nefs, and by the importunity of his oppofitions and tempta tions, difcovering that it is not for nothing that he is fo malicioufly folicitous, induftrious, and violent, And thus you fee how much faith hath, that should fully fatistie a rational man, instead of presence, possession and fight. If any fhall here fay, But why would not God let us b.ve a fight of Heaven or Hel, when he could not but know that it would more generaly and certainy have prevailed for the conv.r_ Jion and faluation of the world: Doth be exvy us the moji ff. Etway means?] I antwer; 1. Who art thou O man that difputet against God? fhall the thing formed fay to him that formed it, Why haft thou made me thus? Maft God come down to the bar of man, to render an account of the r.afon of his works? Why doye not alfo ask him a reafon of the nature, fituation, magnitude, order, influences, &c. of all the Stars, and Superiour Orbs, and call him to an account for all his works? when yet there are fo many things in your own bodies, of which you little understand the reafon, Is it not intollerable impudency, for fuch worms as we, fo low, fo dark, to question the eternal God, concerning the reafon of his Laws and difpenfations? Do we not fhamefully forget our ignorance, and our distance? 2. But if you must have a reafon, let this fuffice you: It is fit that the Government of God be fuited to the nature of the reasonable subje&.And Reafon is made to apprehend more than we fee, and by reaching beyond fenfe, to carry us to feek things higher and better than fenfe can reach. If you would have a man understand no more than he fees, you would almoft equalize a wife man and a fool, and make a man too like a beast. Even in worldly matters, you will venture upon the greatest coft and pains for the things that you fee not, nor ever faw. He that hath a journey to go to a place that he never faw, will not think that a fufficient reafon to ftay at home. The Merchant will fail 1000 miles to a Land, and for a Commodity, that he never faw Muft the Husbandman fee the Harveft before he plow his Land,and fow his feed?Muft the fick man feel, that he hath health before he ufe the means to get it? Muft the Souldier fee that he hath the victory before he fight? You would take fuck conceits in worldly matters to be the fymC ptoms ptoms of distraction: And will you cherish them where they are most pernicious? Hath God made man for any end, or for none? If none, he is made in vain: If for any, no reafon can expect that he should fee his end, before he ufe the means, and fee his home before he begin to travel towards it. When children first go to School, they do not fee or enjoy the learning and wisdom which by time and labour they must attain. You will provide for the children which you are like to have before you fee them. To look that fight which is our fruitim it felf, thould go before a holy life, is to expect the end before we will use the neceffary means. You fee here in the government of the world, that it is things unseen that are the inftru ments of rule, and motives of obedience. Shall no man be reftrained from felony or murders, but he that feeth the Af fizes or the Gallows? It is enough that he for feetb them, as being made known by the Laws. It would be no difcrimination of the good and bad, the wife and foolish, if the reward and punishment must be seen? what thief fo mad as to fteal at the Gallows, or before the Judge? The bafeft habits would be reftrained from acting, if the reward and punishment were in fight. The most beaftly drunkard would not be drunk; the filthy fornicator would forbear his luft; the malicious enemy of godliness would forbear their calumnies and perfecutions, if Heaven and Hell were open to their fight. No man will play the adulterer in the face of the Affembly: The chaft and unchaft feem there alike: And fo they would do if they faw the face of the most dreadful God. No thanks to any of you all to be godly if Heaven were to be presently feen? or to forbear your fin, if you faw Hell fire, God will have a meeter way of tryal: You shall believe his promises, if ever you will have the benefit, and believe his threatnings, if ever you will efcape the threatned evil. CHAP. Use 1. TH CHAP. 2. Some Ufes. His being the nature and use of Faith, to apprehend things abfent as if they were prefent, and things unfeen, as if they were vifible before our eyes; you may hence understand the nature of Chriftianity, and what it is to be atrue Believer. Verily, it is another matter than the dreaming, felf-deceiving world imagineth. Hypocrites think that they are Chriftians indeed, becaufe they have entertained a fuperficial opinion, that there is a Chrift, an immortality of fouls, a Refurrection, a Heaven and a Hell, though their lives bear witnefs, that this is not a living, and effectual faith, but it is their fenfitive faculties and intereft that are pred minant, and are the byas of their hearts. Alas, a little obfervation may tell them, that notwithstanding their most confident pretentions to Chriftianity, they are utterly unacquainted with the Chriftian life. Would they live as they do, in worldly cares, and pampering of the flesh, and neglect of God and the life to come, if they faw the things which they lay they do believe? Could they be fenfual, ungodly and fecure, if they had a faith that ferv'd instead of fight? Would you know who it is that is the Chriftian indeed ? 1. He is one that liveth, (in fome measure) as if he faw the Lord: Believing in that God that dwelleth in the inacceffible light, that cannot be feen by mortal eyes, he liveth as before his face. He speaks, he prayes, he thinks, he deals with men, as if he faw the Lord ftand by. No wonder therefore if he do it with reverence and boly fear. No wonder if he make lighter of the fmiles or frowns of mortal man, than others do that fee none higher; and if he obferve not the luftre of worldly dignity, or Alfhly beauty, wifdom or vain-glory, before the tranfcendent incomprehenfible light, to which the Sun it felf is darkness. When be awaketh he is still with God, Pfal. 134.8. He fets the Lord alwaie's before him, because be is at bu right band, be is not moved, Pfal. 16. 8. And therefore the life of Believers is oft called, a walking with God, and a walking C 2 before before God, as Gen. 5. 22, 24. & 6. 9. & 17. 1. in the cafe of Henoch, Noab, and Abraham. All the day doth be wait on God, Pfal. 25.5. Imagine your felves what manner of perfon he must be that fees the Lord; and conclude that fuch (in his measure) is the true believer. For by faith be feeth him that invifible (to the eye of fenfe) and therefore can forfake the glory and pleasures of the world, and feareth not the wrath of Princes, as it's faid of Mofes, Heb. 11. 27. 2. The Believer is one that liveth on a Chrift whom be never faw, and trufteth in him, adbereth to him, acknowledgeth his benefits, loveth him, and rjyceth in him, as if he had feen him with his eyes. This is the faith which Peter calls more precious than perishing gold; that maketh us love him whom we have not seen, and in whom though now we see him not, yet believing we rejoyce, with unspeakable and glorious joy, Pet. 1. 8. Chrift dwelleth in bis heart by faith; not only by bis Spirit; but objectively; as our deareft abfent friend, doth dwell in our estimation and affection, Ephef. 3. 17. O that the miferable Infidels of the world, had the eyes, the bearts, the experiences of the true believer! Then they that with Thomas tell thofe that have feen him, [Except I may see and feel, I will not believe] will be forced to cry out, [My Lord and my God, Joh. 20. 25, &c. 3. A Believer is one that judgeth of the man by bis invifible infide, and not by outward appearances with a fleshly worldly judgement. He feeth by faith a greater ugliness in fin, than in any the most deformed monster. When the unbeliever faith, what harm is it to please my flesh, in cafe, or pride, or meat and drink, or luftful wantonnels? the believer takes it as the question of a fool, that should ask [what harm is it to take dram of Mercury or Arfenick?] He feeth the vicious evil, and forefeeth the confequent penal evil, by the eye of faith. And therefore it is that he pittieth the ungodly, when they pitty not themselves, and speaks to them oft with a tender heart in compaffion of their mifery, and perhaps weeps over them (as Paul, Phil. 3. 18, 19.) when he cannot prevail; when they weep not for themselves, but hate his love, and fcorn his pitty, and bid him keep his lamentations for himself, because they fee not what he fees. He feeth alfo the inward beauty of the Saints, (as it shineth forth in the holiness of their lives) and through all their fordid poverty and contempt, beholdeth the image of God upon them. For he judgeth not of fin or bolinefs as they now appear to the diftracted world; but as they will be judged of at the day which he forefeeth; when fin will be the shame, and holiness the honoured and d. fired ftate. He can fee Chrift in his poor defpifed members, and love God in those that are made as the fcorn and off-fcouring of all things, by the malignant unbelieving world. He admireth the excellency and happiness of thofe, that are made the laughingfrock of the ungodly and accounteth the Saints the most excellent on earth, Pfal. 16. 2. and had rather be one of their communion in raggs, than fit with Princes that are naked within, and void of the true and durable glory. He judgeth of men as he perceiveth them to have more or lefs of Chrift. The worth of a man is not obvious to the fenfe. You fee his ftature, complexion and his cloths; but as you fee not his learning or skill in any Art whatsoever, so you fee not his grace and heavenly mind. As the foul it felf, fo the finful deformity, and the holy beauty of it, are to us invifible, and perceived only by their fruits, and by the eye of faith, which feeth things as God reveals them. And therefore in the eyes of a true Believer, a vile perfon is contemned; but be honoureth those that fear the Lord, Pfal. 15. 4. 4. A true Believer doth feek a happiness which he never Jaw, and that with greater eftimation and refolution, than be feeks the most excellent things that be bath feen. In all his prayers, his labours, and his fufferings, it is an unfeen Glory that he fecks: he feeth not the Glory of God, nor the glori fied Redeemer, nor the world of Angels, and perfected fpirits of the juft: but he knoweth by faith, that fuch a God, fuch a Glory, fuch a world as this there is, as certain as if his eyes had feen it. And therefore he provides, he lives, he hopes, he waits, for this unfeen ftate of fpiritual blifs, contemning all the wealth and glory, that fight can reach in comparifon thereof. He believeth what he shall fees and therefore ftrives that he may fee it. It's fomething above the Sun, and. all that mortal eyes can fee, which is the end, the hope, the C 3 portion: |