BRANCH SECOND.

[Directions how to use the sword of the word against heretics.]

Now the second enemy that comes forth against the Christian is the heretic or seducer, who is so much more to be feared than the former by how much it is worse to part with God’s truth than our own life; to be corrupted in our minds than to be tortured in our members; in a word, to have our souls damned by God than our bodies killed by man. If the martyrs had feared death more than heresy, they would not have leaped into the persecutors’ flames rather than consent to their doctrine. Now, that thou mayest be able to lift up this sword of the Spirit—the only weapon to defend thee—with victory against this dangerous enemy, apply thyself in the use of the best means with thy utmost care to find out the true sense and meaning of the Spirit in his word. This sword in another’s hand will defend thee not. No, it must be in thy own, or else thou canst not have the benefit of it. The phrase and outward expression are but the shell, the sense and meaning is the pearl, which thou, like a wise merchant, shouldst seek for. To tumble over a chapter and not reach the mind of God therein held forth, and to tumble over a prayer in an unknown tongue, are both alike, ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; Rev. 2:7. We are to listen what the Spirit saith in the word as we hear or read it. And he that hath an ear for the Spirit will not have an ear for the seducer.

Now to help thee in thy search for the sense and meaning of the word, these directions, I hope, may stand thee in some stead. First. Take heed thou comest not to the Scriptures with an unholy heart. Second. Make not thy own reason the rule by which thou measurest Scripture truths. Third. Take heed thou comest not with a judgment preengaged to any party or opinion. Fourth. Go to God by prayer for a key to unlock the mysteries of his word. Fifth. Compare scripture with scripture. Sixth. Consult with thy faithful guides which God hath set over thee in his church.

Direction First. Take heed thou comest not to the Scriptures with an unholy heart. If ever you know the mind of God in his word, the Spirit must impart it to you. And will he that is so holy take thee by thy foul hand, thinkest thou, to lead thee into truth? No, thy doom is set: ‘None of the wicked shall understand,’ Dan. 12:10. The angel who took Lot’s daughters into the house smote the Sodomites with blindness, that they might grope for the door and not find it. And so are those like to be served that come with unclean hearts to the word. ‘Without are dogs:’ not only without heaven at last, but without the true knowledge of God on earth. The wicked have the word of God, but the holy soul hath ‘the mind of Christ,’ I Cor. 2:16. Therefore the same apostle exhorts us that we ‘be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,’ Rom. 12:2. And what amounts this to, but if we will have truth for our guest, and be acquainted with the mind and will of God, we must prepare a holy heart for its lodging? They commonly are taken captive by seducers who were before prisoners of their lusts, ‘and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,’ II Tim. 3:6, 7. When David would beg understanding in the word, he makes his purpose for a holy life the argument with which he urgeth God: ‘Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart,’ Ps. 119:33, 34.

Direction Second. Make not thy own reason the rule by which thou measurest Scripture truths. Is that fit to try the revelations of the word by, which is dunced and posed with so many secrets in nature? Doth not the word reveal such things to us as are not only above sense, for eye hath not seen them, nor ear heard them; but also above the ken of reason? being such as never ‘entered into the heart of man,’ I Cor. 2:9. Indeed the whole system of gospel truths speaks in a foreign and outlandish tongue to reason; it can make no sense of them, except faith be the interpreter. The Scriptures are like the Red Sea, through which the Israelites by faith passed safely, but the Egyptians attempting to do it, for want of that guide were drowned. A humble believer passeth through the deep mysteries of the word safely, without plunging into any dangerous mistakes; whereas those sons of pride, who leave faith and take reason for their guide, we see how they are drowned in many damnable errors, Arianism, Pelagianism, Socinianism, and what not. The most dangerous errors fathered upon the Scriptures have sprung from this womb. This was the Sadducees’ ground on which they went for their denying the resurrection of the dead. They owned the book of Moses for the word of God, and yet denied the resurrection asserted therein; because it seemed so impossible a thing to their reason that our bodies, after so many alterations into slime and dust, should stand up in life. This their reason laughed at; for so our Saviour’s answer plainly shows, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God,’ Matt. 22:29.

Direction Third. When thou consultest with the word, take heed thou comest not with a judgment pre-engaged to any party and opinion. He is not like to hold the scales even whose judgment is bribed beforehand. A distempered eye sees the object of that colour with which itself is affected; and a mind prepossessed will be ready to impose its own sense upon the word, and so loseth the truth by an overweening conceit of his own opinion. Too many, alas! read the Scriptures not so much to be informed by them, as confirmed in what already they have taken up! They choose opinions, as Samson his wife, because they please them, and then come to gain the Scriptures’ consent. Thus the Jews first made up the match with their idols, and then ask counsel of God what they should do, Eze. 14:4. It is a just judgment of God, that such should not see the truth when it lies fair before them, but be given up to an injudicious heart, to believe the word favours their fancies, and chimes as they think. ‘I the Lord will answer him…according to the multitude of his idols: that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart,’ Eze. 14:4, 5. And when is a man taken in his own heart, if not when ensnared in the fancies and follies which his erroneous mind hath weaved?

Direction Fourth. Go to God by prayer for a key to unlock the mysteries of his word. It is not the plodding but the praying soul that will get this treasure of Scripture-knowledge. St. John got the sealed book opened by weeping, Rev. 5:5. God oft brings a truth to the Christian’s hand as a return of prayer, which he had long hunted for in vain with much labour and study; there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, Dan. 2:22. And where doth he reveal the secrets of his word but at the throne of grace? ‘From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words,’ i.e. for thy prayer, Dan. 10:12. And what was this heavenly messenger’s errand to Daniel but to open more fully the Scripture to him? as appears by ver. 14, compared with ver. 21. This holy man had got some knowledge by his study in the word, and this sets him a praying, and prayer fetched an angel from heaven to give him more light. If ever we know the mind of God, we must be beholden to the Spirit of God for it. ‘When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,’ John 16:13. And the Spirit is the fruit of Christ’s intercession: ‘I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,’ &c. Now there must be a concurrence of our prayers with his intercession. While our High-priest is offering incense within the vail, we are to be praying without for the same thing that he is interceding within. Now to quicken thee up to pray with more fervent importunity for this manuduction of the Holy Spirit to lead thee into truth,

[Means to quicken us to pray with more fervour for the leading of the Holy Spirit.]

First Means. Let the dread of those scriptures which set forth the danger of errors and false doctrines fall upon thee, that thou mayest not think thou goest upon a slighty errand, when praying to be preserved from them, as if the odds were not great, whether thou hast thy request or hast it not. It is one of the devil’s master-policies, by sinking the price of errors in the thoughts of men, to make them thereby the more vendible. Many think they shall not pay so dear for an error in judgment as for a sin in practice. Yea, some have such a latitude, that they fancy a man may be saved in any religion—a principle that must needs tend to make them that hold it careless and incurious in their choice. That sin shall not want customers which men think they shall pay little or nothing for. Some can be content to be drunk on free cost, that would not, were they assured their own purse should pay soundly for the reckoning. How comes fornication to abound so much among the Romish clergy, but because it is counted so petty a sin by them? And I wish that error and heresy—which are the fornication of the mind—were not by many among ourselves sized as low. But woe to those clerks of the devil’s market, that tempt and toll men on to sin by setting cheaper rates on their head than the word of God hath done. If once the dread of a sin be word off the conscience, no wonder then if we see men as boldly leap upon it, as the frogs in the fable on the log, that lay so still and tame at the bottom of the river. Fear makes the body more apt to take infection, but it preserveth the soul from the infection of sin.

Now that thou mayest the more stand in fear of drinking in the poison of any corrupt and unsound doctrine, let thy mind ponder on a few scriptures, which show both their detestable, and also damning nature of them. Gal. 5:19, there heresy is called ‘a work of the flesh,’ and reckoned among those sins which shut the doors of them out of heaven; ‘they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God,’ ver. 21. They are called ‘doctrines of devils,’ I Tim. 4:1. And if they come from the devil, whither must they lead but to hell? Such as are against the fundamental principles of the gospel are inconsistent with the love and favour of God. He that ‘abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God,’ II John 9. And who, think you, shall have him that hath not God? Were there no other scripture against this kind of sin, but that one, II Peter 2:1, it were enough to strike the heretic through his loins, and make the knees of every seducer, like Belshazzar’s at the sight of the ‘handwriting on the wall,’ to knock one against the other. ‘But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.’ So that if a man hath a mind to get the start of other sinners, and desires to be in hell before them, he need do no more than open his sails to the wind of heretical doctrine, and he is like to make a short voyage to hell of it; for these bring upon their maintainers ‘swift destruction.’ Nay, the Spirit of God, the more to aggravate their deplored state brings in three most dreadful instances of divine vengeance that ever was executed upon any sinners, viz. the detrusion of the apostate angels from heaven to hell, the drowning of the old world, and the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah by raining hell, as it were, out of heaven upon them. I say, he brings these as patterns and pledges of that vengeance which shall certainly befall this kind of sinners. And by this time I hope thou wilt be warm in thy prayer against this dangerous enemy. But,

Second Means. When thou hast thus possessed thy heart with the dread of being led into any corrupt opinion, then strengthen then thy faith from those comfortable scriptures which assure thee that no sincere saint shall be left to fall finally into any soul-damning error. Christ is as able for, and faithful in, his prophetic and kingly offices, as his priestly. Surely he will not have the least care of his people’s understanding, which is guide to their whole man, and is that faculty which he first practiseth upon in the work of conversion. Thou hast therefore as strong ground to believe he will preserve thee from damnable principles as damnable practices. It would be little advantage to be kept from one enemy, and left open to the will and power of another. Christ’s hedge comes round about his people. Solomon tells us, ‘The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein,’ Prov. 22:14. And so is the mouth of the seducer, who comes with strange doctrines—whorish opinions. Now who is this pit digged for? Indeed, if we look at Satan’s design, it is a trap chiefly laid to catch the saint; he would, if possible, ‘deceive the very elect.’ His greatest ambition is to spread his banners in this temple of God, and defile them whom God hath washed. But if we eye God’s intention, it is a pit he suffers to be made for hypocrites and false gospellers—such who would never heartly close with Christ and his truth. These are they whom God abhors, and therefore they are left by him to become a prey to those that go a birding for souls with their corrupt doctrines. ‘Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,’ II Thes. 2:10-12. These, like the outsetting deer, are shot, while they within the pale are safe; or, like the suburbs, taken by the enemy, but those within the city escape their fury. It is the outward court that is left to be trampled underfoot, Rev. 11:2. And in the fore-quoted place in the epistle to the Thessalonians —though he gives up hypocrites to be deceived by false teachers, as once Ahab by those knights of the post his false prophets—yet, ver. 13 he speaks comfortably to the elect, and shows that the same decree which appointed them to salvation provided also for their embracing the truth, as the necessary means leading thereunto. ‘But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.’ And if God had got possession of the head by his truth, and of the heart by his sanctifying grace, he will keep them out of Satan’s clutches.

Go, therefore, and plead the promise for thy preservation. The promise improved by faith at the throne of grace will be thy best antidote in these times of general infection. Never fear speeding when the promise bids thee ‘go and prosper.’ The mercy is granted before thou askest it; only God will have thee by prayer lay claim to it, before thou beest possessed of it. And for thy help I have set down some sweet promises of this nature, with which, if thou acquaintest thyself, thou mayest be furnished both with grounds for thy faith, and arguments for thy prayer in this case, Matt. 24:24; John 7:12; 10:5, 29; I Cor. 11:19; Php. 3:15; I John 2:19, 20.

Direction Fifth. Compare scripture with scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves. Their name may be called ‘Legion, for they are many.’ But truth is one; it is homogeneal. One scripture sweetly harmonizeth with another. Hence it is, though there were many penmen of sacred writ, and those of several ages, one after another, yet they all are said to have but one mouth; ‘As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began,’ Luke 1:70. All had one mouth, because they accord so perfectly together. The best way, therefore, to know the mind of God in one text is to lay it to another. The lapidary useth one diamond to cut another. So should we one place of Scripture to interpret another. Scriptures compared, like glasses set one against another, cast a light each to the other. ‘They (i.e. the Levites) read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading,’ Neh. 8:8. Et exponendo sensum dabant intelligentiam per Scripturam ipsam—so Tremelius reads the words—they gave them the meaning of what they read, by the Scripture itself.

Now, in comparing scripture with scripture, be careful thou interpretest obscure places by the more plain and clear, and not the clear by the dark. Error creeps into the most shady obscure places, and there takes sanctuary. ‘Some things hard to be understood, which they that are unstable wrest.’ No wonder they should stumble in those dark and difficult places, when they turn their back on that light which plainer scriptures afford to lead them safely through. ‘He that is born of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not,’ I John 5:18. This is a dark place, which some run away with, and from it conclude there is a perfect state free from all sin attainable in this life; whereas a multitude of plain scriptures testify against such a conclusion, I Kings 8:38; Prov. 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; Job 9:20; Php. 3:12; I John 1:8-10, with many more. So that it must be in a limited and qualified sense that he ‘that is born of God sinneth not.’ He sins not finally or comparatively, not as the carnal wretch doth. ‘And the wicked one toucheth him not,’ i.e. non tactá qualitativo, as Cajetan saith—not so as to transfuse his own nature and disposition into him; as the fire toucheth the iron or wood it comes near, assimilating them to its own nature. This rule of using plain scriptures to be a key for to unlock obscure, will hold in all other instances. And blessed be God, though to tame our pride he hath inserted some knotty passages, yet the necessary saving truths are of easy access even to the weakest understanding. Salubritèr Spiritus Sanctus ita, modificavit, ut locis apertioribus fami occurreret, obscurioribus fastidia detergeret (Aug. de Doc. Ch. lib. ii. c. 6)—there is enough in the plain places of Scripture to keep the weak from starving, and in the obscure to lift them above contempt of the strongest.

Direction Sixth. Consult with thy faithful guides which God hath set over thee in his church. Though people are not to pin their faith on the minister’s sleeve, yet they are to ‘seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts,’ Mal. 2:7. Christ directs his kids for their safety, that they turn not aside into by‑paths of error, and fall not into the hands of false teachers—those cheating companions—that they go ‘go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed…beside the shepherds’ tents,’ Song 1:8. The devil knows too well—‘send away the shepherd and he may soon catch the sheep.’ And these times prove sadly that he is not mistaken. When were people’s affections more withdrawn from their ministers? And when were their judgments more poisoned with error? Of what sort, I pray, are those that have been trapanned⁵ into dangerous errors in our late unhappy times? Have they not most this brand upon them? Are they not such who would sooner hearken to a stranger—may be a Jesuit in a buff‑coat or with a blue apron before him?—seek to any mountebank that comes they know not whence, is here to‑day and gone tomorrow, than to their own ministers, who from God have the rule over them, and watch for their souls as they that must give account to God for them; yea, who from many years’ experience in life and doctrine they have found able and faithful? In the fear of God consider this. They are not your ministers—I speak as to the most—in their pulpits and public ministry, but these hucksters and quack-salvers in corners practicing upon you, that privily have brought in damnable doctrines, and leavened so great a lump of people in the nation with sour and unsound doctrine. If thou wouldst therefore be preserved from error, make use, as of the sword of the word in thy own hand, so of the holy skill that God hath given thy faithful minister for thy defence. Wait on his public ministry, praying for divine assistance to be poured down on him, and a divine blessing from his labours to fall on thyself. If at any time thou art in the dark concerning his message, resort to him, and I dare promise thee—if he answers his name, and be a faithful minister of the gospel—an easy access and hearty welcome to him. Only come to learn, not cavil; to have thy conscience satisfied, not any itch of vain curiosity rubbed. Our Saviour, who was so willing to satisfy his disciples concerning the doctrine he publicly preached, that in private he opened it to them more fully, yet when they came with nice and curious questions, did rather choose to repel that humour by a reproof than cherish it by a satisfying answer. ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons;’ and at another time, ‘If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.’ He takes Peter off from a profitable question to ind a necessary duty.

BRANCH THIRD.

[Directions how to use the sword of the word against lusts.]

The third enemy we are to fight is made up of an army of lusts lodged within our own bosoms, which have Satan to head and lead them forth against us. And who that believes he hath a soul to lose or save can be unwilling to engage against this cursed combination of lusts and devils? The Romans were said, when in war with other nations, to fight for honour and glory; but against the Carthaginians for their very life and being. In this war against sin and Satan both lie at stake. This, this is the most noble war of all other.

It is noble, because just. It is too true, I fear, what one saith of the wars which the great monarchs of this world wage one against another, ‘that the cause is very seldom so clear for which they take arms but there is some ground of scruple left in the conscience of the undertaker.’ But here we are put out of all doubt. This, without abusing the name, may be called, ‘the holy war.’ For it is against the only enemy that the holy God hath in the world, who hath himself taken the field, and set up his royal standard in defiance of it; to which he calls all mankind, some by the voice of a natural conscience, and others by the loud sound of his word, to repair, and upon our allegiance to him, our sovereign Lord and Creator, to help him ‘against the mighty;’ not because he needs our help, but [because he] expects our duty, and had rather reward our loyalty than punish our rebellion. Some have been found who for shame have killed themselves, that their prince through their cowardice had lost the victory. O what confusion then will one day fill our faces if we, by our faintness or treachery, do what lies in us [to] help Satan and sin to triumph over God himself!

But again, it is a noble war, because hard and difficult. This is an enemy stout and stubborn, such as will try both our skill and strength to the uttermost. Never did coward overcome in this war. What sin loseth is by inches, and what it gains hardly lets go. They who follow this war closest will find a life’s work at least of it. O you that love brave exploits, and hunt for enterprises that only a few generous spirits dare undertake, here is that you look for. Fighting with men and storming of castles is but children’s play to this encounter, where devils and lusts are to be repelled. ‘He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city,’ Prov. 16:32. ‘Better,’ because he overcomes a worse enemy, infinitely more potent and puissant. Few, alas! of the world’s swordsmen, so famed for their conquests, but have lived and died slaves to sin!—cowardly submitting the neck of their souls to draw the iron chariot of a base lust, while they have proudly sat to be drawn in triumph by those whom they have taken prisoners in war. Thus as Hannibal was beaten at home in his own country, who was a victor in his foreign expeditions; so too, many that do great feats in arms abroad, which makes them famous in this world, are miserably beaten and shamefully trampled upon by their own corruptions at home, that will make them much more infamous in the other world.

But be not you, O ye saints, dismayed at the report of your enemies’ strength and number. The greater will be your victory, and the more your captives to draw your triumph and chariot. Neither let your hearts faint to see the conquering Cæsars despoiled of their ensigns of honour by this enemy, which themselves had won from others, and to die in chains slaves to their lusts, that had lived conquerors over men. Remember, for your comfort, it is but the unbelieving world—such as are without spiritual arms, and so abandoned of God—that are left thus to become a prey to sin and Satan. But you have a God on your side, who gives you the consecrated sword of his word for your defence—a weapon whose edge Satan hath already felt, and therefore trembles whenever faith draws it forth. He that made this leviathan, as is said of the other, Job 40:19, can make this his sword to approach to him, and the heart of all thy lusts also. But I forbear; my task in this place being not to excite you to, but direct you in, the management of your fight with this your enemy, and that also only by teaching you the use of this one weapon, the word of God, in order to repelling motions to sin from within, or temptations to it from Satan without. First, therefore, Take some pains to collect out of the word the several lineaments with which the Spirit of God doth paint out the deformity of sin, that so thou mayest make it the more odious and hateful to thy thoughts. Second. Provide thyself with Scripture answers to Satan’s false reasonings. Third. Hide the word in thy heart. Fourth. Plead the promise against sin at the throne of grace.

[We are to collect out of the word the several lineaments of sin’s deformity.]

Direction First. Take some pains to collect out of the word the several lineaments with which the Spirit of God doth paint out the deformity of sin, that so thou mayest make it the more odious and hateful to thy thoughts, when, by laying them together, thou shalt see in its true picture and portraiture—drawn by so skilful and faithful a hand—the fair face of this goodly lady, whose beauty Satan doth so highly commend to thy wanton embraces. Poor man sins upon Satan’s credit, and receives it into his bosom, as Jacob did his wife into his bed—before he sees its face, or knows well what it is—and therefore, as he in the morning found her to be, not that beautiful Rachel as was promised, but a blear‑eyed Leah; so the sinner, too late—when his conscience awakes—sees himself miserably cheated, and disappointed of what he looked for, and finds a purgatory where he expected a paradise. Now, that thou mayest, Christian, the better see the ugly shape of this monster sin, observe from the word of God these four particulars concerning it. First. The birth and extraction of it. Second. The names given it. Third. Its nature. And, Fourth. Its properties.

[Four particulars concerning sin, taken from the word of God.]

First Particular. The birth and extraction of sin. Who is its father, and from whom is it descended? The holy God disowns it. The sun can as soon beget darkness, as God, who is ‘the Father of lights,’ be the author of sin. From him comes ‘every good and perfect gift,’ James 1:17. But, O sin, whence art thou? Thou art not his creature; he neither made thee, nor ever moved any to thy production. Certainly if it were from him he would like and love it. Every one loves his own child, though never so black. Much more doth God like what is his. We find him looking back upon every day’s work of the creation, and upon all at last, pleased with what he had done, all ‘was very good,’ Gen. 1:31. But of sin what he thinks, see Deut. 7:25, 26; Prov. 6:16; Rev. 2:6, 15, where he expresseth his detestation and hatred of it, from which hatred proceed all those direful plagues and judgments thundered from the fiery mouth of his most holy law against it. Nay, not only the work, but the worker also, of iniquity, becomes the object of his hatred, Ps. 5:5. So that if God were the author of sin, he would be a hater of himself. Well, at whose door then doth God lay this brat to find a father? Surely at the devil’s: ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do,’ John 8:44. And again in the same place, ‘When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.’ Sin is a brat which calls the devil both father and mother. For of himself, even of his own free will—the womb wherein it was conceived—did he beget it; and having begot it, put it out to nurse to man. And is not man, who was made to serve and enjoy the great God his Maker, highly set up, to suckle and carry this his infernal child about in his arms? Ah, poor man, whence art thou fallen? It is strange that the very remembering whose offspring thyself wert doth not strike thee into a horror, to see thy precious soul debased unto such servitude as to fulfil the lusts of that cursed spirit. Never let us spit at the witch for suffering the devil’s imps to suck on her body, while we can prostitute our souls to any of his lusts.

Second Particular. The names and titles with which the word stigmatizeth sin. And God, to be sure, miscalls none. If a thing be sweet, he will not say it is bitter; if good, he will not call it evil. For he claps a woe upon his head that doth so, Isa. 5:20. Never think to find honey in the pot when God writes poison on its cover. We may say of every sin in this respect what Abigail of her husband—as is its name in Scripture, so is it. If God call it folly, then there is no wisdom to be found in it. The devil indeed teacheth sinners to cover foul practices with fair names. Superstition must be styled devotion; covetousness, thrift; pride in apparel, handsomeness; looseness, liberty; and madness, mirth. And truly there is great need for sinners to do thus, to make this fulsome dish go down with less regret. There are some have made a hearty meal of horseflesh, or the like carrion, under a better name, whose stomachs would have risen against it if they had known what it was. Therefore as persecutors of old wrapped the Christians in the skins of those beasts which would render them the most desirable prey to those they were cast; so Satan and our false hearts present sins to us under those names that will sharpen our appetites to them, or at least take away the abhorrence our consciences else would show against them.

But canst thou be content, poor soul, to be so easily cheated? Will the fire burn thee the less, into which thou art emboldened to put thy finger, because a knave that owes thee and ill turn tells thee that it will not hurt thee? Hear rather what the God of truth saith of sin, and by what names he calls it, and you shall find that whatever is dreaded by us, or hated, feared, or loathed, in all the world, they are borrowed, and applied to sin—the vomit of dogs; the venom of serpents; the stench of rotten sepulchres; dunghills and jakes; the deadliest diseases and sores, gangrenes, leprosies, and plague, attributed to it, II Peter 2:22; Luke 3:7; Rom. 3:13; II Tim. 2:17; I Kings 8:38; yea, hell is raked for an expression to set it out—it being compared to the very fire of hell itself, James 3:6. And because of their penury and straitness of these appellations —therefore it is called by its own name, as the worst that God himself can say thereof, ‘sinful’ sin, Rom. 7:13. Now what shall be done to the thing that the great God thus loathes, and loads with such names of dishonour, thereby to signify his abhorrence of it? What? Every gracious heart will soon resolve, that he should pursue it with fire and sword, till we have executed upon it the judgement written in its utter ruin and destruction.

Third Particular. The nature of sin, as the word defines it. See its description, ‘sin is the transgression of the law,’ I John 3:4—a few words, but of weight enough to press the soul that commits it to hell, yea to press sin itself to death in the heart of a saint, if laid on with these considerations—

1. Whose law it is by sinning we break. It is not that of some petty prince—and yet such conceive their honour so deeply concerned in their laws, that they take vengeance on the violators of them—but of the great God, whose glorious name is in every attribute assaulted and reproached by the sinner, yea the very life and being of God is endeavoured to be destroyed. Peccatum est deicidium—sin is deicide. For he that would rob God of his honour is an enemy to his very being; because God’s being is so wrapped up in his glory, that he cannot outlive the loss of it. These, it is true, are above the reach of the sinner’s short arm, but that is no thanks to him, because his sin aims at these, though it cannot carry its shot so far as to hurt him.

2. What law it is; not cruel, written with the blood of his creatures, as the laws of some tyrant princes are, who consult their own lust, and not their people’s good, in their edicts. But this law is equal and good; in {the} keeping of which is life. So that no provocation is given by any rigour of unnecessary taxes imposed upon us to rise up against it. ‘What iniquity,’ saith God, ‘have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?’ Jer. 2:5. He that put away his wife was to give her a bill of divorce, declaring the cause of his leaving her. Thus God condescends to expostulate with sinners, and asks what evil they can charge upon him or his government that they forsake him. But, alas! no more cause can be given than why a beast, in a fat sweet pasture, should break the hedge to get into a barren heath or a dirty lane, where nothing but starving is to be had.

3. At whose notion the poor creature transgresseth the good law of God, and that is of a cursed spirit the devil, no less our enemy than God’s enemy. Now for a child at the solicitation of his father’s greatest enemy, and his own also, to take up rebellious arms against a dear loving parent, adds to the monstrosity and unnaturalness of the fact. This thou dost, Christian, when by sin thou transgressest the law of God. And now, by this time, methinks I see thy blood to rise and boil with anger in thee, while thy God points to thy sin and tells thee, ‘This, O my child, is the enemy that would take away my glory and life too by thy means—who by debt both of nature and grace owest thy whole self to live and die for the maintaining of my honour!’ Art thou not as ready to fall upon thy sin, and drag it to execution, as the servants of Ahasuerus were to lay hold of Haman, and cover his face as a son of death, when their prince did but vent his wrath conceived against him? Est. 7:8. Certainly, were but the love of God well kindled in our bosoms, we should even spit fire on the face of any that durst tempt us to sin against him.

Fourth Particular. The properties of sin discovered by the word of God. I shall content myself with three. It hath, 1. A defiling property. 2. A disturbing property. 3. A damning property.

1. Sin hath a defiling property, called ‘filthiness of flesh and spirit,’ II Cor. 7:1. It besmears both. ‘The whole world’ is said to, ‘lie in wickedness,’ as a beast in his dung and ordure, or as a rotten carcass, in its slime and putrefaction, I John 5:19. It is that leprosy which infects man, and the very house he lives in also. Wherefore did God send the flood in Noah’s time, but to wash away that filthy generation as dung from the face of the earth? But, because this pest-house of the world is not cleared sufficiently, it is reserved for a more thorough purgation by fire at the last day. Do but think, Christian, what a beauty man was till he was pock-broken—if I may say so—by sin, and what a glory shined upon the whole creation before sin, by its poisonous breath, had dimmed and blasted it; and then guess what a filthy thing it is—what a strong poison it is that not only diffused its malignity through the soul and body of man, but had such direful effects upon the whole compages and frame of the visible creation, that it will never come to its first beauty, till, like a battered, cankered piece of plate, it be melted and refined by a universal conflagration. And is not your soul yet loathed with the thoughts of sin? Some beasts, they say, the ermine for one, will die before she will be got in the dirt to defile her beautiful skin. And wilt thou, Christian—and that after it hath cost Christ his blood to purchase his Spirit for thy cleansing—bedabble thyself in sin’s puddle? God forbid! Did Ezekiel so abhor to eat man’s dung imposed on him by God that he cries out, ‘Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted?’ &c., Eze. 4:14. And is any unclean lust, which God himself compares to no better thing, so dainty a bit as to be desired by thee, Christian, who has sat at Christ’s table, and knowest what entertainment there is to be had? Methinks thou shouldst rather cry out with the prophet, ‘Ah, Lord God! my soul hath not been (or at least let it not be) polluted with this abominable thing.’

2. Sin hath a disturbing property. Sin, it breaks the peace of the soul, yea of the whole world. It brings confusion with it, and makes the place a seat of war wherever it comes. An army of evils are at its heels to set down where it is lodged: ‘If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door,’ Gen. 4:7. ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,’ Isa. 57:21. Here is God’s hand, we see, to the warrant sentencing the sinner to the rack of a self-torturing conscience. Who is able to express the anguish which an accusing conscience feels, and those dreadful fits of convulsion with which it rends and tears itself? One you hear roaring and crying out, ‘There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither…any rest in my bones because of my sin,’ Ps. 38:3. Another, ‘while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted,’ Ps. 88:15. A third, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear,’ Gen. 4:13. And a fourth, so unable to stand under the clamour of his guilt, that he runs to the halter and hangs himself to get out of the din and dolour it makes in his ears, Matt. 27:5. And is not he like to be well cured of his torment that throws himself into hell-fire to find ease? And as sin disturbs the inward peace of the soul, so the outward peace of the world. What else but sin hath put the world in an uproar, and set all the creatures together by the ears? ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?’ James 4:1. This sets nearest relations at bitter feud, firing the house over their heads, so that husband and wife, parents and children, cannot abide together under one roof. Delilah, she betrays her husband into his bloody enemies’ hands. And Absalom riseth up to take away the life of his dear father. This is the whisperer that ‘separates chief friends,’ and makes those that have drunk of our cup to lift up the heel upon us; and with whom we have ‘taken sweet counsel together,’ to plot our ruin, and give counsel against our very life. In a word, such a kindle-fire sin is, that the flames it kindles fly not only from one neighbour’s house to the other, but from one nation to another. All the water in the sea that runs between kingdom and kingdom, cannot quench the wars it raiseth; but it makes men that live at one end of the world thirst for the blood and treasure of those that live at the other. So that the earth is but as a cockpit, where there is little else but fighting and killing one another. And is this the guest thou canst find in thy heart to bid welcome within thy bosom?

3. Sin hath a damning property. If all the mischief sin did us was in this world, it were bad enough; but considering our short stay here, it would give some ease to our thoughts, that we should have done with it and this life together. But to be worried here by it, and damned for it also to eternal torments in another world, this is intolerable! Methinks that place, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,’ Matt. 25:41, should make us sit down and consider, whether any sin be so pleasurable or desirable, as should make it worth lying in endless torments to obtain and enjoy it a few fleeting days and months, that are at an end almost as soon as their beginning commenceth. Thou knowest, sinner, already the best of thy sinful pleasure, but not the worst of thy punishment, which is so great as loseth its chief emphasis by translating into our language, and clothing it with expressions borrowed even from those things that most dread us in this life. Alas! what is the fire and brimstone we see and fear so much here, to that which burns in the infernal lake? Truly, little more than painted fire in the wall is to that which burns on our hearth. This in our chimney was made for our use and comfort chiefly, but the fire in hell—whether material or not is not material to know—is for no other end than to torment sinners in. This in our kitchen is kindled by a little puff of wind, and quenched by a little water; but ‘the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle that,’ Isa. 30:33. And where shall we find buckets to quench that which God kindles? They say smelling of the earth is healthful for the body, and taking in the scent of this sulfurous pit by frequent meditation cannot but be as wholesome for the soul. If many had descended thus into hell while on earth, their souls had not, it is like, dropped into hell when their bodies fell into the grave. O Christian! be sometimes walking in the company of those places of Scripture which set out the state of the damned in hell, and their exquisite torments there. This is the true ‘house of mourning,’ and the going into it by serious meditation is a sovereign means to make ‘the living lay it to heart,’ and, laying it to heart, there is the less fear that thou wilt throw thyself by thy impenitency into this so uncomfortable a place, who art offered so fairly a mansion in heaven’s blissful palace, upon thy faith and repentance.

[We are to provide ourselves with Scripture answers to Satan’s false reasonings.]

Direction Second. Provide thyself with Scripture answers to Satan’s false reasonings with which he puts a fair colour on his foul motions, the better to gain thy consent. He is wily. Thou hadst need be wary. He doth not only propound the sinful object, but also sets a fair gloss upon it, and urges the soul with arguments to embrace his offer. And when sin comes thus forth Goliath-like, it is not Saul’s armour, but the ‘smooth stones of the brook,’ not thy own resolution, but the divinity of Scripture-arguments, that can preserve thee, or prostrate thy enemy. Now, thou wilt find in the word an answer put into thy mouth to refel⁶ all Satan’s sophistry. And this indeed is to be an Apollos, ‘mighty in the Scripture,’ when we can stop the devil’s mouth, and choke his bullets with a word seasonably interposed betwixt us and the temptation. It will not therefore be amiss to give a few instances whereby this direction may be made more easily practicable in the hand of weaker Christians. First. Sometimes Satan insinuates himself into a soul by endeavouring to make one sin appear of no account. Second. By giving an opportunity of committing a sin in secret. Third. By the example of others.

[Satan tempts to sin by making one sin of no account.]

First Instance. Sometimes Satan thus insinuates himself into a soul—‘what, man, will one sin, if yielded to, so much hurt thee? One mole doth not mar the beauty of the face, nor can one sin spoil the beauty of thy soul; and it is no more than I am a suitor for. If I bade thee wallow in every puddle, thou mightst well abhor the motion; but why art thou so afraid of one spot being seen on thy garment? The best jewel hath its flaw, and the holiest saint his failing.’ Now to refel this motion, when so mannerly and modestly proposed

1. Answer. The word will tell thee that no sin is single. It is impossible to embrace or allow one sin, and be free of others. For,

(1.) He that yields to one sin casts contempt upon the authority that made the whole law, and upon this account, breaks it all. ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,’ James 2:10. And he gives the reason in the next words, ‘for he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill.’ Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill thou art a transgressor of the law. Not that he is guilty of all distributively. but collectively, as Estius well notes. For the law is one copulative. One commandment cannot be wronged, but all are interested in the same; as the whole body suffers by a wound given to one part: ‘God spake all these words,’ Ex. 20. They are ten words, but one law.

(2.) By allowing one sin we disarm and deprive ourselves of having a conscientious argument to defend ourselves against any other sin. He that can go against his conscience in one, cannot plead conscience against any other. For, if the authority of God awes him from one, it will from all. ‘How can I do this,…and sin against God?’ said Joseph. I doubt not but his answer would have been the same if his mistress had bid him lie for her, as now when she enticed him to lie with her. The ninth commandment would have bound him as well as the seventh. Hence the apostle exhorts not to ‘give place to the devil, Eph. 4:27—implying, that by yielding to one we lose our ground, and what we lose he gains; and let him alone to improve advantages. The little wimble once entered, the workman can then drive a great nail. One sin will widen thy swallow a little, that thou wilt not so much strain at the next.

(3.) Allow one sin and God will give you over to other sins. ‘Wherefore God also gave them up unto uncleanness,’ Rom. 1:24. The Gentiles gave themselves to idolatry, and God gave them up unto other beastly lusts, ver. 22. When Judas began to play the thief, I question whether he meant to turn traitor. No, his treason was a punishment for his thievery. He allowed himself in a secret sin, and God gave him up to one more open and horrid. But,

2. Answer. Suppose thou couldst—which is impossible—take one sin into thy bosom, and shut all the rest out, yet the word will tell thee that thou art a servant to that one sin, and that thou canst not be so and a servant to God at the same time.

(1.) That thou wouldst be a servant to that one sin. ‘His servants ye are to whom ye obey,’ Rom. 6:16; and consequently the devil’s servants, whose kingdom you endeavour to hold up by defending though this one castle, against God your Maker. Neither will it excuse thee to say thou intendest not so. Haply, covetousness is thy sin, and it is thy profit thou aimest at, not siding with the devil against God. Though this is not thy express end who sinnest, yet it is the end of the sin which thou committest, and of Satan that puts thee upon the work, and so will be charged upon thee at last. The common soldier ordinarily looks no higher than his pay. This is it draws him into the field. Yet they make themselves traitors by assisting him that leads them on against their prince; and it will not serve the turn for them to say they fought for their pay, and not to dethrone him. Ahab sold himself ‘to work evil in the sight of the Lord,’ I Kings 21:20. And yet we read not that he made any express covenant with the devil. But the meaning is, he did that which in effect amounted to no less. He knew that if he sinned he should pay his soul for it, and he would have his lust, notwithstanding he was acquainted with its price; and therefore, interpretatively, he sold his soul that he might enjoy his sin.

(2.) Thou mayest learn from the word that thou canst not be a servant to any one sin and to God at the same time. ‘No man can serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon,’ Matt. 6:24. By mammon is meant one particular lust, covetousness. One body may as well have two souls, as one soul two masters. One soul hath but one love, and two cannot have the supremacy of it. I have heard, indeed, of a wretch that said, ‘He had one soul for God, and another for the devil also.’ But, if he hath one soul in hell, I am afraid he will not find another for heaven. And one sin will certainly send thee thither as a thousand. ‘Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters,’ &c., ‘shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ He doth not only exclude him that is all these, but any of these. It is certain that all men shall die, but all do not die of the same disease. And as certain all impenitent sinners shall be damned, but one is damned for one sin, and a second for another. But all meet at last in the same hell.

[Satan tempts to sin by opportunity given for committing it in secret.]

Second Instance. May be thou art tempted to sin by an opportunity of committing it in secret —where thou shalt not pay the loss of thy credit for the purchase of thy pleasure. This was the snare the simple young man’s foot was taken in, Prov. 7:19. His strumpet tells him, ‘the good man was from home;’ the coast was clear. They might drink their stolen waters without fear of being indicted for the theft. Too many, alas! whom the shame of the world keeps from knocking at the fore-door, are easily persuaded to sin if they may slip in at the postern. Saul himself, though ashamed to go to a witch in his princely robe, because he had possessed the world with an opinion of his hatred of that sin by putting such to death, yet is not afraid to go incognito to one. Therefore, as it added much to the weight of the temptations with which the devil assaulted Christ, that he came to him in the wilderness and solicited him but to a private, yea secret, acknowledging of him, where none could tell tales what passed between them; so it doth to the glory of that complete victory which Christ got over Satan in them all. And how got Christ it, but by the sword of the word? Take thou, Christian, therefore the same weapon up to defend thyself against the same enemy.

1. The word will tell thee that God is privy to thy most secret sins. ‘Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance,’ Ps. 90:8. They are as plainly seen by him as anything can be by us at noonday. Nay, he doth not only see and know them, but he sets them before him as a mark to shoot his arrows of vengeance at. So, Prov. 15:3, ‘the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.’ As he sees when thou shuttest thy closet to pray in secret, and will reward thy sincerity; so he seeth when thou dost it to sin in secret, and will reward thy hypocrisy. Now, if a king sitting on his throne ‘scattereth away all evil with his eyes,’ Prov. 20:8, how much more powerfully would the eye of God, if seen looking on us, chase away the most secret motion that stirreth in our heart to sin! Better all the world to see thee, than God, who hath the wrong done him by the sin, and therefore concerned in justice to do himself right upon thee. He cannot let any sin go unpunished, because a righteous judge. But there are some sins which require a more immediate hand of divine vengeance than other, and therefore called ‘crying sins.’ And they are such which, either by the place and power of the offender, man dares not punish, or else so secretly committed, that man cannot take cognizance of the fact: as Cain’s bloody murder of his brother—‘Thy brother’s blood crieth,’ Gen. 4:10.

2. The word will inform thee of an informer that thou hast in thy own bosom—thy conscience, I mean, which goes along with thee, and is witness to all thy fine-laid plots, and what it sees it writes down, for it is a court of record. Thou canst not sin so fast but it can write after thee. And the pen with which conscience writes down our sins hath a sharp nib; it cuts deep into the very heart and soul of the sinner. The heathens, their thoughts are said to accuse them, Rom 2:15. And no torment in the world comparable to an accusing conscience. ‘The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?’ Prov. 18:14. Who? Not men, not angels. Nullus oculus molestior cuique suo: non est aspectus quem tenebrosa conscientia suffugere magis velit, minus possit (Bern.)—no eye affrights a sinner more than his own; it is that which he most desires to run from, but least can. Such a poor wretch is like Regulus in his barrel stuck with nails, which way soever he turns himself, in vulnus inclinat, he is pricked and wounded. O read those sad instances of Cain, Saul, and Judas, with others upon Scripture record, who have been on this rack, and thou wilt be afraid to sin where conscience stands by.

3. Consult ‘the word,’ and thou wilt find that God usually hath put them to shame in this world, that have promised themselves most secrecy in their sinning. It is one of God’s names to be a ‘revealer of secrets,’ Dan. 2:47. And among other secrets, he forgets not to ‘bring to light’ these ‘hidden things of darkness, I Cor. 4:5—those sins that are forged in a darker shop than others—and that often in this world. In these men speak what base thoughts they have of God, as if he were a God of the day and not of the night; therefore to vindicate this attribute, and to strike an inward fear thereof into the hearts of men, he doth dig these foxes out of their holes wherein they earth themselves, and expose their sins to the view of the world, which they thought none should have known besides themselves and their partners in the sin. Such an effect had the discovery of Ananias and Sapphira’s secret sin. ‘And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things,’ Acts 5:11, 13.

See therefore how God hath befooled men when they have arted it most in packing their sins, to hide them from the world’s eye. No art was wanting in the patriarchs to conceal their unnatural sin against their brother. What a fair probable tale do they tell the old man their father, who believed all, and inquired no further! How true were they among themselves, though so many in the plot; that none of them should blab it out, at one time or another, was strange. How long did this sleep before discovered? And what a strange providence to bring their wickedness to light! So Gehazi played his part cunningly enough, one would think, which made him so bold to come before his master, and impudently lie to his head, not dream the least that he was privy to his sin. Yet this man is found out, and for the garments he got of Naaman by a lie, he had another given of the Lord, which he was to wear as a livery of his sin—for he was clothed with a leprosy—a garment not as others, to hide his shame, but to discover it to all the world—a garment more lasting than the two change of suits he had from the Syrian; for this lasted him all his life; neither was it then worn out, but to be put on by his children after him, II Kings 5:27. In a word, be he never such a saint, yet if he goes about to save himself from the shame of a sin by any secret plot of wickedness, he takes the direct way to bring that upon him which he contrives to keep off. Uriah’s blood was shed only as a sinful expedient to save David’s credit, that would have suffered if his folly with Bathsheba should become a town-talk. And how sped he with this his plot? Ah, poor man! all comes out to his greater shame. David shall know that God will be as tender of his own honour, as he is of his credit; ‘for thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun,’ II Sam. 12:12. Yea, David himself at last is sick of his own plot, and was not at first more studious to hide his sin, than he was afterwards willing to acknowledge it; and therefore we find him, Ps. 51, standing as it were in a white sheet, and doing voluntary penance for his sin in all the churches of God so long as the Scriptures shall be read in their assemblies to the end of the world.

[Satan tempts to sin, by the example of others.]

Third Instance. May be thou art tempted to sin, by the example of others. Indeed, though example be an inartifical argument, yet it is of great force with many, especially if the persons quoted in favour of a sin be either the most, or thought to be the best. When most, they carry presently with them those that are false-hearted or weak-headed—as dead fishes and light straws swim with the stream; for which such, shame strikes the greatest stroke, and a multitude to bear one company in a sin, takes away the shame of it. Where all go naked, few will blush. They rather are exposed to shame that will be singular, and not do as the rest; as Micaiah, who was made a scorn because he would not tune his pipe to Ahab’s ear, nor join with the whole college of his flattering chaplains in their judgment. Or, if they be such who have the reputation for wisdom and piety, then it oft proves a snare to them that are none of the worst; which should make all of high place or eminent grace very circumspect what opinion or practice they espouse. The devil is very brag when we can get such to set their hand to his testimonial. The country will soon ring of this, and their example be shown everywhere to draw in others. Why, such a one is of this opinion, he holds this and doth that, and I hope he is one you reverence and honour. Now, in this case, consult with the word, and it will bring thee off this temptation.

1. The word commands, that we bring the examples of men—be they who they will—to the test of the word. Is it their opinion that is quoted? ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,’ Isa. 8:20. It is the light which a man carries in his lantern for which we follow him. That gone we leave him. Now, we see by this scripture, he hath no light that hath not the word to vouch his opinion. So that, neither knows he whither himself goes, nor we whither such a one will lead us. Again, is it the practice of another that is laid before thee for thy copy to write after? What saith the word? ‘Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,’ Ex. 23:2. Examples are not our warrant, but precepts. Neither will it procure a man a discharge, because he had a precedent in his sin. Adam, indeed, said the woman gave him the apple; but it did not excuse him from paying the reckoning with her. She was indeed the first in the transgression, yet both met in the punishment. Wouldst thou eat poison because another dares be so bold to be thy taster? Surely his example cannot make the poison less deadly to thee that dost pledge him.

2. The word will tell thee that the best of saints do not always foot it right; but too oft are found to tread awry. ‘In many things we offend all,’ James 3:2. And that is himself subject to step awry, may also lead thee aside. Therefore Paul, as holy a man as lived, when he calls others after him, would have them follow him with their eyes open, to see whether he followed Christ. ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ,’ I Cor. 11:1. The holiest life of the best saint on earth is but an imperfect translation of the perfect rule of holiness in the word, and therefore must be tried by it. Hence it is the character of sincerity to look to the way rather than the company. ‘The highway of the upright is to depart from evil,’ Prov. 16:17. He consults with the word, whether the way be good or evil. If he finds it evil, he will not go into it to bear another company, no, though he be a saint. Indeed, God suffers some to step awry, for the proof of others. Thus heresies come, ‘that they who are approved may be made manifest,’ I Cor. 11:19; Deut. 13:1. ‘Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet,…for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether you love the Lord you God with all your heart.’ Thus I have given a few instances by which you may see how this sword of the word—as that in the cherubim’s hand—may preserve the Christian from venturing to sin upon any pretence whatever it be.

[We are to hide the word in our heart, for our defence against the temptations to sin.]

Direction Third. Hide the word in thy heart. This was David’s preservative. ‘Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,’ Ps. 119:11. It was not the Bible in his hand to read it; not the word on his tongue to speak of it; nor in his head to get a notional knowledge of it; but the hiding it in his heart, that he found effectual against sin. It is not meat in the dish, but [in the] stomach, that nourisheth; not physic in the glass, but taken into the body, that purgeth. Now ‘heart’ in Scripture, though it be used for all the faculties of the soul, yet, principally, it is put for the conscience, and the affections.

First. Heart in Scripture, is often put for the conscience. ‘For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things,’ I John 3:20. That is, if our conscience condemn us justly, to be sure our case is sad, because God knows by us more than we by ourselves, and can charge us with many sins that conscience is not privy to.

Now thus, Christian, labour to hide the word in thy heart—that is, in thy conscience; let it there have a throne, and it will keep thee in a holy awe.

1. Look upon the word as stamped with divine authority, the law which the great God gives thee his poor creature to walk by. This impressed on thy conscience would make tremble at the thought of a sin, which is the traitor’s dagger that strikes at God himself, by the contempt it casts upon his law. And if some assassins, intending to stab a prince, have been so overawed by a few beams of majesty shot from his mortal brow, that their hearts would not serve them to make the horrid attempt, how much more must the dread of the great God’s majesty, darted from his word into the creature’s conscience, deter him from practicing any treason against his Maker? ‘Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word,’ Ps. 119:161. As if he had said, I had rather incur their wrath for my holiness, than make thy word my enemy by my sin.

2. Look upon the word of God as that law by which thou art to be judged at the great day. ‘God shall judge the secrets of men…according to my gospel,’ Rom. 2:16. Then the book of thy conscience shall be opened and compared with this, and accordingly will sentence of life or death be pronounced by Christ thy Judge. Thou mayest know beforehand how it will go with thee at that day. If now thou canst not stand before the word as opened by a poor minister, and applied to thy own conscience, what will you do when it is opened by Christ? Now thy conscience from the word condemns thee, but not finally; for by thy timely repentance and faith, the sentence of this private court may be reversed, and the word which even now bound thee over to death, will acquit and justify thee. But at that great day of assize there will be a final decision of thy cause. If then the judgement goes against thee, thou art a lost man for ever. No reversing the sentence, not so much as a reprieve to stay the execution. But as the word goeth out of the Judge’s mouth, the sinner’s face is covered to be immediately delivered into the tormentor’s hands. And darest now thou, O man, bid any lust welcome, while thou seest the gibbet set up, and the everlasting chains prepared, in which the word of God dooms every sinner to hang? Canst thou read thy sentence, and yet like thy sin that brings it inevitably upon thy head?

Second. Heart, in Scripture, is most frequently taken for the will and affections. ‘My son, give me thine heart, Prov. 23:26, that is, thy love. So, Deut. 10:12, ‘to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart.’ And thus, Christian, to hide the word in thy heart would be a rare antidote against the poison of sin. The chains of love are stronger than the chains of fear. Herod’s love of Herodias was too hard for his fear of John. He had some hold of his conscience that awed him, and bound his hands awhile. But his minion had his affections, and the heart can unbind the hands. His love to her made him shake off his respect to him, and at last embrue his hands in his blood. He that is only prisoner to the command, and bound to his good behaviour by the chains of terror which the threatening claps upon his conscience, may have these knocked off, and then he will shake off his obedience also. But he that loves the word, and the purity of its precepts, cannot turn traitor. When such a one sins, he makes as deep a wound in his own heart as in the law, and therefore trembles at displeasing God. ‘I love thy testimonies; my flesh trembleth for fear of thee,’ Ps. 119:119, 120. O that is the blessed fear which is the daughter of love. Now, to inflame thy heart with love to the word, consider that it is the faithfullest monitor and the sweetest comforter thou hast in all the world.

1. It is thy faithfullest monitor. It tells thee plainly of all thy faults, and will not suffer sin to lie upon thee, but points to the enemy that hunts for the precious soul’s life; it discovers all the designs and plots Satan and thy beloved lusts have against thee. This made David love it so dearly, ‘Moreover by them is thy servant warned,’ Ps. 19:11. Besides all its other good offices it doth for thee, it warns thee of every danger, and shows thee how to escape it. O how should this endear it to thee! Did Ahasuerus heap such abundant honour upon Mordecai, who had but once been a means to save his life by discovering a treason plotted against his person? How much more shouldst thou honour and love the good word of God, which hath so oft saved thy soul out of thy spiritual enemies’ hands, and doth daily give thee warning how to escape the snares of sin, without which it were impossible for thee to find them out or avoid them. Was David so affected with the wisdom and love of Abigail in the advice she gave him, whereby he was kept from shedding blood in his fury, that he took her into his bosom to be his wife, as a reward of her kindness to him? And shall not the counsel the word hath given thee make thee in love much more with it?

2. The word is thy sweetest comforter. When the poor soul is distressed with guilt, and conflicteth with the terrors of divine wrath for his sins, O what miserable comforters then are this world’s pleasures and treasures! How little can any creature contribute to the ease of such a one! No more than he who, standing upon the shore, and sees his friend drowning in the sea, but knows not how to reach any help to him. It is the word alone that can walk upon those waves, and come to the soul’s relief. This is able to restore the soul, and buoy it up from the bottom of the sea of despair. Though the soul be, with those mariners, ‘at its wits’ end,’ and knows not what to do, yet then the word stands up—as Paul before them—and, as it were, thus speaks to him, ‘Poor soul, thou shouldst have hearkened to my voice, and not have loosed from thy harbour by sinning against God, to come to this harm and loss. But, be of good cheer; do thus and thus; repent of thy folly, and speedily turn to thy God in Christ Jesus, and there shall be no loss of thy life.’ There is forgiveness with the Lord, therefore he may be feared. And so, in all other troubles, this sends in the saint’s comfort. When the world gives him gall, this brings wine; when it meets with nothing but crosses and vexations from that, this sweetly recreates and cheers his spirits. Here the Christian hath those cooling waters with which he quencheth and allays all his sorrows. And you know what a treasure a spring or fountain is accounted in dry or hot countries. Surely, Christian, when thou considerest how many a sweet draught thou hast had from the wells of salvation, thou wilt cry out with David, ‘I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me,’ Ps. 119:93. I do not wonder to see thy enemy endeavour to stop thy well at which thou shouldst draw thy comfort, but that he should be able to persuade thee to do it thyself is strange.

[We are to plead the promise against sin at the throne of grace.]

Direction Fourth. Plead the promise against sin at the throne of grace. He that hath law on his side, we say, may sue the king; and he that hath a promise on his side may, with a humble boldness, commence his suit with God. As the veins in the body have arteries to attend them with spirits, so precepts in the word have promises to inspirit the Christian, and empower him with strength for his duty. Is there a command to pray? There is also a promise to enable for prayer, Zech. 12:10; Rom. 8:26. Doth God require us to give him our heart? ‘My son, give me thine heart,’ Prov. 23:26. The promise saith, ‘A new heart also will I give you,’ Eze. 36:26. Doth he command us to mortify our corruptions? And doth he not promise, ‘Sin shall not have dominion over us?’ Rom. 6:14. Now, to obtain this promise, thou must plead and press it believingly at the throne of grace. Quod lex imperat, fides impetrat—what the precept commands, the prayer of faith begs and receives. Look, therefore, thou takest God in thy way. First besiege heaven, and then fear not overcoming sin and hell, when thou hast conquered heaven. Now thou warrest at God’s cost, and not thy own. He that sets thee on will bring thee off. David was a man at arms, and could handle his weapon against this enemy as well as another, yet dares not promise himself success till he hath made God his second. ‘Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me,’ Ps. 119:133. But if thou thinkest to steal a victory by the strength of thy own resolution, expect an overthrow. And it will be a mercy thou shouldst be so served; for a foil will learn thee humility for the future, but a victory would increase thy pride. And that is a sad victory, when one sin carries away the spoils which thou hast taken from another. Jehoshaphat took the right course to speed, who, though he had almost a million men he could draw into the field—and that without draining his garrisons—yet bespeaks God’s help, as if he had not a man to fight for him: ‘We have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee,’ II Chr. 20:12. If an Alexander, or a Cæsar, had been at the head of such an army, I warrant you they would not have known what to have done, and not doubted all before them. But Jehoshaphat, a holy humble man, was better instructed. He knew a host signifieth nothing which hath not the Lord of hosts with them; and that the most valiant can find neither heart nor hand in the day of battle without his leave who made both. Nor wilt thou, Christian, be able to use thy grace in an hour of temptation, without new grace from God to excite and enforce what thou hast already received from him. And if thou expectest this from him, he expects to hear from thee. Neither speaks it God unwilling to give what he hath promised, because he pays not the debt of the promise until it be sued for at the throne of grace. No, God takes this method, only to secure his own glory in the giving, and also to greaten our comfort by receiving it in this way of prayer, which is a fit expedient to attain both.

BRANCH FOURTH.

[Directions how to use the sword of the word against afflictions, outward or inward.]

I come now to give some little help, by way of direction, how the Christian may use this sword of the word for his defence against the fourth enemy and the last, but not the least—an army made up of many bands of afflictions, which from without invade, and from within distress, him. The Christian in this world stands not as you may see some houses, so fenced and shadowed with hills or woods that the wind beats but upon one side of them. No, he lies open to storms and tempests from all quarters of the heaven. We read of a strange kind of wind that at once ‘smote the four corners of the house’ in which Job’s children were. Truly, thus the Christian’s afflictions beset him round: no corner left unassaulted. And very often he is smitten on all sides at once; crossed in his estate, feeble in his body, and afflicted in his spirit all at once. And when so many seas of sorrows meet, it is no easy work for the poor Christian’s heart to stand unbroken amidst the concurrent violence of their waves. Though this is most certain, that those dejections and perturbations with which the minds of the best saints are so discomposed and ruffled, yea sometimes dismayed and distressed, cannot be charged upon any deficiency of the gospel’s principles for their support and comfort; but rather on their own impotence and unskillfulness to apply them in their several exigencies. My present task is to drop a few words of counsel to the weak Christian —how he may use and wield this sword of the word for his defence and comfort in any affliction without, or distress of spirit from within, that may assault him. And here I must not descend to particular cases —that were a voluminous work, and not so proper for this place—but only content myself with some general rules, that may be applicable to all. Now the cordial and restorative part of the word—that, I mean, which principally prepared and provided for the soul’s comfort in all its discomforts and distresses—is contained in the promises. These well studied and improved, can alone make thee a comfortable Christian. Now, if thou wouldst improve the promises, so as not to be run down and trampled upon by Satan in any day of distress that comes upon thee, but comfortably lift up thy head in hope and confidence above the waves of thy present sorrows, then hearken to what follows in a few general rules or directions, prepared for thy help. First. Let it be thy first and chief care to get thy interest in and right to the promises cleared up. Second. Take some pains to sort the promises and reduce them to their proper heads. Third. Observe the latitude of the promises. Fourth. Be much in meditation on the promises. Fifth. Plead the promises at the throne of grace. Sixth. When thou hast sued the promise, act thy faith on the power and truth of God for the performance of it.

[We must see to have our interest in the promises made clear to us.]

Direction First. Let it be thy first and chief care to get thy interest in and right to the promises cleared up. For this is the hinge on which the great dispute betwixt between thee and Satan will move in the day of trouble, except the case can be resolved before that overtakes thee. O, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise in the dark night of affliction afraid to draw the latch! Whereas, he should then come as boldly for shelter as a child into his father’s house. ‘Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast,’ Isa. 26:20. He that hath his title to the promise proved from the word to his own conscience, will not be wrangled easily out of his comfort. Naboth would not part with his inheritance for the pleasure or displeasure of a king; but stands up in the defence of his right to death. And so resolves Job: ‘Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me,’ Job 27:5. This was his evidence for heaven. And therefore Satan used his best wits to make him throw it up, but never could effect it. His title was clear, and he will not be disputed out of it by Satan; no, nor afraid to vouch it before God himself, when God in his providence seemed most to disown him, and to handle him as an enemy: ‘Thou knowest that I am not wicked!’ Job 10:7. He saith not that he hath no sin, but in a humble appeal to God defends his state, that he is ‘not wicked.’ And this kept the chariot of his hope on its wheels all along his sad sufferings; that it was never quite overthrown, though sometimes it seemed to totter and shake.

[How our interest in the promises may be made clear to us.]

Question. But how shall I know whether I have a right to the promises?

Answer First. Inquire whether thou art united to Christ by faith or no. The promises are not a common for swine to root in; but Christ’s sheep-walk, for his flock to feed in. ‘And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,’ Gal. 3:29. The promise is the jointure, and cannot be had but by taking the person of Christ in marriage. And faith is the grace by which the soul gives his consent to take Christ as he is offered in the gospel. It is called, therefore, a receiving of Christ, John 1:12. There is no doubt but thou hast often been wooed in the ministry of the word by Christ’s spokesmen, and that question hath been put to thee for Christ, which was once to Rebekah, concerning her taking Isaac to husband, ‘Wilt thou go with this man?’ They have from the word set him forth in his glories before thee, who he is, and what he brings. Thou hast heard the articles upon which he is most willing to proceed to marriage, and take thee as his beloved into his bed and bosom. As,

1. That thou send away all other lovers which have had any pretensions to thee. For he will endure no competitor or partner with him in thy affections. The names of Baalim must be taken out of Israel’s mouth, and then God marries himself to her, Hosea 2:17, 18.

2. That thou like his law as well as his love. Christ will not be husband where he may not be master also.

3. That thou take him for better and for worse, with his cross as well as with his crown—to suffer for him as well as to reign with him. Now, what entertainment hath this motion found with thee? Dost thou, upon the discovery made of Christ, take liking in his person? Is he transcendently amiable in thy eye, and precious to thy soul, so as to inflame thee with an insatiable desire of him? Canst thou freely pack away thy once darling lusts to gain him? and leap out of the arms of all thy carnal delights and sinful pleasures, to be taken into his embraces? Art thou as willing he should be thy Lord, as thy love? and as content to bow to his sceptre as lie in his bosom? In a word, art thou so enamoured with him, that thou now canst not live without him, nor enjoy thyself except thou mayest enjoy him? Thy heart is wounded with the darts which his love and loveliness have shot into it, and he himself carries the balm about him which alone can heal it. Let him now require what he will at thy hands, nothing he commands shall be denied. If he bids thee leave father and father’s house, thou wilt go after him, though it be to the other end of the world. If he tells thee though must be base and poor in the world for his sake, thou art resolved to beg with him rather than reign without him, yea die for him than live without him. Come forth, thou blessed of the Lord, and put on the bracelets of the promises; they are the love-tokens which I a from Christ’s hand to deliver, and in his name to promise marriage to thee. Thou art the happy soul, if there be one on earth, that Christ betroths to himself. Languish no longer in thy unbelieving fears. For thy comfort know it is not Christ’s custom to entangle soul’s affections, and when he hath got their love, then to deny his to them, and cast them off.

Answer Second. Inquire what effect the promises have on thy soul. All who have right to the promises are transformed by the promise. As Satan shed his venomous seed into the heart of Eve by a promise, ‘Ye shall not surely die,’ Gen. 3:4—whereupon she presently conceived with sin, and was assimilated into the likeness of his diabolical nature, wicked as was the devil himself—so God useth the promises of the gospel—called therefore the ‘incorruptible seed’—to beget his own image and likeness in the hearts of his elect. ‘Exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,’ II Peter 1:4, that is, be partakers of such heavenly holy qualities and dispositions as will make you like God himself. The promises of the gospel have in them a fitness, and, when by the Spirit of God applied, a virtue to purify the heart, as well as to pacify the conscience. ‘Now ye are clean,’ saith Christ to his disciples, ‘through the word which I have spoken unto you,’ John 15:3. Lay, therefore, thy hand upon thy heart, and speak freely, poor soul. Have the promises had a sanctifying transforming virtue upon thee? What of God dost thou find in thy heart more since thy acquaintance with the promises than before? Some use promises as a protection for sin rather than an argument against it. As sin takes occasion by the commandment to work in the carnal heart all manner of concupiscence, so many are from the promise emboldened to sin more freely—like mountebanks that drink poison in confidence of their antidote. Now which way works the promise upon thy heart? If the seal of the promise leaves not the impress of God’s image on thee, it ratifies no good to thee. If it produceth no holiness in thee, it brings no joy to thee. In a word, if the promise be not to thee a seed of grace, it is no evidence for glory. But if thou canst find it leaves the superscription of God upon thee, then it assures the love and favour of God to thee.

Answer Third. Inquire in what posture thy heart stands to the word of command. The promise, may be, is sweet to thy palate. This thou rollest like a lump of sugar under thy tongue, but are not thy teeth set against the command as if it were gall and wormwood? Thou smilest on the promise, but when put in mind of thy duty to the command, then haply thy countenance is changed, and a frown sits on thy brow, as if God were some austere master that breaks his servants’ backs with heavy burdens. And thou couldst wish, with all thy heart, that a dispensation might be procured for thee to break now and then a command without forfeiting thy claim to the promise; but, because that is not to be hopes for, thou art so kind to thyself, as to give thyself leave to bow down to some idol of pleasure or profit that thou hast set up in thy heart, and hopest God will be merciful to thee, because it is only in this or that one way thou makest bold with him in. If this shoe fit thy foot—this be the true character of thy heart—which God forbid! thou hast no one lot belongs to thee in the lap of the promise. We have a comfortable promise, Ps. 50:15 but a guard is set about it, that no disobedient wretch should gather its sweet fruit: ‘But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do,…that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee,’ ver. 16, 17. On the other hand, if thou canst in truth say that it is not the holy command thou art offended with, but with thyself, because thou canst obey it no more perfectly—that it is not grievous to thee to keep, but break the laws of God; and, though thy foot too often slips, yet thy heart cleaves to them, and will not let thee lie where thou fallest, but up thou gettest to mend thy pace, and mind thy steps better—for thy comfort know, poor soul, this sincere respect thou hast to the commandment is a most comfortable evidence for thy true title to the promise. When David was able to vouch his love to the command he did not question his title to the promise; Ps. 119:113, there he asserts his sincere affection to the precepts: ‘I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.’ Mark, he doth not say he is free from vain thoughts, but he hates them. He likes their company no better than one would a pack of thieves that break into his house. Neither saith he that he fully kept the law; but he loved the law, even when he failed exact obedience to it. Now from this testimony his conscience brought in for his love to the law, his faith acts clearly and strongly on the promise in the next words, ‘thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word,’ Ps. 119:114.

Answer Fourth. If thou questionest thy right to one promise, inquire whether thou canst not discern thy interest in a second, which, if thou canst, thou mayest conclude thou hast a right to that other thou didst doubt of, yea and to all the rest. For, as there is a concatenation of graces—he that finds one hath all —so of promises, he that is heir to one hath right to all. May be, when thou readest that promise, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,’ Matt. 5:8, the remainders of corruption, not yet fully mortified in thy heart, scare thee from applying it to thyself as thy portion. But, for its next‑neighbour promise, ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,’ ver. 6, haply thou feelest such a pinching sense of thy guilt, and want of holiness, as will enforce the to acknowledge, that if ever man in a burning fever thirsted for drink, or one half‑starved desired food, then dost thou crave and cry for the righteousness of Christ to justify thy person, and grace from Christ to sanctify thy nature, —so that thou canst not but see this promise spoken to thee. And if this belongs to thee, then the former, and all the other with it. For they are branches in the same covenant, which God doth not dismember, but gives it entire with all the branches growing on it to be the believer’s portion. Hence it is they are called ‘heirs of promise,’ Heb. 6:17. Not heirs of this promise or that, but ‘of promise’—that is, of the covenant, which comprehends all the promises of the gospel. So that, as he hath hold of the man’s whole body that hath fast hold of his hand—though it be but one member of it—because it is knit to the rest, and by it he may draw the rest to him; so, if thou hast hold of any one promise thou hast hold of all other, and mayest infer thy right from this to them. And as one may draw out the wine of a whole hogshead at one tap, so may a poor soul derive the comfort of the whole covenant to himself through one promise which he is able to own and apply. ‘We know,’ saith Saint John, ‘that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren,’ I John 3:14. Eternal life is the cream and top of all covenant‑blessings. Now, a poor Christian may, upon the inward feeling of this one grace of love in his heart—being the condition annexed to this promise—know that he is in a state of life and happiness. And why? Because wherever this grace is in truth there are all other saving graces. Christ is not divided in these, and consequently he that can apply this promise hath a right to all.

[We must sort the promises under their proper heads.]

Direction Second. Take some pains to sort the promises, as thou readest the Scriptures, and reduce them to their proper heads. There is great multiplicity of trials and temptations which God is pleased to exercise his saints with: ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous,’ Ps. 34:19. And there is variety of promises provided to administer suitable comfort to their several sorrows. The Scriptures are a spiritual physic-garden, where grows an herb for the cure of every malady. Now it were of admirable use tot he Christian if he would gather some of every sort, such especially as he hath found most to affect his heart, of which he can say with Origen, ‘hæc est scriptura mea,’—this portion of Scripture is mine, and then to write such down, as the physician doth his receipts for this and that disease, by themselves. May it not shame the Christian to see a scholar know every book in his great library, and what it treats on, so that he can presently go to any one of them all, and make use of their notions as he hath occasion; and that the Christian, who hath but one book to advise with, and that none of the greatest bulk, but sufficient as to make him wise unto salvation, so to make him comfortable in every condition that can befall him, should not be acquainted, if not with all, yet with some choice promises of every sort, to which he may be able to resort for counsel and comfort in the day of his distress? Now the best time for this work is when thou art yet at ease, in the lap of health and prosperity. The apothecary gathers his simples in the spring which he useth in winter. The mariner provides his tackling in the harbour before he puts forth to sea. And the wise Christian will store himself with promises in health for sickness, and in peace for future perils. It is too late for a man to think of running home for his cloak when on his way he is caught in a storm. ‘A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished,’ Prov. 22:3.

[We must observe the comprehensiveness of the promises.]

Direction Third. Observe the full latitude of the promises. The covenant of grace comprehends the weak Christian as well as the strong, ‘if children, then heirs,’ Rom. 8:17. Not if children grown to this age, or that stature, but ‘if children.’ Christ hath in his family children of all sizes, some little, and others tall Christians. If thou beest a child, though in the cradle, the promise is thy portion. ‘All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen,’ II Cor. 1:20. ‘There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,’ Rom. 8:1. See here, it is the state and relation the creature stands in, that gives him his title to the promise. Some saints have more grace from Christ than others, and so have more skill to improve these promises than their weaker brethren, whereby their present profits and incomes from the promise are greater. But they have no more interest in Christ than the other, and consequently the title of the weak Christian is as true to the promise as [that] of the strong. Shall the foot say, ‘Because I am the lowest member of the body, therefore the tongue will not speak for me, or the head take care of me?’ We will grant thee to be of the least and lowest rank of Christians; yet thou art in Christ, as the foot is in the body. And Christ hath made provision in the promise for all that are in him. We disfigure the promises when we make them look asquint, with an eye upon one saint and not on another, whereas they belong to all: ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,’ John 3:36. Who now is there meant? Only he that believes above doubting? I trow not. He that bids us receive the ‘weak in faith,’ will not himself reject them.

[We must be much in meditation of the promises.]

Direction Fourth. Be much in meditation of the promises. Whence is it that the poor Christian is so distressed with the present affliction that lies upon him, but because he museth more on his trouble than on the promise? There is that in the promise which would recreate his spirit, if he could but fix his thoughts upon it. When the crying child once fastens on the teat, and begins to draw down the milk, then it leaves wrangling, and falls asleep at the breast. Thus the Christian ceaseth complaining of his affliction when he gets hold on the promise, and hath the relish of its sweetness upon his heart. ‘In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul,’ Ps. 94:19. When a swarm of bees dislodge themselves they are all in a confusion, flying here and there without any order, till at last they are hived again. Then the uproar is at an end and they fall to work peaceably as before. Truly, even so the Christian will find it in his own heart. God, in the promise, is the soul’s hive. Let the Christian dislodge his thoughts thence, and presently they run riot, and fly up and down as in an affright at the apprehension of the present affliction or temptation lies upon him, till he can recollect himself, and settle his heart again upon the promise, and then he recovers his former peace and composure. Hence the Spirit of God sounds a retreat to the troubled thoughts of afflicted saints, and calls them off from poring on that which roils them, into God, where alone they can be quiet and at ease. ‘Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him,’ Ps. 37:7. And David, finding his soul, like the dove while flying over the waters, without all repose, calls it back into the meditation of God and his promise, as the only ark where it could find rest. ‘Return unto thy rest, O my soul,’ Ps. 116:7. The Christian’s heart is of that colour which his most abiding constant thoughts dye into. Transient flitting thoughts, be they comfortable or sad, do not much work upon the soul, or alter its temper into joy or sorrow. Neither poison kills, nor food nourisheth, that doth not stay in the body. No, then the affliction soaks into the heart, and embitters the Christian’s spirit into perplexing fears and disconsolate dejections, when his thoughts lie steeping in his sorrows from day to day—when, like her in the gospel, he is ‘bowed down with a spirit of infirmity,’ that he cannot raise his heart from the thought of his cross and trial to meditate on any promise that should refresh him. Such there are, God knows, whom Satan and their own pensive hearts keep such close prisoners, that no comfortable meditation is suffered to speak or stay with them.

And again, on the other hand then the promise works effectually, when it is bound upon the Christian’s heart, when he wakes with it and walks with it. No pain he feels, no danger he fears, can pluck him from his breast; but, as Samson went on his way eating of the honeycomb, so he feeding on the sweetness of the promise. Here is a Christian that will sing when another sighs, will be able to spend that time of his affliction in praising God, which others—whose thoughts are scattered and split upon what they suffer —too commonly bestow on fruitless complaints of their misery, and discontented speeches which reflect dishonourably upon God himself. Let it be thy care therefore, Christian, to practice this duty of meditation. Do not only exchange a few words with the promise, as one does with a friend passing by at his door. But invite the promise, as Abraham did the angels, Gen. 18, not to pass away till thou hast more fully enjoyed it. Yea, constrain it as the disciples did Christ, to stay with thee all the night of thy affliction. This is to ‘acquaint’ ourselves indeed with God, the ready way to be at peace. This is the way the saints have taken to raise their faith to such a pitch, as to triumph over the most formidable calamities. ‘My beloved,’ saith the spouse, ‘shall lie all night between my breasts.’ That is, when benighted with any sorrowful afflicting providence, she shall pass away the night comfortably in the meditation of his love and loveliness, his beauty and sweetness. Never will the Christian come to any kindly heat of comfort in his spirit, till he takes this Abishag of the promise into his bosom to cherish him. And this will do it indeed. A soul that hath learned this heavenly art of meditation will feel no more the extremity of any affliction, than you do the sharpness of the cold weather when you are sitting by a good fire, or lying in a warm bed. It was a notable speech of Julius Palmer, an English martyr: ‘To them,’ saith he, ‘that have their mind fettered to the body as a thief’s foot is to a pair of stocks, it is hard to die. But if any be able to separate his soul from his body, then by the help of God’s Spirit, it is no more mastery for such a one than to drink this cup.’ He meant, if the creature be able to elevate his mind and thoughts above his sufferings by heavenly meditation on the ‘great and precious promises,’ then it were nothing to suffer. Such a one, his soul is in heaven; and a soul in heaven feels little what the flesh meets with on earth. Here, O ye Christians, is the most glorious prospect to be seen on this side heaven!

When the soul stands upon this Pisgah of meditation, looking by an eye of faith through the perspective of the promise upon all the great and precious things laid up by a faithful God for him, it is easy to despise the world’s love and wrath. But alas! it is hard for us to get up thither, who are so short-breathed and soon tired with a few steps up this mount of God. O let us all cry out, as once David, ‘Lead me to the rock that is higher than I!’ And with him in another place, ‘Who will bring me into the strong city?…wilt no thou, O God?’ So, who will lift us up to this high, holy hill of meditation, higher than all the surging waves that dash upon us from beneath, where we may see all our creature-enjoyments drowned, yet ourselves not wetshod? Wilt not thou, O God? Yes, our God would do this for us, would we but shake off our sloth, and show, by parting with our mandrakes to purchase his company, that we highly prize the same. My meaning is—would we but frequently retire from the world, and bestow some of that time in secret waiting upon God which we lavish out upon inferior pleasures and entertainments of the creature, we should invite God’s Holy Spirit to us. Let a wicked man set up a lust for his thoughts to dally with, and the devil will soon be at his elbow to assist him. And shall we not believe the Holy Spirit as ready to lend his helping hand to a holy meditation? Doubtless he is. Spread thou thy sails and the Spirit will fill them with his heavenly breath. Be but thou the priest to lay the wood and sacrifice in order, and fire from heaven will come down upon it. Be thou but careful to provide fuel—gather from the promises matter for meditation, and set thy thoughts awork upon it—and the Spirit of God will kindle thy affections. ‘While I was musing,’ saith David, ‘the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue,’ Ps. 39:3. Isaac met his bride in the fields; and the gracious soul her beloved, when she steps aside, to walk with the promise in her solitary thoughts.

[We must plead the promises at the throne of grace.]

Direction Fifth. Plead the promises at the throne of grace. This must not be disjointed at the former. Indeed, as the ingredients of an excellent receipt do not work the cure severally, but as tempered together; so these directions, being social means, must not be severed, but jointly observed. And this direction I am now speaking to, besides a universal influence it hath upon all the other, is linked by an especial affinity to the former. In vain do we charge the gun, if we intend not to let it off. Meditation filleth the heart with heavenly matter, but prayer gives the discharge and pours it forth upon God, whereby he is overcome to give the Christian his desired relief and succour. The promise is a bill or bond, wherein God makes himself a debtor to the creature. Now, though it is some comfort to a poor man that hath no money at present to buy bread with, when he reads his bills and bonds, to see that he hath a great sum owing him, yet this will not supply his present wants and buy him bread. No, it is the putting his bond in suit must do this. By meditating on the promise thou comest to see there is support in, and deliverance out of, affliction engaged for. But none will come till thou commencest thy suit, and by the prayer of faith callest in the debt. ‘Your heart shall live that seek God,’ Ps. 69:32. ‘They looked unto him, and were lightened,’ Ps. 34:5. God expects to hear from you, before you can expect to hear from him. If thou restrainest prayer, it is no wonder the mercy promised is retained. Meditation, it is like the lawyer’s studying the case in order to his pleading it at the bar. When, therefore, thou hast viewed the promise, and affected thy heart with the riches of it, then ply thee to the throne of grace, and spread it before the Lord. Thus David, ‘Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope,’ Ps. 119:49.

[We must act our faith on the power and truth of God for the performance of the promises.]

Direction Sixth. When thou hats sued the promise, act thy faith on the power and truth of God for the performance of it; and that against sense and reason, which rise up to discourage thee. For, as thy faith is feeble or strong on these, so wilt thou draw little or much sweetness from the promises. The saints’ safety lies in the strength and faithfulness of God who is the promiser; but the present comfort and repose of an afflicted soul is fetched in by faith relying on God as such. Hence it is, though all believers are out of danger when in the saddest condition that can befall them, yet too many, alas! of them are under fears and dejections of spirit, because their faith acts weakly on a mighty God, timorously and suspiciously on a faithful God. ‘Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Matt. 8:26. You see the leak at which the water came in to sink their spirits; they had ‘little faith.’ It is not what God is in himself, but what our apprehensions at present are of God, that pacifies and comforts a soul in great straits. If a man fear the house will fall on his head in a storm, though it be as unmovable as a rock, yet that will not ease his mind till he thinks it so. Were a man under the protection of never so faithful a friend, yet so long as his head is full of fears and jealousies to the contrary, that he will at last leave and cast him off, this man must needs have an uncomfortable life, though without cause. You see then of what importance it is to keep up the vigour and vivacity of thy faith on the power and truth of the promises. And if thou meanest to do this, banish sense and reason from being thy counsellors. How came Abraham not to stagger in his faith, though the promise was so strange? The apostle resolves us: ‘He considered not his own body now dead,’ Rom. 4:19. And what made Zacharias reel? He made sense his counsellor, and thought he was too old for such news to be true. This is the bane of faith, and consequently of comfort in affliction. We are too prone to carry our faith, with Thomas, at our fingers’ ends; and to trust God no further than our hand of sense can reach. It is not far that sense can reach; and but little further that reason’s purblind eye can see. God is oft on his way to perform a promise and bring joyful news to his afflicted servants, when sense and reason conclude their case is desperate.

These three, sense, reason, and faith, are distinct, and must not be confounded. Some things we know by sense which we do not understand the reason of, as the sympathy of the lodestone with iron —why it draws that the baser metal, and not gold; and why the mariner’s needle espouses the north point rather than any other. Some things we apprehend by reason that are not discerned by sense—as the magnitude of the sun’s body to exceed the circumference of the earth, which, the eye being judge, may be almost covered with one’s hat; and other things clear to faith, that dunce and pose both sense and reason. Paul knew by faith, in that dismal sea-storm where all of being saved was taken away—that is, sense and reason being judges—not a man should lose his life. ‘Be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me,’ Acts 27:25. When the angel smote Peter on the side, and bade him ‘arise up quickly…and follow me,’ he did not allow sense and reason to reply and cavil at the impossibility of the thing. How can I walk that am in fetters? Or to what purpose when an iron gate withstands us? But he riseth, and his chains fall off —he follows, and the iron gate officiously opens itself to them.

Say not, poor Christian, ‘It is impossible to bear this affliction, or pass that temptation.’ Let faith follow the promise, and God will loose these knots that sense and reason tie. Luther bids, crucifige illud verbum, quare?—crucify that word, wherefore? Obey the command, and ask not a reason why God enjoins it. It is necessary to bid the Christian, in great afflictions and temptations, to crucify the word quomodo? —how shall I go through this trouble—hold out in that assault? Away with this ‘how shall I?’ Hath not the great God who is faithful given thee promises enough to ease thy heart of these needless fears and cares, in that he tells thee, ‘He will never leave thee or forsake thee, his grace shall be sufficient for thee?’ Nothing ‘shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ And a hundred more comfortable assurances from the lip of truth to stand betwixt thee and all harm. Why then dost thou trouble thyself about this improbability and that mountainous difficulty that sense and carnal reason heave up and interpose to eclipse thy comfort from thy approaching deliverance? ‘Shut the windows, and the house will be light,’ as the Jewish proverb saith. Judge not by sense, but by faith on an omnipotent God; and these bugbears will not scare thee. Credere improbabilia vigoris est intellectus, sicut amare damnosa et ignominiosa vigoris est affectus. (Parisiensis, De Fide)—it is the highest act of our understanding to believe those things which seem most improbable; as it is the highest act of love, for Christ’s sake to take pleasure in those things that bring pain and shame with them. For as in the latter we deny ourselves the satisfaction of our carnal desires, which goes near to flesh and blood; so, in the former, we deny our carnal reasonings, that would be disputing against God’s power and strength.

USE OR APPLICATION.

[Exhortation to ministers, to whom this sword is specially committed.]

To the ministers—into your hand this sword of the word is given in an especial manner. Unto you the ministry of it is committed. God hath not left it at random to all; that who will may publicly preach the gospel. That which is everybody’s work is nobody’s. He hath therefore set up a standing office with officers in his church, on whom he hath laid this burden, and from whom he expects an account. He ‘hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation,’ II Cor. 5:19—as a prince commissionates this or that man to be his ambassador—‘O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust,’ I Tim. 6:20. See here, and tremble at the charge which is deposited in your hands. You are ambassadors from the great God to treat with poor sinners concerning their eternal peace upon those articles which are contained in the gospel. You are his under-workmen, to rear up his temple in the hearts of men, and to lay every stone by the line and rule of this word. His stewards, to give his family their portions in due season, and all your provision to be taken out of this store‑house. In a word, you are his shepherds, to lead and feed his flock, and that in no other than these ‘green pastures.’ Now, if the peace be not concluded, the ambassador is sure to be called to an account where the fault lies. If the house be not built, or go to decay, woe to the negligent workman. If the family starve, what reckoning will the steward make? If the sheep wander, or die of the rot through thy neglect, who shall pay for the loss but the idle shepherd? Now, in order to the discharge of this your public trust, I shall only point at two duties incumbent on you both, with a reference to this word left in your hands—one to be performed in your study, the other in your pulpit.

First Duty. In your study acquaint yourselves with the word of God. That which may pass for diligence in a private Christian’s reading and search into the Scripture, may be charged as negligence upon the minister. The study of the Scriptures is not only a part of our general calling in common with him, but of our particular also, in which we are to be exercised from one end of the week to the other. The husbandman doth not more constantly go forth with his spade and mattock, to perform his day labour in the field, than the minister is to go and dig in this mine of the Scripture. He is not to read a chapter now and then as his worldly occasions will permit; or steal a little time from his other scholarly studies to look into the Bible in transitu—in passing, and bid it farewell. But it must be his standing exercise—his plodding work. All other must stoop to this. Suppose thou shouldst know what Plato, Aristotle, with the rest of the princes of worldly learning, have written, and hadst encircled all the arts within thy circumference, but art unskilful in the word of righteousness, thou wouldst be Paul’s unlearned person—as unfit to be a minister as he that hath read all the body of the law is to be a physician if ignorant of this art. I do not here intend to nourish the vain conceit of those sons of ignorance who think human learning unnecessary for a minister’s furniture. Truly, without this, we should soon come to our old mumpsismus, and run into the barbarism of former times. I have read of one Beda, that dissuaded Francis I., a French king—and that when learned Budæus was present—from his princely resolution of setting up professors of languages in is university, saying, ‘The Greek tongue was the fountain of all heresies;’ but the man was found to understand not a word of Greek himself. Indeed, few or none will speak against learning but those that have not so much of it as to make them understand its use. I dare not bid our ministers, as some fanatics have done, burn all their books but the Bible. No; but I would exhort them to prefer it above all their other books, and to direct all their other studies to furnish them with Scripture knowledge. As the bee that flies over the whole garden, and brings all the honey she gets from every flower therein into her hive; so should the minister run over all his other books, and reduce their notions for his help in this. As the Israelites offered up the jewels and ear-rings borrowed of the Egyptians to the service of the tabernacle, benedicta philosophorum sunt peculia Christianorum—the good saying of philosophers are the property of Christians. And certainly there are such jewels to be borrowed even from them, as may become the ear of the Christian, so they be refined and gospellized. Thus the captive virgin, Deut. 21, when her head was shaved, her nails pared, and her garment changed, might be taken into an Israelite’s bosom. Religion and learning revived together. The light which Erasmus brought into the schools helped Luther’s labours in the church.

But, to return to the exhortation in hand. O, let us that are ministers of the gospel give up ourselves to the study of the word. We are, as one well calls us, but ‘younger brethren’ to the apostle. Ministerial gifts were left them by Christ, as the inheritance by the father to his eldest son and heir. But we must work for our living. They had their knowledge of the word, as Jacob his venison, brought to their hand without hunting; but if we will know the mind of God, we must trace it out by our diligence; but ever taking prayer in our company. This I am sure was Paul’s charge to Timothy, ‘Give attendance to reading,’ I Tim. 4:13. Follow thy book close, O Timothy, and ‘Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them,’ ver. 15. z+< J@bJ@4H ÆF24, in his totus sis—be wholly taken up therewith. And mark why: ‘That thy profiting may appear to all;’ that is, that thou mayest appear to be a growing preacher to those that hear thee. O how shall the people grow if the minister doth not? And how shall he grow, if he doth not daily drink in more than he pours out? That minister must needs spend upon the stock that hath no comings in from a constant trade in his study. If the nurse doth not feed, and that more than another, she may soon bring herself and child into a consumption. As we would not therefore see the souls that hang on our breasts languish for want of milk, or ourselves faint in our work, let us endeavour our recruits be suitable to our expense. Study and pray: pray and study again. Think not your work is done for all the week when the Sabbath is past. Take a little breath, and return to thy labour; as the seedsman sits down at the land’s end to rest himself a while, and then rises up to go before the plough again. We have reason to be more choice of our time then others, because it is less our own. There is none in thy parish but have a share in it. We are thieves to our people’s souls when we do not husband it to their best advantage. ‘All…are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas;’ yours for the service of your faith. Is the parent bound to husband his estate and time for the provision of his children? And should not the spiritual father have as natural affection to his people? How great a labour this must needs be both to mind and body, did they understand, they would both more pity, and encourage, his minister in his work. God move your hearts to it whom he hath blessed with faithful labourers. Help them in their study for you, by easing them of their worldly cares for themselves. Some people may thank themselves that their provision is so mean, by being accessory to the minister’s distractions in his work and diversion from his calling. For, by their oppression or purloining his livelihood, they force him in a manner to turn worldling; and the time which he should spend in providing bread for their souls is laid out to get bread for his family’s bodies.

Second Duty. In the pulpit use no other sword but this, and handle it faithfully. Remember whose errand thou bringest, and deliver it, 1. Purely. 2. Freely.

1. Use the sword of the word purely. And that in a threefold respect: (1.) Pure from error. (2.) Pure from passion. (3.) Pure from levity and vanity.

(1.) Pure from error. Think it not enough your text is Scripture, but let your whole sermon be also such—I mean agreeable to it. Thou art an ambassador, and as such bound up in thy instructions. Take heed of venting thy own dreams and fancies in God’s name. ‘He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully,’ Jer. 23:28—that is, purely, without embasing or mingling it with his own dreams. So he expounds himself, ‘What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.’ All is chaff besides the pure word of God; and what hath it to do to be blended with it? Such a one may fear lest God from heaven should give him the lie while he is in the pulpit. O stamp not God’s image on thine own coin. We live in high-flown times. Many people are not content with truths that lie plain in the Scripture. And some, to please their wanton palates, have sublimated their notions so high, till they have flown out of the sight of the Scripture, and unawares run themselves with others into dangerous errors. Be well assured it is a truth, before thou acquaintest thy people with it. If thou wilt play the mountebank, choose not the pulpit for thy stage. Make not experiments upon the souls of thy people, by delivering what is doubtful and hath not abode the trial of the furnace. Better feed thy people with sound doctrine, though plain meal; than that thou shouldst, with an outlandish dish, light on a wild gourd that brings death into their pot.

(2.) Pure from passion. The pulpit is an unseemly place to vent our discontent and passions in. Beware of this strange fire. The man of God must be gentle and meek, and his words with meekness of wisdom. The oil makes the nail drive without splitting the board. The word never enters the heart more kindly, than when it falls most gently. ‘Ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness,’ Ps. 45:4. Be as rough to thy people’s sins as thou canst, so thou beest gentle to their souls. Dost thou take the rod of reproof into thine hand? Let them see that love, not wrath, give the blow. Nurses are careful that they do not heat their milk, knowing that it will breed ill blood in the child that sucks it. The word preached comes indeed best from a warm heart, but if there goes a feverish heat withal, it breeds ill blood in the hearers’ thoughts, and prejudice to the person makes him puke up the milk. God knows I speak not against the minister’s zeal, so it be from above, ‘pure’ and ‘peaceable.’ Save all thy heat for God, spend it not in thine own cause, and it was enough God heard it. But when a sin was committed immediately against God, this meek man can be all of a flame: ‘Who is on God’s side? who?’ He may take most liberty in reproving his people’s sins against God, that takes least liberty in his own cause, and who hath a grave ready to bury injuries done to himself in.

(3.) Pure from levity and vanity. The word of God is too sacred a thing, and preaching too solemn a work, to be toyed and played with, as is the usage of some, who make a sermon nothing but a matter of wit, and to flaunt it forth in a garish discourse. What is this to the business of preaching? Their sermon is too like a child’s baby, from which if you take the dressing, the rest is worth nothing. Unpin this story, take off that gaudy phrase, and nothing is left in the discourse. If we mean to do good, we must come not only in word, but with power. Satan budges not for a thousand such squibs and witcracks. Draw thou therefore this sword out of thine own fine scabbard, and strike with its naked edge. This you will find the only way to pierce your people’s consciences, and fetch blood of their sins. I do not here speak against the use of those parts which God hath given unto any; nor against the fitting and laying our discourse so as it may most insinuate into our people’s affections, and steal into their hearts, by the gratefulness it finds with their ear. This is our duty. ‘Because the preacher was wise,…he sought to find out acceptable words,’ Ecc. 12:9. Not rude, loose, and indigested stuff, in a slovenly manner brought forth, lest the sluttery of the cook should turn the stomachs of the guests. The apothecary mixeth his potion so as his patient may take it down with less regret, if not with some delight; but still he hath a care that he weakens not its purging operation by making it over-pleasant to the palate. As they were ‘acceptable words,’ so upright, ‘words of truth,’ ver. 10.

2. Use the sword of the word, as purely, so freely. O take heed of enslaving the word of God to thy own lust or another’s will, though the greatest in thy parish. In a steward it is required that he be ‘faithful,’ I Cor. 4:2. Now the preacher’s faithfulness stands in relation to him that intrusts him. It is very unlikely that a steward, in giving out provision, should please all the servants in the house. Such officers have least thanks when they do their work best! He that thinks to please men, goes about an endless and needless work. Man’s word’s will not break thy bones. A wise physician seeks to cure, not please, his patient. He that chides when he is sick for the bitterness of the potion, will con thee thanks for it when he is recovered. The apostle passeth by the thoughts of men as a thing inconsiderable, not worthy the interrupting him in his work. ‘With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you,’ ver. 3 of the fore-quoted place. As if he had said, ‘It shall be known at the great audit, when my Master comes to reckon with me, whether I have been faithful; and it is time enough to have my name righted when he will vindicate his own.’ No doubt it was a great temptation to Micaiah, when Ahab’s messenger, by colleaguing with him, endeavoured to bring him in his message over unto the king’s sense; but mark his noble answer—‘As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith, that will I speak.’

Some think that Micaiah was that disguised prophet that denounced judgment against Ahab for Benhadad’s dismission, and that now he was fetched out of prison; for the king bids, ‘carry him back unto Ammon the governor,’ I Kings 22:26. If so, then Micaiah had the advantage by one flattering sermon to have gotten his liberty and the king’s favour to boot. Yet to the dungeon he will go again, rather than prostitute the word to Ahab’s lust. Blessed Paul was of the same mind: ‘Wherein,’ speaking of the gospel, ‘I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound,’ II Tim. 2:9. As if he had said, ‘They shall never make me enslave that neither in prison nor at the block.’ No doubt Paul might have been free, could he have been content the word should have been bound. But he was too faithful to procure his liberty with imprisonment of the truth by a sinful silence. If ever it was a time of temptations to ministers—and there were need to stir them up in it to keep the word of God’s patience—it is in these last dreggy days of the world, of which it is prophesied, ‘men shall not endure sound doctrine.’ Now therefore, to bear witness to the truth, and to make full proof of their ministry in such a perverse and froward generation, needs more greatness of spirit than flesh and blood can help them to. It is no trial for a minister to speak truth freely among its friends, but among those that despise it, and are enraged with the messenger for delivering his errand. This made the confession of our Lord so glorious, I Tim. 6:13. It was before Pontius Pilate, a bloody enemy against him and the truth he witnessed to. Therefore our people may well bear with us when we speak freely in God’s name; yea, though we come upon their ground, and our message rifles their consciences. We have it in our commission: ‘I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way,’ Jer. 6:27. If a warrant lies but in a constable’s hand to search your house, you cannot be angry with him for doing his office, because you dare not stand betwixt him and the displeasure of his prince, should he neglect it.

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Footnotes

1. The book cites I John 3:12; but that appears to be in error, hence the correction. — SDB ↩

2. Ruff, dignity, elevation; as e.g. ‘princes in the ruff of all their glory.’—Ed. ↩

3. Nusled or nustled, fondled, cherished.—Ed. ↩

4. Pesthouse, [Archaic]; a shelter or hospital for those infected with a pestilential or contagious disease. — SDB. ↩

5. Trapan, to ensnare, to catch by stratagem.—Imp. Dict. ↩

6. Refel, reject, repulse.—Webster’s ↩