Satan’s Stratagems to Disarm the Christian of his Breastplate Defeated 2/4

        

   (2.) They are sinful when not rightly timed.  Fruit ate out of its season is nought.  We read of ‘a time to embrace and a time to refrain,’ Ecc. 3:5.  There are some seasons that the power of holiness calls off, and will not allow what is lawful at another time.  As,

(a) On the Lord’s-day.  Then all carnal, creature-pleasures are out of season.  God calls us them to higher delights, and he expects we should lay the other aside, and not put our palates out of taste with those lower pleasures, that we may the better relish his heavenly dainties.  ‘If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord,’ Isa. 58:13, 14.  Mark! we can neither taste the sweetness of communion with God, nor pay the honour due to God in sanctifying his day, except we deny ourselves in our carnal delights.  If a king should at some certain times of the year invite some of his poor subjects to sit and feast with him at his own royal table, they should exceedingly dis­honour their prince, and wrong themselves, to bring their ordinary mean fare with them to court.  

Do glor­ified saints in heaven call for any of their carnal de­lights, or miss them, while they are taken up in heav­en praising God, and feeding on the joys that flow from the full-eyed vision of God?  And doth not God make account he gives you to enjoy heaven in a figure, when he admits you the service of his holy day?  (b) In days of solemn fasting and prayer.  We are on such occasions to afflict our souls, and creature-pleasures will fit that work no better than a silver lace would do a mourning suit.  (c) In times of public calamity in the church abroad, especially at home.  And this a gracious heart cannot but count reasonable, that he should deny himself, or at least tie up himself to a very short allowance in his creature-delights, when Christ in his church lies a‑bleeding. Sympathy is a debt we owe to our fellow‑saints —Christ mystical.  And truly the cords of others’ af­flictions will be little felt through our soft downy beds, if we indulge ourselves, I mean, to a full enjoyment of our ease and carnal delights.  What child that is mer­ry and pleasant in his own house, and hath a father or mother lying at the same time in great misery at the point of death, but unknown to him, will not, when the doleful news at last comes to him, change his note, yea, mourn that he did not know it sooner, and had not rather have been weeping for and with his dear relations in the house of mourning, than passing away his time pleasantly at home?  Hitherto I have answered by concession, confessing what pleasures a holy and righteous life denies and forbids, and I hope they appear to be no other than such as may, without any loss to the believer’s joy, be fairly dismissed.

           Answer Second.  Now, in the second place, I come to answer by way of negation; viz. that though a holy righteous life denies the Christian the pleas­ures forementioned, yet it doth not deprive him of any true pleasure the creature affords; yea, so far from this, that none doth or can enjoy the sweetness of the creature, like the gracious soul that walks in the power of holiness, as will appear in these two particulars.

1. The gracious person hath a more curious pal­ate,that fits him to taste a further sweetness in, and so draw more pleasure from, any creature-enjoyment, than an unholy person can do.  The fly finds no honey in the same flower from whence the bee goes laden away.  Nor can an unholy heart taste the sweetness which the saint doth in a creature.  He hath indeed a natural fleshly palate, whereby he relisheth the gross carnal pleasure the flesh affords, and that he makes his whole meal on; but a gracious heart tastes something more.  ‘All’ Israel drank of the rock, ‘and that rock was Christ,’ I Cor. 10:4.  But did all that tas­ted the water’s natural sweetness, taste Christ in it? No, alas! they were but a few holy souls that had a spiritual palate to do this.  Samson's father and mother ate of the honey out of the lion's carcass, as well as Samson, and may be liked the taste of it for honey as well as Samson; yet he took more pleasure sure than they.  He tasted the sweetness of God’s providence in it, that had delivered him from that very lion that now affords him this honey, Judges 14.

Satan’s Stratagems to Disarm the Christian of his Breastplate Defeated 1/4

First. Satan attempts to make the Christian throw away his breastplate of righteousness, by pre­senting it as that which hinders the pleasure of his life.

           Second. He endeavours to make the Christian throw away his breastplate, as being prejudicial to his worldly profits.

           Third. He endeavours to make the Christian throw away his breastplate, by scaring him with the contradiction, opposition, and feud which it brings from the world.

Satan’s first stratagem defeated; that, viz. in which he represents the Christian’s breastplate as hindering the pleasure of life

           First Stratagem. Satan attempts to make the Christian throw away his breastplate, by presenting it as that which hinders the pleasure of his life.

           He labours to picture a holy righteous life with such an austere sour face, that the creature may be out of love with it.  ‘O,’ saith he, ‘if you mean to be thus precise and holy, then bid adieu to all joy.  You at once deprive yourselves of all those pleasures which others pass their days so merrily in the em­braces of, that are not so strait-laced in their con­sciences.’  How true a charge this is, that Satan lays upon the ways of holiness we shall now see.  And tru­ly he that desires to see the true face of holiness in its native hue and colour, should do well not to trust Satan, or his own carnal heart, to draw its picture.  I shall deal with this objection first, by way of con­cession, then by way of negation, and lastly by way of affirmation.

           Answer First. I answer by way of concession, viz. that there are some pleasures which, if they may be so called, are inconsistent with the power of holiness.  Whoever will take up a purpose to ‘live righteously’ must shake hands with them.  They are of two sorts.

1. Sort.  All such pleasures as are in themselves sinful.  Godliness will allow no such in thy embraces. And art thou not shrewdly hurt, dost thou think, to be denied that which would be thy bane to drink?  Would any think the father cruel that should charge his child not to dare so much as taste of any rat’s-bane?  Truly, I hope, you that have passed under the new work of the Spirit, can call sin by another name than pleasure.  I am sure saints in former times have not counted themselves tied up, but saved, from such pleasures.  The bondage lies in serving them, and the liberty in being saved from them.  The apostle be­moans the time when himself, and other saints, were ‘foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,’ Titus 3:3; and he reckons it among the prime benefits they received by the grace of the gos­pel, to be delivered from that vassalage, ‘but accord­ing to his mercy he saved us’—how?—not by pardon­ing only, but—‘by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost,’ ver. 5.  However the devil makes poor creatures expect pleasure in sin, and promiseth them great matters of this kind; yet he goes against his conscience, and his own present sense also.  He doth not find sin so pleasant a morsel to his own taste that he should need to commend it upon this account to others.  Sin’s pleasure is like the pleasure which a place in the West Indies affords those that dwell in it.  There grows in it most rare luscious fruit, but these dainties are so sauced by with the intolerably scorching heat of the sun by day, and the multitude of a sort of creatures stinging them by night, that they can neither well eat by day nor sleep by night to digest their sweet-meats.  This made the Spaniards call the place ‘comfits in hell;’ and truly what are the pleasures of sin but such comfits in hell? There is some carnal pleasure they have which de­lights a rank sensual palate, but they are served in with the fiery wrath of God, and the stinging of a guilty, restless conscience; and the fears of the one, and the anguish of the other, are able sure to melt and waste away that little joy and pleasure they bring to the sense.
2. Sort.  There are pleasures which are not in their own nature sinful.  Such are creature comforts and delights.  The sin lies, as to these, not in the us­ing, but in the abusing of them.  This is done in two ways.

           (1.) When a due measure is not kept in the use of them.  He cannot live holily and righteously in this present world that lives not soberly also.  Godliness will allow thee to taste of these pleasures as sauce, but not to feed on them as meat.  The rich men's charge runs thus, ‘ye have lived in pleasure on the earth,’ James 5:5.  They lived in pleasures as if they had lived for them, and could not live without them.  When once this wine of creature contents fumes up to the brain, intoxicates the man’s judgment, that he begins to dote of them, and cannot think of parting with them to enjoy better, but cries, loath to depart—as those Jews in Babylon, who, beginning to thrive in that soil, were very willing to stay and lay their bones here for all Jerusalem, which they were called to re­turn unto—then truly they are pernicious to the pow­er of holiness.  Though a master doth not grudge his servant his meat and drink, yet he will not like it if, when he is to go abroad, his servant be laid up drunk and disabled from waiting on him by his intemper­ance.  And a drunken man is as fit to attend on his master, and do his business for him, as a Christian, overcharged with the pleasures of the creature, is to serve his God in any duty of godliness.

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Ninth Direction.  Be sure to improve the covenant of grace for thy assistance in thy holy course.  Moses himself had his holiness not from the law, but gospel.  Those heroic acts, for which he is recorded as one so eminently holy, they all are attrib­uted to his faith, Heb. 11:24, 25.  ‘By faith’ Moses did this, and ‘by faith’ that, to show from whence he had his strength.  Now the better to improve the covenant of grace, for this purpose, consider these three particulars.

First. That God in the covenant of grace hath promised to furnish and enable his children for a holy life, ‘I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,’ Eze. 36:27.  This is the way God hath by himself.  The mother can take her child by the hand to lead it, but cannot put strength into its feeble joints to make him go.  The prince can give his captains a commission to fight, but not courage to fight.  There is a power goes with the promises; hence it is they are called ‘exceeding great and precious promises,’ because given for this very end—that by them we 'might partake of the divine nature,’ II Peter 1:4; and therefore we are not only pressed to holiness from the command, but especially from the promise, ‘Having therefore these prom­ises,’ (he means to help and encourage us), ‘let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God,’ II Cor. 7:1.  O it is good travelling in his company that promiseth to pay our charges all the way—it is good working for him that promiseth to work all our work for us, Php. 2:12, 13.

Second. That God hath laid up in Christ a rich and full treasure of grace to supply thy wants contin­ually, ‘It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,’ Col. 1:19.  Fulness! all fulness! all ful­ness dwelling! not the fulness of a land-flood, up and down; not the fulness of a vessel, to serve his own turn only; but of a fountain that lends its streams to others without straitening or lessening its own store. Indeed, it is a fulness purposely ministerial, as the sun hath not its light for itself, but for the lower world, called therefore :/: (shemesh),because it is the great minister and servant to hold forth light to the world.  Thus Christ is the Sun of righteousness, diffusing his grace into the bosoms of his people. ‘Grace’ is said to be ‘poured into his lips,’ to let us know he hath it, not to keep to himself, but to impart, ‘that of his fulness we may receive, and grace for grace.’  And,

Third. That every child of God hath not only a right to this fulness in Christ, but an inward principle —which is faith—whereby he is, by the instinct of the new creature, taught to suck and draw grace from Christ, as the child doth nourishment in the womb by the navel-string from the mother.  Therefore, poor soul, if thou wouldst be more holy, believe more, suck more from Christ.  Holy David, affected with the thoughts of God’s gracious providence in delivering him out of his deeper distress, takes up, as the best messenger he could send his thanks to heaven by, a strong resolution for a holy life, ‘I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living,’ Ps. 116:9, he would spend his days now in God's service; but lest we should think he was rash and self-confident, he adds, ‘I believed, therefore have I spoken,’ ver. 10. First, he acted his faith on God for strength, and then he promiseth what he will do.  Indeed, the Christian is a very beggarly creature considered in himself.  He is not ashamed to confess it.  What he promiseth to ex­pend in any holy duty, is upon the credit of his Sav­iour’s purse, who, he humbly believes, will bear him out in it with assisting grace.

Tenth Direction.  Be sure to fortify thyself against those discouragements, by which Satan, if pos­sible, will divert thee from thy purpose, and make thee lay aside this breastplate of righteousness and holiness, as cumbersome, yea prejudicial, to thy car­nal interests.  Now the better to arm thee against his assaults of this kind, I shall instance two or three great objections, whereby he scares many from this holy walking, and also lend a little help to wrest these weapons out of thine enemy’s hand, by preparing an answer to them.

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Seventh Direction.  Be sure to get some Christian friend whom thou mayest trust above others to be thy faithful monitor.  O that man hath a great help for the maintaining the power of godliness, that hath an open-hearted friend that dare speak his heart to him!  A stander-by sees more sometimes, by a man, than the actor can do by himself, and is more fit to judge of his actions than he is of his own.  Sometimes self-love blinds us in our own cause, that we see not ourselves so bad as we are; and sometimes we are over-suspicious of the worst by ourselves, which makes us appear to ourselves worse than we are.  Now that thou mayest not deprive thyself of so great help from thy friend, be sure to keep thy heart ready with meekness to receive, yea, with thankfulness to em­brace, a reproof from his mouth.  Those that cannot bear plain dealing hurt themselves most; for by this they seldom hear the truth.  He that hath not love enough to give a reproof seasonably to his brother, nor humility enough to bear a reproof from him, is not worthy to be called a Christian.  

By the first he shows himself a ‘hater of his brother,’ Lev. 19:17; by the second he proves himself ‘a scorner,’ Prov. 9:8. Holy David professed he would take it as ‘a kindness’ for the ‘righteous to smite him,’ yea, as kindly as he broke a box of precious oil upon his head, which was amongst the Jews a high expression of love, Ps. 141:5. And he made his word good.  He did not, as the Pa­pists do by their holy water, commend it highly, but turn away his face, when it comes to sprinkled on him.  No, Abigail and Nathan who reproved him —one for his bloody intentions against Nabal and his family—the other for his bloody fact upon Uriah; —they both sped well in their errand.  The first pre­vented the fact intended by her seasonable reproof; the second recovered him out of that dismal sin of murder, wherein he had lain some months without coming so far to himself as to repent of it, for aught that we read.  And it is observable that they did not only prevail in the business, but endeared themselves so unto him, by their faithfulness to his soul, that he takes Abigail to be his wife, and Nathan to be his most privy counsellor to hi dying day, I Kings 1:27, 32. Truly it is one great reason why the falls of professors are so frequent in our days, and their recoveries so rare of late, because few in these unloving times are to be found so faithful as to do this Christian office of reproof to their brethren.  They will sooner go and tattle of it to others to their disgrace, than speak of it to themselves for their recovery.  Indeed, by telling others, we obstruct our way from telling the person himself with any hope of doing him good.  It will be hard to make him believe thou comest to heal his soul when thou hast already wounded his name.

Eighth Direction.  Be often seriously think­ing how holily and righteously you will, in a dying hour, wish you had lived.  They who now think it matters not much what language drivels from them, what company they walk in, what they busy their time about, how they comport with God in his worship, and with man in their dealings, but live at large, and care not much which end goes foremost, yea wonder at the niceness and zeal of others, as if there were no pace would carry them to heaven but the gallop; when once death comes so near as to be known by its own grim face, and not to report of others, when these poor creatures see they must in earnest into another world, without any delay, and their naked souls must return to ‘God who gave them,’ to hear what interpre­tation he will put upon the course and tenor of their walking, and accordingly to pass an irrevo­cable sen­tence of life or death upon them, now their thoughts will begin to change, and take up other notions of a righteous and holy life than ever they had before. 

It is observed among the Papists that many cardinals, and other great ones, who would think that their cowl and religious habit ill become them in their health,, yet are very ambitious to die and to be buried in them, as commonly they are.  Though this be a fop­pery in itself, yet it helps us to a notion considerable.  They who live wickedly and loosely, yet like a reli­gious habit very well when to go into another world. As that young gallant said to his swaggering compan­ion—after they had visited Ambrose lying on his dy­ing bed, and saw how comfortably he lay, triumphing over death now approaching—‘O that I might live with thee, and die with Ambrose.’  Vain wish! wouldst thou, O man, not reap what thou sowest, and find what thou layest up with thy own hands?  Dost thou sow cockle and wouldst reap wheat?  Dost thou fill thy chest with dirt, and expect to find gold when thou openest it?  Cheat and gull thyself thou mayest, but thou canst not mock God, who will pay thee in the same coin at thy death which thou treasurest up in thy life.  There are few so horribly wicked, but the thoughts of death awes them.  They dare not fall up­on their wicked practices till they have got some distance from the thoughts of this.  Christian, walk in the company of it every day by serious meditation, and tell me at the week's end whether it doth not keep worse  company from thee.

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Fifth Direction.  Be sure to walk dependingly on God.  The vine is fruitful so long as it hath a pole or wall to run upon, but without such a help it would soon be trodden under foot, and come to nothing.  ‘It is not in man to direct his own way.’  ‘There are many good things that God doth in man, which man has no hand in; but there is no good and holy action that man does but God enables him to do it.’ As was said of that Grecian captain, ‘Parmenio did many ex­ploits without Alexander, but Alexander nothing with­out Parmenio.’  If thou wilt therefore maintain holi­ness in its power ‘acknowledge God in all thy ways,’ and ‘lean not unto thine own understanding,’ Prov. 3:5, 6.  He is ready to help them that engage him, but counts himself charged with the care of none but such as depend on him.  The Christian’s way to heaven is something like that in our nation called ‘the washes,’ where the sands, by reason of the sea's daily overflow­ing, do so alter, that the traveller who passed them safely a month ago, cannot without great danger ven­ture again, except he hath his guide with him.  Where then he found firm land, possibly a little after, coming, he may meet with a devouring quicksand. Truly thus, the Christian who gets over a duty at one time with some facility, his way smooth and plain before him, at another time may find a temptation in the same duty enough to set him, if he had not help from heaven to carry him safe out of the danger.  O Christian, it is not safe for thee to venture one step without thy stay, thy hand of faith leaning on thy Beloved's arm.  Trust to thy own legs, and thou fall­est; use thy legs, but trust to his arm, and thou art safe.

Sixth Direction. 

Be sure to look to thy com­pany—who they are thou consortest with.  Flee un­holy company, as baneful to the power of godliness. Be but as careful for thy soul as thou wouldst for thy body.  Durst thou drink in the same cup , or sit in the same chair, with one that hath an infectious disease? And is not sin as catching a disease as the plague itself?  Darest thou come where such ill scents are to be taken as may soon infect thy soul?  Of all trades it would not do well to have the collier and fuller live together.  What one cleanseth the other will crock and smutch. Thou canst not be long among unholy ones, but thou wilt hazard the defiling of thy soul, which the Holy Spirit hath made pure.  He did not wash thee clean to run where thou shouldest be made foul; and certainly thou shalt have no help from them to advance thy holiness.  Truly we should not choose that society where we may not hope to make them, or be made ourselves, better by them. 

 It is observable what the Spirit of God notes concerning Abraham, ‘he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise,’ Heb. 11:9.  He is not said to dwell with the natives of that land, but ‘with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.’  Abraham did not seek acquaintance with the heathen; no, he was willing to continue a stranger to them; but he lived with those that were of his own family, and God’s family also.  Christians are a com­pany of themselves, ‘being let go, they went to their own company,’ Acts 4:23.  Who should believers join themselves to but believers?  As Paul said, ‘Have you not a wise man among you, but you must go to law before unbelievers?’ so may I say to thee, Christian —Is there never a saint in all the town that thou canst be acquainted with, sit and discourse with, but you must join with the profane and ungodly amongst whom you live?  No wonder thy holiness thrives no better, when thou breathest in wicked company; it is like the east wind, under which nothing grows and prospers.

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Fourth Direction.  Be sure to look often on the perfect pattern, which Christ, in his own example, hath given thee for a holy life.  Our hand will be as the copy is we write after.  If we set low examples be­fore us, it cannot be expected we should rise high ourselves; and indeed the holiest saint on earth is too low to be our pattern, because perfection in holiness must be aimed at by the weakest Christian, II Cor. 7:1, and that is not to be found in the best of saints in this lower world.  Moses, the meekest man on earth, at a time even his spirit is ruffled; and Peter, the foreman of the apostles, doth not always ÏD2`B@*,Ã< (foot it right), according to the gospel, Gal. 2:14, and he that would follow him in then, is sure to go out of his way. The good soldier follows his file-leader, not when he runs away, but when he marches after his captain or­derly.  ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ,’ I Cor. 11:1.  The comment must be followed no further than it agrees with the text.  The master doth not only rule the scholar's book for him, but writes him a copy with his own hand.  Christ’s command is our rule, his life our copy.  If thou wilt walk holily, thou must not only endeavour to do what Christ com­mands, but as Christ himself did it; thou must labour to shape every letter in thy copy—action in thy life —in a holy imitation of Christ.  By holiness we are the very image of Christ,’ Rom. 8:29.  We represent Christ and hold him forth to all that see us.

Now two things go to make a thing the image of another.  First, likeness; secondly, derivation.  It must not only be like it, but this likeness must be deduced and derived from it.  Snow and milk are both alike white; yet we cannot say that they are the image one of another, because that likeness they have is not derived either from the other.  But the picture which is drawn every line by the face of a man, this may be called the image of that man after whose like­ness it is made.  Thus true holiness is that which is derived from Christ, when the soul sets Christ in his word and Christ in his example before him—as one would the person whose picture he intends to draw —and labours to draw every line in his life by these.  O this is a sweet way indeed to maintain the power of holiness.  When thou art tempted to any vanity, set Christ before thy eye in his holy walking; ask thy soul, ‘Am I in this speech, action, company I consort with, like Christ?  Did he, or would he, if again to live on earth, do as I do? would not he be more choice of his words than I am? did ever such a vain speech drop from his lips? would he delight in such company as I do? spend his time upon such trifles and impertin­ences as I do? would he bestow so much cost in pam­pering of his body, and swallow down his throat at one meal what would feed many poor creatures ready to starve for want? would he be in every fashion that comes up, though never so ridiculous and offensive? should cards and dice ever have been found in his hands to drive time away?  And shall I indulge myself in anything that would make me unlike Christ?  God forbid!  We think it enough if we can quote such a good man, or great professor, to countenance our practice, and so are led into temptation. 

But Chris­tian, if thy conscience tells thee Christ likes not such doings, away with them, though thou couldst produce the example of the most eminent saint in the country to favour them.  Thou knowest some, possibly, of great name for profession, that have cast off duties in their families.  But did not Christ show an especial care of the apostles, which lived under him, and were of his family?—often praying with them, repeating to them, and further opening to them what he preached in public; keeping also the passover with them as his household, according to the law of that ordinance, Ex. 12.  Thou seest some turn their back on the public as­semblies, under a pretence of sinful mixtures there that would defile them.  Did our Lord Jesus do thus? was not he in the temple and in the synagogues hold­ing communion with them in the service of God, which was for the substance there preserved, though not without some corruptions crept in among them?  O Christian, study Christ's life more, and thou wilt soon learn to mend thy own!  Summa religionis est imitari, quem colis—it is the very sum and top of religion, to be as, like the God we worship as may be.

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Third. Use not the true rule partially.  To be partial in practicing is as bad as to be partial in hand­ling of the law; this made the priests contemptible, Mal. 2:9, and so will that the professor, to God and man.  Square the whole frame of thy life by rule, or all is to no purpose.  ‘Divers measures, are an abomina­tion to the Lord,’ Prov. 20:10.  He is the honest man in his dealings with men that hath but one measure, and that according to law, which he useth in his trade. And he is the holy man that useth but one rule for all his actions, and that no other than the word of God. O how fulsome was the Jews' hypocrisy to God that durst not go into the judgment hall, for fear of render­ing themselves unclean, John 18, but made no scruple of embruing their hands in Christ’s blood! and the Pharisees, who observed the rule of the law strictly in ‘tithing anise and cummin,’ but dispensed with them­selves in ‘the weightier matters of the law!’  O beware of this, as thou lovest thy soul's life!  You would not thank that customer, who comes into your shop, and buys a pennyworth of you, but steals from you what is worth a pound; or him that is very punctual in paying a small debt he owes, only that he may get deeper into your book, and at last cheat you of a greater sum. This is horrid wickedness, to comply with the word in little matters, on a design that you may more covertly wrong God in greater.

Third Direction.  Be sure to propound a right end to thyself in thy righteous holy walking, and here be sure thou standest clear off a legal end.  Do not think, by thy righteousness, to purchase anything at God's hand.  Heaven stands not upon sale to any. ‘The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,’ Rom. 6:23. What God sold to Christ he gives to us.  Christ was the purchaser, believers are but heirs to what he hath bought, and must claim nothing but in his right.  By claiming anything of God for our righteousness, we shut ourselves out from having anything of his.  We cannot be in two places at the same time.  If we be found leaning on our own house, we cannot also be found in Christ.  Paul knew this, and therefore re­nounceth the one, that he may be entitled to the other, Php. 3:8, 9.  It is Satan’s policy to crack the breastplate of thy own righteousness, by beating it out further than the metal will bear.  Indeed, by trusting in it, thou destroyest the very nature of it—thy righ­teousness becomes unrighteousness, and thy holiness degenerates into wickedness.  What greater impiety than pride?—such a pride as rants it over Christ, and alters the method which God himself hath set for saving souls!  O soul! if thou wouldst be holy, learn to be humble.  They are clasped together, ‘What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ Micah 6:8. And how that he that trusts in his own holiness should be said to walk humbly, it cannot enter into our heart to conceive.  God does not set thee to earn heaven by thy holiness; but thereby, to show thy love and thankfulness to Christ that hath earned it for thee.  Hence the great argument Christ useth to pro­voke his disciples to holiness, is love: 

‘If ye love me, keep my commandments,’ John 14:15.  As if he had said, ‘You know what I came into the world, and am now going out of the world for.  I do both upon your service, for whom I lay down my life, and take it up again, that I may live in heaven, to intercede for you. If these, then, and the blessed fruits you reap from these, be valued by you, love me, and if you love me, testify it in keeping my commandments.’  That is gos­pel holiness which is bred and fed by this love, when all the Christian doth is by him offered up as a thanksgiving sacrifice to Christ, ‘that loved us unto death.’  Thus the spouse to Christ, ‘I will give thee my loves,’ Song 7:12.  What she means by her loves she expresseth, ‘All manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved,’ ver. 13.  In verse 18 she had professed her faith on Christ, and drunk deep of his love; and now to rebound his love in thankfulness, she bestirs herself to entertain him with the pleasant fruits of his own graces, as gathered from a holy conversa­tion, which she doth not lay up to feed her pride and self‑confi­dence with, but reserves for her Beloved, that he may have the entire praise of them.

Ten Directions to Guide Those Who Desire to Maintain the Power of Holiness 2/7

Second Direction.  Be sure to keep thine eye on the right rule thou art to walk by.  Every calling hath a rule to go by, peculiar to itself, which requires some study to get an insight into, without which a man will but bungle in his work.  No calling hath such a sure rule and perfect law to go by, as the Christian’s. Therefore, in earthly professions and worldly callings, men vary in their way and method, though of some trade, because there is no such perfect rule, but another may superadd to it.  But the Christian hath one standing rule, the word of God, able to make the man of God perfect.  Now, he that would excel in the power of holiness must study this.  The physician consults with his Galen, the lawyer with his Littleton, and the philosopher with his Aristotle—the masters of these arts; how much more should the Christian consult with the word, so as to be determined by that, and drawn by that more than by a whole team of argu­ments from men!  ‘We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth,’ II Cor. 13:8.  O Christian! when credit votes this way, friends and relatives that way; when profit bids thee do this, and pleasure that; say, as Jehoshaphat concerning Micaiah, ‘Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?’ I Kings 22:7.  Is there not the word of God, that I may be concluded by it, rather than by any of these lying prophets?  Now there are three ways that men go contrary to this direction—all of them destructive to the power of holiness.  Some walk by no rule; some by a false rule; and some by the true rule, but partially.  The first is the antinomist and libertine, the second is the superstitious zealot, the third is the hypocrite.  Beware of all these, except thou meanest to lay the knife to the throat of holiness.

First. Take heed thou dost not take away the rule God sets before thee, with the antinomist and libertine, who say the law is not a rule to the Christian.  These must needs make crooked lines in their lives that live by rote and not by rule.  I had thought Christ had baptized the law and gospellized it, both by preaching it as a rule of holiness in his ser­mons, Matt 5:27, and by walking in his life by the rule of it, I Peter 2:21, 22.  That principle therefore may be indicted for a murderer of a righteous and holy life, which takes away the rule by which it should be led. This is a subtle way indeed of Satan to surprise the poor creature.  If he make the Christian traveller weary of his guide, and once send him away, then it will not be long before he wander out of heaven way and fall into hell roads.  The apostle tells us of a gen­eration of men who, ‘While they promise themselves liberty, they themselves are the servants of corrup­tion,’ II Peter 2:19.  Truly these, methinks, look like the men who slip off the yoke of the command under a pretence of liberty, that soon have a worse yoke on in its room, even the yoke of sin.

Second. Take heed thou walkest not by a false rule.  There is but one true rule—the word of God —and therefore we may know which is false.  ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,’ Isa. 8:20.  Pretend not to more strictness than the word will vouch.  This is to be ‘righteous overmuch’ indeed, Ecc. 7:16.  Excess makes a monster as well as a defect; not only he that hath but one hand, but he that hath three, is one.  There is a curse scored up for him  that ‘adds to,’ as well as for him that ‘takes from the words of this book,’ Rev. 22:18.  The devil hath had of old a design to undermine scriptural holiness, by crying up an apocryphal holiness.  He knows too well that, as the pot by seething over puts out the fire, and so comes in a while not to seethe at all; thus, by making men’s zeal to boil over into a false pretended holi­ness, he is sure to quench all true holiness, and bring them at last to have no zeal, but prove key-cold athe­ists.  The Pharisee must eke out the commands of God with the traditions of men; the Papist, his true son and heir, hath his unwritten verities, holy orders, and rules for a more austere life than ever came into God’s heart to require; and of late the Quakers have borrowed many of their shreds from both, with which they are very busy to patch up a ridiculous kind of re­ligion, which a man cannot possibly take up, till he hath first fore-done his own understanding, and renounced all subjection to the word of God.  O be­ware of a will-holiness and a will-worship.  It is a heavy charge God puts in against Israel, ‘Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples!’ Hosea 8:14. This may seem strange—to forget God, and yet be so devout as to build temples!  Yes, she built them with­out warrant from God.  God counts himself forgotten when we forget his word, and keep not close to that. It is laid at Jeroboam's door as a great sin, that ‘he of­fered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel...in the month which he had devised of his heart,’ I Kings 12:33.  He took counsel of his own heart, not of God, when and where to offer.  A holi­ness which is the device of our heart, is not the holiness after God’s heart.  The curse which falls upon such bold men, is, that while they seek to establish holiness of their own, they submit not to the true holiness which God re­quires in his word.  God justly gives them over to real unholiness, for pretending to a further holiness than they should.  Witness those sinks and common-shores of all abominations—religious houses, I mean, as they are called by the Papists —which being the institutions of men, for want of the salt of a divine warrant to keep them sweet, have run into filthiness and corruption.  God will not endure that his creature should be a self-mover.  It is a greater sin to do what we are not commanded, than not to do what we are commanded by God; as it is in a subject to presume to make laws of his own head, than not to obey the law his prince enacts.  By setting up a holiness of our own, we take God’s mint as it were out of his hand, to whom alone it belongs to stamp what is holy and what not.

Ten Directions to Guide Those Who Desire to Maintain the Power of Holiness 1/7

The third thing propounded in handling the point calls now for one despatch; and that is, to lay down some directions by way of counsel and help to all those that desire to maintain the power of holiness and righteous­ness in their daily walking.

First Direction.  Be sure thou gettest a good foundation laid, on which may be reared the beautiful structure of a holy righteous conversation; and that can be no less than the change of thy heart by the powerful work of God's sanctifying Spirit in thee. Thou must be righteous and holy before thou canst live righteously and holily.  If the ship hath not its right make at first, be not equally poised according to the law of that art, it will never sail trim; and if the heart be not moulded anew by the workmanship of the Spirit, and fashioned according to the law of ‘the new creature,’ in which ‘old things pass away, and all things become new,’ the creature will never walk hol­ily, II Cor. 5:17.  It is solid grace in the vessel of the heart that feeds profession in the lamp—holiness in the life, Matt. 25:4.  Now this thorough change of thy heart is especially to be looked at in these two things.

First. Look that there be a change made in thy judgment of and disposition of heart to sin.  Thou hast formerly had such a notion of sin, as hath made it desirable; thou hast looked upon it as Eve did on the forbidden fruit; thou hast thought it ‘pleasant to the eye, good for food,’ and worth thy choice, ‘to be desired of thee;’ and if thou continuest of the same mind, thy teeth will be watering and heart continually hankering after it.  Thou mayest possibly be kept from expressing and venting the inward thought of thy heart for a while; but, as two lovers kept asunder by their friends, will one time or another make an escape to each other, so long as their affection is the same it was; so wilt thou to thy lust, and therefore never rest till thou canst say thou dost as heartily loathe and hate sin as ever thou lovedst it before.

Second. Look that there be such a change in thy judgment and heart, as makes thee take an inward complacency and delight in Christ and his holy com­mands.  There is then little fear of thy degenerating, when thou art tied to him and his service by the heart-strings of love and complacency  The devil finds it no hard work to part him and his duty that never joyed nor took true content in doing of it.  He whose calling doth not like him, nor ‘fit his genius,’ as we say, will never excel in it.  A scholar learns more in week, when he comes to relish learning, and is pleased with its sweet taste, than he did in a month when he went to school to please his master, whom he feared, not himself.  Observe any person in the thing wherein he takes high content, and he is more careful and curious, about that than any other.  If his heart be on his garden, oh how neatly it is kept!  It shall lie, as we say, in print.  All the rare roots and slips that can be got for love and money shall be sought for.  Is it beauty that one delights in?  How curious and nice is such a one in dressing herself! she hardly knows when she is fine enough.  Truly thus it is here; a soul that truly loves Christ delights in holi­ness, all his strength is laid out upon it.  May he but excel in this one thing—be more holy, more heavenly —he will give others leave to run before him in anything else.

TO THOSE WITHOUT DOORS—our Neighbours 2/2

 

 In a word, dost thou think to commute with God, so as, by a greater semblance of outward zeal to God in the first table, to obtain a dispensation in point of righteousness to man in the second?  Will thy pretended love to God excuse the malice and ran­cour which thy heart swells with against thy neigh­bour?—thy devotion to God, disoblige thee from pay­ing thy debts to man?  God forbid thou shouldst think so.  But if thou dost, Peter’s counsel to Simon Magus is mine to thee.  ‘Repent of this thy wicked­ness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee,’ Acts 8:22.  In the name of God I charge every one that wears Christ’s livery, to make conscience of this piece of righteousness, as you would not bring upon your heads the vengeance of God for all those blasphemies, which the nakedness of some professors in this particular—yea, the base practices of some hypocrites—have given occasion to be belched out by the ungodly world against Christ and the good ways of holiness.  Now the power of holiness, as to this particular, will be preserved, when these two things are looked to.

1. When our care is uniform,and equally distrib­uted to endeavour the performing of one duty we owe to our neighbour as well as another.  For we must know, there is a righteousness that, as one saith, runs through every precept, as it were the veins of every law in the second table; and calls for obedience due to parents natural, civil, ecclesiastical, in the fifth command; our care to preserve our neighbour's life in the sixth; chastity in the seventh; estate in the eighth; good name in the ninth; and the keeping of our de­sires in their due bounds, against coveting what is our neighbour’s, in the tenth.  Now, as health in the body is preserved by keeping the passages of life open, for the spirits freely to move from one part to another —which once obstructed from doing their office in any part, the health of the body is presently in danger —so here the spirit and life of holiness is preserved in the Christian, by a holy care and endeavour to keep the heart free and ready to pass from doing one duty he owes his neighbour to another, according to the several walks that are in every command for him to move in.
2. As our care must be uniform, so the motive and spring within that sets us at work, and makes all these wheels move, must be evangelical.  The com­mand is a road in which both heathen, Jew, and Christian may be found travelling.  How now shall we know the Christian from the other, when heathen and Jew also walk along with him in the same duty—seem as dutiful children, obedient wives, loyal subjects, loving neighbours, as the Christian himself?  Truly, if it be not in the motive from which and end to which he acts, nothing else can do it.  Look therefore well to this, or else thou art out of thy way while thou seemest to be in thy road.  It is very ordinary for men to wrong Christ when they do their neighbour right, and this is done when Christ is not interested in the action, and love to him doth not move us thereunto. Without this thou mayest go for an honest heathen, but canst not be a good Christian.  Suppose a servant were intrusted by his master to go and pay such a man a sum of money, which he doth, yet not out of any dutiful respect to the command, or love to the person of his master, but for shame of being taken for a thief; in this case the man should have his due, but the master a great deal of wrong.  Such wrong do all mere civil persons do the Lord Jesus.  They are very exact and righteous in their dealings with their neighbours, but very injurious at the same time to Christ, because they do not this upon his account.  This makes love to our neighbour evangeli­cal, and, as Christ calls it, ‘a new commandment,’ John 13:34, when our love to our brother tales fire from his love to us.  We cannot, in a gospel sense, be said to do the duty of any com­mandment, except we first love Christ, and then for his sake do it.  ‘If ye love me, keep my command­ments,’ John 14:15.  Where, observe, that as God pre­fixes his name before the deca­logue, so Christ for the same reason doth before the Chris­tian’s obedience to any of them, that so they may keep them, both as his commandments, and out of love to him who hath brought us out of a worse house of bondage than Egypt was to Israel.