouragement in welldoing and foretaste of the
reward. Now this being the natural frame of man, as is past
denial (when brutes have no such thing at all), let reason
judge whether the God of nature have made this nature of
man in vain, that we see hath suited every other creature to
its use ; our horses to carry us, and our ox to draw for us,
and the earth to bear its several fruits for them and us. And
hath he mistaken only in the making of man, and gone be-
yond his own intention, and fitted him for those uses and en-
j oyments that he was never meant for ? These are not impu-
tations to be cast upon the most wise and gracious God.
Query 10. Moreover I demand of you. What is the end
of man, and all these special faculties, if there be no life for
him after this ? Either he hath an end which he is to intend,
or he hath none. If none, then he hath nothing to do in the
world. For all actions of man are nothing else but the in-
tending of some end, and the choice and use of means for the
attaining it. Man must lie down and sleep out his days, if
this be true that he hath no end. Nay, sleep itself hath some.
And he cannot choose but intend some end and seek it, if he
would never so fain, unless he would take some opiate stu-
pifying potion, or run mad. And he that made him al-
so, and placed him here, had some end in it. For if man
had thus no end, he could have no maker or efficient cause.
For every rational efficient intendeth an end in all his works.
(And he that made men rational, is eminently much more
knowing than his creature.) And if we had no maker, then
we have no being, and so are no men.
But if man unquestionably have an end, it is either some-
thing that is more noble or baser than himself, and some
state that it is better or worse than that in which he seeks
his end. Baser it cannot be ; for that were monstrous, that
baser things should be the end of the more noble. Beasts
are ma3e for man, and therefore not man for beasts. The
earth is made for beasts and men, and therefore we are not
made for the earth. Our means is not our end. If you grant
that we are made for the God that made us (as nothing more
sure), then how is it that God can be our end if there be no
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 163
life but this ? 1. Here we are but in seeking him, and still
are forced to complain that we fall short. Here we are but
in the use of means. 2. We find that our knowledge, de-
sires, and love will here reach no higher than to carry us on
towards that perfection that is in our eye, and not to satisfy
the soul. The creature that doth attain his end, hath rest in
it, and is better than before. But we have nothing here like
rest, and should be in a worse condition hereafter, if we had
no more. 3. Here we sin against the Lord, and wrong him
more than we serve him. We know but little of him and his
work ; and serve and praise him but a little, and not accord-
ing to the capacity of our nature. And therefore if he have
not a higher end for us, and we a higher end to seek than
any is in this world to be found, our natures seem to be in
vain. For my part, though it be in weakness, I must needs
say it is my trade and daily work to serve my God, and seek
after an immortal blessedness. And if I thought that there
were no such thing to be had, and no such use for me, I
must needs stand still, and look about me, or in my practice
unman myself by a brutish life, as I had brutified myself in
my estimation and intention. For what could I find to do in
the world ? What should I do with my reason and know-
ledge, or any faculty above a beast, if I had no higher a work
and end than beasts ? Verily, if I had lost the hopr.s of ano-
ther life, I knew not what to do with myself in the world ! but
must become some other creature, and life some other kind
of life, than now I live.
Query 11. Moreover, I desire you to consider, * Whether
it be credible to a man of reason, that God made his noblest
creature in this world with a nature that should be a neces-
sary misery and vexation to itself above all the misery of the
baser creatures ? and that the wiser any man is, the more
miserable he must needs be V
This is not credible. Yet thus would it be, if there were
no life but this. For, (1.) The knowledge that man hath of
a superior good (which beasts have not) would tantalize him
and torment him. To know it, and must not partake of it,
is to be used as a horse that is tied near his provender, which
he must not reach.
(2.) The love, and desires, and hopes, that I before de-
scribed, would all be our vexation. To love and desire that
164 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
which we cannot attain, and that with the chief of our affec-
tions, is but to make us miserable by virtue.
(3.) To use all those means, and do the duties before-
mentioned in vain, when we are not capable of the end, is
but to roll a Sisiphus' stone, and to be made to wash black-
amores, or to fill a bottomless tub.
(4.) No creature here but man, hath fears of any misery
after death, and therefore none would be here so miserable.
There is no infidel but must confess, that for aught he knows
there may be a life of punishment for the wicked. And this
' may be' will breed more fears in a considerate man, than
death itself alone could do.
(5.) Or if there were no fear of that, yet man hath reason
to think beforehand of his death, and to think of his abode in
darkness, which beasts have not. To think of being turned
to a stinking carrion, and to a clod, and so continuing for
ever, without any hope of a resurrection, would be matter for
continual horror to a considering man, which brutes are not
molested with. And wise men that can foresee, would be
tormented more than fools. All this is incredible, that God
should make his nobler creature to be naturally most miser-
able ; and give him knowledge and affections, and set a cer-
tain death, and possible torment continually before his eyes,
to torment him, without any remedy! And beside the hoped
life hereafter, there is none.
Query 12. ' Do you think that the belief of another life,
is needful or useful, to the well governing of this world, or
not V If you say no, (1.) Why then do infidels and brutists
say, that religion is but the device of men for the governing
of the world ? and that without it subjects would not be rul-
ed ? You confess by this your frivolous objection, that the
world cannot be ruled well without the belief of a life to
come.
(2.) And it is most manifest from the very nature of man,
and from the common experience in the world, 1. If man be
well governed, it must be either by laws containing rewards
and penalties, or without. Not without. For, 1. All the
world doth find it by experience, that it cannot be ; and
therefore every commonwealth on earth is governed by laws,
either written, customary, or verbal.
2. If the love of virtue for itself should prevail with one
A SAINT OR A BllUT£. 165
of a thousand, that would be nothing to the government of
the world.
3. Nor could anymanbe effectually induced to lovevirtue
for itself, according to the doctrine of the brutists. For vir-
tue itself is made no virtue by them, but a deformity of the
mind, while they overthrow the end, and object, and law, that
it is measured and informed by (as I shall more fully open
to you anon). It is therefore most certain that no nation is
or can be governed as beseemeth man, without proposed pu-
nishments and rewards.
And if so, then these must be either temporal punish-
ments and benefits, or such as are to be had in the life to
come. That temporal punishments and benefits cannot be
motives sufficient for any tolerable (much less perfect or suf-
ficient) government, is a most evident truth. For 1. ' De fac-
to,* we see by experience, that no people live like men that
be not governed by the belief of another life. The nations
that believe it not, are savages almost all ; living naked and
bestially, and knowing nothing of virtue or vice, but as they
feel the commodity or discommodity to their flesh. They
eat the flesh of men, for the most part, and live as brutishly
as they believe. And if you say that in China, it is not so,
I answer, one part of them there believe the immortality of
the soul, and most of them take it as probable, and so the
nation hath the government which it hath, from everlasting
motives.
And if you say that the ancient Romans had a suffici-
ent government, I answer, 1. The most of them believed a
life to come, and it was but a few that denied the immortali-
ty of the soul ; and therefore it was this that governed the
nations. For those that believed another life, had the go-
vernment of the few that did not believe it, or else the go-
vernment itself had been more corrupt. 2. And yet the
faultiness of their belief appeared in the faultiness of their
government. Every tyrant took away men's lives at plea-
sure. Every citizen that had slaves (which was common) at
pleasure killed them, and cast them into the fishponds. The
servants secretly poisoned their masters, and that in so great
numbers, that Seneca saith, Epist. 4. ad Lucul. that " the
number of those that were killed by their servants, through
treachery, deceit, or force, was as great as of them that were
killed by kings ;" which was not a few.
166 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
2. It is apparent that the world would be a wilderness,
and men like wild, ravenous beasts, if they were not govern-
ed by motives from the life to come.
1. Because tlie nature of man is so corrupt and vicious,
that we see how prone they are to evil, that everlasting mo-
tives themselves are too much ineffectual with the most.
2. Every man naturally is selfish, and therefore would
measure all good and evil with reference to themselves, as it
was commodious and incommodious to them. And so vir-
tue and vice would not be known, much less regarded.
3. By this means there would be as many ends, and,
laws, or rules, as men , and so the world would be all in a
confusion.
4. If necessity forced any to combine, it would be but as
robbers, and strength would be their law and justice ; and
he that could get hold of another man's estate, would have
the best title.
5. All those that had but strength to do mischief, would
be under no law, nor have any sufficient motive to restrain
them. What should restrain the tyrants of the world, that
rule over many nations of the earth, if they believe no pu-
nishment after death, but that their laws and practices should
be as impious and bestial, as their lusts can tempt them to
desire ? What should restrain armies from rapes and cruel-
ty, that may do it unpunished ? or popular tumults that are
secured by the multitude ?
6. And there would be no restraint of any villany that
could but be secretly committed. And a wicked wit can ea-
sily hide the greatest mischiefs. Poisoning, stabbing, burn-
ing houses, defaming, adultery, and abundance the like, are
easily kept secret by a man of wit, unless a special provi-
dence reveal them (as usually it doth).
7. At least, the probability of secrecy would be so great,
and also the probability of sinful advantage, that most would
venture.
8. And all those sins would be committed without scru-
ple, which the law of man did appoint no punishment for ; as
lying, and many odious vices.
9. If one man, or two, or ten, should be deterred from
poisoning you, or burning your houses, or killing your cat-
tle, &c. by human laws, a thousand more would be let loose
and venture.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 167
10. All the sins of the heart would have full liberty, and
a defiled soul have neither cure nor restraint. For the laws
and judi^ments of men extend not to the heart. All the world
then might live in the hatred of God, and of their neigh-
bours, and in daily murder, theft, adultery, and blasphemy
of the heart. Within they might be as bad as devils, and
fear no punishment ; for man can take no cognizance of it.
And it is the heart that is the man. You see then what per-
sons the infidels and brutists would have us all be ! What
hearts and lives mankind should have according to their laws !
Be devils within ; and murder, and deceive, and commit
adultery as much as you will, so you have wit to escape the
gallows, and you are scholars fit for such bestial masters.
1 1 . Yea, let me add this one more mischief : Hereby they
would destroy all charity and good works, except the very
bestial love of those that please men's lust* For no laws of
men compel men to the love of God or man ; nor much to
good works. Who would do any thing comparatively, that
believed not a reward and punishment hereafter ? If we give
all that we have to the poor, we can here have no reward but
the breath of a man's mouth, which at death we understand
not. Take down the everlasting ends and motives, and all
good works, and inward virtues too that should produce
them, are taken down.
And by this time you may see what a litter of bears, what
a pack of ravening dogs, what cannibals the world should be
turned into, by the doctrine of the brutists, that deny the
life to come.
Well ! but perhaps you will by this time have so much
sense, as to confess that threatenings and punishments,
hopes and fears of the state of another life are necessary to
the wellgoverning of this world. And if so, I desire no more,
to satisfy any man that believes there is a God (and that is
any man that hath not drowned his wits in sin). For 1 . This
will then shew that the nature of man is formed for another
life ; and God did not make him such in vain. 2. And cer-
tainly if everlasting motives must be put into the laws that
govern us, and into our hopes and fears, then it is not possi-
ble, but such things there are to be expected. For any man
to imagine that God would make a world, which he cannot
govern but by falsehood and deceit, this is to say that God
is no God. For all lying and falsehood comes either from a
10d A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
want of power, or wisdom, or goodness, when men either
cannot make good their words, or otherwise attain their ends;
or when they have not wit to know what is, or was, or will
be, or when they are so bad, as to be disposed to deceive.
But he that ascribeth any of these to God, doth worse than
to say that there is no God. If I hate deceit and lying my-
self; the God that gave me all that little good which I have
must hate it more. Dream not of any but a worm, or fool,
or impious tyrant, that needs and loves deceit and falsehood
to attain their ends. Judge by the frame of heaven and earth,
and by that little good that is in good men, whether the liv-
ing God be one that needs such hellish engines to rule the
world.
If therefore in order to the government of mankind we
must needs believe a life to come, it is certainly true. And
why do you not believe that which government requireth you
to believe ?
Query 13. Moreover I demand of you, 'Whether you
take God indeed to be the Governor of this world, or not V
By ' governor,' I mean properly, one that ruleth the rational
creature as such, by moral means, even laws and executions.
I exclude not his potential, efficacious operations, but con-
clude a necessity of moral government. I know a self-con-
ceited, popish infidel hath endeavoured to persuade the world
that God's sovereignty and moral government are metapho-
rical expressions, arising from the misconceivings of weak
men ; and that wiser men like himself do conceive of God's
government only as of an artificer's disposal of his works-,
that physically accomplisheth all his will. As if God's na-
tural causations, and his moral, were inconsistent ; or as if
God were not wise and good as well as Almighty ; or did not
in his government of men demonstrate his sapience in his
laws, and his goodness in attractive benefits, as well as his
power in mere natural motion ; or as if man were not a rati-
onal creature, and a free-agent, and were not to be governed
according to his nature, by objects suited to his intellect and
will, but must be used and ruled like a stone or beast ; or as
if God could not infallibly attain his ends by a sapiential
government, and by preserving the liberty of the will, as' well
as by a mere necessitating causation ! This man was so en-
amoured upon his supposed skill in physic and metaphysics,
that he not only lost his morality, but grew to be such an
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 1(19
enemy to it, as to blot out all true morality, civility, policy,
and economy at a dash ; and stands with the rest of the
proud faternity, as a monument of God's justice against the
proud, so deplorately forsaken even in the reason that he
glorieth of, that children may perceive his folly. He that is
all for operations of power, as excluding sapiential govern-
ment by laws, and their just executions, doth think sure that
a horse hath more of the image of God than a man. For he
is much stronger. Brutish force would be more excellent
than the attraction of goodness and the conduct of wisdom,
if the government (which is no government) that these men
dream of were the most excellent. As he will allow his ar-
tificer to shew as much at least of his wit, by making a watch
or clock that shall, though by a necessity, move without the
finger of the workman continually moving it ; so methinks
he should allow the infinitely wise and gracious God, to be
nevertheless wise or gracious, if he rule the rational free-
agent, without a physical necessitation, by a gracious attrac-
tion and sapiential conduct, agreeable to the reason and li-
berty of the creature, as long as we exclude not the co-work-
ing of Omnipotency, nor deny the infallibility of divine pre-
definition, which may be secured with the security of the
creature's liberty.
In a word, to deny God to be the Sovereign Governor of
the world in proper sense ; 1 . Is a denying him to be God ;
it being a term of relation, comprising government, and not
of mere nature. When it is commanded us that we have no
other gods, and when we are required in the holy covenant
to take the Lord for our God, and give up ourselves to him
as his people, it most plainly expresseth that his governing
authority, or his sovereignty is comprehended in the term
God. And indeed, having made a rational, free creature,
whose nature requireth moral government, it followeth by
necessary resultancy, that he that had sole authority and
sufliciency, must be his sovereign.
2. These proud blasphemers that deny God's proper go-
vernment, do contradict the very drift of Scripture, that call-
eth him our king and governor, and requireth our subjection
and obedience.
3. They deny the being of God's laws, both the law of
nature, and the written laws, and so blot out the word of
God, and the sense and use of all his works. Though they
170 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
allow them a certain physical operation on us, yet as laws
they do obliterate them : that is, as they are ' norma officii
et judicii,' our rule of duty and expectation, and God's re-
solved way of judging.
4. They hereby overthrow all duty as such, and make
good actions to be but as the motion of the arrow that hits
the white, and to have none but a physical goodness in them.
For there can be no proper obedience, where there is no
proper government or law.
5. Hereby also they deny all inward virtue : for this also
can have but a physical goodness, if government and laws be
down.
6. Hereby they deny the being of sin. For where there
is no law and government, but mere physical necessitating
motion, there is no transgression. And therefore when they
make a deal of talk about purging away sin, it is not sin in-
deed that they mean, but a mere physical disease to be phy-
sically expunged.
7. Hereby they deny all the proper judgment of God by
Christ at the last day, and make his judgments to be nothing
but execution.
Yea, and 8. All proper execution is denied, as vindic-
tive, or remunerative, and so all justice.
9. The authority of every prince on earth is overthrown.
For there can be no authority but from God's sovereign au-
thority, any more than any being without derivation from
the first being. They may talk to the ignorant of contracts,
and people's wills being the original of governing authority,
and deify the multitude and make them give that which they
never had ; but a mean understanding may perceive their
folly.
10. Hereby they destroy all human laws, that must re-
ceive their strength from God's laws, or have none ; and so
they absolve all subjects in the world from conscientious
obligations to obedience. If God have no proper governing
laws but physical motions, then we are no further obliged to
obey men, by any law of God, than we are effectually moved
to it, and than we do obey them. And if so, then we can
owe no more obedience to parents, masters, or princes, than
they force us to ! If they can make us obey them well and
good : if not, we break no law of God by disobedience.
These and many such like are the consequents of that
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 171
horrid doctrine that denieth God to be the Sovereign Ruler
of the world. In a word, it dasheth out at once all govern-
ment, laws, justice, obedience, good works, and all morality,
dissolving the whole frame of the universal monarchy of the
world, and denying God to be our God, and man to be man
and his subject.
But if you yield that God is the Governor of the world,
it is then most evident that there is a life to come. For if
he govern us, it is by laws and judgment. And if by laws,
which are they ? There is nothing known among rational
men, by the name of a law of God, which containeth not pro-
mises and threatenings of rewards and punishments hereaf-
ter. He hath no laws for the governing of this world, that
contain no motives but from temporal things. And I shew-
ed you before, that he need not, he cannot govern the world
by falsehood and deceit. And we see here by experience,
that there is no such execution in this life of the laws of
God, as are sufficient to the ends of government. The wick-
ed prosper, and destroy the just: the best do most deny
their flesh, and are oppressed by others. You see this in
yourselves, and make it an argument for your infidelity.
But stay a liftle till the assizes come. It follows not that
there is no government or justice, because the thief or mur-
derer is not hanged before the assizes, or as soon as he hath
done the fact. Eternity is long enough for their punish-
ment. If God then be the Governor of the world, as most
certainly he is, then is there a reward and punishment here-
after ; and God*s day will come, when man's is past.
Query 14. My next question is, ' Whether you think
that God should be loved and obeyed or notT If not, then
certainly none should be loved or obeyed. For none de-
serves it, if he deserve it not, from whom we are, and have all
our benefits. But if he be, then I further question you,
* Whether it be likely or possible, that any man, or at
least all the best people in the world, be losers by God, and
their love and obedience to him?' And whether it be credi-
ble, that goodness and obedience to the Lord, should be the
constant, certain way to men's undoing, loss, or misery ? I
think you will say, if you believe that there is a God, that
this cannot be. For certainly he that sets us at work, will
own us in it, and save us harmless. An honest man W\\\
take it for a disgrace to him, that his service should be the
172 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
shame and misery of his servants, and he should make them
no satisfaction. If God be not able to bear us out, he is not
God ; and his wisdom and goodness assure us that he will
do it. So that there is no possibility that goodness should
be man's loss, and any should finally be losers by God. On
this assurance I am encouraged to lay out all my time and
labour, and dare boldly venture all that I have, in the work
of God : for I am sure I cannot lose by him.
But be thou judge thyself whether his service would not
make us losers, if there were no life but this, (though I con-
fess the loss would be small and short.) Who are so hated,
and persecuted as they that serve God best ? How many
thousands of them have been fain to give up their bodies to
tormentors, and their lives to the devouring flames ? The
very work of God consisteth in flesh-displeasing things ; to
deny ourselves and contemn this world, and live soberly,
and righteously, and godly in the world, and to be for this
the scorn of men is the lot of the obedient.
If you say. This is not the lot of any but those that are
over-righteous, I answer, 1. We cannot be over-obedient to
God. 2. You contradict the experience of all ages. Even
the form of godliness is hated by the profane ; and tempe-
rance by the drunkard; and he shall be their scorn that runs
not with them to excesses of riot. Seneca tells us that it
was so even at Rome among the heathens, that he was their
derision that would not be as bad as the rest. If therefore
in this life only we had hope, we were of all men most mi-
serable ; 1 Cor. XV. 19. Not but that even here we have the
far better life than wicked men : but that is because it sa-
voureth of the life to come, to which it hath relation. Other-
wise we should lose our credit, ease, pleasure, profit in the
world, and have nothing for it. Faithfully labour for God,
O my soul, and never fear being a loser by his work.
Query 15. I further ask, * Whether you would be alone
of this brutish opinion, or would you have all others of your
mind?* If you would not have others believe as you do, it
seems you think not well of your own opinion, but take it to
be naught for men to hold. And why should not all men
hold it if it were true ? But if you would have all of that
mind, it were time for you to look about you. Certainly the
law-makers would make other laws than now they do, and
men would lead other kind of lives. And what security you
A SAINT OR A BKUTE. 173
would have of your goods, or houses, or lives a week, from
the malice or covetousness of others, I cannot imagine. You
would not dare to travel by the way, or look out among men :
you could not trust your servants, nor your wives or hus-
bands, because there would be nothing but temporal punish-
ment to restrain them, which cunning might escape. I do
not think but you would rather have servants, or neigh-
bours, or husband, or wife, that believe a life to come, than
those that do not, if you had tried others but a little while,
and seen how little they were to be trusted, and consequent-
ly how bad your opinion is.
Query 16. And I would know, * Whether you pretend to
any honesty and conscience or not? If not, you will give
us leave to judge of you, and trust you accordingly. If you
do, then upon what ground is it possible for you to be ho-
nest? If you believe no life to come, you must take your
pleasure hereon earth for your chiefest happiness: and you
cannot believe any proper government of the world by the
laws, rewards, and punishments, sufficient to restrain men
from their sin. Virtue can be no more virtue, if God no
more regard it ; and sin is no sin, if against no law. Indeed
while you live among believers, where vice is in disgrace,
you may for your credit seem to be virtuous : but your pro-
fession alloweth us to judge that you avoid no evil that you
dare commit, if it do but suit with your fleshly interest. He
that believeth no life to come, and tells me so, doth bid me,
in effect, to suppose him resolved for all wickedness imagi-
nable, so far as he dare, and hath temptations and opportu-
nity. Are you of this brutish judgment? I shall expect
from you then no better than a brutish life ; and trust you
less than I would do a brute, because you have more interest
and temptation to do evil, and more cunning to perform it.
Are you brutists in opinion ? Then you are already habi-
tually perfidious, cruel, covetous, malicious, murderers,
whoremongers, thieves, liars, and worse, if any thing be
worse I For honest you cannot for shame expect that any
should esteem you. I will not believe a word you say, fur-
ther than some interest of your own is concerned in the
truth of it.
Query 17. ' If it be not the very light and law of nature
that teacheth and obligeth a man to believe a life to come,
how comes it to pass, that all the world, except a few sa-
174 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
vages and cannibals, and here and there an apostate among
us, do universally profess to believe it?' The Jews, the
Turks, the heathens of most nations, besides the Christians,
do all make it an article of their belief. We differ indeed
about the vi^ay, (and yet all are agreed that godliness and
honesty, fearing God and doing righteousness, are necessa-
ry ;) but that there is another life, v^^e are in almost all the
world agreed. And will you go against the light of human
nature itself ? Or with what face can you expect that here
and there such a wretch as you should be thought wiser than
all the world, till you give us better evidence of your wis-
dom ? And how justly do they perish that will follow you ?
Query 18. * Are not those that believe the life to come,
of holier lives (for the generality) than those that do not?'
And whether is it like that God should reveal his mind to
them, or unto wicked wretches? and is it more likely that
he should forsake all the holy persons of all ages, and give
them up to deceit in the greatest matters, who most diligent-
ly study and pray for knowledge, rather than forsake those
sensual wretches that wilfully forsake him ?
Query 19. * Is there not in thy own conscience, at least
sometimes, some fears yet left of a life to come V I believe
there is ; and when thou hast done thy worst, thou wilt hard-
ly perfectly overcome them. Doth not conscience say, * O
but what if there should be a hell for the ungodly? Where
am I then?' Hearken then to thy conscience.
Query 20. ' Dost thou believe that spirits in borrowed
shapes have oft appeared unto men, and in voices spoken
to them, to draw them to sin, or to perdition?' If thou do
believe it, thou mayst easily believe that there is a hell which
they are so busy to persuade us to, and a heaven of which
they would deprive us. If thou believe not that there have
been such apparitions, I am able to give thee undeniable
testimonies. Read what I have said in my " Treatise
against Infidelity" of this. Read Regimus, Bodin, Danseus,
Malleus Maleficorum, &,c. of Witches ; and read a little book
called ** The Devil of Masson," where is abundant testimo-
ny of his vocal conference, for about a quarter of a year to-
gether, in the house of a godly minister in a populous city,
before Papists, Protestants, and all. Many I could give
you that were done here at home.
In these twenty questions I have but endeavoured to pre-
A .SAINT OR A BKUTK. 175
pare you to believe, by shewing you the very light of na-
ture : but it is a lively faith in the word of God that effec-
tually prevaileth against infidelity ; and therefore next let
us come to that. I will not so much lose my time as to cite
particular texts of Scripture, for that which is the very work
and drift of the Scripture. But because thou canst have no
shift in the world for thy brutish unbelief, but by denying
the Scripture to be the word of God, I refer thee to that
which I have written in the books forementioned to prove it ;
and at this time shall add to what is there said, but these
few questions.
Quest. 1. * If the Scripture be not the word of God, how
could it tell us of the making of the world, and such like
things, which none but God alone could tell V I know you
will say, I know not whether it tells us true or not ; or whe-
ther the world were not, as Aristotle thought, from eternity.
But tell me this then, (to pass by the rest now ;) How comes
it to pass that in all the world there are no books or monu-
ments known of any longer standing than the time that
Scripture assigneth to the creation? It is not six thousand
years since the creation. If the world had lasted thousands
and millions of years before, is it possible that all its anti-
quities should be lost, and not one to be seen, nor mentioned
by any man in all the world ? (For the fabulous tales of
some in China, without all proof, are not worth the mention-
ing.) Certainly some book would have been saved, or some
cities, or lasting piles, or stony monuments preserved, or
some sign or tradition kept alive, of some of all those many
thousand years.
If you say, that writing or printing were not then known,
you come to that which confounds you more. How is it
possible that in so many hundred thousand years, the world
grew to no more experience, and arts and sciences were ri-
pened no more, when now they have ripened in a shorter
time ? How is it that printing and writing were not found
out? and that all sciences and arts are of so late invention,
and as it were, but in their youth? Certainly knowledge is
the daughter of experience, and experience the daughter of
time ; and therefore if the world had been from eternity, it
must needs have been many a hundred thousand years ago,
at a far higher state of knowledge than is yet attained in the
world. For every age receiveth the experiences and writings
176 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
of the former, and hath opportunity still to make improve-
ment of them. At least the world could not have been ig-
norant so long of printing, w^riting, and a hundred things
that are certainly of late invention. It is therefore an in-
credible thing that an eternal v^^orld should lose all the me-
morials and monuments of its antiquity, before the Scripture-
time of the creation. And therefore doubtless it began but
then.
Quest. 2. ' And if God v^^ere not the Author of the Scrip-
ture, how come so many clear and notable prophecies of it
to be fulfilled ?' How punctually doth David, and Isaiah
(liii.) describe the sufferings of Christ, and Daniel foretel the
very year ! and so of many others.
Quest, 3. ' And how comes it all to contain but one en-
tire frame conspiring to reveal the same doctrine of grace
and life ;' (at first more darkly, and in types and promises,
and afterwards more clearly in performance,) when the wri-
ters lived at hundreds and thousands of years distance from
each other?
Quest. 4. And if thou hadst not a blinded, prejudiced
mind, thou wouldst perceive an unimi table majesty and spi-
rituality in the Scripture, and wouldst savour the Spirit of
God in it as its author, and wouldst know by the image and
superscription, that it is the word of God. It beareth inim-
itably the image of his power, and wisdom, and goodness ;
so that the blessed Author may to a faithful soul be known
by the work.
Quest. 5. If the Scripture came not from the Spirit, it
could not give or cause the Spirit ; if it bore not God's image
itself, how could it print his image upon the souls of so many
thousands as it doth? The image of God is first engraven
on the seal of his holy doctrine, and thereby imprinted on
the heart. There is no part of that holy change on man,
but what that holy doctrine wrought. If therefore the
change be of God, the doctrine that wrought it is of God ;
for both of them are the same image, answering each other,
as that on the seal, and on the wax. But it is most certain
that the holy change on the soul is of God. The nature of
it sheweth this : for it consisteth in the destruction of our
sin, and the denial of ourselves, and the raising the heart
above this world, and the total devoting of ourselves, and
all that we have to God, and conforming ourselves to his
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 177
will, and resting in it, and seeking and serving him with all
our power, against all temptations, and living in the fervent
love of God and of our brethren, and desires after everlasting
life ; and a taking Christ for our Lord and Saviour, to re-
concile us to God, and do all this in us by his Spirit. And
surely such a work as this must needs be of God. If it be
good, it must needs be originally from him that is most good :
this is undeniable. (And he that will say, this is evil, is so
much of the devil's nature and mind, that it is no wonder if
he follow him, and be brutified.) And you cannot say, that
the work is good, and the doctrine bad ; for the work is no-
thing but the impress of the doctrine. And God doth not
use to appoint or use a frame of falsehoods and deceits, as
his ordinary means to renew men's souls, and work them to
his will.
Perhaps you will say, that you see no such change made
by the word, nor any such spirit given by it unto men, but oilly
the effects of their own imaginations. But, 1. The question
is. Whether they are true or false imaginations? God's
truth causeth that impress on the mind of man, which you
call his imaginations : for where should truth be received,
but in the mind? and how should it work but by cogitation 1
They are cogitations above and contrary to those of flesh
and blood, that are wrought by this holy doctrine. It is ne-
vertheless of the Spirit, because it moveth man by considers
ation.
2. And if you see not a work on the hearts of the rege-
nerate appearing in their lives, which raiseth them to a far
better state than others, it can be no better than strangeness
or malice that can so far blind you.
3. But if it be so with you, give leave yet to the persons
that know this holy change in themselves, to believe the
more confidently the word that wrought it. We know that
we are renewed and passed from our former spiritual death
to life : and therefore that it was the truth of God that did
the work of God upon us. Nothing but truth can sanctify :
but the word doth sanctify ; therefore the word is truth.
Indeed the holy church of Christ throughout all ages of
the world, hath been his living image, and so a living wit«
ness of his word, as shewing by their lives the transcript of
it in their hearts. It is easy for any that know them, ex-
VOL. X. N
178 A SAINT OR A BKUTE.
cept the maliciously blind, to perceive that the true servants
of Christ are a more purified, refined, honest, conscionable,
holy, heavenly people than the rest of the world. For my
part, I am fully convinced of it ; 1 see it ; there is no com-
parison ; for all their imperfections, which they and I lament,
I am fully satisfied that there is much more of God on them
than on others. And therefore there is much more of God
in the doctrine that renewed them than in any other. The
church is the living Scripture, the pillar and ground of the
truth (1 Tim. iii. 16.) ; the law is written in their hearts
(Heb. viii. 10.) better than it was in the tables of stone ; 2
Cor. iii. 3. And by their holy love and works, the world
may know that Jesus Christ was sent of the Father, and may
be brought to believe on him, by their unity; John xvii.
21 — 23. Matt. V. 16. God would not concur so apparently
and powerfully with a false doctrine, to make so great a
change in man ; nor so far own it, as to use it for the doing
of the most excellent work in all this world, even the ga-
thering him such a church, and sanctifying to himself a pe-
culiar people, zealous of good works ; Tit. ii. 14.
If you say that some of the heathens have been as good :
I answer, 1. The goodness found in them, is but temperance,
fidelity, and such like ; and not a holy spirituality, or hea-
venliness, no, nor a thorough conscientiousness in what they
knew.
2. That good was rare in comparison of that which the
Gospel worketh, as well as small.
3. That good which they had, was wrought only by some
scraps or parcels of the same holy truth that is contained in
the Scriptures. And therefore even so much truth among
the heathens as profited them to any reformation, was the
word of God, and owned by him.
Quest. 6. Do you believe that Jesus Christ did rise again
from the dead, or not? and that he and his disciples did
work those many uncontrolled miracles, or not? If you do
believe it, then what need you further testimony to prove the
doctrine to be of God ? or to prove that there is a life to
come ? Shall the Captain of our salvation himself rise from
the dead, and' conquer death, and ascend up into heaven,
to shew us that there is a life to come, and yet will you not
* believe it? Or would God lend to any man his power to
confirm a false doctrine to the world ? If so, then 1 . It
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 179
would be God himeelf that should mislead us. For it is he
that worketh the miracles, or granteth special power to the
instrument to do it. 2. Man should be unavoidably misled.
For if a man rise from the dead, and raise others, and give to
thousands the gift of languages, healing, and the like, and
all this have no greater contrary evidence from God of some
contradiction or controlment, I am unavoidably deceived ;
and neither my greatest innocency or diligence, or any other
help from men, could possibly relieve me. And he that can
believe that the infinitely Powerful, Wise, and Good, is either
necessitated or disposed to deceive the world, and rule them
by deceit and falsehood, and to lend his power to confirm a
doctrine that he hateth, and is against himself, this man in-
deed believeth not that there is any God. 3. Even thebru-
tists themselves, and all the infidels with whom we talk, will
confess that if they should see Christ rise, or see such mira-
cles, they would believe : and therefore they do confess that
they are cogent evidence to those that know of them.
Object, * Did not the sorcerers in Egypt work miracles V
Ansv). 1. Wonders they did, but not miracles. 2. They
were controlled, and shamed, and disowned by God by Mo-
ses* contradictory, conquering miracles.
Object, * But some might have died between the magici-
ans* wonders, and Moses* controlment, and so have been un-
avoidably lost.' Answ. 1. The time was near, and that not
likely of those that knew of them. 2. At the first wonder
of the magicians, Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods,
(Exod. vii.22.) and therefore the conquest obliged them to
suspend belief of the other. 3. The miracles of Moses were
not to reveal a new doctrine of salvation that could not other-
wise be known ; but partly to convince Pharaoh that the
Lord was God, and partly to cause him to let go the Israel-
ites. The people's salvation lay not on the latter ; and the
former they had abundant means to know by the works and
light of nature itself. And the magicians* wonders were not
to reveal a new false doctrine any further than to contend
against Moses* miracles ; and if they had, yet being against
the doctrine of the whole creation, that revealeth the Crea-
tor, no man could be excusable for believing them, because
God hath given so full a testimony before against them, so
that this objection is plainly but an impertinent cavil.
But I doubt not but you will say, that you are not sure
180 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
that Christ rose again, and that ever such miracles were
done. I ask therefore,
Quest. 7. Whether it be possible, that so many and so
wise and godly men (as their writings prove them) should
give up their lives and all that they had and could have
hoped for in this world, to persuade the world that they saw
Christ risen, if it were false ; and to draw them to believe a
falsehood that tended to the worldly ruin of them' all ?
Quest. 1. And is it possible that if they had been so bad
and mad, that so many thousands would have believed them
when their own frequent miracles, language, &c. were the
witness of their fidelity to which they openly appealed ? and
this in the very age and place where all these things might
easily be confuted if untrue ? If I should pretend to con-
vince the world by language not learned, and by other mi-
racles and gifts which I never had, would countries, or any
sober persons believe me ? or should I not be the common
scorn ? Would the churches of the world have been planted
by pretended miracles that never were ? Would they all have
given up estates and lives upon an evident lie ? It was easy
for them all to see and hear whether these things were done
or not. And therefore he that seeth those churches which
were the proper effects of miracles, may know the cause ; a
real effect had a real cause.
Quest. 9. Was it possible that so many hundred or thousand
persons, dispersed about the world on a sudden, could with-
out coming near each other, agree both upon one and the
same false doctrine throughout, and on the same practices to
deceive the world ?
Quest. 10. Is it possible that among so many thousands,
thattorments, or death, or common ingenuity, would not have
forced some to have repented, and opened the deceits of all
the rest?'
Quest, 11. ' Is it possible that so many heretics that did
fall from them and set against the true apostles, would none
of them have disclosed the deceit, if really the miracles had
not been done V
Quest. 12. Is it possible that none of the Jews, their bit-
ter enemies, nor any of the learned Romans of that age, would
have discovered the fraud, and by writing confuted matters
of fact, being public, and if false, so easily confuted V
Where are the books that ever any one of them wrote to dis-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 181
prove any of these miracles ? If you say the Christians burnt
them ; give us the least proof of it if you can. When did
any Jew complain of such a thing ? Nay, how could the dis-
persed, persecuted Christians destroy the writings of their
reigning enemies ? The writings of Jews and Romans then
written remain to this day, and had fuller human advantages
of preservation than any that are against them. No Jews or
Romans complained, or to this day complain of such a thing,
nor tell us of any such writings of theirs, that ever were in
the world.
Quest. 13. Nay, the Jews confessed the miracles them-
selves, and had no shift left for their unbelief, but by blas-
pheming the Holy Ghost, and saying that they were done by
the power of the devil.
Quest. 14. All the dispersed churches and Qhristians of
the world, have universally concurred in delivering us down
these matters of fact, and the writings that contain them ;
and this as a thing that they grounded all their hope of sal-
vation on, and for which they contemned this present world.
And the enemies that gainsaid their doctrine, did not gain-
say these matters of fact. Could this be feigned ?
Quest. 15. Have I not fully manifested in my book
against Infidelity (to which I must again dismiss you), that
there is a full and infallible evidence, that this Scripture was
written by the apostles and evangelists, and these miracles
done, as there is that any of the statutes of this land are the
current statutes of those parliaments that are said to make
them? And your lands and lives are held by the credit of
these statutes.
A word or two to the objections of a masked infidel of
this country. Clem. Writer.
Saith he, * Men be not commanded to believe these sta-
tutes on pain of damnation. Therefore the case is not like.*
Answ. But men are commanded to obey them upon pain
of death ; and believing is prerequisite to obeying ; there-
fore the case is like. Death is the utmost penalty that man
can inflict ; or if there be greater, it all runs on the same
foundation. And sure that evidence that proves men culpa-
ble for breaking men*s laws must prove him culpable for
breaking God's. You have no other eyes to read the laws
of God, than those by which you read man's laws. And
doth it follow that God must not condemn you for breaking
182 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
bis laws, when men do but hang you for breaking theirs ? Sure
God's laws and man's may be printed in the same character,
^ and read with the same eyes, and both have the same natural
means of delivery, and yet the sin and punishment differ as
the authority doth.
Object. * But (saith he) can the miracles confirm the
Scripture, when it is the Scripture that reports the miracles '/
Answ. 1 . Cannot a statute tell you what parliament made
it, and what matters of fact were the occasion, and also what
shall be your duty upon pain of death? so that the makers
and facts shall give force unto the law, and yet the law re-
veal the maker and facts ? Do not church constitutions do
the same ? The Scripture hath two parts : the history and
the doctrine. May not the history confirm the doctrine, and
that doctrine oblige us to our duty ?
2. But you suppose that the miracles and facts can only
be known by a divine belief of the history. But this is false.
The common evidence that all statutes, histories, and actions,
in the world have to make them certain to posterity (as Ci-
cero's or Virgil's writings, or Caesar's reign, &c.), the same
have the books and miracles of Scripture to us. And by
these we can know them * de facto' to be such, before we be-
lieve them by a divine faith. And as the Scripture is a histo-
ry that hath the same evidence as the best of histories have,
so it may concur with abundance of other evidence (which
I have recited in my " Determination against Infidelity," and
in my ** Key for Catholics,") to prove the facts ; and then
those facts will fully prove the truth of all the doctrines
which they attest, and consequently, we shall add to our hu-
man faith and knowledge, a divine faith concerning the hia-
tory itself.
Object. 3. * But (saith this writer) if God had meant that
the Scripture should be a law to all, he would not have writ
it in a language which they understand not.'
Answ, 1. Any thing will serve to make an infidel, when the
mind is corrupted and deplorate. Were they no laws which
the Romans wrote in Latin, for the government of all the na-
tions in the Roman world ? It was enough that the rulers of
the provinces caused them to be so far understood by the
people as was necessary to a righteous government. I mean
those laws that were added to the proper laws of that people.
2. Was there any one language then that all the world
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 183
understood ? And was it not enough that God appointed
the ministerial office purposely to preserve and publish this
Gospel to the world from generation to generation ? And
is not translating (whether by voice or writing) apartofthat
preaching or explication ? Did not the ministers of Christ
preach the same doctrine to the world then, in the several
languages of the nations where they came ? And were not
the Scriptures presently translated according to the use of
the churches ? Upon how silly a pretence then would your
imperial majesty impose it on the God of heaven, to write
his word in as many languages as are in the world, if he woul4
be believed ?
I will trouble you with no more such wretched cavils.
These three are the main strength of three pamphlets writ-
ten against the holy Scriptures and me, by this apostate.
Their sum is, * Man is man ; therefore we are not sure that
Scripture is true, or that God is God.* I mean, * Man can-
not understand the minds of others but by signs. All signs
whether words or deeds, have some ambiguity, or liableness
to misunderstanding ; therefore nothing can be known con-
cerning God or man by signs.' These are not his words;
but the true scope and life of all the writings of him and all
the infidel seekers.
If you chide me for troubling the Christian reader here
with so much against infidels and brutists, I answer, 1. 1 did
it because that sort increase, and threaten the land. 2. Be-
cause the strengthening of the belief of the best Christians
is the removing the cause of all their weakness and com-
plaints. 3. And principally, because when once the certain
truth of another life is manifested, he must be a bedlam or
worse that will not be godly, or that will open his mouth
any more against a holy life. What ! is it possible for a so-
ber man to believe that he is so near an everlasting joy or
misery, and yet to neglect it, and oppose them that make it
their chiefest care and labour to prepare for it ? The brut-
ist hath drowned his reason ; and the careless professor laid
it to sleep ; the malicious, ungodly professor of Christianity
tights against it, and only the serious, holy Christian doth
use it for his everlasting good.
184 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
CHAPTER IV.
Holiness is best for' all Societies.
Reader, if thou be but a man that hast the free use of thy
reason, I have already removed the greatest impediment out
of thy way, and said enough by confuting thy infidelity, to
prove that godliness is the better part. Thou hast nothing
left now to say against it, but what fighteth against reason
in the open light, and therefore I shall find an easier task
with thy understanding in all that follows, though with thy
corrupted will and concupiscence the conflict yet maybe as
strong.
Well ! if yet thou art not resolved, that diligent, serious
godliness is that good part that all should choose, and bet-
ter than all thy worldly pleasures, I shall now discover it to
thee in these particulars.
I. I shall shew you that godliness is best for all societies.
II. That it is best for every person. And 1. It is the
safest way. 2. It is the most honest way. 3. That it is the
most gainful way. 4. That it is the most honourable way.
And 5. That it is the most pleasant and delightful way. Yea,
that there is no other true safety, honesty,profit, honour, or
delight but what is to be found in this way. I lay not only
all the reputation of my understanding, but all the hopes and
happiness of my soul upon the proof of this point. If I
prove it not, I will confess myself a fool and undone for ever.
But if I prove it, let the ungodly make this sad confession,
and choose the better part while they may have it.
I. And first, That Godliness is the best for all societies
(that are just) I prove thus :
1. Godliness doth unite or centre all societies in the only
Head and Centre of unity ; that is, the blessed God himself.
A commonwealth will never have peace in a state of rebel-
lion against their sovereign (unless he be one that they can
overcome). Nor soldiers in a state of mutiny against their
general. Nor scholars in shutting out their master. God is
the only Sovereign of the whole world. The godly all unite
in him. Ungodliness is rebellion against him. The rebels
are always in his power. There is no peace nor safety there-
fore, nor any unity, but an agreement in rebellion for a while
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 185
to any that are not by holiness united in him, and loyal sub-
jects to him. •* There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the
wicked ;" Isa. xlviii.22.
Object. ' But do we not see that the main divisions of the
world are about religion ? Answ, 1. It is true; but not by
the truly religious. The great quarrel of the world is against
religion in the life and practice of it. 2. It is unholy men
that cannot abide to be accounted unholy, that are the chief
dividers. 3. Among the truly godly, there is no division in
the main, but only differences about the smaller branches of
religion, which are numerous, and less discernible, and less
necessary than the common truths. They are all agreed of
truth enough to bring them to heaven ; and therefore enough
to unite them in dear affection upon earth. Nay, there is not
one of them that hath not a special love to all that he dis-
cerneth to be the servants of the Lord. If any be without
this, he is ungodly. And we are not to answer for the mis-
carriages of every infidel or ungodly man, that will put on
the name of Christianity and godliness. If there should be
fallings out among the godly, they cannot rest till they are
healed and set in joint again. But you must not then be so
unjust as to conclude, that we can have no unity, till we are
in all things of a mind. May not men of various complex-
ions be of one society ? Are not the multitudes of veins and
arteries in your bodies, united in the trunks and roots? Is
not the tree one, that hath many branches ?
Object, * But God whom you will needs unite in, is far
from us, and his mind unknown, and so is not the mind of
princes ; and therefore we cannot unite in God.*
Answ. In things necessary to our future happiness and
present unity in special love, the mind of God is more plainly
and fully opened to us, than the mind of any prince unto his
subjects. What precepts can be plainer, than to love God
above all, and our neighbour as ourselves, and first to seek
the kingdom of God, and to repent and believe in Christ ?
How plain are the articles of our faith and the ten com-
mandments ! Divisions have been about niceties ; I hope
God will call back his churches to the ancient simplicity and
practical Godliness, and then the Christian world will be
agreed, except the wicked.
2. Godliness propoundeth and prosecuteth the most
uniting, excellent, powerful end, for all that duty that should
186 A SAINT OR A BHUTK.
advance societies ; and therefore must needs be best for all
societies. God and heaven is the common end of all the
godly. They are agreed every man of them in one end ; and
so are not others. Their end hath that power in its attrac-
tive excellency, by vi^hich it can do the greatest things that
are to be done with the will of man. The ends of the un-
godly are small and childish toys. Our end also is as the
sun, sufficient for all ; and therefore not a matter of conten-
tion. All may have God as well as one, without diminish-
ing the happiness of any.
3. Godliness takes away the ball of the world's conten-
tion, that sets men every where together by the ears. It
teacheth men to slight the honour and vainglory that the
gallants will fight and die for, and to contemn that wealth
that towns, and countries, and kingdoms are divided and de-
stroyed by. It teacheth men to slight that money, the love
of which is the ** root of all evil ;" 1 Tim. vi. 10. It shew-
eth men a better treasure, and not only verbally, but effec-
tually teacheth them to trample upon that which the tumul-
tuous world doth so much scramble for, and seek by such
rapine, oppression, deceit, and blood. If all the ambitious
climbers and state-troublers were truly godly, they would
quietly seek for higher honours. If all the covetous noble-
men, soldiers, landlords, and rich men were truly godly, they
would never set both city and country into combustions, and
poor oppressed families into complaints, for the love of mo-
ney. If thieves turned godly you might travel safely, and
spare your locks and keep your purses. If tradesmen were
all truly godly, deceit would not so break their peace. What
is there for societies to strive about, when the bone of con-
tention is taken away, and godliness hath cast down the idol
of the world, that did disturb them ?
4. Godliness takes down the great disturbing and divid-
ing principle in man's soul ; and that is, selfishness. And
it both commandeth and worketh self-denial. Every ungod-
ly man hath a private end, and a private spirit, and interest,
that is dearer to him than any other. So many ungodly men
as there are, so many ends and interests. And how then can
there be a possibility of unity ? The wisest lawgivers could
never yet contrive an effectual course for the uniting of all
these. If selfishness were down, I scarce know what should
trouble the peace of kingdoms, cities, families, or any other
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 187
societies. " Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself;" or,
" Thou shall not covet," is the sum and conclusion of all the
law of God, concerning our carriage one to another. And it
is godliness and nothing else that perfectly teacheth and tru-
ly (though imperfectly here) effecteth this self-denial. But
of this elsewhere.
5. Godliness hath the most perfect righteous laws ; and
therefore is best for all societies. If God can make better
laws than man, then this is past all question. His laws re-
quire nothing but what is for men's good. They prescribe
nothing that is dishonest or unjust. They promise the great-
est rewards to the obedient. They drive on the backward by
the threatening of the greatest punishments. Their autho-
rity is highest and most unquestionable. They all proceed
from one absolute sovereign, and are the same to all the peo-
ple of the world. They change not, but are to endure to the
world's end. Whereas all the laws of men are limited to
their own dominions, and endure but while their power can
enforce them. They are subject to error and injustice ; and
are not the same in one country as in another ; or in one age
as in the former ; and their rewards and punishments are but
temporal ; and therefore, though under the laws of God, they
are necessary for the government of commonwealths, yet
without God's laws they would be utterly insufficient.
6. The way of holiness is contrary to all evil whatsoever,
and therefore hath nothing to disturb a commonwealth. It
is true, we cannot say so of the persons, because they are but
imperfectly sanctified. Were they in all things such as their
Lord, and rule, and religion do require, they would have no-
thing that might be injurious to any. But surely as a sick
man or a lame, is better than a dead corpse ; and as a man
of mean understanding is better than an idiot, and a mean
scholar better than the illiterate ; so a man imperfectly sanc-
tified, is better in a commonwealth, than the ungodly. You
blame not the laws of this land, because that thieves and
murderers break them. The laws are good, if they oblige
men to nothing but what is good, though bad men break
them. The rules of the Christian religion are most perfect,
and direct or command men nothing that is evil. There may
be faults in us, but there is none in the holy laws which we
desire and endeavour to obey. Religion therefore is the way
188 A SAINT OR A BRUTE
to the perfecting and securing of all societies, and tlie want
of it subverteth them.
7. Holiness doth not only tell men of a right way, and
shew them their duty, but also effectually disposeth their
very minds to the performance of it, and causeth them to
walk therein. The nature of it is, to be the very right dis-
position of the heart, and right ordering of the life. The
truly gracious soul is habitually an enemy to all known sin,
and addicted to obey in all known duties. And surely persons
thus habituated are more like to live according to their dis-
positions, than others to live well that hate the good in their
hearts which they should practise. Men's laws can com-
mand good, but cannot give men good hearts to practise it,
as God doth by his servants. If you cannot tell whether
wicked men that love sin, or godly men that hate it, are bet-
ter members of a commonwealth, you know not what socie-
ties are for.
8. Holiness destroyeth the root of iniquity, and teacheth
men to hate even secret sins, which are in the heart, or which
none can see but God alone. The laws of men restrain the
subjects but from open injuries ; butholiness restraineth men
from doing the most secret wrong to others, or once think-
ing, speaking, or contriving any evil against them. It reach-
eth the conscience ; it cleanseth the heart, from whence all
evil doth proceed; 2Sam. xii. 12. Deut. xxvii.24. Psal.
xc. 8. Eccles. xii. 14. A man fearing God, as such, dare
not deceive or wrong another, though he were sure that it
would never be known on earth. For he knoweth that the
Lord is the avenger of such things ; 1 Thess. iv. 6.
9. Holiness cementeth the members of all societies with
the strongest cement of endeared love. It bindeth them to-
gether in the bond of charity. He is not godly that loveth
not all men, even his enemies, with that common love that
is due to humanity, and that loveth not all that fear the Lord
with a special love ; Psal.xv.4. John xiii. 34,35. xv. 12.
17. IJohniii. 14.23. iv. 7. 11, 12.20. Lukevi.27.
10. Holiness maketh princes and rulers a double blessing
to their people. It maketh them the more divine, and bear
the more excellent image of God. How precious is the name
of a David, a Hezekiah, a Josiah, a Constantine, a Theodo-
sius, (though they had all their falls,) in comparison of the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 189
name of a Saul, a Jeroboam, an Ahab, a Nero, a Julian !
O how sweet is the name of a godly king in the subjects'
mouths ! Even those that are enemies to godliness as in
themselves (because they cannot endure to be curbed and
troubled with it), do yet use to admire and honour it in their
kings and governors. Authority and holiness conjunct are
two such rays of the heavenly Majesty and Goodness as place
man in the state of highest excellency on earth, and make
him so much to resemble his Creator, as hath given such the
highest place in the esteem and honour of the world, of any
mortals. And it is not easy for a people to value such holy
and pious princes and governors too highly, or to be suffi-
ciently thankful for them unto God.
(1.) Holiness effectually teacheth governors to rule for
God. To set him highest, and make it their work to seek
his glory, and to avoid all selfish, contradictory interests ;
and to own nothing that stands at enmity with his honour ;
but to judge that they have most happily attained the ends
of their government and lives, if they have promoted the Gos-
pel and kingdom of Christ, and the work of holiness in the
world.
(2.) Holiness will cause rulers to prefer God's laws be-
fore their own ; and to be examples to the subjects of obedi-
ence to God ; and to desire that all men should stand in far
greater awe of God than of them. It will make them care-
ful to form all their laws and government to the pleasing of
God, and promoting men's obedience to his laws ; and to
take heed that there be nothing in them injurious to Christ,
or contrary to his will. It will teach them with David to in-
quire of God, and make him their counsellor. And with Jo-
siah, to "search the book of the law," and humble themselves
when they have violated it. And with Joshua, "not to suf-
fer it to depart out of their mouths, but to meditate in it day
and night, that they may observe to do according to all that
is written therein." And then God hath promised to make
" their way prosperous, and to give them good success ;"
Josh. i. 8.
(3.) Holiness will cause the rulers of the world to love
those that are holy, and to promote the communion of saints,
and to be nursing fathers to the church, even that part of the
holy catholic church, which they are intrusted with ; and to
protect them from the violence of men. It will keep them
190 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
from the sins of Jeroboam, that corrupted God's Worship, and
put forth his hand against the prophet that spoke against it.
Whereby God will be engaged to be their protector in peace
and war. When princes and people that fall out with holi-
ness and take part with the flesh, and set themselves against
the servants, the worship, and the ways of Christ, do put
themselves from under his protection, and put themselves
under the battering and piercing strokes of his displeasure.
And woe to him that striveth with his Maker, and that kicks
against the pricks of his severity ; Isa. xlv. 9. Acts ix. 5.
xxvi. 14. The fatal ruin of the kingdoms of the world, or at
least the final ruin of the persons, is from their enmity and
rebellion against the Lord, and because they will not be his
kingdoms, but hate and quarrel with his ways, and persecute
his servants. And godliness preserveth princes and magis-
trates from this sin and ruin.
(4.) Holiness will cause the rulers to hate sin in them-
selves and others, and to remove the abominable thing from
before the eyes of God's jealousy, and to '* drive away the
froward ; and not to know the wicked and the proud, and to
cut off the slanderer, and the wicked doers, and to set no
wicked thing before their eyes ;" Psal. ci. ** In their eyes
a vile person will be contemned, but they will honour them
that fear the Lord." By this means their kingdoms may be
holy, and God will delight in them, and dwell among them,
and it shall be said of them, as Jer. xxxi. 23. " The Lord bless
thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.'*
And when Israel is ** holiness to the Lord, all that devour
him shall offend, evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord ;"
chap.ii.3. The holy examples, and holy government of
godly kings and magistrates, will draw the hearts of the peo-
ple to holiness, and cause it to flourish in the land. Where-
as the wicked examples and government of the ungodly tend-
eth to make all about them wicked. For as Solomon saith,
Prov. xxix. 12. " If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants
are wicked." And then they are fuel for the wrath of God,
both as offenders, and as enemies. For they will be still re-
belling and opposing him : and carnal interests and enmity
will pervert them to use the reprovers as Asa, and Amaziah,
and Jeroboam, and Jezebel, and Joash did ; and to think with
Saul that Doeg was the best subject that would kill the
priests at his command;^ and those tlie worst that would not
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 191
betray them or destroy them ; and to say to false accusers,
as he did to the Ziphites, (1 Sam.xxili.21.) '* Blessed be ye
of the Lord, for ye have compassion on me." And saiththe
Lord, (Isa. xxvii. 4.) ** Who would set the briars and thorns
against me in battle ? I would go through them, I would
burn them together."
(5.) Holiness will save princes and rulers from the great
and dangerous temptations of their riches, and honours, and
power, and pleasures, and will teach them to mortify the
flesh, and live after the Spirit (Rom.viii. 1.6. 13.), and will
keep them hereby from those sins that would subject them
to the consuming wrath of the impartial God, and will bring
them to heaven notwithstanding all the impediments of the
Vi^orld, even as a camel through a needle's eye, by the Power
to which all things are possible. And doubtless that which
maketh men most acceptable to God, and tendeth to the ever-
lasting happiness of the persons, must needs be better for all
societies than that which prepareth them for damnation, and
keepeth them here, under the indignation of the Lord. See
2Sam.xxiii. 3. Lev. xxv. 43. 46. 53, Isa. xxxii. 1. Rom.
iii.4— 6. xii.8.
IL And as holiness thus maketh the most excellent
princes and happy governors, so it maketh the most loyal
and obedient subjects, and is the most powerful preserver
of peace in all societies.
If any shall say, that the people that are accounted holy
have caused as great contentions and rebellions in the world
as any other, witness the wars in France, Savoy, Bohemia,
Scotland, England, &c. I shall first prove undeniably from
the nature of the thing, that true godliness must needs make
the best subjects, and tend to the happiness of common-
wealths, and then I shall more nearly answer the objec-
tion.
1. Holiness effectually teacheth subjects to know them-
selves ; to know their weakness, and meanness, and unwor-
thiness, and to know their places and their proper work. It
kills that pride that makes men think that none are so fit to
rule as they; and it makes them so humble as to think them-
selves unworthy of protection in the meanest station. And
also it so takes them up with a higher ambition, and sets their
hearts on the greater things, that they are dead to the am-
bition of the world, and can easily leave these things to
192 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
others. Their kingdom is not of this world. They are
taught to expect affliction and persecution, and not aspire
after crowns. No man can deny that this is the lesson set
them by their Lord, and the covenant which they make with
him when they become his servants. Whereas the ungodly
having their portion in this life, and relishing and minding
most the things of the world, will snatch, and scramble, and
turn every stone, and do any thing within their reach for
worldly honours.
2. Holiness teacheth subj ects to see God in their rulers, and
honour and obey them as his officers, even with an honour
and obedience participatively divine. And no men can give
them a higher honour than they that thus honour them on
God's account ; and no men can give them so full, and firm,
and constant obedience, as they that obey God in their go-
vernors. No man can give them higher titles than they that
take them to be the officers of God. Carnal men obey their
governors merely as men that are able to do them good or
hurt. If they were sure to receive no damage by contemning
them, they cared not to trample them in the dirt. Though
that people sinned in desiring a king, yet when they had
chosen that kind of government, and Saul was set over them,
those that went with him were such " whose hearts God had
touched ; but the children of Belial said. How shall this
man save us? and they despised him and brought him no
presents;" ISam. x.27.
3. Holiness causeth subjects to obey and submit for con-
science sake. They do it because God himself hath com-
manded them to do it. They pay tribute, and give honour
and obedience because it is part of their obedience to God,
required of them in the fifth commandment, which is the first
with promise. Outward prosperity is especially promised to
them that honour their parents and superiors. And the com-
mands and promises of God, with the bonds of conscience,
do tie men faster to their duty, and restrain them more effec-
tually from disobedience than the words of men alone can do.
Conscience holdeth strongly and constantly ; and it holdeth
as well in secret as in public ; so that if a man were sure to
do a mischief and never be discovered, he would nevertheless
abhor it, as being not unknown to God and conscience. A
man that feareth not God and conscience, will never stick to
do a mischief, if he may escape the eye and revenging hand
A SAINT OK A BKUTE. 195
of man. Faux will set fire to the train to blow up king and
parliament, if he see but a probability of escape. But he
that feeleth the bonds of God upon him, dare not rebel.
4. Holiness destroyeth self-love which is the spring of
all discontents and disobedience ; and teacheth a man to own
no ends or interests but what stand in due subordination to
the honour of God and the common good ; and in due co-or-
dination with the welfare of our neighbours. Whereas, the
ungodly are every man of them an idol to himself. Self is
the only lord and law, set up against God, and king, and
country. And if God, or king, or country be served by
them, it is but in subserviency to themselves, as they look
to attain some wealth, or dignity, or honour by it. The self-
seeking man is faithful and trusty to no man but himself.
And the self-denying man hath no great temptation to be
unfaithful.
5. Holiness doth partly consist of charity, and teacheth
men to do as they would be done by. And how can it go ill
with any societies where love prevaileth,and men are as loath
to wrong as to be wronged, and to do hurt to others as to
themselves ?
6. Holiness brings down God's blessing on each particu-
lar subject ; and maketh a people the delight of God : and
brings them under the promise of his favour. " Godliness is
profitable to all things, having the promise of the life that
now is, and of that which is to come ;" 1 Tim. iv. 8- What
abundance of promises are there to the obedient I Isa. i. 19.
Deut. iv. 30. Exod. xxiii. 22. Deut. xi. 27. xiii. 4. xxx. 2.
8.20. Jer.vii.23. xi.4.7. &c.
7. Holiness maketh men meek and patient, and teacheth
subjects not to make too great a matter of any injury that is
done them ; nor to censure unwarrantably the actions of
their superiors ; nor to murmur and stir up discontents , but
quietly to bear all in obedience to God, and for the common
good.
8. Holiness disposeth men to unity and concord, and is
as much againsJt discord and division as healthful nature is
against wounds and sickness. ** Whence are wars, but from
the lusts that war in your members V James iv. 1. The ser-
vant of the Lord must not strive. The new command of spe-
cial love to one another, and the strange forbearance, con-
VOL. X. o
194 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
cession, condescension, forgiving, and loving enemies them-
selves, required in the Gospel, must needs do much if truly
practised to preserve the peace of any nation.
9. Holiness assureth us of so great a revy^ard to those that
obey their superiors in things lawful, and offers us so much
better things upon our patience and submission, than ever
disobedience or rebellion can attain, that hereby it must
needs tend to the quiet and benefit of societies. He that is
bound to " rejoice and be exceeding glad" in his "persecu-
tion, because his rev^rard in heaven is great," hath small rea-
son to contrive, or fight, or sixi to escape the persecution to-
gether vi^ith the reward 5 Matt. v. 1 1, 12.
10. Holiness teacheth men both to continue obedient and
faithful against all temptations, and also to propagate the
same resolutions, and to draw all others to obedience with
us. It was the excellency of Christ's example, that he would
be obedient even when he was fully accused of treason, and
charged as an usurper of Caesar's right. If we should be
called seditious, disobedient, and rebellious when we are
most loyal, it must not move us from our loyalty at all. In
all these ten particulars I have shewed, that in the nature of
the thing, it is undeniable that godliness is the strength and
beauty, and safety of kingdoms, and of all societies ; in
that it engage th the subject as well as the governors, in all
that tendeth to their peace and welfare.
And now you may see by what is said, that there can be
no weight in the objection which pretendeth from the case
of the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bohemians, French, &c. to
produce experience against what I am proving. Health may
as truly be said to be the cause of sickness, as godliness to
be the cause of treachery, rebellion, or disloyalty ; there be-
ing nothing in all the world except God himself, so contrary
to these as godliness is.
But you will ask. Whence is it that we have the aforesaid
instances ? I answer, sometimes not authority, but malice
and cruelty driveth poor Christians to a stone wall, and if
they turn again when they can fly no further, accuseth
them of rebellion ; as it was with the Waldenses, the Bohe-
mians, &c. Sometimes princes and states fall out among
themselves, and cannot agree about their titles, and the
bonds and degrees of their power. And then whoever the
people are against, they are sure from that side to hear the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 11^5
most opprobrious titles, and be used accordingly if it be in
their power. Sometimes the right of government is not ea-
sily or generally known ; as in the contention between the
houses of York and Lancaster here. And then as one party
•conquereth one year, and another the next, so the people
must be called traitors and rebels by each party that pre-
vaileth, if they obeyed and served the other party against
them. And if they refuse to obey and defend either of them,
they will be condemned by both. Sometimes the polity of
empires and commonwealths is so imperfect and obscure in
the constitution, that the several parties that pretend to in-
terest, cannot agree about their rights, nor the lawyers agree
among themselves. And the people cannot be thought to
be wiser than the lawyers •in the affairs of their profession.
If Nero and the senate of Rome had each of them command-
ed the Christians to aid them against the others, it would ncfk
have been easy for the wisest and holiest of the Christians
then to know which part they should have adhered to and
assisted- Paul thought not meet to decide any such con-
troversy. He commanded every soul to be subject to the
higher powers, and not resist ; but he tells them not whether
Caesar or the senate was the higher powers in a case of con-
test and division. Sometimes a traitor usurpeth the govern-
ment, and Christians think when they see him settled and in
possession, that, though they hate his usurpation, yet they
are bound to honour and obey him as being possessed of the
government. Thus Gregory the great too hastily and flat-
teringly owned and applauded Phocas ; and the Christian
bishops ordinarily subjected themselves to the emperors that
came in by blood and violence. Thus the bishops of Rome,
and of other churches in Italy and the adjacent parts, sub-
mitted themselves (I think too soon) as soon as they per-
ceived him to be conqueror, to Theodoricus ; and so they
did to other conquerors. Sometimes, as the general coun-
cils of Basil, Constance, &c. determined that a council is
above the pope, and declared the contrary to be a damnable
heresy, and commanded the bishops and people to obey them
against the pope; so senates, and parliaments, and the ma-
jority of statesmen and lawyers may tell the people that are
unacquainted with such law cases, that in this or that tliey
are bound to obey them, upon highest penalties, and that
they shall receive to themselves condemnation if they resist
106 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
them ; and so may mislead such as intend nothing but to
obey the higher powers for conscience sake. And though
the error and commands of councils and parliament excuse
not * a toto* an illiterate laic that understandeth not those
matters, yet surely ' a tanto' it is some excuse.
And sometimes oppression maketh a man mad ; Eccles.
vii. 7. And sometimes impatience prevaileth with the weak
to do things unwarrantable ; and human passion blindeth
reason, and sometimes temptations prevail in this as in other
cases. And sometimes hypocrites, that never had any true
religion, do shew their carnal disquisitions, and unmortified
lusts, and passions, and pride, by their rebellion against their
lawful governors ; and then religion must bear the blame of
the actions of that counterfeit religion, and of those crimes
which it doth most prohibit and condemn.
• In a word. Be the accusation against any particular per-
son just or unjust, nothing is more sure and clear than that
he is most unjust that will charge the Christian religion as
guilty of countenancing any rebellions, conspiracies, sedi-
tion, disobedience, faction or divisions. Christ went before
us in his own example to pay tribute to Csesar ; and com-
manded us to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and
their false accusing him and condemning him as an offender
against Caesar, did no whit move him from the duty of his
state of humiliation. What can be more against all treason
and perfidiousness, than that holy doctrine which command-
eth us the most exact performance of every lawful promise,
much more of our oaths, and duties of allegiance ? What
can be more against rebellion than that holy doctrine which
teacheth us a life of patience and meekness, condemning
private revenge, and commanding us rather to turn the other
cheek to him that smiteth us, and to give our coat to him
that taketh away our cloak, and to go two miles with him
that would compel us to go one ; that is, to suffer yet more,
rather than revenge ourselves, or break peace, or order or
raise wars, to escape such injuries. It is a crucified Christ
that conquered by suffering, that is our example. And our
religion is but our conformity to him in his sufferings and
his holiness. He hath made it part of our duty to himself
to obey kings and rulers, and all superiors, not only the good
but the froward, and to take it patiently if we suffer for well-
doing, and not to return so much as a reviling dishonouring
A «AINT OR A BRUTE. 197
word, or murmuring, rebellious thought. It is not fighting
for ourselves, but following him with the cross, and forsak-
ing all that we have, that Christ hath made the work of his
disciples, and the necessary condition of his promise of sal-
vation ; Luke xiv.33. There is no master in all the world,
that so strictly commandeth patience and forbearance, and
forgiving, and love, and peace, and submission to one ano-
ther as Jesus Christ doth. He sets the hearts of all his ser-
vants on another kingdom, and tells them they have greater
things to mind than riches, or honours, or domination upon
earth. He taketh the bone of contention from before them,
and bids them leave such things as these to the men of the
world, that have their portion in this life. You may as
honestly say that the sun is the greatest cause of darkness,
as that Christ and holiness are the cause of seditions, rebel-
lions, treasons, or perfidiousness in the world. All the world
set together hath not done so much as he hath done against
them. If men threaten hanging and quartering to such of-
fences, Christ threateneth damnation in hell-fire to them.
And would you wish him to inflict a sharper punishment, or
more severely to manifest his hatred of the crimes ?
I tell you therefore if you should find rebellion and sedi-
tion among Christians, it is but as you may find corruption
in the bodies of the living, which is contrary to life and
health, and to be found much more among the dead. I am
not here pleading for individual persons, but for Christianity
and godliness. If any professed Christians forsake the way
of patience and subjection, and turn to rebellion and disloy
alty, they do so far forsake religion and godliness, and much
more wrong and offend their heavenly master, than their king
and governors. Plead who will for the wickedness of such
men, for my part I will not. I am sure Christ will not plead
for their sin which he condemneth. He may justify them
from it, upon repentance ; but he will never justify them for
it and in it. It is not because they are godly, but for want
of godliness, that any men have ever been guilty of rebel-
lions, or resisting lawful powers : as Dr. Ward hath fully
proved in his sermon on Rom. xiii.2. Nothing moretendeth
to the ruin of rulers and people, than to hearken to the devil
and the enemies of holiness, that would persuade the world
into a conjunction with them in the enmity against the way
of godliness and the faithful servants of the Lord, upon prcr
198 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
tence that they are adversaries to the governors and govern-
ment. It is a weighty truth that the foresaid doctor begins
his sermon vi^ith : 'Among all the stratagems of the devil, tend-
ing to the undermining of religion, and the subversion of the
souls of men, though there cannot be any more unreasonable,
yet there was never anymore unhappily successful than the
creating and fomenting an opinion in the world, that religion
is an enemy to government, and the bringing sincerity and
zeal in religion into jealousy and disgrace with the civil pow-
ers. It was by this jealousy blown into the heads of the
high-priests and the Sanhedrim amongst the Jews, and of
Hepd and Pontius Pilate, that Christ himself was accused,
condemned, and executed on a tree. By this the apostles
were haled before the governors of provinces ; forced from
one city to fly to another. For this they endured bonds and
sundry kinds of death. It was through this fancy that the
Christians for three hundred years together, endured the
rage of heathen emperors, being destitute, afflicted, and tor-
mented. Our Lord Christ was traduced as an enemy to Cae-
sar, a man refractory to the Roman laws, and a nonconform-
ist to the religion and law of his country.' Thus and more
that author. So that it is no new thing for the most inno-
cent, and holy, and excellent persons to suffer as enemies of
the government where they lived; nay, it hath been the com-
mon case ; nor is it strange to hear religion and holiness
charged with these crimes which they are most against.
As for the malicious slanders of the Papists against the
reformed churches, as if they had promoted all their refor-
mations by rebellion, they have been confuted sufficiently
by many. At this time, I shall only desire the reader that
would be satisfied in this, and understand the Protestant
doctrine in these points to read Bishop Bilson's " Difference
between Christian Subjection, and Unchristian Rebellion."
Especially p. 382, and from 494 to 522. Also " Hooker's
Eccles. Polit. the last book (lately published).
And if he would know whether it be an article of the
very religion of the Papists, that the pope may give away the
dominions of temporal lords that deny transubstantiation, or
hold such like points which he calleth heresy, or that will
not exterminate all that hold them, out of their dominions,
and that he may discharge their subjects and vassals from
their allegiance, I only entreat him with his own eyes to read
A SAINT OR A BRUTK. 199
the decrees of their approved general council at the Lateran,
under Pope Innocent III. and let him but believe his eye-,
sight. And for their case and confutation, let him also read
King James's Ansvv^er to Perron's Oration.
Having thus interposed an answer to their objection, that
say religion hath brought forth rebellions (which I confess
that religion which teacheth rebellion hath done ; but the
Christian religion which condemneth it, and engageth men
against it as aforesaid, doth not), I now proceed to some
other proofs, that godliness is the greatest security and es-
tablishment to kingdoms and all societies.
12. Godliness above all things engageth men to be true
to their covenants : to keep all their oaths and promises of
obedience to kings and other superiors ; and to be faithful
and trusty in all their duties to one another. So horrid is
the sin of perjury and covenant-breaking, that God hath
condemned it, not only in the holy Scriptures, but also in
the law of nature. He will not bear with it in the greatest
princes ; how then shall perfidious subjects escape? What
fair excuses had Saul for his breaking the v6w and covenant
with the Gibeonites ? He might have said, 1. They procur-
ed it from Joshua by a mere cheat, and therefore no benefit
belonged to them from their own sin and fraud. 2. That
Joshua not knowing who they were, ' ignorantis non est con-
sensus.' 3. That God had forbid to spare any of these na-
tions. 4. That it was not Saul that made this oath and
covenant, but Joshua. 5. That Saul did it in zeal for the
people of Israel. Yet for all this in David's days there was
a famine in the land for this sin of Saul, which was not ex-
piated till seven of his sons (or posterity) were hanged at the
Gibeonites' request. And though David might well see that
he might be censured as contriving all this himself for the
extirpation of the line of Saul, yet would he not forbear the
execution ; 2 Chron. xxi. And when the people murmured
at Joshua, and the heads of Israel, for sparing them at first,
they are answered with the obligation of the invfsible oath ;
Josh. ix.
So though Zedekiah was the king of Babylon's captive,
force could not excuse his perjury and covenant-breaking,
but God severely condemned and avenged it.
So that every subject that hath but bound himself in al-
legiance to his sovereign, is under such an obligation as to fi
200 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
true believer is more dreadful to violate, than it is to suffer
death.
Yea, God hath written such a law against perjury, even
in nature itself, that he must needs be afraid of it that is not
a flat atheist, lest his appeal to God do bring the vengeance
of God upon him. And in this life the perjured ordinarily
meet with that divine revenge which is the forerunner
of eternal vengeance. The perjured are unfit for human
society ; hated by God, and never more to be trusted by
man, till sound repentance make a change. Which made
Augustine determine, that he that urgeth another to for-
swear himself, is as much worse than a murderer, as killing
the soul is worse than killing the body. Seeing then that
religion doubleth these sacred bonds, and casteth hell-fire
into the face of the perjured and perfidious, it must needs be
a singular preserver of kingdoms and all societies, which fall
in pieces where these bonds are loosed ; and fall into the
hands of God, who is a consuming fire, especially to perjur-
ed men.
13. Moreover, it is only godliness that obeyeth with true
loyalty, and carrieth on all works methodically for the com-
mon good. As he that will obey every justice of peace in
all things that he commandeth, without respect to the laws
or will of the sovereign power, may be sooner a traitor than
truly obedient, (for every justice or lord may arm him against
his prince) ; so he that will obey the princes of the earth,
without respect to the will or interest of the eternal God,
will be but a traitor to God, under pretence of obeying princes,
that are but his officers and servants. But the godly begin
at God in their obedience ; and therefore they proceed me-
thodically, and obey men upon right grounds and in their
proper places. It is not the vast absolute obedience to man
that is the best. He that should command men causelessly
to fire his country, or to destroy the innocent, or to ravish
virgins or men's wives, were not to be obeyed, as Doeg obey-
ed Saul ; but God is first to be obeyed. It is he that begins,
proceeds, and ends with God, that is sure to do no wrong,
nor be misled.
14. Holiness possesseth men with a public spirit, and
maketh the case of others to be our own, and teacheth us to
do as we would be done by ; and giveth every man that hath
it, a compassion to others in their distress, and an earnes,t
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 20t
desire after their welfare, and a rejoicing in it ; when ungod-
ly men are all for themselves ; Psal. cxxxvii. 1 Cor. xii.
25—27. xiii. Acts ii. 44. Matt.vii. 12. Mark xii. 33.
15. Godliness engageth men in doing good, as the very-
business of their lives, which is to be rewarded with everlast-
ing happiness. So that besides what is forced from men by
law, they are to be still in the exercise of charity, and to be
'* zealous of good works ;" and to make it their study to do
all the good they can. And therefore they are certainly the
most profitable members in any society, that are most truly
godly ; Luke X. 29, 30. &c. Deut.xv.9. Luke vi. 38. Gal.
vi.9, 10.
16. Moreover, holiness teacheth men to forgive wrongs,
and to love our enemies, and to let go our right, rather than
to break peace and revenge our wrongs ; and to forbear even
going to law contentiously, and where our putting up inju-
ries merely to ourselves may suffice for the avoiding it ;
Luke vi. 27—29. Matt. vi. 14, 15. 1 Cor. vi. 7. And what
contention can there be when these rules are practised, ex-
cept when the interest of God or others is violated, which
is not in our power to remit, [f you say, that these things
are good if they are practised, I answer, 1. You confess
then that holiness is good ; for the rule is good, whether it
be practised or not. 2. I answer, that so much as any man
is sanctified, he doth practise it. And therefore if any man
live not according to the rule which he professeth to live by,
that is, from the remnant of that sin within him, which the
wicked plead for, and for want of more of that godliness
which you distaste. Make him more holy, and he will do all
this.
17. Holiness secureth every society, and interesteth them
in the most impregnable defence ; even in the love and fa-
vour of the Lord ; and in his many sure and precious pro-
mises. He hath engaged his almightiness and fidelity for
such, and tendereth them as the apple of his eye, and hath
promised that he will be their defence (Zech. ii. 8. Psal. v.
11. vii. 10. lix. 9. 16, 17. Ixii. 2.), whereas the ungodly are
under his curse ; Psal. i. 6. xxxvii. And which of these so-
cieties is more like to be happy ?
18. Godliness is the surest way to furnish every society
with all the blessings that are truly good for them. For they
have the favoiir and promise of him that is the giver of theia
202 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
all; Rom. viii.28. Psal.xxxiv. 10. Ixxxiv. II. xxiii. "God-
liness is profitable to all things, having the promise of the
life that now is, and of that which is to come ;" 1 Tim. iv. 8.
vi. 6. Matt. vi. 33. But wickedness is the certain way to
ruin. " Even one sinner destroyeth much good ;" Eccles.
ix. 18. And one godly man hindereth much evil, as the case
of Joseph, Moses, Daniel, and many others tell you,
19. Moreover it is godliness that is the honour of all so-
cieties. Without this their wisdom is mere folly, and their
riches are but the fetters of their slavery, and canker to gnaw
them and testify against them, and their greatest victories
may be but murders which shall damn them ; and their splen-
dour in the world is but the sign of their misery in the eyes
of all foreseeing men. "Righteousness exalteth a nation,
but sin is a reproach to any people ;'' Prov.xiv. 34. What
glory can be equal to the glory of our interest in God, and
of our being his people, and doing his work, and having his
presence ?
20. Lastly, How can that be worst on earth, that is so
good in heaven ? The perfection of holiness hereafter, with
the holy love, and praises, and enjoyments of the saints, will
be their glory. If you think this worst in your societies on
earth, what do you but renounce it ? If heaven be worst for
you, come not hither. If the participation of that which is
the felicity of the glorified, be not the felicity of all socie-
ties, I desire none of their felicity.
What if saints from heaven would come down and dwell
among you here on earth ? I beseech you as men of reason,
answer me these two questions.
(1.) Whether you do not know or verily believe, that
they would be more holy, and pure, and exact, and strict,
and more averse to all sin, than any of those are that now
you dislike as too precise ?
(2.) Whether you would therefore call them Puritans, and
hate them, and cast them out, or imprison them, or take them
for the troublers of your countries, or rather for the honour
and blessing of your countries ? W hat you would do by them
that do by those that come nearest to them among you.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. *i08
CHAPTER V.
Times of Holiness are the best Times.
And now I have been giving you all this evidence, I dare
leave it to the judgment of any man that is fit to judge, whe-
ther it be the godly or ungodly that are the better magis-
trates, or better pastors of the churches, or better members
of the commonwealth, or of any society. Judge now whe-
ther the places and times are not better that are most godly.
And whether it be the godly or the ungodly that are the
troublers of the world.
And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men,
to charge it upon them that fear the Lord, that all the trou-
bles of the world are long of them. ' We were all quiet, (say
they) before this religion and preciseness troubled us ; and
this is it, that since it came among us, hath set us all toge-
ther by the ears.' But if these men be yet unreasonable, I
desire them to consider,
1. That this hath always been the old complaint of the
most wicked men, which God himself hath testified against.
When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites
to forbear a villany not to be named ; " I pray you brethren
do not so wickedly" (Gen. xix. 7 — 9.), what said they to him,
and how did they take it? Why, " they said. Stand back :
and they said again. This one fellow came in to sojourn, and
he will needs be a judge ; Now will we deal worse with
thee than with them." Is not this the case between us now ?
How are we unpeaceable ? Because we are against sin ? If
we would hinder men from vi^ronging God, and from con-
demning their own souls, and others, then forsooth, we are
their troublers, and we judge them, and we disturb their
peace ? Just like the Sodomites, * These precise fellows (say
they) will needs be our judges, and we must be ruled by
them ; before they came among us we had none of this ado.'
But did not God, think you, decide the controversy aright?
He first took Lot and his family away that the Sodomites
might be troubled with that precise and busy fellow no more;
and then he sent fire from heaven on Sodom, and consumed
them all, " making them an example, suffering the vengeance
of eternal fire ;" Jude 7. Or as it is fully set forth by the
204 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
Holy Ghost, " Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
into ashes, he condemned them with an overthrow, making
them an example to those that after should live ungodly.
(Mark this.) And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy
conversation of the wicked. (For that righteous man dwell-
ing among them, in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.) The Lord
knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to
reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished;"
2 Pet. ii. 6—9.
And now who is it that was troublesome, and the cause
of evil ? Was it Lot, or was it Sodom ? Take heed lest God
take the Lots that trouble you from among you, and when
you are rejoicing that you are rid of them, he serve you worse
than he served Sodom.
In the days of Noah, no question but that preacher of
righteousness seemed to the world a singular and a selfcon-
ceited fellow. But did not God decide the controversy whe-
ther it were Noah, or they, that were the troublers of the
world ? Saith Peter, 2 Pet. ii. 5. " God spared not the old
world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly."
When Israel fell before the men of Ai, it was a doubt
who it was that was the cause of that calamity ; but God
proved it to be Achan, who is stoned upon this sentence of
Joshua; " Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trou-
ble thee this day ;" Josh. vii. 25.
2. And consider, I pray you, what a quietness it is that
you have, before you are troubled by the godly ? It is a
quietness in the highway to hell. You had the privilege of
damning your souls without disturbance from these precise
controllers. Hath not Christ told us, that the devil is thus
like " a strong man armed, that while he keepeth his palace,
his goods are in peace : but when a stronger than he shall
come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all
his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth the spoils ;"
Luke xi. 21, 22. The hearts and the nations that are not
conquered by Christ, are the devil's garrisons and posses-
sions. Do you think that it is best that he possess them
still in peace ? Or that the preachers of Christ, that plant
his ordnance against them, and batter them, till they are
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 205
forced to yield, are therefore busy, troublesome fellows?
What is it for, but for your deliverance, that are satan's cap-
tives at his will ? 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.
3. And might you not on this ground also account Christ
himself the troubler of the world, as much, and a thousand
times more than us? For he doth more to disturb men in
their sins than any of us : and he doth more for holiness
than all the world besides. And in this sense he confess-
eth and foretels us, that he came not to send peace but divi-
sion into the world, into towns, and countries, and families ;
Luke xii. 51 — 53. If we can have no peace with you, unless
we will disobey our Lord, and serve the devil and the flesh,
and damn our own souls, and suffer you to do the like, then
keep your peace among yourselves ; we will none of that
peace; we have no mind to buy your friendship and good
words at such a rate ! If your peace will stand with our
peace with God, and peace of conscience, we will gladly
accept of it : if it will not, we can be without it. Your souls
are like sores that may not be searched, or a broken bone
that must not be set, for fear of hurting you. You are like
men that must have that which would kill them ; or like chil-
dren, that will cry if they be but taken out of their dung, or
kept from fire, or from knives. If we do but cross you in
the way to hell, we trouble you, and we break the peace.
Yea, and if we will not cast away our souls everlastingly
for company! And is this the case? Is this the breaking
of your peace ? The Lord will shortly be a righteous Judge
between you and us, and tell you who it was that was the
troubler of the towns and countries, and of the world.
You find Ahab and Elijah at this contest. Ahab takes
him for the troubler of Israel when a heavy famine was
among them. Elijah saith. No ; but it was Ahab and his
father's house that had troubled Israel by their wickedness,
1 Kings xviii. 17, 18. And which think you was in the
right, the prophet or the king?
Why sirs, what is it that godliness doth, that it should
be taken for the troubler of the world, when ungodliness is
taken for your peace ? Is it our persuading or hindering
you from sin that troubleth you ? And will not the ever-
lasting fruit of it trouble you more ? Then even say, that
washing you, or sweeping your houses, or curing your sores,
or sickness, or persuading you not to kill yourselves, is a
206 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
troubling of you ! Or is it (as the Lord hath told us it will
be. Matt. v. 10, 11. John xv. 18, 19. 1 Pet. iv. 4, 5.) be-
cause we are not such as you, and will not do as you do,
and be of your opinion, and forsake our Lord to keep you
company? Is it not with good reason? When we know
you cannot save us harmless, and will not answer for us be-
fore the Lord? We know that every man must answer for
himself, and therefore we durst not trust to you, if you
would promise us to bring us off: it is best for you to study
better how to answer for yourselves. But if you are resolv-
ed on it, that ungodly you will be, and that you will ven-
ture on hell to escape a holy life, why should you not give
us leave to pity you, and to forbear your folly, and to save
ourselves ? Will it do you any harm that others should be
saved, or that others should be godly? Your own sanctifi-
cation indeed cannot stand with your lusts and fleshly plea-
sures ; but another man's may. It will take none of your
vainglory, or wealth, or sensual delights from you, that an-
other man is sanctified or devoted unto God. And there-
fore be not angry with us, if we obey the Holy Ghost, that
calleth to us, " Save yourselves from this untoward genera-
tion ;" Acts ii. 40.
Object, * O but (saith the ungodly crew) it was never a
good world since there was so much religion, and preaching,
and preciseness, and so much ado about serving God ! It
was a better world, when we had but a short service read on
Sundays, and played, and merrily talked together the rest
of the day ! There was more love and good neighbourhood
then amongst men than there is now. There was not then
so much deceit, and cozening, and oppressing, and covetous-
ness in the world , there was more peace, and plenty, and a
better world it was than now.*
Matters of peace and plenty change often in the same
age. And certainly you have as little hindrance now, from
being as good as you have a mind to be, as ever your fore-
fathers had. Two things I have to say to your objection.
1. If this be true that the world is so bad, which part is
it of the world that you mean ? Is it all, or some ? Not
all sure ; that were too horrible censoriousness to say. Then
God would presently destroy the world. Sodom had one
Lot, and his family in it. Well ! it is but some then that are
so bad. And which part is it ? Is it the godly, or the uu-
A SAINT OR A BKUTE. 207
godly ? If godliness be naught, then heaven is naught,
where there is nothing else ; and then take it not ill to be
shut out. If it be the ungodly that are naught, that is it
that I am saying. It is time then to leave it, and to turn to
God. Is it not you yourselves that make the complaint
that are the men that make the world so bad ? Is it not you
that are so covetous and worldly that you have nothing for
the poor, and no time to spare for the work that you were
made for ; nor scarce any room, to think or speak of the life
to come ? Is it not you that have so little charity that you
even hate men for loving and serving God, and seeking dili-
gently to save their souls? It is true that there was never
greater v/ickedness in the world than since there hath been
so much preaching. But what is that wickedness and in
whom ? It is the despising and disobeying the calls of God,
and the hating and neglecting of a holy life. Those that are
saved by the Gospel, may say that it was a happy message
unto them ; but those that slight it, and wilfully sin in the
openest light, may well say that it is a bad world with them ;
and worse it is, and will be for ever, if they be not convert-
ed, than if they had never heard the Gospel. It is you, and
such as you, that despise the mercies of the Lord, that make
it a bad world ; and then you impudently complain of it,
and charge it on them that will not be as bad as yourselves ;
and take away the candle and shut the windows, that the
light may not trouble you.
2. Well ! but say you the world was better when there
was less preaching, and less ado about the serving of God,
and our salvation. I do not believe you, and I will tell you
why, yea, why I am certain that your words are false.
1. Because you contradict the Lord. God saith those
times are best when there is most of the light of the Gospel,
and most helps for our salvation, and when the people are
most holy. The increase of light and holiness is a principal
part of the glory of the kingdom of Christ, and of the pro-
mises to the Gospel church, as you may see, Isa. ix. 2.
xxxvi. 26. xlii. 6. Ix. 3. Matt. iv. 16. Luke ii. 32. John
iii. 19, 20. The word of God is the greatest blessing under
heaven, together with a heart to obey and practise it.
" Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it ;"
Luke xi. 28. Psal. i. 1, 2. cvi. 3. cxix. 1. God himself
pronounceth them blessed that meditate day and night in his
208 A SAINT OR A BRUTK.
law, and that make it their whole delight ; and because of
the increase of light and holiness, extolleth the times of the
Gospel far above those of the law, affirming the least in this
kingdom of God to be greater as to the honour and privilege
of his station, than the prophets, or John Baptist ; Matt,
xi. 11, 12. And would you wish me to believe such igno-
rant men as you, before the God of heaven that contradict-
eth you ?
2. I will not believe you, because your objection is no-
thing but a blasphemous accusation of the living God. If it
were true that preaching is bad, it is Christ then that is bad
that doth command it. But I am sure that Christ is not
bad ; and that such as blaspheme him do it to their cost. It
is he that hath laid a necessity on us, and woe be unto us if
we preach not the Gospel (1 Cor. ix. 16.) ; and that chargeth
us to feed the flock of God ; 1 Pet. v. 2. Yea, the Spirit
chargeth us " before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his
kingdom, that we preach the word, and be instant in season,
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering
and doctrine.'' If any one be to be blamed for all this preach-
ing and stir for heaven, it is Christ that chargeth it so strictly
upon us. And if thou dare lay the blame upon the Lord,
speak out, and stand to it at judgment.
3. I know it is false that you say, that the world is the
worse for all this preaching and godliness, because it is
against the very office of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost.
Christ was a diligent preacher himself, and dare you accuse
him for it? He came into the world to bring us the light of
heavenly truth : and dare you say that it were better be
without it? It is the work of the Holy Ghost to illuminate
and sanctify men ; and do you think that he doth us hurt?
Christ died to wash and purify by the word and Spirit, the
church which is his body, that he might present it spotless
to the Father (Eph. v. 26, 27.); and darest thou say that
Christ came to do us harm? By this despising of his bene-
fits, thou shewest that thou hast yet no part in him or in his
saving benefits, but art in the gall of bitterness and bond of
thy iniquities, and thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
4. Moreover thou art not to be believed, because you
speak against the experience of all the prophets and apostles
of Christ. David had rather be " a doorkeeper in the house
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. '209
of God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness -" and judged
** a day in his courts to be better than a thousand ;" (Psal.
Ixxxiv. 10.) and accounted them the blessed men that might
even dwell in the house of God, and be daily taken up in
holy praise and worship; Psal. lxv.4. xcii. 13. xxiii. 6.
When he was forced from the house and public worship of
God, it was his daily lamentation, and he fainteth, and pant-
eth, and longeth after the house and worship of God again.
" How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! My
soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord :
my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. — —
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house ; they will be still
praising thee. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee,
in whose heart are the ways of them;" Psal. xlii. Ixxxiv.
2 — 5. The prophet Isaiah saith, "In the way of thy judg-
ments O Lord have we waited for thee : the desire of our
soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee ; with
my soul have I desired thee in the night ; yea, with my
spirit within me will I seek thee early." This was the
mind of all the prophets and apostles ; and God hath told
us that it is the practice of all blessed men to " meditate on
God's word day and night;" Psal. i. 2. And yet you will
say that it was a better world when there was less of this !
O self-condemning hypocrites ! Why do you so much pro-
fess to honour the prophets, apostles, and martyrs of Christ,
if you think that they were the troublers of the world, and
that their doctrine and practice makes us worse ? Why do
you honour them with the name of saints, and yet despise
both their doctrine and practice in those that do but endea-
vour seriously to imitate them ? Why keep you holidays
in remembrance of the dead saints, and say that the world
is the worse for the living saints ? O horrible hypocrisy !
to honour their names, and hate their doctrine and course of
life, and say that the world was never good since it was trou-
bled with such as they ! Do we trouble you with our preach-
ing, and praying, and our stir for heaven? How would
Christ and his apostles have troubled you, that went so far
beyond us in all these, and made a greater stir than we, and
turned the world (as their enemies charged them) upside
down! Acts xvii. 6. So busy was Christ in preaching and
doing the work of God, that he neglected to eat his meat for
it; John iv. 34. and his fleshly kindred would have laid
VOL. X. p
210 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
hands on him, as if he had been beside himself; Mark iii.
21. It seems if you had then lived, you would have been
among the wicked enemies of Christ and of his disciples,
and have said, ' It was never a good world, since these busy
fellows made so much ado with their religion !'
' 5. Moreover, you speak against the inward feeling and
certain experience-of all true Christians in the world. They
all have tasted and found that excellence in the holy ways
and ordinances of the Lord, that they value them above all
the world. With David they esteem them above gold and
silver ; Psal. cxix. 72. With Solomon they say that " all
the things that we can desire are not to be compared to
them;" Prov. iii. 15. viii. 11. And with Job they value
the word of God above their necessary food ; Job xxiii. 12.
And with Paul they " count all things loss and dung in com-
parison of the excellent knowledge of Christ ;"• Phil. iii. 7, 8.
They know that it is a thousand times better with them, since
God converted them to a holy life than it was before, as well
as you know that you are better in your health, than you
were in sickness. Try whether you can make men that ever
were among those where plague, and war, and famine reign-
ed, to believe that it was never a good world since this plague,
and war, and famine ceased. You may as soon make wise men
believe this, as make experienced godly men, to believe that it
is worse with them for their turning to the Lord, and living
holy, heavenly lives. You can never by all your doting
and self-conceited prating, make those believe whom God
hath sanctified, that they were in a better case before, when
they were the slaves of satan, and served sin, and were under
the wrath and curse of God. They feel that within them
that will never suffer them to believe you. The health of
their recovered souls ; their experience of the goodness of
the ways of God ; the comforts they have had in the pardon
of sin and the hopes of glory, do make them know that you
talk distractedly, when you tell them that they were better
before, or that the world is the worse for the grace of God.
6. And we cannot believe you, when you speak evil of a
holy course, because your words are against all religion, and
common reason ; and much more, destructive of the Chris-
tian faith. If God be not to be loved with all our hearts,
and served with our greatest care, then he is not God ; or
then there is no such thing as religion to be regarded. A
A SAINT OR A BRUT£. 212
God that is worse than the creature, is no God. If we must
not " seek first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness"
thereof (Matt. vi. 33 ), as Christ hath commanded, then it is
in vain to seek it at all. If there be no heaven or hell, let
us lay by all religion. But if there be, that man th^t thinks
it not worth his greatest care and diligence to be saved, doth
forfeit the reputation of his reason with his soul. Will you
believe that man that saith he believeth that there is an ever-
lasting glory to be sought, and made sure of in this life of
our pilgrimage and warfare, and yet thinks it not worth our
seeking for above all, and worthy all our cost and labour ?
He speaks a gross and blockish contradiction. A heaven
no better than earth, is no heaven. A heaven that is not
worthy the labour of a holy life, is no heaven. And a God
that is not worthy of all that we can do, is no God. Eithe^
plainly say that you are Pagans and worse, and believe not
any life but this ; or else live as Christians, if you will be
called Christians ; say not that you believe there is a hell, if
you think a holy life too dear to escape it.
7. Yea this is not all,'but your words do tend to brutish-
ness itself. Pagans did believe (for the most part) a life
after this. And Julian that apostate infidel himself doth
prescribe to all his idol priests a very strict and religious life,
according to the religion which he owned, and professeth
that all care, and temperance, and piety should be used to
please God, and obtain the happiness to come. And shall
men called Christians take the very infidels for Puritans,
and be worse than heathens ? If we have not another life to
look after, then what are we but beasts that perish ? If you
think that you die like beasts, call yourselves beasts, and
never more own the name of men. If you are not beasts, but
men, then have you souls to save or lose, to be happy or mi-
serable for ever. And is it not worth all our care and labour
to look after them ?
8. Another reason why I will never believe you, that the
world was better when there was less preaching and religion,
is because you speak against the very end and nature of
preaching and religion. For the word of God is written and
preached to this very end, to make men better. And is that
the way to undo the world, to persuade them to amend ? O
impudent, malignant tongues ! What doth the word of God
212 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
speak against but sin ? Doth it any where speak against
any thing that is good ? or doth it any where command you
any thing that is bad ? Let the bitterest enemy of God upon
earth say so and prove it if he can. I here in defiance of the
devil, and all his instruments and servants, challenge them
in their bitterest malice, to say the worst they can of the Gos-
pel, or of true religion, and prove that ever it encouraged men
to sin, or that ever any was a loser by it ! O wonderful !
Must the God of heaven indite such laws against all evil,
condemning it, and threatening damnation for it ; and yet
will these wretches have the faces to say that it is long of the
Scripture or of religion that the world is evil ? What ! will
preaching against your wickedness make you wicked ? If
it do, be it known to the faces of you, that it is you, and not
•preaching, that shall be one day found to be the cause, and
be condemned for it. Must princes and parliaments make
laws to hang thieves and murderers ; and when they have
done, will you say it is long of them and their laws that men
are robbed and murdered ? Why, this is not yet so impu-
dently unjust as you deal with God. For they threaten but
hanging, and he threateneth everlasting damnation against
sin ; and executeth it on all the unconverted, as sure as he
threateneth it. And would you have him yet do more to
testify his dislike of sin? Tell me, thou that blasphemest
the holy commandments of thy Creator, Wouldst thou have
him do more than everlastingly to damn unconverted sinners
to prove that he is no friend or cause of sin ? What should
he do more ? Is there a greater plague than hell to threat-
en ? Or wouldst thou have him do more to shew how much
he loveth goodness, than to command it, and persuade men
daily to it, and to promise everlasting glory for their reward ?
Is there any greater reward to be promised ? I tell thee,
blasphemer, to the justifying of my Lord, that all the world
hath never done the thousandth part against men's faults
as God hath done. Never were there stricter laws against
them, than his laws ; and never more terrible executions.
And yet wilt thou say, that it is long of God, or Scripture,
or religion, that the world is naught ? If thou stay a little
longer impenitently in thy blasphemy, till death have but
given thee the mortal stroke (and it is hard at hand), thou
shalt then be answered in another manner, and God will ea-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 213
sily justify himself, and stop all such vile and arrogant
mouths, and confute thee with an everlasting vengeance.
Remember that thou wast forewarned-
9. Yea, furthermore, you are confuted and shamed by
your own complaints. What is it that you quarrel with the
law of God for ? Is it not because it is so strict, and forbid-
deth sin, and threateneth damnation for it? Is it not because
it requireth so much goodness, and telleth you that none of
the unconverted, ungodly shall be saved ? And what is it
that you quarrel with the godly for ? Is it not for serving
God, and because they will not be as bad as others? And
yet the same tongues dare blaspheme the laws of God, and
say the world is the worse for them! And the same tongue
dares revile the godly as the cause that the world is so bad !
What should one say to such unreasonable men, that will at
the same time murmur at the holy word and ways of God,
because they contradict the wickedness of the world, and
threaten them with hellfire because they repent not, and yet
"say it is long of this very word, and the preaching and obey-
ing of it in a holy life, that the world grows worse ? O im-
pudent mouths ! that at once revile the servants of Christ,
because they will not be as bad as others, and yet say that
it is they that make the world so bad. God will very shortly
stop such unreasonable mouths.
10. And if your words were true, then it would follow
that all God's greatest mercies are worth nothing, yea, that
they are a hurt to us, and curses rather than blessings. What
is the Gospel worth, if the reading, and preaching, and prac-
tising of it do make the world worse, and only trouble men ?
What are all God's ordinances worth, if this be the fruit of
them ? And why hath he appointed pastors and teachers for
his church, if this be all the good they do ? Nay, what is
Christ himself worth to the world, if those are the worst men
that most obey him, and study his word, and diligently seek
him ! O unworthy souls ! Is this all your thanks to God
for a Christ when you are lost by sin ? and for the Gospel
that ofFereth you everlasting life ? and for the ministry of
your pastors that would teach you the way of life ? May we
not take up the prophet's exclamation, Isa. i. 2. " Hear, O
heavens, and give ear O earth : I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox
knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib ; but this
214 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
people doth not know the Lord, nor consider." Your beast
doth not take his provender to be naught for him, and rather
choose to be without it. And you are worse than beasts in
your dealing with the Lord ; and when he hath provided you
a Christ, a Gospel, teachers, and holy ordinances, even the
most precious things in the world, you unthankfully refuse
them, yea, and reproach them ; and take them to be naught
for you, and say that it is long of them that the world is so
bad ! O horrid ingratitude ! when miserable souls are in the
captivity of sin and satan, and within a few steps of ever-
lasting fire, the God of mercy sends his Son, his word, and
minisiters, to help them out, and setvthem free, and save them
from hell before it be too late : and what entertainment have
they ? They are reviled by these wretches as if they came
to make them worse, and do them a mischief, and not to
save them ! Righteous is the Lord that condemneth such as
would not be saved, and as took salvation for an inj ury . And
just were God, if he should take away the Gospel, and his
ministers, and his people, from so unthankful and unworthy
a generation as this that are weary of them, and say they are
the troublers of the world, and think that they do them more
hurt than good ; and as the Gadarenes by Christ, desire him
to depart out of their coasts ; Matt. viii. 34. Be content
awhile, unworthy souls ! you shall not long be troubled with
a Christ, or with the Gospel, or with preaching, or with pray-
ing, or with the company of these precise people, that you
so much dislike. Sleep on but a few nights more, and pass
on but a few days further, and you shall come to a place be-
fore you look for it, where you shall never have their com-
pany more, and where you shall be out of the reach of preach-
ing, and praying, and holiness, and hope. And in the mean
time, were it not for the sakes of those whom God will con-
vert and save, this troublesome Gospel and holy people should
be taken from you, and given to a people that will be more
thankful and more fruitful, because " you put it from you,
and have judged yourselves unworthy of everlasting life ;'^
Actsxiii. 46. Matt. xxi. 41. No thanks to you that Eng-
land is not like the Indians, and as miserable as you would
have it.
11. And why should we believe you when we see that
you judge clean contrarily for your bodies, than you do for
your souls ? I have never heard any of you say. It was ne-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 215
ver a good world since our land was fruitful, and since so
much corn came to the market. It was a better world when
men had nothing but roots to feed on. And yet would you
be believed, when you say that it was better when men had
not so much of the Scripture, and of Christ and holiness, the
food, the life, the health of souls ?
12. And I the less believe you, because I find that this
hath been the common speech of others in all former ages.
They that lived in the days of your fathers, said so of the
former times, ' It was formerly a better world than now.'
And if you had lived in those days of your fathers* forefa-
thers, you would have heard them say the same. It is com-
mon with men to feel the evil that is present, and to praise
the days that are past, whose evil they felt not, or have for-
gotten. But hear what God saith, Eccles. vii. 10. " Say not
thou. What is the cause that the former days were better
than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this."
" The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and
that which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is
no new thing undei: the sun ;" chap. i. 9.
13. And little cause have we to believe you, when we
have present experience that your words are false. We see
that those are the best that are most godly. He is blind that
seeth not an exceeding difference betwixt them and such as
you that speak against them. Do not we see that they are
sober, when some of you are drunken 1 and that they are
seeking heaven when you are seeking the world ? and that
they are providing for their souls and pleasing God, and em-
ployed in the most sweet and heavenly works, while you are
pampering the flesh, or making provision to satisfy its lusts ?
Do we not hear their speeches are of God, and their salva-
tion, and things that edify, while you curse or swear, or talk
filthily, or idly or unprofitably like dreaming or distracted
men ? And yet would you make us believe that you are as
good as they, and that religion makes men worse ?
But you say, that for all this they are secretly as bad as
others. Foolish malice ! If it be secret how do you know
it? If you know it, how is it secret ; and it is marvel that
you do not make it known ! Is it not easy to say so by a
Job, or a Samuel, or by Christ himself, if saying so may serve
turn, and a wicked tongue may pass for truth ? You may
say that in secret I commit all the sins imaginable ; and how
216 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
can I disprove you, when I have no witness, but only by de-
siring you to prove it if you can ? But O happy are the ser-
vants of the Lord, that are even in secret always in the pre-
sence of their Judge, who will bear witness for them, and jus-
tify them against malignant tongues !
But you say, that they are as covetous as other men,
though they are more religious. But this is as shameful a
falsehood as the former. Do we not see the contrary in the
open fruits ? Covetous men are the forwardest to call others
covetous, because they would have nobody hinder or cross
them in their covetous desires or designs. And then they
are saying, * O such a professor used me thus, and such a
one did thus ;' and usually they partially relate the case as
their own covetous hearts incline them passionately to judge
it. And perhaps they may meet with a worldly hypocrite,
that seemeth religious ; which is no more to the disgrace of
religion, than Ham was in the family of Noah, or Absalom
in the house of David, or Judas in the family of Christ. Do
not you call yourselves Christians yourselves ? And yet
Christianity is never the worse, because you are wicked that
profess it. But sure I am that the servants of Christ are not
comparable to you in covetousness. For as I find God de-
scribing them in his word, to be a people " dead to the world,
whose conversation is in heaven." so I see that they can spare
time from worldly business, while " they and their household
serve the Lord ;" and so cannot you. They are seeking hea-
ven, when you are seeking earth. And we may know what
a man loveth, if we know what he seeketh. And again I must
bear witness from my own experience, that in this place
where I live, I have reason to believe, that where other men
of their ability give a penny to the poor for charitable uses,
those that you call precise, and think too religious, do give
six, if not twice six, and some of them much more than I will
express. There are few weeks but we have occasion to try
it by voluntary collections for some needy persons, or cha-
ritable uses ; and therefore we have much opportunity to
know ; besides contributions at sacraments, and other pub-
lic occasions.
But you say, that in former times there was more love
among neighbours thaii is now. Then there was more fami-
liarity and kindness, and less hatred, and malice, and con-
tention, than now. I answer. Am 1 not sure by constant ex-
»
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 217
perience, that there is far more love among the godly than
among you ? Do I not see how dear they are to one ano-
ther, and how sweetly and familiarly they converse together,
and join in prayer and holy exercises, and confer about their
everlasting state ? Do I not see that they are ten times more
liberal to relieve each other in distress than you are? Many
and many a time I have seen them give ten or twenty shil-
lings in collections to relieve godly people in distress, when
those of you that are richer give but two-pence or a groat to
your companions in the like collections. And what makes
them be so much together, if there be not love among them ?
I profess to you I never yet saw any thing that is worthy the
name of love and peace among any other sort of men.
But perhaps you will say, that there are contentions and
differences among them about religion, which the world was
never troubled with before. To which 1 answer, 1 . What
differences or contentions do you see among them in this
town or parish ? Among five hundred people that you count
precise, what one is there among us that is either Anabap-
tist, or Separatist, or Antinomian, or Arminian, or of any
other sect? What one that separateth from any ordinance
of public worship ? What differences do you know among
us ? Is there here any more churches than one ? Do you
hear any contendings ? Do you see any thing like a differ-
ence among us all ? For my part, I know of none. Nor but of
one in the parish (that is turned from us), which is a simple,
ignorant, harmless man, that turned Anabaptist. For as for
the apostate infidels that join with you that are ungodly, we
have nothing to do with them, but lament their misery.
14. Another thing that hindereth our belief of you, is,
that we see that it is only ignorant or wicked men that are
of this opinion, and say that the world is the worse for god-
liness, or the preaching of the Gospel. Not a man saith so
that knoweth what he saith, and that ever felt the power and
sweetness of the Gospel upon his soul. But only those that
are blinded by the world and serve the flesh, and are drown-
ed in lust, and know not what they speak against. And
shall we regard the judgment of such men?
15. And moreover, when you say that the world was bet-
ter when there was less godliness and teaching, you contra-
dict all history, and therefore are not to be believed. You
know not well what is before you ; much less do you know
218 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
what hath been in your forefathers' days. Be it known to
you, we have as full advantage to know that as you have.
Many and many a large volume have I read concerning the
state of the world before us, which tells us of far greater
wickedness in our forefathers' days than are in these. If
you will not believe me, I will shew it to any of you, that
can read and understand, at any time when you will come to
me. I will shew you the words of the chroniclers, and his-
torians of those ages, that make more lamentable complaints
of the vices of those times, and tell us of far more evil then,
and of a far greater scarcity of good, than can be truly spok-
en concerning us. And are you that never saw those days,
to be believed before them that saw them?
16. And I am sure also that you speak falsely, because
you make the most barbarous heathens to be most happy,
and the worst of men to be the best. If it be best where
there is the least religion, and least teaching, or meddling
with holy things, then are the naked Indians the best, and
the cannibals that live on the flesh of men. These be they
that are least troubled with preaching and religion. And if
you think that these miserable souls are best and most hap-
py, I pray you go to them, and be happy with them. And
by my consent the magistrate shall promote your happiness
and send you thither.
17. And would you have us believe you, when you con-
tradict yourselves ? Out of your own mouths will we silence
or condemn you. It is Christ that teacheth us to be holy.
And do you not pretend yourselves to believe in Christ ?
That which you dislike as a troublesome or needless thing,
is nothing but serious Christianity itself. And do you not
say yourselves that you are Christians ? Do not you profess
the articles of the Christian belief? And what do we but
practise that which you profess ? We do but obey that God
whom you say you believe in, as the Father Almighty, Ma-
ker of heaven and earth, and all things. We do but love the
Lord our Saviour, whom you say you believe in as your Sa-
viour. We do but obey the Holy Ghost that sanctifieth all
that God will save, whom you also profess to believe in your-
selves. We practise that communion of saints which you
deride, and yet profess that you believe. We seek after the
remission of sin, and that life everlasting, which you take on
you to believe yourselves. And will you profess to believe
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 219
these things, and yet say they are naught, or that it was ne-
ver a good world since they were regarded and practised 1
And do you not profess to take the ten commandments for
the law of God, which all men should obey ? And what do
we but endeavour to obey them ? All that which you hate
as too much preciseness, is nothing but the obeying of these
ten commandments. And O that we could do it better !
And do you not use in the saying of the Lord's prayer, to
pray that the name of God may be hallowed, and his king-
dom come, and his will be done, yea even as it is done in
heaven ? And yet will you say with the same mouth, that it
was never a good world since God's name was hallowed, and
since his kingdom was advanced, and his- laws so much re-
garded, and his will obeyed? O hypocrites! Is this your
praying ? and do you look such prayers should be accepted
which you hate and.speak against yourselves ? You pray
that you may not be led into temptation, but delivered from
evil ; and yet you run into temptation, and take that evil to
be good. How oft have I heard men, when the Command-
ments have been repeated, which require us to take the Lord
only for our God, and not to take his name in vain, and to
remember to keep holy the Sabbath-day, to join in it as their
prayer, " Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law ;" and when they come home, revile those peo-
ple that are willing to keep it, and that will not take God's
name in vain, and forbear the keeping holy his day, as they
do themselves. Either give over professing the Christian
belief, and using the Lord's prayer, and praying that you
may keep the commandments of God, or else give over re-
viling those that do it. Either say plainly that you are hea-
thens and no Christians ; or else never say that a Christian
life is hurtful to the world, nor make it the matter of your re-
proach.
18. And I must needs say that L am the more assured
that your words against religion are false, because I know
that they please the devil, who is the father of lies ; and are
just such as he would have you speak, and would speak him-
self if he had but liberty, and his appearance would not mar
the cause. When thou art railing at godliness, and saying
that this religion is the trouble of the world, and that the ser-
vants of Christ are but a company of busy hypocrites, just so
would the devil have thee speak. I can prove it fully from
220 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the Scriptures, and from his nature and designs. You could
not speak more agreeably to his mind. If he had hired you,
and written down every word which he would have you
speak, you could not more punctually obey him. Do you
plead against holiness, and for a careless, ungodly life ? Do
you despise the righteous, and justify the wicked? Just so
would the devil have you do. If he stood by you, and promp-
ted you (a sindeed he doth, though you do not know it) those
are the very words that he would have you say. Indeed when
he is compelled the devil himself speaketh better than you,
as in Acts xvi. 17. he saith, "These men are the servants of
the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation."
These are better words than yours. But he is left to him-
self, and speaketh of his own, he speaketh just as you do.
And shall we believe you when the devil sets you on, and
you speak the words of the lying spirit?
19. And I the less believe you, when you say that the
world is the worse for preaching and religiousness, because
I know from whence this comes. You take that to be the
best, that is the worst; and that to be the worst, that is in-
deed the best. You judge after the flesh, and take those for
the best times when you have most prosperity, and may sin
with the least contradiction and molestation, and be least
troubled in your sensual course. These are your good days
which wise men know to be your slavery and misery. It is
never a good world with you, when your consciences are
troubled, and your sores are lanced, and satan cannot keep
his garrison in peace ; and when you cannot be permitted to
drink, and swear, and game, and revel without control.
And if this be your good world, I had rather have a prison
or a pair of stocks with Christ and the Gospel which you de-
spise, and with the means and hopes of the world to come,
than to have your good world, which is but the quietest pas-
sage to damnation. You are not yet to be believed. Stay
till you see the end, and what becomes of it, and then tell us
which was the good world.
20. Lastly, If all this will not serve, I will silence yoo
and shame you, if you have any shame left. If religion and
so much serving of God do make the world worse, and those
be the worst times where there is most of these, then heaven
would be worse than earth or hell, even the worst place in all
the world. For no place hath so much holiness as heaven.
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 221
No where is there so much ado about the, praise and service
of God, as there is in heaven. There they do nothing else
but that which you revile, and that in highest fervour and
perfection. They rest not day or night saying, " Holy, holy,
holy. Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come ;"
Rev. iv.8. Dost thou know the man on earth that is most
precise, and holy, and diligent for God ? Why the lowest
of the saints in heaven go quite beyond him. And in good
sadness, dost thou take heaven to be the worst place ? and
think that so much holiness will make it troublesome ? Bear
witness then against thyself. Out of thy own mouth art
thou condemned. How canst thou expect to be admitted
into heaven, that takest it for so bad a place ? Thou teachest
God to thrust thee back, and say to thee, * Begone ; here is
nothing but holiness, which you could not abide. You shall
go to a place where religion and holiness shall not trouble
you.'
Well, sirs, consider now as men of reason, of all these
twenty reasons which I have given you, and then tell me,
whether that be not the better world, and the better soul,'
where there is the most faith and holiness.
CHAPTER VI.
Holiness is the only way of Safety.
I HAVE proved to you that holiness is best for common-
wealths, and given you many general undeniable evidences, to
prove that it is best for all men in particular. I shall now
come to the particular evidences, and shew you wherein it is
that it is best for all men.
There are three sorts of good that men have to look after.
The first is the security of their life and being ; the second
is their moral wellbeing ; and the third is their natural well-
being. This last also is divided into three branches, and con-
sisteth in our profit, our honour, and our pleasure.
So that here are five several sorts of goodness to be con-
sidered of, and you will find that holiness is best, beyond all
comparison, in each respect. 1. Ih fespect of Safety. 2. In
222 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
point of Honesty. 3. In point of Gain. 4. In point of Ho-
nour. And 5. In point of Pleasure or Delight. If I prove
not every one of these, then tell me, I promised more than I
could perform. But if 1 do prove them, I look that you that
read it, should promise presently to come in to God, and a
holy life, and faithfully perform it.
1. And that holiness is the safest v^ay, I prove
thus. 1. That man is in a safer state that is delivered from
the power of satan, than he that is in his bondage, and tak-
en captive by him at his will. But all the unsanctified are
in this captivity, and all the sanctified are delivered out of
it ; as 'the Scripture most expressly tell us, Epljes. ii. 1 — 3.
" And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses
and sins ; wherein in time past ye walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of diso-
bedience ; among whom we also had our conversation in
times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fufilling the desires of
the flesh, and of the mind/' &c. So 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26. " In
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God
peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledg-
ing of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of
the snare of the devil,who are taken captive by him at his will."
And Acts xxvi. 17, 18. '* I send thee to open their eyes, and
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of sa-
tan unto God." And Col.i. 13. "Who hath delivered us
from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son." Satan is the ruler and the jailor
of the ungodly, that leadeth them to sin, and so to destruc-
tion, and keepeth them for torments at the day of wrath.
And is he safe that is in the devil's power ? If he should
appear to thee, and lay hold of thee, thou wouldst not think
that thou wert safe. But his possession of thy soul is far
more dangerous. Thou dost not believe that thou art in his
power. But thy blindness sheweth it ; and thy enmity to
the way of holiness sheweth it ; and thy ungodly life doth ful-
ly shew it ; and the Scripture affirmeth it of all such ; and
what need there any further proof? But the sanctified are
all delivered from this slavery ; and though the devil may
rage against them, he shall not prevail.
2. Moreover, those that are united to Jesus Christ, and
are become the living members of his body, are certainly
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. -223
safer than those that are yet strangers to him, and have no
special interest in him. But all that are sanctified are thus
united to Christ, and made his members ; and all the unsanc-
tified have no part in him. *' He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son hath not life ;" 1 John v. 12.
John XV. 6, 7. 9, 10. " If a man abide not in me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in
me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you ; continue in my love. If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love." " Ye are my
friends, if ye do wliatsoever I command you;" ver. 14.
" Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he
might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water, by
the word ; that he might present it to himself, a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but
that it should be holy and without blemish. No man ever
hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even
as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones ;" Eph. v. 25—27. 29. 30.
Judge by these passages whether the sanctified are not
safe. If the love of Christ, and his merits, and his power
cannot keep them safe, then nothing can. If the Saviour
cannot save them, none can. Is not the very flesh of Christ
safe ? Are not the members of his body safe ? Are not his
friends, his spouse, and beloved safe ? If Christ can save us
we are safe. For who can conquer him? or who can take
us out of his hands ? John x. 28. If he " be for us, who shall
be against us ?" and if he justify us, who shall condemn us ?
Rom. viii. 33 — 35.
But is it so with the ungodly ? No ; they have no part
nor lot in this matter, but are in the gall of bitterness and
bond of iniquity, because " their heart is not right in the
sight of God;" Acts viii. 21.23.
Moreover, he that hath escaped the curse of the law, and
hath his sins forgiven him, and is justified from all things
that could by the law be charged on him, is safer than he
that is under the curse, and hath all his sins yet lying on his
soul. But the first of these is certainly the case of the sanc-
tified, and the other of the unsanctified. " As many as are
of the works of the law are under the curse ; for it is written.
224 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Cursed is everyone thatcontinueth not in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them. Christ hath re-
deemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us ;"
Gal. iii. 10. 13. For all have sinned, and come short of the
glory of God ;" Rom. iii. 23. And Mark iv. 12. shews, that
the unconverted have not their sins forgiven them. " He
that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believ-
eth not is condemned already ;" John iii. 18. And Acts
xxvi. 18. "To open their eyes, and turn them from dark-
ness to light, and from the power of satan unto God, that
they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance
among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me."
** There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,
that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit;" Rom. viii. 1.
Abundance more such passages of holy Scripture do assure
us that all the unsanctified are unpardoned, and all the sanc-
tified are justified, and delivered from the curse. And which
of these are in the safer state ?
Did one of you owe ten thousand pounds more than you
were worth, or had you committed twenty known felonies or
murders, would you think yourselves safe without a pardon ?
Would you not be looking behind you, and afraid of almost
every man you see, lest he came to apprehend you ? O what
a case is that man in that hath so many thousand sins to an-
swer for ! and hath such a load of guilt upon his soul ! and
so many terrible threatenings of the law in force against him ?
Do you not fear every hour, lest death arrest you, and bring
you to the prison of the bottomless pit ? But the sanctified
is delivered from this danger. A thousand sins indeed were
against us ; but we have a pardon of them all to shew. In
Christ we have "redemption through his blood, the forgive-
ness of sins ;" 1 Col. i. 14. The law hath nothing now against
us, and therefore we are safe.
4. Those are safer that are dearly beloved of the Lord,
and reconciled to him, and taken for his children, than those
that are his enemies, and hated by him, and under his dis-
pleasure. But most certainly the former is the state of all
the sanctified, and the latter is the state of the ungodly.
You shall see both in the words of God, Psal. v. 4, 5,
" Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness ; nei-
ther shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand
in thy sight : thou hatest all the works of iniquity." " My
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 225
defence is of God which saveth the upright in heart. God
judgeth the righteous ; and God is angry with the wicked
every day ;" Psal. vii. 10, 11. " Thou lovest righteousness,
and hatest wickedness ;" Psal. xlv. 7. *' Those mine enemies
that would not I should reign over them, bring them hither,
and slay them before me ;" Luke xix. 27. " We were by na-
ture the children of wrath ;" Ephes. ii. 3. A hundred more
such places shew you the state of the unsanctified.
But how different is the case of the renewed upright soul !
"Ye are the temple of the living God : as God hath said, I
will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from
among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch
not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a
father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty ;" 2 Cor. vi. 16 — 18. " But as ma-
ny as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of God ;" John i. 12. " The Spirit itself beareth wit-
ness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if
children, then heirs, heirs of God, and j oint h eirs with Christ ;"
Rom. viii. 16, 17. " And they shall be mine, saith the Lord
of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels ; and I will
spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him ;"
Mai. iii. 17. "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more ;"
Heb. viii. 12. " And you that were sometime alienated and
enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he re-
conciled, in the body of his flesh through death, to present
you holy and unblamable, and irreprovable in his sight ;"
Col. i. 21, 22. " Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiv-
en, whose sin is covered ; blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no
guile ;" Psal. xxxii. 1,2. " He that toucheth you, toucheth
the apple of mine eye ;" Zech. ii. 8.
Judge now by these plain expressions from the Lord, who
it is that are in the safer state, the godly or the ungodly. Is
he the safer that is hated by the God of heaven, or he that is
most dearly loved by him ? He that is under his displeasure,
or he that is his delight ? Why man, if God be against thee,
thou art no where safe ! not in the strongest castle! not in
the greatest army ! not iu the highest dignity ! not in the
VOL. X. Q
226 A SAINT OR A BllUTE.
most merry company ! Thou knowest not but a commission
is gone out for death to strike thee in thy next recreation,
or fit of mirth ! How knowest thou but death is ready to
strike, while thou art eating, or drinking, or talking, or sleep-
ing ? Thou hast no security from an angry God. Till he^
be reconciled, thou art no where safe ! This may be thy fa-
tal day or night for aught thou knowest. And if once the
mortal blow be struck, and thy soul be taken from thy body
unrenewed, O man, where then wilt thou appear ! O won-
derful stupidity ! that thou dost not eat thy bread in fear,
and do thy work in fear, and sleep in fear, and live in fear,
till thou be sanctified !
But to the soul that hath God for his security, what can
be dangerous ? or what condition (while he keeps close to
God) can be unsafe ? " The Father that gave us unto Christ
is greater than all, and no man can take us out of his hands ;"
John X. 28, 29. Conquer heaveii, and conquer the saints !
There is their city, their garrison, their conversation ; Phil,
i. 20. Heb. xi. 10. 16. What enemy, what policy, what pow-
er can endanger him, that God will save and hath undertak-
en for ? We were never safe one day or hour, till we were
friends with God. " The eternal God is thy refuge, and un-
derneath are the everlasting arms;*' Deut. xxxiii.27. "God
is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble ;
therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.
God shall help her, and that right early. The Lord of
hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge ;" Psal. xlvi.
1, 2. 5. 7. " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will
say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God,
in him will I trust ;" Psal. xci. 1, 2. This is the confidence,
and joy, and glory of the saints. " I will sing of thy power,
yea I will sing aloud of thy mercies in the morning, for thou
hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble.
Unto thee, O my strength will I sing : for my God is my de-
fence, and the God of my mercy ;'* Psal. lix. 16, 17. ** Thou
art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation ;"
Psal. Ixxxix. 26. See Psal. xxvii. 5. Ixi. 2. Ixii. 2.6.7.
xciv. 22. Prov. xviii, 10. " The name of the Lord is a strong
tower: the righteous run into it and are safe ;" chap. xxi.31.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 227
" Safety is of the Lord ;" Psal.lv. 8. Quietly may we re-
pose ourselves to rest, for it '* is the Lord only that maketh
us dwell in safety." But is it thus with the ungodly man ?
O no ! When " they say peace and safety to themselves, sud-
denly destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a wo-
man with child, and they shall not escape;" IThess. v.3.
" For their rock is not like our rock, even our enemies them-
selves being judges ;" Deut. xxxii. 31. '* Why else do they
desire in times of danger that they were in the case of the
servants of the Lord ? If they thought themselves as safe as
the regenerate, why do they wish at the hour of death, that
they might but " die the death of the righteous, and their
latter end might be as his ;" Numb, xxiii. 10.
Moreover, he is certainly more safe, that is a heir of the
promises, and hath the word of God engaged for his safety/
than he that hath no promise from God at all, nor any such
security to shew. But all the faithful have interest in the
promises, in which the ungodly have no share. Surely he is
safe to whom the Lord hath promised safety. O what a pre-
cious treasure might I here open, to shew you the safety of
true believers ? I will cull out but a few of the promises for a
taste. " The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and
the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso heark-
eneth unto me, shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from
fear of evil ;" Prov. i. 32, 33. " Whoso putteth his trust in
the Lord shall be safe ;" chap. xxix. 35. " My son, let them
not depart from thine eyes : keep sound wisdom and discre-
tion ; so shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace unto thy
neck : then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot
shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not
be afraid : yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be
sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation
of the wicked when it cometh. For the Lord shall be thy
confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken ;" chap,
iii. 21— 23. " The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety
by him, the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he
shall dwell between his shoulders ;" Deut. xxxiii. 12. " Cast
thy burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain thee, he shall
never suffer the righteous to be moved ;" Psal. Iv. 22. *' God
is in the generation of the righteous ;" Psal. xiv.5. " The
eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open
to their cry. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth and
•228 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
delivereth them out of all their trouble. Many are the afflic-
tions of the righteous ; but the Lord delivereth him out of
all. He keepeth all his bones- Evil shall slay the wick-
ed, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate ;" Psal.
xxxiv. 15. 17. 19, 20. " For the Lord loveth judgment, and
forsaketh not his saints, they are preserved for ever: but the
seed of the wicked shall be cut off;" Psal. xxxvii. 28. " Mark
the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that
man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed to-
gether. The end of the wicked shall be cut off. But the
salvation of the righteous is of the Lord ; he is their strength
in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and
deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they
trust in him ;" ver. 37. 39. 43. " My flesh and my heart fail-
'eth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for
ever ;" Psal. Ixxiii. 26. *' Can a woman forget her sucking
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb ? Yea, they may forget ; yet will not I forget thee.
He hath said, I will not fail thee nor forsake thee ;" Isa.
xlix. 15. " Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat,
or what ye shall drink," &c. Heb. xiii. 5. Matt. vi. 25. " Fear
not them which kill the body, and are not able to kill the
soul The very hairs of your head are all numbered;"
Matt. X. 28. 30. ** Fear thou not, for I am with thee : be not
dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee ; yea,
I will help thee ; yea, Lwill uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness;" Isa. xli. 10. See ver. 13, 14. chap,
xliii. 1, 2. "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have
called thee by thy name : thou art mine. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the ri-
vers, they shall not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through
the fire thou shalt not be burnt," &c. *' The Lord preserv-
eth the way of his saints ;" Prov.ii.3. " O love the Lord
all ye his saints ; for the Lord preserveth the faithful ;" Psal.
xxxi. 23. " He preserveth the souls of his saints; he deliver-
eth them out of the hands of the wicked ;" Psal. xcvii. 10*
'* The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him : to all
that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desires of them
that fear him : he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
The Lord preserveth all them that love him : but all the wick-
ed will he destroy ;" Psal. cxlv. 11—23. " Say not, I will
recompense evil ; but wait on the Lord, and he will save
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 229
thee i" Prov. xx. 22. " He is faithful that hath promised;*
Heb. X. 23.
I hope the believer will not be weary to read over all these
precious promises, which are his security from God, for soul
and body. I sum up all in that one, 1 Tim. iv. 8. " Godliness
is profitable to all things, having the promise of the life that
now is, and of that which is to come." Judge whether god-
liness be the safest state. Can a man of so many promises
be unsafe? But instead of these the ungodly are threatened
with everlasting vengeance.
6. He is safer that hath continually a guard of angels, as
certainly all the faithful have, than he that hath none, but is
a prisoner of the devil, as the ungodly are.
Hear the Scriptures : ** The angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear him, and delivereththem;" Psal.
xxxiv. 7. *' He shall give his angels charge over thee, to
keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their
hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone;" Psal. xci.
11, 12. "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little
ones : for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do al-
ways behold the face of my Father which is in heaven ;"
Matt. xviii. 10, "Are they not all ministering spirits sent
forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ?'*
Heb. i. 14. And have the wicked any such attendance for
their security ? No : but a fearful captivity to the devil.
7. Lastly, That is the safest state where man is safe from
the greatest evil. Everlasting misery is the great evil which
the godly are initially saved from. They are liable to afflic-
tions as well as others, but not to damnation, and therefore
they are safe. They must be sick and die as well as others;
but they shall escape eternal death. Yea, they are already
"passed from death to life" (1 John iii. 14.), and have " eter-
nal life begun with them ;'* John xvii. 3. " He that hath the
Son hath life ;" 1 John v. 12. "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent
me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condem-
nation, but is passed from death unto life ;" ver. 22. " Mar-
vel not at this : for the hour is coming in which all that are
in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they
that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that
have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation ;" ver. 28,
29. " The ungodly are not so ; but are like the chaff which
230 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the wind driveth away: therefore the ungodly shall not stand
in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righ-
teous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous ; but
the way of the ungodly shall perish ;" Psal. i. 3 — 6.
If yet you are unresolved whether godliness be the only
way of safety, I dare say it is because you believe not the
holy Scriptures ; for there the doubt is as fully decided as
any one in all the world. O how blessed is the state of the
poorest, most afflicted saint, that may always say, ' My soul
is safe ! If my health, or wealth, or friends be gone, yet am
I safe from everlasting misery. Other things I shall have
as God seeth best for his honour and my spiritual good ; but
salvation I may be sure of, if I abide in Christ.' What needs
he fear, that hath escaped hell ! But O the dreadful case of
the ungodly ! that are passing to damnation when they never
think of it ! Their bodies may be strong, their riches great,
and they may fare sumptuously every day ; Lukexvi. 19.
But O what a case are their poor souls in ! and where will
they be when this mirth is ended ! ver. 25. They are not
safe from hell one hour.
CHAPTER vn.
Holiness is the only Honest Way,
We have tried whether the way of godliness or ungodliness
be the safest. Let us next try which is the most honest, of
which one would think we should never meet with a man so
shameless as to make a question. But experience telleth us,
that such there are, yea, and that they are very common.
Even in their reproaching of a holy life, they will join the
boastings of their own honesty, and say, 'Though we swear
or are drunk now and then, and make not such a stir about
God's service and our salvation, yet we are as honest as these
more precise people, that make more ado, and censure us as
ungodly.' As truly and wisely as if a common whore should
ijiay, * I am as honest as these precise people that will not
play the harlot, as I do.' And as wisely as if a thief should
say, * Though I steal for need, 1 am as honest as these pre-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 231
cise people that will not steal.' But yet we have this ad-
vantage by these shameless boasts, that still the name of ho-
nesty is in credit, and the worst men honour it, by pretend-
ing to it, while they dishonour themselves by their renounc-
ing the thing itself, and by the impudency of their pretences.
Honesty is nothing but true virtue, or the moral good-
ness of the mind or actions. An honest man and a good man is
indeed all one /caXoc or KoXoKayaOog with the Greeks ; one that
is both inwardly virtuous, and manifests it in the cleanness
and integrity of his life, in the sight of men. All men, for
aught I can perceive, would be accounted honest. This re-
putation honesty hath among its vilest enemies, that they
approve the name, and would not appear to be its enemies,
till they have put some other name upon it. While they
hate honesty, and persecute it, they would be called honest
men themselves. And therefore by the consent of all the
world, friends and foes, that is the best way which is the
most honest.
O that you would all but stand to this, rn the choosing
of your course, and in your daily practice ! Will you all
agree upon a holy life, if I prove it past all doubt to be the
most honest ? O that you would ! Yea, if I prove that
there is no man truly honest in the world, that is not truly
godly. If you would stand to this, you would soon be
changed. Indeed it is nothing but dishonesty that we would
have you changed from. And if you will not stand to this,
but will refuse honesty when you know it, for shame lay by
the name of honesty, and wish not men to call you honest
any more. Either be what you would be called ; or give men
leave to call you as you are. Let us come then to the trial,
and see who is indeed the honest man, the godly or the un-
godly.
1. I have already told you, that God who is the most in-
fallible Judge, hath given his sentence on his people's side.
If you will think yourselves that it is not those that thieves
and harlots call honest that are so likely to be honest, as
those that wise men and virtuous men call so ; we have then
far greater reason to conclude, that it is not those that you
call honest, that are so fit to be judged such, as those that
God calls so. How say you? Will you not freely give us
leave to take God's judgment or word before yours? If not,
we will take leave. And tjod calls all the ungodly by the name
232 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
of evil and wicked men ! and the godly are they that he call-
eth upright, good, and honest. The whole Scripture, you
know, if you know any thing of it, speaketh in this language.
It is they that " hear the word and keep it, and bring forth
fruit with patience, that receive it into honest and good
hearts ;" Luke viii. 15. This is the life that is ** acceptable
in the sight of God our Saviour, which is in all godliness and
honesty." These are inseparable, godliness and honesty ;
1 Tim. ii. 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which sig-
nifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour; but that which
is frequently translated ' good' is it which signifieth the tru-
ly honest. And you know none of the ungodly are ever call-
ed good in Scripture, but clean contrary. " The righteous-
ness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall
betaken in their own naughtiness;" Prov. xi.6. So ver.
18—20. " The wicked worketh a deceitful work, but to him
that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. As righ-
teousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, doth it to
his own death. They that are of a froward heart are an abo-
mination to the Lord ; but such as are upright in their way,
are his delight." Every where you see how God abhorreth
the ungodly, and extolleth those that love and fear him.
Christ calleth the ungodly " evil men, that out of the evil
treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things ;" Matt,
xii. 35. All is evil ; the life evil, the heart evil, and the man
evil. " The righteous man is more excellent than his neigh-
bour, but the way of the wicked seduceth them ;" Prov. xii.
26, And Psal. 16, David called the godly " the excellent,
in whom is all his delight." It is an excellent spirit that is
in them (Dan. iii. 12.14. Ixiii.), and an excellent way in
which they go (1 Cor. xii. 31.), and an excellent knowledge
which the Spirit's illumination causeth them to attain; Phil,
iii. 18. Ephes. iii. 18, 19. You have God's judgment of the
case, if that will satisfy you, who it is that is the best and
most honest man, the holy or the unholy.
2. Do you think that that man is an honest man, that will
deny you your due, and rob you of all that is your own ? or
rather, is not the just man the honest man, that will give
every man his own ? I know you will give your voices for
the latter. O then take heed lest you condemn yourselves !
If you be not holy, your own testimony doth condemn you.
For it is only the godly that give God his own, when the un-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 233
godly rob him of it. Hast thou not thy life, and time, and
maintenance from God ? Hast thou not thy reason, and thy
affections, and all thy faculties from him ? And should not
all thou hast be employed for him ? Thou art a dishonest
man that grudgest, yea deniest him one day in seven, when
thou owest him all. Thou art a dishonest man that givest
away thy Maker's due unto his vilest enemies : that wast-
est thy means or strength on sin : that spendest thy pre-
cious time on vanity : that abusest his creatures to the satis-
fying of thy lusts, and that livest to thy flesh, when thou
shouldst live to God. Thou robbest him of all which thou
givest to his enemies ; and of all which thou dost not use to
his service. It is less dishonesty to rob thy master that trust-
eth thee with his goods, than to rob the Lord that trusteth
thee with thy time, and parts, and all things. O blind, un-
worthy sinners !' What makes you think him an honest man
that robbeth his Maker, or denieth him his own, when you
call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms
as you, that in respect of God have nothing of your own ?
Art thou better than God, that it should be called dishonesty
to wrong thee, and no dishonesty to wrong him, or deny him
that which is his own? God hath an absolute title to you,
and that on more accounts than one. You are his own, as
you are his creatures. " All souls are mine," saith the Lord ;
Ezek. xviii. 4. And he hath title to thee by redemption, as
well as by creation. For " to this end Christ died, and rose,
and revived, that he might be Lord of the dead and of the
living ;" Rom. xiv. 9. " We are not our own ; we are bought
with a price ; and therefore should glorify God in our bodies
and our spirits which are his ;" 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. ** For if
one died for all, then were all dead, that they which live
should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died
for them and rose again;" 2Cor. v.44, 45. And as you
yourselves are God's own as being your Creator and Re-
deemer, so all that you have is his own as the bestower, or
as your Master that trusteth it in your hands. " Now there-
fore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people ;
for all the earth is mine;" Exod.xix.5. And saith God to
Job, Jobxli. 11. "Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is
mine ; the world is mine, and the fulness thereof." " What
hast thou which thou didst not receive V' 1 Cor. iv. 7. Thou
234 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God ; nor
a thought, nor a word, nor a farthing of thy estate. And is
it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to
thy flesh, and deny them to him, and think his service an
unnecessary thing? If thou wilt give the world and thy
lusts any thing, let it be that which thou canst truly call
thine own. As God saith to the idolaters, Ezek. xvi. 18, 19.
*' Thou hast set mine oil, and mine incense before them ; my
meat also which I gave thee," &c. so may he say to thee. It
is his time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sin-
ful delights ; and his provision by which thou hast fed thy
lusts. But the sanctified manfs devoted to God. His stu-
dy is to give him his own. All the business of his life which
you account his overmuch strictness and preciseness, is no-
thing but his honesty to God, in giving^him his own. You
look your horse should travel for you, and your ox should
labour for you, and your servant work for you, because they
are your own. And shall not we give up all that we have to
God, that are much more his own ? Will you hang them that
take your own from you, and count them honest that deal
worse with God ? Say not. If Christ were here we would
give it him : for he hath told you how you should use all his
talents in his laws ; and if you deny them to the poor, or any
holy use that he requireth them, you deny them unto him.
Read Matt. xxv. and x. 40—42.
3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an honest man ?
One that will abuse his father or mother, and scorn the
bowels from which he sprung? All the world is agreed on
it, that such are dishonest. " Honour thy father and mo-
ther," is called " the first commandment with promise ;"
Exod. xxi. 17. " He that cursethhis father or mother shall
surely be put to death." See Prov.xx. 20. xxx. 17. "The
eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to obey his mo-
ther, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young
eagles shall eat it." To be " without natural affections," is
the brand of highest wickedness; Rom. i. 31. 2 Tim. iii. 3.
And do you not know that it is worse to be without holy
affections to the God that made you, and the Christ that
bought you, and to despise, forsake, or abuse the Lord ?
Thou hadst thy being more from him than from thy parents.
They knew not how thy parts were formed ! It was he that
gave thee thy immortal soul : it is by him that thou hast
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. -235
lived until now ; much more than on the food thou eatest, or
the air thou breathest in. And art thou so unnatural as to be
ungodly, and deny him thy love, and care, and service, that
hath made thee? and to call a holy, heavenly life, a needless
toil ? " Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and
unwise? Is he not thy Father that hath bought thee? hath
he not made thee, and established thee?" Deut. xxxii. 6.
If an unholy man be an honest man, that is so unnatural as
to cross the end of his creation, and deny his service to the
Lord that made him ; then he is honest that spits in his fa-
ther's face, and despiseth his mother that brought him forth.
4. Do you think that he is an honest man that is un-
thankful ? It is agreed on by all the world, that unthank-
fulness is a principal point of dishonesty. He is no honest
man that will abuse or despise those by whom he liveth, or
that have engaged him by kindness. If you were so used
yourselves by one whose life or estates you had preserved,
would you not say, ' What an unworthy wretch is this?
have I deserved this usage at his hand?' Why all the un-
thankfulness against men in the world, is not to be compared
to thy unthankfulnsss against God. What are the benefits
which man hath given thee in comparison of his ? Did ever
man do any thing for thee that is comparable to thy crea-
tion, and redemption, and offering thee salvation from ever-
lasting misery, and a room with angels in everlasting glory ;
besides every hour's mercy that ever thou hadst here in this
world ? And is that an honest man that will requite this
God with profaneness and ungodliness, and return him sin
for all his mercies, and refuse to live a holy life? Doth thy
flesh deserve all thy care and labour, and is this God unwor-
thy of it, and dost thou call his service a needless work ? If
ingratitude can make a man dishonest, thou art then a dis-
honest man. But it is the business of the godly to give
themselves to him that made them, and to exercise their
thankfulness in their capacities, for these greatest mercies.
5. Do you think that a cruel, unmerciful man, or a loving
and njerciful man is the more honest? Surely I shall here
have all your voices. He that hateth those that hurt him
not, and would kill them, and set their houses on fire, and
carrieth malice in his face and speech, will be called an ho-
nest man but by few. And he that is loving, and studieth
to do good to all about him, will be counted honest. Why
236 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
try the ungodly and the saints by this ; no more malicious
men in the world than the ungodly. They have an enmity
even to the God that made them (Col. i. 21.), and to the
Christ that bought them (Luke xix. 27.), and to the word
of God that ofFereth them salvation, and would lead them to
eternal life, and hate the knowledge of the way of life ; Prov.
i. 22. They are enemies to the servants of the Lord, and
hate the upright that desire their salvation, and would but
draw them from their sins ; Prov. xxix. 10. ix. 8. They
curse those that bless them, and persecute those that pray
for them; Matt. v. 44. The first wicked man that was born
into the world, did " kill his brother, because his own works
were evil, and his brother's righteous ; 1 John iii. 12.
But this is not their greatest cruelty : they are enemies
to their own salvation. They will run into hell in despite
of Christ and all the preachers in the world. For there is
but one way thither, the way of ungodliness, and that way
they will go. Yea, that is not all, but bloody wretches,
they would have all the country do as they do, and be damn-
ed with them. They are angry with a man if he will not
live an ungodly life, and tipple, and swear, and do as they.
They revile him if he will not give over his diligent serving
of the Lord, which is all one as to fall out with men because
They will not forfeit heaven, and run from God, and damn
their souls, and all for nothing ! When they might more
mercifully scorn us because we will not give over eating, or
that we will not cut our own throats. And are these cruel
persons honest men? Is that merciless wretch an honest
man, that is not content to cast away his own everlasting
happiness for nothing upon his fond conceits, but must
needs have others do so too ? that is not content to wrong
the Lord, but would have others wrong him also? The de-
vil is honest if these be honest.
But for the godly, it is their desire, their care, their work
to save themselves, and further the salvation of all others.
O how they long to hear of the conversion of towns and
countries ! and how glad are they when they hear it ! Not
for any worldly commodity to themselves, but because they
rejoice at the good of others. And what would they not do
to promote it, which they could do?
6. Do you think that a perfidious, unfaithful man, or a
faithful man that will not be hired to break his word, is the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 237
honester man? Sure this is no hard question neither. A
knight of the post, that will say and unsay, swear and for-
swear, and will betray his dearest friend for a groat, is taken
by few for an honest man, in comparison of him that will
rather die than lie and be unfaithful. Why nothing is more
plain, than that all of you that are ungodly, are treacherous
to the Lord himself. You are perfidious covenant-breakers :
you owe him yourselves wholly on the grounds that I before
expressed ; and yet you are unfaithful to him : you have all
from him, and you serve his enemy with it. You call him
your God, and will not love, nor honour, nor serve him as
your God ; Mai. i. 6. You bound yourselves to him in your
baptism, and many a time since, by a solemn vow or cove-
nant ; but you live in the treacherous breach of it continual-
ly. You covenanted to take the Lord for your God ; and
yet you will not seek him, nor be ruled by him. You cove-
nanted to take Jesus for your Saviour ; and yet will not be
saved by him from your sins; Matt. i. 21. You covenant-
ed to take the Holy Ghost for your Sanctifier, to purify your
hearts and lives ; and yet you resist his holy motions, and
hate his sanctifying word and work, and some of you will
mock at sanctification and the Spirit. And can the soul of
man be guilty of greater unfaithfulness or treachery ? You
covenanted to forsake the flesh, the world, and the devil ;
and now you serve them more than Christ, and think your
time is better bestowed for them, than in the service of the
Lord ! And is this your covenant-keeping ? No traitors,
no perjured wretches in the world are dishonest men, if these
be not dishonest.
But now it is the care of godly men to keep the cove-
nants they have made with God. All that which you re-
proach them for as too much preciseness, is but the perform-
ance of their baptismal vow. And if you be against the
keeping our covenants with God, should you not be against
the making them ? Are you not ashamed to be so forward
to engage your children to God in baptism, and when you
have done, would have them be ungodly, and break the vow
they make ? Will you by your profession of Christianity,
and coming to the Lord's table, renew your covenants with
Christ yourselves, and yet make no conscience to break
them, and plead against the keeping of them? We promise
holiness, and the serving of God, and forsaking the world,
238 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
at every sacrament, and whenever we promise but to be
Christians. And are you for the making of these promises,
and yet for the breaking of them, and revilers of those that
endeavour but to keep them ? O fearful impudency ! Is
this your honesty ? And would you have us all as faithless
and dishonest, even with God? This was the perfidious-
ness of the Jews ; Ezek. xvi. 8. ** I sware unto thee, and en-
tered into a covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine."
We are married in baptism to Christ ; and is adultery with
the world, and forsaking our husband, no dishonesty ? Why
then what is ?
7. Moreover, do you think that a murderer is an honest
man ? I know you will say, no. Why nothing more sure
than that migodly men are murderers of themselves, and as
I said, would undo others. They " hate their own souls,"
saith God, Prov. xxix. 24. They destroy themselves ; Hos.
xiii. 9. There is but one way to hell, and that they will
take, and that when they are plainly told of it. Not a man
in hell, but brought himself thither. And O how many do
their mocks, and persuasions, and evil examples keep out
of heaven, and bring to the same misery ! And are these
honest?
8. Do you take them to be honest men that are common
cheaters or deceivers, and that in matters of greatest value ?
I think you do not. Why such are the ungodly. They de-
ceive and are deceived; 2 Tim. iii. 13. They deceive them-
selves, by " thinking themselves something, when they are
nothing ;" Gal. vi. 3. They make themselves believe that
they have honesty and saving grace when they have none ;
and that they are in a state of safety and in the favour of
God, when they are near to everlasting misery, and in God*s
displeasure. And thus they will think, though their souls
are at the stake, and the mistake be the greatest hindrance
of their conversion ; and though God have plainly told them
in his word, whom he will save, and whom he will not. Yea,
against all the plain discoveries in the Scripture, and all the
marks of death upon themselves, and the open ungodliness
of their lives, and all the warnings of their teachers, they
will needs believe that their state is safe, and that they may
be saved without conversion. What wilful self-deceivers
are these ! Their hearts are " deceitful above all things,"
and they know them not j Jer. xxii. 9. And thus they are
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 239
hardened by the deceitfulness of their own sin ; Heb. iii. 13.
Sin first deceiveth them, and so killeth them; Rom. vii. 11.
Tf they were not foolish and deceived, they would not serve
their lusts and pleasures ; 2 Tim. iii. 3. These miserable men
did never yet learn that lesson, which one would think they
should willingly learn, " Let no man deceive himself;" 1
Cor. iii. 18. They will needs think that they are Christians,
and have so much religion as will save them, when God ex-
pressly telleth the curser, swearer, railer, scorner, and all
that live in wilful sin, that ** If any man seem to be religious,
and bridle not his tongue, (and so for other wilful sins,) but
deceiveth his own heart, that man's religion is vain ;" James
i.26.
And as they deceive themselves, so they are the common
cheaters of the world. They tell them as smooth a tale as
if all were fair and right, when they are pleading against
God, reasoning men out of their faith and reason. When
Eve had sinned, she tempted Adam. The drunkard will
tempt others to be his companions ; and so will the fornica-
tors and voluptuous sensualists. The ungodly will persuade
those about him to be ungodly ; and when he hath not a
word of solid reason to speak against the holy diligence of
the saints, a jeer or scorn shall serve to deceive instead of
reason. And if he dare not stand to what he saith to the
face of a minister, or any but the ignorant that cannot gain-
say him, he will take his time, and speak when none are pre-
sent that can contradict him. O how many thousands are
now in misery that were cheated thither by the scorns and
cavils of ungodly men ! And how many thousands have
lost all hopes of heaven by their deceits I Could you but
ask many thousands that are now in misery, * How came you
to choose so unhappy a way?' they would tell you, ' We
were deceived by the words of wicked men ! The cavils
and scorns of ignorant sinners have cheated us of our salva-
tion.' The very calling a diligent servant of Christ by the
name of a Puritan or Precisian, hath kept many a thousand,
even in England, from the fear and diligent serving of the
Lord. And surely this is a silly argument. And are these
honest men that are the factors of satan the great deceiver,
in cheating themselves and others into hell ?
But the godly deal plainly with themselves and others.
They are willing to know the truth of their condition, and
240 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
not to make themselves believe that which God never made
them believe. They promise not salvation to themselves on
any lower terms than God hath promised it. They have no
hope of being saved without holiness. They set not God's
mercy asjainst his truth, nor the merits of Christ against his
covenant. They know that God is better acquainted with
the ways and effects of his own mercies than we are. And
therefore though they hope to be saved by God's mercy, it
is by his sanctifying mercy, and not to be saved without
sanctification ; that is, without salvation itself and the ne-
cessary means. They know that it is abundant mercy to be
saved in a way of holiness, and desire no other saving mer-
cy. Yea, they know that sanctification and glorification
both, are greater mercy than glorification alone, if it were
possible to be alone. This is the doctrine that the godly
do believe, and this they practise, and this they teach others,
and this they have learnt of God ; and therefore they are no
deceivers.
9. Moreover, do you think that he is an honest man that
is an enemy to the public good ? or rather he that is a com-
mon benefactor? The best of the heathens thought it one of
the highest parts of virtue, to be serviceable to many, and
devote ourselves to the common good. But wicked men
are the very plagues of a land. For their sakes it is that
judgments come upon us. It is they that would let in the
plague of sin which would undo us. He that sets fire to
the thatch, doth do no worse against your towns, than wick-
ed men that would kindle the tire of the wrath of God by
their crying sins. Read the Scriptures, and see who it was
that caused Israel to perish in the wilderness, but unbeliev-
ing sinners. Who troubled Israel, and made them fly before
their enemies, but one Achan ? Josh. vii. And what but
sin was the cause of their captivity and present desolation ?
Was it Lot or the Sodomites that brought down from hea-
ven the lire of vengeance ? Was it Noah or the world of the
ungodly that brought down the flood? Are these honest
men that provoke God to forsake the land, and are the ver-
min and destroyers of our peace and happiness? But you
know that God hath promised his blessing to the godly, and
to the places where they live ofttimes for their sakes, as Jo-
seph's case and others tell us.
10. That man can be no honest man that wanteth the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 241
very principle of honesty, and that intendeth not the end
that is necessary to make any action truly honest : but such
are all ungodly men.
(L) The principle of true honesty is the high esteem of
God and everlasting life, in our understandings, and the be-
lief of God's revelations necessary to the attaining of that
life, and the prevailing love of God in the heart, and the love
of man for his sake. Without these principles of honesty,
no man can be honest. How can he be an honest man that
bdlieveth not his Maker? He that taketh God for a liar,
hath no reason to be taken for any better himself. For
would he be thought better than he takes God himself to be?
Nor can he in reason be expected to believe any man else :
for none can be better than God. And is that an honest
man that professeth himself a liar, and taketh all men to be
so too ?
And how can that be an honest man, that loveth not
God so well as his fleshly lusts and pleasures ? And this is
the case of all the wicked. If they did not love their riches
and honour, and sensual pleasures more than God, they
would not keep them against his command, nor lose his fa-
vour rather than lose them, nor seek them more carefully
than they seek him and his kingdom, and think of them and
speak of them with more delight. And certainly he that
loveth his riches, or honours, or filthy sins, better than God
and heaven itself, must needs be thought to prefer them be-
fore his nearest friends, or the common good. And is that
an honest man that would rather cast off father or mother
than cast off his filthy sins ? and that would rather forsake
his chiefest friend, than forsake his vices? and would sell
his friend, or the commonwealth, for a little gain or plea-
sure, even for a whore, or for drunkenness, or such like
things ? I think you would none of you say that this were
an honest man, that would not leave so small a matter for
the life of his friend, or for the preservation of the common-
wealth. And can you expect that he should prefer any
friend before God and his salvation? If he will sin against
God, and sell his salvation for his sin, can you think he
should more regard any man, how dear soever ? There is no
true honesty in that man where the love of God doth not
command.
VOL. X. R
242 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
2. Moreover if the honouring and pleasing of our Lord,
and the saving of our souls be not the end and principal mo-
tive of our actions, there can be no true honesty. It is essen-
tial to honesty that God be our end. If you would know
what a man is, first know what he intendeth, and maketh
the end and mark of his life. And so you must do if you
wouldjudgeof his actions. The end is the principal ingredient
that makes them good or bad. If a thief love God because he
prospereth him in stealing, or because he giveth him strength
and opportunity ; this is a wicked love of God. If a drunkard
love God for giving him his drink, and a whoremonger love
God for strengthening him in his lust, will you call this ho-
nesty ? Every wicked man doth make his sensual, present
pleasure his principal end through all his life. If he love his
neighbour, it is but carnally, as a dog loveth him that feed-
eth and stroketh him. If he seem to be a good common-
wealth's man, it is but for vainglory or carnal accommoda-
tions ; and he fighteth for his king or country but as a dog
doth for his bone. If he give to the poor, it is but that which
he can spare from his belly ; and it is either in a common
pity, or for vain applause, or he thinks by it to stop the
mouth of justice, that God may let him alone in his sins, or
save him after all his wickedness. This is' no more an ho-
nest man, than he that makes a trade of stealing, and will
pay tithes of all that he steals, or give some part to the church
or poor, that God may pardon him, and save him when he
hath done. All the religion, and all the charity of wicked
men, is but for themselves ; and that which hath no higher
end than carnal self, is truly no religion or charity. It is
only the sanctified man that is honest ; for it is only he that
is devoted to God, and doth the works of his life to please
and glorify his Maker. There is more honesty in the very
eating and drinking of the sanctified, than in the prayers,
and sacrifices, and alms-deeds of the ungodly. Or else God
would never have said as he hath done, that *' unto the pure
all things are pure : but to them that are defiled and unbe-
lieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience
is defiled" (Tit. i. 15.) ; and that " every creature is sancti-
fied by the word of God and by prayer" (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5.) ;
and that the prayer and sacrifice of the wicked is abomina-
tion to the Lord, and he abhorreth and loatheth them ; when
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 24t^
the prayer of the upright is his delight ; Prov. xv. 8. xxi. 27.
Isa. i. 13. Prov. xxviii. 9. viii. 7. xi.20. For the sanc-
tified in their very eating and drinking do make it their end
to glorify God, and to be fitted for his service ; 1 Cor. x. 31.
But the ungodly do all, even in their duties that seem most
holy, but for a selfish, carnal end. So that it is plain that
he that vvanteth the necessary principles and end, that must
inform an honest mind and life, can have no honesty of mind
or life. ** Now the end of the commandment is charity,
out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith
unfeigned ;" 1 Tim. i. 5.
But perhaps you will say, that there hath been honesty
found among heathens : and therefore this doctrine cannot
hold. To which I answer, 1. If this were true, yet it is prov-
ed, that there is no comparison between their honesty and
the true Christian's. 2. But indeed, there was never true
honesty found in any ungodly man. But something that is
like to honesty they may have. Materially they may do the
same outward acts that honest men do ; and this the world
accounteth honesty, that seeth not the inside, and the ends,
and therefore give the name to the matter without the form.
And such may be honest ' secundum quid,* but not * simpli-
citer.* An analogical honesty they may have, and be less
dishonest than some others. And so as Robin Hood was
called an honest thief that would rob none but the rich, and
sometimes bring a yoke of oxen that he had stolen, and give
them to the poor that had none ; so may a heathen and un-
godly man be honest. But men must be denominated (and
so must their actions) according to what is predominant in
them. And therefore we must say, if we will syjeak proper-
ly, that no ungodly man is honest.
If you ask. How then it comes to pass that such are ac-
counted honest men, and that the world discerneth not the
honesty that consisteth in a holy life ? I answer, 1. Because
that all the ungodly have an enmity to holiness. And ma-
lice blindeth men, that they cannot see the good that is in
those they hate. 2. Because they do not know what godli-
ness is, and therefore know not the honesty of it appearing
in its principles, ends, and rule. For it is not effectually
known by any but those that have it. 3. Because all car-
nal men do judge after the flesh ; and as they are to them-
selves their highest end, so they do judge of all things else,
244 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
according to that end. He is an honest man with them that
is for them, and furthereth their commodity, or answereth
their desire. Mark them whether they judge not those to be
the most honest men, that suit themselves most to their
minds and wills, and say and do as they would have them.
And so among thieves there are none so honest men as their
companions, nor among drunkards none so honest as they
that will sit with them, and waste their time, and prate like
idiots over a pot of ale, forgetting that death and judgment
are posting toward them while they sit there. And among
harlots their mates seem honest. So that dishonest men are
not fit judges of honesty. That which is fitted to their cor-
rupted mind is best with them. And this is their honesty.
By this time you may see, if you are not wilfully blind,
that the way of godliness is the only honest way ; and there-
fore you must either be godly or dishonest ; and pretend not
any longer that you are honest while you are ungodly ; un-
less you will increase your shame by your contradictions.
The Scripture description of one that is honest is, that " in
simplicity and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but by
the grace of God, he hath his conversation in the world ;"
2 Cor. i. 22. The honesty which the Gospel teacheth, and
which God will own is this, " That denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glori-
ous appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus
Christ ;" Tit. ii. 12, 13. " A godly seed" is opposed to the
fruit of adultery ; Mai. ii. 15. And when David lamenteth
the decay of honesty in the world, his language tells you
whom he took for honest men, Psal. xii. 1. "Help Lord, for
the godly man ceaseth ; for the faithful fail from among the
children of men;" andver.8. you may perceive what he thinks
of others : " The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest
men are exalted." To '* serve God with reverence and god-
ly fears" is the true honesty ; Heb. xii. 28. And now choose
you whether you Vi^ill be honest or ungodly ; but be sure
that it is the godly that are esteemed honest, and accepted
by the Lord; and however the world judgeth, "Know that
the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself," as he
tells you, Psal. iv. 3.
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. U45
CHAPTER VIII.
Holiness is the most Gairifulway,
We have certainly found out already the safest way, and
the MOST HONEST way. We are next to inquire which way
is most profitable. And one would think that this should be
as easily resolved as the rest. I am sure if God be wiser
than man, and his holy word to be believed, the question is
decided, and beyond dispute. Saith Paul, lTim.vi.5, 6.
" Men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, suppose
that gain is godliness,'' or that it is better than godliness, and
therefore their godliness to be suited to their worldly gain.
" But (it is) godliness with contentment which is the great
gain." Yea, " godliness is profitable to all things, having
the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come ;" ITim. iv.8.
But to what end should I cite more words of Scripture-,
for a point which all the Scripture moveth ? It is not pos-
sible that any man can be unresolved in this, that under-
standeth and believeth the word of God. But yet because
I see that commodity is so much looked after in the world,
and almost all are for the gainful way, as they apprehend it,
and therefore it is plain that godliness is not practically be-
lieved to be the most gainful way (or else men would follow
it as eagerly as they do their worldly gain). I shall there-
fore open to you somewhat of that gain that godliness doth
bring ; and if you can say that any other course will prove
as gainful, and make it good, then take that course. But if
you cannot, consider what you have to do ; and do not re-
fuse your own commodity.
1. The first part of our gain, which is the sum of all the
rest, is God himself who is become our God, through Jesus
Christ. He is in covenant with all the saints (Psal.1.5.),
and this is the covenant, " I will be your God, and you shall
be my people ;*' Jer. vii. 23. Ezek. xx^vi. 28. Jer. xi. 4.
XXX.22. Lev. xxvi.45. Ezek. xi. 20. xxxvii. 23.27. 2 Cor.
vi. 16. He is a God to others, as a king is a king to traitors,
whom he will condemn. But he is a God to his people, as
a king is related to his faithful subjects, and a father to his
dearest child. When he calleth himself * our Father,' he
246 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
speaketh so much of his children's happiness, as is their ad-
miration as well as their joy. But when he calleth himself
our God, he speaks as much as can be spoken.
To be * our God' is to be * the Infinite, Power, Wisdom,
and Goodness engaged to us for our good, and to be ours
according to our necessity and capacity.'
This, O ye worldlings, is the riches of the saints ! This
is the wealth that we will boldly boast. Boast you of your
houses, and lands, and money, and we will boast of our God.
Have you houses, and towns, and countries at command ?
Be it so ; but the saints have the God of the world to be their
God. Have you kingdoms and dominions ? We have the
God of all the earth ; the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
Set all your riches in the balance against him, and try what
they will prove. Set all the world, and the kingdoms, and
the glory, and the wealth of it in the balance, and try whe-
ther they are any more to God, than one dust or feather to
all the world \ yea, they are ** nothing, and less than nothing;
vanity, and lighter than vanity itself;" Isa.xl. 16, 17. This
one jewel containeth all our treasure. He is ours that hath
all things. " What then can we need ?" Psal. xxiii. 1. He
is ours that knoweth all things. Who then can overreach
us, or undo us by deceit ? He is ours that can do all things.
What then should we fear ? and what power shall prevail
against us ? He is ours that is goodness and love itself.
How then can we be miserable ? or what imperfection can
there be in our felicity ? " They that trust in their wealth,
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none
of them can by any means redeem his brother (nor himself)
that he should live for ever, and not see corruption ;" Psal.
xlix. 6, 7. 9. ** But God will redeem us from the power of
the grave ; for he shall receive us ;" ver. 15. ** Let the
workers of iniquity boast themselves awhile ;" Psal. xciv. 4.
" Let the wicked boast of their heart's desire, and bless the
covetous whom the Lord abhorreth ;" Psal. x. 3. " It is
the Lord that is king for ever and ever ; thatheareth the de-
sires of the humble ; that prepareth our hearts, and prepar-
eth his ear to hear ;" ver. 16, 17. " Our souls shall make
their boast in God ;" Psal. xxxiv. 2. ** O taste and see that
the Lord is good ! blessed is the man that trusteth in him."
But you cannot say truly. Blessed is the man that hath hinds
and lordships; blessed is the man that hath crowns and king-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 247
doms. Yea, truly you may say, " Cursed is the man that
trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and withdraweth
his heart from the Lord ;" Jer. xvii. 5. " Fear the Lord ye
his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him ;" PsaL
xxxiv. 8 — 10. But when you have all the world, you cannot
say that you have no want. ** Confounded then be the co-
vetous idolaters, that boast themselves of their idols ;" PsaL
xcvii. 7. " But in God will we boast all the day long, and
praise his name for evermore ;" Psal. xliv. 8. What have
you but the gleanings of our harvest, and the crumbs that
fall from the children's table ? Our God is he that giveth
you your prosperity. He droppeth you these leavings^ from
the redundancy of his goodness, when he hath given himself,
his Son, and all things to his own. All that we want, and
all that our souls desire, is in God. ** We have none in hea-
ven but him, nor any in earth that we desire besides him ;"
Psal. Ixxiii. 25. " His lovingkindness is better to us than
life;*' Psal.lxiii. 3. "Our flesh and our heart faileth us
(and all the creatures fail us), but God is the strength of our
hearts and our portion for ever ;*' Psal. Ixxiii. 26. Verily,
the riches of all the princes of the earth is less in compari-
son of him that is the treasure and portion of the saints, than
a straw is to all the earth, or a little dirt to the shining sun.
2. Would you yet hear more of the riches of believers
(though more than God there cannot be). " The Lord Jesus
Christ is their Head and Husband ; their Saviour and Inter-
cessor at God's right hand." They are married to him.
His merits are theirs for all those uses to which they need
them. "It is he that justifieth. Who tken shall condemn
them? He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up
for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all
things ?" Rom. viii. 32. 34. " Christ is the pearl of infinite
value," for whom we have willingly sold all ; Matt. xiii. 45,
46. And what are all your treasures to this treasure ? Ask
Paul, and he will tell you, that had tried both. " His gain
he counteth loss for Christ ; yea, all things he accounted but
loss and dung,forthe excellency of the knowledge of Christ;"
Phil. iii. 7, 8. It is love incomprehensible, surpassing know-
ledge, that is revealed to us in Christ;" Eph.iii. 18, 19.
" The riches of Christ are unsearchable riches ;" ver. 8. It
is Christ that bindeth up our broken hearts ; that is the
Peace-maker and Reconciler of our souls to God. What he
248 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
hath done for us and what he will do, I shall tell you anon.
But the ungodly have no part in him, nor have they any such
treasure, that will do for them what Christ will do for us.
Their treasure is the wrath of God, which they are ** heaping
up against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous
judgment of God ;" Rom.ii.5. " All the treasures of wis-
dom and knowledge are hid in Christ ;" Col. ii. 3. And he
hath them for us, according to our measure, as being our
Treasury, our Head, and made of God to *' us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption ;" 1 Cor. i.
30. They are " exceeding riches of grace" that are shewed
in the kindness of God through Jesus Christ, to all that are
sanctified by that grace ; Ephes. ii. 6 — 8. Yea, that you
may see there is no comparison, even that which you abhor
in a Christian's case, and account his misery and the worst
of Christ, is better than the best of your condition, and
than that for which you lose your souls. For the " very re-
proach of Christ is greater riches than the treasures of the
world ;" Heb. xi. 26. And it is the reproach that we under-
go for Christ, that you most abhor, and the treasures of the
world that you most highly esteem. It is greater riches to
be one of them that are scorned and derided for the sake of
Christ, than to be one of them that hath the wealth of the
world at his dispose. And if the reproach of Christ be greater
riches than all yours, what then is his life, and love, and be-
nefits ? his grace and glory ?
3. Would you have the riches of the saints yet further
opened to you? Why, the Holy Ghost is in covenant with
them as their sanctifier and comforter. And he is not only
theirs himself, by covenant and relation, but he also dwell-
eth in them by his graces, and restoreth the image of God
upon them. They are the " tempies of the Holy Ghost,
which is in them ;" 1 Cor. vi. 19. And by the Spirit, and by
faith, Christ dwelleth in their hearts ; Ephes. iii. 17. Rom.
viii. 11. 1 Cor. iii. IG. God himself doth dwell in them, and
converse with them, and write his law in their hearts, and
teach them himself by this his Spirit ; 2 Cor. vi. 16. Heb.
i. 10. X. 16. " Hereby we know that he dwelleth in us, by
the Spirit which he hath given us ;" 1 John iii. 14. Yea, ** he
that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit ;'* 1 Cor. vi. 17. For
**the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is
there is liberty j" 2 Cor. iii. 17. ** We are an habitation of
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. '249
God through the Spirit ;" Ephes. ii. 22. ** Because we are
sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father;" Gal. iv. 6. By this Spirit
the saints have "access unto the Father;" Ephes. ii. 18.
and by this it is, that they are quickened to prayer and ho-
ly worship, and their infirmities are helped; chap. vi. 18.
Rom. viii. 1 1 . 26. By this they " fight against the flesh, and
overcome it;" Gal.v. 17, 18. Rom. viii. 13. In this they
** live, and walk, and work ;" Rom. viii. 1.5. Gal.v. 16.25.
This Spirit is the " testimony of their adoption" (Rora. viii.
16.), and the " seal and earnest of their heavenly inherit-
ance ;" 2 Cor. i. 22. v. 5. Ephes. iv. 30. By this they " are
new born ;" John iii. 5, 6. " And put off the old man which
is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and being renew-
ed in the spirit of their minds, do put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness ;"
Ephes. iv. 22 — 24. By the illumination of this Spirit, they
have a new understanding, and are brought "out of dark-
ness into the marvellous light of Christ" (1 Pet. ii.9.), that
they " may know what is the hope of the Christian vocation,
and what is the riches of the glory of Christ's inheritance in
the saints ;" Ephes. i. 18. In a word, by this Spirit their sins
are mortified, their souls renewed, and made like to God, and
they " become a holy priesthood, a peculiar people unto
Christ, and in this Spirit have communion with him ;" Rom.
viii, 13. Tit. iii. 5. 1 Pet. ii. 9. Tit. ii. 14. 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
And what is all the riches of this world, to this heavenly
treasure, the Spirit of the Lord? They that have this Spi-
rit, are taught by it to set light by all your riches, and to es-
teem one day's communion with Christ above all the gold
and glory of this world. And that which sets the soul of
man so far above riches, is better than those riches. As your
lands and honours do set you above the pins and points that
children take for their treasure, and set as much by as you
do by yours ; so the Spirit of Christ and the life of faith,
doth set the souls of true believers a thousandfold more
above your riches, than you are above your children's toys.
If yet you see not the riches of saints consider but the
wonderful expression, 2 Pet. i. 4. That they " have exceed-
ing great and precious promises given them, that by these
they may be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped
the corruption that is in the world through lust. And caa
250 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
there be more on earth bestowed on man, than to be made
partakers of the Divine nature ? As it would be a greater
gift to a brute, to be made a man, and have manly riches,
than to have a store of provender suited to his brutishness ; so
is it greater riches to the ungodly to be sanctified and made
partakers of that nature that is called Divine by God him-
self, than to have provision for unmortified lusts, and to have
all the contentments of a fleshly mind. It were a greater gift
to an idiot, to be made a wise and learned man, than to be
furnished with feathers or sticks to play with. So is it here.
4. Every truly sanctified man, is restored from the mise-
ry that he was brought into by sin. He hath all his sins for-
given him, and is freed from the curse of the law, by the me-
rits of Christ, and the promise of the Gospel. " For in him
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins ;" Col. i. 14. " And by him all that believe are jus-
tified from all things, from which they could not be justified
by the law of Moses ;" Acts xiii. 39. " When we were dead
in our sins, we were quickened with Christ, and had all our
trespasses forgiven us ;" Col. ii. 13. Ask a wounded con-
science that groaneth under the weight of sin, and under the
sense of God's indignation, whether forgiveness of sin be a
treasure or not? I am sure they that now are past forgive-
ness, and feel what sin is in the bitter fruits, would give ten
thousand worlds, if they had them, for the pardon of their
sins : and would account forgiveness a greater mercy than
all the riches and kingdoms of the world. What a heavy
curse did the Spirit of God pass upon Simon Magus, for
thinking that money was a valuable thing to purchase the
Holy Ghost with ! " Thy money perish with thee, because
thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased by
money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for
thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore
of this thy wickedness," &c. Acts viii. 20, 21. The name
of Simon Magus is odious to us all ; and yet I doubt that
most among us exceed him in the sin for which he is thus
cursed. For he thought the gift of the Holy Ghost to be
better than his money, or else he would not have offered his
money for it. But most men take their money to be better
than the gift of the Holy Ghost. If he that would have pur-
chased the Holy Ghost, yeaa lower and less necessary gift of
the Spirit, was pronounced wicked, and cursed with such a
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 251
heavy curse, what are they that set more by their money
than by the special gift of the Holy Ghost, yea that hate and
deride it, and plead against its sanctifying work ? The time
is near when your riches will fail you, and your prosperity
die, and your sins will live ; and then there is none of you
all but will say that pardon and grace are greater riches than
all the world.
5. Moreover, the ungodly have angels to attend them and
be their guard, as I have proved to you before. And are
horses, andkine, and oxen, think you, greater riches than the
guard and ministration of the angels of God ? Heb. i. 14.
Psal. xci. 11, 12.
6. And surely the very communion of saints and ordi-
nances of God which in the church we here enjoy, are greater
riches than all the world. We are now " no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints, and of the
household of God ;" Ephes. ii. 19. We are members of that
well tempered body, where all the members are obliged and
disposed to have the " same care one for another," that if
** one suffer all suffer, and if one be honoured all rejoice ;"
1 Cor. xii.25, 26. As weak as Christians are, and as worth-
less in your eyes, one of their hearty spiritual prayers, and
one word of their holy savoury conference, doth profit us
more than all your treasures will ever profit you. While the
Divine nature is in them, somewhat divine will proceed from
their mouths, and be seen in their lives, which is worth more
than all the riches of the world. And O how fruitful are the
holy ordinances which we partake of, both in the church's
communion, and alone in our retirements ! A poor Chris-
tian can get more in a sermon which you. sleep under, or de-
ride, than you will get by your trades or livings while you
live. He findeth greater treasures in one chapter of the Bi-
ble, or in one good book, than you can get out of all your
lands or labour. The best of your livings will not yield you
so much commodity in seven years, nor in seven thousand
years, if you could so long keep them, as a believing soul
can get from God in one hour's prayer, even in secret, where
he is not by man observed. You do not believe this, that
are ungodly. I know you do not heartily believe it ; for else
you would try it, and not continue in your ungodliness. But
they that try it, know it to be true, or else what makes them
252 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
continue in it, and live upon their holy communion with God
and his servants, more resolvedly than you do on your lands
and labours? Somewhat you may conjecture they find in
holy duty, that makes them so instant in it as they are.
7. Another part of our commodity by holiness, is the pro-
mise and assurance of the love of God and of our salvation ;
and the peace of conscience that followeth hereupon. All
true believers have objective certainty; that is, the thing
is certain in itself, whether they perceive it or not. And they
may have subjective or actual certainty in themselves if they
do their parts. And is not a certain title to a lordship or a
kingdom greater treasure than the possession of a straw ?
Much more is God's promise of everlasting glory a greater
treasure than all your wealth. As heaven is infinitely better
than earth, so the promise of God is the best security.
Though we be not with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and do
not yet see the face of God, yet have we a promise that spee-
dily we shall be there, and shall see that which they see, and
enjoy all that which they enjoy. The poorest Christian hath
all that in promise under the hand of God himself, which an-
gels and glorified saints have in possession. They can shew
you a better title to heaven, though they are unworthy in
themselves, than any of you can shew to your lands or houses,
in your deeds or leases. As poor and simple as that godly
man is whom you despise, he is an " heir of heaven, and a fel-
low heir with Christ ;" Rom. viii. 17. Gal.iii.29. Heb.i. 14.
xi. 9. When we had " the washing of regeneration, and the
renewing of the Holy Ghost, and were justified by grace, we
were made the heirs of eternal life, according to the hope"
that is given us by the Gospel ; Tit. iii. 5. 7. And God that
hath given them those " better things that accompany sal-
vation, is not unrighteous to forget their work and labour
of love, if they do but shew the same diligence to the full as-
surance of hope unto the end, and be not slothful, but fol-
lowers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the
promises ;" Heb. vi. 9 — 12. ** For this cause was Christ the
Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for
the redemption of the transgressions under the first testa-
ment, they which are called may receive the promise of the
eternal inheritance ;" Heb. ix. 15. And " we know that he
is faithful that hath promised." And if your bills, and bonds,
and deeds, and leases, be part of your riches, we shall much
(
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 253
more take the promise of God for our everlasting happiness
in heaven, to be far greater riches.
8. And yet we may put this among our riches, or at least
as the overplus given us by God, that we have better advan-
tage even for the matters of this world, than the ungodly
have. For we have a promise that we shall lack nothing that
is good for us; Psal.xxiv. 10. And so have not they. We
have warrant to cast all our care on God, who by promise
is engaged to care for us ; 1 Pet. v. 7. We are commanded
to be (anxiously) " careful for nothing, but in all things make
known our requests to God," as little children that care not
for themselves, but go to their father for what they want ;
Phil. iv,6. It is enough for us whatever we want, that " our
heavenly Father knoweth that we want it ;" Matt. vi. 32.
Who hath charged us to disburden our minds of these vexa-
tious cares, and to " seek first his kingdom, and the righte«
ousness thereof," and promised us that '* other things shall
be added to us ;" Matt, vi.33. We have also a promise that
** all things shall work together for our good;" Rom.viii.
28. And therefore we shall have more from things of this
life, than the ungodly have. Yea, more by the want of them
than they by the possession. For if they do us good in our
graces and communion with God, and in the matter of our
salvation, they help us to that which is of far higher value
than themselves. Poverty to a true believer, is better than
riches to the ungodly that destroyeth himself by them, when
the believer is helped by his poverty. Imprisonment to Paul
and Silas, was better than liberty to their persecutors. And
thus in the fruits and saving benefits, ** all things are ours ;"
1 Cor.iii.22. We have the love of God with what we pos-
sess, be it more or less, when the wicked have his wrath with
it. And who would have their riches on such terms ?
9. Another part of the gain of godliness is, that it
puts us into a readiness to die, and a fitness to appear be-
fore the Lord. Though all the godly have not so great a
readiness as to desire to be presently dissolved, yet all of
them are in a safe condition, and are so far ready, that death
shall pass them into a blessed state. " For we know that if
our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have
a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. And in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be
clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. And
254 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
God that hath given us the earnest of his Spirit, hath wrought
in us, to be always confident (or at least give us cause),
knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are ab-
sent from the Lord. (For we walk by faith, and not by sight.)
We are confident I say, and willing rather to be absent from
the body and present with the Lord ;" 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. 8, 9.
Though the abode of the godly in the flesh is usually more
needful to those about them, yet to themselves their death
is gain, and therefore they have cause to ** desire to depart,
and be with Christ, as being far better ;" Phil. i. 21.23, 24.
For sin, which is the sting of death, is mortified, and the
curse of the law, which is the strength of it, is relaxed or
nullified to us by the Gospel ; so that the believer may tri-
umph and say, " O death where is thy sting ? O grave where
is thy victory ?" (1 Cor. xv. 55, 56.) and " to give thanks to
God that giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus
Christ ;" ver. 57. Verily I would not exchange my part
(though alas too small or dark a part) in this one privilege
of true believers, for all the wealth and dominions on earth.
O the faceof death will soon make the glory of all your great-
ness to vanish, and the beauty of your flourishing estates to
wither ; and all that you now glory in to appear as nothing.
And then how glad would you be to change portions with
the holy servants of the Lord, whom you now despise !
When once you hear, " Thou fool, this night shall they re-
quire thy soul ! and whose then are all those things that thou
hast provided?" (Lukexii.20.) then in a moment you will
change your minds, and cry out of the world as nothing
worth, and wish you had busied your hands in laying up a
better treasure. This is one difference, O ungodly wretch,
between a holy servant of God and thee ! Death cannot un-
do him, but it will undo thee. It cannot take his riches from
him ; for his God, his Christ, his holiness, the promises are
his riches ; but it will separate thee and thy wealth for ever.
It will put an end to all his troubles, and fears, and griefs ;
and it will put an end to all thy prosperity, and to all thy
mirth, and hope for ever. A godly man dare die : or if he
ignorantly fear it, yet shall it be the end of all his fears ; but
thou darest not die, and yet thou must ; or if thou ignorant-
ly hope of a happiness after it, yet will it nevertheless end
all thy hopes. O what a mercy it is to be ready to die !
10. But the great unspeakable riches of the saints is in
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 255
the life to come. We have here the hope and the foretaste ;
but it is only there that we shall have our portion. \ on see
what a poor Christian is according to his outward appear-
ance. But you see not what he will be to eternity. There
is the kingdom for which we hope, and for which we run,
and wait, and suffer. If God be true, and his Gospel true,
then heaven shall be the portion of the sanctified. But if it
were otherwise, then we would confess their hopes are vain.
Heaven is our riches, or we have none. There have we laid
up all our hopes ; and in these hopes we will live and die, as
knowing they will not make us ashamed ; Rom. v. 5. ix.33.
1 John ii. 28. We believe that we shall live with Christ in
glory, " shine as stars in the firmament of our Father, and
be " made like to the angels of God," and shall see his face,
and praise his name, and live in his everlasting love and joy;
for all this he himself hath promised us ; 1 Thess. iv. 17, 18.
Dan. xii. 3. Matt. xiii. 43. Luke xx. 36. Rev. xxii. 4.
Matt. XXV. 21.
And now, poor worldling, what is all your gain and riches
in comparison of the least of these ? Do you think in your
judgments that there is any comparison? Or rather doth
not sin and the world even brutify you, and make you lay by
the use of your reason, and live as if you knew not what you
know? Your treasure is all visible, when ours is unseen,
and therefore I may bid you bring it forth, and let us see it,
whether indeed it be better than the treasure of the saints.
Let us see what that is that is better than God, and ever-
lasting glory. What ! is a little fleshly ease or mirth ; a lit-
tle meat, and drink, and pleasure ; a little more money, or
space of ground to use than your neighbours have ; are these
the things that you will change for heaven, and prefer be-
fore the Lord that made you ? O poor miserable sinners !
Are you not told that you have your good things here ? But
what will you have hereafter when this is gone ? Luke xvi. 25.
When your wealth is gone, and your mirth is gone, your
souls are immortal, and therefore your misery and horror
will continue, and never be gone. As the wealth of the god-
ly is within them, and above the reach of their enemies, and
surer than yours, so is it the more durable, even everlasting.
When all your riches are upon the wing, even ready to be
gone, and leave you in sorrow, when you are most highly
valuing thera, you have it now, but it is gone to-morrow.
256 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
" And what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gain-
ed, when God taketh away his soul ? Will God hear his cry
when trouble coraeth upon him ?" Job xxvii. 8, 9. Let the
words of Christ decide the controversy, if indeed you take
him for your Judge. " If any man will come after me let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For
whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will
lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man pro-
fited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? For the
Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his
angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his
works;" Matt. xvi. 24—27.
Well, sirs, you that are all for getting, and for wealth,
judge now if you have not lost your reason, whether a holy
or unholy, a heavenly or an earthly life be the more profitable
way ! I would not draw you to any thing that you should
lose by. If I speak not for your gain, reject my words as
contemptuously as you please. But if I do, then be not
against your own commodity. Will such silly gain as the
world affords you, do so much with you as it doth; and shall
not the heavenly inheritance do more ? Shall all this stir be
made in the world for that which you are ready to leave be-
hind you, and will you not lay up a treasure in heaven where
rust and moths corrupt not, and where you may live for ever?
Matt. vi. 20. What profit now have all those millions of souls
that are gone from earth, by all the wealth they here possess-
ed ? Hear, sinners, and bethink you in the name of God.
You are leaving earth and stepping into eternity, and where
then should you lay up your riches ? Would you rather have
your portion where you must stay but a few days, than where
you must dwell for ever ? O " Labour not for the meat that
perisheth," in comparison of " that which endureth to ever-
lasting life, which Christ will give you," if you will follow
him ; John vi. 27. Make you friends of this wealth that the
world abuseth to " unrighteousness, that when all fails be-
low, you may be received into the everlasting habitations ;"
Luke xvi. 9. Make not yourselves a treasure of corruptible
riches, and set not your hearts on " gold and silver, lest the
rust of it be a witness against you, and eat your flesh as it
were fire ; and lest ye heap up" anotherkind of treasure than
you dream of against the last days. How many of you have
A SAINT OR A BRUTf.. 267
cause to weep and howl for your approaching miseries, even
then when you are glorying in your prospeiity? James v.
1 — 5. Are you for commodity ? Refuse not then the best
commodity. Be not enemies to them, or to those holy mo-
tions, that make for your everlasting profit. Take but the
most gainful course for yourselves, and we are pleased. If you
know any thing better than God and glory, and any riches
that will endure any longer than eternity, why do you not
shew it us, that we may join with you ? But if you do not,
why will you not hearken to the servants of the Lord, and
join with them ? ** Wherefore, saith the Lord, do you spend
your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for
that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness. Incline your ear, come unto me, hear and your souls
shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you;"
Isa. Iv. 2, 3. If there be not more to be gotten by Christ, and
by prayer, and by the promises, and a holy life, than there
is by sin, or than there is by all your friends, or lands, or
trades, or care, or labour here, then take your course, and
turn your back on God, and spare not. But if you are
ashamed to say so, be ashamed to think so, or to live so.
Verily sirs, if the Gospel be true, you must be every man
of you saints, or miserable. Holiness is the only thriving
way. Yea, the only saving way. If you forsake this way,
you are losing while you are gaining, and losing by your
gains. You are but making Achan's bargain, that by his gold
did purchase a storm of stones that dashed out his brains ;
Josh. vii. You are running after Gehazi's gains, that
thought he had got riches, and it proved a leprosy. You are
trading with the devil, though you see him not, and will not
believe it, even as certainly as the miserable witches, that
sell him their souls for a few fair promises, and when they
have done have the most miserable life of any. You are lay-
ing up but Judas's treasures, which quickly grew too hot to
hold, and too heavy for his conscience to bear; and he would
fain have rid his hands of it if he knew how ; and because he
cannot he hangs himself, and rids himself out of the ashes
into the flames. O covet not such undoing gains, which
you all know as sure as you breathe, that you must let go.
Believe but your Redeemer and you shall know that there
VOL. X. s
258 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
are greater and better things before you. Gather not stones
when you may be gathering pearls. Hear me, poor sinner !
If God and heaven, if grace and glory seem not better riches
than this world, thou judgestthyself to have no part in them.
CHAPTER IX.
Holiness is the most Honourable way.
We are resolved, if Scripture and reason can resolve us, that
godliness is the safest, the most honest, and the most gain-
ful course. I shall next shew you that it is the most honour-
able course. I know the world thinks otherwise of it. In
most places it is a matter of reproach to be but serious and
diligent in God's service. And though in this place, and at
this time, through the great mercy of God, it is not so with us,
unless it be with here and there a sottish drunkard, yet there
are too few places that are so much freed from this plague.
And it is not yet I fear forgotten of God, since the very prac-
tice of a godly life, was a matter of greater scorn and deri-
sion, than to have been the profanest swearer or drunkard.
If a man would not have gone to the alehouse with them, nor
sworn, or spoke profanely as they did ; and if he made any
serious mention of the Scripture, or the life to come ; if he
reproved any gross offender, if he prayed and instructed his
family, and spent the Lord's day in holy exercises, this was
enough to brand him with the name of Puritan or Precisian,
and make him the common byword of the town, and (let him
be never so conformable to bishops and ceremonies) if once
he went under the name of Puritan, he was looked upon as
Lot in Sodom, by the open enemies of piety, who insulted
over them, and lived securely in open wickedness. This is the
chiefest sin that God hath been scourging this nation for, if 1
am able to understand his judgments. I know men are apt to
interpret providences according to their own interests and
conceits. But 1 take the help of the Scripture, and the ex-
|)erience of former ages for my interpretation ; and I am ve-
rily persuaded (not excluding other sins) that the great sin
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 259
for which God hath plagued England by a sharp and bloody
war, was the common scorn that was cast upon his service,
it being made the derision of too many in the land. I never
came into any place, where mere serious diligence for salva-
tion was not branded with the name of Puritanism and too
much preciseness ; and those that abstained from iniquity
were as owls among their neighbours, even the very wonder
and the reproach of those about them. When this is made
a principle that all must hold that ever hope to be accepted
with the Lord, in (Heb. xi. 6.) that " he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him." This is the next point in our
faith, to the believing that there is a God. And yet among
us that called ourselves Christians, the diligent seeking of
the Lord was so far from being thus esteemed of, that it was
the surest way to make a man contemptible and odious unto
many. The jealous God did long endure this horrible indig-
nity, but would not still endure it from us. Must he make
a holy law for the government of the world, and shall the
obeying of it be derided ? Is he our sovereign Lord, having
by creation and redemption the right of ruling us, and shall
we scorn them that will be ruled by him ? Those that will
not have Christ rule over them, will surely be destroyed ;
Luke xix. 27. And shall those escape that scorn his service ?
Holiness is the image of God, and unholiness the devil's
image. And when the image of God is made a scorn, and
the devil's image had in honour, and that by them that call
themselves Christians, was it not time for God to arise to
judgment? Was it not enough that God was slighted by
them, and his service turned out of doors, but it must be
made a byword ? Is there but one way pleasing unto God,
and but one way that leadeth to salvation, and must that one
way be the common scorn? For these things God had a con-
troversy with this land ; and he hath pleaded his cause with
fire and sword, and spoke by a voice that will not be derid-
ed. He hath entered into j udgment with priests and people.
He will not always support and maintain a people to deride
him. O England ! hadst thou none to make the football of
thy scorn, but the servants of the most high God ? Did he
not tell thee that they were his jewels? Mai. iii. 1. And that
" he that touched them did touch the apple of his eye ?" Zech.
ii. 8. Will he give his Son for them, and will he glorify them
with himself, and make them equal to the angels ? Luke xx.
260 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
36. And didst thou think he would give thee leave to make
them the scorn and ofFscouring of the world ? Hadst thou
none to make the football of thy contemptuous sport, but
the sons of God, the spouse of Christ, yea his members, and
the heirs of heaven ? O foolish nation, hadst thou none to
deride and make thy byword but Christ himself ? Yea, it was
Christ himself, though thou wilt not believe it ! " Inasmuch
as thou didst it to one of the least of these his brethren, thou
didst it unto him ;" Matt.xxv. 40. "In all their afflictions he
was afflicted" (Isa. Ixiii. 9.) ; and therefore in all " their re-
proaches he was reproached." All those that were derided
for holiness, were derided upon Christ's account. If holi-
ness be vile and to be scorned, then God himself is vile and
to be scorned, and consequently is no God ; and what greater
blasphemy could be uttered by the tongue of man ? For
God is holiness itself. In us it is but a beam, from him
the shining glorious Sun. If a little in us imperfect
worms be hated by thee, how wouldst thou hate the perfect
holiness of God ? And if we deserve thy scorns for our obe-
dience (alas, our too imperfect obedience), it must fall upon
him that made the law, and gave us these commands. If he
be too precise that imperfectly obeyeth God, what will you
say of God himself that commandethmore than any of us all
performeth, and that chargeth us on pain of damnation to
obey him? O how much more wisely would you do,
if you daily studied, and diligently obeyed those laws your-
selves ! If the rulers of the earth would remember him that
is the King of kings, and did serve the Lord with fear, and
rejoiced before him with trembling, and kissed the Son to
prevent his anger, and their perishing in the way ! Psal. ii.
11, 12. O England! had thy disobedient inhabitants never
heard, how vain their rage and imaginations would be, when
they " set themselves and took counsel against the Lord and
his anointed, saying. Let us break their bands asunder, and
cast away their cords from us?'' Did they never hear that
the deriders were derided by him that sitteth in the heavens,
and how he will shortly speak to them in wrath, that speak
against his ways in malice, and will vex them in his sore dis-
pleasure, that vexed his servants for the doing of his plea-
sure ! Will they not believe, till hell have taught them that
in despite of all his enemies, he will set his Son the King of
saints upon his holy hill of Sion ? Psal. ii. 1 — 9. Had they
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 261
never heard how hard at last it will prove for them to kick
against the pricks ? Acts ix. 5. And will they not know by
any other means but feeling, that he will destroy those as his
enemies that "would not have him to reign over them?"
(Lukexix. 27.) and that he will "break them with a rod of
iron, and dash them in pieces -like a potter's vessel?" Psal.
ii.9. O scorners ! did you never read his words, 1 Sam. ii.
30. " Them that honour me I will honour, and they that de-
spise me shall be lightly esteemed ?" Behold, ye despisers,
and wonder and perish I for this word shall be fulfilled upon
you, and the work be wrought which you would not believe
when God foretold it, and will not yet understand and be-
lieve though it be declared to you ; Acts xiii. 41. Think not
that the infirmities of the godly do justify your contempt of
godliness. Think not that a Judas in Christ's family will
justify you for making a scorn of his family, and persecuting
his disciples ! or that a Ham in the ark, or the sin of Noah
will warrant you to make them as bad as the destroyed world
for whom God had done so much to save ! Think not when
you have jeered at a holy life, that God will take it for a
good excuse, to tell him that you had found a fault in his
servants, or a hypocrite crept into his church. He hateth their
faults much more than you; but will you thft-efore hate their
goodness ? Condemn the breaches of his laws and spare not;
but will you therefore condemn the keeping of them ? O
England ! if thou hadst had the grace or wit to use Christ
better in his ways and servants, he would have used thee bet
ter, and dealt more gently with thy inhabitants, and thy flames
and calamities might have been prevented. Often wast thou
told from 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14. what it was that captivated Israel
and made their priests and people to be the heathens' slaves.
" When the Lord God sent unto them by his prophets, be-
cause he had compassion on his people and his dwelling-
place, they mocked the messengers of God and despised his
words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord
arose against his people, till there was no remedy." But
alas, thou hast gone much further than this. Israel mocked
the prophets ; but I remember not that it is ever said of them,
that the way of godliness itself was made a common scorn
among them; but still they gloried in the Lord and in the
law, and in the temple, and the holy worship. But here, if
a man did but talk of heaven, or of any holy subject, or re^
2()2 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
prove a swearer, or not join with them in their impieties, the
common cry was, * This is one of the holy brethren :
here is one of the saints : it will never be well till we are rid
of these Puritans and Precisians.' How often have I heard
almost the same words from Englishmen, as Lot did from the
Sodomites, " This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he
will needs be a judge (Gen. xix. 9); when they lived " in
their lasciviousness, lusts, excess of drink, revellings, ban-
quettings, and abominable profanation of holy things, they
thought it strange that we ran not with them to the same
excess of riot, speaking evil of us," but forgetting the ac-
count that their Judge was ready to require of them ; 1 Pet.
iv. 3—5.
Well ! have you yet taken warning by the judgments of
the Lord ? God hath begun to take away the reproach of
holiness, and through his great mercy to us it is more ho-
nourable in England than formerly it hath been. Ls it ho-
noured by you ? Or are you hardened to perdition ? Fear-
ful is the case of him, whoever he be, that after all the gen-
tle and terrible warnings of the Lord, dare think or speak
reproachfully of a holy life ! Yet hear the calls of the Eter-
nal Wisdom ; " How long ye simple ones will ye love sim-
plicity, and the%corners delight in scorning ; and fools hate
knowledge? Turn you at my reproof;" Prov. i. 20 — 22,
&c. But mercies and judgments are lost on the hard-heart-
*jd. " Let favour be shown to the wicked, yet will he not
learn righteousness : in the land of uprightness will he deal
unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
When the hand of the Lord is lifted up, they will not see ;
but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at his peo-
ple, and the enemies' own fire shall devour them ;" Isa. xxvi.
10, IL And then as they " set at naught his counsel, and
would none of his reproof," but mocked them that feared
God ; so will he also " laugh at their calamity, and mock
when their fear cometh. For that they hated knowledge, and
did not choose the fear of the Lord." Prov. i. 25—27. 29.
I will add but this one word of terror. To scorn at ho-
liness is to scorn at the Holy Ghost, whose office or work it
is to sanctify us. As the Father hath commanded us to be
holy as he is holy (1 Pet. i. 16.) ; and made it his image on
us y and as the Son hath come to destroy unholiness (1 John
iii. 8.), and give us an example of perfect holiness, and sane-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 263
tify to himself a peculiar people (Titua ii. 14.); so is it the
undertaken work of the Holy Ghost, as sent therefore from
the Father and the Son, to make holy all that God will save.
And though I say not that it is the unpardonable blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost, to scorn his very work and office,
yet I say it is a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, so near
that which is unpardonable, that the thoughts of it should
humble all that have been guilty, and make men fear so
horrible a sin. But ** blessed is he that walketh not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful ; but his delight is in
the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and
night." " The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wick-
ed, but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Surely he
scorneth the scorners, but he giveth grace unto the lowly ;'
Prov. iii. 33, 34. These are the true sayings of the Lord,
I thought not meet to pass by this necessary reproof of
the contempt of holiness, which this land hath been so guilty
of, and which hath undone so many souls, and made such
desolations in the land. And now you shall see that I am
able to make good the grounds of this reproof, and that ho-
liness is no dishonourable thing.
1 . The holy servants of the Lord have dhe most honour-
able master in all the world. This only is sufficient to weigh
down all the honours of the world, if it were ten thousand
worlds. When the builders of the temple were asked their
names by the officers of king Darius (Ezra v. 10, 11.), their
answer was, " We are the servants of the God of heaven
and earth." No king on earth, no angel in heaven hath a
more honourable master. To be the highest officer of the
greatest prince, is a title as much more base than this, as a
man is baser than the Infinite God. If God cannot put suf-
ficient honour on those that are related to him, tell us who
can ? When Moses went to Pharaoh for the Israelites' de-
liverance, he was to speak in the name of the Lord ; and
when Pharaoh spake contemptuously of the Lord, as one
that he knew not and would not obey, how wondrously
doth God vindicate his honour and his people ! Let men
be called knights and lords, and kings, and emperors ; may
I but be truly called the servant of ^the God of heaven, I
shall not envy them their honours ! Our relation to so glo-
rious a majesty doth put an inexpressible honour upon the
264 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
poorest person and the lowest works. A servant of the Lord
is more honourable in rags, in a smoky cottage, or the mean-
est state, than the Emperors of Constantinople or Tartary
are in all their wealth and worldly glory. And if you think
not so yourselves, why do you so much honour them when
they are dead ? What was Peter and Paul, and the rest of
the apostles, but poor despised men in the world, that tra-
velled about to preach the Gospel? and what was their ho-
nour but to be the holy servants of the Lord ? Yet now they
are dead, you are desirous to keep holydays in an honourable
memorial of them, and kings and princes reverence their
names. What were the martyrs whose memories are now so
honourable with us, but a company of hated, persecuted
men, that were used by others as butchers do their beasts,
and worse ? But because they were the servants of the Lord,
and suffered for his truth and cause, their names are ho-
nourable, and the names of their greatest persecutors do
even stink. It is said of Constantine the Great, (who was
himself greater by his holiness than his victories,) that he
was wont to reverence the bishops that had been sufferers
for Christ, and kissed the place where the eye abode that
one of them had lost for the Gospel's sake. The Christian
princes that rulell the world, were wont to honour the poor-
est, mortified, retired servants of Christ, that had cast off
the world, as perceiving that he is more honourable that
contemneth it, than he that enjoyeth it. The nearest to
God undoubtedly are the most honourable.
2. Consider, that as it is God that the saints are thus
related to, so their relation is so near, and their titles so ex-
ceeding high, which God himself had put upon them, that it
advanceth them to the greatest height of honour that men
on earth can reasonably expect. Yea, with holy admiration
we must say it, so wonderful is the honour which the glo-
rious God hath put upon his poor, unworthy servants, that
they durst not have owned it, nor thought such titles meet
for men, if God himself had not been the author of them!
Nor could they have believed that God would so advance
them, if he had not both revealed it, and given them faith to
believe his revelation. As if it were not enough for us to
be his servants, he calleth us his friends ; " Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 265
you. Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant
knoweth not what his Lord doeth : but I have called you
friends ; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I
have made known unto you ;*' John xv. 13 — 15.
( 1 .) Abraham " was called the Friend of God ;" Jam. ii. 23.
(2.) And they are called the Lord's jewels ; Mai. iii. 17.
(3.) They are called his beloved, and dearly beloved ;
Deut. xxxiii. 12. Psal. Ix. 5. cxxvii. 2. Cant. ii. 16. vi.
3. vii. 10. Holy and beloved are inseparable. " Beloved
of God, called to be saints ;" Rom. iv. 7. '* The elect of God,
holy and beloved ;" Col. iii. 12. They are the dearly belov-
ed of his soul (Jer. xii. 7.); for they are " accepted in the
beloved" (Eph. i. 6.) ; even in the " beloved Son in whom
the Father is well pleased ;" Matt. iii. 17. xvii. 5,
(4.) They are called children, or adopted sons ; Gal. iv.
6. John i. 12. And he disdaineth not to be called their
Father; Heb. xii. 9. Matt, xxiii. 9. 2 Cor. vi. 18. " I will
be a father to you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty;" Mai. iii. 17. He will spare
them^as a man spareth his son that serveth him.
(5.) They are called also the heirs of heaven ; Rom. viii.
17. A more honourable heritage than earth affords.
(6.) They are called " a peculiar people to the Lord"
(Tit. ii. 14.) ; and his " peculiar treasure ;" Exod. xix. 5.
Psal. cxxxv. 4.
(7.) They are called " kings and priests to God ;" Rev.
i. 6. They are a" chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a peculiar people ;" 1 Pet. ii. 9.
(8.) The sanctified are called the spouse of Christ ; Cant.
iv. 8 — 13. Because of the similitude of the holy covenant
which they make with Christ to a marriage covenant ; and
because of the dearness of his love to them, and the near-
ness and sweetness of his communion with them. Matt,
xxii. 2. 4. 9. The Lord is said to be married to them ; Jer.
iii. 14. And their Maker calls himself their Husband ; Isa.
liv. 5.
(9.) Yea more, they are called the members of Christ ;
1 Cor. vi. 15. xii. 12. They are the " body of Christ and
members in particular ;" ver. 27. We are " members of his
body, of his flesh, and of his bones, loved and cherished by
him, as a man doth his own flesh;" Ephes. v. 25. 28 — 30.
32. They are kept by the Lord as the apple of his eye ;
266 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Deut. xxxii. 10. And he that ** toucheth them, toucheth
the apple of his eye;" Zech ii. 8. What nearness! what
dearness do those terms express !
(10.) Yea, they are said to be one with Christ ; ** He' that
is joined to the Lord is one spirit;'* 1 Cor.vi. 17. "That
they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee,
that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me. That they may be one, even as
we are one ; I in them and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one ;" John xvii. 21 — 23. Not that they are
one in Godhead, or personality, or office with Christ, but
most nearly conjoined as subjects to their prince, that make
one body politic, and as a wife to a husband, and nearer than
these can express, in that they have the communication^ of
his Spirit.
Judge now by all these wonderful titles, whether any but
an atheist or infidel can deny, that the godly are the most
honourable people in the world? If it be not a contempti-
ble thing to be the son of a king, how much less to be the
sons of the Eternal King. Deny the honour of those that
are so nearly related to him, and you deny the honour of
himself, and consequently deny him to be God. Atheism is
the beginning and end of all.
3. Moreover the servants of the Lord have the most ho-
nourable natures or dispositions in the world. And the ho-
nour that ariseth from a man's intrinsical disposition, is far
greater than that which accrueth to himfrom his parentage^
or wealth, or worldly greatness, or any such extrinsic acci-
dents. Many a proud and worthless person doth boast of
the nobility of their ancestors, and tell you what blood doth
run in their veins ; when they have debased souls, and no-
thing advanced them or their ancestors, but their riches or
the pleasure of some prince ; and they know that the beg-
gars at their doors did come from Noah as well as they.
The surgeon findeth no purer blood in their veins, than in
the beggars ; nor are their carcases any more sweet or love-
ly ; and therefore if their manners are worse, they are more
base than honest beggars. It is the mind that beareth the
true stamp of nobility. They are the noblest that have the
noblest souls. All the silks and velvets in the world, will
not make an ape as honourable as a man, nor an idiot as a
vvise man. Solomon in all his royalty was not clothed like-
A SAINT OR A BKUTE. 267
some of the flowers in the field (Matt. vi. 28, 29.) ; and yet
he was more honourable than they. A corpse may be most
sumptuously adorned ; a crown may be set on the head of
an image. Such as the mind is, such is the man. And that
the souls of the sanctified are more nobly qualified than those
of other men is easily demonstrated. For,
(1.) Christ dwellethin them by faith, and by his Spirit ;
Eph. i. 17. ii. 22. We are the temples of the Holy Ghost ;
1 Cor. vi. 19. The new nature of the saints hath no meaner
an Author than the Lord himself. It is the Divine power
that giveth us all things that pertain to life and godliness \,
2 Pet. i. 3. As it is the honourable work of God the Father
to be our Creator, and of God the Son to be our Redeemer ;
so is it the honourable work of God the Holy Ghost to be
our Sanctifier. And therefore as it is a blaspheming of the
Creator to vilify the creation ; and a blaspheming of the Re-
deemer to vilify the redemption ; so is it a blaspheming of
the Sanctifier to vilify sanctification. Though I say not that
it is the unpardonable blasphemy, yet a fearful blasphemy
it is. O that those wretches knew their crime, that mock at
the special work of the Holy Ghost!
(2.) The new creature is illuminated with a heavenly
light, and cured of its former mortal blindness, and is
" brought out of darkness into marvellous light;" (Eph. i.
18. Acts xxvi. 18. Col.i. 13. 1 Pet. ii. 9.) ; and is taught
of God ; John vi. 45. 1 Thess. iv. 9. 1 John ii. 27. And
it is more honourable to see, than to be blind, and to live in
the open light, than in a dungeon. And it is the highest
matters in the world that the gracious soul is savingly ac-
quainted with. It is more honourable to have the know-
ledge of the profoundest sciences, than of some low and
poor employment. And it is more honourable to have the
saving knowledge of God, and of the life to come, which the
poorest sanctified person hath, than to have the most ad-
mired fleshly wisdom, or all the common learning in the
world. What high, and excellent, and necessary things
doth grace acquaint the Christian with ! He knoweth him
that is the cause of all things else, having himself no cause.
He knoweth him that is knowledge itself, and that knoweth
all things He knoweth him that is eternal, that never be-
gan, and shall never end ; that is greater than the world ;
that is more glorious than the sun ; that can do all things
268 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
because he is Almighty ; and yet can do no evil, because he
is most good and holy. He knoweth him that made the
world and all things, and holdeth them in the hand of his
omnipotency, and ruleth them by his wisdom, and doeth all
things according to the good pleasure of his will. He know-
eth him that is man*s felicity, to know whom is eternal life.
He knoweth the Redeemer, and the riches of his grace and
promises. He knoweth the diseases of his own soul, and
their danger and cure. He knoweth what end he hath to
aim at, and the work that he was made and redeemed for to
do ; the temptations which he must resist ; the enemies
which he must conquer ; the duties which he must perform.
He knoweth his Redeemer's laws and covenants ; what he
commandeth, promiseth, and threateneth, and to whom.
He knoweth what will be hereafter : and where he shall live
when this life is ended ; and what he shall do ten thousand
years hence, yea, unto all eternity. He knoweth what will
become of all the godly and ungodly (that die such) in the
world, and where they shall be for evermore. In a word,
he knoweth whence he came, whither he is going, and which
way he must go. He knoweth God as his Maker, Governor,
and End. He knoweth that God that he must please, and
how to please him, and how to be saved, and to live with
God for ever. This is the honourable knowledge of the
sanctified ; which no men have but they alone. The cun-
ning politicians of the world have none of it (as such). The
speculators of nature, the great mathematicians, the learned
doctors, famous for their skill in languages, philosophy,
and the theory of divinity, are oft without it. They have
more of the words, and notions, and forms, and methods,
than unlearned saints have ; but they want the thing that
these are made for. They have the signs, and the godly
have the thing signified. They have the body of theology,
and the godly Christian hath the soul. The ungodly doc-
tors have better skill to break the shell, but the godly Chris-
tian only knows how to eat the kernel. The learned may
be better at the office of a cook, to dress the meat ; but only
the godly do feed on it, and digest it. Knowledge is to be
valued, (as all creatures are) according to its usefulness.
As it is more honourable to know how to govern a kingdom,
command an army or navy, or save men^s lives, than to make
a fiddle or a hobby-horse ; so it is ten thousandfold more
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 269
honourable, to know how to order our hearts and lives, and
to walk with God, and obtain the everlasting glory, than to
know how to get the riches, and pleasures, and vainglory of
the present world.
(3.^ The sanctified are made alive to God, when other men
are dead to sin; Rom. vi. 11. 13. Eph.ii.l. And the poor-
est man alive is more honourable than the carcase of an em-
peror. " A living dog is better than a dead lion ;" Eccles.
ix.4.
(4.) The sanctified are cleansed from the filthiness of their
sins, which are the most odious defilements in the world :
and they are purified by the blood and spirit of Christ ;
lJohni.7.9. Eph. v. 26. 2Cor.vii. 1. The " word of
Christ hath made them clean ;" John xv. 3. Their hearts are
" purified by faith ;" Acts xv. 9. 1 Pet. i. 22. 1 John iii. 3.
And therefore the most odious part of their dishonour is re-
moved ; " sin is a reproach to any people ;" Prov. xiv. 34.
Whatever it may seem before ungodly men, it is sin that is
your shame before the Lord. And this reproach the godly
are now cleansed from. Though it be a dishonour to them
that they were ungodly once, it is their honour that now they
are not such ; and that they are clothed with the righteous-
ness of Christ.
(5.) The holy nature of the saints disposeth their hearts,
and inclineth their wills to the highest and most honourable
things. As in their knowledge, so in their inclinations they
are above the baseness of the world. The nature of man is
not to feed as beasts, and horses, and dogs do : he is above
their food ; and above their converse and kind of life. That
will not content him that contenteth them. And the new na-
ture of a sanctified man, is above the delights and contents
of the ungodly. His heart cannot endure to take up with
that kind of life. To mind nothing but this world, and to
have no pleasure but to the flesh, and live as an utter stran-
ger to God, and not to feed on the heavenly delights, and
riches of the Gospel, but live as if there were no such thing,
this sensual life is below his inclination, as feeding on dross,
or conversing only with swine or cattle, is below the nature
of a man. The noble soul is that which is inclined to the
most noble objects ; even to God, and holiness, and ever-
lasting life, and cannot endure the poor, and low, and sordid
life of men, that have their portion here; Psal. xvii. 14. No-
270 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
thing that is corporeal, or transitory, yea nothing below God
can satisfy a holy soul. It is this holy disposition that fits
men for holy duties, and that is their fitness for eternal hap-
piness. If angels were not more holy than devils, and god-
ly men than the ungodly, heaven could not hold them, nor
could they any more see or enjoy the Lord, than they that
are cast into outer darkness. And therefore if you dare say
that the holy are no more honourable than the unholy, you
must say that the holy angels are no more honourable than
the devil, which sure you will scarce be so desperate as to
speak.
(6.) Holiness in the godly is the image of God, in which
we were created, and according to which we are renewed by
the Holy Ghost ; Eph. iv. 24. Col.iii.lO. Gen. i. 27. And
what can be spoken more honourable of a creature, than that
he hath his Maker's image, unless as to the degree, that some
have more of it than others ? It is the honourable title of
the Son himself, that he " is the brightness of his Father's
glory, and the express image of his person." This is above
the honour of any, or of all the saints. But to have the
image of God in wisdom, and holiness, as all have that are
sanctified, is a wonderful dignity to be given to a creature,
and so low and unworthy creatures as we are. His commands
tell us what are the qualifications of his people. " As he
which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy, in all manner
of conversation. For it is written. Be ye holy, for I am ho-
ly ;" 1 Pet. i. 15, 16. And how high a command, and strait
a rule is that given us by Christ, Matt. v. 48. " Be ye there-
fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is per-
fect." Well may it be called and exceeding righteousness,
surpassing the Scribes and Pharisees, which all have that
enter into the heavenly kingdom ; ver. 20. There is nothing
under heaven that is known to man so like to God, as a ho-
ly soul. Remember this the next time you reproach such.
AH you that are the serpent's seed, remember when you spit
your venom against holiness that it is the image of God that
your enmity is exercised against. O what a strange conjunc-
tion of malignity and hypocrisy appeareth in the enemies of
God among us ! A picture of Christ that is drawn by a
painter, or a forbidden image of God that is carved by an
image-maker in stone, that hath nothing but the name of an
image of God, these they will reverence and honour, (though
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 271
God hath forbidden them to make such image of him). The
Papists will pray before them, and the profane among them
are zealous for them; when in the mean time they hate the
most noble images of God on earth. Forbidden images of
God have been defended, by seeking the blood of his truest
images. Do you indeed love and honour the image of God ?
Why then do you hate them, and seek to destroy them ? and
why do you make them the scorn of your continual malice?
Can you blow hot and cold? Can you both love and hate?
both honour and scorn the image of God? Search the Scrip-
ture, and see whether it be not the sanctified, heavenly, dili-
gent servants of the Lord that are the honourable images
which he owneth, and magnifieth, and glorieth in before the
world. If this be not true, then go on in your hatred of them
and spare not. These are not images of stone, but of Spirit ;
not images made by a carver or a painter, but by the Holy
Ghost himself. Not hanged upon a wall for men to look on,
but living images, actuated from heaven, by spiritual influ-
ence from Christ their head, and shining forth in exemplary
lives to the honour of their Father whom they resemble ;
Matt. v. 16. It is not in an outward shape, but in spiritual
wisdom, and love, and holiness of heart and life, that they re-
semble the Creator. Whether you will believe it now or not,
be sure of it, you malignant enemies of holiness, that God
would shortly make you know it, that you choose out the
most excellent image of your Maker under heaven, to pour
out your hatred and contempt against. And inasmuch as
you did it unto his most noble images, you did it unto him.
(7.) If all this be not enough to shew you the honourable
nature of holiness, I will speak the highest word that can be
spoken of any created nature under heaven, and yet no more
than God hath spoken ; even in 2 Pet. i. 4. where it is ex-
pressly said, that the godly are " partakers of the Divine na-
ture." I know that it is not the essence of God that is here
called the Divine nature that we partake of ; we abhor the
thoughts of such blasphemous arrogancy, as if that grace
did make men gods. But it is called the Divine nature, in
that it is caused by the Spirit of God, and floweth from him
as the light or sunshine floweth from the sun. You use to
say the sun is in the house, when it shineth in the house,
though the sun itself be in the firmament. So the Scripture
eaith that God dwelleth in us, and Christ and the Spirit
272 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
dwelleth in us, when the heavenly light, and love, and life,
which streameth from him dwelleth in us ; and this is called
the Divine nature. Think of this, and tell me whether high-
er and more honourable things can easily be spoken of the
sons of men. " God is love; and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God in him :" 1 Johniv. 16. O won-
derful advancement ! high expressions of a creature's digni-
ty ! Blessed be that eternal love that is thus communica-
tive, and hath so ennobled our unworthy souls ! With what
alacrity and delight should we exalt his name by daily praises
that thus exalteth us by his unspeakable mercies ? " Bless-
ed is the people that know the joyful sound : they shall walk
O Lord in the light of thy countenance. In thy name shall
they rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they
be exalted. For thou art the glory of our strength ; and in
thy favour our horn shall be exalted. For the Lord is our
defence, and the Holy One of Israel is our king ;" Psal.lxxxix.
15 — 17. Ixxv. 19. " Let them praise the name of the Lord ;
for his name alone is excellent : his glory is above the earth
and heavens. He also exalteth the horn of his people , the
praise of all his saints ;" Psal. cxlviii. 13, 14. He hath " first
exalted our blessed Head, even highly exalted him by his own
right hand, and given him a name above every name ;" (Acts
ii. 33. V. 31. Phil. ii. 9.) and with him he hath wonderfully
exalted all his sanctified ones. " For it became himfor whom
are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many
sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth, and they
that are sanctified, are all of one : for which cause he is not
ashamed to call them brethren ;" Heb. ii. 10, 11. " For as
the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members
of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ;"
1 Cor. xii. 12. What greater honour can man on earth
be advanced to? And the honour of the just is communi-
cative to the societies of which they are members. The
churches are called holy for their sakes. " By the blessing
of the upright the city is exalted ; but it is overthrown by the
mouth of the wicked ;" Pro v. xi. 1 1 . " Righteousness exalt-
eth a nation ; but sin is a reproach to any people ;" chap,
xiv. 34. Let therefore both the persons and congregations
of the saints continually exalt the name of God. " O
bless the Lord for ever and ever, and blessed be his glorious
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 273
name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise ;" Neh.
ix.5. "The Lord liveth, and blessed be our Rock, and ex-
alted be the God of our Rock of our salvation;" 2 Sara. xxii.
47. " I will extol thee O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up ;"
Psal. XXX. 1. " And now shall my head be lifted up above
mine enemies round about me : therefore will I offer in his
tabernacle sacrifices of joy ; I will sing, yea, I will sing
praises unto the Lord ;" Psal. xxvii. 6. " The Lord is their
strength, the saving strength of his anointed. He will save
his people, and bless his inheritance, and feed them also, and
lift them up for ever ;" Psal. xxviii. 8,9. " The Lord lift-
eth up the meek, and casteth the wicked down to the
ground ;" Psal. cxlvii. 6. Thus shall it be done to them
whom God honoureth. " He will deliver them and honour
them;'* Psal.xci.l5.
4. And as the sanctified have the most honourable dispo-
sitions, so have they the highest and most honourable de-
signs. The end of their lives is incomparably above other
men's. The rest of the world (though they may talk of hea-
ven, and wish for it rather than hell, when they can live no
longer) do indeed drive on no greater trade, than providing
for the flesh, and feathering them a nest which will quickly
be pulled down ; and like the spider, spinning themselves a
web, which death will shortly sweep away. But the design
and daily business of the godly is for everlasting glory.
" They look for a city that hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. They confess themselves strangers
and pilgrims on earth, thereby declaring that they seek a
country. And truly if they were mindful of that (deceitful
world) which they came out of (and have forsaken), they may
have opportunities (and too many invitations) to return to it.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he
hath prepared for them a city ;" Heb. xi. 10. 13 — 16. This
noble end ennobleth both the persons and conversations of
believers. To rule a kingdom is a more noble design than
to play with children for pins or points. But to seek the
everlasting kingdom is far above all the highest designs that
are terminated upon earth. If everlasting glory with God in
heaven be a more noble state than a worldly life, then must
the seeking it be a more noble design. Paul sheweth you the
VOL. X. T
274 A SAINT OR A BRUTE,
difference very pathetically, Phil. iii. 18. " For many walk (of
whom I told you often, and now tell you weeping) that they
are the enemies of the cross of Christ ; whose end is destruc-
tion, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their
shame, who mind earthly things. But our conversation is
in heaven." That is, we live as citizens of the heavenly Je-
rusalem, and not as those that are here at home. It is hea-
ven that sanctifies persons' minds ; that they study and care
for, and labour and live for in this world. And therefore
though in their natural capacity, they are but as other men,
yet in their moral and relative capacity, I think I may say
without hyperbole, that they are much more advanced above
the dignity of the great unsanctified princes upon earth than
reason, and learning, and manly designs advance a man above
a beast. It is the nobleness and baseness of the end that
doth honour or debase the agent ; and therefore none are tru-
ly honourable but those that seek the spiritual, the high eter-
nal honour.
5. The employment, as well as the designs of the godly,
do prove them to be the most honourable. Both the end and
matter do shew the excellency of their work. As the end ho-
noureth the person, so doth it honour all the works that are
means thereto. The first thoughts of a godly man when he
awaketh, and the last when he lieth down (if he observe his
rule) are usually for heaven. When you are conversing with
worldly men, about these common worldly things, they are
in prayer or holy meditation conversing with God, about the
matters of his service, and their salvation. Their hearts are
toward him : their thoughts are on him : they are devoted to
him : their daily business is to serve him. *' When I awake
(saith David, Psal. cxxxix. 28.) I am still with thee." " I
will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel. My reins
also instruct me in the night season. I have set the Lord al-
ways before me } because he is at my right hand, I shall not
be moved ;" PsaL xvi. 7, 8. The life of the godly is called in
Scripture, *' a walking with God." Such was the course of
Enoch, Noah, and Abraham; Gen. v. 22. 24. vi.9. xvii. 1.
xxiv. 40. " They walked before God" (Gen. xlviii. 15.), and
in his ways ; Deut. xxviii. 9. They " love the Lord their
God with all their heart and soul (as to the sincerity of it) ;
and walk after him, and fear him, and keep his command-
ments, and obey his voice, and serve him, and cleave unto
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 275
him ;" Deut. xiii. 3, 4. And can an inhabitant of this world
have a more honourable employment than to serve the Lord ?
and a more honourable state than to walk with God ? Should
we not have thought such words intolerable to be used of the
best on earth, if God had not been himself the author of them,
and put them into onr mouths ? Hear more of his own ex-
pressions concerning the conversations of his servants :
" God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship
of his Son Jesus Christ;" 1 Cor.i.9. "And truly our fel-
lowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ ;"
1 John i. 3. By ' fellowship,' is not meant here, a society of
equals. God forbid we should think so blasphemously. But
it is a communion of the beloved, sanctified creature with his
blessed Creator, agreeable to his distance. In their secret
addresses, his servants have communion with him. Their
prayer is nothing else but a humble speaking to the living
God, for the supply of all their wants. In their praises and
thanksgivings it is God that they deal with ; and the " words
of their mouths, and the meditation of their hearts are ac-
ceptable in the sight of their Redeemer ;" Psal. xix. 14, They
pour out their souls before him, and he openeth his ears and
his bosom unto them; Psal. Ixii. 8. x. 17. "He will feed his
flock like a shepherd : he will gather the lambs with his arm,
and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that
are with young;" Isa. xl. 11. And in the public worship of
God in the holy assemblies, his servants also have commu-
nion with him. It is him that they hear whoever be the mes-
senger. It is him that they admire, and praise, and magnify.
" Come (say they) and let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob : and he will teach us
of his ways, and we will walk in his paths — Come, and let us
walkinthelightof theLord;"Isa.ii.3.5. "Wehavethoughtof
thy lovingkindness O God in the midst of thy temple ;" Psal.
xlviii. 9. "In his temple doth every man speak of his glory ;"
Psal. xxix.9. Yea, the common employments of the godly
are sanctified, and thereby advanced above the highest ac-
tions of the wicked. For it is God and glory that is in all
their ultimate ends. " Whether they eat or drink, or what-
ever they do, they do it to his glory ;" ICor. X.31. That is,
they intend his glory as their end, and they do it in reverent
obedience to his will, and in a holy manner behaving them-
selves as may honour him whose work they do. And lie tliat
276 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
hath the face to say, that prayer, praise, thanksgiving, me-
ditation, holy conference, and other works of holiness and
righteousness, are not a more honourable employment than
the sordid drudgery of the world, must say also that the life
of a worldling is more honourable than the life of the holy
angels and the heavenly host. They are obeying and prais-
ing God, and living in the sense of his dearest love, while
you are sinning and scraping in this earth. And can you
believe that your life is more honourable than theirs ? If
not, you must confess that the godly that come nearest the
work of angels, do live a more honourable life than you.
When Christ called Peter to leave his fishing and follow him,
and be his servant, he tells him that he will make him a fisher
of men, as intimating that it was a more honourable work to
catch souls by the Gospel, and win them to God and to sal-
vation, than to catch fishes. To please God and save our
souls, and further others in obeying him to their salvation,
is the highest work that the sons of men are capable of while
they live in flesh.
As the priests were sanctified to draw nearer unto God,
than the common people, and to be employed in his most
holy service, so are the godly separated by grace from the
ungodly world, and brought nearer God, and used by him in
the noblest works. " In a great house there are not only
vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood, and of earth,
and some to honour, and some to dishonour ;" 1 Tim. ii. 20.
" If a man therefore purge himself from sin, he shall be a
vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use,
and prepared unto every good work ;" ver. 21. The vessel
that swine are fed in, is not so honourable as that which is
used at a prince's table. If you would know what use the
godly are employed in, read 1 Pet. ii. 5. 9. " As lively stones
they are built up a spiritual house : they are a holy priest-
hood to ofier up spiritual sacrifices unto God, which shall be
acceptable by Jesus Christ. They are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that they
should shew forth the praises of him who hath called them
out of darkness into his marvellous light." The holy Scrip-
tures tell you the work of saints. Compare them with the
work of the drunkard, the glutton, the gamester, the forni-
cator, or the covetous, or ambitious worldling, and let your
reason tell you which is the more honourable. " O fear the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 277
Lord O ye saints ; for there is no want to them that fear him ;"
Psal. xxix.9. "O love the Lord all ye his saints; for the
Lord preserveth the faithful;" Psal. xxxi.23. "The hea-
vens shall praise thy wonders O Lord : thy faithfulness also
in the congregation of the saints* God is greatly to be fear-
ed in the assembly of the saints : and to be had in reverence
of all them that are about him ;" Psal. Ixxxix. 5.7. These
are the employments of the saints.
6. Moreover, the godly have the most honourable enter-
tainment by the God of all the world. They are bid welcome
when others are rejected. The door is opened to them that
is shut against the wicked. They are familiar with Jesus
Christ, as the children of the family, when others are stran-
gers whom he will not know. " I will profess unto them, I
never knew you ; depart from me ye workers of iniquity ;'
Matt.vii.23. "For the Lord knoweththe way of the righteous :
but the way of the ungodly shall perish ;" Psal. i. 6. The
faithful are feasted by him, when the rest are examined with a
** Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding
garment ? Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer
darkness ;" Matt. xxii. 12, 13. They are called the chil-
dren that have the bread, and the rest are called the dogs ;
of which some are without, and those ^vithin do feed but on
the " crumbs that fall from the children's table ;" Matt. xv.
26, 27. Rev. xxii. 15. Hear the Lord's invitation and his
promise : " Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that
which is good ; and let your soul delight itself in fatness. In-
cline your ear, and come unto me, hear and your soul shall
live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you ;"
Isa. Iv. 2,3. Who is it that is admitted into the "tabernacle
of the Lord, and who shall dwell in his holy hill ? He that
walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh
the truth in his heart. In whose eyes a vile person is
contemned, but hehonoureth them that fear the Lord ;" Psal.
XV. 1, 2. 4. " The upright shall dwell in the presence of the
Lord ;" Psal. cxl. 13. " God will save Sion, and the
seed of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his
name shall dwell therein ;*' Psal. Ixix. 35, 36. And " bless-
ed is the man whom thou choosest, O Lord, and causest to
approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts : he
shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy
holy temple ;" Psal. Ixv. 4. Saith David, " Mine eyes shall
278 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with
me : he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me.
Yea, Christ entertaineth faithful souls with a spiritual feast
of his own flesh and blood. His flesh to them is meat in-
deed, and his blood is drink indeed ; John vi. 55. And " he
that eateth and drinketh these shall live for ever ;" ver. 54.
56. The returning prodigal is met with joy, and quickly em-
braced in his father's arms ; the fatted calf is killed for him ;
a ring and new apparel is provided for him ; and music must
express the joy of his recovery ; Luke xv. O how welcome
are converted sinners to the God of mercy ! And as they are
welcome at their first return, so are they in all their attend-
ance on him, and addresses to him, and service of him, while
they continue in his family. They have boldness now " to
enter into the holiest, by the new and living way that is con-
secrated \' and are invited " to draw near with a true heart
in full assurance of faith ;" Heb. x. 19. 22. " In Christ we
have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of
him ;" Ephes. iii. 12. And " God hath made us accepted in
the beloved, to the praise of the glory of his grace ;" chap,
i. 6. " We are living sacrifices, acceptable unto God ;" Rom.
xii. 1. And our services though weak, are " sacrifices ac-
ceptable and wellple^sing to him;" Phil. iv. 18. 2Tim. ii.
3. V. 4. When the "prayers of the wicked are abhorred of
the Lord, his people serve him acceptably in reverence and
godly fear ;" Heb. xii. 28. He answereth their prayers, and
often speaketh peace unto them, and signifiethhis acceptance
of them. If they could bring him a house full of gold and
silver, they would not be so welcome to him as they are in
bringing him their hearts, their humbled hearts, their brok-
en, tender, melted hearts, that burn in love to him, and flame
up towards him in desires and in holy praise. " To this man
will I look, saith the Lord, even to him that is poor and of
a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word;" Isa. lxvi.2.
This is the honourable entertainment of the saints.
7. And they are members of the most honourable socie-
ty in the world. The church is the kingdom of Jesus Christ
(Luke i. 33. Col. i. 13.) ; the kingdom of God (chap. xvii.
21. xviii. 17.); the kingdom of heaven; Matt. iii. 2. xiii.
31.33.44. It is the school of Christ, or his university, in
which believers are his scholars, learning to know him, and
serve him, and praise him for ever, and trained up for ever-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 279
lasting life ; Acts xi. 26. Luke vi. 13. Matt. v. 1, 2, &c. It
is the family or household of God ; Eph. ii. 19. 1 Tim. iii.
15. Heb. X. 21. 1 Pet. iv. 17. It is the spouse, yea the
body of Christ ; Eph. v. 25. So loved by him, that he gave
himself for it, becoming the price of our redemption, and
thought not his life too deararansom, nor his blood too pre-
cious to cleanse and save us ; ver. 25, 26. Tit. ii. 4. The
church, which every godly man is a living member of, is a
society chosen out of the world, to be nearest unto God, and
dearest to him, as the beloved of his soul, to receive the
choicest of his mercies, and be adorned with the righteous-
ness of Christ, and to be employed in his special service ;
1 Pet. ii. 4, 5. 9. John xv. 19. Eph. i. 4. Psal. cxxxii. 13.
cxxxv. 4. Eph. V. 1. The Lord that redeemed them is their
King and Head, and dwelleth in the midst of them, and walk-
eth among them, as the people of his special presence and
delight ; Psal. ii. 6. Ixxxix. 18. cxlix. 2. xlvi. 5. Isa. xii. 6.
Jer. xiv. 9. Zeph. iii. 5. 15. 17. Rev. i. 13. ii. 1. Psal.
xcv. 2. The church is a heavenly society, though the mili-
tant part yet live on earth. For the God of heaven is the
Sovereign and the Father of it. The glorified Redeemer is
their Head. TheSpirit of Christ doth guide and animate them.
His laws revealed and confirmed from heaven, direct and go-
vern them. Heaven is their end ; and heavenly are their dis-
positions, employments, and conversations. There is their
portion and treasure; Matt. vi. 20, 21. And there is their
very heart and hope. *' They are risen with Christ, and
therefore " seek the things that are above. For their life is
hid with Christ in God ;" Col. iii. 2 — 4. Their root is there;
and the noblest part of the society is there. For the glo-
rified saints, and in some sort, the angels are of the same so-
ciety with us, though they are in heaven, and we on earth.
The whole family in heaven and earth is named from one and
the same head ; Eph. iii. 15. " We are come unto Mfeunt
Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Je-
rusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the ge-
neral assembly, and church of the firstborn, which are writ-
ten in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits
of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the
new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling,*' &c. Heb. xii.
22 — 24. This is the honourable society of saints, the eye,
the pearl of the whole creation.
280 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
8. Moreover, the godly have the most honourable at-
tendance. The creatures are all theirs : though not in point
of civil propriety, yet as means appointed and managed by
God their Father, for their best advantage. The angels of
God are ministering spirits for them : not as our servants,
but as God's servants for our good. As ministers in the
church are not the servants of men, but the servants of God
for men. And so, '* whether Paul or ApoUos, or Cephas, or
the world, or life, or death, or things present or to come, all
are ours ;" 1 Cor. iii. 22. The shepherd's servant is not the
servant of the sheep, but for the sheep. And so the angels
disdain not to serve God in the guarding of the weakest saints.
As I formerly shewed you from Heb. i. 14. and Psal. xci.
11,12. and xxxiv.7. " The angel of the Lord encampeth round
about them that fear him, and delivereth them. For he giv-
eth his angels charge over us, to keep us in all our ways :
they shall bear us up in their hands, lest we dash our foot
against a stone." Sun and moon, and all the creatures, are
daily employed in our attendance. O how wonderful is the
love of God to his unworthy servants in their advancement !
Remember it when thou art scorning at the servants of the
Lord, or speaking against them, that those poor, those weak
despised Christians, that thou art vilifying, have their ** an-
gels beholding the face of God their Father in the heavens.
Take heed therefore that ye despise not the least of these."
It is the warning of Christ, Matt, xviii. 10. The same bless-
ed spirits that attend the Lord, and see his face in blissful
glory, do attend and guard the meanest of the godly here on
earth. As the same servants use to wait upon the Father
and the children, in the same family, or the bigger children
to help the less.
9. And it is the honour of the godly, that they that are
themselves most honourable, do honour them. To be mag-
nified by a fool, or wicked flatterer, is small honour ; but to
be magnified by the best and wisest men, this is true honour.
We say that honour is in him that giveth it, and not in him
that receiveth it. But it is God himself that honoureth his
saints. It is he that speaketh all these great and wondrous
things of them, which I have hitherto recited. Search the
texts which I have alleged, and try whether it be not he.
And surely to have the God of heaven to applaud a man, and
put honour upon him, and so great honour, is more than if
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 281
all the world had done it. Yet we may add (if any thing
could be considerable that is added unto the approbation of
God), that all his servants, the wisest, and the best, even his
holy angels, are of the same mind, and honour the godly in
conformity to their Lord.
And here Christian, I require thee from the Lord, to con-
sider the greatness of thy sin and folly, when thou art too
desirous of the applause of men, especially of the blind, un-
godly world ; and when thou makest a great matter of their
contempt or scorn, or of their slanderous censures. What !
is the approbation of the eternal God so small a matter in thy
eyes, that the scorn of a fool can weigh it down, or move the
balance with thee? If a feather were put into the scales
against a mountain, or the whole earth, it should weigh as
much as the esteem or disesteem of men, their honouring
thee, or dishonouring thee, should weigh against the esteem
of God, and the honour or dishonour that he puts upon thee
(as to any regard of the thing itself; though as it reflecteth
on God, thou mayst regard it). He is the wise man that God
calls wise ; and he is the fool that God calls fool, (and that
is every one that ** layeth up riches for himself, and is not
rich towards God ;" Luke xii. 20, 2L) He is the happy man
that God calls happy ; and he is a miserable man that God
counts miserable ; and who those are you may see in Psal. i.
and many Scriptures before cited. Hear the words (and you
that are believers lay up the blessed promise) of Christ him-
self, John xii. 26. ** If any man serve me, him will my Father
honour." And who cares then for the dishonours of all the
wicked of the world ? Our " tried faith as more precious
than gold, will be found unto praise, and honour, and glory,
at the appearing of Jesus Christ ;" 1 Pet. i. 7. See 2 Tim.
ii. 2L We must learn therefore to imitate our Lord; and
not to receive our honour from men ; and not to imitate the
wicked " that receive honour one of another, and seek not
the honour that cometh from God." There is enough for us
in God's approbation. And yet all his servants do imitate
their Lord ; and his judgment is their judgment ; and whom
he honoureth, them do they honour ; angels, and saints, and
all that enter into the tabernacle of the Lord, do " contemn the
vile, and honour them that fear the Lord ;" Psal. xv.4. And
though no man's judgment or praise be valuable in compa-
rison of the Lord's, yet the honour and praise that is given
282 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
by the wise and godly, is more than a thousand times as
much from ignorant ungodly men. If the Athenian orator
regarded the censure of Socrates more than of all the rest of
his auditors, we have cause to judge the eulogies of experi
enced holy men a greater honour than of thousands of the
wicked, and greater than all their contempt or scorn is able
to weigh down. The applause of the wicked is ofttimes a
dishonour in wise men's eyes. Was it not Balaam's chiefest
honour to hear from Balak, " I thought to promote thee to
great honour, but the Lord hath kept thee back from honour ;"
Numb. xxiv. 11. The honour that God keepeth a man from
is no honour ; but is an honour to be kept from such honour
by the Lord. Innocent poverty is incomparably more ho-
nourable than riches by iniquity, which is the greatest shame.
10. Lastly, it is unspeakable, everlasting honour that ho-
liness doth tend unto, and which holy men shall enjoy with
God. The very relation of a godly man to his everlasting
glory, is an honour ten thousand times surpassing the ho-
nour of all the kingdoms of the world. If you did but know
that one of your poor neighbours should certainly be a king,
would you not presently honour him, even in his rags ? You
may know that the saints shall reign with Christ, as sure as
if an angel from heaven had told you so, and more ; and
therefore how should a saint be honoured ? If God had but
legibly marked out some among you for salvation, and writ-
ten in their foreheads ' This man shall be saved,' would not
all the parish reverence that man ? Why, a heavenly mind,
and the love of God, self-denial, and holy obedience, are hea-
ven-marks infallible, as true as the Gospel, and written by
the same hand as the Gospel was, I mean by the Spirit of
God himself. If a voice from heaven should speak now of
any person in the congregation, and say, ' This man shall
reign in heaven for ever,' would it not be an honour above all
your worldly honours ? Why, holiness is God's image, and
the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, and beareth wit-
ness with our spirits, that we are the sons of God, and have
the promise, and seals, and oath of God for our certainty ;
yea, and the knowledge of God in Christ is the beginning of
eternal life. And what would we have more ? The presence
of Christ in a little of his glory upon the mount, transported
the three disciples : and the glimpse of the glory of God
which Moses saw, did make his face shine that the Israelites
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 285
could not behold it. The approach of the saints to God in
holy worship here on earth, are exceeding honourable, be-
cause they anticipate of heaven, and it is upward that they
look. " Glory and honour are in his presence : strength and
gladness are in his place." The soul that is beholding God
by faith, and conversing with the heavenly inhabitants, is
quite above all earthly things : and as angels are more ho-
nourable than men, and heaven than earth, so are believers
that converse in heaven with angels, yea with Christ himself
by faith, more honourable than terrestrial carnal men.
But the great honour is behind ; yet near at hand ; when
the promised crown is set upon their heads. O mark the ho-
nour that is promised them by the Lord of truth. The soul
itself before the resurrection of the body, shall be with
Christ ; Phil. i. 23. Even present with the Lord ; 2 Cor. v.
L 8. *' If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where
I am there shall also my servant be ;" John xii. 26. And at
the resurrection Christ that hath " loved the church and gave
himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it will
present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish ;" Eph. v. 25, 26. Will they not be honour-
able even in the eyes of the ungodly world, when they hear
the sentence of their Lord, ** Come, ye blessed of my Fa-
ther, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foun-
dation of the world ;" Matt. xxv. 34. and ver. 23. " En-
ter thou into the joy of thy Lord." When Christ "shall
come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them
that believe ;" Mark here, that it is one end of the coming
of Christ, to be glorified and admired in his saints : " Be-
hold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to ex-
ecute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungod-
ly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have
ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which un-
godly sinners have spoken against him j" Jude 14, 15. " Our
hearts shall be established, unblamable in holiness before
God even our Father at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
with all his saints ;" 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13. We shall then praise
him " that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his
own blood, and made us kings and priests to God ;" Rev.
i.5,6. " He that overcometh shall be clothed with white
raiment, and confessed by Christ before the Father and the
284 A SAINT OR A BRUTE
angels of heaven ;" chap. iii. 5. Yea, he shall be a pillar in
the temple of God, and go out no more : and Christ will
write on him the name of God, and the name of the city of
God, New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from
God, and his own name ;" ver. 12. Yea, he will " grant
to him to sit with him in his throne, as he himself hath
overcome and is set down with his Father in his throne ;"
ver. 21. And he will honour his saints to be judges of an-
gels, and of the world; 1 Cor. vi.2, 3. And "they that over-
come and keep his words unto the end, to them will be given
power over the nations, and they shall rule with a rod of iron,
and break them to shivers as the vessels of a potter ; even as
Christ received of his Father ; and he will give them the
morning star ;" Rev. ii. 26, 27. " He that hath an ear to
hear let him hear" the glorious things that are promised to
the saints. " The high praises of God shall be in their mouths
and the two-edged sword in their hands to execute on
the wicked the judgment written, such honour have all his
saints ;" Psal. cxlix. 6. 9. Then shall we hear the praises of
the heavenly society saying, "We give thee thanks, O
Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come,
because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast
reigned, and the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come,
and the time of the dead that they should be judged, and that
thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets,
and to the saints and them that fear thy name, small and
great, and shouldst destroy them that dwell on the earth.'*
" Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the king-
dom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear ;"
Matt, xiii.43. Yea, " they shall be equal to the angels of
God ;" Luke XX. 36. This is the inheritance of the saints in
light, of which God is now making us meet to be partakers ;
Col. i. 12. If " all that sat in the council against him, saw
Stephen's face as it had been the face of an angel" (Acts vi.
15.), what shall be the glory of the saints when themselves
shall see the face of God, and his name shall be written in
their foreheads ; (Rev. xxii. 4.) when the ungodly world shall
know, that holiness was the most honourable state 7
But perhaps some will say, that ' this language will make
them proud. To tell them that they are the most honoura-
ble persons in the world, is the way to make them the proud-
est persons.'
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 286
To which I give you a manifold answer that your objec-
tion may not have the least pretence that it is unsatisfied.
1. Worldly honours are of a more swelling nature than
heavenly honours ; and yet it would scarcely be taken well,
if this conclusion should pass for current, that the most ho-
nourable are the most proud. For then it would follow that
none are so vile, so like the devil, so unlike God i and so
the princes and nobles of the earth would become the most
despicable persons in the world, and their very honour itself
would be their dishonour, and so no honour. And if world-
ly honours will not warrant you to conclude the persons to
be most proud, much less will the heavenly honour.
2. There is the more need and the less fear of the honour of
the godly, because it is the blessing of a humbled soul. God
casts them down before he lifts them up. It is only the hum-
ble that he exalteth. They feel their sin and misery before
they know their honour. A broken heart hath need of heal-
ing, and a fainting soul is fittest for a cordial. You need
not fear when you refresh the sick, lest it should make them
wanton, as it may do the sound. A comfortable word to
one that is lamenting over the dead, and weeping at a grave,
is not so likely to make them proud, as to others in prospe-
rity. A drooping and discouraged soul is hardly raised high
enough, and kept from sinking. They have had the sentence
past upon them, and have had the rope as it were about their
neck : they have been at the very gates of hell ; they have
seen by faith what work, what woes there are for sin in the
life to come, and therefore thes© souls have need to hear of
their felicity.
3. Moreover, they have a great deal of work to do ; and
their strength and courage is too small ; and the work is such
as flesh and blood cannot away with, much less afford them
sufficient strength for. Such labourers must have encourag-
ing, strengthening food. Their work is such as will keep
them under. God doth not keep his servants idle ; and there-
fore they are in less danger of waxing proud and wanton.
'* They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of
our God f Isa. xxxv. 1 — 4. And why is this foretold them?
" Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble
knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart. Be strong,
fear not ; behold your God will come with vengeance, even
God with a recompence ; he will come and save you ;"
280 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
" Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the fee-
ble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that
which is lame be turned out of the way, l3ut let it rather be
healed;" Heb.xii. 12, 13. We are commanded, IThess.v.
14. as to " warn them that are unruly so to comfort the fee-
ble-minded, and support the weak.'*
4. Moreover, the godly have the greater need of such en-
couragements, because they have much suffering to undergo.
They have all your hatred and scorns to suffer, and all the
adversities of the world, with which their Father shall please
to exercise them. And he that layeth the burden on them,
will give them strength by strengthening means. God's net
hath corks as well as leads. If birds had not feathers as well
as flesh, they would be unable to fly. As Christ himself was
encouraged to endure the contradiction of sinners, and to
" bear the cross, and despise the shame by looking at the joy
that was set before him, and so for the suffering of death was
crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. xii. 2, 3. ii. 9.), so
will he have his people tread in his steps, and take up their
cross and follow him, and deny themselves and all the world;
yet so as to '* look at the recompence of reward, and seek
for glory, honour, and immortality," and by these to be ani-
mated to the work and patience of the saints, as expecting
to be glorified with him, when they have suffered with him ;
Matt. xvi. 24. x. 38. Heb. xi. 26. Rom. ii. 7. viii. 17, 18.
As the angel said to Elijah, 1 Kingsxix.7. " Arise and eat,
because the journey is too great for thee," so God encourag-
ethhis servants by his honours and rewards, because the jour-
ney, the labour, the suffering is too great without such en-
couragement to be cheerfully undergone. And in the strength
of these consolations they bear the cross.
5. The objection is most against the Lord. If it be an
error to honour and extol the godly, as tending to make them
proud, it is God himself that is the owner of it. The words
that I have recited to you are his own words. Do we devise
these sayings ? or do we not shew them you in the Scripture ?
And dare you charge God with error, or encouraging pride ?
Do you think he knew not what he said, when he spake such
honourable things of his servants ? Did he need you to have
taught him to have indited his word, and to have warned him
that he make not his servants proud ! as if he hated not pride
as much as you.
A SA^NT OR A BRUTE. 287
6. Yea, God will do more than this for his servants ; he
will advance them to salvation, and yet he will not make them
proud. There is no pride in heaven, though there be the
greatest glory. The angels are most glorious, and yet least
proud. If you would not wish God to keep men out of hea-
ven lest it make them proud, you should not grudge at his
honouring them on earth, with the mention of their heaven-
ly titles upon that account.
7. The exaltation of the saints is a spiritual exaltation,
which is not so apt to make men proud, as carnal exaltation
is. Charity pufFeth not up, as airy knowledge doth. It is
selfishness that is the life of pride (which consisteth in ex-
cessive self-esteem, and desire of an excessive esteem with
others, and to be magnified by them). And nothing but
grace can subdue this selfishness, and therefore nothing else
can destroy pride.
8. Moreover, the honour of the saints is the less like to
make them proud, because humility is part of the grace that
is bestowed on them. To be proud and holy is to be sick
and well, to be light and dark : they are plain contraries.
No man is proud but for want of holiness ; and therefore that
holiness should efficiently make men proud is impossible,
any more than health can make men sick, or darkness can
be caused by light. And if objectively any be proud of his
holiness, that is but in such a measure as he is unholy. Ho-
liness doth ever mortify pride, and contain humility and self-
denial, as an essential part. All Christ's disciples learn of
him in their measure to be meek and lowly.
9. Let experience try you whether it be not some world-
ly honour, or parts and gifts, that are the much commoner
objects of pride than holiness. I have oft heard talk of men
being proud of their humility and holiness ; but the tempta-
tions of my own soul have comparatively lain but little that
way ; nor have I observed it the common case of others, in
any proportion with other kinds of pride. Riches and ho-
nours, and beauty and dignity, I see people ordinarily proud
of. And I see many proud of counterfeit graces, that have
none that is sincere (as far as may be perceived by others)
to be proud of. And I see many proud of their learning, and
knowledge, and nimble tongues, a hundredfold more than
ever I found true Christians proud of the love of God, and a
heavenly mind. Alas, we have much ado for the most part,
288 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
to discern that we have any of this at all, and to find so much
of it in ourselves as is necessary to our support and thank-
fulness.
10. Lastly, Consider what abundance of means the Lord
hath adjoined as antidotes with his servant's honours to keep
them from being puffed up with pride ; and then tell me whe-
ther you dare charge God with error or want of wisdom in
this thing.
1. The nature and life of holiness consisteth in the souFs
retiring home to God, and adhering to him, and walking as
before him. And there is not a more powerful means in the
world, to keep humble the soul, than the knowledge of God.
O, when a poor sinner hath but any lively apprehensions of
the greatness and glory of the Lord, it amazethhim, and le-
velleth him with the dust, and abaseth him in his own es-
teem, and maketh him say with Job, " Behold I am vile, what
shall I answer thee ? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine
eye seeththee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust
and ashes ;" Job xl. 4 — 6. One glimpse of God were enough
to humble any soul that truly knoweth him. A godly man
hath still to do with that Majesty that continually aweth
him. His heart is with him ; his thoughts are on him ; his
work is with him. It is his word that he read eth, and hear-
eth, and discourseth of, and therefore as his word, with re-
verence and godly fear, as knowing that our God is a con-
suming fire ; Heb. xii. 28, 29. It is God that he prayeth to,
that he meditateth on, and he praiseth, and hath still to do
with. And therefore no wonder if he walk humbly with so
holy and great a God.
2. The sin and misery that once they were in, while they
knew not God, will do much to keep humble a gracious soul
as long as they live. Though God so forget our sins as to
forgive them, yet we can scarce forgive ourselves, or at least
can never forget them. Though he see no sin in his servants
as he seeth it in the world, nor so as to hate and condemn
them for it ; yet they see that once they were as bad as the
world, and were children of wrath as well as others. They
condemn themselves when God doth justify them ; and set
their sins before their faces, which God doth cast behind his
back. O, those dark, those ungrateful, and those perilous
days, will never be forgotten by the renewed soul I The
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 289
thoughts of them shall ever keep us humble. When we look
on the wicked, misjerable world, to think that such were ma-
ny of us, though mercy have washed, and sanctified, and jus-
tified us.
3. Moreover, God hath so contrived the way of their sal-
vation, that they shall have all by a Redeemer, and by most
free grace, and none shall be justified by the works of the
law, nor by any merit of his own ; but boasting is excluded
by the law of faith ; Rom. iii. 19. 27, 28. And we shall have
nothing but what we receive besides and contrary to our de-
sert.
4. And alas too much corruption still remaineth in us.
We have " flesh that fighteth against the Spirit ;" Rom. vii.
24. Gal. V. 17. " We know but in part," and love God but
in part, and serve him with such constant weakness, that
these things are usually such humbling matters to a graci-
ous soul, that were it not for the Comforter, they would be
unable to look up. O to feel how dark we are ! how far from
God ! how strange to heaven ! how little we believe, and
know, and love ! these are humbling thoughts indeed to a
soul that is acquainted with itself. No poverty, beggary, or
the reproach in the world, would be so humbling to them.
To find such remnants of that odious sin, that cost them
dear, and had cost them dearer, if it had not cost their Lord
so dear, this is constant matter of humiliation.
5. And too often do their corruptions get advantage of
them, and produce some actual sin, of thought, word, or
deed : and this also must be grievous to them.
6. The very bodily infirmities of believers are a constant
help to keep them humble. They have all this " treasure but
in earthen vessels;" 2Cor.iv. 7. Their souls are here so
poorly lodged in corruptible tabernacles of earth, and so
meanly clothed with frail, diseased, mortal flesh, that it is
madness to be proud.
7. And the many and great afflictions of the godly, are
medicines that are purposely given them by their Physician
to cure pride, and keep them humble. Why else must their
sufferings be so many ? and why must they daily bear the
cross ? but that they may be conformed to the image of
Christ.
8. And to the same end it is that God doth let loose upon
VOL. X. u
290 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
them so many enemies. All satan's temptations and the
world's allurements and vexations, and all their disappoint-
ments here, and all the scorns and mocks of the ungodly,
and the censures and slanders of wicked tongues, and often
bitter persecutions, what are they but the bitter medicines
of God (permitted and ordered by him, though caused by
the devil and wicked men), to save the servants of the Lord
from the sin and danger of being lifted up ? Do you say,
that their honour will make them proud ? Why, you that
thus oppose them and despise them, are curing them of their
pride, and do not know it; as scullions scour the rust off the
vessels for their master's use ; and as leeches draw out the
blood that causeth the disease ; and as the Jews by their sin
promoted the redemption of the world by the death of Christ.
When God seeth his servants in danger of being lifted up
above measure, he oft sendeth a messenger of satan (who
may be an executioner of God's chastisements) to buffet
them (2 Cor. xii. 7.), sometimes by slanders, sometimes by
reproaches, sometimes by imprisonments, or greater suffer-
ings, and sometimes by horrid troublesome temptations.
9. The very foresight of death itself is a humbling means,
and the last enemy death is yet unconquered, and our bodies
must corrupt in dust and darkness, and be kept in the grave
as common earth, till the resurrection, that the soul may not
grow proud that hath such a body.
10. And the day of judgment is so described to us in
the Scripture, as tends to keep the soul in awe and in humi-
lity. To think of such a day, and such a reckoning, before
such a God, methinks should humble us.
11. And our absolution and glorification at that day, is
promised us now but conditionally, (though God will see
that the condition be performed by all that he will save.)
And therefore the poor soul i,s oft so far to seek about the
certain sincerity of his own faith and repentance, that most
of the godly are kept in fears and doubtings to the death.
Yea, and humility and self-denial are part of this condition ;
and all their honour and glory with Christ is promised to the
humble only. Humility is commanded them in the precept ;
humility is it that they are exhorted to by the ministers ;
and pride is threatened with everlasting wrath, and describ-
ed as the devil's image. So that holiness hath all the ad-
vantages against pride that can be here expected.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 291
12. To conclude; the godly know that as they have no-
thing but from God, so they have nothing but for God : so
that their own honour is for him, more than for themselves 5
and it is essential to their holiness, to make God their end,
and set him highest, and refer all to his pleasure and glory.
So that you see now that we may honour them that fear the
Lord (Psal. cxv, 4.), without being guilty of making them
proud, and that we must not deny them the honour that God
hath given them as their due, for fear of their being proud
of it. Though this, as all things else, must be prudently
managed to particular persons, according to their various
states.
And therefore let me here warn all you that profess the
fear of God : take heed lest you be proud of any thing that
God hath honoured you with ; for if you be, you see what
an army of reasons and means you sin against ; and conse-
quently how great your sin will be. And your consciences
and the world shall be forced to justify God and his holy
ways, and to prove against you, that it was not long of them
that you were proud, and that none in the world was more
against it than God and holiness ; and that it was not be-
cause you were so religious, but because you were no more
religious. And if pride of knowledge, gifts, or whatsoever,
be unmortified in you, it will certainly prove that you are
none of the sanctified ; when your profession of sanctity will
never prove that sanctity was a cause or confederate in your sin.
And now I have shewed you the honour of godliness, let
us briefly (and but briefly,) consider of your honour that re-
ject it, and see then whether the godly or ungodly are more
honourable.
1. Ungodly men have the basest master in the world.
Would you know who ? Let Christ be judge ; " Ye are of
your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will
do ;" John viii. 44. They are " taken captive by the devil
at his will" (2 Tim. ii. 26.) ; that is, to do his will. It is he
that stirreth you up to filthy talking, to speak against godli-
ness, to curse and swear, and you do his will. His will is that
you should neglect a holy life, and you do his will. His will is
that you live not after the Spirit, but after the flesh, and you
do his will. O poor souls ! do you think it is only witches
that expressly covenant with him, that are his miserable ser-
292 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
vants ? Alas ! it is you also, if you do his will. For (if you
will believe either God or common reason) ** to whom you
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to
whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience
unto righteousness;" Rom. vi. 16. The godly themselves
were the servants of sin, till they " obeyed from the heart
the doctrine of the Lord," ver. 17. And are you not come
to fair preferment, to be the devil's drudges ? Though he
should clothe your bodies with purple and fine linen, and
feed you sumptuously every day, yet indeed you are no bet-
ter, as the case of that miserable man may tell you, Luke
xvi. It is the greatest baseness to have so base a master.
2. And it is but an ignoble, base design that the ungod-
ly carry on in the world. What is it but to provide for, and
please their flesh? It aimeth at nothing beyond this life.
And a beast can eat, and drink, and sleep, and play, and sa-
tisfy his lust, as much as they, A swine can carry a mouth
full of straw to his lodging, and a bird can build a nest for
her young ones. And what do ungodly men more in the
world, whether gentlemen or beggars, the flattered gallants
or the poor day-labourers, if they be not such as first seek
heaven, and live to God, what do they but make a pudder in
the world, about a little dirt or smoke? and find themselves
somewhat to do that is next to nothing, instead of that for
which they were created? and busy themselves about no-
thing till their time is gone, and the night is come when
none can work? If you would judge of a man's designs,
foresee his attainments. If you can tell what end it is that
they come to, you may know how to judge of their inten-
tions and their course. Their corpses, you know have no
greater a happiness, (after a few foolish merry hours) than
to lie in the earth as filth or dust. You can see no honour
attained there. It is a child indeed that thinks a gilded
monument over a rotten carcase, is any great matter of ho-
nour or benefit to it. And if you look after the soul, (by
the prospective of the word of God,) alas, it goeth to far
greater dishonour. And is this it that worldlings make
such a stir for ?
3. The work also that they are employed in, is like the
design. Sin, which is the basest thing in the world, is their
employment. The work of a scullion, or the basest honest
trade you can imagine, is a thousand times less dishonoura-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 293
ble than sin. Yet flattered gallants believe not this, when
they can please their flesh without losing the reputation of
worthy gentlemen ! Nor will our common ungodly people
be persuaded of it, that are more ashamed to be found pray-
ing than sinning, and to be called Puritan than a good fel-
low or a swearer j and that think they are as good men as
others, when up to the ears in the drudgery of the devil : as
if the filth of sin were no dishonour to them, which nothing
but the Spirit and blood of Christ is able to wash out.
These are the men that Paul mentioneth with weeping, that
mind earthly things, " whose god is their belly, and who
glory in their shame;" Phil. iii. 18.
4. Moreover, it is a base disposition that ungodly men
are possessed with. Though their natures are essentially
noble, as being the work of God, and capable of most glo-
rious things ; yet have they made them dispositively vile :
they are fleshlyminded, earthlyminded, ignorant of heavenly
things, not savouring the things of the Spirit, but like the
serpent, crawling on earth, and feeding on the dust. Grass
is sweeter to a horse than junkets ; and a little money or
vainglory is sweeter to a fleshly mind than God and glory,
and all the treasures of saints and angels. A swine never
thinks of God or heaven, but of his draff" and sty. Ease, and
good cheer, and money, and the flattery of men, are the god
and the heaven of sensual men. And are not these men of
base, dishonourable spirits ? Unworthy men ! might you
liave an everlasting life, and will you prefer a few days flesh-
ly pleasure? As sure as you may know the baseness of a
swine or dog by what they feed upon, so surely may you
know the baseness of a carnal mind, by the baseness of its
desires and delights.
5. It is also a base society that ungodly men are mem-
bers of. They are in the " kingdom of darkness ;" Col. i..
13. Acts xxvi. 18. And are " dead in sin, in which they
walk according to the course of the world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience, among whom they have their
conversation ;'* Eph.ii. 1 — 3. Devils are their invisible com-
panions, and wicked men their visible ; but they have none
of the presence and favour of the Lord, nor any communion
with him in the Spirit.
6, The greatest dishonour of the ungodly is, that the God
294 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
of heaven ref'useth to honour them; yea, he despiseth them,
yea he dishonoureth them with the most contemptuous titles.
And certainly God knoweth what he saith of them ; and it
is impossible that he should do them wrong. Yet doth he call
them the seed of the serpent, that stand at enmity with his
flock ; Gen. iii. 15. He calls them his enemies, and accord-
ingly will use them ; Luke xix. 27. He calls them dogs and
swine, and the children of the devil; Johnviii.44. Matt,
vii. 6. They dishonour and despise him, and he will disho-
nour and despise them, and hath resolved that their very
names shall rot ; Prov. x. 7.
7. But it is the everlasting shame that will tell us what
was the honour of the ungodly. When Christ shall be
ashamed of them before his Father and the heavenly angels
(Matt. viii. 38.), and shall tell them that he never knew them ;
Matt. vii. 23. When all their former pomp and splendour
will be turned into perpetual shame and sorrows, then where
is the honour of the ungodly world? Where then are their
flatterers ? Who boweth to them, and calleth them Right
Honourable and Right Worshipful any more ? Where now are
their sumptuous houses and attendance ? Now they have
other kind of servitors, and other language, and other usage
than they had on earth. And the poor wretches that storm-
ed at a faithful minister for foretelling these woeful changes
to them, and speaking so dishonourably of them, as to tell
them of their sin, are at last saying a hundredfold worse of
themselves, than ever we did say against them. Then they
shall need none to call them fools, and vile, and wretches,
but their own consciences, that will speak it out, and speak
it again ten thousand times, and never be bribed to forbear.
O how base a despicable generation will the ungodly then
be (that now speak so stoutly and look so high) when God
shall everlastingly frown them into contempt and misery, and
the glorified saints shall look down upon them without com-
passion, even praising the justice that for ever doth torment
them ! Then let the kings and nobles of the earth maintain
their ancient honours if they can. Or let them take com-
fort in the remembrance of their former dreams, and try whe-
ther this will be to them instead of a drop of water.
Well, sirs, I have faithfully told you from the word of
God, of the honour of the godly, and the baseness of the un-
godly, that you may be. resolved, which is the better part
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 295
If yet you will not see, you shall see and be ashamed ; Isa.
XX vi. 1 1. When you have heard your last and dreadful doom,
and seen the Lord make up his jewels ; "then shall you dis-
cern between the righteous and the wicked ; between him
that serveth God, and him that serveth him not ;" Mai. iii.
17, 18.
CHAPTER X.
Holiness is the most Pleasant way.
I HAVE proved beyond all reasonable contradiction that ho-
liness is the safe, the honest, the profitable, and the honour-
able state and course. But my hardest task is yet to be
done ; and that is, to prove it the most pleasant way. And
the difficulty of this is not at all from the matter, but from
the persons with whom I have to do. For nothing is plea-
sant unto men but what is suitable to their natures, and ap-
prehended by them to be for their good, or in itself more ex-
cellent than their good. That is pleasant to one man that
is loathsome to another. As the food and converse is de-
lightful to a beast, that is loathsome and as bad as death to
man, so one man's pleasure is another's pain. Even about
the common matters of this life, variety of complexions, edu-
cations, customs, and dispositions, doth cause a variety of
affections ; the difference between the sanctified and un-
sanctified, the spiritual and the carnal mind, doth cause a
greater contrariety. If therefore the error of wicked minds,
or the distemper of your souls, do make the best things seem
the worst, and the sweetest things to seem most bitter, this
is no confutation of my argument, that proves the way of
godliness most pleasant. If I would prove that wine is
pleasanter than vinegar, or bread than dirt or ashes, I mean
not to appeal to the appetites of the sick; it is the sound and
healthful that must be judges. If a man will suffer his mind
to be possessed with prejudice and base thoughts of God
himself, no wonder if he cannot love him, nor take any de-
light in him.
296
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
And if men have a malignant enmity to godliness, no rea-
son will persuade them that it is most pleasant, but what
persuades them from that enmity. No reason will persuade
a slothful person that labour is better than sleep and idle-
ness ; no reason will persuade a drunkard, glutton, or volup-
tuous wretch, that abstinence and continence are the sweet-
est life. Could we change their hearts, we should change
their pleasures. Such as men are, such are their delights.
But the thing that I undertake, is, to manifest to any com-
petent discerner, that holiness is the most pleasant course ;
and that all the pleasures of the earth are nothing to the plea-
sures which the godly find in God, and in a holy life. And
if any be not of this mind, it is because his soul's diseases
have made him an incompetent judge. And that godliness
is the most pleasant state of life, will appear to you, I. From
the nature of the thing itself. II. From the encouragements
and helps with which it is attended. Ill, From the eflfects
and fruits.
I. The nature of holiness is to be found, i. In the un-
derstanding. II. In the will and affections. And in. In the
practice of men's lives. And in all these I shall shew you
that it is the most delightful course.
I. Knowledge in itself is a pleasant thing to human na-
ture. Ignorance is the blindness of the soul. It is not so
pleasant for the eye to behold the sun, as for the mind of
man to discern the truth. To know good and evil had ne-
ver been the matter of so strong a temptation to Adam, if
knowledge had not been very desirable to innocent nature.
How hard do many even ungodly persons study to know the
mysteries of nature. And nothing hath more strongly tempt-
ed some wretches to witchcraft or contracts with the devil,
tlian a desire of knowing unrevealed things, which by his
means they have hoped to attain. A studious man hath far
more natural, valuable delight in his reading and successful
studies, than a voluptuous epicure hath in his sensual de-
lights.
But it is a special kind of knowledge that holiness doth
(initially) consist in, which transcendeth in true pleasure all
the common wisdom of the world. For,
1 . How pleasant a thing must it needs be to know things
of so high a nature ! To know the Almighty, living God ;
to behold his wisdom, goodness, and power, in his glorious
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 297
works ; to be led to him by all the creatures, and hear of
him by every providence, and find his holy, blessed name in
every leaf of his sacred word ; how sweet and pleasant a
thing is this ! To know the Divine nature, persons, attri-
butes, and will ; to know the mystery of the incarnation, of
the person, nature, undertaking, performance of the bless-
ed Mediator, Jesus Christ ; to know his birth, his life, temp-
tations, conquests, his righteousness, his holy doctrine and
example, the law and promise, the law of nature and the co-
venant of grace ; the sufferings, resurrection, ascension, glo-
rification, and intercession of our Lord ; to know his king-
dom, laws, and government, and his judgment, with his re-
wards and punishments ; to know the sanctifying works of
the Holy Ghost, by which we are prepared for everlasting
life ; and to know that life (though but by faith) for which
we are here prepared ; how high and pleasant a thing is this!
If it be pleasant to know the course of nature, in those high-
er parts that are above the vulgar reach, what is it to know
the God of nature, and the true use and end of nature ?
What high things doth the poorest Christian know ! He
knoweth the things that are invisible.
Think not that faith is so void of evidence as not to de-
serve the name of knowledge. We know the things which
we do believe. Nicodemus could say from the evidence of
miracles, " We know that thou art a teacher come from God ;
for no man could do these miracles that thou dost, except
God be with him ;" John iii. 2. " We know that God spake
to Moses" (chap. ix. 29), say the Jews. We know that the
Scripture testimony is true ; chap. xxi. 24. " We know (even
by believing) that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens ;" 2 Cor. v. 1. " We know that
when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is;" 1 John iii. 2. " At that day ye shall know that
I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you ;" chap. xiv.
20. We know that no whoremonger or such like shall in-
herit eternal life ; Eph. v. 5. We know that our " labour is
not in vain in the Lord ;" 1 Cor. xv. 58. Many such pas-
sages of Scripture tell us, that faith is a certain knowledge,
and that invisible things revealed by God are certainly known.
We know what saints and angels are now doing in the high-
est heavens ; for God hath told us. We know the most high
298 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and glorious things revealed by God, which we never saw.
And is not the pleasure of such knowledge greater than the
pleasure of all the wealth, the honour, and sensual enjoy-
ments in this world ! I durst almost refer the case to one of
you that are most befooled by your own sensuality. If you
could go to-morrow and meet with a soul from heaven, or
with an angel, that could tell you what becomes of souls, and
what is done in another world, would you not rather go to
such a conference, than go as far to a drinking, or a bowling,
or some such recreation? I think you would, if it were but
to satisfy your curiosity and desire of knowing. Why then
should not the servants of Christ more delight in the read-
ing and hearing the words of Christ, that came from the bo-
som of the Father, that hath seen God, and is with God, and
is God himself, thattelleth them more certainly of the invi-
sible things than any saints or angels can tell them? Why
should not this, I say, be sweeter to them than all the flesh-
ly pleasures in the world ? O that I could know more of
God, and more of the mystery of redemption, even of an obe-
dient, crucified, glorified Christ ; and more of the invisible
world, and of the blessed state of souls, on condition I left
all the pleasures of this world to sensual men ! O that I had
more clear and firm apprehensions of these transcendent,
glorious things ! How easily could I spare the pleasures of
the flesh, and leave those husks to swine to feed on! O
could my soul get nearer to God, and be more irradiated with
his heavenly beams, my mind would need no other recrea-
tion, and I should as little relish carnal pleasures, as carnal
minds do relish the heavenly delights. As earthly things are
poor and low, so is the knowledge of them. As things spi-
ritual and heavenly are high and glorious, mysterious and
profound, the knowledge of them is accordingly delightful.
" And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,
seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory ;'' 1 Tim. iii, 16. " Faith is the
evidence of things not seen ;" Heb. xi. 1. It is far more plea-
sant by faith to see the Lord, than to see any creature by the
eye of flesh ; and sweeter by faith to see heaven opened, and
there behold our glorified Lord, than to see a horse-race, or
stage-play, or any of the fooleries of the world.
2. The knowledge of things to come is specially desired.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. WD
and godliness containeththat faith which knoweth things to
come. How glad would men be to be told what shall befal
them to the last hour of their lives ! The woman of Samaria
(John iv.) called out her neighbours with admiration to see
Christ, as one that had told her all that she had done. But
if he had told her all that ever she would do, for the time to
come, and all that ever should befal her, it might have as-
tonished her much more. Believers know what hath been,
even before the world was made, and how it was made, and
what hath been since then, and they know what will be to all
eternity. A true believer knows from Scripture, whither
men's souls go after death, and how their bodies shall be
raised again, and how Christ will come to judge the world,
and who shall then be justified, and who shall be condemn-
ed ; and what shall be the case of the godly and the ungod-
ly to all eternity. And is it not more pleasure to know these
things, than to possess all the vain delights of the earth ?
Can the flesh afford you any thing so delightful ?
3. Especially, it is desirable and pleasant to know those
things that most concern us. Needless speculations and
curiosities we can spare. There is a knowledge that brings
more pain than pleasure ; yea, there is a knowledge that will
torment. But to know our own affairs, our greatest and most
necessary affairs ; to know our threatened misery to prevent
it, and to know our offered happiness to attain it ; to know
our portion, our honour, our God, what can be more plea-
sant to the mind of man I Other men's matters we can pass
by. But to know such things concerning our own souls as
what we must be and do for ever, and what course we must
take to be everlastingly happy, must needs be a feast to the
mind of a wise man. Ask but a soul that is haunted with
temptations to unbelief, whether any thing would be more
welcome to him, than the clear and satisfying apprehensions
of a lively faith ? Ask one that lieth in tears and groans,
through the feeling of their sin, and the fears of the wrath of
God, and doubtings of his love, whether the satisfying know-
ledge of pardon and reconciliation, and divine acceptance,
would not be more pleasant to them, than any of your mer-
riments can be to you? Ask that poor soul that hath lost
the apprehension of his evidences of grace, and walks in
darkness, and hath no light, that seeks, and cries, and per-
ceives no hearing whether the discovery of his evidences.
300 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the assurance that his prayers are accepted, and the light of
God's countenance shining on him, would not be better to
him than any recreation, or any pleasure the earth affords ?
Ask any man at the hour of death, that is not a block.
Whether now the knowledge of his salvation would not be
better and more pleasant to him, than all the lust, or sport,
or honours of the world.
4. The knowledge of the best and most joyful matters
must be the best and most pleasant knowledge. And no-
thing can be better than God and glory. Nothing can be
sweeter than salvation ; and therefope this must be the sweet-
est knowledge. I had rather have the pleasure of one hour's
clear and lively knowledge of my salvation, and of the spe-
cial love of God, than to be exalted above the greatest prince,
and to have all the pleasures that my senses can desire.
The delights of the flesh are base and brutish, and nothing
to the spiritual, heavenly delights of the renewed mind.
5. The manner of our holy knowledge maketh it more de-
lightful. 1. It is a certain and infallible knowledge. It is
not a ' may be,' or bare possibility. It is not, * It is possi-
ble there may be a heaven and happiness hereafter.' But it
is as true as the word of God is true. We have his own
hand, and seal, and earnest for it. Even his precious pro-
mises, and oath, confirmed by miracles, and fulfilled prophe-
cy, and bearing his own image and superscription, and shin-
ing to us by its own light. We have in our hearts the spi-
rit which is God's earnest, by which we are sealed up to the
day of our final full redemption. And if the soul yet stag-
ger at the promise of God through the remnants of unbelief,
that shall not make the promise of God of none effect ; but
his foundation shall still stand sure. His word shall not
pass till all be fulfilled, though heaven and earth shall pass
away. A message by one that were sent to us from the dead,
were not more credible than the word of God. And this
certainty of holy faith and knowledge is a very great con-
tentment to the soul. When the glory of the saints is a thing
as sure as if we saw it with our eyes, and as sure as these
things which we daily see, it is a great pleasure to the soul,
when it can but apprehend this joyful certainty.
2. And that there is a certain easiness and plainness in
the great and necessary points of faith, as to the manner of
revelation, doth add much to Faith's satisfaction and delight.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 301
The points that life and death lie on, are not left so obscure
as might perplex us, lest we did not know the meaning of
them. But they are so plain, that he that runs may read
them; and the simple, that are but honesthearted, may cer-
tainly understand them. Which quiets, and pleaseth, and
satisfies the mind.
3. And yet there is an exciting difficulty in many things,
that are offered to our knowledge, which doth but make our
holy studies the more delightful. If the word of God were
so plain and obvious to all, that it might be all understood
at the first reading, the plainness would bring our sacred
knowledge into contempt, as being an easy, common thing.
Things common and easily got are little set by. But when
the plainness is such as may prevent our despair and dissa-
tisfaction, and yet the difficulty such, that it may hold us in
study, and prevent our contempt, it makes the most delight-
ful knowledge. It is pleasant to find some daily addition to
our light, and to be on the gaining and thriving hand, and
this upon our diligent search. Successes are as pleasant as
a present fulness of supplies. The daily blessing of God
upon our studies, and humble learning, addeth to our de-
light. So that all this set together, may shew you hoW plea-
sant a thing it is to have the knowledge of a saint.
Especially if you add that he hath an experimental, and
so a sweeter knowledge than the most learned men have that
are ungodly. He hath tasted that the Lord is gracious, and
he hath tasted the sweetness of his love, and of all the riches
of his grace in Christ, and of his full and precious promises,
and of the inward powerful workings of his spirit. His ex-
perimental knowledge is the most delightful knowledge.
The pleasure of natural knowledge is great, but the plea-
sure of saving knowledge is much greater. I do not believe
that ever any of the ambitious troublers of the world, that let
go heaven that they may rule on earth, have half the pleasure
in their greatness and usurped dignities, as an honest student
hath in his book, and studious exercises and successes. But
if you compare the pleasures of their greatness and com-
mands with the pleasure of a true believing soul, in his life
of faith, and sweet forethoughts of his heavenly inheritance,
[ must plainly tell you that we disdain the comparison.
Again I say, that if you will compare the drunkard's, the for-
nicator's, or the ambitious or covetous man's delight, with
302 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the solace that I find in my retired studies, even about na-
tural common things, I disdain the comparison. But if you
compare their pleasure with that little, alas too little plea-
sure that I find in the believing thoughts of life eternal, I do
not only disdain your comparison, but detest it.
Were I minded to be long, I would shew you from these
twelve particular instances, the abundant pleasure of holy
knowledge.
1. What a pleasant thing it is to know the Lord, the eter-
nal God, in his blessed attributes ! The most dim, glimmer-
ing knowledge of God is better than the clearest knowledge
of all the mysteries of nature.
2. How pleasant is it to know the works of his creation!
How, and why, and when he made the world, and all that is
therein !
3. How pleasant is it to know the blessed Son of God,
and to behold the face of his Father's love that is revealed
in him as his fullest image !
4. How pleasant is it to know the law and Gospel, the
matter and the method, the literal and spiritual sense ; to
see there the mind and will of God, and to see our charter
for the heavenly inheritance ; and read the precepts, and the
promises, and the examples of the faith and patience of the
saints !
5. How pleasant is it to know the heavenly operations of
the Holy Ghost, and the nature and action of his several
graces, and the uses of every one of them to our souls ; and
especially to find them in ourselves, and to be skilled in
using them !
6. How pleasant is it to know the nature and frame of the
church of Christ which is his body, and to know the diflTer-
ence and use of the several members ! To understand the
office of the ministry, and why Christ hath set them in the
church, and how much love he hath manifested therein ; that
they should preach to us, and offer us reconciliation in his
name and stead (2 Cor. v. 19.), and marry us unto Christ in
baptism, receiving us in his name into the church and holy
covenant ; and that in his name and stead they should de-
liver us his body and blood, and absolve the penitent sinner
from his sins, and deliver him a sealed pardon, and receive
the returning, humbled soul into the church of Christ, and
communion of his saints.
i
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 303
7. How pleasant is it to know the nature and use of all
Christ's ordinances. The excellencies of his holy word ; the
use of baptism, and the refreshing, strengthening use of the
supper of the Lord ; the use and benefit of holy prayer, and
praises, and thanksgiving, and church order, and all parts of
the communion of the saints !
8. Yea, there is a holy pleasure in knowing our very sin
and folly. When God bringeth a sinner to himself, though
his sin be odious to him, yet to know the sin is pleasant ; and
therefore he prayeth that God would shew him the bottom of
his heart, and the most secret or odious of his sins.
9. And it is pleasant to a Christian to know his duty.
It very much quieteth and delighteth his mind, when he can
but know what is the will of God. When the way of duty
is plain before him, how cheerfully can he go on, whatever
meets him ! and how easy doth it make his labour and his
suffering !
10. Yea, it is pleasant to a believer to understand his
very danger. Though the danger itself be dreadful to him,
yet to know it, that he may avoid it, is his desire, and his
delight.
11. And how pleasant is it to understand all the helps,
encouragements, and comforts, that God hath provided for
us, in our way ! and how many more are for us, than against
us !
12. But above all, how pleasant is it to know by faith,
the life that we must live with God for ever, and what he will
do for us to all eternity, in the performance of his holy cove-
nant!
I do but briefly name these instances of delightful know-
ledge, which are sweeter to the holy soul than all the plea-
sures of sin to the ungodly. Do you think that any of you
hath such solid pleasure in your sins, as David had in the
law of God, when he meditated in it with such delight, and
faith. " How sweet is it to my mouth ! even sweeter than
the honey and the honeycomb." Surely you dare not com-
pare with him in pleasures.
II. Another part of holiness that is pleasant in the na-
ture of it, is that which is subjected in the heart and affec-
tions. And here is the chiefest of its sweetness and de-
lights.
1. The very compliance of the will with the will of God,
304 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and its conformity to his law, doth carry a quieting plea^iure
in it. That soul is most happy that is nearest God, and
most like him ; and that soul may well be fullest of delights
that is most happy. And that soul is nearest and most like
unto God, whose will is most conformed to his will. The
trouble of the heart is its unsettledness, when it is not bot-
tomed on the will of God. When we feel that God's will'
doth rule and satisfy us, and that we would fain be what he
would have us be, and rest in his disposing will, as well as
obey his commanding will, this gives abundant pleasure and
quietness to the soul.
2. The holy workings of charity in the soul, are exceed-
ing pleasant. All the acts of love to God and man are very
sweet. This is the holy work, that is its wages.
1. The love of God is so sweet an exercise, that verily,
my soul had rather be employed in it with sense and vigour,
than to be lord of all the earth. O could I but be taken up
with the love of God, how easily could I spare the pleasure
of the flesh ! Might I but see the loveliness of my dear Crea-
tor, with a clearer view, and- see his glory in his noble works ;
might I but see and feel that saving love which he hath ma-
nifested in the Redeemer, till my soul were ravished and fill-
ed with his love, how little should I care who had the plea-
sures of this deceitful world ! Had I more of that blessed
Spirit of adoption, and more of those filial affections to my
heavenly Father, which his unutterable love bespeaks ; and
were I more sensible of his abundant mercy, and did my soul
but breathe and long after him more earnestly, I would pity
the miserable tyrants of the world, that are worse than beg-
gars while they domineer, and taste not of that kingdom of
love and pleasure that dwelleth in my breast. All the plea-
sures of the world are the laughing of a madman, or the
sports of a child, or the dreams of a sick man, in comparison
of the pleasures of the love of God.
2. And the love of holiness, the image of God hath its
degree of pleasure. And so hath the love of the holy ser-
vants of the Lord. There is a sweetness in the soul in its
goings out after any holy object, in spiritual love. Yea,
more, our very common love of men, and our love of ene-
mies, hath its proportion of pleasure, far better than the sen-
sual pleasure of the ungodly. To feel so much of the ope-
rations of grace, and to answer our holy pattern, in loving
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 305
them that hate us, doth give much ease and pleasure to the
mind. The exercises of love to God and man, and that for
his sake, are the exceeding pleasure of a gracious soul.
And here by the way, you may take notice of one reason
why hypocrites and ungodly men find no such sweetness in
the exercises of religion ; because they let alone the inward
pleasant work of love, which is the soul and life of outward
duty. This inward work is the pleasant work ; while they
are strangers unto this, their outward duties will be but a
toil, and seem a drudgery or a wearisome employment.
3. There is a pleasure even in holy desires : when a Chris-
tian feeleth his heart enlarged, in longing after the welfare of
the church and the good of others. Though the absence of
the thing desired be a trouble, yet the exercise of a holy de-
sire (which is an act of love) is pleasant to us. If the lust-
ful have a pleasure in their vile desire, and the ambitious and
the covetous have a pleasure in their vain and delusory de-
sires, the wise, well-guided desires of a true believer must
needs be pleasant.
4. Especially when desire is accompanied with hope.
All the pleasures of this world are far short of affording that
rest and quiet to the soul, as the hope of glory doth to the
believer. O happy soul that is acquainted by experience,
with the lively hopes of the everlasting happiness ! It is not
the hope of corruptible riches, nor of a fading inheritance,
but of the crown thatfadeth not, and of the precious, certain
durable treasure ! It is not a hope in the promise of deceit-
ful man, but in the word of the everlasting God ! The soul
that hath this anchor, needs not be tossed with those fears
and cares, and anxieties of mind, that worldly men are sub-
ject to. This hope will never make them ashamed. If a
man were in a consumption, or sentenced to death, would not
the hopes of life, upon certain grounds, be more pleasant to
him, than sport or mirth, or lustful objects, or any such pre-
sent sensitive delights ? Much more if, with the hopes of
life, he had the hopes of all the felicities of life, and of the
perpetuity of all these. O may I but be enabled by faith to
lift up the eye of my soul to God, and view the everlasting
mansions, and by hope to take possession of them, and say.
All this is mine in title, even upon the promise of the faithful
God ! What greater pleasure can my soul possess, till it en-
ter on the full possession of those eternal pleasures ! O poor
VOL. X. X
306 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
deluded, worldly men ! What is the pleasure of your wealth
to this? O brutish sinners ! What is the pleasure of your
mirth and jollity, your meat and drink, your pride and bra-
very, your lust and filthiness, in comparison of this ? O poor
ambitious, dreaming men, that make such a stir for the ho-
nour and greatness of this world ! What is the pleasure of
your idol-honour, and short vainglory in comparison of this?
While you have it, you have no hope of keeping it ; you are
troubled with the thought of leaving it. Had we no higher
hopes than yours, how miserable should we be !
5. The trust and repose of the soul on God, which is ano-
ther part of the life of grace, is exceeding pleasant and
quieting to the soul. To find that we stand upon a rock,
and that under us are the everlasting arms, and that we have
so full security for our salvation as the promise and oath of
the immutable God, what a stay, what a pleasure is this to
the believer ! The troubles of the godly are most from the
remnants of their unbelief. The more they believe, the more
they are comforted and established. The life of faith is a
pleasant life. Faith could not conquer so many enemies,
and carry us through so much suffering and distress, as you
find in that cloud of testimonies, Heb. xi. if it were not a
very comfortable work. Even we that see not the salvation
ready to be revealed, may yet greatly rejoice, for all the ma-
nifold temptations, that for a season make us subject to some
heaviness; 1 Pet. i. 5, 6. And we " that see not Jesus Christ,
yet believing can love him, and rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory ;" ver. 8. The God of hope doth some-
times "fill his servants with all joy and peace in believing,
and makes them even abound in hope through the power of
the Holy Ghost ;" Rom. xv. 13.
6. Yea, joy is itself a part of the holy qualification of the
saints, and of the renewed state that grace hath brought
them into. " For the kingdom of God as it consisteth in
righteousness, so in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost ;" Rom.
xiv. 17. Believers *' receive not the spirit of bondage again
to fear ;" that is, they are not under the bondage of the law,
nor have the spirit or state of mind which is suited to those
legal impositions and terrible comminations, but they " have
received the Spirit of adoption by which they cry, Abba, Fa-
ther ;" that is, as they are brought under a more gracious
dispensation, and a better covenant and promises, and God
A SAINT OR A BHUTE. 307
is revealed to them in the Gospel as a reconciled father
through his Son, so doth he treat them more gently as recon-
ciled children, and the Spirit which answereth this gracious
covenant^ and is given us thereupon, doth qualify us v<rith a
childlike disposition, and cause us, with boldness, love
and confidence, to call God Father, and fly to him for
succour and supply in all our dangers and necessities. And
how pleasant it must be to a believing soul, to have this Spi-
rit of adoption, this childlike love and confidence, and free-
dom with the Lord, me thinks you might conjecture though
it is sensibly known by them only that enjoy it. " The fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, &c. (Gal. v. 22.), when the
word is first received by believers, though it may be in much
affliction, through the persecutions and cross that attend the
Gospel, yet is it ordinarily " in the joy of the Holy Ghost ;
1 Thess. i. 6. The Holy Ghost is the comforter of true be-
lievers. And if he have taken it upon him as his work, he
will surely do it, in the degree and season fittest for them.
And if joy itself be part of the state of grace and holiness,
you may see that it is the most delightful, pleasant course.
7. Yea, that we may have a pleasant and comfortable life,
the Lord hath forbidden our distracting cares, and fears, and
doubts, and our inordinate sorrows ; and commanded us to
cast our care on him, and promised to care for us (1 Pet. v.
7.); and he hath bid us "be careful for nothing, but in all
things make our wants known to him ;" PhiL iv. 6. And
can there be a course of life more pleasant than that which
doth consist in faith, and love, and hope, and joy, that is
built on God, and animated by him, and that excludeth inor-
dinate cares and sorrows, as health doth sickness ? Where
it is unlawful to be miserable and to grieve ourselves, and no
sorrow is allowed us, but that which tendeth to our joy ;
where it is made our work to " rejoice in the Lord, yea al-
ways to rejoice ;" ver. 4. A servant or tradesman will judge
of the pleasure of his life by his work. If his work be drud-
gery, his life is tedious and filled with grief. If his work be
pleasant, his life is pleasant. Judge then by this of a holy
life. Is it care, and fear, and anguish of mind that God com-
mandeth you? No ; it is these that he forbiddeth. " Care
not: Fearnot,'* are his injunctions ; Isa.xxv. 4. xli. 10. Do
you fear reproach? Why, you do it contrary to the will of
God, who biddeth you *' Fear not the reproach of men ;" Isa,
308 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
li. 7. Do you fear the power and rage of enemies ? Why,
it is contrary to your religion so to do. God biddeth you
" fear them not ;" chap, xliii. 5. 13, 14. xliv. 2. 8. Do you
fear persecution or death from the hands of cruel violence ?
Why, it is contrary to the will of God that you do so. " Fear
not them which kill the body," &c. Matt. x. 26.28. 31. O
blessed life ! where all that is against us is forbidden, and
all that is truly joyous, and delightful, and necessary to
make us happy is commanded us, and made our duty ; which
is contrary to misery, as life to death, and as light to dark-
ness. Come hither, poor deluded sinners that fly from care,
and fear, and sorrow. If you will but give up yourselves to
Christ, you shall be exempted from all these, except such as
is necessary to your joy. You may do any thing, if you
will be the servants of the Lord, except that which tendeth
to your own and other men's calamity. Come hither, all
you that call for pleasure, and love no life but a life of mirth.
Let God be your master, and holiness your work, and plea-
sure then shall be your business, and holy mirth shall be
your employment. While you serve the flesh, your pleasure
is small, and your trouble great ; vexation is your work, and
unspeakable vexation is your wages. But if you will be the
hearty servants of the Lord, rejoicing shall be your work and
wages. If you understand not this, peruse your lesson, Psal.
xxxiii. 1. " Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is
comely for the upright." *' Light is sown for the righteous,
and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord,
ye righteous ; and give thanks at the remembrance of his
holiness ;" Psal. xcviii. 11, 12. " Let all those that trust in
thee rejoice : let them ever shout for joy, because thou de-
fendest them : let them also that love thy name be joyful in
thee ;" Phil. iii. 1. Psal. v, 11. "Be glad in the Lord, and
rejoice ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are up-
right in heart ;" Psal.xxxii. 11. " Let thy priests be cloth-
ed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy;"
Psal. cxxxii. 9. 16. " I will also clothe her priests with sal-
vation, and his saints sh^U shout aloud for joy ;" Psal.xvi.
Such precepts and promises abound in Scripture, which tell
you if you will be saints indeed, that joy and gladness must
h^ your life and work. I know objections will be stirring in
your minds. But forbear them but a while, and I shall ful-
ly answer them anon.
A SAINT OR A BllUTE. 309
2. I have told you wherein the inward part of holiness
is delightful. I shall briefly shew you that the outward part
also is very pleasant, and fit to feed these inward joys. And
1. Let us view the duties that are more directly to be per-
formed unto God. And 2. The works of charity and righ-
teousness unto men.
1. How sweet is it to be exercised in the word of God !
In hearing or reading it with serious meditation ! For the
man that hath been revived by it, renewed, sanctified, saved
by it, to hear that powerful, heavenly truth, by which his soul
was thus made new ! For the soul that is in love with God
to hear or see his blessed name on every leaf!. To read his
will, and find the expressions of his love, his great, eternal ,
wondrous love ; how sweet this is, experience tells the
saints that feel it. If you that feel no sweetness in it, be-
lieve not them that say they feel it, at least believe the
word of God, and the professions of his ancient saints. " O
how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day. How
sweet are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter than the
honey, and the honeycomb. I have rejoiced in the way of
thy testimonies as in all riches. I will delight myself in thy
statutes : I will not forget thy word. Thy testimonies are
my delight and my counsellors. I will delight myself in thy
commandments which I have loved, and I will meditate in
thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is better to me than
thousands of gold and silver. Unless thy law had been my
delight, I had perished in my affliction. I will never forget
thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened me. Thy
testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever : for they
are the rejoicing of my heart. I love thy commandments
above gold, yea, above fine gold. I rejoice at thy word as
one that findeth great spoil. Great peace have they that
love thy law, and nothing shall offend them ;" Psal. cxix.
14. 16. 24. 47. 72. 92, 93. 97. 103. 111. 117. 162. 165.
I should but weary you to recite one quarter of the ex-
pressions of holy men in Scripture concerning the sweetness
and pleasures which they found in the law of God. In a
word, it is the work and marks of the blessed man, that *' his
delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he me-
ditate day and night; Psal. i. 1,2. Do you think that an
impleasant, tedious life that doth consist in such employ-
ment?
310 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
2. Another holy duty is prayer, both secret and with
others ; in families, and public assemblies. And do you
think it is a grievous, tedious work for a needy soul to beg
of Godj that is so ready to relieve him? For a guilty soul
to pray to God that is so ready to forgive him? For a sin-
ful soul to return to God (and confess his sins, and beg for
mercy), that is so ready to meet him and entertain him ?
For a loving soul to converse with God, when there is a mu-
tual complacency between them ? Is it grievous for a child
to speak to his Father ? or are you weary of the presence of.
your dearest friend ? What is there in holy prayer that
should grieve or weary us ? Sure it is not his company that
we speak to. For it is his presence that makes heaven.
And sure it is not the employment. For it is but asking,
and asking for the best and choicest thing, and asking in
our necessities for that which we must have, or we are un-
done for ever. And is it unpleasant to pray to a bounteous
God, in our necessity, and that for the bestand most pleasant
things ? Perhaps there ma,y be some of you that think it is
but labour lost, and that you could better spend those hours,
and that God regardeth not our prayers, and that indeed we
speed never the better for them, and therefore you have
no pleasure in them. And no wonder ! If you are atheists and
believe not that there is a God, you cannot love him, or rejoice
in him. If you believe not his promises, how should they
give you any comfort ? If you believe not that he regard-
eth prayers, no wonder if you have no heart to pray. They
that say, " It i» vain to serve the Lord, and it is no profit to
us to keep his ordinances" (Mal.iii. 14.), will also say, ** What
a weariness is it;" chap.i. 13.; and will give him but a lame
and lifeless service. If you did believe your friend to be
your enemy, you would have small pleasure in him, Mis-
conceits may easily make you loathe the things that are most
delighlful. The thoughts of heaven itself yield little plea-
sure to them that believe not that there is a heaven, or what
it is. The light is not pleasant to the blind ; nor any object
of our talk or smell to those that have lost these senses. I3
music unpleasant because it delighteth not the deaf? for
shame do not charge the sweet and blessed ways of God with
that which is the fruit of your own corruption. If your lungs
be rotten, you may be out of breath with speaking, the most
delightful words, or walking in the most pleasant fields or
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 311
gardens. But the cause of the weariness is within you. If
you have the hearts of infidels, op graceless, stupid, worldly
sinners, you are so unfit to approach the Most Holy God in
holy prayer, that I marvel not if you go to it as a bear to the
stake, as an ox to the yoke, or as an offender to the stocks.
For the God that you pray to, is a hater of all the workers
of iniquity, and a consuming fire ; and therefore no wonder
if his terrors should meet you, and leave you but little de-
light in prayer. (Though it is wonder that they do not fol-
low you, and meet you in all your ways, and leave you less
delight in the omission of it.) But if you had the hearts of
believing, holy men, and had tasted in prayer what they
have tasted, and had their experience of the success, you
would then be easily persuaded that prayer is neither a vain
nor an unpleasant work. Surely it is not unpleasant to a
burdened soul to disburden itself before the Lord ; [nor to a
sinner that hath felt the weight, the smart, the sting of sin,
to cry for mercy, and healing to him that is able and willing
to shew mercy ; nor is it unpleasant for him that knows the
worth of grace and glory, to lie upon his knees in begging
them of the Lord. All those that have felt how good it is
to draw near to God, had rather have leave to pray in hope,
than to please their senses with any delights that earth af-
fordeth. There is force in prayer (through the grace that
hath appointed and doth accompany it) to procure comfort
to the distressed mind, and safety to them that are in dan-
ger ; relief to them that are in want, and strength to thera
that are in weakness. Prayer is good for ail things that are
good ; and good against all things that are evil. It is good
against temptations, dangers, enemies, and sin. It is good
against sorrows, fears, and cares; yea, against poverty,
shame, and sickness. For the God that prayer goes to, and
makes use of, is sufficient against all, and our only help.
Turn away now from God if you dare, and cast off earnest,
constant prayer, as if it were a tedious, unpleasant thing ; but
be sure the time is coming when thou, even thou that thus
despisest it, wilt betake thyself to prayer, and cry. Lord,
Lord, when it is too late, or when anguish and terror seize
upon thee. Sickness and death, and the terrors of the Lord
will teach thee to pray, as useless and tedious as now you
think it. Yea, and teach you to do it earnestly, that now put
off all with a few frozen, heartless words. ButO it is sea-
312 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
sonable believing prayer that is comfortable : it is the prayer
of faith, and love, and hope that is pleasant : but the prayer
of too late repentance in hell> and the prayer of despair and
horror, that cannot procure a drop of water, afford no plea-
sure, as they procure no relief.
3. Another duty that holiness consisteth in, is thanks-
giving and praise to the God of our salvation. He that
knows not that this work is pleasant, is unacquainted with
it. If there be any thing pleasant in this world, it is the
praises of God, that flow from a believing, loving, soul, that
is full of the sense of the mercies, and goodness, and excel-
lencies of the Lord; especially the unanimous conjunction
of such souls, in the high praises of God in the holy assem-
blies. Is it not pleasant even to name the Lord ? to mention
his attributes? to remember his great and wondrous works?
to magnify him that rideth on the heavens, that dwelleth in
the light that cannot be approached, that is clothed with
majesty and glory, that intinitely surpasseth the sun in its
brightness ; that hath his throne in the heavens, and the
heaven of heavens cannot contain him ; and yet he delight-
eth in the humble soul, and hath respect to the contrite ;
yea, dwells with them that tremble at his word ? Is any
thing so pleasant as the praises of the Lord ? How sweet is
it to see and praise him as the Creator, in the various won-
derful creatures which he hath made ! How pleasant to ob-
serve his works of providence, to them that read them by the
light of the sanctuary, and in faith and patience learn the in-
terpretation from him that only can interpret them ! But
O how unspeakably pleasant is it to see the Father in the
Son, and the Godhead in the manhood of our Lord, and the
riches of grace in the glass of the holy Gospel, and the ma-
nifold wisdom of God in the church, where the angels them-
selves disdain not to behold it ! Eph. iii. 10, 1 1. The prais-
ing of God for the incarnation of his Son, was a work that a
choir of angels were employed in as the instructors of the
church: Luke ii. 13, 14. There is not a promise in the
book of God, nor one passage of the life and miracles of
Christ, and the rest of the history of the Gospel, nor one of
the holy works of the Spirit upon the soul, nor one of those
thousand mercies to the church, or to ourselves or friends,
that inlinite goodness doth bestow, but contain such matter
of praise to God, as might fill believing hearts with pleasure.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 313
and find them most delightful work : much more when all
these are at once before us, what a feast is there for a gra-
cious soul !
O you befooled fleshly minds, that find no pleasure in
the things of God, but had rather be drinking, or gaming, or
scraping in the world, awaken your souls, and see what you
are doing ! With what eyes do you see, with what hearts
do you think of the works, and word, and ways of God, and
of the holy employments that you are so much against ? For
my own part, I freely and truly here profess to you, that 1
would not Exchange the pleasure that my soul enjoyeth in
this one piece of the holy work of God, for all your mirth,
and sport, and gain, and whatever the world and sin affords
you ; i would not change the delights which I enjoy, in one
of thes^ holy days and duties, in the mentioning of the eter-
nal God, and celebrating his pi^ise, and magnifying his
name, and thinking and speaking of the riches of his love,
and the glory of his kingdom, no, not for all the pleasure of
your lives. O that your souls were cured of all those dan-
gerous diseases, that make you loathe the sweetest things !
You would then know what it is that you have set light by,
and would marvel at yourselves, that you coiild taste no
sweetness in the sweetest things ! Can you think that your
work or your play, your profits or your sports, are compara-
ble for pleasure to the praises of the Lord ? If grace had
made you competent judges, I am sure you would say there
is no comparison. Hear but the testimony of a holy soul,
yea, of the Spirit of God by him. " Praise ye the Lord ; for
it is good to sing praises to our God : for it is pleasant, and
praise is comely;" Psal. cxlvii. 1. " Praise ye the Lord :
sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the con-
gregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him;
let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. For the
Lord taketh pleasure in his people : he will beautify the
meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory: let
them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of
God be in their mouth, &c.;" Psal. cxlix. 1, 2. 4—6. " O
come let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his pre-
sence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise to him
with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great
King above all gods ;" Psal. xcv. 1 — 3. " O sing unto the
314 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
Lord a new song : sing unto the Lord all the earth. Sing
unto the Lord ; bless his name ; shew forth his salvation
from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his
wonders among all people : for the Lord is great, and greatly
to be praised Honour and majesty are before him,
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary ;" Psal. xcvi. 1 — 4.
6. Did not this holy prophet find it a pleasant work to
praise the Lord ? Yea all that love the name of God should
be joyful in him; Psal. v. IL Every one of his upright
ones may say with the prophet, " I will greatly rejoice in
the Lord : my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for he hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered
me with the robes of righteousness, as a bridegroom deck-
eth himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels. For as the earth springs forth her bud, and
as the garden causeth the things sown in it to spring forth ;
so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring
forth before all the nations ;" Isa. Ixi. 10, 11. It is a pro-
mise of joy that is made in Isa. Ivi. 6 — 8. " To the sons of
the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him,
and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every
one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh
hold of my covenant ; even them will I bring to my holy
mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer."
What a joyful thing is it to a gracious soul, when he may see
the reconciled face of God, and feel his fatherly reviving
love, and among his saints may speak his praise, and pro-
claim his great and blessed name, even in his temple, " where
every man speaketh of his glory !" Psal. xxix. 9. If the
proud are delighted in their own praise, how much more will
the humble soul be delighted in the praise of God ! When
the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, and faith doth
set us as before his throne, or at least doth somewhat with-
draw the veil, and shew us him that lives for ever ; and when
the force of love doth open our lips, that our mouths may
shew forth his praise, it is pleasant both to God and us.
The Lord himself doth put on joy, as delighting in his peo-
ple's praise, and when they join obedience with holy wor-
ship, they are pleasant in his eyes; Jer. ii. 24. Isa. xlii. 1.
Ixii. 4. Zeph. iii. 17. " He meeteth him that rejoiceth and
worketh righteousness, and that remembers him in his
ways ;" Isa. Ixiv. 5. Would you taste the sweetest life on
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 315
earth? Learn then to delight yourselves in God. Do you
want recreation? Be acquainted with his praise. Is there
not a better cure for melancholy here among the servants of
the Lord, than in an alehouse, or in the company of trans-
gressors ? Their carnal pleasures are unwholesome for you,
like luscious fruits that will make you sick. But the de-
lights of faith are safe and healthful. Fleshly pleasure is
windy and deceitful, and weakeneth and befools the soul :
but the joy of the Lord is our strength ; Neh. viii. 10. A
little may be too much of fleshly pleasures ; and it is of very
hard digestion, and leaves that behind that spoils the sport :
but the further you go in the delights of faith, the better
they are, and the sweeter you will find them. You may
quickly catch a dangerous surfeit of your fleshly pleasures ;
but of spiritual delights, the more the better ; for they are
curing, reviving, and much confirm and exalt the soul. Our
spiritual pleasures are so heavenly, and have so much of God
and glory in them, that they must needs prepare the soul for
heaven, and be excellent helps to our salvation.
O therefore, if you would live a pleasant life, draw near to
God, and by faith behold him, and by love adhere to him,
and t9,ke a view of his infinite goodness and all his perfec-
tions, and behold him in his wondrous works, and then break
forth into his cheerful praises, and you shall taste such plea-
sures as the earth aff'ordeth not. Launch forth into the
boundless ocean of eternity, and let your hearts and tongues
expatiate in the praise of the heavenly majesty, and use this
work, and ply it close, and be not too seldom, or customary,
or careless in it, and you shall find the difference between
the pleasures of faith and of the flesh, of a holy and of a sen-
sual life. ** Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the
courts of the house of our God, praise the Lord ; for the
Lord is good : sing praises to his name, for it is pleasant ;''
Psal. cxxxv. 2, 3. ** Let my mouth be filled with thy praise,
and with thy honour all the day ;" Psal. Ixxi. 8. " Sing
unto the Lord : bless his name ; shew forth his salvation
from day to day. Honour and majesty are before him :
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary ;" Psal. xcvi, 2. 6.
O that the Lord will but shine upon my, soul with the
light of his countenance, and open my heart to the enter-
tainment of his love, and hold a gracious communion with
my soul, by his Holy Spirit, and keep open these doors to
316
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
me, and continue this liberty of his house and ordinances
which we enjoy this day, that I may join with a faithful,
humble people, in holy communion, and in his praise and
worship, and that with a heart that is suitable to these works !
I shall then say with David, " the lines are fallen to me in
pleasant places ; I have a goodly heritage ;" Psal. xvi. 6.
I will ask for no greater pleasures, or honours, or advance-
ment in this world ! Let who will surfeit on the pleasures
of the flesh ; here doth my soul delight to dwell ! " One
thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his holy
temple. For in the time of trouble he will hide me in his
pavilion ; and in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide
me : he shall set me up upon a rock. And then shall my
head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me : there-
fore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy, I will sing,
yea, I will sing praises to the Lord ;" Psal. xxvii. 4 — 6.
Till I come to the promised everlasting pleasures, I shall ask
of God no greater pleasures. These would be as much as
my soul in the prison of flesh can bear. Till I come to the
land of promise, may I but have these clusters of its grapes
in my present wilderness, I shall not repine : " My heart
here shall be glad, and my glory shall rejoice, and at death
my flesh shall rest in hope." For as the Lord now sheweth
me the " path of life," so in his" presence is fulness of joy,
and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore ;'* Psal. xvi.
9. IL
4. Another pleasant holy duty, is our holy communion
with Christ and his church in the Lord's supper.
This is a holy feast that is purposely provided by the
King of saints for the entertainment of his family, for the re-
freshing of the weary, and the making glad the mournful
soul. The night before his bitter death, he instituted this
sacramental feast ! He caused his disciples to sit down
with him, and when they had partaken of the passover, the
sacrament of promise, and had their taste of the old wine, he
giveth them of the new, even the sacrament of the better co-
venant, and of the fuller Gospel grace. He teacheth them
that his death is life to them ; and that which is his bitterest
suffering, is their feast; and his sorrows are their joys, as
our sinful pleasures were his sorrows. The slain Lamb of
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 317
God our passover that was sacrificed for us, that takoth away
the sins of the world, was the pleasant food which sacra-
mentally he himself then delivered to them, and substantially
the next day offered for them. " The bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
He is " the living bread which came down from heaven : if
any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever : and the
bread that he giveth is his flesh, which he hath given for the
life of the world. Except we eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink his blood, we have no life in us. Whoso
eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood, hath eternal life, and
he will raise him up at the last day. For his flesh is meat
indeed, and his blood is drink indeed. He that eateth his
flesh and drinketh his blood, dwelleth in Christ, and Christ
in him. As the living Father hath sent the Son, and heliv-
eth by the Father, so he that eateth him, shall live by him.
This is that bread that came down from heaven : not as the
fathers did eat manna and are dead : he that eateth this
bread shall live for ever -,*' John vi. 33. 50, 51. 53—58.
I know that to an unbelieving, carnal wretch, the sacra-
ment is but a common thing. For Christ himself and his
Gospel is no better in his eyes. He discerneth not the
Lord's body : he only quieteth and deludeth his conscience
with the outward form. He hath not faith to feed on Christ.
But to a lively faith, what sweetness doth such a feast afford !
We have here communion with the blessed Trinity, in
the three parts of this eucharistical sacrament ! As the Fa-
ther is both our Creator and the offended majesty, and yet
he hath sent his Son to be our Redeemer ; so in the first part,
which is the consecration, we present to our Creator the
creatures of bread and wine, acknowledging that from him
we receive them and all, and we desire that upon our dedi-
cation, by his acceptance they may be made sacramentally
and representatively the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
In the second part of the eucharist, which is the com-
memoration of the sacrifice offered on the cross, we break
the bread and pour forth the wine, to represent the breaking
of Christ's body, and shedding of his blood for the sin of
man ; and we beseech the Father to be reconciled to us on
his Son's account, and to accept us in his beloved, and to
accept all our sacrifices through him. So that as Christ now
in heaven is representing his sacrifice to the Father, which
318 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
he once offered on the cross for sin, so must the minister of
Christ represent and plead to the Father the same sacrifice,
by the way of commemoration, and such intercession as be-
longeth to his office.
The third part of the eucharist is the offer and parti-
cipation ; in which the minister representing Christ, doth
by commission deliver his body and blood to the penitent,
hungry, believing soul : and with Christ is delivered a sealed
pardon of all sin, and a sealed gift of life eternal. All which
are received by the true believer.
An unbeliever knoweth not what transactions there are
between the Lord and a holy soul in this ordinance, where
the appearances are so small. A bit of bread and a sup of
wine are indeed small matters : but so is not this communion
with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. What a com-^
fort is it that the offended majesty will accept a sacrifice at
our hands, and enter a treaty of peace with the offenders !
Yea, that he will provide the sacrifice himself, and the most
precious in the whole world ; that he will signify this his
acceptance of the sacrifice, and how he is pleased in his well-
beloved Son ; and that he accepteth his Son's intercession
in the heavens, and his ministers' intercession, and his
church's prayers on earth through Christ ! Seeing Christ
must be glorified with his Father, and not continue visible
among us, what could we desire more from him, than the
threefold representative which he hath left behind him, to
supply the room of his bodily presence ? Even the repre-
sentation of himself by the sacrament, by his ministers, and
by the Holy Ghost, which is his substitute within for the
efficacy of all. O what unspeakable mysteries and treasures
of mercy are here presented to us in a sacrament ! Here we
have communion with a reconciled God, and are brought
into his presence by the great Reconciler. Here we have
communion with our blessed Redeemer, as crucified, and
glorified, and offered to us, as our quickening, preserving,
strengthening Head. Here we have communion with the
Holy Ghost, applying to our souls the benefits of redemp-
tion, drawing us to the Son, and communicating light, and
life, and strength from him unto us ; increasing and actuating
his graces in us. Here we have communion with the body
of Christ, his sanctified people, the heirs of life. When the
minister of Christ by his commission representeth a cruei-
•
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 3 19
fied Clirist to our eyes, by the bread and wine appointed to
this use, we see Christ crucified as it were before us, and
our faith layeth hold on him, and we perceive the truth of
the remedy ; and build our souls upon this rock. When the
same minister by Christ's commission, doth offer us his body,
and blood, and benefits, it is as firm and valid to us, as if
the mouth of Christ himself had offered them. And when
our souls receive him, by that faith which the Holy Ghost
exciteth in us, the participation is as true as that of our bo-
dies receiving the bread and wine which represent him. O
do but ask a drooping soul, that mourns under the fears of
God's displeasure, how he would value a voice from heaven,
to tell him that all his sins are pardoned, and that he is dear
to God, and judge by his answer what is contained and offer-
ed in a sacrament ! Ask him how he would take it, if Christ
should speak those words himself to him, which he hath gi-
ven his ministers commission in his name to speak? " Take,
eat, this is my body, which is broken for you." It is the
same Christ, the same pardon and salvation, that is offered
us by the messengers of Christ, and which he personally
offered himself to his disciples. When you must all appear
at the bar of God, O what would you not give for a sealed
pardon, which in a sacrament is given freely now, to the be-
lieving soul ! Judge now by this whether it be a joyous or-
dinance ! When the poorest Christian this day receiveth
that, which the greatest prince, that is ungodly, would then
give all the world for if he had it. For want of that pardon.
Christian, which thou must now receive, many thousands
will tremble at the bar of God, and be overwhelmed with his
wrath for ever ! Ask a soul that groaneth under the lan-
guishings of his grace, and the burden of any strong cor-
ruption, how he would value the mortifying and quickening
grace of the Holy Ghost, that would break his bonds, and
give him light, and life, and strength ; and by his answer
judge of the value of a sacrament. We have here the great-
est mercies in the world, brought down to us in sensible re-
presentations, that they might be very near us, and the means
might be suited to the frailty and infirmity of our present
state.
If the sealed message of God's reconciliation with us,
and a sealed pardon of all our sins, and a sealed grant of
everlasting life, be not more pleasant and desirable to your
320 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
thoughts, than all that earth and flesh can yield you, it is
because you are alive to sin, and dead to God, and want that
spiritual sense and appetite, by which you might be compe-
tent judges. If God, if Christ, if grace, if the foretastes of
glory can afford no pleasure to the soul, then heaven itself
would not be pleasant. But if these are sweet, the sacra-
ment is sweet that doth convey them.
Well, poor stubborn, carnal sinners ! you have been in-
vited to this feast as well as others ! we are sent to call you,
and even compel you to come in, (though upon the terms
and in the way of Christ,) but you have no great list ; but
somewhat else doth please you better. And will it prove
better indeed to you at the end? Well, take your own
choice ! If an alehouse be better than the table of the Lord ;
if your merry companions do please you better than the com-
munion of the saints, or if you cannot submit to the order
and discipline of the family of Christ, that you may partake
of his provision, you may follow your own corrupt desires,
and see whither they will lead you ! But here it is that I
shall choose my pleasures, till I reach the everlasting plea-
sures. And though in this low communion of imperfect
saints, we see but in a glass, and have but some small im-
perfect tastes of the glorious things which hope expecteth ;
yet this is more than all that earth and flesh can yield ; and
it is most pleasure that by these is revealed, sealed, and re-
presented. Sacraments can assure us of perfect joys, though
they give us but little joy in hand.
Object* * But if sacraments be so pleasant, why then
(saith a disconsolate soul,) have I found no more pleasure or
comfort in them V Answ. Even in the soul that is made
alive by grace, diseases may much corrupt the appetite, and
make the sweetest thing seem bitter. Are not sacraments
sweet to you? and do you not delight in the communion of
God and of his saints ? I will not say much to you, lest it
seem digressive, but briefly ask you these few questions.
Quest. 1. Are the thoughts of God, of Christ, of heaven
sweet to you? If they be, methinks the ordinances should
be sweet ! If they be not, it is no wonder that you set light
by sacraments, if you can set light by Christ and heaven
itself.
Quest. 2. Is not sin grown sweet to you? If it be, the
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. ' 321
ordinances will not be sweet : no, nor unless your sins grow
bitter.
Quest, 3. Doth not the world grow sweet to you, and
your condition or expectations, and your thriving state, more
pleasant to you than heretofore? If so, no wonder if sacra-
ments and all spiritual things, do lose their sweetness.
Quest. 4. Have you been faithful in your preparation,
by free confession, true humiliation, strong resolution, hun-
gering and thirsting after Christ, and all this furthered by
diligent self-examination ? An unprepared soul must blame
itself, if it find not the sweetness of the ordinance. The
holy appetite and relish, that is necessary to your delight,
must be stirred up much in your preparations.
Quest, 5. Are you careful and conscionable, humble and
holy in your lives ? If you neglect God in your ordinary
conversations, and walk not with him on other days, you
are unlike to meet him comfortably here. And if you are
slight and careless in your ordinary duties, you will find here
that God took notice of it.
Quest. 6, Do you faithfully endeavour to exercise faith,
repentance, love, and all sacramental graces in the use of
the ordinances ? You come not to a mere receiving, but to
a work. Have your souls been adorned with the wedding
garment, and do you come hither for a meeting with the
Lord Jesus Christ? Do you see him by faith, and take all
that is here represented to you, as if you had seen the things
themselves? Do you remember that your Lord is coming,
and do you lift up your heads in the expectation of your re-
demption, and do this in remembrance of him till he come ?
An idle loitering in God's work is not the way to find the
sweetness of it.
Clemens Alexandrinus Strom, lib. i. init. gives it as a
reason why every one took his own part of the bread of the
sacrament in those times, because man being a free agent
must be the chooser or refuser of his own happiness : the Pa-
pists on the contrary do but gape, and the priest doth pop the
bread into their mouths, (having first persuaded them that it
is not bread.) Do you not expect to receive the spiritual
benefits, just as the Papists do receive the bread, as if you
had nothing to do but gape ? As if your presence here were
as much as is to be expected from you for your edification !
VOL. X, Y
322 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
How can you taste the sweetness that is offered, when you
do not exercise your spiritual senses?
Quest. 7. Do you exercise faith, as well as feeling, in
judging of the benefit of sacraments? Pardon, and justifi-
cation, and title to salvation are benefits which in themselves
you cannot feel. It is by believing the promise that you
must know them. If God have promised a blessing on his
ordinance, it is sure to the faithful soul as if we felt it, though
perhaps we may seem long without it. Heaven itself which
is the principal end of ordinances, will not be attained in
this life, and yet the ordinance is not in vain.
Quest, 8. Have you the true understanding of the use of
sacraments, of the abundant love that is here set forth, and
the freeness and fulness of the promise here sealed ? If not,
no wonder if you taste not the sweetness, when you know
not how to break the shell, that you may feed on the kernel
of the ordinances.
Quest, 9. Have you not troubled your own souls, and
muddied your comforts by causeless doubts and ignorant
scruples, about the gestures, or manner, or persons that you
joined with, or some such circumstances as these? If so,
no marvel if you lose the comfort.
Quest. 10. Or at least, have you not been negligent in the
review, and after improving of the ordinances, and have you
not thought that all was done when you had received? Any
one of these miscarriages may make this pleasant duty bit-
ter, or at least deprive you of the most of the delight. But
if your hearts be suited to the work, and you deprive not
yourselves of the offered consolation, you shall find that
God deals bountifully with you, and will feast you even
with angels' food.
5. The public worship being all thus sweet, how sweet
are the Lord's days, these holy seasons that are wholly con-
secrated to this work ? How light is the Christian, that
hath this day cast off his worldly cares, and business, and
cogitations, and hath set himself apart for God, as if there
were no world to mind ! On the week-days he doth walk with
God ! but so that his necessary worldly business doth fre-
quently divert and distract his mind. But what a sweet
and happy day is this, when he may strip himself of these
distractions, as he doth of his workday coarser clothes, and
may wholly apply himself to God ? As the bee goes from
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 323
flower to flower, labouring at all, but with a pleasant labour,
to gather honey, and prepare for winter, so doth the Chris-
tian, especially on the Lord's day, employ himself in labour
and delight; and the more he laboureth the more is his de-
light. From prayer he goeth to reading, and to the instruct-
ing of his family if he be a superior, or learning if he be an
inferior, and have helps. From private worship to public, and
from public to private again ; and gathering honey (food and
sweetness) to his soul from all.
Tell me, you childish, brutish wantons, do you think in
your hearts, that you have as much solid joy and pleasure in
a play-day, or in your idle games, or in spending the Lord's
day in idleness, or sports, as we have in the holy works of
God ? Do you think our delight is not more than yours ?
To our shame, but to the praise of God, we must say that we
have tried both ways. We know what it is to play away
much of the Lord's day, and what it is to employ it in wait-
ing on the Lord. But since we knew the latter, we wish we
had never known the former. That is our recreation which
is your toil, and that would be our poison, and stocks, and
toil, which is your sport and recreation.
6. Another delightful portion of our work, is holy con-
ference with the experienced servants of the Lord. There
are many things considerable in holy conference that make
it delightful.
1. It is the conference of dearest friends. The special
love that all the godly have to one another, doth exceedingly
sweeten their communion. The very presence of those that
we most dearly love, is a pleasure to us. Much more their
sweetest, edifying discourse.
2. Their conference proceedeth-from the Spirit of grace,
and therefore is gracious, savouring of that Spirit : and all
the breathings and manifestations of that blessed Spirit are
very acceptable to those that have the Spirit themselves, and
so can savour spiritual things.
3. Their conference is about the highest, the most neces-
sary, the most excellent things. About the most blessed
God and his several attributes ; his will, works of creation,
and disposing providence of nature and grace. About the
wonderful mysteries of redemption ; the person, life, and
sufferings of the Redeemer, his offices, and the performance
of them, on earth, and in heaven, in his humiliation and his
324 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
exaltation ; and of the sweet relations that we and all his
church do stand in, to Christ our Head, our Saviour, and Re-
deemer ; as also about the gracious workings of the Holy
Ghost, in first begetting an increase of holiness. To open
to each other the powerful workings of that grace that hath
raised them above all the creatures, and brought them to a
contempt of earthly glory, and set their hearts on the invisi-
ble God, and on eternal things, that hath renewed them in
the inner man, and made them hate the things they loved,
and mortified their oldest, strongest sins, and quickened
them in the exercise of every grace ; all this is edifying,
sweet discourse to gracious souls.
4. And the rather because it is about the most pertinent
affairs. They are things that do so nearly concern us, that
we are glad to speak with those that understand them. It
is our own case, which we hear our brethren open. They
speak our very hearts, as if they had seen them ; because it
is the same work of the same Spirit that they describe. Yea
when they complain of their infirmities, it is with our com-
plaints, and they tell us of that which we are troubled with
ourselves ; and we perceive that we are not singular in our
troubles, but that our case is the case of other servants of
the Lord.
5. And it is the more pleasant to converse with the god-
ly, because they speak not by hearsay only, but by expe-
rience. They tell us of the discoveries that illuminating
grace hath made to their own souls ; and of the many evils
they have been saved from ; and the communion they have
had with God, and the prayers which he hath heard, and the
many and great deliverances he hath granted them. They
relate their conflicts with temptations, and their conquests;
their strivings against their ancient lusts, and how they have
overcome them ; and the sweet refreshings which their souls
have had in the exercise of love, and faith, and hope. They
can dive into the ocean of mercy, and speak of the abundant
kindness of the Lord, and earnestly awaken and invite each
other to praise him for his goodness, and to declare his won-
drous works for the children of men. They can direct each
other in their difficulties, and encourage each other in holy
ways, and strengthen one another in holy resolu tions, and com-
fort one another with the same comforts that they themselves
have been comforted with by the Lord. And may not our hearts
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 325
rejoice and burn within us, while we discoursre of such im-
portant things as these, in such a serious, experimental, edi-
fying manner ? They can discourse together of their meet-
ing before the throne of Christ, and of the blessed converse
which they shall have in heaven, with the Lord himself, and
with the holy angels, and where they shall be, and what they
shall do, to all eternity, in the presence of God, where is ful-
ness of joy, and before him where are the eternal pleasures.
O Christians I did not your graces languish by your own
neglects, and your souls grow out of relish with these spiri-
tual and most excellent things, your speeches of them would
be more savoury ; you would be more frequent, lively, and-
cheerful in your discourse of holy things ; and then your
converse would be more edifying and delightful to each other.
We shew so little of grace in our conference, that makes it
to be but little different from other men's. And (which is
the most common case, and very doleful) we most of us re-
main so ignorant and imprudent, that we mar holy confer-
ence by our mixtures of unwise expressions, and disgrace it
to others by our injudicious weakness. This is the bane of
Christian discourse ; even the want of holy skill and wisdom,
and of understanding to speak of the things of God, accord-
ing to their transcendent worth and weight, as much (and
more) than the want of zeal. But if we could discourse of
these holy matters aright, with wisdom and with seriousness,
how sweet, how fruitful would the company of holy persons
be ! We should be still among them, as in the family of
God, and should hear that which our souls do most desire to
hear ; and we should preach to one another the riches of
grace in our familiar discourse ; and souls might be convert-
ed by the conference of believers, and not all left to the pub-
lic ministry. Every man would be a helper to his neighbour.
"For the tongue of the just is as choice silver, though the
heart of the wicked is little worth : the lips of the righteous
feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom ;" Prov. x. 20,
21. " The lips of the wise disperse knowledge ;" chap. xv.
7. " Righteous lips are the delight of kings" (chap. xvi. 13.),
" and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning ;" ver. 21.
" The lips of knowledge are a precious jewel ;" chap. xx. 15.
" A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth,
and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled ;" chap,
xviii. 20. " The mouth ef the righteous speaketh wisdom.
326 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and his tongue talketh of judgment; the law of his God is
in his heart ;" Psal. xxxvii. 30, 31.
Tell me, I beseech you, you that can be so merry in an
alehouse, or in any vain and idle company, why should you
think that it is not to us a far sweeter thing to talk of holy,
edifying matters, than it is to you to talk of vanity ? Is the
subject of your discourse more fit to delight a man of wis-
dom ? Do you talk of better things than God, or of higher
things than heaven ? Or of things that more nearly concern
you, than the matters of everlasting consequence ?
When I haye heard such people talking and laughing as
if they had been the merriest people in the world, I have
sometimes hearkened to their discourse, to hear what talk it
was that made them so merry; and it hath been nothing but
impertinence and folly, like a man's talking in his sleep;
enough to make a man's head ach to hear them. I should
be quickly tired of their delights. The blowing of the wind,
or the falling of the rain, or as Solomon saith, "the crackling
of thorns in the fire,'* hath as much in it to please my ear,
and much less to displease it, than such men's discourse.
Go to a company of merry fellows, as you take them, and
to a company of serious, godly, prudent people, and secretly
write down all the words that you hear from both compa-
nies, and read them over together when you come home, and
tell me which is the pleasanter discourse. What a hodge-
podge of nonsense, impertinence, levity, immodesty, world-
liness, pride, and folly shall you find in one, and what sa-
voury, necessary, edifying, encouraging, and comforting
speeches will you find you have gathered from the other !
It is far pleasanter to be among the singing birds, the
bleating sheep, yea the chattering daws, than these idle, prat-
ing, foolish companions. For with the former, you shall have
some natural good, without any mixture of sinful evil. But
in foolish, prating company, what shall you perceive, but
how nature is depraved, how sinners are beside themselves,
how satan doth befool them, and how God is forgotten while
he is present with them, and they are laughing in the devil's
chains, and at the very brink of death and hell ! And can a
man be merry to hear such mirth as this ? It is a sad spec-
tacle to see men laugh in Bedlam ; but much more to see
them merry in the fetters of their sin, and under the threat-
enings and wrath of God. Were you but men of right com-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 327
posed minds, I durst refer it to yourselves, whether holy com-
pany and discourse be not like to be much pleasanter than
yours.
Do you think that the discourse of learned men, about
arts and sciences, history, and the like, is not more pleasant
than your idle talk? Much more is the holy discourse of
saints about the things of their salvation. Whether do you
think the company and discourse of Christ, and his prophets
and apostles, or of your merry companions, should be the
more delightful ? Can you for shame say, the latter were
the best? Why, you know that Christ, and his prophets and
apostles, had no such idle talk as yours. It was holy things
that they discoursed of.
Can you for shame say, that you love God above all, and
yet have more pleasure in prating over a pot of ale than in
speaking reverently of God ? Or would you be believed
when you say, that your hearts are set on heaven, when you
have more delight in talking of any earthly trifle ? Well, I
shall leave it to your consciences, and to the judgment of
any that will speak with reason, whether the holy converse
and conference of the godly, be not in itself a more delight-
ful thing than all the merriments, the dotages, and fooleries
of the ungodly. If you think not so, it is because your re-
lish and appetite is depraved, the devil hath deluded you, and
sin bereaved you of your wits.
III. I have told you of the pleasantness of the duties of ho-
liness, which are to be performed more directly toward God.
Let us now consider of the rest of a Christian life. Which
consisteth in our duties to be performed towards men. And
these are all comprehended in the works of charity and of
justice.
1. And certainly the works of charity are delightful.
There is not a pleasanter work in the world than to do good .
Even proud men find a great delight in the reputation or
name of doing good ; that they may be accounted the great
benefactors of the world, that is, to be as earthly gods among
their neighbours, and as the sun is to the lower world, that
all may be below them, and live by their influence. This is
the top of that prosperity that sinful ambition doth aspire to.
And if the name of welldoing be so pleasant to the proud,
the conscience of the thing itself should be more pleasant to
the upright. Open bounty is the hypocrite's glory ; but to
328 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
do good in secret is the believer's pleasure, " for their Father
which seeth in secret, shall reward them openly :" yea, the
very delight of doing good, and especially a great or public
good, a spiritual and everlasting good, is a reward unto it-
self. It is the speech of Christ recited by Paul, Acts xx.
35. that " it is more blessed to give than to receive."
There are many things concurring that make it very plea-
sant to do good. It proceeds from the power of love ; and
the exercise of love is pleasant. And love makes our bre-
thren to be to us as ourselves, and consequently their welfare
is as our own, and rejoiceth us as if ourselves received all
that they receive. And what abundant pleasure then hath a
believer ! When so many thousands of his brethren do re-
ceive so many thousand benefits daily from God himself,
and all these are to the Christian, through the union and
power of love, as if he had received them all himself. But
especially when he himself is the instrument of conveyance.
The poor have comfort in receiving of relief ; but nothing in
comparison of his that gives it, if it be done for the sake of
Christ, in uprightness of heart. A poor man receiveth from
the giver perhaps but an outward small commodity ; but the
upright giver receiveth from God the sense of his acceptance,
and peace of conscience, with the promise of an everlasting
recompence. Amite, or a cup of cold water, given to a pro-
phet in the name of a prophet, or to a disciple in the name of
a disciple, shall certainly be rewarded ; Matt. x. 40 — 42.
A true believer is covetous to do good, as others are to
receive it, and studieth for opportunities of laying out his
gifts and wealth for God, as others study to gather it for
themselves. As a worldling studieth for a good bargain,
that he may grow rich ; a true believer studieth for oppor-
tunities to lay out that he hath for God, and to improve his
Master's stock to the best advantage. The covetous doth
not more long to get more, than believers do to be rid of that
they have, in the way, and on the terms, as may do most
good, and be best accepted. And they are even afraid lest
opportunities of doing good should overslip them, and the
seed-time should pass by. A believer knows that, as his
life and soul, so his worldly riches, are nowhere sure but in
the hand of God. And therefore if they can procure his se-
curity, and get him to receive it, and return it them in hea-
ven with the promised advantage, they have then secured it
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 329
indeed. All is lost that God hath not, in one way or other;
and all is secured that he hath, and for which we have his
promise. This is "laying it up in heaven;'* Matt. vi. 21.
While we keep it, we cannot secure it from thieves. When
we have disposed of it according to the will of God, upon
the warrant of his promise, it is then in his custody, and then
it is safe. Neither rust or moth can then corrupt it, nor the
strongest thieves break through and steal. To be good and
do good is most like unto God ; and therefore must needs be
the sweetest life.
2. Works of justice also have their pleasure. For they
demonstrate the justice of God himself, from whom they do
proceed. That which is most pleasant to God, should be
most pleasant unto us. And as he hath bid us "not forget
to do good and to communicate, because with such sacrifice
he iswellpleased" (Heb. xiii. 16.), so he hath told us that he
" delighteth in the exercise of lovingkindness, judgment and
righteousness in the earth ;" Jer. ix. 24. ** He hath shewed
us what is good : and what doth he require of us, but to do
justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God ;"
Mich. vi. 8. And therefore he commandeth Israel, Hos. xii.
6. "Turn thou to God. Keep mercy and judgment, and
wait on thy God continually." Private justice between man
and man, and family justice between parents and children,
masters and servants, and political justice between the ma-
gistrates and the people, do all maintain the order of the
world, and procure both public and private peace. It is sel-
fishness and injustice, tyranny, oppression, disobedience,
and rebellion, that procure the miseries of the world. But
righteousness is safe and sweet.
3. You have heard of the pleasure of holy actions, both
internal and external. The truth is evident also from the
objects of these facts, and the matter from which a believer
may derive his pleasures. And O what an ocean of delight
is here before us ! Were our powers, capacities, and acts but
answerable to the objects, we should presently have the joys
of heaven.
1. A believer hath the ever blessed God himself to derive
his comforts from. He hath his nature and attributes to be
his comfort. He hath his near relations to afford him com-
fort; and this is more than to have all the world. It is a
God of infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness, that we
330 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
believe in, that we love, and worship, and obey. It is also
a Father reconciled to us, that hath taken us in covenant to
him as his people, through Jesus Christ. And where shall
we find comfort if not in God ? It is in vain to look for that
from any creature, that is not to be found in him. Poor
worldlings ! you have nothing that is worth the having, but
the crumbs that fall from the children's table. God is our
portion, and the world is yours ; and yet you have less even
in this world than we. You have the shadow, and we have
the substance : you have the shell, and we the kernel : you
have the straw and chaff, and true believers have the corn :
your comforts are shaken with every storm, and tossed up
and down by the justice of God, or the pride of man. But
God that is our portion is unchangeable. Yesterday, to-day,
and the same for ever. We have " a kingdom that cannot
be moved ;" Heb. xii. 28. Persecutors cannot take our God
from us, nor can any thing separate us from his love; Rom.
viii. 36. They may separate us from our houses, from our
countries, from our friends, from our riches, our liberties, our
lives ; from our books, our company, and ordinances, but not
from God, who is our great delight. In poverty, in perse-
cutions, in sickness, and at death, we have still our interest
in God. A Christian is never in so low a state, but he hath
a God to whom he may go for comfort, who is more to him
than your sweetest pleasures. Is it not a pleasure to have
such a God as can cure all diseases, supply all wants, over-
come all enemies, deliver in all dangers, and hath promised
that he will do it so far as is for our good ! If he want wa-
ter that hath the sea, or he want land that hath all the earth,
or he want light that hath the sun, yet doth he not need to
want delight that hath the Lord to be his God, if he do but
keep in the paths of grace. And are you yet unresolved, whe-
ther godliness be the most pleasant life ? Take all your plea-
sures, and make the best of them, may I but have the Lord
to be my God, and I hope I shall never desire to change
with you.
2. A holy life is therefore pleasant, because we have a
full sufficient Saviour, from whom we may daily fetch de-
light. The eternal Son of God is become the healer of our
wounds, our Peace-maker with the Father, the Conqueror
of our enemies, the Ransom for our sins, the Captain of our
salvation, the Head of his church, and the treasure of all our
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 331
hopes and joys! Sin and misery are the works of satan,
which Christ came into the world to destroy. If hypocrites
can steal a little peace to their consciences, from a false con-
ceit that they have a part in Christ, what comfort may it be
to the true believer, that hath a sure and real interest in him!
That is the sad and miserable life when you are out of Christ,
and strangers to his covenant, and cannot say his benefits are
yours, but you are yet in your sins, without his righteousness.
But when we have a special interest in him, the foundation of
our everlasting joy is laid, and the heart of his sin and misery
is broken. What fear or sorrow can you name, that I may
not fetch a sufficient remedy against from Christ ? What
can the prince of darkness say to our discomfort, which we
may not answer by arguments from Christ? By this judge
of the comfort of a holy life. If the godly overlook the
grounds of joy, that are laid in Christ, and live in a mistaken
sorrow, that is not for want of reasons and warrant to re-
joice, but for want of a right discerning of those reasons.
But what have you that are ungodly, to answer against all
the terrors of the law ? or to answer against all the accusa-
tions of your consciences ? or to comfort you against the
remembrance of your approaching misery ? While you have
no part in Christ you have no right to comfort. One thought
of Christ to a believing soul, may afford more delight than
ever you will find in a sinful life.
3. Moreover, we have the Holy Spirit of Christ, that is
purposely given us to be our Comforter. And if that be not
a pleasant life that is managed by such a guide, and that be
not most likely to be a joyful soul, that is possessed by the
Spirit of joy itself, there is no joy then on earth to be ex-
pected. Hath God promised his Spirit to comfort you that
are wicked in your sin? No ; it is the malicious and de-
ceiving spirit that is your comforter, that by his comforts he
might keep you from solid, spiritual, everlasting comforts.
But the repenting, believing soul that is united unto Christ,
and hath already had the Spirit for his conversion, it is he
that hath the promise of the Spirit for his consolation. And
if that be not the most comfortable life, where the God of
heaven becomes the comforter, we cannot then know the ef-
fect by the cause. If life itself will quicken, if light itself
will illuminate, the comforting Spirit will certainly comfort
332 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
in the degree and season as God seetli meet, and the soul is
fitted to receive it.
4. Moreover, we have the whole treasury of the Gospel
to go to for our delight. And little doth the sensual, unbe-
lieving soul know what sweetness, what supporting plea-
sures may be from thence derived. 1 had rather have the
holy word of God to go to for contents, than the treasures
of the rich, oi^the pleasures of the sensual, or the flatteries
and vainglory of the ambitious man. All that the world doth
make such a pudder about, which they ride and run for,
which they so much glory in, will never afford them so much
content, as one Scripture promise will do to a truly faithful
soul. I must profess before angels and men, that I had ra-
ther have one promise of the love of God, and the life to
come, which is contained in the holy Scriptures, than to have
all the riches, pleasures, and honours of this world. My God,
this was my covenant with thee, and to this I stand. O
blessed be the Lord, that hath provided us such a magazine
of delight as is this heavenly, sacred book ! The precepts
appoint us a pleasant work. The strictest prohibitions do
but restrain us from our own calamities, and keep out of our
hands the knife by which we would cut our fingers. The
severest threatenings do but deter us from running into the
consuming fire ; and hedge about the devouring gulf, lest
we should foolishly cast ourselves therein. And these are
the bitterest parts of that holy word. But when we read the
promises of a Saviour, and the wonderful history of his in-
carnation, and of his holy, self-denying life ; his conquests,
miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and
his promise to return ; when we read of the foundation which
he hath laid, and the building which he intends to finish 5 of
his rich, abundant promises to his chosen, what provision do
we find for our abundant joys ! No strait can be so great, no-
pressure so grievous, no enemies so strong, but we have full
consolation offered us in the promises, against them all. We
have promises of the pardon of all our sins, and promises of
heaven itself; and what can we have more ? We have pro-
mises suited to every state, both prosperity and adversity.
What do we need which we have not a promise of? And
the word of God is no deceit. What but a promise can com-
fort them that are short of the possession ? May I not have
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 333
more joy in sickness with a promise, than the ungodly with-
out a promise in their health? A promise in prison sets a
man as at liberty. A promise in poverty is more than riches.
A promise at death is better than life. What I have a pro-
mise of, I may be sure of; but what you possess without a
promise, you may lose (and your souls and hopes with it)
this night. There is no condition on earth so hard to a man
that hath interest in the promises, in which he may not have
plentiful relief. We live by faith, and not by sense. And
we reckon more on that as ours, which we hope for, than
which we do possess. We are sure that there is no true fe-
licity on earth. If then we have a promise of heaven, when
infidels lie down in the dust with desperation, have we not
a more comfortable life than they ?
5. Moreover, we have heaven itself to fetch our comfort
from. Not heaven in sight, or in possession ; but heaven in
promise, and seen by faith. And if heaven will not afford
us pleasure, whence shall we expect it? Even sensual men
can rejoice as well in what they see not, if they are assured
it is theirs, as in what they see. And why then may not be-
lievers do so much more? A worldling, when he seeth not
his money in his chest, or at use, or his lands and cattle that
are from him, can yet rejoice in them as if he saw them. And
should not we rejoice in the certain hopes of heaven though
yet we see it not? When I am pained in sickness, and roll
in restless weariness of my flesh, if then I can say, I shall be
in heaven, may it not be the inward rejoicing of my soul ?
You know where you are, but you know not where you shall
be. The believer knoweth where he shall be, as truly as he
knoweth where he is (unless it be one that by his frailty hath
not reached unto assurance, who yet hath reached unto hope).
What great matter is it if I lay in the greatest pain, if I can
say, I shall have everlasting ease in heaven ? or if I lay in
prison, or in sordid poverty, and can say, I shall shortly be
with Christ? or if I had lost the love of all men, and could
say, that 1 shall everlastingly enjoy the love of God ?
Most of your comforts do come in by the way of your
thoughts. And what thoughts should so rejoice the soul as
the thoughts of our abode with Christ for ever ? If a day in
the courts of God be so delightful, what is ten thousand mil-
lions of ages in the court of glory ; and all then as fresh as
at the first day ? There it is that our sin will be put off; our
334 A SAINT OR A IJRUTE.
carnal enmity laid by ; our temptations will be over ; our
enemies will all have done ; our fears and sorrows will be at
an end ; our desires will be accomplished ; our differences
be reconciled ; our charity perfected ; and our expectations
fully satisfied ; and hope turned into full fruition. O may I
but be able, with stronger faith, and fuller confidence, to say
that heaven is mine, and when this tabernacle is dissolved, I
shall be with Christ, my life and my death will be delightful,
and I need not complain for want of pleasure. Let who will
take the pleasures of the flesh, may I but have this. In prayer,
in meditation, in holy conference, in every duty, it is the ex-
pectation of approaching blessedness that drops in sweet-
ness into all. No wonder if it can sweeten a course of duty
when it can make light the greatest sufferings, and turn pain
into pleasure, death into life, as being unworthy to be com-
pared unto the glory which shall be revealed.
But the wicked have none of these delights, unless they
steal a little by self-deceit. They may make their best of
their present pleasures, and of the cup while it is at their
mouths, and of their wealth and honour while it is in their
hands. But it is little pleasure that they can fetch from hea-
ven ! The thought of it may rather feed their terrors. What
pleasure they can pick out of the dirt let them make their
best of. But heavenly pleasures are above their reach.
So much for the objects of a holy life, from whence a be-
liever may fetch his pleasure.
Object. * But you tell us only of the pleasant part ; but
the troublesome and bitter part you say nothing of.'
Answ, Come on, and say your worst of a holy life, and tell
us which is that bitter part.
Object. ' The Scripture requireth us to mortify the
flesh, to renounce the world, to forbear our pleasures, to de-
ny ourselves, and to take up our cross and follow Christ ;
and will you call this a pleasant life V
Answ. And do you indeed think this so sad a business?
Here are three things contained in this objection, as the mat-
ter thatseemeth so displeasing to you. 1. The parting with
your sins. 2. The sufferings that are principally for sin.
3. The sufferings that are principally for the cause of Christ.
1. And do you think sin is so lovely a thing that a man
cannot live merrily without it ? Sin is the breach of the laws
of God, and the injury of the heavenly Majesty, and the pro-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 335
vocation of his hot displeasure, and the poison and sickness
of the soul. And is it your sport to abuse the Lord ? Is
your pleasure gone, if you may not injure the God that made
you ? What natures, what sinful hearts have you, that must
have such pleasures ? Cannot a man live merrily unless he
may provoke the God of heaven, and trample upon mercy,
and despise salvation ? Can you not live in pleasure unless
you may drink poison, or keep your sickness, or tumble in
the dirt ? One would think that mischief to ourselves or
others should be small pleasure to an honest mind. It is no
pleasure to you to spit in the face of your dearest friends, or
to abuse your parents, or to provoke your neighbours ; and
is it such pleasure as you cannot forsake to abuse the Lord,
and wrong your souls ? The pleasures of sin do tend to pain.
Some pain doth usually attend it here, and much more here-
after. God would prevent your pain and misery, by prevent-
ing or destroying your sin. And do you accuse his word,
because it would keep you from so costly, so bitter, so dan-
gerous delights ? It is for your pleasure, that this plea-
sure is forbidden you. The sweetness of the poison of
sin will be soon gone, when the gripings of the tormented
conscience do remain . You will forbear the most delightful
fruits or drinks, if your physician tell you they will hazard
your life, or torment you afterwards. You are short-sighted
and short-witted, and look but to the present relish of things,
and choose them if you taste them sweet ; but God looks to
your everlasting pleasures. So that you may well reckon it
among the pleasures of a holy life, that you have such pre-
servatives against the greatest sorrows ; and that you are
kept from the pleasures that will be bitterness in the latter
end.
Yea, at the present hath not drunkenness more trouble
attending it than sobriety ? Reckon up the consuming of
men's estates, the troubles of their families, the sicknesses
of their bodies, the shame and contempt that it bringeth on
them here, and the wounds of their consciences, and tell me
whether it were not more pleasure to forbear those cups than
to drink them. And hath not gluttony more trouble attend-
ing it than temperance ? By that time the charge be paid,
the sickness that fulness breedeth be endured, the physician
paid, and all the effects of gluttony overcome, you will find
that the pleasure was little to the pain. The like I may say
336 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
of uncleanness, worldliness, passion, pride, and all other sins
that usually bring a punishment with them.
2. And then for castigatory sufferings, it is not godli-
ness that is the cause of them (as sufferings). Sin less, and
suffer less. Provoke not God, and he will spare the rod.
Do you hurt yourselves like careless children, and then blame
God for bidding you take heed ? God doth not punish men
for holiness, and welldoing. It is for want of holiness that
you are punished. I think therefore it is part of the plea-
sure of a holy life, that it keeps men out of the way of pu-
nishment. You must have pain, and unpleasant physic, when
once you have taken a surfeit of sensual delight, and made
yourselves sick with too much of the creature. Holiness
would have prevented this. And when that is too late, it
would cure it by the cheapest means that your health will bear.
Is it not then unreasonable, when you have troubled your-
selves, to blame your physician for troubling you in order to
a cure ?
3. And for those sufferings that are principally for Christ,
consider, 1. That they are also originally from sin, and there-
fore you may know what to blame for the bitter part.
Though the time, and place, and manner, and measure of
your sufferings may proceed from the gracious providence of
your Lord ; yet that supposeth that sin had brought you in-
to a state of suffering in general before; which Christ did not
presently and plenarily remit and take off, but disposeth of
them by his wisdom, as may make most for his glory and
your good. 2. And will you grudge at a little transitory
pain, that is usually requited with comforts in this life, and
rewarded with pleasures unspeakable hereafter ! You grudge
not to cast away your seed in hope of an increase at harvest ;
nor do you murmur at your daily labour if it be but blessed
with success. And will you grudge to pass through suffer-
ings to glory, to sow in tears that you may reap in joy? It
is but few that suffer martyrdom, or any great matter for the
cause of Christ, especially in our days. And those few have
usually more joy than sorrow. If you knew the joys of mar-
tyrs, you would never so shrink at the sufferings of martyrs.
And for a few mocks and scorns of foolish men, it is scarce-
ly worth the name of a suffering. Nor is it so much as wick-
ed men suffer in their sin. As godliness is a shame among
the foolish, wicked men, so wickedness is a shame among all
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 337
that are pious, wise, and sober. And why should not the
shame of sin be more loathed than the undeserved shame of
honesty ? Alas, all this is nothing to the sorrows of the un-
godly. A little of the vinegar of affliction will make us re-
lish our prosperity the better, and through our frailty is be-
come a necessary sauce to that luscious state that we are so
apt to surfeit on ! Do you not see what lamentable work
prosperity, victories, honour, and worldly wealth and power
have made in the world ? and shall we grudge at that neces-
sary, moderate affliction that saveth us from the like over-
throws ? O how few are able to withstand the temptations
of great or long prosperity! Experience of the frequent,
woeful falls of prospering men, that seemed once as firm as
any, hath made me fear when I hear of the exaltation of my
friends, and the less to grieve for their adversity or my own.
Holiness therefore is the most pleasant way, notwithstand-
ing the afflictions that do attend it. And if God will give
me an increase of holiness (of faith and love, and a heavenly
mind), though it be with an increase of my afflictions, I hope
I shall take it as an increase of my pleasure, and give him
the praise of so merciful a dispensation. And thus I have
proved to you from the nature of holiness, that it is the most
pleasant way.
11. I should next shew you the delights of holiness from
the helps and concomitants that promote our pleasure. But
because I am afraid of lengthening my discourse too much,
I shall only name a few things of many.
1. God being our God in covenant, his love is to the ho-
ly soul, as the sun is to our bodies, to illuminate, warm, re-
vive, and comfort them; and did not sin cause some eclipses
or raise some clouds, or shut the windows, we should rejoice
continually, and find how sweet a thing it is, being justified
by faith, to have peace with God.
2. We are in covenant with Jesus Christ, who interced-
eth for our peace with God. And the Father always heareth
his intercession ; John xi. 42. And therefore that measure
of comfort which he seeth suitable to our present state, we
shall be sure of. " Who shall condemn us ? when it is Christ
that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the
right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us ;"
Rom. viii. 34. " We have a great high-priest that is pass-
VOL. X. z
338 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ed into the heavens, even Jesus the Son of Ood ; one that is
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in all
points tempted like as we are, but without sin ;" and there-
fore through him we may " come boldly to the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in
time of need;" Heb. iv. 14 — 16. What comforting words
hath he spoken to us in the Gospel, and what comfortable
relations hath he put us into ! He calleth us his friends, if
we do his commandments, as if servants were too low a title ;
John XV. 14, 15. " Peace he leaveth with us : his peace he
giveth to us ; not as the world giveth, commanding that we
let not our hearts be troubled or afraid ;" chap. xiv. 27. To
those that love him, he hath promised his Father's love, and
that they will "come to him, and make their abode with him;
ver. 23. " If any man serve him, let him follow him ; and
where Christ is, there shall his servant be ; if any man serve
Christ, him will the Father honour;" chap.xii.26.
3. That we might have sure consolation, the Spirit of
Christ is given to be our comforter ; and we are in covenant
with him also, who surely will perform his covenants.
4. The servants of Christ have his holy image, the mark
of his children, which is the indwelling evidence of hislove^
to assure them of their happiness.
5. They have manifold experience of the kindness of their
Father, in hearing their prayers, and helping them in their
straits, and delivering them in their distresses.
6. They have also the help of the experience of others,
even of all the godly with whom they do converse, who can
comfort them with their comforts, and tell them how good
they have found the Lord.
7. They have the ministers of Christ appointed by office
to be the helpers of their faith and joy ; to be the messengers
of glad tidings to them, and to tell them from God of the
pardon of their sins, and of his favour to them in Christ , and
to heal the brokenhearted, and preach deliverance to the cap-
tives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, &c. Lukeiv. 18. To have a deputed
officer of Christ to absolve the penitent, and deliver them
pardon in the name of Christ, and to pray for them, and di-
rect them, and resolve their doubts, and shew them the pro-
mises that may support them, and help to profligate their
temptations, mu^t needs be much to the comfort of believers.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 339
As the care of a father is the comfort of the child, and the
care of the physician is a comfort to the sick.
8. They have all the ordinances suited to their comfort ;
the word read, preached, and meditated on ; the sacraments
and the public praises of God, and communion of the saints
(of which before).
9. They have multitudes of mercies still about them, and
every day renewed on them, to feed their comforts.
10. They have a promise that " all things shall work to-
gether for their good;" and that so all their afflictions them-
selves shall be their commodities, and death itself shall be
their gain (Rom. viii. 28. Phil. i. 21 .), and all their enemies
shall be subdued by Christ the prince of their salvation.
So that from this much you may see, that for joy and
pleasure, there is no life that hath the advantages that a ho-
ly life hath. " As for the ungodly they are not so ; but are
like the chaff which the wind driveth away ;" Psal. i. 4.
These pleasures grow not in their wicked way, nor do such
strangers know believers' joys.
III. Lastly, I should also have shewed you the pleasure
of holiness by the effects ; but here also to avoid prolixity,
I will but name a few.
1. Holiness is pleasing to God himself; and therefore it
must needs be pleasant to the saints that have it. For it is.
their end and chiefest pleasure to please God. They know
that this is the end for which they were created, redeemed,,
and renewed ; and therefore that is the most pleasant life to
them, in which they find that God is best pleased. And
therefore " they labour, that whether present or absent, they
may be accepted of him ;" 2 Cor. v. 9. They are " a holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ ;" 1 Pet. ii. 5.
2. Holiness must needs be pleasant to the soul, because
it is the spiritual health of the soul, and the means and cer-
tain evidence of its safety. And health is a constant, sen-
sible delight. And to know that our souls have escaped the
danger of the wrath of God, and everlasting misery, must
needs be a greater pleasure than any of the matters of this
world can afford. One serious thought of the salvation,
which holiness is the earnest of, may give that true content-
ment to the soul, that all the wealth and glory of the world
can never give.
340 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
-3. Holiness removeth fears and troubles, and therefore
must needs be a pleasant state. It removeth the fears of the
wrath of God, and of damnation, and the fears of all destruc-
tive evils. It tends to heal the wounded soul, and pacify the
clamorous conscience, and abate all worldly and groundless
sorrows, for which the wicked have no true cure.
4. Holiness is the destruction of sin, and sin is the cause
of all calamities, and therefore holiness must needs be plea-
sant.
6. Holiness doth consist in rejoicing graces, that are ex-
ceeding pleasant in the exercise ; as faith, hope, love, pa-
tience, &c. yea it consisteth in joy itself; Rom. xiv. 17.
6. It fits the soul for communion with God, who is the
fountain of delights ; and it brings us near him, and acquaints
us with him as a God of love ; and therefore must needs be
a pleasant state.
7. You see by experience, that when once men have tried
a holy life, they think they can never have enough of it. The
more holy they are, the more holy they would be. He that
hath most would fain have more. And the weakest desireth
no less than to be perfect. And do you think men that have
tried it, would so long after more and more, if it were not
pleasant ?
Judge also by the labour and diligence of the godly, who
** seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and
make it the principal business of their lives. Would they
make all this ado for nothing ? or for that which is a matter
of no delight ?
Judge also by the delights which they voluntarily for-
sake, when they let go all their sinful pleasures, and renounce
all the glory of the world ; would they make this exchange
if they had not found a more pleasant course, and that which
tends to everlasting pleasure?
8. You see also that the truly godly, when once they have
tried a lioly life, will never go back again to their former
pleasures, but loathe the very remembrance of them. It is
not all the honours, and riches, and pleasures in the world,
that can hire them to forsake a holy life. Sure therefore
they find it the most pleasant course ; if not in sensible de-
lights, yet at least in easing their consciences, and securing
their minds from the terrors that sinful pleasures would pro-
duce. If they found that godliness answered not their ex-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 341
pectation, they have leisure enough, and temptations too
many, to turn back into the state from whence they came.
But how would they abhor such a motion as this !
9. If holiness were not a pleasant thing, it could not help
us to bear up under all our afflictions, nor make us rejoice in
tribulation, as it doth. That which can sweeten gall and
wormwood must needs be very sweet itself. That which
can make reproach, and scorn, and poverty, and imprison-
ment either sweet or tolerable, is sure itself a pleasant thing.
10. Lastly, if holiness were not pleasant, it could not
make death itself so easy, nor take off its terrors, nor cause
the martyrs to suffer so joyfully for Christ. Death is the
king of terrors, and so bitter a cup, that it must needs be a
pleasant thing indeed, that can sweeten it.
Besides all this that hath been said, let me briefly have
some general aggravations of the delights of holiness, and
compare it as we go with the delights of the ungodly.
1. The delights of holiness are the most great, and glori-
ous, and sublime delights. They are fetched from the most
great and glorious things. It is God, and his grace, and
everlasting glory that feed our pleasures. Whereas, the de-
lights of sensual men are fed with trifles. What do they re-
joice in but the fooleries of sin, and the filthiness of their
own transgressions I What is it that contenteth them, but
a dream of honour, or the good will and word of mortal men.
or a brutish sportfulness, or the pleasing of the itch of lust,
or the provision that they have laid up for the flesh ? The
treasures of a kingdom excel not the treasure of a child's pin-
box the thousandth part so much as heaven excels the trea-
sures of the ungodly. Judge therefore by the matter that
feeds their pleasure, which of the two is the more pleasant
life ; to sport in their own shame, and laugh at the brink of
misery with the ungodly, or to delight ourselves in the love
of God, and rejoice in the assured hope of glory with the true
believer ?
2. The delights of holiness are the most rational, well-
grounded, sure delights. They are not delusory, nor ground-
ed on mistakes or fancies. They are warranted by the truth
and all-sufficiency of God, and the certainty of his promise,
and the immutability of his counsels, and the sure reward
prepared for his saints. None but a lying, malicious devil,
or his instruments that participate of his nature, or a blind
342 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
corrupted, partial flesh, will ever go about to question the
foundations of our faith and comforts. The hopes and com-
forts that are built upon this rock, will never fall, nor make
us ashamed.
But the ungodly rejoice in their own delusions. It is
ignorance and error that they are beholden to for their mirth.
They laugh in their sleep, or as madmen in their distraction.
Did they know that satan rejoiceth in their joys, and that an
offended God is always present, and how poor a matter it is
that they rejoice in, it would mar their mirth. If they saw the
hell that they are near, or well considered where they stand,
and what a case their souls are in, they would have little list
to play or laugh. If they knew aright the shortness of their
pleasures, and the length of their sorrows, and in what a
doleful case their wealth and fleshly delights will leave them,
it would turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation.
So that they rejoice but (as a sick man in a frenzy, or as a
fool upon some good news to him that is false) upon mere
mistake.
3. The delights of holiness are the most pure delights,
and most entire and complete. There is no evil in it mixed
with the good, and therefore nothing to interrupt the joy.
Our joys indeed are too much interrupted; but that is not
from any hurt that is in a holy life ; but by the contrary sin,
which holiness must work out. If men take poison, let them
not blame nature that strives against it, if they are sick ; but
let them blame themselves, and the poison, that puts nature
to expel it. In holiness itself there is nothing but good, and
therefore nothing that should grieve us.
But it is far otherwise with sensual delights. As they are
sinful, they are wholly evil. As they are natural, feeding
upon the creature alone, they are as it is, a mixture of vani-
ty and vexation. Every creature hath its unsuitableness and
imperfection, by which it disturbeth even where it pleaseth,
and troubleth where it comforteth, and frustrateth and dis-
appointeth more than it satisfieth. The more we love it,
usually the more we suffer by it. That thing which we most
excessively love, is ordinarily our sharpest scourge. That
friend whom we most excessively love, is usually our greatest
sorrow ; either by their failing our expectations, or by our
failing theirs, or our insufficiency to accomplish the good
which we desire of them. If they prove unkind, it is more
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 343
grievous than the unkindness of many others. If they prove
faithful, how deeply do we suffer with them in all their suf-
ferings ! Their wants do pinch us as our own. Their re-
proaches are our shame. Their losses take as much from
us. Their sickness paineth us. Their death half killeth us.
And he that is so happy as to have many such friends, is so
unhappy as to have more burdens, fears, and griefs to suf-
fer, and more deaths to die than other men. But especially
to ungodly men, these earthly comforts arfe uncomfortable,
because they have none of the divine delights that are the
kernel and the spirits, but take up with the shell or husk.
And because their mirth is mixed with their own misery,
which conscience sometimes gripes them for with such deep
remorse as cools their comforts. And some thoughts of the
shortness of their pleasures will be stepping in, and ending
them before their time. So that the bitterness of worldly
things surpasseth the delight.
4. The delights of holiness are deep and solid, and there-
fore do establish and corroborate the hearts. But sensual
delights are like children's laughter ; they are slight, and
outside, and flitting, and vain. As children laugh in one
breath, and cry in the next ; so worldly joys are followed at
the heels by sorrows. For they lie not deep, and fortify not
the heart against distresses, as the delights of faith and holi-
ness do.
5. The pleasures of the saints are the gift of God, and
allowed of by him ; commanded by his word, and promoted
by his promises and mercies, and are but the fruits of his
everlasting love. And being so divine, they must needs be
excellent.
But the pleasures of ungodly, worldly men are partly for-
bidden and condemned by God, and partly contradicted and
confounded, by his terrible threatenings, and the discovery
of his wrath. " There is no peace saith the Lord, to the
wicked ;" Isa. xlviii.22. lvii.21. God doth disown and pro-
test against their peace. If they will keep it, and make it
good, it must be against his will. He forbiddeth joy to a
rebellious people. "Rejoice not O Israel for joy as other
people : for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God ;"
Hos. ix. 1. He calleth them to ** weeping and mourning, and
renting of the heart ;" Joel ii. 12, 13. Hear what God saith
to them in their greatest pleasures, James v. 1 — 5. " Go to
344 A SAINT OR A BUUTE.
now ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall
come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your gar-
ments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and
the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat
your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together
for the last days : Ye have lived in pleasure on earth,
and been wanton. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a
day of slaughter " A man would think it should either
turn them, or torment them, and fill their hearts with con-
tinual horror, to find God thus solemnly protesting against
their peace, and sentencing them to woe and sorrows.
6. The pleasures of the godly are clean and noble, and
honest and honourable. They delight in things of the great-
est Worth, for which they had their natures, their time, and
all. But the pleasures of sinners are base and filthy. They
delight as swine in wallowing in the mire : and as the dog
to eat his own vomit ; 2 Pet. ii. 22. They delight to wrong
the God that made them, and by whom they live, and to cross
the ends of their lives and mercies ; and to drive away all
true delights, and to undo themselves. This is the matter
of their delight.
7. The devil is a great enemy to the delights of holiness ;
which is a sign that they are excellent. He doth what he
can to keep men from a holy state, lest they should meet
with the happiness that attends it. And if he prevail not in
this his chief design, he doth what he can to fill up the lives
of believers with calamities. All the enemies [that he can
raise up against them, shall by temptations, scorns, or inju-
ries, assault their comforts. All the storms that he can raise
shall be sure to fall upon them. How busy is he to fill them
with fears and doubtings ! and to cast perplexing thoughts
into their minds ! or to mislead them in some perplexing
ways ! and fasten on them entangling doctrines, or disquiet-
ing principles ! How cunningly and diligently will he argue
against their peace and comforts, and seek to hide the love
of God, and dishonour the blood, and grace, and covenant of
Christ, and cross the comforting workings of the Spirit!
How subtilly will he question all our evidences, and extenu-
ate all God's comforting mercies, and do all that he can that
the godly may have a hell on earth, though they shall have
none hereafter. It is sure an excellent joy and pleasure,
which satan is so great an enemy to.
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 345
8. The delights of holiness do make us better. They are
so far from disordering the mind, and leading us to sin, that
they compose and purify the mind, and make sin much more
odious to us than before. No man hates sin so much as he
that hath seen the pleased face of God, and tasted most the
sweetness of his grace, and tried the pleasant paths of life.
And therefore it is, that when a believer comes from fervent
prayers, or from heavenly conference or meditation, or from
hearing the blessed word of life, laid open plainly, and ap-
plied powerfully to his soul, he would then abhor a tempta-
tion to sensual delights, if they were set before him. Till
we lose the relish of holy things, and suffer our delight in
God to fade, we are seldom taken in the snares of any flesh-
ly vanities. Money is dirt to us, and honour a smoke, and
lust doth stink, as long as we maintain our delights in God.
He is the best and highest Christian, that hath most of these
spiritual delights.
But fleshly pleasures make men worse. They intoxicate
the mind, and fill it with vanity and folly. They are the
snares to entrap us ; and the harlots that do bewitch us, and
defile the soul that should be chaste for God. The noise of
this sensual, foolish mirth doth drown the voice of God and
reason, so that in the most needful matters they cannot be
heard. In their hunting and hawking, dicing and carding,
drinking and revelling, feasting and dancing, how little of
God or heaven is on the sinner's mind ! Seldom is the soul
so unfit for duty, so incapable of instruction, so hardened
against the word and warnings of the Lord, as in the depth of
sensual delights. Then it is that they are " foolish, disobedi-
ent, and deceived," when they are serving divers lusts and
pleasures," as Paul that had tried both ways confesseth. Tit.
iii. 3. None so unlike to be the servants of Christ, as they
that are " clothed in purple and fine linen, and that fare
sumptuously (or deliciously) every day ;" Luke xvi. To live
" in rioting and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness,
in strife and envying, and to make provision for the flesh to
fulfil the lusts thereof," is the description of one that walks
not honestly, and is far from a Christian's life and hopes ;
Rom. xiii. 13, 14. It is those voluptuous, sensual sinners,
that most obstinately shut out all the reproofs, and refuse
him that speaketh to them from heaven, and will not so much
as soberly consider of the things that concern their everlast-
346 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ing peace; and therefore are oft so forsaken of grace, that
they grow to be scorners of the means of their salvation, and
" being past feeling do give themselves over to lascivious-
ness, to work all uncleanness with greediness ;" Eph.iv. 19.
Which then is most desirable? the healing or the wounding
pleasure? the quickening or the killing mirth? the whole-
some or the poisonous sweet? the delights that mend us and
further our salvation, or corrupting pleasures that drown men
in perdition ?
9. The delights of holiness are of kin to heaven. They are
of the same nature with those that saints and angels have with
God (though we must acknowledge an inconceivable differ-
ence). It is the same God and the same glory that now de-
lighteth us as seen by faith, which shall then delight us when
seen by intuition with open face. We are solacing our-
selves in love and praise, with the same employment that we
must have in heaven. And therefore if heaven be the state
of the greatest joy and pleasure, the state of grace, and work
of holiness, that is most like it, must needs be next it.
But sensual pleasures are bestial and sordid, and so far
unlike the joys of heaven, that nothing more withdraws the
mind, or maketh it unmeet for heaven.
10. Lastly, The delights of holiness are durable, even
everlasting. The further we go, the greater cause we have
of joy. It is not a mutable good that we rejoice in, but in
the immutable God, the Ancient of days, and in that Christ
that loveth his spouse with an everlasting love ; and in the
sure and faithful promises ; and in the hopes of the kingdom
that cannot be moved. The spring of our pleasure is in hea-
ven, and our rejoicing is but the beginning of that which
must there be perpetuated. Death cannot kill the joys of a
believer ; the grave shall not bury them ; millions of ages
shall not end them ! Here may they be interrupted, because
the pleased face of God may be eclipsed, and sin and satan
may cast malicious doubts into our minds ; and the neigh-
bourhood of the flesh will force the mind to participate of
its sufferings. But still God will keep their comforts alive,
at least in the root, and help them in the act, as we have need
of them, and are fit for them. And in the world of joy for
which he is preparing us, our joy shall be perfected, and ne-
ver have interruption or end. Holy festivals and ordinances,
and sweetest communion of saints, and dearest love truest
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 347
friends, and perfect health and prosperity in the world, and
all other comforts set together, that this world affords, are
but short emblems and small foretastes of the joys which
the face of God will afford us, and we shall have with Christ,
his saints and angels, to all eternity.
But sensual pleasures are of so short continuance, that
they are gone before we feel well that we have them. The
drunkard, the glutton, the fornicator are drinking but a su-
gared cup of poison, and merrily sowing the seeds of ever-
lasting sorrow : satan is but scratching them (as the butcher
shaves the throat of the swine) before he kill them. One
quarter of an hour ends the pleasure, and leaves a damp of
sadness in its room : he that hath had forty or fifty years'
pleasure, hath no relish of it when it is past ; but it is as if
it had never been, and much worse. He that hath spent a
day, or month, or year in pleasure, hath no more at night,
or at the year's end, when it is gone, than he that hath spent
that time in sorrow. The bones and dust of thousands lie
now in the churchyard, that have tasted many a sweet cup
and morsel, and have had many a merry, wanton day ; and
are they now any better for it, than if they had never known
it? and are not the poor and sorrowful there their equals?
And doubtless their souls have as little of those pleasures as
their dust. In heaven they are abhorred : in hell they are
turned into tormented flames, and remembered as fuel for
the devouring fire. There are gluttons, but no more good
cheer : there are drunkards, but no more drink : there are
fornicators, but no more lustful pleasures : there are the
playful wasters of their time, but no more sport and recre-
ation : there are the vain-glorious, proud, ambitious souls,
but not in glory, honour and renown ; but their aspiring
hath cast them into the gulf of misery, and their pride hath
covered them with utter confusion, and their glory is turned
to their endless shame. Those that are now overwhelmed
with the wrath of God, and shut up under desperation, are
the souls that lately wallowed here in the delights of the
flesh, and enjoyed for a season the pleasure of sin ; and now
what fruit have they of all their former seeming happiness ?
He that is feasted and gallantly adorned and attended to-
day, is crying for a drop of water in vain to-morrow ; Luke
xvi. 23 — 26. Christ tells you the gain of earthly riches, and
the duration of earthly pleasures, to the ungodly, Luke vi.
348 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
24,25.; "Woe to you that are rich, for you have received
your consolation : woe to you that are full, for you shall
hunger : woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn
and weep ;" that is. You that live a sensual life, and take up
your pleasure and felicity here, shall find that all will end
in sorrow. But, " blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye
shall be filled : blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall
laugh ; V. 21 . ; that is. You that are contented to pass through
sorrows and tribulation on earth, to the kingdom where you
have placed your happiness and hopes, shall find your sor-
rows will end in joy ; and therefore you are blessed while
you seem miserable to the world. " Ye shall weep and la-
ment; but the world shall rejoice : and ye shall be sorrow-
ful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy ;" John xvi.20.
*' Now you have sorrow ; but I will see you again, and your
heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you ;"
verse 22. We have a constant interest in the Fountain of
all joy ; and if our sun be clouded, it is but for a moment.
" Our Maker is our Husband ; the Lord of Hosts is his
name : and our Redeemer the Holy One of Israel ; the God
of the whole earth : For a small moment may he forsake
us, but with great mercy will he gather us. In a little wrath
he may hide his face from us for a moment ; but with ever-
lasting kindness will he have mercy on us, saith the Lord
our Redeemer. As he swore that the waters of Noah should
no more go over the earth, so hath he sworn that he will not
be wroth with his people, nor rebuke them. For the moun-
tains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed ; but his
kindness shall not depart from us, nor the covenant of his
peace be removed ; saith the Lord, that hath mercy on us ;"
Isaiah liv. 5 — 19. *' For his anger endureth but for a mo-
ment ; in his favour is life : weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning ;" Psal. xxx. 5. Storms may
arise that may affright us ; but how quickly will they all be
over ? " Come my people (saith the Lord, Isaiah xxvi. 20.)
enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee ;
hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indig-
nation be overpast."
And as the momentary sorrow of the godly is forgotten
in everlasting joy, so the joy of the wicked is but for a mo-
ment, and is drowned in everlasting sorrows. " Knowest
thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 349
the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite is but for a moment? Though his excellency
mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the
clouds ; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung : they
which have seen him shall say. Where is he 1 He shall fly
away as a dream, and shall not be found : yea, he shall be
chased away as a vision of the night : the eye also which
saw him, shall see him no more ; neither shall his place any
more behold him;'' Job xx. 4 — 9. " They take the timbrel
and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organs : they
spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the
grave ;" Job xxi. 12, 13.
It would grieve a considerate believer to look on a
worldly, sensual gallant, in the midst of his vainglory, or
any unsanctified man in his mirth and pleasure, and to think
where that man will shortly be, and how the case will be al-
tered with him, and where his sport and mirth will leave
him. As it would sadden our hearts to see one of them
struck dead in the place, or to see the devil fetch them
away, and spoil the game ; so should it grieve us to foresee
the stroke of death,-^and the condemnation of their souls to
everlasting misery. And can that man much value the plea-
sure of ungodly men, that doth foresee this end ? Would
you not laugh at him that were a prince but for a day, and
must be the scorn of the world to-morrow ? or that would
choose one day of mirth and pleasure, though he knew it
would fill the rest of his life with pain and misery ? If folly
and stupidity were any wonder, it were a wonder that un-
godly men can be merry, when their consciences tell them
that they are not sure to stay one hour out of hell ; nor to
hold on their mirth till the end of the game. But while
they are saying, " Soul, take thy ease, eat, drink and be
merry ;" they may suddenly be told from God, " Thou fool,
this night shall thy soul be required of thee ;" and then
whose is thy wealth ? and then where is thy sport and mirth ?
Luke xii. 19,20. As the tender flowers and roses of the
spring do fall^before the nipping frosts, and will not live in
winter storms ; no more will your fading mirth endure the
frowns of God, the face of death, nor scarce a serious fore-
thought of the day that you are near. And such matter of
horror is continually before you, while you are under the
wrath and curse of God, in a carnal unregenerate state, that
350 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
you are beholden to folly, security and stupidity for that
ease which hindereth your everlasting ease.
So that all things considered, I must seriously profess,
that (however the ungodly have some pleasant dreams, and
may live awhile in carelessness and stupidity, or fleer in the
face, while the beginning of hell is in their consciences, yet)
I must judge, that a life of faith and holiness are unspeak-
ably sweet, if it were but for this, that they save the con-
science from the gripes, and fears, and terrible thoughts,
that either sometime feed on the ungodly, or are ready to
devour their mirth and them. So sad and frightful a thing
it is to be unsanctified, and in a state of sin, that it is a high
commendation of the delights of holiness, that they so much
deliver us from those grievous terrors, and are so powerful
an antidote to preserve the heart from the wicked's pangs
and desperation. Believe it, when conscience, death, and
judgment are the messengers to declare your endless sor-
rows, you will then wish, and ten thousand times wish, that
you had some of the faith end holiness of the saints, to be a
cordial to your sinking hearts ; and then you would take it
as a matter of unspeakable joy, to be found in such a state
as you now count sad and melancholy. Ask but a dying
man, whether fleshly pleasure or godliness be the sweeter
thing? Now when the delusions of prosperity are gone,
which do men most relish, and which is it that they would
own? By the consent of all the wise men in the world, I
may well conclude that a holy life is incomparably the most
pleasant.
But I know there are many things that seem to cross all
this that I have spoken, which will be the matter of the ob-
jections of ungodly men, and therefore must have an an-
swer, before we pass any further. And the principal objec-
tion is from the too common case of those that fear God,
who walk so sadly, and doubt, and complain, and mourn so
frequently, and shew so little cheerfulness and joy, when
many of the ungodly live in mirth, that you will think I speak
against experience, when I say that a life of holiness is so
pleasant, and therefore that it is not to be believed. You
will say, * Do we not see the contrary in the sadness of their
faces, and hear it in their sad lamenting words?'
To this I must give many particulars in answer, which
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 351
when you have laid together, you may Bee that all this makes
nothing against the pleasantness of the ways of God.
And, 1. You must difference between the entrance into
holiness, and the progress ; and between a new beginner, that
is but lately turned from his ungodliness, and one that hath
had time to try and understand the ways of God. Those that
are entering, or but newly come in, must needs have sorrow.
But what is the cause of it ? Not their godliness but their
ungodliness. I mean, it is their ungodliness which they la-
ment, though it be godliness that causeth them to lament it.
Can you expect that an ingenuous man should see his sin,
and look back on so many years' transgressions, and not be
grieved ? To see that he hath so long abused God, and lost
his time, and neglected his salvation, and that he hajth lain
so long in so miserable a state, must needs cause remorse in
the conscience that hath any feeling. And will you say that
godliness is unpleasant, because it makes a man sorrow for
his ungodliness ? If a man that hath killed his dearest friend,
or his own father, be grieved for the fact when he cometh to
repentance, will you blame his repentance or his murder for
his grief? Will you say. What a hurtful thing is this re-
pentance ! or rather. What an odious crime was it that must
be so repented of! Would you wish a man that hath lived
so long in sin and misery, to have no sorrow for it in his re-
turn ? Especially when it is but a healing sorrow, preparing
for remission, and not a sorrow joined with despair, as theirs
will be that die impenitently? Observe the complaints of
penitent souls, whether it be their present godliness, or their
former ungodliness, which they lament ? Will you hear a
man lament his former sinful, careless life, and yet will you
lay the blame on the contrary course of duty, which now he
hath undertaken ? You may as wisely accuse a man for land-
ing in a safe harbour, because he there lamenteth his loss by
shipwreck while he was at sea. Or as wisely may you blame
a man for rising that complaineth how he hurt himself by his
fall. And as honestly may you accuse the chastity of your
wife, because she lamenteth her former adultery; or the fi-
delity of your friend or servant, because he lamenteth his
former unfaithfulness.
But though the pangs of the new birth be somewhat griev-
ous, and we come not into the world of grace without some
lamentation, yet this is not the state of the holy life, into
352 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
which we enter; nor are those pangs to continue all our days.
2. You must distinguish between the weaker and the
stronger sort of Christians, and consider that children are apt
to cry ; but it is not therefore better to be unborn. Sickness
is querulous, and the weak are froward ; but it is not there-
fore better to be dead. The godly are not perfectly godly.
They are sinners while they are saints. They have holiness,
but they have corruption with it. Their sin is conquered,
but yet not totally rooted out. The relics do remain though
it do not reign. And it is the remnant of their unholiness
that they lament, and not their holiness. They grieve not
that they are godly, but that they are no more godly. It
troubleth them not that they are come home to Christ, but
that they have brought so much of their corruption with
them. Hearken whether they complain of their humility or
their pride ; of their faith, or unbelief; their confidence, or
their distrust; their repentance, or their hardness of heart.
It is not their heavenlymindedness that troubleth them, but
their earthlymindedness. Nor is it their spirituality, but
their carnality. Nor is it the duties, but the weakness and
faultiness of their souls;;in duty. Not that they do it, but
that they do it no better. It is more holiness that they beg for,
and lament the want of. And will you say that holiness is
unpleasant, because men would so fain have more of it ?
You would reason with more wisdom in another case. If a
man that hath tasted meat or drink, complain because he hath
no more, you would not blame'his food for that: nor gather
from thence that it is unpleasant, or that famine is more de-
lightful.
3. You must distinguish between those Christians that
have fallen since their conversion, into any great and wound-
ing sin, or nourish some vexatious distempers ; and those that
walk more uprightly with God, and maintain their integrity
and peace. No wonder if David, after his sin, complain of
the breaking of his bones and heart ; and if Peter go out
and weep bitterly. The servants of Christ do know so much
of the evil of sin, that they cannot make so light of it, as the
blind and obdurate world that are past feeling. That sin
which hath cost them formerly so dear, and hath cost Christ
so much dearer on their behalf, must needs cost some smart
in the penitent soul. Sickness is felt because it supposeth
the subject to be alive ; but the dead feel not that they are
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 3/i3
dead and rotten. And it doth not follow that therefore death
is more desirable than sickness. It is because they are so
like to the ungodly, that the servants of Christ do grieve and
complain. But so far as they feel the healthfulness of their
souls, and conscious of their sincerity and upright conver-
sations, they have greater comfort than the world can afford
them.
4. You must distinguish between those Christians that
by misapprehensions are unacquainted with their own feli-
city, and those that better understand their state. If a man
be never so holy, and know it not, but by temptations is
brought to doubt, whether he be not yet in his unsanctified
state, no wonder if this man be grieved at these fears. But
his grief is not because he is sanctified, but because he is
afraid lest he be unsanctified. And this shews that holiness
is most lovely in his eyes ; or else why should he be much
troubled, when he doth but doubt whether he be holy or not ?
If a rich man by a false report should believe that he is rob-
bed of his goods and treasure, or that his houses are burnt
when it is not so, he will mourn or be troubled till he know
the truth. And will any be so foolish as to conclude from
thence, that riches are more uncomfortable than beggary?
Had you not rather be rich, though for a time you know it
not, than to live in certain, continual want ? If a man that is
in health be persuaded by mistake that he is in a consump-
tion, he will be troubled by his mistake. But will you thence
conclude that sickness is more comfortable than health ? Is
it not better to have health with those mistaken fears, thar^
to live in sickness ? Methinks you should rather argue on
the contrary side. How sweet is health when the fear of los-
ing it is so troublesome ! How bitter is sickness and death,
when the very fear of them is so grievous ! And so you
should say. How sweet is holiness, when it is so troublesome
to those that have it, so much as to fear lest they have it not!
and. How miserable a life is it to be ungodly, when it is so
grievous to the servants of Christ even once to fear lest
they are ungodly !
But go to those Christians that know themselves, and are
truly acquainted with their sincerity and their privileges, and
see whether they walk so uncon^fortably as those mistake
,en, doubting souls, You will find them in another case, an(J
VOL. X. A A
354 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
hear other kind of language from their mouths ; even the joy-
ful praises of their Redeemer, and the thankful acknowledge
ments of his abundant love. How sweet unto their souls is
the remembrance of kindness ! and how delightful a work is
it from day to day to magnify his name !
5. You must also distinguish between those weak, mis-
taken Christians, that understand not the extent of the cove-
nant of grace, and those that do understand it. If a believer
by mistake should think that the grace of the Gospel extend-
ethnot to such as he, because he is unworthy, and his sins are
great, no wonder if he be troubled. As you would be if you
should conceive that your lease were not made to you, but to
another; or as a malefactor would be if he thought his pardon
belonged not to him, but to another man. But hence yon
should rather observe the riches and excellencies of the Gos-
pel, and the happiness of the heirs of promise, than dream
that it is better be strangers to the holy covenant still. They
are better that have a promise of life and understand it not,
than they that have none. But those that know the freeness
and fulness of the promise, and study with all saints to com-
prehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and
height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth know-
ledge (Eph. iii. 18, 19.), do use to walk more comfortably ac-
cording to the riches of that grace which they do possess.
6. Consider also, that most of these complaining Chris-
tians are glad that they are in any measure got out of their
former state, and therefore apprehend their cause to be bet-
ter than it was before. Or else they would turn back to the
state that they were in ; which they would not do for all the
world. And therefore they take a godly life to be far more
pleasant to them that do attain it.
7. Moreover, the sorrow of believers is such as may con-
sist with joy. At the same time while they are grieved that
they are no better, they are gladder of that measure of grace
which they have received, than they would be to be made the
rulers of the world. While they are mourning for the rem-
nant of their sins, they are glad that it is but a remnant that
they have to mourn for. Yea, while they are troubled be-
cause they doubt of their sincerity and salvation, they are
more sustained and comforted with that little discerning
which they have of their evidences, and with their hopes of
the everlasting love of God, than they could by all your sin-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 355
ful pleasures. Try the most dejected, mournful Christian,
whether he v^ould change states and comforts with the best
and greatest of the ungodly. The soul of man is so active
and comprehensive, that it can atonce both rejoice and mourn.
While they mourn for sin, and feel affliction, believers can
have some rejoicing taste of everlasting life.
8. Yea, the godly sorrow of a believer is the matter of his
joy. He is gladder when his heart will melt for sin, than he
would be to be your partner in your carnal pleasures. He
would not change the comfort that he findeth in his penitent
tears for all your laughter.
9. The joy of a believer is intimate and solid, as I said
before, according to the object of it, and not like the fleering
of a fool, or the laughter of a child, or the sensual mirth that
Solomon called madness. And therefore it is not so dis-
cernible to others as carnal mirth is. And therefore you
think that the servants of Christ are void of pleasure when
they have much more than you. It is little ridiculous acci-
dents and toys that make men laugh ; but great things give
us an inward, sweet content and joy, which scorns to shew
itself by laughter. And what can be a fitter object of such
great content, than to be a member of Christ, and an heir of
heaven?
10. Moreover, this sorrow of the godly is but medicinal,
and a preparative to their after joys. It doth but work out
the poison of sin, which would mar their comforts, and drive
them to Christ, and fit them to value him, and taste the sweet-
ness of his love and grace.
11. And as it is not the state and life of a Christian, but
his fasting-days, or time of physic, so the comforts of the
godly ordinarily do far exceed their sorrows, at least in weight,
if not in passionate sense. They have their hours of sweet
access to God, and of heavenly meditation, and delightful
remembrance of the experiences of his love, and perusal of
his promises, and communion with his people ; and of the
exercise of faith, and hope, and love. And with those Chris-
trans that have attained stability and strength, these com-
forting graces are predominant ; and their life is more in love
and praise, than in vexatious fears and sorrows. And it
should be so with all believers. Love is the heart of the new
creature. It is a life of love, and joy, and praise, that Christ
calls all his people to ; and forbids them all unnecessary
'afW^*-
356 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
doubts and sorrows ; and keepeth them up so strictly from
sin, that he may prevent their sorrows. And if you will judge
whether holiness be a pleasant course, you must go to the
prescript, and consider the nature and use of holiness, and
look at those that live according to the mercies of the Gos-
pel ; and not look at the dejections and sorrows of those that
grieve themselves by swerving from the way of holiness ; as
if you would judge that health is unpleasant because you
hear a sick man groan. And yet even these weak and mourn-
ful Christians usually have more joy than you. The very
preservation of their souls from that despair which sin would
cast them into if they had not a Christ to fly to, and the lit-
tle tastes of mercy which they have felt, and the revivings
that they find between their sorrows and the hopes they have
of better days, are enough to weigh down all your pleasures,
and^aH^their own sorrows.
12. Lastly, consider that this is not the life of perfect joy,
and therefore some sorrows will be intermixed. Comfort
will not be perfect till holiness be perfect ; and till we arrive
at the place of perfect joy. What is wanting now while we
live in a troublesome, malignant world, shall shortly be made
up in the heavenly Jerusalem, when we have admittance into
our Master's joy. And then all the world shall be easily con-
vinced, whether sin or duty, a fleshly or a holy life, hath the
greater pleasures and contents.
Object. * But it is not only the weakness of professors,
but the very way that is prescribed them, that must bear the
blame. For they are commanded to fast, and weep, and
mourn.'
Answ. 1. That is but with a medicinal necessary sorrow,
for preventing of a greater sorrow. As bitter medicines and
bloodletting, and strict diet, are for the prevention of death.
God first commandeth them to take heed of sin, the cause of
sorrow. But if they will fall and break their bones, they
must endure the pain of setting them again.
2. And doth not Christ command his servants also to re-
joice? and again rejoice, and always to rejoice? Phil. iii. 1.
iv. 4. 1 Thess. v. 16. Doth he not command them to live in
the most delightful works of love and joy, and thankful men-
tion of his mercies ? I tell you, if Christians did but live as
God requireth them, and by his plenteous mercies doth en-
courage them to live, they would be the wonder of the world
A SAINT OR A BltUTE. 367
for their exceeding joy ; they would triumph as men that are
entering into rest, and make the miserable, ungodly princes
and great ones in the world observe their low, contemptible
condition, and see by the comfort of believers, that there are
far higher joys than theirs to be attained. Did Christians
live as God would have them, according to their dignity and
felicity, they would make the world admire the spirit, and
hopes, and comforts that do so transport them. They would
be so taken up in the love and praise of their Redeemer, that
they would scarce have leisure to observe whether they be
rich or poor, or to regard the honours or dishonours of the
world. These little things would scarce find room in their
affection, they would be taken up so much with God. If
they were sore with scourging, and their feet were in the
stocks, they would there sing forth the praise of him that
hath assured them of their deliverance and everlasting joy,
as Paul and Silas did, Acts xvi. They would rejoice in po-
verty, in disgrace, in pain, and nothing would be able to over-
come their joy. They would pity the tyrants and sensual epi-
cures that have no sweeter pleasures than those that the flesh
and this deceitful world affords. O the joy that believers
would have in their secret prayers ! in their heavenly medi-
tations ! in their holy conference ! in the reading of the pro-
mises ! and much more in their public praises and commu-
nion, if they did but follow more fully the conduct of that
Spirit that hath undertaken to be their comforter ! What
makes believers slight this world, and take all your pleasures
to be unworthy of their entertainment or regard, but that
they have had a taste of sweeter things, and by faith are over-
grown these childish vanities ? [f God and his favour be
better than such worms as we, and the heavenly glory better
than these transitory toys, you may well conceive that the
believer's joy, that is fed by these, must be greater (at least
in worth and weight) than all the pleasures of this subluna-
ry world. If therefore you love a life of pleasure, come over
to Christ, and live a holy, heavenly life ; and believe one
that hath made some trial, yea believe the Lord himself, that
holiness is the only pleasant life.
And now as we have seen it plainly proved, that the life
of holiness is the most pleasant life, so from hence we may
see two sorts reproved, that (in different measures) are found
to be transgressors.
358 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
The first is, those blind ungodly wretches, that can find
no pleasure in a holy life, when they can find pleasure in
their worldly drudgery, and in their sensual uncleanness,
and their childish vanities. They have the God of infi-
nite goodness to delight in ; but to their impious hearts
he seemeth not delightful. They have his power, and wis-
dom, and holiness, and truth to love, and admire, and trust
upon, and his excellent works to behold him in, and his holy
laws, and gracious promises to meditate on ; but they have
small delight in any such employment. They have leave as
well as any others to open their hearts to God in secret, and
in prayer and praise to recreate their souls, and to hold com-
munion with the saints of God, and to be exercised both in
public and private in his worship, and to order their families
in his fear, and to manage their affairs according to his word ;
but they find no pleasure in such a life as this, but are as
backward to it as if it were a toilsome and unprofitable bu-
siness, and are weary of that little outside worship which
they do perform. They have heaven set before them to seek
after, and to make their portion and delight, but they have
small delight to think or speak of it. Their hearts are un-
suitable to these high, holy and spiritual things. They are
matters that they are strange to, and have no firm and con-
fident belief of, but an uncertain, wavering, weak opinion :
and therefore they are too far off to be their delight. " They
eay to God, Depart from us ; for we desire not the knowledge
of thy way. What is the Almighty that we should serve
him? and what profit should we have if we pray unto him?'*
Jobxxi. 14,15. If they do come to the public assemblies,
and join there in the outward part of worship, they find lit-
tle life and pleasure in it, because they are strangers to the
reward and spiritual part, which is the kernel. They look
more at the preacher's gifts, and the manner of his doctrine
and delivery, than at the spiritual necessary matter that is
delivered. They have some pleasure in a neat composed
speech, that seemeth not to accuse them any more than
others, and grateth not on their tender ears with plain and
necessary truth ; but suffers them to go home as quietly as
they came thither. But if the preacher touch them to the
quick, and endeavour faithfully to acquaint them with
themselves ; or if he have no eloquence or accurateness of
speech to please them with, but be guilty of any unhand-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 359
someness of expression, or modal imperfections, they are
weary of hearing him, and think it long till the glass be run,
and perhaps instead of tasting the sweetness of wholesome
truth, they make it the matter of their derision and con-
tempt.
But let them be at cards or dice, at hawking or hunting,
or at any idle sports and vanities, and they can hold out
longer with delight. At drinking, or feasting, or idle talk-
ing, they are not so weary. Yea, in the labours of their call-
ing, when their bodies are weary, their minds are more un-
wearied ; and in their fields and shops they have more delight
than in the spiritual, holy service of the Lord. They are ne-
ver so merry as when there is least of God upon their hearts
and in their ways. And it is one of the reasons that hinder-
eth their conversion, lest it should deprive them of their mirth,
and cause them to spend the remainder of their days in un-
comfortable heaviness. If sin were not sweet to them, con-
version would be more easy. The pleasure which they find in
creatures by their sin, is the prison and fetters of their soul's
captivity. If this be thy case that readest these lines, I beseech
thee lay to heart these following aggravations of thy sin.
1. How blind and wicked is the heart that can find more
pleasure in sin than holiness ! Is the creature pleasant to
thee, and God unpleasant ? What a shame is this to thy un-
derstanding and thy will ! It proclaimeth thy pernicious fol-
ly and impiety. If thou hadst no more wit than to be pleased
more with stones than gold, with dung than meat, with shame-
ful nakedness than clothing, thou wouldst not be judged
wise enough to be left to thy own dispose and government.
But the folly which thou dost manifest, is unspeakably great-
er. Darkness is not so much worse than light, and death is'
not so much worse than life, as sin is worse than holiness, and
the world than God. And is the worst more pleasant to thee
than the best 7 It is a fool indeed, to whom '* it is a sport
to do mischief;" (Prov. x. 23.) and so great a mischief as sin
is ! and yet hath no delight in understanding ; chap, xviii, 2.
" Delight is not seemly for such fools ;*' chap. xix. 10.
And how wicked is that heart as well as blind, that is so
averse to God and holiness! Doth not this shew thee, 1.
the absence of God's holy image I 2. And the presence of
Satan's image upon thy soul ?
Nothing doth more certainly prove what a man is, than
560 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
the complacency and displacency of his heart. If you knmv
what it is in yourselves or others, that pleaseth and displeas-
eth most, you may certainly know whether you have the spi-
rit and grace of Christ or not. This is the durable, infalli-
ble evidence, which satan shall never be able to invalidate,
and which the weakest Christians can scarce tell how to de-
ny in themselves. Could they be more holy, it would please
them better than to be more rich. Could they believe more,
and love God more, and trust him more, and obey him bet-
ter, it would please them more than if you gave them all the
honours of the world. They are never so well pleased with
their own hearts, as when they find them nearest heaven, and
have most of the knowledge of God, and impress of his at-
tributes, and sense of his presence. They are never so well
pleased with their lives, as when they are most holy and
fruitful, and may most fully be called " a walking with God."
They are never so much displeased with themselves^ as when
they find least of God upon their hearts, and are most dark
and dull, and indisposed to holy communion with him. They
are never so much weary of themselves, as when their lives
are least fruitful, holy, and exact. And this is a certain evi-
dence of their sincerity. For it shews what they love, and
what it is that hath their hearts or wills. And it is the heart
or will that is the man in God's account. God takes a man
to be what he sincerely would be. As he is, so he loveth
and willeth ; and as he loveth and willeth, such he is. His
complacency or displacency are the immediate sure discove-
ries of his bent or inclination. This certain evidence poor
doubting souls should have oft recourse to, and improve.
And on the contrary, it is as sure an evidence of your
misery, when you " savour not the things of the Spirit*' (Rom.
viii*5 — 7.), and when it pleaseth you more to be great, than
to be good ; to be rich, than to be religious and righteous ;
to serve your lusts, than to serve the Lord. When you set
more by the applause of men, than by the approbation of
God; and had rather be far from God than near him, and be
excused from a holy life than used to it, and constant in it.
When you take the world and sin for your recreation or de-
light, and a godly life for a melancholy, wearisome, and un-
pleasant course. This certainly shews that you have yet the
old corrupted nature, and serpentine enmity against the Spi-
rit and life of Christ, and are yet in the flesh, and therefore
A SAINT OR A BRUTK. 361
can no more please the Lord, than his holy ways are pleas-
ing unto you (Rom. viii.6 — 8.), and it proveth that you are
yet in the gall of bitterness, and the bonds of your iniquity,
and that your hearts are not right in the sight of God, and
that you are the slaves of satan, whose nature you partake of
by which you are thus alienated from the Lord.
Didst thou know God as Faith doth know him, his lov-
ingkindness would be better to thee than life itself; Psal.
Ixiii. 3. If thou didst love him (as it is like thou wilt pre-
tend thou dost), it would be meat and drink to thee to enjoy
his love, and do his will. And if thou know him not by faith,
nor cleavest to him by unfeigned love, how canst thou
pretend to have his image ?
How would you judge of that man's heart, that were no
better affected to his friend, to his parents or children, or
other relations, than you manifest yourselves to be to God ?
If he can take no pleasure in the company of his wife or
children, but is glad when he is far from them, in the com-
pany of strangers, or harlots, or prodigals, would you not say
this man had a base, unmanly disposition ? Express but such
an inclination in plain words, and try how honest, sober men
will judge of them. Muchmore would it be odious to Chris-
tian ears, if you should tell God plainly. We can find no plea-
sure in thee, or in thy holy ways ; thy word and service are
unsavoury and wearisome unto us. We had rather be talk-
ing or busied about the matters of the world. We have far
more pleasure in recreations and sensual accommodations,
than in remembering thee and thy kingdom, and than we find
in the life that is called holy. Would not such words as these
be called impious by every Christian that should hear them?
And is not that an impious heart then, which speaketh thus
or is thus affected, and that an impious life that manifesteth
it, though dissembling lips are ashamed to profess it.
If God be not more to be loved and delighted in than any
thing, or all things else, he is not God. If heaven and holi-
ness be not sweeter than all the pleasures of earth and sin,
let them have no more such honourable names. Let sin and
earth then be called heaven ; but woe to them that have no
better.
2. What monstrous ingratitude is that man guilty of, that
when God hath provided, and Christ hath purchased such
high delights, and freely tendered them to unworthy sinners.
^2 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
will say, I find no pleasure in them, and take them for no de-
lights at all ? When the Lord beheld thee wallowing in thy
filth, and laughing in thy misery, and making a sport of thine
own perdition, he pitied thee, and provided and offered to
thee the most noble and excellent delights, that thy nature
is capable of enjoying. And wilt thou cast them back un-
thankfuUy in his face, and say. They are unpleasant, tedious
things ? If your child did so by his meat or clothes, yea or
a beggar at your door did so by his alms, you would think it
proved his great unworthiness. If he throw away the best
you can give him, and say. It is naught, there is no sweet-
ness in it, would you not think it fit that want should help
to mend his relish, and cure his ingratitude ? And will you
do so yourselves by Christ and holiness, and say as those,
Mai. i. 13. " What a weariness is it!" Take heed lest you
provoke the Lord to cast you into a state in which you shall
have more cause to be weary. If you are weary of reading,
and praying, and hearing, and other holy exercises, and wea-
ry of heartsearcing, penitent meditations, will you not be
more weary of hellfire, and of the dolorous reviews of this
your folly, and of the endless, easeless, remediless sense of
the wrath of God, and gripes of your own self-tormenting
consciences! How just is it with God to give those men
somewhat that they have cause to be weary of, that will be
thus weary of his sweetest service, and reject the greatest
mercies he can offer them, as if they were some burdensome
worthless things !
3. Will you have any pleasure at all, or will you have
none ? If any, in what then will you place it, and whence will
you expect it, if not from God in a holy life? If God be thy
trouble, what then is fit to be thy delight ? Darest thou say
in thy heart or with thy tongue, that sin and sensuality is
better? Darest thou say that a good bargain, or other world-
ly gain, or cards, or dice, or other sports, or ease, or good
cheer, or an alehouse, or a whore, are pleasanter things than
walking with thy God in faith and holiness, and expectation
of the everlasting joys ? Heaven and earth shall bear witness
against thee, and common reason shall bear witness against
thee, for this inhuman, impious folly and ingratitude, if ever
thou appear at the bar of God, with the guilt of such unrea-
sonable sin. What ! is God no better in thine eyes, than a
filthy, brutish, sinful pleasure ? And is the love of God no
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 363
sweeter a work than the love of sensual delights ? Saith
blessed Augustine, *' He that will sell or exchange his soul
for transitory commodities, doth censure Christ to be a fool-
ish merchant, that knew no better what he did, when he gave
his life for those souls, that you will not lose a sin for/ So
I may say here. Hath Christ bought for you holy and ever-
lasting pleasures, at the price of his own most bitter pains,
and precious blood, and do you now think them no better
than your fleshly, bestial delights ? Is it Christ or you, think
you, that is mistaken in the value of them ? Did he shed
his blood to purchase you that which is not worth the part-
ing with a cup of drink for, or the parting with your pleasure
or unjust commodity for ? Sure he that judgeth thus of
Christ, is far from believing in him, with any true Christian,
saving faith.
4. If you can find no pleasure in God, and in a holy life,
you may be sure that he will have no pleasure in you. Won-
der not if you find in your greatest need, that you are abhor-
ed and loathed by the Lord, when you loathed the very
thoughts and mention of him, in the day of your visitation. .
Marvel not if the Most Holy God do take no pleasure in a
loathsome sinner, when the sinner is so ungodly, that he
takes more pleasure in the most sordid, fading trifles than in
God. You may offer the sacrifice of your heartless, hypocri-
tical prayers and praises unto God, and he will count them
abomination, and cast them back as dung into your faces, and
tell you that he hath no pleasure in the sacrifice of such fools.
Read in his own words, Prov. xv. 8. and xxi. 27. Isa. i. 13.
Eccles. v. 4. As you are weary of serving him, so he is weary of
your services, and it is a " trouble to him to hear them ; and
when you spread forth your hands he will hide his eyes from
you, yea when you make many prayers he will not hear ;"
Isa.i. 14, 15. When the Jews offered their deceitful sacri-
fices, and said, " Behold what a weariness is it !" God sent
them word that he hath no pleasure in them, nor would
regard their persons, nor accept a sacrifice at their hands
(Mai. i.8 — 10), and their solemn feasts he counteth dung.
And dung would be no acceptable present or feast to your-
selves, if it were offered you instead of meat; Mal.ii.3.
** My soul (saith the Lord) loathed them, and their soul ab-
horred me ;" Zech. xi. 8. As he ** that despiseth him shall
be slighted by him'^ (1 Sam. ii. 30.), so he that loatheth him.
364 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
shall be loathed by him. " If any man draw back (saith the
Lord) my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;" Heb. x. 38.)
*' For he is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, nei-
ther shall evil dwell with him : the foolish shall not stand in
his sight : he hateth all workers of iniquity ;" Psal. v. 4, 5.
And little do you now imagine what a horror it will be to
you in the day of your extremity, for God to tell you that he
hath no pleasure in you. When you look before you into an
eternity of woe^ which you have no hope to escape but by
the mercy of the Lord, and he shall dash that hope by tell-
ing you that he hath no pleasure in you, it will give your
souls the deadly wound that never shall be healed. In vain
then shall you wish that you had chosen in time the durable
delights, and not the pleasures of filthy sin for so short a
season ; and to your torment you shall know whether God
or the world was more worthy of your sweetest affections and
delights ; and how deservedly they are " all damned that
obey not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness ;"
2Thess. ii. 12. " Who knowing the judgment of God, that
they which commit such things are worthy of death, not on-
ly do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them ;"
Rom. i. 32. If you will count it your pleasure to riot in the
day-time, rather than to walk and work by the light, you
must look to receive the due reward of such unrighteous-
ness ; 2 Pet. ii. 13. If it be your sport to sin, and to do mis-
chief (Prov.x. 13.), you shall have small sport in suffering
the punishment of your wilful folly.
5. If God and holiness seem not pleasant to you, then
heaven itself cannot seem pleasant to you, if you consider it
truly as it is. For the heavenly felicity consistethin the per-
fection of our holiness, and the perfect fruition of God him-
himself, by sight, and love, and joy for ever. If the little
holiness be unpleasant and irksome to you which appeareth
in the imperfect saints on earth, what pleasure could you
take in that supereminent holiness which is the state and
work of the celestial inhabitants ? If the thoughts and men-
tion of God be unpleasant to you, and his holy praises da
seem to you as matters of no delight, what then would you
do in heaven where this must be your everlasting work ?
And if heaven seem a place of toil and trouble to you, how
just will it be that you are everlastingly shut out? How
can you for whame beg of God to glorify you, when you take
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 365
the glory that he hath promised for a misery 7 If you think
that there is a heaven of such sensual pleasures as you de-
sire, or that any shall be saved that only choose heaven as a
less and more tolerable misery than hell, you will shortly find
your expectations deceived.
Lay all these five Considerations together, and you may
perceive what miserable souls those are, that can find plea-
sure in the perishing trifles of the world, and none in a holy
heavenly life. Be assured of this whosoever thou art, that
if God and heaven, and a holy life, be not a thousand times
sweeter and more delightful to thee, than any thing that this
world can afford to thy contentment, it is not for want of
matter of superabundant delight to be found in God and in
his holy ways ; but it is for want of reason, or faith, or con-
sideration, or a suitable heart in thee, which may make thee
fit to know and taste the pleasures which now thou art unac-
quainted with. And is it not a pity that such infinite de-
lights should be set before men, and they should lose them
all for want of a heart and appetite to them ? and should
perish by choosing the lowest vanities before them?
I do therefore earnestly beseech thee that readest these
words, if thou be one of these unhappy souls, that canst find
no pleasure in God and holiness, that thou wouldst speedily
observe and lament that blindness and wickedness of thy
heart, that is the cause of this infatuation and corruption of
thine apprehension and rational appetite ; and that thou
would presently apply thyself to Christ for the cure of it.
To which end I advise thee to these following means.
Direct. 1. If you would taste the pleasure of a holy life,
bethink you better of the necessity and excellency of it ;
and cast away your prejudice and false conceits, which have
deceived you, and tiirned your minds against it. A child
may be deluded to take his own father for his enemy, if he
see him in an enemy's garb, or be persuaded by false sug-
gestions that he hateth him. A man may be persuaded to
hate his meat, if you can but make him believe that it is poi-
son : or to hate his clothes, if you can but make him believe
they are infected with the plague. If you will suffer your
understandings to be deluded, so far as to overlook the ami-
able nature of holiness, and to think the image of God is but
a fancy, or that a heavenly life is nothing but hypocrisy, and
that it is but pride that maketh men seek to be holier than
^6(y A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
others, and that makes them they cannot go quietly to hell
in despite of the commands and mercies of the Lord, as
others do. I say, if the devil, the great deceiver, can possess
you with such frantic thoughts as these, what wonder if you
hate the very name of holiness? How can you find pleasure
in the greatest good, while you take it for an evil? If you
will believe all that the devil and his foolish malicious instru-
ments say of God and of a holy life, you shall never love God,
nor see any loveliness, or taste any sweetness in his service.
Direct. 2. Come near and search into the inwards of a
holy life, and try it a little while yourselves^ if you would
taste the pleasure of it : and do not stand looking on it at a
distance, where you see nothing but the outside; nor judge
by bare hearsay which giveth you no taste or relish of it.
The sweetness of honey, or wine, or meat is not known by
looking on it, but by tasting it. Come near and try what it
is to live in the love of God, and in the belief and hope of
life eternal, and in universal obedience to the laws of Christ,
and then tell us how these things do relish with you. You
will never know the sweetness of them effectually, as long
as you are but lookers on. It was the similitude which Pe-
ter Martyr used in a sermon which converted the noble Nea-
politan Marquis of Vicum, Galeacius Caracciolus, who for-
sook wife, and children, and honours, and lands, and country,
and all, for the liberty of the reformed religion of Geneva.
Saith he, ' If you see the motion of dancers afar off, and hear
not the music, you will think they are frantic. But when you
come near and hear the music, and observe their harmonical,
orderly motion, you will take delight in it, and desire to join
with them.' So men thatjudgeatadistanceofthe truth andho-
ly ways of God, by the slanderous reports of malignant men,
will think of the godly, as Festus of Paul, that they are be-
side themselves ^ but if they come among them, and search
more impartially into the reasons of their course, and speci-
ally if they join with them in the inwards and vital actions
of religion, they will then be quickly of another mind, and
not go back for all the pleasures or profits of the world. In
the works of nature (and sometimes of art) the outside is so
far from shewing you the excellencies, that it is but a comely
veil to hide them. Though you would have a handsome
cover for your watch, yet doth it but hide the well-ordered
frame, and useful motions that are within. You must open
A SAINT OB A BRUTE. 307
it, and there observe the parts and motions if you would pass
a right judgment of the work. You would have a comely
cover for your books ; but it is but to hide the well compos-
ed letters from your sight, in which the sense, and use, and
excellency doth consist. You must open it, if you will read
it and know the worth of it. A common spectator wlien he
seeth a rose or other flower or fruit-tree, thinketh he hath
seen all, or the chiefest part. But it is the secret, unsearch-
able motions and operations of the vegetative life and juice
within, by which the beauteous flo^vers and sweet fruits are
produced, and wonderfully differenced from each other
that are the excellent part and mysteries in these natural
works of God. Could you but see these secret inward
causes and operations, it would incomparably more content
you. He that passeth by and looketh on a beehive, and
seeth but the cover, and the laborious creatures going in and
out, doth see nothing of the admirable operations within,
which God hath taught them. Did you there see how they
make their wax and honey, and compose their combs, and
by what laws, and in what order their commonwealth is go-
verned, and their work carried on, you would know more than
the outside of the hive can shew you. So it is about thelifeof
godliness. If you saw the inward motions of the quicken-
ing spirit upon the soul, and the order and exercise of every
grace, and by what laws the thoughts and affections are go-
verned, and to whom they tend, you would then see more of
the beauty of religion than you can see by the outward be-
haviour of our assemblies. The shell is not sweet, but serves
to hide the sweeter part from those that will not storm those
walls, that they may possess it as their prize. The kernel of
religion is covered with a shell so hard that flesh and blood
cannot break it. Hard sayings, and hard providences to the
church, and to particular believers, are such as many cannot
break through, and therefore never taste the sweetness. The
most admired feature and beauty of any of yourbodies (which
fools think to be the most excellent part of the body) is indeed
but the handsome, well-adorned case thatGod by nature doth
cover his more excellent inward works with. Were you but
able to see within that skin, and but once to observe the won-
derful motions.heart, and brain, and the course of the blood
in the veins and arteries, and the several fermentations, and
the causes and nature of chylifications, and sanguifications,
368 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
and the spirits, and senses, and all their works : and if you
saw the reason of every part and vessel in this wondrous
frame, and the causes and nature of every disease ; much
more if you saw the excellent nature and operations of that
rational soul, that is the glory of all, you would then say that
you had seen a more excellent sight than the smooth and
beauteous skin that covers it. The invisible soul is of great-
er excellency than all the visible beauties in the world. So
also if you would know the excellencies of religion, you must
not stand without the doors, or judge of it by the skin and
shell, but you must come near, and look into the inward rea-
sons of it, and think of the difference between the high em-
ployments of a saint, and the poor and sordid drudgery of the
ungodly ; between walking with God in desire and love, and
in the spiritual use of his ordinances and creatures, and con-
versing only with sinful men, and transitory vanities ; be-
tween the life of faith and hope, which is daily maintained
by the foresight of everlasting glory, and a life of mere na-
ture, and worldliness, and sensuality, and idle compliment
and pomp, which are but the progenitors of sorrow, and end in
endless desperation. Come near, and try the power of God's
laws, and of the workings of his Spirit : and think in good
sadness of the place where you must live for ever, and the
glory you shall see, and the sweet enjoyment and employ-
ment you shall have in the presence of the eternal Majesty :
and think well of all the sweet contrivances and discoveries
of his love in Christ ; and how freely they are offered to you ;
and how certainly they may be your own ; peruse the pro-
mises, and sweet expressions of love and grace ; and exer-
cise your souls in serious meditation, prayer, thanksgiving,
and praise ; and withal remember, that none but these will
be durable delights ; and tell me whether a life of sport and
pride, and worldliness, and flesh-pleasing, or a life of faith and
holiness be the better, the sweeter, and more pleasant life.
Direct. 3. If you would taste the pleasures of a holy life,
youmust apply yourself to Christ in the use of his appointed
means, for the renewing of your natures ; that his Spirit may
give you a new understanding and a new heart, to discern
and relish spiritual things : for your old corrupted minds
and hearts will never do it. They are unsuitable to ih(&
things of God, and therefore cannot receive them nor savour
them, nor be subject to jthe holy laws j 1 Cor. ii. 14, J5,
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. Sd9
Rom. viii.5 — 8. The appetite and relish of every living
creature is agreeable to its nature. A fish hath small plea-
sure in the dry land, nor a bird in the deeps of water j grass
and water is sweeter to an ox than our most delicate meats
and drinks. Corruption and custom have made you so vi-
cious, that your natures are not such as God made them at
the first, when he himself was man's desire and delight ; but
they are now inclined to sensjial things, being captivated by
the fleshly part, and have contracted a strangeness and en-
mity to God. And therefore those hearts will never relish
the sweetnesses of a life of faith and holiness, till faith and
holiness be planted in them, and they be born again by re-
generating grace. For that " which is born of the flesh is
flesh," (and but flesh ; and therefore doth reach no higher
than a fleshly inclination can move it:) " and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit ;" and therefore will relish and
love things spiritual.
Direct. 4. Lastly, if you would taste the pleasures of a
holy life, you must' forbear those sinful fleshly pleasures,
which now you are so taken up with. For these are they
that infatuate your understandings, and corrupt your appe-
tites, and make the sweetest things seem loathsome to you.
As the using of vain sports and filthy lusts abroad, doth
make such persons weary of their own relations, and fami-
lies, and business at home ; so all the glutting of the mind
with vanity, and using yourselves to sinful pleasures is it
that turns your hearts from God, and maketh his word and
ways unsavoury to you. You must first with the prodigal,
Luke XV., be brought into a famine of your former pleasures,
be denied the very husk, and then you will remember that
the meanest servant in your Father's house, is in a far better
case than you, havingbread enough, while you perish through
hunger. And hence it is that God doth so often promote
the work of conversion by affliction ; and by the same means
carrieth on the work of grace in most that he will save.
Cannot you tell how to leave your sensual pleasures? What
will you do when sickness makes you weary of them ? Wea-
ry of your meat, and drink, and bed ? weary to hear talk of
that which now doth seem so sweet ; and to say, I have no
pleasure in them? Cannot you spare your friends, your
sports, your bravery, your wealth, and other carnal accom-
VOL. X. B B .
370 A SAINT OR A BRUTK.
modations ? What will you say of them, when pain disgrac-
eth them, and convinceth you of their insufficiency to stand
you in any stead ? These things that you are now so loath
to leave, may shortly become such a load to your souls, as
undigested meat to the stomach that is sick, that you can
have no ease till you have cast them off.
Away therefore with these luscious vanities betimes,
which vitiate your appetites, and put them out of relish with
the things that are truly pleasant. O what a shame it is to
hear a man say, ' I shall never endure so godly, and spiri-
tual, and strict a life ;* when he can endure and take plea-
sure in a life of sin ! You may more wisely lie down in the
dunghill or the ditch, and say, * I shall never endure a cleaner
diet;' or company only with enemies and wild beasts, and
say, ' 1 shall never endure the company of my friends.'
What! is God worse than the creature, and heaven than
earth ? and so much worse, as not to be endured in your
thoughts and affections in comparison of them ? You will
never know your friends till you forsake these deceivers !
Nor ever know the pleasures of a holy life, till you will let
go the poisonous pleasures of sin. And then you may find
that sanctification destroyeth not, but changeth and reco-
vereth your delights, and giveth you safety for the greatest
peril, health for sickness, friends for enemies, gold for dross,
life for death, and the foretastes of rest for tiring vexation.
2. The second sort that are hence to be reproved, are
those weak and troubled servants of the Lord, that live as
sadly as if they found more grief than pleasure in the ways
of God.
Indeed it is to be lamented that few of the heirs of life
do live according to the happiness and dignity of their call-
ing ; nor are the great things that God hath done for them
so apparent in the cheerfulness and comforts of their lives
as they should be. But some that are addicted to dejected-
ness, do in a greater measure wrong Christ and themselves,
being always feeding upon secret griefs, and torturing them-
selves with doubts and fears, and acquainted with almost no
other language but lamentations, self-accusations, and com-
plaints. These poor souls usually discover honest hearts,
that are weary of sin, and low in their own eyes, and long to
be better, and do not disregard the matters of their salva-
tion as dead-hearted ungodly sinners do. Their complaints
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 371
shew what they would be ; and what they would be sincere-
ly, that they are in God's account. But yet they live so
far below the sweet delights which they might partake of,
and so far below the provisions of their Father's house, and
the riches of the Gospel, that they have cause to lament their
excessive lamentations, and more cause to reform this sad
distemper, and no cause to indulge it, as usually such do.
And though with the most of them some natural passions
and weaknesses, and some melancholy distempers are so
much the cause, as may much excuse them ; yet because it
is an evil which must be disowned, and reason must be the
means, where people have the free use of reason, I shall lay
down some of the great inconveniencies of this sad distem-
per, and beseech those that tender the honour of God, and
would do that which is most pleasing to him, and love not
their own calamity, that they will soberly consider of what
I say, and labour to regulate their minds accordingly.
1. I desire the dejected Christian to consider, that by
his heavy and uncomfortable life, he seemeth to the world to
accuse God and his service, as if he openly called him a ri-
gorous, hard, unacceptable Master, and his work a sad un-
pleasant thing. I know this is not your thoughts : 1 know
it is yourselves, and not God and his service that ofFendeth
you ; and that you walk heavily not because you are holy,
but because you fear you are not holy, and because you are
no more holy. I know it is not of grace, but for grace that
you complain. But do you not give too great occasion to
ignorant spectators to judge otherwise? If you see a ser-
vant always sad, that was wont to be merry while he served
another master, will you not think that he hath a master
that displeaseth him ? If you see a woman live in continual
heaviness ever since she was married, that lived merrily be-
fore, will you not think that she hath met with an unpleas-
ing match? You are born and new born for God's honour ;
and will you thus dishonour him before the world ? What
do you (in their eyes) but dispraise him by your very coun-
tenance and carriage, while you walk before him in so much
heaviness ? The child that still cries when you put on his
shoes, doth signify that they pinch him ; and he dispraiseth
his meat that makes a sour face at it ; and he dispraiseth his
friend, that is always sad and troubled in his company. He
that should say of God, ' Thou art bad, or cruel, and unmer-
372 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ciful/ should blaspheme. And so would he that saith of
holiness, ' It is a bad, unpleasant, hurtful state/ How then
dare you do that which is so like to such blaspheming, when
you should abstain from all appearance of evil? 1 Thess.v.
22. Canst thou find in thy heart thus to dishonour and
wrong the God whom thou so much esteemest, and the grace
which thou so much desirest ? For a wicked man that is
far from God, to go heavily or roar in the horror of his soul,
is a shame to his sin, but no dishonour to God and holiness.
But for you that are near him, in relation, engagement, and
attendance, to walk so heavily, reflects on him to whom you
are related, and from whom you look for your reward.
2. Consider also, what a lamentable hindrance you are
hereby to the conversion and salvation of souls ? Your
countenances and sad complainings do affright men from
the service of the Lord, and as it were call to them, to keep
off and fly from the way that you find so grievous. You
gratify satan, the enemy of Christ, and holiness, and souls,
and become his instruments (though against your wills) to
affright men from the way of life. As the Papists keep their
deluded proselytes abroad from truth and reformation, by
giving them odious descriptions of the Protestants, as if they
were heretics, proud, frantic, mad, and scarcely men, and
when they burn them, they adorn them with pictures of the
devil ; even so doth satan keep poor souls from entertain-
ing Christ and truth, and entering the holy paths, by making
them believe that the servants of Christ are a company of
distempered, melancholy souls, and that godliness is the
way to make men mad ; and that he that will set his heart
on heaven, must never look more for a merry, comfortable
life on earth. Hence comes the proverb of the malignant
formalists and profane, that ' A Puritan is a Protestant
frightened out of his wits.' And will you confirm this slan-
der of the devil and his instruments ? Will you entice men
to believe him ! Will you make yourselves such pictures of
unhappiness, and wear such a visor of calamity and misery,
as shall frighten all that look on you and observe you, and
discourage them from the way which they see accompanied
with so much sorrow ? As you hang up dead crows in your
field to frighten the rest from the corn, and as murderers are
hanged in irons to terrify all that see them from that crime,
or as the heads of traitors are set up to the same end, as pro-
A SAINT OR A BUUTE. 373
claiming to all passengers, ' Thus must you be used, if you
will do as they ;' just so would satan fill you with terrors,
and overwhelm you with grief, and distract you with cause-
less doubts and fears, that you may appear to the world a
miserable sort of people ; and then all that look on you will
be afraid of godliness, and think they see as it were written
in your foreheads, * Such drooping pitiful creatures must
all be, that will lead so precise and heavenly a life." Do
you think your carnal neighbours and acquaintance will not
be deterred from a holy life, when they see that since you
turned to it, you do nothing but complain, and droop, and
mourn, as if you were worse than you were before? And
was it not enough that you hindered their conversion before,
when you were in your ignorance and sin, by your wicked
examples and encouragements, but you must hinder it still
by your dejected, discouraging countenances and conversa-
tions ? Yea, perhaps your later excessive troubles may do
more to hinder their conversion, than your persuasions and
examples did before. And can you find in your hearts to lay
such a stumblingblock as this in the way of your miserable
acquaintance, to keep them from salvation? Will it not
grieve you to think that you should have so great a hand in
men's damnation, even since you are returned to God your-
selves? I know by your sorrows and complaints, that the
perdition of a soul is no small matter in your eyes. O there-
fore take heed of that which may procure it. The use that
satan would have you make of these very words is, to go
away with more dejection, and to say, * What a wretch am
I ? even unmeet to live, that by my griefs am not only mi-
serable myself, but also hinder the salvation of others.' And
thus he would draw thee to grieve over all thy griefs again
and because thou hast exceeded in thy sorrows, to be more
excessive ; and so to add one sin unto another ; and to do
more, because you have done too much. So that grief is all
that he can allow thee ; and one grief shall be made the rea-
son of another, that thou mayest run thus in a round of mi-
sery, and stop in grieving, and go no further : whereas thou
shouldst so grieve for Such grief, as may call thee off, and
stay thy grieving ; and thy repenting should be the cure and
forsaking of thy sin, and not the renewal of it.
But on the other side, if thou couldstlive a heavenly joy-
ful life, that the glory of thy hopes might appear in thy coun-
374 A SAINT OR A BRUTE,
tenancc, thy conference, and conversation, how many might
hereby be drawn to Christ, and caused to think well of the
ways of God ? Did the godly but exceed the rest of the
world, in holy joy and cheerfulness of mind, as much as they
exceed them in happiness and in the causes of true joy, what
an honour would it be to Christ and holiness, and what an
attractive to win the ignorant to embrace the motions of sal-
vation ! How easily would they let go their sinful pleasures,
their gluttony^ and drunkenness, and filthiness, and gaming,
if they did but see by the carriage of believers, that they
were like to exchange them for much greater joys ? You
cannot expect that ignorant men, that never tried a holy life,
and have a natural enmity against it, should see the excel-
lency of it immediately in itself; but they will judge of re-
ligion by the persons that profess it. That shall seem to
them the best religion, that hath the best and happiest pro-
fessors : and those seem to them the happiest and best, that
have the greatest comforts, and conquer most the trouble oi
their minds. You can expect no other, but that country
people, that know not the nature of medicines themselves,
should judge of them by the success, and think that he fol-
loweth the best advice, who is most healthful, and of longest
life. And so will the ignorant judge of the holy doctrine
and commands of God, by the lives of those that seem to fol-
low them. O therefore behave yourselves in the church of
God, as those that remember that they live in the presence
of a world of men, whose happiness or misery hath much
dependance on your lives. If you were debating the case
with a sensual wretch, would you not tell him that holiness
is a state of greater pleasure than his sin ? Tell him so then
by your example, as well as by your words : let him see as
well as hear of the confidence and comforts of true believers.
Were Christianity exemplified in the lives of Christians, how
excellent a state would it appear ! were we but such as the
holy doctrine and Christian pattern requireth us to be, even
the blind, malicious world would be forced to admire the at-
tainments of the saints : though they might hate them, yet they
would admire them. Were we such as Stephen, that was full of
faith and the Holy Ghost, and could stedfastly look up to
heaven by faith, and see there the glory of the living God,
and Jesus standing at his right hand, till we were raised to
his boldness in defence of the truth, and his quiet submission
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 375
to the greatest sufferings, the world would not then be able
to resist the wisdom and spirit by which we speak, but the fa-
ces of believers would sometimes appear to the terror of their
persecutors as the faces of angels, as Acts vi. 5. 10. 15. vii.
51, 55, 56. 60. They are high and glorious things that are as-
sured to us in the promises of the Gospel. Did but these
things appear, in the stedfast faith, the confident hopes, de-
sires, and joys of us that do expect them, believers then
would be the wonder of the world; and our joys would so
shame their dreaming, childish,brutish pleasures, that doubt-
kss multitudes would flock in, to see what it is that so de-
lighteth us, that they might be made partakers of our joys.
Even as Simon Magus himself when he saw the miraculous
gift of the Holy Ghost, would fain have bought that gift
with money ; so men that are yet carnal, in the gall of bit-
terness and bond of their iniquities, will yet see a desirable
excellency in the joy of the Holy Ghost, and wish they were
partakers of such joys, though yet they are unacquainted
with the way to attain it.
I do therefore entreat you all that believe and hope for
an everlasting crown, that you will shew the poor deceived
world the preciousness of your faith and hopes, and the high
prerogative of the saints, in your answerable cheerfulness
and joy, and live not with dead and uncomfortable hearts,
as those that have nothing but a vexatious, transitory world
to comfort them ; much less to be more dejected than these
wretched souls. Do you not desire the conversion of your
carnal friends, and all about you ? Would you not be glad
if you could further it ? O that you would try this pleasant
way ! and shew them that you have found the invaluable
treasure ! And as the rich live in greater pomp, and at higher
rates than the poor, so you that speak of the riches of grace,
and live in the family of the Lord, O shew the world the
dignity of your state, by your holy courage and comfortable
behaviour, and by your living above the pleasures and griefs
of unbelievers ! When they glory in their prosperity, do
you glory in the Lord : when they boast themselves in their
riches or reputation, do you imitate holy David, who pro-
fesseth, " I will bless the Lord at all times ; his praise shall
continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord ; the humble shall hear thereof and be glad. O
magnify the Cord with me, and let us exalt his name toge-
376 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
ther;" Psal. xxxiv. 1—3. And Psal. xliv. 8. "In God we
boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever." By
such spiritual joyfulness your lives w^ould be a continued
sermon ; and you might thus preach home more souls to
Christ, than the most excellent preacher by bare persua-
sions. Poor sinners would begin to pity themselves that
live so far below the saints ; and they would think with them-
selves, * It is not for nothing that these men rejoice, and are
comfortable even in the loss of all those things that we take
all our comfort in!' For the honour of your dearest Lord,
and for your own felicity, and for the sake of the miserable
souls about you, I beseech you Christians do your best to
reach this sweet and most joyful life, and to avoid those in-
ordinate troubles and despondencies which are like to cross
these blessed ends. And pray for me and the rest of his
servants, that the Lord will forgive us our dishonouring his
name, our wronging of our own souls, and our discouraging
the world from living unto God, by our living so far below
his mercies, and so unanswerable to the unspeakable trea-
sures of his saints ; and that for the time to come, we may
lay this duty more to heart, and by the comforting Spirit may
be elevated to the performance of it.
But I suppose some will say, ' To tell me how I should
live for the encouragement of others is but to draw me to
an hypocritical affectation and counterfeiting of joy and
courage; as long as I am unable inwardly to rejoice, and
can see no sufficient cause of my rejoicing in myself.'
Atisw. 1. I shall by and by shew you that you have suf-
ficient, yea, unspeakable cause of joy. 2. And now I shall
only say that you are not to suspend and forbear your com-
fort, till you have full assurance of your own sincerity ; your
probabilities, and weakest faith, and hope, will warrant a
more comfortable life than you can live. And it is not hy-
pocrisy, but a necessary duty to do the outward actions that
are here commanded us, though we cannot reach to that de-
gree of inward comfort that we desire : for we do not hereby
affirm ourselves to have the joy which we have not: (I am
not persuading any man to lie :) but only we express as fully
as we are able that little which we have. And a little indeed
a very little of such a high and heavenly nature, grounded on
the smallest hopes of everlasting life, will allow you in the
expression of it, to transcend the greatest flelights of the
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 377
ungodly. And as we do perform the external part, both as
a commanded duty, and as a means to further the inward
rejoicing of the soul; so outward solemnity and feasting in
the days of thanksgiving, are as well to further inward joy,
as to express it. Even as mean attire, and fasting, and hum-
blest prostrations before the Lord, on days of humiliation,
are as much to further inward humiliation as to express it.
The behaviour of the body hath au operative reflection on
the mind, and therefore should be used not only for the dis-
covery, but for the cure of the soul. If you cannot restrain
your anger as you desire, it is no hypocrisy, but your duty
to hide it, and to refrain from the sinful effects. And if you
can but use yourselves some time to behave yourselves in
your anger, as if you had no anger, in meekness of speech
and quietness of deportment, anger itself will be the more
quickly subdued, and in time will be the more easily kept
out. If you cannot restrain your inordinate appetite to meat
or drink, for quality or quantity ; it is yet no hypocrisy, but
your duty, to hold your hands, and shut your mouths, and
refrain the things to which you have an appetite. And if
you will but use yourselves a convenient time to forbear the
thing, you will subdue the appetite. If the drunkard will
forbear the drink, and the glutton his too much desired dish,
and the sportful gamesters their needless and sinful recrea-
tions, they will find that the fire of sensuality will go out,
for want of fuel. As the too wanton poet saith concerning
wanton love,
" Intrat amor mentes usu : dediscitur usu :
Qui poterit sanum fingere, sanus erit,"
Use kindleth it, and use quencheth it. He that can but
live as a sound man, shall at last become a sound man. If
you cannot overcome your inward pride as you desire, you
must not therefore speak big, and look high, and swagger it
out in bravery, and accompany with gallants, to avoid hypo-
crisy : but you must speak humbly, and be clothed soberly,
and accompany with the humble. And 1. This is the per-
formance of one part of your duty. 2. And it is the expres-
sion of your desires to be more humble, and consequently of
some humility contained in these desires. 3. And it is the
way to work your hearts to that humility which you want,
or the way in which you must wait on God for the receiving
37B A SAINT OR A BIlUTE.
of it. So if you cannot overcome the love of the world as
you desire, do not therefore forbear giving to the poor, for
fear of hypocrisy ; but give the more, that you may perform
so much of your duty as you can, and may the sooner over-
come your worldly love. Some trees will be killed with of-
ten cropping. But if they will not, it is better that a poison-
ous plant should live only in the root, than sprout forth and
be fruitful.
Even so, if you cannot overcome your inward doubts,
and fears, and sorrows, as you desire, yet let them not be
fruitful, nor cause you to walk so dejectedly before the world,
as to dishonour God and your holy profession. "And if you
have not the inward comfort you desire, express your de-
sires, and the hopes and smallest comforts that you have to
the best advantage for your Master's honour. And you will
find that a holy cheerfulness of countenance, expression,
and deportment, will at last mucli overcome your inordinate
disquietments, and much promote the joys which you desire.
But yet that you may see cause lor the cheerfulness to
which I now exhort you, I next add,
3. If thou have but one spark of saving grace, it is not
possible for thee now to conceive or express the happiness of
thy state, and the cause thou hast to live a thankful, joyous
life. If thou have no grace, thou art not the person I am now
speaking to. If thou have no grace, whence is it that thou so
much desirest it ? What is it that causeth thee to lament the
want of it, and walk so heavily, but because thou art so much
in doubt of it ? If thou truly love it, thou hast it, (for it is only
grace that causeth an unfeigned love of grace). And if thou
love it not, why canst not thou more quietly be without it ?
Why dost thou make so much ado for it ? But if thou have
it in the least degree, and so art born again of the Spirit, thou
hast with it an unspeakable degree of delights. The God of
life and love is thine ; the Lord Jesus Christ is thine ; the
Spirit is thine ; the promises are thine ; and heaven itself is
thine in title, and shall be thine in full perpetual possession.
The God that made and ruleth all things, is reconciled to
thee, and is thy Father ; having by grace in Christ adopted
thee to be his Son; Rom. v. 1, 2. 10, 11. viii. 1. 16, 17. Gal.
iv.6. 2 Cor.vi. 18. The Son of God is become thy Head,
and thou art become a member of his body, as " flesh of his
flesh, and bone of his bone (which no man ever yet hath hat-
A SAINT OR A BRUTK. 371)
ed) ; Ephes.v. 23. 27.29,30. Thou art become the temple
and residence of the Holy Ghost. Thy title to heaven is in-
comparably more sure than any man's human title to his pos-
sessions or inheritance on earth. And what rejoicing can
be too great for a man in thy condition ? O what a life
should that man live ! with what sweet delight should he be
transported, that hath the Spirit of Christ now living in him, to
prepare him, and seal him up for an endless life with Christ!
He that shall be shortly so full of glory, should not be emp-
ty now, when he remembereth what he must shortly be.
Doth it beseem him now to dwell in grief, and refuse conso"
lation, that must in a few days be swallowed up with joy?
If thou that sittest here in heaviness, wert assured that short-
ly thou shouldst be with Christ, and made a blessed compa-
nion of angels, and possessed of thy Master's joy, a joy that
hath no bounds or ends, would not thy conscience then tell
thee, that thou greatly wrongest such abundant mercy, in
that thou art no more affected with it ? and that thy want of
joy doth express thy too much want of thankfulness. Dost
thou sit there like a child of God, like an heir of heaven, and
a co-heir with Christ? Rom. viii. 16, 17. Doth that sorrow-
ful heart, and that dejected countenance become one that
must live with Christ for ever, in such resplendent glory as
thou must do ; and that hast but a few more days to live, till
thou takest possession of these endless joys? The Lord par-
don and heal our unbelief. Did faith more effectually play
its part, as it is the evidence of things not seen, and withdraw
the veil, and shew us, though but in a glass, the glory which
we must see with open face, it would be wine to our hearts,
and oil to our countenances, and make our poverty, sickness,
and death, more comfortable than the wealth, and health,
and life of the ungodly.
I know you will say still, that you could rejoice if you
were sure all this were yours; but when you rather think
you have no part in it, it can be but small comfort to you.
Answ, 1. But who is it long of that you have still such
fears ? Have you not in your souls that love to holiness,
that desire after it, that hatred and weariness of sin, that love
to the searching, discovering use of the word of God, that
love to the brethren, which are the evidences of your title,
and to which God hath plainly promised salvation ? If then
you have your title in the promise, and your evidences in
380
A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
your hearts, and yet will be still questioning whether you
have them or no, and whether the kingdom shall be yours,
your weakness and inccnsiderateness causeth your own sor-
rows. And when you have sinfully bred your doubts, will
you insist on them to excuse your following sins ?
2. Are you not sure that Christ and his benefits are yours?
I am sure they are yours, or may be if you will : and nothing
but your continued refusal can deprive you of them. For
this is the very tenor of the promise. And if you will not
have Christ and his offered benefits, why do you so dissem-
ble as to take on you to mourn because you have them not ?
But if you are willing they are yours.
Object. * But (you will say) if we had nothing but cause
of comfort, we would rejoice : but we have cause of sorrow
also. How can we live comfortably under so much sin and
suffering?*
Answ, By this account you will never rejoice till you come
to heaven ; for you will never be free from sin and suffering
till then. Nay, it seem^ you would have no man else rej oice,
and so would banish all comfort from the world. For there
is no man without sin and suffering.
But what can there be of any weight to prohibit a sin-
cere belief from seasonable, spiritual rejoicing ? Have you
sin ? It is not gross and reigning sin. And sinful infirmi-
ties the best of the saints on earth have had. As your sin
must be your moderate sorrow, so the pardon of it, and the
degree of mortification which you have attained, and the pro-
mise you have full deliverance, should be the matter of your
greater joy. Are your graces weak? Be humbled in the
sense of that your weakness, but rejoice more that they are
sincere and will be perfect. Are your afflictions great ? Be
humbled under them. But rejoice more that they are but fa-
therly chastisements, proceeding from love, and tending to
your greater good ; and that you are saved from the consum-
ing fire, and shall live in everlasting rest, where affliction
shall be known no more. Is it possible for that man that
hath the love of God, and shall have heaven for ever, to have
any suffering that should weigh down these, and be matter
to him of greater sorrow than this of joy ? Can you imagine
that there is more evil in your infirmities and sufferings than
there is good in God, and happiness in heaven ? Is it rea-
son and equity that you should look at sin only, and not at
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 381
grace ? and at what you want only, and not at what you have
received? Seeing you have more cause of joy than sorrow,
should you not distribute your affections proportionable as
there is cause ? I dissuade you not from seasonable, mo-
derate sorrows. But should not your joy be much greater,
as long as the cause of it is much greater?
4. And here I would entreat you to consider well of the
tenor of God's commands concerning this matter in the Gos-
pel, and of the examples of the saints there left on record.
And then tell me which course it is that God is best pleased
with ; your cheerful or your dejected course of life ! I find
that though I pity the sad and miserable, yet I had rather
myself have a cheerful than a drooping, grieving, troubled
companion and friend. Because I desire one suitable to my-
self in the state I would be in ; and I delight in the welfare,
and not in the distress and misery of my friend. And surely
God that is love itself, and hath created joy in man to be his
happiness, and hath placed so much of misery in sorrow, can
never be so delighted in our distress and trouble, as in our
content and joy. As he hath sworn that he takes no plea-
sure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they repent
and live ; so we may boldly conclude that he takes no plea-
sure in the anguish and dejectedness of his children, but ra-
ther that they walk in love and cheerful obedience before him.
But his word will fully and plainly tell you what temper it
is that is most pleasing to him. It is a light and easy bur-
den that Christ doth call us to bear ; and it is his office to
ease us, and give us that labour and are heavy laden with
burdens of our own ; Matt. xi. 28, 29. He was anointed
to preach the Gospel, or glad tidings of salvation to the poor;
and sent to " heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance
to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and to
set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the ac-
ceptable year of the Lord ;" Luke iv. 18, 19. When he was
to leave the world, how carefully did he provide for the com-
fort of his disciples ! Commanding them not to " let their
hearts be troubled" (John xiv. 1.), and promising to send the
Comforter to them, and that he would come to them, and not
leave them comfortless ; ver. 16. 18. 26. Repeating it again,
ver. 27, 28. " Peace I leave with you : my peace I give unto
you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
hearts be troubled, neither be afraid." Nay, he engageth
382 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
them as they "love him to rejoice, even because he went
unto the Father." He engageth them in the dearest love to
one another that their lives might be the more comfortable.
He foretelleth them of his sufferings and of their own, lest
being surprised their sorrow should be the more. He pro-
miseth them that their " sorrow shall be turned into joy"
(John xvi. 20.), and that " in him they shall have peace, when
in the world they shall have tribulation" (ver. 33.), directing
them to prayer, and promising to hear them, that " their joy
may be full" (ver. 24.), and promiseth that " none shall take
it from them" (ver. 22.), telling them of the " mansions that
he prepareth for them," and that it ** is his will that they be
with him, and behold his glory," that nothing might be want-
ing to their joy ; Johnxiv.2,3. xvii. 23,24. When he ap-
appeareth to them after his resurrection, his salutation is,
'* Peace be unto you ;" chap. xx. 19.21. 26. The abounding
and multiplying of his holy peace, is the desire and saluta-
tion of Paul to the churches in all his epistles. Gal. vi. 16.
Ephes.vi.23. Rom. xv.33. lCor.i.3. Rom.i.7. Gal.i.3.
Phil. i. 2. Col.i.2. 2Thess.i.2. 1 Tim. i. 2. Tit. i. 4. Phi-
lem.3. So Peter, 1 Pet. i. 2. ii.1,2. 2John3. 3Johnl4.
The Gospel itself is a message of glad tidings; Lukeviii. 1.
^Acts xiii. 32. And it is the work of the ministers of Christ,
to preach peace to the sinful world through him (chap.x.
36), and to beseech them to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. v.
19,20.), and to bring peace to the houses where any of the
sons of peace abide ; Matt. x. 12, 13. Luke x. 6. Triumphing
joys and proclamations of peace were the entrance of Christ's
kingdom. This angels proclaim, chap. ii. 14. " Glory be to
God in the highest : on earth peace : good will towards men."
This the new inspired disciples proclaim, chap.xix.37, 38.
''The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice, and
praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works that
they had seen, saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in
the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, and glory in the
highest." What abundance of commands for rejoicing are
in the Scripture ! "Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous :
for praise is comely for the upright;" Psal.xxxi. 1. " Light
is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in
heart. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and give thanks at
the reniemberance of his holiness ;" Psal.xcvii. 11, 12. " Re-
joice evermore ;" 2 Thess. v. 16. " Finally, my brethren, re-
A SAINT OK A BKUTK. 'J83
joice in the Lord ;" Phil. iii. 1. " Rejoice in the Lord al-
ways, and again I say rejoice ;** chap. iv. 4. " Be careful
for nothing : but in every thing by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto
God ;** ver. 6. And thus are the godly ordinarily describ-
ed, even in their deepest sufferings and distress. " Being
justified by faith we have peace with God and rejoice in
hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulation ;" Rom. v. 1, 2. Phil. iii. 3. It is the descrip-
tion of a regenerate man ** to worship God in spirit : to re-
joice in Christ Jesus ; to have no confidence in the flesh."
IPet. i.6. 8. It is the description of believers "to rejoice
greatly in a Christ not seen, even with joy unspeakable and
full of glory : though for a season if need be, they maybe in
heaviness through manifold temptations." Even in the fiery
trial we must rejoice, ** as being partakers of the sufferings
of Christ, that when his glory shall be revealed, we may be
glad also with exceeding joy ;" 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. " When all
manner of evil is spoken of us falsely, for the sake of Christ,
and when we are hated of all men, and reproached, we must
rejoice and be exceeding glad, and leap for joy, as know-
ing that our reward in heaven is great ;" Luke vi. 22, 23. Matt,
v. 11, 12. The apostles were "as sorrowful, yet always re-
joicing: as having nothing, and yet possessing all things;"
2 Cor. vi. 10. Rejoicing in their suffering for believers (Col.
i. 24.), even when they were " beaten rejoicing that they were
counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ ;" Acts v.
39, 40. The rich must " rejoice in that he is made low," as
well as the "brother of low degree in that he is exalted ;" Jas.
i.9, 10. The eunuch, when he was but newly converted " went
on his way rejoicing ;" Acts viii. 39. " There was great joy in
Samaria,whentheyhad received the word of God;" Acts viii.
8. " The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the taberna-
cles of the righteous. The statutes of God are the rejoicing
of their heart ;" Psal. cix. 111. xix. 8. " All those that trust
in God should rejoice, and shout for joy, and all that love
his name should be joyful in him ;" Psal. v. 11. xxxiii. 21.
" Let the righteous be glad: let them rejoice before God,
yea, let them exceedingly rejoice ;" Psal. Ixviii. 3. " Let us
therefore desire to see the good of his chosen, and rejoice in
the gladness of his nation, and glory with his inheritance ;"
Psal. cvi. 5. " Sing unto the Lord : sing psalms unto him:
384 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
talk of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name:
let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord;" Psal. cv.
1 — 3. «' The saints shall shout aloud for joy ;" Psal. cxxxii.
9. 16. " Be glad in the Lord, O ye righteous, and shout for
joy all ye that are upright in heart ;" Psal.xxxii.il. "Be-
hold my servants shall rejoice : but ye shall be ashamed.
Behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart : but ye shall
cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spi-
rit ;" Isa. Ixv. 13, 14.
Abundance such passages tell you what manner of per-
sons it is that God delighteth in, and what he would have
you be and do. These I have recited to shame the godly
out of their indecent troubles and dejectedness, as you would
shew a child his face in a glass when he crieth, that he may
see how he deformeth it. The very " kingdom of God con-
sisteth in righteousness, and peace, and j oy in the Holy Ghost.
If you would live as is most pleasing unto God, and as be-
seemeth those that are indeed believers, let the joy of be-
lievers be (as far as possible) your ordinary frame. And if
by sin you wound your souls, and bring smart upon your-
selves, dwell not in that wounded, smarting state ; but go to
your Physician, and beg of God that he will " restore to you
the joy of his salvation, and make you to hear the voice of
joy and gladness,'* that your " broken heart and bones may
rejoice;" Psal. li. 8. 12.
And take notice throughout all the Scripture, whether
you find the servants of God so much complaining of their
want of assurance, and of their frequent doubtings of their
own sincerity and his love. I think you will find this a very
rare thing in the ancient saints. They were sensible of sin
as well as we ; and they were as sensible of God's afflicting
hand, and oft (as Job, David, Hezekiah, &c.) complained
under it, perhaps with some excess, and too much question-
ing God's favour to them, as if he had forsaken them. But
(besides and without any such affliction) to live in ordinary
trouble of mind through the doubting of their sincerity, and
of God's special love, and to be exercised in the complain-
ing and disconsolate way as now abundance of Christians
are, this I find little of in the Scripture saints. The reason
was not because they had more holiness and less sin than
many that now are thus cast down. For the Gospel time ex-
celleth theirs in degrees of grace ; and I think the greater
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 385
care that Christians have of their hearts, and of inward rec-
titude, and communion with God, and their fuller apprehen-
sions of the hfe to come, and so of their greatest hopes and
dangers, is one great cause. But yet there are worse con-
curring causes. The love of God, and his readiness to shew
mercy, should not be more questioned now, when it is so
abundantly revealed by Christ, than it was in times of dark-
er revelation. The servants of God did formerly conceive
that nothing but sin could make man miserable ; and there-
fore when they had sinned, they repented ; and instead of
continuing doubts and fears, they bent their resolutions
against their sins; and having cast away their gross and wil-
ful sins, and continuing the conflict against their unavoida-
ble infirmities, which they hated, they knew that the door of
mercy was still open to them ; and that " if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, who is the propitiation."
The time that is now spent in doubting and complaining, and
asking, How shall 1 know that I sincerely repent, was then
spent in repenting and reforming, and using the means that
God hath appointed for conquering of sin ; and then trusting
to his grace and covenant in the blood of Christ for pardon.
And it would be better with us if we did thus. Judge now
by all these Scriptures, and by the course of former saints,
how God would have you behave yourselves. Do you not
read a hundred times of their joy, and thanks, and praising-
God, and calling upon others to praise him, for once that
they perplexedly question their sincerity ?
But perhaps you will say, that your strength is so weak,
and your sins and enemies so strong, and your duty so im-
perfect and unworthy, that having such continual cause of
trouble, you cannot choose but walk in heaviness, and in fears.
I answer you, (1 .) But why do you not tell what you have,
as well as what you want ? Have you not greater cause to
say. My sins being mortified at the root, and all forgiven,
and my soul renewed, and reconciled unto God, and I being
made an heir of heaven, how can I choose but live in joy ?
(2.) Are you heartily willing to forsake your sins, and over-
come the things of which you so complain; or are you not?
If you are not, why do you complain of them, and will you
not consent to let them go, and use God's means to overcome
them? If you are willing, then they are but your pardoned
VOL. X. * c c
386 A SAIN 1 OR A BRUTE.
infirmities ; for that is the difference between infirmities and
reigning sins. Whatsoever sin consisteth with a great ha-
bitual willingness to avoid that and all other sins than to keep
them, is but an infirmity ; for it stands with present saving
grace, and is always habitually or virtually repented of, and
actually, when grace, by knowledge and consideration, hath
opportunity and advantage to produce the act.
(3.) And when once you are truly ingrafted into Christ,
he is your worthiness, and your righteousness, and the trea-
sury of your souls ; and what you want in your own posses-
sion, you have in his hands ; and as what you have is but
his gift, so what you want he is able and ready to supply.
Look not too much to yourselves, as if your safety and hap-
piness were principally in your own hand. " God hath giv-
en us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath
the Son, hath life ;" 1 John v. 10, 11. It is through him that
we can do all things, so far as he strengtheneth us : and
without him we can do nothing. Make use of him therefore
as the Lord of life, and joyfully acknowledge all that you re-
ceive, and stand not dejectedly lamenting that you need him.
If you would have the waters of life, go to the fountain, and
do not sit down and fruitlessly vex yourselves with com-
plaining of your wants, instead of seeking for supplies. Is
there not an all-sufficient Physician of souls at hand? Doth
he not freely offer you his help ? What though you are not
suddenly cured? Wounds may be caused in an hour, but
they use not to be cured in an hour. Stay his time, and use his
remedies, and cheerfully trust him, and you shall find the cure
successfully go on, though it will not be finished till death.
5. Consider also, that it must needs be the best and most
desirable life, which is most like to our life in heaven. And
therefore as heaven is a state of joy, so joy is the highest and
best condition on earth. He is the best and happiest man,
that is most like to the glorified saints and angels. And
judge yourselves whether a dejected or a rejoicing Christian
be most like to these inhabitants of heaven.
Object. * But (you will say) by that rule we should not
mourn at all (for they do not). Whereas God delighteth in
the contrite soul, and Christ blesseth mourners and weepers.
Ansiv. (1.) Your resemblance of the saints in heaven must
be proportionable in all the parts. You must labour first to
be as like them as you can in holiness, and then in joy. If
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 387
you could be as far from sin as they, you need not mourn at
all. But because you cannot, you must have moderate, re-
gular sorrows and humiliation, while you have sin. But yet
withal you must endeavour to imitate the heavenly joys, ac-
cording to the measure of your grace received.
(2.) And it is such a regular contrition, consisting in hum-
ble thoughts of ourselves, and tending to restore us from our
falls and sorrows, unto our integrity and joy, which God de-
lighteth in. And it is such mourners as these, and such as
suffer for righteousness' sake from men, that Christ pro-
nounceth blessed. But the inordinate troubles of the soul,
that exclude a holy delight in God, though he pardon, yet
he never doth encourage.
6. Consider also, that a great part of your religion, yea
and the most high and excellent part, doth consist in the
causes from, and effects of this holy joy and cheerfulness.
( 1 .) As to the causes of it, they are such as in themselves are
requisite to the very being of the new creature. Faith and
love, which are the head and heart of sanctifying grace, are
the causes of your spiritual joy. And unwilling, heavy, forc-
ed obedience, may proceed from mere fears, and this will not
prove an upright heart. But when once we believe everlast-
ing glory, and love Christ as our Saviour, and the Father as
our Father and felicity, and love a holy frame of heart and
life, as the image of God and that which pleaseth him, then
our obedience will be cheerful and delightful, unless acci-
dentally we trouble ourselves by our own mistakes. If you
can truly make God, and his will and service your delight,
you may be sure you love him, and are beloved by him, as
being past the state of slavish fear.
(2.) And I have shewed you that joy in the Holy Ghost is
itself one part of that grace in which God's kingdom doth
consist. Though not such a part as a Christian cannot
possibly be without, yet such as is exceeding suitable to
his state, and necessary to his more happy being.
(3.) And without this holy delight and joy, you will deny
God a principal part of his service. How can you be thank-
ful for the great mercies of your justification, sanctification,
adoption, and all the special graces you have received, or for
your hopes of heaven itself, as long as you are still doubting
whether any of these mercies are yours or not, and almost
ready to say that you never received them ? Nay, you will
388 A SAINT OR A BRUTR.
be less thankful for your health, and life, and food, and wealth,
and all common mercies, as doubting lest they will prove but
aggravations of your sin and misery. And for the great and
excellent work of praise which should be your daily sacri-
fice, but especially the work of each Lord's day, how unfit
is a doubting, drooping, distressed soul for the performance
of it ? You stifle holy love within you, and stop your mouths
when they should be speaking and singing the praises of the
Lord, and disable yourselves from the most high, and sweet,
and acceptable part of all God's service, by your unwarrant-
able doubts and self vexations. And when all these are laid
aside, how poor and lean a service is it, that is left you to
perform to him ! Even a few tears, and complaints, and
prayers ! which I know God will mercifully accept, because
even in your desires after him there is love ; but yet it is far
short of the service which you might perform. Nay, your
heavenlymindedness will be much suppressed, as long as you
are sadly questioning whether ever you shall come thither,
and it will be yours or not.
7. Are you not ashamed to see the servants of the devil
and the world so jocund, and yourselves so sad that serve
the Lord ? Will you go mourning so inordinately to heaven,
when others go so merrily to hell ? Will you credit satan
and sin so much, as to persuade men by your practice, that
sin afl'ordeth more pleasure and content than holiness ?
8. You could live merrily yourselves before your conver-
sion, while you served sin ; and will you walk so dejectedly
now you have repented of it, as if you had changed for the
worse, or would make men think so ? I know you would not
for all the world be what you were before your change. Why
then do you live as if you were more miserable than before?
9. You would be loath so long to resist the sanctifying
work of the Spirit : and why should you not be loath to re-
sist its comforting work ? It is the same Holy Ghost that
you resist in both. Nay, you dare not so open your mouths
for wickedness, and plead against sanctification itself, as you
open them on the behalf of your sinful doubtings, and plead
for your immoderate dejections. If you should, how vile
would you appear ?
10. Lastly consider, that God will lay sufferings enough
upon you for your sins, and suffer wicked men to lay enough
on you for well-doing, and you need not lay more upon your-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 389
selves. You have need to use all means for strength to bear
the burdens that you must undergo : and it is the joy of the
Lord, and the hopes of glory, that are your strength. And
will you cast away the only supports of your soul, and sink
when the day of suffering comes ? How will you bear po-
verty, or reproach, or injuries ? How will you meet approach-
ing death, if you feed your doubts of your salvation and of
the love of God in Christ, which must corroborate you? O
weaken not your souls that are too weak already : weaken
not your souls that have so much to do and suffer, and that
of so great necessity and importance. While you complain
of your weakness, increase it not by unbelieving, uncomfort-
able complaints. Gratify not the devil and wicked, mali-
cious men so far, as to inflict on yourselves a greater calam-
ity than all their malice and power could inflict. It is a
madness in them that will please the devil, to the displeas-
ing of God, though the pleasing of their own flesh be it that
moveth them to it. But for a man to please the devil, and
displease God, even when he displeaseth his own flesh by it
also, and bringeth nothing but sorrow to himself by it, this
is in some respects more unreasonable than madness itself.
Many cast away their souls for riches, and honours, and car-
nal accommodations ; but who would do it for poverty, sick-
ness, or disgrace ? So though many undo their souls for
fleshly pleasures and delights, yet he is a strange man in-
deed that will offend God even for self-tormenting grief and
trouble. O therefore, dear Christians, as you have let go all
your sensual pleasures for the pleasing of your Lord, do not
let go the pleasures of his love, for which you have let go all.
" The Lord taketh pleasure in his people, even in them that
fear him, in those that hope in his mercy, and the meek he
will beautify with salvation;" Psal.cxlvii.il. It is meet
therefore that his people take pleasure in the Lord ; that the
" saints be joyful in glory ; that they sing aloud upon their
beds, and that the high praises of God be in their mouths.'*
O let not the Spirit of God be thought to be like the evil
spirit that vexed Saul, that filled his mind with melancholy,
anguish and confusion. It is the evil spirit that renteth and
tormenteth those that it possesseth ; though the Spirit ot
God doth humble and by ordinate sorrow prepare for joy:
but its proper work is to sanctify, and to comfort, and es-.
tablish the believer with peace that passeth understanding.
'^90 A SAINT OK A BKUTE.
As it is a greater sign of the operation of the Spirit of Christ
to restore the lapsed by a spirit of meekness, and to bear
one another's burdens, and exercise tenderness, compassion
and charity, than to censure and envy, and call for fire from
heaven : so even at home (though there we are allowed to be
more rigid and censorious) it is a more sure and satisfactory
discovery of the Spirit of grace within us, if we are raised to
a sweet delight in God, and quieted in his love, and carried
out in cheerful obedience, thankfully acknowledging the
grace that we have received, and waiting in the use of means
for more, than if we are only turmoiled and troubled in our
minds, and tossed up and down with unprofitable griefs and
fears, that abate our love to God, and our holy joys. It is
the still voice that doth most fully acquaint us that it is
Christ the Prince of Peace that speaketh to us : though at
first when he findeth a sinner in a state of enmity and re-
bellion, he often useth to thunder and lighten, and call to
him as to Saul, " Why persecutest thou me ?" Wilt thou
kick against the pricks ? Wilt thou fight against heaven ?
Or canst thou bear the wrath of God Almighty ? Yet to the
humbled penitent soul, there is none in all the world so ten-
der as Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the church's husband,
that cherisheth them as his own flesh. O that you did but
know the greatness and tenderness of his love to you, while
you lie trembling under the unjust apprehensions of his
wrath I It would then so transport you with ravishing de-
lights, that the world would see that the saints of the Most
High have higher pleasures than the world afFordeth.
But I know you will say, 'Alas, what need you exhort us
to spiritual pleasures and consolations ? Do you think there
is any man in love with sorrows, or unwilling to live in a joy-
ful life ? O that you could tell us how we might attain it ;
and you should quickly see that we are willing.'
Anstv, And if you are so willing to attain it, as to be also
willing to use the means, you shall more quickly see that I
shall certainly inform you how you may attain it ; and how
you may come to find a life of holiness to be the most sweet
and pleasant life. I therefore desire and require you to
practise these Directions following.
Direct. 1. Make it your first and principal business to
attain the fullest fixed knowledge of God in his attributes,
and covenant relations to you.
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 391
1 . Study him in his attributes. If infinite goodness take
not up the soul with love and with delight, it is because it
is not known. Where there are all things that the soul of
man deisiires to its highest felicity and content, and yet con-
tentment and delight is wanting, it must needs be ignorance
and distance that is the cause. If the sun seem not light to
you, it is because you have not eyesight, or look not on the
light. If you find no pleasure in the most pleasant food, it
is because your appetites are diseased, or you do not taste
it. If your most suitable and most affectionate friend seem
not amiable to you, it is because you know not his suitable-
ness and love. So if the eternal God, that is infinitely pow-
erful, wise and good, most perfect and most suitable to your
highest affections, do not possess you with abundant plea-
sures and delights of love, it is because you are unacquaint-
ed with him. Study then, his infinite perfections, and be
much with him in secret prayer and meditation, where the
retired soul having fewest avocations, is fittest for the most
near familiar converse. And still remember that it is Love
itself that you have to do with. For God is love. It is the
Fountain of all delights and pleasures that you draw near to.
It is a cold heart indeed that fire itself cannot warm, and a
dead heart indeed that life itself cannot revive. Conceive
of God as God, and you will delight in him : abhor all un-
worthy diminutive thoughts of him : set up his love and
goodness in your estimation, as infinitely above all the crea-
tures. Believe it, the love of your dearest friends, is an in-
considerable drop to the ocean of his love. Think not of
him as cruel, or an enemy, if you would love him or delight
in him. Love and delight are never forced by bare com-
mands and threatenings, but drawn forth magnetically by
attractive goodness. Were not God most amiable, and
friendly, and desirable to us, it is not saying, Love me, or I
will damn thee, that would ever have caused man to love
him ; but rather to fear, and hate, and fly from him. Think
but of God's love, and goodness, and fidelity, as you do of
his power, and then you will find that there are rivers of
pleasure in his presence, and fulness of joy at his right hand,
the foretastes whereof are the only delights that can quiet
the troubled thirsty soul.
2. And if you say, ' What is all this to me, any more than
to the ungodly world, on whom the wrath of God abideth V
392 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
I answer, thou art in covenant with him, and he is thine in the
covenant relations, even thy reconciled Father, thy Saviour,
and thy Sanctifier. No husband is so inviolably bound to a
wife, nor will so faithfully answer his relation, as the blessed
Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier unto thee. Didst thou well
know and consider what it is to have God himself to be thine
in covenant to all these uses, and to all the ends that thou
canst reasonably desire, it would fill up thy soul with satisfy-
ing delights.
There is nothing that thou wantest, but what belongs to
God to give thee, in one of these three great relations. And
sooner shall the day be turned into night, and the frame of
nature be dissolved, than God will violate his covenant of
grace. " Thus saith the Lord, if you can break my covenant
of the day, and ray covenant of the night, and that there
should not be a day and night in their season ; then may also
my covenant be broken ;" &c. Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21. " Fear
not, for thou shalt not be ashamed, &c. For thy Maker is
thy Husband ; the Lord of Hosts is his name ; and thy Re-
deemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth
shall he be called : for the Lord hath called thee as a woman
forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou
wast refused, saith thy God : for a small moment have I for-
saken thee, but with great merfcies will I gather thee. In a
little wrath 1 hid my face from thee for a moment; but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord
thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me :
for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more
go over the earth ; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth
with thee nor rebuke thee : for the mountains shall depart,
and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be re-
moved, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee ;" Isa. liv.
4, 5, &c. And though yet we have our troublesome imper-
fections, it belongeth to our God, *' through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, to make us perfect in every good work
to do his will, working in us that which is well pleasing in
his sight through Jesus Christ, that to him may be the glory
for ever;" Heb. xiii. 20, 21. It is his work " to comfortall
that mourn ; to appoint to them that mourn in Zion, and to
give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 393
be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord»
that he might be glorified. They shall be named the
priests of the Lord ; men shall call them the ministers of our
God. Everlasting joy shall be unto them.— — For the
Lord will direct their work in truth and make an everlasting
covenant with them. All that see them shall acknow-
ledge them that they are the seed whom the Lord hath bles-
sed ; therefore should we greatly rejoice in the Lord ; and
our souls should be joyful in our God : for he hath clothed
us with the garments of salvation ; he hath covered us with
the robes of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself
with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her
jewels ;'' Isa. Ixi. " A new heart also will I give you, and a
new spirit will I put into you, and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,
and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk
in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do
them and I will save you from all your uncleanness,''
&c. Ezek. xxxvi. 25 — 27. 29. " And they shall be my peo-
ple, and 1 will be their God : and I will give them one heart
and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of
them, and of their children after them ; and I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away
from them to do them good ; but I will put my fear in their
hearts, and they shall not depart from me : yea, I will rejoice
over them to do them good/' &c. Jer, xxxii. 38 — 41. " Happy
are the people that are in such a case ; yea, happy is that
people whose God is the Lord ;'' Psal. cxliv. 15
Nature doth not give you such security that the sun shall
shine, and that the streams shall run, that the earth shall be
fruitful, as the covenant of the Lord doth give you all that is
necessary to your happiness. Study therefore the mercies
and riches of the covenant.
Direct, 2. Understand and remember that it is your co-
venant consent, that it is the condition of your title to all the
following blessings of the covenant.
I add this as supposing you will say, * What are all these
benefits to me, unless I were sure that I were indeed in the
covenant V It is not your merit, but your consent that is re-
quired. God offereth himself to be your reconciled Father,
and Christ to be your Saviour, and the Holy Spirit to be your
Sanctitier. Do you consent to this, or not? All the ques-
394 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
tion is, whether you are willinp^ ; and whether your sin be not
so sweet to you, that you will rather venture your souls on
the wrath of God, than you will be saved from it. If you
heartily consent, assuredly you are in the covenant, and the
benefits and the joy and comfort are yours. If you do not
consent, instead of despairing, presently consent, and re-
fuse not your happiness while you lament your misery.
Object. ' But it is not only covenant-making, but cove-
nant-keeping that must save us : and I have broke my cove-
nant, and therefore have no title to the benefits.' Answ, What
covenant have you broken ? This covenant in question that
engageth you to God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost? If
thou hast broken this, you have withdrawn your consent :
for while you heartily consent, you break it not in any es-
sential part. As it is not every breach of the laws, that makes
a man a traitor or rebel, nor every fault or falling out between
husband and wife that dissolveth their relation ; so is it not
every sin, nor any that is consistent with true co^nsent to the
terms of the covenant, that is a covenant-breaking forfeiture
of the benefits. If you would not have God to be your por-
tion, your Father, your Saviour, and your Sanctifier, you are
then covenant-breakers : and if you be so, consent ye, and
return to your fidelity, and the comforts of the covenant may
yet be yours, for all your former violation.
Direct. '3, Moreover, if you would find the pleasure of a
holy life, see that the flesh befool you not into an over-high
estimation of any worldly thing, that so your appetites may
not be corrupted with such contrary, unwholesome pleasures,
nor your hearts be overwhelmed with worldly cares, or griefs,
or troubles. If you will glut yourselves with other kind of
pleasures, you cannot expect that holiness should be your
pleasure. You cannot find your delight in God, when you
turn from him to seek it in the creature. If you sought for
less in friends, and health, and prosperity in the world, you
might have more in God. How should you find content in
God, when you set so light by him, that the promise of be-
holding him in endless glory will not please you, unless you
may also have your fleshly desires, or selfish inclinations
pleased here ? This is it that perverteth your judgments and
affections, and causeth you to injure God and yourselves.
You first fancy that it is an excellent thing to be rich and
renowned and to rule over others, or to have plenty of all ac~
A SAINT OK A BRUTE. 395
commodations for your flesh ; and then because God satis-
fieth not these carnal fancies, you think he neglecteth you,
or deals hardly with you ! As if every person in the town
should murmur because they are not bailiffs or justices; when
if they had the wit to know it, they are but kept from a dou-
ble encumbrance, and from a burden which perhaps would
break their backs. When the people are thus befooled by
the flesh into brutish conceits of the nature of felicity, and
into an overvaluing of these worldly things, they are then
always either tickled by deluding pleasures, or troubled for
the crossing of their carnal wills, so that they grow out of
relish and liking with the true and durable delights. Take
heed therefore of this carnality.
Direct, 4. Study the greatness of the mercy which you
have received. You abound with mercies ; and yet under-
value them and overlook them, and sweeten not your souls
with the serious observation and remembrance of them : you
study principally your afflictions and your wants ; and thus
when you live in a land that floweth with milk and honey,
you will not feed on the prepared feast, but keep still the
gall and wormwood in your mouths ; and how then should
you be acquainted with the pleasures of a holy life ?
Yea, you must use to look more to the spiritual part of
all your mercies, and see the love of God that appeareth in
them ; and taste the blood of Christ in them, and lose not
the kernel ; and take not up with the common carnal part,
which every wicked man can value and enjoy. Consider in
all your mercies, what there is in them for the benefit of your
souls, much rather than how they accommodate your flesh.
Could you do thus, you would find the benefit of afflictions ;
and that the denial of what you counted necessary mercies, is
not the smallest of your mercies. And thus judging truly
by the Spirit, and not by the flesh, there is no condition (ex-
cept that of sin) in which you might not find cause of joy.
Direct.^. Take heed of sinning: keep still upon your
watch against temptation ; sin is the cause of all your suf-
ferings ; when it promiseth you delight, it is preparing for
your sorrow ; when it flattereth you into presumption, it is
preparing for despair ; when it promiseth you secresy and
security, it prepareth for your shame : and be sure your sin
will find you out ; Numb, xxxii. 23. If therefore you have
offended, delay not your repentance ; and spare not the flesh
396 A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
in your return ; but (unless the honour of God forbid it) take
shame to yourselves by free confession, and make the fullest
reparation of the injury that you can to God and man. If
you would thus get out the thorn that vexeth you, the ways
of God would be more pleasant.
Direct, 6. Daily live in the exercise of faith, upon the
everlasting pleasures : dwell as at the gates of heaven, as
men that are waiting every hour when they are called in.
and when death will draw aside the veil, and shew them the
blessed face of God. And take heed that the enmity of in-
terposing death, prevail not against the joys of faith. But
look to Christ that hath conquered it, and will conquer it
for you : and if thus you could live as strangers here, and as
the citizens of heaven, that are ready to step into the immor-
tal pleasures, you would then taste the pleasures of a holy life,
in the firstfruits and foretastes thereof. It is your treasure
that must delight you ; as your heart must be there, so your
pleasure must be derived thence. Strangers to heaven will be
strangers to the believer's joys ; as the pleasure of the car-
nal world consisteth in the sense of what they have in hand ;
so the pleasure of believers consisteth in the fore-apprehen-
sions of what they shall enjoy with God for ever. If there-
fore you exercise not those apprehensions ; if you look not
frequently, seriously and believingly into the world that
you must live in for ever, how can the comforts of that
world illustrate and refresh you in this present world ? The
light and heat,which is the beauty and life of this lower world,
proceedeth not from any thing m this world, but frum the sun
which is so far above us, and sends down hither its quicken-
ing influence and rays. They are not the genuine comforts
of Christianity, which are not fetched from the world above.
Direct, 7. If you would have the experience of the plea-
sures of a life of faith and holiness, neither desire or cherish
any feajs or sorrows, but such as are subservient to faith,
and hope, and love, and preparatory to thankfulness and joy.
Think not religion consisteth in any other kind of sorrows.
Nay, if any other should assault you, be so far from taking
them for your duty or religion, as to resist them, and lament
them as your sin. That is true and saving humiliation, 1.
Which makes you vile in your own eyes, and loathe your-
selves for sin. 2. And maketh you more desirous to be deliv-
ered and cleansed from your sin, than to live in it; how sweet
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. 397
or gainfnl soever it may seem ; and 3. Which maketh you
set more by a Saviour to deliver you, than by all the plea-
sures, riches and honours of the world. Whatever want of
grief or tears you find, if you have these signs, your repen-
tance and humiliation is sincere. Do not therefore refuse
your peace because you have not greater sorrows ; nor dis-
turb your souls by struggling for excessive sorrow : take
not part with them, but do your best to cast them out, if they
are such as would destroy your love and joy, and drive you
from Christ, and hinder your thanksgivings. Know that the
life of your religion consisteth in the holy love of God and
of his image, and servants, and holy ways. Love is your
duty, your felicity, and reward : therefore let all tend to the
exercise of love, and value most those means which most
promote it ; and think yourselves best when you abound
most in love ; and not when you are overwhelmed with those
fears and griefs which hinder love. Study therefore above
all, the love of God revealed in Christ, which is the best
attractive of your love to him; and hateall suggestions
which would represent God unlovely and undesirable to you.
Direct. 8. Use cheerful company ; not carnal, but holy ;
not such as waste their time in unprofitable frothy speeches*
or filthy, or profane, or scornful jestings : but such as have
most of the sense of love and mercy on their hearts ; and are
best acquainted with a life of faith, and whose speeches and
cheerful conversations, do most lively manifest their sense
of the love of God, and of the grace of Christ, and the eter-
nal happiness of the saints. There is a delightful and en-
couraging virtue in the converse of joyful, thankful, heaven-
ly believers : use it therefore if you can have it.
Direct. 9. In your addresses to God in holy worship, be
sure that praise and thanksgiving have its due proportion.
They are the chief, and most excellent and acceptable part,
and therefore let them not have the smallest room. Though
your sins and wants be as great as you imagine, it is yet your
duty to praise the excellencies, and attributes, and works
of your Creator, and to be thankful for the preparations
made by Christ, and freely offered you, so that they shall cer-
tainly be yours, if you accept them. But much more thank-
ful should you be that have but the evidence of desire and
consent to prove your interest in Christ and in his covenant.
I would entreat poor troubled fearful souls to resolve up-
308 A SAINT OK A BUUTR.
on this one thing, which is reasonable, necessary, and in their
power, that when they are upon their knees with God, they
will spend as much of their time and words in confessing
mercies and praising God, as in confessing sin, and con-
demning themselves, and lamenting their wants, and weak-
nesses, and distress. Though they cannot do it cheerfully
as they should, let them do it as they can. And at last while
they keep in the right way of duty, and use themselves to
the commemoration of that which is sweet and grateful to
the soul, religion itself will become sweet and grateful ; and
cheerfulness of heart will be promoted by our own consid-
erations and expressions. The same I desire of them as
to their thoughts ; that they will do their best to spend
as many thoughts and as much time upon mercy, as upon
sin and misery ; and upon the goodness and love of God in
Christ, as upon his threatenings and terrors.
Direct. 10. If you would taste the comforts ofa holy life,
be sure that you give up yourselves to Christ without re-*
serve, and follow him fully, and place all your hopes and
confidence in his promised rewards : serve him with your
best, yea, with your all ; and not with some cheap and heart-
less service. Comforts are the rewards of faithfulness : they
that do God the most sincere and costly service, and save
nothing^ from him which he calleth them to lose, are most
like to be encouraged by his sweetest comforts. It is slug-
gish neglects and unfruitfulness, doing no good in the world,
but thinking to be saved by a dull profession, that makes
so many uncomfortable professors as there be : though I
know that on the other extreme, too many live in pining sad-
ness, by not understanding the covenant of grace, which ac-
cepteth of sincerity, and secureth the weak and infants in
the family of Christ. But yet the barren, unprofitable Chris-
ti >ns (I mean that comparatively are such, though they be
sincere) shall find that God will not encourage any in sloth -
fulness by his smiles and consolations.
Direct. 11. If you would know the rest and comfort of
believers, see that you rest in the will of God in all condi-
tions, as the centre and only bottom for your souls. His will
is not to be reduced to yours : strive therefore to bring yours
most fully and quietly to his. God's will is the universal
original and end of all things ; and there is no felicity or
rest for man, but in the fulfilling, and pleasing, and dispo-
A SAINT OR A BRUTE. :>99
sals of his will. Be not too desirous of the fulfilling of your
own wills, and murmur not against the disposals of the will
of God. It cannot but be good which proceedeth from that
will which is the spring of good. The accomplishment of
God's will is the perfection of all created beings, being that
end for which they are all created. If you rest in your
own wills, your rest will be imperfect, disturbed and short
of duration ; for your wills are the wills of weak and vicious
men : they are frequently misguided by an ignorant mind,
and perverted by a corrupt and biassed heart : but God's
will is never misguided ; nor ever determined of any thing
but for the best. If you rest here, you rest in safety; you
may be sure you shall never be deceived by him. As you pray
that his will may be done, acquiesce in the doing of his will ;
and whatever befal you, repose and satisfy your hearts in this.
Direct. 12. Lastly, let me add, that when you have all the
Directions that can be given, you trust not too much to your
own understanding and skill for the application of them to
yourselves, in any weighty, difficult cases. But as you will
not think it enough for the health of your bodies, to have
physic books and physic lectures, unless you have also a
physician who knoweth more than you, to direct you in the
application ; so think it not enough that you have the best
books and sermons, unless you have also a faithful and ju-
dicious pastor, whose advice you may crave in particular
difficulties, and who may direct you in the discovery of your
own diseases, and applying the fittest remedies in their sea-
son and measures, with such rules and cautions as are ne-
cessary to the success. If God had not known that there
Would still be many children and weak ones in his family,
that would stand in need of the instruction, support, and
encouragement of the strong, he would never have settled
pastors in his church to watch over all the flocks, and to be
always ready at hand, for the confirmation and encourage-
ment of such as need their help. Th^re had been no physi-
cians, if there had been no diseases. Tire not your physi-
cians with needless consultations for easy and ordinary
cases ; but be not without them in your greater straits, and
wants, and doubts. And " blessed be God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the
God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation,
that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trou-
400 A SAINT OK A BRUTE.
ble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of
God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our
consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be
afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is
effectual in the enduring of the same suffering, which we
also suffer ; or whether we be comforted, it is for your con-
solation and salvation;" 2 Cor. i. 4 — 6. While you are
sick or infants, the stronger must support you. You cannot
stand, or go, or suffer of yourselves : and God is so tender
of his weak and little ones, that he hath not only given
strength to others for their sakes, and commanded the strong
to bear the burdens and infirmities of the weak ; (Gal. vi. 1,
2. Rom. XV. 1 — 4.) but also established the ministerial
office much for this end. " For the priests' lips should keep
knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth ; for
he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts ;" Mai. ii. 7. Not
that we should disclose our consciences, and depend for
guidance on every ignorant or ungodly man, that hath the
name and place of a priest. Even among the Papists, men
have leave to choose such confessors as are fittest for them.
If the priests *' depart out of the way, and cause many to
stumble at the law, and corrupt the covenant of Levi, the
the Lord will make them contemptible and base before all
the people, according as they have not kept his ways, but
been partial in the law;" Mai. ii. 8,9. But use those that
are qualified and sent by the Spirit of God ; who ** in sim-
plicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by
the grace of God, have had their conversation in the world,
especially to youwards ;" 2 Cor. i. 12. Such as " you have
acknowledged in part, that they are your rejoicing, as you
also are theirs in the day of the Lord Jesus ;" ver. 14. Not
using them as such as have dominion over your faith, but as
those that by office, qualification, and willingness and dis-
position are helpers of your joy; ver. 24.
In the faithful practice of these Directions, you will find
that Holiness is the most pleasant way ; and that the godly
choose the better part; and that the ungodly sensualists do
live as brutes, while they unreasonably refuse to live as
SAINTS.
END OF A SAINT OR A BRUTE.
THE
ONE THING NECESSARY :
CHRISrS JUSTIFICATION OF MARY'S CHOICE;
OF HIS SERVANTS WRONGFULLY ACCUSED
VOL. X. D »
PREFACE.
It is not a needless subject which I here offer about need-
less or less needful things. Little do most men think how
much of their wisdom or folly lieth in their right or wrong
valuing and using things lawful, and that have an inferior
sort of goodness ; and how much their salvation or damna-
tion is herein concerned. Men are condemned for an evil
love, but not for the love of evil as evil. Nature is against
that. To love a lesser good too much, and a greater too lit-
tle ; to love the end but as the means, and the means as the
end, is an evil love ; * Non malum volumus, sed male.' It is
the act that is evil when the object is good, either in deed,
or in the apprehension of the lover. He may will hurt as
hurt to another, but it is as conceited to be some good to
himself. Apprehension of good or evil, that is, practical
judgment, ruleth the wills and actions of the world. Of how
great moment then is it to have a truly informed judgment,
and to have teachers that will thus truly inform us ! Not
about matter of mere talk and dispute, that little concerneth
us, but about that which is good or evil to ourselves, and to
know indifferent things to be indifferent. It is the pernici-
ous enmity of the fleshly appetite to the soul, that it biass-
eth the practical judgment and will to take things indiffer-
ent to be good and desirable, and almost necessary ; and a
small sensible good to be a great one, and a great good,
which displeaseth sense and appetite, to be small, if not a
hurtful evil.
And indeed the Holy Ghost hath told us (Rom. viii. 5—8.)
that this is the difference between the truly godly and un-
godly, that one is spiritually minded, and the other carnally
that is, one savoureth things spiritual, and judgeth of things
according to spiritual reason and interest, and loveth and
chooseth them for spiritual goodness ; but the carnal have
CCCCIV PREFACE.
no such gust, judgment, or love, but value things as the ap-
petite and interest of the flesh inclineth them. Be they both
of the same calling, education, and profession, if both were
pastors of churches, and preachers of the same doctrine, yet
this difference is at the hearts of spiritual and carnal men ;
and it usually appeareth to others in their lives. If they be
public persons, they will shew men what things they value,
and what gain it is that they pursue. The flesh loveth not
mortification, nor the cross ; it is always against spiritual
laws and life, and spiritual worship and persons, so far as they
cross their carnal interest. He that will worship God, that
is a Spirit, in spirit and truth, must have a judgment that
most valueth spiritual things, and place his love and hope on
spiritual delights and happiness. A carnal mind that sa-
voureth only carnal things, and neither is nor can be subject
to God's spiritual law, will hardly relish spiritual worship,
or a spiritual kind of life.
One of the greatest signs of a hypocrite is, making a
great matter of little (worldly and fleshly) things, and mak-
ing a little matter of great things. All the things of the flesh
and world are things indifferent in themselves, or almost in-
different, further than their relation to spiritual good doth
make them become good or evil ; good if they further it, and
evil if they hinder it. But the hypocrite is never indifferent
toward them ; he feeleth no great need of spiritual thoughts,
spiritual counsel, or discourse, or preaching, or books, or
company. Perhaps he can bear them, but he can be with-
out them ; and doth neither much desire them, or delight in
them. A history, or romance, or merry jest, or game is more
pleasant to him. But his thoughts are serious for his carnal
commodity, pleasure, and reputation ; what he shall eat and
drink, and wherewith he shall be clothed. If his house, his
maintenance, his meat and drink be not such as the flesh de-
sireth, especially if it be put to straits and sufferings, his
sense of it is as quick, and his complaint as serious, as if he
were half undone, or it were some great matter at least that
he complaineth of. The complaints and tears of many that
are in some straits or sufferings should cause wiser tears from
serious believers, to see men so miserably carnal, like chil-
dren that cry for a pin or a feather, as if they had lost their
greatest good.
Seriousness is it that sheweth what is next to a man's,
PREFACE. CCCCV
heart. It is seriousness and earnestness about fleshly vani-
ty, and want of seriousness about things spiritual and eter-
nal, which is ^he temperament and character of the hypo-
crite.
And here I would entreat some that 1 hope are godly, to
forbear so suspicious and disgraceful a course as they are
openly guilty of; 1 mean when they talk so concernedly and
eagerly about their meat, and drink, and clothes, and every
fleshly thing, as if their hearts were set upon them. Passion
and chiding if all be not as their fancies or appetite would
have it, doth shew that they are dangerously diseased at
least. This meat is not well drest, and the other is too little,
or too much ; and that sauce is not rightly made, and some-
thing or other is still amiss. And all these are talked of as
seriously as if the fleshly appetite were the man. In a word,
the more serious any man is about great things, the more in-
different he will be about things indifferent. And the more
indifferent a man is about the greatest things, the more earn-
est and serious vvill he be about things indifferent ; and * vice
versa,' the more serious he is about things indifferent, the
more indifferent he will be about the one thing necessary.
Taking great things for small, and small things for great ;
necessary things for indifferent, and indifferent or smaller
things for necessary, is the folly, and the sin, and the dam-
nation of the ungodly. And because all men will do as they
are, it is also the corrupter, troubler, and divider, of the
Christian societies, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and con-
versation, and the confounder of the world. Of which faith
and serious godliness is the remedy, which valueth and us-
eth all things as they are.
September 29,
1684.
THE
ONE THING NECESSARY;
OR,
MARY'S CHOICE JUSTIFIED.
LUKE X.41.
Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art
careful and troubled about many things ; but one thing is
needful.
Having long ago published some sermons on the One
Thing Needful, in a Treatise called, " A Saint or a Brute," I
find by more experience than I had then, that it is more ne-
cessary to say something on the former part of the text than
I thought it was. I then lived among poor, labouring, honest
people, vi^ho had indeed some temptations from outward
wants, but little from wealth and superfluities, nor had lei-
sure to waste time upon so many trifles as I see rich and idle
persons think they have.
It is here very considerable, 1. That the Author of this
reproof was one who was not to be suspected to mistake
through ignorance, or want of love to Martha. And though
he lived in a low manner, and not as the rich, yet it was not
because he wanted such things that he blameth the minding
of unnecessary things, for he was Lord of all ; and for our
sakes he became poor, yet suffered as rich men, that are sup-
posed to be usually the greatest sinners. "He made his
grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death :" Isa.
liii.9.
2. And that his reproof was very serious and compas-
sionate, repeating her name, " Martha, Martha "
• 3. The person reproved was not a wicked, fleshly, world-
ly person ; but one that was beloved by him, and a religious
believer.
408 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
4. The matter which she is reproved for is partly positive
expressed (being " careful and troubled about many things"),
and partly implied as privative ; not preferring the one thing
needful at that time so much as she should have done.
Which implieth, 1. That the many things were needless, or
less needful things. 2. That they took up both her unsea-
sonable time, and the cares of her mind, unto her trouble.
I need no more words to convince you that Christ here
teacheth us this lesson, viz.
' That care and trouble about many needless or less need-
ful things, hindering them from the due minding of the one
thing needful, is a sin which Christ reproved in Martha, and
therefore blameth in all others who are guilty of it.'
Here, I. Let us consider what Martha's sin in particular
was. II. Whether we are not like to be more guilty of the
like. III. In what kind this sin is usually committed. IV.
What are the excuses for it. V. What is the evil of it which
deserveth such reproof. VI. What use we should make of
Christ's reproof.
1. Martha's sin (already mentioned) was overmuch care
and trouble about her table for Christ's entertainment, while
Mary sat hearing his holy discourse ; which shewed that she
had less appetite than Mary to the holy doctrine of Christ,
that could be more easily without it. 2. And that she over-
valued the lower part, his bodily entertainment.
. Yet there were these extenuations of it. 1. It was not
doing any sinful work in itself.
2. It was not needless in its time and measure.
We are allowed to pray for our daily bread ; and here is
no mention of any superfluities or excess : and so worthy a
guest deserved the best provisions : and it is probable that
Martha was the chief housekeeper, to whom it most belong-
ed. And no doubt it was a work of love and honour to
Christ. Yet though it was for his own person, and had such
excuses, Christ would not take part with it, or forbear to
blame it.
And indeed one half of her fault lay in blaming her sister
that was wiser, aud chose better than herself; and Christ
spake this as much to justify Mary, as to blame Martha, as
the following words shew.
II. Andif we judge but by her quality and case, and ours,
we are far liker to be thus culpable than Martha was. For,
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 409
1. That country was poor in comparison of ours, and had
not half the temptations to many needless things, as we have
by our riches and their effects.
2. Christ would not have endured such vanities and ex-
cesses as we are usually guilty of.
3. It is like, Martha, that was so familiar with Christ,
was less addicted to vanities than we now are.
4. Our common vanities, for which few of the better sort
blame themselves, have no such extenuations or excuses as
the case of Martha had.
III. But we need no more to convince us, than to name
some of the many instances in which our sin is far, yea, very
far worse than Martha's.
1. How much of most men's thoughts and time is taken
up with the needless cares to grow richer, and be better pro-
vided in the world ? From one end of the year to the other
how great a proportion is thus laid out? Cannot we serve
God's providence, and labour in our callings, and do our
duty, without such a; measure of care and trouble ? Into how
narrow a compass do worldly cares and troubles cast God's
service, and men's cares and thoughts of their endless state
in the hearts and houses of most meji ! These thorns and
briars are so rank and plentiful, that they choke much of the
seed of the Gospel, and make true godliness and heavenly
delight to wither away, and come to little.
2. How many needless cares and troubles have most about
God's part and providence, which belongs not to them; fear-
ing what may befal them, lest they should be poor or op-
pressed, or suffer by others, when they should spend those
thoughts in caring for their duty, and trusting the love and
faithfulness of God ? And no other care will avoid their suf-
fering.
3. How much needless, yea, and brutish thoughts and
works have many to please and gratify their appetites?
What a base, and yet costly service have they that serve a
greedy throat, and a beastly fancy !
Had God taken away many men's health, and appetite,
that meat and drink had been loathsome to them, it had been
a mercy to many such, who by the pleasure that they have
in these, are made slaves to the flesh, and sinks of shameful
sin, and the football of temptations, and live under continual
^10 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
wounds of conscience ; and when the cup is absent, they are
sinning in their imaginations and desires, and are contriving
how the next meal or day to gratify their appetites again. I
speak not of the reeling, befooled drunkard, or the spewing
glutton, but of them whose care is for throat and belly, that
make a great matter of the pleasing or displeasing of their
appetites, and think and talk of it so seriously, as if it were
some needful or important thing; that are displeased in mind
if their throats be not pleased, and they fare not sumptuous-
ly or deliciously every day. When the poor Israelites had
not tasted bread or flesh for many years in a wilderness, nor
so much as the Egyptian onions, but only manna, they are
killed by God's justice because they murmured ; and when
they asked flesh, it is said, " They asked meat for their lusts"
(Psal. Ixxviii.) ; that is, for their mere appetites, without ne-
cessity, for life or health. But how much further do most
go now, exceeding even the princes or great men in Israel in
the matter and manner of their diet (as I believe the most in
England do), and yet never blame or suspect themselves !
Turks can forbear wine at Mahomet's command, and the
Rechabites, because their father bid them; and if the physi-
cian forbid strong drink or wiiie to the sick they can forbear;
but sensual sinners will rebel against God for their desired
bait, and their heart and thoughts are set upon it.
4. How much also of many vain people's thoughts and
care is spent about needless ornaments of apparel ! Do we
need any other proof than the opening of our eyes in the
streets, yea, in the holy assemblies, as well as in places of
evil fame ? Dives is noted by Christ to wear purple and silk,
or as we translate it, fine linen ; and then those tha^ were
gorgeously apparelled were in king's houses ; but how few
here of the vulgar, yea, of servants, affect it not now that can
but procure it! If the highest do but take it up, inferiors
quickly strive to imitate them. In my short time the garb
of England is so changed, that but fifty years ago men would
have gazed at such as painted Indians, or outlandish strang-
ers, or ugly ruffians, that had gone as most civil and religi-
ous people do in this city now. Paul would have forborne
wine and flesh while he had lived, rather than this liberty
should hurt his weak brother's soul. But if the scandal of
our pride and gaudery do make many weak persons turn
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 411
Quakers to fly from it, how few for to avoid this would avoid
the most gaudy, and efleminate, or ruffianly fashion of clothes
or hair ? And instead of receiving reproof from such Qua-
kers, they are hardened the more because of the weakness
of their reprovers. I am loath to name those gauds with
which especially the female sex do openly shew their vanity,
which tell all beholders what needless trifles take up much
of their time, and cost, and care. And alas, for men's stupid
folly all this is, while thousands want food and raiment, while
whole countries are impoverished by cruel wars,when dreadful
flames have consumed ourwealth, and rebuked our pride, and
humbling diseases have shewed us what flesh is ; and when
our daily feeling tells us it is perishing ; and while we are
going to a loathsome grave, and see the dust and bones of
those whom we are following ; and the plain warnings of
Peter, 1 Pet. iii, 3 — 6. and many such stand in the Bible as
<iiphers to them.
5. How many needless things take up the rich, about
their houses, furniture, retinue, and entertainments ? Espe-
cially those that are most proud, and most curious and vain.
Conveniency must be a pretence for sinful cost and labour;
handsomeness or decency must be a pretence for needless
charge in furniture, while the poor go almost naked. Clean-
liness must be a pretence for their servants spending much
of the day and year in needless vanities, which might be
much better spent. Not to be accounted careless or un-
cleanly by others of the like vanity seems to be excuse
enough for a multitude of needless curiosities. To find poor
people work, doth pass for an excuse for employing servants
and tradesmen in making and providing all these need-nots,
as if they might not have been better employed for the com-
mon good, and encouraged to learn some better trades ; as
if they knew, not how narrow a coffin, and little furniture
must shortly serve them. The report of good housekeeping
and entertainments must justify the excesses, and chargea-
ble, needless superfluities of the rich.
6. What needless cares and business have many to avoid
the contempt or hard thoughts of others ! How near goeth
it to a proud heart what is thought and spoken of them!
And their avoiding of contempt must be the reason of most
of the forementioned vanities, in their dress their houses,
412 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
their retinue, and the rest ; when alas, they*have another
kind of judgment to prepare for, and they, and those whose
thoughts they so much regard, are almost dead and dust al-
ready.
7. What a deal of some men's care and thoughts are spent
in needless contrivances for power and greatness in the
world ! What works find some Ahithophels and Hamans
for their minds ! As if it were needful for a man to fall at
last from a higher place than the rest about him ; or to have
his will fulfilled by all others ; or to have the souls or lives
of many to answer for ; or to be more strongly allured to the
damning love of this world than other men ; or to be envied
by many ; or to be a ruler of others, before one knoweth how
to be obedient to God, and to rule himself. And O what
worse than needless troubles, even horrible wickedness, doth
this ambition lead many to ! Even to be the plagues of the
earth, and incarnate devils, by bloody wars, and cruel op-
pressions, desolations, and persecutions.
8. Yea, some of lower rank have such imperious idol
wills that nothing must cross them, or be said or done by
any about them, but as they would have it. And yet it is
two to one but so many persons and things will cross them,
and go quite contrary to their wills, as that their disease will
be their continual torment. And they will be like one in
winter that cannot bear the cold, and yet must bear it ; or
like a poor man that is a servant to his appetite, and hath
not wherewith to please it ; or like one thatdwelleth by the
sea, and cannot bear the sight of the water ; or in a wood,
and cannot bear the shaking of a leaf. Such worse than need-
less troubles doth an idol will produce.
9. And how much time is lost in vain and needless talk
about things not justly pleasing, and no way profiting our-
selves and others ! A vain tongue being the index of a vain
mind, as if mind and tongue had no higher or better subjects
or employment.
10. And in this city it is not a little time that is taken
up with needless sports and recreations. I will not honour
the gamester's trade with so soft a name as needless work ;
nor the playhouses, nor the houses of excess and lust. But
if cards, dice, and stage-plays had never been branded and
condemned by the ancient canons of the Christian churches.
THK ON^E THING NECESSARY. 413
and did not notoriously bear the marks of temptation, and
much gross folly and sin, yet vanity and needlessness should
be enough to make men that believe in another world, and
the shortness of this life, to abhor them, and better spend
their time. There is a sort of pleasure and recreation that
is needful. That which fits us best for our necessary works
and duties, preserving by motion the health of the body, or
refreshing the weary spirits of hard students. But God hath
left no man in such a penury of recreation but that he may
find more useful, profitable, manly, time-saving, and safe
ones, than gaming or stage-plays, or romances, and such en-
snaring, befooling, unprofitable time-wasters are.
11. And among all the needless, deceitful vanities, un-
profitable studies and arts are not the least. When Corne-
lius Agrippa had strained his brain to such curiosities that
he passed for a conjurer, and had written a commentary up-
on Lullius' arts after many others ; he concludeth all with an ho-
nest and Christian-like treatise, * De Vanitate Scientiarum,'
commending the study and practice of God's word as the only
true wisdom. And though I have marvelled at the Carthage
council, which forbade the reading of heathens' books, I ne-
ver wondered that men's excess herein should be rebuked,
nor that Paul called men to beware lest they were deceived
by vain philosophy, and to avoid opposition of sciences
falsely so called. Languages, logic, metaphysics, physics,
mathematics, &c. have their use ; but he is a learned man
indeed who rightly applieth them to that use, and separateth
the needful from the needless part, the certain from the un-
certain, truth from falsehood, and presumptuous conceits ;
the plausibleness of the thing inviteth many to waste their
time in unprofitable studies, who durst not have spent it in
playhouses and gaming ; and yet I doubt to many it will
prove no better.
Query, But the doubt is, * What are these'^needless, sin-
ful things, that seemeth needless to one that is not so indeed,
or to another ? Cynics call decencies, and ornaments, and
conveniences, and pleasure needless.'
Arisw. I. That is needless which doth no good.
2. Those things that do more hurt than good.
3. Those things which answer not the cost and labour
which is bestowed upon them.
4. Those things that are good, but hinder and deprive us
414 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
of a greater good, which we may well spare, but are hin-
drances to the one thing necessary, which we cannot spare y
all these are certainly needless, if not worse.
But because vain persons are hardly convinced, till God
by light or fire do convince them, I will help them by these
few questions following.
Quest, 1. Is that act which you plead for a thing which
God doth any way command you directly or indirectly? If
not, how can it be needful to you '? You will say. Are there
not some things indifferent and lawful which are no duties ?
Answ, 1. There are natural things which are not moral (either
virtue or vice) ; as your health or sickness, and such things
as are God's works, and not yours ; of these I speak not. 2.
There are actions of your own which are merely natural, nei-
ther commanded nor forbidden, and that is all those which
are no matter for rational choosing or refusing, such as have
no moral use ; as winking with the eye, which foot I shall
first put forward ; which of two equal things, in meat, drink,
and apparel, &c., I shall take (not choose), when it is need-
ful that I do one, but it is perfectly indifferent which. But
the things which I am speaking of are of no such nature, but
such as belong to rational choice, and are accordingly chos-
en by you.
Quest. 2. Would your consciences trouble you for it as
any sin, if you omitted the thing which I call needless ? I
suppose not.
Quest. 3. Is it to please God as an act of obedience that
you do them ? Is your curiosity, and your vain attire, and
the rest forementioned chosen to please God, or to please
your fleshly sense and fancy, or the world ?
Quest. 4. Will it be any hurt to you, or real loss, if they
be omitted, or be denied you ?
Quest. 5. Have you got any thing by them already, or not
lost more than you have gotten ?
Quest, 6. Are they things that the better or the worse
sort of persons more mind and plead for ? Whose delights
are cards, and dice, and plays, and vain fashions ? Is it the
most heavenly, or the most fleshly persons that are most ea-
ger of them, and most use them ?
Quest. 7. Do you find that they more help or hinder you
in prayer and other holy exercises? Especially your hea-
venly delights ?
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 415
Quest, 8. How do they relish with you when you think
of death and judgment? Are they a comfortable part of
your preparation? Had you rather then review and answer
for your time spent in these, than in greater things ?
If you will but set conscience to answer these questions,
methinks you should soon perceive yourselves what things
they be that are needless, and therefore not to be chosen,
and consequently unlawful.
But that you may see that I drive you not to any extremes,
I shall negatively add,
1. I do not number all our thoughts, care, and labour for
our bodies, children, or others, about things needful and con-
venient, to be these needless things.
2. Nor is our diligent labour in a constant calling need-
less; he that will not labour, St. Paul saith, should not eat;
this is a part of our obedience to God, " Six days shalt thou
labour."
3. Nor is it needless to labour for more than we need
ourselves, that we may have to give to him that needeth, and
to do good to others.
4. Nor is it needless to do our best for our bodily health
ta fit our bodies to be able and cheerful servants to our souls.
That food, that recreation and pleasure, which is necessary
to fit body or mind for service, and the work of a Christian
life, is not vain.
5. All men are not called to the same kind of labour and
employment. That is needful to one, which is not to ano-
ther.
6. The lowest things which we do in obedience to God,
if it were but sweeping the streets or chimnies, is not to be
numbered with the needless things, but rather a comfortable
exercise of humility and obedience.
But every man must prefer the greatest thing.
IV. What are the common excuses of this sin ?
Object. 1. * Some say, that it is but few persons, at least
not all, that are fitted for, and called to great employments.
They that cannot do greater matters must do lesser.
Answ, All are not called to govern kingdoms, nor to be
teachers and pastors of the church ; but all have some ta-
lent, which they must use and answer for ; and all may do
somewhat which tendeth to the common good ; the servant
of labour that plougheth, soweth, and reupeth doth serve the
416 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
commonwealth ; and if his master live idly, and spend his
time in gaming, plays, or other vanity, can he excuse it by
claiming a greater incapacity than his servant had ? A ma-
son, a carpenter, a tailor, a chimney-sweep, do that which is
needful to be done ; and shall rich men live idly, and do no
good, because they are rich ?
Object, 2. ' I was not bred up to labour ; they' that were
bred up to it must use it.'
Answ, If you were not bred up to some calling or employ-
ment, profitable to yourself and others, you were bred in sin,
and then it were time to break it off. Idleness, with pride,
and fulness, are noted to have been Sodom's sins ; and will
you not amend because you were bred in sin ? Can you bear
the doom of the unprofitable, slothful servant? Matt. xxv.
Or will it excuse you because you have been slothful from
your youth ?
Object, 3. ' God doth not require toil and labour from
those that are rich, and need it not.'
Answ. God doth not require the same kind of labour
from all ; but if he give you more than the poor, he re-
quireth not less, but more from you ; that is, your constant
diligence in more profitable work ; else you may as well say.
That God is the Governor of none but the poor ; or that he
looketh for least service where he giveth most wages.
Your labour is not only to supply your own needs, but to
profit others, and for the common good.
And the more you do in way of duty, the more you re-
ceive and profit yourselves. Idleness is your own loss to
soul and body.
Object. 4. * Men need recreation and relaxation.'
Answ, What do you need it for ? Is it not for your work,
and your health, to enable you to work ? Use no more than
furthereth your health and work, and that shall not be called
needless.
Object. 5. ' Little things are useful in their places : Christ
saith of some such, " Those ought ye to have done, and not
to leave the other undone." '
Answ, No doubt but there are things good and needful
of several degrees ; all are not of the most needful kind.
But what is this to that which is not needful ? Or thathin-
dereth more needful things, as afore described ?
Object. 6, * Old men are incompetent judges of the case
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 4l7
of youth, as not having their inclinations to sports and
pleasures ; and all men, especially divines and lawyers, and
such like grave men, who are themselves taken up with great-
er matters, are incompetent judges of the affairs of women,
their clothes, their furniture, their expenses, and their em-
ployments, and are apt to call all needless which is below
their work.
Answ, Yet Christ thought himself meet to judge of the
choice of Martha and Mary, and Solomon to give directions
to women, and so did St. Peter and St. Paul. Old men were
once young, and know what youthful inclinations are ; and
grave men that live among women, see their business, and
know their reasons. And if all sorts of persons shall judge
ministers, lawyers, and judges incompetent to judge of their
tradings, actions, and affairs, and so appropriate the judg-
ment of them to themselves alone, then all persons will by
their own judgments be always in the right, and none will
be capable of amendment; the proverb is, ' A stander-by
may see more than a player;' but it is confessed that a just
judge must hear and consider the whole case.
Object. 7. * We shall be derided if we are singular.*
Answ. Will God deride you for obeying him ? Hath not
he said, " Be not conformed to this world?" You will be
derided and persecuted too by wicked men, if you will be
true to Christ, to godliness, sobriety, and honesty ; and is
that a good reason why you should be sensual, worldly, and
ungodly '?
V. But what is the sin here reproved, &c. ? What harm
is it to be thus careful and troubled about many things that
are not comparatively needful ?
Atisw. 1 . To prefer little things before greater, and thus
to employ ourselves, is a wilful debasing of our souls, which
should be exercised about that which is answerable to the
dignity of their natures ; as it is a debasing of a prince to
use him as beggars, or in sordid work ; and as it were below
a wise man to talk at the rate of fools and children ; so is it
a debasing of a soul that is made for things of endless con-
sequence to employ it upon needless trifles. Pride maketh
men think well of themselves, and look high in the world,
and disdain to be set low in men's thoughts, words, or em-
VOL. X. E E
418 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ployments ; and yet when God commandeth them to look
higher, they choose a low and sordid life.
2. It is a wilful contempt of the most excellent things :
God and our Redeemer, grace and glory, are before us, and
should be remembered and sought in the first place ; and it
is a contempt of them needlessly to turn from them our
minds and time to vanity. The mind of man is not infinite,
but narrow, and cannot be employed on many things at once ;
if it be taken up with trifles, it cannot choose Ijiit neglect
greater things. And for God, and Christ, and heaven, to be
set by, while we play with toys, is profane contempt.
Object, * We cannot be always thinking of God and hea-
ven.'
Answ. But you must always be serving God in one kind
or other, and always doing that which tends to heaven ; as
you are not all day meditating of the light, but you are all
day using it.
3. This taking up our minds and time with needless
things, is a great injury to ourselves by neglect of our own
greatest benefit and necessities. Did but men know what
they have to mind and seek, it would be their speedy cure.
Alas ! we are all behindhand in our great and necessary bu-
siness ; and these triflers usually are more behindhand than
others. They have more to do of unspeakable consequence
than all their time and diligence will serve for, as it deserv-
eth, (having lost so much already,) and yet have they so much
to spare for trifles.
O that these loiterers knew their necessity and their
work ! 1. You have a God to know, of whom you are too
ignorant ; you have his word and will to know, which you
are yet much unacquainted with. 2. Do you know what it
is to get, keep, use, and strengthen a lively belief of the
word of God, and the unseen world ? 3. Do you know what
it is to get assurance that God is your reconciled Father,
that Christ and salvation are yours ; that you are truly sanc-
tified, and shall live in heaven for ever? 4. Do you know
what it is to get the heart in love with God, and to long after
conimunion with him in glory ? 5. Do you know what it is
to get down all the lusts of the flesh, and watch against all
the snares of sense and vain imagination, and to escape the
love of these alluring pleasures, and the danger of particu-
THE ONE THING NKCESSARY. 419
lar sins of sensuality ? 6. Do you know what it is to sub-
due all your carnal affections and passions, and to get in
their stead a zeal for God, and to be fervent in his service?
7. Do you know what it is to get above the love of riches,
and to escape all the snares of covetous desires ? 8. Do you
know what it is to keep a holy government of your thoughts,
and to employ them in their proper work ? 9. Do you know
what it is to rule your tongues, in forbearing evil, and using
them for that which they are made for ? 10. And do you
know what the spiritual, sincere, and constant use of all
God's worship is, word, prayer, sacraments, &c. 11. Do
you know what it is to renew repentance for our renewed
sins ? 12. And to keep down all pride, and to walk humbly
before God and man ? 13. Do you know what it is to love
others as yourselves ; to do as much good to all men's souls
and bodies as you can ? 14. And what it is to discharge all
the duties of your several relations, to all your superiors, in-
feriors, and equals ? 15. And what it is to find out the cor-
ruptions and deceitfiilness of your own hearts, and well to
understand yourselves? 16. And what it is to understand
the nature and danger of all satan's temptations, and to es-
cape or overcome them ? 17. And what it is to obey all the
motions of God's Spirit ? 18. And to use all our daily mer-
cies well ? 19. And to bear afflictions patiently, and profit
ably ? 20. And to be above the love of this body and life, and
ready to die ? 21 . And to live in the joy and comfort which
beseemeth the children of God, the members of Christ that
wait in hope of endless glory? Do but understand what
all, or half this is, and conscionably do it, and then spend
the rest of your time in cards, dice, plays, vain adornings,
curiosities, and other trifles.
4. Consider also that time and life are very short, and
very uncertain, and therefore not to be spent on needless
things by one that standeth at the door of eternity.
5. The experience of other men should move us : all right
repenting men, and most dying men, wish that their time
had not been so wasted, but spent on that which was neces-
sary to the great ends of life.
6. Conscience telleth most that have not seared it, that
at death and judgment we are like to wish that needful
things had taken up all our time.
7. It is a wrong to our great Creator and Preserver, that
420 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
we should thus waste our time while he maintaineth us, as
if he gave us life and mercy for such vanity.
8. The example of Christ and his saints is a reproof of
all such vanity ; we find not that they thus spent their
thoughts and time.
VI. The uses we should make of this are these.
1. Parents may hence learn for what employment they
should educate their children in the world, what they should
teach them, and to what trades and callings they should set
them ; not to such as will spend their lives in vanities ; but
such in which they may be most useful to themselves and
others in the world. Not that all can be of the best or high-
est callings, but all should be educated for the most use and
service, and all employed in the best which they are fit for.
It is a debasing of your children to intend them for no bet-
ter than to live at ease to get money ; a heathen would tell
you, that usefulness to the commonwealth is more to be re-
garded ; and a Christian knoweth that the serving of God in
the greatest profiting of ourselves and others, must be pre-
ferred.
II. Let us all review our lives, and see here how much
we have to repent of; and let us see also what cause of la-
mentation we have for the common guilt of all sorts, against
these and such like words of Christ.
But to prevent your misunderstanding of me, I first pro-
fess that I intend not to make you cynics, or superstitious,
nor to persuade you that it is necessary to your salvation to
live nastily and indecently ; nor that it is any part of your
holiness or perfection to be singularly sordid, and to avoid
things comely and convenient, as some old hermits and an-
chorites, and divers Popish saints seemed to think. I am
not drawing you to imitate that present sect among us, that
set up at first with a holiness which consisted much in for-
bearing cuffs, and bands, and hatbands, and ribands, and
saying thou instead of you, and withal in open reviling the
most faithful ministers. It is not a superstitious ** touch
not, taste not, handle not ;" (Col. ii. 20, 21.) I am commend-
ing to you ; but I fear lest the contrary common extreme be
much more dangerous. I would not speak against your
smallest convenience, so far as it become not a time-wasting
snare, and hindered not your heads, hearts, and lives from
greater necessary things. I know that when St. Paul speak-
THE ONE THING NECESbAKY. 421
eth often for providing things honest, and living honestly,
he meaneth things decent, and of good report ; to expose
one's self purposely to be laughed at, as St. Francis, and such
others are s^id to have done, is no just exercise of piety or
humility.
But alas what a doleful spectacle is it, to one that believ-
eth whither we are going to see what it is that most men are
doing, and what it is that they leave undone ! I am not now
speaking of the time that is spent in direct evil ; but little
do men know how dangerously they sin in spending too
much in things that have some good, and in preferring con-
veniences, and small bodily pleasures and commodities, be-
fore the great and needful things ; who can doubt but it was
a decent and good thing for Martha to make provision for
Christ, and to attend and serve him ? Are not most of your
unseasonable cares and troubles about much smaller matters
than this ? But at the time when greater things should be
done, even these are culpable cares and troubles ; much more
those many little trifles, which only pride and folly calleth
needful. And verily we have all so much of this necessary
work to do, that leaveth us little room or time to spare for
things which most men spend much of their lives in ; so
great and urgent are our main concerns, as should make
every wise man study diligently to put by as many of the
less diverting matters as he can. He that had money to lay
out for his ransom, or for his life, or necessary livelihood,
would spend little on small matters, till he were sure he had
enough to spare. Hearken but wisely to God and con-
science ; foresee whither you are going, and what you have
to do, and of what inconceivable importance, and then con-
sider whether you have room and time for all or any of those
diverting trifles which are the chiefest care and business of
the unbelieving carnal world.
This needless business plainly sheweth that you have
low and little souls. As children playing in the sand shew
their difference from men that apply themselves to manly
business, so your over-business about your ornaments,
dresses, compliments, rooms, and many such trifles, doth
tell others (whether you will know it yourselves or not,) that
you have both childish understandings, (and worse, because
you are at age,) that set too much by little things ; and that
you have too much carnality of affection, when you have so
4*J2 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
much mind of trifling neednots. And worst of all, it plainly
sheweth that you greatly want a sounder belief and deeper
sense of your great business and interest in the world, and
live not in the sense of the nearness of death, and things
eternal, as wise believers should still do.
I am not saying that you should always have the sinful
fears and sadness, which the sentence of death doth bring
on most ; I had rather you were quite above these to the
last. Nor do I say you should always have just the same
kind of passions, or do all things just in the same manner,
as you ought to have and do if you were sure to die to-mor-
row. But I must say, that you should have the same wis-
dom, and the same esteem of God, and of the world, of soul
and body, of heaven and earth, of eternity and time, of duty
and sin, of necessaries and trifles, as you will then have ;
and the same holy affections, and diligence, and practice of
life, which this wisdom will then teach you to wish that you
had sooner had. O let there not be too great and shameful
a difference between your living and your dying thoughts.
If your father, or child, or husband, or wife, were on their
deathbed, or going to execution, would not all be ashamed
of you, that should hear you talk to them about cards, or
plays, or fine clothes, or laces, or greater worldly toys than
these? Yea, if you were taken up yourselves about your
own ornaments, dressings, curiosities, and troublesome tri-
flings, who would not say that you were disgracefully sense-
less of your own and your dying friend's condition ? O pro-
mise not yourselves more time than God hath promised you I
Dream not that you dwell further from the grave than you
do : you know not what it is to live as Christians, or as men,
if you know not that all our life should be spent in our
best preparation for death. Though you must do much
which you would not be just found doing, you must do no-
thing but what you can then comfortably review, nor spend
a moment in that which then you must wish that you had not
spent it in. And whether time-wasting trifles and neednots
will be comfortably remembered then, by one that hath rea-
son and faith, and had so little time, and so much to do with
it, methinks it might be easy to foresee.
Verily if you spent your time in no greater matters, than
in getting gold and worldly glory, crowns, and kingdoms,
merely for your flesh, and the greatest pleasures of a carnal.
THIi ONE THING NECESSARY. 423
transitory life, you will in the everlasting review be con-
founded and tormented in remembering your self-abasing
folly. And are your many little trifles then of more worth
to make you a just excuse? Gentlemen, ladies, and gentle-
women, do not only bear with me, but be willing and thank-
ful that I deal plainly with you, when it is not for me, but
for yourselves : it is such as you that are most ordinarily and
inexcusably guilty of this sin and folly. The poor labour-
ing countryman and tradesman indeed is inexcusable that
will be diverted from the care of his everlasting state, even
by his most lawful and necessary labours : but usually their
guilt is less far than yours in all these following respects.
1. That which they do is profitable to the commonwealth,
and so is good, and part of their duty in itself considered.
To plough, and sow, and reap, and make you bread, and
drink, and clothes, &c. But what good cometh to the com-
monwealth by your curiosities, and vanities, and plays, and
compliments, though decency, and cleanliness, and hand-
someness, and avoiding contempt and reproach be vainly
pretended for them. They gather, and you waste. They
are the bees, and you are the drones. They labour, and you
consume it on your lusts and fancies. God bid them labour
six days, but he never bade you make such a stir for mere
unnecessary vanities.
2. Necessity is some reason for what they do, though it
be no good excuse for leaving undone greater things. They
must maintain themselves and families, and pay you your
rents. But what necessity have you to waste thoughts and
times about your many unprofitable toys ? Martha had
some excuse, but you have none.
3. God giveth you more wages, and therefore doth ex-
pect more work ; you are stewards of more trust, and there-
fore have more to give up an account of.
4. They can say, Christ and his apostles, and all good
men, have laboured and done such things as we do ; and it
is part of his law, that if we will not work we shall not eat;
and Solomon's mother, a queen, and he the wisest king by
her teaching, describeth the virtuous woman to be one that
worketh willingly with her hands on wool and flax, that ris-
eth before day to look to her household, and her candle
goeth not out by night; and eateth not the bread of idle-
424 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ness ; (when too many of the rich do eat no other.) The
labours of your tenants have such precedents as these. But
have you any such for your needless formalities and toys?
Did Christ or his apostles spend their time in prating of un-
profitable things, or in idleness, or plays, or gaming, or in
childish neatifying their bodies, or such like ? Was St. Pe-
ter of your mind when he wrote to Christian women, that
" their adorning be not outward, of plaiting the hair, and of
wearing gold, or of putting on of apparel, but the hidden
man of the heart; in that which is not corruptible, even of
a meek and quiet spirit, which is in God's sight of great
price ?'* 1 Pet. iii. 3. That is, regard that which is precious,
and adorneth you in the sight of God, and affect not neat-
ness or costliness, to make you seem either rich or comely
in the sight of man, but clothe your corruptible flesh with
cheap and easy plainness, as beseemeth those that are going
to the grave. It is not apparel, but ornaments, that he for-
bids, and a vain desire by our apparel to seem somewhat
higher or handsomer than we are to men.
Perhaps you will say, that Christ and his apostles were
poor men, and therefore neither patterns nor fit judges for
you. Ans^v. But yet they shall judge you, whether you will
or not ; and they who tell men by their lives, that they take
not their doctrine or example for their rule, or Christ for
their governor, shall find that unbelief and rebellion are not
the way to their justification. But though they that are
gorgeously clothed then dwelt in king's houses, do you
but read the thirty-first chapter of the Proverbs, and take
there the counsel and pattern of a queen and king, and I will
reprove you no more.
And you that are so regardful of the thoughts and eyes
of men, and whose pride maketh so great a matter of your
reputation, that all about you be sightly, and liable to no
contempt, why do you not most regard your reputation with
the wisest and the best? St. Peter before told you what are
the precious ornaments in the sight of God : and wise men
and good men come nearest to God in all their estimations.
Who will bestow much cost or time, or hire servants, or trim
themselves, or their houses, for children or bedlams to look
on and admire ? None but such as yourselves do think ever
the better of you for all your costly or troublesome curiosi-
THE ONE THING NECB8SAUY. 425
ties ; wise men look at you as at players, or morice -dancers,
some with laughter, and all with pity ; and think what emp-
ty souls are these that mind such little childish things.
And seeing common reason tells you, that a man's digni-
ty or baseness lieth in the dignity or baseness of the things
which he mindeth, hopeth for, and seeketh, and of the work
in which his life is spent, why will you set yourselves so far
below your poor tenants and labouring servants, as to choose
employments, so far baser than theirs? That is basest which
is most vain, and of little benefit to yourselves or others.
Your ploughman, your baker, your brewer, your cook, yea,
your chimney-sweeper, live upon more useful employments,
than some rich, vain, curious, idle persons.
And as all sin blindeth and befooleth sinners, it is two to
one but these self-abasing persons will distaste what 1 say,
as thinking that it is against them ; when common reason
might tell them that all this that I speak is for them, even
for their honour, their commodity, their conscience, and
their salvation. Should I persuade one that selieth pins
and points, or the scavengers that carry out dust and dung,
to become merchants that trade for gold and enriching mer-
chandise, few of them would be so sottish, as to think I
speak against them, to their dishonour or their loss.
And still I confess that many little things are needful in
their place and season. We should miss pins and points if
we were without them. Dirt and uncleanness must be swept
and washed away. Garments should be warm and comely.
Rooms that are convenient are desirable. Comely and state-
ly buildings and furniture for princes and rulers are a due
ornament to magistracy, and splendid cities and temples
are an honest imitation of the great and glorious works of
God. Sweet harmony and melody exhilarate the spirits for
and in God's holy praise. All his mercies should be used
to lit us to serve him with gladness and joyfulness of heart.
It is not a cynical life that I plead for, but a base and chil-
dish life that 1 am dispraising. When comeliness, and de-
cency, and cleanliness, and reputation is made a pretence
for such trifling away your own and your servants' time,
and setting up such toyish trades and employments, as no-
thing but your own sinful disease and folly could keep you
from being ashamed of, and your consciences from accusing
426 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
you for. I am ashamed to name over the trifles within doors
and without which I mean.
But satan is subtle as well as malicious, and knoweth
that all fish bite not at the same bait. Crowns and enlarged do-
minions are the diversion of some who think their designs are
high and honourable, while they go to damnation with more
applause than worldly peasants. Brave speculations and
pleasing knowledge of things unnecessary, are the bait of
others, that scorn to neglect God, and cast away their sal-
vation for such low and little things as the wanton, and the
glutton or drunkard do. Yet these that are pleased in sa-
tisfying their appetites, think that they make a wiser bar-
gain, and have somewhat more instead of heaven than sick-
brained childish women, that have no better in exchange
than things and businesses which I am ashamed to name.
O that God would awaken all our reason by a lively
faith, to see where we st^nd, and what is before us, and with
whom we have to do, and how little transitory things of the
flesh do signify to a sound understanding ! We should then
see that time and life are of greater use than to be played
and fooled away. Every moment of it would then appear to
be very precious, and of great use. Whereas that is vile
which is good for nothing but vile employments. That
hour which is useful for no greater work than your tmfling
neednots, is of no greater worth than the work which it is
for. Had you no more to do with it, how undesirable were
life ! Surely the gain or pleasure of an idle or a trifling life
will never compensate the cares, and troubles, and suflerings
which we must all undergo. Were a prince, judge, or doc-
tor, set up as a picture only to adorn a room, or as a mawkin
to frighten away crows from the corn or garden; this were
not useless, yea, it were better than many of your time-wast-
ing vanities : but sure it would be a great debasing of such
persons, as scarce worth the cost and trouble of living.
The Scripture tells us indeed, that man walketh in a vain
show, and that ** verily every man at his best estate is va-
nity ;" yea, all under the sun is '* vanity and vexation of spi-
rit." But all this is said only of man as seeking a felicity
in this world, and of all that he is and doth, with no higher
respect than to the present prosperity and pleasure of the
0esh. But there are greater things oflered us which are not
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 427
vanity, even the pleasing of God, and the fruition of his love
and glory for ever ; and were our life and time devoted to these
high and noble ends, were our waking and sleeping, our eat-
ing and drinking, our health and sickness, our labours, yea,
and our needful recreations, employed for these, and mea-
sured accordingly as means hereto, they would be holy and
comfortable, and the lowest things would be thus honoured
and precious. They that are ** stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord," do find their " labour
not in vain ;" 1 Cor. xv. 58. The same house, goods, mo-
ney, food, raiment, time, as used by holy believers, and by
carnal worldlings, &c. differ more than we can now conceive.
HOLINESS TO THE LORD is the name of the one, and vani-
ty, VEXATION, and sin of the other.
But alas, man who as a shadow passeth away, doth set
his heart on transitory shadows, asd dreaming, and seeming,
and stage-employments, and enjoyments, make up his hy-
pocritical life and comforts. His religion is naturally (till
grace amend him) but show and ceremony ; his heartwork,
and house-work, and public-work, is little but shadow and
ceremony. Time is spent, and money spent, and talk spent,
and thoughts spent, upon shadow and ceremony. Servants
are employed too often also in wasting their time to serve
their master's fancies in mere shadow and ceremony. You
can see and hear but little that is better, or of greater use in
many rich persons' daily conversations, in their retinue, in
their splendid houses, and curious adorned rooms, or any
thing even of that which commandeth their hearts and time,
and in which they place their dignity and pleasure ; until
either grace happily, or death miserably, awake their wit,
and then they cry out, * All is vanity and vexation ; O that
we had better spent our time !' *' This their way is their
folly, and yet their posterity approve their sayings ;" Psah
xlix. 11 — 13. And still others rise up that tread in their un-
hallowed steps ; and satan's kingdom can truly boast of an
uninterrupted succession, even from the days of Cain until
now.
I shall end with seme directions how to to judge, 1. Of
needless things. 2. And an answer to some cases of con-
science.
I. 1. All things are culpably needless which answer not
428 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
the cost, and labour, and time, which is laid out upon them
You may judge by the good which they are like to do.
2. Those things are culpably needless which are but to
serve a desire or humour, which we have no need to please.
If the lust or fancy be vain, the means that serve it can be
no better ; whether it be the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, or pride of life, which are not of the Father, but of the
world. Men say. We delight in this or that, in curiosity, in
costly or time-wasting sports, or such as profit not their bo-
dily health, in gawdy dresses, or such like ; and why may
we not gratify our delight ? Why, it is supposed to be a
needless, unprofitable delight, proceeding from a vain fancy,
which should rather be cured than pleased.
3. All things are much more culpably needless which
proceed from a vicious, sinful humour, desire, or lust ; make
no provision for the flesh, to satisfy the lust therefore :"
Rom. xiii. 13, 14. To mind the things of the flesh is enmity
to God, and to the minding of spiritual things ; Rom. viii.
6. 7. Unnecessary, sensual delights corrupt the soul, and
strongly turn down the mind from God and holy pleasures ;
and the mortifying of such fleshly lusts or pleasures is no
small part of our religion.
4. All those are culpably needless and worse which are
preferred before truly needful things ; and which are against
them, and shut them out, or take up that same time and room
which they should have ; if you have any thing of greater
moment, which should be done at that same time, whatever
hindereth it is vanity, and worse ; and therefore there is no
cure for vanity of mind and life, till men come to know their
great necessities, and important business, which they have
for all their thoughts and time, even the regard of their end
and all the means, the duties of their spiritual and temporal
callings, and see that they have no time to spare.
II. Quest. ' Is it lawful to be of a trade which serveth the
humours of vain persons, as to make cards, or dice, or stage-
plays 9 or vain attire, as ribbons, perriwigs, and such like ?
Answ. 1. These things are of very different natures.
Some of them, as stage-plays, cards and dice (though in-
stances may be devised in which it is possible to use them
lawfully) are so ordinarily used sinfully and so seldom well,
that the trade that maintaineth them may well be supposed
THE ONE THING NECESSARY^ 429
to be a trade of maintaining sin. And had I a son, I had ra-
ther he begged his bread than have such a trade. But laces,
and ribbands, and fine clothes, and feathers, and divers such
things, have (among some that they are fit for) a more ordi-
nary lawful use ; and therefore I cannot say such trades are
sinful. 2. But yet because they are of so little benefit to
the commonwealth, and so very frequently used to serve a
vain and sinful lust and fancy, I take it to be a sin for any
one to prefer such a trade before one that is more blameless
and profitable, though the person might get more money by
it. And they that will use such a trade without sin, must
necessarily be so careful in distinguishing of customers, and
not promiscuously sell to all who they perceive will serve
their sin by it, that it will much diminish their gain. The
case is much like an ale-seller's or vintner's which is lawful
in itself, but must be used with so much distinguishing care
as I doubt few practise, lest their gain be hindered. And
therefore a safer trade is much to be preferred, which is not a
continual temptation.
Quest, 2. * May a servant dwell with and obey such a
master, or lady, or mistress, as will command them to spend
much of their time in trifles and vanities, that are but to please
a proud or curious fancy V
Answ. 1. It must be supposed that many times servants,
through sloth or education, misjudge those things to be need-
less or evil which are not such ; and think that their supe-
riors should command them no other labour than what they
like themselves. In this case their error will not justify their
neglect. Persons of honour and dignity may lawfully go
much further in employing their servants in dressing, and
adornings, and attendance, and in washing, and rubbing
rooms, and such smaller things, than lower persons, from
whom it is not expected, and to whom the marks of wealth
agree not, though none must be inordinate.
2. In mere doubtful cases servants are not the judges of
their governor's commands and business ; and where they
are no judges, and know no sin, they must submit.
3. Sometimes that which is sinfully commanded may be
lawfully and dutifully obeyed. As it is a sin in a sick man
to be peevish, and hardly pleased, and to command many
needless things to a servant in that peevish humour; when
yet (they being lawful things to be done) the servant may be
430 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
bound to obey them. A patient may sinfully be humourous
in his expectations, when a physician may yet lawfully please
his humours for his health. A child may faultily cry for
something, when the nurse may without fault give him that
which he crieth for to quiet him. All is not forbidden the
servant to do, which is forbidden the gov*^rnment to com-
mand.
4. But all that is sin in the doer must be forborne ; and to
serve and cherish the sin of others when we may choose, is
sinful.
5. Therefore in such cases, though it be lawful for a ser-
vant to do many needless things (nor forbidden him by God)
when cofiimanded, it is unlawful to choose such a service, in
which he^hall be so employed, to spend his time in vanity,
to satisfy a ruler's pride and humour, unless it be in case of
true necessity, or probably to attain a greater good, which
will compensate all the inconveniences. As if a pirate or
tyrant command me to say some idle words, or do some need-
less action, or else my friend or I should be murdered ; in
this case they are not idle, or needless, or unlawful, but a
duty, which voluntarily chosen would be a sin.
Object, *By this you will make it a duty to obey papal
commands of idle ceremonies, if we doubt, or if they be not
things forbidden us.
Answ. 1. God hath not left us to so much liberty how to
worship him, as he hath left us about our houses, and dresses,
and common things.
2. The pope and his ministers are unlawful governors, as
setting up an unlawful church policy, even a universal, hu-
man, ecclesiastical monarchy (or aristocracy, as the con-
ciliar party hold), and therefore we owe them no obedience
even in lawful things, and it is a sin to become their sub-
jects.
3. Doubting whether real sin be sin, will not make it no
sin, nor change the law of God. Should men be uncertain,
whether rebellion, schism, fornication, perjury, or lying be
sin, they may not therefore do it though it were command-
ed them ; for no one hath true authority to coijiraand them
4. But if really the thing be lawful to be done, we must
do it, if commanded by such as have true authority to do it,
though they mistake and sin in the reasons, ends, and man-
ner of their command.
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 431
5. If a lawful magistrate or ruler sinfully command [say
such or such a needless word, or do such a vain action, or
wear such a vain habit (not forbidden us by God), or else
you shall be silenced, banished, imprisoned], it ceaseth to be
vain in the user, when it is made necessary to such ends,
though it be sinfully commanded. But what God forbiddeth
must never be done.
Quest. * May the husband and master bear with sinful
vanities in his wife and servants in his house ? Seeing he is
the ruler, is it not his sin to tolerate them ?
Arisw. 1. It is undoubtedly his sin to consent, or not
to remedy it, if he can do it by lawful means. 2. It oft falls
out that not only needless toys and vanities, but some
downright great sins cannot be hindered effectually without
so great inconveniences an dmischiefs, as that such hindering
becometh an unlawful means. If a man have a wife so pas-
sionate or unquiet, as that no means would restrain ,her
tongue or hands but turning her away, or using such violence
as is unsuitable to a conjugal relation, he must patiently en-
dure her sin.
If he have a wife that will fall into some dangerous dis-
ease, or grow distracted, if she may not please her pride in
apparel, or sinfully waste much in vain expenses, or may not
use an unruly tongue to sin ; or at least, if the restraint would
cost the husband so dear as would by unquietness unfit him
to serve God in his place ; in this case it is no sinful toler-
ation to endure it. He is far from consenting to it ; he only
restraineth not that which he cannot restrain. For what a
man cannot do by lawful means, and without doing more hurt
than good, it must be said that he cannot do it at all. And
so much as a man may lawfully give to purchase his own
peace and quietness, or to cure his wife of such a disease or
distraction, so much he may lawfully suffer her to spend
(though sinfully) to prevent it, as long as he disowneth the
sin, and would remedy it, if he could by lawful means.
Object, ' If you tell w6men this, some will give their hus-
bands no quietness, and some will waste their estates in sin,
or vain expenses, to satisfy their lusts.'
Answ, 1. We must use no false doctrine for the prevent-
ing of such person's sin. If it be true, some men have need
to know it. 2. It is possible that some rates of expense or
suffering may be greater than the preventing of the wives'
432 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
calamity, and its consequences are worth ; and in such cases
it cannot be so prevented. 3. And I hope the case is sorarC;
that most women's pride, exorbitancy, and passion, and the
sins thence proceeding, may be restrained by other means at
easier rates.*
Object, 2. ' But by this you would infer, that evils may
also be tolerated in the church, if so far in the family.'
Aiisw, Consenting to any sin is sin, and so is doing that
by promoting or tolerating, which signifieth consent ; but
not to hinder that which we cannot hinder by lawful means,
and without doing greater hurt than good, is no consenting
or sinful toleration. Papists that are for burning and banish-
ing dissenters, yet confess this, that they must tolerate them,
when else they should more hurt the church by what is done
against them.
It is no sin to bear with the greatest sin in the world
which we cannot remedy, much less with human, common
frailties, in which all mortal men must bear with one another,
or else forsake all love and peace.
And this objection mindeth me humbly, but earnestly
(though almost hopelessly) to desire all governors to take
notice, that the pastoral government of Christ's church (be-
ing exercised under him, who calleth it his spouse and body)
is very like the government of a husband over his wife, which
must be done by no means inconsistent with love, and con-
jugal offices, and communion to the last. And therefore if
men must bear with so many and great offences and incon-
veniences, yea, and sufferings, in and from a wife, for their
household peace and quietness, let them consider whether for
church peace, much evil is not to be endured when it can-
not be lawfully hindered.
And if human frailty and darkness be such, as that few
persons living have the same apprehensions of many or most
things, and husband and wife about their ordinary affairs
will daily manifest such difference of opinions and humours,
as must be borne (or they must bear much worse), let astors
consider, while we agree in all things necessary to salvation
and the common peace, how much diversity of sense, and
consequently of practice, must be endured in the numerous
difficulties of religion by them that know the way of peace.
And whether they that will not bear a little are not prepar-
ing to bear much. And perhaps if the Roman clergy had
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 433
not been so much against priests' marriage the experience of
their families, and what differing apprehensions and actions
must there be borne by conjugal love, might have better
taught them how far to bear with differing opinions and
practices in religion, instead of their unchristian, inhuman
laws and practices of burning, exterminating, and ruining all
such as their judgments shall stigmatize as heretics.
Quest. 4. ' What are to be taken for sinful, needless stu-
dies, which scholars should avoid V
Answ. 1. There is great cause to put this question, con-
sidering how many years are this way lost, and how little it
is repented of, and how much is still owned and applauded
by men of greatest reputation.
The case may be resolved by the same rules before giv-
en. 1. All learning and studies which are not worth the
cost and labour. 2. All that do but serve that vain desire
of knowledge which first tempted Eve to sin. 3. Much more
all that which is but to serve men's sinful pride and worldly
designs ; audit were well with many students if their learn-
ing (or science, falsely so called, saith Paul) became not
more plentiful and dangerous matter of pride and self-deceit
than fine clothes and trifles do to women.
4. All that is worse than vain, which keepeth out greater
and necessary things, and turneth the mind from holiness
and heaven.
But the same knowledge in its proper place, and used in
due subordination to the greatest things, and as a true means
to the true end, is good and holy, which otherwise placed
and used is doating vanity, and delusory dreaming ; as too
many ungodly students will find to their cost when it is too
late. Therefore a sound judgment and holy will, by right
intention of the end, and true discerning the aptitude of
means, must resolve this case, and most of such cases through
all our lives. Happy is he that is wise in things spiritual,
and of everlasting consequence to God, and to salvation,
though the world should deride him as unlearned, or a fool.
And woe to him that is honoured for wit and policy, for ma-
ny languages, and a rolling tongue, for the prudence of
Ahithophel, or the learning of Aristotle, and hath not wis-
dom to live to God, to resist temptation, to escape damning
sin, and to save his soul. It will do him no more good in
VOL. X. F F
434 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
hell that he was cried up for a learned, or wise, or revereiKl
man on earth, than it will do to dives (Luke xv.), that he was
clothed in purple and silk, and fared sumptuously every day,
and had his portion and good things where Lazarus had sor-
row and contempt. More than one of the most famous scho-
lars have at last cried out that all learning is vanity, save
the knowledge of God in Christ, our duties, and our spiri-
tual and endless benefits and hopes.
I have told you of many evils that come by the prefer-
ence of unnecessary or less necessary things, but one remain-
eth to be noted, which the text expresseth in Martha's in-
stance. While she is over careful, and troubled about ma-
ny things, which were then less necessary, she thinks her
sister should have been of the same mind, and done as she
did, and grudgeth at her, and accuseth her to Christ, as if
Mary's work had been less necessary than hers; which shew-
eth us,
Observ. That they that choose unnecessary or less neces-
sary employments, are apt to account religious exercises les»
necessary, and to censure those that choose them.
The wrong censuring of Mary's choice and work was as
much of Martha's fault as her own worst choice and need-
less trouble. Those that sin against knowledge, and con-
fess they do ill, are often desirous that their children and
friends should do better. But they that think their sin i&
their duty, will censure those that sin not with them, as if it
were sin to fear sin, and avoid it. And no wonder. For, 1.
That which is true to one, is true to another ; and that which
is best to one, as a common duty, is best to another. And
it is natural to us to desire that our friends should know what
we know, and choose that common good which we choose,
and avoid the error, sin, and misery which we avoid. Our
love to truth and goodness will make us desire that they may
be common. And our love to our friends will make us de-
sire that they may be happy by choosing what is best. And
the love of ourselves maketh men desire that others may be
of their mind and way. As God first loveth himself, and
next that which is most like himself, so naturally doth a sel-
fish man. Though a holy man as such first loveth God, and
then that which is most like God ; yet when he erreth, he
thinketh that to be like God which is not. And then even
the love of God also will be abused to the promoting of er-
THK ONE THING NECESSARY. 435
ror, and the angry censuring of truth and duty. No doubt
but Martha's love to Christ himself, was abused by her error,
to censure her sister that did not serve him in the way that
she thought then most necessary.
2. And when several things are contrary or inconsistent,
the overvaluing of the one must needs cause the undervalu-
ing and rejecting of the other ; the weighing down of one
end of the balance will lift up the other. As all men that
are earthlyminded are so much the less spiritual and heaven-
ly, and he that loveth the world hath the less love to God,
so they that overvalue unnecessary things, will naturally
grow into a greater disesteem of things truly necessary ; con-
trary things cannot be both at once preferred (in the same
respect) ; when unnecessary things seem necessary, incon-
sistent necessary things will seem unnecessary.
All this we see verified constantly in our experience, in
men's judging both for themselves and others.
1. Mark any that grow more in loving and caring for
unnecessary worldly, fleshly things, and you shall find that
they grow more indifferent to prayer, and to all holy exer-
cises that employ the mind ; a little of this will serve their
turn. Mark them that overmind their ornaments, their con-
veniences, their appetites, or their worldly gain, and you
shall see how heartless and dead they grow towards God,
and holiness, and heaven ; when shadows seem substances,
the substance goeth but for a shadow. A little of God will
serve them, when a little of the world will not serve them ;
and spiritual things lose all their sweetness, when fleshly
pleasures and hopes grow too sweet.
2. And you shall see that such persons do judge accord-
ingly of others. Their love of vanity maketh serious religion
seem a vanity to them. When they are over eager for the
flesh or world, they judge God*s service to be over earnest
in religion. When we wonder what they can find in an emp-
ty world to take up all their thoughts and hearts, their talk,
labour, and time, they wonder what we find in religion to
take up ours. As we say to them, ' What needs all this ado
for vanity ? Cannot you have food and a grave without this
overmuch care and trouble V so they say to us, ' What needs
all this ado in religion ? Cannot a man be saved without so
much violence and stir ? Is God so illnatured that no less
will please him V Thus God must be thought to be like them^
436
THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
(Psal. L), and to leave his holiness when they leave theirs/
(or nevei" had it,) and to grov^^ indifferent and reconcilable to
sin vv^hen once they love it.
And when serious godliness is thus rejected by them-
selves, it first seemeth in others to be but a needless, honest
superstition, the effect of a weak judgment, and a timorous
and trembling heart ; and afterward they grow on to call it
foolishness, and entitle it as Christ did Martha's case, a care
and trouble about many unnecessary things. And from
thence many grow to think it evil ; and from thence to think
it the most insufferable evil, and to take serious conscience
of our duty to God to be the greatest rebel against kings, and
the greatesttroublerof theland, the greatest schismatic, and
the most dangerous enemy, and most intolerable plague ; and
so they proceed to hellish malignity and cruel persecution.
This is the natural progress of overvaluing and overminding
needless things.
3. And alas, not only the history of thirteen hundred years,
but the notice of our own age hath told us, that even in the
churches the same cause hath produced the same effect,
when many needless and troublesome things are overvalued
and thought necessary. Mary is accused, and her hearing
so much preaching is taken for the effect of idleness, or itch-
ing ears. In the church of Rome, where things first called
indifferent have been preferred, true knowledge, explicit
faith, spiritual worship, and a holy life, are taken to be ne-
cessary only to some few votaries, or saints that are to be
canonized as wonders, and not to all that will be saved ; and
amass of ceremonies hath shut out mostly serious preaching,
praying, and holy living ; their tree beareth sometimes only
leaves, and at other times the pricks of thorns and thistles.
Images pretended to be for the honour of departed saints
are cherished, where saints and sanctity are hated ; as their
forefathers the Pharisees, Matt, xxiii. "They build the se-
pulchres of the prophets and righteous men," and condemn
those that murdered them, and keep holy days in honour of
them, and go on implacably to kill those that imitate them,
and to do as their forefathers did that persecuted them. Ce-
remony is become the substance of too many men's religion,
and an image and shadow of faith and godliness. Justice
and charity hath taken place of life and substance. Too
many churches are filled with statues and carcases instead
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 437
of real saints. The shell, which is but to keep the kernel, is
valued in its stead, and the kernel cast away instead of the
shell. The letter, which is for the sig;nification of the sense,
is first taken up as enough without it, and then turned as an
enemy against it ; and the oft-repeated names of Jesus, and
Mary, and saints, are used first instead of holy love to Jesus
and saints, and then to cherish a malignant, murderous ha-
tred of them that are saints indeed within their reach. It
was St. Dominic, and such other of their holy men, that
promoted the murder of real saints, even of many thousands,
if not hundred thousands ; do but call them Heretics, Wal-
denses, Albigenses, Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Hu-
gonots. Bigots, Lollards, Whigs, Puritans, and then con-
science is as loose and free to hate, revile, imprison, silence
or murder them, as if they were so many robbers or rebels,
or as bad as their accusers and persecutors, feign them,
Paul doth foretel that in the last days some shall be haters
of those that are good, and ^iaf5o\oi, devils, which we
translate false accusers, and yet have a form of godliness,
while they deny the power. Diabolism begins in false ac-
cusation, and proceedeth to the most cruel persecution.
What on earth can be more like a devil, than first to print
such horrid lies of the servants of Christ, as they have done
of Luther, Zuinglius, Bucer, Calvin, Beza, and the reformed
churches, and then to torture and burn such as heretics, and
to make it a law and part of their religion to compel princes
to do the like in all generations to come ; and even to burn
the bones of the dead, as they did by Bucer, Phagius, and
Wickliff: yea, to murder them by thousands, as in France,
and by hundred thousands, as in Ireland ; and all this be-
gan with the overvaluing unnecessary things, worldly pomp,
and power, and wealth, and pleasure, and images, ceremo-
nies, and formalities ! What dreadful work was made about
images against the Eastern emperors ! How many councils
of bishops were the authors of schism and rebellion for them !
And at last for them did the pope rebelliously cast off his
sovereign, and cut off the Western empire from him, and give
it (as if it had been his own) to the French. To this day, do
but speak against their deified wafer, or their mass, of ce-
remonies, or their adoring images, or their false doctrine, or
their papal or prelatical tyranny and usurpation, and you
presently deserve to be painted with the picture of devils,
438 THL ONE THING NECESSARY.
and after the torment of the inquisition, to be cursed from
Christ, and burned to ashes ; and all this as for Christ, the
church, and faith.
And the German Interim told the world whither the over-
valuing of things, called indifferent, doth tend, when the .
churches were deserted, the ministers silenced and perse-
cuted, and sadly divided among themselves, and the refor-
mation almost overthrown ; and all because the pastors re-
fused to conform to a book compiled by the emperor's com-
mand, by a few self-conceited bishops, pretending to be mo-
derate reconcilers, obtruding divers of the Romish formali-
ties as the means of the peace and concord of the churches.
It would grieve one's heart to read what confusions this im-
posed book, called ** The Interim," did cause.
But alas, they are not the only instances of the calamit-
ous effects of the overvaluing and obtruding unnecessary
things. As the ruins of Troy long told spectators what a
war for one Helena, a beautiful whore, did cost that part of
the world (which became the subjects of the famous poems
of divers ages), even so the ruins of the Eastern churches,
sometime the most great and famous in the world, and now
the habitation of owls and serpents, deluded Mahometans,
with some ignorant, sad, oppressed Christians, proclaim to
all that read, hear, or see them, what are the fruits of striv-
ing about unnecessary things, even about worldly preemi-
nence and wealth ; which patriarch should be greatest, and
which bishop should sit highest, and go first, and have his
will, and pass for the most orthodox, or have most followers;
and about ambiguous words, who it was that spake most wise-
ly, and who should make the words of other men's creeds
and professions (for the trade of making liturgies, which
whole nations or provinces must be confined to, was not set
up till after that of making creeds). In a word, church wars,
1. About the jurisdiction of prelates ; especially whether
Rome or Constantinople should be the chief. 2. And about
hard and doubtful words. 3. And about images and cere-
monies, have laid East and West in the condition of aposta-
cy, desolation, shame, and slavery, in which with amazement
we see them at this day.
And what are all the religious wars, murders, and cruel-
ties exercised for by the papal party, but that one prelate and
his confederates maybe the masters of all thp Christian
THE ONE THINCr NECKSSARY. 4^1^
world, and may have their wills in all religious matters di-
rectly, and in all civil matters in order to the religious ; and
that all their laws may be obeyed, their formalities used, and
their words believed ? Killing, burning, tormenting, and
confounding, seem not too dear to accomplish this. ** Be-
hold how great a matter a little fire kindleth !" Who would
think, that never before saw it, that a little gunpowder should
blow up houses as it doth ! And who would have thought
that so many churches, kingdoms, lives, and souls should
have been blown up, or ruined, as they have been, for the
unnecessary domination, wealth, formalities, and ceremonies
lof the clergy.
I have often, too often, heard preachers themselves, in^
stead of a sermon, pour out scorns against those that preach-
ed and lived more seriously, strictly, and holily than them-
selves. And I have too oft heard the common rabble revile
them that were most careful and diligent for salvation, as a
company of Precisians, Puritans, and hypocrites. And I
have thought with myself. Have these men found better and
greater things to lay out their own care, time, and labour for ?
And alas, I perceived that instead of God, and Christ, and
holiness, and heaven, they had nothing to take them up but
vanity and vexation ; their bellies, and their purses, and
their walls, and their titles, and their pride, and lust, and
selfish wills; and are these more necessary than Mary's
choice ? Mark what those persons are saying and doing
every day, who think serious godliness to be overdoing ; and
you shall see, that instead of it, some are doing nothing, and
some worse than nothing ; wasting their short time, deceiv-
ing and destroying themselves and others.
And indeed it is not possible that any one that is a seri-
ous Christian himself, and hath tried truly a holy life, should
think it needless, or make it a matter of reproach to others.
But we grant that particular duties may be misplaced, and
prudence is necessary to know their time, and length, and
manner ; and it is possible, both that a Mary may sometimes
here imprudently overdo, and that a Martha may by mistake
be quarrelsome, and accuse the innocent, that yet is not
against serious piety itself. Therefore I think meet to annex
these two cautions to the hearers in this case.
I. Do not presently take yourselves to be truly godly,
because some others accuse you of overdoing, or of being re-
440 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ligious overmuch. Every one is not a saint that is derided
for sanctity ; every one doth not sincerely preach, hear,
pray, or practise, that is derided for these things. If you
have no better evidence of grace, than that some call you
Puritans, Precisians, or such like, it will be an insufficient
evidence. 1. Bad men will deride those that seem holy,
though they are not so. 2. And good men in their faulty
weakness, may misjudge of the circumstances of your duty,
and unjustly blame you, and yet you may not be sincere in
the main. 3. And you may actually mistake in circum-
stances yourselves, and deserve the blame that is cast upon
you. The Pharisees were overstrict for the Sabbath, and
in avoiding publicans and sinners, and thought Christ too
loose. Judas pretendeth more charity to the poor than Christ
had. That is not most right which seemeth strictest, but
that which is most agreeable to the law of God. Though
some misapply Solomon's words, Ecples. vii. 16. " Be not
righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise ;" as if it
had been written against serious, diligent, obedience to God,
and true proper righteousness and wisdom ; yet we must
know that it was written by the Holy Ghost, and not in vain.
A Pharisaical, superstitious sort of religion, and observation
of vain traditions, and a zealous strictness which God never
commanded, is a righteousness equivocally so called, and it
is overmuch. Such is much of the popish righteousness,
and such is the affected austerity of several sects, old and
new. " Touch not, taste not, handle not," are oft a human,
counterfeit righteousness, which God doth neither require
nor accept. As God liketh not a popish charity, thatkilleth
or tormenteth men in love to God and religion ; so neither
doth he like those superstitious austerities which destroy
our own bodies, and disable us from cheerful thankfulness
and obedience; which maketh Solomon say, " Why should
thou be desolate (or destroy thyself?") That is good which
is fitted to do good. All grace and duty is for edification.
II. And as every one is not truly godly who is derided
as godly by the profane, or blamed for some superstitious
strictness, so you must not take every one for malignant or
ungodly who speaketh against such strictness, as either is
real superstition, or seemeth so or worse to him.
For 1. If you are guilty of superstition it is a friendly
office to shew you your mistake. 2. And if you are in the
THK ONE THING NECESSARY. 441
right, and another that is in the wrong misaccuseth you, in
many cases his error may stand with love to truth and holi-
ness in the main. Every one.is not ungodly who misreproaLli
us with the Anabaptists for baptizing infants. Or with the
Antinomians as setting up the abrogated law ; and so of ma-
ny others. As men differ in judgment about God's law, they
will accuse each other's differing practice. But opposing
serious godliness as such is another thing.
And indeed it is usual with malignant enemies of a holy
life, to make themselves a religion of formalities, and imagery,
and shadows, to quiet their consciences while they resist the
truth, that it may not seem to be anactof impiety and malig-
nity which they do, but an opposition to the faults of others.
JBut the use which you should make of this lesson is this:
Take heed lest you be tempted to an overvaluing of any un-
necessary or less needful things, whether it be wealth and
honour, or fleshly interest; or else any formalities, or
things indifferent about religion, lest before you are aware
(as imagery stole away the hearts of the old idolaters from
God, so) these should secretly consume your holy zeal, and
turn your hearts from the life and serious exercise of religi-
on, and worshipping God in spirit and truth , and afterwards
draw you to condemn that zeal and diligence in others which
you want yourselves. We have bodies as well as souls, and
must have a just regard to bodily necessaries j and a care
that our bodies do their duty. But let the body and its in-
terest keep their place* Remember how far it is below the
fioul, and use it, and all its interests accordingly. The least
things that are good are not to be despised. But alas, what
work is made by preferring little things ! The traditions of
their fathers, their tithing mint, and annise, their washings,
their building the sepulchres of the prophets, their domina-
tion, pomp, and ceremonies, did pass with the Pharisees in-
stead of the great things of the law, and sacrifice went be-
fore mercy, truth, and judgment ; yea, and become a cloak
for devouring widow's houses, and for persecuting and si-
lencing the preachers of the Gospel, and for slandering and
murdering Christ himself.
What ruins this hath mad^ in souls, churches, and king-
doms, I have already told you. Know therefore wherein
God's kingdom doth consist; Rom.xiv. 17, 18. And what
and whom God bindeth you to approve, and learn what this
442 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
meaneth, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," that you
may not deceive yourselves, or condemn the guiltless.
Even Martha will murmur at her dear sister, and accuse her,
if she be herself but tainted with this ill disease.
But whose part doth Christ take ? And which of them
doth he justify ? The defendant Mary ; and that, 1. With
a compassionate reproof of Martha. 2. With the reason of
Mary's justification. 3. And with a sentence of blessing
added to her defence. Whence we learn,
Doct, 2. * That when wiser Christians, and their better
choice and work are accused by them that preferred less need-
ful things, Christ will be the advocate and judge, and will
defend and justify the wrongfully accused.' He will in this
case take the accused's part.
Martha accuseth her sister to Christ, she expecteth that
he should blame her as neglecting her duty, and leaving all
the trouble and care on Martha. But Christ doth not an-
swer her expectation, but justifieth the wise and innocent.
Reason 1. For it is his office to be both the advocate and
the judge. And he will do it in perfection, without error or
injustice. He well knoweth who is in the right, and none
can deceive him by false accusations or false witnesses.
2. He is so nearly related and deeply obliged to defend
the innocent or just, that he will never fail them. They are
his members, and his love engageth him. He spared not his
life and blood for them, and will he not speak for them ?
They are his purchase, and interest, his peculiar redeemed
ones, and will he forsake his interest, and his own ?
3. Indeed in plain justice he is bound to justify them
againlst such injurious accusations. For it is he that com-
mandeth them to do what they are accused of. It is for
obeying him. If it were a fault, it would be his that bid
them do it. Nay, how much hath he done to bring his ser-
vants to that holy choice, and faithful duty, which in the
world they are commonly accused for ! Alas, we were not
forward to it of ourselves. It was not we that made the law,
which so strictly forbiddeth sin, and commandeth duty.
The Bible is not of our making. It is not we that made the
law to " love God with all our heart, and soul, and might ;
and our neighbour as ourselves ; not to take his name in vain,
to worship God in spirit and in truth," &c. And it was a
higher cause than our own power which taught us, and in*
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 443
clined our hearts to obey these. Many a message did Christ
send us, by his Bible, ministers, and Spirit, before we were
heartily drawn to yield. Many a day's patience did he use,
and many a threatening to drive us to it, and many a mercy
and promise to draw us, and many a book and teacher to in-
struct us, yea, and many an affliction to correct us ; and will
he not justify us for that which he so earnestly commandeth
us, and with so much ado doth bring us to obey ? Did he
come into the world, and live, and die, to save his people
from their sins, and purify to himself ** a peculiar people,
zealous of good works (Tit. ii. 14.), and will he forsake them
when they are accused for obeying him ? Where shall we
meet with a man of any common honesty that would do thus
by his poorest servant? And shall not the Judge of all the
earth do righteously ? For our parts, if we are accused for
serious piety, or any duty which Christ commandeth us, it
is his command that was our reason and obligation, and
which we have to allege for our defence. If that have not
authority and truth enough to justify us, we have no other
justification. Indeed Christ should forsake himself if he
thus deserted us. He should take the blame upon his own
laws, yea, and on all the works of his grace andSpirit, and
all that he hath done to bring us to that which the world
and our flesh was so much against.
4. He defendeth his disciples against the Pharisees' ac-
cusations on earth, and will he afterwards forsake them?
5. He hath appointed the great day to judge the world
in righteousness, even the secrets of men, and to bring all
things open into the manifesting light, even all truth and
falsehood, and all the hidden works of darkness. Therefore
undoubtedly all truth, all righteousness, and all that is of
God, shall be fully justified, and God's truth in all, when false
accusers shall be all called liars.
Use. This being then so plain and sure, I would commend
the consideration of it to several sorts, and in several in-
stances. I. To the accusers of the godly for their duty to
God. II. To the accused. III. To those that are yet in
doubt what cause to choose.
I. The unjust accusers of just men are of divers degrees
or sorts.
1. Some there be that only accuse them in their thoughts^
and take them to be guilty when they are not.
444 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
2. Others go further, and too easily believe false reports
from others : and then think that they are allowed to tell
what they have heard, and so to vend such false reports.
And if they can but say, either that it was a great man, or a
learned man, or a minister, or a religious man that said it,
they think that their calumny or backbiting is no sin. But
much more, if many such report it ; and yet more, if they
heard none contradict it.
3. Others there be, that because it serveth their interest
or design, or pleaseth their malignant minds, do make it part
of their business purposely to carry about such reports, and
persuade as many as they can to believe them, and plead
down those that contradict them.
4. Others go further, and are the first devisers, or the ma-
licious increasers of the slanderous reports themselves ; not
only the spreaders or carriers, but the fathers of the lies which
they send about by others.
5. Yet some go further, and studiously and maliciously
publish them in pulpits, or in print, to draw the world and
posterity to believe them ; yea, and this as for God, and as
for the church and truth ; as if it were but the detecting of
heresies or lies, or dangerous faults or practices of others.
6. And yet further, some in most ages and countries, in
offices and places of judicature, who should be the pillars of
justice, do pass false sentences against the just, and pro-
nounce them guilty, and persecute and oppress them by
their unrighteous punishments.
7. And yet worse ; some slander not only the persons,
but the cause of truth, piety, and righteousness itself, and
make false laws and canons, calling good evil, and decreeing
the common slandering of the truth, and the punishing of
the innocent, because they will not break the laws of God,
and please proud mistaking men before him.
To ail these sorts of accusers of the just, I would give
(would they hear me) this following advice :
1. I advise you to stay, and think well of the matter, and
be sure that you have thoroughly tried it before you venture
to pass your judgment. It is not so small a matter as you
think, to wrong the just, and say, I was mistaken. And es-
pecially will, you be first sure what side Christ will take?
and whether he will be of the accuser's mind.
And Christ hath so fully told us his mind already in his
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 446
word, that we may certainly foreknow what judgment he will
pass.
(L) Do you accuse men for pretending to the Spirit, and
to be holy? Why, Christ hath said, that " Except a man
be born of water, and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of heaven;'* Johniii.6. And "without holiness
none shall see God ;" Heb. xii. 14. And " if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his ;'' Rom.
viii. 9.
(2.) Do you accuse godly men for singularity, and for dif-
fering from others in their religious diligence and zeal ? If
they differ from the common faith of Christians, or single
themselves from the communion of saints, or from the love
and concord of believers, Christ will not justify them in this.
For he hath said, '* A man that is an heretic after the first
and second admonition avoid ;" Tit. iii. 10. And " by this
shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another ;" John xiii. 34, 35. And " Mark those that
cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which
ye have learned, and avoid them;" Rom.xvi. 17.
But if it be differing from unbelievers, or ungodly men,
or formal hypocrites, by a holy resolution to live wholly to
God, and obey his laws, whoever be against it ; if this be
the singularity you mean, Christ is engaged to bear them
out. For it is he that hath commanded this, and said, " Ye
are ray friends if ye do whatsoever I command you ;" John
XV. 14. " If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in
my love ;** ver. 10. " Except your righteousness exceed the
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt. v. 20. " What
do you more than others?" ver. 47. "He purifieth to him-
self a peculiar people, zealous of good works ;" Tit.ii. 14.
Lot differed from Sodom, and Noah differed from all the old
world. The wise differ from the foolish, and the righteous
from the wicked ; or else there would not be hereafter so
great a difference as of heaven and hell. What is a physi-
cian good for if he make not his patients to differ from the
sick ? And what came Christ to do, or how is he a Saviour,
if he make not his disciples differ from the ungodly world ?
Even a philosopher would not set up a school, but to make
his scholars differ from the unlearned.
(3.) Is it for so much preaching and hearing that you ac-
44(j THE ONL THING NECESSARY.
cuse men ? It is possible indeed to do a duty unreasonably,
and to overdo in one thing, when it causeth the omission of
other duties. But certainly Christ that so strictly command-
eth his ministers to preach, and as they love him to feed his
flock, will justify them for so doing. How shall they be-
lieve without a preacher? And how shall they preach un-
less they are sent V* Rom. x. And he that said, '* He that
heareth you, heareth me," and that here justifieth Mary's
hearing, will justify all others in the like case : for he hath
bid us (by Solomon) to *' get wisdom as the principal thing ;"
Pro v. iv. 5. 7. " To incline the ear, and apply the heart to
it; to cry after knowledge, and lift up the voice for under-
standing ; to seek her as silver, and search for her as for
hidden treasure ;*' Prov. xxii. 3, 4 " Hear instruction, and
be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth
me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my
doors. For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain
favour of the Lord ;" Prov. viii. 33 — 36.
(4.) Is it for much praying that you accuse men ? Why,
Christ bid his disciples " pray always, and not faint ;" Luke
xviii. 1, 2. And pray continually ; 1 Thess. v. 17.
(5.) Is it for so much ado in their families, in the religious
education of their children, and reading the Scriptures that
you accuse men ? Why, it is God that hath said, "These
words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart,
and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and
when thou risest up," &c. Deut. vi. 7 — 10. xi. 18 — 20.
An angel was sent from heaven unto Cornelius when he was
fasting and praying in his house, to signify God's accep-
tance, and tell him further how to be saved. Daniel would
rather be cast to lions, than forbear praying in his house for
certain days, when the king and laws forbad him. You may
easily know then which side Christ will take.
(6.) Is it for scrupling things which others scruple not ;
and taking that for sin which others say is none, and so not
doing as others do, that you accuse men ?
If they mistake, and think that to be sin which is not,
Christ will j ustify their desire to please him, and their fear
of sinning, but he will not justify their mistake. But if it
be sin indeed, whatever men call it, he will justify our avoid-
THE ONK THING NECKSSAUY. 447
ing and abhorring it. He that died for sin, would not have
us love it, nor run into the consuming fire, from which he
came to save us. '* It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God." The accuser may call it folly,
and precise scrupulosity, but God saith to man, " Behold,
the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil
is understanding ;" Job xxviii. 28. If we sin with others,
we must suffer with them.
(7.) But perhaps it is for not keeping their faith and reli-
gion to themselves, but making so much ado to propagate
them, that you accuse men.
Indeed Paul, speaking of the knowledge and belief of the
lawfulness of lawful, necessary things, saith, "Hast thou
faith ? Have it to thyself before God ;" Rom. xiv. 21. That
is, enjoy thy own knowledge and liberty, but use it not so
as to tempt and ruin others. But surely it is Christ that
hath said, " Ye are the lights of the world, that must not be
put under a bushel;" Matt. v. And, " He that gathereth
not with us, scattereth abroad ;" Matt.xii.30. And, "Who-
ever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before
my Father," &c. Matt. x. 32. And, ** With the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation ;" Rom. x. 10. We must love our
neighbours as ourselves, and therefore desire and seek their
salvation : '* He that seeth his brother have need, (for his
body) and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from
him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?" Much less if
he have no pity for souls. While we have opportunity we
must do good to all men. Gal. vi. 10. The slothful servant
that hid his talent is condemned to utter darkness. Matt. xxv.
What do we in the world but to receive good, and do good?
And how little goodness is in that which tendeth not to
men's salvation? What are we made, redeemed, and pre-
served for, but to serve God, and seek the good of ourselves
and others ? You accuse not men of giving money to the
poor and needy ; and is not holiness much better ? If mo-
ney be better than grace, not only Simon Magus was excu-
sable, but Caesar might be a greater benefactor than Christ.
Do you believe a heaven, and do you accuse men for seeking
to help men to attain it ? Unthankful, miserable sinners,
that accuse men for endeavouring to save them from sin and
endless misery ! Were they drowning, they would not ac-
448 THE ONE THING NECESSARY*
cuse men for labouring to save their lives. None but mad-
men strive against those that would heal or help them ; but
it is here no wonder, when the Saviour of the world was as
madly and unthankfully used by such sinners : how can we
expect that he will accept our help, who despiseth or re-
fuseth God's ?
(8.) But perhaps it is their zeal and earnestness in reli-
gion that you accuse ; and think that they should be, as you
call it, more moderate ; that is, indifferent and cold.
Indeed imprudent, passionate rashness, and erroneous
zeal and factious violence, which is more for self-interest and
self-conceit, than for the truth and cause of Christ, is a thing
which he will never justify. If James and John have such
a feverish zeal, he will tell them, " You know not what
manner of spirit ye are of." Where an envious, striving,
masterly zeal is, he tells them it is not from above, but the
wisdom which it pretendeth to is earthly, sensual and de-
vilish, tending to confusion, and every evil work. Christ is
no patron of popish, tyrannical, persecuting, destroying,
hurtful zeal ; but surely he will justify the zeal of love, and
of good works : not zealous slandering, railing, and false
censuring ; but zealous preaching, praying and praising God,
and a zealous diligence in all that he commandeth, and a
zealous care to mortify fleshly lusts, and avoid sin, and es-
cape damnation, and to glorify God. It is a base contempt
and dishonouring of God, and Christ, and holiness, and
heaven, to think or speak of them, or seek them, with a cold
indifferency, as if they were but common needless things.
How eagerly do worldlings seek the world, and proud
men strive to climb into some honour, before they fall into
the grave and hell ! How violent do many earthly rulers
strive to enlarge their dominions, and have their wills, though
by the ruin of countries, and the blood of many thousand
innocents ! How hot are all these worldly men, (even popes
and prelates, that say they believe a better world) against all
how wise and holy soever, that are against their worldly in-
terest ! How fervently did they cry against Christ himself,
" Away with him, crucify him V* How furiously did they
gnash their teeth at Stephen, and stone him! And cried
out against Paul, " Away with such a fellow from the earth,
it is not fit that he should live !" The devil is earnest to
destroy us. The zeal of infidels, papists and church-tyrants
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 449
is burning hot, and no reason, no worth or innocency of the
just, will serve to quench it. And is it only God's service
and our salvation that must be coldly managed and sought?
Is it only that which we are born for, and live for, that must
be thrust behind the door, or done as if we did it not? Is
it heaven and hell that must be jested with ? And souls that
must be ventured for a little wealth or lust, or our endless
hope cast away for nothing? Idols that have eyes and see
not, deserve no better service than the hypocrites imagery,
and stage religion ; but do you think the God of love and
glory can be loved, honoured or obeyed too much? None
but the atheistical fool can think so. How quickly, how
certainly will you all wish that God and your solvation had
been loved, and sought with all your hearts, and strength,
and time, and that he that is All had had your All, and that
you had been as holy as the holiest of men ! O hypocrites,
that daily pray that " God's name may be hallowed, his
kingdom come, and his will done on earth as it is done in
heaven ;" and yet accuse those as doing too much, that, alas !
fall far short of the lowest of all the heavenly inhabitants !
(9.) But perhaps they are accused for not serving God just
as men command them, and not being of the religion of those
that are uppermost.
This hath indeed been the common accusation. But,
1. God is uppermost, and will be ; therefore they are re-
solved to be as near as they can of his mind that is upper-
most, and will prevail.
2. Christ went against the rulers of his time, and com-
manded his apostles so to do, and so did they, and so did
the church for three hundred years, and in much of the
world ever since.
3. Must' we have as many religions as princes have ?
And must we change our religion as oft as we change our
country ? Must a man be a heathen under heathens, and a
Mahometan under Turks and Persians ? And a Papist un-
der Papists, and a Socinian under Socinians, and so on ? If
not, how shall we know which prince's religion it is that we
must be of, and which we must refuse, but by the word of
God, which we must ourselves discern (using the best helps
of teachers that we can get)? We thank God that we have
rulers that so far own truth and righteousness as they do ;
VOL. X. G G
450 THE ONE THING NECE>SSARY.
but even the apostle saith, they were not lords, " nor had do-
minion over their faith, but were their helpers ;" 2 Cor. i. 24.
" As stewards of the mysteries of God ;" 1 Pet. v. 1.3.
4. Why do you honour the martyrs, and keep holidays
in remembrance of their sufferings, who died rather than
they would obey man against God, if you think we must
always be of the ruler's religion ? Did the three witnesses
so? Dan. iii. Or Daniel himseif? Dan. vi. The common
case is much like DanieFs : " We shall not find any occasion
against this Daniel, except we find it against him concern-
ing the law of his God" (Dan. vi. 5.) ; which they did for
praying when the law forbad him. They could find no fault
with Christ and his apostles, but for not observing their
traditions, and for worshipping God contrary to the law,
and doing contrary to the decrees of Csesar. Acts xviii. 13.
xvii. 5. Matt. xv. God's law is perfect, man's is not so :
though we cannot ourselves attain perfection in understand-
ing our practice, yet we will choose and set before us a per-
fect rule, even the perfect law of the perfect Ruler of the
world. If we must be all of the prince's or state's religion,
where one country hath the true religion, many will have a
false one : and when we are right in one point, we may be
wrong in another, our copy being so.
(10.) But perhaps it is error, sin, sedition, sects, schism,
scandal, that you accuse men of: if that be it, if you do it
truly, and do not slander them, certainly Christ will not jus-
tify them in these.
1. If you accuse them falsely he will justify them.
2. If they have sinned, and truly believe, and repent, and
amend, he will pardon them through his meritorious righ-
teousness and sacrifice, and will make them and pronounce
them just.
3. And he will justify in them all that is his own and
good, notwithstanding their pardonable infirmities, and will
not make their faults greater than they are, but will see the
willingness of the spirit when the flesh is weak. If malig-
nant men will see the mote of a ceremonious error or frailty
in their brother's eye, and call it a beam because a beam is
in their own, Christ will not join with them in their malig-
nity and injustice, but will bid him cast the first stone that
is without sin. John viii. 7.
4. And y(*t he will not justify the least sinful thought.
THE ONE THING NECESSARV 4dl
or word, or deed, nor the least faulty imperfection in their
faith, love or obedience : for no man hateth any of these so
much as Christ doth, in whomsoever they are found. Do
you cry out against error, sedition, rebellion, disobedience,
schism, divisions ? So doth Christ, and so do all his true
disciples ; we all agree with you in this. But if the ques-
tion be either, * Who they are that are herein guilty V Or,
' In whom any sin is reigning, wilful and unpardoned?' Here
see that you go not beyond proof; for Christ will not own
the condemners of the just, nor confirm any man's unrigh-
teous and malicious censure.
2. And as I advise you before you accuse any, to know
whether Christ be of your mind, and will be against them,
or will take their parts ; so next I advise you, as you love
yourselves, to think well how great a sin malignant and false
accusing is. i
1. It sheweth much of the devil in your hearts ; whether
you see it or not, it is no better: he is malicious, a murderer,
a liar, and the accuser of the just, and slanders are called by
his name, ^lajSoAoi, as aforesaid.
2. If it be for Christ's cause, for truth or righteousness,
or done in malice, against godliness or faith, Christ taketh
it all as done against himself ; Matt. xxv. For it is not
only against his servants, but also for their obeying and
serving him : it is he that commanded them, as is aforesaid.
3. You set yourself against the office also of Christ ; he
is the advocate of his servants, he hath undertaken their de-
fence, and do you think to overcome him ? It is he that
justifieth us, (for all that faith, and zeal, and holiness, for
which we are accused and persecuted by the world) who then
shall condemn us? It is he that is for us, who then is he
that will be against us ? Shall we not be more than con-
querors through him whose power hath conquered for us,
and whose victorious love will not forsake us? Rom. viii.
34., &c. Remember in what a manner he said, *' Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me ? It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks ;" Acts ii. And to him that offendeth one of
those little despised ones that believe in him, that ** it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he were cast into the sea."
And it is not only to the gross persecuting accusers of
the just that I give this advice, but I beseech you all to take
452 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
heed of any rash accusing of the just ; for the wrong is most
to God himself, and the hurt to you, and Christ will be
against you.
1. Some there are, that when they have by ignorance, or
a stretching conscience, for worldly interest consented to
some sinful practices, are led by that same unhappy interest,
to justify first what they do themselves, and then to accuse
all those as erroneous, precise, or schismatical that are
against their choice and practice. Most men that live in sin
for interest, do think that they must be secured from the ac-
cusations of conscience, and the disgrace of sinning, by jus-
tifying their sin, and accusing those as the sinners that are
against it, and dare not sin as much as they ; but how sad
a defence will this prove at last, which so much addeth to
tlieir crime !
2. There ar^ some on the contrary, that in ignorance
having taken a duty or lawful practice for a sin, (as baptizing
infants, singing David's psalms, praying constantly in fa-
milies, observing the Lord's day, praying oft in the same
words, communicating with some faulty churches, or such
as these men condemn, and such like,) they hereupon be-
come the rash and false accusers of those that be not as er-
roneous as themselves j thus did the Pharisees by Christ and
his apostles ; thus did the Jewish teachers, that said, " Ex-
cept y« be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses, ye can-
not be saved ;" Acts xv. Thus did the Jewish Christians
against Peter, " They contended with him, saying, thou
wentest into men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them ;"
Acts xi. 23. And after his miraculous conviction by this
censoriousness, they drew him to that separation which Paul
doth blame him for; Gal.ii. 12 — 14. and Barnabas and
others dissembled with him, for fear of the censures of these
erroneous men ; for it is not the least mischievous effect of
these false accusations and censures that they frighten many
weak Christians from duty and into sin, while they hear that
this or that is no duty, or is some heinous sin, and have not
the understanding to try and judge, they are carried away
with the name and noise ; and some such as Peter and Bar-
nabas walk not uprightly, but step out of the way for fear of
displeasing them, or being accused by them, as others are ;
and it is not a little shame, guilt and suffering, that this
course hath brongbt upon (he ministers themselves.
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 453
3. And there are some that here more heinously offend,
Familists, Ranters, Seekers, Quakers, and too many more ;
that while they are guilty themselves of lamentable errors,
fear not to accuse almost all the churches of Christ on earth,
as if they were not his church at all, and had no true religion,
ministry, ordinances, and were not to be communicated with.
The Papists that burn men as heretics for the truth, I think
accuse not so many of Christ's ministers and churches, not
so deeply as some of these sects do ; yea, and father this
malignity on the Spirit of God ; but Christ will defend and
justify his churches against all these false accusers.
O little do either Papists or any other sectaries know
how heinous a crime Christ will take it, to accuse the great-
est part of Christians on earth as being heretics, schismatics,
or no true churches, or having no true religion or part in
Christ, or in his Spirit ; and for a worldly faction on one
side, or a sick-brained, self-conceited sect on the other side,
to appropriate the title of the church or saints to themselves
alone, and say to most of the members of Christ, * You are
none of his !' If to accuse falsely one man when his estate
only is concerned in it, and that before a single judicature,
be so great a crime as Scripture maketh it, what is it openly
before God and the world, rashly or falsely to accuse whole
churches and countries of Christians, yea, the faithfullest of
Christ's ministers, with bitter scorns, as many of the afore-
said sectaries do ; yea, almost all the church of Christ, in
this and almost all former ages ! For my part (though some
censure me for it), I am afraid of too bold censuring even of
Papists, or of honest heathens, such as were Antonine, Ci-
cero, and such others that never heard the Gospel of Christ.
II. My next advice is to those that are thus accused by
others about religion, or of sin.
1. Do not presently justify yourselves, because you love
not to be blamed ; rash self-justifying may be more hurtful
to you than other men's rash accusing you. Error and sin
are not so rare things, even among good men, that it should
be taken for hard measure to be judged erroneous and sin-
ners : who knoweth his secret faults ? Psal. xix. We must
daily pray, " Forgive us our trespasses." Little do most
know how great a number of falsehoods are received into the
minds of most good Christians in the world, yea, of the best,
much more of the more ignorant sort ; and therefore we have
454 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
great cause to be still cautiously suspicious of ourselves :
and it is a mercy to have notice of our sins and errors from
vjfhomsoever, friends or foes.
Try therefore, lest it should prove an error or sin that
you are accused of; confess it not to be such because an-
other calleth it such ; but yet let him know that you are
willing of his help for your information and conviction.
It is supposed that none of us love error as error, or sin
as sin, or any evil as such ; it is no evil that is the object of
a sinner's will and choice, but a misplaced good, even a les-
ser good set against or instead of a greater : (as the creature
instead of the Creator, and corporal instead of spiritual, &c.)
We do not love and will ' malum, sed male,' not evil, but
evilly : it is not the thing loved that is evil itself, but the
act of loving it, (or doing it.) The fruit that Adam did eat
was not evil, but eating it was ; meat, drink, pleasurable ob-
jects, beauty, money, lands, honours, are all good, but the
inordinate love and use of them is the evil.
Our nature therefore giveth this advantage to our moni-
tors ; we would all be delivered from evil as evil, and there-
fore thankfully accept their help.
'Humanum est errare ;' how little doth that man know
himself, or what man is, who taketh it for an injury to be
supposed to have errors ? But to deny necessary saving
verities, or to be unwilling to see our errors by finding out
the truth, or proudly to defend them, because we have once
owned them, and to be rash and confident propagators of
such errors, and to rage against wiser men that are against
our folly, and ignorantly to cry them down as ignorant, and
to charge all this on the Spirit of God, this is an unchristian
and inhuman sort of erring. Try therefore with a due sus-
picion of yourselves, lest your accusation should be true,
and you be found in the mistake.
The same I say v/hen you are accused of any sin : alas,
sin is not so rare a thing with any of us, but that we may
well fear and try the case, lest we should be guilty.
2. My next advice is. Take heed lest you go about to in-
terest Christ in any of your sins or errors, or lest you expect
that he should justify them. It is a greater sin which many
erring men are guilty of in this kind, than is commonly per-
ceived. It is well that men would do that which God own-
eth if they knew it ; but it is dangerous to say that he own-
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 455
eth what he abhorreth : to father falsehood on the God of
truth, and sin on the God of holiness, is a fearful crime.
God that would not endure false fire, (Lev. x.) or to be wor-
shipped like an idol, no, nor to have holy things profaned,
will much less endure to be made the father of lies and
wickedness.
(1.) Consider that this is to set him against himself, who
is the God of truth and holiness.
(2.) This is to use his name against his word, which is
the word of truth and holiness.
(3.) This is to put him in the place of satan, and to fa-
on him the devil's works, who is a liar, and the father of it.
(4.) This is it which the false prophets are so heavily
threatened for in Scripture .
(5.) This is to fight against God's kingdom, and the grace
of Christ, and the work of the Spirit in his own name.
(6.) This is the direct breach of the third commandment,
" Thou shaltnot take the name of the Lord thy God in vain :"
a lie and vanity oft signify the same thing in Scripture.
This sin is of the nature of perjury, which is appealing to
God, as owning and approving a falsehood ; and do not they
so that falsely say, * God saith this, and that, and the other
thing in the Scripture, and by his Spirit in me,' which he
never said, yea, which no one so much abhorreth as he ; and
will you father on God that one thing which he hateth ?
God tells you that he will not hold him guiltless, (that is, he
will notably condemn and punish such) as thus profanely and
audaciously take his name in vain, or use it to patronize a lie*
I am often near trembling, to hear some of our tremblers,
yea, and some others, abuse abundance of plain texts of
Scripture, and expound them with palpable falsehood, and
deny the articles of the Christian faith, about Christ's per-
son, his intercession, his coming again, his laws, his king-
dom, his judgment, and pouring out many heathenish and
gross errofs, and fathering all this with raging confidence
on God himself, and saying, * I am sure this is true ; the Spi-
rit infallibly tells me so ; God speaketh it in me ; 1 no more
doubt of it than whether I live ; he that doubteth is damned ;
the light within me assureth me that this is true, and the
meaning of the Scripture.' O patient God! O sinful man !
O subtle serpent ! O dark, unhappy world !
O pitiful professors of faith, that will be changed or sha-
i56 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ken by such heinous sin, as if they heard an oracle of God l
Our God is love, and yet he is a consuming fire : take heed
what you say of him, and what you father on him : if pride^
blindness and deceit do carry you to blaspheme him, your
confidence will not make Christ justify it.
3, But I further advise you, If indeed it be truth and du-
ty which men accuse you for, even such as Christ in the sa-
cred Scriptures did prescribe, doubt not but he will justify
you against all accusers ; and let this satisfy you, however
you are slandered, against all. As, if your sins were few and
small, there would be less use of a Saviour to forgive them ;
so, if your slanders by malignant liars be few and small, you
will have the less use for Christ to justify you. If it be *' all
men that revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all
manner of evil against you falsely (or lying) for Christ's sake,
blessed are ye," saith Christ, Matt. v. 11. And if you be-
lieve him, you may *' rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great
is our reward in heaven ; and so persecuted they the prophets
before you." How many things are here to be observed !
It is supposed to be lies that are reported of you ; and this
not of one sort only, but " all manner of evil ;" as if you
were impious ag-ainst God, uncharitable and unjust towards
men, heretics against truth, schismatics against unity, rebels
and disobedient against authority, and all the rest : and of
all these have the just been ordinarily accused ; and this is
not by some one exasperated person in a corner, whom few
believe, but by all men, that is, the common voice of deluded
adversaries ; and it is not only belying, but reviling, yea,
and persecuting ; yet must you not only be patient, but
joyful and exceeding glad, because it is for Christ, and he
will justify you, and give you a great reward in heaven.
Here is a noble work for faith, to learn and practise this les-
son of cross-bearing, hope and joy. The Judge is at the
door, who seeth us and all our case, and is more concerned
in it than we are : be not too hasty for a full vindication •
cannot you stay till the assizes ? Were it not that slanderers
hurt others and themselves, how small a matter were their
thoughts and words to you? Will a malignant thought of
a dying worm deject you from any real honour or felicity?
Is it in the power of a lying tongue, or of many, hc|w high,
or how credible soever esteemed, to deprive you of your in-
nocency, or the approbation of God, or your adoption, or
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 457
Christ's justification, or your everlasting glory and reward ?
Do you trust Christ for your souls, and cannot you trust him
with your names ? Is God your God, and is not his appro-
bation enough for you ? Is man nothing to you, who is
posting to dust and judgment, and yet cannot you bear his
lying words or thoughts ? How will you bear the cross of
martyrdom, which is to die for well-doing, under the repu-
tation of malefactors, if you cannot bear false words or
thoughts ? If you say, * It is the truth that is dishonoured
through my dishonour,' I answer,
(1.) God is sufficient to vindicate his truth : every slan-
derous mouth shall soon be stopped, and God will be proved
true, and all men liars ; Rom. iii.
(2.) And he hath promised to bring forth your righteous-
ness as the light ; your name shall rise as the morning sun,
when the most malignant darkness seemed to bury them.
Christ is not in heaven reputed a blasphemer, nor rebel
against Caesar ; nor is Paul there taken for a pestilent fellow ;
nor the cross of Christ for foolishness or a stumblingblock,
nor are true Christians there reproached or excommunicated,
as heretics or evil-doers. Of how small regard is the judg-
ment of man to him that fully trusteth to Christ's justifica-
tion ! Which you may be sure of so far as the Scriptures
truly understood do justify you.
III. My next counsel is to those that are unresolved
which cause or side is right, and to be chosen, whilst most
men are accusers of each other : one talketh against this
thing, and another against that, one against this doctrine and
practice, and another against that, and so many parties ac-
cuse all the rest, that it distracteth ignorant persons.
Either the things which they differ about are such as
Christ hath told us his mind of in the Scripture, or not ; if
not, then pity and bear with the contenders on both sides ;
interpose not your judgment rashly, but let every one enjoy
his own : Paul and Barnabas, as well as Martha and Mary,
may differ about persons and circumstances of duty ; but if
Christ have already decided the case, let that determine you :
what need you more ? Is the controversy whether God or
man should be first obeyed? Whether heaven or earth,
Christ or the pleasures of sin, should be preferred? Whe-
ther we should live after the flesh or the Spirit ? In all such
cases it is easy to know what Christ doth judge. I hope
468 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
you do not think that he will take part with th« sensual, or
the covetous, or the malignant enemies of a godly life ; nor
that he will turn to the oppressors or persecutors of the just ;
nor that he will renounce his own word, because any men,
how great or reverend soever, misapply it, or contradict it;
nor that he will call drunkenness, gluttony, worldliness,
idleness, filthiness or pride, by gentle, extenuating, deceit-
ful names, though the guilty and impenitent do so.
Some would persuade you that Christ and his Spirit
could not speak so much sense as to become intelligible ;
and though every friend can intelligibly write you his mind,
yet Christ could not, or would not ; and that you may un-
derstand poets and orators, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Seneca,
and philosophers, lawyers, physicians, historians, yea, the
voluminous statutes of lawgivers, and canons of the church ;
but the Holy Scriptures you cannot understand : but it is
not reproaching Christ that is the way to have him justify
your cause or you. Though ambiguity of words make Scrip-
ture, as all other writings, so far difficult as to need some
skill in those words to him that will understand them ; and
though a carnal, blinded mind cannot (savingly in love and
lively sense) receive the spiritual things of God, yet men
shall shortly be convinced, that the Light of the world was
not invisible, though the darkness comprehend it not, and
that the wisdom of God hath spoken intelligibly, and in all
necessary things you may certainly know which part Christ
taketh.
But alas, Christ is^ unseen, and therefore little regarded
by multitudes who customarily honour his name. As among
the Turks, we blame not him that rather asketh what the
emperor or bashaw commandeth, than what Mahomet com-
mandeth ; so these that honour Christ but as the Turks ho-
nour Mahomet, do far more regard which side their landlord
takes, or which side s'uch a lord, or bishop, or prince is for,
than which part Christ is for. O sirs ! you would all fain
have Christ to be your advocate at last : as ever you would
have him be for you then, be now for that which he is for,
and hath foretold you he will justify.
O that you were all but truly willing to know what it is
that Christ is for, (whether for a holy, or a worldly or fleshly
mind and life) ; and that you were but resolved to be for that
which Christ is for, as far as by diligent search you can
THK ONE THING NECKSSARY 459
know it I should hope then that he would not leave you
to damnable mistake, but help you to understand his will
for your salvation.
Use. And here you may see, that it is false doctrine
which some men confidently preach, that there is no such
thing as Christ justifying his people against false accusa-
tions ; as when we tell them, that against the accusation of
being finally impenitent, unbelievers, unconverted, unholy,
they must be justified by their own personal repentance,
faith, conversion and holiness, or not at all ; they have no
shift against the plain truth, but to tell us, that we have
need of no such justification : the devil will have something
else to do than falsely to accuse us. But on the contrary,
1. Is not the devil the accuser of the brethren ? And is
he not the father of lies? Is not his name Diabolus, a false
accuser ?
2. Doth he not set the wicked on his work in this life
falsely to accuse the faithful, and their faith and duty, that
it may reflect on God himself? Yea, through the remnant
of ignorance and sin, Christ's servants too oft falsely accuse
one another, as unsound, erroneous, heretical, &c. Yea,
darkness causeth good men's consciences too often falsely
to accuse themselves. And is it not Christ's oflice to be
the advocate of the just ? And in justifying them to justify
himself, and his cause and truth? Rom.iii. 4. 26. And is it
not much of the work of that glorious day, to bring all hid-
den things to light, and to justify his cause and servants
against all the false accusations that ever were brought
against them, and thus to shame all falsehood and unrigh-
teousness, and to judge the world in truth ?
3. Was it not a false accusation that satan brought
against Job ; and did not God very solemnly justify him
against it? Is not satan's kingdom upheld in the world, by
making men in all nations believe that believers are deceived,
false believers, and that Christ's servants are wicked hypo-
crites, the plagues and troubles of the earth ? And is there
not a day to justify them against all this?
4. If we are not justified against false accusation, we are
justified against none at all; for Christ will not justify us
against the truth. It is justification by plea and sentence
that we are now speaking of: justification sometimes signi-
fieth making us just, and sometimes judging and maintain-
460 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ing us to be just. The first doth make an unrighteous and
ungodly man just, by converting him, and giving him repen-
tance toward God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ ;
and pardoning his sins, and giving him right to the heaven-
ly inheritance : this is our first constitutive justification.
But when God hath thus made us just by the merits of
Christ's righteousness,
1. He virtually by the law of grace doth pronounce us
just, and this against the curse of the condemning law of
innocency.
2. And in judgment Christ a.s our advocate will main-
tain us just.
3. And Christ our Judge will judge us just, against all
that can be brought against us : but how far just? Not such
as never sinned ; nor such as by imputation of his righteous-
ness are by God accounted never to have sinned, nor such
as never deserved death : but such as are not to be condemn-
ed to pain of sense or loss, but have right to the free gift of
life eternal, because Christ for them satisfied justice, and
fulfilled all righteousness, and merited all this for them, even
forgiveness, grace and glory, and they being penitent be-
lievers have part in him, and sincerely obeyed him to the
death.
And if it were never so true, that no actual false accusa-
tion would be urged against believers, yet is it true that we
shall be justified against even a virtual and possible accusa-
tion : and where there is not so much as this, there needeth
no justification by plea, by witness, or by sentence.
And if we are accused to have been sinners, it is not to
be denied ; if it be said that our sin deserved death, it must
be granted : but if it be said,
1. That we were finally impenitent unbelievers.
2. Or have no part in Christ.
3. Or had no pardon of sin.
4. Or had no right to life eternal.
5. And therefore are to be condemned ; all this being
false, Christ will justify us against it, and against all other
false accusation of men or devils.
Doct. Last. ' Christ doth not only plead his own righte-
ousness for Mary's justification, but justify her choice of the
better part, and decree that it shall not be taken from her.'
L Indeed all the good that we have is his own as the Gi-
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 461
ver, though some be also ours as the actors and possessors :
and Christ will justify all that is of himself. Nothing but
good Cometh from infinite good, or him that came to destroy
the works of the devil. They that accuse our grace or duty,
accuse Christ, his Spirit, and his law. And will he not jus-
tify himself? (But of this before.)
II. He that praiseth his servants' holiness and duty, and
will praise them in judgment, doth so far justify them. " Well
done, good and faithful servant !" Matt. xxv. Yea, he that
calleth eternal glory their reward, and the crown of righte-
ousness given by God the Righteous Judge, to such asl^ave
fought a good fight, and finished their course, and love the
appearing of Christ ; and he that is the Author of eternal
salvation to all them that obey him ; and will judge all men
according to their works, and pronounceth them blessed
that do his commandments, that they may have right to the
tree of life (2 Tim. iv. 8, 9. Heb. v. 9. Rev. xxii. 14. &c.),
doth surely so far justify this personal obedience and righ-
teousness of theirs.
Buthe justifieth only against false accusations, and not
against the charge of culpable imperfection. And do they
therefore talk wisely that say, it is no righteousness and no
justification, because it is imperfect? Doth any wise man
pretend to personal perfect righteousness ? And doth not
God many hundred times in Scripture call that righteous-
ness and equivalent which is imperfect? And will he jus-
tify or save any that hath no such righteousness? Christ
was perfectly righteous for us to merit the pardon and sal-
vation of believers, and the acceptance of their imperfect
righteousness ; and not to bring any to heaven that hath no
inherent personal rigl\teousness.
There are some that seem by their arguing to think that
so much honour as we give to our holiness and duty, so
much we take from Christ, and to praise his saints is to dis-
honour him. (And yet these men love and look for praise.)
But wise men will not believe that the greatness of the gift
is a dishonour to the giver, or the excellency of the house or
work a dishonour to the builder or workman, or the reco-
vered health of the patient a dishonour to the physician ;
else what a dishonour will our salvation be to Christ, when
we are perfectly holy, without spot or wrinkle, and have
no sin ! It will be then by the communication of his holi-
462 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
ness, as motion, light, and heat is from the sun ; and so it is
now, though we are imperfect : God accepteth, praiseth, and
* in fcantum' proportionably justifieth our imperfect righte-
ousness for the sake and merits of his that was perfect.
I never met with any of this mind, but if one accuse them
of less than infidelity, impenitence, impiety, and hypocrisy,
they will seek to justify themselves. And why will they
justify themselves in that which God will not justify the ge-
neration of the just, when malignants call them all deluded
hypocrites ? And I know no sober man but expecteth that
every judge should justify the wrongfully accused and their
cause.
Objett. * To justify a good cause is not to justify the
person.'
Answ. Untrue. It is not to justify him in all respects,
but it is to justify him as to that cause.
Object, * This is but before men.'
Answ. God doth more hate the condemning of the just
than any man doth.
Object. * This is but as to a particular cause, and not an
universal justification.'
Answ. And the justifying of a believer and penitent obe-
dient saint by his faith, and repentance, and obedience, is
but the justifying him in that particular cause, which is the
medium of his part in Christ; the merit of whose righteous-
ness and sacrifice procureth the pardon of all his sins, and
his right to the free gift of life eternally, and so far justifieth
him against the guilt of his sin, and the condemnation of
the law.
He that is not first made a penitent believer, and justi-
fied against chargeable infidelity, impenitence, and hypo-
crisy, shall never be justified by Christ's merits and sentence
against the curse and penalty of the law.
II. ' But Christ doth not only jrstify Mary and her choice,
but decree that it shall not be taken from her.' For,
1. He hath by his covenant given the best and greatest
things, and that for ever to every one that will but thank-
fully accept and choose them.
2. And what he offereth and promiseth he decreeth.
3. And what he decreeth and promiseth he performeth.
For who is it that should take it from her, or from any
believer ? Or •* who shall separate us from the love of God ?"
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 463
1 . Not the malice of satan ; else no believer should be
saved. If the devil could deprive us of the Gospel, or of
grace, it should be surely done ; if he could have kept the
world from being redeemed by Christ, it had never been re-
deemed ; if he could keep men unconvinced, unconverted,
and unpardoned, he would surely do it.
2. Not any of his malignant instruments ; for God will not
give them power to make a godly man ungodly, and the de-
vil hath no such power to give them.
3. Not the envy of erroneous zealots, or uncharitable hy-
pocrites. The prodigal shall not be turned out of doors be-
cause his elder brother envieth his entertainment. The en-
vy of the Jews shall not hinder the blessing of the Gentiles.
Resolvedly choose the best, and you shall have it.
Use 1. O that all men would take this sure and necessary
direction of Christ for the choice of their comforts, hopes,
and happiness. All men had rather be happy for ever, than
for a little while ; and what else but holiness and heaven,
Christ, grace, and glory, will be such a durable felicity ?
Will you choose the favour of great men, and hopes of pre-
ferment and worldly honours ; and can you say that this
shall not be taken from you ? Will you choose lands and
money, and the prospering of your endeavours in growing
rich ; and can you say that these shall not be taken from
you? Will you choose mirth and sport, and fleshly lust,
and the pleasing of your appetites and fancies ; and can you
say that these shall not be taken from you? Must not life
itself be shortly taken from you, and therefore all the plea-
sures of this life? If these things be your choice, Christ
hath already foretold you what you may expect ; ** Thou
fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then
whose shall all these things be which thou hast provided ?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich
towards God ;" Luke xii. 19, 20. And Luke xvi. 25. " Son
remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good
things, and Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and
thou art tormented." " Wherefore then do you spend mo-
ney for that which is not bread, and your labour for that
which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently to Christ, and eat
that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fat-
ness. Incline your ear, and come unto him ; hear, and your
464 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
soul shall live ; and he will make an everlasting covenant
of sure mercies with you:" Isa.lv. 2, 3. " Labour not for
the food which perisheth, but for that which endureth to
everlasting life," which Christ will give you; John vi. 27.
** Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth
and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust do corrupt, nor thieves break through
or steal ;" Matt. vi. 19, 20. ** The time is short, therefore
weep and rejoice, buy and possess, and use the world, as
though you did it not ; for the fashion of this world passeth
away;" 1 Cor. vii. 29 — 31. O be not as the wicked, who
have their portion in this life, in the treasure of their bellies ;
*' for their hopes soon perish as the rush that groweth but
in the mire, and as the spider's web, and as the giving up of
the ghost ;" Psal. xvii. 14. Flesh will fail you, and the world
will fail you ; but God will be a never-failing portion to all
that do but sincerely choose him ; Psal. Ixxiii. 25, 26. If
you drink here you shall thirst again, and if you eat here,
you shall hunger again ; but if Christ and his Spirit be your
meat and drink, " you shall hunger and thirst no more for
ever." Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righte-
ousness, for they shall be satisfied." O do not profanely
sell such a birthright for a morsel ; you shall have no better
than you choose ; shew not yourselves unworthy of eternal
life, by preferring known vanity before it. If you lost hea-
ven because you could not have it, and would have a Christ
and holiness, but could not, your case would not be all so
bad, as to be the wilful refusers of your own salvation, and
lose it because you would not have it. Do not say. We would
be saved, if you would not be saved from your sin, and have
that holiness and communion with God which is your sal-
vation ; and do not say, we would have God, and Christ,
and holiness, if the pleasures of sin seem better to you, and
you choose them first ! You may as well say plainly. We will
have no God, no Christ, no heaven, as say. We had rather
have the pleasures of sin ; and you may as well say so, as
choose so, and do so. There are some deceived libertines
that think that every good desire is the mark of a justified
soul, especially if it be accompanied with a willingness that
Christ's righteousness should justify them, and a belief that
THK ONE THING NECESSARY. 465
it will do so, though they love sinful pleasure, profit and
honour, better than God, and holiness, and heaven, and had
rather have a felicity of an epicure, than of a saint.
But Christ himself hath judged contrarily. He saith,
" He cannot be his disciple that loveth any thing more than
him ;" Matt. x. Luke xiv. 23. 26. And he that will have
this pearl of greatest price, must think nothing too dear,
but sell all that he hath to buy it ; Matt. xiii. 46. To be
" lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," is the brand
of the worst times and persons ; 2 Tim. iii. 4. Let any man
that can shew us one promise of God for the saving of any
that seek not first God's kingdom and its righteousness ;
(Matt. vi. 33.) and labour not chiefly for the food that pe-
risheth not ; and loveth not God above the world, and holi-
ness more than the pleasures of sin.
If this be not so, where can you fix the difference between
the justified and them that perish? Would God make such
a difference in the world to come, if there were none here?
Doth Christ and his Spirit do no more noble a work in sanc-
tifying souls than so? If one may be justified that loveth
one sinful pleasure better than God, and grace, and glory,
why not he that loveth another, and another, and all ? If
fornication, why not gluttony ? If gluttony, why not drun-
kenness? If drunkenness, why not covetousness, and am-
bition, and all evil? But Paul saith, " Let no man deceive
you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the
wrath of God on the children of disobedience ;" Eph. v. 6.
And *' without holiness no man shall see the Lord ;" Heb.
xii. 14. " Not every one that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter
into heaven;" no, not those believers that prophesied, and
did wonders, and cast out devils in Christ's name ; but only
they that do the will of God. To the rest he will say, ** De-
part from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not."
How oft is it said that all shall be judged according to
their works? And Christ so describeth his own judgment.
Matt. XXV. Can any man believe James ii., 1 John iii. iv.,
Rom.viii. 1 — 14., Rom. ii., and a multitude of such texts,
and yet believe that a bare belief that Christ's righteousness
isimputed to us, will prove any one justified who loveth his
sin better than God, grace, and glory ; and consequently
that Christ's members differ but imputatively from the chil-
VOL. X. H H
466 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
clren of the devil ? For wherein is a wicked man worse than
the godly, but in this 1 " He that loveth the world (more
than God) the love of the Father is not in him ! Why, may
not life or pleasure separate us from the love of God if we
love them better? Rom. viii. 38, 39. Nay, he lovetli not
God at all in a proper sense, who loveth him not as God ;
and he lovetli him not at all as God, who loveth him not as
better than the pleasure of sin, but only as a lesser good.
Object. * To love God above all sinful pleasure is the fruit
and ripeness of grace, but the seed doth not reach so high.'
Answ. It is true, if you call preparatory grace that seed ;
but such are in no justified state ; but it is not true if you
mean by the seed any thing proper to a justified man, as all
the texts forecited shew.
Object. * What can the strongest Christian do more than
love God above all V
Answ. Among those that love God above all, and holiness
more than sin, there may be a hundred different degrees ;
one may love him so much as to long after him, and delight
in him, and contemn all vanities, and overcome temptations
much more easily and effectually than others ; and another
may do these more faintly, hardly, and with less delight.
Object, ' Did David, Peter, and the disciples that all for-
sook Christ and fled, love him better than life at such a time V
Answ. 1. We must distinguish between the rational will,
or love, and sensitive passion. 2. Between the habit and
the act. 3. Between the ordinary course of action, and a
particular extraordinary action.
The weakest true justified Christian loveth God above
the creature, and perfect holiness above sinful pleasure.
1. As to the fixed inclination and habit of the soul,
(which is the Divine nature.)
2. And in the ordinary act or exercise of his rational love,
and deliberate choice, and the seeking endeavour of his life.
3. But not always with the most passionate sensitive love.
4. And passion (of fear or creature love) may in an ex-
traordinary act both weaken the activity of rational, spiri-
tual love, and bear down the executive power into outward
contrary sinful acts. But the predominancy of the holy na-
ture will shew itself, in raising the soul from such a fall, and
causing it the more to hate and fear the sin. There is dif-
ference between a swoon and death, and between an infant
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 467
and an image : and so there was between the falls of David,
Lot, Peter, and a wicked man, that had rather keep his sin
than leave it, and loveth such pleasure more than God.
Use 2. Be thankful then, Christians, for that grace of
Christ which caused you to make the wisest choice ; even of
that which is the real durable felicity, and shall never be ta-
ken from you.
Had you chosen houses, they might have been burnt :
had you chosen wealth or worldly honours, they might all
have been taken from you ; yea, all would certainly have
left you in distress. Men might have taken away your es-
tates, your liberties, your lives, but not your God, your
Christ, your heaven. They may take away your Bibles,
and other books, but they cannot take away your grace.
They may shut you out of the synagogues, but not out of
the love of God. They may imprison yon, banish you, cut
out your tongues, that you can neither preach nor speak,
but still your souls may have communion with God. A
Tertullus may call us pestilent fellows and seditious : schis-
matics may call us the schismatics ; and heretics may call us
the heretics, and hypocrites may call us hypocrites ; but none
of them can make us what they call us. They may with
some (by God's permission) take away the reputation of
your innocency, but not your innocency itself. When a
man's food is but on his table, it may be taken from him ; if
it be but in his stomach he may cast it up : but it is safer
when it is digested and turned into his substance. So may
your teachers, and Bibles, and churches, be taken from you,
but not the law and Gospel which is written in your hearts,
and become a spiritual nature in you. What triumphant
challenges doth St. Paul make? " Who shall be against us?
Who shall condemn us? What shall separate us from the
love of God ?" Rom. viii. 37, 38, &c. The power of men and
devils cannot do it. Death itself the last enemy shall not
do it. He will dissolve this frame, and lay our flesh in dust
and darkness, and take away from us all the pleasure and
possession of this world, but none of our chief good. Ty-
rants may deprive us of such things as they choose them-
selves, but not of that which we have chosen ! If the devil
had said truly, (Matt. iv. Luke iii. G, 7.) " All this power will
I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered to
me, and to whom I will I give it ;" he might have said also.
468 THE ONE THING NECESSARY.
From whom 1 will I take it away. But sure he is no giver
of grace or glory, and therefore cannot forcibly take them
from us. Nay, by taking life and all from us, men shall but
hasten our perfect fruition of what we choose. Malice may
snarl, and rail, and slander, but cannot abate the love of the
Father, the grace of the Son, the communion of the Spirit,
or deprive us of expected glory.
Let not then worldly fury think that it hath undone us
by taking away worldly things. They were none of our
choice, nor our trust, nor treasure. If we are true believers,
our treasure, heart and conversation are in heaven : let
thieves get in and steal it thence if they can. Papal usur-
pers may pretend Peter's keys to shut out all that obey not
their domination ; but while God is our choice, and we shut
not out ourselves from heaven, they talk more to their own hurt
than ours, and can never take our chosen treasure from us.
Use 3. But if none can take it from us, let us not cast it
away ourselves. All that men and devils can do against us
is but by allurements, or fear, or other temptations, to de-
ceive us into self-destruction, and to cast away that our-
selves which none can take from us. Great disputes we have
about free-will and perseverance ; whether it be possible to
fall away. But it is past dispute with men that believe the
word of God, that we have such freedom, as that Christ, and
grace, and glory, are freely offered to our accepting choice ;
and that he that truly chooseth them shall have them ; and
that all that choose them not before that pleasure of sin
which is set in competition against them, shall never have
them ; and that it is just so far possible or impossible to fall
from grace, as it is possible or impossible for the will of one
that hath grace to change : so far as your serious choice
continueth, you persevere ; and so far as you change it, you
lose your grace. While you plead for the impossibility of
the ill changing of your wills, confute not yourselves by your
actual change ; but when you feel them again pleased with
the forbidden things of the flesh and world, and your appe-
tite to holy pleasure groweth dull and cold, methinks you
should perceive that in yourselves there is no impossibility
of a change : if there be any, it is out of you, in God ; and
no doubt but a change of his decree and will is impossible.
All the doubt is, whether he have decreed that no gracious
will shall change. It is certain that being so very mutable
THE ONE THING NECESSARY. 469
in ourselves, that we could not persevere were we left to our-
selves, we are all under many and great obligations to ** keep
ourselves in the love of God ;" Jude 21. and to ** continue
in the love of Christ ;" John xv. 9. And we have need of
commands to " abide in Christ, and he in us ;" John xv. 4.
And need of threatenings of destruction if we fall away.
" If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and
is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the
fire, and they are burned ;" John xv. 6. " Let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall ;" 1 Cor. x. 12.
" Let us fear lest a promise being left of entering into his
rest, any of you should seem to come short of it ;" Heb.ivL
And all God's threatenings are the objects of our belief and
fear. " If we sin wilfully after the knowledge of the truth,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fear-
ful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which de-
voureth the adversaries : of how much sorer punishment
suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of
the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and done despite to the Spirit of grace. If any draw
back my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;" Heb. x. 26,
27.29.38. Which is the same with Ezek.xxxiii.18. "When
the righteous turneth from his righteousness he shall die,"
and xxviii. 24.
Yea, God seeth it meet to give us the comforts of the
faithful still conditionally. Rev. ii. iii. " To him that over-
cometh," &c. " He that endureth to the end shall be
saved ;" Col. i. 21 — 23. " If ye continue in the faith, and
be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel."
All this tells us, that notwithstanding God's unchange-
able decree, the care and diligent labour to persevere is our
duty, and that falling away must be our fear, and that there
is no such impossibility as excludeth this care and fear : and
that so far as it is impossible to fall away, so far it is im-
possible not to fear falling away, with a preserving, watch-
ful fear : and how far a known impossibility is the object of
due fear I leave to further consideration.
God hath put us into the hands of Christ, in whose care
and trust is our chief security ; but he hath also trusted us
or put our perseverance and salvation more in our own
hands than in any others ; and so far that if we do not undo
470 THIi ONE THING NECESSARY.
ourselves by wilful and final neglect or refusal of offered
grace and mercy we are safe. Choose Christ as Christ, and
God as God ; choose grace and glory before all the vanities
of the world, and before all the pleasures of sin for a season,
and stand to this choice unto the end, expressing it in faith-
ful victorious endeavours, and then neither men nor devils,
life or death, shall take your chosen treasure from you.
Object. ' I can easily keep up a resolved choice of God,
and holiness, and heaven, but I cannot so constantly keep
up the rejection of fleshly pleasures, and profit, and honour,
which would be for the time preferred.'
Answ. The worst man w^ould have God and heaven so far
as to give him the desires of his flesh, and keep him from all
pain and misery ; but is it not a plain contradiction to say
in proper speech, ' I would have God as God, that is, as best,
but I would have pleasant vanity as better ? I can easily
love my wife as a wife, but I cannot forbear loving harlots
better. I can resolve for temperance, but I cannot resolve
against gluttony and drunkenness. I am resolved for truth,
but not against lying V Just such is that, to resolve for God
and holiness, but not against the pleasures of sin, which
alienate the heart from God.
Object. ' But how doth a man choose God and holiness in
the hour of his sin, when he is choosing forbidden pleasure?'
Answ. The act of sin is not a choosing God and holiness,,
but somewhat that is contrary ; but every act of the will
which is against God and holiness is not a rejecting of them,
or a retracting of our choice, nor inconsistent with it ; but
perhaps only an interruption of the exercise, and an abate-
ment of the degree. Play-fellows may draw a child to dis-
obey a father for love of play, and them, when yet he doth
not forsake his father, nor love them better ; but only for-
gets him, or abateth desire through the diversion of the sport.
Quest, * What is it that is our duty in order to the un-
changeableness of our own wills and choice V
Answ. 1. Trust not yourselves too far: the will goeth
not against the mind's apprehensions ; and a man's mind is
a very dark, weak, mutable thing : what a temptation, or a
subtle wrangler or argument, or a new thought may do upon
us, we do not well know. Presumption seldom escapeth
danger. A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil : con-
THE ONE THING NECKSSAKY. 471
fidence in your own understanding, goodness and stability,
is the prognostic of backsliding
2. Away from the temptations which do most strongly
allure the flesh; to be overpleased with things temporal and
sensible, turneth the heart from things spiritual and eternal.
To desire a more pleasing condition to the flesh, is to desire
stronger temptations, and greater danger to the soul.
3. Think much and seriously on the great and certain
things which first converted and resolved your wills : they
are the same, and as good now as they were then, and you
should know them better. A man that loveth and chooseth
rationally, knoweth why he doth it : and the fixing and re-
newing of your knowledge and belief, is it that must fix your
love and choice. The greatest things forgotten do not
affect us.
4. Flatter not yourselves with the hope of living long on
earth, and look not at death and the following life as a great
way off". The power of tempting vanities lieth in men's
hopes of long enjoying them : to a man under the sentence
of present death they have little power. And the best things
that seem far off*, do not much and powerfully affect us.
Live therefore as dying men, and you will have the mind and
choice of dying men.
5. See that your meditations and belief be practical, and
brought close to the heart : and take not bare thinking of
God and heaven as enough, but know that holy thoughts
fall short of their use and end, if they come not to the heart
and life. It is not the speculative disputing Christian that
hath the fixed will and choice, unless he be also a hearty
practising, experienced Christian. He that hath a heavenly
heart and conversation, and hath felt the power and sweet-
ness of things spiritual, will hold them fast, when bare
hearsay and opinion will let them go.
6. Depend in the constant exercise of faith and prayer
upon the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the
communion of the Holy Spirit, and seek to please God as
your greatest pleasure, and so live by the faith of the Son of
God, that you may say, " it is Christ that liveth in you ;*'
Gal. ii. 19, 20. And then none can take you out of his
hands, nor separate you from the love of God, (Rom. viii,
38, 39.) nor take your chosen portion from you.
472 THE ONE THING NBCESSARY.
In a word, that your choice may be unchangeable, you
must firmly trust to the unchangeable promise of the un-
changeable God, for the unchangeable kingdom, as pur-
chased by Christ, and our title sealed by his Spirit. The
world and the flesh must be crucified, dead and buried to
you by the virtue of his cross believed, and you must be
risen with him to a heavenly mind, and hope, and conversa-
tion : every weight must be laid by, and the sin which doth
so easily beset us, (Heb. xii. 1.) ; and we must not look
back to the forsaken world behind us, but press forward for
the prize unto the mark (Phil, iii.), looking still to Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before him, endured the cross, and despised the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We must consider him that endured such contradiction of
sinners, lest we be weary and faint. We must count
nothing dear to us that we may finish our course with
joy; and must know by faith that "our labour is not
in vain in the Lord," if we would be " stedfast and unmove-
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord ;" 1 Cor.
XV. 58. We must serve God acceptably, with reverence and
godly fear, as for a kingdom which cannot be moved ; and all
this in dependance on the grace of Christ; Heb. xii. 28.
Considerate men know by grace and experience that this
world is vanity and vexation : if we know also by a living
constant faith, that a better world of holy joy is the near
and certain portion of the faithful, it will fix the will in a re-
solved choice, and we shall not be like profane Esau, that
sold his birthright for one morsel ; and the living eternal
God will be eternally our Life and Joy, to whom all the
blessed with Christ shall give glory and praise for ever.
Amen.
END OF THE ONE THING NECESSARY,
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY,
ENMITY TO SERIOUS GODLINESS ;
TO A HOLY AND HEAVENLY STATE OF HEART AND LIFE :
LAMENTED, DESCRIBED, DETECTED, AND UNANSWERABLY PROV-
ED TO BE THE DEVILISH NATURE, AND THE MILITIA OF THE
DEVIL AGAINST GOD, AND CHRIST, AND THE CHURCH AND
KINGDOMS, AND THE SUREST SIGN OF A STATE OF
DAMNATION,
TO THE READER.
Reader,
This reprehensive lamentation of English malignity, or ha-
tred, and scorn, and persecution of serious godliness, by
them who profess to believe in God, and to be Christians,
was written in prison (but without any provoking sense of
my suffering), in Anno 1685, or 1686. And by one that was
not wholly ignorant, how much of the Papists' counsel and
power was causal in our change since the return of King
Charles 11. 1660. And therefore it grateth so much upon
the Papists, though they were professed Protestants who
were the open agents.
It was written by one who can remember, at least since
1627. That the serious practice of godliness was the com-
mon scorn of the vulgar rabble ; and he that did but read
the Scripture, and books of piety, and pray in his family, and
catechise children or servants, to hear a sermon at the next
parish church from a godly Conformist, when he had none
at home ; yea, that did but seriously talk of Christ or Scrip-
ture, or the life to come, or preparation for death and judg-
ment, when under the name of a Puritan, which was a re-
proach in the mouth of drunkards, swearers, fornicators, and
all the sensual, worldly sort, both high and low. And that
conformable ministers (yea and gentlemen) that were but se-
riously religious, no more escaped this scorn than Noncon-
formists (who were then so few, that they were in most
places unknown). He sadly remembereth how greatly this
malignant rabble triumphed in the bishop's visitation arti-
cles, and in the preaching and talk of many priests, who
sharpened their sermons with invectives against Puritans as
CCCclxXVi TO THE READER.
dangerous hypocrites, though they had not a Nonconformist
within many miles. He heard the godly conformable mi-
nisters lament, that the bishops and ecclesiastical courts by
their jealousy and heat against the nonconformable Puritans,
became the strength and encouragement of this malignant,
vicious rabble ; and that the young worldly ministers took
it for the way to preferment, to preach against Puritans,
while they treated the multitude of profane, prayerless fa-
milies that had no savour of serious religion, as their good
and peaceable flocks. He lived to see the godly, learned
conformists, so grieved for this, that they longed for a re-
formation ; and many conformists (as Bishop Robert Abbot,
Bishop Downame, and divers others published their reproof
and lamentation for it : and good Robert Bolton (in his Di-
rections for Walking with God) thinks that since malice en-
tered into the heart of man, there was never a word tossed
with more malice in the mouths of drunkards and profane
men, than the word ' Puritan/ Hundreds and thousands of
these wicked scorners of religion, were either admitted (or
driven) to the sacrament, or lived quietly in great parishes
while they despised it, while these poor Puritans were strictly
hunted after ! And if they fasted and prayed with a dying
or sick friend, without getting a licence for it from the
bishop, the churchwarden must enter them into their inqui-
sition, or be forsworn.
These Puritans having the greatest averseness to popery,
in some things were too suspicious of all that they thought
smelled of it. And when they heard that in Ireland the Pa-
pists had most barbarously murdered the Protestants (two
hundred thousand), and that they boasted that they rose by
the king's commission, and threatened to invade England,
and that the English Papists were against the parliament ;
this made many think that the Protestant religion was not
safe, but in the parliament's part and care : upon which the
next year when our odious civil war began, many of them
went into the parliament's armies ; but the generality would
fain have lived quietly at home, but the debauched rabble
and their patrons would not suffer them ; but they turned
the name 'Puritan' into * Roundhead,* and * Down with the
Roundheads,' was the common cry. I have myself by that
cry been in present danger, in passing through a city where
TO THE READER. CCCclxxix
no man knew me, because I wore not long hair. If their
neighbours did but pray, and sing a psalm in their houses,
the rabble would (like the Sodomites at the door of Lot) set
up a cry against them in the streets, and say, * Down with
the Roundheads, the rebels, a Gowry, a conspiracy, &c.'
Even where I lived they assembled with weapons, and sought
my life, and knocked down (mortality being the issue) even
strangers in the streets that meddled not with them, because
they were accounted friends to the Puritans. By this means
the parliament's garrisons and armies were filled with reli-
gious men, that were forced to fly from their houses by the
malignant, ignorant drunkards, to save their lives : and this,
even this was the ruin of King Charles, and his army, and
of the persecuting bishops and clergy. Necessity made
thousands to be soldiers that could not live at home : and
most were moved by an argument that was not cogent, still
saying, * We cannot believe that God would suffer the ge-
nerality of the most religious to choose the wrong side, and
the generality of the Papists and ignorant drunkards and
malignants to be in the right.'
O what shame and pity is it that the Antipuritan clergy
no better remembered from 1660 till now, by what means
they fell ; and that they no more understood, nor yet under-
stand, what a torrent of sin, of danger, and of shame, is
come upon them, by their strengthening themselves, by
sheltering (to say no worse) the sensual, irreligious, malig-
nant rabble, (rich and poor,) that they may tread down the
Puritans, that by their own doings are brought into a dislike
of them. Will God ever bless a profane rabble (or gentry)
to be the honour and strength of the church, against the re-
ligious that desire a reformation ?
It is not their new foolish names and scorns, (as Whigs,
Trimmers, Presbyterians, &c.) that will prove that it is not
serious piety that they hate. As long as the most filthy
wicked livers are the enemies and accusers, and in their own
party and companions, the vilest debauchery passeth for
sufferable, and a small disgrace, and thousands of such live
at ease, when preaching the Gospel, and praying without
their fetters or book, must cost men ruin, and imprisonment,
and scorn. And Sulpicius Severus's sharp invective against
Ithacius, Idacius, and the rest of the bishops in their synod
cccclxxviii to the reader.
was that in prosecuting the Priscillian Gnostics, they brought
the matter to that pass, that if godly men did but fast, and
pray, and read Scripture, the bishops made them suspected
as Priscillianists (even St. Martin himself). Woe to them
that turn the sacred offices of magistracy and ministry against
God that did ordain them, to be used as in his name, and in
some representation of himself, sacrilegiously blaspheming
him as an enemy to himself. Shall the throne of iniquity
have fellowship with God, that frameth mischief by a law, to
make sin common and allowed ?
By this the reader may see that there is a double history
needful to the full understanding of this book ; and of the
nature and causes of malignity; that is, 1. The history of
Adam's fall, and the great depravation of human nature
thence arising ; and the true meaning of the enmity thence
put between the woman's and the serpent's seed, exempli-
fied in the two first brothers born into the world ; as also
in Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob ; and frequently men-
tioned by Christ and his apostles.
2. The history of the advantages that malignity hath got
into England since the Reformation ; and especially since
the return of Charles the Second. This must contain the sad
differences begun at Frankfort in Queen Mary's days ; the
errors and extremes of both the differing parties; the bias-
sing determinations of Queen Elizabeth ; the difference be-
tween the first bishops that had been exiles, and their succes-
sors; the Presbyterians' provocations by over-opposing Epis-
copacy, and the bishops' design to root them out ; and the
making of canons to that end ; the rise of anew sort of bishops,
began in Laud, Neil, Howson, Corbet, and Buckeridge, with
Mountague, and their growth under Buckingham against
the old churchmen ; the design of a coalition with Rome,
and the French and English attempts thereto ; the interrup-
tion of this design by the Long Parliament, and the wars ;
the Scots forcing the parliament (that in their straits asked
their help) to take their covenant; the imposing that cove-
nant on the whole ministry, and making it a divided engine
on pretence of unity ; the parliament's casting out with a
multitude of flagitious ministers) some doctors, for being
against them, for the king, contrary to the desires of the
peacemakers ; the Presbyterians under Monk restoring King
TO THE READER. CCCClxXvii
Charles the Second ; the return and preferment of his doc-
tors, and their revengeful resolutions ; their design to let all
church- power, and preferment, and academic rule into the
hands of them that most hated Puritans, or would endeavour
their extirpation, and would educate youth in bitter preju-
dice and hatred of them ; the vulgar hatred of serious god-
liness in Conformists and Nonconformists, under the name
of Puritans ; the power that a few returned doctors had with
the king and chancellor in the disposal of preferments, and
thereby to overrule the parliament, and to procure the acts
of uniformity, corporation oaths, vestry and militia oaths,
and the acts for banishments, confinements, imprisonments,
fining, ejecting, silencing and ruining such whose conscien-
ces pleaded God's law and authority against any of their
oaths, impositions, and silencing prohibitions to preach the
Gospel ; the great difference in the wars (I meddle not with
the cause) between the adherents and soldiers of the king,
(Charles I.) and the parliament's in point of piety and so-
briety ; the animosity and implacable heat by which the be-
fore-conquered, and now ruling party, proceeded towards
the ruin of those that they took for enemies to the cause, ci-
vil or ecclesiastic, which they had owned ; the unhappiness
of the then present ministry, that being young then, had ne-
ver meddled with wars, that they must equally suffer as ene-
mies, for fearing the imposed oaths, subscriptions, cove-
nants, and practices ; the rejoicing of the common sort of
the luxurious drunkards, whoremongers, and infidels, that
they had got so many of the religious into contempt, and
scorn, and ruin ; the woeful increase of whoredom, luxury,
and impiety, and Sadduceeism hereupon ; the great numbers
of religious people, who before hoped for peace and a pious
prelacy, that fell hereupon into a hatred of prelacy, and a
great disesteem of the conforming ministry ; and so our divi-
sions are grown to a fixed factious enmity ; and malice and
worldly interest will hear no motions or petitions for peace ;
and yet madly plead all for love and peace, while they im-
placably fight against them, and accuse those as the ene-
mies of peace, who beg peace of them, and cannot obtain it.
This is the sum of the doleful history which this book
presupposeth : but should I write it, the rage would be in-
creased. The foregoing narrative is as much as is fit for
cccclxxx
TO THE READER,
this brief discourse, which, if you will, you may style ' Acris
correptio,* with Gildas ; or * Planctus Ecclesise,' with Alv.
Pelag*. or, * The groans of the church,' with a late conform-
able divine. It hath been cast by four years, at first be-
cause it would not be endured, and after in a vain hope that
our church reformation would make such a complaint less
necessary. But now I perceive the devil will be the devil,
and mankind will be born blind, sensual and malignant, till
there be a new heaven and earth in which dwelleth righ-
teousness. Come, Lord Jesus.
August 24, 1689, the fatal day of silencing in England
in 1662.
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
CHAPTER I.
A Lamentation for the Case of the Deluded, Malignant,
Militant World.
1. The depraved and miserable condition of mankind, hath
long been the astonishing wonder of the sober and inquisi-
tive part of the world : philosophers were puzzled with the
difficult questions, whence it first came ; and why it is no
more remedied. Christians are taught by the sacred Scrip-
tures how to answer both, by laying it on man's misusing
of his freewill, supposing God's permission of his trial and
temptations ; and on his resistance and rejection of reme-
dying grace, in the degree that it is vouchsafed or offered.
But still there are difficulties, and our understandings are
dark, and hardly satisfied. And whencesoeverit comes, the
case is doleful, and we cannot but think of it with astonish-
ment and lamentation. When we saw a hundred thousand
made dead corpses by the London plague, 1665, it did not
take off the terror to know how it begun. And when we saw
the city on a dreadful flame, which none could stop, it cured
not the general astonishment to conjecture how it was
kindled or carried on : no doubt but hell itself proclaimeth
that God is holy, wise and just, and devils and men are the
cause of their own everlasting punishment. But yet if we
had a sight of it, amazement and dread would overwhelm us.
And, alas ! what a map of hell is the greatest part of earth !
Hell is a place of lying, malignant and murderous, hurtful
spirits, miserable by and for their wickedness : and is not
this in a low degree, a true description of most of the earth?
VOL. X. I I
482 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
2. Nineteen parts in thirty of the earth are idolaters and
heathens. And do I need to say, how ignorant, wicked and
miserable they are ? Many of them publicly worship the
devil, as witches do with us ; and he deludeth them, and ap-
peareth in divers shapes to them, and ruleth them as he doth
witches. And those that are more civil, are strangers or
enemies to Christ. Six parts of the thirty are ignorant Ma-
hometans, destroyers indeed of heathenish idolatry, and such
as take Christ for a great and true prophet, but know him
not as a Saviour, but equal to prefer a gross deceiver, and
live under barbarous tyrants, who by violence keep them
in the dark. The other five parts that are called Chris-
tians, alas ! consist most of people bred up in lamentable ig-
norance, mostly barbarous or debased by the oppression of
tyrants, such as the Muscovites, most of the Greeks, the
Abassines, Armenians, and many eastern sects and nations.
What ignorance the vulgar Papists are bred in in Italy, Spain,
Germany, Poland, France, and other countries, and what
enmity to true reformation prevaileth in princes, priests, and
people ; and by what lying and cruelty they fight against
truth, and what inquisitions, murders, and inhuman massa-
cres have been their powerful means, I need not use many
words to tell.
And are the Protestant reformed churches free from flesh-
ly, worldly, wicked men ? From ignorant, malignant, cruel
enemies to truth, and piety, and peace ?
3. Our king's dominions are the best and happiest na-
tions on earth. Here is most knowledge of the truth, and
most proportionably that truly love it, and live in a holy obe-
dience thereto, and fain would live a quiet and peaceablelife
in all godliness, honesty, and sobriety. But alas ! they must
be contented with their own personal uprightness and re-
ward, and the peace of their consciences in God's accept-
ance. But with men there seemeth to be no hopes of com-
mon wisdom, piety, love, and peace.
We are all baptized with one baptism ; we all profess to
be the servants of one God, and the faithful followers of one
Christ, and to believe in one holy, sanctifying Spirit, and to
believe the same canonical Scriptures as the word of God,
indited by that Spirit ; and to be of one holy catholic church,
which is all the members of Christ on earth ; and to hold the
communion of saints. We mostly in England and Scotland
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 48S
agree in the Protestant reformed doctrine, and sacraments ;
our concord in profession is so great, that if some men had
not devised some oaths, professions, covenants, practices,
knacks, and engines of their own (which they dare not say-
God made) to become the matter of unavoidable dissent,
they could hardly have known how to pretend any difference
in religion among us, and hell would scarce have found any
cloak for malicious accusations, enmity and discord.
You shall scarce meet with a man that will not speak
well of love and peace, and say that we must love God above
all, and our neighbours as ourselves, and do as we would
have others do to us. And yet is there any enmity or disa-
greement ? Alas how great, and how incurable !
4. Who would think that knew us not by our profession,
but only by our actions, but that the three kingdoms con-
sisted of the most deadly enemies to each other? Of Turks
and Christians ; of wolves and sheep ; that I say not of de-
vils and men ? Yea, Turks and Christians can live together
in Hungary and all the eastern countries. Orthodox and
heretics can live together in Poland, Helvetia, Holland, &c.
But Protestants and Protestants cannot live together in Bri-
tain. Cities and corporations, countries and churches, if
not families also, are distracted in enmity and more than men-
tal feuds and war. Guelphs and Gibelines, party against
party, studying accusations against each other, as if they
were scholars daily exercised in the school of him that is the
accuser of the brethren. All their learning and wit is call-
ed up, and poured out, to render others as odious as they are
able. All their power, interest, friends, and diligence, are
used to ruin and destroy each other. No lies or perjury with
some seem unlawful to accomplish so desired an effect. In
all companies, the discourse and converse that should be to
edify each other in love, and comfort each other by the hopes
of dwelling together in heaven, is taken up with slanders,
backbitings, scorning, railing, and plotting the overthrow of
the best of their neighbours. Innocency never wants odi-
ous or scornful names. As if they were acting their part
that called Christ and his apostles, and the ancient Chris-
tians deceivers, blasphemers, enemies to Caesar, ringleaders
of sedition, that taught men to worship God contrary to the
law. Every drunkard and wicked liver can as easily make
his conscionable neighbour a rogue, or a traitor, or a schis-
484 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
matic, or a hypocrite, as he can open his mouth and speak.
And to justify all this malice is become a virtue ; hating
the most religious, is zeal for government and order ; de-
stroying Christ's members, is standing up for the church ;
hunting them as dogs do hares, or as hawks do the lesser
birds, is a meritorious vt^ork, of supererogation no doubt,
and will not finally lose its reward. God is served by hating
and scorning them that are serious in his service. It is re-
ligion to make religion odious, and call it hypocrisy, and to
be for that which is uppermost, and befriends their worldly
interest, and to make him suspected of disloyalty, who is
for obedience to God. Conscience, and fear of sinning, and
of damnation, is the mortal enemy to be conquered or driv-
en out of the land ; as if there were no quietness to be ex-
pected in men's minds, no concord in the church, no obe-
dience to the clergy, or the laws, no safety from sedition,
till conscience be silenced or banished, and men give over
fearing God ; or as if Christ and Csesar could not both reign,
but God or princes must be dethroned.
And O that the sacred tribe were innocent, and none of
them were the leaders in such hypocritical malignity ! Their
canons 'ipso facto' excommunicate all (not excepting
princes, parliaments, or judges) that do but say, that any of
their ceremonies, liturgy, or officers in church government
(not excepting the lowest, or laymen's power of the church
keys by decreeing excommunications and absolutions) are
repugnant to the word of God. And when they have ' ipso
facto' excommunicated them all, they call them separatists
for not coming to their communion. Think not the contra-
diction and hypocrisy incredible. Read but the fifth, sixth
and eighth canon, and judge. They have a law, and by their
law he is cut off from the church of Christ, that doth but
call any of these the inventions of prelates sinful, or to say,
that God forbids them. And the gaol must be his dwelling
till he die there, who in ten cases remaineth excommunicate
and doth not openly profess that he repenteth, and judgeth
that to be sinless, which he is utterly unable so to judge.
When we have preached seven and seven years, to persuade
a drunkard, a liar, and profane swearer, or an atheist to re-
pent, he liveth quietly out of the gaol though he repent not.
But if a man repent not (when he cannot) of judging that
God forbids such human inventions and impositions in reli-
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITV. 48t5
gion, take him jailor ; he that will not be for human offices,
ceremonies, and impositions, shall not be of our church.
And when we cast him out, we will say he separateth. And
if he be not of our church, he shall be in gaol ; as if the
church and the gaol would hold all the land, except his sin
be such a Peccadillo as Atheism, Sadduceeism, bestiality,
Hobbism, Popery, manslaughter, adultery, drunkenness,
swearing, &c., not aggravated by the crimes of breaking the
canons in point of conformity ; or if many thousands cannot
or will not come within the doors of the parish church, so
they will go to no unlicensed preacher, nor worship God in
house or church at all, they live quietly out of prison. But
if the mote of an oath or ceremony scrupled be in their eye,
that eye must be pulled out (if the mote cannot) or else the
whole body be cast into their hell. And if the preacher be
but a candidate of domination, his way is oft to call to the
magistrate to execute the law upon such as dare presume to
worship God openly, till they hold all such imposed oaths,
covenants, professions and practices to be lawful. He is to
make his auditory believe that such men are dangerous, in-
tolerable persons, and that their meeting to worship God and
learn their duty, is to cherish sedition, heresy, and schism,
and that rebellion is in their hearts ; and that the preachers
that even to a thing indifferent are not of their mind and obe-
dience, are deceivers, and factious, and it is no sacrilege,
but a duty to forbid them to preach the Gospel. If the peo-
ple dare not trust the parson, vicar, or curate of the parish
(be he what he will, whom a patron ohooseth for them)
with the pastoral ordinary conduct of their souls, or if he
preach not at all, if they go to the next parochial conformist
for the sacrament, he is to be driven home, and used as dis-
obedient.
Through the great mercy of God while the Bible is li-
censed, a preacher in England knoweth not how to spend
his hour, if he say not somewhat for faith and godliness, love
and peace. And when they come down, none are so hated
by some of them, as those that believe and do to their ut-
most what they for fashion sake persuaded them to believe
and do. Their neighbours who have not a word with the
priest of any thing but this world ; nor read a chapter, or
put up a prayer in their families, these are good and quiet
neighbours. But if any seriously prepare for their everlast-
486 CAIM AND ABF.L MALIGNITY.
ing state, and mind their salvation above the world ; espe-
cially if he pray without book, and dislike the ignorant and
scandalous lives of sorry priests, these are the dangerous
troublers of the land, away with them, and give us those that
trouble us not with the talk of God and of death, and heaven
or hell, of Scripture or of conscience, and thati^cruple no-
thing that we could have them say or do. If such pray, it
is but in hypocrisy ; if they go to hear any other preacher, it
is in faction. If they speak any words to God which are not
written down for them to read, they saucily prate to God,
and speak but nonsense. If they be earnest as knowing what
they pray for, they do but whine and cut faces, and speak
through the nose, or are a pack of groaning hypocrites. It
is confessed that the spirit of adoption and supplication is
God's gift ; and that this spirit taught the bishops and con-
vocation in what words to pray to God. But if the most
holy or learned besides them pretend to it, and think that
any may pray by the Spirit's help but the convocation, there
are reverend men that will deride that Spirit, or that prayer.
I would at least they would let men pray by reason and the
sense of their soul's necessities (as a child will beg pardon
of an offended father), if they will not give them leave to
pray by that Spirit (which all must live by that will be
saved).
Physicians use their patients with some humanity, and
will not say to him that saith, * My stomach cannot take
down this potion ; I shall cast it up,' You shall take it or die,
or go to prison. Or if one say, * This pill is bigger than my
throat can swallow,' they will rather say, it shall be made
less, than they will cut his throat wider to get it down. And
sure the reason is because the law doth make them physi-
cians to none but volunteers, and give them no compelling
power. If it did, I know not what inhumanity they might
come to. For I will not believe that there is any thing in
divinity which tendeth to make men more inhuman than phy-
sicians. I have seen Jews and others, that will eat no swine's
flesh ; and I have known many that a taste of cheese would
cast into a swoon near death ; and I never knew any say.
You shall eat this or die ; nor that ever motioned the making
of a law that all men should be imprisoned, or forbidden all
other meat, who refused to eat swine's flesh, for fear of to-
lerating Jews.
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 487
But we have priests too many, that will say, ' Take every
oath, promise, or ceremony required of you, or preach not,
nor worship God openly at all. Take me for your pastor,
or you shall have none. Hear me, or hear no man. Re-
ceive the communion from me, or from none. Deny not the
lawfulness of a ceremony, or be excommunicate.'
4. And is it now any wonder that the people say as they
are taught ? And these are lessons more easily learnt than
a catechism, or the creed, or the meaning of baptism. How
quickly can a man learn to call his neighbour Whig or Tory!
Or to hate a godly man, or in a tavern or alehouse to scorn
them, or drink and curse to their confusion, and to say, ' I
hope to see them all hanged or banished out of the land.
As a priest that knows not what divinity or the priestly of-
fice is, may before he taketh many degrees, attain the ability
learnedly to call his godly neighbours schismatics, or hypo-
crites, or worse ; so no doubt a few such sermons, if not a
tavern, can quickly teach them that never knew what reli-
gion is, yea, that can scarce speak sense, to revile the wisest
and best men, as if they were sinners against the true reli-
gion, if they will be serious in any true religion at all.
5. O sinful ! O miserable land ! who kindled all the hell-
ish flames of thy malignity and mad divisions ? And who
continueth them, and for what ? What cloven foot hath en-
tered, and expelled concord? What spirit ruleth thee?
Were it the Spirit of Christ, it would be for healing, love,
and concord ; it would set men on studying to promote love
to all, even unto enemies, but much more to the most holy.
It would make men zealous of good works, and if it were
possible as much as in them lieth, to live peaceably with all
men, to bless those that curse them, to pray for those that
hate and persecute them, forbearing and forgiving one ano-
ther, even as God for Christ's sake forgiveth us. It would
teach them while they have time to do good to all men, but
especially to them of the household of faith. Men's hearts
would be constituted of love. It would become a nature in
them. Their speech and converse would be the savoury
breath of love. Their dealings towards all men would be the
works of love. Their sharpest reproofs would be but to do
the sinner good.
But alas, another spirit hath possessed thee, which rageth
and teareth thee ; and is blind and deaf. It calleth for fire
4B6 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
fr6m heaven, and it kindleth a fire of hell. And sure his
name is Legion, for there are many. It passeth under the
names of Wisdom, and Hatred of some evil. But it must
needs be earthly, sensual, and devilish, for it is neither pure
nor peaceable, gentle, or merciful and impartial, but foam-
eth with bitter envy and strife, unto confusion and every evil
work. And yet thou knowest not what manner of spirit
thou art of.
Is it God that setteth rulers and people against each
other? Doth he divide his own kingdom against itself,
when he tells that the devil will not do so by his ? Is it
God that sets the parts of the same body in a hatred and
war against each other ; as if it were the interest of the no-
bler and the servile parts to weaken or destroy each other?
And it were an addition to the health and welfare of the one,
which is gotten from conquest from the other? Is it God
that maketh people despise or dishonour their lawful gover-
nors, or any rulers to hate the best subjects, and desire more
to be feared than to be loved, and rather to have power to
do hurt, than actually to do good ? Is it God that sets
corporations, and churches, and neighbours, and families,
in a state of malice, vexation, strife, and a kind of war against
each other? Doth the Spirit of God indite the malicious
pamphlets, which exercise the utmost of wit and hatred, to
destroy love, and to call the nation into the devil's camp,
by mutual hatred to live as enemies, and fight against the
Lord and the ways of peace ? And if any endeavour a re-
conciling healing of our wounds, it is turned into scorn, and
his healing motions are represented as the grand causes of
division ; and to beg for peace is heinous schism, and next
rebellion against the church, and a crime sufficient to for-
feit that man's peace and reputation : and he that tells men
of the only possible terms of concord, is made the chiefest
cause of discord. To serve and worship God no otherwise
than Peter and I^aul did, and than God prescribeth, is
enough to render us unworthy to live on English earth ; and
if England may not suffer such, why should any other na-
tion suffer them? There are men that keep holy days for St.
Peter, and St. Paul, and dedicate churches to them, and
their bellies are maintained at divers rates, and their wealth,
and revenues, and grandeur help up, by that which is dedi-
cated to these churches, and to alienate any of this super-
CAII^ AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 469
fluity from their flesh were worse sacrilege than to cast oiit
and silence a thousand faithful preachers ; and yet if St.
Paul were a preacher now in France, Spain, Italy or Eng-
land, and would worship God but as he did when he was on
earth, and would not swear, say and do as much more as the
bishop's canons bid him, I think we should again hear those
words. Acts xxii. 22., " Away with such a fellow from the
earth, for it is not fit that he should live" (here) ; unless he
wrought miracles to convince men ; and whether those would
prevail is a doubtful case ; or whether he would not pass for
a deceiver and fanatic.
6. As in times of war, all broken, beggarly and idle fel-
lows, turn soldiers, as the easiest trade to live by, are never
after good for any other trade, but to kill and rob men ; so
the love-killing regiments, have forsaken other trades, and
this is like to put down all. Booksellers complain that they
can sell few books but news, and scorning and invective li-
bels. And what is the subject of our (formerly weekly and
now daily) news-books? Why, they tell us that such a city
or corporation are all together by the ears as enemies, some
choosing one mayor and some another ; some called Whigs,
and others Tories; some seeking the ruin and blood of others,
and some hardly escaping the power of false witnesses and
oaths ! One jury acquitting a man whose life is sought,
and another condemning him. In such a town or city so
many fined, and so many distrained on, and so many crowd-
ed into jails, and such and such preachers cast into prison,
and such an one dead there, for praying to God, and open-
ly worshipping him without book, or by no book but his
own. In such and such a country the people prosecuting
each other on such accounts, and some flying into other
parts, and some into America to seek that peace among
savages, and wolves, and serpents, in wildernesses, which
they could not have under sacred Protestant prelates
and their clergy. In France the poor Protestants hunt-
ed like hares, neither suffered to live at home, nor to
fly naked to beg their bread in other lands ; and all this for
the concord and peace of the holy Catholic church ; a pat-
tern so worthy of imitation, that even such excellent men as
Grotius think, that it is all hazards, labour and cost, to re-
duce England and the Lutherans to the French church con-
sistence, and to silence and ruin all as Calvinists that are
4P0 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
against it. From Hungary we must read, how the persecu-
ted Protestants, after their utmost suffering and patience,
are fain to call in Turks to save them from the cruelties of
Christians. And that those parts that are under the Turks
have far more prosperity and freedom in religion, than those
that are under the Emperor and Papists.
And Protestants under them are kept in continual fear,
as knowing that it is their law and doctrine, that princes are
bound to do their best to exterminate or destroy them, on
pain of excommunication, deposition and damnation : and
remembering the inquisitions, the Piedmont, French, Dutch,
Irish, &c. massacres : so that they are brought to this hard
dilemma, choose whether you will be dead men, or be pro-
claimed rebels. If whole countries will not lie down and die
patiently without self-defence, they are odious rebels.
These, and such other are the subjects of our news-books,
which have broken the poor booksellers, who were wont to
live by selling books of learning, and of practical divinity.
And too many preachers are fain to be short as well as for-
mal in their sermons for Christian love, because they spend
so much time in preaching up hatred and destruction. Wpre
there but an art that could devise any engine that could
reach the heart, and turn it into the hatred of those that
never did them wrong, (as they say some philters and charms
will make men mad with love ;) or if any apothecary had an
effectual medicine against brotherly love, I doubt these
would become the most accustomed shops and prosperous
trades in all the city : but for want of such, some pulpits,
printers, booksellers, clubs, drinking-houses, and play-
houses, (to pass by fouler) must serve the turn. But if God
have not mercy on the land by restraining them, gunpowder-
makers, gunsmiths, swordsellSrs, soldiers, swearers and ex-
ecutioners, will swallow up most other trades in the land.
It is worth inquiry whether in foresight of this, they set not
their sons to such trades as these, or apprentices to such
lawyers as are best at preparative accusations, and have
learned Tertullus's art ; or to such schools and tutors as can
teach them the learning of Zedekiah, and the four hundred
prophets ; 1 Kings xxii.
7. And all this is the more inexcusable and lamentable,
because they came but lately out of the fire, which this same
malignant spirit kindled ; the very same causes cast the
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 491
three kingdoms into dreadful flames and blood. The histo-
ries of the bloody murder of many hundred thousands called
Albigenses, Waldenses and Bohemians, in Piedmont, Ger-
many and elsewhere, and of the Netherlands' cruelties, the
Spanish inquisitions and invasion, the murder of thirty or
forty thousand at once in France, and of two of their kings,
the powder-plot here, as well as the bonfires in Queen Ma-
ry's days, and much more their councils and doctors defend-
ing and commanding such usage of Protestants, did set all
our parliaments one after another into a vehement unwilling-
ness to be so used, and to fall into their hands that will do
it if they can : and when the evil spirit hath raised cross in-
terests and distrusts between king and parliament, the Pa-
pists seeming to be for the war and king, and suddenly mur-
dering in Ireland no fewer than two hundred thousand, and
pretending the king's commission, and threatening the like
in England, frightened people into the army, after raised by
the parliament. And though I think all that war in Eng-
land killed not the fourth part so many as the Papists had
murdered in Ireland ; yet so dismal and odious was it, and
had so direful an end, as loudly told us how bad the causes
and beginnings were. Few parts of the land were free from
spoil, plunder and poverty ; yea, or from terrible sieges and
fields of blood : Englishmen labouring to destroy each
other, and some hiring foreigners to help them : and lads
running from their parents to be as apprentices to the man-
killing trade. Counties were against counties, cities against
cities, neighbours against neighbours, single persons flying
from men as from bears and tigers, as after in the plague-
time, afraid of almost all they met : and at last the very ar-
mies falling out among themselves ; the first raised for the
parliament, were mastered by a second party, that brought
in (as auxiliaries) a new imposition ; and that party after
mastered and cast down by a third that brought in a new
cause ; and that prevailing, pulling down their masters, an
usurper odiously destroying the king, and setting up himself
with another title, and subduing and ruining those that were
against it, even both the parties that began the war ; and yet
when he was dead, to shew the world what divisions can do,
that same victorious, rebellious army, fell all into pieces by
its own discord, and was totally dissolved as by a miracle,
without one drop of blood that ever I could hear of, and
4,92 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
the victorious leaders many of them hanged, drawn and
quartered, and their heads and quarters hanged up on the
city gates.
And would not one think that a nation of men in their
wits, should after so long and sad experience of the mis-
chiefs of hatred and division, be willing of the reviving of
love and concord, and hate all motions of dividing any more?
But alas, they hate them that would heal our wounds ; and
if any one lay on a healing plaster, there are hands too
many, both lay and clergy, ready with rage to pull it off,
and yet it is all on pretence of healing us, that they will not
suffer us to be healed ; for the way of peace they have not
known. Unhappy surgeons that know no balsam but cor-
rosives and distilled vinegar, yea, no way of healing but by
dismembering, even the most useful members of the body.
Having learned of the Romish leeches that live on blood,
when they are for exhausting the vital stock, and cast the
kingdom into a palsy or marasmus, they tell you it was all
but corrupt or hsemorrhoidal blood, and the loss of it neces-
sary to cure the madness of the land.
The beginning of some reconciliation between the first
contending parties, began to flatter us with the hopes of re-
stored love and quietness : secret consultations prepared the
way : lords, knights and gentlemen, print their protestations
for oblivion and reconciliation, and against revenge. Here-
upon those that by land and sea, in the three kingdoms had
fought against the king, restore him : the land rejoiceth in
the smiling hopes of reviving charity and concord. The
king chiefly causeth these hopes by his declarations and act
of oblivion, and especially his healing gracious declaration
about ecclesiastical affairs. The house of commons and the
city ministers give him thanks for it : who would have
thought now but such experience, such protestations, such
obligations, such authorities, should have put the whole
kingdom into a longing desire to perfect the work of love
and peace ? But it proved clean contrary : some had other
things in their heads and hearts ; outlandish fashions, espe-
cially French, have long been the badge of English folly !
There are men in Spain that trade mu«h in the fire, and
Queen Mary brought the trade into England : there are men
in many other foreign lands, who are so devout, that their
canons and religion rule their appetites ; and they love no
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 493
meat like a carbonadoed Protestant, nor are pleased with
any perfume or incense so much as with the smell of a roast-
ed saint, first called a heretic or schismatic : like the Roman
tyrant that gloried in the sweetness of the smell when he
smelt the stink of the carcases which he had laid to dung
the field. And there were men abroad that learned these
fashions, and contracted such a familiarity and love to fo-
reigners, as that for obtaining union with them, all the divi-
sions, distractions and calamities of England and Scotland,
are not thought too dear a sacrifice : and as some sons of
Nonconformists must be doubly virulent to expiate the guilt
of their original sin; so some Englishmen must, like Sam-
son and David, bring double testimony of their real enmity
to the Philistines, from their skins, before they can be trust-
ed abroad as real reconcilers : and they say that there are
some things that will be closely united, by no cement so
well as by human blood. Doubtless the Gospel as used in
English, and preached by true Protestants, (such as the
pseudo-bellamy in Philanax Anglicus hatefully calleth Pro-
testants off sincerity,) goeth not with many beyond sea, for
the same Gospel which they believe. And therefore no
wonder if the preachers of it be unpleasing to them ; and he
that will please them, and unite with them, must silence or
oppose those that they would have to be silenced or dis-
graced. And some think that union with many kingdoms
of Christians, which call themselves the Catholic church, is
much to be preferred before the love and concord of abated
party in our island. And as Dr. Saywell (the master of a
college, and bishop Gunning's chaplain) saith (to prove that
there is a universal and legislative power in the clergy, over
kingdoms as well as persons,) " If more persons or particu-
lar churches give offence by heresy, schism. See. the Church
Universal, or the rest of the bishops may reprove them
for it, and then there is no reason why one man should be
censured and many should go free, and consequently our
Saviour hath established the authority of his church over all
Christians, as well particular churches as private men :
churches of kingdoms and nations have a Sovereignty
over them to which they must yield obedience. " The na-
tion and kingdom that will not serve thee, shall perish : yea,
those nations shall be utterly wasted ;" Isa. Ix. 12. p. 343.
Though kings have no civil universal sovereign over
494 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
them but Christ, yet it seems all the world, both kings
and kingdoms, have an ecclesiastical sovereignty over them
all. Communion of equals and Christian counsel and re-
proof is not enough, such as all neighbour princes may use
towards one another j nor the denial of such communion
to the uncapabJe : but all kings and kingdoms must be un-
der church sovereignty, which hath a legislative and judi-
cial power over them all, to excommunicate, absolve them,
&c. And how much more ' in ordine ad spiritualia', the
common exposition of ecclesiastical power, tells you : as
experience long told many kingdoms what the excommuni-
cating of a king, and the interdicting a kingdom the worship
of God, do signify towards their dethroning or invasion.
And all this must be done, not as for the pope, but un-
der the name of a general council, and the poor pope shall
have no power, but, say some, to call that council, and call
it general when there is no such thing, and preside in it,
and rule us as chief patriarch and St. Peter's successor, in
the intervals of general councils, (that is, continually) and
that not arbitrarily, but by the laws of the church or coun-
cils, (and no mortal man can tell which those authorized le-
gislative councils are, among the hundreds of erroneous or
contradicting ones.) So that Popery in England is an ab-
horred thing ; for it is nothing with some but the pope's ab-
solute government of the whole church, as without or above
laws and ecclesiastical parliaments.
And can you reconcile all this to our oath of supremacy,
and the canons that establish it, renouncing all foreign juris-
diction ? Yea, easily, we have been told it meaneth only
foreign civil jurisdiction which belongs to the king, and not
foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, (which is all that the so-
ber popes do claim, save indirectly ' in ordine ad spiritualia').
To command a nation on pain of excommunication and dam-
nation (according to divers councils), to renounce their alle-
giance to their excommunicate prince, and to depose him,
and set up another, is no act of civil, but of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, which yet hath dethroned emperors and over-
thrown dominions.
And saith archbishop Laud, in Dr. Stillingfleet's defence
of him, p. 540. "It doth not follow, because the church
may err, therefore she may not govern. For the church hath
only a paatoral power, to teach and direct, but a pretorian
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 495
also, to control and censure, &c. And for external obedi-
ence to general councils when they err, " Consider whether
it be not fit to allow a general council that honour and pri-
vilege which all other great courts have;" Stillingfleet,
page 534.
So that instead of a counsel of equals for concord (as
princes use for peace with their neighbours,) we have an
universal sovereign court set up with pretorian power, to
make binding laws, and pass judgment to all the Christian
world, and (say some) they are schismatics that obey not
these universal laws ; and obedience to them, and suppres-
sing all forbidden assemblies for God's worship is the only
way to Christian concord.
And where this foreign jurisdiction is made of such abso-
lute necessity, that without subjection to it by kings and
kingdoms, there is no concord to be had, nor any avoiding
of the guilt of schism, what wonder if some can wish that
silencings, reproaches, ruins, and confusions may be thought
no dear price to obtain an universal union ; for which Christ
and his law are sufficient. They that have read Grotius,
Cassander, Baldwin, HofFmeister, Erasmus, Archbishop
Laud, Dr. Heylin of his life. Bishop Sparrow, Archbishop
Bromhal, and the Prefacer Bishop Parker, Thorndike,
Bishop Gunning and his chaplain Dr. Saywell, and such
others, and against them all have read Dr. Isaac Barrow of
the supremacy against Thorndike, &c. may understand where
our ditference and danger lieth.
' And is England's self-destroying disease uncurable !
God hath in wonderful mercy given us peace from foreign
enemies : and is there no hope of prevailing with English-
men to live together in peace t Must that of Isa. xlix. 36.
be our case, to eat our own flesh, and be drunk with our own
blood as with sweet wine ? Alas, no counsel no petitions,
no tears, no experience, no judgments of God by plagues
and flames have hitherto one jot prevailed ; but the ulcer of
men's minds grows more and more putrid and malignant !
Two ways are by some proposed : first that all the con-
scientious worshippers of God in the kingdom, should bring
their judgments to a full conformity, in every particular to
their rulers ; when as first they cannot tell us who these must
be : some say to the king or law ; some say to the bishops
in a national convocation ; others say, to the aforesaid fo-
49() CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
reign universal sovereignty of general councils, (with the
patriarchs). If the first be the way, what kingdoms must it
be in ? Is it no where but in Britain ? Or also in France,
Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland? And must there be as
many religions as kings and laws will make ? And how far
must this go? And where must we stop? Must kings
choose us a God ? Or choose whether we shall have any
God, any Christ, any Bible, any worship of God, and so any
heaven ?
If it be the bishops that must be the common rule of our
religion, what countries and ages doth this rule serve for ?
Was it the rule where princes and prelates were Arians, or
Nestorians, or Eutychians, or Monothelites, or Papists ? Is
it the rule now in France, Spain, Italy, &c. Or was it so in
the Pope's Catholic church from Anno 700 till the Refor-
mation ?
If it be general councils, I am weary of repeating the
proofs that there never was one, nor ever is like to be one,
or ought to be. If it be an European council, who shall call
them, and who shall judge whether it be equal, and so far ge-
neral ? And are not the greater nmnber of European coun-
cils, who shall call them, and who shall judge whether it be
equal, and so far general ? And are not the greater number
of European bishops known Papists ? And will they not then
be the major vote? And so we must be as bad as they?
And if the rest of the Christian world be not bound by them
(in Greece, Ethiopia, Armenia, Syria, &c.), why are we ? Is
it the council of Arminum, Sirmium, Milan, &c. ; or of
Ephesus 2, Nice 2d., many at Constantinople, at the Late-
ran, at Lyons, at Florence, at Constance, at Basil, at Trent,
that are our rule? Must all that will be Catholics and saved,
hold all the heresies, contradictions, and corruptions that
councils have held, and obey all their load of canons? If
the Italians, French, English, &c. are all disagreed, how
many and which councils we must obey, can all poor people
know which is the right? And hath Christ left religion so
uncertain a thing ? Or so mutable that general councils of
prelates may be still increasing it ? If he was the maker of
it, by himself and his apostles, we may know more certainly
where to find it : most Christians may say, * Christ we know,
and Peter and Paul, &c. we know ; but your councils are
too many, too voluminous, too uncertain for us to know/
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 497
But if they are such an absolutely necessary rule as you pre-
tend, why do not teachers preach them to us daily as they
do the sacred Scriptures ?
If any would come down to confine these universal laws
only to things indifferent, alas, must the world be confounded
and divided about things indifferent ? Are not things in-
different variable as countries and ages are ? And must the
world have one sovereignty to make laws for them ? Cannot
we have life, liberty, peace and love, without things indiffe-
rent ? or without agreeing in them? Are there any two
in the whole world that are not ignorant, and that differ not
about many greater matters than things indifferent ? Doth
he know himself, or know what a man is, that thinks all to-
lerated Christians must be so skilled in all things indifferent,
which men may impose, as to know them to be such ; when
it is so hard to teach the people things necessary, few and
plain? Alas, Lord! why must the churches be left in such
hands?
9. But some have found out another remedy for our divi-
sions ; and that is, that only the bishops shall be engaged
to a foreign jurisdiction, or profess the necessity of obeying
them, (under the name of a general council, and in the inter-^
vals, of a college of the bishops of the whole world, as one
aristocracy ;) and that this shall not be imposed on any lay-
communicants, but their consciences shall be left at liberty ;
nor at the first on the inferior clergy, till they are prepared
to receive it; but only that the people obey the priests and
prelates, and the priests obey the prelates and all their go-
verning officers, and the prelates only profess obedience to
the pretorian court, called The Catholic Church. Bishop
Gunning's chaplain tells us that the laity are not required in
order to communion to declare for general councils. Whether
they use the like moderation in France, Spain, Germany, I
know not, viz. For the bishops only to profess obedience to
the pope, and the priests to the bishops, and the people to
the priests and bishops. I hear they go further.
And if conventicles (as they will call them) are also sup-
pressed, we need not fear religious violence, murder and
ruin (upon a feared Roman successor). For, saith the same
bishop's chaplain, p. 283. * For matters may be so ordered,
that all officers, ecclesiastical, civil and military, and all that
VOL. X. K K
498 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
are employed in power or authority of any kind, be persons
both of known loyalty to the crown, and yet faithful sons of
the church, and firm to the established religion, and the laws
that they act by may be so explained in the favour of those
that conform to the public worship, and the discouragement
of all dissenters, that we must reasonably be secure from all
violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission :
for when all our bishops and clergy are under strict obliga-
tions and oaths, and the people are guided by them ; and all
officers civil and military are firm to the same interest, and
under severe penalties if they act any thin^ to the contrary :
then what probable danger can there be of any violence or
disturbance to force us out of our religion, when all things
are thus secured, and the power of external execution is ge-
nerally in the hands of men of our own persuasion/
Answ, The Dr. says well ; I am of his mind in this. When
they have subdued and cast out all dissenters (as they do in
France), and the bishops and clergy are settled under a fo-
reign church-jurisdiction, and the people settled in obedience
to them, and all offices, civil, military and ecclesiastic in
their hands, I do not think they need to fear that the Papists
will use violence to change their religion, whoever reigneth.
But the question is, whether this supposes an union with
all in England that are now against a foreign jurisdiction,
or only the destruction of them, or else the forcing them to
these terms ? As to a destruction of them, or forcing them
to such terms, surely violence must do this. And what
though the subjects of foreign power fear no violence, are
all the rest (that is, the Protestants) of the kingdom incon-
siderable ? We suppose the old church of England, and all
our parliaments since the Reformation, were against a fo-
reign jurisdiction : and will it be no loss to England to des-
troy so many, that is, the body of the land ?
But the question is, whether they may not be thus
brought to concord by consent? I answer, no ; unless you
suppose them to be men that indeed have no religion, and
therefore can easily part with the bare name. For they are
sworn by the oath of supremacy against all foreign jurisdic-
tion : and put the case that the pope and a council, or the
kmg of France would bring the emperor's or the king's ar-
my to serve him, and be at his command, and he would only
desire that the general officers and colonels may be engaged
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 499
to obey him, and the captains and lower officers to obey them,
and the soldiers to obey the officers ; but the common sol-
diers shall be bound to no more, than this obedience to their
officers. Query, Whether all these soldiers be not traitors
to the king or emperor? Cromwell's common soldiers took
no commissions against king or parliament ; they did but
obey their officers that pulled down both. And were they
therefore guiltless? Protestants will not thus follow such
prelates against their oaths, and against the known truth,
and against their duty to God and the king.
10. But though it be notorious that domination and juris-
diction be the things which cause the Papal clergy to trouble
and tear the Christian world, what is it that makes the laity
so mad, and getteth this clergy such a militant crowd against
their own tranquillity and salvation ? It is as visible as any
moral thing, that the church's divisions, and wars, and mi-
series have about a thousand years risen, from satan's thrust-
ing such worldly, fleshly, unholy men into holy offices, who
seek them but to serve their pride and covetousness, and
fleshly appetites, and ease, and who are enemies at the heart
to the serious obedience to Christ, which formally they
preach. Christ's own apostles in their time of ignorance,
began to strive which of them should be greatest ; of which
we have recorded his sharp rebuke ; which St. Peter him-
self did after second, in 1 Pet. v. 1 — 3. in words so plain,
that if his pretended successors had not fir^ claimed a power
(as the church) to be the determining expounders of all the
Bible, they had lain under the condemnation of Christ and
Peter, naked, without a defence or cloak : but this church-
expounding authority sets them above all the word of God,
which is now but what they please to make it, and an instru-
ment to execute their wills. And indeed it is now rather the
pope and his prelates and councils than Christ, that are the
law makers to the church ; for it is not he that maketh the
words only that makes the law, but he that giveth them
their sense. The words are but as the body, and the sense
is the soul of the law. The ministerial church now scorn
the name of ministers, and being become pretorian and ma-
gisterial, they give Christ and his Spirit in the apostles leave
to make the words and body of the Scripture or divine law,
as God formed Adam's body of the dust, so that they may
give it the breath of life, and also may make far more volu-
500 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
rainous laws of their own, and cut off and condemn all the
children of God, that cannot believe that it is lawful to obey
them.
And though the ignorant think that the claim of univer-
sal legislation and judgment, in the universal church and
general councils, be no service to the domination of particu-
lar clergymen, no, nor to any, (seeing there never will be a
general council,) they understand not the mystery of iniqui-
ty, and mistake. We have English writers that have told
them, 1. That indeed power is first given to the body, (fine
doctrine for royalists,) but by the body it is given to the pre-
lates to use for them. 2. That as a general council hath
the supreme power, so the prelates under them have the in-
ferior ruling power, and the executive in the intervals of coun-
cils. 3. That as councils represent the church in sovereign-
ty, so every bishop is by his office, the true representative
of the clergy of his diocese, and every metropolitan the re-
presentative of his province, and every patriarch of his pa-
triarchate ; and then are not the patriarchs (at least with the
metropolitans,) universal rulers in such intervals ? 4. And
the pope is the patriarch of the West, and hath a primacy in
the church universal, and must be confest to be * principium
unitas catholicsB,' and say some, to be the president of coun-
cils. 5. To which others add, that it belongs only to the
president to call councils, and to judge which are lawful,
without whose call they are so far from binding us, that they
are themselves but unlawful routs. And what would you
have more ?
But what is all this to the poor priests ? What? Why
6. The people know not what the volumes of councils say,
and it is the priests (or nobody) that must tell it them, (both
what their exposition of Scripture is, and what their ownad-
tional laws are,) without which they cannot be obeyed. So
that indeed the people's faith is ultimately resolved into the
authority of the priest, who tells them what the bishop saith,
who tells them what the metropolitan and his synod saith,
who tells them what the chief patriarch and a general coun-
cil saith, who tell them determinatively what Christ and the
Scripture saith and meaneth.
But what is this to councils when there are none ? Yes,
7., Those that are past and gone, have left all those binding
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 501
laws by which the present bishops as an aristocracy must
govern all the Christian world.
But are not they for monarchy in the state ? How come
they then to plead for a sovereign aristocracy over the ca-
tholic church, and how come even the French clergy to be
for the power of a church parliament above the pope ? 1
cannot answer that; let the pope and they debate it.
But I wonder that archbishop Laud should be for the
derivation of all power from the body, as Richard Hooker is.
See Dr. Stillingfleet's Defence of him, p. 544, 545, &c. " No
body collective, whensoever it assembled itself, did ever give
more power to the representing body of it, than a binding
power upon itself and all particulars ; nor ever did it give
this power, otherwise than with this reservation in nature,
that it would call again and reform, and if need were, abro-
gate any law or ordinances upon just cause made evident,
that the representing body had failed in trust or truth. And
this power no body collective, ecclesiastical or civil, can put
out of itself, or give away to a parliament or council, or call
it what you will, that represents it. The power which a
council hath to order, settle and define differences arising
concerning faith, it hath not by any immediate institution
of Christ, but it was prudently taken up by the church from
the apostles' example."
I confess that the generality of politicians and lawyers,
heathens. Papists, and Protestants go much this way, as to
civil government, and say that the * majestas personalis' is in
the king or senate, but the * majestas realis' in the body
which giveth the organical power, and on just cause may
take it away. It is no honour to be singular in politics, and
I have said enough of this elsewhere, (Christ. Direct, p. I.)
But if it be the body of the whole church on earth that must
give church officers and councils their power, and recal it
when there is cause, if ever the whole Christian world meet
together to vote it, when it cometh to polling, we will give
both the monarchical and the aristocratical conciliary Pa-
pists three for one, to try who hath the power given by the
body. But while two or three parts do already disown al-
most all their councils, the case is decided. But if an old
council's heresies, errors, or tyranny can be invalidated only
by a new one that i& truly general, or a new one as papal a^^
502 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
the last, we confess that Trent canons are like to be the law
to the end of the world.
But again, what is it that maketh so many of the laity
serve the popish prelate's universal claim, or keep up the
destructive enmity and divisions of the Christian world ?
A stranger would think that it were chiefly caused by some
great contrariety of real interests, or that one party adhered
to some principles or practices, which were already hurtful
to the other's rights ; while both were serious for Christian-
ity. But it is become by long experience notorious, that all
the Christian world's calamitous divisions are principally
from the old enmity between the woman's and the serpent's
seed, and that all is but the prosecution of that which their
first patriarch Cain began ; exemplified after in the discri-
mination of the children of men, and the sons of God, and
in Esau and Jacob, Ishmael and Isaac, and so down to the
days of the apostles. And saith Paul, as he that was born
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spi-
rit, even so it is now." Among us it is notorious, that if we
knew how to cure men of the radical enmity of the flesh
against the Spirit, and of a carnal mind's averseness to God
and serious godliness, the rest of our differences were never
like to continue our wounds and cruel factions.
In families you may hear that this is the fundamental
difference. Husband and wife, parents and children, mas-
ters and servants, upon the mere account of serious godli-
ness, do live like enemies, that are impatient of each other.
If the husband be ungodly, the wife, children, or servants,
that have but a care of their salvation, are still under his res-
traints, or frowns, or scorns. This praying, (especially if it
be without book,) so much preaching and hearing, yea, any
serious talk of God, or heaven, or Scripture, is a trouble-
some weariness to him; and he tells them it is but hypocri-
sy, or more ado than needs. If any compassionately tell
him of the evil of his swearing, or tippling, or profaneness,
he tells them they are precise Puritans or fanatics, and worse
than he. If they will needs hear sermons, he will have them
go but to some cold or ignorant preacher, or one that will
please him with a calumny or scorn at Puritans, or that will
say as he doth, that this stir for salvation, and meddling so
much with Scripture and religion, is but proud, self-conceit-
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 503
fanaticism. In a word, it is serious preaching, and liearing,
and reading God's word ; serious praying, and preparation
for the sacrament ; serious discourse of the state of their
souls, and preparation for death, judgment, and eternity ; se-
rious fearing and avoiding sin, and speaking against the sin
of others, that is the common eyesore and troubler of the
world, which they secretly hate, and cannot bear with in
their families, in their neighbours, in magistrates, in minis-
ters or people.
And because it easeth their minds by vent, and by keep-
ing up some hopes that they may be saved without this se-
rious godliness themselves, they cherish a conceit that the
persons that herein differ from them are as bad, if not much
worse than others ; and gladly hear those that slander and
deride them. Such company, such pamphlets, such ser-
mons please them. And to make them odious, they have
for them some contemptuous scornful nickname ; which,
though it be of no signification, is as effectual as the truest
charge. Among the Roman sects, do but call a man a here-
tic or schismatic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Zuinglian ; and
elsewhere do but call him a sectary, a schismatic, a Puritan,
a Calvinist, a Nonconformist, an Independent, a Presbyte-
rian, a Roundhead, a Fanatic, a Whig, and it serveth the
turn as well as if you had proved him a proud hypocrite, or
a rebel. And there be among the real schismatics also some
persons, that if you do but call a man Episcopal, a Conform-
ist, an Arminian, a Church-of-England-man,that goeth to the
common-prayer, they think that he must needs be a tempo-
rizer, graceless or dangerously unsound.
And thus the miseries of the land are continued and in-
creased. But because the spirit of Cain is the grand incen-
diary, and the enmity against serious holiness throughout
all the world, is the principal cause of divisions, hatred, wars
and bloodshed, I will here annex many reasons which, with
men that have any reason left them, should cure this malig-
nant enmity to holiness, if men will but soberly consider
them.
I have said so much to such already, especially in my
" Saints' Rest," " Now or Neyer," my " Family Book," and
" A Saint or a Brute," that I cannot do this work again with-
out repeating much that is said. But seeing all that doth
not serve, ajid the ulcer breaketh out more dangerously than
504 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
ever, till it come to a ' noli me tangere,* we must continue
some hope and use of means ; and if we lay on fresh plaisters
of the old materials, while only new books are by such re-
garded, we are bound to do our best. It is but so much la-
bour lost; and it is not utterly lost to ourselves, while we
have peace of conscience in God's acceptance.
But being sure to be misreported when I have done my
best to be understood, that I be not guilty of it, I will first
shew what I mean by serious godliness, and next what I
mean by malignity or enmity to serious godliness.
CHAPTER II.
Whom I mean hy Godly Persons, and whom by Malignant
Enemies to Godliness.
By Godliness I do not mean, 1. Any superstition, or
making religions, or religious duties which God never made,
and extolling these, and the party that are for them. God
hath made us religious work enough. Could we do that
well, we need no more. Religion, so far as it is made by
men, is no religion, but a contradiction or equivocation ; for
religion is our obligation and duty to God, and conscience
of it. Could I be for superstition, or more religion than God
hath made us, I might be for all the new religions of Rome,
Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, Jesuits, Oratorians,
and all the rest. And I might be for their works of supere-
rogation, their massings, worshipping bread, angels, dead
saints, images, their pilgrimages, relics, and all their pre-
tended traditions and councils, their new-made church* laws,
and I should know no end.
And 2. By godliness I mean not any singular, odd opi-
nion differing from the Scripture, and making a sect, or any
error whatsoever ; nor any opinion which is contrary to any
thing which the whole church on earth did ever hold as ne
cessary to salvation or communion.
Nor 3. Do I mean any truth or duty of inferior mo-
ment, which only makes to the wellbeing of a Christian,
though this be an inferior part of godliness ; jit least not
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 505
that which a godly, willing person knows not to be his
duty.
Much less, 4. Do I mean any proud, false conceit of
a man's own godliness, and becoming one of an unwarrant-
able sect, that he may be conspicuous to others, or cherish
this presumption in himself, and say to others, '* Stand by, 1
am holier than thou." Or as the Pharisee, " I thank
thee Lord, that I am not as this publican." (Though yet
all that will be saved must differ greatly from the ungodly,
and must with thankfulness own God's grace.)
Nor 5. Do I mean any unlawful practice, which on
the pretence of godliness may be done, whether unjust cen-
sures, backbiting, unwarrantable separations from others,
divisions, disobedience to authority, sedition, rebellion, &c.
These are all contrary to godliness and true religion. Christ
is the strictest condemner of them, and godliness the best
cure. If any godly or religious person be guilty of any one
of these, 1. It cannot be as known and in a predominant de-
gree. 2. And it is his disease (as a leprosy to a man) and
not his godliness.
But by godliness I mean only the serious consent to
and performance of the covenant which we made with God
in our baptism. That we seriously believe that there is one
only God, of most perfect power, knowledge, and goodness,
our Creator, Maintainer, Governor, and end, whom we must
obey, and serve, and love, above all creatures whatsoever ;
and that he is the " Rewarder of them that diligently seek
him," and will give everlasting blessedness to the faithful,
and everlastingly punish the ungodly. That we seriously
believe that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour, who
teacheth, ruleth, pardoneth, sanctifieth, and saveth all true
penitent believers ; who is our Intercessor, Head, and Judge.
That we seriously believe that the Holy Ghost indited and
sealed by his gifts and miracles the doctrine and writings of
the prophets and apostles, now recorded in the Scriptures,
and that he is sent from the Father and the Son to regene-
rate, sanctify, comfort, and strengthen those that shall be
saved.
And that we seriously consent to love and obey God our
Father, Saviour, and Sanctifier, as his creatures, subjects,
and children in these relations, that we may be pardoned and
saved by him. And that we be willing to forsake the devil
506 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
and his works, and the world and flesh, so far as they would
tempt us to break this covenant against God, and our obe-
dience and salvation.
And lastly. That we seriously or sincerely (though not
perfectly) endeavour in our lives to keep his covenant prefer-
ring God in our love and obedience, and our hopes of life
everlasting, before all the pleasures and treasures of this
world, and resisting the temptations of the devil, world, and
flesh, which would turn us from him, and from our obedience
and hope. And that we truly (though not perfectly) trust
God and our Redeemer for the heavenly glory which he hath
promised.
This is plainly, distinctly, and fully what I mean by god-
liness or holiness. And such are the persons (though all
imperfect, and of divers degrees) which I call saints or god-
ly. He that feigneth me to mean any thing else, doth but
abuse himself and me. If there be none such, there are no
Christians, and all the word of God is vain.
But every duty commanded by God is a part of the mat-
ter of our obedience and religion ; viz. As according to the
first commandment to take God for our God, to be absolute-
ly obeyed, loved, and trusted, and to renounce all idols, and
neither to obey love, or trust ourselves or any other crea-
tures before him ; so also according to the second command-
ment, to renounce all scandalous symbolizing with idolaters,
in the outward worship of God in their sinful way ; especi-
ally by images, and other appearances of idolatry. And that
we worship God according to his word.
And ac(iordingto the third commandment, that we avoid
all profanation of holy things ; all perjury, false vows, and
fathering falsehoods upon God or his words, and rash swear-
ing, and irreverent using of God's name, and turning his
worship into a lifeless form.
And according to the fourth commandment, that we wor-
ship God publicly in solemn assemblies, and devote the
Lord's day to holy exercises ; that we search the Scriptures,
pray for what God hath promised, or commanded ; meditate
and confer of holy things, and celebrate the sacraments in
the communion of saints.
And so according to the second table that we honour and
obey our parents, and (as far as their right of government
reacheth) all other that God sets over us. And dishonour
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 507
them not, nor obey civil, ecclesiastical, or domestical usurp-
ers against them.
That we do our best to save our neighbour's life and bo-
dily welfare, against murderers or usurpers ; and hurt no
man*s life or health either violently or by Jezebel's pretence
of justice.
That we keep our senses, thoughts, affections, passions,
and actions, from all unchastity and immodest lascivious-
ness.
That we wrong no man in his estate, but to our power
help them.
That we avoid all injustice, lying, false witness, false
judgment, and oppressive, unrighteous government; and
promote truth and justice to our power.
And lastly, that we love our neighbour as ourselves, and
take his welfare and his sufferings as our own, and do as we
would have others do by us, and covet not to draw from him
to ourselves.
So that he that pretendeth to love God and godliness,
and obedience to Christ, and yet loveth not such a life as
this, he lieth, or says he knows not what.
And he that hateth men or opposeth them, for any one
of all these duties (for hearing or reading God's word, for
praying for things promised, for holy conference and medi-
tation, for sanctifying the Lord's day, for desiring a shepherd
and not a wolf; for abhorring profaneness, and other great
sins), doth thereby declare that it is so much of godliness or
obedience which he abhorreth ; and it is through ignorance
doubtless if he seriously love and practise the rest of God's
commands.
II. By malignant enemies of godliness, 1. I do not
mean every one that hath any backwardness to any duty,
which he overcometh in the practice ; nor every one that is
guilty of some omissions. The spirit is willing, and the flesh
is weak.
2. I mean not those that are godly in the main so
far as they can know, but through education or otherwise are
ignorant of some integral truths or duties, and have an op-
posing contentious zeal against them by mistake ; and by
factious company are taught therefore to speak evil falsely
of those from whom they differ. 1 hear some revile all even
with terms of enmity and unchristian threatenings, yea, seek-
508 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
ing their ruin, who do not swear, say, and practise all that is
required to English conformity. I do not conclude them
therefore malignant enemies of godliness, if they live sober-
ly, righteously, and godly in their way, and prefer God be-
fore men, heaven before earth, the soul before the body, and
a holy life before the pleasures and profits of the flesh. If
they are uncharitable against all that are not for Diocesans,
laychancellors, excommunications, symbolical crossing of
children as a covenanting sign of Christianity, and all the
rest, I wish them more charity, but I call them not malignant
enemies.
I find Bishop Gunning's chaplain thinks that he doth
say well, when he saith, that * Not only murderers, adulter-
ers, drunkards, but such schismatics as disturb the peace,
and weaken the authority of the church's disciples (theirs),
are to be excommunicated and reckoned among heathens and
publicans ; and enemies to the Gospel of Christ (if they
preach it without a Diocesan's license.)* page 214. And that
it is already our case, that it is a very difficult matter to find
a jury and witnesses, especially among the dissenters, upon
whose credit w^e may rely. All this signifieth how little
blind faction is to be believed ; and how far it conquereth
even human modesty and veracity. But yet I differ it from
the enmity to godliness which I speak of. And that you
may see that he is no Papist, though for a foreign jurisdic-
tion, he tells you of Cromwell that * There is too great a rea-
son to suspect that he intended to settle popery in the na-
tion, when matters had been ripe to go through with it.' 1
confess this is news to me. I have roundly told him to his
face of his disloyalty in deposing our English monarchy, and
told the world then of his treacherous usurpation, but it ne-
ver came into my thoughts that he intended to settle popery
in the nation. But if these words come from clergy truth
and modesty, they are very considerable. I hope the old
royalists will be against popery the more if Cromwell was
for it. And the Papists I hope will be more angry with Dr.
Moulin, that answereth Philanax Anglicus, for making the
king's death to be caused and concluded by the Papists, if
Cromwell was for them. But faction will face men down,
that snow is black.
So on the other side, I hear some that are against infant
baptism, sharply censure all that are not of their mind.
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 509
And some over sharply censure the prelatists and conform-
ists ; and almost all the Christian world is'^divided^into par-
ties, that too little stick at the injurious censuring of others;
the Papists, Greeks, Abassines, Armenians, Nestorians, Ja-
cobites, &c. And among the Papists, the Dominicans and
Molinists, and Jansenians, &c. And among the Protestants,
too many. This is no small sin, but it is not that enmity to
godliness itself which I mean.
3. And I mean not by malignity, men's differences in
civil and political [controversies. Though I take popery
to be half a civil controversy, and to be insufferable by such
princes and people whom they bind themselves to depose and
destroy. And that to subject all the Christian world to the
legislative, judicial, and executive government of one pope,
or one pretorian court, is no better than to proclaim such a
pope or court to be public enemies and usurpers to all Chris-
tian princes and states. But yet abundance of political dif-
ferences may consist with serious piety. My reason is, be-
cause God hath not made political controversies so clear as
that all good Christians can resolve them. Neither the light
of nature, nor the Bible, nor tradition, endeth them. N,or
hath he put them into our creed, or the ten commandments,
nor laid men's salvation on them, as he hath done on the es-
sentials of religion. Nor commanded all men to be so well
skilled in statute-books and common law, as to be able to
know which party is in the right. And therefore I join not
with those clergy or lay gentlemen, who damn all that are not
of their mind and side, in differences of that nature.
I often hear some say that kings and states do all receive
their authority from the body of the nation, who are the chief
seat of it. So Hooker, so Laud, and indeed as aforesaid, so
Heathen, Papist, and Protestant politicians ordinarily hold.
I call not all these malignants, though I am fully satisfied,
1. That God is the Institutor of magistracy in general. 2.
And that he hath so far specified it as to determine of its
unchangeable essentials (that they shall as his officers pro-
mote obedience to the ten commandments). 3. And that he
never gave this governing power to the people. 4. But that
all that the people do is, 1. To specify it as to the number
of persons (a monarchy, aristocracy, or mixed of these and
some democracy). 2. To limit it by determining of the de-
grees of power, about property and liberty, and all things
510 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
which God's law hath left undetermined and mutable. 3. And
to determine of the persons and families that shall receive
the immutable power from God and the mutable from men.
I often hear some most magnify democracy, and some
aristocracy, and some monarchy, and some a mixture ; and
some English clergymen are for a civil monarchy subject to
a catholic clergy aristocracy. I call none maligaants for
any such differences.
I find some Papists and Protestants political writers say-
ing, that when it proveth hurtful to the commonwealth, the
people may retract the power given the prince, and change
the government ; and Hooker saith, no doubt in such a case
a prince will part with it. And archbishop Laud, before
cited, saith of the like, and abrogating laws, this power no-
body collective, ecclesiastical or civil, can put out of itself
and give away, and I find many that extol Hooker and Laud
call this a principle of rebellion. It is neither of them that
I call malignants.
I find most writers of politics agreed that the law of na-
ture alloweth and commandeth kingdoms and commonwealths
self-defence against any public enemies that seek to destroy
them. And that no man on pretence of right to a crown
hath any right to destroy the body of the people, or the ' bo-
num publicum' which is the essentiating end of government,
nor can be * simul rex et publicus hostis.' I hear others take
this for an unchristian doctrine of rebellion, and say, that if
a king would destroy all the people of a kingdom (in re-
venge, or in siding with another kingdom of his own or ano-
ther's), they ought not to resist him, or any that he commis-
sioneth to do it. And that if he should commission a few
men to kill all the parliament as they sit, or to burn the ci-
ty, it is rebellion to resist by self-defence. I hear lawyers
themselves at great difference on such matters, some for more
power, and some for less. I find the great defenders of mo-
narchy, such as Barclay and Grotius de Jure Belli, nam-
ing many cases in which kin2:s may be resisted, yea and
forfeit all. And I find others among us of a contrary mind.
Yea, 1 find the conformable and diocesan pillars quite dif-
fer in such cases. Bishop Bilson naming many cases in
which resistance is no rebellion, ' To subject his kingdom to
a foreign realm, '©r to change the form of the commonwealth
from impery to tyranny, or neglect the laws established by
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 511
common consent oC prince and people, to execute his own
pleasure ; in these and other such cases which might be
named, if" the nobles and commons join together to defend
their ancient and accustomed liberty, regiment, and laws,
they misy not well be counted rebels,' saith he, " of Obedi-
ence," page 520. But I hear many now say the contrary,
and condemn such doctrine as disloyal.
I find some join with the Papists in accusing the Refor-
mation as caused by rebellions in Germany, Geneva, France,
Belgium, &c. And I find Bishop Jewel, Bilson, and other
bishops defending the French defence, and Dr. Peter Mou-
lin of Canterbury in his answer to Philanax Anglicus, con*
tradicting their accusers, as false in point of history. '
Abundance of such political controversies are now late-
ly agitated, some charging their adversaries with rebellion,
and some with tyranny. Some saying, they are guilty of
treason against the king ; and others, they are traitors
against the kingdom. And too ordinarily damning one ano-
ther ; as if these matters were articles of our creed.
What a dismal difference is there now about those words
in the declaration in the corporation act : * There is no ob-
ligation on me or any other person, from the oath, called the
Solemn League and Covenant. Some say there are none but
rebels will refuse ; and that if any obligation had been grant-
ed to things lawful or necessary, some would have extended
it to rebellion or schism. And therefore all obligation is to
be renounced. Others say, that national perjury is a fore-
runner of national calamity or ruin ; and that where oaths
bind not, there can be no trust ; and no trust, no commerce.'
And they think as Dr. Sanderson, and Casuists, Papists, and
Protestants do, that though an oath or vow be unlawfully im-
posed, and sinfully taken, and part of the matter of it be un-
lawful, and the imposers and takers are bound to repent, and
no one is bound by it to the unlawful part, yet the taker is
bound to that part of the matter which is lawful or necessa-
ry. And they take it to be lawful and necessary to repent of
sin, to oppose profaneness, schism, heresy and popery, to
defend the king, and therefore that it obligeth them to these.
I meddle not with the Roman opinion, that it is the Hen
rician heresy to say the kings have a power of investing bi-
shops, and disobeying the pope's excommunication ; and of
such as Cardinal Perron that dare not question or deny the
5J2 CAIN AND ABKI. MALIGNITY.
power of the pope, and councils to excommunicate and de-
pose kings, because then they must condemn approved ge-
neral councils, which are their religion itself, and (saith he)
must grant that the pope is antichrist, and the church erro-
neous that hath so long used this.
I name all these political controversies,
1. To tell you that it is not factious and passionate enmi-
ty to each other on such accounts, which 1 mean by enmity
to religion.
2. And to remember men, that if in so many and great
points in politics and government, the learned and Christian
world, have so great difterence, what reason is there that we
should damn or excommunicate, or hate each other about a
hard opinion in religion, or a ceremony.
3. And to tell the popish church, that if it were a good
argument that there must be one pretorian court or church
to oblige all the world by an universal determination in what
sense to expound the Scripture, because it is abused to er-
ror by men's mistake, and there must be an end of contro-
versies ; by the same reason there must be an universal pre-
torian court to expound all human laws, and end the contro-
versies of lawyers ; yea, and to master all men's reason ; for
Scripture is no more commonly controverted and abused
than law itself; and not half so much as reason is, which is
pleaded for almost all the falsehood and wickedness in the
world.
Moreover it is not personal feuds between man and man
that I mean by enmity to godliness. No ; though any such
be against an innocent and godly man, where it is not for
his godliness, but some other difference.
I will say more, though some dislike it ; it is not a Pa-
pist as such that I mean by a malignant enemy of godli-
ness. I know that education, and temptation, and want of
hearing the confutation of their errors judiciously made, may
cause godly persons to think that the universal church must
be united in some human head or sovereign power ; and that
there is no other way to end controversies and schisms, and
that (as Dr. Saywell saith) there must be some over king-
doms or national churches, as well as over particular per-
sons, that many may not escape while a few are punished.
It is easy to be deceived by the pretences of unity and con-
cord, while men see the divisions and discords of others.
CAFN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. «TI 3
And the false pretences of antiquity are so confidently utter-
ed by their clergy, that men unacquainted with the history
may verily believe them. And the plea for an uninterrupted
succession of ministerial ordination, and that a superior must
give power to the inferiors, deceiveth many. If there must
be a Diocesan to ordain and rule all Presbyters, and a Me-
tropolitan to ordain or rule the Diocesans, and a Patriarch
to rule them, from whom shall the Patriarchs receive their
power or commands, but from a Pope ? The poor reasoning
which the French now use with the Protestants, puzzleth
unskilful persons ; viz. Was there any church before your
reformation? If yea, where was it? And had not you your
ministerial power from it? It was Rome or none. And if
it was the true church then, it is so now. We answer them.
There was and is one only catholic church. Of this Christ
only is the Head or universal Governor, and no man or men.
Of this all lawful pastors are his official guides in their se-
veral provinces, as many justices and mayors of corporations
under one king. That all these having one King (Jesus),
and one law (of Christ), and one Spirit, and one faith and
hope, are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
and to use synods when needful to that end, but not as a
pretorian or regent aristocracy or court. That the church
before Luther was all over the world where ever there were
Christians. In Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Georgia,
Circassia, Asia, and wherever the Greek Christianity is in
Muscovy, and in all Europe where there were true Christians.
That the envious man having sowed tares, this church is un-
happily fallen into many corruptions, diseases, and factious
sects, almost all censuring one another. No part of it is per-
fect. That the papal part is in doctrine, worship, and go-
vernment, one of the most corrupted parts ! Yet so far as
their diseases or errors nullify not their profession of Chris-
tianity, they are parts, though leprous. And therefore
though they are the most uncharitable and schismatical part,
as they cut off or unchurch all the Christian world save
themselves, yet being as Christians united to the rest in the
common faith, their baptism and ordinations are not nullities
as they invest men in the Christian society and Christian
ministry : though that part of them is a nullity which en-
gagcth men in schism and in sin. That the ministerial pow-
VOL, X L L
,514 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
er is not the gift of man, but only of Christ, who by the char-
ter of his recorded word, giveth the power and the obliga-
tion to that person who is duly chosen and called thereto.
As the king's charter giveth the power to the mayor of a
corporation duly qualified and chosen. That the ordainers
are but partly judges of the qualification, and partly minis-
terial investers, and not at all the donors of the power. That
ordination is for order sake needful, when it may be had, to
keep men from being judges of their own sufl^iciency. But
order being only for the thing ordered (as the Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath), is not necessa-
ry against the end That there is no necessity that a supe-
rior must ordain. But as the College of physicians, philo-
sophers, &c. make physicians and philosophers, as approved,
so may equals in the ministry. Do not bishops make or
consecrate bishops. If this were not so, who makes the
pope ? If he did not pretend that his power is given him
immediately from Christ, he must grant that there are some
men above him to give it him, and so he is not the sovereign.
If they say that the power of popes (and kings) is given by
the whole body (the church), he is then no pope. For it is
known that three parts of the Christian world are against
him. If he will say, none are the church but those that are
his party, any sect or rebels may say the like, and appropri-
ate authority to themselves.
Nothing more cheateth the ignorant, than ambiguous
words and confusion. And explaining those words, and
needful, plain distinction, would save the writing of many
volumes, and would make truth easily meet the seeker, and
unravel all the spider webs of deceivers.
Do but well use these few distinctions, and all popery
vanisheth into smoke : 1. Distinguish between a catholic
church as headed by Christ (this we are all members of), and
a pretended catholic church, headed by the pope or any men.
This is another church as to the denominating form, having
another informing, unifying head. And this is it which we
deny.
Distinguish visibility. Christ's church is so far visible
as to have a Head who was visible on earth, is visible in hea-
ven, and will visibly come to judgment, and visibly reign for
ever. It hath visible laws, protection, and officers. The
Cain and abel malignity. f)\6
subjects' bodies and their profession are visible; and it isi
not farther visible; no, not as to the souls or real faith of the
subjects. The Papist's church hath an usurping, visible,
human head on earth.
3. Distinguish of baptism and ordination as into Christ's
catholic church, and done by Papists as Christians : and as
into the pope's catholic church and done by Papists as Pa-
pists.
4. Distinguish of subjection and communion. We owe
communion when we owe no subjection, and where men have
no right to be our governors.
5. Distinguish between communion in Christianity, and
that in essentials, integrals, or accidents ; and communion
in errors and corruptions, or defects. We have communion
with Papists and all Christians in Christianity (if they be
Christians indeed). But we renounce communion to the er-
rors and sins of them and all others, as far as we are able to
avoid them. All Christians have union and communion in
the essentials of Christianity. No Christians have union and
communion in all the integrals (on earth), all being imper-
fect. But the more such union and communion the better.
No Christians have, or ought to have, communion in all the
accidents. All should avoid communion in sin.
6. Distinguish between communion of hearts, communi-
on of profession, and communion in local presence. We
have heart communion in one essential faith, hope, and love,
with all true Christians on earth. We profess all one faith
in the essentials. We have nearer communion, or fuller with
the reformed churches which are soundest in the integrals,
than we have with the more faulty and corrupt. But we
have local presence but in one place at once; and we ought
to avoid local presence where we cannot have it without sin,
though we have communion in faith, love, and profession
with the same men. If a reformed church will not admit
our local presence without subscribing some one untruth,
we must be absent, when we may be present with a worse
church which excludeth us not by any such imposition.
7. Accordingly distinguish of separation. We separate
not at all from union or communion with Papists as they are
Christians, or as they hold any truth. But, 1. We separate
from subjection and obedience to them, which we never ow-
516 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
ed them, or any other church. 3. We separate from com-
munion with their church, as it is a policy informed by an
usurping human king or head. 3. We separate from.all their
sins so far as we know them. 4. We deny local presence in
their mass-worship, because of the sin imposed on us, both
before it and in it. 5. We are incapable of communion in
all accidents, or mutable indifferent things.
Understand and use well these few plain distinctions, and
you need little more to answer all the Papists.
And I fear not to add, that were the Papists in my pow-
er (as I never did), I never would use any inhumanity or cru-
elty towards them ; yea, I would use no offensive, but only
defensive force against them ; nor hurt one of them, further
than they made it necessary for the defence of the land, or
those whom they would hurt.
1 knew not till a book called the " Liberties of England"
lately told me, how many very severe laws are against them.
I am no judge of the times that they were made in, nor of
their occasions. But I think that of late they have done
more hurt than good. For, 1. Some of them seem too se-
vere. 2. Some I cannot prove to be justifiable ; viz. Those
which would compel them to come to our sacramental com-
munion, when many a good minister would not receive them
-if they came. And that which excommunicateth them that
never were of our communion. And that which layeth the
excommunicate as such in prison, &c. 3. It greatly tend-
eth to misinform foreigners, who seeing these laws, think
they are all put in execution ; and so believe those that tell
them, .that the catholics here are under constant cruelties,
and frequent martyrdoms ; whereas I never in all my life
knew of one Papist that suffered so much for his religion,
as I have done myself, within these few years past, though
my sufferings are so small as to be no mete matter of very
great complaint. 4. These laws being a continual danger
to them (should there be governors that would execute them)
doth put them on continual plotting and striving against
them. Sufferings, or great dangers, put men by fear upon
self-defence, and the utmost endeavours for deliverance, who
would be morequietif they found themselves in safety; and
though their clergy would be still plotting the recovery of
the papal power, to subject king and kingdom to the sacred
<:AIN and ABEL MALIGNITY. 517
king of Rome, yet the laity would be less against the com-
mon peace, when they found that it was their own peace.
I have told you what I mean not by malignant enmity
to godliness. I tell you now what I mean by it; viz.
When the blindness and ungodliness of corrupted nature,
increased by practice into serpentine enmity, and turning
men's hearts by unbelief and disaffection from God and hea-
ven, doth possess them with a deep dislike of a holy, hea-
venly, and spiritual life ; first as to their own practices, and
then as it is in others; and because it is against their world-
ly hopes, and fleshly lusts, they hate it, and reject it them-
selves, and then hate and maliciously oppose it in others ;
yea, though law, custom, and worldly interest draw them
formally to profess Christianity and obedience to God's laws,
and to vow that in baptism they hate the serious perform-
ance of their own profession and vows ; and would be glad to
drive it out of the world, and to set up hypocrisy and cere-
mony, or a stage religion and mummery, or the toothless
mass and formalities in its stead. And if custom or shame
hinder them from persecuting or scorning truth and godli-
ness in its proper name, they will shew their mind by these
things following :
1. They will set up some worldly, fleshly interest (like
the papal kingdom) which is contrary to the Christian and
holy interest ; and then they will persecute Chnstians, not
as Christians, nor as godly in name, but as such indeed by
pleading conscience and obedience to God, against their in-
consistent interest and ways.
2. Among all that are against their carnal, false interest,
they will cull out the more serious godly persons to afflict.
3. Among all the faithful, they will cull out those who
do Christ more service in the world ; because Christ's ser-
vice is it that is their disservice, and opposite to their sin.
4. They will make a scorn of their very religious duties,
and take up mimical derisions, to make them ridiculous or
contemptible.
5. When they can charge them with no crimes, they will
purposely make nets to catch them, as the enemies of Daniel
did by him ; Dan. vi. And as the spider makes her curious
webs to catch and kill the flies.
6. Yea, they will make faults by slander and lies, if not
by perjuries, if they can find none.
518 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
7. Yea, their virtue, piety, and innocence shall be all
called hypocrisy ; and when they cannot accuse their ac-
tions, they will accuse their hearts and secret thoughts, and
judge them as if they had a casement into their breasts.
8. Yea, if their innocency cannot be so stained, they will
hate them so much the more, because they cannot tread down
their reputation.
9. They will search after, and aggravate all the failings
of religious people, and turn them into crimes.
10. If any one of them, or a hypocrite that is like them,
be guilty of any notable fall, they will persuade men that all
the rest of their lives is like that crime ; yea, and that all that
profess much seriousness in godliness, are as bad as they :
that all the rest of the life of Noah, Lot, David, Solomon,
&c. was as bad as the criminal part ; and that all the ser-
vants of Christ are Peters or Judases.
11. That it is not their sins, but their piety which they
hate, you will see in that they live in far greater sin them-
selves, and take it to be no great harm, but hate those that
reprove them.
12. And they make light of the common crimes of others.
They can bear with an atheist, an infidel, a drunkard, a pro-
fane swearer, a derider of godliness ; yea, a persecutor, a
fornicator, a man of no religion, if he will but be for them,
and serve their interest, and will not scruple communion
with such. But men never so sober, just, and godly, that
cross their wills and carnal ways, they cannot endure. And
if they be such clergymen, as the world hath too many, such
serious, godly men, for disliking their ungodliness, are made
the common objects of their pulpit and discoursing scorn or
accusations, and perhaps are excommunicate ' ipso facto,'
for dissenting from their opinions or wills.
13. Such usually in former ages have been the chief in-
stigators of princes and rulers, to hate men of serious reli-,
gion, and to stir up persecution against them, and to render
such odious to the world as heretics or intolerable villains.
O what difference is there between the true narratives of the
lives of Luther, Calvin, Beza, and abundance such, and the
odious lies, and defamations written of them by some others.
Yea, those who commend Melancthon, Bucer, and many such
for learning and moderation, hate their doctrine of reforma-
tion and serious piety.
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 519
14. And you may note, that in any slander of a godly
man, they will sooner believe one off two ignorant malicious
drunkards against them, that never knew them, than the tes-
timonies of hundreds of most faithful persons who praise
and vindicate them, though they better knew them.
15. They seldom give the accused leave to speak for them-
selves before they believe accusations against them ; but
conclude that they are as bad as backbiting malice report-
eth them behind their backs.
16. They are glad to hear of any infamy of religious per-
sons, and loath to hear them praised without contradiction ;
and are glad to hear of any suffering that befals them.
17. If there be any public differences in a church, city
or land, they are usually against that side, which most fa-
voureth serious godliness, be they who they will. If the
king, parliament, bishops, will be for the persons and ways
of soberness, justice, and serious godliness, they will be on
the other side ; and, they will cry up any that will cry them
down, or would oppress them.
18. Lastly, The quality of the enemies may help with the
rest to tell what it is that they are against ; when it is the
generality of the worldlings, proud, ambitious men, sensual
drunkards, gluttons, fornicators, profane and irreligious, who
hate godliness so far as to drive it from themselves and fa-
milies, and rather venture on hellfire, than be truly godly ;
it is easy to know what these hate in others.
I have told you who I mean by malignant enemies of
godliness, that the mistakers and slanderers of my words
may have no excuse. Could we now but prevail against this
Cainism, or devilism, it would do much to recover the peace
of many nations of the earth : but Christ hath told us, that
enmity between the seed of the woman and the serpent, of
which Cain and Abel were the first specimen since the fall,
will never cease till Christ come, as is terribly described, 2
Thess. i. 6. 10 — 12. and Matt. xxv. But yet some Sauls may
become Pauls, and for the hope of the recovery of such, I
will adjoin such reasons as should convince any that have
the use of reason left.
520 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
CHAPTER III.
Undeniable Reasons against Malignant Enmity to Serious
Godliness.
1. To deny that there is a God who is the Supreme Gover-
nor of man, is to be mad ih despite of the whole world which
proveth it : and it deposeth all kings, who claim their author-
ity as given them by God, and as his officers ; for if there
be no God, there is none to give them authority : and to
grant that there is a God, and yet deny him our love, ho-
nour and obedience, is to speak gross contradiction, or else
profess open malice against God himself. If he be God, he
is perfectly wise; and should not perfect wisdom govern us?
If he be God, he is perfectly good, and man's chief benefac-
tor; and should he not then have our chiefest love? If he
be God, he is of absolute power ; and should he not then be
obeyed ? If he be God, he made us, and still maintaineth
us, and we live continually by his will, and have all that we
have of his bounty, and we, and all we have are wholly his
own ; and are not then all our thanks and service due to
him ? If he be God, he is our Judge, and will be just in pu-
nishing and rewarding ; and should we not then serve him
with the greatest fear, and with the highest hopes ? These
things are undeniable.
Dare any man that believeth there is a God, say, that
man can love him too much, or too much honour him or obey
him ? Can we return him more than his due? It is there-
fore no less than practical atheism, or else a rebellious de-
fiance of God, to blame or hate men for loving, honouring
and serving him to the very utmost of their power. And to
deny God, or defy him, is a thousandfold more damnable
sin and treason, than to deny and defy the king, or your own
parents.
2. God hath himself commanded man to love him with
all his heart, and soul, and might ; and to obey him with
his greatest fidelity and diligence, and to fear him more than
any creature, and to place our chiefest hopes on his promis-
ed rewards, and to seek first his kingdom and righteousness,
and not to sin wilfully to save our lives, or gain all the
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 521
world; Deut.vi.6— 7. xx. 12. xi. 12— 14. Matt.xxii.37.
Heb.xi. 6. 1 Cor. xv. 68. Luke xi. 4. Heb. xii. 28, 29.
Matt. x. 39. 42. xvi.25.16. vi.33. Luke.xiv.26. 33. Matt.
V. 19,20. And the law of nature speaks no less. And if
God command it, and you condemn it, do you not condemn
God ? If you command your son, or servant, or subject
any thing, he that blames him for obeying you, blames you
more than him. If it be a fault or folly to love and serve
God with all our heart, and mind, and might, the fault or
folly would be God's that requireth it, and not ours And,
is such a blasphemer fit for human society, who will accuse
his Maker ? If God be blameworthy, he is not perfect ; and
if he be not perfect, he is not God : and so to be against our
utmost obedience, doth amount to no less than blasphemy
or atheism.
3. Do you think that man is a creature that needs to be
blamed for loving or obeying God too much ? Do you not
know that nature is, vitiated by sin, and man is now back-
ward to God, and all that is good and holy ? You may as
well blame a lame man for running too fast, as a sinful man
for obeying God too much. It is more foolish than to blame
a sick man for working or eating too much, that can do nei-
ther : or to hold a man in a consumption from going up the
hill too fast. Do you find your own heart so forward to a
holy life, as that you need pulling back or hindrance, when
no exhortation or necessity will persuade you to it ? And
if you need no such reproof or stop, why should you think
others need it ? Do you not use to say that all men are
sinners? And do sinners need to be blamed for obedience?
Do you not daily confess that you have done the things
which you ought not to have done, and left undone the
things that you ought to have done, and there is no health
in you ; and yet will you blame men for too much obedi-
ence ? It seems then, that your confessions of sin are pro-
fessions of it ; and while you tell what you have done, you ,
do but tell what you mean to do, and what you would have
all others do ; or else you blame yourselves for sinning, and
hate your neighbours for not sinning.
4. If you hate men for holiness and avoiding sin, you
hate Jesus Christ most ; for he was most holy, and free from
all sin : and you hate the angels and all in heaven, for they
are holy^ and void of all transgression.
522 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
5. Have you any better master to serve than God ? Or
any better work to do than he commandeth, or any better
thing to seek and hope for than he hath promised ? If not,
should not the best be preferred ? What do you love and
seek yourselves ? Is money or fleshly pleasure better than
God and heaven ? Is sin and sensuality a better employ-
ment than his service ? Is your flesh and lust a better mas-
ter ? Compare them, and we are content that the best be
preferred.
6. Why do you take on you to believe in Christ, if you
be against holiness, and for sin? Christ came into the
world to die for sin, to shew God's hatred of it : and would
you have us wilfully commit it, and to despise his blood ?
He came to destroy the works of the devil ; and will you
plead for them ? He came by his doctrine, example and
grace, to bring man to holy obedience ; and do you hate men
for the same, and yet call yourselves Christians ?
7. How dangerously do you draw towards the sin against
the Holy Ghost, if you hate or blame men for being holy, or
seeking to be such ; when it is all the work of the Holy
Ghost on men's souls to make them holy ? It is a danger-
ous thing to hate the work of the Holy Ghost, and as it were
defy him, and do despite to him.
8. Are you not yourselves in your baptism vowed and
devoted to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, renoun-
cing the world, the flesh and the devil ? And do you hate
men for being such as you vowed to be yourselves ? And
do you think that God will not severely reckon with you
for such perjury and base perfidiousness?
9. Do you not in your daily hypocritical devotions con-
demn yourselves by your own tongues ? Do you not pray
that the rest of your lives may be pure and holy? And at
\he same time hate purity and holiness ? Do you not pray
that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven?
» And can we have a higher, purer pattern ? Do you know
any that doth God's will better than it is done in heaven?
Or is it not damnable hypocrisy to pray for that which you
hate, and hate all men that desire and endeavour it? When
you say or hear all the ten commandments, you pray, " Lord,
have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law :"
and do you hate men for endeavouring to keep it ? If you
come to the Lord's table, you confess your sins, and bind
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 523
yourselves in covenant to forsake them, and to live a holy
life, and you take the sacrament upon it; and the liturgy
warneth you to take heed that you dissemble not, nor be
hinderers of God's holy word, lest the devil enter into you
as he did into Judas, and fill you with all unrighteousness.
And if you hate or oppose that holy obedience to God which
you profess, after all this, what must be the portion of such
hypocrites ? And in your creed you profess to believe in
God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and to hold a holy
catholic church, and the communion of saints ; and yet do
you hate saints that obey the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
and hate their communion ?
10. Hath not God printed on man's nature such a sense
of the difference between good and evil, as that all laws and
government are founded in that sense? And no man loveth
to be counted or called a bad, or ungodly, or unconsciona-
ble man ; a liar, a knave, a perjured man, or a wicked man ;
and yet do you hate men for avoiding wickedness?
11. Do not you use to accuse religious men of some sin
or other (truly or falsely), and think by that to make them
odious? And yet do you accuse them, and hate them most
for not sinning ? ' To be sober, just and godly, is but to
avoid sins of omission and commission ; and do you at once
accuse them as sinners, and hate them for obeying God, and
sinning no more ?
12. Doth it never affright you to find the devil's nature
in you, as hating the divine or holy nature which is in faith-
ful, godly men, and to think how openly you serve the devil,
and do his work ? No man that believeth there are devils,
can doubt, but that the hatred of God as holy, and the ha-
tred of his holy word, and work, and servants, is the devil's
malignity, and the opposing of them his work. If he were
to write you his commandments, they would be contrary to
God's, and the chief of them should be, * Thou shalt not
love God, nor serve him with all thy heart, and soul, and
might, nor love them that do so ; but hate, deride, oppose,
and persecute them.' And is it honourable openly to serve
the devil ? Christ tells such men, John viii., that the devil
is their father, because they have his nature, and that his
work they do, for he was from the beginning a liar, and a
malignant murderer, and turned man from obeying God j
/>24 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
and can you think that he loveth you, or that his service
against God is better than God's ; or his reward better?
13. Doth it never touch your consciences to consider that
you are the children and followers of cursed Cain ; and how
punctually his case against Abel, and yours against God's
servants is the same ? By faith Abel offered to God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness
that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts ; and by it
he being dead, yet speaketh ; Heb. xi.4. Cain hated him
because God more accepted him and his offering. *' In this
the children of God are manifest, and the children of the
devil : whoever doth not righteousness is not of God, nor
he that loveth not his brother : for this is the message that
ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one an-
other : not as Cain, who was that wicked one, and slew his
brother : and wherefore slew he him ? Because his own works
were evil, and his brother's righteous ;" 1 John iii. 10 — 12.
14. Is it possible that any man can unfeignedly believe
a heaven as the reward of holy obedience, and yet think we
can do too much to obtain it, or be too careful to make it
sure ? Is not everlasting glory worth the cost of a holy life,
or can it be too dearly bought ? \
15. Or is it possible to believe God's judgment, and hell's
punishment, and yet to hate those that do their best ac-
cording to God's own counsel to escape it ?
16. What monstrous cruelty is it in you to wish poor
souls to do that which God hath told us they shall be damn-
ed for I God saith, ** Without holiness none shall see God ;"
Heb. xii. 14. ** Except your righteousness exceed the righ-
teousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise
enter into the kingdom of heaven ;" Matt. v. 20. " Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ;" Matt. v. 8.
** If ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if by the Spirit
ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live ;" Rom. viii.
7,8. 13. "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all
holy conversation and godliness ?" 2 Pet. iii. 11. ** We re-
ceiving a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us serve God
acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a
consuming fire ;" Heb. xii. 28, 29. "Be stedfast, unmove-
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord :"
1 Cor. XV. 58. This is the very tenor of the Gospel : and
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 525
would you wish men to damn their souls for nothing? To
lose heaven, and suffer in hell for ever, and all to avoid a
pure and holy life ? What a bloody motion is this ; worse
than if you entreated us all to cut our own throats ! Let us
try first whether you will do far less at our request. Will
you give the poor all your lands and estates ? Will you run
into fire or water, or set your houses on fire, when any will
but desire it? It is like you have heard of the woman who
being tempted to adultery, desired the tempter first to hold
his finger in the fire for her ; which, when he refused, she
told him it was less reason she should burn in hell to satisfy
his lust. If you will not part with your life or estate when
another desires you, why should we part with heaven for
ever, and choose hell at your desire ?
Yea, we see that you will not leave an ill-gotten gain,
or a sport, or a whore, or a drunken cup, for all the love of
God, the blood of Christ, and the hope of heaven ; and shall
we part with God, and heaven, and Christ, to humour you?
And what is it that you offer us instead of all tl^at we
must part with, and to ease the pain that we must undergo ?
Nothing, or worse than nothing. If we should renounce
God and our hope of heaven, you cannot give us health or
wealth for it ; much less can you secure these or life to us
till to-morrow. And will any thing that you can give us, be
better than heaven to us, or will it make hell tolerable?
Will you undertake to answer for it at the bar of God, if
we are charged with an ungodly, fleshly life, or omitting our
necessary duty? You cannot answer for yourselves but by
trembling confession : you cannot save yourselves ; nor will
all your wealth and honour get you one drop of water to cool
your tongues. And shall we trust that you can answer for
us, or save us ? When yo\i would have any man wilfully
to neglect that holy life which God enjoineth, you would
have him to be madder than one that would burn his house,
and kill himself, if you did but require it : and what horrid
cruelty is this ! You e^re worse than man-eating cannibals !
But the best is, you cannot force us to it; and if you think
to hire or flatter us into hell, you must have somewhat more
to say and to offer us than we yet ever heard of; much less
are we so much below bedlams, as to forsake our salvation,
lest you should call us Precisians, or Puritans, or any such
nickname or word of scorn, as doth but shew the folly and
526 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
misery of the speaker. You will not be laHghed or mocked
out of your estates or lives j nor we out of our salvation. In
short, nature is not willing to lie in hell, and grace maketh
us desire heaven ; and we never yet found that any thing
else was more desirable.
17. And what is there amiss in the word or work of God,
and in a serious, godly life, that should make us be against
it? Doth God make bad laws? Are your wills, and lusts,
and appetites a better law ? Or could you have taught God
to amend the Bible, or to govern better ? God needs us
not : his laws are all made for our good. All his ways are
pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. Speak true rea-
son. Is it a better life to love a whore, or to please lust and
appetite, than to love God ? What is there in love and obe-
dience to God that should make it detestable, or make us
miserable ? Is it a greater trouble to live in hope of hea-
venly glory, than to live in the despair either of a Sadducee
or a rebel ? You may more wisely tempt us to fall out with
our fpod, or friends, or health. We know that faith and
godliness, are not only man's duty, but his interest, much
more than health is to our bodies, food to our natures, and
the converse of dearest friends to our delight.
18. We have had experience of both ways, and would you
have us mad against our experience ? We tried the world
and siri too long, and found nothing in it but brutish plea-
sure and luscious poison : nothing that will save soul, life
or health : and some trial God in mercy hath given us of
his love, and the life of obedience, faith and hope : and the
more we try it, the better we find it : only we can reach to so
small a degree as doth but tell us how good it is, and make
us long for more. And whether the devil would persuade,
scorn or affright us from it, by his own mouth or by yours,
we hope it shall be all in vain.
19. And who or what are you that would reason, mock
or affright us from a life of obedience to God ? Are you
wiser than God, and dare you give him the lie, that we
should believe you before him ? Or are you better than God,
that you can make a better choice for yourselves and us?
Are you more merciful than God, and would save us from
some hurt that he would do us ? Are you truer than God,
and more to be believed ? Are you greater than God, and
more to be iVared ? Or are you not the most foolish, igno-
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 5-27
rant and damnably yourselves deluded by the devil ? And
shall the words or mocks of such, drive us to forsake our
souls and God? Should we obey you and lie in hell for it
for ever, it would be no small part of the torment of our con-
sciences, to think that we came thither by regarding the
threats or scorns of worms and fools before all the word and
love of God and our Redeemer.
20. And before we change our obedience to God for an-
other course, let us know what we shall change it for, and
whether it be for something better : hath your course made
you better or happier than the faithful are ? Do we not see
and feel with sorrow, that the worldly, fleshly, ungodly sort,
are in all nations the plagues of the earth, and worse to man-
kind than wolves and serpents ? They will not let the world
live in peace ; striving and fighting for dominion and master-
ship, and more of the world, they are like dogs about their
carrion, worrying and tearing one another : they turn man
into a more odious creature than swine or toads, by filthy
lusts, and horrid profaneness : they make their countries
worse than Bedlam, raving against that which the God of
heaven hath commanded and made necessary to salvation.
And are these such good and pleasant fruits as should en-
tice us to change our master, work and hopes, for this, and
worse that followeth it ?
And who shall be our rule, if we forsake God and his
word ? If princes, how many minds are they of through the
world ; and are they all in the right ? or how shall we know
which is right but by the word of God? or must all men be
for the God and religion of his king ? If it were prelates, of
how many minds are they through the world, and how bit-
ter in condemning one another ! If it must be the major
part, how shall obscure men know who those be that can
have no just cognizance of the state of the earth, whether
Papists, Greeks, Jacobites, Nestorians, &c. be the major
part? And how shall we know that the major part of the
clergy are the best and soundest, when we see that the ma-
jor part of the laity is usually the worst ; or is it certain that
the Papist bishops are sounder than our Protestant bishops,
because they are more ? If we forsake our concord in God
and his word, we can have none.
What mean you to do with conscience, your own,
and ours, and other men's? Conscience is God's offi-
528 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
cer in us, and judgeth of men and actions as they stand
subject to God and his judgment. To drive conscience out
of the world, and to drive all reverence and obedience to
God out of the world, is all one. To subject conscience to
lust or man, is to subject God to lust or man in our estima-
tion and practice. And is God so easily deposed? and will
he give up his sceptre to a scorner, a drunkard, or a perse-
cutor?
And what shift will you make at home to quiet consci-
ence in yourselves ? You little know how deep it biteth,
and how hardly it is quieted, when it is awaked, as shortly
and certainly it will be : then Judas will bring back his
price, and -say, " I have sinned in betraying innocent blood ;"
and all the comfort his companions will give him is, "See
thou to that: what is that to us?" And hanging or preci-
pitating himself is the next. It is like he before thought as
you do, that he could have better mastered his conscience :
but you may as wisely think to conquer pain and death.
But whatever you do with your own, if we should leave
our obedience to God, to obey you or any men, we know
not what we should do with our own consciences, nor how
to quiet them. God hath brought us out of the darkness
and lethargy which quieted them in sin heretofore : and we
cannot now be ignorant of that duty to God, that self-inter-
est, that danger to wilful sinners, and that evil of sin, which
would begin hell in us here : and are not your scorns and
threatenings easier than this ?
22. Do not most men at death see the madness not only
of enmity, but of neglect of a holy life, and wish that they
might die the death of the righteous, and that their last end
might be like his ? Had you rather die a Dives or a Herod,
or a Lazarus or a Paul? Is it not a shame to your devilish
cause and you, to see men live in one mind and die in an-
other ? And scorn, hate and persecute serious godliness till
the sentence of death is past upon them, and then to wish
they were such themselves ? Or if you be more hardened
to the last, you are the more hopeful ; but how quickly did
such another change his note, and cry, " Father Abraham,
send one to my five brethren to warn them, that they come
not to the place of torment !" If you mock at these words,
you mock at Christ that spake them, and sure you look not
to be saved by a derided Christ. And it is base hypocrisy
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 529
to deride him, and yet call yourselves Christians, and go to
church as if you served him. Live as you vi^ould die and be
judged, for you shall be judged as you live and die. Either
hold to the mind that you will* never change, or change it
quickly before it be too late.
23. If you know what a man is, you know that his soul
is better than his corruptible flesh ; and if you think your
throats, and guts, and fancies worth all the cost, and care,
and labour, which you bestow on them in the world, shall not
we think our souls worth more ? What godly man that you
think makes too much ado for heaven, doth bestow more
time, and words, and labour for it, than you do for the flesh
and world ? Do we not see how men will labour at land,
and venture through dangerous seas, and fight in wars, and
plot against all that stand in their way, and this is all day,
from year to year, and all for provision for flesh and fancy.
And do those that you accuse do more for their salvation ?
If you know not now, you will shortly know, which makes
the better choice and bargain.
24. What harm doth godliness and conscience do you in
other men ? Had you not rather have a son that takes dis-
obedience, whoredom, gaming and drunkenness for sin, than
one that makes no conscience of them ? Had you not ra-
ther have a wife whose conscience restrains her ifrom scold-
ing and adultery, and a servant that makes conscience of
robbing or deceiving you, than one that doth not? Sure un-
conscionable servants and debtors are more troublesome than
they that fear God and believe that injustice is a damning-
sin. But the truth is, most wicked men are for so much con-
science and religion in others, as restrains them from wrong-
ing or hurting them, but no more, nor for that much in them-
selves which may restrain them from hurting others.
But if you resolve rather to be damned than to be sober,
just and godly, and obey God against the flesh ; why can-
not you bear with other men that make a wiser choice ?
What hurt doth their praying do you, or their preaching,
while they are responsible for any ill doctrine? What if they
be reading the Scripture, or hearing directions for a holy
life, while you are drinking, or gaming, or reading a romance,
or railing libel, doth their piety hurt you ? What if they
dare not swear and drink as you do, doth this do you any
VOL. X. MM
630 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
harm ? What is it but the serpentine enmity that maketh
you hate those that never hurt you ?
25. If you will believe God, it is for the sake of godly
men that God preserves the world from ruin ; he would have
saved Sodom had there been but ten such persons in it ; he
will not destroy the world, till he hath gathered all his
chosen out of it ; and do they deserve to be most hated ?
26. How exceeding dear a love hath God and our Re-
deemer expressed, to all holy, obedient believers ! God calls
them his jewels, his treasure, in whom he delighteth ; he
gave Christ especially for them. He sealeth them to salva-
tion by his Spirit. He justifieth them, and will glorify them
in heaven. Christ calls them flesh of his flesh, his friends,
his spouse, they are united to him, he washeth them in his
blood, and feedeth them with his flesh, and will make them
equal to the angels, which will condemn their enemies. And
are not you devilish enemies to God and Christ, who cull
out those for your malice and enmity, whom God chooseth
out to magnify the wonders of his love on them for ever?
27. The angels of heaven rejoice at the conversion of a
sinner; Luke xv. 10. And rejoice to be Christ's servants
for their defence continually : and is it not devils then and
their servants and soldiers that are against them? Take
heed ; God's angels that smote a Herod, may do execution
on you ere long.
28. The Holy Ghost saith, (1 Cor. vi.) that the saints
shall judge the world, and even the angels, that is, the evil
ones. Did you believe this, you would be afraid to hate and
persecute them now.
29. Even heathens are for much honouring and worship-
ping their gods ; yea many offer them too costly sacrifice.
What praises doth Julian give to the sun, and what strict-
ness of life doth he command his priests ! What great con-
tempt of the body and the world did the Platonists, the
Stoics and the Cynics profess ! And shall professed Chris-
tians hate those that are obedient to the true God ? Yea, to
shew that the war between good and evil goeth on in all the
world ; even among heathens those that were for true virtue
were despised and hated by the sensual.
30. And is it not a self-condemning thing in those that
accuse God's servants as making too much ado in obeying
the law of God, and yet make (as the church of Rome doth)
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 531
abundance more laws or canons of their own, and require
precise obedience to them all? Yea, will burn men at a
stake for breaking their laws ? Doth God make too much
work in the judgment of them that think it not enough with-
out much more, as if God's law were too narrow and insuffi-
cient? Yea, learn by the church of England, whose canons
(5 — 8.) * ipso facto,* excommunicate them that do but affirm
any thing to be repugnant to God's word in their liturgy, ce-
remonies or church-governing offices. And can you think
that obeying God deserveth hatred, when disobeying men
deserveth excommunication ? Learn of our late laws, which
account all the ministers of England worthy to be cast out
and silenced if they dare not take the imposed declarations,
oaths and subscriptions, and do what the act of uniformity
imposeth ; and do you think it worthy of reproach to be as
strict in obeying God's known laws, as is required to the
act of uniformity and the canons ?
31. Even the church of Rome applaudeth great rigor and
strictness of life, in such as will obey the pope ; and they
have allowed orders of friars whose rulers tie them to great
abstinence, to much praying, and some to much preaching,
so that religion is all their calling. And shall the strict
obeying of God's known laws render men odious among pro-
fessed Protestants ? Yea, the Papists honour the very bones
and relics of their dead saints. And you yourselves keep
holydays for many saints : and will you at the same time
hate and hurt those that endeavour to imitate them ? Will
you imitate those Pharisees whom Christ pronounceth woe
against, who at once honoured the dead prophets with build-
ing monuments or tombs, and murdered the living that suc-
ceeded them ?
32. You can never come to heaven, or be saved from hell
yourselves, without serious holiness, justice and sobriety :
and will you hate that without which you caniiot be saved ?
33. Scarce any sin doth more certainly prove you to be
ungodly, than hating godliness : whatever hope there may
be of those that sin against conscience, and wish to be better,
and purpose repentance, that man cannot be a truly godly
man, that is an enemy to godliness, so that this is a dread-
ful death's mark on you.
34. You would extirpate the principle of self-love, which
God hath made inseparable from us. There is somewhat in
532 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
our nature which we cannot lay by, which makes us unwil-
ling to be damned. If you that believe no hell, dare venture
into it, we cannot do so who do believe it. If you say that
it is our folly to believe that none shall be saved without ho-
liness, and mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit,
bear with that folly which doth you no harm : it is not men
or devils that we had it from, but the Holy Ghost in Scrip-
ture. If it be your wisdom to give God the lie, and believe
a drunken sot, or the devil, before him, it shall be none of
ours. Speed as you choose, and let us speed as we choose
We shall meet your souls shortly in another mind and tune.
Strive not to make us choose damnation now our eyes are
open : we were once too easily befooled ; but cannot now so
hate ourselves.
35. Moreover, he that would not have a man live a life of
holy obedience to God, would have him lay by that which he
was made for, and that which God continueth his life for, and
that which he hath his reason and all his daily mercies for.
What else have we to do in the world ? Have men going to the
grave and eternity nothing to do but eat and drink, and laugh,
and play, and run up and down like ants with sticks and straws,
and then die, and call all vanity and vexation too late ? If we
may not spend our time in making sure of a better world, we
had rather we had never been born, or had died in infancy, or
that we had a dose of opium that would make us sleep out the
rest of our lives in quietness, rather than spend it as you do,
and then give a sad account of all. We had rather we had been
birds or beasts, dogs or swine than men, were it not for that
life which you hate, and the hopes which depend on it. It had
been a greater kindness to us to have murdered us at the birth,
than to tempt us to live for our damnation.
36. What do you think it is that is God's image on man's
soul, you know that it is said in Scripture that God made
man at first in his own image, and that Christ by his Spirit
reneweth them to that image. What is it think you ? God
hath not hands, and feet, and bodily parts as we have : it is
the soul that hath his image. And do you think it is the
love of money, and lust, and sport, or gluttony, or drunken-
ness that is his image ? Scripture saith, (Ephes. iv, 23,24.
Col. iii. 10.) it is holiness ; and this is called the Divine na-
ture, as coming from God, and inclining nature unto God.
Either holiness, wisdom and righteousness are God's image,
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 533
or else there is none such on man ; and then you make God's
word to be false. And if this be it, and this it which you
hate, are not you haters of God ? And is not that to be de-
vilish and hated by God ?
37. While you are angry at them that say few are saved,
or that none but saints or serious, godly, obedient men are
saved, you would sink all the world into utter despair, and
make none or next to none to be saved. One part of the
haters of godliness believe no life to come ; and these would
have all men despair. For if there be none, there is none
to be hoped for : and they that think men die but as
dogs and swine do, must be expected to live like dogs and
swine. The other part of you, labour by all means to make
themselves and others believe that the profession of more
godliness than worldly, carnal men have, is but hypocrisy,
and that such are at the heart as bad as others ; and if this
be so, what is the consequence, but that none are saved?
For unless you will give God the lie, or be saved in spite of
him, you must believe that none are saved that are not sanc-
tified by the Spirit of Christ, and live not after the Spirit,
mortifying the flesh ; John iii. 3, 5. Heb. xii. 14. Rom.
viii» 6 — 9.13. 2 Cor. v. 17. And that no man can be saved
that loveth the world more than God and heaven, and fleshly
pleasure more than holiness. And therefore if there be none
such, then none are saved. Hypocrisy will not save men :
God tells us that drunkards, fornicators, covetous, thieves,
extortioners, revilers, effeminate, idolaters, cannot enter into
the kingdom of God ; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. Ephes. v. 5. " And if
any man love the world (best) the love of the Father is not
in him;" 1 John ii. 5. And if all that pretend to be better
are hypocrites, then none at all are saved.
It may be you have the kindness to except some few.
But if those few be all that be not either carnal men, (des-
cribed Rom. viii. 5 — 7. 9.) or hypocrites, how few then do
you make to be saved, if God be true?
38. Who do you think it is that Christ meaneth, when he
saith, " I send you as lambs among wolves? Ye shall be
hated of all men for my name's sake. Blessed are they that
suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. When they
say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. The
world will hate you as it hated me, because you are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. Marvel
534 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
not if the world hate you. As many as will live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," &c. Who do you
think all this is spoken of? It is not of you that are fleshly
worldly, ungodly men. Who persecuteth you for righteous-
ness' sake? Who hateth, revileth, or imprisoneth, or fineth
you, for living godly in Christ Jesus ? Do you suffer as
much for reviling preachers, as we have done for preaching?
What suffer you for all the oaths that be sworn daily in the
streets and taverns, and the horrid profaneness, atheism,
Sadduceeism, infidelity, that men are guilty of? If you did
suffer for whoredom, drunkenness, or blasphemy is that for
Christ or righteousness ? When the Holy Ghost saith, '* as
he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born
after the Spirit, even so it is now ;" it is such as you that
he meaneth. When Peter saith, "They speak evil of you,
and falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ ;" (1
Pet. iii. 16.) whom meaneth he? When he saith, (1 Pet.
iv.) ** they think it strange that you run not with them to
all excess of riot, lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, re-
vellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatry," who do
you think he meaneth? And when he saith, (1 Pet. ii. 9.)
" Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy na-
tion, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises
of him that hath called you out of darkness into his mar-
vellous light ;" who is it that he meaneth ? You will say, it
is Christians : true : but is it hypocrites ? Is it those that
will say at last. Lord we have prophesied in thy name, and
eat and drunk in thy presence, to whom Christ will say. De-
part from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not ? Sure
false Christians are worse than heathens.
39. The way which you take against religious persons
doth shew who it is that sets you on work, and what it is
that is the root of your enmity. As God's image is in the
understanding, will, and executive power of man, so is
Satan's; and he is accordingly described by Christ to be I.
A liar and deceiver. 2. A malignant, hater of goodness or
holiness, and a cause of sin. 3. A hurtful murderer or des-
troyer. And these are the three ways by which godly peo-
ple are prosecuted in the world. 1. Belying them is grown
so common with their enemies, that there is nothing scarce-
ly so notoriously false which they will not afHrm of them,
and it is well if some will not preach it, print it, or swear it :
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 535
and they make one another easily believe it. Till experience
proved it, I did not think that human nature had been liable
to such impudent, monstrous lying.
2. The daily business of many is, by wit and diligence
to draw men to hate religious men on false pretences. As
plainly as Christ preacheth and urgeth love, as his great
commandment ; so plainly do these press and urge men to
hatred : but of this before.
3. And hatred tends to hurtfulness. What plotting and
labouring is there in the world, to ruin and destroy each
other ! The malignant spirit is bloodthirsty. It is strange
how the unclean devils thirst to draw or suck some blood
from witches. Nothing more alienates me from the papal
kingdom, than that it lives like leeches upon blood. To
read over the history of the inquisition, and of their massa-
cres, would make men take toads, and adders, and mad dogs,
and wolves, for harmless things in comparison of some men.
If any would requite them (or others) with the like, I hate it
in Protestant or Papist. The Turks conquered the Greek
empire, partly by the mutinous divisions of the Christians,
and partly by promising them liberty of religion. And then
the Christians thought they should have that, they yielded
up the empire with the less resistance. And that which was
so advantageous to the infidels, might, well used and limited,
be more advantageous to the Christian truth and chupch.
But though good things may be used in an ill cause, it is
a sign of a bad cause which needeth bad means. That cause
which is carried on by lying, perjury, and deceit, by malig-
nant, love-killing endeavours, and by cruelty, and hurt-
fulness, and blood, is thereby made suspicious to all wise
men. It is a wonder of impudence in Baronius, Binnius,and
other Papists, to j ustify Martin, a canonized saint, for renounc-
ing communion to the death with the synods and bishops who
persuaded the emperor to draw the sword against the Gnostic
Priscillianists ; and themselves to defend a thousandfold
greater cruelties and murders in their own church on the
account of religion. But sin is mad self-contradiction.
4. I conclude with this great truth : they that hate and
oppose godly men's obedience to God, do seek to silence
the chief witness of Christ, and to cast out Christianity from
the earth. Christianity cannot be proved to be true, but by
the Spirit, which is its seal and witness. This witness of
o3() CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
the Spirit was not only extraordinary in languages and nu-
merous miracles, but also ordinary in the work of sanctifica-
tion. This seal is set on all that shall be saved in all times
and places. The Lord knoweth who are his. ** And let him
that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." " He
redeemed us to purify to himself a peculiar people zealous
of good works; teaching us, that denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly
in this present world : looking for that blessed hope, and
the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Je-
sus Christ ;" Tit. ii. 12—14. By this healing work Christ
is known to be indeed our Physician, the real Saviour that
saveth his people from their sins. As man generateth man,
and the father is known by the similitude of the child ; and
as he is known to be a good artist that can make others such.
This is Christ's standing witness in all times and places.
And when you would turn this into scorn, and cloud it with
slanders, or the charge of hypocrisy, and would have judged
an odious people, and have them driven out of the world,
what do you in effect but spit in the face of Christ, and crown
him with thorns, and call him a deceiver, and crucify him
afresh, and seek to expel Christianity from the earth ? What
reasonable man could believe Christ to be Christ, the Sa-
viour of the world, if he did not sanctify men, and make
them much better and fitter for heaven than other men ?
So that in this you directly militate for the devil, the
world and the flesh, against God the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, against the holy catholic church, and the communion
of saints, and the hope of resurrection and life everlasting ;
which if you did openly under the name of infidels or hea-
thens, or rather as the professed soldiers of the devil, it were
less disingenuous and hypocritical, than to do it in the
church, and under Christ's colours, and in the Christian name.
And you must be sure that you are stronger than God
and our Saviour, if you will prevail to the last. God hath
undertaken the defence of the just : Christ hath undertaken
to present them triumphant before his Father, and cast their
enemies into hell. Are you sure you can overcome him?
Vtle worms that cannot fetch a breath without him ! When
began you to be stronger than God? Was it in the womb?
Or in infancy when you could not go ? Or was it when the
devil and the flesh made you mad or drunken in ignorant
CAIN AND ABKL MALIGNITY. 537
malice ? If so, the drunken fit will soon be over, and God
will awake a tormenting wit. If you can conquer God, try
your strength first on his works : stop the sun ; change
night and day; turn the tide of the sea; live without meat
or air; resolve that you will never die ; save all your friends
from death. Can you do none of this, and yet will you ven-
ture a war against God? Or do you think to fight against
his servants, and bribe him to be on your side, and forsake
them to your rage? Did Christ take man's nature, and die
to save them, and will he now turn on satan's side against
them ? He overcame the devil's temptation on earth ; yea,
called Peter satan ; Matt. xvi. When he would have tempt-
ed him not to die for his chosen. Let men or devils go try
him in his glory, whether he will change his mind, and take
your part against his own holy truth and servants.
CHAPTER IV.
Objections and Jake accusations answered.
But I know that as Christ and his apostles were not hated,
nor killed without pretended cause and reason, nor the mar-
tyrs murdered without accusation; so none will now justify
the scorning or persecuting an innocent person, or a saint as
such, but they will first make them odious, and seem worthy
of all that is done against them. They will say, it is not
godly men, but wicked hypocrites that we hate and prose-
cute ; a false and odious sort of persons, who are unruly,
and set up their own wit and will against the laws and go-
vernors of the several kingdoms where they live : they are
the very worst of men.
Ansy). If they are so indeed, they are none of the men that
I am pleading for, nor you the men that I reprove. But before
we come to particular accusations, it is your wisdom to an-
swer these few questions.
1 . Have you particular matter against them to make good
this charge? Or is it only a general malicious accusation?
2. Is it individual persons that you mean, by whom it is
proved ? Or do you thus accuse whole companies of men ?
What if one said of Papists, Jews, or Turks, they are mur~
538 ( AIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
derers, adulterers, perjured, &c. do you think he were not
an odious slanderer, to speak that of all or most, or the whole
party, which he can prove but by some few ?
3. Do you know all the persons whom you accuse? And
have you heard it proved? Or do you not say this of the
whole congregations assembled to worship God, of whom you
know not one of many ? If this be so, it is inhuman calumny.
4. Have the particular persons been heard speak for them-
selves, and give the reason of their actions ? And were they
proved insufficient? Or were they condemned unheard?
Or was God's word derided, and taken for no reason ?
5. Do you not know that the devil is the great accuser
of the brethren ? And that he hath malice and craft enough
to say as bad as you can say, by the best of men ? And
must he be believed ?
6. Are you sure you can make God believe you, that
these men are as bad as you affirm ? If not, and if he find a
man in prison for obeying his word, and ask who laid him
there, will you undertake to prove that he was laid there for
some crime? If God own him, and say, he is my servant,
will you confute him, and say. No ; but he is a schismatic ?
God knoweth a saint from a schismatic better than you do,
Sheep-stealers use to shear the sheep, and cut out the mark.
But they have to do with men. God's mark is where man
cannot take it away ; and the foundation of God standeth
sure. The Lord knoweth who are his.
7. Know you not that Christ, and his apostles, and all
the martyrs were as deeply charged, and put to death as ma-
lefactors ? We must then have better proof than accusation.
8. If they prove faithful Christians whom you thus ac-
cuse, Christ hath undertaken their justification : it is his
office. And do you think to baffle him ? Can he not an-
swer you? Rom.viii.32,33.35. Who shall lay any thing
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth : who
is he that will condemn them ?
9. Have you not greater sins yourselves than those whom
you accuse ? If so, you condemn yourselves. Would you
have God j udge of them as you do ? If so, do you not tell him
how to judge of you, and even crave him to condemn you ?
10. Doubtless you know that you are sinners : and how
think you to be justified at the bar of God? Is there any
but Cljrist to judge and justify you ? And do you think he
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 530
will justify his enemies, thathated, accused and condemned
his servants?
11. Those that dwell near godly Christians and should
know them, are more inexcusable for their malice and slan-
ders than foreigners and strangers are. Men of another
land or age may be deceived by lying fame or history : but
you that are their neighbours are without excuse. I speak
for none but persons fearing and obeying God : and you
might easily have known that they are neither fornicators,
drunkards, perjured, swearers, liars, oppressors, thieves, nor
suffer for any such crimes as these.
12. And if they are as wicked as you say, why do you
not prosecute them for such wickedness ? What are the
French Protestants now prosecuted and ruined for ? Have
any judicatures proved them guilty of any such crimes against
God or man ? Or is it not, only for worshipping God con-
trary to the king's and prelate's laws? And how is that?
As Christ's apostles did : they refuse nothing in God's wor-
ship which God commanded, or any of Christ's apostles
used, or any churches in their days, or long after. And did
the apostles offer God so odious a worship as deserved hatred
and destruction ? When Daniel's enemies designed his
ruin, they said, ** We shall find no matter against this Daniel
except it be concerning the law of his God," Dan. vi. ; and
so they got a law made against praying to any God but the
king for a certain time. Daniel must be cast to the lions for
breaking the king's law. The poor flies deserve death for
coming into the spider's web : but did not the venomous
worm spin it of purpose out of her own bowels, or conden-
sate air, to take and kill the flies by craft ? In England there
are many that worship God as the French Protestants do,
and no better than Christ's apostles did : if this be their hor-
rid wickedness that makes them unworthy to live out of pri-
son, say so, and pretend no other. But if it be heresy, false
doctrine, perjury, fornication, robbing, treason, sedition or
any other crime, why are they not accused of these before
the judges? And why are those charged with them that
never were so accused and proved guilty? Will not all wise
men take those persons for malicious liars, who by their
published accusations thus odiously charge multitudes, and
never offer to prove it against them at the judicatures ? Their
accusations shew they want not will, therefore their not pro-
540 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
secuting them for any such sort of crimes, shews that it is
truth that is wanting.
13. And if they be such wicked persons, whence is it,
that they are charged merely with hypocrisy, by such as
say, thai they live soberly, and justly, and demurely, but
they are at the heart as bad as others. Their accusers com-
monly confess that they are most free from all immoralities,
and have an outward show of righteousness, but these heart-
searchers see that their hearts are bad. And do they not
by this confute their own accusations?
14. And why is it that they that know them best can
see none of the wickedness which you accuse them of, (be-
yond those human infirmities of which they most accuse
themselves). As I have oft done, I again solemnly profess,
as one that cannot be far from my account before the Judge
of all the world, that having now lived to the sixty-eighth
year of my age, and been most familiar since the age of six-
teen or seventeen, with that sort of men whom the vulgar
then called Puritans (described by Mr. Bolton and such other
Conformists) though I have met with many that had their
mistakes, and frailties, and troublesome differences in lesser
things, and some hypocrites intruded among them, yet I ne-
ver knew any other sort of men comparable to them in
Christian knowledge, faith, obedience to God, hatred of sin,
care of their duty to God and man, sobriety, temperance,
chastity, truth, heavenly desires, endeavours and hopes :
and that they so far excelled the rest of my acquaintance,
as made their grace amiable to me, and confirmed my belief
of the sacred Scriptures : yea, more, if I had not had the
happiness of knowing such a sort of men that in holiness,
justice and love excelled the rest of my acquaintance,
or at least, credibly heard of such, I could not have believed
in Christ, as a Saviour of men whom he made no better than
Turks and infidels ; nor could I have believed a heaven for
men no better prepared for it. And that now near my end,
I see so great a difference in holiness, justice and charity^
between those commonly reviled for worshipping God but
as the apostles did, and those that hate and persecute them,
as greatly helps me in believing that there is a Saviour, and
Sanctifier, and heaven for the faithful, and a devil that de-
ceives the rest, and a hell that will receive them, which is
even visibly begun on earth.
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 541
Accus, ' Bui (say they) it is not for their godliness or so-
briety that we accuse them, but for their sin and wickedness.*
Answ. Still this is but general, and signifieth nothing.
But, 1. What is that odious sin? 2. It is God's merciful
providence that keeps sin in general under such shame, as
that the actors of it speak against it, even in their slanders.
3. But if this be the true cause, why do you cull out those
that have least sin, to fasten your accusations of sin upon?
If there be a conformable minister that is more holy, charita-
ble, and zealous against sin than the rest, he is one of those
that is called a Puritan, and accused of sin. Why do we
hear none of your furious charges against the common drunk-
ards, revellers, gamesters, whoremongeys, persecutors, pro-
fane blasphemers, liars, and the families that call not upon
God, shew no serious regard of any religion at all? You
can live among these, and swear, and drink, and play with
them, and never cry out against them as bad men.
Accus. ' But religion being the best thing, the corrupters of
that are worse than drunkards, and swearers, and adulterers.'
Answ. Such corrupters there may be, as are worse in-
deed : but what is it that they corrupt religion in ? They
subscribe to all the Bible, and the ancient creeds ; and if need
be, to the English Articles of Religion. Is not all that
enough ? Their many large published writings tell the
world their judgment in religion: such as Mr. Arthur Hil-
dersham's, Mr. Perkins', Mr. Greenham's, Dod's, Anthony
Burgess-s, Richard AUeine's, and abundance such. What
errors are in these?
2. Why are they not these twenty years accused of
preaching false doctrine, and proved guilty, and punished
for it, if they are such ?
3. If it be not in doctrine, what is it ?
Accus, ' They worship God contrary to the law, in not
using the Common Prayer Book.'
Answ. 1. Those that constantly join in the parish churches
in the Common Prayer are as much hated, reviled and pro-
secuted as the rest. Therefore this charge is but hypocrisy.
2. What do they that for matter or manner is positively
contrary to law in God's worship ? They read Scripture,
pray, preach, praise God with psalms, communicate in the
Lord's supper : doth the law forbid any of this?
3. Not using the rest of the liturgy is a negation, ^uid no
542 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
act at all, and therefore no act of worship, and therefore no
unlawful act, no more than silence is : he that is silent, and
he that omits the rest of the liturgy, worshipsnot Godby us-
ing it ; but he doth nothing contrary to it, or forbidden by it.
4. If Peter and Paul were unknown in England, and
worshipped God but as they did on earth, would you there-
fore call them rogues or rebels, or lay them in gaol? Did
they worship God in an odious or intolerable manner? Did
the Holy Ghost by them write an infallible rule for all things
necessary in religion ; and yet are they insufferable rogues
that worship God but according to that rule?
5. Are they wiser men than they that have made us an-
other rule or worship : or have they more of God's Spirit,
and more authority in religion ?
6. Do the imposers say, that all which they add is no
part of religion, but things indifferent? And are they
odious corrupters of religion, who omit no part of religion,
but only human indifferent things ?
7. Do you not reverence the church for some hundred
years after Christ, which imposed no liturgies, but left every
pastor to use his own prayers ?
8. Do you not harden the Papists that call our religion
new, and ask where it was two hundred years ago, if you
make the liturgy as now formed and imposed, our religion,
when it is not two hundred years old.
9. The godly bishops of England have ever owned the
other Protestant churches, and their communion, who have
none of our liturgies, nor any like it.
10. If this be odious crime, why do you never revile or
prosecute the atheists, infidels, Sadducees, Hobbists, and
those many thousands that seldom, if ever, go to any church,
or worship God publicly at all ? Is the worship that Peter
and Paul used worse than irreligiousness and infidelity ?
11. Who can believe that you are sincerely zealous
against mis-worshipping God, when you can ordinarily your-
selves be in a drinking house or playhouse, at the time of
public worship? And when so few of you never so much
as worship God in your families, by prayer, or read the
Scripture, or catechise your families?
Ib it not a strange thing to hear men accuse others for
not using the liturgy in God's worship, and at the same time
would have them that refuse it, to be forbidden all public
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. ,543
worshipping of God at all ? Doth this signify any dislike
of their omitting God's worship? Which is the more un-
godly omission ? To omit all worship of God, and live like
atheists, or to omit only so much of the liturgy as the apos-
tles used not? I have known many that could not eat
cheese, as is said before, (nor scarce smell it without danger
of death). If you would have a law made that such shall
eat no other meat, few wise men will believe that it is their
health and life that you desire. If a man fail in paying his
landlord some odd act of service, will you make a law that he
shall pay nothing at all? If a subject neglect paying some
excise, or using bow and arrows, will you forbid him paying
any thing, or serving the king at all ? Sure they that for-
bid men all public worship, be offended at somewhat else
than that men do not rightly worship God, unless they think
that not to worship him at all is better than doing it witli-
out their book.
Object. * But he shall be compelled to better worship.*
Answ. How ? When he lieth in gaol he cannot publicly
worship God at all. Is that better worship? I know it is
banishment that some would have executed. And will men
worship God any better among heathens or infidels, or others?
Or why should other countries endure them, if they be not to
be endured in their own ?
Are not Englishmen that worship God only by their own
book, as much Nonconformists when they are in other lands,
France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, &c. as those are
here that do not use it. And are they there intolerable and
worthy of ruin ?
Did the apostles or first churches banish any on such
accounts? Will Christ banish them from his kingdom?
Hath he made any such laws ? And is not he the absolute
Sovereign ? Hath he left his servants to the will of man, to
use them how they will, or cast out of his church whom they
will ? Are you sure these are none of the number of whom
Christ saith, " I was hungry and ye fed me not," See. *' Inas-
much as ye did it not to one of the least of these my bre-
thren, you did it not to me ;" Matt. xxv.
Acais, * But they are schismatics, and separate from the
church ; and is not that a damnable sin V
Arisw. 1. Being speaking only to malignant enemies of
serious godliness, I say, It is not only separatists that you
544 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
hate, but godly conformists, yea perhaps most of all, be-
cause you are more restrained from hurting them. How oft
hear we curses and revilings against conforming Puritans,
or as some call them, Church Whigs. If they are not haters
of their brethren, but friends to love and peace, you nick-
name them Trimmers. And cursing those whom Christ
blesseth, when he saith, " Blessed be the peacemakers, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven," you say, * Cursed be the
Trimmers, and would the kingdom were rid of them.' It is any
thatarefor aholylife, and obedience to God, that you abhor.
2. As I said before, you spare those that come to the pa-
rish churches no more than others. The old Nonconform-
ists wrote more against separation than any else in England
did. And yet were hated as intolerable. The reconcilers
who are since made Nonconformists, did publicly offer to
be subject to archbishops and bishops, to use the liturgy
themselves if reformed, and if it were not, yet never pleaded
for separation. And yet are never the more endured.
But who is it that they separate from ? Do they not pro-
fess union and communion with the whole catholic church
on earth ? What separation do you mean ? Is it their local
absence ? And are not you such separatists from all the
world, saving the assembly where you meet? One cannot
be in two places at once.
Or is it that they dislike somewhat in your forms of wor-
ship ? So they may in other forms, with whom yet they
profess communion. And in what is it that they shew dis-
like or separation? They hold communion with you as
Christians, and as reformed from popery. They separate
not from Papists as Christians. And from you it is only for
that which you say is no part of your worship or religion,
but things indifferent, which they think to be sin. And are
those Separatists from your church, who only separate from
that which is no part of your church or worship ?
3. Are the French and Dutch churches in London schis-
matics or Separatists, who profess communion with our
churches, though they use not our oaths, subscriptions, or
liturgy ? Liking their own mode better, and preferring it is
no separation. If I like your liturgy better than any in the
Bibliotheca Patrum, is that separating from all churches that
use the rest?
4. Who are the schismatics in France, Italy, Poland,'&c.
GAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 644
Those that are called so, and persecuted as such ; or
those that impose on them the things which they judge sin-
ful ?
What if you were in a Presbyterian land, where the litur-
gy and prelacy are forbidden, and another form set up by
law ; and you should contrary to that law use the litur-
gy and ceremonies ; or at least refuse subscribing against
prelacy, and for lay elders ? If they excommunicated or
ruined you for this, who do you think were guilty of the
schism ?
5. Do they forsake the assemblies before they are excom-
municated ? Or is it not an odd thing for to excommuni-
cate men first, and then accuse them for not coming tp
church? I have known ministers stop in the midst of pub-
lic worship, and refuse to go on till an excommunicate per-
son went out. The whole representative Church of England
do, in their fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth canons, * ipso
facto,' without trial or sentence, ex.coramunicate all in Eng-
land, who affirm any thing to be sinful or repugnant to God's '
word in the church-governing offices whatsoever, in the li-
turgy, ceremonies, or articles. And shall they after this be
called separatists for not coming in ? Doth not the canon
shew that the church would not have them come in, when
they cast them out ?
Object. * But the church and canon bid them repent of
that their wicked error, and publicly confess it, and so
come in.'
Arisw. 1. Is a man's judgment absolutely in his power?
Can a man believe a thing to be a wicked error merely be-
cause the canon saith so ? He that can believe what is list,
believeth nothing truly. If this belief be necessary to church
communion, and to escape damning schism, it is necessary
to salvation. Why then is it not in the creed, ten command-!-
ments, or Bible ? Do you call them the things indifferent,
and then call it a wicked error to hold them sinful 'I Is not
this to make it necessary to salvation or communion, to have
so much learning or knowledge, as to know all indifferent
words and things in the world to be indifferept which men
will impose ? I would all church members with yours and
others knew all necessary things. Do you believe in your
heart that all, or half the parishioners do know these things
VOL. X. N N
546 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
to be lawful, or understand any more of them than those that
think otherwise ? When thousands cannot answer a neces-
sary question of the creed or catechism, nor know who Christ
is, and how he saveth us ?
Why is there not a catechism made containing the sound
proof that lay chancellor*s power of the keys, and diocesan
bishops that have no bishops under them, and our present
court-church discipline, and all the rubric, ceremonies, and
forms are lawful, if all must be excommunicate with the
church.
Object, * If they are so ignorant that they cannot know
church orders to be lawful, they are not fit to communicate
with the church.*
Answ. Make no church orders necessary to communion,
but what Christ -and his apostles have made necessary to it ;
and then cast out and spare not all as ignorant that refuse
them.
2. But again, do you believe that most, or all that you
keep in, are wiser and more knowing than those that you
cast out? How shall such as I believe you, who know that
in all the parishes which my cohabitation alloweth me to
know, it is the most knowing and religious part that most
dissent, and the generality of the grossly ignorant that un-
derstand few articles of the creed, do conform. As ignorant
as I am, and hundreds of my calling and mind, I would I
were not only silenced and imprisoned, but put to death, on
condition that all that you now receive as members of the
church, had no more ignorance than we have. But it is our
lot to tire ourselves with teaching poor people to understand
their baptism, Christianity, creed. Lord's prayer, and ten
commandments, and leave most ignorant when all is done,
and yet ourselves after our hardest and longest study, to be
judged so ignorant about some indifferent things, as to be
unfit for ministry or communion.
Accus. If men will not obey church governors and laws,
they are rebels, and unfit for Christian society. If every
man shall follow his own fancy, what order will there be ?
Do not all churches require obedience to their orders ?
Answ. I. The church hath one universal King, who hath
made universal laws for all; which must be first obeyed, and
against which no man hath power. And yet his own laws
have things necessary to all, in which they must unite, and
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY'. o47
integrals and accidents which all know not, in which they
must bear with one another. No man understandeth all the
Bit)le. And are many laws and books more necessary than
God's?
2. Whoever depraveth the necessary points of religion by
his own fancies, should be rejected. But all men living err
in many lesser things.
3. In what countries is it that your rule holds, that rul-
ers must be thus far obeyed in religion ? Is it in China, or
Pegu, or Hindostan, or Turkey? Or is it in Italy, Spain,
Poland, Silesia, Bavaria, or France ? Or is it at Geneva,
Holland, or the Presbyterian countries? Or is it only in
England, Scotland, and Ireland ? And was it so here be-
fore Henry the Eighth, or only since ? And how shall any
know where it is, unless he try and judge his ruler's com-
mands by the laws of God? Will you follow this rule in
France or Spain? Or shall all subjects judge of kings' ca-
pacities ?
Accus. ' But they hold unlawful assemblies of their own,
and worship God contrary to law, and yield not so much as
passive obedience.'
Answ, 1. You know the ministers are forbidden their of-
fice, unless they will take those oaths, subscriptions, profes-
sions, and practices, which they dare not take, for fear of sin
and damnation. And they would be thankful if their rea-
sons may be heard, and if any will instruct them better. And
they are confirmed in their opinion by the answers, or no
answers rather, made to the reasons already given in. And
they are devoted or vowed to the sacred ministry in their or-
dination. And if there be such a sin as sacrilege in the
world, they are confident it were sacrilege in them to alie-
nate themselves from the office which they have undertaken.
As it is apostacy from Christianity to violate our baptismal
vow, though men should command it, they doubt not but it
is perfidious apostacy from the sacred ministry, to violate
the ordination vow, though bishops silence them. As it is
adultery to violate the conjugal contract, though a bishop
should require it; seeing he that married them hath no pow-
er to unmarry them, unless they do it first themselves, and
prove deserters or adulterers.
2. And the people that are excommunicate, or forbidden
548 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
to worship God publicly, unless they will do that which they
think is sin, are still under God's command to worship him,
and not to forsake church-assembling for his worship. What
would you have these ministers and people do? They stu-
dy and pray to God to convince them, if they take these
oaths, subscriptions, professions, and practices to be sin,
and they be no sin. They resolve to be ruled by God's
word. They are willing to hear any thing that may better
inform them. They wonder that men accuse them that have
no more to say to change them. If they desert the minis-
try, they fear God's vengeance. If these poor people give
over all God's public worship, and live like atheists, con-
science living or dying will torment them. If they do that
which they are persuaded is sin, when the imposers call it
but indifferent, Paul hath antidated their sentence ; "He
that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of
faith. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" Rom. xiv.
Change their judgment they cannot. Sin they dare not.
To give over worshipping God is to renounce salvation.
Change the law or canon men will not. It seems to me a
strange penalty to forbid men to worship God at all, because
they think some subscriptions or forms to be sin. More
strange than to say, all that will not wear crape shall go na-
ked. Or all that will not eat anchovies shall eat nothing.
If a man think the use of a crucifix in worship sinful, sure to
give over all worship is more sinful. But men have their
ways.
3. What worship is it that they offer God contrary to
law? They are willing to do all required in Scripture by
Christ and his apostles. And were they rebels and rogues?
Or is their worship intolerable ?
4. What harm will it do their neighbours, or any, if
they only read the Scripture, and praise God with psalms,
and preach and pray as God prescribeth, without subscrip-
tions or ceremonies ? Are any hurt by this? Doth the same
liberty to the Dutch here hurt any body, or break peace ?
Doth the difference of cathedral and parish worship break
peace ? or of those churches that have organs and altars, and
those that have none ?
The Papists are the greatest pretenders to unity, and
most cry down «chism ; and yet if all will but be servants to
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITV. 54.9
the pope, he will license multitudes of orders that more dif*
fer from one another than we from you. Jesuits, Benedic-
tines, Dominicans, Carthusians, and abundance more.
5. Dare any man of self-knowledge and conscience say,
that all your worship is not more faulty than is the omission
of a form or ceremony ? Will not all the world be forbid-
den to worship God, if all as bad as this be forbidden ? And
how many worshippers of God, think you, will be left in
England, if all must give over that have greater faults than
the omission of a thing called but indifferent?
6. As to what you talk of passive obedience, though the
phrase be a contradiction, yet the thing meant is a mere cheat
of one that hath devised that absurd phrase : and calls
omissive obedience by the name of passive ; omitting an
action is not suffering. Daniel was forbid to pray, and the
apostles to preach. They would not yield this omissive
obedience, but they yielded that which is commonly called
passive. They patiently suffered.
7. Do you not know that about two hundred thousand in
and near London cannot come within the doors of the parish
churches (nor hundreds hear that can croud in) ; shall all
these be made atheists, or taken for rebels if they will not
forbear to worship God ?
8. I suppose you know that many thousands stay at home
in their houses, shops, taverns, in sin or idleness. Are these
thought worthy of a gaol or banishment? or is their course
better than to worship God as Peter and Paul did ? O the
difference between God's judgment and some men's ! But
God's judgment shall determine all.
9. Are there no unfaithful and unskilful ministers? Will
no patrons choose such ? Is not the minister's skill and
faithfulness of great importance to men's salvation ? What
if bishops or laws imposed an unskilful or untrusty physici-
an on you, and forbade you to choose a better, would you
die obediently, or rather say. No one hath power so to be-
tray my life ? No nor your soul neither.
10. If you have the hearts of Christians^ consider this un-
deniable consequence. If you will have no union or con-
cord among Christians till they agree in all things that are
of no greater weight and evidence, than your forms and ce-
remonies are, you would have no concord in the world, no
not between any two persons. And you may as well say,
550 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
none shall be endured that are not just of the same visage
and complexion. And then all the doubt will be, who is the
man that will be the strongest and longest liver, or possess
all England himself alone,
Accus, * But they shew that they are perjured, false, un-
conscionable rogues, that took on them to scruple oaths and
our church communion till now, and now can do all rather
than be out of places of trust.
Answ. 1. As to your church communion, can you blind
men's eyes, that they shall not read what the old noncon-
formists have written to persuade men to it ? See Messrs*
Hildersham, Bradshaw, GifFord, Paget, Ball, and abundance
more. And did not the present nonconformists shew the
same judgment, in 1660, and 1661, in their treaty i And do
not many come to your assemblies ? And w^ould they not all
that are ministers preach there if they could have leave?
And have you not, as is afore proved, excommunicated them
by your canons, 5 — 8. And is the Oxford act (which ira-
prisoneth them all six months if they be seen within five
miles of a corporation or any place where they have preach^
ed within twenty years) an invisible thing ? Do you lay men
in gaol by it, and yet think it must be unknown ? And he
that knows it, knows that it sentences all such to goal if they
be seen in your churches? And it is the course of human
converse to say, If you come into any church within five miles,
&,c. you shall lie in gaol six months ; and if you do not, you
are rogues, and shall lie in gaol for not coming. Just when
the ministers agreed to come more frequently than before,,
this act came out, and drove them back. You will say, they
can appear in their own assemblies. Answ, 1. His majesty
encouraged them by granting them liberty by his declara-
tion. 2. They have more hope there of escaping out of your
hands, than they have in your own churches.
And do you not see in print what Mr. Tombes the Ana-
baptist wrote long ago to persuade his followers to your
communion ? And what Mr. Nye wrote to persuade the in-
dependents to come to your churches ? What great change
is here of their judgments?
Object, * But why did not the people do so all this
while r
Amw, Because their own teachers did, as they thought,
more profit them. Many a man thinks it lawful to wear rags
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 551
that yet had rather wear whole and comely clothes ; and law-
ful to eat brown bread, and drink water, that will fare better
when they can, and yet take these when they cannot. The
people that had good houses before the fire, did without any
chance of their judgments get into any poor rooms or cot-
tages after it.
2. But suppose they lately change their judgments (as
many no doubt have), you that think it is for the better are
strange Christians that reproach men for repenting and
amending. Do you call them to church and reproach them
for not coming, and seek to ruin them for it, and now accuse
them for coming ? Doth not this shew that some men de-
sired the present impositions, not for concord of all, but to
drive some away, lest they should come in, and the land have
concord? And doth not this shew what men we have
to do with ; and that it is somewhat else than noncon-
formity which such men hate ? Your justice is, ' Come to
church, or lie in gaol as schismatics. And if you come you
are perfidious rogues.' Whether they do or do not, all is one
to such judges, who have some other hateful matter in their
eye.
Object. * But their doing it just now to keep their char-
ter, and keep from suffering, proveth that they are perfidious
rogues.'
Answ, 1 . I pray tell men of brains and sense, for what it
is that you would have men excommunicated, and laid in
gaol or fined, if they conform not. Do you do all this with-
out any purpose or hope to drive them to conformity ? And
do you do it only to make them perfidio^is rougues. If suf-
fering may not alter them, why do you use it on them ?
2. But who knows not that some things are lawful to
avoid sufi:ering which else would not be lawful. It is law-
ful to cast your goods into the sea to save the ship and men's
lives ; which else were a sin. It is lawful to give a thief
ypur purse to save your life, which else were unlawful. It
is lawful to blow up neighbour's houses to stop a fire. Christ
proved it lawful to break the sabbath in cases of necessity ;
he withdrew into the wilderness and far from Jerusalem, to
avoid the Pharisees' persecution. And Paul was let down
by the wall in a basket ; and which without danger of suf-
fering, had not been lawful. Though no sin must be done
to avoid suffering, yet that may and must be done, which
552 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
self-preservation makes no sin, but a duty ; to kill a maii
that assaults you in your own defence is not the same crime
as unnecessarily to kill him.
But as to the other case of taking the corporation oath
and declaration, if you know the case (as you should do be-
fore you accuse men), you know that it is the true sense of
them that is all the controversy. Nobody scruples swearing
loyalty, and renouncing rebellion and sedition, and all unlaw-
ful means of reformation. That which makes it difficult is that
on one side, the proper universal sense of the words seem to
them unlawful, and oaths must be taken in the usual sense,
unless our rulers give another, yet on the other side, learn-
ed sober conformists profess that they take such words in the
limited sense, or else they would not take them ; and they
argue subtly to prove that to be the true sense ; and our
lawmakers to whom it belongs will not end the controversy
by an exposition. And can you wonder liere if men fluctu-
ate in uncertainty? And a late writer having given subtler
arguments for the limited sense than were published before,
did persuade many. And in that limited sense twenty non-
conformist ministers took the oath long ago in London at
one time.
But I justify none that mistake in so great a matter. And
doubtless if they sinned God will not bless it to their good ;
it will prove their snare. And I am glad that we are agreed
that perjury is a heinous sin. I beseech you tlien to con-
sider, 1. Whether those men are fit to accuse them who
drive them to it, and say to ministers. Swear or lie in gaol.
2. Or those who are of the mind of Grotius, Bishop Taylor,
and such others, that lying is lawful when it saves ourselves,
and wrongs no other ; and of those divines that say, it is as
lawful to defend myself from pernicious iraposers with my
tongue as with my hands.
3. Let us all with fear (who believe there is a God) avoid
the dreadful crime of perjuring the whole land; This whole
kingdom is sworn against all foreign jurisdiction in the oath
of supremaby ; and against all endeavours to alter the go-
vernment of church or state, by, 1. The corporation act.
2. The vestry act. 3. The militia act. 4. The Oxford act
of confinement. 6. And obliged by the act of uniformity.
Is it not perjury then to endeavour any alteration of it ? 1.
What shall we then think of them that would bring in pope-
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 553
ry ? Would they not perjure the kingdom ? 2. What shall
we say of them that write for a foreign church jurisdicAion,
under the name of General Councils, or a college of bishops,
or of foreign patriarchs, or of whom the pope is chief, and
the * principium unitatis' to the universal church. Is it no
change of our church government to bring us under a foreign
jurisdiction ? Is it no change of state government to make
the king and kingdom subject to that foreign jurisdiction,
who may excommunicate him, and so bring on him all the
evil that excommunication inferreth ? And what man in his
wits knoweth not that prelates and priests are much at the
will and power of the princes under whom they live? Doth
not our king expect that his bishops obey him ? And those
that must have this universal jurisdiction over our king and
us, are the subjects of other princes, of which the far great-
est part are Papists, Mahometans, Infidels, Heathens, or
Such as are called heretics ; and if our king and we be made
subject to the subjects of the Turk, the pope, the kings of
Spain, France, Poland, the emperor, the Muscovite, the
dukes of Bavaria, Tuscany, and such like, is he not made a
subject to their lords and masters, and much worse ? Will
not this project perjure England ?
3. Whether it be any alteration of government by them
that would change the power and use of parliaments, I leave
to lawyers.
4. But I would fain be satisfied of another case. These
kingdoms of England and Scotland took a covenant and
vow, some voluntarily, some at their compositions, who had
been sequestered for the king. This vow contained divers
matters, of which some are notorious duties, as to repent of
their sins, to oppose popery, schism, and profaneness, to de-
fend the king. Sec. It is not denied by most that I meet
with, that this oath or vow was unlawfully imposed, and un-
lawfully taken, and many think some of the matter was un-
lawful, viz. to oppose prelacy, &c. But seeing casuists are
agreed, that an oath unlawfully both imposed and taken,
bindeth to that part of the matter which is lawful and neces-
sary, notwithstanding the conjunction of the rest. And the
corporations of England are all formed by a declaration ta-
ken by all in power and trust, that ' There is no obligation
(without the least exception) on me or any other person from
the oath called the Solemn League and Covenant ; the doubt
554 CAIN AND ABliL MALIGNITY.
is, whether every man may declare that, of all the thousands
of three kingdoms (whom he never knew) no one is bound
by that oath, or vow, to repent of his sins, or in his place and
calling to oppose schism, popery, or profaneness, or to de-
fend the king. And whether all may declare that the Lon-
doners and ministers, and the restored old parliament, and
General Monk's army who restored the king, as supposing
they were bound to it by that oath, were all deceived, and
were under no such obligation thence. And whether I am
not bound in charity to think that the sequestered royalists
put a good sense on it when they took it. And so whether
all the corporations of England are free from And for
what it is that God hath singled them out for judgment.
If you be agreed with us (and with mankind) against so
great a sin as perjury, especially national, let us help one
another with love and patience to resolve such doubts.
Accus. * But they have been guilty of rebellion in a civil
war, and therefore are justly suvspected to preacher hold re-
bellious doctrine.'
Answ. 1. Are those men lovers of love and concord who
purposely make use of pardoned acts to keep the kingdom's
wounds still open? Did not the king tell you in his decla-
rations and act of oblivion, that the putting up all (save to
the excepted persons), and closing for the future in mutual
love, was the only way to the nation's peace ? You would
tempt men to think that you desire to see such days again,
by trying whether destroying men will tempt nature to a self-
defence.
2. But you have oft had it proved (by Henry Fowlis,
Bishop Barlow, and abundance more), that no Protestants
come near the principles and practices of the Papists, as to
king-killing and rebellion. And if yet you know not that
the war began between two parties of episcopal conformists
here among the English, you are unfit to judge of that which
you know not. And by reading Rushworth, Whitlock, or
any true histories of such times and matters, you may be
better informed. As you may of their diiferent principles if
you read Jewel, Bishop Bilson, and Richard Hooker on one
side, and Mainwarning and Sibthorp on the other.
3. But how few men are alive that had any hand in those
miserable wars ? You have oft been offered a thousand
thanks if you will silence and hunt no other that are as inno-
CAIN ANP ABEL MALIGNITY. 555
cent as you, and more than many of their accusers. And
shall thousands suffer for other men's deeds? 3. What will
wise men think of such a sort of men, as charge multitudes
in general with rebellious and seditious doctrine, and have
accused so few of any such these twenty years, that I know
not of one publicly accused, tried and proved guilty, of all
called Presbyterians in all this land? If they are guilty
prove it, and let the guilty suffer, and not the innocent ; only
had I my wish I would bar perjury, and condemning men
unheard.
Accus. 'They are an unpeaceable sort of people.'
Anbw. That is soon said. Who hath these twenty-two
years manifested most desires of peace? They that have
begged for it again and again ; pleaded and written foi it;
offered their oaths that they would obey any lawful com-
mands for it, and do any thing which they did not believe
that God forbids ? Or those bishops that would not have
one form or ceremony, or needless subscription forborn, to
save thousands of ministers from being silenced and laid in
common gaols, nor to save many thousands of the people
from suffering, and to heal the divisions of the church. One
would think this should be as easy a controversy, as when
soldiers are plundering the country, and the people on their
knees entreating for their goods and lives, to determine which
of them is most against war.
Accus. * But what need they make such a stir with their
religion. What need they any more than go to church and
live obediently and be quiet? Why will they be righteous
overmuch ; will not less ado bring men to heaven ? Why do
they differ from their neighbours, and judge all carnal that
be not as scrupulous as they ? God is merciful ; and will
he save none but Puritans, or precise zealots T
Answ. Now you come to the real matter of your distaste.
I did not meddle with the case of nonconformity as it is a
controversy between godly men, but only as you make a pre-
tence of it to exercise your enmity against serious godliness,
and a handle to lay hold on many whom Christ will justify
and save. To all beforesaid I add,
1. If you think they do too much, search the Scriptures,
and see whether it be not less than God commandeth? And
if SO; is it not God whom you accuse and reproach?
2. If they do too much in obeying God, why do canon-
55(J CAiN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
makers impose such abundance on them, as if God had not
imposed enough ?
3. Why.do you never find fault with men for being too
strong, too healthful, too rich, too great, but only for being
too obedient to God? When Christ saith ; if we did all
that God commandeth we must say, we are unprofitable ser-
vants, we have done no more than was our duty, and the best
on earth came short of duty. But this, which is the core, I
answered before : and conclude, that all that be in their right
wits can more easily bear all your accusations and persecu-
tions of us, as if we did too much in obedience to God, than
the accusation of conscience and the displeasure of God for
doing too little : which, alas! when we have done our best
would sink us into despair, had we not the merits of Christ's
suffering and perfect righteousness to trust to.
CHAPTER V.
A humble Expostulation with the English Papists who by In-
formation and Prosecution seek our Ruin.
Though it be not Popery as such that 1 am here reasoning
against, the course that many Papists take in seeking our
destruction, giveth me cause of this humble expostulation :
and I speak now of no other, but of them. I mean, 1 . Those
that write so hotly and ragingly to provoke superiors to
ruin us. 2. Those that make a trade of being delators against
us for worshipping God as we do. 3. Those of them that
break in upon us with greatest haughtiness and fury, to take
away all our goods, and seek our imprisonment. 4. Those
that seek to ruin us by those laws which were made against
themselves. 5. Those that would make superiors believe
that our doctrine is more rebellious than theirs. To these I
offer a few modest questions.
Quest. 1. There are some among you that profess great
spirituality and strictness in religion. Serenus Cressy wrote
to me (commending Baker's book which he published,) that
he forsook the church of England because he found no spi-
ritual contemplation and devotion among us. Such as Ne-
rius. Sales, Kempis, Gerson Borromajus, Renti, &c. are
really the chief honour of your church. Much of that for
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. /i57
which I am hated by the enemies of serious godliness, I ac-
knowledge to God's praise, I was first chiefly awakened to
a book written by one whom Watson and others of your
party grievously accuse, I mean Parson's book of Resolu-
tion corrected by Bunny. True Christianity and godliness
is the same thing in all that have it. Your priest, Mr.
Hutchinson, alias Berry, writeth that the most of serious
godliness among Protestants is found among those called
Puritans ; so that I was fain to defend the Conformists against
his charge. All this being so, is it the Spirit of God that
engageth and enrageth you with the most destructive bitter-
ness against those men whom you confess to be the most re-
ligious, merely because they are stiffest against your church-
government and way of worship? And do you not know
that it tendeth more sensibly than disputes, to persuade the
people whom you thus hate and prosecute, that your religion
is malignity, and enmity to real godliness?
Quest, 2. Do you think it is prudent for you as soon as
ever you get up, and and before you dare openly own
your name and cause, to begin with malice, rage and
cruelty, and that against the most religious (as you say)?
Will not this persuade the people that all is true that is said
of your intended cruelty, and make them fear you, as so many
leopards or wolves? Will they not say. if the young ser-
pents can so easily sting, what will the old ones do ? And
if your infancy here begin with such destructive zeal, what
will you do when you are at full growth?
Quest. 3. You cannot be ignorant what cause to accuse
your church with cruelty and blood, hath been given the
world by your church-laws and practices : by the council at
the Lateran under Innocent III. the council for damning
Henrician heretics, even kings that claim investiture of
bishops, and those that decree the burning of all that you
call heretics : by the murder of so many thousand Albigen-
ses, Waldenses, Bohemians, 8cc. By the inquisitions more
inhuman cruelties in Belgium, and Spain, &c. : by the mas-
sacres in France, and the murder of Henry III. and IV. By
Queen Mary's flames : by the two hundred thousand mur-
dered in Ireland. And there be many among you who dis-
own all this, and say it is not from the principles of your
religion (when yet general councils approved are your re-
ligion itself). This being copiously opened (as I said before
558 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
by Henry Fowlis, Bishop Barlow, &c.), had it not been more
prudent for you to have begun with lenity and love, to have
drawn men to think that you are better minded, than to per-
suade them that you are of your ruler's and forefather's mind,
and mean to imitate them ?
Quest, 4. Have you not observed that all parties have
fallen by forcing multitudes to be their enemies by seeking
to destroy or hurt them ? Most men love quietness, and
will live in peace, if others will give them leave ; but when
they see they must offend others, or not defend themselves,
it sets all their wit and power to work against their intole-
rable enemies. There are few creatures in the world that
have not some power and inclination to hurt others for their
own defence. The bee hath a sting to defend her hive and
honey. And do you not remember that your sufferings in
England came most by QueenMary's flames, and the Spanish
invasion, and the many treasons against Queen Elizabeth, and
by the Powder Plot? And how the French massacre and
murders of kings, and the horrid Inquisition set all our par-
liaments against you ? And how the murder of 200,000 in
Ireland drove many thousands into the Parliament's army
that else would not have gone ? And will you yet stir up
the land to fear and hate you ?
Quest. 5. Is it n6t both imprudent and unrighteous for
you of all men to turn those laws against us, which were
made against you, and have so much slept, and little trou-
bled you ? You will by this call people to take notice of
them that did not before. For my own part, as I never hurt
any of you, so I know not that any of the ministers did,
whose ruin you endeavour. We hear of none of your suf-
ferings by any such : indeed these late years many have died
as for the plot so much talked of; but by whom did they
die ? Was it not by the accusation and witness of Papists ?
Were not Oats, Bedlow, Dugdale, Turbervile, Prance, Dan-
gerfield, Jenison, Smith, alias Barry, the Yorkshire witnesses,
and the rest, besides the Irish, all men of yourselves, that
came out of your own bosoms ? Whether the men died
justly or unjustly I leave to God ; but sure it was men of
your own selves that did it. And will you be revenged for
this on such Protestants that meddled not in it ?
And you should remember that you and we have a Pro-
testant king, who hath sworn all his kingdom against all fo-
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. .559
reign jurisdiction, and all endeavour of any alteration of go-
vernment in church or state, and so much abhors Popery that
he hath made a law severely to punish all that shall but raise
any suspicion that he is a Papist. And you must in reason
take heed of dishonouring and defaming him, by defaming
Protestants in general.
And sure since Queen Elizabeth's days we have had no
kings whom you can justly accuse of cruelty towards you.
No not King James when the Powder-plot had provoked him,
if half be true that the bishop of Ambrun saith of his confe-
rence with him, or that Rushforth and others say of the oath
of the king, prince and council for toleration, you are dis-
ingenuous if you accuse them of cruelty or rigorous severity.
If your Philanax Anglicus (as formerly in the image of
both churches) you make all called Protestants of sincerity,
to be of rebellious principles, and their religion introduced
by it; and yet profess that you honour the king, as if you
would have men doubt whether he be a Protestant of since-
rity or else were as bad as you describe. Had the severe laws
been executed against you, especially for mere religion, no
one could wonder if you desired relief; but while you live
quietly, and words and paper hurt you not (that I hear of)
to begin with so much hurtfulness to them that meddled not
with you, will disserve your cause.
Quest. 6. And is it consistent with reasonable modesty
to go about to make the world believe that the Protestant
doctrine is less loyal than yours ? Do you think your books
are invisible, and all your practices forgotten. It is none of
the business of this writing to accuse you herein, of any
thing but falsely accusing others, and seeking to destroy us
on such accusation. Though you may thus deceive the ig-
norant that know no more of you than what you tell them,
that will but turn to your dishonour at last. Are not your
foresaid council canons, which are your religion, visible ?
Have not the forecited writers truly cited them and multi-
tudes of your doctrines which may better inform men? Are
all the wars of Italy, Germany, &c. against princes and em-
perors, for the pope, fogotten ? Was it not a council of your
bishops that decreed that all the carcases of those bishops
that were for the Henrician heresy (that is, for the emperor's
power of investing bishops and his exemption from being ex-
communicated and deposed by the pope) should be digged
560 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
out of their graves, and burnt? Was it not a council that
deposed Ludovicus Pius ? How many more such acts have
they done ? And are not your most learned doctors allows-
ed to publish the justification of the pope's power to excom-
municate and depose kings if they deserve it (in his judg-
ment) ? Do not your public writers, casuists, and divines
ordinarily hold that the people give kings their power, and
may take it away when they forfeit it, and that tyranny is
such a forfeiture? And that the people should not suffer a
heretic to reign ? And that subjects may be absolved from
their oaths of allegiance, according to the foresaid Lateran
and Greg. 7. Roman councils? But too much is said of this
by many, and the case is past a modest denial.
Even those Protestants that were in arms for the parlia-
ment, and restored the king, were so far from thinking that
their oaths of allegiance may be dispensed with, that if I
knew any thing of those men and times, it was principally
the conscience of two oaths (the oath of allegiance, and the
oath called the covenant) that by them overcame the oppo-
sition of the other army, and brought home the king. It
was this that engaged the ministers of England against both
Cromwell and a commonwealth : and the ministers were fol-
lowed by most of the religious people of the land, which
broke the adversary's strength. It was this that engaged
the excluded members of the (then) long parliament. It was
this that engaged the city of London. It seems it was this
that engaged General Monk's army, when they say in their
address to him (see it in England's Triumph for King Charles
II. p. 85.), 'We hope to evince to his majesty and all the
world, that we and all those that have been engaged in the
parliament's cause, are his majesty's best and most real sub-
jects, and that your excellency and the armies under your
command, have complied with the obligations for which they
were first raised, for the preservation of the true Protestant
religion, the honour and dignity of the king, the privileges
of parliament, the liberty and property of the subjects, and
the fundamental laws of the land.'
lam not justifying all that I recite. I doubt not but they
were much mistaken. But if they had then been told that
shortly all the corporation offices and trusts in England shall
be constituted by a personal declaration of every one, that
'There is no obligation on any person from the oath called
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 561
the Solemn Covenant,* to restore the king oppose schism,
or any thing whatever, the effect would have been such, as
makes me wonder that the royalists (as then called) should
be very eager to make all such declare, that all these soldiers,
ministers, parliament, and citizens that restored the king as
bound to it by that oath, were therein mistaken, and no such
obligation thence was on them.
Quest. 7. I need not name to you the sorry fellows out
of the gaols, where they lay for inhuman villanies that have
been our zealous, ranting, tearing, prosecutors ? And do
you think such actions are in honour to your cause? If it
be good, use good men in it.
Quest. 8. Why do you play your game under board, and
behind the curtain? If you are not ashamed of your cause,
openly own it. Is falsehood, lying, and dissembling be-
seeching them that say they are of a church out of which
none can be saved ? I remember when Terret, alias John-
son, had seduced the eldest daughter of the Countess of Bal-
carres (whom they stole away and made a nun in France),
and she was afterwards asked, why she did so long go to our
churches, join in family worship, read Protestant books, and
talk against the Papists, and deride them after she was a Pa-
pist herself, she answered that they had leave to do all
that as long as they did not openly profess their religion,
and were not detected. But when once they were discover-
ed and openly professed themselves Roman Catholics, they
must then suffer any thing rather than conform to us.
God's cause needeth not such juggling and lying.
Quest. 9. Why do you not ingeniously plead your cause
against us, so as may satisfy an understanding conscience,
before you seek our destruction ? 1. Your arguings are com-
monly fitted only to cheat the ignorant by ambiguities, and
confusion, and equivocal terms ; your queries or methods to
the French sufferers, are only a formed cheat, by confound-
ing, 1. Subjection to governors, and communion with neigh-
bour churches. 2. Communion with your church in Chris-
tianity and communion with its sins. 3. A Catholic church
informed only by the sovereignty of Christ, and a pretended
universal church informed by the sovereignty of man (a mo-
narch of a church parliament). 4. The office of keeping, de-
livering and teaching men God's laws, and an absolute power
VOL. X. o o
562 CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY.
to judge of their sense, and to make more as a supplement
to their defects, obliging all the world on pain of excommu-
nication and death, and more such.
2. Any writings whicii undeniably open your frauds, you
take no notice of, nor vouchsafe to answer upon the impor-
tunity of Mr. Johnson, and divers others. I have lately writ-
ten, 1, A reply to Johnson. 2. A small book in answer to
one of your papers, to prove thatwe have a certainty of Chris-
tianity without popery.
3. In answer to another, a small book called, " Full and
Easy Satisfaction which is the true Religion," None of
them will you answer, nor those before written. But instead
of a sober investigation of the truth, some of you raise odi-
ous slanders of my life, and threaten and seek my destruc-
tion. I never hurt any of you, as I said before, nor ever per-
suaded any to severity against you. I have long ago public-
ly proposed terms on which we might live together as neigh-
bours in peace. But destruction and misery are in your way
(that I have observed), and the way of peace you have not
known.
There are three things which alienate common Christians
from you more than all other disputes. 1. That you can go
so openly against the plainest words of God, (as in blotting
out the second commandment, in notoriously contradicting
1 Cor. xii. Rom. xiv. and xv. about the terms of church union
and communion ; about Latin prayers and worship to the ig-
norant, denying the cup to the laity, denying sense in tran-
substantiation).
2. That you befriend ignorance so much, by the said La-
tin worship, forbidding most to read the Scripture translat-
ed, and accuse God's Spirit of writing obscurely, to cover
this.
3. That your religion liveth by cruelty and blood, and
cannot stand without it. Which at least in prudence you
should hide as long as you can ; or at least not design to
make the ignorant and vicious Protestants, your proselytes
and agents conjunctly to ruin those whom your consciences
know to be the most conscientious and seriously religious.
By which already the flock of Christ do (under your
sheep's clothing) so judge of you by your fruits, that if any
man that is called a Protestant clergyman, do but write and
preach for cruelty and ruin towards serious conscionable
CAIN AND ABEL MALIGNITY. 563
Christians, people by this very mark do presently suspect
that he is either a Papist or so near them as that he is ready
to pass over to them, whom he so assisteth in destructive
work.
Quest. ' What must be the cure of malignity V
Answ, When the heel of the holy seed is sufficiently
bruised, the serpent's head must be broken. 1. The war in
heaven which formerly cast down the dragon, must break the
supreme serpentine head. 2. Then his heads military on
earth will be broken. 1. The usurping universal head
called ecclesiastical. 2. The national serpentine heads.
1. Exterior; Mahometan and heathen. 2. Interior ; called
falsely Christian. 1. Serpentine monarchs, that war against
Christ. 2. Serpentine prelates and their patrons, that fight
against Christ as in his own name, and by his pretended
commission.
And all this by Christ, and not by sinful means.
Reformation is begun ' a minoritis' at the lowest, for per-
sonal salvation of the elect. But ' a majoritis,' at the heads
for public welfare. And God must raise reforming princes
and pastors to that end.
END OF THE TENTH VOLUME.
It. tDWARUS, CRANE COUHT, FLEET STRt FT, LONDON.
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