[Use or Application.]

[A word of exhortation to all.] The application of this shall be only in a word of exhortation to all; especially you who bear the name of Christ by a more eminent profession of him. O beware of this soul-infection, this leprosy of the head. I hope you do not think it needless, for it is the disease of the times. This plague is begun, yea, spreads apace. [There is] not a flock, [not] a congregation hardly, that hath not this scab among them. Paul was a preacher the best of us all may write after, and he presseth this home upon the saints, yea, in the constant course of his preaching it made a piece of his sermon. He sets us preacher also upon this work; ‘Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock;—for I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter;—also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,’ Acts 20:28-30; therefore watch. And then he presents his own example, that he hardly made a sermon for several years, but this was part of it, to warn every one night and day with tears. We need not prophesy what impostors may come upon the stage when we go off. There are too many at present above-board of this gang drawing disciples after them. And if it be our duty to warn you of them, surely it is yours to watch, lest you by any of them be led into temptation in this hour thereof, wherein Satan is let loose in so great a measure to deceive the nation. May you not as easily be soured with this leaven, as the disciples whom Christ bids beware? Are you privileged above those famous churches of Galatia and Corinth, many of which were bewitched with false teachers, and in a manner turned to another gospel? Is Satan grown orthodox, or have his instruments lost their cunning, who hunt for souls? In a word, is there not a sympathy between thy corrupt heart and error? Hast thou not a disposition, which, like the fomes of the earth, makes it natural for these weeds to grow in thy soil? Seest thou not many prostrated by this enemy, who sat upon the mountain of their faith, and thought it should never have been removed? Surely they would have taken it ill to have been told, ‘you are the men and women that will decry Sabbaths, which now ye count holy; you will turn Pelagians, who now defy the name; you will despise prophecy itself, who now seem so much to honour the prophets; you will throw family duties out of doors, who dare not now go out of doors till you have prayed there.’ Yet these, and more than these, are come to pass; and doth it not behove thee, Christian, to take heed lest thou fallest also? And that thou mayest not,

1. Exhortation. Make it thy chief care to get a thorough change of thy heart. If once the root of the matter be in thee, and thou beest bottomed by a lively faith on Christ, thou art then safe, I do not say wholly free from all error; but this I am sure, free from engulfing thy soul in damning error. ‘They went out from us,’ saith St. John, ‘but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us,’ I John 2:19. As if he had said, They had some outward profession, and common work of the Spirit with us, which they have either lost or carried over to the devil’s quarters, but they never had the unction of the sanctifying Spirit. By this, ver. 20, he distinguisheth them, and comforts the sincere ones, who possibly might fear their own fall by their departure: ‘But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.’ It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction. An hypocrite may do the former, the saint only the latter. It is this unction which gives the soul the savour of the knowledge of Christ; those are the fit prey for impostors, who are enlightened, but not enlivened. O, it is good to have the heart established with grace! This, as an anchor, will keep us from being set adrift, and carried about with divers and strange doctrines, as the apostle teacheth us, Heb. 13:9.

2. Exhortation. Ply the work of mortification. Crucify the flesh daily. Heresy, though a spiritual sin, [is] yet by the apostle reckoned among the deeds of the flesh, Gal. 5:20, because it is occasioned by fleshly motives, and nourished by carnal food and fleshly fuel. Never [have] any turned heretic, but flesh was at the bottom; either they served their belly or a lust of pride—it was the way to court, or secured their estates and saved their lives, as sometimes the reward of truth is fire and fagot. Some pad or other is in the straw when least seen; and therefore it is no wonder that heresies should end in the flesh, which in a manner sprang from it. The rheum in the head ascends in fumes from the stomach, and returns thither, or unto the lungs, which at last fret and ulcerate. Carnal affections first send up their fumes to the understanding, clouding that, yea, bribing it to receive such and such principles for truths; which [when] embraced, fall down into the life, corrupting that with the ulcer of profaneness. So that, Christian, if once thou canst take off thy engagements to the flesh, and become a free man, so as not to give thy vote to gratify thy carnal fears or hopes, thou wilt then be a sure friend to truth.

3. Exhortation. Wait conscionably on the ministry of the word. Satan commonly stops the ear from hearing sound doctrine, before he opens it to embrace corrupt. This is the method of souls [in] apostatizing from truth: ‘They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables,’ II Tim. 4:3,4. Satan, like a cunning thief, draws the soul out of the road into some lane or corner, and there robs him of the truth. By rejecting of one ordinance, we deprive ourselves of the blessing of all others. Say not that thou prayest to be led into truth; God will not hear thy prayer if thou turnest thine ear from hearing the law. He that loves his child, when he sees him play the truant, will whip him to school. If God loves a soul, he will bring him back to the word with shame and sorrow.

4. Exhortation. When thou hearest any unusual doctrine, though never so pleasing, make not up the match hastily with it. Have some better testimony of it, before you open your heart to it. The apostle indeed bids us entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unawares Heb. 13:2; but he would not have us carried about with strange doctrine, ver. 9, [though] by this I am sure some have entertained devils. I confess, it is not enough to reject a doctrine, because strange to us, but ground we have, to wait and inquire. Paul marvelled that the Galatians were so soon removed from him, who had called them unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. They might sure have stayed till they had acquainted Paul with it, and asked his judgement. What, no sooner an impostor come into the country, and open his pack, but buy all his ware at first sight! O friends, were it not more wisdom to pray such new notions over and over again, to search the Word, and our hearts by it, yea, not to trust our own hearts, but [to] call in counsel from others? If your minister have not such credit with you, get the most holy, humble, and established Christians you can find. Error is like fish, which must be eaten new or it will stink. When those dangerous errors sprung up first in New England, O how unsettled were the churches! what an outcry was made, as if some mine of gold had been discovered! But in a while, when those error came to their complexion, and it was perceived whither they were bound—to destroy churches, ordinances, and power of godliness—then such as feared God, who had stepped aside, returned back with shame and sorrow.

Second Spiritual Wickedness—Spiritual pride.

Second. The second spiritual wickedness which Satan provokes unto, especially the saint, is spiritual pride. This was the sin made him, of a blessed angel, a cursed devil; and as it was his personal sin, so he chiefly labours to derive it to the sons of man: and he so far prevailed on our first parents, that ever since, this sin hath and doth claim a kind of regency in the heart, making use of both bad and good to draw her chariot.

First. It maketh use of evil. Pride enters into the labours of other sins; they do but work to make her brave, as subjects to uphold the state and grandeur of their prince. Thus you shall see some drudge and droil, cheat, cozen, oppress; and what mean they? O it is to get an estate to maintain pride. Others fawn and flatter, lie, dissemble; and for what? to help pride up some mount of honour.

Second. It maketh use of that which is good. It can work with God’s own tools, his ordinances, by which the Holy Spirit advanceth his kingdom of grace in the hearts of his saints. These often are prostituted to pride. A man may be very zealous in prayer, and painful in preaching, and all the while pride is the master whom he serves, though in God’s livery. It can take sanctuary in the holiest actions, and hide itself under the skirt of virtue itself. Thus while a man is exercising his charity, pride may be the idol in secret for which he lavisheth out his gold so freely. It is hard starving this sin, because there is nothing almost but it can live on—nothing so base that a proud heart will not be lift up with, and nothing so sacred but it will profane; [it will] even dare to drink in the bowls of the sanctuary, nay, rather than starve, it will feed on the carcases of other sins. ‘That sin is with great difficulty avoided which springs from a victory of our vices.’³³ This minion pride will stir up the soul to resist, yea, in a manner kill, some sins, that she may boastingly show the head of them, and blow the creature up with the conceit of himself above others. As the Pharisee, who through pride bragged that he was not as the publican—so that pride, if not looked to, will have to do everywhere, and hath a large sphere it moves in. Nothing indeed (without divine assistance) the creature hath or doth, but will soon become a prey to this devourer. But I am not to handle it in this latitude.

Pride is either conversant about carnal objects, as pride of beauty, strength, riches, and such like, or about spiritual. The latter we shall speak a little to. I confess for the former, possibly a saint may be catched in them—no sin [is] to be slighted—yet not so commonly, for ordinary pride is of those perfections which are suitable, if not proper, to the state and calling we are in. Thus the musician; he is proud of the skill he hath in his art, by which he excels others of his rank. The scholar, though he can play perhaps as well, yet is not proud of that, but looks on it as beneath him; no, he is proud of his learning and choice notions: and so of others.

Now the life of a Christian, as a Christian, is superior to the life of a man as a man; and therefore [he] doth not value himself by these which are beneath him, but in higher and more raised perfections, which suit a Christian’s calling. As a natural man is proud of perfections suitable to his natural state, as honour, beauty; so the Christian is prone chiefly to be puffed up with perfections suitable to his life. I shall name three: First. Pride of gifts. Second. Pride of grace. Third. Pride of privileges. These are the things which Satan chiefly labours to entangle him in.

[First kind of spiritual pride—pride of gifts.]

First. By gifts, I mean those supernatural abilities, with which the Spirit of God doth enrich and endow the minds of men for edification of the body of Christ; of which gifts the apostle tells us there is great diversity, and all from the same Spirit, I Cor. 12:4. There is not greater variety of colours and qualities of plants and flowers, with which the earth like a carpet of needle-work is variegated for the delight and service of man, than there is of gifts, natural and spiritual, in the minds of men, to render them useful to one another, both in civil societies and Christian fellowship. The Christian, as well as man, is intended to be a sociable creature, and for the better managing of this spiritual commonwealth among Christians, God doth wisely and graciously provide, and impart, gifts suitable to the place every one stands in [relative] to his brethren, as the vessels are larger or less in the body natural, according to the place therein. Now Satan labours what he can, to taint these gifts, and fly-blow them with pride in the Christian, that so he may spoil the Christian’s trade and commerce, which is mutually maintained by the gifts and graces of one another. Pride of gifts hinders the Christian’s trade—at least [its] thriving by their commerce, two ways. First. Pride of gifts is the cause why we do so little good with them to others. Second. Pride of gifts is the cause why we receive so little good from the gifts of others.

First. Pride of gifts is the cause why we do so little good with them to others, and that upon a threefold account.

1. Pride diverts a man from aiming at the end. So far as pride prevails, the man prays, preaches, &c., rather to thought good by others, than to do good to others; rather to enthrone himself, than Christ, in the opinions and hearts of his hearers. Pride carries the man aloft, to be admired for the height of his parts and notions, and will not suffer him to stoop so low as to speak of plain truths, or if he does, not plainly; he must have some fine lace, though on a plain stuff. Such a one may tickle the ear, but [is] very unlikely to do real good to the soul. Alas! it is not that he attends.

2. If this painted Jezebel of pride be perceived to look out at the window in any exercise, whether of preaching, prayer, or conference, it doth beget a disdain in the spirits of those that hear such a one, both good and bad. It is a sin very odious to a gracious heart, and oft-times makes the stomach go against the food, though good, through their abhorrency of that pride they see in the instrument. It is, indeed, their weakness, but woe to them that by their pride lead them into temptation! nay, those that are bad and may be in the same kind, like not that in another which they favour in themselves, and so prejudiced [they] return as bad as they went.

3. Pride of gifts robs us of God’s blessing in the use of them. The humble man may have Satan at his right hand to oppose him; but be sure the proud man shall find God himself there to resist him, whenever he goes about any duty. God proclaims so much, and would have the proud man know wherever he meets him [that] he will oppose him. He ‘resisteth the proud.’ Great gifts are beautiful as Rachel, but pride makes them also barren like her. Either we must lay self aside, or God will lay us aside.

Second. Pride of gifts is the cause why we receive so little good from the gifts of others. Pride fills the soul; and a full soul will take nothing from God, much less from man, to do it good. Such a one is very dainty; it is not every sermon, though wholesome food, not every prayer, though savoury, [that] will go down. He must have a choice dish. He thinks he hath better than this of his own. And is such a one like to get good? And truly we may see it, that as the plain ploughman, that can eat of any homely food if wholesome, hath more health, and is able to do more work in a day, than many enjoy or can do in their whole life, that are nice, squeamish, and courtly in their fare; so the humble Christian that can feed on plain truths, and ordinances which have not so much of the art of man to commend them to their palate, enjoy more of God, and can do more for God, than the nicer sort of professors, who are all to be served in a lordly dish of rare gifts. The church of Corinth was famous for gifts above other churches, I Cor. 1, but not in grace; none [were] so charged for weakness in that, I Cor. 3:2. He [Paul] calls them carnal babes in Christ, so weak as not able to digest man’s meat. ‘I have fed you,’ saith Paul, ‘with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.’ Why? what is the matter? the reason lies, ‘Ye are yet carnal: there is among you envying, and strife;’ ver. 3, ‘One saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos,’ ver. 4. Pride makes them take parts, and make sides, one for this preacher, another for that, as they fancied one to excel another. And this is not the way to thrive. Pride destroys love, and love wanting edification is lost. The devil hath made foul work in the church by this engine. Zanchy tells of one in Geneva, who being desired to go hear Calvin, answered his friend, ‘If Paul were to preach, I would leave Paul himself to hear Calvin³⁴.’ And will pride in the gifts of another so far transport, even to the borders of blasphemy, what work will then pride make when the gifts are a man’s own?

[Use or Application.]

Use 1. [To those that have mean gifts.] Doth Satan thus stir up saints to the spiritual pride of gifts? Here is a word to you that have mean gifts, yet truth of grace—be content with thy condition. Perhaps when thou hearest others, how enlargedly they pray, how able to discourse of the truths of God, and the like, thou art ready to go into a corner, and mourn to think how weak thy memory, how dull thy apprehension, how straitened thy spirit, hardly able, though in secret, to utter and express thy mind to God in prayer. O thou art ready to think those the happy men and women, and almost [to] murmur at thy condition. Well, canst thou not say, though I have no words, I hope I have faith? I cannot dispute for the truth, but I am willing to suffer for it. I cannot remember a sermon, but I never hear a word but I hate sin and love Christ more than ever. Lord, thou knowest I love thee. Truly, Christian, thou hast the better part; thou little thinkest what a mercy may be wrapt up even in the meanness of thy gifts, or what temptations their gifts expose them to, which God, for aught I know, may in mercy deny thee. Joseph’s coat made him finer than his brethren, but this caused all his trouble—this set the archers a shooting their arrows into his side. Thus, great gifts lift a saint up a little higher in the eyes of men, but it occasions many temptations which thou meetest not with that art kept low. What with envy from their brethren, malice from Satan, and pride in their own hearts, I dare say, none find so hard a work to go to heaven as such, [so] much ado to bear up against those waves and winds—while thou creepest along the shore under the wind to heaven. It is with such as with some great lord of little estate—a meaner man oft hath money in his purse, when he hath none, and can lend his lordship some at a need. Great gifts and parts are titles of honour among men, but many such may come and borrow grace and comfort of a mean-gifted brother, possibly, the preacher of his poor neighbour. O, poor Christians, do not murmur or envy them, but rather pity and pray for them, they need it more than others. His gifts are thine, thy grace is for thyself. Thou art like a merchant that hath his factor [who] goes to sea, but he hath his adventure without hazard brought home. Thou joinest with him in the prayer, hast the help of his gifts, but not the temptation of his pride.

Use 2. [To those that have great gifts.] Doth Satan labour thus to draw to pride of gifts? This speaks a word to you to whom God hath given more gifts than ordinary. Beware of pride, that is now your snare. Satan is at work; if possible he will turn your artillery against yourself. Thy safety lies in thy humility; if this lock be cut, the legions of hell are on thee. Remember whom thou wrestlest with—spiritual wickednesses—and their play is to lift up, that they may give the sorer fall. Now the more to stir up thy heart against it, I shall add some soul-humbling considerations on this pride of gifts.

1. Consideration. These spiritual gifts are not thine own; and wilt thou be proud of another’s bounty? Is not God the founder, and can he not soon be the confounder of thy gifts? Thou that art proud of thy gourd, what wilt thou be when it is gone? Surely then thou wilt be peevish and angry, and truly thou takest the course to be stripped of them. Gifts come on other terms than grace. God gives grace as a freehold—it hath the promise of this and another world; but gifts come on liking. Though a father will not cast off his child, yet he may take away his fine coat and ornaments, if proud of them.

2. Consideration. Gifts are not merely for thyself. As the light of the sun is ministerial—it shines not for itself—so all thy gifts are for others —gifts for the edifying of the body. Suppose a man should leave a chest of money in your hands to be distributed to others, what folly is it in this man to put this into his own inventory, and applaud himself that he hath so much money? Poor soul, thou art but God’s executor, and by that time thou hast paid all the legacies, thou wilt see little left for thee to brag and boast of.

3. Consideration. Know, Christian, thou shalt be accountable for these talents. Now, with what face can a proud soul look on God? Suppose one left an executor to pay legacies, and this man should pay them, not as legacies of another, but [as] gifts of his own. Christ at his ascension gave gifts that his children should receive. Thou hast some in thy hand. Now a proud soul gives out all, not as the legacy of Christ, but as his own; he assumes all to himself. O how abominable is this, to entitle ourselves to Christ’s honour!

4. Consideration. Thy gifts commend thee not to God. Man may be taken with thy expression and notion in prayer; but these are all pared off when thy prayer comes before God. ‘O woman,’ saith Christ, ‘great is thy faith!’ not, compt³⁵ and flourishing thy language. It were good after our duties to sort the ingredients of which they are made up—what grace contributed, and what gifts, and what pride—and when all the heterogeneal stuff is severed, you shall see in what a little compass the actings of grace in our duties will lie.

5. Consideration. Consider while thou art priding in thy gifts, thou art dwindling and withering in thy grace. Such are like corn that runs up much into straw, whose ear commonly is but light and thin. Grace is too much neglected where gifts are too highly prized; we are commanded to be clothed with humility. Our garments cover the shame of our bodies, humility the beauty of the soul. And as a tender body cannot live without clothes, so neither can grace without this clothing of humility. It kills the spirit of praise; when thou shouldst bless God, thou art applauding thyself. It destroys Christian love, and stabs our fellowship with the saints to the heart; a proud man hath not room enough to walk in company, because the gifts of others he thinks stand in his way. Pride so distempers the palate, that it can relish nothing that is drawn from another’s vessel.

6. Consideration. It is the forerunner of some great sin, or some great affliction. God will not suffer such a weed as pride to grow in his garden without taking some course or other to root it up; may be he will let thee fall into some great sin, and that shall bring thee home with shame. God useth sometimes a thorn in the flesh, to prick the bladder of pride in the spirit; or at least some great affliction, the very end whereof is to ‘hide pride from man,’ Job 33:17,19. As you do with your hot mettled horses—ride them over ploughed lands to tame them, and then you can sit safely on their back. If God’s honour be in danger through thy pride, then expect a rod, and most likely the affliction shall be in that which shall be most grievous to thee, in the thing thou art proud of. Hezekiah boasted of his treasure. God sends the Chaldeans to plunder him. Jonah [is] fond of his gourd, and that is smitten. And if thy spirit be blown up with pride of gifts, thou art in danger of having them blasted, at least in the opinion of others whose breath of applause, possibly, was a means to overset thy unballasted spirit.

[Three doors whence this enemy comes forth.]

Question. But how would you direct us against this?

Answer. Arguments you have had before; I shall only therefore point to two or three doors where your enemy comes forth upon you; and surely the very sight thereof, if thou beest loyal to Christ, will stir thee up to fall upon it.

First Door. This kind of pride discovers itself in dwelling upon the thoughts of our gifts, with a secret kind of content to see our own face, till at last we fall in love with it. We read of some whose eyes are full of the adulteress, and cannot cease from sin. A proud heart is full of himself; his own abilities cast their shadow before him. They are in his eye wherever he goes. The great subject and theme of his thoughts in what he is, and what he hath above others, applauding himself; as Bernard confesseth, that—when one would think he had little leisure for such thoughts—even in preaching; pride would be whispering in his ear, *Bene fecisti Bernarde—*O well done, Bernard. Now have a care, Christian, of chatting with such company. Run from such thoughts as from a bear. If the devil can get thee to stand on this pinnacle, while he presents thee with the glory of thy spiritual attainments and endowments, for thee to gaze on them thy weak head will soon turn round in pride; and therefore labour to keep the sense of thy own infirmities lively in thy soul, to divert the temptation. As those who are subject to some kind of fits carry about them things proper for the disease, that when the fit is coming—which is oft occasioned with a sweet perfume—they may use them for their help; sweet scents are not more dangerous for them, than anything they may applaud thee is to thy soul. Have a care, therefore, not only of wearing such thoughts in thy bosom, but also of sitting by others that bring the sweet scent of thy perfections to thee by their flattery.

Second Door. This kind of pride appears in a forwardness to expose itself to view, I Sam. 17:28. David’s brethren were mistaken in him indeed, but oft the pride and naughtiness of the heart breaks out at this door. Christ’s carnal friends bid Christ show himself; pride loves to climb up, not as Zacchaeus, to see Christ, but to be seen himself. ‘The fool,’ Solomon tells us, ‘hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself,’ Prov. 18:2. Pride would be somebody, and therefore comes abroad to court the multitude; whereas humility delights in privacy. As the leaves do cover and shade the fruits, that some hand may gently lift up them, before they can see the fruit; so should a humility and holy modesty conceal the perfections of the soul, till a hand of providence by some call invites them out. There is a pride in naked gifts, as well as in naked breasts and backs. Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces, and therefore, 1. Christian, look whenever thou comest forth to public duty, that thou hast a call. It is obedience to be ready to answer when God calls thee forth, but it is pride to run before God speaks. 2. When called, earnestly implore divine strength against this enemy. Shun not a duty for fear of pride—thou mayest show it in the very seeming to escape it—but go in the strength of God against it. There is more hope of overcoming it by obedience than [by] disobedience.

Third Door. This kind of pride discovers itself in envying the gifts of others, when they seem to blind our own that they are not so fair a prospect as we desire. This is a weed may grow too rank in a good soil. Aaron and Miriam could not bear Moses his honour, Num. 12.1; that was the business, though they pick a quarrel with him about his wife, because an Ethiopian, as appears plainly, ‘Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?’ ver. 2. They thought Moses went away with too much of the honour, and did repine that God should use him more than themselves. And it is observable, that the lusting for flesh broke out among the mixed multitude, and baser sort of people, Num. 11:4,5; but this of pride and envy took fire in the bosoms of the most eminent for place and piety. O what need then have we, poor creatures, to watch our hearts when we see such precious servants of God led into temptation? ‘The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy,’ James 4:5. Our corrupt nature is ever putting on to this sin. It is as hard to keep our hearts and this sin asunder, as it is to keep two lovers from meeting together. Thatch is not more ready to be fired with every flash of lightning, than the heart to be kindled at every shining forth of any excelling gift or grace in another. It was of the first windows that corrupt nature looked out at—a sin that shed the first blood. Cain’s envy hatched Abel’s murder. Now if ever thou meanest to get the mastery of this sin,

1. Call in help from heaven. No sooner hath the apostle set forth how big and teeming full the heart of man is with envy, but he shows where a fountain of grace is, infinitely exceeding that of lust: ‘The Spirit within us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace,’ James 4:5,6. And therefore sit not down tamely under this sin: it is not unconquerable. God can give thee more grace than thou hast sin—more humility than thou hast pride. Be but so humble as cordially to beg this grace, and thou shalt not be so proud as wickedly to envy his gifts or grace in others.

2. Make this sin as black and ugly as thou canst possibly to thy thought, that when it is presented to thee, thou mayest abhor it the more. Indeed there needs no more than its own face—wouldst thou look wisely on it—to make thee out of love with it. For,

(1.) This envying of others’ gifts casts great contempt upon God, and that more ways than one.

(a) When thou enviest the gifts of thy brethren, thou takest upon thee, to teach God what he shall give and to whom; as if the great God should take counsel, or ask leave of thee, before he dispenseth his gifts. And darest thou stand to thy own envious thoughts with this interpretation? such a one thou findest Christ himself give, ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?’ Matt. 20:15, as if Christ had said, What hath any to do with cavil, at my disposure of what is not theirs, but mine, to give?

(b) Thou malignest the goodness of God. It troubles thee, it seems, that God hath a heart to do good to any besides thyself; thine eye is evil, because he is good. Wouldst not thou have God be good? you might as well say, you would not have him God. He can as soon cease to be God as to be good.

(c) Thou art an enemy to the glory of God, as thou defacest that which should set it forth. Every gift is a ray of divine excellency; and as all the beams declare the glory of the sun, so all the gifts of God imparts declare the glory of God. Now envy labours to deface and sully the representations of God; it hath ever something to disparage the excellency of another withal. God showed Miriam her sin by her punishment. She went to bespatter Moses that shone so eminently with the gifts and graces of God, and God spits in her face, Num. 12, yea, fills her all over with a noisome scab. Dost thou cordially wish well to the honour of God? why then hangest thou thy head, and dost not rather rejoice to see him glorified by the gifts of others? Could a heathen take it so well, when himself was passed by, and others chosen to places of honour and government, that he said he was glad his city could find so many more worthy than himself; and shall a Christian repine that any are found fit to honour God besides himself?

(2.) By this envying of others’ gifts, thou wrongest thy brother, as thou sinnest against the law of love, which obligeth thee to rejoice in his good as thy own, yea, to prefer him in honour before thyself. Thou canst not love and envy the same person. Envy is as contrary to love, as the hectical feverish fire in the body is to the kindly heat of nature. ‘Charity envieth not,’ I Cor. 13:4. How can it, when it lives where it loves? And when thou ceasest to love thy brother, thou beginnest to beginnest to hate and kill him; and dost not thou tremble to be found a murderer at last?

(3.) By this envying of others’ gifts, thou consultest worst of all for thyself. God is out of thy reach. What thou spittest against heaven, thou art sure to have fall on thy own face at last; and thy brother whom thou enviest, God stands bound to defend against thy envy, because he is maligned for what he hath of God in him. Thus did God plead Joseph’s cause against his envious brethren, and David’s against wicked Saul. Thyself only hast real hurt.

(a) Thou deprivest thyself of what thou mightst reap from the gifts of others. That old saying is true, ‘What thou hast is mine, and what I have thine, when envy is gone.’³⁶ Whereas now, like the leech—which they say draws out the worst blood—thou suckest nothing but what swells thy mind with discontent, and is after vomited out in strife and contention. O what a sad thing it is, that one should go from a precious sermon, a sweet prayer, and bring nothing away but a grudge against the instrument God used; as we see in the Pharisees and others at Christ preaching!

(b) Thou robbest thyself of the joy of thy life. “He that is cruel troubleth his own flesh,’ Prov. 11:17. The envious man doth it to purpose; he sticks the honour and esteem of others as thorns in his own heart; he cannot think of them without pain and anguish, and he must needs pine that is ever in pain.

(c) Thou throwest thyself into the mouth of temptation, thou needest give the devil no greater advantage; it is a stalk any sin almost will grow upon. What will not the patriarchs do to rid their hands of Joseph whom they envied? That very pride which made them disdain the thought of bowing to his sheaf, made them stoop far lower, even to debase themselves as low as hell, and be the devil’s instruments to sell their dear brother into slavery, which might have been worse for him—if God had not provided otherwise—than if they had slain him on the place. What an impotent mind, and cruel, did Saul show against David, when once envy had envenomed his heart! From that day [on] which he heard David preferred in the women’s songs above himself, he could never get that sound out of his head, but did ever after devote this innocent man to death in his thoughts, who had done him no other wrong, but in being an instrument to keep the crown on his head, by the hazard of his own life with Goliath. O it is a bloody sin! It is the womb wherein a whole litter of other sins are formed, Rom. 1:29, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, &c.; and therefore, except you be resolved to bid the devil welcome and his whole train, resist him in this, that comes before to take up quarters for the rest.

[Second kind of spiritual pride—pride of grace.]

Second. Another way Satan assaults the Christian is through pride of grace. It is true, grace cannot be proud, yet it is possible a saint may be proud of his grace. There is nothing the Christian hath or doth, but this worm of pride will breed in it. The world we live in is corruptible, and all here is subject to purify, as things kept in a rafty muggish room³⁷ [are] subject to mould. It is not the nature of grace, but the salt of covenant, keeps and preserves the purity of it. In heaven indeed we shall be safe. But how can a saint be said to be proud of his grace? Then a soul is proud of his grace, when he trusts in his grace. Trust and confidence is an incommunicable flower of God’s crown as Sovereign Lord;—even among men it goes along with royalty. Set up a king, and as such he expects you should give him this, as the undoubted prerogative of his place, and therefore to seek protection from any other is, as it were, to set up another king. ‘If indeed you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust under my shadow,’ Judges 9:15. Therefore when a soul puts his trust in anything beside God, he sets up a prince, a king, an idol, to which he gives God’s glory away. Now it doth not make the sin less, that it is the grace of God we crown, than if it were a lust we crowned. It is idolatry to worship a holy angel as well as a cursed devil, to make our grace a god as well as our belly our god; nay, rather it adds to it, because that is now used to rob him of his glory which should have brought him in the greatest revenue of glory. Certainly the more treasure you put into your servant’s hands, the greater wrong to you for him to run away with it. I doubt not but David could have borne it better to have seen a Philistine drive him from his throne than a son—an Absalom. But how can, or may, a saint be said to trust in his grace? First. By trusting on the strength of his grace. Second. By trusting on the worth of his grace, I conceive, cannot stand with grace: but there is an oblique kind of trust, or that which by interpretation may savour of it. Satan is sly in his assaults.

[Pride of grace is to trust in the strength of our grace.]

First. A Christian may be proud of his grace, by trusting in the strength of his grace. To trust in the strength of grace is to be proud of grace. This is opposed to that poverty of spirit so commended by our Saviour, Matt. 5, by which a man lives in the continual sense of his spiritual beggary and nothingness, and so hath his recourse to Christ, as the poor to the rich man’s door, knowing he hath nothing at home to maintain him. Such a one was Paul, not able to do anything of himself. He is not ashamed to let the world know that Christ carries his purse for him. ‘Our sufficiency is of God;’ yea, after many years trading, this holy man sees nothing he hath got. ‘I count not myself to have apprehended,’ Php 3:13. He is still pressing forward. Ask him how he lives, he will tell you who keeps house for him, ‘I live, yet not I,’ Gal. 2:20. Ask a beggar where he hath his meat, clothes, &c., he will say, ‘I thank my good master.’ Now Satan chiefly labours to puff the soul up with an overweening conceit of his own ability, as the readiest means to bring him into his snare. Satan knows it is God’s method to give his children into his hands, when once they grow proud and self-confident. Hezekiah was left to a temptation, ‘to try him,’ II Chr. 32.31. Why? God had tried him to purpose a little before in an affliction; what needs this? O, Hezekiah’s heart was lift up after his affliction. It was time for God to let the tempter alone a little to foil him. Probably now Hezekiah had high thoughts of his grace—O he would never do as he had done before—and God will let him see what a weak creature he is. Peter makes a whip for his own back in that bravado, ‘Though all should forsake thee, yet will not I.’ Christ now in mere mercy must set Satan on him to lay him on his back, that seeing the weakness of his faith, he might be dismounted from the height of his pride. All that I shall say from this is, to entreat thee, Christian, to have a care of this kind of pride. You know what Joab said to David, when he perceived his heart lift up with the strength of his kingdom, and therefore would have the people numbered. ‘Now the Lord thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundredfold, but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?’ II Sam. 24:3. The Lord add to the strength of thy grace an hundredfold, but why delightest thou in this? why shouldst thou be lift up? is it not grace? shall the groom be proud because he rides on his master’s horse? or the mud-wall because the sun shines on it? Mayest thou not say of every dram of grace, as the young man of his hatchet, ‘Alas, master, it is borrowed?’ nay, not only borrowed, but thou canst not use it without his skill and strength that lends it thee. O beware of this; let not those vain thoughts lodge in thee, lest thou enter into temptation. It is a breach a whole troop of sins may enter at, yea, will, except speedily filled up.

1. It will make thee soon grow loose and negligent in thy duty. It is sense of insufficiency [that] keeps a soul at work, to pray and hear—as want in the house and hutch holds up the market; no man comes thither to buy what he hath at home. ‘Up,’ saith Jacob, ‘go down to Egypt for corn, that we live and not die.’ Thus saith the needy Christian, ‘Up, soul, to thy God; thy faith is weak; thy patience almost spent; ply thee to the throne of grace; go with thy homer to the ordinances, and get some supplies.’ Now a soul conceited of his store, hath another song, ‘Soul, take thine ease, thou art richly laid in for many days. Let the doubting soul pray, thy faith is string; let the weak lie at the breast, thou art well grown up.’ Nay, it is well if it goes not further—to a despising of ordinances, except they have some more courtly fare than ordinary. Such a pass were the Corinthians come to, ‘Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us,’ I Cor. 4:8. I pray observe how he lays the accent on the particle now—now ye are rich, as if he had said, I knew the time [when] if Paul had come to town, and news spread abroad in the city that Paul was to preach, you would have flocked to hear him, and blessed God for the season; but then you were poor and empty, now ye are full, you have got to a higher attainment—Paul is a plain fellow now, he may carry his cheer to a hungry people if he will; we are well apaid [satisfied]. And when once the heart is come to this, it is easy to judge what will follow.

2. This trusting to the strength of grace will make the soul bold and venturous. The humble Christian is the wary Christian. He knows his weakness, and this makes him afraid. ‘I have a weak head,’ saith he, ‘I may soon be disputed into an error and heresy, and therefore I dare not come where such stuff is broached, lest my weak head should be intoxicated.’ The confident man will sip of every cup, he fears none, no, he is stablished in the truth—a whole team of heretics shall not draw him aside. ‘I have a vain light heart,’ saith the humble soul—‘I dare not come among wicked debauched company, lest I should at last bring the naughty man home with me.’ But one, trusting to the strength of his grace, dares to venture into the devil’s quarters. Thus Peter [ventured] into the route of Christ’s enemies, and how he came off, you know. There his faith had been slain on the place, had not Christ sounded a retreat, by the seasonable look of love he gave him. Indeed I have read of some bragging philosophers, who did not think it enough to be temperate, except they had the object of intemperance present, and therefore they would go into taverns and whore-houses, as if they meant to beat the devil on his own ground. But the Christian knows an enemy nearer than so—which they were ignorant of—and that he need not go over his own threshold to challenge the devil. He hath lust in his bosom, that will be hard enough for him all his days, without giving it the vantage-ground. Christian, I know no sin, but thou mayest be left to commit it, except one. It was a bold speech of him —and yet a good man, as I have heard—‘If Clapham die of the plague, say Clapham had no faith;’ and this made him boldly go among the infected. If a Christian, thou shalt not die of spiritual plagues—yet such may have the plague-sores of gross sins running on them for a time; and is not his sad enough? therefore walk humbly with thy God.

3. This high conceit of the strength of thy grace will make thee cruel and churlish to thy weak brethren in their infirmities—a sin that least becomes a saint. ‘If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness,’ Gal. 6:1. But how shall a soul get such a meek spirit? It follows—‘Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.’ What makes men hard to the poor? they think they shall never be so themselves. Why are many so sharp in their censures, but because they trust too much to their grace, as if they could never fall? O you are in the body, and the body of sin in you, therefore fear. Bernard used to say, when he heard any scandalous sin of a professor,³⁸ ‘He fell to-day, I may stumble tomorrow.’

[Pride of grace is to trust in the worth of our grace.]

Second. The second way a Christian may be proud of his grace, is by trusting on the worth of his grace—resting on it for his acceptance with God. The Scripture calls inherent grace ‘our own righteousness’ —though God indeed be the efficient of it—and opposeth it to the righteousness of Christ, which alone is called ‘the righteousness of God,’ Rom. 10:1-4. Now, to rest on any grace inherent, is to exalt our own righteousness above the righteousness of God; and what pride will this amount to? If this were so, then a saint when he comes to heaven might say, ‘This is heaven which I have built—my grace hath purchased;’ and thus the God of heaven should become tenant to his creature in heaven. No, God hath cast the order of our salvation into another method —of grace, but not of grace in us, but grace to us. Inherent grace hath its place and office to accompany salvation, Heb. 6:9, but not [to] procure it. This is Christ’s work, not grace’s. When Israel waited on the Lord at Mount Sinai they had their bounds. Not a man must come up besides Moses to treat with God; no, not touch the mount, lest they die. Thus all the graces of the Spirit wait on God, but none come up to challenge any acceptance of God besides faith, which is a grace that presents the soul not in its own garments. But you will say, ‘What needs all this? where is the man that trusts in his grace?’ Alas, where is the Christian that doth fully stand clear, and freely come off his own righteousness? He is a rare pilot, indeed, that can steer his faith in so direct a course, as not now and then knock upon this duty, and run on ground upon that grace. Abraham went in to Hagar, and the children of Abraham’s faith are not perfectly dead to the law, and may be found sometimes in Hagar’s arms. Witness the flux and reflux of our faith, according to the various aspect of our obedience. When this seems full, then our faith is at a spring-tide, and covers all the mountains of our fears; but let it seem to wane in any service or duty, then the Jordan of our faith flies back, and leaves the soul naked. The devil’s spite is at Christ, and therefore, since he could not hinder his landing—which he endeavoured all he could—nor work his will on his person when he was come, he goes now, in a more refined way, to darken the glory of his sufferings, and the sufficiency of his righteousness, by blending ours with his. This doctrine of justification by faith hath had more works and batteries made against it, than any other in the Scripture. Indeed many other errors were but his sly approaches to get nearer to undermine this. And lastly, when he cannot hide this truth —which now shines in the church like the sun in its strength—then he labours to hinder the practical improvement of it, that we (if he can help it) shall not live up to our own principles—making us, at the same time that, in our judgment, we profess acceptance only through Christ, in our practice confute ourselves.

Now there is a double pride in the soul he makes use of for this end—the one I may call a mannerly pride, the other a self-applauding pride.

First. [There is] a mannerly pride, which comes forth in the habit and guise of humility, and that discovers itself, either at the soul’s first coming to Christ, and keeps him from closing with the promise; or afterward in the daily course of a Christian’s walking with God, which keeps him from comfortable living on Christ.

1. When a poor soul is staved off the promise by the sense of his own unworthiness and great unrighteousness. Tell him of a pardon, alas! he is so wrapped up with the thoughts of his own vileness, that you cannot fasten it upon him. What, will God ever take such a toad as he is into his bosom, discount so many great abominations at once, and receive him into his favour, that hath been so long in rebellious arms against him! He cannot believe it; no, though he hears what Christ hath done and suffered for sin, he refuseth to be comforted. Little doth the soul think what a bitter root such thoughts spring from. Thou thinkest thou doest well thus to declaim against thyself, and aggravate thy sins. Indeed, thou canst not paint them black enough, or entertain too low and base thoughts of thyself for them; but what wrong hath God and Christ done thee, that thou shouldst so unworthily reflect upon the mercy of the one, and merit of the other? Mayest thou not do this, and be tender of the good name of God also? Is there no way to show the sense of thy sin, except thou asperse thy Saviour? Canst thou not charge thyself, but thou must condemn God, and put Christ and his blood to shame before Satan, who triumphs more in this than all thy other sins? In a word, though thou, like a wretch, hast undone thyself, and damned thy soul by thy sins, yet art thou not willing God should have the glory of pardoning them, and Christ the honour of procuring the same? or art thou like him in the gospel, who could not dig, and to beg was ashamed? Luke 16:3. Thou canst not earn heaven by thy own righteousness; and is thy spirit so stout that thou wilt not beg it for Christ’s sake? yea, take it at God’s hands, who, in the gospel, comes a begging to thee, and beseecheth thee to be reconciled to him? Ah, soul! who would ever have thought there could have lain such pride under such a modest veil? and yet none like it. It is horrible pride for a beggar to starve rather than take an alms at a rich man’s hands—[for] a malefactor rather to choose his halter than a pardon from his gracious prince’s hand; but here is one infinitely surpassing both—a soul pining and perishing in sin, and yet rejecting the mercy of God, and the helping hand of Christ to save him! Though Abigail did not think herself worthy to be David’s wife, yet she thought David was worthy of her, and therefore she humbly accepted his offer, and makes haste to go with the messengers. That is the sweet frame of heart indeed—to lie low in the sense of your own vileness, yet to believe; to renounce all conceit of worthiness in ourselves, yet not therefore to renounce all hope of mercy, but the more speedily to make haste to Christ that woos us. All the pride and unmannerliness lies in making Christ stay for us, who bids his messengers invite poor sinners to come and tell them ‘all things are ready.’ But, may be thou wilt say still, it is not pride that keeps thee off, but thou canst not believe that ever God will entertain such as thou art. Truly thou mendest the matter but little with this. Either thou keepest some lust in thy heart, which thou wilt not part with, to obtain the benefit of the promise, and then thou art a notorious hypocrite, who under such an outcry for thy sins, canst drive a secret trade with hell at the same time; or if not so, thou dost discover the more pride in that thou darest stand out, when thou hast nothing to oppose against the many plain and clear promises of the gospel but thy peremptory unbelief. God bids the wicked forsake his ways, and turn to him, and he will abundantly pardon him; but thou sayest thou canst not believe this for thy own self. Now who speaks the truth? One of you two must be the liar; either thou must take it with shame to thyself, for what thou hast said against God and his promise—and that is thy best course; or thou must proudly, yea, blasphemously cast it upon God, as every unbeliever doth, I John 5:10. Nay, thou makest him foresworn, for God—to give poor sinners the greater security in flying for refuge to Christ, who is that ‘hope set before them,’ Heb. 6:17,18—hath sworn they should have strong consolation. ‘O happy we, for whose sake God puts himself under an oath: but O miserable we, who will not believe God, no, not when he swears!’³⁹

2. When the soul hath shot the great gulf, and got into a state of peace and life by closing with Christ, yet this mannerly pride Satan makes use of in the Christian’s daily course of duty and obedience, to disturb him and hinder his peace and comfort. O how uncheerfully, yea, joylessly do many precious souls pass their days! If you inquire what is the cause, you shall find [that] all their joy runs out at their crannies of their imperfect duties and weak graces. They cannot pray as they would, and walk as they desire, with evenness and constancy; they see how far short they fall of the holy rule in the Word, and the pattern which others more eminent in grace do set before them; and this, though it doth not make them throw the promises away, and quite renounce all hope in Christ, yet it begets many sad fears and suspicions, yea, makes them sit at the feast Christ hath provided, and not know whether they may eat or not. In a word, as it robs them of their joy, so [it robs] Christ of that glory he should receive from their rejoicing in him. I do not say, Christian, thou oughtest not to mourn for those defects thou findest in thy graces and duties, nay, thou couldst not approve thyself to be sincere if thou didst not. A gracious heart—seeing how far short his renewed state, for the present, falls of man’s primitive holiness by creation—cannot but weep and mourn—as the Jews [did] to behold the second temple; yet, Christian, even while the tears are in thy eyes for thy imperfect graces—for a soul riseth with his grave-clothes on—thou shouldst rejoice, yea, triumph over all these thy defects by faith in Christ, in whom thou art complete, Col. 2:10, while imperfect in thyself. Christ’s presence in the second temple—which the first had not—made it, though comparatively mean, more glorious than the first, Hag. 2:9. How much more doth his presence in this spiritual temple of a gracious heart, imputing his righteousness to cover all uncomeliness, make the soul glorious above man at first? This is a garment for which—as Christ saith of the lily—we neither spin nor toil; yet Adam in all his created royalty was not so clad, as the weakest believer is with this on his soul. Now, Christian, consider well what thou doest, while thou sittest languishing under the sense of thy own weaknesses, and refusest to rejoice in Christ, and live comfortably on the sweet privileges thou art interested in by thy marriage to him. Dost thou not bewray some of this spiritual pride working in thee? O, if thou couldst pray without wandering, walk without limping, believe without wavering, then thou couldst rejoice and walk cheerfully. It seems, soul, thou stayest to bring the ground of thy comfort with thee, and not to receive it purely from Christ. O how much better were it if thou wouldst say with David, ‘Although my house’ —my heart—‘be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure; and this is all my desire, all my confidence. Christ I oppose to all my sins, Christ to all my wants; he is my all in all, and all above all.’ Indeed, all those complaints of our wants and weaknesses, so far as they withdraw our hearts from relying cheerfully on Christ, they are but the language of pride hankering after the covenant of works. O it is hard to forget our mother-tongue, which is so natural to us; labour therefore to be sensible of it, [of] how grievous it is to the Spirit of Christ. What would a husband say, if his wife, instead of expressing her love to him, and delight in him, should day and night do nothing but weep and cry to think of her former husband that is dead? The law, as a covenant, and Christ, are compared to two husbands: ‘Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,’ Rom. 7:4. Now thy sorrow for the defect of thy own righteousness, when it hinders thy rejoicing in Christ, is but a whining after thy other husband, and this Christ cannot take but unkindly—that thou art not well pleased to lie in the bosom of Christ, and have thy happiness from him as with your old husband the law.

Second. [There is] a self-applauding pride; when the heart is secretly lift up, so as to promise itself acceptation at God’s hands, for any duty or act of obedience it performs, and doth not, when most assisted, go out of his own actings, to lay the weight of his expectation entirely upon Christ. Every such glance of the soul’s eye is adulterous, yea, idolatrous. If thy heart, Christian, at any time be secretly enticed—as Job saith of another kind of idolatry—or thy mouth doth kiss thy hand, that is, dote so far on thy own duties and righteousness, as to give them this inward worship of thy confidence and trust, this is a great iniquity indeed; for in this thou deniest the God that is above, who hath determined thy faith to another object. Thou comest to open heaven’s gate with the old key, when God hath set on a new lock. Dost thou not acknowledge that thy first entrance into thy justified state was of pure mercy? thou wert ‘justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,’ Rom. 3:24. And whom art thou beholden to, now thou art reconciled, for thy further acceptance or duty or holy action? to thy duty, thy obedience, thyself, or Christ? The same apostle will tell you, ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,’ Rom. 5:2. If Christ should not lead thee in and all thou doest, thou art sure to find the door shut upon thee. There is no more place for desert now thou art gracious, than when thou wert graceless. ‘The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith,’ for ‘the just shall live by faith,’ Rom. 1:17. We are not only made alive by Christ, but we live by Christ; faith sucks in continual pardoning, assisting, comforting mercy from him, as the lungs suck in the air. Heaven’s way is paved with grace and mercy to the end.

[Use or Application.]

Use. Be exhorted above all to watch against this play of Satan, beware thou restest not in thy own righteousness. Thou standest under a tottering wall; the very cracks thou seest in thy graces and duties, when best, bid thee stand off, except thou wouldst have them fall on thy head. The greatest step to heaven, is out of our own doors, over our own threshold. It hath cost many a man his life when his house on fire—a grippleness⁴⁰ to save some of the stuff —which, venturing among the flames to preserve, they have perished themselves. More have lost their souls by thinking to carry some of their own stuff with them to heaven—such a good work or duty —while [until] they, like lingering Lot, have been loath to leave in point of confidence—have themselves perished. O sirs, come out, come out, leave what is your own in the fire. Fly to Christ naked; he hath gold—not like thine, which will consume and be found drossy in the fire, but such as hath in the fiery trial passed in God’s righteous judgment for pure and full weight. You cannot be found in two places at once. Choose whether you will be found in your own righteousness or in Christ’s. Those who have had more to show than thyself, have thrown away all, and gone a begging to Christ. Read Paul’s inventory, Php. 3—what he had, what he did —yet all dross and loss. Give him Christ, and take the rest who will. So Job, as holy a man as trod on earth—God himself being witness—yet saith, ‘Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life,’ Job 9:21. He had acknowledged his imperfection before, now he makes a supposition—indeed, quod non est supponendum, which ought not to be made—‘If I were perfect, yet would I not know my own soul. I would not entertain any such thoughts as would puff me up into such confidence of my holiness, as to make it my plea with God.’ Like to our common phrase, we say, such a one hath excellent parts, but he knows it, that is, he is proud of it. Take heed of knowing thy own grace in this sense; thou canst not give a greater wound both to thy grace and comfort, than by thus priding thyself in it.

[Why the Christian should not rest on any inherent work of grace.]

First. Thy grace cannot thrive so long as thou thus restest upon it. A legal spirit is no friend to grace; nay, is a bitter enemy against it, as appeared by the Pharisees in Christ’s time. Grace comes not by the law, but by Christ; thou mayest stand long enough by it, before thou gettest any life of grace into thy soul, or further life into thy grace. If thou wouldst have this, thou must set thyself under Christ’s wings by faith. From his Spirit in the gospel alone comes this kindly natural heat to hatch thy soul to the life of holiness, and increase what thou hast; and thou canst not come under Christ’s wings, till thou comest from under the shadow of the other, by renouncing all expectation from thy own works and services. You know Reuben’s curse—that he should not excel, because he went up into his father’s bed. When other tribes increased, he stood at a little number. By trusting in thy own works thou dost worse by Christ, and shalt thou excel in grace? Perhaps some of you have been long professors, and yet [have] come to little growth in love to God, humility, heavenly-mindedness, mortification; and it is worth the digging to see what lies at the root of your profession —whether there be not a legal principle that hath too much acted you. Have you not thought to carry all with God from your duties and services, and too much laid up your hopes in your own actings? Alas! this is as so much dead earth, which must be thrown out, and gospel principles laid in the room thereof. Try but this course, and see whether the spring of thy grace will not come on apace. David gives an account how he came to stand and flourish, when some that were rich and mighty, on a sudden withered and came to nothing. ‘Lo,’ saith he, ‘this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches.’ ‘But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever,’ Ps. 52:7-8. While others trust in the riches of their own righteousness and services, and make not Christ their strength, do thou renounce all, and trust in the mercy of God in Christ, and thou shalt be like a green olive when they fade and wither.

Second. Christian, you will not thrive in true comfort so long as you rest in any inherent work of grace, and do not stand clear of your own actings and righteousness. Gospel-comfort springs from a gospel-root, which is Christ. ‘We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,’ Php. 3:3. Now a soul that rests on any holiness in himself, he grafts his comfort upon himself, not upon Christ; he sucks his own breast, not Christ’s, and so makes Christ a dry nurse; and what comfort can grow on that dry tree? The Spirit is our comforter as well as our teacher and counsellor. Now as the Spirit, when he teacheth, comes not with any new or strange truth, but takes of Christ’s own—what he finds in the Word; so where he comforts, he takes of Christ’s own —his righteousness, not our own. Christ is the matter and ground of his comfort. All cordials are but Christ distilled, and made up in several promises; his acting, not ours; his suffering, not ours; his holiness, not ours. He doth not say, ‘Soul, rejoice! thou art holy,’ but ‘Soul, triumph! Christ is righteous, and is the Lord thy righteousness;’ not, ‘Soul, thou prayest sweetly, fear not;’ but, ‘Thou hast an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;’ so that the first step to the receiving of comfort from the Spirit, is to send away all comforts of our own. As in learning of the Spirit, he that will be taught by him, must first become a fool—that is, no way lean to his own understanding; so he that would be comforted, must first be emptied of all self-supports, must not lean on his own comforts. As a physician first bids his patient cast off all others he hath tampered with, asks what physic he hath had from them, takes off their plasters, throws away their physic, and goes about the work *de novo—*anew; so the Spirit, when he comes to comfort a poor soul, first persuades the soul to send away all its old physicians. O, saith the soul, I have been in the hand of such a duty, such a course of obedience, and have thought sure now I shall be well, and have comfort, now I do this duty, set upon such a holy course. Well, saith the Spirit, if you will have me do anything, these must all be dismissed in point of confidence. Now, and not till now, is the soul a subject fit to receive the Spirit’s comforts. And therefore, friends, as you love your inward peace, beware what vessel you draw your comfort from. Grace is finite, and so cannot afford much. It is leaking, and so cannot hold long; thou drinkest in a riven dish, that hast thy comfort from thy grace. It is mixed, and so weak; and weak grace cannot give strong consolation—and such thou needest, especially in strong conflicts. Nay, lastly, thy comfort which thou drawest from it, is stolen—thou dost not come honestly by it; and stolen comforts will not thrive with thee. O, what folly is it for the child to play the thief, for that which he may have freely and more fully from his father, who gives and reproacheth not! That comfort which thou wouldst filch out of thy own righteousness and duties, behold it is laid up for thee in Christ, from whose fulness thou mayest carry as much as thy faith can hold, and [there is] none to check thee, yea, the more thou improvest Christ for thy comfort, the more heartily welcome. We are bid to open our mouth wide, and he will fill it.

[Third kind of spiritual pride —pride of privileges.]

Third. Pride of privileges is the third kind of spiritual pride, with which these wicked spirits labour to blow up the Christian. To name three [of these privileges]: First. When God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service. Second. When God honours a saint to suffer for his truth or cause. Third. When God flows in with more than ordinary manifestations of his love, and fills the soul with joy and comfort. These are privileges not equally dispensed to all; and therefore, where they are, Satan takes advantage of assaulting such with pride.

First Privilege. When God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service. Indeed it requires a great measure of grace to keep the heart low, when the man stands high. The apostle, speaking how a minister of the gospel should be qualified, saith he must not be ‘a novice,’ or a young convert, ‘lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil,’ I Tim 3:6; as if he had said, ‘This calling is honourable, if he be not well balanced with humility, a little gust from Satan will topple him into this sin.’ The seventy that Christ first sent out to preach the gospel, and [who] prevailed so miraculously over Satan—even these, while they trod on the serpent’s head, he turned again, and had like to have stung them with pride. This our Saviour perceived, when they returned in triumph, and told what great miracles they had wrought; and therefore he takes them off that glorying, lest it should degenerate into vainglory, and bids them ‘rejoice not that spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven,’ Luke 10:20. As if he had said, ‘It is not the honour of your calling, and success of your ministry [that] will save you. There shall be some cast to the devils, who shall then say, “Lord, Lord, in thy name we have cast out devils,” and therefore value not yourselves by that, but rather evidence to your souls, that you are mine elect ones, which will stand you more in stead at the great day than all this.’

Second Privilege. A second privilege is, when God honours a person to suffer for his truth. This is a great privilege. ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,’ Php. 1:29. God doth not use to give worthless gifts to his saints, there is some preciousness in it, which a carnal eye cannot see. Faith, you will say, is a great gift, but perseverance greater —without which faith would be little worth—and perseverance in suffering is, above both, honourable. This made John Careless, our English martyr—who, though he died not at the stake, yet [died] in prison for Christ—say, ‘Such an honour it is, as angels are not permitted to have, therefore God forgive me mine unthankfulness.’ Now when Satan cannot scare a soul from prison, yet then he will labour to puff him up in prison; when he cannot make him pity himself, then he will flatter him till he prides in himself. Affliction from God, exposeth to impatience, affliction for God, to pride; and therefore, Christians, labour to fortify yourselves against this temptation of Satan. How soon you may be called to suffering work you know not—such clouds oft are not long arising. Now to keep thy heart humble when thou art honoured to suffer for the truth, consider,

1. Though thou dost not deserve those sufferings at man’s hand, thou canst and mayst, in that regard, glory in thy innocency [that] thou sufferest not as an evildoer; yet thou canst not but confess it is a just affliction from God in regard of sin in thee, and this methinks should keep thee humble. The same suffering may be martyrdom in regard of man, and yet a fatherly chastening for sin in regard of God. None suffered without sin but Christ, and therefore none may glory in sufferings but he—Christ in his own, we in his. ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Gal. 6:14. This kept Mr. Bradford humble in his sufferings for the truth. None more rejoiced in them, and blessed God for them, yet none more humble under them, than he. And what kept him in this humble frame? Read his godly letters, and you shall find almost in all how he bemoans his sins, and the sins of the Protestants under the reign of king Edward, ‘It was time,’ saith he, ‘for God to put his rod into the Papists’ hands. We were grown so proud, formal, unfruitful, yea, to loathe and despise the means of grace, when we enjoyed the liberty thereof, and therefore God hath brought the wheel of persecution on us.’ As he looked at the honour to make him thankful, so to sin to make him humble.

2. Consider who bears thee up, and carries thee through thy sufferings for Christ. Is it thy grace, or his, that is sufficient for such a work? thy spirit, or Christ’s, by which thou speakest when called to bear witness for the truth? How comes it to pass [that] thou art a sufferer and not a persecutor? a confessor, and not a denier, yea, betrayer of Christ and his gospel? This thou owest for to God. He is not beholden to thee, that thou wilt part with estate, credit, or life itself for his sake—if thou hadst a thousand lives, thou wouldst owe them all to him; but thou art beholden to God exceedingly, that he will call for these in this way, which has such an honour and reward attending it. He might have suffered thee to live in thy lusts, and at last to suffer the loss of all these for them. O how many die at the gallows as martyrs in the devil’s cause, for felonies, rapes and murders! Or, he might withdraw his grace, and leave thee to thy own cowardice and unbelief, and then thou wouldst soon show thyself in thy colours. The stoutest champions for Christ have been taught how weak they are if Christ steps aside. Some that have given great testimony of their faith and resolution in Christ’s cause—even to come so near dying for his name as to give themselves to be bound to the stake, and [to the] fire to be kindled upon them—yet then their hearts have failed, as that holy man Mr. Benbridge, in our English martyrology, who thrust the faggots from him, and cried out, ‘I recant, I recant.’ Yet this man, when reinforced in his faith, and endued with power from above, was able, within the space of a week after that sad foil, to die at the stake cheerfully. ‘He that once overcame death for us, is he that always overcomes death in us.’⁴¹ And who should be thy song, but he that is thy strength? applaud not thyself, but bless him. It is one of God’s names; he is called ‘the glory of his people’s strength,’ Ps. 89:17. The more thou gloriest in God that gives thee strength to suffer for him, the less thou wilt boast of thyself. A thankful heart and a proud cannot dwell together in one bosom.

3. Consider what a foul blot pride gives to all thy sufferings; where it is not bewailed and resisted, it alters the case. The old saying is, that it is not the punishment but the cause [that] makes the martyr. We may safely say further, ‘It is not barely the cause, but the sincere frame of the heart in suffering for a good cause, that makes a man a martyr in God’s sight.’ Though thou shouldst give thy body to be burned, if thou hast not the humble heart of a sufferer for Christ, thou turnest merchant for thyself. Thou deniest but one self, to set up another; runnest the hazard of thy estate and life, to gain some applause may be, and rear up a monument to thy honour in the opinions of men. Thou doest no more, in this case, than a soldier, who for a name of valour will venture into the mouth of death and danger; only thou showest thy pride under a religious disguise; but that helps it not, but makes it the worse. If thou wilt in thy sufferings be a sacrifice acceptable to God, thou must not only be ready to offer up thy life for his truth, but [to] sacrifice thy pride also, or else thou mayst tumble out of one fire into another—suffer here from man as a seeming champion for the gospel, and in another world from God, for robbing him of his glory in thy sufferings.

Third Privilege. A third privilege is, when God flows in with more than ordinary manifestations of his love. Then the Christian is in danger of having his heart secretly lift up in pride. Indeed, the genuine and natural effect which such discoveries of divine love have on a gracious soul is to humble it. The sight of mercy increaseth the sense of sin, and that sense dissolves the soul kindly into sorrow, as we see in Magdalene. The heart which possibly was hard and frozen in the shade, will give and thaw in the sunshine of love, and so long is pride hid from the creature’s eye. ‘Then,’ saith God, ‘shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight,’ &c., Eze. 36:31. And when shall this be, but when God would save them from all their uncleannesses? as appears, ver. 25; yet notwithstanding this, there remain such dregs of corruption unpurged out of the best, that Satan finds it not impossible to make the manifestations of God’s love an occasion of pride to the Christian. And truly God lets us see our proneness to this sin in the short stay he makes, when he comes with any greater discoveries of his love. The Comforter, it is true, abides for ever in the saint’s bosom; but his joys, they come and are gone again quickly. They are as exceedings with which he feasts the believer, but the cloth is soon drawn; and why so, but because we cannot bear them for our everyday food? A short interview of heaven, and a vision of love now and then upon the mount of an ordinance, or affliction, cheers the spirits of drooping Christians, who —might they have leave to build their tabernacles there, and dwell under a constant shine of such manifestations—would be prone to forget themselves, and think they were lords of their own comforts. If holy Paul was in danger of falling into this distemper of pride from his short rapture—to prevent which, God saw it needful to let him bleed with a thorn in the flesh—would not our blood much more grow too rank, and we too crank and wanton, if we should feed long on such luscious food? And therefore, if ever, Christian, thou hadst need to watch, then is the time—when comforts abound, and God dandles thee most on the knee of his love—when his face shines with clearest manifestations; lest this sin of pride, as a thief in the candle, should swale⁴² out thy joy. To prevent which, thou shouldst do well,

1. To look that thou measurest not thy grace by thy comfort, lest so thou beest led into a false opinion that thy grace is strong, because thy comforts are so. Satan will be ready to help forward such thought as a fir medium to lift thee up, and slacken thy care in duty for the future. Such discoveries do indeed bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree and measure of it. The weak child may be, yea, is, oftener in the lap than the strong.

2. Do not so much applaud thyself in thy present comfort, as labour to improve it, for the glory of God. ‘Arise and eat,’ saith the angel to the prophet, ‘because the journey is too great for thee.’ The manifestations of God’s love are to fit us for our work. It is one thing to rejoice in the light of our comfort, and another to go forth in the power of the Spirit comforting us—as giants refreshed with this wine—to run our race of duty and obedience with more strength and alacrity. He shows his pride that spends his time in telling his money merely to see how rich he is; but he his wisdom, that lays out his money and trades with it. The boaster of his comforts will lose what he hath, when he that improves his comforts in a fuller trade of duty shall add more to what he hath.

3. Remember thou dependest on God for the continuance of thy comfort. They are not the smiles thou hadst yesterday [that] make thee joyous to-day, any more than the bread thou didst then eat can make thee strong without more. Thou needest new discoveries for new comforts. Let God hide his face, and thou wilt soon lose the sight, and forget the taste, of what thou even now hadst. It is beyond our skill or power to preserve those impressions of joy, and comfortable apprehensions of God’s favour on our spirits, which sometimes we find; as God’s presence brings those, so, when he goes, he carries them away with him, as the setting sun doth the day. We would laugh heartily at him who, when the sun shines in at his window, should think by shutting that to imprison the sunbeams in his chamber; and dost thou now show as much folly, who thinkest, because thou now hast comfort, thou therefore shalt never be in darkness of spirit more? The believer’s comfort is like Israel’s manna. It is not like the ordinary bread and provision we buy at market, and lock up in our cupboards where we can go to it when we will; no, it is rained, as that was, from heaven. Indeed, God provided for them after this sort to humble them: ‘Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,’ Deut. 8:16. It was not because [it was] such mean food, that God is said to humble them, for it was delicious food, therefore called ‘angels’ food,’ Ps. 78:25, such as if angels did eat, might serve them; but the manner of the dispensing it—from hand to mouth, every day their portion, and no more. Thus God kept the key of their cupboard—they stood to his immediate allowance; and thus God communicates our spiritual comforts for the same end, to humble us. So much for this second sort of spiritual wickedness.

I had thought to have instanced in some others, as hypocrisy, unbelief, formality; but possibly the subject being general, what I have already said may be thought but a digression, and that too long. I shall therefore conclude this branch of spiritual wickedness, in a word to those who are yet in a natural and unsanctified state—which is to stir them up, from what I have said concerning Satan’s assaulting believers with such temptations, to consider seriously how that Satan’s chief design against them also lies in the same sins. It is your seared conscience, blind mind, and dedolent impenitent heart, will be your undoing, if you miscarry finally. Other sins, the devil knows, are preparatory to these, and therefore he draws thee into them to bring thee into these. Two ways they prepare a way to spiritual sins: First. As they naturally dispose the sinner to them; it is the nature of sin to blind the mind, stupify the conscience, harden the heart, as is implied, ‘Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,’ Heb. 3:13. As the feet of travellers beat the highway hard, so does walking in carnal gross sins the heart. They benumb the conscience, so that in time the sinner loses his feeling, and can carry his lusts in his heart, as bedlams their pins in their very flesh, without pain and remorse. Secondly, As they do provoke God by a judiciary act to give them up to these sins, ‘Give them obstinacy of heart,’ Lam. 3:65, so it is in your margin, ‘thy curse unto them;’ and when the devil hath got sinners at this pass, then he hath them under lock and key. They are the forerunners of damnation. If God leave thy heart hard and unbroken up, it is a sad sign he means not to sow the seed of grace there. O sinners, pray, as he, Acts 8:24, did request Peter for him, that none of these things may come upon you; which that they may not, take heed thou rejectest not the offers he makes to soften thee. God’s hardening is a consequent of, and a punishment for, our hardening our own hearts. It is most true what Prosper saith,⁴³ ‘A man may lose temporals against his will, but not spirituals.’ God will harden none, damn none, against their will.

BRANCH FIFTH.

‘In high places,’ or for heavenly things.

These words contain the last branch in the description of our grand enemy, which have in them some ambiguity—the adjective being only expressed in the original, ¦< J@ÃH ¦B@LD”<@4H, that is, [the] heavenlies. The phrase being defective, our translators read it ‘in high’ or heavenly ‘places,’ as if the apostle intended to set out the advantage of place which this our enemy, by being above us, hath of us. Indeed this way most interpreters go, yet some both ancient and modern read the words, not ‘in heavenly places,’ but ‘in heavenly things,’ interpreting the apostle’s mind to set out the matter about which, or prize for which, we wrestle with principalities and powers to be heavenly things; z+< J@ÃH ¦B@LD”<@4H, saith Occumenius, is as much as if the apostle had said,⁴⁴ ‘We wrestle not for small and trivial things, but for heavenly,’ yea, for heaven itself, and our adoption, as he goes on. The same way Chrysostom carries it—in heavenly things, that is, for the heavenly things of God;⁴⁵ and, after him, Musculus, and other modern writers. The reasons which are given for this interpretation are weighty.

Reason First. The word elsewhere indefinitely set down, is taken for things, not places, Heb. 8:5, nay, one observes this word used almost twenty times in the New Testament, and never for any aerial place, but always for things truly heavenly and spiritual. The word, indeed, properly signifies super-celestial, and if applied to places, would signify that where the devil never came since his fall.

Reason Second. There seems no great argument to render Satan formidable by his being above us in place. It is some advantage, indeed, to men, to gain the hill, or be above their enemies in some place of strength, but none at all to spirits. But now take it of things, and then it adds weight to all the other branches of the description. We wrestle with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness, and against all these, not for such toys and trifles as the earth affords, which are inconsiderable, whether to keep or lose, but for such as heaven holds forth, such an enemy and such a prize makes it a matter of our greatest care how to manage the combat. The word thus opened, the note will be this.

[The prize which believers wrestle for is heavenly.]

Doctrine. The chief prize for which we wrestle against Satan is heavenly. Or thus, Satan’s main design is to spoil and plunder the Christian of all that is heavenly. Indeed, all the Christian hath, or desires as a Christian, is heavenly. The world is extrinsical, both to his being and happiness, it is a stranger to the Christian, and intermeddles not with his joy or grief. Heap all the riches and honours of the world upon a man, they will not make him a Christian; heap them on a Christian, they will not make him a better Christian. Again, take them all away—let every bird have his feather—when stripped and naked, he will still be a Christian, and may be a better Christian. It was a notable speech of Erasmus, if spoken in earnest, and his wit were not too quick for his conscience⁴⁶—he said he desired wealth and honour no more than a feeble horse doth a heavy cloak-bag. And I think every Christian in his right temper would be of his mind. Satan should do the saint little hurt, if he did bend his forces only or chiefly against his outward enjoyments. Alas, the Christian doth not value them, or himself by them; this were as if one should think to hurt a man by beating of his clothes when he hath put them off. So far as the Spirit of grace prevails in the heart of a saint, he hath put off the world in the desire of it and joy in it, so that these blows are not much felt; and therefore they are his heavenly treasures, which are the booty Satan waits for.

First. The Christian’s nature is heavenly, born from above. As Christ is the Lord from heaven, so all his offspring are heavenly and holy. Now Satan’s design is to debase and deflower this; it is the precious life of this new creature that he hunts for; he hath lost that beauty of holiness which once shone so gloriously on his angelical nature; and now, like a true apostate, he endeavours to ruin that in a Christian which he hath lost himself. The seeds of this war are sown in the Christian’s nature. You are holy. That he cannot endure. Miles feri faciem, was Cæsar’s speech, when to fight with the Roman citizens, he bade his soldiers ‘strike at their face,’ these citizens, said he, love their beauty; mar that and mar all. The soul is the face whereon God’s image is stamped, holiness is the beauty of this face, which makes us indeed like God. This, Satan knows, God loves, and the saint is chary of, and therefore he labours to wound and disfigure this, that he may at once glory in the Christian’s shame, and pour contempt upon God in breaking his image. And is it not worth engaging limb and life in battle against this enemy, who would rob us of that which makes us like God himself? Have you forgot the bloody articles of peace that Nahash offered to the men of Jabesh-Gilead? no peace to be had, except they would let him thrust out their right eyes, and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel. How was this entertained, read I Sam. 11:6. The face is not so deformed that hath lost its eye, as the soul is that loseth its holiness, and no peace is to be expected at Satan’s hands, except he may deprive us of this. Methinks at the thought of this, the Spirit of the Lord should come upon the Christian, and his anger be kindled much more against this cursed spirit, than Saul’s, and the men of Israel’s was against Nahash.

Second. The Christian’s trade is heavenly, The merchandise he deals for is the growth of that heavenly country. ‘Our conversation is in heaven,’ Php. 3:20. Every man’s conversation is suitable to his calling. He whose trade lies in the earth minds earthly things, and he whose trade is heavenly follows that close. Every man minds his own business, the apostle tells us. You may possibly find a tradesman out of his shop now and then, but he is as a fish out of the water, never in his element till he be in his calling again. Thus when the Christian is about the world, and the worldling about heavenly matters, both are men out of their way, not right girt, till they get into their employment again. Now this heavenly trade is that which Satan doth in an especial manner labour to stop. Could the Christian enjoy but a free trade with heaven a few years without molestation, he would soon grow a rich man, too rich indeed for earth. But what with losses sustained by the hands of this pirate Satan, and also the wrong he receives by the treachery of some, in his own bosom, that like unfaithful servants hold correspondence with this robber, he is kept but low in this life, and much of his gains are lost. Now the Christian’s heavenly trade lies either within doors or abroad; he can be free in neither, Satan is at his heels in both.

1. Within doors. This I may call his home-trade, which is spent in secret, between God and his own soul. Here the Christian drives an unknown trade, he is at heaven, and home again richly laden in his thoughts and heavenly meditations before the world knows where he hath been. Every creature he sees is a text for his heart to raise some spiritual matter and observations from. Every sermon he hears cuts him out work to make up and enlarge upon when he gets alone. Every providence is as wind to his sails, and sets his heart a moving in some heavenly action or other suitable to the occasion. One while he is wrapped up with joy in the consideration of mercy, another while melted into godly sorrow for the sense of his sins; sometimes exalting God in his praises, anon abusing himself before God for his own vileness. One while he is at the breast of the covenant, milking out the consolations of the promises; at another time working his heart into a holy awe, and fear of the threatenings. Thus the Christian walks aloft, while the base worldling is licking the dust below. One of these heavenly pearls which the Christian trades for, is more worth than the worldling gets with all his sweat and travail in his whole life. The Christian’s feet stand where other men’s heads are. He treads on the moon, and is clothed with the sun, he looks down on earthly men—as one from a high hill doth upon those that live in some fen or moor—and sees them buried in a fog of carnal pleasures and profits, while he breathes in a pure heavenly air, but yet not so high as to be free from all storms and tempests. Many a sad gust he hath from sin and Satan without. What else mean those sad complaints and groans, which come from the children of God—that their hearts are so dead and dull, their thoughts so roving and unfixed in duty, yea, many times so wicked and filthy, that they dare hardly tell what they are, for fear of staining their own lips, and offending the ears of others by naming them? Surely, the Christian finds it in his heart to will and desire he could meditate, pray, hear, and live after another sort than this, doth he not? yes, I durst be his surety he doth. But so long as there is a devil [who] tempts, and we continue within his walk, it will be thus, more or less. As fast as we labour to clear the spring of our hearts, he will be labouring to royle or stop it again; so that we have two works to do at once, to perform a duty, and watch him that opposeth us—trowel and sword both in our hands. They had need work hard indeed, who have others continually endeavouring to pull down, as they are labouring to rear up, the building.

2. Abroad. That part of the Christian’s trade, which lies abroad, is heavenly also. Take a Christian in his relations, calling, neighbourhood; he is a heavenly trader in all. The great business of his life is to be doing or receiving some good. That company is not for him, that will neither give nor take this. What should a merchant be, where there is no buying or selling? Every one labours, as his calling is, to seat himself where trade is quickest, and he is likeliest to have most takings. The Christian, where he may choose, takes such in relations near to himself, husband, wife, servants, as may suit with his heavenly trade, and not such as will be a pull-back to him. He falls in with the holiest persons as his dearest acquaintance; if there be a saint in the town where he lives, he will find him out, and this will be the man he will consort with. And in his conversation with these and all else, his chief work is for heaven, his heavenly principle within inclines him to it. Now, this alarms hell. What! not contented to go to heaven himself, but by his holy example, gracious speeches, sweet counsels, seasonable reproofs, will he be trading with others, and labour to carry them along with him also? This brings the lion fell and mad out of his den. Such to be sure shall find the devil in their way to oppose them. I would have come, saith Paul, but Satan hindered me. He that will vouch God, and let it appear by the tenor of his conversation that he trades for him, shall have enemies enough, if the devil can help him to such.

Third. The Christian’s hopes are all heavenly; he lots not upon anything the world hath to give him. Indeed he would think himself the most miserable man of all others, if here were all he could make of his religion. No, it is heaven and eternal life that he expects; and though he be so poor as not to be able to make a will of a groat, yet he counts himself a greater heir, than if he were child to the greatest prince on earth. This inheritance he sees by faith, and can rejoice in the hope of the glory which it will bring him. The maskery and cheating glory of the great ones of this world moves him not to envy their fanciful pomp; but when on the dunghill himself, he can forget his own present sorrows, to pity them in all their bravery, knowing that within a few days the cross will be off his back, and the crowns off their heads together—their portion will be spent, when he shall be to receive all his. These things entertain him with such joy that they will not suffer him to acknowledge himself miserable, when others think him, and the devil tells him, he is such. This, this torments the very soul of the devil, to see the Christian under sail for heaven, filled with the sweet hope of his joyful entertainment when he comes there; and therefore he raiseth what storms and tempests he can, either to hinder his arrival in that blessed port —which he most desires, and doth not wholly despair of—or at least to make it a troublesome winter voyage, such as Paul’s was, in which they suffered so much loss. And this indeed very often he obtains in such a degree, that by his violent impetuous temptations, beating long upon the Christian, he makes him throw over much precious lading of his joys and comforts; yea, sometimes he brings the soul through the stress of temptation to think of quitting the ship, while for the present all hope of being saved seems to be taken away. Thus you see what we wrestle with devils for. We come to the

[Use or Application. A word of reproof to

four sorts of persons.]

Use First. This is a word of reproof to four sorts of persons.

1. Sort. Is a word of reproof to those that are so far from wrestling against Satan for this heavenly prize, that they resist the offer of it. Instead of taking heaven by force, they keep it off by force. How long hath the Lord been crying in our streets, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand? how long have gospel offers rung in our ears? and yet to this day many devil-deluded souls furiously drive on towards hell, and will not be persuaded back—who refuse to be called the children of God, and choose rather the devil’s bondage, than the glorious liberty with which Christ would make them free; esteeming the pleasures of sin for a season greater treasures than the riches of heaven. It is storied of Cato, who was Cæsar’s bitter enemy, that when he saw Cæsar prevail, rather than fall into his hand and stand to his mercy, he laid violent hands on himself, which Cæsar hearing of, passionately broke out into these words, ‘O Cato, why didst thou grudge me the honour of saving thy life?’⁴⁷ And do not many walk as if they grudged Christ the honour of saving their souls? What other account can ye give, sinners, of rejecting his grace? Are not heaven and happiness things desirable, and to be preferred before sin and misery? Why then do you not embrace them? Or are they the worse because they come swimming to you in the blood of Christ? O how ill must Christ take it to be thus used, when he comes on such a gracious embassage! May he not say to thee, as once he did to those officers sent to attach him, ‘Be ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves?’ If he be a thief, it is only in this, that he would steal your sins from you, and leave heaven in the room. O, for the love of God, think what you do; it is eternal life you put away from you, in doing of which, you judge yourselves unworthy of it, Acts 13:46.

2. Sort. It reproves those who are Satan’s instruments to rob souls of what is heavenly. Among thieves there are some ye call setters,⁴⁸ who inquire where a booty is to be had; which, when they have found, and know [that] such a one travels with a charge about him, then they employ some other to rob him, and are themselves not seen in the business. The devil is the grand setter, he observes the Christian how he walks—what place and company he frequents, what grace or heavenly treasure he carries in his bosom—which, when he hath done, he hath his instruments for the purpose to execute his design. Thus he considered the admirable graces of Job, and casts about how he might best rob him of his heavenly treasure. And who but his wife and friends must do this for him?—well knowing that his tale would receive credit from their mouths. O friends, ask your consciences whether you have not done the devil some service of this kind in your days. Possibly you have a child or servant who once looked heavenward, but your brow-beating of them scared them back, and now, may be, they are as carnal as you would have them. Or possibly thy wife, before acquainted with thee, was full of life in the ways of God, but since she hath been transplanted into thy cold soil, what by thy frothy speeches and unsavoury conversation, at best thy worldliness and formality, she is now both decayed in her graces and a loser in her comforts. O man, what an indictment will be brought against thee for this at God’s bar? You would come off better were it for robbing one of his money and jewels, than of his grace and comforts.

3. Sort. It reproves the woeful negligence [which] most show in labouring for this heavenly prize. None but would be glad their souls might be saved at last; but where is the man or woman that makes it appear by their vigorous endeavour that they mean in earnest? What warlike preparation do they make against Satan, who lies between them and home? where are their arms? where their skill to use them, their resolution to stand to them, and conscionable care to exercise themselves daily in the use of them? Alas, this is a rarity indeed, not to be found in every house where the profession of religion is hanged out at the door. If woulding and wishing will bring them to heaven, then they may come thither; but as for this wrestling and fighting, this making religion our business, they are as far from these as at last they are like to be from heaven. They are of his mind in Tully, who in a summer’s day, as he lay lazing himself on the grass, would say, ‘O that this were to work!’⁴⁹ that I would lie here and do my day labour. Thus many melt and waste their lives in sloth, and say in their hearts, ‘O that this were the way to heaven!’ but will use no means to furnish themselves with grace for such an enterprise. I have read of a great prince in Germany, invaded by a more potent enemy than himself, yet from his friends and allies, who flocked in to his help, he soon had a goodly army, but had no money, as he said, to pay them; but the truth is, he was loath to part with it, for which some in discontent went away, others did not vigorously attend his business, and so he was soon beaten out of his kingdom, and his coffers, when his palace was rifled, were found thracked⁵⁰ with treasure. Thus he was ruined, as some sick men die because unwilling to be at cost to pay the physician. It will add to the misery of damned souls, when they shall have leisure enough to consider what they have lost in losing God, to remember what means, offers, and talents they once had towards the obtaining of everlasting life, but had not a heart to use them.

4. Sort. It reproves those who make a great bustle and noise in religion, who are forward in profession—very busy to meddle with the strictest duties, as if heaven had monopolized their whole hearts; but like the eagle, when they tower highest, their prey is below, where their eye is also. Such a generation there ever was and will be—that mingle themselves with the saints of God—who pretend heaven, and have their outward garb faced and fringed, as it were, with heavenly speeches and duties, while their hearts are lined with hypocrisy—whereby they deceive others, but most of all themselves. Such may be the world’s saints, but [they are] devils in Christ’s account. ‘Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil!’ And truly of all devils, none so bad as the professing devil, the preaching, praying devil. O sirs, be plain-hearted. Religion is as tender as your eye, it will not be jested with. Remember the vengeance which fell on Belshazzar, while he caroused in the bowls of the sanctuary. Religion and the duties of it are consecrated things, not made for thee to drink thy lusts out of. God hath remarkably appeared in discovering and confounding such as have prostituted sacred things to worldly ends. Jezebel fasts and prays, the better to devour Naboth’s vineyard, but was devoured by it. Absalom was as sick till he had ravished his father’s crown, as his brother Amnon, till he had done the like to his sister, and to hide his treason he puts on a religious cloak, and therefore begs leave to go and pay his vow in Hebron, when he had another game in chase; and did he not fall by the hand of his hypocrisy? Of all men their judgement is endorsed with most speed, who silver over worldly or wicked enterprises with heavenly semblances. Of this gang were those concerning whom the apostle saith, ‘their damnation slumbereth not,’ II Peter 2:3; and those to whom God saith, ‘I the Lord will answer him by myself, and I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord,’ Eze. 14:7,8.

[How the Christian might know whether heaven be the prize he chiefly desires.]

Use Second. Try whether they be heavenly things or earthly thou chiefly pursuest. Certainly, friends, we need not be so ignorant of our souls’ state and affairs, did we oftener converse with our thoughts, and observe the haunts of our hearts. We soon can tell what dish pleaseth our palate best; and may you not tell whether heaven or earth be the most savoury meat to your souls? And if you should ask how you might know whether heaven be the prize you chiefly desire, I would put you only upon this double trial.

1. Trial. Art thou uniform in thy pursuit? Dost thou contend for heaven, and that which leads to heaven also? Earthly things God is pleased to retail —all have some, none have all; but in heavenly treasure he will not break the whole piece, and cut it into remnants. If thou wilt have heaven, thou must have Christ; if Christ, thou must like his service as well as his sacrifice. No holiness, no happiness. If God would cut off so much as would serve men’s turns, he might have customers enough. Balaam himself likes one end of the piece, he would ‘die like a righteous man,’ though living like a wizard as he was. No, God will not deal with such pedling merchants; that man alone is for God, and God for him, who will come roundly up to God’s offer, and take all off his hands. One fitly compares holiness and happiness to those two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Happiness, like Rachel, seems the fairer—even a carnal heart may fall in love with that; but holiness, like Leah, is the elder and beautiful also, though in this life it appears with some disadvantage—her eyes being bleared with tears of repentance, and her face furrowed with the works of mortification; but this is the law of that heavenly country, that the younger sister must not be bestowed before the elder. We cannot enjoy fair Rachel—heaven and happiness, except first we embrace tender-eyed Leah—holiness, with all her severe duties of repentance and mortification. Now, sirs, how like you this method? Art thou content to marry Christ and his grace; and then—serving a hard apprenticeship in temptations both of prosperity and adversity—enduring the heat of the one and the cold of the other—to wait till at last the other be given into thy bosom?

2. Trial. If, indeed, heaven and heavenly things be the prize thou wrestlest for, thou wilt discover a heavenly deportment of heart, even in earthly things. Wherever you meet a Christian, he is going to heaven. Heaven is at the bottom of his lowest actions. Now observe thy heart in three particulars, in getting, in using, and in keeping earthly things, whether it be after a heavenly manner.

(1.) Particular. [Observe thy heart] in getting earthly things. If heaven be thy chief prize, then thou wilt be ruled by a heavenly law in the gathering of these. Take a carnal wretch, and what his heart is set on he will have, though it be by hook or crook. A lie fits Gehazi’s mouth well enough, so he may fill his pockets by it. Jezebel dares [to] mock God, and murder an innocent man, for an acre or two of ground. Absalom, ‘for the sake of governing,’⁵¹ what will he not do? God’s fence is too low to keep a graceless heart in bounds, when the game is before him; but a soul that hath heaven in its eye is ruled by heaven’s law, and dares not step out of heaven’s road to take up a crown, as we see in David’s carriage towards Saul. Indeed, in so doing he should cross himself in his own grand design, which is the glory of God, and the happiness of his own soul in enjoying of him. Upon these very terms the servants of God have refused to be rich and great in the world, when either of these lay at stake. Moses threw his court-preferment at his heels, refusing ‘to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.’ Abraham scorned to be made rich by the king of Sodom, Gen. 14:23, that he might avoid the suspicion of covetousness and self-seeking; it shall not be said another day that he came to enrich himself with the spoil, more than to rescue his kinsmen. Nehemiah would not take the tax and tribute to maintain his state, when he knew they were a poor peeled people, ‘because of the fear of the Lord.’ Dost thou walk by this rule? wouldst thou gather no more estate or honour than thou mayest have with God’s leave, and will stand with thy hopes of heaven?

(2.) Particular. [Observe thy heart] in using earthly things. Dost thou discover a heavenly spirit in using these things?

(a) The saint improves his earthly things for an heavenly end. Where layest up thy treasure? dost thou bestow it on thy voluptuous paunch, thy hawks and thy hounds, or lockest thou it up in the bosom of Christ’s poor members? what use makest thou of thy honour and greatness, to strengthen the hands of the godly or the wicked? And so of all thy other temporal enjoyments—a gracious heart improves them for God. When a saint prays for these things, he hath an eye to some heavenly end. If David prays for life, it is not that he may live, but live and praise God, Ps. 119:175. When he was driven from his regal throne by the rebellious arms of Absalom, see what his desire was and hope, ‘The king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation,’ II Sam. 15:25. Mark, not ‘show me my crown, my palace,’ but ‘the ark, the house of God.’

(b) A gracious heart pursues earthly things with a holy indifferency, saving the violence and zeal of his spirit for the things of heaven. He useth the former as if he used them not—with a kind of non-attendancy; his head and his heart is taken up with higher matters, how he may please God, thrive in his grace, enjoy more intimate communion with Christ in his ordinances; in all these he spreads all his sails, plies all his oars, strains every part and power. Thus we find David upon his full speed, ‘My soul presseth hard after thee,’ Ps. 63. And, before the ark, we find him dancing with all his might. Now a carnal heart is clean contrary, his zeal is for the world, and his indifferency in the things of God; he prays as if he did not pray, &c., he sweats in his shop, but chills and grows cold in his closet. O how hard to pulley him up to a duty of God’s worship, or to get him out to an ordinance? No weather shall keep him from the market; [let it] rain, blow, or snow, he goes thither; but if the church-path be a little wet, or the air somewhat cold, it is apology enough for him if his pew be empty. When he is about any worldly business, he is as earnest at it as the idolatrous smith in hammering of his image, who, the prophet saith, ‘worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh not, and is faint,’ Isa. 44:12. So zealous is the muck-worm in his worldly employments, that he will pinch his carcase, and deny himself his repast in due season, to pursue that. The kitchen there will wait on the shop; but in the worship of God, it is enough to make him sick of the sermon, and angry with the preacher, if he be kept beyond his hour. Here the sermon must give place to the kitchen. So the man for his pleasures and carnal pastime; he tells no clock at his sports, and knows not how the day goes; when night comes he is angry that it takes him off. But at any heavenly work, O how is the man punished! time now hath leaden heels he thinks. All he does at a sermon is to tell the clock, and see how the glass runs. If men were not willing to deceive themselves, surely they might know which way their heart goes, by the swift motion, or the hard tugging, and slow pace it stirs, as well as they know in a boat, whether they row against the tide, or with it.

(c) The Christian useth these things with a holy fear, lest earth should rob heaven, and his outward enjoyments prejudice his heavenly interest. He eats in fear, works in fear, rejoiceth in his abundance with fear. As Job sanctified his children by offering a sacrifice, out of a fear lest they had sinned; so the Christian is continually sanctifying his earthly enjoyments by prayer, that so he may be delivered from the snare of them.

3. Particular. [Observe thy heart] in keeping of earthly things. The same heavenly law, which the Christian went by in getting, he observes in holding, them. As he dares not say he will be rich and honourable in the world, but if God will; so neither that he will hold what he hath. He only keeps them, until his heavenly Father calls for them, that at first gave them. If God will continue them to him, and entail them on his posterity too, he blesseth God; and so he desires to do also when he takes them away. Indeed, God’s meaning in the great things of the world, which sometimes he throws in upon the saints, is chiefly to give them the greater advantage of expressing their love to him, in denying them for his sake. God never intended by that strange providence, in bringing Moses to Pharaoh’s court, to settle him there in worldly pomp and grandeur. A carnal heart, indeed, would have expounded providence, and interpreted it as a fair occasion put into his hands by God, to have advanced himself into the throne—which some say he might in time have done—but as an opportunity to make his faith and self-denial more eminently conspicuous, in throwing all these at his heels, for which he hath so honourable a remembrance among the Lord’s worthies, Heb. 11:24,25. And truly a gracious soul reckons he cannot make so much of his worldly interests any other way, as by offering them up for Christ’s sake. However that traitor thought Mary’s ointment might have been carried to a better market, yet no doubt that good woman herself was only troubled that she had not one more precious to pour on her dear Saviour’s head. This makes the Christian ever to hold the sacrificing knife at the throat of his worldly enjoyments, ready to offer them up when God calls. Overboard they shall go, rather than hazard a wreck to faith or a good conscience; he sought them in the last place, and therefore he will part with them in the first. Naboth will hazard the king’s anger—which at last cost him his life—rather than sell an acre or two of land which was his birthright. The Christian will expose all he hath in this world to preserve his hopes for another. Jacob, in his march towards Esau, sent his servants with his flocks before, and came himself with his wives behind; if he can save anything from his brother’s rage, it shall be what he loves best: if the Christian can save anything, it shall be his soul, his interest in Christ and heaven, and then no matter if the rest go, even then he can say, not as Esau to Jacob, I have “9 (rÇv), a great deal, but as Jacob to him, I have -, (kÇl), all, all I want, all I desire, Gen. 33:9,11; as David expresseth it, ‘This is all my salvation, and all my desire,’ II Sam. 23:5. Now try whether thy heart be tuned to this note: Does heaven give law to thy earthly enjoyments?—wouldst thou not keep thy honour, estate, no, not life itself, to prejudice thy heavenly nature and hopes? Which wouldst thou choose, if thou couldst not keep both—a whole skin or a sound conscience? It was a strange answer, if true, which the historian saith Henry V. gave to his father, who had usurped the crown, and now dying, sent for his son, to whom he said, ‘Fair son, take the crown (which stood on his pillow by his head), but God knows how I came by it.’ He answered, ‘I care not how you came by it; now I have it, I will keep it as long as my sword can defend it.’ He that keeps earth by wrong, cannot expect heaven by right.

[An exhortation to the pursuit of heaven and heavenly things.]

Use Third. Is heaven and all that is heavenly that Satan seeks to hinder us of? let this provoke us the more earnestly to contend for them. Had we to do with an enemy that came only to plunder us of earthly trifles, would honours, estates, and what this world affords us stay his stomach; it might suffer a debate, in a soul that hath hopes of heaven, whether it were worth fighting to keep this lumber; but Christ and heaven sure are too precious to part withal upon any terms. ‘Ask the kingdom for him also,’ said Solomon to Bathsheba, when she begged Abishag for Adonijah. What can the devil leave thee worth, if he deprive thee of these? and yet, I confess, I have heard of one that wished God would let him alone, and not take him from what he had here. Vile brute! the voice of a swine and not a man, that could choose to wallow in the dung and ordure of his carnal pleasures, and wish himself for ever shut up with his swill⁵² in the hog’s coat of this dunghill earth, rather than leave these, to dwell in heaven’s palace, and be admitted to no meaner pleasures than what God himself with his saints enjoy. It were even just if God gave such brutes as these a swine’s face to their swinish hearts; but alas! how few then should we meet that would have the countenance of a man? the greatest part of the world—even all that are carnal and worldly —being of the same mind, though not so impudent, as that wretch, to speak what they think. The lives of men tell plain enough that they say in their hearts, it is good being here—that they wish they could build tabernacles on earth for all the mansions that are prepared in heaven. ‘The transgression of the wicked,’ saith in David’s heart, ‘that the fear of God was not before them,’ Ps. 36:1; and may not the worldliness of a muck-worm say in the heart of any rational man, that heaven and heavenly excellences are not before their eyes or thoughts? O what a deep silence is there concerning these in the conversations of men! Heaven is such stranger to the most, that very few are heard to inquire the way thither, or so much as ask the question in earnest, What shall they do to be saved? The most express no more desires of obtaining heaven, than those blessed souls now in heaven do of coming again to dwell on earth. Alas! their heads are full of other projects; they are either, as Israel, scattered over the face of the earth to gather straw, or busied in picking that straw they have gathered, labouring to get the world, or pleasing themselves with what they got. So that it is no more than needs to use some arguments to call men off the world to the pursuit of heaven, and what is heavenly.

First Argument. As for earthly things, it is not necessary that thou hast them. That is necessary which cannot be supplied *per vicarium—*with somewhat besides itself. Now there is no such earthly enjoyment but may be so supplied, as to make its room more desirable than its company. In heaven there shall be light and no sun, a rich feast and yet no meat; glorious robes and yet no clothes, there shall want nothing, and yet none of this worldly glory [shall] be found there. Yea, even while we are here these may be recompensed; thou mayest be under infirmities of body, and yet better than if thou hadst health. ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick, the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,’ Isa. 33:24. Thou mayest miss of worldly honour, and obtain, with those worthies of Christ, Heb. 11, a good report by faith, and that is a name that is better than [that] of the great ones of the earth; thou mayest be poor in the world, and yet rich in grace, and ‘godliness with contentment is great gain;’ in a word, if thou partest with thy temporal life, and findest an eternal, what dost thou lose by the change? But heaven and heavenly things are such as cannot be recompensed with any other. Thou hast a heavenly soul in thy bosom; lose that, and where canst thou have another? There is but one heaven; miss that, and where can you take up your lodging but in hell? One Christ that can lead you thither; reject him, and ‘there remaineth no more sacrifice foe sins.’ O that men would think on these things. Go, sinner, to the world, and see what it can afford you in lieu of these. May be it will offer to entertain you with its pleasures and delights. O poor reward for the loss of Christ and heaven! Is this all thou canst get? Doth Satan rob thee of heaven and happiness, and only give thee posy to smell on as thou art going to thy execution? Will these quench hellfire, or so much as cool those flames thou art falling into? Who but those who have foredone their understandings, would take these toys and new nothings for Christ and heaven? While Satan is pleasing your fancies with these rattles and babbles, his hand is in your treasure, robbing you of that which is only necessary. It is more necessary to be saved, than to be; better not to be, than to have a being in hell.

Second Argument. Earthly things are such as it is a great uncertainty whether, with all our labour, we can have them or not. The world, though so many thousand years old, hath not learned the merchant such a method of trading, as from it he may infallibly conclude he shall at last get an estate by his trade, nor the courtier such rules of comporting himself to the humour of his prince as to assure him he shall rise. They are but few that carry away the prize in the world’s lottery; the greater number have only their labour for their pains, and a sorrowful remembrance left them of their egregious folly, to be led such a wild-goose chase after that which hath deceived them at last. But now for the heaven and the things of heaven, there is such a clear and certain rule laid down, that if we will but take the counsel of the Word we can neither mistake the way, nor in that way miscarry of the end. ‘And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God,’ Gal. 6:16. There are some indeed who run, and yet obtain not this prize; that seek, and find not; [that] knock, and find the door shut upon them; but it is because they do it either not in the right manner, or in the right season.

Some would have heaven, but if God save them he must save their sins also, for they do not mean to part with them; and how heaven can hold God and such company together, judge you. As they come in at one door, Christ and all those holy spirits with him would run out at the other. Ungrateful wretches, that will not come to this glorious feast, unless they may bring that with them which would disturb the joy of that blissful state, and offend all the guests that sit at the table with them, yea, drive God out of his own mansion-house.

A second sort would have heaven, but—like him in Ruth, chap. 4:2-4, who had a mind to his kinsman Elimelech’s land, and would have paid for the purchase, but liked not to have it by marrying Ruth, and so missed of it—some seem very forward to have heaven and salvation, if their own righteousness could procure the same—all the good they do, and duties they perform, they lay up for this purchase—but at last perish, because they close not with Christ, and take not heaven in his right.

A third sort are content to have it by Christ, but their desires are so impotent and listless, that they put them upon no vigorous use of means to obtain him; and so, like the sluggard, they starve, because they will not pull their hands out of their bosom of sloth to reach their food that is before them. For the world they have mettle enough, and too much; they trudge far and near for that, and when they have run themselves out of breath, can stand and ‘pant after the dust of the earth,’ as the prophet phraseth it, Amos 2:7. But for Christ and obtaining interest in him, O how key-cold are they! There is a kind of cramp invades all the powers of their souls, when they should pray, hear, examine their hearts, draw out their affections in hungerings and thirstings after his grace and Spirit. It is strange to see how they [who] even now went full soop to the world, are suddenly becalmed—not a breath of wind stirring to any purpose in their souls after these things—and is it any wonder that Christ and heaven should be denied to them, that have no more mind to them?

Lastly. Some have zeal enough to have Christ and heaven, but it is when the Master of the house is risen, and hath shut to the door, and truly then they may stand long enough rapping, before any come to let them in. There is no gospel preached in another world. But as for thee, poor soul, who art persuaded to renounce thy lusts, to throw away the conceit of thy own righteousness, that thou mayest run with more speed to Christ, and art so possessed with the excellency of Christ, thy own present need of him, and [of] salvation by him, that thou pantest after him more than [after] life itself, in God’s name go and speed, be of good comfort; he calls thee by name to come unto him, that thou mayest have rest for thy soul. There is an office in the Word where thou mayest have thy soul and its eternal happiness insured to thee. Those that come to him, as he will himself in no wise cast away, so [he will] not suffer any other to pluck them away. ‘This day,’ saith Christ to Zacchaeus, ‘is salvation come to this house,’ Luke 19:9. Salvation comes to thee, poor soul, that openest thy heart to receive Christ; thou hast eternal life already, as sure as if thou wert a glorified saint now walking in that heavenly city. O sirs, if there were a free trade proclaimed to the Indies, enough gold for all that went, and a certainty of making a safe voyage, who would stay at home? But alas, this can never be had. All this, and infinitely more, may be said for heaven; and yet how few leave their uncertain hopes of the world to trade for it? What account can be given for this, but the desperate atheism of men’s hearts? They are not yet fully persuaded whether the Scripture speaks true or not; whether they may rely upon the discovery that God makes in his Word of this new found land, and those mines of spiritual treasure there to be had, as certain. God open the eyes of the unbelieving world, as he did the prophet’s servants, that they may see these things in our hearts. By faith Moses saw him that was invisible.

Third Argument. Earthly things, when we have them, we are not sure of them. Like birds, they hop up and down, now on this hedge, and anon upon that; none can call them his own. [We may be] rich to-day, and poor to-morrow; in health when we lie down, and arrested with pangs of death before midnight; joyful parents, one while solacing ourselves with the hopes of our budding posterity, and may be, ere long, knocks one of Job’s messengers at our door to tell us they are all dead; now in honour, but who knows whether we shall not live to see that buried in scorn and reproach? The Scripture compares the multitude of people to waters—the great ones of the world sit upon these waters. As the ship floats upon the waves, so do their honours upon the breath and favour of the multitude; and how long is he like to sit that is carried upon a wave? One while they are mounted up to heaven, as David speaks of the ship, and then down again they fall into the deep. ‘We have ten parts in the king,’ say the men of Israel, II Sam. 19:43; and in the very next verse Sheba doth but sound a trumpet of sedition, saying, ‘We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse;’ and the wind is in another corner presently, for it is said, ‘Every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba.’ Thus was David cried up and down, and that almost in the same breath. Unhappy man he, that hath no surer portion than what this variable world will afford him. The time of mourning for the departure of all earthly enjoyments is at hand. We shall see them, as Eglon’s servants did their lord, fallen down dead before us, and weep because they are not. What folly then is it to dandle this vain world in our affections, whose joy, like the child’s laughter on the mother’s knee, is sure to end in a cry at last, and [to] neglect heaven and heavenly things, which endure forever? O remember Dives stirring up his pillow, and composing himself to rest! —how he was called up with the tidings of death before he was warm in this his bed of ease, which God had made for him in flames; from whence we hear him roaring in the anguish of his conscience. O soul! couldst thou get but an interest in the heavenly things we are speaking of, these would not thus slip from under thee. Heaven is a kingdom that cannot be shaken—Christ an abiding portion—his graces and comforts, sure waters that fail not, but spring up into eternal life. The quails that were food for the Israelites’ lust soon ceased, but the rock that was drink to their faith followed them. This rock is Christ. Make sure of him, and he will make sure of thee; he will follow thee to thy sick-bed, and lie in thy bosom, cheering thy heart with his sweet comforts, when worldly joys lie in cold upon thee, as David’s clothes on him, and [when] no warmth of comfort [is] to be got from them. When thy outward senses are locked up, that thou canst neither see the face of thy dear friends, nor hear the counsel and comfort they would give thee, then he will come, though these doors be shut, and say, ‘Peace be to thee, my dear child; fear not death or devils; I stay to receive thy last breath, and have here my angels waiting, that as soon as thy soul is breathed out of thy body, they may carry and lay it in my bosom of love, where I will nourish thee with those eternal joys that my blood hath purchased, and my love prepared for thee.’

Fourth Argument. Earthly things are empty and unsatisfying. We may have too much, but never enough of them. They oft breed loathing, but never content; and indeed how should they, being so disproportionate to the vast desires of these immortal spirits that dwell in our bosoms? A spirit hath not flesh and bones, neither can it be fed with such; and what hath the world, but a few bones covered over with some fleshly delights to give it? ‘The less is blessed of the greater,’ not the greater of the less. These things therefore being so far inferior to the nature of man, he must look higher if he will be blessed, even to God himself, who is the Father of spirits. God intended these things for our use, not enjoyment, and what folly is it to think we can squeeze that from them, which God never put in them? They are breasts, that, moderately drawn, yield good milk, sweet, refreshing; but, wring them too hard, and you will suck nothing but wind or blood from them. We lose what they have, by expecting to find what they have not. None find less sweetness and less and more dissatisfaction in these things, than those who strive most to please themselves with them. The cream of the creature floats atop, and he that is not content to fleet⁵³ it, but thinks by drinking a deeper draught to find yet more, goes further to speed worse, being sure by the disappointment he shall meet to pierce himself through with many sorrows. But all these fears might happily be escaped, if thou wouldst turn thy back on the creature, and face about for heaven. Labour to get Christ, and through him hopes of heaven, and thou takest the right road to content; thou shalt see it before thee, and enjoy the prospect of it as thou goest, yea, find that every step thou drawest nearer and nearer to it. O what a sweet change wouldst thou find! As a sick man coming out of an impure unwholesome climate, where he never was well, [finds] when he gets into fresh air or his native soil, so also wilt thou find a cheering of thy spirits, and a reviving [of] thy soul with unspeakable content and peace. Having once closed with Christ,

1. The guilt of all thy sins is gone, and this spoiled all thy mirth before. All your dancing of a child, when some pin pricks it, will not make it quiet or merry; well, now, that pin is taken out which robbed thee of the joy of thy life.

2. Thy nature is renewed and sanctified. And when is a man at ease, if not when he is in health? and what is holiness, but the creature restored to his right temper, in which God created him?

3. Thou becomest a child of God, and that cannot but please thee well, I hope, to be a son or daughter to so great a King.

4. Thou hast a right to heaven’s glory, whither thou shalt ere long be conducted to take and hold possession of that thy inheritance for ever, and who can tell what that is? Nicephorus tells us of one Agbarus, a great man, that—hearing so much of Christ’s fame, by reason of the miracles he wrought —sent a painter to take his picture, and that the painter when he came was not able to do it, because of the radiancy and splendour which sat on Christ’s face. Whether this be true or no, I leave it; but, to be sure, there is such a brightness on the face of Christ glorified, and that happiness which in heaven saints shall have with him, as forbids us that dwell in mortal flesh to conceive of it aright, much more to express [it]. It is best going thither to be informed, and then we shall confess [that] we on earth heard not half of what we there find, yea, that our present conceptions are no more like to that vision of glory we shall there have, than the sun in the painter’s table is to the sun itself in the heavens. And if all this be so, why then do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not, yea, for that which keeps you from that which can satisfy? Earthly things are like some trash, which doth not only not nourish, but takes away the appetite from that which would. Heaven and heavenly things are not relished by a soul vitiated with these. Manna, though for deliciousness called angels’ food, [is] yet but light bread to an Egyptian palate. But these spiritual things depend not [so] on thy opinion, O man, whoever thou art—as earthly things in a great measure do—that the value of them should rise or fall as the world’s exchange doth, and as vain man is pleased to rate them. Think gold dirt, and it is so, for all the royal stamp on it. Count the swelling titles of worldly honour—that proud dust brags so in—vanity, and they are such; but have base thoughts of Christ, and he is not the worse. Slight heaven as much as you will, it will be heaven still. And when thou comest so far to thy wits, with the prodigal, as to know which is best fare, husks or bread, where best living, among hogs in the field or in thy Father’s house, then thou wilt know how to judge of these heavenly things better. Till then, go and make the best market thou canst of the world, but look not to find this pearl of price—true satisfaction to thy soul —in any of the creature’s shops; and were it not better to take it when thou mayest have it, than after thou hast wearied thyself in vain in following the creature, to come back with shame, and may be miss it here also, because thou wouldst not have it when it was offered?

— Hosea 4:5

Note: — The above passage is the one cited by Rev. Gurnall. However, it can be plainly seen that it really has little, if anything to do with what he was referring to; and after a search of the book of Hosea, there doesn’t appear to be any reference in Hosea containing the exact wording he has given here. I did locate, though, in Amos, the verses at the end of the following references that do contain “Gilgal” in the verse in Hosea.

— Sdb

Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven, nor swear, The Lord liveth.

— Hosea 4:15

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.

— Hosea 9:15

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.

— Hosea 12:11

4Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: 5And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and declare the free offerings: for this pleaseth you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God.

— Amos 4

—Chrysostom.

—Ed.

—Ed.

— Ed.

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← Direction II: The Nature of the War and the Assailants (Eph. 6:12) · Contents · Directions III and IV: A Second Exhortation to Arm (Eph. 6:13) →

Footnotes

1. “DP”H ↩

2. The text has II Cor. 11:15. — SDB ↩

3. arcana imperii. ↩

4. vectigalia. ↩

5. B”D4FJ”<,J, ,“LJTLH ↩

6. Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. ↩

7. Prorogued — Means to defer, postpone.—SDB ↩

8. operæ pretium vivere. ↩

9. posse cœli aerii. ↩

10. ,<,D(@L<J@H. ↩

11. re infecta. ↩

12. *A rook—*a swindling fellow, a defrauder. ↩

13. Plerusque superant leonem ferientem, quœ non sustinent rugientem. ↩

14. Diabolus non est jussor vitiorum sed incentor. ↩

15. Roam off, that is, snatch away. ↩

16. A mittimus is a command in writing given under the hand or seal of one in authority, as a justice of the peace, requiring the commitment of an offender to prison. ↩

17. *Truck—*to exchange goods, to barter. ↩

18. Unias anni volaticum gaudium. ↩

19. *To trounce—*to punish or beat severely. ↩

20. Florescentem amant veritatem, qui non redarguentem. ↩

21. i.e., Taunts or mockings. ↩

22. Queans: — a disreputable woman; specifically a prostitute. — SDB ↩

23. To tole means to draw by degrees. ↩

24. Sweal, sometimes written swale, means to melt and run down, as the tallow of a candle; to melt away without feeding the flame.—Imperial Dictionary. Ed. ↩

25. Bene orasse est bene studuisse. ↩

26. Non schola Epicuri fecit magnos viros sed contubernium. ↩

27. Tantum distat studium à lectione, guantum amicitia ab hospitio socialis affectio à fortuita salutatione. ↩

28. Pudoris magìs memores quàm salutis. ↩

29. To drab, to associate with the fallen and debauched. —Ed. ↩

30. Overseen, mistaken, deceived.—Imperial Dictionary. Ed. ↩

31. Vance-roof, the garret.—Norfolk. Ed. ↩

32. –*@8@< (V8”. ↩

33. Difficilè valdè vitatur peccatum, quod ex victoriâ vitiorum nascitur. ↩

34. Relicto Paulo Calvinum audirem. ↩

35. Compt (from the Latin comptus), means neat, spruce,—Imperial Dictionary. ↩

36. Tolle invidiam, mea tua sunt, et tua mea. ↩

37. A rafty muggish room, i.e., a damp close room.—Ed. ↩

38. Hodie illi cras mihi. ↩

39. O beatos, quorum causâ Deus jurat! O miserimos, si nec juranti credamus!—Tertullian de Pœnitentia. ↩

40. Grippleness: miserliness, avariciousness. From Webster’s New World Dict. — SDB ↩

41. Qui pro nobis mortem semel vicit, semper in nobis vincit. ↩

42. To swale, otherwise written sweal, means to waste or melt away; as when a candle runs down without feeding the flame. ↩

43. Potest homo invitus amittere temporalia non nisi volens amittere spiritualia. — Prosper. ↩

44. {/µÃ< BV80 @b B,D µ46Dä< J4<ä< V88t ßB,D JT< X< J@4H ,B@LD”<\T4H BDX(µ”JT<. ↩

45. In cœlestibus, id est, pro cœlestibus Dei. ↩

46. Nihilo magìs ambio opes et dignatates, quàm elumbis equus gravis sarcinas. ↩

47. O Cato, cur invidisti mihi salutem tuam? ↩

48. Setter, from the dog used for searching out game. ↩

49. O utinam hic esset laborare! ↩

50. Thracked means properly, loaded, burdened, thence filled, packed, as here. — Ed. ↩

51. regnandi causa. ↩

52. Swill, large draughts of liquor; drink taken in excess. ↩

53. Fleet, to skim the surface; thence, to skim milk. ↩