THE ABUSE OF GOD'S GRACE

Discovered In the Kinds, Causes, Punishments, Symptoms, Cures, Differences, Cautions, and other Practical Improvements thereof.

Proposed as a seasonable check to the wanton Libertinism of the present Age.

By NICHOLAS CLAGET,

Minister of the Gospel at Edmundsbury in Suffolk, M.A. of Magdalene Hall, Oxford.

Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound? God forbid.

Rom. 6.1, 2.

Oxford, Printed by A. Lichfield, for Thomas Robinson, and Samuel Pocock. 1659.

This text has been initially updated from EEBO-TCP by Project Puritas (Logan West, David Jonescue, Alex Sarrouf) www.puritansearch.org

Further revision and editing done by Monergism. Copyright Monergism via universal text usage permission from the above.

Editor’s Note – During the TCP Transcription Process, all the text was hand transcribed according to visual representation; and as such, sometimes the letters s, l, f & t are misconstrued with each other, these letters regularly being almost illegibly similar in the original facsimile script. Though it is rare for these errors to remain post-edit, unfortunately they may remain if uncaught. My apologies in advance where such errors occur. Also, the symbol <H&G> signifies omitted Hebrew & Greek. Because a majority of readers are not fluent in the original languages; it was thought best to omit, instead of possibly misconstrue; since most original languages are written in antiquated script in the original facsimiles. Lastly, some archaic words may be updated to more contemporary terminology; but changes have been kept to a bare minimum.

Table of Contents

To his honoured Cosen, WILLIAM CLAGETT

To the Christian Reader

Preface

CHAP. 1. Containing the coherence of the words

CHAP. 2. Containing the Explanation of the words, Deduction of the Doctrin, with the Method of handling it

CHAP. 3. Shewing in how many waies or kinds the grace of God may be turned into wantonness

CHAP. 4. Shewing when the grace of God is turned into wantonness

CHAP. 5. Wherein are set down the causes why the grace of God is turned into wantonness

CHAP. 6. Shewing wherein the greatness of this sin appears

CHAP. 7. Wherein are set forth the punishments of this great sin, abusing Gods grace

CHAP. 8. Containing an use of Infomation

CHAP. 9. Containing an Use of Humiliation

CHAP. 10 Containing an Use of Examination

CHAP. 11. Containing a second branch of Examination, how we may know the secret, close, and morerefined abuses of Gods grace

CHAP. 12. Containing an Use of Caution

CHAP. 13. Shewing the difference between wronging the grace of God in the Regenerate and Unregenerate

CHAP. 14. Containing an Use of Exhortation

CHAP. 15. Shewing what great cause of thankfulnesse we owe to God for preserving from this sin

CHAP. 16. Containing an Exhortation, that souls should alwaies be jealous of this sin

CHAP. 17. Containing an Exhortation to long for a riddance from this sin

CHAP. 18. Containing an Exhortation to joy in the Hope of glory

CHAP. 19. Containing perswasive Motives to take heed that the grace of God be not abused

To his honored Cousin,

William Claget, esq. And his dear consort, the Lady Southcoate.

Dear Cousin,

Your Friendship to me which was of old, and yet is not gray haired, but flourishing, knows no Winter, but a constant Spring. In both your University and City life, the Rays of your favor have shone on me. It is above twenty years since we were Contemporaries at Oxford, under our Reverend, Pious, Sound, and Learned Tutor, Dr. Edw. Corbet, who was a real Saint on earth, and is now a glorious Saint in heaven. The mercy of our Tuition, is not to be forgotten of us, nor can I forget your kindness to me, which hath not been Aeffaeta gignendo, barren by Production, like pregnant Animals, and vegetative Trees. I am your Debtor, besides the due Debt of my Prayers for you, I here present to you this <H&G>, a Thank-offering, that it may from your Christian candor find acceptance, and a sweet savor.

We live in an unhappy Age, wherein by many the Form, by most the Power of Godliness is neglected. Though tis a Mercy, Religion is in some Form and Fashion, yet 'tis a misery, the Fashion is so Multiform, and in every different dress so Obnoxious, and that Words and Works, are too common Antipodes. Wronging God's Grace is England's Epidemical sin. None of the quarrelling sides among us can plead Innocence. Though the spots of God's children, and the Devils are not the same; yet to our shame be it spoken, all sides have too much darkened the glory of their profession, obscured the luster of the Gospel Sun, and laid the Honor of God's name in the dust. Seeing our streets are so foul, I would mind everyone to sweep their own doors, that the times of Liberty may no longer be reproached, as they are, with a dirty, wanton, unjust Licentiousness, in Opinions, and Practices. The sad experience that the old man is in myself too much a Libertine, and what I have seen and heard of others, put me upon large Meditations, sundry years ago in my Lords Day Sermons to mine own Auditory, concerning the Pest of the Times, Spreading Disease, Bane of Profession, Disgrace of Religion, Remora of Conversions, Affliction of best hearts, Occasion of Blasphemy, Temptation to Atheism, Merriment of Rome, which consists in the Abuse of Grace. Could I upon England's tallest Mountain speak with the loudest noise of Thunder, and articulate my mind to every ear, I would say the Abuse of Grace is England's sin; Repent of it, O England, repent, repent. These were the words of that faithful Martyr, Mr. Bradford, when he was burning in the flames. Though it is not possible I should be so loud, vocal, and monitory, yet encouraged by some pious and judicious friends, I am emboldened to take the benefit of the Press, and to communicate thoughts in season, to as many hands, eyes, and hearts, as Providence shall guide them to. I beseech you (Sir) the happiness of whose Consanguinity and Amity, I have experienced, peruse and improve what you shall read, to a holy conviction, serious bewailing, and deep abhorrence of an odious sin which hath too black a guilt, and is loaded with many aggravating circumstances. This will be a choice divine Blessing on the Tractate, the Authors Reward, and a Testimony of the Grace of God in you. The Gospel, the precious Gospel, that hath cost the Blood of Christ, and Christians, the sweet word of Grace, the power of God unto Salvation, let it be precious in your holy esteem: And though Papists by their Derogatory Antichristian Traditions, Worldly Politicians, and Hellish Libertines, do in Jerome's terms make of the Gospel of Christ the Gospel of men, or which is worse, the Gospel of the Devil. Do you speak it and live it, the Gospel of God and Grace. The things I would offer to mine own soul, I tender to you. Be inquisitive what may deservedly bear the brand of Gospel Wantonness, when it appears, and interpret it as the Messenger of Hell, the Artifice of the Devil turned Angel of Light, the not more subtle than pernicious Engine to ruin souls. Be one of Zion's Mourners in your Closet Retirements, to look over this worst of sins, the predominant wrong of Grace, with a mourning spirit. Endeavor to live a severe, exact, spiritual, heavenly frame of heart, that when you are to give up your Death-bed account, the Spirit of Truth, Peace, Purity and Comfort, may witness with yours, that the Gospel hath transformed you into the Image of its Glory, and hath taught you to deny that ungodliness, and those worldly Lusts, which shroud themselves under the protection of Grace.

And, Noble Madam, as the Tye of Marriage, and the Union (I hope) of Grace, hath made you and my dear Cousin one, so have I made you one in my Epistolary address. If the divine principle of the love of God and his Gospel be implanted in you, it cannot but urge you to the detestation of, and lamentation for the prodigious sin of Gospel Wantonness: whilst some Female wantons study their senses and faces, not their souls, who beautify their out-sides, whilst their insides are altogether disregarded; be pleased among other spiritual Looking-glasses, which religious Artists, and faithful Writers have with elaborate thoughts composed, to honor this, so far as often to look on it, to dress your better part by it, that when it shall reflect and reverberate your gracious beauty, you may praise the infinite Beauty and Fountain of Holiness, you may be Great and Good too; and this is a most rare, and happy combination. A few there are in the words of an Ancient, that are eminent in both worlds, and but a few; Not many Noble. 1 Cor. 1.26, are called to eternal Honors. Goodness enamels Greatness, and shines like a precious Stone in a Ring. I like not, but altogether abhor that morose Stoicism and Quakerism that frowns on the Titles of worldly precedencies, as unbecoming Christians ears and tongues. Due Titles are no crimes of Language, nor unconsistent with Piety; yet I hope you have learned the vast distance between the style of Madam, and Christian, and that in the divine Heraldry, the heavenly Descent of Grace will out-shine all the Escutcheons, and the glorious aiery appellations of worldly precedencies. The childless, holy Eunuch, was by the Gospel Prophet comforted, that he should have a Name better than of Sons and Daughters. The new Name, either Believer, or Child of God, out-titles, and out-glories the highest worldly style. Fulgentius gave good counsel to Galle, a noble Christian, of a Godly, as well as Gentile Extraction, born of the Spirit as well as Kin to Roman Consuls; Learn to ascribe nothing to your Noble stem. Although you have secular, illustrious glory, yet especially with a perfect humble heart be ambitious of the Spirits Nobility. If, Madam, the anointing of the Spirit teach you this lesson, that all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field, the glory, the ornament, the glittering shine of it will disappear in pale, ghastly death, and the chambers of silence and rottenness: I hope it teacheth you this also, that Regeneration is the birth of births; and that the thriving Graces of the Spirit, bosom Communion with Jesus Christ here, and highest rooms in heaven, will be the Honor of Honors. Consider, Great persons are great blessings or plagues; a train follows them to Heaven or Hell, they are not saved, or damned alone. They that stand in the worlds higher ground, who either lay the snares of an evil imitation, or are the presidents of a holy conversation, shall have great, either eternal Penalty, or Glory. Hath free Gospel grace shined in your soul? Abuse it not: Hold forth the Word of Life in a gracious life. If you, and the faithful conjugal guide of your soul shall speed your motions to those heavenly, eternal Mansions, where the better than flowing's of Milk and Honey, the sweet heavenly Feasts, and unglutting delights of eternity shall be enjoyed: If you shall avoid this common scarlet sin of perverting Grace, which with an ungrateful Wantonness, treads underfoot the Son of God, thinks, desires, affects, and lives, as if the blood of the Covenant were an unholy thing, and offers a proud despite to the Spirit of Grace: If the study of this book shall help you both, and others to walk exactly, to redeem the time, adorn the Gospel, credit Profession, glorify God, and promote your own, and others eternal Salvation, you will both accomplish the design of publishing the ensuing Meditations, and encourage him, who is your remembrancer at the Throne of Grace, and remains

From Edmondsbury in Suffolk, Mar. 18.1658.

Your engaged servant in the Work of the Gospel, NICH. CLAGET.

To the Christian Reader.

I shall not detain thee with a long Preface, lest I may be injurious by keeping thee too long in the threshold: Only a few things I shall premise concerning the reverend Author, and his excellent work. As for the Author, he hath been well known to me at least Five and twenty years, as being of that Society with me (where from the first, even to this day, (through God's goodness I yet continue) which hath bred and sent forth many faithful Laborers into God's Vineyard, and many learned Orthodox Writers. Of later years my acquaintance hath been much increased with this worthy Author, and I rejoice therein: He hath for these fifteen years in Edmunds Bury in Suffolk, (Where he now resides) given abundant testimony of his industry and fidelity, in the discharge of his Ministry, and hath studied to approve himself a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed. He hath, (as it is said of Demetrius) obtained a good report, and of the truth: He is sound in the faith, and holy in life, and both by his life and Doctrine, makes it his business to win many souls unto righteousness. I add no more concerning the Author, neither needed I have said so much, for he needs not my Letters of commendation: His Works speak far louder, and praise him in the Gate. That Corporation (where those two faithful Servants of Christ do now exercise their Ministry) hath great cause of thankfulness, because God hath raised up such able Ministers now upon the place, in the room of their worthy Predecessors, (with most of them I rejoice that I have had the honor of acquaintance.) And that people, who like Capernaum, have been lifted up to Heaven with Gospel means, ought to remember, That where much is given, much is required. As for such who forsake faithful Teachers, and the Public Assemblies, I heartily wish them timely and serious repentance, and that their Palates might have a right taste, then they will conclude, that the old wine is better than their new; and that godly ordained Ministers, are better than upstart, un-called, self-conceited Seducers.

Concerning the Book (the whole design whereof is to advance grace, and decry the abuse thereof) it cannot be expected, that I should engage to bring of every Phrase, Punctillo, or Tittle, according to the curiosity of Critics. As for such, whose fancies out-run their judgments, and with whom affectations of new coined words, are more valued than the form of sound words; I am not careful to answer them in these matters, neither do I think their exceptions worthy of an Answer. However, I am fully persuaded, that the Treatise is solid and profitable, tending to edification; and throughout the whole, there runs a line of a gracious spirit: And whoever profits not thereby, hath more reason to question himself, then the Author: For if pride and prejudice be laid aside, I doubt not, but (through God's blessing) much spiritual advantage will follow, upon the serious and deliberate perusal of this Book.

Now if any one Object that the World is glutted with multitude of Books; my answer is, For good, Orthodox, solid Writers, we have reason to bless God, for such helps we have by them, and ought to be desirous for the continual increase of them: As for vain, frothy, unsound Writers, we wish that they were suppressed altogether: For some Books, we have too many; and of others, which are rotten, heretical, and blasphemous, we wish we had not any at all, but that they and their Authors might be buried together, and never be revived, as nowadays (with sorrow be it mentioned) they are, and become voluminous, to the great injury of the Church of God.

But as for such excellent Books as we have had of late years, I have cause to bless God that ever I read them: I heartily wish that there were more of that kind: One of the same stamp is this Treatise. The man and his Communication is one and the same: His design, (I am persuaded) is in the singleness of his heart to bring glory to God, in advancing of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He was hardly prevailed withal to put this Work to Print; but having communicated it to me, and referred it to my determination, after a deliberate perusal thereof, I would not by any means suppress that which I conceived might conduce to the public good.

Wherefore (Reader) be pleased to spend some time (and it will be no lost time) in a careful reading of this profitable Treatise; and if thou be not wanting to thyself, I conceive thou wilt reap much benefit for thy precious soul. And this further request I have to thee, that thou wouldest be mindful of the Author at the Throne of Grace; and of him also, who rejoiceth, that he hath been in any way instrumental to bring to light this Treatise, which in love to thy soul he hath now made public, and remains,

Oxford, Magdalene-Hall. March 28.1659.

Thy Servant for Christ's sake, Henry Wilkinson.

The Authors Preface to the unprejudiced Reader.

The corruption of the best things is the worst corruption; of Sense bad, of Reason worse, of Grace worst of all. As crystal waters are bemired, fair faces besported, not into ornament, but deformity; so the pure crystal streams of the Sanctuary are defiled, and the fair face of God's Grace, the most orient Beauty of Heaven and Earth is bespotted by deforming Libertinism. There is no new thing under the Sun. What hath been is, and will be, while the old man, and the old Serpent, in their impure conjunction, are apt and able to engender a numerous brood of licentious wantons. The Abuse of God's goodness is as ancient as Angels and Adams fall. As Angels. They defaced the Primitive glory of their creation, stood not in the truth, but voluntarily depraved themselves from once pure, and blessed Angels, into unclean, and cursed Devils. Adam abusing himself and his freewill, lost himself and his freewill, perverted his sinless mutability given him to stand, to the worst use of it, to fall. Abused his sovereignty over Eve and the creatures, his bright burning candle of Reason, his Conscience fit to condemn, his Will able to reject Temptation, his regular affections, his tenacious memory, his natural homage to his Maker; in short, his created sufficiency. Since this fall, and fatal epidemical degeneration, a loose wantonness hath run through the mass of all Mankind, by ordinary generation the Offspring of Adam. As Aelian relates, there is a sting of poison that runs quite through the Lampreys, a fish of a delicate taste, so the Abuse of God's goodness runs through all the generations of men. The vilest of them are predominant wantons. The best have been too much infected with the leaven of looseness. The impure fire of the Sodomites Incontinency, left the natural use, and burnt in lust to men. Bring out the men that we may know them. The lascivious Israelites sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. The degenerate Idolatrous seed of Abraham, oft left the bed of chaste worship, and the pure heavenly delights of spiritual conjugal communion for the filthy exotic pleasures of superstitious Lovers. The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. Junius notes, The daughters of men are opposed to the sons of God. It was not worldly men that desired worldly women, but the sons of God, men in covenant with God, professed Church members that did fornicate after unsuitable contagious beauties, and so infected the Church. The posterity of Seth, who had the purity of God's worship, as Otho Casman observes, were so debauched by carnal sensuality, ut extincto filiorum Dei semine, The seed of God's sons being extinct, they set up their carnal desires before their professed pure Religion. Lot was first abused with Wine, then with Incest Aaron the Saint of God had a part in the guilt of the golden Idol David was too lascivious in his house top. The Lord's covenanted people were linsey-woolsey in their Religion, feared God, and yet served their Idols. Halted between God and Baal. Great Solomon was so enslaved to his wanton wives, that his heart was after strange God's. The temple of the Lord was converted into a den of thieves, and became a sanctuary of wickedness. So under the New Testament clear Gospel-light hath been perverted to countenance works of darkness. Ranting Libertines have been first poisoned in their Intellectuals. They count it pleasure to riot in the Meridian Gospel-daytime, and then they are infected in their Morals, and become adulterers, seducers, covetous, cursed children that cannot cease from sin. Even the family of Christ had a licentious Judas that did personate, not live the Saint, but was a very Devil in a Saints clothes. Simon Magus would buy, that he might sell the Spirit, make a worldly market, not a heavenly negotiation of the Holy Ghost. The Apostle Paul blamed the Corinthians gifted, but infected Christians, with sidings, spiritual pride contentions, and carnal uncleanness. The Widow a Votary to Christ and his Gospel, waxed wanton against him, preferred a life of carnal pleasures before spiritual delights. In the primitive Feasts of Love, licentious Christians feared their lusts as well as bellies, Fed without fear, had the character of their wantonness set out by the Apostles Peter and Jude. The deeds of the Nicolaitans were abominable, Their error was accursed, who condemned Marriage, and gave license to Adulteries and Fornications, pure instituted Ordinances, (as none can doubt but they were such under Old and New Testament times) could not keep out impure hearts and lives. If the presence, power, and Doctrine of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, could not prevent daring insolencies against the light of God's truth, and holy profession, it is no wonder if in after ages, from this impure spring, Abuse of Grace, noisome streams of loose principles and practices are flown. Church History records how Gnostics, Valentinians, Arians, Marcionites, Manichees, and others, have depraved the Truth of God, how under these and other Enemies of the Gospel, black regiments of Libertines have abused the Colors of Christ, and sided with the Prince of darkness, by wronging the Grace of God. Nor hath the church of Rome, under the Papacy cause to wipe her mouth and hug het self in her Paramount chastity, whose title is Mystery, Babylon, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. She is a wanton Bawd <H&G>. Her pompous Religion in her splendid garish Attire, her golden cup of Fornication, speaks her a Wanton of Wantons: all the eye pleasing Pageantry of her unwritten Traditions, are but the wanton products of her carnal wisdom, pretensing to, but never proving scripture allowance. As the Mystical Fornication of her Idolatry is undeniable, so in a wanton indulgence, is she a Fornicating Bawd in the Letter, besides the toleration of stews in Rome, one of her children Joannes a Casa hath exceeded the impure Heretics of former times, defending, yea extolling corporal uncleanness; and yet Romish impurity must all be courted under the name of the Church and Holiness. This Romish impudent Strumpet is like Aristippus a filthy Philosopher, who freely Luxuriating with Lais an impure Strumpet, became a Pandor of a Philosopher, and thinking it not enough to live wickedly, he began to be a teacher of Lusts, translated his Brothel-house Life to the school, and taught the pleasure of the body to be the chiefest good. Thus neither professed Philosophy, nor Christianity hath been an expedient to curb the insolencies of vile, carnal, affections. Professed Heathens and Christians have been false to their lights and convictions, yea have wantonly, either put them out, or turned their backs upon them, and yet even in those times wherein looseness hath abounded against nature and grace, the Lord hath stirred up witnesses to bear a severe Testimony against both kinds of Abuses.

Among the Degenerate seed of Adam, loose Pagans, there were many that abused their God's, whereof some were whole, some half Atheists: Some whole, Wicked men contemners of Religion, Denied the Being of a God, as Diagoras, Melius, who was therefore called an Atheist, and Theodorus Cyrenaicus, and Eumerius Siculus. Others half Atheists, acknowledged a Deity, yet denied Providence, That God had any care of human affairs, that he governed the World, yea denied also the immortality of the Soul, and a life in the other world: Lucian was such a semi-Atheist, making sport with Jupiter, for being too cool and indulgent in his government: to condemn lewd unmoral Heathens, there were, I may say, a stricter sort of Pagans, externally pure from the gross crimes of the times, though guilty of innumerable blamable impurities of the Heart, unwashed by faith. Such were Aristides, surnamed the Just. Phocion the Good profitable Patriot, Cymon Incredibly beneficial and Liberal to the poor; Epaminondas, modest, grave, true; Socrates, patient, meek; Xenocrates, continent, frugal; Lucretia, chaste, Also the Camilli, Curij, Fabij, Fabritij, Catoes, Scipioes, were eminent external Moralists, whose examples may shame profane Christians. Seneca thus complained of debauched Pagans, This said he our Ancestors complained of, this is our complaint, this will be a complaints, good manners are overthrown, wickedness reigns, men grow worse and worse; but because even among Christians, there are that Pene supra modum, as one saith, are excessive admirers of Pagans virtue, yea some wanton wits among us, are more taken with Heathen, then protestant writers, so thin in using these, so large in quoting those; it will be needful to show the sad and dreadful deficiencies of the most shining Pagan morality, it was ignorant, ill principled, and ill ended.

Ignorant of the true God, and the true way of his Worship; and without the worship of the true God, that which seems to be virtue is sin: They were ignorant of the main, viz. the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the deceits of the heart, the mischief of original corruption, the fall of Adam.

So their Morality was ill principled, the product of self-sufficiency: They went not out of themselves to be virtuous, made their own Reason and Wills the sole Basis on which they built their most stately virtuous Edifice: Hence their proud titles of fore-Election, and self-power, too high a style for lapsed sinners: They were not poor, but proud in spirit, and arrogated too much to their own strength.

Lastly, It was ill ended: Heathens virtue centered in vain Glory, not God's Glory. What a proud abominable speech was that of C. Cotta in Cicero, No man ever thanked God for his virtue, for we are praised for virtue, and rightly glory in virtue, which would not be, if God gave it us, and we had it not from ourselves; and a little after, saith he, Was ever man thankful to the God's, that he was a good man? He may be indeed, that he was Rich, Honored, Healthy. It seems they called Jupiter, Optimum Maximum, the greatest and best, not because he makes just, temperate, wise, but safe, honored, and wealthy: No wonder then if Augustine called the virtues of the Heathens, Glittering sins: Rivius, The vain shadows of virtues; and Lactantius, The Images of virtues: All which speaks morality, yea, the whole Body of virtuous Paganism, without God and Christ, but as a Body without an head.

Dives, quod Honoratus, quod Incolumis. Cicero. Splendida peccata. Aug. Umbrae. Rivius. Imagines virtutum. Lactan.

Further, as the better sort of Heathens were witnesses against the scandalous and profane, whose yet moral Eminencies, were too low and weak ladders to climb up to their Blessed Making, Summum Bonum, and its adjunct Perpetuity: So in the evil times of Licentious Christians, God hath been wont to enter in warnings and protests, by his servants against them.

In this time, saith Luther, There is no discipline at all, no Justice, no modesty among men: We cry, we urge, we are instant in season and out of season, but the Magistrate winks at sin: So many nowadays, saith he, abuse the Doctrine of the Gospel, and in the meantime flatter themselves, though I live in my sins, and am wicked, I will repent at length. 'It is said of Duke George, He could be converted in the last Article of life. So the Antinomists say, They can be converted in their own time, and so contemn their blessing, The Church Baptism, the Keys, Remission, Repentance, Eternal life, and receive the grace of God in vain.

Melanchthon, though a man of a very mild Spirit, thus hotly rebuked lawless Libertines: The Antinomians are to be accursed (said he) who will not teach the Law in the Church, and fain all their Impulses to be the motions of the Spirit, and will not be governed by the Law: These dotages are horrible, Diabolical Furies, such as were of old of many Sects.

Zwingli sighed out these words, If we were called Satanists for Christians, there were no need of other manners: O calamity, never enough to be deplored! O inestimable misery! We do with such infamy disgrace the noble and truly precious name of Christ, as if, like a Mercury, he were the God and Patron of Usury, Theft, Rapine, and Robbery.

Brentius thus rebuked the loose Gospellers of his Age: There is so great a corruption of manners, such studious injustice, that we give no occasion to our enemies, to believe we trust in good works; for how should you trust in what you have not.

Hemingius, a Dane Divine, observing the abuse of Justification, thus writes: 'It is an error of Ancient and Modern Libertines, when they hear men are freely justified by another's righteousness, they teach carnal security, as if the justified by faith many live as they list.

Musculus thus declaimed against visible licentiousness: 'It is clearer than the Meridian light: Unbridled men count nothing sin that suits with their lusts: The Devil doth not let loose the reins more on the necks of the Heathens, Turks, and Infidels, than of Gospellers: with what infamy and shameful turpitude are we branded? Our reproach is our enemies triumph.

Nicolaus Gallasias, taxed the Anabaptists of his time, that they were like the Valentian Sect: Various, Arrogant, Curious, subtle in their error, resembling them in despising others, feigned Holiness, fair Speeches, soaring aloft to high things, seeming to be estranged from the World, and governed by the Spirit.

Jacobus Andraeas faulted the debauched Germans: The Word was preached among them with no Reformation; Their life and conversation was Horrid, Epicureal, Bestial: Christ was not so much blasphemed among Turks; they were wanton in their most costly and foolish apparel, and all this loose carriage was veiled under a Gospel cover.

Joannes Rivius, a Saxon Divine, in his Epistle to the Duke of Saxony, thus complains: As of old, in the infancy of the Christian Church, Christ sent his Apostles into the world to preach the Gospel: The Devil stirred up his Apostles, under pretense of Christ and his Gospel, who used Scripture testimony to corrupt the Purity of Doctrine: So when Christ hath stirred up in this age pious Writers, to restore the Doctrine of the Gospel; The Devil hath stirred up Anabaptists, and other Sectaries, to defile the purity of restored truth, under pretense of promoting the Gospel, removing errors, and restoring Orthodox Religion: Thus the Prince of darkness is transformed into an Angel of light.

Joannes Spangeburgius, thus blamed licentious Libertines, that would be kept in no bonds: after they saw they were set at liberty from the chains of Popery, they would be free and discharged from the Gospel, and the commands of God.

Calvin called the Libertines of his time, Evil spirits, clothed with human appearance, of all mortals the most wicked. In his Opuscula, he hath written a sad and severe Tractate against Libertines.

Salvians words were sad, What is the Assembly of Christians, but a sink of sin? Why do we flatter ourselves with the Christian name? When this most sacred name doth load our guilt; for therefore, under the style of Religion, we mock God, because we sin under its holy profession.

Thus we see the loose carriages of former times, hath sadded the hearts, and sharpened the style of Pious, Zealous, Judicious Writers: Well were it, if this prodigious sin, perverting the grace of God, had been confined to former ages: The same impure, corrupt Spring of dissoluteness, that of old hath sent forth muddy streams of polluting opinions and conversations, hath run in our own times in too offensive and plentiful a Current: No side or denomination of Protestants, as Lutheran or Calvinist, Episcopal, Presbyterian or Independent, but in something or other, either in greater or lesser spots, they have defiled their Garments. God's chastising hand hath been very heavy upon the party of the Prelatical persuasion, among whom (I hope) some have risen by their falls, been enriched by their impoverishments, and endeavored to secure the certainties of blessed Eternity, by seeing the brittle glassen Pomp and glory of the World, glittering and broken: and such a glorious fruit of the Cross, I wish to all complaining losers, that they may see they have as well fallen in their sins as their Estates: But alas! Are not many of you wantons both under and against God's Judgments and Mercies, in your Principles, Fancies, Fashions, sensual Pleasures, Visits, vain Education of your Children and Servants, Family Irreligion, mis-spending precious time? Do you not throw the old scoff of Puritans upon all that dissent from you: Read with patience what a learned Doctor spake in an Holy Day Court-Sermon: Our Profession is Christianity, but not our practice: We resemble Paganism: We are so far from emulating gracious examples, that of all things we cannot endure to be suspected of too much Holiness: therefore we choose to swear, swagger, riot, quaff with profane company, rather than to be defamed with the imputation of purity. If your own experience Echo with this looseness, blame not what you read, but be humbled, zealous, and repent.

And Reader, if thou be such a one as hast sought for a strict Government, Order and Worship of God in his Church, thou hast even cause to resent it with grief, tears, and blushing, that there want not proofs, that endeavored Reformation hath been too impotent to prevent the wanton Abuses of God's grace: Have not some loose opinions been Preached, Printed, Dispersed, Believed, Tolerated, yea infected Consciences and Lives? Do those that cry out against the men, spirit, and ways of the world, stand at such distance from the World in Lusts, Affections, Conversation, as they do in Language? Doth their outward garb show they are not fashioned to the world? Are not the Pleasures, gaudy Fashions, Estates, Pomp's of the World too grateful?

Tertullian hath taught us, Thou art delicate, O Christian! If thou desirest worldly pleasure: Thou art a fool if thou accountest this pleasure: What is more delightful than God's Reconciliation, Truths Revelation, Errors acknowledgement, Sins Pardon? What greater pleasure then the contempt of Pleasure? What greater liberty then an upright conscience, a contented life, and a fearless death? These are the pleasures, these are the spectacles, the merriments of Christians: How will standers by be convinced, that that Reformation is of such a sublimate Heavenly extraction, which should better appear by shining Graces, then glittering out-sides. I know Christian liberty, as it is now stretched, doth not only allow monstrous long Hair, but glorious apparel, glittering in gold and silver lace, and other sumptuous Gaudery, which in the Judgment of Scripture, Conscience, and the last Tribunal, were better bestowed upon the bellies and backs of the poor. That speech might here be properly applied, Ad quid perditio haec?

I could wish Christians would learn of Proba, a heavenly Christian, descended of Roman Consuls, brought up in Royal Delights, yet was such a humble servant of God, that she forgot her high birth and breeding, contemned the delights on the body, relieved the hungry by her abstemious fasting, and was clad in mean apparel that she might the better clothe the poor. O ye rich professing Christians, follow Proba, and abatements of your pompous glory on your backs and tables will speak you less worldly, and fit you to be more merciful. 'It is a ground of sad conjecture that you are little taken with inward glory, when you lay out so much in outward. Plato held it a notorious crime for a Magistrate to touch gold and silver, to wear it in garments, to drink out of it; because (said he) they have divine gold and silver in their minds, and need none of man's, deeming it irreligion to profane the divine with human. O professed Christians! Who if really such, do out-worth the gold of Ophir, and the Spanish Silver Fleets, if you can study, value, get, and improve the choice silver of Righteous Tongues g, and the richly wrought cloth of gold, h visible shining Good Works, you will be very little taken with outward, splendid glory. He humbled you are such worldly, gaudy fashion-followers. Besides, do not your ungoverned passions and tongues want of Pity, courtesy, equity, external reverence in the Worship of God, over-greedy, covetous purchases, selfishness, slight, formal keeping the Sabbath, divisions, contentions, crying up and down the Ministry of the Gospel according to your fancy and humor, not your reason not grace, speak you Wantons, and in these things too much carnal, and walkers as men Think of this, O all ye Reforming party, that decry abuses in Prelatical Government, and spend much breath, heat, and time in declaiming against them (though I excuse none of their faults) study, bewail, amend your own visible miscarriages, We can never confute, nor reform others faults by our own. Lets take heed when we cry out against others, that we do not, as Diogenes did of Plato, trample upon their Pride with greater Pride. O that all parties would lay to heart their sad unanswerableness to Costel-grace, and by the wisdom that is from above without partiality think themselves concerned in the following Tractate. No Christian, unless he be drunk, and spiritually mad by the Quakers cup of Error, the intoxicating fume or dream of Perfection, but in some things or others hath abused the grace of God. Do not all of us almost (said Luther) live in the most filthy abuse of God's gifts? We cannot know the strictness of the Law of God, and Gospel-rules, and our own loose unconformity, but we have cause to say guilty, and to cry mightily to God, Spare us O Lord.

And now whoever thou aught that readest the ensuing Treatise, I beseech thee lay to heart this great sin, branded in this Book with all its aggravating circumstances of Abusing the Grace of God. Let thy whole life and conversation evidence thy walking in the spirit, thyself-abhorrency, and universal hatred of sin, that with David, every false way thou utterly abhorrest. The design I drive (my conscience bearing me witness) is to advance Grace in my own, and others hearts and lives, and to prevent the abuse of it. Let not any of us abuse Grace, like Spiders, sucking poison out of so sweet an herb, which then we do apparently when we turn the Grace of God into wantonness. If by these Meditations God may have glory, and the Reader any spiritual benefit, I shall abundantly rejoice that I have any way contributed my Mite towards assistance of such as walk in the narrow way to life.

Lastly, I earnestly beg thy prayers, that I may be faithful in my Ministry, valiant for the truth against all gainsayers, and instrumental to win many souls unto righteousness. And so good Reader, I commend these my endeavors to the blessing of God, and commit thee to God's Gracious Providence, and remain,

From my study in Edmundsbury in Suffolk, March 18, 1658.

Thy helper in the narrow way to Life, Nicholas Claget.

The Abuse of Grace.

Jude Epist. Ver. IV. Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

CHAPTER I.

Containing the coherence of the words.

The Doctrine of the Gospel, a Cabinet of precious Jewels, the word of Truth, Holiness, and Salvation, from its precious excellency calls for love and careful custody. It fares with it as with rich treasures, in hazard of loss and abuse. The Apostle Jude had written to converted Christians, the preserved and called in Jesus Christ, v.1, about glorious eternal salvation common to the whole household of faith, that they would be faithful and zealous keepers of this sacred depositum, the word of life, and not suffer the saving records of the Gospel, to be wrested from them, but contend earnestly for the faith. v.3, as men do for their natural and civil rights. Good reason they should give proof of their vigilant zeal, and steadfastness in the truth, for it was with them, as with a ship fraught with silver, silks and other precious things, Their heavenly riches was in jeopardy of false fingers. Certain men, rotten-hearted Professors, of the Christian name crept into their assemblies unawares, v.4, ordained, or <H&G>, forewritten or deciphered, to so wicked a frame of heart and life, as would bring them under certain Condemnation; They were ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Savior Jesus Christ. As when cut-purses creep and crowd into assemblies, there is need to look to ones watch and money; so privy invaders and abusers of the precious and swing reports of the Gospel, call for heedfulness. Turning the Grace of God &c.

The words are a part of the sad description of some ancient Apostate Christians, the sect masters and Scholars in pernicious error and libertinism, no better than real blasphemers (though their tongues were gilt over with the golden language of Gospel Grace) as if they would have the leave of God to do the work of the Devil, they palliated their sin under grace, as if they would make their wickedness sacred, the holy Gospel and the righteous blessed God patrons of licentiousness; a sad copy of defiance against the majesty of heaven, drawn of old by the first Arch deceiver, and Hypocriticall lusts, too skillfully, commonly, and scandalously written-after by the wanton loose Gospellers of the present age. These Seducers were the Nicolaitans, saith Illyricus, an unclean generation. Such was Simon who taught community of women, and the Gnostics, who pretending to an eminent and superlative measure of divine knowledge, yet were beastly wantons, using all uncleanness as the fruit of God's grace, and declaring that all holy and righteous courses, were at an end by the preaching of the grace of God, were therefore called and accounted a dirty miry sect. These and such as these turned the grace of God into wantonness.

CHAPTER II.

Containing the explanation of the words. Deduction of a doctrine, with the method of handling of it.

Three words opened will give the clear sense of the Apostle in the Text. Turning, Grace, Lasciviousness.

1. Turning. The word imports Transplacing, Transporting, taking things from their due situation to a wrong place, so Turning intends the transplacing and perverting of grace from the place God had set it, into the place lust, and the Devil would set it: transferring it from God's end to the sinners, as if by a monstrous displacing and deformed error of nature, the pure Crystal eye were set on the dirty feet, the Dung-cart were followed and served by Nobles in Scarlet, a clean sumptuous perfumed chamber, should be debased unto the impure office of a vessel wherein there is no pleasure.

2. Grace. By it one understands the Law of Grace the whole Gospel state. Another understands Christian Religion, a Third the Doctrine of the Grace of God. We may also understand God's love and the choice tokens of it, Christ, his Graces and Spirit. The word Grace comprehends all. God's favor, his especial love tokens, his Gospel the great Epistle to his beloved. All this grace by the concurrent wickedness of Satan and the flesh is displaced, perverted and abused.

3. Lasciviousness. The word is translated Uncleanness. The Syriac interpreter hath rendered it Faetorem, Stench, or stinking. It is joined with the word uncleanness. The works of the flesh are manifest. Uncleanness Lasciviousness, Gal. 5.19. Obscene words and actions are understood, and by consequence their impure fountain whence they flow, The word compriseth all kind of obscenity and lust: Some affirm the word <H&G>, is from <H&G> and <H&G>, a City between Galatia and Cappadocia, from <H&G>, that is an Intensive Enlarging the sense, and Selege a Town most infamous for Lust. The word also is translated wantonness. Let us not walk in wantonness's. The term is Plural, Wantonness's. Rom. 13.13. In its full and comprehensive meaning, it imports all loose profane abuse in heart and life of God's grace, and is extensive to all licentiousness in sin in all the filthiness of flesh and Spirit, from the highest to the lowest unpurged defilement.

The sum is. These monsters of men, unworthy the name of Christians, the Reproach of the Gospel, do transfer the grace of God in his favor, spirit, graces, and doctrine of his blessed Gospel, from the high end God intended it, of holiness and righteousness, into a wanton looseness, and daring licentiousness in sin.

This being done in the times and places amongst the persons of Gospel light that own the name of Christian. The Doctrine will be that;

In Gospel times the Grace of God hath such high abuse as to be turned into wantonness.

In handling this sad truth I shall inquire into six things, 1. What are the kinds of Turning God's Grace into wantonness? 2. When it is Turned into Wantonness? 3. Why it is Turned into wantonness? 4. How great is the sin thereof? And 5ly What is the Punishment God usually follows this sin withal? 6ly and lastly, What improvement we may make of it by some useful Application?

CHAPTER III.

Showing in how many ways or kinds the Grace of God may be Turned into Wantonness.

SECT. 1

1. Predestinating grace is Turned into Wantonness. It is a wrested Conclusion from this glorious principle: God hath chosen me to life; therefore, though I live as I list, I shall be saved: A bastard inference and practice, that this chaste truth never begat. The Contrary deduction flows from the grace of Election. As the Elect of God, holy, not loose, Col. 3.12. He hath chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the spirit, 2. Thes. 2.13, through it as a part of our salvation, execution of God's decree, ornament of the saving Gospel, fitness for eternal life; not through the filthiness of flesh and spirit, as if wickedness were the way to happiness, and God had from Eternity designed an everlasting rest to the industrious services of the Devil. He hath chosen us in him that we should be holy, Ephes. 1.4. That Holiness which lay hid in the womb of God's eternal purpose is infallibly brought forth in time, in all vessels of honor. The Apostle inferred Sobriety, Faith, and Hope in the children of Gospel light, from God's appointments, not a loose sleeping in sin: Let us be sober, &c. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thes. 5.9. God hath not appointed us the Word, nor put us, or set or placed us in a state of avenging wrath, but gracious salvation. He puts us in this blessed estate by predestinating, calling, drawing, regenerating, and justifying; not by a fearless, careless living, and dying in reigning sin. Musculus well taxeth this abuse: The contempt of God's grace incurs his heaviest wrath. Wherefore say not, There is no danger however I live; God hath put me into a state of salvation, his positive decree is firm, I cannot be damned, I shall be saved. Rather say, Far be it that I should sin against God's gracious purposes and perish; rather I will accommodate myself unto his gracious will, and be saved. He hath designed me for this, would have me be a Christian: therefore I must live the gracious life of a Christian, not the infamous of an Heathen. How irrational and ungodly is the inference of wickedness from God's pure purposes. If a sick patient should say, under mortal diseases, It matters not what I do, I will eat, and drink, and do what I list, my Physician hath not appointed me to death, but recovery: Would you not think him a mad man, and self-destroyer? O impure disputer against the holy purposes of God, it will appear to be thy folly and madness, because God (thou thinkest) hath not appointed thee to Hell, but Heaven, to live as a vessel of wrath, and yet hope to be saved, when the direct way to the North leads to the South, shalt thou go to glory in the way of God's reproach, the contempt of Christ, and thine own damnation? God's gracious promises and decrees tune with each other. As he never promised, so he never purposed eternal salvation to an unregenerate heart, and a loose life. His Predeterminations to a blessed end, involve suitable means. As he never intended man should live by poison, but by bread, so it is absolutely distant from the thoughts of his heart, that a man should live to God and with God forever, by an indulgence to the flesh in its lusts and affections, sensualities, and delights. God appointed Paul and his company to escape shipwreck, but it was by swimming on boards and broken pieces of the ship. Act. 27.24. Thus God hath appointed some to escape the wrath to come, but it is by faith and mortification, getting on the plank of repentance, swimming through by the strength of Christ, not drowning in the sea of the world. God appointed Noah to salvation from the worlds deluge, but it was by getting into the Ark. A Loose heart and life is no accommodation to execution of predestinating grace, but opposition. The eternal, saving, discriminating Counsels of God, are to many the cause of their standing, to no chosen vessel the cause of their falling. The doctrine of absolute and free election rightly understood, powerfully revealed in the evidences of grace, well used, hinders no vessel of glory but helps him to heaven. They that can without any Scripture warrant, any choice work of the spirit, easily and presumptuously write their names in the book of life, and as the Israelites wantonly played about their golden Idol, so in a lascivious mirth are loose flesh-pleasers, and feast their Corruptions, will have a dreadful demonstration after death in judgment, and to eternity, that their names were written in the black book of death, not the white of life. The most holy and righteous Judge of the world will never say, Come ye blessed eternally prepared by a free choice to an heavenly kingdom, to those that lived and died in their indulged cursed natures and lives, but to those select happy ones, whose hearts were gloriously transformed, and conversation really fashioned after the Gospel pattern. O the sad confutation of them that build profane libertinism on this firm and pure foundation, Predestinating grace, their pretended interest in it and pleasing conceits of it will vanish like a golden dream: They will not rise as Elect but reprobate; The Lord will say with hottest indignation against unreformed Carnal Gospellers, Go ye cursed workers of iniquity.

SECT. 2.

2. Sparing Grace is turned into Wantonness. It was God's complaint of the house of Israel; They despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes: nevertheless mine eyes spared them from destroying them, notwithstanding they rebelled against me, and walked not in my statutes. Ezek. 20.16, 17, 21. I have spread out my hands all the day long unto a rebellious people. Isa. 65.2. God is angry with the wicked every day. Psal. 7.11. Sin is an abomination to him. Psal. 53.1. He can in Martial Law soon arraign, condemn, and execute the sinner. The sword is whet, it is drawn, is near the bold Transgressor, yet it strikes not. Psal. 7.12. The bow is bent, made ready, Psal. 7.13. The arrow is on the string: The divine strong hand of vengeance could every minute draw it up to the head, let fly, pierce ungodly men through and through, shoot them into hell, ye God spares the sinner, and this is the unworthy and ungrateful return, he spares his sin, but forsakes it not. Job 20.13. Is like the Felon that is spared burning and hanging and he grows more insolent and violent in his old wickedness, like the truantly boy, that is spared whipping and he grows malepart, saucy, lazy, stubborn in his Masters presence. The Lord spares the Liar, Swearer, Tipler, Whoremonger, Adulterer, Defrauder, Oppressor, that Riots with the bread of deceit. Prov. 20.17, and the wine of violence. Prov. 4.17. The subtle, yet foolish Hypocrite, whose craft and wisdom of the flesh is to undo his soul; and yet these in a frolic dalliance and looseness of spirit, wallow in their old wickedness, and pleasingly dance over the mouth of Hell. They abuse that Grace which was never offered to the fallen Angels. God spared them not (no not a moment) but cast them down to hell. 2 Pet. 2.4. Justice would spare the sinner not a moment, its free Grace that spares. It is an undoubted gift of God that any man in his wickedness is spared a minute. How full is the world of daring wantons, that sin securely before, and against sparing Grace? The interceding kindness of the Lord Jesus is abused: Such as are God's provoking Rebels, who are spared under the time and means of Gospel grace, are beholding to the prevalent pleadings of Jesus Christ, who hath daily grants of his Father to spare carnal Gospellers, and put them to the trial, whether they will repent and be fruitful in obedience. The vine dresser pleaded for the unfruitful vineyard, Let it alone this year till I shall dig about it and dung it, and if it hear fruit well, and if not then after that thou shalt cut it down, Luke 13.8, 9. This Vinedresser (says one) is Jesus Christ the Son of God, whom he hath Constituted the Priest of his Vineyard: Were it not for the intercession of Christ, barren Vineyards, fruitless Churches would soon be destroyed. Professed Christian Congregations, Private families, would by the axe of death be cut down as fit fuel for hell fire.

SECT. 3.

3. Long-suffering grace is Turned into Wantonness. Because judgment is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of wicked ones are set in them to do evil, Eccles. 8.11. My Lord delays his coming, and then the evil servant is tempted to smite his fellow servant, and to be drunk, &c. Mat. 24.28, 29. How often would Christ have gathered the Jews under his saving wings as the Hen the Chicken under hers? Mat. 23.37. But they proudly rejected subjection to him, salvation from him. God endures with much long-suffering Vessels of wrath, and they abusively and foolishly are still filling up sin and wrath. Rom. 19.22. The gracious longsuffering of God waited for the Repentance and Amendment of the disobedient old world. 1. Pet. 3.20, and yet the holy wooing Spirit of God, speaking by Noah, soliciting and striving in gracious motions to reformation, was rejected. Gen. 6.3. The whole earth was corrupt and filled with violence. v.11. I gave Jezebel space to repent of her fornication and she repented not, Rev. 2.21. As a Creditor gives his Debtor long time to pay his debts, and yet forbearing kindness is abused, by a profuse lavishing intemperate life and running more in debt; and as a gracious Kings act of favor, that gives a Condemned Traitor, a long time to sue out a pardon, is slighted and despised, when he spends it in whoring, drinking and gaming; so the merciful and liberal allowances of large seasons of grace, the Lord grants out to deeply debted and Treasonable sinners, are signally wronged; when the more mercy forbears, and God is slow to wrath, the more sin abounds. Ah daring folly! Is there not difference between Long-suffering and Eternal suffering? Are there not many sad monuments of divine justice? Because Patience is lasting, will it be everlasting? Long accounts are at length stated. The longest summer day of God's sufferance will have an end, and go down in an endless night of unappeased fury. Provoking, slight Gospellers are every day hastening to the period of God's reprieves. Writs of execution will be opened and served upon incorrigible sinners, the worse for mercies warnings, and Judgments delay. The Lord Christ his pleading that barren Fig-trees may stand a year, or years longer, neither speaks him the Patron of uncurable wickedness, not assures their perpetual security, they were at length cut down as withered trees, and God will likewise cut down withered Professors: God doth not always spare barren trees in his vineyard. Those Christians that are the shame of God's Husbandry; The abusers of Christ's Intercession; The contemners of the Gospel they boast of, that bear the name of Believers, bear up in the repute of Christ's domestic Family, that cumber the ground where they stand; useless to the purposes of holiness and righteousness in the World, as dead, twice dead, at best but flourishing in the leaves of a worthless profession, shall at length be plucked up by the roots, be cast into hell fire, as the worst of men; reproachers of God and his Gospel; destroyers of their bodies and souls forever. The Devil the Father of lies, keeps his children fast bound in the chains of destroying lies. Amongst the rest this is a main one, and a common damning cheat: Poor deluded sinners, that have numbered 40, 50 years forbearance in their sins, at once collect God's allowance of them and their own Innocence, but without Book. After 400 years suffering the seed of the Amorites to oppress God's Israel, Gen. 15.13, black doomsday put a period to their Prosperities and Persecutions: A long lived Libertine under the days of Grace, hath more reason to fear his approaching destruction then salvation. The Counsel of an ancient is wholesome, well were it if accustomed slighters of God's grace would lay it to heart, it would fire them out of their perilous security: It is necessary, said he, that we fear and tremble, lest the prolonged times of God's mercy do prove the times of our damnation: It is the lamentation of a serious modern Writer: The longer we live, the more numerous is the account, and the more heavy the weight of sin: Hence when the just Judge comes he will turn the indulged times of mercy into an eternity of wrath and penalty.

SECT. 4.

4. The whole time of Grace is turned into Wantonness; not only sparing and longsuffering Grace, but all the days of Grace, even to their late dying periods are also abused. Backsliding is perpetual. The most under Gospel times refuse to return, Jer. 8.5. The Lord questions in his Word, O Jerusalem, how long shall vain thoughts lodge in thee? Jer. 4.14. Wilt thou not he made clean? When shall it once be? c. 13.27. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning? And fools hate knowledge? Prov. 1.22. How long? The answer is not more sad then true; forever. Should the loose persons of unconverted hearts, and unreformed lives, not bettered under a threescore years convincing and awakening Ministry, and the frequent wooing's of the Holy Ghost be left to themselves, should they live an eternity on earth, they would still wrong the grace of God. There is a Country phrase, To while away the time: O how many do while away precious time? Most do the works of darkness, while Gospel light shines round about them, yea in their minds, they cannot deny, and yet they defame the glory of it. While Christ knocks at the doors of their souls for entrance, the Devil is bid welcome; while the Spirit cries, Repent, repent, the flesh wallows in the pollutions of the World; while he passionately solicits and persuades to accept of salvation upon salvations terms, the paths of damnation are still trodden in: The hardened house of Israel will die: While God is tendered as an everlasting portion, the world is violently pursued; while the pilgrimage delights of the spirit, and the Heavenly Country Pleasures of God's right hand, are held forth to unregenerate minds: foolish souls hunt after the pleasures of sin, and vanishing Creature delights: While precious seasons to sue out a pardon are granted out for sins past, more Treasons and Rebellions are heaped up against God: while this vanishing life is proposed as a probation for Eternity, lying vanities are skillfully and incessantly pursued.

Five things will load this abuse.

1. Time, one of the most precious things in the world, is abused: Nothing, says Bernard, is more precious than it, and alas nothing now a days is more slighted and vilified: It is made the numbering measure of unholy and unrighteous motions, but very rarely of heavenly conversation; the thriving opportunity of Satan's Kingdom, but rarely (as to the multitude) of Christ's: The preciousness of time, industriously heavenly, as well as earthly merchants will tell you: The worth of time an enraging afflicted Conscience on a death bed will tell you, that breathed out lamentable cries, Call time again, call time again: The excellency of time most awakened loose departing souls will tell you, who will abound in fervent wishes to admiration, that they might redeem but one hour to repent. The dignity of time, the damned in hell, were they among us, would tell us, That had they a world, they would give it to escape their torments they feel and shall endure forever, and to be in a state of Grace, of Salvation. The glory of time, the glorified in heaven would tell us, were they suffered to acquaint us with their unspeakable Joys: Eternity itself will be little enough to bless God they have not lost their time, but obtained salvation in the days of Grace. It will ravish their hearts, when as one phraseth it, they shall think within themselves, O blessed moment of Grace! O happy days of Conversion! O choicely spent time in holy mourning's and obedience! O rarely improved time to be the shining witnesses of God against the wicked world! O Heavenlized time in communion with God, that contemned the world! O the wise use of time, that hath laid up treasures in Heaven, and fitted espoused souls for the joyous eternal embracement's of their heavenly Bridegroom.

2. The possibilities of escaping eternal misery and obtaining everlasting life, are abused, when the whole provisional space of preventing the wrath to come, of preparing for glory, in the foolish pursuit of the worlds shadows is lost; when loose Prodigals of the time of Grace are impossibilitated to have a moment more. What shame and grief will surprise them, when they shall consider their secure neglect of the Jewel of time, and the force of Eternity; prevailing thoughts (when set home on the conscience) to make the profuse lavishers of the golden seasons of Grace, the most thrifty Husbands: How stinging will this sad conviction be, if the opportune time of Grace were well managed, they might have escaped that bitter, horrible and lamentable Eternity wherein they are plunged, and safely arrive to the Port of everlasting rest? These things were once possible, now they are not. O sinners fear and tremble, your sporting with sin, your indignities and injuries put upon the grace of God, doth exceedingly slight and despise your saving possibilities! While the mouth of the bottomless pit is not shut upon you, do no more disparage, but honor your Gospel-seasons of Grace; if you crucify the Son of God, and still despise the Spirit of Grace, either laugh at, or delay the necessary change of your hearts and lives, be assured, the next minute after your death, you shall see a dreadful, fixed, unalterable gulf before your eyes, that as the Saints in glory cannot come to your Hell, so it will appear everlastingly impossible for you to come to their Heaven.

3. The remembrance of lost time, will be an eternal corrosive to the tortured awakened Spirit, and torment the wounded Conscience like fire; when time-losers shall call to mind, That they had a time to be converted, but now they are hardened; had a season to come to Christ their ark, but now they are drowned in an eternal fiery lake: They had opportunity to weep heavenly Gospel-tears, and now they eternally weep hellish legal tears, under the fear and hate of their angry Judge, and the intolerable smart of endless avenging Punishment: They had leisure to store up Grace against the day of Mercy, but now they see throughout the whole neglected time of Grace, they have treasured up sin against the day of wrath: They had a long while Divine patient wooing's, authoritative commanding's, dreadful threatening's, melting beseeching's to be reconciled to God, and reformed; but now penal Justice, and their own Wickedness, hath sealed them up under the power of sin. In brief, they had a sweet and fair day of mercy, to find favor with God through Jesus Christ; but now it is gone down in a tempestuous night of endless and unappeasable fury.

4. It will not be the least part of Hells Torments, that hopeless, helpless Spirits, shall be tortured with fruitless wishes, that they had not lost the invaluable advantages of their saving opportunities; When they shall mourn, and say, How have we hated instruction, how have our hearts despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of our teachers, nor inclined our ears to our instructors? Prov. 5.11, 12, 13. Every unprofitable wish that the time had been redeemed in this world, will be as a renewed bloody lash, on exulcerated wounded tender bodies: O unwise children of men, that riot in the liberal indulgences to your flesh, even in the noon-time of clear Gospel-light! Take a serious view of these impertinent and afflictive wishes in the other world: O that God would grant one day of Grace more! O that I were to live over my time again, how would I look upon the flesh displeasing, sharpest severities of repentance, as favors! O that I had kneeled on flints, and wept mine eyes out in strong cries and tears for a pardon! O that I had given my Goods to the poor! O that I had changed the delights of the flesh, for the pleasures of the Spirit, that I had been filled with the Spirit, when I was drunk with Wine! Ephes. 5.18. O that I had watched over my loose heart day and night! O that I had fasted and prayed whole days and nights! O that affliction had driven me to Christ, that I had rather gone through dirty Lanes to a heavenly Fathers House, than through pleasant Meadows to a Prison, and a place of Execution! O that a godly sorrowing life had ended in joy! Psal. 126.5. And that a carnal voluptuous life, had not ended in eternal sorrows! Jam. 5.1, 5. Have you seen Bankrupts, that from the published Statutes of Execution, have their Goods seized on, and their persons Imprisoned, wringing their hands, beating their heads, bedewing their cheeks, breaking their hearts, with these words? O that I had been a good Husband, that I had hearkened unto my friends, avoided undoing-Company, kept my Shop, improved my time, I had never come to this; but I am undone, I am undone: Have you seen a condemned Felon that must have no Psalm of Mercy, suddenly screek and roar out in the Assizes, and swoon in the torturing fear and assurance of death, when the Judge tells him there is no mercy for him; this also adding to his woe: O that I had taken the counsel of my dear friends, that I were to live over my youth and man-hood! O that I had not lost my time of Grace! O that I had kept the Sabbath better! O that I had not rebelled against my dear Parents, and despised good men, and godly Ministers! Think then what is and will be the woe of lost souls in the other life, racking their Spirits with fruitless wishes, that they had not lavished away the time of Grace.

5. Wasters of the time of Grace, out-sin the very Devils of Hell: They never had a year, day, or minutes time of repentance and pardon: The next moment of their Transgression, was a damning moment to endless and remediless punishment: In this respect the Devils will load carnal Gospellers, playing the wantons with the seasons of Grace, and rejoice in their society in destruction, with this kind of triumph, Glad we are in your fellowship of damnation: Is it just we are cast into Hell? Your company with us in torments is more just: You have out sinned us, we were never guilty of such an affront to the Grace of God, merits of Christ, seasons of Grace as you are: The Son of God assumed not our nature, undertook not our redemption, interceded not with his Father to give us scores of years space of repentance, ten years, a year, a day, a minute: He took your nature, died for you, pleads you may have the precious saving seasons of Grace, your abuse of the Gospel, mis-spending the space of repentance, is superlative guilt, of a deeper die then our transgression: How sad a thing is it that loose Gospellers, that fill up their time with secret or open wickedness, or both, should out-sin the very Devils: O friends! Did Christ speak it with passionate tears, concerning self-undoing Jerusalem, Hadst thou known in this thy day the things belonging to thy peace, but now they are hidden from thee, Luke 19.42. How ought you to weep over your turning the time of Grace into wantonness? Ah foolish sinners, that waste your inestimable opportunities of getting Christ and Grace, walking exactly, dying to sin, that you may not eternally die in it, and for it; honoring God in your Generation, obtaining your souls Salvation, laying up treasure in Heaven, preparing for blessed Eternity; if you bewail not this in hearty Compunction, bitter Tears; if the sense of being Spend-thrifts of most precious time, make you not ashamed before the Lord, know it, and believe, you shall in the next life look over your ungrateful neglects, with unutterable mourning's, and eternal tears.

SECT. 5.

5. The calling inviting offers of Grace are turned into wantonness: The great things of the Kingdom of Heaven were rendered to the Inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida, and to the Capernaites, but they gave still wanton indulgences to their lusts, repented not, and this in the judgment of our Lord Christ, should double their woe, aggravate their rejecting the way of salvation, and plunge them deeper in Hell, Luke 10.15, because Heaven on Gospel-terms was offered and refused: Be sure of this, the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you, ver. 11. As if Christ had said, You had inestimable gracious proffers, but you have cast them off to your damnation. The like Grace of the Kingdom of Heaven was held forth to the Jews in Paul's Preaching, but they answered it with contradicting and blaspheming the Gospel, Acts 13.45. Thus in too many Congregations in England, where Heaven hath been clearly opened in the saving mysteries of salvation, which might even ravish the hearts of humble intelligent and believing hearers, what wanton eyes, gestures, ears, fancies, hearts, are brought before the public glorious discoveries of the precious methods to be holy and happy to all eternity? With what levity, looseness, frothy spirits, you have seen the slaves of carnal voluptuousness, merry wantons, designed and resolved for their pleasing sensualities, come from Stage-plays; without breach of charity, huge members of Gospel-wantons, have in like manner come from the sacred, grave trembling Truths of the Gospel: How sad is it that those, not only Law, but Evangelical severities, that should have set eminent sinners on trembling, mourning, weeping, and resolving to repent, (the best applause of a Sermon) should have no better close, then profane, profuse giggling and laughing, it may be sporting at the Minister and his Doctrine, slighting what they heard, driving it out by idle talk, vain worldly discourses, or speaking of nothing to soul advantage, carrying in uncivil and unholy carnal merriments, as if they had been in a Theater, not the Church, and had heard a Stage-Player, and not a Preacher. Do Princes and States well resent the slighting and abusing of their gracious offers? Surely the heavenly everlasting King, nor will, nor can put up the despising's of his gracious invitations, with everlasting patience and indemnity. It is a matter of Lamentation, that many faithful and painful friends of the Bridegroom have offered Espousals of highest profits, pleasures, preferments in Jesus Christ, to Blackamore, deformed, worthless, loveless souls, and yet they had rather match with Hell then Heaven, rather have the Prince of Darkness, than the Lord of Glory to be their head; though there be infinite more drawing encouragements for Espousals with Christ, than covenanting with the Devil: Let not the Phrase seem harsh, There is truth in it: Though few, like Witches, resign themselves up to Satan by an express contract, yet most do by an implicit and interpretative consent: Is he not the spirit that rules in the children of disobedience? Eph. 2.2. Is he not called from his destructive Sovereign Government in the World, the god of this World? 2 Cor. 4.4, who hath the Harvest of Service, when the Lord Jesus hath but the Gleanings: Is he not called the Ruler of the darkness of this World? Ephes. 6.12, that Infernal Jailor, that keeps his numerous Captives in the dark Dungeon of Ignorance and Wickedness; yea, Do not his miserable Subjects love to have it so? Jer. 5.31. O you Inhabitants of England, that own the Christian name, and that from year to year, from one passionate wooing to another, have still turned your backs upon Angels joys and admirations, the Mysteries and Miracles of Gospel Salvation; be convinced of your perilous, dishonorable, loose refusals: Are you wont to deal with necessitous Temporals, as you do with Spirituals and Eternals? Will not catching presented worldly advantages and opportunities by the foretop, condemn your soul-undoing delays of welcoming Heavenly calls, which hearkened too, will make you, (I say not men) in the Worlds Phrase, but Saints and Angels, fellows in glory to all Eternity? Offer a pardon to a condemned person, on exceeding hard terms, and what Felon almost will reject it? But the offers of Gospel Pardons, to sinners dead in Law, the Covenant of Works, upon sweet, easy, rational, honorable, and profitable terms, who almost will entertain them? Offer Gold and Silver to needy Beggars, when is this proposal refused? But Christ, the Pearl of great price, is offered to poor sinners that have not a dram of Grace, and the Tenth Christian in external profession, that bears much upon Baptismal Grace, giveth no demonstration of acceptance. Let a Physician offer his best skill without a see to the mortally diseased, with a promise also to pay for his Physic, what patient, unless unsensible of his danger, and frantic will despise this kindness? Christ, the Almighty Sovereign Physician offers the recovering virtue of his Spirit, Grace, Ordinances, Afflictions, to mortally diseased sinners, without a fee or reward, yea hath already paid dear for the Physic, and its successful application; who then but self-destroying, frantic sinners, senseless in a deep Lethargy of carnal security, had rather perish in their sin, than accept of the guiding orders of Christ's healing? If you say this censure is over-rigid, pity he should live that doth not take the gracious invitations of Jesus Christ into his heart. We willingly own his loving calls to grace and glory. It is not so soon done as said. You may lodge the glorious tenders of the Gospel in your fancies, understandings, memories, yea seem to honor them with your lips, and yet your hearts may be very far from subscribing and saying Amen to them; as an Adulterous woman's lips may consent to Marriage Articles, profess and confirm Matrimonial union, when her heart was never Married. Oh Sirs! That have shut your hearts against the proffers of Grace in many a Chapter, Sermon, motion of the Spirit, me-thinks your spirits should be astonished, and hearts broken, by the serious consideration of seven things.

1. You and Satan your Father are fellow liars: You put a great lie upon the report of God's grace. The Bible lifts it up above the world, and you almost set it below any pleasing worldly vanities. It is more precious than Gold and Silver, its merchandize is better than the merchandize of Silver, Prov. 3.14, so 15v. It is above all things you desire, and yet you desire other things above it. Though your tongues would blush to say, yet the frame of your rebellious, grace-refusing hearts and lives, really speak it in the notice of the infinitely understanding God, the Gospel is folly, 1 Cor. 1.23, the power and practice of Religion is a vain thing, Mal. 3.14, and the Grace of God is not worth the looking after. You live before God, Angels, and Men, as if your tongues should say, Solomon was deceived, when he so cried up gracious wisdom. Beauties are the pleasures of the Senses, Riches out-worth it, the Honor of the world outshines it; the glorious applause of men out-goes its commendations; the short enjoyment of the flesh exceeds its eternal treasures; a short lease of this life's comforts, is better than its eternal Fee-simple of delights.

2. You abuse God's condescension in the offer of grace. Was there any need for God to stoop to offer you a Covenant of Salvation, wherein the whole Trinity doth humble themselves? The Father, so much as to have thoughts of grace to relieve and succor lost sinners; the Son that humbled himself to an obscuring incarnation, a life of sorrows, spotless obedience, a bloody death the price of Redemption. The Holy Ghost to come into vile sinners, to plead the acceptance, and improvement of the Father and Sons love. O inconsiderate sinners! Of what a scarlet tincture is your unworthy slighting of the Trinities kindness, your treading underfoot the blessed God's acts of grace! Might he not have left you as the fall of Adam made you to be, in a lost, polluted, helpless, and damnable estate? Doth he need your persons recovery, services, holiness, and happiness? Doth goodness in accepting Christ and his Gospel extend to him? Is it his profit if you accept? Is it his hurt if you despise him? Psal. 16.2. Job. 22.3, and 35.6, 8. Hath he humbled himself to enter into peace with you, when he might have proclaimed and maintained everlasting War? Will a King bear it, that his descending below himself to save obstinate Traitors, should be despised? Surely the blessed God will not always bear the insolent refusal of his merciful condescension's, who every minute could confound rebellious sinners.

3. You abuse the infinite purchase of that grace that is offered. Now Christ hath by his active and passive obedience satisfied Justice, and dearly paid for pardoning and purging grace; He sits at God's right hand to give unto Israel repentance and remission of sins, Acts 5.31, to offer it in common to the worst of sinners, hath made an healing plaster of his blood. Isa. 53.5, and offers the application of it to diseased sinners; what else but a spiritual madness is it to cry out, we will have none of the physic; away with this mortifying Grace, severities of repentance? If we submit to unpleasing medicines of strict Gospel prescription, we must never have merry days, our dear lusts must be pinioned and starved; such ado about Religion, the new creatures, that precise Puritans talk of will make our lives miserable: We will not have this man to reign over us, Luk. 19.14. Take Christ who will, we have made, and we will keep our covenant with the world and the flesh; we will have our ease and delights, come what will of it. Jer. 7.9. Loose hearts and lives speak these sad things, this deplorable injury to the Lord Jesus: He is highly affronted, that the price of grace, the purchase of infinite redemption should be so unworthily vilified.

4. You abuse the heavenly messenger of Grace, the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and comes with sweetest intelligence of Peace, Pardon, Purity, and Glory. The heavenly Spirits whispers would be powerfully taking, if vile sinners, their false loves, and cursed lusts did not oppose them. Hath not the Spirit told many of us, a gracious conversation is incomparably better than a carnal, and that there is to be found a more high, noble, pleasurable, satisfying, and gainful life in Jesus Christ, than the world, flesh, and devil can possibly afford? Have not these inward speaking's, according with the outward written word, the just standard, awakened the soul, that Sobriety, Chastity, Charity, Liberality, Faith, Love, Heavenly-mindedness, a fear of God, a tender Conscience, redeeming time, &c. are rather to be chosen than their contrary vices and corrupt inclinations and affections that resist them? Have not many by the wooing's and strivings of the Holy Ghost, with Agrippa, not only been almost persuaded to be real Christians, but often promised God their utmost, and zealous endeavors for a through change? But what is the issue? A wanton loose spirit hath banished former serious gravity: These warm, heavenly motions are soon cold and dead, by the world and the fleshes cold pourings in. How ill doth the holy and delicate Spirit take it, soon sensible of affronts, that his gracious inspirations, should either coldly be received, or positively rejected, or after entertainment be ungratefully forsaken? The Spirits goads that prick and stir up lazy sleeping consciences, are quickly blunted. O our unkind abuse of the good Spirit. Those divine instincts wherewith we are excited and moved to holiness of life and Gospel obedience, either we take no notice of them, or we dissemble them, or we put them off to another time, or, which is worst of all, we totally neglect them, saith an holy writer. This, O this is the spirits punishment, not more dreadful than disregarded, the heavenly messenger bids an eternal welfare, and never knocks again at those rebellious houses, where he hath been never bid welcome, but constantly refused. My spirit shall not always strive with flesh. Gen. 6, is a plague, a fearfully avenging one. Resolved Libertines will not follow the wisdom, and saving guidance of the spirit, and the Lord chooseth their delusions. Isa. 66.4. What safe Leader they will not have, they shall not have; they will wander from the way to heaven; divine power now shall not stop them, they shall die without instruction, and in the greatness of their folly they shall go astray, Prov. 5.23. Then those eyes deep security hath shut, wrath will open, either in a death-bed despair, or in hells flames after death. O unkind Spirit grievers and resisters, lay it to heart before it is too late. It is an eminent danger to oppose Divine inspirations.

5. You abuse the faithly messengers of grace, the Ministers of the Gospel. Their work is in the authority of their Master Jesus Christ to exhort and enjoin you to believe, and repent, and if this prevail not, to beseech you in Christ's stead to be reconciled 2. Cor. 5, and if this mild course speed not, but gospel grace is put away, as it was by the hardened Jews. Act. 13.46. Their other sad part of their Commission, is to tell them, He that believeth not shall be damned. Mark. 16.16, and that very gospel grace that to others is a savor of life unto life, embraced, will be to them a savor of death unto death, when it is despised. As the Hanunites that cut of David's Messengers garments had a war Commenced against them, for answering their kind errands with such shameful indignities, 2 Sam. 10.3, 4.7, so the angry King of heaven, will wage an eternal war against them that unnaturally abuse the messengers, and messages of grace. O Take warning Loose-livers under the convictions of Gospel strictness, that when you hear and read of the saving overtures of the word of life, you may no more be as slighty and senseless under them, as the Pues you sit in, and as walls, and rocks. The despising of wholesome heavenly instructions, no less than the despising of the Lord Jesus Luk. 10.16, is that which makes honest godly Ministers, to set down with mourning and tears in their closer addresses to God, that their hearers will not be converted, saved, and have eternal life. Act. 13.46, and Phil. 3.8.

6. You will be inexcusable, when you shall see the offers and hopes of Grace, at an everlasting distance from you: How will paleness sit on your faces, when you are before a dreadful Bar? What trembling will surprise your hearts, when conscience shall terribly inform you, that the Lord's Messengers, in earnest desires and longings for your happiness, in zeal, love, and tears offered you for Christ's sake, to embrace the Heavenly Treasures of the saving Covenant, and you would not; or soon stifled your Convictions, lost your good resolutions and affections; you secured the world, and that great Idol flesh pleasing, but not Eternity; you can easily slight, it may be jeer the Minister, but remember you will be enforced to call to mind his passionate wooing's for Jesus; and that your blood would be upon you, that you would be your own destroyers, if you disallowed and abhorred Christ, if you knew not God, and obeyed not his Gospel. At such and such times in hearing and reading the Word, in heart-searching godly Books, the Spirit of Jesus held forth before you a Feasible, Justified, Adopted, Sanctified and Glorified Estate, and you liked not Christ's conditions to fit you for and obtain Eternal Glory: How have you abused Christ and his Gospel-Ministry, when you were told his yoke was easy, by Divine Power? Did not you look upon the Preacher, exhorting the duties of Religion, as a proposer of intolerable and too severe tasks? As if the glorious pattern of Wisdom, Righteousness, and Sweetness, should tyrannize over men, and bid men be his servants to their loss, and the Devil and the World could make more gainful, honorable and comfortable bargains.

7. You shall have no cause to blame the pure Justice of the angry Lamb, the Judge of the World, if when you shall cry Lord, Lord, he be as deaf at your dreadful cries, as you were at his calls; if he know you not to save you, when you knew him not to serve him: This will justify the direful last Sentence, Go ye cursed, and clear your eternal stripes from cruelty, when you have willfully abused the infinite love of the Son of God: Grace was offered you, but you would not be healed, nor reformed; you have destroyed yourselves: 'It is Divine Justice that the wickedness of the wicked in due penalty should be upon him, Ezek. 18.20. Wicked Gospellers, even put fury into a gracious God, and necessitate him to gain the reputation of his Holiness out of their damnation: It becomes the natural Justice of his Majesty, to be the Avenger, who is not the Author of willful unbelief: The holy One of Israel is provoked, Isa. 1.4. The holiness of God is read in the Characters of those Temporal, Spiritual, and Eternal Judgments, which he executes on the impenitent World. Its just the heaviest of punishments should be the vindications of God's Dishonors by the affronts of his Grace, upon a threefold account.

1. The ungrateful and voluntary high indignities, that vain loose hearts and lives put upon God's Grace. Wisdom hath sent out her maidens, to invite sinners to be Saints, Prov. 9.3, 4, and sit down at its heavenly Table, v.5, of all sufficient, satisfying, saving provisions, comes with Persuasions, Commination's, Admonitions, to accept the Call, but the loose guests either come not at all, or unprepared, surfeit on good food, turn it into ill humors: The offended King of Heaven hath sent out his Heralds of Arms, to proclaim Peace and Mercy on most righteous terms; but stout rebels will not resign up their hearts to Christ, but keep them strongly garrisoned for Lust and the Devil; and this is the success the Calls of God's Grace meet withal: Satan and Christ knock at the soul for entrance: It is opened to Satan, and locked to Christ: Shall obstinate, unprofitable hearers blame God under their everlasting smart, when they have not so much despised their Ministers as Jesus Christ? Shall loose unreformed Children, that despised their godly wooing and warning Parents, cry out of unjustice under eternal wrath; when they did not so much abuse their holy Invitations, as God's? It was his spirit that made by Religious Fathers and Mothers, gracious proffers to gainsaying Children: Conscience will give in testimony on God's side, that he graciously called froward, willful sinners, that they might be pardoned, not abide under condemnation; they might be Saints, not remain sinners; they might be free, not continue Captives; obtain a blessing, not lie under the curse, and be saved, in mortifying the deeds of the Body, and not be ruined by cruel mercy and Indulgences to corrupt nature, the worst of enemies.

2. The bold abuses of heavenly inviting offers, though God hath complained of this long before in his holy Word, and urged such injurious dealing, as a most just Apology of his severest vengeance: I have called, and ye refused: I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded, Prov. 1.4. Therefore when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction as a whirl-wind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, (I will be even with you) you shall call upon me, but I will not answer; seek me, but not find me, v.27, 28. All the day long have I stretched out mine hand to again-saying people, Isa. 62.5. Therefore the Lord Christ threatened these unbelieving Jews, that the Christ, and the Grace they rejected, should be offered to better entertainers: He would have a Church among the Gentiles, the Kingdom of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, Matth. 21.42, 43. I said you shall die in your sins, for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins, John 8.24. He that believes not in the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him, John 3.36. How justly do the Wronging's of God's grace bring endless misery, when the Lord hath often complained of it before hand in the Scriptures, cautioned us to fear and tremble, lest we forsake our own mercies, Jonah 2.8. Threatening this abuse with eternal death?

3. The Lord hath already acquainted us in his Word, that if like the guests in the Parable, we either find excuses not to come and feed on Christ's heavenly dainties, Luke 14.18, or we be unprepared, wanton, loose guests, and come not to his Feast with the Wedding Garment, (i.e. Faith in Christ) with the whole train of Graces, but in the deformed rags and pollutions of our sins; I say, if we be like those that either openly and positively reject his offered Grace, or like those wanton abusers of God's grace, in the Apostle Jude; tread in their steps, and die in this Libertinism, as a Woe is denounced unto them, Jude Ep. v.11, under condemnation, v.4, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever, v.13. So if we be fellow-wanton Gospellers with them, we shall follow them in their everlasting misery. He is deservedly hanged that seeth a Felon die before, and yet greedily pursues his wicked courses. We are told Sodomites, Apostate Angels, Abusers of Gospel-grace, are already in Hell: If the examples of their torments make us not to abhor and eschew their sins, divine justice wrongs us not in our everlasting destruction, whom should self-destroyers blame but themselves? I have been the longer in this Section, because of the mighty importance of the matter, the common, woeful, lamentable, damnable refusal of Gospel gracious calls, and invitations to everlasting happiness, unchristianly, profanely, dishonorably abused.

SECT. 6.

6. The means of Grace is turned into Wantonness. This sad experience I shall give out in three things; showing When the means of grace are abused; The evil of that abuse; and What means of grace are abused.

1. When are the means of grace abused? They are so, 1. When they are set higher than they are. Means are made Mediators, set in the room of Christ, when an equal, yea a superior confidence is put in Instrumental institutions. The hand and the courage of the Warrior is disparaged, when the Sword is set up above him, and there be more confidence in a dead instrument than in a living agent. The Word, the Sword of the Spirit, is dead and successless out of the strong and living hand of the Spirit. It is a double and common wrong, both to the means of grace, and to Christ, when Christ is not eyed, sought to, admired, trusted in by the means: The error not only of ignorant, profane Christians, that trust in a bare Baptism, and a following of their Church to save them; but most real Christians, some whereof more admire their Preachers than Jesus Christ; more look after an impotent man with all the glory of his gifts, than the power, and the transcendently eminent endowments of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul taught a better lesson, who although he planted and watered Churches, with miraculous success, owned his own nothingness, 2 Cor. 12.11, abhorred the thoughts of self-sufficiency, 2 Cor. 3.5, was jealous of robbing Christ of his glory, gave him the honor of his grace and power, that he was used as the exalted and blessed instrument to convert multitudes of sinners, and save their souls. Rom. 15.18, 19.

2. When they are set lower than they are. Then they are so when they are accounted as useless needless things, as if heaven could be got without them, grace might be had and kept, though the means disused. Nothing is more clear than that in ordinary dispensation (extraordinaries not being our rule) God hath confined grace and salvation to the use of means. Knowledge, Joh. 17.3. The Gospel preached, Rom. 1.13. Baptism, 1 Pet. 3.21. Prayer, Rom. 10.13. The education of godly family guides, Gen. 18.19. Excommunications, 1 Cor. 5.5. The holy counsels and examples of Husbands and Wives one to another, 1 Cor. 7.16. The means of grace to the reproach of the God of grace, are exceedingly undervalued, when the sottish and conceited generation, that live without Ordinances, hold there is no dependence at all on holiness and eternal happiness upon God's instituted means. They are also set lower than they are, when encumbered, with Martha, about needless things, in the brood of earthly cares and employments, neglect their attendances on heavenly means, and make their affairs below excuses (as too many do, to the dishonor of their regenerate part, just as studious worldlings) to put by heavenly exercises in the Worship of God.

3. When they are contradicted, and blasphemed, as Paul 's preaching was by the Jews, true Prayer by the Spirit, by unspiritual, graceless Atheists, that revile godly care of holy household guides, to keep their children and servants in the knowledge, fear, and love of God, whose pious endeavors to save the souls of their families, condemning their wicked neighbors irreligion, is the occasion, but not the cause, of their blaspheming their Prayers, singing of Psalms, strict keeping of the Sabbath, and week days, holy and righteous conversation; when the holy and heavenly institutions of the Lord Jesus are the marks at which sons and daughters of Belial shoot the arrows of their bitter words, the means of grace are eminently abused.

4. When they are judged, and rested in as the only evidences of grace. The more ignorant, carnal, moral, hypocritical sort of Christians have no better arguments that they are in the state of grace than this, they have the means of grace. It is an irrational conclusion, A patient hath good physic, therefore he shall recover; a dunce hath good books, and a good tutor, therefore he will be a scholar; a great Army is well furnished for war, therefore it shall overcome: The battle is not to the strong, Eccles. 9.11. As unscriptural an inference it is, The means of grace are enjoyed, therefore the grace of the means is obtained. Capernaum was lifted up to heaven in means, and yet cast to hell. Mat. 11.23. Ordinances do not confer grace, as fire doth heat, by their natural virtue; but as the Lord Christ healed the sick by supernatural. Grace is not in the means as causes, but by them as instruments. Should many men have no use of the means to plead for their spiritual estate, there would be nothing to speak them really Christian, but they would be left as naked heathens. It is not the having, but the saving using of means that will stand by us.

5. When they are made shelters of sin, as dens are for Lions, clothes are for bodies. The Sacrifices and Temple were not to be a Sanctuary of Murder, Adultery, False swearing, Idolatry. Jer. 7.9, 10. Nor were the Pharisees to make long prayers, to cloak the devouring of widows houses, Luk. 20.47. The Harlots beginning with God's services were poor fig leaves to cover her uncleanness. Prov. 7.14. Prayers in the morning, and evening, cold and barren, cannot palliate the licentious wickedness that is between them. They may now quiet and stop the mouth of Conscience, they cannot in the other world. It is the high dishonor of the means of grace, when they are but names, not powers; when in attendances on them, there is but the color, not the heat of Christianity. A painted, gilded Christian abuseth the Ordinances, when he is dead under them hath no life, nor heat by them; he borrows from them a Sheep's-skin, when he is but a goat; when it is seen that heavenly means mend not hellish hearts and lives, the seeming is Saint-like, but the conversation Devilish. This undoes two souls at once; The sin shrouding pretender to Religion, and the profane blasphemer of the means of Grace. Both of them perish as mock-gods; the one because he hath hypocritically used the means; the other, because he hath blasphemously railed at the means.

6. When they are used in vain; when there is no health by God's physic, no conversion and reformation by God's Word. In the course of the Ministry there is cunning and laboring in vain. The heavenly frequent siegers of the Ordinances are raised from the Devils garrisons re infecta, Satan's strong holds are kept undemolished. 2 Cor. The real kingdom of Satan is in the appearing kingdom of Christ. Under Gospel-ordinances men are worse and worse; this is a profane disparagement to the Ordinances of Christ; an unpleasing spectacle to the holy God and his Angels, the Spirits grief, aggravation of sin, and treasuring up of wrath.

7. When they are totally neglected. Not only one, but all the means of life and salvation are carelessly slighted, unworthily vilified, as if God, Christ, the Spirit, Grace, Heaven, Hell, were not worth the thinking of, such contempt is cast on the golden cisterns of Grace. There are too many who proclaim their opposition to the God of Heaven, and the method of salvation, who are so far from the power, that they abhor the very form of godliness, so little care for service to Christ, that they detest the badges of his government. These constantly profane the Sabbath, are never found on their knees seeking God; hear no Sermons from year to year; care not for Sacraments; have no good family education; are hardened by their afflictions; deride holy examples; these are in Satan's full possession, take the liberty of the times to be ignorant, and as to the Ordinances of Christ, quiet and resolved Libertines. Be you entreated, that have seen the power, and beauty, and glory of God in his Sanctuary, and that have had the waters of life running into your thirsty souls through the precious pipes of divine Ordinances, that really value them above the world, stir up those compassionate bowels, that the divine nature hath begotten in you, and if your counsels to Christianize these Heathens will not prevail, pray and weep them into possibilities of salvation, by attendance on the means of grace.

Secondly: The Evil of abusing the means of Grace, laid to heart, might be some remedy to sin.

1. This is a wrong to God that appointed them. Man cannot bear the violation of his household orders, and will God bear it? If so the Laws of his family should be contemned.

2. They wrong the Spirit that acts in them, either by turning their backs upon him, when he usually affords his presence in God's ways, or by resisting his gracious impulses, his sweet whispers, his terrible representations of an accursed lost sinner out of Christ, Acts 7.51. Either they will not hear his inspeakings, or disregard them, both despise the Spirit of Grace.

3. They please the Devil, who hath either way graceless souls in his possession, either by not using the means at all, or in vain. Such abusers of saving means, are an unpleasing spectacle to the holy Angels, enemies to God, grieve the Spirit, and are the Devils triumph. Consider,

Thirdly: What are those means of grace that are turned into wantonness? They are,

1. The holy Scriptures. In them alone eternal life is to be found, Joh. 5.39. They are styled, the word of Grace. Act. 20.32. Their abuse is in their disuse, when either they that may have Bibles, have none, or if they have them, they suffer them to contract dust on their shelves, laying them by as useless, are seldom, or never read; or in their ill use when they are read, without reverence, diligence, observance, or any resolves, or good desires and affections to follow the teachings of the Spirit without understanding, esteem, remembrance, laying up, and laying out these heavenly treasures in righteousness and holiness. Again, in their ill use, when they are wrested to errors, heresies, looseness, covetousness, unrighteousness. When Scripture is urged against Scripture, and the inspirations of the Holy Ghost are urged against themselves. Such scripture depravers are their own destroyers. 2 Pet. 3.16.

2. The Ministry of the Gospel is an abused means, when both their person, calls and messages are unjustly despised, are accounted as offscouring, are disenabled from doing good to scoffing and malicious persons, who either will not hear them, or with scornful prejudices, amounting to no less wickedness, in interpretation, than despising the Lord Jesus, and calling upon insolent contemners irremediless wrath.

3. Sermons are abused means; and they never are so, but when they are the sad fruits and products of hearts void of God's fear, and without repentance. No wonder if the divine word be loathed, and holy Sermons be contemned, when fearless, shameless, and faithless hearts have slight thoughts of them, and care little for them, as if they were but scare-crows for children, very fables, when sound, heavenly messages are either not heard at all, or not attentively, not reverently, not understandingly, not wisely, not fervently, not frequently, not perseveringly, not fruitfully, not resigningly, giving up the judgment to be captivated to the obedience of faith, the heart and life to the power of godliness, but are heard with a contrary corrupt frame of heart, then is a means of grace abused.

4. Sacraments are abused means, when the supernatural grace they signify is not sought for, regarded, nor obtained. Their holy, eternal obligations to sound faith and heavenly conversation, who considers? As the Jews profaned their Sacraments, loose Christians do theirs. Those rested on the Circumcision of the flesh, and the outward Passover; Jews without, and not within, wicked in hearts and lives. These rest on Baptismal Water, Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper, Christians without, and not within, unconverted, unsanctified in hearts and lives. These do profane offered Sacramental grace, utterly void of Sacramental graces and lives. These by their own confessions, are dedicated and devoted to Jesus Christ, to forsake the flesh, the devil, the pomp and vanities of this wicked world, and they do nothing less. These by taking the Bread and Wine, the lively representations of the shed blood, and broken body of Jesus Christ, are supposed, and obliged to have grace, and grow in it; but they neither have the being, nor growth of grace; profanely take the bread of the Lord, with unbelieving, impenitent hearts, but not the bread the Lord, with faith, repentance, and other graces. It will not be the least aggravation of Christians wantonizing with the grace of God. The wicked abuse of the Sacraments, will prove them undeniable Libertines. What affinity is there between the cleansing water of Baptism, and Baptized persons, wallowing in the filthiness of flesh and spirit, lying and delighting, like swine, in the mire, in the pollutions of the world? What agreement is there between a pretended feeding on the pure immortal food, Jesus Christ, and feeding on Satan's provisions, the delicious lusts, and sweet pleasures of sin? Is not this to turn the Table of the Lord into the Table of Devils, a holy into a profane feast; as if the holy Supper were instituted to pamper and quicken, not starve and mortify corruption? How epidemical and spreading is this abuse? They are the words of a holy, affectionate Writer: Look into all the parts of the Christian world, and you will not deny many Christians are remiss and cold concerning the saving use of the Sacraments: Be they used or abused, there is rarely enquiring after their efficacy, or contempt; what good is got by them, or what defaming contradictions and wrongs there are against them?

5. Good Books are abused means: By them their holy Authors, though dead, speak to the living: We have in them the lasting Monuments of pious Labors, the breathings of the Spirits, the experiences of Satan's Wiles and Methods, the goings of God in his Sanctuary, the showing forth of his Power and Glory in his living Temples, well-digested, and heavenly directions, to walk holily, safely, joyfully in the way to Heaven, frequent and passionate wooing's to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in spiritual Espousals; The necessity and excellency of Regeneration, and the issue of it, the new Creature; The unbottoming and discovery of the hearts deceits; kind and affectionate warnings, in time, to get out of the state of sin and damnation, and be delivered from the wrath to come; yea further, serious heart-aching and wounding discourses of the woeful Eternity of Hells Torments, for the loose and ungodly World; and ravishing Discoveries of the blessed Eternity of Heavens Joys, for exact and Religious persons, with much more that may be said of the drawing excellencies of holy Writings of old and the present age: Now what is the use, indeed abuse of these glorious gifts of the Spirits; the Births not only of understanding Brains, but holy Hearts; the wasters of Blood and Spirits precious time and labor in the Lord's Workmen? Are not these things the sad testimonies of their dishonor? Some never read them, others very rarely; some rather judge and condemn strict truths, too unpleasing Prisons and Chains for their loose hearts, then fall down before the power of their truth and holiness; they rather come with Satan's Index Expurgatorius, and by the spirit of error boldly blot out Heavenly Truths, and neither suffer them to come into their Creed nor Practice, then rejoice at their Imprimatur, that the helps and methods of godly lives, printed in Paper, might be printed in their hearts: Others do, with the Books they read, as with the Sermons they hear, lend them an eye, an ear, a few slighty careless thoughts, but do never with Mary, ponder saving Counsels in their hearts: Some when they read Divine Treatises, labor to pick what errors they can, and like Spiders, suck poison out of the sweetest herbs, wherefore they intermix worldly Lusts, the saving of their Diana and Palladium, the corrupt Idols of their hearts; Their darling Benjamins, their sweet feasting and feasted sins; and these must comment on the Text they read: If precious heart-purifying, life-reforming, sin-reproving, and conscience-smiting discourses, cross error and looseness, then away with the Book, it is stark naught: Others would read Books, but valued only by the standard of a foolish Wit, accounting of Books by lofty Strains, fine gaudy Phrases, not the golden massy worth of the matter, the Heavenly Treasures set forth in a grave and sober significant Language, plain, yet eloquent expression. I shall enlarge this point, with an hearty advice, to them that have a mind and time to read Books, let them take heed what they read; Satan (I fear) hath the liberty of the Press, as well as Jesus Christ: There are Books of Libertinism abroad: It had been well for some, had they never been published in the world, whose minds are dangerously infected, without infinite mercy, to their destruction: In the other World, what if undone souls, by wicked Books, should wish the eyes of their flesh had been blind, and ears deaf, that they could have neither read nor heard of Printed Error and Looseness, to their destruction: The Devil hath his market and merchants, foolish Chapmen are deceived, and take the bad ware of darkness for light, flesh for spirit: O ye simple gulled People of this Nation, cheated almost of your Christianity and Civility, unless ye will be foolish and proud, take the advice of your learned godly Ministers, of settled, solid, experienced Christians, and ask them what Books you should read. A few words of counsel I have to you that are jocund, merry ones, boon Companions, if you read this Section, I beseech you, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, as you tender your Salvation, and the glory of God, spend your time better; It will never repent you, when you die, you have left your covetous passionate Gaming, the too frequent delights of the flesh, you drench, almost drown your souls in, for the choosing, reading, meditating on Books of Mortification, Heavenly-mindedness, and preparation for Death and Eternity: I am sure you cannot deny it now, rationally; I am most sure your awakened minds cannot deny it on your death-beds, that your diligent reading of Dike, of the deceitfulness of the heart; Baxter's Everlasting Rest; Greenham, Bolton, Preston, Perkins, &c. and such Books as those were incomparably better to be read, then wanton Play-Books, Romances, debauching Amorous Writings: If you will not believe me now, whether you will or no you shall in the other World: Read, O read what will fit you for Heaven; for your souls sake, do not by reading vain, frothy, written delight, and read yourselves into Hell.

6. Prayer is an abused means, when this holy piece of Divine Worship, the most sweet and frequent way of converse with God about Heavenly affairs, is totally neglected: When men come unto God without any serious thoughts of his Reverend Majesty, rushing to the Throne of Grace, as to a Theater, a Market, a merry Meeting: When there are attempts of drawing nigh before infinite Purity, with impure hearts and unclean hands, after hot pursuit of the World, and fervency in the service of carnal Lusts, there is bold approach unto God's presence, as if God would regard their Prayers, who regard iniquity in their hearts: When Supplicants do not so much pray, as complement; in good earnest, not Petition God, but mock him, declaiming against the sins they love, unwilling to part with the Lusts they chide, that God should take them at their words: One would think that hears zealous arraignment, and severe condemning's of some sins in Prayer, would think the hatred of them were implacable, and the forsaking of them would be everlasting, when at the same time there is a strong habitual league with them; yea after many hard words, a securing of them, living and delighting in them: These, and many more affronts, are put upon this Heavenly means of Grace, Prayer.

7. Education is an abused means: When lewd children and servants are not taken with the holy Counsels, and exemplary Piety of their godly Guides; Some either expressly hate instruction and correction, or do but dissemble holiness, who while they are in strict Families, eternally conform to Holy Orders, like the Fish Polipus, that can turn itself into the color of the Rock; but when out of the Parents Wing, and the Masters Government, are no more the children and servants they were, than a Player is a King when he is off the Stage, or an Ape in man's apparel, is a man when undressed: How will household Governors, warnings and chastising's, prayers and tears, sweetest wooing's, and drawing promises to rebellious children, and graceless servants, that they may mind the matchless interest of God's glory, and their own salvation, rise up in judgment against them in the accounting Day, when it will appear, exactest educations have been abused.

8. Scriptural convictions are an abused means: There are not a few that know their duties and their sins: It is as clear as noon-light, that their intemperancies, incontinences, unrighteous dealings, oaths, lies, neglect of Prayer, are sins: From a rousing Sermon they can go home with smitten hearts, grant that Sermon-Truths have been arrows directed to the breast of their dead corruption, and in vanishing fits, and moods of appearing goods, promise to leave their drunken company, oaths, lies, and worldliness, yea, weep over their confessed wickedness; but after these sudden moods and pangs of piety are vanished, the convinced sinner is as jovial, drunken, false in his dealing, mad on his reprieved, not mortified Lusts, his sleeping, not dead corruptions, as if his sins had never stared him in the conscience, and been represented to him, as that which unforsaken would ruin him: These do the works of darkness by Gospel-light, go without miraculous conversion, and exact repentance, with open eyes to Hell: and knowing their Masters will, but doing it not, shall be beaten with sharper Eternal stripes, then ignorant Heathens, and blind vulgar Papists. O enlightened Christians, bless God for your light, but fear and tremble, lest the wickedness of loose hearts and ungodly conversation, be greatened by your clear information's: They who by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, have escaped the pollutions of the world, and are (out of choice and delight) again entangled in them: It had been better they had never known the way of righteousness, then after they have known it, to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them, 2 Pet. 2.20, 21.

9. Afflictions are an abused means: They ought to be the discipline of virtue, the purgatory of corruption, Isa. 27.9, the teachers of neglected holy duties, Psal. 94.12. The reducers of foolish wandering sinners into their wits and way, Luke 15.17. Wearers from the world's sweet dugs, 2 Cor. 4.16, 17. Strikers of holy awe of the Divine presence, in daring spirits, 1 Sam. 6.20. Snuffers of the candle of well instructed reason, that it may give a clearer light to the inferior faculties, Job 33.16, 19. Monitors, not to commit over again the old sins, John 5.15. Abasers of proud spirits, Job 33.17, 19. Converters of departed souls, Psalm 119.67. Instrumental Savior's of lost sinners, 2 Chron. 33.12, 13. When the Lord's rods are spent in vain: These Heavenly ends of afflictions are not attained, but hearts as hard as an anvil, take no gracious impressions of God's blows: In God's afflicting Furnace, there is no golden refining's of Grace, no purging the dross of corruption: The ill humors of carnal lusts and affections, and loose manners under his Physic are more incurable; unbettered afflicted ones will not be purged, but revolt more and more: Then afflictions, the means of Grace, are abused.

SECT. 7.

7. The examples of Grace are turned into wantonness: They are then well used, when from a right estimate of them, admiration of God's goodness in them, Thankfulness for them, Phil. 1.3. Zeal to follow them, Heb. 6.12, shaming and blaming ourselves for our unlikeness to them, 1 Cor. 15.14. Daily endeavoring to write after their fair, holy and heavenly Copies, Heb. 12.1. Delighting in them above all persons of the World, Psalm 16.3, choosing of them to be our choice companions and bosom-friends, Psal. 119.63, resenting them as shining Lights in the World, Phil. 2.15, to clear our way to the Heavenly Country: Thus to improve the best of patterns, that reflect and hold forth the glory of God in the World, the fruits of the direct beams of infused holiness, and to be won to Christ, 1 Pet. 3.1, and quickened to the power of Religion, by others exemplary Piety, Charity, Innocence and Justice, is to use well examples of Grace: But now when men and women regard not the most shining Lights, sleep, and play the wantons before them, and with them, make them their may-game, their sport, the Theam of their profane jests and scurrilous wits, in their Houses, Ale-benches, Taverns, the Road: When David was the Drunkards song, Psalm 69.12, the scorn of many, despised of Michal, 2 Sam. 6.16. When hypocritical mockers at Feasts make the heirs of glory their scoffing Table-talk; when the Upright are called Hypocrites: Righteous dealers are voted unjust, or for one piece of unequal dealing, are ever condemned so: When the glorifiers of God before men, out of conscience of duty, because under a command, are thought vain-glorious: When exact walkers, fearful of sin, dare not run with others into excess of riot, nor give allowances, fond and liberal, to their fawning lusts, shall be called over-righteous, deemed needless precisians, making too much ado in the Church of God; as if men could be too godly, when the highest measures of holy strictness are exceedingly short of the rule and the life of Christ; as if too much care, conscience, and pains, according to requiries of Scripture, either could be, is, or ever was, in any Believer in the World; as if when the word says, real Saints are to give all diligence, in the exercise of all Graces, 2 Pet. 1.5. &c. To work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Phil. 2. To make through work of it, to redeem the time, to be followers of Christ, they could be too diligent and strict, by the warrant of these and other Scriptures, to assure and promote their eternal Salvation: Every serious dying-Saint, thinks he hath done too little for the honor of God and his Gospel, for his own soul and others: Every glorified Saint seeth his massy glory doth exceedingly outweigh his most diligent services and patient sufferings: The abuse of holy examples is too general an injury to God and his choice servants: The gracious, the graceless are both guilty. 1. The gracious, low-spirited Christians, whose light is in a dark lanthorn, that shine forth to outward view little or nothing of the glory and power of Religion: O ye Christians of the lower form, look to those that have out-learned you in Christ's School, continue not still in your weak Graces and strong Corruptions! See you not some of your fellow-Converts are very Heavenly? Let this correct your earthiness: Are some meek? Let this shame and cure your passions; Have they liberal hearts and hands? Let this open your shut bowels and purses; Can they forgive great wrongs? Let this blame and mend you that can hardly pass by little; Dare they not speak idly and frothily, guarding the doors of their lips? Let this urge you to repentance, who speak not only idly, but wickedly, uttering such corrupt communication, that slanders by must needs conclude foul hearts, when tongues are so foul; Do they grow under the means of Grace? Let their proficiency spur you to better progresses by holy Ordinances: Do they practice Religion where they are most, in their own Families? Let your sinful Household omission of holy Duties, or but cold formal performances; your domestic disorders be reformed. Lastly, Do they live in the power of godliness? Let this warn your too powerless profession, that you labor more for the power. 2. The graceless are guilty of abusing the grace of God, in the examples of Grace: How will this load your guilt at the great day, that as you have wronged the Gospel of Grace, so you have gracious Gospellers? You look on them as the vile off-scouring of the World, 1 Cor. 4.13, of whom the world is not worthy, Heb. 11.38. Can proudly judge them sometimes base persons, for their despised, though honorable Divine nature, and their loathed holiness, herein like to the Heathens of old, who made the practice of Christianity, and the Christians owning the Christian name their crime: Though you cast contempt on vessels of honor, whom you debase, God esteems: It is no flattering, but Scripture Language: The Scripture stiles them Precious, Isa. 43.4. Jewels, Mal. 3.17. Honorable, Isa. 43.4. Noble, Acts 17.11. Kings, Rev. 1.6. Princes in all Lands, Psal. 45.16, that have the happiness to enjoy them: If they be as dirt in your eyes, they are as gold in God's: Be entreated to take a measure by the golden line of the Sanctuary; whose examples are most Scriptural, safe to the interest of immortal souls, those you contemn, or those you follow: Though with a supercilious from, you disdain to follow their sober, chaste, heavenly, pious, mortified, penitential, reformed lives: Truth will make your awakened minds, when you die, wish you had traced their holy steps, and when you would at the great day be glad to follow them in glory, this forever will shut the door of hope and happiness, you never followed them in Grace: It is in vain with Balaam to wish the death of the righteous, and with vulgar, dead, imaginary Believers, to hope for the glory of the righteous, when there is not with upright Saints, living the life of the Righteous: Holy and happy should you be that follow the huge multitudes that troop to hell in the broad way of pleasing evil examples; if converting Grace did powerfully whisper in your Spirit, and draw you back to the narrow way of life: Here you should meet with a thin, but blessed company. Fellow, O follow them, who through Faith and unwearied patience in well-doing, have their race answered with an eternal prize; and them also, who after their holy course is finished, shall inherit the promises. It will never grieve you, if once you return from your mad errors and courses, to your sober spiritual wits, that you have changed undoing for saving presidents, that you have left your soul-ruining good-fellowship, for communion with Saints, Angels, the Mediator of the Covenant, and with the blessed Trinity for all Eternity. Have any of you ridden about life and death, and with exceeding grief lost both your time and way? Have you rejoiced to meet with an unerring gride, that hath not only brought you out from your wanderings, but set you in your way, yea rode before you as a courteous faithful guide? The like joy, yea greater you will find, if after you have strayed like lost travelers, God set before you leaders, and you have the wisdom and grace to follow in the erring and dangerous wilderness of this world, your holy guides to the heavenly Canaan.

SECT. 8.

8. Reconciling Grace is turned into Wantonness. As in the former Section the choice Presidents of Grace, so in this, and the following particulars, the choice privileges of Grace will appear to be abused.

God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, 2 Cor. 5.10. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Rom. 5.10. The propitiatory atoning sacrifice of Christ's death, in putting away God's destructive wrath is rich grace. Even this is injured. Reconciliation with God stands, in many, with agreement with Satan, what in them lies peace with God and sin kiss each other, as if a league with heaven and hell could stand together. Seditious persons reconciled to their Prince, abuse his goodness, when at the same time they are Traitorous friends with his enemies, hold intelligence with them, do homage to them, are ruled by them, and propagate their dominions, are the picture of those wanton Traitors that abuse God's Reconciling grace. That grace of God whereby he is reconciled to the sinner, and the sinner to him, begets a universal peace with all his laws and methods of holiness, and war with sin. At what time friendship is commenced between God and the soul, war is waged and maintained against sin. Reconciliation and Alteration go together: Turning away his wrath from the sinner, and turning of the heart of the sinner are undivided. What pleaseth a pacified God, pleaseth the sons of peace: When the face of God shines in smiles of peace, the Laws of God are favors, no offenses; privileges, no burdens; sweet delights, no unpleasing tasks; the liberty, not prison of really pacified believers: Great peace have they which love thy Law, and nothing shall offend them, Psal. 119.165. The Romans that had peace with God, stood in this Gospel-grace, engaged to be holy, not allowed to be Libertines. The exercises of graces, not allowances to lusts, were the fruit of this heavenly reconcilement. Rom. 5.10, 11, &c. It is a choice blessing purchased by Christ's death. Rom. 5. They are blessed who are reconciled by him, and not offended in him, Mat. 11.6. But they that refuse the Laws of his government, had never yet the joy of atonement, though they pleasingly vote themselves the friends of God, they will be made to their own smart to know, it is one thing to be reconciled when enemies, it is another thing to be reconciled and abide enemies: No enemies to the Laws of Christ, and Gospel-holiness were ever actually reconciled; they are yet under wrath that are under the reign of sin. Let them consider it that take up, keep and use arms of Hostility against the God of peace. Thoughts of reconcilement may be pleasing, they will be a vanishing dream: Divine Pacification is in order to Communion. Libertines cannot walk with God, and see his smiles, that turn back upon God, and hate his Laws.

SECT. 9.

Adopting Grace is turned into Wantonness. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. Isa. 1.2. Ah seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters, v.4. A son honoreth his father: If I be a father, where is mine honor? Mal. 1.6. As Jacob's Sons, Simeon and Levi 's wickedness made him stink. Gen. 34.30. Eli 's wanton sons were his reproach, so God's Adopting grace is wronged by his professed children to his dishonor. As when a Beggar is an adopted son, and is saucy, scornful, stout in his fathers presence, this differencing grace is turned to wantonness; so when a beggarly sinner in external Adoption, is admitted into God's family, his loose, unmannerly carriage in his Fathers presence, puts an affront upon Adopting grace. To the Israelites appertained the Adoption. Rom. 9.4. They owned the promotion. God is our Father. Joh. 8.41. But the high abuse of this preferment in Heathenizing, like Sodom and Gomorrah. Isa. 1.10, wronging the Stewards of God's select family, the holy Prophets. Act. 7.52, despising the orders of his government. Jer. 13.9, 10. Idolatrizing with the Gentiles. Ps. 106.35. Their (a) Impudence, (b) Universality, and (c) Incorrigibleness of sin, (a) Jer. 6.15, (b) Jer. 6.28, (c) Jer. 2.30, turned their external adoption into exprobation. Their professed owning of God their Father in an external covenant of Grace, with unchild-like rebellions, did aggravate their abominations. Their wanton lusts spoiled their Adoption: God was in Title, the Devil in reality their father. Joh. 8.44. His Lusts, but not the divine Laws of Jesus Christ ruled over them. Too much akin are dissolute Christians to the Jews, dishonorers of adopting grace.

The looser, the stricter sort of Christians.

1. The Looser. With what boldness, confidence, yea impudence do many say, Our Father, who have nothing less than the dispositions and affections of children? As if God could own Satan's image for his living pictures, and perpetual estrangements, disaffections, enmities, yea reproaches could have any reconcilement with the heavenly dignity of Adoption. God that hath taught men to pray, hath bid no man to lie, and to say he is their Father in Christ, when they are unchristian in heart and life. I confess the worst of men may wish they had real interest in Adopting grace. But under the Fatherhood of Satan, to claim spiritual Sonship, is so to call God Father, as Judas called Christ Master, Luk. 14.45, a mockery, but not a truth. How rare is it for the profane pretended children of God, in good earnest to charge gross hypocrisy on their profession, and thus to quaere; Can these oaths, drunken, unclean, unrighteous, voluptuous lives bear any fair consistency with Adopting grace? Am I not an impure offspring of Hell, though I pretend to a heavenly progeny? Will these thoughts, words, and actions speak God's children? These serious reflections are very rare. The notorious seed of the Serpent will complement and write themselves in their deceitful hearts God's children. Many of them have been, the rest will be blotted out of this blessed roll. Ah bold intruder! Ere long, in this life, or the next, thy Conscience will tell thee, Heaven holds no such children, as will live as they list, reject the paternal government of God, evidently darken the glory of God in the world, and yet call him father.

2. The stricter sort of Christians too much follow the dissolute Jew, in blemishing the glory of divine Adoption, and these are of two sorts. Such as really, such as are opinionatively godly, are indeed children, and that seem to be so.

1. Christians of strict profession, that are indeed children. What do you for your fathers name? Do not even you, that shall hear these sweet words from the mouth of your Judge and Savior, Come ye blessed of my Father, hinder his renown in the world? Are not you Key-cold, Hard-hearted, of dis-ingenuous unchild-like spirits, when you see the dreadful testimonies of his dishonor? Do not you, who in the next world shall lift up his name, and make his praise glorious, cast down his name, and make it infamous? Your undutifulness to your dear Father is too much, that your too loose hearts dishonor him, and inward wickedness provokes his absence; but is it not enough in irreverence and disobedience within doors to wrong your childhood? Will you dare to dishonor him, and yourselves in the public street of common notices? Against the precious fame of your Father, how are your tongues heated with a fiery Satan, and the flames of ungoverned passion, to abound in transgression before malicious observers, glad of your halting? How unwarily do you publish your over-eager, yea it may be in some things, injurious chases after the world's gainful prizes? Why discover you the nakedness of your dis-love and hardness to forgive a saint or sinner? Why doth your voluptuousness, too much declare you yet live not above the world? Why are you silly chapmen to take off the braid wares of corrupt errors? Have no opinions taught you looseness? Why do you not show you are Christians to purpose, in doing illustrious singular things; that the neighbors that study your lives, and are strangers to your inward Faith and Love may say, These are children of God indeed, would I were in their condition? It is not the language but the power of your Profession that will draw hearts after it. How have you defaced your Adoption, when your sinful omissions of convincing duties, and breakings forth of corruption, sharpen the edge of bitter language, and tempt to these words of reproach; O these are the children of God (in scorn) denying you the honor, because you have denied God the glory, and yourselves the credit of your Adoption. Let this lord your hearts for your unwatchful and dishonorable conversation, and call for future caution: Your public sins make your Father hear ill in the world.

2. Christians of strict profession, that have only children's name, not nature, artificial, not supernaturally natural, not lively in external exercises of Religion, that put over impious designs and practices, the too good cover of a pious name, that are adorned, painted Sepulchers, unclean within; that make not Religion the great expedient for blessed eternity, but a fair net to catch the world in: That in your zealous devotions, more hot in the mouth than heart, call God frequently your Father, and make it the pleasing Prologue and usher of many of your Petitions, Confessions, and Thanksgivings, and yet have no filial affections of love, and fear, shame and sorrow, no pleasure in pleasing him, no real godly sorrow for his dishonor: That betray the weakness of your painted piety, having no real fervency of heart for the interest of God's name, but your own concernments: That betray the whole body of your Religion is a dead carcass, without the life and soul of it, the quickening Spirit: No wonder if you stink, when the ill savor of your loathed pollutions, intemperance, incontinence, unrighteousness, unnatural sins betray the power of Religion was but feigned, never feared in the heart, that could never disperse inward, nor outward beloved, and delighted in imperious sins. O you that are strict in the exercises of piety, and do but feign, not really affect and pursue Christianity, God's most heavy, and smarting blows will be at you, without great repentance, and singular reforming sincerity: Do no longer mock God nor men: Hypocrisy at length ends in Apostasy: The feigned friends of Christ are real enemies. O let not Religion, holy Religion be wickedly blasphemed, nor be your play and game, but your serious business in good earnest; and know when you die, as well may you expect a painted fire should warm you, as a painted Religion comfort yourself-accused, and tempted departing souls. Before I close this point, I must warn the loose and scoffing generation that possibly may read this page, to forbear their triumph: Some may say, The Author hath hit the mark, and echoes with our thoughts; we are glad he hath paid the Hypocrites; out upon these Precisians, they are all Hypocrites. And are you glad indeed; Where is your charity? That would not rejoice in iniquity, 1 Cor. 13.6. What if your merry sarcasms, and satirical invectives against the Hypocrites, be an arrow justly shot against yourselves? Did you never read, there are hypocritical mockers in feasts? Psal. 35.16. The severe censurers of Hypocrisy had need be upright. Are not you eminently grossly guilty of the crime you cry down? If you will not believe it, it is easy to prove it, deny it if you can: Do not you profess salvation only by Jesus Christ? Do not you know, except you be born again, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven? Joh. 3.5. Is it not plain Scripture, He that is in Christ is a new creature, 2 Cor. 5.17. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts? Gal. 5.24. Are you not commanded to redeem the time? Ephes. 5.16. Are not livers in pleasures dead to God while they live? 1 Tim. 5.6. Must not he that abides in Christ, walk as he walked? 1 Joh. 2.5. Now I beseech you that throw the dreadful charge of Hypocrisy, and it may be truly against some persons, and yet care not though through the sides of Hypocrites ye wound the generation of God's children, are not you gross Hypocrites yourselves? You profess Christianity, credit Gospel-revelation, call Christ your Savior, dare not say you will not be ruled by his Laws, expect salvation by him, own his Ordinances, and if asked the question, before a Sacrament, or on a sick bed, by Ministers that please you, will you follow the rules of the Gospel to fit you for heaven? My charity persuades me you would say yea, God forbid but I should be ruled by Jesus Christ. It is very easy then to conclude from your own concessions you are Professors, now what is Hypocrisy but a constant contradiction to the profession of the power of godliness; Is not yours such? Be not angry with this home-speaking to your bosoms, your consciences, if you repent not, will speak a thousand times more after death than a few pages. Can your studious, and ordinary giving up yourselves to the lusts, pomp's, and vanities of the world, be interpreted a devoting, or resignment of your persons up to Jesus Christ? Are you born of the Spirit that show no scripture proofs of your high heavenly birth, the life of the Spirit, the graces of the Spirit, the leading of the Spirit, that are not acquainted with the breathings of the Spirit at the throne of grace, who never made your families houses of prayer? Are you indeed new creatures? Is it possible that the old oaths, drunkenness, uncleanness, slighting, and contemning the Word of God, laughing at those truths you hear, that should set you a trembling, loathing of religious exercises, living in the old affections and conversation, should prove you were new creatures? Can you believe Christ in you hath crucified the flesh with its affections, and lusts, which you pamper and keep alive? Do you redeem precious time, all which should you live a hundred years, abating the necessary and moderate attendances on the things of this life, would call for all time in the numerous services of Religion, conquests of Temptations, subjection to the Gospel, and preparation for Eternity? Will you call your covetous, costly, passionate gaming in the afternoon till night, yea sometimes from night till morning, redeeming the time? Is your sleeping till nine or ten a clock on the Lord's Day, time Redemption? Is your earthy, frothy, unedifying discourses one with another, when you are commanded to provoke one another to love and good works. Heb. 10.28. To speak what may minister grace and soul advantage to the hearer. Eph. 4.29. Time improvements? Are your tiring attendances an hour or two on God's Worship time advantages? Are your many hours attendances on your flesh-pleasing sensualities, the shortest and sweetest hours, the real profit of time? I beseech you in good earnest, study how Christ walked, and then judge yourselves, whether your debauched loose lives, strangers, yea enemies to the strict ways of Christianity, will prove you walk like Christ; what remains then, but if your eyes be open, the fruit of this arraignment of you, before the word of truth, will be real conviction you are gross hypocrites yourselves. I say not this delighting to discover the nakedness of your deceits, but if God's grace help, to reform them. It is true, there are that make strict profession, are hypocrites, but will this help you when God seeth, and yourselves know your palpable hypocrisies? As drunkenness condemns drunkenness, treason treason, uncleanness uncleanness, covetousness covetousness, passion passion, so too often hypocrisy hypocrisy. How is the Devil pleased to see fellow sinners peal and deeply charge one another, who without infinite mercy, are fellow travelers to hell; and will have no pleasure in accusing each other there? O you that are the looser sort of Christians, deal not with the stricter, who abuse their eminent religious appearances, as Diogenes did with Plato, coming into his adorned and stately room, he trampled on his bravery; being asked the reason of this incivility, the Cynic answered, I trample on Plato's pride: Yea (saith Plato) with greater pride. Do you see and comment on the errors and scandals of strict profession? Take heed you do not trample on their hypocrisy with greater hypocrisy. I shall finish this digression, with a humble and hearty admonition to larger, and stricter professors, to fear and tremble, lest they live and die under the dominion and damnation of hypocrisy. Ah Christians, who are too Eagle-eyed in discerning each others hypocrisies, and are too guilty of this sad retaliation, to charge one another with bitter words, but are too Mole-like in seeing your own dissimulation; study both I beseech you, your own bosom Arch-jugglers, your own deceitful lusts: Let your chiefest anger and revenge be against the craft and wiliness of your own corruption; Be willing, O be willing that the word of the Spirit should slay your own. See you of loose, and you of strict profession one another's hypocrisies, O turn your declamations into lamentations, your sharp charges into prayers, your scoffs into tears for one another; and you that need bowels of compassions, and a mantle of charity, to put over, not to blaze one another's hypocrisies, return piety and tenderness of spirit to your fellow deceivers; I mean not soul-ruining flattery, but regular Gospel-charity.

To return to the abuse of Adopting grace. Whosoever they are, as there are but few that are guiltless, very few but dishonor the glory and dignity of their Adoption, I could wish that it might be laid to heart, three things may be seriously considered.

1. The natural respects, reverence, lively affections, and zeal that children bear to their parents, who follow the guidance of that engraven Law God hath put into their spirits. The force of this consideration is this: Is it not a high dishonor to the Father of spirits, that the Parents of the flesh should have most regard? It is storied of a dumb son, who seeing his fathers life endangered, in mighty zeal burst open the long shut doors of silence, and said, O kill not the man. Do we not see the name of our heavenly father, we call so, endangered, his Gospel in peril to be lost by common contempt's and barrenness, our own soul; endammaged, and yet we are not delivered from a dumb devil, we want hearts and words to speak for our Father, to cry mightily to him that his glory may not be so obscured, his Gospel may be preserved, our souls may be sanctified and eternally saved? Where are our suspicions lest we darken his name by our dis-ingenuous unchild-like carriages? I am afraid, said the son of Declus, lest when I am made Emperor I forget myself to be a son. Are we as zealous in our ease, prosperities, sweet creature enjoyments, Lest fullness tempt to forgetfulness, lest we should be less reverent and obedient children, when our Tables are most delicious, and beds softest? Doth the light of nature say, Parents can never be recompensed? Doth the Scripture bid children to requite their parents. 1 Tim. 5.4, which endeavor they may, fully accomplish they cannot? What shame is it when we are infinitely more indebted to our heavenly father, then our earthly progenitors, that we should return him irreverence, daily dishonors; but be very rare and cold, and weary of religious, loyal, and filial returns? We reverence (saith the Apostle) the correcting fathers of our flesh, shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and lives? Heb. 12.9. There is a much rather for an honorable deportment, under the heavenly than earthly adoption: But the fathers of the flesh have a large harvest of respect and service, our heavenly Father hath scarce the gleanings of duty. Would Chrysostom have children serve the careful and zealous instruments of their worldly being, with as close a constraint and duty of love, as slaves do their masters from servile fear? How do we abuse our high, holy, and heavenly relation of children, when neither out of fear of his hot displeasure, nor love of his drawing goodness, we do to God faithful service?

2. It is an eminent piece of most abominable ingratitude to abuse best friends, dear parents; vengeance would not suffer Absalom to live, that rose up against his Fathers Crown and life; and they who would not obey their Parents (a sad monument of divine wrath) have obeyed the Hangman. Hath God borne so severe testimony against the dishonors of fleshly parents, will he not revenge our unthankfulness, who profess him our heavenly Father, live every moment by his protections and provisions; spend upon his creatures, his bounty, his care, his patience, yea hope to be with him in heaven, and yet riot, grow unruly and insolent with his goodness, wax wanton like well-fed heifers in fat pastures, refuse his sweet Gospel yoke, deafen our ears to our fathers call; kick at the tender bowels of his love, not only reject, but some of us jeer at the orders of his family discipline? Can we think that the zeal of God, that hath burnt hot in dreadful examples against the abuse of Parental rights, will not break out in dreadful flames against all of us very mock-gods, that complement God our Father, and take it for granted, we are his children (as indeed we are in external Baptismal Covenant) when it will be found, as the degenerated seed of Abraham, were ranked with Sodom and Gomorrah in wickedness, so without exceeding practical repentance, we shall be found no better, casting off our Fathers holy government, than very heathens, yea worse than they, by how much the more we have put the cover of an heavenly adoption over hellish rebellions.

3. In the great day God will strictly examine all those that passed for the members of his family. Admission unto his household, and calling him Father, will not secure from the wrongs of this heavenly relation. It is impossible now infallibly to discern between the spurious adulterate issue of the serpents seed, and the new-born real children of the most high God; but at the great day, when the thoughts of all hearts shall be opened, and the lives of all Professors, stricter or larger shall be examined, then (which is a dreadful place) The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out. Mat. 8.12. Those that had a name without the heavenly nature, dispositions, affections, and conversations of Children that have blotted their Fathers name, with inward filthiness, and outward pollutions of the World, that have clearly proved God's House hath been haunted with unclean Spirits, that have owned God in title, the Devil in reality their Father, that have as many times mocked God, as they have called him their Father in Christ: Then shall these, not Children of God, but Rebels; not the Image of Christ, but Satan; not the exalters, but debasers of God's name, be set on their proper side among the children of the Devil, and publicly before God, his holy Angels, his real Saints and Children, be everlastingly disowned from being reputed and rewarded as his Children, and be banished from his blessed and comfortable presence, to the Devil their Father, to keep company with all the Apostate Angels, and the Serpents seed, whether Pagan, abusing the light of nature, or Christian, the glorious Gospel of Grace: O consider this, all you that are called Christians, that either are more open and gross, or close profaners of your Fathers Name, Fear and tremble still to abuse it, lest as the degenerate Children of the Kingdom, ye be cast out: Then all thin fig-leaves, and external pretensions, you are God's Children, will vanish from you as darkness before the Sun, and flee away as chaff before the wind: It will be found, that Profession of Christianity is easy, but a suitable disposition and conversation to it is hard and rare; Lord, Lord, will not alter the purposes of that angry, natural Justice, that will take vengeance on the dishonors offered to adopting Grace.

SECT. 10.

10. Freeing Grace is turned into wantonness: The sweet name of liberty, but not rightly stated and understood, hath been one of Satan's snares, and is still to undo precious souls: We are bid to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, Gal. 5.1, but not in the liberty that Satan, the lusts of men, the spirit of error, carnal Interests and Policy makes us free: Jesus Christ never died to give the Devil a free trade: Gospel-Grace hath glorious freedom, from the curse of the Law, Gal. 3.13, the guilt of sin, the wrath to come, 1 Thess. 1.10. These are purchased liberties by the blood of Christ, and are all abused by licentious spirits, who turn Christian liberty into un-Christian Libertinism: They are free from the curse of the Law, as they believe, but are cursed Children, 2 Pet. 2.14, have unmortified cursed Corruptions, do accursed things, and lead accursed lives; so their freedom from the guilt of sin, is abused to wallowing in the filth of sin; and their fancied liberty from the wrath to come, is to enjoy the present pleasures of sin, and by treasuring up of sin, to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, Rom. 2.5. Too many sleeps on this sweet pillow, pleasing indemnity, freedom from hell, and abuse this liberty, by a secure walking in the way to hell: How is liberty mistaken? It is a freedom from sin, not in sin; It is putting the old man in chains, not allowing him enlargement; It is absolute denying of unlawful things, yea limitation and omission of lawful: It is a free service of God, not a servile freedom of lust; It is confined to Scripture rule, not left loose to a selfish arbitrary will; It is full of humility, fear and trembling, not audacious, adventuring on anything: It must write after the copy of Heavens liberty, which is to do the will of God, not the flesh: Holy Angels are free, but it is to duty, not rebellion. A wonder it is, that under Gospel-light, Christian liberty is made so broad a cover, as almost to hide anything: How many come in here for their share? Lavish Gaming, that throws away that in an hour, which would feed and clothe several poor Families for many years; spotted, yea painted faces, shroud themselves under lawful liberty: Excessive gluttonous Feasts, have their freedom too: A Cup too much, that tempts to many more, is made bold with, though it load the stomach and brains to staggering, vomit, laying reason asleep, mis-spending time and money: Covetous getting and keeping Estates, hath its patronage from Scripture liberty: Parents must lay up for their Children, 2 Cor. 12.14. It is Infidel-like not to provide for them, when under this pretense the numerous Texts of Scripture, concerning giving to the poor, are made of none effect: Every absurd and sottish opinion in Religion, among the sides of needless and offensive divisions pleads Christian liberty; yea which is sad, horrid, not only unchristian, but uncivil and unnatural practices have the same refuge: O when that arch Libertine the Devil shall once gull men, that his hellish suggestions have the leave and liking of Christ and his Spirit, wickedness will be boundless: It is sad to think how slily and successfully the Devil hath made prodigious Errors and practices passible, as in former times, so in the present age: O you that are falsely so called free men and women, know whom the Son makes free, they are free indeed: You do but dream of true freedom, who are the slaves not of one man, but of as many Lord's as lusts: Who will believe he is free, who goeth rattling up and down in chains, with his keeper by him? Alas! Carnal Libertines conceive they are free, when they go up and down in chains of accustomed sins, and have their Keeper with them, yea in them, (i.e.) the Prince of this wicked world.

How not only unreasonable, but unchristian, hath been the practice of loose, not Christian Reformation: Satan can ruin by extremes: Some Protestants in Germany, that did well in leaving Antichrist, did ill too in Apostasy from Christ: It was the complaint of Mencelius: O sad and shameful disgrace! After the power of the holy Gospel had set enthralled Consciences at liberty from the power and tyranny of the Pope, men would be free from all bonds, nor suffer any to hinder their licentious lives. Are not these sad extremes the practice of these times? After many amongst us are freed from human Conscience-yokes, they complained of, have they not also thrown off the Government of Christ by his Word and Spirit, and do as much boggle at Divine, as human impositions? As if the pure and strict Laws of Christ were equally intolerable with the erring Laws of men. Surely Christian liberty puts a universal confinement upon corruption, forbids every proud, wanton, erring Judgment; is prone and free to pass a sentence upon, and crucify carnal Lusts and Affections; dares not adventure on a vain thought and idle word, much less monstrous opinions, and courses of old and present times. Some men so fearfully manage their Gospel liberty, as if they might have leave to desire, think, affect, believe, speak, and do whatsoever they please, under Gospel-allowance, which interpretative Blasphemy, speaks the Gospel a profane, not an holy Gospel: But it need fear no such reproach: Its pure rules will vindicate themselves from looseness; Its sound words, from corrupt opinions; Its condemning holiness, shine in the threatened damnation of all those that make its liberty an occasion to the flesh: yet far be it from me that I should so reproach Christ's free ones, that better improve their glorious Liberty, in these trying times, as to deny, there are many who through preserving Grace, hold fast to the form of sound words, and do more warily manage Christian liberty by others Libertinism, that dare not live as very many do, that do not allow and follow, but reprove, pray against, and weep over their looseness; a better course then they take, that rebuke sin with sin, and while they declaim against unwary Christians use of liberty, do fearfully abuse it themselves: But the working out Salvation with fear and trembling, will prevent among us many Libertines. Ah dear Christians, are you called to liberty? See to it, that you be guided by the life and laws of Christ: Utter disproportions from these, are none of Christ's purchase nor dispensations: Your dangers are fearful, in common liberty of Conscience to be unconscionable, while you may have nature, state, and Church-freedom, you may be Conscience slaves: No thralldom like that wherein the Devil rides and drives Consciences where he please: If he can once be master in the Conscience, the Soul, and all else, in his own.

SECT. 11.

11. Pardoning Grace is turned into wantonness: Apprehended Remission hath proved the corroboration of sin: How many are there that sin, because they think they are pardoned, and though they drive on the trade again, it is but suing a Pardon, and the corrupt Libertine hath peace again? Sin and pardon, pardon and sin, is their circle of delusion: But sin and repentance are strangers to each other: What a dishonor is this to pardoning Grace? It is made by these men, the Encourager and Patron of sin, as the Popes indulgences, and large Pardons for sins past, present, and to come, out of his rich, cheating pardon office, are to blind Papists: How do Libertines turn the pardon office of Heaven, and throne of Grace erected by the Lord Jesus, into a Stews of uncleanness, a free opening of Hell Gates, an open Market for any to buy the Devils Wares? Hearken all ye that wrong pardoning mercy, to nine things.

1. You, in ungrateful Wickedness, undervalue, yea tread under your feet the infinite price of forgiveness: The state of pardon, and every act of pardon, cost the blood of the Son of God: We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Ephes. 1.7. Because this blood hath bought you a pardon, will you sell yourselves to work wickedness, and disgrace your Redeemer and redemption?

2. You abuse the riches of God's grace: Forgiveness of sins is according to the riches of his grace. Ephes. 1.7. The pardon of every sin, of infinite numberless sins, is a distinct act of grace. That must needs be rich, exceeding rich grace, that pardons innumerable sins; as that must be an immense treasure of money that pays as many debts as there be Stars in the Firmament; yea more than that the rich grace of God doth, when he saves a sinner: Will you now frolic in your carnal wantonness, because rich grace will forgive you? It is as if you should cast a Kings pardoning act of grace into the dunghill, or tread it under your feet.

3. You cross the very end of Pardon, which is the destroying, not the favoring of sin; the healing, not increasing the wound; a pious and holy, not an impious and profane life. Christ never blotted out believers sins, that his Pardons might be Indulgences to sin, but purges: He never put any into a new state of pardon, but he made them new creatures. Sin no more, followed the pardon of the Adulteress, Joh. 8.11. Sin is still the Devils and the fleshes allowance, not Jesus Christ's.

4. You contradict the very errand of Christ sent into the world; He came to call sinners to repentance, Mat. 9.13, not to give them leave to live in sin.

5. You deprive God, what in you lies, of another of his designs in forgiving sinners: The planting of his holy fear in their hearts not to sin again: There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayst be feared, Psal. 130.4, not that thou mayst be still dishonored by the old sins. Yea what fear, a property of true repentance? 2 Cor. 7.11.

6. You deny yourselves a choice Gospel blessing, which is the turning of you from your iniquities, Act. 3.26. Joyful news to sound hearts to be rid of the power of their tyrannizing sins.

7. You miss a choice fruit of Christ's intercession, which is to give repentance to Israel. Act. 5.31. One of the great donatives of the Prince of Life, installed in his heavenly glory, a choice Royal gift to fit for Heaven.

8. You divide what God hath joined together, Remission and Repentance. Act. 5.31. Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. 1 Pet. 1.2.

9. You are wholly selfish in your thoughts, hopes, and desires of pardon, would have God blot out your sins to serve your own turn, not to serve him; to sin with a peaceable spirit, not serve him with a pure conscience; That you might not go to Hell, not that you might be fit for Heaven. O Christians! Abuse not upon these accounts pardoning grace: If you do, and die in this wickedness, be sure these considerations, will like fire flashing about the ears, in the other world, flame upon your consciences, as daring wantons, that have played and sported with God's pardons. If you say, God forbid we should abuse pardoning grace, we are free from so great a sin; Take heed you dream not of innocence, where the Word chargeth you with guilt: Surely you play the wantons with pardoning grace, if seven things are verified of you.

1. If you sin in hope of pardon, which is wretched presumption, Are you not like those ill nurtured, and impudent children, that are vile and wicked, because they expect their fond and indulgent Parents forgiveness? Or like those Rogues, that rob and steal, because they hope for a Psalm of Mercy? Or like those tempters of God, that wound themselves because they look for healing from a sovereign Balsam? What is this expectation of pardon, but a confirmation in sin, and an encouragement to do still more wickedly?

2. If after your assurance, that you are pardoned, you boldly, willingly, and delightingly bid the next temptations welcome, this is in effect as if you should say, Welcome flesh, we are your servants; welcome devil, we are your subjects; welcome world, with all your snares, sinful pleasures and pollutions, we will refuse none of you, we are out of gun-shot, you can do us no hurt; we had lately a pardon sent into our bosoms, and now we may have liberty of sport and dalliance; we have a gracious God that will forgive us, and a surety who will pay all our debts: If this be your case, do you not clearly affront pardoning grace?

3. If your design of desiring and obtaining pardon be only to have a quiet conscience, but not a good one, you can very well bear the obstruction, the rebellion, the pollution of your sins, but only dread their damnation. If the use you make of pardons, is only that you may not be troubled, not that you may be holy, here is evident injury to Pardoning grace.

4. When you go on in sin, after thoughts of pardon, you have no sincere love to Jesus Christ. Many rest in hopes, yea some in assurances, they are forgiven, who yet never heartily loved the Lord Christ. They never had a love to labor for his name. Revel. 2.3, to prize his presence, Psal. 16.8, to stoop to his strict spiritual Government, Mich. 5.2, to regard his image, to be living Saints, Rom. 8.29. To have evil, Psal. 119.104. An eminent, yet pardoned sinner, will prove this high abuse of pardoning grace: Much was forgiven her, for she loved much, Luk. 7.47. She could not but answer love for love. If you that write yourselves down in your quiet consciences, absolved persons, love not the Lord Jesus, you are worse than Publicans, they love those that love them. Mat. 5.46. If a liberal creditor should freely forgive all your debts, could you deny your loveless carriage to him is a high abuse of his goodness? Should you hate your surety, conscience would tell you his love should be abused. Thus do you deal with God your creditor, Christ your surety, you disgrace the pardoning grace you think you have from them, when you hate the Father and the Son, yea abhor the guiding your hearts and lives by the Spirits motions.

5. If after thoughts of obtained pardon, you have no tender conscience, no mourning's, weeping's, melting's of love, of Gospel joy for Absolution, no serious sense of the dishonorable evil, even of pardoned sin, no watchful, fearful thoughts of the next transgression, no sorrowful apprehension of renewed sin. When you came over a narrow bridge, and very hardly saved your life, are not you tender of coming that way again? You have narrowly escaped hell, do you think pardoning grace hath kept you off it? O where is your tenderness of sinning there again, where you had been almost plunged into the bottomless pit. A heart hardened in sin, after thoughts of granted forgiveness, is an evident wrong to this Gospel grace.

6. If after thoughts of getting a pardon you have no holy shame for your sins: Mary Magdalene was pardoned, but in a holy shame she stood behind her Savior, Luk. 7.38. The absolved Romans were ashamed, even of their pardoned sins, Rom. 6.21. Ye are now, said the Apostle, ashamed of them. Ingenious children of God are ashamed, when renewing repentance in their Fathers presence, they look over the black roll even of pardoned sins. Surely you that have impudent reflections on your conceited sins, yea have no shame to keep you off from renewed and pleasing sins, do much disparage pardoning grace.

7. If after thoughts your sins are pardoned, you cannot, you will not pardon others, not your enemies, not your friends, not your joint professors of the same heavenly faith and hope, not your loving reprovers, not your hearty intercessors at the throne of grace for you. Are you indeed pardoned that cannot pardon? Pardon of sin is an eminent part of Gospel-glory. True believers are changed into it, 2 Cor. 3.18. When they see how much they are forgiven, they cannot but forgive; when they see a hundred debts are forgiven, will they strain at it to forgive one? Yea when God forgives a thousand to one, shall they not blot out a few? I dare boldly say, Those that take it for granted their sins are pardoned, that are implacable, that write wrongs in marble, not in the dust, be their confidences never so high, do both un-Christian, and un-Man themselves.

1. They strip themselves of Christianity. Its a choice, and hard rule to flesh and blood to forgive enemies; but this is neglected, despised. How can you say, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, when your consciences tell you, that you cannot forgive? you do not so much pray for, as curse yourselves; as if you should say, Lord forgive not my sins, for I will not forgive others. Do we not read the example of Christ, that forgave his enemies; He prayed for it, Father forgive them, Luk. 23.34, this difficult piece of Christianity was in Stephen, Act. 7.50. That choice Apostolical precept to the Colossians, As Christ forgave you, so also do ye, Col. 3.13. And is it Christianity never to forgive nor forget, ever to treasure up wrath and revenge?

2. They strip themselves of humanity: Even the Law of nature requires forgiveness: We are all the offspring of Adam, come of one blood, Acts 17.26. There is a consanguinity in all man-kind: We have kindred with all the children of men: It is therefore the inference of Lactantius: We are all of a blood, and therefore it is to be reputed the greatest wickedness to hate any man, although an hurtful enemy: And upon this natural consideration, enmities between men and men are never to be practiced, but ever to be abolished: Inspiration of souls, forming of Bodies from the same common Heavenly Father, speaks us Brethren: The admonition of the universal natural kindred of the World, should allay, yea, and break the spirit of enmity into love; we little consider it, but it is a real truth: When we take revenge of any man, we are revenged of ourselves: Every ones flesh is ours: The Prophet Isaiah calls every ones flesh our own, Isaiah 58.7. That thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh: Calvin's exposition is pertinent to this purpose: The word flesh is to be noted, whereby the Prophet understands every man, of whom we can behold none, but as in a glass we contemplate our own flesh: It is therefore a part of highest inhumanity, to despise those in whom we are constrained to behold our own likeness: Consider this, all ye Christians, who think yourselves safe under the security of God's pardoning Grace: How have you abused this Gospel-privilege, whom neither the serious sense of Christianity, nor the common tie of humanity can prevail with to forgive? When you cannot give, nor forgive, reason thus; Shall I not succor and pardon mine own flesh? Shall I both sin against grace and nature? Shall I by my uncharitable and implacable Spirit, sin both against redemption and creation goodness? Such Meditations cannot be too frequent to drive away irreligious and unnatural hardheartedness and revenge out of the spirits of Christians.

SECT. 12.

12. The Grace of imputed righteousness is turned into wantonness: Even the everlasting Righteousness, Daniel prophesied, which should be wrought in the Person of the Messiah, Dan. 9.24, hath had no little Injury in the World: This stupendous Gospel-mystery, That a lost sinner should be justified by another's righteousness, which is the holy Angels wonder, and will be glorified Saints ravishing admiration, hath been ill entreated, even of professed Christians. And lest the charge seem too general, I shall clear it in two particulars: The Grace of imputed Righteousness is wronged, when this is abusively pleaded against inherent Righteousness: When inherent Righteousness is foolishly and perilously rested on for salvation, without imputed Righteousness: The former is a plain Libertine in wickedness, the latter doth play the wanton with Christ's goodness.

1. The grace of imputed righteousness is abused, when it is pleaded against inherent righteousness: This is an easy and common cheat: Corrupt flesh, and the arch Deceiver, can easily please the Fancy, and persuade the Judgment, that the fair hand of Grace hath put the rich and large Robe of Christ's Personal Righteousness, on the leprous and unmortified Body of sin; yea, that this holy cover is so thick, that in the absurd Antinomian, God doth not so much as see Believers sins; as if one Divine Attribute had swallowed up another, his mercy his omniscience: Now when the loose sinner can say the Lord is his righteousness, he believes himself in a state of Grace, as if now nothing could endanger his immortal Soul, and he had enough for Glory: If unregenerate nature give the deceived Transgressor the largest line and scope, to live in sinful lusts, pleasures, and idolized sensualities, and the Conscience begin to grumble in the free choice affections and pursuance's of sinful courses; This is ever the remedy at hand: We are all sinners: This is our infirmity: Christ died for us: Hath satisfied his Fathers justice: He is our righteousness: Thus while they plead to Christ's legal righteousness without them, they live without Christ's Gospel righteousness within them. It is enough for them they are justified above, they seek not to be sanctified within, as if there were not need as well of an Evidence to Salvation by inherent righteousness, as of a Title to eternal life by imputed righteousness: This great abuse of the glorious imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, in opposition to inherent, and the singular peril to be lost forever, that they are in, who are contented with a bare imputed righteousness, will appear in seven things: As,

1. No glory will redound to God in such a contentment: Can the free gift of Christ's perfect obedience, made over to the sinner, have the glory of praise, when it hath the infamy of this dishonor? This heavenly Robe is purposely put on the most licentious persons, to hide them, not to amend them: Though there be no absolute change from the state of sin, to the dominion of sanctifying Grace: Though the state of total unregeneracy, be enmity to the holiness of Christ and his Gospel: Sins servants, are Heavens darlings, by the favor of a pretended imputation: Can God have the glory of bringing forth much fruit, while there is no implantation in Jesus Christ? John 15.5. Can God be honored in his Sons honor, John 5.23, and magnified in the glorifying of his name, 2 Thess. 1.12, when there is no new nature to honor him, but the predominant old man to abuse him? A solitary imputed righteousness without, is wronged without a righteousness within: God misseth of his honor where these are put asunder.

2. No honor will be to the Gospel: Bare appropriating Christ's obedience, will not secure the glorious Gospel from that unrighteousness and unholiness, that licentious wickedness would pin upon it: This part of Gospel, Christ is our righteousness, the flesh will like; but that part of it, The Justified must be holy, penitent, mortified, it cannot endure: It pleasingly believes the Gospel is to them the power of God unto salvation, though it never was the power of God unto Conversion. It is a Gospel Precept, we should walk as becomes the Gospel, Phil. 1.27. Can an unregenerate man so walk? Can night Birds abide the noon Light? Can Children of darkness walk as children of light? Can they be thought translated into the Kingdom of Christ, that are strongly kept and abide in Satan's Kingdom? No confidences of imputed righteousness can keep a wicked man from an infamous un-gospel life: When his corruptions break out, the Gospel suffers: Then Satan jeers in his Instruments; These are your Professors; These are your Gospellers, as if the holy Gospel gave liberty to sin: But nothing less, for as it proclaims imputed righteousness, so on pain of damnation it requires inherent.

3. No thankful return will be to Jesus Christ: The gift and benefit of everlasting righteousness, deserves everlasting thanks: It was never yet known, that an unsanctified person was thankful to Jesus Christ: He challengeth cordial, verbal, vital thanks, but all this is above the reach of unregeneracy: A carnal person can complement Christ with the cheap praise of the lips, but his soul, and all that is within him, Psal. 103.1. His conversation can never bless him: He wants the Gospel-power of a holy and a righteous life.

4. No reputation will be to Faith: Indeed it hath the honor to be the Grace that lays hold on Christ's perfect Righteousness; but this is not its only office, It sanctifies as well as justifies, Acts 26.18. Rom. 5.1. It purifies as well as pacifieth the heart, Acts 15.9. Rom. 5.1. The Just lives by it, as well religiously, Hab. 2.4, as safely and peaceably, Mark 5.34, and is not only freed by it from the guilt but the filth of sin: The name of Faith divided from holiness, hath this aspersion and dis-reputation, to be styled a vain faith, a dead faith, Jam. 2.20, a faith like the Devils faith, Jam. 2.19.

5. No conviction will be to unbelievers: Can the Christ rejecting World, be drawn to own and love such pretenders to interest in his perfect righteousness, who live unrighteously: They are apt to think the happiness of this imputation is but a fancy and a fable, that produceth not shining and glorious fruits: When they that for Christ's sake stand righteous in God's account, arise and shine, and the glory of God's holiness is seen upon them; even wicked men will inquire after Christ, and be constrained to think well of that Master, whose name is so sanctified and illustrious in his servants.

6. No communion will be with the holy God: Were it possible an ungodly Man should be clothed with Christ's righteousness, yet if he have not Christ's Spirit, Christ's Image, God and such a one could have no fellowship: Communion requires likeness: Contrary natures can have no converse: Two cannot walk together except they be agreed: How can a wicked person, and the pure God walk together?

7. No capacity nor ability of new obedience: Suppose a Rebel against Christ's Crown and Government were justified, yet if he were not sanctified, he could not do the will of God, 1 Pet. 1.2. Till sanctifying Grace subdue the natural rebellion of the heart, God's commands will be laid aside; as if a Traitors heart be changed, he will be subject to his Prince; if unreformed, he will still rebel.

2. The Grace of imputed righteousness is abused; When inherent righteousness is rested on for salvation, without imputed righteousness. This is one of Satan's wiles to ruin souls: If there be appearing strictness in the ways of holiness, and godliness be deemed a sufficiency for eternal life, so that Christ's perfect righteousness be cast out of the Saint-like Professors Creed, and the great weight of the souls confidence of happiness, laid on the sandy foundation of imperfect obedience, then the great title to eternal life, Imputed righteousness, is shouldered out and abused. The largest tale of duties, and sharpest sufferings of this life, cannot make up a complete righteousness. When personal, deficient performances, will wantonly get up into the throne, and justle out the absolute obedience of Christ: This setting up of a weak righteousness within, above Christ's perfect one without, will to the hazard of the guilty sinners perishing, fail in seven things.

1. There will be no pacification of an angry God: No gracious hearts nor godly lives atone God. Christ's Sacrifice only was Propitiatory: We joy in the Atonement, said the Apostle, Rom. 5.11, but by Christ's death. The highest measures of Believers doings or sufferings, cannot turn away God's wrath for the least sin: It was Jobs Faith, when a penitent sinner seeth his righteousness, he seeth his atonement, Job 33.23, 24. That is only by Christ, not a Believer: His own Prayers, Tears, Alms, Duties, do not pacify God, but the righteousness of Christ. It is a common practical error, we will be weeping and doing to turn away God's avenging displeasure: For though these duties are means appointed by God, yet we must look through them unto Jesus Christ.

2. There will be no satisfaction of God's Justice: Sin hath done infinite wrong: Justice would have an infinite reparation: Now it is impossible that finite doings and sufferings can make infinite satisfaction: A rest then in failing inherent holiness, at once leaves infinite Justice unsatisfied, and souls unsaved, Who of the best can tell that he hath done and suffered enough to make God amends for his sins, yea for the least sin?

3. There will be no proportion to the rigid Laws requiries; It will not abate one Law nor Circumstance of Duty: The Law is exceeding broad. The eminentest of Saints that have studied the Law, and their own hearts and lives, could never bring before God an exact obedience parallel to command: Had not Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law, the exactest Christians could have no grounded hope of Heaven. The Law would say even to a Paul, Here is much wanting; He durst not expect Justification from the unparalleled services, sufferings, and success of his Apostleship; I know nothing by myself, yet am I not thereby justified. 1 Cor. 4.4. The Lord Christ his personal duty is believers perfect righteousness, not their own sanctification.

4. There will be no escaping the curse of the Law: Christ crucified was made a curse for his people. Galat. 3.13, that they might not be accursed. Their services and penalties are no deliverances from God's curse, which unremoved will flame in everlasting burnings. All believers have infinite reason to say, The Lord Jesus, not their own Graces, hath delivered them from the wrath to come.

5. There will be no refuge against conscience storms, in a trusted-in righteousness of graces. Bare inherent holiness, failing and polluted, with corrupt mixtures, cannot secure a tempted soul by the Laws arrests, the accusing conscience, and Satan's indictments. This subtle and potent pleader will drive assaulted Christians from the weak holds of their petty performances, yea bring them to the brink of despair, until they run to the Cross of Christ, and get within the invincible and royal Fort, Christ's imputed Righteousness: This is the Saints refuge against their sharpest temptations, and conscience-storms. Heb. 9.12, 14, and 10.2.

6. There will not be a sufficient Argument, utterly to strip believers from all glorying in themselves about a perfect Righteousness: Would our own bare obedience be a current title to glory, believers might wantonly applaud themselves, and dance about their high duties, as the Israelites about their Golden Idol, they might commend themselves, and boast in heart, for the glory of their holiness, their Prayers, Tears, Alms, Mortification, as they are too apt to do. But when they know and believe the Lord Christ is made Righteousness unto them, there was not so much as a good thought either in them, or from them contributed, to the making of this glorious robe imputed righteousness; now they are denied all glorying in themselves. As to their perfect legal obedience, they only glory in Jesus Christ: He is of God made our righteousness, that according as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord, 1 Cor. 2.30, 31.

7. There will be no sure title to eternal life. The perfect and infinite righteousness of the God-man Jesus Christ, is an equivalent intitling purchase, to the Gospels infinite reward of the next life. As God is just and a justifier of believers, so he is just and will be their glorifier, Rom. 3.26.2 Tim. 4.8.

Let these things be a warning to all those that would secure their hopes, confidences, and joys of salvation, from miscarrying, to study that righteousness, which will fully and equally answer the demands of infinite justice, and as to a justified estate from the guilt of sin, to account their imperfect obedience, polluted, defective, yea as dung, compared with the complete personal righteousness of Jesus Christ: But alas! This error is too common, yea too much an error in real Christians, very ignorant of the mystery of an imputed Righteousness, to lay either the whole, or the greatest weight on a weak foundation. The Philosophers spake much of virtue, but their external shining virtues were headless virtues, because they were without the knowledge and worship of the true God; so were it possible that an unjustified person should eminently shine in all the graces of the Spirit, and be voted the none-such of the Age in contempt of the world, mortification, and new obedience; these graces would be headless graces: Christ would profit him nothing in his choicest doings and sufferings, while his active and passive obedience is nor a sinners infinite, complete, and everlasting righteousness.

SECT. 13.

13. Glorifying grace in the hopes and confidences thereof is turned into wantonness. It is called the grace of life, 1 Pet. 3.7, and eternal life is the gift of God. Rom. 6.23. The crown of Glory is a crown of Free Grace, adorned with that most orient Pearl, the imputed Righteousness of Christ, and the Jewels of the graces of the Spirit, in their most perfect splendor and exercise, that stand with the full fruition of God. It is Grace that rewards Grace with Glory: It is Grace that beginneth, increaseth, and consummates Grace: Now many hope for glorifying grace, who almost but hope for heaven? Who that have most just cause to fear, yet are afraid in the serious and sad dwelling thoughts of their condition, they are in eminent danger of Hell? Instead of the blessed hope, or hope of blessedness, the regular and warrantable expectation of glorifying grace, there is a common hope and a cursed hope of Satan's suggestion, and corruptions entertainment, though men continue in their sins they shall have heaven at length. This hope never purified the heart and life, 1 Joh. 3.3, but will prove to them that trust in it, like the thin and weak web to the spider, be swept away with the besom of destruction: An evil conscience is the most dangerous companion of Hope. Because many hope to be saved in the way of ruin, their diseases become incurable, like foolish patients that conclude health from that which increaseth their disease, and hasteneth their death. Carnal hopes might have been cured by conditional despair, that ever souls should be saved, while false hopes are rested in. A hope of life in the paths of death, is destruction to the soul. A despair of ever getting good by such a hope, might make men look out for better hopes, and more saving securities. There are doubtless many that will in the other world curse their irrational, unscriptural, and groundless hopes of Heaven. A Prince hopes to wear his Fathers Crown, How doth he abuse his hopes by living like a scullion, and consorting with beggars: Dishonorable employments are below Royal state. Many hope to wear the white robes of glory, Rev. 3.4, 5, and yet embrace dunghill lusts and courses, live dishonorably and abusively under their high expectations. These resemble the Lapwing (accounted an Emblem of infelicity) which feeds on dung, though it wears a Coronet on its head. In the common abused hope of glory, Hope is put out of office; the springs of Hope are not regarded; the work of hope is not done; the properties of Hope are not to be found.

1. Hope is put out of office.

It hath the office of a settling Anchor in heaven, in tempestuous and troublesome times. But the vulgar hope, though it pretend heaven for its hold, casts Anchor only among the creatures of which is worse, among the Devils, staying and strengthening itself in their counsels and lusts.

It hath the office of a saving refuge, against Afflictions, Desertions, Temptations, Corruptions, Heb. 6.18. The carnal hope of glory hath no City of Refuge but below, viz. Wits, Riches, Friends, Honors, &c.

It hath the office of purging water, which makes inside and outside clean: The false hope of heaven, wallows Swine-like in the filthiness of flesh and spirit, lays in the mire of wickedness, but riseth not out.

It hath the office of a diligent servant; It looks for a heavenly reward, and it serves God day and night, Act. 26.6, 7. But the bare fancy of the hope of glory, is content to serve the world, flesh, and devil. It looks for a heavenly harvest, and yet follows Satan's Plow, and soweth to the flesh. Gal. 6.8.

It hath the office of a comforting cordial: Good hope through Grace is the hearts comforter: But the feigned hope of glory gives no more real comfort than the dream of a cordial doth a sleeping or dying man. Carnal hopes never drink out of the cup of heavenly consolations; no draughts really please them but of earthly solaces. Thus do unregenerate men, whatever they think, put the hope of glory out of office; so in the common abused hope of glory.

2. The springs of hope are not regarded.

The Free grace of God is a Spring of Hope. Good hope through Grace, 2 Thes. 2.16. But loose spirits are as much strangers to the glory, purity, and power of Free grace, as true Hope. They have not good hope through grace, but ill hope, through presumption. The holy Ghost is a spring of hope, that ye may abound in hope by the holy Ghost, Rom. 15.13. But un-Gospel wantons have their hopes from the evil spirits suggestion, not the good spirits inspiration.

The perfect righteousness of Christ is a spring of hope: The hope of righteousness, Gal. 5.5. But the dreamers of Heavenly hopes, take the rise of their high hopes from their opinionative righteousness, their good meanings, good works, as they think, and external either moralities outward, or religious exercises, or both.

Justifying Faith is a Spring of hope. Rom. 5.1, 2. The hope of glory grows out of it. But the vain barren hope of Glory issues from self-sufficiency. As it comes not from a justified estate, so neither doth it show any evidence of sanctifying Grace.

The Promise is a Spring of Hope. The Hope of the Promise, Act. 26.6, but lying hope of glory never sprang from any Gospel-promise. For the promises have a cleansing virtue. 2 Cor. 7.1. The hope of the wicked hath none.

The Love of God shed abroad in the heart, is a spring of Hope: It makes not ashamed from the sweet sense of divine love, Rom. 5.5. But a sensual, brutish hope of glory never felt the sweet pleasures of God's love. They that are acquainted with the Paradise delights of it, are not wont to run a whoring after creature sporting's, much less after sinful joys. The glorious feastings of the delicious, eternal, distinguishing Love of God in renewed souls, have a mortifying virtue of pleasing vanities below.

Gracious Experience is a Spring of Hope. Experience worketh Hope. Rom. 5.4. The Experience of Regenerating Grace, of those sweet whispers, Thy person is accepted, Fear not, I am thy God, Christ is made to thee Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption, of the mighty awe of God's presence in the soul, of hating vain thoughts, of cleansing from secret sins, of sealing of promises, of victory over corruption, and much more, work renewed hopes of glory, that God will both perfect and reward his own work. The filthy streams of a dissolute hope of heaven, that are strangers to these pure springs, betray their impure originals. The unclean spirit, the filthy heart, the worlds pollutions, are the common abused Hope of Glory.

3. The Work of Hope is not done.

The work of Hope is to work patient and diligent continuance in well-doing: We desire you to show diligence to the full of assurance of hope unto the end, Heb. 6.11. But Hypocrites most heavenly hopes are both impotent and transient, they neither communicate strength, nor will they hold out; they have short breath, lame legs, and withered hands; and are a mere vapor, a fancy, and work no diligence, nor perseverance in the ways of Godliness.

True Hope will work the soul out of the vanities, dependencies, inordinate rejoicings of earthly Hope. Job had the hope of glory before his eyes; hence he was assured, that he should see his Redeemer; this swallowed up earthly hopes; If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold thou art my confidence. If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, &c. Job 31.24, 25. But the dissembled Hopes of Glory never dead the heart to the vain trusts and joys of earthly Hopes, when these are gone, those have no estate in the other world.

It is the work of Hope to work up the soul to the infinite Riches, Pleasures, and Honors that are above: The Hope that is laid up for you in heaven, Col. 1.5. But the adulterate hopes of heaven show their falseness. Real worldlings hopes under Gospel pretensions, are fastened only to perishing things, and must perish like themselves.

It is the work of Hope to succor the hearts of fainting believers, to strengthen the feeble knees, as a good daughter helps a sickly mother: When Faith, the Mother Grace, is ready to faint, Hope the daughter lends it a supporting hand, and says, hold out Faith. There is an expected end of corruptions and afflictions: Look Faith, O look within the heavenly veil, even Holy of Holies. Conflicts are sharp, O Faith see thy Crowns: Wants are many, O Faith see thy Supplies. The race of obedience is tiresome, O Faith see thy Prize: Now there is sowing in tears, O Faith see thy joys: The sweet countenance of God is clouded, O Faith see his eternal smiles: Believers are tossed with the waves of doubting's, despondencies, sometimes despair, O Faith see thine unshaken assurance, and everlasting rest. But the easy, false-hearted hopes, of notional Christians, can never succor their fainting Faiths. At best their Faith was but fancy, their confidence presumptuous; and when their false faiths expire, their groundless hopes are gone too. Ah miserable self-deceivers, that wrong the Faith, and Hope of Glory, In the common abused hopes of Glory.

4. The Properties of Hope are not to be found.

The Hope of Glory is a regenerated Hope. Begotten to a lively Hope. 1 Pet. 1.3. It is one of the new births graces: The Hope of Unregeneracie then is a spurious hope. New hopes never grow out of the old soil. The Hope of Glory is a high-born grace, its pedigree is abused, when a vile, sensual, wicked life, a bastard issue is laid at its doors.

The Hope of Glory is an Active Hope. High hopes oil the wheels of motion. Hopes of great Matches, Pardons, Liberty, sweetest earthly Pleasures, Riches, Crowns, shake off sluggishness. A real Christian hath the highest hopes, and this makes him go, yea run the ways of God's Commandments. Too many abuse the hopes of glory: They are negligent, lazy, indifferent, yea opposers in the methods and unpleasing services of Gospel Hope. What do most that hope for Heaven do to get it? Where are their wrestling's at the Throne of Grace? Where their self-denials? Where their Fighting's in Spiritual Arms against their corruptions? Where are their Conquests? Where their labors of Love? Where their zealous pursuance's of their own, and others salvation? Where the diligent improving of their general and particular calling for the glory of God? Where their working out their salvation with fear and trembling? Where their giving all diligence to make their Calling and Election sure? Where is their making Religion their business to be found? Most have the hopes of heaven, but they are drowsy, idle, have no power of godliness. These in an especial manner are the Abusers of true Hope.

The Hope of Glory is a Rejoicing Hope: We rejoice in the Hope of Glory, Rom. 5.2. When the Perspective of Faith hath fetched in the far distant blessed objects of Eternity, hath realized, and substantialized them to the soul, so that Faith saith to Hope, I see the glory of Heaven, I see the infinite rewards of sound Christians, I see the infinite pleasures, and satisfactions, and ravishing joys of those blessed Citizens above: Then says Hope, I look for them, I expect them with unspeakable joy, I wait for their Revelations and Fruitions. A real Christian will not part with the joys of his Hopes for a thousand worlds. He is incomparably richer in hopes than worldlings are in hand; but a delusive hope of glory continually joined with joyous, solitary, worldly hopes, is a stranger to the joys of heavenly hopes. The Hypocrite hath the fancy, but never the reality of these hopes. The joys of these do not in him out-joy the joys of earthly hopes, they do not lighten and sweeten the loss of worldly expectations: Experience will prove it of unsound pretenders to their rejoicing hopes of Glory. That if their hopes and the joy of their hopes below are gone, they have no rejoicing hopes above.

The hope of Glory is a Lust denying hope. The grace of God teacheth us the denial of worldly lusts, looking for that blessed hope. 11.12, 13. As pilgrims and strangers here (and therefore looking for your heavenly country) abstain from fleshly lusts. 1 Pet. 2.11. Ye shall appear with Christ in glory: Mortify therefore your fleshly lusts, fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, your inordinate affections, the root of all evil concupiscence. Col. 3.4, 5. They then that obey sin in the lusts thereof, Rom. 6.12, that walk after their own lusts, their ungodly lusts, as these wantons in Jude did. Epist. Jud. v.16, 18, and live and die in them, and yet hope for heaven, they clearly contradict Scripture, that the servants of carnal lusts shall not inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6.9. That the wicked shall be turned into hell, Psal. 9. That the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience, Col. 3.6. That Libertines, that count it pleasure to riot in the day time of Gospel light, The Churches spots and blemishes, not jewels, sporting themselves with their own deceiving's, in their fearless feastings, adulterous infectious examples, covetous, impenitent, shall perish in their corruption, and receive the reward of unrighteousness, 2 Pet. 2.12, 13, 14. That what a man soweth, that shall he reap, if to fleshly lusts, an harvest of eternal torments; if to the spirit, a rich crop of eternal life. Gal. 6.7, 8. All these eternal Truths that divine Justice will infallibly make good, Lust-pleasers, not deniers, nourishers, not crucifiers, do blot out by their unchanged hearts, dissolute lives, and real unbelief. The slaves of their absurd, unreasonable, ungodly lusts, do in effect and interpretation speak these blasphemies, God is an holy and righteous God, and he will reward our unrighteousness and unholiness with eternal life. When we play the wantons with our lusts, we think God and ourselves alike: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself, Psal. 50.21. That God hath not so pure a nature, and pure eyes. Hab. 1.13, but when he seeth sin, he likes it well enough, he delights in wickedness: Ye say everyone that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them, or where is the God of judgment? Mal. 2.17. That the Word of God is false, that godliness is true gain, that the righteous only go into eternal life, that there is danger in sin, that the wanton abuses of God's grace perish in their corruption, that the blackness of darkness forever is reserved for them: Thus doth Lust-favoring and pampering Hope, abuse the Hope of Glory.

The Hope of Glory is a well living Hope. The saving grace of God teacheth us to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for the blessed hope, &c. Tit. 2.12, 13. I have hope towards God, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust, and herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense towards God and towards men. Act. 24.15, 16. He that hopes for the full sum, is glad of the assuring earnest; he that would have the full harvest, is pleased with the first fruits. The hope of glory that rejoiceth to think of the eternal sum and harvest of holiness, is careful to get, and joyful to obtain the earnest and first fruits of the Spirit of grace. But the common, absurd, foolish hope of glory, expects a heavenly, eternal sum, when it hath no earnest here; looks for an eternal harvest, when the first fruits are neglected and despised; it pleasingly dreams to live happily with God in glory, when it never lived holily with God in grace.

The hope of Glory is an Affliction-enduring, and sanctifying Hope. For this Hope the Apostle Paul was called in question, Act. 23.6. Judged, Act. 26.6. Accused, v.7. Imprisoned, chained, Act. 28.20, suffered any persecution with patience, contentment and joy: For the hope of the Resurrection, he took pleasure in his infirmities. As the hope of Riches makes the Merchant cross the Seas at any hazard, even to the utmost Indies, and of victory, which makes the Soldier endure, hunger, cold, watching, blows, and wounds. It's hope of gain maketh the industrious Tradesman to be up early, encounter all Highway storms. It's hope of a good crop maketh the painful Husbandman to endure Winters cold, and Summers heat. It's hopes of Crowns which maketh the ambitious run the hazard of losing their liberties and lives, and undoing their families, to hew out their way to Sovereignty by bloody deaths, that stare them in the faces: So the heavenly expectations of immortal Riches, Victories, Pleasures, Crowns, are Affliction-enduring hopes: But the Imaginary hopes of Glory, are cowardly, effeminate, soft, lascivious, and are founded in policy, not in piety; measured by the interests of the body, not the soul, are pleased with the fair, not the foul weather in heavens way. They engage in the Christian Warfare no further than the flesh may be pleased, a safe retreat to the world may be obtained; and this counterfeit hope in trying hardships, is ever offended in Christ, Mat. 13.57. One hard saying or another, and unpleasing religious severities, make Christianity a scandal: The voluptuous professor turns from the power of it, and in time of temptation falleth away.

CHAPTER IV.

Showing when a Sinner turneth the Grace of God into wantonness.

This may be known in all the thirteen Sections of the foregoing Chapter: But because the fullest discovery that can be, to strip naked this hideous Monster, Abuse of Grace, next to the unpardonable sin, the worst of sins will all be little enough: I shall therefore more fully show, when a sinner may be concluded, even in the Judgment of his own enlightened Conscience, to turn the Grace of God into wantonness.

This Scarlet Transgressor doth so, when he carrieth wickedly in reference to Sin, God, Christ, the Law, Gospel, and the Creatures.

SECT. 1.

In reference unto sin, there is wantonizing against Grace, in four things.

1. When the heart is careless of sin, doth not cast about which way to avoid it; but if the coat of Profession be stained with it, if the heart be a sink of uncleanness, if the hands be defiled, the daring sinner makes no matter of it; as if God in testifying his Grace, should give liberty to cast off all care of avoiding offense: The Apostle hath recorded other things, of the truly Christian repenting Corinthians, mentioning their carefulness to admiration: Behold what carefulness your godly sorrow hath wrought in you? 2 Cor. 7.11. What solitude and diligence not to fall into the old sin? But it may be said of many lascivious spirits, Behold, they dwell carelessly, as the men of Laish did. Temptations, like the children of Dan, may invade, plunder, and spoil them, Judge. 18. They care not for their precious souls, though they perish: But the Lord will deal with them, as he said he would with Magog, send a fire among them that dwell carelessly in the Isles, Ezek. 39.6. The ease of these simple ones will slay them, Prov. 1.32. Though they are careful to secure their fleshly, worldly interest, and wholly careless of the main concernments of the glory of God, their own salvation, and the honor of Gospel Grace: God will be careful to exalt his own Name, in avenging the dishonors of his Grace.

SECT. 2.

2. When the heart is fearless of sin, there is a loose Libertine: It is one of the Characters of these wantons in the Text, They fed themselves without fear, Jude ep. v.12. No wonder they were dissolute, when fearless Spirits: Job was afraid, that when the goodness of God had provided Feasts for his children, the Devil should be paid the shot; Lest they should sin, and curse God in their hearts, Job. 1.5. Therefore he sent and sanctified them, and offered up sacrifice for them, that in the name of Christ his Redeemer, their sins might be expiated and forgiven them: But fearless Sensualists, eat and drink, and sin with and against the Creatures, but fear no hurt; yea, What fear was said of the repenting Corinthians, 2 Cor. 7.11. What fearlessness may be said of loose persons? They are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities, 2 Pet. 2.10, to set their mouths against Heaven: They speak wickedly and loftily, not tremblingly concerning oppression, Psal. 73.8. They fear not to sin in lawful things, never regulating their use by expediency, and the grace of Temperance, and so wantonly dance on the pits brink; fall from lawful allowances, to unlawful things: They fear not the reckoning day, like loose Debtors, while they spend on the stock of their Creditors Estate, and patience: Well were it for these, if awakened out of the deadly Lethargy of this carnal Security, they would hearken to the counsel one giveth, Fear for this reason, because you have found the want of fear.

SECT. 3.

3. When the heart is sorrowless for sin; As an offense to God, an unkindness to Christ, a defilement to the Spirit an obstruction to fellowship with the holy God; and upon Gospel considerations of spiritual Ingenuity, and love to the Lord, hath not a broken heart, and a contrite melting Spirit, in close Soliloquy with God by meditation and supplication; but is as hard as an Adamant, without all mourning's and relenting's, upon the forecited grounds; Here is clear abusing of God's Grace: It was never offered to harden, but soften the heart, as it did the hearts of Peter, Matth. 26.75. Mary Magdalene, Luke 7.38, and humble Paul, Rom. 7.24, 25. O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved, Jer. 5.3. God strikes wicked, rocky hearts, with Afflictions, Reproofs, Terrors, smiting's of the Conscience, fears of Hell; but their sorrows are not to be discerned, but hypocritical, or slavish and brutish, which vanish when the smart is off. These are strangers to godly sorrow, which worketh out the love-liking delight, the reign of sin: While God's mourners are in secret, and looking over their sins with heavy hearts and weeping eyes. They are wantonly leaping and triumphing in the hellish mirth of sporting in sin, Prov. 10.23. Taking pleasure in unrighteousness, 2 Thess. 2.12. It is a clear evidence, that they who never had true Gospel mourning for sin, or have forsaken the exercise of it, or think it needless, or scoff at it (as if there were no Scriptures: Blessed are they that mourn: Godly sorrow works repentance: A broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise;) are wanton abusers both of the time and Grace of Repentance.

SECT. 4.

4. When the heart is powerless over sin, there is a licentious abuse of Grace: Surely Grace is victorious, and will in time, in the conscientious and spiritual use of means, rout the powers of Hell. Satan, before the rescue of Grace comes, binds his Captives fast in the chains of their own sins; But, when they are broken, he hath lost his prey; and the tyrannizing Prince of the world, John 14.30. That hath the power of binding; lost sinners, under the power of the spiritual death, and guilt of eternal, Heb. 2, is cast out, in the merits and power of infinite redemption, John 12.31, 32. Grace is not a shadowy, but real war, though it be often worsted, yet it rallies again, and by the renewed Auxiliary Forces of Divine power, it beats down strong corruptions before it. What injury is it to Grace, to contemplate, but never practice Mortification; to profess the Christian warfare, but never to fight; or in undue arms, or without skill to put on God's Armor, or to sleep in them, or to lay them by, or to run to the enemy, and so to do no execution on carnal Lusts and Affections? What is this, but to disparage, and endeavor, what in us lies, to degrade Divine Power, from the glory of its victorious ability, as if the contracted corruption from the first Adam, could still be too hard for the Grace of the second? How doth a powerless profession over sin, proclaim itself a stranger to the mighty Arm of the Prince of Grace, never feeling the power of these truths: Christ brings forth judgment unto victory, Matth. 12.20. Greater is he that is in victorious Believers, than he that is in the world, 1 Joh. 4.4. Are there not many among us that have notions, fancies, expressions of Grace, yea, infused, gracious, heavenly motions, speaking in them: But do they leave these sins and do these duties, in the fear of God? How can they that are false to their own Convictions, Confessions, and the Holy Ghosts Inspirations? What mocking of God is there in unmortifying profession, as is too legibly to be read in the lives of men? Doth not all the Grace of vain, idle opinionative Christians, that seems to be expressed in Prayer ex tempore, or of set forms; in appearing to be taken, with gracious examples, Sermons, Chapters, good Books, and Conference, evacuate into lazy Speculation, and powerless profession? In holy duties of worship, there seems to be Evangelical Grace; but in the frame of the heart and course of life, in dealings with men in Callings, Conditions, Relations; with many there is no being of Grace, and with the gracious, no constant, sufficient, convincing exercise of Grace, a few excepted, that make Religion their business. What a disgrace is put upon the grace of God? What temptation to blaspheming Sons of Belial, that the Grace of God men speak of, is a Fable, a Dream, a Fancy, no Reality? Such do-nothings, or nothing to purpose, as beat the air in their cold professions, and dead convictions of God's grace, may blush and be ashamed of their wanton spirits and conversation, when they read these Scriptures: From the day the grace of God was known in truth by the believing Colossians, they brought forth fruit, Col. 1.6. We beseech you receive not the Grace of God in vain, by offensive conversation to God and men, unrepented of. 1 Cor. 6.1, 3. The Gentiles had their understandings darkened, alienated from the life of God, past feeling, given over to lasciviousness, working all uncleanness with greediness, but you have not so learned Christ. Eph. 4.18, 19. The grace of God, O holy Ephesians, hath over-powered your hearts to an abhorring, and declining these sins, and to walk in the blessed paths of holiness. Grace acting to purpose in regenerate Zacchaeus, put him upon liberal contribution to the poor, and honest restitution of ill-gotten estate. Luk. 19.8. When the Gospel came to the Thessalonians, not only in word, but in power, it enabled them to turn from idols (in the zealous worship and preservation whereof, Idolaters are usually mad. Jer. 50.38.) to serve the living and true God. 1 Thes. 1.5, 9, when the same word of grace took possession of the hearts of them that used curious and Magical Arts, they brought their books together, and burnt them before all men, though they were worth fifty thousand pieces of silver. Act. 19.19. O shame of the common powerless Christian profession of the Age! The Gospel of grace, by the mighty breathing of the Spirit came near the hearts of Magicians, made them Christians, and open penitents, even to a public sacrificing of their wicked books to the flames; but a thousand Sermons of Gospel grace may reach the ear, the fancy, the understanding of professed Christians, but never change the heart to a powerful reformation. Oh that bare illuminists and verbalists in Religion, that live as if the essentials thereof were only notions, and words would consider three things.

1. The Kingdom of God stands not in word but power. 1 Cor. 4.20. Its real subjects are as well diligent doers, as good speakers: Lay more stress on hearts and lives than lips, had rather be than seem to be penitents, rather run in the way of God's Commandments, than talk of them. A groundless intitling to Christ Lord, Lord, will speak no faithful Subjects of Christ at the great day, why should it now? The kingdom of God is righteousness Rom. 14.17, not only imputed, but inherent, not only of Justification but Sanctification. In the Kingdom of grace, all saved Professors have holy hearts and good lives. Satan's subjects, though they take Christ's Press-money in Baptism, use the badges of his Government, yet never did set one foot into Christ's kingdom.

2. Such as call Christ their Lord and Savior, yea often bind their sayings by these words, as they hope to be saved, when they neither rightly understand salvation, nor true hope; yea all Libertines of stricter profession, that have carnal, loose, epicurean hearts, and lives, they are no better than the enemies of Jesus Christ, and self-destroyers. The compassionate Apostle could not but speak of these with tears; They are the enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things, Phil. 3.18, 19. Let them look over this Text, and weep, who either in larger professions, or stricter, but easy religious formalities, are effeminate, delicate, flesh-pleaser, belly-students, and gloriously back-adorners, money-idolaters, almost in nothing denying themselves in their sensualities, they are enemies to the cross of Christ. Did they never read, Our Old man was crucified with Christ, Rom. 6.6. That as corruption was crucified meritoriously on the cross, so it should be crucified efficaciously in the heart? Was it not the great design of Christ crucified, that the body of sin should die? Are not these enemies to his cross, that pamper it, and keep it alive? Besides are not they enemies to Christ's cross, who though they read and cannot deny it that Christ triumphed openly in his bloody passion over his enemies, (a) World, (b) Flesh, and (c) Devil, (a) Joh. 16.33, (b) Rom. 6.6, (c) Col. 2.15, yet by their graceless hearts, and dissolute lives, like Traitors to their professed Lord, restore to his enemies what in them lies, their vanquished Kingdom, which the Lord Christ died for to destroy in the Cross.

3. From a holy profession, powerless over corruption, the Lord Christ is like to have no followers in the world. Primitive Christians won repute to Christ and his Gospel, not by their shadowy forms, but substantial powers of Godliness. The Apostle Peter exhorted Christian Wives, so powerfully to adorn their Profession, that their lives, as really converting Sermons might win their idolatrous Husbands to Jesus Christ and his Truth. 1 Pet. 3.1, when powerless good speeches do no good, the practical power of godliness would make converts. When heathens found the Christians not only holy lives, but miraculous power of casting Devils out of their bodies, they stuck close to that Religion, whose power they felt. Were the lives of Christians nowadays shining and convincing, did the miraculous power of casting Devils out of souls appear, not only the delivered themselves, but profane observers would magnify and keep close to that religious profession, whose glorious victorious power is admirably discerned.

SECT. 5.

2. The grace of God is turned into wantonness, when the sinner carries loosely as to God, he doth so in four things.

1. When Pretenders to God's grace, do not retain the light of God shining in their minds, so that truths, that would be saving and sanctifying, are imprisoned in unrighteousness, and God is not with liking and love in all their thoughts, Psal. 10.4. He is known, but not glorified as God, Rom. 1.21. By the sin as well of wanton Christians as wanton heathens, God's grace is injured. Impure hearts, and evil lives are sad contradictions to divine information's: Careless servants mind not their Masters pleasure, not careless Christians the pleasure of God.

2. When the commands of God are cast behind the back, the grace of God is abused. As his Laws are sweetly qualified in Christ, they are all Acts of Grace. God favors us in requiring obedience of us on Gospel terms: His Laws are known to Jacob, and his Statutes to Israel, he hath not dealt so with any Nation, Psal, 147.20. To the Israelites pertained the giving of the Law, Rom. 9.4. Now to cast his gracious pleasure behind the back, is such an indignity, as to cast away a Princes gracious Proclamation, wherein his pleasure is sweetened with many acts of grace. God needs not our obedience, we need his commands, and in their obediential service there is not only work but wages. The sweet peace and comfort of sincere gospel duty pays for its performance. In conscionable and spiritual obedience, as God is glorified, so there is great reward, Isa. 49.4. Psal. 19.11. What wrong do they to the grace of God, and their own souls, who under the favor of Grace neglect that holy compliance with the Divine Will, which is rewarded with present purity and delight, 1 Pet. 1.22. Rom. 7.22, and shall be with promised eternal happiness? Rom. 2.7. Heb. 6.12.

3. When there is impudent irreverence in the presence of God: There is no fear of God in the eyes of daring sinners, Rom. 3.18, whereas true Grace would put on a holy blush, either to prevent sin, or repent of it: The Philosopher resented modest shame-fastness, as virtues color; and the Scripture accounts of holy shame, as the complexion of Grace: O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, Ezra. 9.6, so Rom. 6.21. O our hypocrisy! We that style the Lord our gracious God, are ashamed of sins before men, but blush not to sin before God: O our slighting of God's presence! Though we see God's All-seeing eye upon us, and are convinced, the Lord knoweth, and exactly weigheth our sinful thoughts, reasonings, desires, affections, Perturbations, close Atheism, irreverence, filthiness, pride, envy, malice, and Books of sinful words, Actions, to be read over again in the great examining and Judging day: yet the audacious sinner will pour out his pollutions before the seen face of God, with a shameless whores forehead, and a spirit senseless of his severe judgments or prying presence. Too many that go for God's servants, are like the loose ones of men, that know their gracious Masters eye is before them, yet abuse him, and slight his pleasure before his face; such a frame of spirit speaketh this wickedness, as if such Language were uttered before the Lord: O Lord, thou art my loving Master, but I so little regard thee, that though I know thou seest me, yet I will dissemble, be unclean, passionate, unjust in my dealings, worldly, and follow the swinge of my corrupt lusts in thy sight; such kind of excuses carry great filth and guilt— But be not deceived, God will not be so mocked.

4. When pretenders to the Grace of God live wholly to themselves, and not to him; This is an affront to God's Grace. It is the genuine and proper work of Grace, to live to God: He cannot draw nigh unto him that departs not from himself. Grace is water of life, it is with this, as with other water, it riseth as high as the Spring from whence it came: The God of grace is the spring of grace; this living water runs up to its own Spring: He is the Sea of grace, this sweet stream in a supernatural gratitude, runs into its own Sea. The Lord Christ designed this in his death, that his redeemed ones should not live unto themselves, but to him that died for them and rose again, 2 Cor. 5.15. But now when carnal Gospellers follow the guidance of their own reason, the imperious Law of their desires and affections, like Israel, bring forth fruit unto themselves, Hos. 10.1. Center their Religious services, hearing, fasting, praying, reading, for self, not God, Zach. 7.5. When shining, glorious profession, is but a more unsuspected and politick sacrifice to that grand Idol, Carnal self, either in the whole or main of its services, the grace of God is abused: When all Christians by their profession, should lay out and consecrate themselves wholly to Christ, they are unworthy that the earth should bear them, that do not fully resign and devote themselves to Christ. They are not worthy of the name of men, false to the Law of natural gratitude, that serve not their deliverer; and are not they as unworthy of the name of Christians, false to the Law of supernatural thankfulness, that serve not their professed infinite Redeemer? Pretended favorites of Heaven, are like those selfish Courtiers who abuse their Princes ear, Smiles, Grace, Honors, and Bounty to Chambering and Wantonness, to the greatening of themselves and families, but improve not their Sovereigns Grace to his Honor, the glory of his Crown, the increasing of his Treasure, the establishment of his Dominions; the lively Pictures of them that go for the Spiritual Darlings of God's Court, who live not to the glorious interest of their Heavenly King, but bias all his gracious dealings, according to the motions of worldly and corrupt selfishness.

SECT. 6.

3. The Grace of God is turned into wantonness: When the heart carries wickedly, as to Christ, in three things.

1. When the profuse riotous sinner, runs in God's Debt, because Christ is his surety: Indeed, upon this truth and rocky foundation, that Christ is the faithful surety of his people, Heb. 7.22, is built the eternal salvation of his Church: It is the richest, right orient Pearl, in the Gospels Cabinet: A Believer would not be without this everlasting prop and succor to faith, this assured conveyance of eternal happiness for the world: It is dross and dung to this excellent knowledge, Christ is a surety: But to whom, and for what? To refusers and despisers of him? To loose the reins on the neck of lusts? To privilege the liberties and power of Satan? To sin without control and remorse? Surely Christ as our surety on the Cross, sustained our person, and made to his Father an engagement for us, that our old man in time should die, Rom. 6.6. Yea, in the great agreement of the holy and everlasting Covenant of Grace, there was this part of suretyship, that we should walk in holy fellowship with God and Christ, by the Spirit, as the friends of God, and therefore it is an intolerable indignity to our heavenly surety, at once to believe him an undertaker, that corruption should die, and to live in sin. This maketh him a surety, and no surety: A surety, in the professed Faith and owning of this suretyship; no surety in the Preservation, and not Mortification of wanton Lusts. Consider this, all ye that sin against the grace of your professed surety, but without his leave, or the least allowance of his Gospel, was a gracious pardon-office, dearly purchased, by the infinite price of the blood of the Son of God, that it should lavish out forgiveness of sins to dissolute livers? Did God decree, and Christ accept of a weighty, costly, and suffering suretyship, that profuse, Iewd Debtors, might spend more freely, merrily, and daringly, on the stock of their sureties satisfactions? Such indignity carnal profession imposeth upon Christ's saving undertaking: The Lord invites the humbled, burdened sinner, to accept of his pardoning mercy, and proud Libertines heap up sin: These spots and dishonors in Christian Assemblies, are like to a young riotous Gallant, that spends largely, in Gaming, Feasting, Whoring, and comfortably stayeth upon this, he shall not be Arrested, not Imprisoned, because he hath a rich surety will pay all: So expensive Libertines give large vent to their corruptions, in their sinful creature-excesses, in their abominable hypocrisies, in their unrighteous dealings, in their idolized sensualities, in their carnal securities, and yet they cheer, and fully stay themselves in this Indemnity, the Law shall not arrest them, nor cast them into the eternal prison of utter darkness, because they have a rich surety, Jesus Christ, who (as they presume) will pay all.

2. When the faith of redemption, by Christ, worketh not subjection to him, the grace of God is turned into wantonness: Eternal Redemption, is an eternal obligation to service, a bridle to curb our lascivious flesh, not a Feast to feed it: God hath on purpose decreed Christ a Redeemer, that he might be sovereign Lord over all his purchase, as we have dominion over that we pay dear for: Now where redemption by Jesus Christ is preached in common, that the price of his blood was a sufficient ransom to redeem the whole world; there are very few but believe Christ died for them: But how is the mystery and mercy of Redemption abused? The Faith of Redemption worketh not subjection in most professed Christians: They would be saved in their sins, not from their sins. Christ hath redeemed his people out of the hands of their enemies, but they are content to be in them still; He died to rescue them from their vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1.18, but they are vain, Jam. 2.20. Walk after vanity, Jer. 2.5, and shall find vanity their recompense, Job 15.31. He was crucified, to deliver from the power of Satan, Heb. 2.14, 15, but they are still his possession, Eph. 2.2, as taken Beasts are the Hunters prey, as Prisoners are the Conquerors spoil, to be carried up and down, dealt with at their pleasure, 2 Tim. 2.25. O that such as are by profession Subjects, and by disposition and conversation Rebels against Christ, would seriously ponder these things.

1. Both the Scriptures and experience of loyal Subjects to Christ, do clearly evidence, that effectual, beneficial Redemption, is proved by subjection; that he died not to redeem us to the life, but death of sin; not that we should live and die in sin, but live and die in the state and power of Grace.

2. They that believe themselves the redeemed of Christ, and yet are the slaves of their lusts, the vassals of Satan, have either not considered at all, or very slightly, That the proper intention of Redemption was Dominion; Ye are bought with a price, are not your own, your Body and Spirits are God's, 1 Cor. 6.19, 20.

To this end Christ both died, and rose and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living, Rom. 14.9. Surely no Believer is of his own right, but another's: His Person is deeply and dearly paid for; now what is bought, passeth into the dominion of the buyer. The ransomed of Christ are Peculium Christi, Christ's own possession. It was a holy wish of a holy Writer, O that Christ's Lordship, with deepest impressions, might be rooted and fixed in our minds: The loose depravers of Redemption, run the hazard of perishing, when they refuse to be Christ's possession.

3. The greatest freedom, pomp and glory of the world that takes carnal eyes, dischargeth no wicked Libertines from being the most vile and abject slaves. Nobles, though bound in silver chains, are Prisoners. The Devil and the old Man will never envy their spiritual Captives outward freedoms, while efficacious Redemption hath made no powerful Translation unto Christ's Kingdom of salvation.

4. Carnal walker's conceits of Redemption by Christ, are pleasing, delusive and vanishing dreams: While the Israelites served Pharaoh, they were not delivered; so titular Christians never, felt the power of Redemption, while they obey the Devil, and abound in the pleasures of sin: The chained Prisoners thoughts of Ransom, are very sorry ones, while he still starves, and dieth in his Irons.

5. The avenging jealousy of the Lord Christ, will flame out against them, who rest, yea boast in heart, yea sometimes in tongue, of his ransoming Grace, and yet shake off his rightly purchased Government: He counts them no better than enemies, that refuse his dominion, and threatens their destruction, Luke 19.27. He shall come from Heaven to revenge their disobedience to his Gospel, 2 Thess. 1, who profanely rested on the Grace of his Redemption. How can they answer their undoing fallacy, of dividing what God hath joined, parting Redemption from iniquity, and Redemption from Hell, as if the whole of it were to rescue lost sinners from the smart, not the filth of sin; to give them a licentious ease, not to fit them for their professed Lord's use, and their own eternal sweet communion with him, to keep them from being vessels of wrath, not to make them vessels of honor. What a dishonor is this to the grace of God, That Lust, the Devil, and the World, should Lord it over Christ's purchase? What reproach to Redemption, that those who believe they are ransomed by him will not be subject to him, but abide, Col. 1.21. Enemies to him in their minds, declared by wicked works? Are not these men like ransomed captives, bought by a dear price, who are so far from subjection, and paying honor to, that they rebel against their Lord?

3. When Christ is desired for his comforts, not for his service, God's grace is turned into wantonness. Thus many take Christ to serve their turns of him, not to serve him, for a shelter to comfort them in storms, not a Master to do his will. When under the terrors and sorrows of death and hell they would have comfortable words from Christ, even then when they have rebellious hearts against him. I have heard from an eye, and ear-witness, a sad report of a tippling, adulterous, profane man, when he had the terrors of an angry God on his wounded soul, and not only fear of Hell, but confessed feeling of the pains and flames of hell in his spirit, was in his flesh (like another trembling Balshazar at the hand writing against him) a real afflicted Quaker, sent for the Minister, cried out of his gross sins, yea his barren and forsaken use of reading and prayer, but the slavish sorrows were soon wasted, and the terrified sinner soon grew vain, frothy, sensual, and voluptuous. Such as like only the pacifying, but not the purifying part of Religion, have whorish hearts, wandering from God to other Loves, even then when they are afraid of him. Wanton, unclean wives, would have their husbands good looks, words, and gifts, though disobedient to them, and defilers of the Marriage bed. Thus too many adulterous hearts, when the lips only matched with Jesus Christ, would have the comforts of Reconciliation, Remission, Adoption, the peace and joys of the Holy Ghost, even then when they contemn his holy strict Gospel-government. The Apostle Paul will be a condemning instance against these selfish wantons. As he obtained Pardoning mercy. 1 Tim. 1.13. So he was the servant of Jesus Christ. Rom. 1.1, yea labored in Christ's vineyard more than any of the Apostles, 1 Cor. 15.10. Should God put sound hearts to the choice, whether they had rather have eminent grace to do the will, than see the sweet face of Christ, they would prefer dutifulness before joys, and rather obey the commands than see the smiles of God. But rotten hearts are all for the comforts, nothing for the self-denying, mortifying precepts of the gospel, would be content to spend their days in carnal rejoicing, not working for the Lord Jesus. It is just with God, that all such who only seek the comforts, but not the labors and tasks of Christianity shall everlastingly be strangers to the solaces, who were enemies to the duties of the Gospel. They who center their joy in themselves shall never have true joy. O that these men that fear no evil but wrath and Hell, and so do keep in, not leave their wickedness, and see no good in Religion, but its comfort and peace, would seriously consider the experimental words of Zanchi: Evil men do but inwardly restrain their wickedness, which without fears they would wantonly pour forth, and this maketh them not the better, nor more righteous in God's account, because though chained up by fear, they dare not act their iniquity, yet within they have sins impure flames, pent up, but no heart renewed by the obedience of God.

SECT. 7.

4. When the heart carrieth wickedly as to the Law of God, The Grace of God is turned into wantonness. This is done Doctrinally, and Practically.

1. Doctrinally: When the Justifying grace of God is made 2 dis-obligement from the obedience of the Law: Because they that are under grace, are not under the damning power of the Law: Therefore loose Opinionists teach, they are not under the commanding power of the Law, as if Christ died to free from the malediction, that men might be free from the direction of the Law. This abolishment of the pure divine Laws Authority, betrays as a cracked brain, so an unholy heart. A holy Law cannot but be bid welcome of a holy heart, and a spiritual Law will please a spiritual heart. It is too clear an evidence of a loose spirit to disannul the government of a strict Law, They are wanton Sons, who because they are free from their Fathers disinheriting, will therefore be free from their Fathers ruling. The Lord Christ hath set a black mark of displeasure upon these dissolute Opinionists, and hath taught us, They that teach believers are quit from the obedience of God's commandments, shall be least in the Kingdom of heaven. Mat. 5.19. He shall be called least, that is, he shall have the least, yea no account with God at all; for thus Christ would be understood, they shall be banished from their hopes of having a part in the Kingdom of Heaven. A severe threatening against doctrinal Antinomianism.

2. Practically: When under pretense that Christ hath redeemed sinners from the curse of the Law, they really lead accursed lawless lives: They grossly err, that think, the wrath and hell of the Law shall never reach them that are lawless. Assurance of saving Grace, joined with a disordered life, seems to fasten a disgraceful agreement on Christ, which he will never own, that he shall take off the Laws curse, that they may shake off the Laws yoke: Hence Libertines take a course by their false Faith and covenant, that all the volleys of the Law, discharged from a jealous angry God against them, are but naked powder-cracks, a scaring noise, not killing bullets, not do execution upon them. Now Lust and the Devil in these Practical Antinomians (for such are wicked men that abuse the grace of God) gain a privileging license from the death of Christ, to sin securely, as if an open trade in Hells commodities, were allowed and sealed by the blood of Christ. The Apostle hath told these to their terror (unless the hardening habits of constant irregular courses have put them past fear) The avenging Law is made for the lawless and disobedient. 1 Tim. 1.9, for ungoverned practical Antinomians, that live as they list, under the favor, as they think, of Gospel grace. But little do daring Rebels think, that have made void the Laws of God in their hearts and lives, That while they leave God's Law, they forsake their own salvation; it being a signal part of their salvation to be saved from sin, Mat. 1.21, which is a transgression of the Law. 1 Joh. 3.4. How little do these abusers of Law and Gospel consider intention, which was not only to save sinners from Hell, but his Law from willful, constant disreputation and violation in the world: He hath magnified his Law, and made it honorable. Isa. 42.21, not only by his own personal obedience, but commending it to, and commanding it of all his followers, as a most equal rule of life, and way of happiness. They that oppose freedom from the Laws curse, to binding in the Laws bonds, should remember, that this spiritual blessing is a deep obligement to abhor a carnal conversation, and that they are not debtors to the flesh but the spirit, not to sin, but Christ. Rom. 8. They owe on provisions to, but mortification of their lusts. Yea further, they should consider, the Spirit, voice is the Laws, and the leading of God's Sons by the spirit, is leading them in the clean paths of the Laws obedience: Such as dare abolish obedience to the Law, because the grace of God in Christ hath freed from the curse, should do well to fear and tremble, they are the men and women that shall never escape the curse, whoever abhorred and cast off the authority of the Law. It is a word of eternal verity, equity, and purity: The Idea of eternal right reason in the mind of God, most fit to be an immutable and eternal rule of duty, and will justly and infallibly call for eternal punishment upon all loose Rebels against it, whatsoever sanctuary they think to find in Gospel grace. Well were it for Lawless Libertines, could they see themselves under the cursing Law, and feel the smart of it, as a severe Schoolmaster, to lash them unto Christ, that being rescued from the curse, they might be enabled by the spirit of Faith, love and power, to perform the duties of the Law.

SECT. 8.

5. The grace of God is turned into wantonness, when the heart carrieth wickedly as to the Gospel of Christ, and so it doth.

1. When the Gospel cometh in Word only, not in Power, when all its sweet invitations, entreaties, wooing's, exhortations, do but bear the air, are never entertained by the true hearing ear, into the believing heart; when Gospel Sermons, Chapters, Discourses, Examples take no impression upon hard hearts; when glorious Evangelical mysteries, Angels admiration, are slighted by the carnal, ungrateful world, yea when a long, barren, ineffectual living, under Gospel saving discoveries, sadly declareth, it hath not yet been the power of God unto salvation when after ten, twenty, forty years convincing, inviting ministry it may be said of too many under souls Physicians, what was said of the woman with the bloody issue, under bodily Physicians, They are nothing bettered, but grow worse. Mar. 5.26, when the most favor carnal spirits give the gospel, is to give it the hearing, and that is all; like wanton sons that give their Fathers the hearing of their commands, and that is all; in this case the grace of God is highly abused. Against such as oppose the word of Holiness, Life, and Salvation, and have no faith to mingle it in their hearts, as if it were a fable, a lie, a loss, so do, injudicious slighty, careless, obstinate, though professed Christians; these are witnesses. The Thessalonians, who did not only hear the word, but felt the power of it. 1. Thes. 1.5. The fruitful Colossians who heard it, and knew the grace of God in truth, Col. 1.5, 6. The Romans who after it was delivered unto them, were delivered in its transforming mold, as metal into the Bell-founders, or clay into the Potters shop. Rom. 6.17. The whole number of the saved that in the word of grace have felt and demonstrated the revealing of God's arm, are mightily translated from Satan's kingdom into Christ's. Col. 1.13, have mightily experimented the casting out of the Prince of this world, Joh. 12.31, will be astonishing witnesses against them, who indeed have heard and read, and have had cold and lazy convictions of the gospel, but with stony hearts resisted the fastening and saving powerful impressions of it.

2. When the Gospel doth not dismantle the Devils garrisons; doth not by its storms, or friendly sweet Parley, get the Royal Fort, the Will for Christ, and doth not set him there as commander in chief. When the Forts of hell do not fall before heavenly Gospel batteries; when its sweet trumpet soundeth to the battle, its weapons are handled and used, but all the while pretenders to Christ's colors, fight on the side of the Prince of darkness, and are faithful to him as their Liege Lord, here the grace of God is injured, as being appointed to be the conquering arm of God, but is blessed with no victories over formal professors. Satan careth not how much we have the nations of Gospel in our minds, and mouths, so he may still bind us fast in the chains of our own sins. They who yet can bear his destructive government, they are the supporters of a sinful licentiousness, the props, not the ruins of Satan's kingdom. He will resent Gospel Faith, and profession, as a mere mockery, that doth not deny his service, nor disturb his possession He hath too clear demonstrations of a carnal Gospeller, that bare words cannot cast him out, that nothing beneath Almightiness can do it, until the chains of our own making, the reasonings, lusts, affections of the flesh are broken asunder; he looseth no Prisoners, until the Captain of salvation lead captivity captive; there neither is nor can be any deliverance: Such as under Gospel-means of rescue, that never yet had the victorious power of Grace, sufficiently declare they never had a serious sense of Satan's pernicious Tyranny, nor ever received the power of the Gospel in their hearts.

3. When the Gospel hath no becoming conversation in the World: It is so, when it and the Author of it are owned in words, but in works denied, Tit. 1.16. When un-Gospel livers are so far, like Demetrius, to have a good report of the truth, 3. Ep. Joh. 11, and adorning the Doctrine of God our Savior, Tit. 2.10. That the word of God's Grace is blasphemed, Tit. 2.5, and heareth ill of carping, graceless Critics, almost as fabulous, that is, so impotent over dissolute lives: Herein is Grace abused. It was a sad saying of Linacre, reading the severe requiries of the Gospel; Or this is no Gospel, or we are no Gospellers: Such as have a high calling to Earthly Crowns and Thrones, usually live worthy of their high promotion; Their Spirits and Places are equally high: God hath called his people unto a Kingdom, and Glory, and this calleth upon them to walk worthy of God, 1. Thess 2.12. It was good counsel Agapetus gave to Justinian the Emperor, To walk worthy of God, saying, He indeed is worthy of God, who doth nothing unworthy of him: The thanks he seeks, owns, and delights in, is not the easy tender of good words, but the real production of pious works: When the mouth is hot with Gospel Redemption, Reconciliation, Pardon, Sonship, and the like, but the heart is cold in the thoughts of these things: Gospel -duties and confessions keep no even pace; when there is Gospel in the lips, but no tuning harmony of it in the life, here the grace of God is wronged.

SECT. 9.

6. The Grace of God is turned into wantonness, when the heart carries wickedly as to the Creatures: Even these the good blessings of God, through the corruption of nature, are back friends to godliness. It's rare to find the high blessings of the upper and lower Springs to kiss each other: It is not ordinary to see Heavenly and Earthly riches to meet together in the fame persons. Its hard, said Jerome, to pass from delights to delights, from the pleasures of this life, to those of the next; to be eminent in the great Estates, Honors, and sweetness's of both worlds. There wants not sad and common experience: This World becomes the immortal souls enemy; it is an eminent part of God's Grace, when a precious soul is delivered: from the burdens, the snares, the pollutions of it: A corrupt stomach turns good meat into bad humors; and a corrupt heart Creature delights, into bad manners: They accidentally prove the souls bane: They make God and souls Strangers, prove entangling snares, and lead immoral minds Captive. Bruit Beasts go heavily under a weighty pressing burden, and wealthy ones move faintly and wearily in the ways of Godliness, under a great load of riches. The Lord Christ knoweth well, that his heavenly Racers can run best; and Soldiers can fight best, that are least burdened; therefore ordinarily he gives not out to his people vast Estates; Not many mighty, 1 Cor. 1.26. The poor in the world, rich in faith: The lighter, the happier, the speedier is motion Heavenwards. As the Redeemed by Christ were given him of the Father, to be taken out of the world, John 17.6. So it is a main part of first conversion, to be turned from the Creatures unto God, and therefore it is an abuse of God's grace, to be licentious among the Creatures: That is done, when the use of the Creatures is intemperate and idolatrous.

1. Intemperate, when so much is taken in as wholly unsuiteth for the service of God. Creature-surfeits, unfit for glorifying of God's grace: They are not cords to draw to God to honor him, but fetters to draw from God, and forget him. 'It is hard at once to have a full purse and belly, and a soul filled with Spiritual Riches and Delights. Seneca's saying is too frequent experience: A liberal use of the sweet Creatures, maketh a strong Body, but a weak mind. Bodily delights, are like an intoxicating Wine, and the improvements of corruption: There is no lust of the flesh, that the unwary sinner is not drunk with: Its cravings and service unfit for duty, as the over-charged Drinker is for his work. It was therefore Christ's caution, Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be over-charged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares, Luke 21.34. God hath not given the Creatures to hinder, but promote obedience: 'It is a sad exchange, when the abused Honors of this life, shall be swallowed up in the damnation and contempt of the other, and the worlds voluptuous wantons, pass through the pleasant Meadows of present delights, to the stinking, howling, and smarting Prison of Hell: They that would make haste to Christ's Kingdom of glory, had need be careful, lest they cram and surfeit their souls with the world. Too much of thoughts, desires, affections to this, is sadly punished with nothing in the other. Woe to them that are intemperately full here, they shall hunger hereafter; and their dis-satisfaction will be a part of their Hell. Christian liberty, and Gospel grace, will be no Patrons of Creature excesses.

2. When the use of the Creatures is Idolatrous, God's grace is abused: Joseph should be great in Egypt, but Pharaoh would be in the Throne above him: We may use the creatures, but they must not be set in the hearts Throne above God: We make that an Idol, that hath an equal or higher room in our hearts. 'It is a kind of Idolatry to place happiness in the Creatures: Covetousness is styled Idolatry, Col. 3.5. Inordinate sweet worldly loves, are heart Idols: God never gave the Creatures to be set in his room: 'It is his high dishonor, when the love of the world swallows up the love of God; trust in the Creatures, denieth confidence in the Rock of Ages; rejoicing in things of naught, obstructs Joys in the things of Eternity: The service of the Creature, puts by the service of God, Blessed forever. A Prince will not bear it, that his promoted Creatures should be set above him; so neither will the Jealousy of God bear it, that the creatures he hath made should be set above him: We usually say, stand by, and remove those things that stand in our light. O our little account of God! We say not, stand by, nor remove from our irregular esteem and affections, the things that stand in God's light. If we have not Grace enough to take our hearts off from the dark Eclipses of God's glory, and God intend mercy to us, he will either remove them out of his light, or embitter their use. Hence Parents and Children, Husbands and Wives, have been bitter-sweet one to another, yea often times more bitter then sweet; Lest a constant tenor of undisturbed contentment and delight, should tempt and turn Relations into Idols: upon this account too, riches, health, and friends, have fled away; lest the Lord's people, too prone to adore and admire Creatures into Idols, should set them too high. The words of Augustine are not more true, then sad experience: Whatsoever you love that is from God, will be justly imbittered to you, because it is injustly loved by departure from him. They are also a part of his sweet meditation: The miserable soul runneth from thee, in whose sweet presence it is feasted with joy, and followeth the World, with which it meets with thorny vexations.

CHAPTER V.

Wherein are set down the Causes, why the Grace of God is turned into wantonness.

Satan, a malicious enemy of God's Grace, knowing that the abuse thereof is a sin of aggravated and accumulated wickedness of a deep scarlet tincture, and the highest affront that can be offered to a gracious God, The Mediator and Spirit of Grace, hath many pernicious Methods, and destructive Wiles, to tempt to this heinous sin: Though all of them are not in every abuse of God's Grace, yet some of them in some, and some of them in others, are the causes of this eminent and dishonorable injury to the God of Grace: I shall consider them under four Heads; Wants, Errors, Presumptions, and Temptations.

SECT. 1.

1. Wants: The failings or omissions of nine things, are the deficient causes of wantonness under Grace.

1. Want of knowing the work and abuse of Grace: Many have confused notions of God's grace, who are ignorant of the wrongs they do unto it, and think they are under the privilege of grace, when they are strangers to, and enemies against it. Many say that God is gracious, and by God's grace they will amend, when they consider not that renewing active grace, would put them upon constant, conscionable, regular and vehement endeavors for reformation, when they practice, but neither know, nor are humbled, for the contradictions to grace; when they are not soundly convinced, that saving Grace teacheth to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, Tit. 2.11, 12, which they out of choice and delight fulfil; That it abounds with faith and love, 1 Tim. 1.14, when it never produced these Graces in them; that the will of God is their sanctification, 1 Thess. 4.3, when they never saw the amiable beauty, nor practiced the duties of holiness; that grace changeth the heart, when they know nothing of the inward, mysterious, miraculous work of conversion in its Doctrine and experience; that grace is an effectual curb to, and a cleansing Purgatory of vain and impure thoughts, when they know no hurt in the vanity and pollution of them; that grace leads the heart daily to the Throne of grace, when they are strangers to Prayer in the Holy Ghost, and think there is no hurt in its irreligious omission; that it is Grace must save them, when they know not that a principal part of its salvation, is the mortification of lust and reformation of life: Ignorance of the wrongs done to grace, is a black concealing veil over them, which at once hinders the accusing conscience, tempts to dreams of innocence, emboldens to a carnal indulgence to beloved sins; were the eyes of the Doctrinal and Practical Adversaries of God's grace clearly opened, to see the Insolencies, Indignities, and Injuries they do against it, they could not but in a trembling conviction conclude, these and these things are certain dishonors of grace, Stains of holy Profession, Inconsistencies with the new Creature, Lust and Satan's methods of Damnation, and denials of the hope of Glory. As when Paul said to Ananias, God shall smite thee thou whited wall, he had not said so, had he known he was the High Priest. Act. 23.3, 5. So had the bold abusers of God's grace, strong and clear convincement's, the frame of their hearts, and carriages of their lives, were the high injuries of Grace, eminent perils of destruction, and demerits of the hottest room in Hell; in the noon-light of such an acknowledgement, they would fear and tremble to stumble upon their own ruin.

SECT. 2.

2. Want of Faith to believe the signal danger of sin, this huge sin is the wrong of Grace. It is no wonder that the evil which is not known, is not believed, nor declined. Unbelief is the evil heart that departs from the living God. It sets not to its seal, that God is true, in his promises nor threatening's; believes not the abominable, damnable nature of sin, and dallies with it. As daring wantons, who know that the cup that stands before them is of poison, yet believe it not, but drink and burst; or the plague is in the house they go into, believe it not, are mortally infected, and die: And as the Egyptians believed not that the cattle and men that were found abroad one storming day should die, adventured abroad, and were slain; so dallying adventurers that believe not the mischief of their sinful pleasures, contempt's of Christ and his Gospel, they are dancing over the mouth of Hell, by the sudden push of death are kicked into it. The loose old world believed not the destruction Preached by Noah in the making of the Ark, were not moved with his holy example, and penitential instructions; The Sons of God played the wantons with the fair idolatrous daughters of men, Gen. 6.2, and were at length swept away with the flood. Faith would make Libertines fear and tremble: Unbelief is daring. The wrath of man is more feared than God's. When God (saith one) threatens eternal punishment, ye neglect it, when an earthly Judge threatens temporal, ye tremble at it.

SECT. 3.

3. Want of Heat, Intention and Liveliness in Religion. If God be not served in fervency of Spirit, Lust will. If Satan cannot keep from Religious exercise, he tempts to Luke-warmness, yea Key-coldness in the performance of them. Instinctu Satanae, saith one, by Satan's deadening and flatting instinct, a drowsy tiring in good things steals upon body and spirit. Faint fighting is not wont to overcome, nor faint service of God to mortify Lust. How few are there in a Christian congregation superabounding in spiritual joy, always pleasant and merry in the Lord, fervent in spirit, day and night meditating in the Law of God, lifting up pure hands in prayer, solicitous observers, and students of their own hearts, zealous witnesses of holy affections to good works, to whom Christian discipline is amiable, Fasting sweet, long Watching short, the whole piety of a regular conversation is a delicious feast, yea doth exceed the sweetness of the honey and the honey comb? Alas, how many are there who in an impartial inquest will be found remiss in the studies of Holiness, fainting under Christ's easy yoke, and light burden, whose compunction is short and rare, conversation natural, speech without circumspection, prayer without intention of heart, reading without edification, good purpose without execution, religious exercise without fervency, who in the ways of godliness want the whip and spurs, but in the too prone and nimble motions of dissolute looseness, need curbing bridles. Licentious courses are so strong and impetuous, that the modest shame of uncomeliness, the bridle of reason, yea the fear of Hell, can hardly restrain them? No wonder if corruption be daring, dissolute, and potent, when religious exercises are flat, dead, cold, and feeble. We blush not (said one) to pray to God without due attention and fervor of spirit. He that hath no sweet communion with God, will seek it in the world, and pleasing his enticing lusts. When the mind is senseless in reading and meditation, and affections are dull, corruption will be lively. 'It is sad to consider how many seemed to discover the fervor of a pious conversation, in whom by degrees charity hath waxen cold, and iniquity abounded, and what appeared to be begun in the Spirit, ends (it is to be feared) in the flesh. Gal. 3.3. Draw me and we will run after thee, because of the savor of thine ointments. Cant. 1.3, 4. Therefore there is need of drawing, because the divine fire of the souls love, for want of fuel to it, and blowing of it, by degrees abates ad cools. Drawing nigh the fire is for warmth, and drawing nigh of God is for holy heat. In near approaches to him, the new creature is a zealous enemy to wanton looseness. Cockering coolness in the severe religious exercises of Mortification is the bane of Profession. Adonijah was a very goodly man, David his Father displeased him not at any time, in saying why hast thou done so? 1 King. 1.6. In the sist verse you find him a daring Rebel; you may read in the Contents of the Chapter, Adonijah David's darling usurpeth the Kingdom. Thus is it with every fair faced goodly lust. The indulgent Christian is it too remiss in rebuking and chastising it, and it riseth up in arms against him. Cockering Mothers cold in rebuking wanton sons, teach them to be Libertines, oft-times train them up for the Gallows and Hell, so when the heart is remiss and cold for good and against evil. Lust will have its reins and lawless liberty, and ruin its servants.

SECT. 4

4. Want of receiving the Truth in the Truth in the love of it, is an Advantage to turn a Libertine. The Apostle describes the Antichristian spirit, that waxed wanton in taking pleasure in unrighteousness; receiving the Truth for by-ends, not the love of it, 2 Thes. 2.10. So Heretical, loose, profane spirits are not in love with truth; and as a Wife who is not in love with her Husband, abuseth his kindness, so do these the truth: Love is kind, behaveth not itself unseemly, 1 Cor. 13.4, 5. True love of truth is so kind to her, as not to put unseemly affronts upon her. I wonder not when David setting up a pair of balances, and weighing truth in one scale, and the greatest glories of the world in the other, in his judicious esteem, Truth as most weighty and massy did preponderate: His love run out in fullest stream to the Truth; O how do I love thy Law! Psal. 119.97. The joy of his high love was not only parallel to the joy of all riches, V, 14, accounted as a rich fee-simple, an heritage forever, V. 111, but the beauty and treasure of truth was better unto him than thousands of Gold and Silver, V. 72. Above Gold, yea above fine Gold, V. 128. And now as a faithful Spouse, deeply in love with, and betrothed to her dear Bridegroom, by no difficulties and afflictions is beat off from him, quickens and sharpens her zeal after him by opposition, so David, espoused to the pure and lovely truth of God, V. 140, was faithful to the interest of it in all afflictions; the whetstone of his holy profession, meditation of, and conversation by it. This was the sweet song of his pilgrimage, v.54. Neither trouble and anguish that took hold on him, v.145, nor Princes persecutions, v.161, nor the presence of Kings, v.46, nor his enemies despising of him, v.141, nor proud men's forging lies against him, v.69, nor their digging pits, nor laying snares for him, v.85.110, nor their waiting to destroy him, v.95, nor their almost consuming him upon earth, v.87, could bring down his high esteem, nor cool his burning love to the Truth, whose guiding, purifying, comforting influence he had found in his heart and life. Buy the truth and sell it not, Prov. 23.23, buy it at any rate, sell it at no rate, as it is with persons deeply sick of love; they will have such a man or woman, though they beg with them, so it is with the lovers of saving truth, they will be matched to it, though they perish by it, though it cost them the loss of their estates, liberties, and lives. The word of truth, the Gospel of salvation, hath been dearer to blessed Martyrs than their hearts blood. The Apostles could do nothing against the truth but for the truth, 2 Cor. 13.8, and then no wonder they were zealots for the truth, did neither deny the profession of it, nor wantonly abuse it. Real Saints learn the truth by loving it, profess the truth they have learned, and stick to the truth they profess. 'It is a true and sure experience they who have not received the truth for the love of it, but for, and by carnal ends, will make it their decoy and stalking Horse; and as it was never heartily loved for itself, in time of Temptation, they will reject it, or dissemble it, with which they have ever played the wantons, to which they never yielded hearty obedience. The Apostle tells us, that younger widows, professed Christians, waxed wanton against Christ in their too soft, and delicate life of pleasures, 1 Tim. 5.6, 11, a reason is subjoined, because they cast off their first faith, v.12. The faith of strict, severe, mortifying Christianity: These also are said, to go after Satan, v.15. A sad Text, that will prove many specious, pompous Christians, to be fanatical. Calvin begins his Exposition of those words, Some are turned aside after Satan, with a Notanda loquutio: Note the words well; No man can a little turn from Jesus Christ, but he is in a ready way to follow Satan, Hence we are admonished, how deadly a sin it is to turn aside from the right course, which of the sons of God will make us the slaves of Satan, and being drawn off from the government of Christ, sets Satan over us to be out Leader.

SECT. 5.

5. Want of laying to heart Gospel threatening's, contributes to the Abuse of God's grace. The Lord hath to prevent the abuse of it, annexed the threatening's of the covenant of works, to the violation of the covenant of grace. Death, Hell, the wrath to come, the curses of the Law, were the threats of the covenant of Works. These are used to Hedge in a reverend regard to, and obedience of the covenant of grace. God in infinite wisdom and love, jealous of the Apostasy of his people's hearts, and zealous of his own glory, and their salvation, hath annexed dreadful threatening's to the Preaching of the Gospel, to keep down proud wanton flesh, to be a thorny thick-set preventive of over-leaping rebellions, and preservative of obedience The fear of anger is a good expedient, left the hope of God's goodness be abused to carnal neglect. Hence we read these commination's; We are not of those which draw back to perdition, Heb. 10.38. Perdition is impliedly threatened against Apostasy from Christ; He that loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, let him be Anathema Maranatha; accursed, excommunicate forever, 1 Cor. 16.22. The everlasting curse is threatened to Christ's false friends: He that believeth not is damned, Joh. 3.18. Except ye repent ye shall perish, Luk. 13.3. Yea there where the Lord proclaims the glory of his name in grace and mercy, left it should be wronged to wantonness, he mentions a terrible threatening, That he will by no means clear the guilty, Exod. 34.6, 7. Such as by unbelieving loose impenitent courses, a second time crucify the Son of God, and prostitute his merits to wicked courses, should do well to study those angry words, He will by no means clear such guilty ones. Because proud secure Libertines, either consider not, or fear not, or positively contemn God's threatened wrath, Hence it is that they securely play the wantons in the hopes of mercy. 'It is rare these sad and serious thoughts are laid to heart; If I do not believe in Christ I am lost forever; If I live in my sin I shall perish; If I depart from Christ I shall be undone; If I abuse the longsuffering, goodness, truth, and pardoning mercy of God, I shall never be cleared of this guilt, the glory of his Justice will shine in my ruin, the glory of whose grace, hath been darkened by my looseness. The daring thoughts, counsels, words, and practices of all Libertines do betray such a spirit as was in Marcion of old, who fancied God made all of mercy and grace, and removed severities, and judicial penal authorities from the good God, as if he were a stupid Essence, insensible of any affronts and indignities put upon him. Thus as if God were not essentially just as well as merciful, he is by impudent Libertinism spoiled of his Justice, who as he is just, and a justifier of true believers, so he is just and a condemner of all his enemies, the greatest whereof are they that continue in sin because grace abounds.

SECT. 6.

6. Want of Grace changing and affecting the heart, that shines in the Head. Convictions may, and do often stand with positive Rebellion. The truth of God is held prisoner in unrighteousness. Rom. 1.18, takes no hold on the wills and affections of men: such violent restraint is laid upon it by over-powering worldly lusts, that its sanctifying reforming liberty and authority is quite suppressed. It is with the lightsome beams of God's grace as with the Sun: The light may shine in the upper sleeping room, but be shut out of the lower working rooms: The grace of God shines often in the upper sleeping room, idle, drowsy Speculation, and conviction in the mind, but is shut out of the lower working rooms, the Will and the Affections. Evil servants know their Masters will, but have no hearts to do it. They are evil servants, who, in the Lord's spiritual husbandry, trading and occupation, are negligent in their duty, and hide the talents of the Spirits gifts in sluggish idleness, and neither promote their own, nor others salvation. Family-guides cannot bear it, who see their loose Attendants waste and abuse the light of great Candles, to wantonness, when their more conscionable Ministers do much work by lesser lights. What a shame will it be in the reckoning day, when persons of vast apprehensions, but loose hearts and lives, shall be condemned from the vast practice of Godliness, in men of mean, yet sound intellectuals, who turn a few gracious notions, into holy motions, and words into works.

SECT. 7.

7. Want of the upright and genuine use of Cods grace, as a Medicine to cure, not as a Cloak to cover sin: We read 1 Pet. 2.16, a Cloak of maliciousness, or wickedness, <H&G>, and the danger of using liberty an occasion to the flesh, Gal. 5.13, which let alone, will make assault upon us, as the word <H&G> imports: The Sheep's-skin on the Wolves back doth indeed cover, not alter the ravenous Creature: While the cloak of grace doth but hide, not heal the old Man, he will be a Libertine. The matter is not with carnal Gospellers, whether they sin or no, but whether concealed. Unsound hearts are not so much troubled with the conscience, as infamy of sin: Much wickedness in the world, appearing in its native colors would be abominable, but when it borrows a dress from the grace of God, it looks lovely, and is unsuspected: A pity it is, so fair a cloak as God's grace, should be put on so foul a body as sin; it is as if a leprous Body were covered with Purple, and a Dung-hill with Scarlet. It was a part of Jeremiah 's Lamentations, That the Sons of Zion, that were clothed in Scarlet, embraced Dung-hills, Lam. 4.5. It should be for a lamentation, that spurious Gospellers, the false sons of Zion, clad in a rich, scarlet, glorious profession, should stain themselves with dunghill words and works. To put the cover of nature upon unnatural, unmoral sins, is abominable; to put the cloak of grace on works of darkness, to wash the Devils face with holy-water, is much more detestable: It is as if Satan should court God to license his wickedness, as if his pure nature should privilege uncleanness. They were false Jews, uncircumcised in Spirit, though not in flesh, who made their ceremonious services, which should have been exercises of repentance, the Patrons of Licentiousness; and so they are adulterate Christians, who prostitute their Religious Worship, to irreligious designs and practices: But sure Grace was never intended to cover, but cure sin. As the God of grace hath clearly vindicated grace from this dishonor, in his Scriptures, and in the mortified conversation of his real Saints, so will he in the great day of restitution of all things, all things by their proper names, set them on their own bottoms, arraign sin as sin, grace as grace, the enemies of Christ as enemies, and friends as friends, and avenge before the world dishonors done to his Gospel-grace, and invincibly clear it to the judgment both of elect and reprobates, that grace is a destroyer, not a Savior of sin, an help, not an hindrance of good life; Take with you words, and say, receive us graciously, Hos. 14.2. This grace was a healing remedy; I will heal their backslidings, v.4. Grace, like the covering wings of the Chicken, like the covering Plaster of the wound, doth both cover, and cure: Pardoning and purging Grace go together. As the wisdom, so the grace that is from above, is pure, as well as peaceable. It is the constant Petition of the sound Spirit of Prayer, Lord pardon, Lord heal my sins.

SECT. 8.

8. Want of sound conviction of the mischief of original corruption, and severe mortification thereof, is an experimented account why grace is abused: Here are two branches.

1. Want of clear convincement of the old man's mischief: The Character of his wickedness is very large, when it is not known at all, or but slightly; no wonder if the bosom Enemy play Rex, and rule as he list: His sinfulness, as followeth not discerned nor regarded, begetteth high abuse of the Grace of God. Were these things known and believed concerning original corruption, professed Christians could not be so licentious: Sad experience will give this evil report of it. One saith truly of carnal concupiscence.

'It is a numerous pregnant mother of sins, and hath a vast Womb, in which infinite transgressions are conceived, out of which they are by the Midwifery of Satan and the World brought forth.

'It is the standing Forest, in which Beasts of prey are nourished and abound, harmful destructive lusts are fed and grown, that spoil the bodies and souls of men.

'It is a deaf Adders ear to the Words, Wisdom and Whispers of the Spirit, that will not hearken to the saving voice of the Charmer, charm he never so wisely; will never hearken to the Counsels of true Wisdom, till miraculous grace open and boar the ear.

'It is a rooted, and deeply fastened evil in all the faculties of man, written as with a pen of Iron, the point of a Diamond, graven upon the hard Table of the Heart, Jer. 17.1. The deep Characters of its malignity are not soon and easily razed out.

'It is a vast Sea, that notwithstanding the infinite streams that flow from it, is not drawn dry, but as full as ever, without the exhausting miracle of grace, gradually lessening, and at length quite drying it up.

It hath an Whores face and tongue: it's besotted Lovers believe it's pernicious bewitching flatteries, are enticed by its lusts, as Fishes by baits, Birds and Beasts by snares, Jam. 1.14.

'It is like an intractable Heifer, that will not bear the yoke of Grace, but kick and winch, and run away from service, Deut. 32.15. A wanton and unbridled Nag, that will not be handed by the Riders pleasure, will, if left to itself, neither be backed by reason, nor the Spirit of God.

'It is not only an enemy, but in the abstract enmity against God, his Laws, Sovereignty, Holiness, yea his being: The Divine nature, and corrupt nature, are terms which can never be reconciled: The flesh uncrucified will everlastingly lust against the Spirit, Gal. 5.17. Jer. 13.27.

'It is fortified in its ruining Art, by divers Lusts and Pleasures, Titus 3.3, like an old Soldier, hath many stratagems, and an old Angler, many Baits of ruining deceit: In its methods of destruction, if one way miss, another will hit.

'It is the Sin that easily besets, Heb. 12.1, and like a heavy Chain tied to the affections, the feet of the soul, hinders speedy motion in the Heavenly race set before us; or like a begirting Army, or long Garments that hinder running, obstructs speed in the way everlasting; over pampering, even to a heavy, sluggish, sweating fatness, tires the Racer; So soft indulgencies to the flesh, are a great Remora and constant stop to spiritual and heavenly motions.

'It is a subtle Orator to defend itself, when its wickedness is impeached, decried, discredited, condemned; it is the witty Mother of crafty Inventions, to prove it harmless, secure its Indemnity, to elude all Indictments of reason and the word; hath a wily head in all those distinctions, extenuations, mental reservations, Pantry of deceiving Sophistry, mis-naming and mis-naturing things, for self-preservation and soul ruin.

It's it alone that hath made the heart desperately wicked, a bottomless pit of sin, a nemo scit of abomination, Jer. 17.9. They that with longest Plummets would sound it, cannot reach the bottom of it: Hence to the old stock of corruption, new sinful inventions are added.

'It is the heavy Pully that hangs upon the soul, when with much ado, it hath a flight Heaven-wards, not more sweet then short; 'tis like the string tied by the leg of the Bird, whereby the Boy pulled down the nimble Creature when he pleased, which occasioned Anselm's serious Meditation, making it the Emblem of corrupt customary sins, which pulls down the soul, when aloft in Heavenly things; It never flies in a free air, till the string of corruption be cut from it.

It turns spirits into Rocks and Adamants, hardens them in evil, yea, rejoiceth and triumphs in it.

'It is a stout Enemy, which though often worsted, is not quite overcome, will rally and recruit: Though it be forced to depart the Siege, yet it will set down again: Like the Luxuriant Vine, though pruned, grows rank again: Like fire, though much quenched, yet flames again.

This ugly hideous Monster, the old Man, is not seen but by spiritual eyes: Hence it is, that its wanton abuses of the Grace of God are so frequent and prevalent.

2. Want of severe mortification of the flesh, conduceth much to the wrong of Grace. These false Christians in the Epistle of Jude, who turned the grace of God into wantonness, and their fellows are said to walk after their own lusts, v.16, their ungodly lusts, v.18, to walk after them, not to crucify them: Indeed it cannot be otherwise, for if grace be not so strong as to subdue lust: Lust will be so strong as to banish grace, so impudent and daring as to abuse it. Corruption fed and nourished will wantonize; The hugging, dandling, kissing, feeding, carnal lusts, makes wanton professors: They dare sport with edge tools, and riot in the ways of damnation: Study, O you that profess Christianity, and you will find it Flesh-pleasers, that in a delicate tenderness, neither dare, nor will, nor can mortify their corruptions, these eminently abuse God's grace.

SECT. 9.

9. Want of considering the straight way to life, and the blessed end thereof: Most Gospellers would have Heaven at the close of their lives in the broad way of wanton allowances and indulgencies to the lusts and pleasures of the flesh, had rather have enlargements of their desires in a way of damnation, then the straightening of them in the way of salvation. The wisdom of the flesh, wise only to destruction, suffers not inconsidering men, seriously to weigh the unspeakably, safe, sweet and glorious Issue of strict Christianity. Holy reason would thus consider: Though that great Idol carnal self were beaten down, sweet lusts and pleasures were mortified, dreadful guilt, and dishonors to God, were looked over with broken hearts and weeping eyes, the vanities and pomp's of the world were renounced; the frequent requiries of the Scripture, and necessities of the poor, call for, and command costly alms: Though Fasting's and Watching's, continual spiritual Arms and Combats, Prayers and Tears, Desertions and Afflictions, denial of unlawful, yea often times of lawful things, render practical Christian Religion, a formidable, unchoosable and intolerable thing: Though the entrance and progress of godliness be strict, severe, painful, and rigid to the flesh, and bears an unpleasing dominion over the sensitive appetite; yet on this sour crab-stock is engrafted, by the hand of God's Spirit, sweet fruit: After this dirty Lane, the reproaches and sufferings of this life, there will be getting unto the Heavenly Fathers House: I say, spiritual reason will assure, that the sharpest storms of Religion, will do the kindness as to drive Heavenly Passengers, to the Port of their everlasting Rest; and though the spiritual Battles may be long and sharp, yet they will end in eternal Peace, Victory and Triumph. Satan knoweth the Discipline, Life, and strictness of Grace will have a blessed Issue, and therefore in conjunction with the wisdom of the flesh, suffers not deluded sinners to be so wise, as to remember the latter end of Religions Severities, and saving Experiences. Hence the Sirens of the world the sweet enchantments, pleasures, profits, vain-glories, the sensualities of this life, make carnal Gospellers, even while they hypocritically chide their sins to love them heartily, while they easily cry up holiness, strictness, heaven and happiness, yet to give way to loose and wanton hearts, language and conversation, and while they have good words, and seeming good belief, they clearly confute both by unsanctified hearts, and unreformed lives, for want of spiritual serious dwelling consideration of the strait way to glory, is the sad miscarrying of holy Profession.

Ah Christians lay to heart what one saith; It is to be considered not how sharp the way of life is, but where it leads, not how strait it is, but where it endeth, not how it is strewed with thorns, but to what rosy and sweet spicy delights it brings. Though this world be a valley of tears; Heaven is a mountain of spices, Can. 8.14. The difficulties and severities of Religion, that are as a Lyon in the way to Mansions of glory, should rather call for resolution, and sharpen the edge of affections, than blunt endeavors? As our Mediator went through infinite difficulties of Redemption, so all the methods of its application, from conversion, throughout the progress of Sanctification unto a dissolution, are very difficult. The righteous are scarcely saved with much ado, 1 Pet. 4.18. O you tender, delicate, spurious Christians, who dream of heaven, and the way of it: you fancy it broad, but the Scripture and experience will everlastingly prove it narrow. Do you think in good earnest, that the carnal latitudes, the broad allowances of the flesh, will end in eternal peace and delights? Will your studied, idolized, sensual delights carry, as in a Chariot, your departing souls into an eternal Paradise? Do Christ's Soldiery come out of great tribulation unto the eternal Palms and Crowns of their victories? And can your effeminate, wanton, dissolute, brutish lives give you the least assurance, that your voluptuousness below will end in the delights above? Have the noble Army of Martyrs, the whole Church of the first-born, found the way of life a narrow strait way, and do you make it broad? The Word hath told you, and Death and Judgment will be an infallible Comment on the Text, Broad is the way that leads to destruction. In a broad champion, and Regimental march, hundreds may pass on a breast; but in a very narrow lane the passage is but two by two. O all you dismal, black Armies, that march under the King of the bottomless pit, your Captain-General, you may troop, yea you may speed in the broad champion of corrupt nature, and walk in a full career and march to Hell, but Chriss, soldiery pass in a strait lane, a thin company hedged about with commands, that cannot, dare not frolic in the large green plains of carnal delights. If you think, or hope your large professions, or large lives, under strict profession, will bring to, and leave you in the heavenly country, you then must impudently and blasphemously charge the lie upon the faithful and true witness Jesus Christ, he hath told you the broad way of loose Principles and Lives, will lead you to hell, if you will not believe, you shall see and feel the truth of Christ by the light of eternal flames.

SECT. 10.

10. The second head of causes, that are experimentally influential into this great sin, Abuse of God's grace, is Error. This will appear in five things.

1. The error of a corrupt palate. Sin is man's disease which makes him dissavor the best things. Sickness taketh away the sweetness of wholesome meat, and Sin of the hidden Manna, most heavenly Feasts. God hath the best furnished house for his Family. We read the fatness of the God's house, Psal. 36.8, a feast of fat things in the mountain of the house of the Lord, Is. 25.6. A sweet merry feast. They shall be joyful in my house of prayer. Is. 56.7, but it is to them only, whose palate is rectified and judicious, that relish their heavenly food, that taste and see the Lord is good. Psal. 34.8, and gracious, 1 Pet. 2.3, who can say with David, How sweet are thy Words unto my taste? Psal. 119.103, and with the Spouse, His fruit was sweet unto my taste, Cant. 2.3. But to the injudicious, unregenerate, the choicest spiritual dainties are unsavory; they are unto Good works, though they profess the contrary, void of judgment, Tit. 1.16. They have no a sweet, judicious sense of soul food. Have you seen delicate wantons better fed than taught, that do more censure and play with, than eat heartily and work by their diet, abuse the precious creatures, may be throw it to dogs? Or a diseased patient, vitiated in stomach and palate, disrelish the best diet, make faces at it, spit it out, cry out it is naught. Here is the emblem of carnal spirits, vitiated with corrupt, unsavory humors, the best provisions of God's house will not down with them: They vilify Angels food, Gospel-banquets, cry out upon it, in their distemper, or if they take in a little of it, they spit it out again, or it runs through them. Holy convictions stay not to concoction and nourishment. Their palates do only relish the world, and delight in worldly things.

SECT. 11.

2. The error of sufficient attainments in Religion. This opinion is practically debauching. Those that seemed to make hast heaven-wards, and think they have travelled almost enough in the way everlasting, that have dreamed either of their possible or actual perfection in this life, need no better discovery of their nakedness than themselves, they are their own sufficient confutation. How far are the generation of Popish and Quaking Perfectists, from the prize they seem to run after? Further off, were their eyes opened, than those they un-saint from Gospel-attainments. This sottish, supercilious opinion of enoughs in the knowledge and practice of Religion hath begotten monstrous libertines in the present age. Such as have been filled, with windy swelling conceits, not the real fruits of the Spirit; like some of the high-flown puffed up Corinthians, reigned as Kings, 1 Cor. 4.8, blessed themselves in their high attainments, viz. Knowledge, Faith, Love, Mortification, Communion with God, Joys of the Spirit; and now, as if rich enough, they had nothing else to do but to contemplate their estate, and gaze upon their glory, their lazy contemplative life hath swallowed up the active; they lay by trading in heavenly commodities, religious attendances and exercises: Their name is up with their deluded fraternity, yea in their own foolish brains; and now they may lay abed till noon, yea sleep in carnal security, in and before the light of their high-noon attainments. As some men that have gotten vast estates, look over their rich Lordships with much contentment, are knighted, trade no more, have goods laid up for many years, so many rich Laodiceans, that think they abound in spiritual goods, and want nothing, and have nothing, no more than an empty sounding barrel, and are sainted in Satan's Calendar; these trade no more in heavenly negotiation, as if they could too much increase their Lord's Talent, and give fearful symptoms, that for all the puffs of their spiritual estates, they are but bankrupts. That generation is well known, who have already decried and voted down God's standing Ordinance, the Ministry of the Gospel, as needless, who load them with no better honors than the style of Baals Priests, Deceivers of the people, the Locusts of the bottomless pit, the fuel for the fiery furnace of Hell, and so bind up all Preachers in the same bundle of death; as well the most industrious, circumspect, and conscientious, as the most lazy, loose, and unconscionable. Hath not this wanton, daring Age brought forth such proud, pitiful, poor (it is to be feared, but nominal) Christians, that have had the boldness to call mourning for sin, a low attainment; daily prayer, a poor sapless business; all private, solemn, as well as public, vanities, carnal things, too low for their spiritual, seraphical spirits, as if they were not in the body, nor had nobody of sin, as if they were so Angelical in their high Revelations, and maintained so constant, blazing divine fire of love to God, as that it needed no further fuel, nor bellows of Ordinances, nor the Spirits hands to use them, for holy and heavenly heart inflammations. Now behold with fear and trembling the spiritual Judgment of spiritual Pride, spiritual Blindness, spiritual Wickedness, spiritual, yea visible gross Apostasy. 'It is just with God, that they which will not keep in the safe plain, the secure beaten valley, but they will be mounting up to the narrow tops of hills perilous pinnacles, they should fall, and that deadly. Some men and women have not contented themselves (yea to their shame it must be spoken, some Ministers) with the safe plain, the Ordinances of Grace, the Doctrines of Faith, Repentance, Mortification, and New obedience, nor keep in the secure valley of walking humbly with God, but mounting up in their lofty minds, to the tops of Hills, Doctrines too high for them, injudicious unscriptural Altitudes; the perilous Pinnacles of conceited Perfection, a stupid, and senseless assertion of a kind of Adam -like Innocence before the Fall; That they that are born of God sin not at all: I say some are the spiritual black marks of God's vengeance, from these perilous heights: The visible and fearful falls of haughty adventurous wantons, are legible demonstrations to the observing world, written in broad characters, that without infinite mercy they are very deadly. How have some in their scandalous falls from pretended spiritual eminencies, betrayed a double fearful loss, both of Christianity and civility of Christianity? Either with Arians denying the Deity of Christ, or blasphemously and sacrilegiously getting into the Throne of his God-head, using these wicked Phrases, they are Godded with God, Christed with Christ, yea that there is no difference of the God-head dwelling in the flesh of Christ, and the flesh of the Saints; as if their flesh did as equally subsist in the Infinite person the Son of God, as the flesh of Christ did; whence it would follow, that the fullness of the God-head did dwell corporally in them, as it did in Christ, of consequence speak them sinless, perfectly holy, and contradict the preeminence of Christ's Mediatorly anointing, who was anointed with the oil of gladness, the Holy Ghost, above his fellows, the highest measures and graces in Saints and Angels. How unchristianly do some of those fearful children of error, set up a Christ within them, in opposition, in abolishment of a Christ without them, who poring upon their spiritual transcendencies, have either quite put-out of their Creeds the imputed Righteousness of Christ without them or else forgot it. As little honor, it is to be feared, hath Christ from some of these monuments of delusion, as to the faith of the bodily resurrection, whereof he was the First fruits; and as if his Ordinances were dead and buried, they have no more Communion with them than we with the dead; and lastly, as for his visible Image, living Christians, they are boldly styled the Devils children. As sad a fall is there from pretended perfection, even to the abolishment of civility, as if external Moralities, contained and required in the Second Table, were no part of God's will. How far are they from growing to the full stature of Christian practical Religion, whose errors in opinions and practices, have made sad breeches upon all civil and natural callings and relations? It had been well if these sad objects of pity, prayers, and tears had learned of Augustine a truth, which would have kept them safe, humble, diligent, and zealous after true perfection; 'It is man's perfection, to find that he is not perfect: and of Bernard; The unwearied study of proficiency, and constant endevour after perfection is perfection; and of Paul, I count not myself to attain, but I press on to the mark; and of Peter, Grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is a true saying of Augustine, Let no man say, though the longest liver, and highest proficient in Religion, I have enough, I am righteous sufficiently: He that says so, he stays in the way, he shall never reach his journeys end. Happy had it been for these wondering falling Stars, had they considered, there is no middle state between Proficiency and Deficiency, going forward, and going backward, if they had considered, it must be with Christians, as it was with the Angels on Jacob's Ladder, as to perpetual motion. The Patriarch saw them ascending and descending, but no standing still. The stands of religious sufficiency, have been, and are fatal to Imaginary Perfectists. O the rare artifice of Satan to ruin souls! Where he doth it not as a Prince of darkness, he speeds as an Angel of light. He puts the veil of imaginary perfection of holiness over almost perfection of sin, votes a nothingness, an emptiness in Religion, a sufficient attainment, tells real carnalists, they are high spiritualists, cheat them with dreams, they are the darlings of heaven, when they are like to prove firebrands in hell; while in the pleasing folly of spiritual pride, vain self-lovers, admire themselves as the none such of the world, and cannot judge in their coldness, yea death of Charity, that they are real Saints, vessels of mercy, it is to be feared without extraordinary repentance, these not fixed stars, but blazing comets, will go out in darkness, vanish in a stink, and appear in the great day in the left hand as vessels of wrath.

SECT. 12.

3. The Error, a very sottish one, of Opinion, That what pleaseth the loose sinner, pleaseth God: These things hast thou done, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself, Psal. 50.21, an erroneous and impious parallel, and the cause of much looseness. These things hast thou done; What? These sins are charged on the wicked Libertine; a hypocritical owning of God's Statutes and Covenant, ver. 16. His hating instruction, and casting God's word behind him, v.17. His consent to the every, and partnership with adultery, v.18. His evil unbridled tongue, v.19. His slander even of a natural brother, v.20. All these are put down as the sad fruits of this cursed error, and real blasphemy, God and the sinner are alike, Thou thoughtest I was such a one as thyself; I was as well pleased with thy baseness as thyself. This is a tiring wearisome error to the pure God. Ye have wearied the Lord with your words, yet ye say, wherein? When ye say everyone that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and be delighteth in him, or where is the God of judgment? Mal. 2.17: There are not a few gross carnal Gospellers, who when their unwashed heart, impure and wicked lives, are covered over with a white and beautiful veil of professed Christianity do as heartily write themselves in their absurd, flattering, injudicious minds the children of God, the dearly beloved of his soul, as if they were the exactest walkers: Certainly those grossly intemperate, incontinent, covetous, malicious, unnatural, profane ones, that would rage at a Minister or private Christian, that should but so much as tell them, they fear and suspect their persons, hearts and lives, are abominable to God; do not so much as scruple it, but they are the objects of divine loves and delights: What doth this amount to else, but this virtual and interpretative persuasion the holy God, and the vile sinner are alike? O that such wretches would consider, as the holy Scriptures in multitudes of places, so God's angry avenging Providences, are the vindicating Patrons, and infallible maintainers of God's purity, and after death, the great day, and to all eternity, he will prove by sadly convincing fiery arguments, the infinite distance between the holy blessed God, and the lewd cursed sinner. Did either gross, or close hypocrites under Gospel-profession, seriously consider, and deliberately reason, their own wickedness, and God's holiness, what likes them, and what pleaseth God, search Scripture Records what the Lord hates, and what he is ravished with, and so ingeniously and faithfully conclude, these and these things according to the word of truth, are detested with a perfect abhorrence of the pure heavenly Majesty, and we are guilty of them, and are as loathsome in his sight as Toad, a Carrion, are in ours; it were impossible there should be such liberal and large allowances of carnal liberty, as there are too much under the favor of a divine approbation and delight. 'It is too common an error that prospering Providences are encouragers of wicked designs and practices. The Devil is a Devil still, lying and unclean, though his temptations prosper.

SECT. 13.

4. The Error that false evidences of Grace are true: An erroneous rest on these, hath begotten too much Libertinism in the Church of God: As,

1. Bare knowledge of Divine things, is too weak a proof of goodness: The Devils know but are unclean, full of wickedness: In their enlightened intelligent natures, there are the spiritual things of wickedness; The Apostles expression, Eph. 6.12, The light of the Sun speaks not a Thief honest, nor the Adulterer chaste, who are both lewd by the beams of it: Bare Illumination speaks no man holy nor happy, to infer a good heart from a knowing head, is not a more common, then a foolish and pernicious inference. Ah foolish, impudent Christian, hath God laid thee in with a stock of knowledge, to licentiate thee to sin by the light of it? Will the aggravation of your sin, be the evidence of your good estate? A stock of Knowledge is one thing, of Grace another. The Gnostics that vaunted much of their knowledge, were a beastly Sect: The bare light of Gospel propositions, will not fit for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light: Surely light is never gracious and saving, unless it Transform its receivers: They are children of light, 1 Thess. 5.5, and they do not only see it, but walk in it as children of light, Eph. 5.8.

2. An Orthodox Judgment is no conclusive ground of grace: 'It is gross error, from Doctrinal soundness, to argue Cordial and Practical. A man may be sound in the Faith, Tit. 1.13, but not by the Faith: His light is sound that speaks against Theft and Adultery; but he is not found by his true light, that is a Thief and Adulterer, Rom. 2.21, 22. A form of knowledge is one thing, Rom. 2.20. A transforming into it is another, Rom. 12.2. A man is sound in the Faith, that believes without regeneration no man can enter into the Kingdom of God: That Justification and Sanctification must go together: But he is not sound by this faith, that is neither regenerate, justified, nor sanctified: 'It is a loose deceit to argue a good spiritual estate, from a good speculative judgment: Spirits and Lives may be and are graceless, when contrary information's are bright and clear. Orthodox heads are too often contradicted by Heretical Hearts and Laws. 'It is a sound confession, that the Scriptures are the word of God, and Christ is the Son of God: There will be a day of Judgment, and a contrary everlasting Estate of Heaven and Hell; but do not all false Christians live as if those holy Articles of Faith, were Fables? Hear some men and women's sound expressions of their judicious intellectuals in matters of Religion, set off with seeming good affections, and you would conclude them Saints; but watch their lives narrowly, and without wrong to charity, you must judge them reigning sinners: 'It is true one says, It is a vain thing to conceive, or speak judiciously, and not to live judiciously.

3. Outward Baptism: This alone is too weak a Plea to speak a Christian. Too many loose Protestants are practically Popish, who conceit, and trust to it, that Sacraments by the natural Elementary power, ex opere operato, confer Grace: They doubt not that they are actually regenerate, because Baptized, that they have had the sprinkling of the Blood and Spirit in their conscience, because they have had the sprinkling of Water on the flesh, whose unpurged hearts before God, and impure lives before Men, speak them strangers to the washing of Regeneration. Chrysostom was of another mind: In his Judgement a bare outward Baptism, and a vulgar Faith, were not enough to get and keep soul Purity: He that will give proof, he is clean and glorious within, must show it by a worthy conversation without. O the sad reproach of Christ and his Ordinance of Baptism: Under the sanctuary of Baptismal Christianity un-Christian hearts and lives, enemies to the Laws, the Spirit, and Cross of Christ, do shroud themselves, as Thieves in their Den: Scandalous abusers of Baptism, will one day know to their shame and smart, this pure institution was never appointed as a Protector, but a Destroyer of their wanton corruptions.

4. Bare stirrings of the affections towards good things, will not be currant witnesses of Grace: 'It is too common experience, good motions on the affections have vanished into evil, honorable into vile. The stony ground had joy: Light impressions of Heavenly things, vanished into Earthly: Some sorrow and tears have been swallowed up in profane mirth; a carousing roving meeting, hath stilled the raging, smarting conscience: Superficial delights in the grace and mercy of God, have been soon crowded out by worldly pleasures: Zeal hath ended in Luke-warmness, yea Key-coldness: Shame in impudence, courage in faint-heartedness, the fear of sin in carnal security. O Christians, deceive not yourselves! It is one thing to move the affections, it is another thing to spiritualize and change them: They are not light touches, but mighty power on the affections, that kill sin.

5. A partial Reformation in doing some good, in abstinence from some sins, reputed Grace stands with much abuse of Grace: Partial duty, did not Saint Herod: He was a Wanton with his Herodias. The Wisdom that is from above, is without partiality, James 3.17, is not fast in some duties and loose in others, but as the Counterpane of the whole Law, hath respect to all God's Commandments, Psal. 119.6, and would be complete in the whole will of God. The old Man is loose, if in any parts of the Divine pleasure, or the least commands, he be willing to rebel: Christ's Laws are cords, Psal. 2.3. If strong lusts break any of them, with Love and Delight: The Government of Christ is thrown off. Innocence also, or abstinence from gross sins, is far from Grace, yea, is accompanied with high Dishonors to it. Freedom from Oaths, Lies, unjust Dealings, Drunkenness, Uncleanness, are too weak premises to conclude Saintship: True Grace washeth inside and outside, doth not only ordinarily rescue from gross, but close sins. The Pharisee vaunted of an outward strict abstinence, while he was loose within as the sober in the streets, are dissolute within doors, so the Pharisees Austerity, is but the veil of inward carnal Liberty: Christ saw their hearts, and discovered their self-justifying pride, the Extortion, Excess, Hypocrisy, Iniquity that lodged in their hearts, Matth. 23.25, 28. The spiritual sins of Unbelief, Covetousness, Heresy; the secret Atheism of unclean, shameless Hearts, in God's presence, inward Apostasy, hardness of Spirit; the dominion of vain and worldly thoughts, and loose security in sin, are concealed abominations, which unrepented of, will infallibly cast sinners into Hell: Let such as are outwardly strict, and inwardly loose, who in words declare against Libertines, and yet have ungoverned wanton hearts; consider, the Devil himself would be content that they should leave some sins, if others reign: He well knows, that partial reformation is but changing the Master, not the Mastership; no ending the War, but altering the seat of it; if he be driven out of some holds, he may domineer in others; where his mischief is less suspected, more fortified and pernicious: The flesh hath divers lusts: Deliberate choice service of any one, is enough to ruin: One disease may be healed, while another kills; one leak of a Ship may be stopped, while another drowns. Ah wanton Gospeller, be ashamed of thy wicked and deceitful reserves: God seeth what carnal close Dalliances and false Loves thy soul runs after; for thine outside abstemious wary walking; thyself and others may style thee a Saint, but thou art the black mark of God's avenging destruction: The Psalmist sets a Loe upon thee and thy fellows, Loe they that are afar from God shall perish; yea further, he said to God, Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee, Psal. 73.27. Thy severities against some lusts, will never speak thy chaste obedience to thine Heavenly Husband, while thy willing wanton indulgencies to, Kisses of, and provisions for other lusts, speak thine whorish heart.

6. A groundless persuasion of Grace, as it argues none, so it exposeth Grace to notorious abuse: How irrational are carnal Gospellers, that vote bare confidences Arguments? That have no better reason to prove that they are Gracious, then Persuasion: What a silly argument is naked assurance in other things? A chained Prisoner is no free man, because in a sottish frenzy he persuades himself he is walking in the streets; nor is an unlettered man a Scholar, who is confident of his learning: A cracked Title, will not bear out the cheated Purchaser in Law, though he is assured of the contrary. O the sottish condition of unregenerate Gospellers, whose only or main argument of their good Estate in Christ, is because they are assured it is so, and so neither dare nor will, by so much as questioning it, disturb their false peace! Is it possible this evidence should pass for Grace and Glory? How long, O self-deluding Wantons, will ye love simplicity? When you have given almost as large allowances to your lust, as the flesh will require: Can this support a persuasion that you are gracious? The Word did never witness to it, nor will the Spirit of God ever seal to it, that you are the servants of God, while the Devils Subjects; you are the children of Light, while you walk darkness; you are in the straight way to life, while you are in the broad road to destruction: A bare persuasion of being in a state of Grace, is a palpable delusion; where ever this is, by constant experience we know, that the Grace of God is abused.

7. Counterfeit Grace conceived and believed real Grace, begets Libertines: The Devil appeared in Samuel's Mantle, and reigning sins appear to God's discerning eye, in the veil of counterfeit Grace. The old Serpent and the old Man, care not how glorious the notions and pretensions of Grace are: These are their friends; 'It is real Grace only is their ruin: What grace is there, that is not without its counterfeit? The Devil is God's Ape, and Corruption is Graces Ape: There is a shadow of true faith: Some things have a fine semblance of the love of God: That passeth among men as repentance, that is none: Pride is clad in Humilities clothes. There is a natural unsanctifying meekness, that was never taught in Christ's School, Matth. 11.29. Wilde Passion puts on the name of holy Zeal: Pleasing and deluding carnal hope, is as easily perishing, as the Spiders Web is swept away. False uprightness, makes the Hypocrite pass for a most plausible honest man. The Ape in Mans apparel will have Apish tricks, and corruption in the clothes of Grace, will and can do no otherwise then act like itself, a lewd Wanton; It ever makes the Devils trade, its good earnest, and Religious profession it's pastime and sport.

SECT. 14.

5. The error of abusive Interpretation of Scripture, hath sadly produced loose Monsters in Religion: The Devil, the Arch-Antiscripturist, well knoweth, that the Scriptures rightly understood and used, are the down-fall of his Kingdom: If he cannot banish the faith of its Divine Authority out of the world, he doth what he can to hinder it's efficacy: Among sundry ways he useth to make void the benefit of it, this is one to deprave the sense: If he can make God's word speak his own interpretation he hath his end, a dark mind, a loose heart, and a debauched life: By turning the pure and genuine meaning of the Scripture, into strange and adulterate, he hath a double success; first the obedience of his own will, and then the color and Patronage of God's word, to make his cheats sacred and unsuspected: He hath Scripture on his side to consecrate and facilitate his wickedness, and his Scholars of sad delusion, wrest it to their own destruction, 2 Pet. 3.16. Is it not made a Sanctuary for Popery, Heresy, Hypocrisy, Cruelty, Worldliness, yea, gross Profaneness? O high dishonor to the Holy Ghost, who revealed to holy Men, who wrote and published the Scriptures, that spurious, idolatrous, filthy senses should be laid at the chaste doors of God's holy word! O eminent peril to immortal souls! When bold Ignorance, carnal Affections, Lusts and Interests give the sense of the Word! The sad issue is, The word of life is turned into a word of death: The true Light of Divine Knowledge is dimmed or blown out: Sincere Milk is turned into deceitful Poison: The Crystal Waters of the Sanctuary, are bemired, from holy turned into impure: The Hellish Archer endeavors to out-shoot God in his own Bow, and by the leave and license of abused Scripture, he lures brain-shot erring Christians, into the ways of sin and death. To open this, wherein abusive sense of Scripture doth advantage a loose Faith and a wanton Life, as in Church History, in all Ages since the Apostles, and in the present Age, would be fitter for a Book then a Section. I shall instance in some Sect-Masters, or sides of corrupt Glossers and abusers of the sacred Text. Where were your understandings, O Arians! Who could not see the plain God-head of Jesus Christ, in that you read him equal with the Father, without any robbery to his Glory, Phil. 2.6, and that by him were made all things that were made, John 1.3. Did ever mere Creature make all things? What though he said my Father is greater then I, John 14. Could you not distinguish, he was so as Christ was Man, or as Mediator, but not simply as the Eternal Son of God: These wanton wits, that by wresting the word, have denied Christ's God-head, the Mediator of Grace, and so possibility of Grace, have (as History Records) been abusive enemies of the Gospel of grace, and most bloody Persecutors of Orthodox and gracious Christians. So what high dishonor to God, the Law, the Gospel, Christian Liberty and Profession, have the Antinomian party published to the World, who have made these Scriptures, Ye are not under the Law, but Grace, Rom. 6.14. The Law is not made for a righteous man, 1 Tim. 1.9, and such places, to speak that it never intended a discharge from obligation to the Laws direction and obedience; as an erring Preacher of this way, alleging this Text, Wherefore, my Brethren, ye are become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ, Rom. 7.4, roundly said, Believers are not only free from the Minatory and Promissory, but Mandatory part of the Law. A gross Opinion, which as it blots out the Ten Commandments out of the Canon, so it opens a door to all dissolute Conversation.

Further, What infinite mischief to the comforts of the Faith and hope of Christians, and to the power of godliness, have that pernicious Sect of Allegorists done, as to the glorious Article of Christian Faith, The resurrection of the Body Hymenaeus and Philetus, held the Resurrection was past already, and overthrew the faith of some, 2 Tim. 2.18. It is thought by some, they held no Resurrection but of Baptismal Regeneration, in which there is rising to a new life: The confounding and wresting the Corporal into an Allegorical Resurrection, was in Tertullian's time; His words are, There are those, who do wrest the resurrection of the Body, manifestly declared in Scriptures, into an imaginary signification, a resurrection from the death of ignorance to the life of truth. Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus, Apelles, were poisoned with the same Error. Marlorat noted also; the same evil spirit surprised a sort of furious men possessed with Devils, who called themselves Libertines, who imagining an Allegorical Resurrection, deny the true, literal, promised resurrection of the Body. Satan's grand design in overthrowing this great truth is a carnal, voluptuous, dissolute life. Let us eat and drink, tomorrow we shall die, will be the counsel and practice of the flesh, if the dead rise not, 1 Cor. 15.32. The genuine fruit of such a corrupt error, is playing the wanton under, yea against the light of nature and grace. At what door any unstable, licentious Christians of the present Age, have suffered first the questioning, then the slight assent to, and lastly, the positive denial of the bodily Resurrection to come in, the care of good life goeth out. Moreover, The party of Perfectists, under the pretensions of a complete transcendent grace, inherent in the regenerate, having first abused the word of grace, have eminently dishonored regenerating grace. That sweet and grand truth, whoever is born of God, sinneth not, and Joh.3.9.

That is, either the sin unto death, or reigning sin as in the unregenerate, is wrested as the support of a possible perfect innocence, yea as the cover of any sin, not to be accounted sin; if in the regenerate. The Pelagians and Catharists abused this place, so called, because they feigned Believers in this life have an Angelical purity: some Anabaptists have renewed this dream. The same folly the Spirit of Error hath transmitted to the sottish Quakers. All which depravers of the holy Text, the same Apostle John that wrote it, hath sufficiently confuted in these words, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. How easy is it for ignorant, loose. stupid sinners, to persuade themselves they are born of God? And if nothing they do is sin, with what bold security, unbridled liberty, and unconscionable insensibility, will they give themselves up to the uncontrolled swing of their domineering Lusts? How sadly hath the word of truth, concerning Regeneration and Perfection been abused, of old and present times. The saying of Marlorat hath been transcribed in the erring brains, and loose lives of some Monsters of Christian profession among us. 'It is the mad opinion of Libertines who persuade (said he) that all sense of sin is to be cast off, that it appertains to imperfect men to be disturbed by the motions of conscience: And therefore they say they are truly regenerate in Christ, and raised from the dead, who have no more sense of sin, and think whatsoever they do or hold pleaseth God. When they are taken in Adultery, and such kind of villainies, they do not deny them, but say they are no sins to them, because they do not account them so but they affirm they are only imputed to them as sin, who through their weakness think they are sins. If this be weakness to account sin sin and to be troubled for it, and it be Christian perfection not to think sin sin, nor to have an awakened sensible conscience of sin, I know not what wickedness is. O sad, and desperate delusion! Here is the plain efficacy of Satan, to, miscall an adamantine, remorseless heart, Christian perfection! Who can believe that a senseless lethargy is the perfection of life and health's activity? Yet the Prodigies of the Christian name, dare call the stupidity of a dead and seared conscience, Perfection. If we right name and nature it, let it be called Perfection, but of wickedness, not holiness. 'It is a character of sinners past grace, They give themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness; and that a licentious impenitent liberty may never meet with check again, they are said to be past feeling, the word imports, past grieving. Eph. 4.19. There is some hope of recovery in a troubled conscience, none a sorrowless. Trouble of spirit for wickedness, may stop a bold career hell-wards, and beget thoughts of returning, but he that gallops to destruction, hath not an inward pang, a sing, a groan, a tear in his way, must infallibly perish. Well were it if this vile spirit of error had been in that hell of gross darkness whence it came; but the same impudent Diabolical looseness, that Reformed Writers condemned and discovered long. ago, a generation of false adulterate Christians have revived, in our sad, infamous, and spotted times; I mean the English Borborities, impure Ranters, whose toadish natures have sucked up that venom their loose fraternity poured out in the time of Calvin, Marlorat, and others; as Calvin's Opuscula, especially his judicious and Zealous Tract against Libertines; and Marlorat in his New Testament Expositions. But O you scandals of the English name, and bolts of Christianity, Heavens scorn, and Hells triumph, the highest form in Satan's School, that rant it out, in most free and liberal allowances of your uncontrolled Lusts; that make not sins definition the transgression of God's Law, 1, Joh. 3.4, but a Thought, an Opinion! Nothing is sin with you, unless you think and account it so, who have so much sinned against conscience, that you have quite cast off the sensible conscience of sin, if your debauched looseness hath not cast off the Bible and sin-discovering books out of your hearts and hands, and providence may lead you to the reading of this Section, I beseech you fear, tremble, repent, and know the holy Text of which your impure hearts, unmortified lusts, vile affections, have given a depraved Exposition, be no patron of, but severe enemy against your monstrous impieties, impurities and unrighteous dealings. Will you not be speechless in the arraignment of the Last Judgment, when from a double Tribunal of Nature and Grace, Reason and Religion, Paganism and Christianity, you will be infallibly condemned; You will learn that Virtue is Virtue, Vice Vice, Grace is Grace, and Sin, is Sin, whether they be thought or believed so be or no, and a stupid conscience in a stupid hellish Liberty to sin, is no Christian but Diabolical Perfection. Consider from what stairs you have almost descended into the bottomless pit. Have you not in spiritual pride despised the Ministry and Ordinances of Christ? Have you not been formal and dead under them, when you used them? Have you not often blunted by your stony, hearts, the home and wounding Arrows of informing reproving convictions? When you could not could your works of darkness with the divine light of truth; Have you not then to cover your old man's deeds, and quiet your often barking, yea sometimes biting conscience, called God's light darkness, and Satan's darkness light; Yea by a surer artifice to make you quite dead as to unquiet conviction? Have you not first given way to wicked skepticism, doubt almost everything; and which is a further degree of soul-ruining delusion, the difference between Turpe and Honestum, Moral Malice and Goodness? Have you not by a cursed, indiscriminating difference, jumbled Holiness and Wickedness together, and made nothing sin, but what you thinks to be so? I cannot but tell you if all the Apostate Angels should sit in counsel, why would most ascertain the damnation of the children of men, pluck up all religion, and righteousness by the roots, destroy Churches and commonwealths, questionless your opinion and practices, would be the Devils master-piece to do it.

O Remember whence you are fallen and repent. Be convinced the Law is holy, Just and good. God hath pure eyes. No evil can dwell with him. He hath no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Study the Ten commandments, read Mr. Dod and others. Know and believe the Rules of the Gospel are strict and severe against Libertines; and be sure of it, your soul wounds are so deep and dangerous, that it must be an extraordinary repentance that must heal them. You that have wrested the pure word of God's grace, and followed seduced Christians in the time of Irenaeus, who held perfection, boldly affirmed, they knew more than Paul, Peter, or any other Apostle, and yet ranted it like you in this opinion and practice, they freely did all things they pleased, without any fear in any things. O trace the penitential steps of a seduced sifter of your in error, the beautiful wife of a Deacon in Asia, who being by an enchanting love-cup defiled in soul, and Prostituted in body, by one Mark an unclean Magician, pretending to make the most rich and best appareled women Prophetesses, was with much labor converted, from her irreligions, and impure error and practice by the Christian brethren of that time, and ceased not to confess with bitter tears and mourning the impure violation of her body and spirit from that wicked Magician. Your Apostasy from Christ, into the impure sink of corrupt opinion, and it may be answerable practice, is very grievous, your return had need be eminent in constant mourning, bitter weeping, pure and strict living. So I pass from you to other Abusers of the Scriptures, Christian Profession, and themselves. The Apostle Peter hath an high expression of a real Saint, the living picture of Christ. He is partaker of the divine nature, a high expression Marlorat thinks not to be paralleled in the Old and New Testament, it is as if we should say the Saint were deified; Quasi, as if, not that he is so. The holy Writer well expounds the word Nature doth not design substance but quality; or, as I heard judicious Master Whitaker, now with Christ, interpret, The divine nature is not the divine essence, but the divine resemblance. The Manichees, a dissolute Sect, dreamed we are the offspring of God's substance, and at length after death shall return into his Being our Original; so some fanatical men fancy, we shall pass into the nature of God, and his divine nature shall swallow us up, abusing as this Text of the Apostle Peter, so that of the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 15.28. God shall be all in all. Not that we are, or shall be, or can be parts of the divine essence, a blasphemy against the simplicity of God, which is incapable of composition or division, but because being partakers of divine, created glory and immortality, we shall be as it were one with God, in the light and life of a glorious estate, as much as vessels of honor are capable of. Some loose Libertines among us, the sad monuments of Apostasy from the Truth, have come near the brink, yea sunk into this blasphemous error. Moreover those Texts which answerable to natural reason, give God as the first cause and being, an universal causality and efficiency in the Acts of second causes contingent as well natural and Rational, as of Sense and Vegetation, as That in him we have being and motion: He works all things according to the Counsel of his will Go doth all and the Creature doth nothing without him: From the wrested truth of the divine concourse to secondary acts, doubt not boldly to lay their spurious wickedness at the doors of the holy God, as if God's motions in the creature pure, and innocent, could justify the irregularities and monstrous exorbitances of sinful men, when they know without Coaction, they with a willing spontaneity, vile affection, and evil custom, do mingle their corruptions with God's innocent operations. These wantons that shroud their sins under the Apology and sanctuary of God's Agency in second causes, will be one day without repentance, informed in a distinction to their everlasting shame and punishment, That God's working in vicious Actions, and theirs, are as different as light and darkness; His motion is Metaphysically and naturally good, theirs morally evil. His moving the faculties of the soul, and members of the body, are pure, unblameable, and necessary upon the presupposal of his being the first mover, intimately cooperating in every second motion, as also upon the necessary reputation of his infinite purity and goodness, which cannot be the least causative influence, in the least evil disposition or action, as formally evil, but it is they have blended divine pure activities with their own evil mixtures; as for example, It is God's efficacious concourse, that the hand with a sword in it is stretched out, it is man's wickedness that hath made the motion murderous. God's motions are strait, loose walkers motions are crooked. God's actions are the fruit of his operative Providence, whereby being and moving is supported. Their actions are the impure results of depraved corruption.

Last of all, among many ravishers of the sacred Text from its pure and chaste meaning, in reference to the Abuse of Grace, Mammonists with their filthy lucre, cast dirt on the holy Word, and are cum Privilegio worldlings by Scripture license and countenance. Two texts among others, are the strong hold for their earthly minds: Parents lay up for their children, 2 Cor. 12.14. And he that provides not for his own is worse than an Infidel, 1 Tim. 5.8 Both are true, but miserably abused by uncompassionate, covetous hearts. The first of laying up for children, was never intended to swallow up laying out in works of Charity and Mercy. But what though God's allowance, and Parents indulgence may lawfully make their children, the heirs in part of their Estates, will this excuse their dis-inheriting Christ in the necessitous poor? Will this excuse their rebelling against the Gospel? Old and New Testament requities for liberal alms; giving nothing, or next to nothing, in no proportion to estates. Amongst the sayings of ancient and modern holy writers, yea the confessions of heathens, that might easily swell into a Book: Some sayings out of Salvian, might make Scripture Worldlings to tremble, who profess their portion is in God, and give sad grounds of Jealousy, 'tis only in this life. When they thus Apologize, we know what God's Justice demands, what sacred truth requires, but we confess, we are bowed under the yoke of our fleshly alliance, we have given our captive hands to the chains of our Parental affections: The voice of blood is louder than that of faith, and the rights of nature have swallowed up the devotion of Religion. Something may be said to cover, but not to cure the disease of worldliness, a shadow of excuse, not excusing, giving to the guilty a show of deprecation, no security from the cry of guilt. O worldly I aren't, whose all it is, to heap up estates for thy children, or the main of thy earthly travel and solace! The unhappiest man in the World! Doest thou think how well others shall live after thee, and not how ill thou art like to die? Tell me, I pray thee, O miser! O Infidel! When many are enriched with thy divided Patrimony, and greedy Purchases, have you so ill deserved of yourself, as not to advantage your soul, by charity to strangers? Take this choice admonition, Let no man prefer his dearest child above his soul: Christians are so to consult the good of their Heirs in this life, as to accommodate themselves in Eternity: 'It is better that children should want something here, then Parents all hereafter: Present mean estate, is better than eternal poverty: Better that Heirs want a large Patrimony, then the Testators their salvation; yea, they to whom Inheritances are left, if they have any piety, bowels, mercy to them that leave them, should be glad of their pious liberality lest they perish. Hearken hide-bound heart-bound Parents, that have the judgment of withered hands upon you, to the words of Christ, He that loves Son or Daughter more than me, is not worthy of me, Matth. 10.37. Have ye banished self-love from yourselves? Soul love, is true self-love: O unbelief! O perverseness! 'It is a vulgar saying, Charity begins at home: This is a new kind of Monster, to consult the well-fare of any one but oneself: Behold, thou art to go, O man of matchless misery, to a sacred trial, to that trembling and intolerable Judgment, where only a good Conscience, an innocent Life, and works of Mercy, will refresh thee: Where a liberal mind, a fruitful repentance, and copious alms will befriend thee. What if immoderate scraping together for thine heirs, shut Heaven against thee, and open hell to receive thee; Will the memory of thine heirs vast and voluptuous Estate, ease thy Bed of flames? Will the thoughts of their delicious tables, even to glut and wantonness, afford thee a crumb of mercy, a drop of water to cool and abate thy torturing pangs? Hadst thou not been better by a Bill of Exchange to have sent a great part of thine Estate in works of mercy into the other world?

As to the other refuge of Tenacious, covetousness, he that provides not for his own house is worse than an Infidel, how is this Text made to speak on the Misers side? And how far from his Protection? The mind of the Spirit and the Apostle in those words, was not to countenance a confined use of Christians estates within the Pale of their own families, but to tax and caution against the Abolishment of natural affections, and necessary provisions in careless family-guides, under the Pretensions of piety. This inhumanity to ones own flesh and blood sets professed Christians below Heathenish Infidels, who are by the guide of Nature, propense to love their own: Of kin to this, is that Popish Inhumanity, which is cried up for superlative Piety, if any leave their wife, children, and aged Parents, or go a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or cloister up themselves in a Monastery. The Catabaptists, as Marlorat noted, were besotted with the same madness, for leaving their wives and children; as astonished witless fanatic men, they run up and down, To propagate (as they fancied) the Dominions of Christ. The same wild course, the brainsick besotted Quakers take in these days, leaving their dearest Relations, in tedious journeys, where Satan called the spirit is pleased to send them, whom the Holy Spirit calls worse than Infidels for undoing their families to propagate the light within them, from County to County, such as these as oppose Religion to the necessary provisions of this life, are here intended. But what speak those words for worldly Christians of the other extreme? Are not they worse than Infidels, whose improved natural reason and moralities, have made them liberal to the poor and needy? Have not these denied the Faith of Scripture, that abundantly commands charitable distribution? Yea the True faith in God, that is ever fruitful in the compassionate works of Alms-giving? Thus too many with Scripture leave as they think are Bad Stewards of their Wealth, let the large waters of creature mercies, run out almost only in the channels of their own Families, are not the blessed cisterns to convey them into wanting houses.

Trace all the kinds of abusing God's Grace to their proper Originals, and it will be experimented, the wresting of some Scriptures or others, hath been the cause of loose hearts and wanton lives.

SECT. 11.

The third head of causes, why the Grace of God is abused, is Presumption, this also I shall branch out in five things.

1. The Presumption of a Preposterous Confidence in God's mercy, this hath begotten carnal security, and strengthened the hands of wickedness. Dreams of mercy have been the bane of duty, Patrons of looseness, and soft pillows for delicate wantons to sleep on. God is good, God is merciful, and therefore the old man dares be sinful; as if God were not a prudent and pure dispenser, but careless prodigal of his rich mercies: he is believed to waste them on the Devils service, and to rain down their Heavenly showers, upon a barren wilderness, an unfruitful Profession. But where have we a word in sacred Writ, that the servant of sin must first be confident of God's mercy? Did eyer mercy privilege and own a lost sinner but on its own terms? It is true, mercy is to be found to the praise of the glory, not the infamy of mercy, as a cordial to the fainting, a plaster to the wounded sinner, a spur to service, not a Feast to riot on, when loose Libertines take not mercy (the children's bread) by God's allowance, but like Dogs, endeavor to get it from his Table, and are cudgeled off from it: did they seriously consider the way of obtaining mercy, the Lessons mercy teacheth, the evidence of mercies possession, the Distinction mercy maketh, the reputation mercy must have in the world, they would soon be convinced, they are at as infinite a distance from mercy as they are from innocence and duty.

O that all loose Libertines that feast their lusts at mercies Table; and that commit this spiritual Burglary, of breaking into God's house, to snatch away his mercy, would lay to heart five things.

1. They are not yet in the way of obtaining mercy, they understand not the method of mercy. As that 1. Christ is the mercy seat, the Throne of mercy, a merciful High Priest, the great High Steward that gives out Alms of mercy, and gives it to Subjects fit to receive it. 2. That none enjoy it bit them that are deeply sensible of their misery by sin, despair of mercy by any but Jesus Christ. 3. That the obtainers of mercy are still knocking at the beautiful gate of mercy, get Heaven by violence, wrestle for a smile, a word, a Dole of mercy, as the Christians did in Tertullian's time, We strike at Heaven (said he) with our desires: We are close suitors to God, we pull down mercy from him, as Jacob did, that wrought hard in prayer for mercy, as the importunate Woman was, Jesus thou Son of David have mercy on me, speeders for mercy are not cold, careless, indifferent Suiters. 4. That mercy receivers are humble, self-abasing, condemning Solicitors, wonder they are not in Hell past mercy, and the asking of it, like the Servants of Benhadad that came with ropes about their necks, at once confessing their deserts, and wooing the favors of a merciful King. 5. That the privileged owners of mercy, in a holy importunity will hear no nay, but still lay prostrate before the Father of mercies, until he show mercy, Psa. 123.2. A sweet warm look of mercy beaming upon a cold fainting soul; the ordinary invaders of God's mercy, who are not so much the Alms-men as the Thieves of mercy, ascend not to the Mount of mercy by mercies stairs: but feed on a presumptuous fancy of mercy, wantonize with it, and have no saving part in it.

1. They learn not the Lessons mercy teacheth, in special two, Resignation, and Subjection. 1. Resignation, the giving up the whole person in a real gratitude to God's service, who instead of a wonder of mercy, might have made the provoking sinner a Monument of vengeance. I beseech you by the mercies of God, give up your bodies, &c. Pom. 12.1. 2. Subjection, As many as walk according to this rule mercy be on them, Gal. 6.16. Every mercy saith, be dutiful; but choice, saving mercy calls for regular walking. Those licentious daring ones that challenge mercy, say with those in Jeremiah, We are Lord's, we will not come to thee, are their own Masters, live as they list, know no Law but their Lusts, were never Scholars well trained up in the School of mercy.

3. They have no evidence of mercies possession, the fear of God is this great evidence, The mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting on them that fear him. Psal. 103.17. God's fear stands between two happy Eternities of mercy, as the fair mark of both; the decree of mercy from Eternity, the enjoyment of mercy to Eternity is the sure Felicity of all that fear God. O falsehood, folly, madness! Too many that neither fear God nor sin, conclude a part in the mercy of the Book of life, and look for the endless mercy, of the other world, and by the presumed license of mercy, live wickedly.

4. They study not the distinction, mercy maketh, surely all designed for mercy, are vessels of mercy, all that are, and shall be without it, are vessels of wrath: an unchanged heart, and unreformed life under mercy maketh no difference between the persons of mercy and wrath. If vessels of mercy may be Libertines, they and vessels of wrath both will be carnal walkers, mercy and duty, wrath and sin, will be an everlasting distinction between the heirs of Heaven, and the purchasers of Hell. Vessells of wrath will be Libertines if vessels of mercy are so too, the one is as good as the other.

5. They bring not God's mercy in Reputation in the world, what honor hath God in pretenders to mercy, that abuse his Grace? They who are designed to mercy, are vessels of honor. 2 Tim. 2.21. Not only to import they are called to honorable privileges, but honorable services: As God honors them in holding out his golden Scepter of mercy to them, so they are to honor God in being glorious within, and wearing without the golden apparel of an heavenly shining conversation, ps. 45.13, Paul obtained saving mercy, he was an high and eminent vessel of Honor, and he honorably used his mercy to the praise of its Author, I obtained mercy, and the Grace of God was abundant in me through Faith and Love. 1 Tim. 1.13.14. The garment of mercy God bestowed on him, was honorably and richly adorned by sanctifying grace. Licentious Professors do not honor but cast dirt upon the Robe of mercy; were it not for presumptions of mercy, false Christians would not so play the wantons under Gospel Profession. Did they think and speak the truth in our unregenerate hypocritical and profane Estates, that there is no mercy for us, we are children of Wrath, if we live and die so, we perish, this would damp the pleasing merry fits of sin, if this do not turn them Heavenwards, it will force upon them inward gripes and conscience pangs in the way to Hell. The same prophet that says, There is no peace to the wicked, Isa. 57.21, says also, He that made them, will show no mercy to them. Isa. 27.11.

SECT. 12.

12. The Presumption of Interest in the Promises, is a cause why Grace is abused, as unreasonably do foolish Gospellers fancy a part in the great Charter of the City of God the gracious covenant of promises, as fools or madmen imagine the Immunities and Privileges of the City of London, belong to them who were never Apprentices there, nor in any other regular way got their Freedom. This glorious Interest a part in the Promises, too many vain walkers in the Christian name, no less falsely then boldly do assume. It is with false Christians as Jews, those made this their vaunt and proof, That the Promises belonged unto them, Rom. 9.4. And those at every turn, after renewed dishonor to the Grace of God, can shelter themselves in the Promises; but where in the word, is there a title of a promise made to the wronging's of Grace? Hath the word of Promise made a soft bed for effeminate, delicate, lazy, lustful, carnal security to sleep in? The promise of life to unreturning sinners, strengthens the hands of the wicked, and is a lie, Ezek. 13.22. The God of Truth never promised life, ever threateneth death to the impenitent: The Devil, the flattering world, the wicked promise themselves life in the ways of Death. The word doth note sour things, will discover the wickedness of their Presumption, that impudent, unmortified Christians, lazy convictions, have a right to the promises.

1. They have not, while the Abuse of grace reigns in them, a right to Christ, therefore not to the promises, Christ is the great gospel Promise, the great moving Wheel, by which all the Wheels of the promises move. In him all the promises are Yea and Amen, 2 Cor 1.20. To him they were made, therefore he is called The covenant of the people, Isa. 42.6, so then no part in Christ, none in Promises, no taking of the person of Christ, no child of promise: Now its evident, that unreformed abusers of the grace of God, Lusts-servers, Flesh-pleasers, have no part in Christ, for they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the Affections and Lusts, Gal. 5.24, and therefore as yet, are strangers to the promises, and children of Wrath under the curse, every moment in danger of Hell, the promises have not a good word for them. The confidence of being armed with the promises, will not keep such black marks, as are carnal wantons, shot free, from the mortal charges of the Laws threatening's.

2. The promise is a holy promise, ps. 105.42. Now a holy promise was never made to encourage and bolster up unholy hearts and lives: It is true, immediately before the sinners taking Christ, the promise found him unholy, but it doth not leave him so. In the first moment of taking Christ and right to the promises, a holy nature is infused, and its impossible that such a one should infuse the Grace of God and make void the promise.

3. The Spirit that seals the promise to the believers Soul in a holy spirit, Eph. 4.20. Now as the seal leaves its own print on the Wax, so the holy Spirit seals the holiness of the promises on the Soul: Where the heart is still unholy, the Devil seals his false promise, the spirit seals not his true one, the spirits applications of promises, are purifying and fortifying.

4. The use of the promise, is the improvement of Grace, not dishonor, it is for God's sake and service, not the sinners, not barely to comfort, but mainly to cleanse; Having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves, 2Cor, 7.1. Lust and the devil saith, having these promises, we may boldly sin, the promise will help in case of sin, guilt, and disquiet. Most true is that of Luther, The wicked filch and take the promises of Grace to themselves, for their carnal comfort.

SECT. 13.

13. The presumption of a false Peace, hath betrayed many to the injury of God's grace, quietness speaks no safety nor goodness of conscience, the Dormant Lion when awakened will roar and tear, the Prisoner is neither secure nor clean, because he sleeps in a cold and filthy dungeon, though he be merry and loose in his restraint, he is under the lash of the Law, and near the sentence of the Judge. Though there be no true Peace to the wicked, Isa. 57.21. Yet they please themselves with the Devils peace, Luk. 11.21. While God lets them alone, and the Devil disturbs them not, in mean while the old man (upon presumption of Liberty of conscience) shelters himself under the wing of grace. This security is not long lived, though it be lasting, tis not everlasting, sins calms prove the worst storms, a calm air hath ushered in sea storms, and Earthquakes; the wind in the bowels of the Earth is silent and quiet for a time, at length it breaks out, roars, and hurls Hills, Feilds, and Houses into a dark and ruinous Abyss. Indulged, pampered sin in the soul is silent and quiet for a time, but at length it breaks out, and roars in horror of conscience, and hurls all false comforts into the dismal pit of despair: Although blood toucheth blood, Hos. 4.2. And there be a contiguity, a close addition of sin to sin, drunkenness, be added to thirst, yet many bless themselves in the imaginations of their hearts, and say they shall have peace, Deut. 29.19, yea walk according to the deluding Dictates of their hearts, because they say so: Had it not been for Lust and the Devils peace, the awakening terrors of the spirit of bondage might have driven many out of Hells way into Christ; but because stupefied consciences are peaceable, they dare be filthy and abominable, and this is the sad tragical issue of the merry comical Acts of sin, in the stage of this life; That ease which hath first tempted to sin, ends in torment, The ease of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them, Prov. 1.32. When they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape, 1 Thes. 5.3. They shall say: who shall? The next verse 4. Tells us, they who are in darkness (and do the works of darkness by the comfort and confidence of peace) that the day (of angry Justice) overtakes as a Thief, they shall say peace: Ah sad peace worse than war, the snare and trap-door to fall into destruction! Happy had it been for the filthy Peace-dreamers of bad hearts and lives, that with the repenting Jailors, they had had heart trembling's, then with the secure Sodomites a fair morning, a sun-shine of prosperity, should usher in fiery avenging storms of wrath. How wise and safe had been their estate, that at once have peace with sin, and (as they think) with God, had they at once seen God, and sin their enemy, their softest beds had been to them beds of Thorns, their sweetest comforts, bitter vexations, the creatures armed against them, feared their very meat might prove their poison, every night might be the last, that these awakening driving terrors might chase unquiet affrighted spirits into Jesus Christ, that the fear and war of the spirit of bondage, might end in the joy and peace of the spirit of adoption, that tempestuous souls might hear these sweet calming words, Be of good cheer, tis I, be not afraid, Mat. 14, 27. Fear not, I am thy God, Isa. 41.10. My Person, Spirit, Graces, Comforts, Glory, infinite merits are thine: Some in the Wilderness of their sins, fears and sorrows, have at length leaned on their beloved, when the false peace of most presumptuous ones hath lured them into Hell. As many there, as have been tempted by secure flattery, into their tormenting easeless bed of Tribulation, will have cause to think and say within themselves, accursed be that calm of our polluted quiet hearts and lives, that hath brought us to an eternal storm, accursed be that peace that hath cheated us into an eternal war, accused be that sweetness that hath enticed us into eternal bitterness, accursed be that friendship with the world and Devil, that hath betrayed us to an eternal enmity with God.

SECT. 14.

4. The presumption of setting death and Judgment at far distance, 1. Death, Resentment of it as of a Traveler, thousands of miles off, at scores of years removes, begets through the deceits of the flesh, and lies of the Devil, a toleration, yea, a resolution to play the wanton, not only against Nature but Grace. The Epicure that believes not the Souls immortality, concludes and wanton voluptuous life from probable short life, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die, 1 Cor. 15.32. And the Christian, though he believeth his Soul shall live forever, doth wantonize in carnal delights, from probable length of days, he shall have time enough to get the Grace of Repentance, and therefore he abuseth the space and call, yea, the conviction of returning: the vilest of Christians, while under the sentence, and on the bed of death, seem to have some sober thoughts of the excellency and necessity of Grace, and of some complying desires and wishes: O that they had it, who when they believed it, yea found it at vast distance from them, despised and abused the motions of the spirit and word and of Grace. How Saint like is the enlightened Libertine, within a few hours of his death, how dissolute ten years, scores of years before it? 2. Judgment, Because particular Judgment after death, and the general Judgment of the great day, is delayed, Therefore The heart of the Sons of men is set in them to do evil, Eccles. 8.11, wanton scoffers walk after their own ungodly Lusts, saying, Where is the promise of his coming? 2. Pet. 3.3, 4. That cooling word in the hot chase of sin Remember God will bring thee to Judgment. Eccl. 11.9, is too little remembered: the words of Mercer are observable, Feed and dandle thy lusts with most cockering indulgence, coming to every desire of thy carnal mind, yet know at length God will reckon with you: fill up your measure of sin to your utmost possibilities, at length you shall smart for it, and fall into the hands of avenging Execution: my Lord hath delayed his coming, said the loose evil servants, and therefore they were intemperate and injurious, rioted in drunkenness, and Beate their fellow servants, Matth. 24.48, 49. As the wanton whorish woman argued to uncleanness, Come, let us take our fill of Loves, let us solace ourselves with Love, for the good man is gone a long journey, Prov. 7.18. So the wanton Christian argues to licentiousness, he may in the spacious intervals between his healthy time and the last Judgment, bathe his fleshly mind in fleshly loves and delights, for it will be long ere the last. Assizes come: and will it be long? What if millions of years, it will come at length, too soon and too sore upon the injurious slighters of God's Grace. Ah Christians that sport yourselves with your own deceiving's, that Gospel Grace and liberty will favor your disordered walking, that give your Lusts too large room, under the plain hearing and convincement's of strictness, that stumble in high noon day; slacken the Reines to your head strong desires as if God would call you to account. Bernard tells you this is an irremediless soul danger: If the Faith of the last Judgment do not teach men holy Wisdom Repentance, Temperance, Obedience, what will, what can? Weep you (said the Apostle James to the rich loose wantons of his time) And howl for the miseries that are come upon you; Jam. 5.1, why? Ye have lived in pleasure in the earth and have been wanton. ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter, v.5. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. As if he had said, you play the wantons with creature mercies, forgetting God and your duties, but the accounting day is nigh, The Judge is at the door. They are good words of Ambrose, Let everyone bring forth the fruit of Grace, the Lord is present (in his word to faith) who will require fruit (will not be put off with leaves) He will give eternal Life to fruitful trees, will take and cast barren ones into Hell.

SECT. 15.

5. The presumption of time enough to repent, hath brought forth this uncomely Monster, The abuse of Grace: There are not a few incurable instances in the other World, who have first delayed, and then everlastingly lost the space and Grace of repentance: Those words of Christ concerning Jerusalem, may be truly and sadly said of Grace-refusing and abusing Christians: Hadst thou known in this thy day the things belonging to thy Peace, but now they are hidden from thine eyes. Hannibal bewailed the loss of his opportunity to master Rome; when he would have taken it, he was twice forced from his attempt, to a sad retreat, by almost vehement shower of rain, and is reported to say, When I could, I had no mind to take Rome; when I would, I had no power. There are too many, that will to all Eternity confess, that when Grace hath wooed them for their eternal salvation, and repentance to life, they had no mind to it, but when they would on a death-bed repent, they could not. 'It is never enough considered by them that put off their repentance, what infinite hazard they run to be lost forever. Subtle Satan and the wily flesh, doth against deceived sinners, as ill Debtors carry to their Creditors, promise to pay, but beg a longer day of payment, and when that is come, another, and so another day, and never pay: Flattering Lust begs a longer day of repentance, and being loath to leave Lusts dear sweet services and delights, craves still a longer day, and so the Debt of repentance is unpaid. This cursed and common frame of Spirit, doth in effect speak thus to God, The real love and delight of my soul is in my sin; I delay repentance, not out of love to the duty, or hatred of my delicious Lusts, but to quiet my conscience, and for fear of Hell; I mean not to delay a repentance once, but often, yea always; yea, should I live an Eternity in the World, my delicious sins shall have my heart, my service: Mortification is an idle dream: The death of sin shall neither have my sentence nor endeavors: I am loath to leave my sweet Companions. Hence is it, that from youth to man-hood, from that to old age, from that to Eternity, there is no repentance in hardened vessels of wrath: A while longer, and a while longer is the constant importunity of the flesh: Back-sliding is perpetual, Jer. 8.5. O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean, when shall it once be? Jer. 13.27. This lazy disease of sluggish putting off repentance, was in Augustine, yea had ever been in him, had not Grace cured it: When he could not answer the convictions of the necessity of repentance, he craved forbearance not to do it yet; I know not, said he, hat to answer, being convinced of the truth, but only sluggish and sleepy words, Anon, behold anon, suffer me a little: But anon and anon had no measure, and bear me a little held long: Thus Satan hath the flower of age, the strength of man-hood, and God the dregs of old age: 'It is man's folly and madness to give God the worst: 'It is ordinarily his angry Justice not to accept it. He that is denied the sweet Rose of the Spring, cannot be pleased with the dry Thorn: Had God no delight in the young-long-standing fruitless tree; surely he can take none in it, when 'tis withered, It's no longer for the soil, but fire, Matth. 3.10. If it be said God works Grace on a sick bed, as one said: An early Saint, now in glory, answered him in two things: This is extraordinary. 'It is not God's usual course, to begin and period death-bed repentance; and further said he, Do not you trust to that.

How reasonable will God's usual refusal of sick-bed and old age returning thoughts, appear in the other world? They that put off repentance to the last, do it not out of choice, but necessity; and God is not wont to crown forced and artificial, but free and natural repentance: It is a poor, weak, and unconvincing demonstration, that a man delights in wholesome severe exercises of repentance, who never set upon them, but when going out of the World: Their sins leave them, before they leave their sins: They think of leaving them, because they have no more active spirits, strength, time to bestow upon them, not because of holy hatred against them, indignation at, and weariness of them: Had this frame of spirit been infused by the holy Ghost, in the renewed heart long ago, sin had not had so many years faithful service: This adjourning repentance reprieving not executing the flesh, makes foolish men, like bad Gamesters, that throw up the Cards when they have lost the Game; so these faint woulders after repentance, never think of throwing up their sins, till in their disease they have lost their lives; they never think of ending their iniquity, till the pleasure of their iniquity be at an end, Ezek. 21.25. But O dallying sinner, that hast a long time been caught in the snare of deep carnal security! Hear the Apostles warning, Awake, thou that sleepest, from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light: Hearken not to the Ravens Song, Cras, Cras, tomorrow, tomorrow, That morrow comes not to many lingering sinners: Art thou sure the repenting morrow will come unto thee? The saving motion of the spirit often abused, never comes again: The safer and wiser words are, Cito, Cito, Redi, Redi, Quickly, quickly, Return, return. Hearken, O foolish sons and daughters of men! To that of the wise Solomon: How long will ye love simplicity? Sit in the region and shadow of death, be the Devils Prisoners, and your Lusts Captives, and abide condemned under the curse of the Law? Would you quickly run out of a House fired about your ears? Would you fly from a drawn pursuing Sword to run you through? O while under Gospel time and means of grace, you are Wantons, and pamper the flesh, slight and contemn the ways and methods of Eternal Life; even all this while the wrath of God, the malice of Satan, the killing Law, is pursuing you for your immortal ruin. O take the counsel that once a friend gave to Brenz, when his enemies were suddenly plotting, determining, and endeavoring his death, he wrote a Letter to him, Fly Brenz, with all possible speed, Fly for your life: O lingering sinners, within a little of the Grave and Eternity, that have abused the grace of God, Fly with all possible speed, from the state of damnation, the wrath to come, while your day of Grace is spending, and it may be shortly will be quite spent, your damnation slumbers not, but with terrible awakened Lion-like eyes, will stare on your departing souls, if you go with the un-repented, unpardoned mountain load of all your sins into the other World: As Solomon spake concerning flight from ensnaring, undoing suretyship: Deliver thyself as a Roe from the hand of the Hunter, and as a Bird from the hand of the Fowler, Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eye-lids, Prov. 6.5. So take counsel concerning flight from the gall of bitterness, the bond of iniquity, the bondage of Satan, the infinite danger of impenitence, that seals the guilt of infinite sins upon the soul: Deliver thyself as a Roe from the hand of the Infernal Hunter, as a Bird from the crafty destructive snare of the invisible Fowler, do not creep, but fly from his Hellish mortal Gun-shot: His name is Abaddon, Apollyon, so is his disposition and conversation. It was mercy that made lingering Lot to get out of Sodom and haste to Zoar: It would be infinite mercy, did you hasten your escape from the dominion and damnation of your pleasing Lusts, to the reign and security of saving grace.

SECT. 16.

The fourth head of causes, that fathers this adulterate offspring, The abuse of God's Grace, is temptation: There are four temptations to this sin.

1. Temptation, a voluptuous life: The Widow that lived in pleasures, waxed wanton against Christ, 1 Tim. 5.11. As the Apostle opposeth the Spirit of God and the World, 1 Cor. 2.12, so mostly spiritual and worldly pleasures are inconsistent. Such as are ravished with the delights of the Spirit, are crucified to worldly delights, unaiding and unconducing to higher comforts; and the intemperately toxicated with worldly delights, loath the delights of the Spirit: Voluptuous, prosperous, secure ones, that joy in their Possessions and Relations, feast their senses with creature-suitable sweetness's, That spend their days in mirth, as Job says, in this wanton brutish life, disparage and abuse the God of grace, and the life of grace, the fountain and the streams of highest sweetness; The God of Grace, in these words, They say unto God, depart from us, Job 21.14. They had been as good have said, Depart Heaven and Happiness: 'It is his presence which maketh Heaven; so they despise the life of Grace, desire not to be acquainted with it; We desire not the knowledge of thy ways, v.14, nor to walk in them; all whose paths are pleasantness, yea matchless delights, What is the Almighty, that we should serve him; or what profit should we have if we pray unto him, v.15. What profit? Ah beastly Atheistical Sensualists! What not? The gain godliness, 1 Tim. 6.6 The Pearl of great price Jesus Christ, Mal. 13.46. Saving wisdom is better than gold or silver, Prov. 3.14. The spirit of Grace, Luke 11.13. Precious Faith, 2 Pet, 1.1. The gain of the Soul, Mar. 8.37. Treasure in Heaven, Luke 12.33. Rich commodities, in which, prayer in the Holy Ghost traffics, These high gains and joys, Epicurean Pleasurists, with an ignorant and supercilious disdain, abuse, as not worthy their thoughts, estimate, affections, as if they were Muhammadans, not Christians, had only studied the Alcoran, not the Bible, were poisoned with the persuasion of Epicures, That the God's care not for the things below, are neither pleased nor angry with human affairs, infernal punishments are not to be feared, souls and bodies die together, pleasure is the chiefest good, that it was the end why man was borne. If irreligious pleasure-hunters say they are neither Atheists nor Epicures, they do as well follow Heavenly as Earthly delights, they say more than their hearts and lives prove. Are not the pleasures of sense their delight in good earnest, the pleasures of Faith their jest, their fancy, their dream? Can the strength of the Soul go out to both? I say not 'tis impossible. 'Tis very rare to be high in Earthly and Heavenly delights, their number is very thin of delicate, high fed, rich Christian professors, that can say, and not lie, high joys below are out joyed by higher joys above, that do but use them not enjoy them, that are crucified to them, that can at pleasure retreat from them. The better fed then taught, Peastial Christians, wantons in the worlds large and high Pastures, speak but the flattery of the Flesh and Devil, when they say the severe discipline of serious Repentance can consist with carnal earthly delights. It is a saying of a good writer, that hath too much experience for its Probatum est, As it is impossible that fire should burn in water, so its impossible that the pleasures of the world and Christian Repentance should dwell together. I cannot therefore but admire and adore infinite wisdom, who knowing the worlds higher ground is dangerous, and high sensual pleasures are as slippery places, Psa. 73.18. Hath ordinarily made the rich Heirs of Glory, the poorer sort of the world, Jam. 2.5. Lest the palate of their Souls should be vitiated and corrupted with too much savoring of Creature sweetness. The wholesome and prudent design of left-hand straightening's is to brighten the future Crown of Glory, by coming to it through much want and labor; the great Heirs of Heaven are usually kept low, lest they should come to their immortal inheritance too delicately and softly. God will not honor Grace despising voluptuous worldlings, so highly as to remove, yea in some, not to embitter those outward delights, which in angry providence he giveth and knoweth will turn to their bane. It is a sad saying of Lactan. God suffers corrupt and vicious men to live a luxurious delicate life, because he looks on them as worthless persons, and he will not honor them so as to amend them. I wonder not that a poor Christian that walks with God, feasts, lives, hopes, high values estates by their spirituality, invisibility, eternity, and not by the worlds accounts, would not change his hard bed, thread-bare garment, dry crust, small drink, for the graceless pomp and fullness of beds of Down, delicious Tables, soft, costly, and shining changes of Rayment. I knew a very poor and very rich godly woman, that would not change her holy poverty, for her rich neighbors unsanctified estate: indeed the meanest judicious Christian in his spiritual wits, resents not the civil honors and vast annual wealth of carnal wantons with envy, but pity, they are rather to be looked upon with weeping then fretting, whose way to Hell is strewed with Roses, who go through pleasant meadows to Execution. Rejoice poor Christian that stands in the worlds lower ground, be not troubled that wicked sensualists now stand above thee, thy right hand promotion is a coming, thou in low temporal allowances sowest in penitential tears, they in high enjoyments even to surfeit, impiety and Atheism, sow in carnal merriments, thine Harvest and theirs, will be as different as Thorns and Wheat, thou shalt reap in joys, they in sorrows: Christian Repentance is incomparably above carnal pleasing voluptuousness. This is the mother of worldly laughter, that of Christian tears, this enlargeth the flesh, that strengthens it, this puts a leaden weight upon the Soul, that wings it to fly to Heaven, this serves the flesh in everything, that crucifies the flesh, and brings the body into subjection, this calls off a man from God, that calls him back again to God his Savior, this obeys the Devil, that is devoted unto God.

SECT. 17.

2. Temptation to wrong God's grace is evil company. What more unworthy abuse than a ransomed captives ungrateful denial of their Redeemer. Self-destroying Heretics do thus deny the Lord that bought them: They go not to Hell alone with their wanton loose wits, argue others into their company, and make them fellow wantons of damnation; for so the Greek Text, and word in the Margin will bear it; Many shall follow their damnations, or destructions; the abstract for the concrete, their damnable ways: Our English is, pernicious ways; <H&G>: The Margin in the Greek is <H&G>; in the English, lascivious ways. The import of the Original is, That lascivious Heretics are very fruitful; some Masters of Heresy beget numerous Scholars, which argue and believe themselves out of their Faith into Damnation: Their word frets as doth a Gangrene, 2 Tim. 2.17. The leaven of loose wits did spread abroad in the purest times of the Apostles, to speak perverse things, and draw away Disciples after them, Act. 20.30. Chapmen of error, will bring custom to the Devils stall. Have any of the Pharisees believed in him? Joh. 7.48. The fast brotherhood of Antichristian Pharisaism was Argumentative to despise and oppose the Grace of Jesus Christ. Thus the dissolute walking of a pack of Hypocrites embolden one another to frequent indignities, unbecoming the Gospel; the society of Mammonists, sainted by their faith in God's mercy and Christ's merits, bow down to Money, their Idol; and while they profess God their portion, and Christ their Lord, and pay to both some easy and cheap religious formalities, they dishonor both by paying that adoration, estimation, and affection they owe to both, to their worldly gain. Reputed devout godly men's covetousness is infectious. Thus professed Christians follow worldlings reason, such and such are devout godly men that keep the Sabbath, they fear God, and will go to heaven, and yet do so and so, and we do no worse. Thus a company of earthly minds, that have grace and heaven in their pretensions, but the world in their hearts; sow pillows under one another's elbows. He that will go about to drive the world out of his heart and life, by following the instances of some eminent Professors, will never do it, but in the issue fall short of heaven. The herd of Swine too, tippling good fellows, can lick one another clean by the grace of God, and the allowance of Christian liberty, yea God's beneficence, that he made the creatures for man's use; and hence they conclude that there is a latitude allowed them. The excessive gaudiness of apparel grows in fashion with the Christians of the higher form, as they pretend, by Christ's license. As if, forsooth, no bravery, nor splendid gallantry could be too good for Christ's disciples. High-flown wantons in the nation should rather follow Christ in his contempt than courting of the world. He is their president in the glory of Grace, not in vain ways, indecent habits. The gaming away of time and money, misspending companions, if they look to the throne of Grace, in a few cold, heartless desires, and be devout a Christmas day, or Good Friday, it may be hear weekly Sermons, yet may be utterly strangers to the mysterious way of walking with God, and spiritual recreations, yet notwithstanding can judge one another as excellent Christians, and doubt not by God's grace to be saved, as well as the most mortified, strict believers. O the horrid abuse to the Gospel and Grace of God, that is too frequent in our times by evil examples and instigations! There are not a few soul-murdering presidents under Christian profession. What is said of the heathenish guides of their Religion, whose deadly, idolatrous worship did ruin their disciples, is true of many Christian guides and followers in looseness, they are their own, and others soul-killers. Were the question put to the profane generation of the Age, that hate the power, yea scorn the form of godliness, whose loose wits jeer, and Atheistical religion neglects family-duties, who speak dung, but drop not the honey-comb, vent rotten, not gracious words. Do you think to be saved? Yes, the Answer would be, by the grace of God and merits of Christ. Thus in loose company the grace of God is at once contemned and trusted to; and that of Calvin is sad experience; Profane men by their wantonness invite others to the same contempt. O the sad consequence of exemplary sin, what mischief doth it in Families, Churches, Common-wealths, the world? The Leaders in sin under profession of grace, are doubly blamable and pernicious to themselves and others, by their sin and their example; yea more guilty by their example then their sin. Dear Christians, of more shining, and obscure profession, take heed of that root of bitterness that is in you, for your own sakes, but let it not spring forth for others sakes. If it be kept within you, and wither not, you lose your own souls: If it spring forth without, and defile many, Heb. 12.15, you ruin others. Satan's Kingdom is too much in Christ's. The visible subjects of Christ's kingdom too much promote Satan work, the damnation of souls. 'It is the solace of lost Apostate spirits, to increase fellows in destruction. If they be capable of any felicity, 'tis in others everlasting misery. We read of heaps upon heaps, the bloody work of Samson's body-slaughter, Judge. 15.16. So heaps upon heaps is the bloody business of the Devils soul-slaughter. He goeth about seeking whom he may devour. And loose destroying instances promote his work. The wish of one concerning professed seducing Heathens may be used concerning professed seduced Christians, O that their error were solitary, they were foolish alone, but they draw others into the fellowship of their sin, as if society were the solace of destruction. The huge fellowship of the damned will be no diminution but aggravation of their torments.

SECT. 18.

3. Temptation too sadly and commonly effectual to abuse God's grace, is the scandalous sins of good Christians in the main, orderly, and upright, in some things irregular and hypocritical: their Falls are too often the plea of sin, and used by Satan as the protection. The old man is a loose Libertine, where ever he is, the new creature is not perfect. Spiritual soundness is not without some grudging's of the old distempers: A most eminent servant of God said, in his flesh he served the Law of sin, Rom. 7.25. The flesh will be insolent and unruly in the spiritual part. Hence there are Scripture records of loose practices in good men. We read of Abraham's equivocation, Jacob's dissembling, David's infamous uncleanness and murder, Jonahs pettish passion, Peters denial of Christ, aggravated by repetition, swearing, perjury. The Corinthians spiritual pride and division, and some carnal acrimony and bitterness of thought and language between Paul and Barnabas. So the present age, to the deforming dishonor of reforming endeavors, hath too much abounded in the offensive notices of pious persons miscarriages, for which they are unsainted by malicious, critical observers, who better observe a mote in the eyes of God's servants, than a beam in their own; yea look upon a gross sin in strict walkers, contrary to the vent and stream of their conversation, as the unpardonable sin, or next unto it, who bind up them and their hated fellows in the same black bundle of death, as hypocrites. What we experience, that acute students of true believers scandals, who hate their power of godliness, and without charity rejoice in their iniquity, feast themselves with their sins, not their graces, had rather feed on the Devils dung, than Angels food, at every turn of wry words and actions thus flout and scoff; These are your Puritans; thus do your Puritans; thus do your Puritans say and do, and believe: O that the nick-named Puritans would be more humbled, and loath themselves, and repent of their polluted hearts, lips and ways then their impure deriders, do take a disallowed liberty to sin and blaspheme the ways of God. O sad dishonor to God, and reproach to Religion, when a Prince in Israel is fallen, choice Christians reveal their yet unmortified corruption; 'tis the Devils Gawdy-day; he plays no small game now; he spits on the face of God: through the sides of the miscarrying Christian the name of Christ is wounded; he heareth ill from the disordered house of his friends, And now a Saints sin becometh a wicked man's license to make a trade of it. Men and Women dare to be profane excessively, voluptuous, irreligious, yea turn Papists, because some Professors have spotted their garments. The Devils swine with delight will wallow in their mire, because Christ's sheep, contrary to their cleanly nature, are fallen into the dirt: Because unwary walkers have with great smart broke their bones, desperate mad ones will break their necks. It is not more irrational than unsafe, because one man against his serious purpose is self-wounded, therefore another will kill himself. Seeing it is thus by experience, which is to bewailed, if possible, with tears of blood, that visible looseness in God's servants, is a speeding temptation to unconscionable Libertinism in wicked persons. O visibly scandalous, but in the main, pious Reader, read this Section with a mourning heart: thou art not the cause, thou art the occasion of others licentiousness, rebellion, impenitence, and damnation. Shouldst thou occasionally tempt another to kill himself, ensnare another to fall into a scalding cauldron, betray another to fall from a fair estate to beggary and imprisonment, urge another to fall into a tormenting disease, which makes him roar night and day, if there be anything of natural bowels left in thee, thou wilt at once bitterly bewail thine unkind (what lies in thine example) undoing others, and be fearful for the future to tempt any to their ruin. How then shouldst thou resent the soul-ruining tendency of thine offensive and infectious conversation, with bitter tears? Have not vessels of wrath sin enough in them to cast them into the fiery furnace of almighty eternal vengeance? Have they wanted the Devil to ride and spur them in the broad way to destruction? Do they need to mend their pace by the encouragement of thy sinful practice? Suppose forlorn, desperate, damned souls in Hel should thus cry out, Cursed be the time and occasion that ever I knew such and such professors. I saw covetousness and oppression in such a one; I saw uncompassionate and unmerciful carriages in such a one; I saw spiritual pride, and despising of others in such a one; I saw excess in eating and drinking in such a one; I saw mad and furious passion in such a one; I saw breach of covenant and lies in such a one; I saw disordered loose life in such Husbands and Wives, Parents and Children, Masters and Servants; I saw corrupt opinions of such a Learned one; I saw prayers and practice rare in such a one; I was wont to hear little but frothy, and vain language from such a one; I curse the time that ever they were born; they did so and so, and I thought the allowances they gave themselves, were venial faults; Peccadillo's would not prejudice their salvation, and therefore not hinder mine; what will become of them, I know not, but sure I am, here I am in intolerable torments; and I may thank their examples for my damnation. O unwary Christian, who hast been the Devils instrument (for ought thou knowest) to expedite and hasten souls everlasting misery, now mourning ever in the other world, following of thy steps! Would such news as this from Hel make thine heart to ache, wound thy soul, spoil thy rest, bring thee with sorrow to thy grave? 'Tis probable, very probable, O ye offensive children of God, whose dark side hath tempted others into eternal darkness, that the observance and following of your sins, hath snared others into the state and feeling of eternal damnation. O heirs of glory! For the Lord's sake, for the Gospels sake, for precious immortal souls sake, yet under the means of Grace, for the future fear and tremble, to woo and solicit anymore foolish and daring sinners, by your visible corruptions, into the ways of sin and death. Be no longer Satan's Merchants to put off his wares. The least part of his drudgery ill becomes God's servants. If vessels of wrath will perish, and they will do it by bad examples, Satan hath too many of his own to show them. The broad road to hell hath too numerous travelers. Your work is (what in you lies) to save, not destroy souls: Speak, live so, that you may convince, convert, not pervert, undo your wicked neighbors. Before I leave this point, I am constrained to warn and exhort all you that are carnal, wicked Libertines of the present adulterous generation: Make use, I beseech you, of your reason, I say not of your grace (for yet you have none) to argue down your wicked piece of non-sense; Godly men sin, and therefore you may. Will their falls privilege yours? Seriously consider three things.

1. You should reason, God's children sin so and so, therefore I must not, I dare not: If their grace hath not kept them innocent, how can I be clean that am wholly corrupt? If they trade poorly in heavenly commodities that have a stock of grace, must not I be a bankrupt in goodness that have not a dram? If they sin thus that have a principle of life, what danger am I in, a dead sinner of eternal death? To follow a good man's sin, is at once sin and punishment; a piece of sad vengeance; God in wrath against me, may suffer them to fall and break their shins, that I may fall and lose my life.

2. Scripture examples, and present instances of scandalous Saints, were not proposed for, but against sin; not to embolden the presumptuous, but comfort humble, afflicted consciences. Luther's saying is notable: The Holy Ghost would not have the sinful examples of the Saints recorded in sacred Writ, that their examples should teach sin, but to comfort fainting, tempted penitents; not to confirm a bold license of sin for the future, but to stir up the faith and hope of pardon upon repentance. Since their great, yet purged sins, have not blocked up the way to glory. The Saints falls should be like fire in the chimneys top, and the roof, to warn neighboring houses; not like to fire in the hearth to warm and encourage others; like a stake in the water, to avoid it, where some were drowned, not to come near it.

3. You will learn to your smart and shame (without repentance) in the great day, a broad difference between the sins of the godly, and your own in seven things.

1. They sin, who are in a state of Grace, espoused to Christ, and have him to be their surety for pardoning and purging grace, and their advocate to plead the infinite merits of his obedience, 2 Cor. 11.2. Heb. 7.22, but you sin and are in the state of fin, and wantonly run a whoring from Christ, whom you pretend to match with, and have him not your surety, to pardon and purge you by the benefit of his intercession, Heb. 7.25. Act. 5.31.

2. Sin is not their deliberate purpose, but obedience is, Psal. 17.3. Psal. 119.106. They cleave to God with purpose of heart, Act. 11.23, even then when they sin against their purpose. As the Mariners purpose is to sail to his intended Port, when cross winds drive him off from his Compass: But your heart is set in you to do evil. Eccles. 8.11. Why will you die? Ezek. 18.31. We will not come to thee. Jer. 2.31. We will not do the word of the Lord, Jer. 44.16.

3. Sin is not their choice. The evil I would not do, Rom. 7.19. But duty is holy wisdom and understanding, Prov. 16.16. The way of truth, Psal. 119.30. Christ the good part, Luke 10.42. One day in God's service, Psal. 84.10. Above a thousand in vanity and sin, yea an eternity. But you choose not duty, the fear of the Lord, Prov. 1.29, but your own ways, Isa. 66.3. The life of sense, not faith, earth, not heaven.

4. Sin is not their love, but loathing: They abhor it, and themselves, Rom. 7.15. Ezek. 6.9. They love God, Ps. 18.1. Christ, 1 Tim. 1.14. The regenerate, 1 Joh. 5.1. The commandments, Ps. 119.127. The divine presence in Ordinances, Psal. 16.8. When coming of Christ to Judgment, 2 Tim. 4.8. But you love simplicity, Prov. 1.22, secure slumbers, Pro. 20.13, covetousness, Hos. 4.18, to wander, Jer. 14.10. Sin is your darling, the dearly beloved of your soul, not your abhorrence, Ps. 36.4.

5. Sin is not their delight: The joy of their souls is the Law of God, Rom. 7.21. Doing his will, Psal. 40.8. The sweet fruitful graces of Jesus Christ, Can. 2.3. The Spirits comforts, Psal. 94.19. The excellent, The Saints in earth, Psalm. 16.3. But sin is your delight: 'It is clear 'tis so, you are glad to borrow a cloak to cover it, made of good men's sins; you sport in sin, Prov. 10.23. Take pleasure in unrighteousness, 2 Thess. 2, 12. Scorning, Prov. 1.22. Frowardness. Prov. 2.14. Abominations, Isa. 66.3.

6. They rise from sin, and after their falls turn to God, Jer. 31.19, but you are not renewed unto repentance, Heb. 6.10, but lie in wickedness, 1 John 5.19. Refuse to return, Jeremiah 8.5.

7. When they are risen, they dread falling again; have care to please God, fear to offend him, 2 Cor. 7.11. You sin without fear in lawful things, Jude ep. v.12, and unlawful things, 2 Pet. 2. To have no care nor conscience to please and honor God; and therefore the eternal difference between them and you, is, They sin and will be saved, you sin, and (unless you draw better Arguments, then looseness from the sins of God's servants) will be damned.

SECT. 19.

4. Temptation that hath much contributed to the abuse of God's grace, is division and contention about Christian Religion: That in Christian Churches, there are too sad contentions, Men's spirits, pens and tongues, being dipped in Gall, and that Victory mostly is more contended for then verity, wants not truth nor proof. Wrangling warring Divinity, hath made the Church to be rather like a Bon-fire, then the House of God: One speaking of Christianity, and the Church, affixeth to them a sad Epithet: Miserable Christianity, miserable Church. Indeed Scriptureless rending division is not her glory, but misery: Divisions of opinion and practices beget divorce of affections; yea 'tis too much a fault, a siding Opinion is cried up above a Saint, and the shriller the voice is for highest discovery in point of Doctrine and Discipline, sometimes the lower and calmer, the truer and safer is more to be attended too: 'It is sad experience, in our Contests our Moderation is not known; there is running from extremes to extremes: While Satan hath the boldness and success to get into Christ's Quarters, and in the visible Kingdom of Christ, not in all his Subjects infallibly true nor holy, but a part of the Devils Kingdom is slily admitted; standers by, seeing divided Sects and different Opinions in Religion yea, each party entitling its Tenets and Practice, to the Scripture, the Truth, the Spirit, the Glory of God, conclude in this dust, they cannot see their way to Heaven. In this season, Satan the Arch Heretic, Divider, Deceiver and Libertine, plies his Market to persuade to dissolute life; some he tempts to be of any Religion, some none; to be stark Atheists, and debauched profane ones, and many in the true Religion to be cold and formal, much heat and strength being spent upon the outside, that should have been bestowed upon the in-side, the vitals of Christianity: In the Pro and Con Disputes about out-works, the inward Guards have been neglected: Sound Christians holy walking is not so lively, and wicked Libertines sit down contented and resolved, to allow and follow the pretended felicities of their unmortified Lusts. Satan through Church contentions tempts to believe, that Religion is a bottomless Pit, not to be sounded, a mere fancy: And while men of piety and learning cannot agree, there is in some a pleasing agreement, about Whoredom, Drunkenness, railing at all Ministers, contempt of Ordinances; yea the bloody subtle Jesuit, and his blinded Popish Votaries, stand behind the Curtain, and cry Heretics, Schismatics, Libertines: Among Protestants, no Ministry, no Ordinances, no Church, no Salvation: Happy had it been in our sinning days, if Unity, Truth and Peace, had prevented this great temptation: Put though the healing of our deplorable diseased Zion, be rather to be wished then to be hoped for, yet two sorts of abusers of God's grace, discontented Protestants, and seducing Papists, that warm their hands by our fires, will not find the least real Sanctuary for their injurious reflections upon the Gospel of grace, in past and present Divisions and Contentions: I shall apply myself to both the parties, that it is to be feared, are glad to see the offensive dishonors to the grace of God, yea are much injurious to it themselves.

1. To discontented exceptious Protestants: O you Sons and Daughters of Belial, Ignorant, Profane, Irreligious! Have you reason about differences of Religion to grow secure wantons, to Sleep, Drink, Game, Swear away your time, profane the Sabbath, keep the worship of God out of your Families, and the fear of God out of your hearts, to live a brutish, sensual, voluptuous life, to resent the thoughts of Heaven and Hell as idle Fables, to live as if there should be no resurrection of the Body and Judgment to come; to mis-spend your precious hours in carnal visits, no way relating to God's glory, and your everlasting salvation; to neglect provisions for Eternity, to be as great strangers to the beneficial practical thoughts of Religion, as if you were born and brought up among Heathens: Did the Corinthians make this use of their Divisions and Erroneous Opinions, to justify and support a Godless, Graceless conversation? Can you prove that every different Opinion in Religion, is a different Religion? May not you find in unhappily divided Christians among us a Harmony of Religion, in the vitals, essentials thereof, referring to the life of Christ and the power of godliness? May not dissenting ones, tune in a thousand places of sacred Scripture, which teach soundness in the Faith, necessary renewing grace, and godly life? Will not common acknowledged Principles of Believing, Repenting, Obeying, Persevering, arraign and condemn your looseness? If you Object, Some Sects are Heretical and Blasphemous, deny Christ, the Scripture, the Resurrection: Let these Apostates that hold not the head, Col. 2.19. Jesus Christ un-Christianed, and become Heathens themselves, answer if they can for themselves: These Renegado's, sad Revolter's from Christ's colors to the Devils Camp, have a worse Judgment on them then Prisons and flaming Stakes: They have denied the Lord, whom they professedly owned to be their Redeemer, and in the Judgment of the Apostle Peter, have brought upon themselves swift destruction. These do not only bring themselves into the Order of Heathens, but are worse than they, for they have cut themselves off from the way of salvation; there is not another Christ to be their Mediator, and there remains no more sacrifice for sin: Do you that declaim against the errors of the time, know any such? Carnal mirth becomes not such a notice, you should go into your Chambers, and bitterly mourn over their Apostasy: They are the black marks of Spiritual Judgment, are fittest Objects for Christian compassion: I beseech you, after you are somewhat off the hears of pursuing in an Hellish Chase, your ungodly Lusts; after your fiery tongues, scorching the precious name of sound Christians, with the hot charge of Hypocrites, Heretics, Persons unfit to live in the common Air; In cool blood and serious earnest, consider whether Contentions and Divisions, about Truth in Religion, will be a Cloak broad enough to cover your excess of Riot, contempt of the Laws, Requiries, and Gospel-duties, your Heathenish, and worse than Heathenish practical Atheism, whereby you live in your Families without Prayer to God: Hath natural Religion taught Pagans Devotion to their apprehended Deities? The Mariners in the tempest called upon their gods, Jonah 1.5, yea probably at other times also: Can your Chambering and wantonness, your Oaths and Scoffs, at the shining presidents of practical Piety, your desperate security in sin, without the least remorse of conscience, and least hearkening to the motions of the Spirit, now and then shaking you by the conscience, if it be not cauterized and dead; your Graceless devouring the Creatures, without serious thoughts of your deep Engagement to your abused Benefactor, The blessed God; your dreadful carelessness of your own souls, not much mattering whether they be saved or damned; your casting off the thoughts of God's strict recording of your thoughts, words and actions, in the Book of his Remembrance; your dissolute ill good-fellowship; your treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath; your slight thoughts of the last Judgment: Will this and other sad Bills of Indictment be answered and crossed out by Christians dis-agreements in controversial Points? If you shall be so blind and bold, as to conclude, in your Death-bed, and in the accounting Day, different Judgments about Religion will Apologize for your Libertinism: Will not the Judge of all the world convince and condemn you, out of the Ten Commandments, the rules of the Gospel, the Wisdom and Piety of standing Saints in evil tempting times, whose soundness in the Faith, Lamps burning, Loins girt, Garments kept clean, upright Conversation, have been an Antidote against public Infection? Will not God find plentiful matter of your damnation from your own sins? Yea further, which is a sad Quaere; should not you who sport in sin, and scoff at holiness and holy Ones, live without God and Christ in the World, rather make another construction of Errors, Jangling's, and intemperate heats about Religion! What if God suffer these scandals and stumbling-blocks, to ruin us for our contempt of the Law and Gospel, that we should securely fall into a Heathenish loose life, that he might find more abundant and effectual Arguments for our everlasting destructions? O I beseech you reason more wisely, and thus speak to yourselves! Though others contend about doctrine, worship, government: Shall I rebel and contend against God? Though Christians are divided among themselves, shall I divide from the profession and power of Christianity? Because there is no visible Religious Unity among professed Christians, shall I have no Unity with the invisible Church of Jesus Christ? Because I cannot find Peace in the Church, shall I have no true peace of conscience, nor peace with God? Because Reconciliation, as to serving God in one way, with one shoulder, and in points of Faith is fled away from the jarring Congregations of Christian people, shall I live in an irreconciled Estate with an angry God? When every day his wrath hangs over me; and if I die without a Christ and true conversion, I am damned forever. I could heartily wish, and O that I could fervently pray for it, that such sober and serious thoughts, in order to the conversion, and extraordinary repentance, of the discontented dissolute ones of the times, were the happy product of the observed Division and Debates of the dis-jointed age, in and about the things of God, and not a foolish, senseless, mad arguing into Libertinism, and undoing of the precious soul.

2. To the seducing, triumphing Papists, I shall next give a seasonable Hortative: Do you fear and tremble in the sense of your high dishonors, to the grace of God and Gospel of Christ? Though you hope the Fires of divided Protestants, will make way for the Prisons, Chains, Kindling, Flames of your Spanish Inquisition, though you see some wantons among us; though you discern the want of that Scripture-charity, Unity, Peace, and in some things Truth, that should be among us: Will this excuse you in the wanton dalliance of your Religion? A Whore is wanton: The Scripture stiles the Papal Antichrist, A great Whore; she is richly and gaudily attired in her pompous worship, glorious outside, to take her Lovers. The Church of Rome, at Rome, looks more like the Court of Rome, then the Church of Rome: her Temple-service is more like a Theater, a Stage-delight, then the sober, chaste, humble, yet reverent worship of God; she hath an enchanting, bewitching Love-cup in her hand, that hath intoxicated the greatest part of Christendom: 'It is styled a cup of Fornication; she hath drunk an health to her spurious, ill begot, and bred children, and whether their pledging of the Church-men's adulterated, spiced Cup, with flesh-pleasing, will be health or death, will infallibly appear in the other World. O you Jesuitical observers of our Divisions, that congratulate and bless yourselves in your Union! Have you no Divisions? What mean your multiplied Sides and Sects of Popery, your parti-colored different Votaries in Error? Your Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Capuchins, Benedictines? Are there no Jars in your Schools between Thomists, Scotists? Do all your Chairs and Pulpits sing Even Song? If you say, In many Rites and Points of Worship and Doctrine, Laws of your Monasteries, you differ; but in the main, your Trent Counsel, your Traditional Religion, you agree: I say the same, We Protestants have the same Essentials and Vitals of Religion, though we differ in sundry superstructures; as the Body is the same, though it wear different Apparel; the Bulk and Body of our Religion, as to practical's and saving things, is the same, though it be clothed with different Administrations: But suppose you were perfectly United, Are you not Brethren in Evil, and Confederates in Error? Unity in sin is but a more fortified Satanical combination: Is the Harmony of Devils among themselves to murder Bodies and Souls, amiable and excusable? Nor will the falsehood, dissoluteness and danger of your Religion find Apology, from your holding many Truths, in which we concur with you, for which the Churches of Christ never separated from you, nor call you Papists; we divide from you, where you have divided from Christ, his Evangelists and Apostles: We rather believe you the Apostatical, then Apostolical Church: What is more frequent and loud in your mouths, then Heretics, Heretics, Schismatics, Schismatics: And what are you? Monsieur de Croy hath proved, That your Papal Unity is a Miscellany of Judaism, Heathenism, and ancient Heresies: Are you not proved to be the greatest Schismatics and Sect-masters in the World? Do not you make Schisms from the worship Purity, Piety, of Primitive Apostolic times, the great temptation of multiplied offensive Rents among Protestants; many tender consciences, so much fearing the corrupt leaven of your Government, Worship and Doctrine, in a too timorous indiscreet and ignorant Jealousy, never thinking they can go far enough from you (so far have you gone from Christ) till they have gone beyond truth and sobriety, into some error and dissoluteness, calling that Popery that is not: You are pleased to confine true Christianity and Salvation, within the Pale of your Roman Catholicism, as if you were the only vineyard and garden of God, and all Protestants were a vast Common, a desolate Wilderness; but in the Puppet-Plays of your Religion, your richly arrayed Sainted Idols, your veiled heads before them, cringing, bowing, kneeling, making vows unto them, who are as senseless of your Devotion, as the ignorant besotted Votaries are of the true nature of a Religious Vow and Invocation: How do you, and Idolatrous Heathens, kiss each other? Nor will the shuffling distinction of your Schools clear you from gross Idolatry: You say your Religious Worship is not terminated in your Images, 'tis relative only, to carry your Devotion off from them, to the Adoration of God and Christ: Doth not this justify the Israelites Idolatry, when they said, These are thy God's, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the Land of Egypt, Exod. 32.8.

Can we think they had so much forfeited sense and reason, as to terminate this high Religious acknowledgement of Deliverance from Egypt, on an artificial, senseless, irrational, weak Idol? Surely they meant the living God, represented by the Molten Calf: Will not this distinction also color Heathens palpable Idolatry? Worship is not ultimate, but mediate; not terminative, but relative, so taught the Heathens in their Writings: Their Religious worship did not stay and dwell in their Idols, but they used them as a Chariot to carry their Devotion to their God's represented by them. How do you wantonly court the Virgin Mary, to the sacrilegious dishonor of Christ, her Lord and Savior, without her knowledge and thanks? Her greatest honor is Christ her Son, yet Lord: How will she abhor your senseless School Distinction, at the great day of <H&G>: The first you give to God, the second to the Saints, the third to her: when you are told that in the New Testament, <H&G>and <H&G>, are words indifferently used for divine worship, what then do you make of the Blessed Virgin, to give her more than divine Adoration? Will she bear your wanton and saucy addresses to her, to pray her to command her son? Doth she now admire and adore him as her Redeemer, and doth her being the miraculous Mother of his sacred sinless flesh, give her the least part in Redemption? Do you not embolden one another to sin, by your trust in Popish Indulgencies, may not the most profligate Libertines of your way shroud themselves secure in a wicked life, from your rich pardon Office? Is not your absurd Doctrine of Merits a high injury to the Merits of Christ? Do we not read in your Writers, the Terms Equivalence, commensuration to the Reward, if any of you say merits, especially on a death Bed, are disowned? Yea your Bellarmine teacheth, For the uncertainty of Salvation, and the peril of vain glory, tis safer to trust to the merits of Christ. Why is there such juggling in your Schools and Pulpits, about merits, are not the ignorant people undeceived and told, there are no merits of an infinite reward, but those of Jesus Christ: How do you abuse the infinite satisfaction made to the Justice of God by Jesus Christ? As if an All-sufficient Surety had not paid the utmost farthing, as if his sufferings need the supplement of the Saints, further to satisfy the demands of angry Justice. Will your distinction of Mediatorship of Redemption and Intercession, cloak your Idolatrous Prayers to Saints and Angels? Is not Christ the only Mediator of Intercession and Redemption? Is not the prevalency of intercession founded on Redemption? What else cries for peace and pardon, Grace and Glory but the blood of Christ? Heb. 12.24. Jesus Christ the Righteous, that is an Advocate with the Father, is the propitiation for Believers sins, 1 Joh, 2.1. Yea therefore an Advocate, because a propitiator. Could holy Creatures be proved Redeemers, they might be argued speeding Intercessors. The Cross of Christ hath not only had Turks and Heathens, and false Apostles, who opposed themselves to the Doctrine of the Cross, the Doctrine of the Law and Circumcision, but Papists also: The whole Papacy saith Musculus, is the worst enmity of the Cross of Christ, yea worse than Judaism. Although it set up the Wood, and the form of the Cross in all its Temples, show it and carry it in public streets, adorn it with gold, silver, and precious stones, yet none of these things befriend the Cross of Christ, but the believing of Christ crucified in the word; the true heart and life crucifix, by which the true Christian is crucified to the world, and the world to him, Gal. 6.14. The flesh is crucified with its Affections and Lusts, Gal. 5.24. Is not the power of the Gospel crucifixion denied, evacuated, made nothing by your Artificial Crucifix? Is Crucifying grace given out but to God's own Institutions? Is God wont to bless men's superstitious inventions, are not your single lived Priests and Nuns, by your Church-Laws denied Marriage in constant Temptations to inward, wanton, burning flames, and outward impurities? Unless in rare Heavenly Eunuchism: Is it not the Ordinance of God rather To marry then burn? 1. Cor. 7, 6. Are not Priests Fornication in your account more tolerable than Marriage? Have not public stews too much favor at Rome? Is not the muttering over some Rosaries to the blessed Virgin, an Atonement of filthy sins: yea, are not your Holy days, your Saints days, unholy allowances to the wanton flesh? Nor will some Lent, Good-Friday, will worship severities, clear you from carnal Libertinism. To conclude, the whole Mass of Popery, as it stands contra-distinct to sound Protestant confessions, as it doth appear, to our solid, Orthodox, examining Writers, to it will appear in the great day, a body of carnal Wantonness, a mere politic Engine for worldly glory, a product of proud, erring, self-admiring fleshly minds. If though Providence, popish eyes may read this partition, I humbly request the self-applauding, observing Romish children of error, that have the fearful Judgment on them, of strong delusions to believe lies, and have departed from the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints, to study and be ashamed of the wanton principles, and practices of their own Religion, before they triumph in the looseness of carnal protestants and false Christians, who by the principles of our Religion, are taught more regular, acceptable Gospel-strictness, then their traditional, and most religious, severities pretend unto. I again humbly request the protestant, unsettled, discontented Reader, who it may be hath too favorable thoughts of Popery, to take heed lest he in heart turn back to spiritual Egypt, and hearken to those English Jesuit Captains, that (in different disguise of their Names and Habits, tempt Wantons in opinion and Practice, dissavoring the Heavenly Manna of our pure faith, and lingering after the onions and leeks, the poor food of popish Traditions) would lead them from the fatness of God's house, to Rome's unwholesome provisions. If, O unwary Reader, thou dost abuse the invaluable Treasure of that gospel grace that is taught among us, that doth not only require faith in Christ, but a necessary and severe mortification of worldly Lusts, of absolute necessity to obtain Salvation, and be fit for Heaven, thou hast a wanton heart, and dost live a dissolute life, believe not the Jesuits nor the Papists among us, that thou art like to prove a better Christian, if thou once prove an Apostate son or daughter of the church of Rome. If thou dost seriously weigh this Section, and meditate on the wanton Principles and practices of the Mother of Harlots, thou art not like to better thine heart and life, by being a child of spiritual Whoredomes, but ruin thyself by drinking off the Whores cup of Fornications.

CHAPTER VI.

Showing, wherein the greatness of this sin appears.

All sins are not equal, some are clothed with more odious circumstances, and appear to rightly discerning eyes, more abominably monstrous, As backsliding Israel justified herself more than treacherous Judah, Jer. 3.11, so some sinners may justify themselves more than others: They are more faulty that sin against the remedy: sin against the Grace of God is of a scarlet die, hath aggravated guilt, in twelve things the huge accumulated evil of it, will appear.

SECT. 1.

1. It is a sin of greater profaneness, it is a more than ordinary profane sin to abuse the Creatures, Food, Raiment, Health, Riches, is an injury of natural goodness; to wrong strong drink, generous Wine, by vomit or casting it into the mire and dirt is profaneness, but to abuse the most precious things, God, his Christ, his Spirit, his Grace, is deeper dyed profaneness. One says of want on rich heirs, that they are lascivious in in Tapestry, and fornicate in Silks; what wretches are they that are lascivious in Christianity, and Fornicate in Grace, that make it as a Pander to filthy lusts, that prostitute it to unrighteous, and ungodly ways? Sin, the great injury of God, is cried down by the natural voices of the creatures: Their natural forms, properties, motions, are regulated according to the divine pleasure. The body, the health, and strength of it: the soul, the noble faculties of it, cry, sin not, dishonor not your Creator; much more the voice of grace says, sin not, I am clean, wallow not in filth; I am chaste, think not I favor adulterous embraces. The Word, the Name, the Spirit, the Son of God, are all profaned by the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Esau, that debased his birthright, the type of an eternal inheritance in heaven, was called profane Esau, Heb. 12.16. And they that debase the grace of God, the Hopes of glory, the love of Christ, their heavenly prayers, to their worldly, voluptuous, vain-glorious, impure, selfish ends, commence the highest degree of profaneness, and are more profane than the Drunkard in his vomit, the Adulterer in his filthiness, and such like notorious sinners, who have only been brought up in the school of natural reason, and abused their Moral principles. The corruption of the best things is the worst corruption. The abuse of the glorious Grace of God is the highest profanation.

SECT. 2.

2. It is a Hypocritical sin. There is no man that wrongs the grace of God, but is a pretender to befriend it. Heathens and strangers to the offers and acceptance of grace, contract not the shame of abusing it. But the carnal Gospeller, the familiar friend of Grace, lifts up the heel against it: He seemeth to take sweet counsel of it, but followeth the counsel of the flesh. Thriving sin under professed grace is a lie in Hypocrisy, 1 Tim. 4.2. It is the power of wickedness, under the form of godliness. Its eye is in heaven, when its heart and hands are in hell. It kisseth like Judas, when it goeth about to kill the grace of God, with Ehud, that made a message from God the Prologue of hiding his Dagger in Eglons belly. Judge. 3.20, 21. So it useth an errand and warrant from the Lord, when it stabs the heart of Religion. It says Hosanna with the lips, where the heart and life says, Crucify. It professeth no King but Jesus, and obeys no King but Lust, but the black one of the bottomless pit While Hypocrites (said Calvin) would make their ceremonious, outside Religion, a grave to bury their most heinous sins out of sight, do they not make good their party? Do they not make him as their Pander, when they would have him cover their Adulteries? Yea so they live, as if Christ, like a very Mercury, were the God and Patron, said Zwingli, of Usury, Theft, Rapine, and Robbery. Yea was not this the specious cover of Ezekiel's seeming devout hearers, who though they fate before him as pleased, attentive auditors, yet their hearts ran after their covetousness? Are not such Christians real Pharisees, who in their prayers do not design heavenly graces, but worldly estates? How sad is it, that in their devotion, they should like the Kite fly high, but it is with an eye to the prey below? Such Kitish Christians, if the eye of man seeth them not, God doth, and will unbosom and unbottom rotten intentions in the grand discovering day. Loose wantons in heart, Sainted by themselves and others; yea loose Libertines within and without, the profuse Drinkers, Gamesters, Swearers, Wasters of Time, Money, the Creatures, the Strength of their Bodies and Souls in carnal Voluptuousness; that can saint one another in their sickness, or a little before, in or after a Sacrament, should do well to consider that abuse of Grace, by the leave and cover of grace, is notorious gracelessness.

SECT. 3.

3. It is an ungrateful sin. As it is high ingratitude not to return good for good, so the highest to return evil for good. Lewdness under Gospel grace, is an ungrateful denier of grace. We are not ashamed (said one) to trample the precious blood of Christ under the feet of our impious ingratitude. Is this thy kindness to thy friend, said Absalom to Hushai, that revolted from David his Prince. So say loose soul to thyself, under thy ungrateful abuses of the grace of God, is this thy kindness to thy friend Jesus Christ. They that rendered David evil for good were his adversaries, Psal. 38.20. And can Christ hold them his friends, that always, or mostly return him evil for good. O the sad, common, scandalous returns to the Lord Christ, by them who profess him their Redeemer! They who are ransomed by a mighty power, and costly sum from Iron chains and Gally-slavery, owe themselves to their Redeemer: If they be unthankful unto him, are thought worthy of any punishment. O their prodigious unthankfulness, that while they profess a spiritual redemption, run from the colors of their owned Captain of Salvation unto the Enemies camp, fight on his side, and sweat at the Devils oar, and make this the real all of their thanks for the blood of Christ, to please the Devil, and have more uncontrolled liberty for their lusts. unthankful, unholy are coupled together, 2 Tim. 3.2. The unthankful abuse of God's grace speaks unholy hearts.

SECT. 4.

4. It is a sin against experience. He never made a true trial of the grace of God, that abuseth it to the reign of sin: For sin hath no dominion where grace hath any. O state and see the Lord is good. O fear the Lord ye his Saints. This double expression, O taste, O fear, doth lesson us how to judge of the exhortation of God's grace. They that taste it fear him. If you have tasted how the Lord is gracious, to whom coming as a living stone, ye are built as living stones, to offer up spiritual sacrifice, 1 Pet. 2.3. They that taste how gracious the Lord is, they come to Christ, they leave him not, they live to him, they are built up in him, they do not by their works deny him. The vine and Fig tree could not leave their sweetness, nor real saints the sweetness they tasted in God's grace, for the bitter sweets of the world. Light come, light gone, is proverbial. Things hardly come by, are highly prized, not easily parted with. How doth the tender Mother kiss and prize her dear babe, for which she hath gone through a long and sharp travail; so they who after a sore and lasting travail of deep sorrow, and smart for sin, are at length delivered of the sweet babe of Grace; prize and kiss it, and will not abuse it. The soul sick of love, that hath at length found its heavenly Bridegroom, receives him greedily, and joyfully, and holds him fast, and will not easily let him go, Cant. 3.4. Besides, it is the Christians heaven upon earth, to accustom and familiarize communion with the God and Mediator of Grace. Custom must needs make the best life pleasant, and a real pleasant life will not, cannot out of judgment and choice be left for real vexations.

May not one that hath had sweet experience of the power and comfort of Grace, abuse it?

True believers may, and do wrong the Grace of God (as shall be shown) but not as believers, but sinners; for,

1. The new creature calls not this spurious brat, brat, Father; 'tis the old man only in the new born turns Libertine. This dishonor of Grace is not imputable to Grace, but to the remains of sin.

2. A found Christian hath either forgotten the sweet Feast of the Grace of God, or questions whether ever he fed at its Table, or misseth his former favor of gracious exercise, or communion, though he remembers he hath sometimes had it, or hath pleased his palate with earthly delights, or is sadly forsaken for a time by the Spirit of Grace, or strongly assaulted by Lust and Satan, and in these cases he wrongs the grace of God; but when he hath a lively sense and remembrance, even a close, sweet, intimate, experimental sight and feeling of God's grace. 'It is impossible he should play the wanton, he never fears the abuse, then when he seeth the propriety, feels the power, and enjoys the sweetness of God's loving kindness; he is so ingenuous as not to spit on his Fathers smiling face, and kick at the hand of special grace. Conscience is most tender when its once most pure and peaceable, and hath learned a better lesson than to go from the bosom joys of Christ, and to fornicate in the creature and sins softest bed of Down:

As for them that ordinarily and habitually wrong the Grace of God, with choice, without remorse, 'tis certain they never had an experimental taste how good and gracious God is, nor have had a sweet relish of the heavenly gift, nor feasted their souls at the heavenly banquet of grace. Had they once this heavenly privilege, former sense would beget prizing's of, and hunger after renewed sweet communion between Christ and the soul, mutual supping in gracious entertainments of each other.

SECT. 5.

5. It is a sin destructive to true Faith, and inconsistent with it, There are no greater riches, no greater treasures, no greater honors than the holy Faith of the whole household of Faith. The Just lives holily by his Faith, the Unjust loosely by his unbelief. To them that believe is precious: Grace is glorious. They that know and believe the worth of Jewels, will not hang them on a slender thread: they that know and believe the glory of Grace, will not debase it by inglorious sins. They saw no comeliness and beauty in Christ, but despised and rejected him, who believed not his report, Isa. 53.1, 2, 3. In the Apostle who lived by Faith in the Son of God, Gal. 2.20, the grace of God was not abused, but improved; not received not received in vain, to an idle, loose, offensive conversation, 2 Cor. 6. I, 3, but operative to holy, and heavenly labors for the Gospel, 1 Cor. 15.10. Doth he believe to be saved by the son of God, who is neither terrified by his Threatening's, allured by his Promises, nor obeys his commands; though he profess he knows God, doth he not in works deny him? Unbelief, that neither puts on Christ to Justification not Imitation, will impudently frolic, in riot, and drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness, strife and envying. But that Faith that on Christ, puts off these things, Rom. 13.13, 14.

SECT. 6.

6. It is a sin opposite to the power of Godliness. They were called ungodly men that turned the grace of God into wantonness: the true love, fear, worship, obedience to, trusting in God, would deny profane license to sin from the countenance of Grace. A gracious, tender, trembling heart, will abhor to corrupt the loving kindness, compassions, bounties of God to loose principles and practices. Whatever godliness is pretended, the perverting of God's grace springs from ungodliness, the dominion of godly lusts. Godly Joseph, that had sweet experience of God's grace, durst not be unclean in God's presence; Shall I commit this great wickedness and sin against God? Gen. 39.9 No man ever abuseth the goodness of God, Those ungodly wantons of the text (faith Junius) are such as are void of all study of piety, unto which they are provoked by the conscientious instigation of the natural law, human reasons and examples, and divine testimonies. The more godliness the less licentiousness. 'It is no wonder we read the Libertines in Job were loose wantons, they said to God, depart from us, Job. 21.14.

SECT. 7.

7. It is a Reproaching sin, of multiplied dishonor and disgrace.

1. To God the Father. Hypocrites (said Calvin) deal too contumeliously with God, they were what lieth, bring him within the guilt of their sins, as if he had fellowship with them. The Name, Worship, Grace, Spirit of God is blasphemed by abusing his grace.

2. To Christ. He suffers reproach in loose Gospellers: His Name is not as a precious ointment, but unsavory; His Institutions of grace contemned; His Government refused; the Holiness and Strictness he enjoineth is questioned, disregarded, yea positively opposed: With infamy we spit upon, (faith one) with our base life we destroy, that noble and truly precious name of Christ. He is wounded in the house of his pretended, yea sometimes of his real friends; a proof of their old man's real enmity against him. His Followers, and Disciples loose walking, is the Devils Whetstone to sharpen and keen the weapons of calumny against him.

3. To Christianity. The Law of Christ (faith Salvian) suffers disgrace by uncircumspect Christians; when under the Wing of the blessed Gospel, cursed are shrouded, the Gospel itself is cursed.

4. To exact Christians. The most untainted professors are blasphemed by the censorious world, because of the scandals of some in Christ's Family: The Tabernacle is blasphemed, Rev. 13.6. The true children of Zion are vilified; They are all Hypocrites.

5. To loose Christians. Their looseness is their reproach; they foam out their own shame, as Jude speaks, v.13, they manifest their folly, 2 Tim. 3.9, discover their nakedness, Exod. 32.25, declare their sin as Sodom, Isa. 3.9, show the Plague is on them, and warn others to turn from them, 2 Tim. 3.5. By the manifest fruits of the flesh, Gal. 5.19, they do evidence it, that they are not led by the holy, but over-ruled by the unclean spirit.

SECT. 8.

8. It is a sin bringing daily, and sensible loss to the soul. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward, Joh. Ep. 2, ver. 8. Carnal spirits under Gospel grace, take a course to lose the grace of God, Gospel blessings, all the means a grace, Christ, his Spirit, Hopes, Confidences, Joys, Prayers, Tears, Alms, Body, Soul, Time, Heaven, all the ways and attainments of Everlasting Mercies. Christianity is Fighting, but Wantonness under, and against the Gospel, beats the air, doth not pull down, but promote sin and Satan's Kingdom. Christianity is a Race, but the Injuries of God's grace keeps a man short of the Eternal prize; he runs in vain, comes short of glory. As to the loose Jew, his circumcision was lost, Christians, as if he had never heard of God's grace. We see riotous ill Husbands spend freely on their estates, and they vanish as if they had never been. Do we not see in these Grace-abusing days, false Christians riot in Libertinism, and their gracious profession vanishneth, as if it had never been. Sodom had a fair morning, but was consumed with fiery-showers; some have had a morning of early shining profession, but playing the Wantons in spiritual pride and carelessness's, fiery indignation hath soon punished the pretended glory of their Religion. As I have seen beauteous blossoms, that have made a gallant show soon blasted, so there want not instances of fair blossoming Christians soon blasted, by corrupt opinions and practices: Yea, which is sad, as travelers have gone half their way, but are plundered and slain by Highway cutters and Robbers, so some seeming heavenly travelers, have gone half their way with Christ, but being careless, solitary, disarmed, are soul-robbed and slaughtered by Satan's Highway men. The erroneous and dissolute; and further, which is saddest of all, as well-guided-ships, in their perilous voyage, within a little of Harbor, either spring a leak, or run on sand or rocks, and lose their long sailing on the hazardous Main; so old seeming Christians, that look like Monasons, that appeared to be long passengers in this worlds Sea, heaven-wards, by the leak of some secret unmortified lust, let in destruction, are swallowed up in the soft sands of a voluptuous life, or spit on the Rocks of Despair or Presumption. O its sad to be considered, and with bitter tears to be bewailed, what promising hopes, youth-Apostate Christians have lost, what soul-shipwrecks manhood-Apostate Christians have made, what bankrupts as to saving grace, old Age-Apostate Christians have been. O mournful spectacle, that an old Professor, that was thought to be almost ripe for heaven, should prove a Wind-fall, and turn a Libertine, a Ranter, a Quaker. Look to it Christians, fear and tremble to be wantons with heavenly Ordinances, your Christian Profession, your shining Gifts, your glorious Attainments, your hopes of Heaven. Assure yourselves your unreformed abuse of grace will prove a sin that will continually cause you to be on the losing hand for your souls.

SECT. 9.

9. It is a despising sin, it despiseth the Spirit of grace, in Light, love and holiness. Heb. 10.29, why hast thou despised the Commandment of the Lord, 2 Sam. 12.9. On home and a sharp question, implying a cutting reproof of David, he sinned against the known Commandment of God, and its called despising, The servant that knoweth his Masters pleasure and willingly disobeyeth, despiseth this government. An enlightened Christian sinneth at a higher rate, then an ignorant Heathen. Those that sit in the Region and shadow of death, do not what they hear not, we read the pleasure of God, and cast it under our feet, in is less guilt to be ignorant of, then despise the Law, informed Rebellion shall have more stripes, sinful ignorance fewer, tis rarely considered, that when daring Christians abuse the Grace of God, they despise the God of Grace. What wickedness is this to despise infinite goodness, and communicated kindness? Should that leads to repentance tempt to carnal indulgence? The wonder is not so great that that the damned in hell-torments despise God in his vengeance. O stupendous folly and madness carnal Gospellers despite God in his Grace.

SECT. 10.

10. It is Revolting Sin. The wanton widow that waxed wanton against Christ left first Faith of Christianity for an Idolatrous Husband, 1 Tim. 5.10, 11. When men are evil because God is good, they cannot but grow worse, and worse. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me, Isa. 1, 2. God's goodness was abused to Apostacy: They are gone backward, ver. 4, ye will revolt more and more, v.5. Near spiritual union unto, and close walking with God, keeps the heart in awe, but abuse of God's grace men turn their backs upon him. Evil servants at distance from their Masters, are wantons and riotous; and evil men when they go away from God. Two sad characters of a vile person going a whoring from God, and being far from him, are put down in the same verse, Ps. 73.27. And they are ever in the fame carnal wanton way. He goes a whoring from God, and is far from him; but, said David, it is good for me to draw near to God. The nearer to God, the more strictness and Holiness. Christ was nearest to God, and holiest in heart and life. The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. Joh. 8.29. The holy Angels are near God; They always see his face, Mat. 18.10, and are ready to do his will, Psal. 103.20. Isaias was near to God in a sweet vision He would now preach, though to Reprobate hearers. Satan knoweth this, that the awful spiritual presence of God begets reverence and obedience, and therefore he tempt souls to fall into hell of Libertinism by three stairs of Apostasy. First to turning the eye from God, then the heart; and lastly the feet. To debauch the sinner, first he must not see God, then he must not love him, and Lastly he must not walk with him. Then from, this Aversion, loose conversion is easy. First he will behold vanity, then set his heart on it, and lastly walk after it. The wanton sinner cannot possibly have an impudent whores forehead in the serious trembling presence of God, as he hath in his absence. The saying of Junias is sad experience, They that wantonly turn their backs upon God, by the custom of sin run into hardness of heart. They are the monsters of imprudence, unthankfullness and madness, that hope yea are assured their sins are washed in the blood of Christ, who therefore boldly cast themselves into the old mire, presuming they shall be cleansed again. Doth this speak Christ who therefore boldly cast themselves into the old vomit and mire? Wanton Christians that know not the bitterness wounded sinner that hath almost sunk in despair and narrowly escaped hell, will be afraid of the old sins and have sober, serious, trembling thoughts of his gracious rescue. They are wholesome words of Zwingli. When through the Conscience of my sins, I was brought to so great a despair, should I not deservedly be called a fool, if now I should willingly expose myself to the same shipwreck. I am cleansed from mine impurities by the blood of thy son, and shall I again defile myself? That of shall close this point. He them being is snatch out of the fire, doth again cast himself into it, by so much the more desperately evil, by how much be doth the more ungratefully add sin to his deliverance?

SECT. 11.

11. It is an inexcusable sin. Enlightened sinners have no cloak for sin Joh. 15.22. The word will bear it (excuse) did so and so, ignorantly, is some excuse. It cannot be said of them that never heard of the grace of God in Christ. They read the Gospel and are unchaste. They hear the Apostles doctrine and are drunk. They profess following of Christ, and are given to rapine; They lead a wicked life, and have a Godly Law. All these things may be said of them, that wrest the grace of God, to unrighteousness and ungodliness. Wicked Gospellers pretend to come to Christ feast, as fit and thankful guests, but the King shall say where is the garments? When he shall see they come with their filthy garments, when with Plague-sores running on them, they shall be speechless, not be able to speak a word in their own Apology, as the muzzled mouth of a beast openeth not: the import of the Greek word translated speechless. 'Tis our common fault. Seneca hath truly noted we had rather excuse then forsake our vices. There will be no plea for Abusing Grace. There will be none for the loose Jew, his external clothing with God in a Covenant of grace, in circumcision, sacrifice, the Temple, Altar, Priesthood, Passover, is not alleged to lessen but greaten the Abuse of grace. Therefore Calvin in his Old Testament Expositions often notes. That the terms and expressions of sacred propriety, as holy seed, people, my people, your God, the Holy one of Israel, and the like, are not commendations, but exprobation, of their deep ingratitude and Apostasy, that they who were singled out to be near God, above all the world, to be the vessels to bear up his name, should degenerate from the glory of their adoption. Israel was called holiness to the Lord, Jer. 2.3. A people separate from all others, devoted only to God, that among them the glory of his holiness might shine forth to take and enlighten the eyes of the observing world. And therefore when the ten tribes espoused to God, wantonly played the harlot, in idolatry and other sins, with other lovers, God writ her a bill of divorce; in her sad banishment and Captivity among Heathens: when the old Churches religious relation was abused to loose superstition and Conversation, then we read God disowned his people, who disowned him. I have forsaken mine house. I have left mine heritage: I have given the dearly beloved of my soul, into the hand of her enemies. Jer. 12.7. The degenerate feed of Abraham had no plea for, but smarted for their wantonness. Yea further the Heathen sinning against his light of nature, will have no excuse, why he should not endure the vengeance of eternal fire. His unanswerable inditement will be read against him out of Romans the second. Many principles of the Moral Law were naturally written in his heart. He had a Conscience to excuse in duty, accuse in disobedience c. 2.15, yea in the 1c.v.21 though he knew God he glorified him not as God, retained not God in his knowledge v.27, cast good convictions out of his mind, gave himself up sinfully, as he was given up by God judicially, to vile affections and a reprobate mind. 26.28. Sin enough to clear divine justice, and merit hell: Peter Martyr thus Comments. Paul teacheth said He. They abused practical knowledge, in that they knew what was just and equal to be done, partly they were indulgent in others, partly what they taxed in others they dissembled in themselves. With what color of excuse, will the Christian Libertine stand before the bar of impartial justice: when above the Heathens dim light of nature, and above the Jews dark sight of grace, gospel twilight and dawning, he lives in high noon Evangelical light, if he riot before and against its clearer sunshine irradiations? By how much the more Capernaite Christians are lifted up in abused, heavenly, gospel ordinances, so much the Lower, dismal, hot room will have in Hell.

SECT. 12.

12. It is an Heathnish sin: I mean not this, That there is no more sin in the Christian then the Heathnish wanton, for he is an higher-form-Scholar in the Devils school, that sins against grace then who sins against reason; but thus the Christians wantonness is an Heathnish sin. The loose conversation and abuse of Religion is alike in the dissolute Christian and Heathen. They agree 1. in Conversation. Some Heathens imagined a stupid Deity, nor Angry, nor pleased, and so they were careless of virtue, and fearless of vice: do not Atheistical Christians live, as if God would neither reward, nor punish? Epicurus thought man was born for sensual voluptuaries among us so live in fleshy delights, as if they came for no other end into the world? Do not the common worshippers of that great Idol carnal self, make self-interest their Alpha and their Omega? Yea all the letters of the Alphabet, the whole of whose life is to consult and advance self? The body was the all Heathens looked after, did nothing for their souls. Is not the body the all loose Christians regard while the souls is neglected?

2. The loose Heathen and the Christian, both agree in the loose abuse of their respective Religions in four things: In the worshippers frame of heart: In the unprofitableness of worship: In the design of heart: In the event of worship.

1. In the worshippers frame of Heart. The Heathens in their addresses to their false God's, came not in a virtuous but vicious frame (i.e.) not in a virtuous, when they come to sacrifice to their God's: They bring not their hearts due observance, love, integrity of mind, Reverence and fear. Are not these the failings of Carnal worshippers of Jesus Christ? Nihil intimum afferunt. The inwards are not in sacrifice, as if an Idol God, not an omniscient Christ were worshiped, where is the due observance of his presence, do not hearts run after other things? Where is Reverence, fear, love, upright service of the Lord Christ.

2. They came to their gods in a vicious frame: They come to pray in the pollution of all their sins, immodest Adulterers, Thieves, &c. without choice of worshippers, no matter who came: Do not many impudently and unpreparedly come to God, stinking in their filth, with unclean hands and impure hearts? Jam. 4.8, that have need of the washing of faith and repentance, Isa. 1, 16.18.2. The wanton Heathen and Christian, both agree in the unprofitableness of their Religion. The Heathen put himself and his god off, with the blood of Beasts, smoke, a silly sacrifice, thinks he hath piously sacrificed, if he hath washed his skin, when no Rivers can wash, nor Seas purify inward Lusts: His Religion could neither make good, nor establish in goodness: There was no good life, wisdom, nor faith to be learned there; doth not the dissolute Christian make his holy Religion as vain unto him? Is not Christ and his own soul, with good words that vanish like smoke, a silly Sacrifice of heartless praise? Doth he think he hath piously sacrificed, when he hath given God his eye, ear, knee and tongue, when the Waters of the Sanctuary have never washed his impure. inside, no good life, wisdom, nor faith is learned? 3. The licentious Indemnity in sin, sin freely, and never smart for it. They pray for nothing else, but that they may sin with Impurity, saith Lactantius. The Christian worship his God, that he might sin without restraint and penalty: though his tongue says not so, his heart and life doth. 4. The dissolute Heathen and the Christian agree, in the event of both their Religious worship. When the vain Pagan Sacrifices are ended, the blind Worshippers leave all their Religion in the Temple, and with the Temple, as they found it; they bring nothing to it, nor carry away nothing from it. Is it not common sad experience, Profane Worshippers of God get nothing by the Ordinances? Leave all their Religion as they found it, in and with the public Assemblies; they bring no godliness to, nor carry none away from them: As they come, so they return, Dead, Hardened, Proud, worldly, Impenitent Libertines: We see the sad Parallel between the wanton Heathen and Christian, under both their Religions: The abuse of God's grace is a Heathenish sin.

SECT. 13.

13. It is a universal sin: It reigns in all carnal, worldly professed Christians, yea something of its corrupt leaven is in the real, yea strict servants of Christ, as shall further be shewn, when the differences of this sin in sound and rotten persons shall be bid down. Among the unregenerate crowd that own the Christian name, this horrid abomination hath universal dominion: It was Luther's Lamentation: It is a sad thing! Look upon Gospellers in Cities, eye Magistrates, and the manners of Noble men, and view the Life of Citizens and Country People; ought not all of them, night and day, give thanks to God, that they are delivered from the Iron Furnace of the Popes Tyranny, and the most miserable darkness of Ignorance? But this is not done, for this is the great business that all pursue, that they may heap up wealth; so they grow rich, care not how they abuse one another, by Impostures, Frauds and Injuries: As all earthy nominal Christians slight that Gospel grace, in which they profess their felicity is wrapped up, and more industriously pursue that which is a shadow, then substantial happiness; so in spiritual real ones, through the inclinations and temptations of the old man in them, there is some abuse of God's grace: surely they know wherefore Grace is received, what hinders but that it should teach them how they ought and might improve it, who have more abilities then others to walk close with God, deny themselves, be fruitful in good works, live in Heaven, honor their Lord and Master Jesus Christ, by a shining, convincing conversation, be the presidents of mortifying grace; and in brief, to hold forth the glory and power of Religion, to make it amiable in the eyes of wicked men, even these cannot but be conscious to themselves, how far short they are, and live up to the dignity, efficacy, and majesty of that Gospel Holiness and strictness they profess, and in some measure but too little discover: That real servant of Christ is one of an hundred, yea one of a thousand, that doth not in one thing or another spot the garment of his holy Profession, and in some lower degree, yet intolerable and unallowable of wantonness, fall short of the honor and power of Gospel grace. Happy is the person, The None-such, The Phoenix of the Country, who is so eminently mortified, so self-crucified to the world, empowered against Satan, grown in Grace, dwelling in Heaven, makes the practice and power of Religion the great business, hath such daily and hourly assisting grace, is in such constant guard of his heart, and fear of God, that the transcendent Professor rather lives as an Angel, then a Saint among men; but it is very rare to find Christians coming nigh this Character: Who are there that know the large and hard things required in the Law, and strict rules of the Gospel, and his swerving's from both, but hath cause to charge himself with some inward or outward looseness, or both, and say with David, I have done foolishly, with Job, I am vile, with the Publican, A sinner, O God! With Paul, In me, in my flesh dwells no good thing; though in my mind I serve the Law of God, yet in my flesh I play the Wanton, and serve the Law of sin? This great sin, The abuse of Grace, is Epidemical, and so much the more abominable: As that Plague is worst that is generally raging and infections: That of Zanchy by shall period this point: The more Catholic sins are, the greater they are: Generality of any sin is its aggravation.

SECT. 14.

14. It is an un-Churching sin: It provokes God, to take away the gospel, the golden Candlesticks, that hold forth glorious, Gospel, saving light, and to give the abused good tidings of grace to them that will bring forth the fruits of it, Matth. 21.43. Abusing God's grace was the sin of Sardis; who had a name to live the life of grace, but was dead, Rev. 3, 1. It was the sin of Laodicea, that boasted herself rich in gifts and graces, in gospel Treasures, when she was poor and miserable, but rich in sin, Rev. 3.17. It was the sin of the Jews that cried the Temple of the Lord, bore much on Sacrifices, the types of God's grace in Christ, which was abused to stealing, murder, false swearing, idolatry, and so perverted the ceremonial Religion of God's grace, into a securing Den of Robbers, Jer. 7, 9.11, but used it not as a healing Medicine. If God enter into judgment with England, he may, and there is cause to fear he will, un-Gospel, and un-Church her: He may justly do with than part of his loose Family, as Masters do with their loose servants, take away those Candles, and that Food they play the wantons with. Is not Evangelical Doctrine sweetly, clearly, plainly, and commonly Preached throughout the Nation? Are we not like Capernaum, lifted up to Heaven in Ordinances? Deserve we not to be like Capernaum too, cast to Hell for our impenitence, barrenness, thriving wickedness, wanton abuse of the means? Are not the plentiful showers of Heavenly Doctrine, the sweet and warm Beams of the Gospel Sun, dishonored by a plentiful Spring of Thorns, Hemlock, noisome Weeds, cursed Opinions and Practices? We are Judgment proof, and Sermon proof, neither the voice of God's Word, nor Rod amends us. O incurable England! Are we not sick of the remedy? Are not Soul Physicians nowadays Physicians of no value? And O sad truth of little, yea in some places of no success! Did it kill the heart of Eli, that the outward glory, the Ark was departed from Israel? O our stupidity, spiritual death, hard heartedness, want of zeal for the honor of God, credit of his gospel, salvation of Souls! The inward glory of the Ark is gone, or almost gone; the astonishments, the conversions, the Devil-banishing, the World-conquering, the heart-changing, the soul-warming, the Lust-mortifying, the Spirit-quickening, the Grace-growing power of the Ordinances, is by many degrees from what it was, gone from us. Many years ago the terrible and needful truths of the Law Preached, have made the Auditors hair even stand on end; trembling and weeping, resolving and practicing Reformation, were the happy fruits of a rousing Ministry. The same Truths, with some suitable affections in their godly Messengers, are Preached now, but with little success: How thin, O how thin are the numbers of repenting, reforming Believers! How rarely are spiritual Fishermen, and the Words Net blessed by a draught of souls? How seldom do we see and feel the beauty and power of glory, of Christ in the Sanctuary, as experimented in former times? Are not multitudes of Christians, of large profession, grown more debauched, sensual, careless of their souls? Yea, Are not stricter Christians grown looser than they were? Is there not a sad fall from degrees of prizing the Ordinances, first Love, tenderness of Conscience, the fear of God, guard over thoughts and words? Is it not true of many, that have the root of the matter in them, They are not so fruitful as once they were? Good Trees that should be better, are worse; and are not evil professed Christians grown stark naught, thrive only in sin, and grow worse and worse? Yea, Do not the convictions of these truths lie dead upon the spirits of the most lively and best approved Christians? Is there not even in quickened souls a kind of dead insensibility of God's dishonor, the abuse of his Grace, the reproach of his Gospel? Is it not very rare to get a few hearty sighs and groans, to wring a few tears, that the Gospel grace of God, the Christians glory is universally abused? May we not fear this spiritual Judgment of hardness of heart, is the fore-runner, and will be the procurer of a Gospel Famine? That the word of God, the God of the word will depart from us, and leave England in that Death, Darkness, Destruction it hath deserved: May we not from likeness of sins, fear likeness of Judgments? Abuse of Grace hath been, we may fear it will be an un-Churching sin. O all you Zion's mourners, who are what you are by distinguishing Gospel grace, bewail your own unsuitableness to God's grace! Sigh and cry for all the Abominations that are done in the midst of our sinful Jerusalem, if days of desolation come, it will cheer your hearts; you were affected with God's dishonor, you will be marked out either for deliverance out of common evils, supportance in them, or a happy issue out of them.

CHAPTER VII.

Wherein are set forth the Punishments of this great sin, Abusing God's Grace.

We have seen the aggravated evil of this too common and dishonorable Sin, the Abuse of Grace. We can be in nothing more cross to the choice design of God, than in wronging his grace. Not to give God the praise of the glory of his goodness in nature, is deep ingratitude; but to deny him the praise of the glory of his grace is deeper indignity. The wrath of a King will be more enraged when he is abused in his Throne, than in his Common Highway. The Gospel acquaints us with God's Throne of grace: God slighted in his grace is an abused King in his Throne. This without repentance will turn the Throne of grace into a Throne of angry Justice. They that abuse the blood of the Lamb, shall feel the wrath of the Lamb. No damnation like that which is heightened by the abuse of Salvation. For the Gospel to be a savor of death unto death, puts a sharper and fiercer sting into eternal death, than when it punisheth only unnatural sins. God sets black marks of his displeasure upon the Abuse of Gospel grace. He is wont to plague it with these punishments; in special six sad ones, wherein he expresseth dreadful vengeance.

SECT. 1.

1. Judgment is giving up to carnal Lusts. As God hath punished the abuse of his Goodness in nature, so he hath revenged the wrongs of it in grace. He shined forth the glory of his Godhead, Eternal Power, Love, Wisdom, and other glorious Attributes, in the Workmanship of the World, the Glass of his Glory, the great Folio, every Leaf whereof proves his Invisible Deity; but when the goodness of God was abused to Idolatry, the creature was served and worshipped more than the Creator, the Lord in just wrath gave up wantons against the light of nature to their own lusts, Rom. 1.24, to vile affections, 26, to a reprobate sense, 28, to receive in themselves, by these spiritual Judgments, the recompense of their error, v.27, whip them with their rod, choose their own delusions, and suffering them justly to perish in their own choice. The like vengeance he hath exercised on the injuries done to his Gospel grace. The Lord proclaimed himself to the God of Israel in an external Covenant of Grace. I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt: typifying the Grace of Redemption from Saran and the world, sweetly inviting them to desire and accept his grace, with enlarged hearts, open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it, Psal. 81.10. But this sweet tender of grace in positive rebellion, was wantonly rejected: But my people would not hearken to my voice, and Israel would none of me; and thus the Lord plagued them with their own choice and ways; So I gave them up to their own hearts, and they walked in their own counsels, ver. 12. The sadness of this Judgment in giving sinners up to their carnal Lusts, for the perverting of God's grace, appears in four things.

1. It is a sad judgment for a sinful, weak, erring creature to be deprived of a safe, unerring guide, the Grace of God. When the offers and restraints of his Grace are removed, man is like the Philistines house, when the Pillars by Samson were removed, a heap of ruin; like a Coach without a Coach-man to order it, like a Ship without a Pilot, like an Infant without a Nurse, like an heady people without a Magistrate. The spiritual departure of God's grace is a great punishment of obstinate contumacy. It is just that grace should forsake those that forsake it, 2 Chr. 24.24, that they should have none of its safety, that will have none of its sovereignty; that they should perish without it, that would not be ruled by it. It is Chrysostom's resemblance, when a King seeth his Son lost, and past recovery, he casts him out of his Royal Protections, Provisions, and forsakes him, so God strips loose sinners of his aide and grace. As it is great mercy to be guided by God's counsel, so it is great severity to be deprived of it. The way of man to obtain everlasting happiness is not in himself: He is safe in God's way, but perisheth in his own.

2. It is a sad Judgment for a sinful, weak, erring creature to have a false deceitful guide, and so have all they that are given up to their own lusts: They are like Traitorous Colonels that lead their Regiments into the very mouth of ruin, within the Enemies Ambush. Besides they are foolish Guides, and unskillful, they know not the way of peace. Who will take a natural fool or a stranger to be guided in a journey? That Ship with its Fraught and Passengers is in a poor case, that hath an ignorant Pilot, and the full Coach that hath a blind Couch-man. Carnal Lusts are foolish, 1 Tim 6.9. O the folly of immortal souls that are led by the foolish guidance of their lusts!

3. It is a sad judgment to be given up to carnal Lusts, because these are God's avengers. He is revenged of men where they least believe it: Even in those sweet Lusts they hug and pamper, will God plague the enemies of his grace. No need of Outward Punishments, if we will play the wantons with his grace. He hath his Avengers in our very bosoms: The Lusts of wicked men are God's Rods, Vexes, Halters. The servants of sinful Lusts, are an inestimable, infinite mass of misery; when they shall feel it in the other world, they will believe it. Men sins are God's punishments, though they see it not.

4. It is a sad judgment to be given up to carnal Lusts; because such are Volunteers in their own destruction. It is sad to fall by the Sword, but more sad, like Saul, willingly to fall by ones own Sword: It is a sad judgment to die by Poison, but willingly to drink up a known cup of Poison, is more sad. O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself, Hos. 13.9. Why will you die, O house of Israel? The Law of sin and death are yoked together, Rom. 8.2. They that will walk after their lusts, will perish, 2. Pet. 2.10, 12. Now the practical adversaries of God's grace do most willingly and freely serve their own lusts, and necessitate their ruin; are like Phalaris, that was burnt in his own Engine of cruelty; like him that hangs himself in his own Halter. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins, Prov. 5.28. He shall die without (refused) instruction, and in the greatness of his (deliberate, voluntary) folly he shall go astray, ver. 23. He shall find no shelter in God's decrees. His willful abuse of grace will be his self-condemnation. He shall have his sentence at the great day, not qua now electus, but qua impius; not depart you cursed, because I chose you not, but because ye are workers of iniquity.

SECT. 2.

2. Judgment of Perverting the grace of God is spiritual blindness: I am come for judgment (said Christ) that they which see might be made blind, Joh. 9.39. Isaiah saw the Gospel-glory of God's grace, and preached it to the loose reprobate Jews, and the Lord in wrath blinded their eyes that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, Joh, 12.40, 41. Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? Isa. 42.19. Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind, ver. 18. A sad reproof of the wicked Jews, that did unworthily profane the most excellent gift of gospel-light: Though all others might be blind and deaf, yet they that had the most bright Lamp of Truth shining, the Silver Trumper of the Gospel sounding before them, should not; yet none more blind, none more deaf than they; an heavy judgment. But if blind, how Perfect? How Servants? They are the words of Exprobration, not Commendation. They should be perfect Duces via, Leaders to others, but were not. They were punished with Blindness. This sore punishment is clear in four things.

1. They whom God punisheth with Blindness of mind, are given up to the Devil to be blinded. The god of this world blinds the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of Gospel-grace should savingly shine in their hearts, 2 Cor. 4.4. It was a judgment on the wanton Sodomites, that the Angels blinded them, Gen. 19.11. It is a Judgment on wanton Gospellers, when the evil Angels blind them with the dust, dirt, and smoke of abused creatures, corrupt principles, carnal reason, their own ungoverned passions. It is a Judgment when the Judge commits evil doers to the Goaler and the Hangman for execution. The Devil in blinding the minds of those that are lascivious with grace, is God's Executioner.

2. They whom God punisheth with Blindness of mind cannot find the way of Life: And now sad is that to wander like the blind man that gropes for the way, but finds it not. The blinded Sodomites wearied themselves to find the door, and found it not, Gen. 19.11. So many there be that grope after the narrow way of Life, and find it not, Mat. 7.14. Strive to enter into the door of happiness, but find it not. The Jew wronging the grace of the gospel, was blinded, and found it not; The Papist is blinded, and finds it not; the loose ignorant, yea the loose, though knowing Protestant, yet is blind, and believes it not. How many grope for the way of eternal life in good meanings, and supposed good hearts, in Civilities, in Formalities, in Comparative goodness, in partialities of Obedience, and the like, and yet darkness hath blinded their eyes, that they see not the way of Life.

3. They whom God punisheth with blindness of mind, they fall on every stumbling-block they meet withal, are taken in every snare of Company, Relations, Possessions, Prosperity and Adversity, Isa. 8.14, 15, yea shining spiritual gifts, yea the sweet Promises of the Gospel wrested to looseness, are turned into snares. The blind man escapes not the block in his way, nor the snare and gin that is laid for him, Levite. 19.14. And the blind Libertine escapes not stumbling-blocks in the ways of death. The worst things are causes, the best things occasions of stumbling. Yea the Lord Christ, and God's grace are a stone of stumbling unto unbelievers.

4. They whom God punisheth with blindness of mind, fall into the pit of Hell, Mat. 15.14. As saving grace in Christ delivers souls from going into the bottomless pit, Job 33.24. So blindness of mind infallibly delivers into it. The blind man falls into the Lime-pit, the Cole-pit before him, and the blind sinner into the pit of destruction. Did he see it, he would tremble to move toward it.

SECT. 3.

3. Judgment of Dishonor done to the Grace of God, is Hardness of heart. The Jews abused Isaiah Gospel-ministry, and God plagued them with Hard hearts: Make the heart of this people fat, Isa. 6.10. He hardened their hearts, Joh. 12.40. Let my people go that they may serve me. The words of the Lord by Moses were the Instruments of Pharaohs Hardening, is the Sun the means of the Clays Hardening. The grace of God in Christ was preached to the Israelites in the Wilderness, they heard the lively Oracles, the gracious Truths of Salvation, and Eternal Life in the Water from the Rock, in the Manna from Heaven, in the Teachings from Moses, Act. 7.37, 38, in the instructions of the good Spirit of God, Nehem. 9.20. But they hardened their hearts in the provocation in the day of temptation, Heb. 3.8, they obeyed not the gracious voice of God, v.7, by the Ministry of Moses, and the Lord plagued them with their own hard hearts. Three things speak this a heavy judgment.

1. There is no Impression of saving grace in a hard heart: Where God hardens the hardens the heart he converts not, he healeth it not, Joh. 12.40. A Seal leaves no print on an Anvil, or a hard stone, but on the soft Wax. The holy Spirit doth not seal his grace on a hard, but a soft heart. The Iron sinew, Isa. 48.4, the brazen brow, the intractable heart that is harder than the Anvil and the Adamant, Diabolical insensibility, an inflexible spirit to the divine pleasure, are the spiritual penalties for Graces injury. Paul persuaded loose hearers concerning the Kingdom of God's grace, but they that were hardened believed not, Act. 19.8, 9. The hardened metal cannot be run into, nor take the shape of the mold, but the melted and soft. Carnal Gospellers, after thousands of Sermons of God's grace, are not changed into the Image of its glory, because their hearts are hardened.

2. Hearts hardened by occasion of God's goodness, ripen for ruin After the hardness of thine heart thou treasurest up wrath against the day of wrath, Rom. 2.5. Alluding to a huge bank of money, unto which there is still adding of hundreds and thousands; or to an hoarding or heaping up of store of Corn. Hardened Libertines under grace, are ever swelling the bank, increasing the board of sin against the day of wrath, by thoughts, words, and actions, their real impieties, and unrighteousness's, yea the unpardoned iniquities of their holy things, filling up their sin always, 1 Thes. 2.16.

3. Their destruction who are punished with hardness of heart is infallible. The Oath of God makes it sure; I have sworn in my wrath they should not enter into my rest, Heb. 3.11. As the Israelites, while the day of grace lasted in the wilderness, were hardened, v.7.8, so are loose Christians under, and against the voice of God's grace. The oath of God reacheth these to hasten without fail their everlasting destruction.

SECT. 4.

4. Judgment of injury offered to the grace of God, is Incurableness in sin. God's Ordinances of grace, and his Chastisements are his Physic; the fruit is to purge away sin. God would have diseased Jerusalem take a Purge, but the Physic wrought not; Because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee, Ezek. 24.13. As if the Lord had said, Purging means have not had Purging success; therefore let thy wickedness abide on thee to thy ruin: Is there no Balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there? Is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Jer. 8.22. What is here said of a diseased lost State, is true of lost souls past cure, past hope, when God's Physic doth no good. Is there no Palm? Is there no Physician? Why is not the health of diseased, loose sinners recovered? There are means of grace; Christ is a Sovereign Physician, but the wanton, disordered Patients play with their Physic, take it wrong, cast it away, and use it not aright; and no wonder if the disease be incurable. Two sad things speak this a heavy judgment.

1. God is pleased with the destruction of those who are voluntarily incorrigible under the means of grace. The Apostle gave thanks to God that the savor of Christ's knowledge was made manifest by them in every place, 2 Cor. 2.14. One would think at first view this savor of Christ's knowledge, should be only the sweet power of it to salvation. It is true, that is the prime, not the only savor of Cospel-grace, It is a sweet savor in Damnation as well as salvation. in hardening as well as softening: So is the Apostles distribution, for we are unto God a sweet savor in Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish, ver. 15. Though the gospel be a damning, deadly gospel of death unto death, of the death spiritual unto the death eternal unto them that perish: Yet it is a sweet favor unto God, as savory ointment is to the smell, and savory meat unto the taste. Though God takes no pleasure in the death of a returning sinner, yet he is pleased in the destruction of the impenitent. He that made them will show no mercy on them.

2. God is eminently delighted in the destruction of incurable sinners, under healing means, I have called, and ye have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: Ye have set at naught all my counsel. Knowledge is hated, the fear of the Lord not chosen, reproof despised, Prov. 1.25, 26, 29, 30. Here is no cure by healing means. Now see the judgment on these wantons the disease of the Physic and Physician. I will laugh at your calamity, Prov. 1.26. Laughter proper to man, is improperly said of God. He speaks after the manner of men. Men express their high delights by laughter, and God his joyous complacency, in incurable sinners ruin. This laughter of God might make the proudest and stoutest sinner mourn. Eternal weeping and wailing, the everlasting testimony of God's infinite delightful vengeance, will be the true and sad exposition of God's laughing.

SECT. 5.

5. Judgment of profaning the grace of God, will be a terrible Judgment at the last day, Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, 2. Cor. 5. As if the Apostle had said, the judgment will be terrible to such as are not reconciled to God. Kiss not the Son, Ps. 2, but wrong him. Therefore we persuade men to be careful and diligent, that they may be accepted, and to adorn the Gospel of grace. Abide in him, saith the Apostle, that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed, 1 Joh. 2.28. Implying that such loose Christians as abide not in him, but depart from him, and are enemies to him, his merits, and grace, shall come with shame, and despair before him. Three things will show the terrible Judgment on them that in heart and life wrong the grace of God.

1. Their standing in Judgment will be terrible: The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Ps. 1.5. The Apostle saith, all shall stand, 2 Cor. 5.10. They shall not stand with comfort, but terror, not as the Image of Christ, but Satan, not in the righteousness of Christ, but their own nakedness, not as the Friends of Christ, but Enemies, not as the Saved, but the Damned, not-as absolved Innocents, but guilty Felons.

2. Their Self-condemnation will be terrible. There will be a testimony against them out of their own mouths and hearts, that they knew the reign of sin and grace could not consist; they were told Mammon and God could not be served together; that the called by grace were to live as Saints, not in old sins; that the grace of God shining in the heart teacheth to deny, not fulfil ungodly lusts; that that grace that reconciles the soul to God doth not reconcile it with the least sin; and yet their consciences cannot but accuse them, they willfully profane the precious grace of God to vile affections and courses. How dreadful will this be, though there will be Juries enough to cast the enemies of God's grace, yet the conscience shall need none of them, but be forced to confess, even to eternal judgment, their high indignities to verbal and blasphemies against Gods grace.

3. The sentence of the Judge will be terrible, when he shall say, Depart ye cursed, to all them that have discredited the blessed gospel, and made the grace of God a patron of sin, and that in high reproach to the grace of God, continued in sin because grace abounded. What frowns will sit on the face, terrors take hold of loose guilty hearts from the sentence of Christ, when he shall vindicate his own and his Fathers glory from all the dishonorable dis-services done to his holy Religion?

SECT. 6.

6. Judgment of abusing God's grace, will be the hottest room in hells flames: Its eternal vengeance is called, The portion of Hypocrites, Mat. 24.51. Whether gross, or close ones who profane their Baptismal grace, the Word of grace they hear, to profane abominable courses, or spin a fine thread of hypocrisy, reigning, though undiscerned, shall both be doomed to their own place. That it is rational the defilements cast upon the clean grace of God should have severest everlasting vengeance, consider,

1. The lowest abuse of Grace is above the highest in Nature. The dishonors offered to grace by Professors of Christianity, carry higher guilt than the most infamous Idolatries, Murders, Adulteries, committed by Heathen men, that never heard of, nor pretended to embrace the grace of God in Christ. The Heathen abuseth Creation mercies. The Christian, Redemption mercies, the Heathen is wanton with the dim candle of reason, the Christian with the gospel Sun, the Heathen defaceth the remaining natural image of God, in Intellectuals and Morals, the Christian pretends the spiritual Image of Christ in supernatural divine mysteries, and fowls the face of it, by filthy affections and conversation. The Heathen prostitutes a man to his Beastliness, the Christian debaseth the Son of God to his brutishness. The Heathen treads underfoot his reason, the Christian the blood of Christ. Well therefore says our Lord Christ, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, than Chorazin and Bethsaida, than Capernaum, Mat. 11.23, 24, then all the places of Goshen-light, where there hath been fellowship with the works of darkness.

2. If every transgression and disobedience against the Word of grace, spoken by Angels, received a just recompense of reward, Heb. 2.2. Shall not every wanton rebellion against gospel grace, spoken by the head of Angels, have without repentance, an eternal avenging recompense?

3. According to the different degrees of abusing God's grace will be the different degrees of punishment. Some wicked ones abuse it, but not so willfully, delightingly, impudently, blasphemously, constantly. These will feel the smart of it, but others abuse it with more resolvedness, shamelessness, open shame and reproach to God's grace, and more persevering indignities; these shall commence the highest degrees in torments: As in Earth, so in Hell, disparities of sin shall bring different punishments.

CHAPTER VIII.

Containing a Use of Information.

Is the grace of God perverted to Lasciviousness? For Application, this sad, and (as hath been shown) common sin, a multiplied, monstrous evil, of eminent guilt, of eternal bad consequence to all that live and die in it, calls for serious meditation, and fruitful improvement.

1. Information, in sundry Inferences, or Consectaries from this sad truth.

SECT. 1.

Inference, that sin of a poisonous nature. It will do evil because God is good, continue in sin that Grace may abound, Rom. 6.1. It pours its poison upon Gospel Antidotes. It is like the Spider, that converts wholesome things into poison. It is like the Vintner, that dasheth and corrupts wine with water. We do not so corrupt the word, faith the Apostle. It is like a corrupt stomach that turns good food into crude destructive humors. It is like a corrupt bitter Fountain, that running into sweet wholesome waters, turns them into bitterness; they are all corrupters, Jer. 6.28. It is the genius and brand of envenomed natures. They corrupt good manners, yea the highest things in Religion, are depraved by them. The very Grace, Word, and Spirit of God by corrupt sophistication, are made to speak and patronize, what they never allowed. See in this the sad picture of man's fallen nature. That viciosity that first abused nature, ever since turns the grace of God into rank poison, so little cause hath any man to pride himself in any excellency, that makes in any an occasion to sin.

SECT. 2:

2. Inference, that the Ordinances of grace are no sufficient plea for happiness. Their Abuse mars their enjoyment. it is not the having, but the blessing of good Food and Physic that procures health: diseased men may perish in their enjoyments: Capernaum suck the deeper in Hell, by high yet injured Ordinances of grace, Christ's commission to his extraordinary Ministers, his Disciples, implied men may be accursed under blessed means, they were to offer the gospel of grace and peace to wicked men, Luke 10.5. And to bring near the Kingdom of God unto them, v.11. But if the Son of Peace were not there, if the hearers were not worthy, that is fit to receive it, and welcome the Messengers, the very dust of their feet they shook off, should be a Witness against the despisers and rejecters of grace, v.11. Many shall say, Lord, Lord open unto us, Luke 13.25. Who shall find access to glory, blocked up for abusing the offers of grace, they are not happy that barely wait at the posts of Wisdom, and hear her instructions, but that find wisdom, get understanding, Prov. 3.13. That take fast hold of instruction, and let her not go, but keep her as the life of the Soul. v.18.

SECT. 3.

3. Inference; The Joys of carnal Gospellers are false joys. Not only the Joys in their sins, the Creatures, but their Religious Privileges will fail them. They who delighted to know God's ways, and in approaches to God, and Perverted their joyous enjoyments of ordinances, to a retaining their corrupt will, strife and debate, smiting's with the fist of wickedness, continuing the bands of wickedness, heavy burdens and oppressions, are abominated of God, as losing all fruit by their religion Isa. 58.2. &c. All fasting, praying, preaching, hearing, professing joys, all the joys of confidences and hopes in services and sins will prove like a Widows joy, an expiring blaze, the cracking of Thorns under the Pot. They shall vomit up all their sweet morsels, disgorge their false joys, that have pleased themselves in their impieties, and unrighteousness's, under the favor of grace. They rejoice in a thing of naught. Amos 1.13. When thou doest evil then thou rejoicest. Jer. 11.15. The Lord's charge against wanton Israel, under means of grace, and the just reproof of wantons, under the gospel, when they do evil they rejoice, it is but looking up to God's grace, and all is well. How miserable are those men, who rejoice in their loss. It is woeful, mournful, mad joy, to found on the abuses of grace, and the dishonors of God, the Triumphs of sin and wickedness, which causeth bitterness in the end.

SECT. 4.

4. Inference. The best things have evil entertainment of hard Hearts. Israel had gracious Prophesies; but they hardened their necks, did not believe, rejected God's statutes, followed vanity and were vain. 2 Kings 17.14.15. Christ's family experienced his gracious miracles; but their hearts were hardened, and considered not the miracle of the loaves, when brought to a new strait Mark. 6.32. If Christ upbraided their hardness of heart for not believing the reports of his Resurrection Mark. 16.14. How blamable is that Pharaonicall Hardness of Heart, that receives no impression of grace, by the privileges, promises, word, and spirit of grace, that are pretended to. The sweet enriching dew, do no good upon the hard rock, nor do the sweet dews of instructions and motions of grace do good upon rocky hearts. Weeds spring and grow by the rain and the sun. Corruptions rise up and increase by occasion of God's grace.

SECT. 5

5. Inference. The grace of God is to be appropriated and applied with fear and trembling. With it work out your salvation is the Apostles counsel. Phil. 2.12. Rejoice with trembling the Psalmists Psal. 2.11. The fancy of saving grace is easy It is good to fear deceit, about interest in Grace. The Synagogue of Satan may boast themselves to be the City of God. This high gospel Grace, God is my reconciled father, his Covenant-Promises are mine, the Grace of Christ is mine, is foolish and common intrusion, like the vain man that says, the house and land is his, for which he hath no good title. Usurping wantons are audacious, and boldly write down themselves in the book of Life, living members, covenanters of grace, heirs of glory, which happiness, many an humbled broken hearted, combating Christian, cannot see in many years attendance on the Ordinances, walking with, and waiting on God, and are only borne up in the Waves of Doubts, Despondencies, and Fears, with probabilities and weak hopes, enough to uphold, not to comfort in the ways of Religion. The grace is glorious that is contained in those exceeding, great, and precious promises, I will be their God, and they shall be my people: Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more: Israel shall be saved with everlasting Salvation, and the like, fear and tremble, lest these be abused, unrepented wrongs to these favors, will prove their eternal forfeiture, the wanton pursuit of lying vanities, is the way to be outed of those mercies. Think with thyself, what if the Lord, whom I take to be my gracious God, prove my avenging Judge, if the sins I conceive are blotted out, shall appear against me in legible characters? If instead of free love, I meet with just wrath? If the presumptions of everlasting salvation be confuted by eternal damnation? If I wrong his grace, and repent not of the unkindness, how can I escape a fearful looking for of fiery indignation, which will devour so wicked an adversary?

SECT. 6.

6. Inference: Carnal Gospellers never knew the Grace of God in truth: It was never known, and deliberately, constantly abused, if ye have been taught by him the truth as it is in Jesus, That ye put off the old man, and put on the new, Eph. 4.21, 22. Christ's disciples that have learned the truth, not only as in books, Sermons, the Letter, the Notion, but in the teaching Heart, fixing transforming power of Jesus, by the anointing of the Holy Ghost, are taught not to dandle, and nourish, but to put off and starve corruption; not to hate but love, not to oppose, but to embrace and exercise the quickening grace of God: If envy and strife reign in the heart, glory not, lie not against the truth, Jam. 3.14. He that saith I know him, and keeps not his Commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 1 Joh. 2.4. He that consents not in Judgment and Conscience to practice the Doctrine according to godliness, is destitute of the truth, I Tim. 6.5. Sanctify them with thy truth, thy word is truth, Joh. 17.17. The grace of God known in truth, sanctifies and gives no allowance to sin. It is not because men know, but because they truly know not the grace of God, that it is so dishonored.

SECT. 7.

7. Inference: It is a safe and a wise course to be trying our Principles and practices in Christianity.

1. Our Principles, whether they tend to godliness, whether they are not grace-destroying, heart-hardening, the fear God banishing, carnal security nourishing Principles; such as these, God observes not believers sins: They must live above, that is, in a wicked sense, without Ordinances: God chastiseth not his people for sin: Mourning for sin is a low attainment, a legal business, a double lie.

1. It is so high an Atonement, that the high and the holy God of all hearts in the world, prefers the lowly mourning broken heart to dwell in.

2. It is a mere Gospel grace, the Law accepts not an Eternity of tears, nor repentance.

This also is a loose Principle, that a Christian in his obedience, is to look only to the love of Christ within him, not the Law a rule of life without him, an impious Atheistical opinion; for when the sad experience of the best of Saints gives true report, that too often there are no stirrings of love to God, if there be not a fixed rule of duty without, what is left to hold a man in obedience? Also this Maxim, that Believers have nothing to do with the threatening's, because there is no condemnation to them, is an engine of the Devil to pluck out of the heart the fear of threatened sins: How contrary to the Scripture, is this setting the fearless daring heart, out of the threatening Law, yea Gospels gun-shot? And so the Libertine, that neither hath fear of God to love him and obey him, nor fear of Hell to keep him from sin, fails with full wind and tide to the dead Sea of eternal destruction. Try, Christian, whether as the Philistines put out Samson's eyes, the Devil hath not pulled out thine, to believe Doctrinal lies to debauch thine heart and life. 'It is further, a high point of Christian care and wisdom to try,

Our practices. God's grace may be, and is prostituted to wickedness, Is it not so with thee? Inquire in thy Vocation, Condition, Relation, wherein thou standest: Hath not thine heart and conversation been tainted with this cursed Leaven, The abuse of God's grace? When the Plague is at thy neighbors house, there is need to watch and try the soundness of thine own: Since this worst of Plagues, The abuse of God's grace is abroad, happy are they that search and purge their hearts and lives from licentiousness.

SECT. 8.

8. Inference: The Devil hath his snares in the most holy things: His great fear of War is in and about heavenly things: We wrestle against spiritual wickedness in high places, the original is in heavenly things, Eph. 6.12. Satan stood at Joshua's right hand, Zach. 3.1. The Pulpit, the praying Closet, the public Oratories, humbling Sack-cloth days, the great and blessed truths of the Gospel, the Orthodox, as well as the Heretical head, is not exempted from his snares; The saving things of God's grace, Christ's merits, the promises of the Covenant, the Spirits Gifts and Operations, are all made Satan's occasional baits to sin: Where is weak sinning man safe, who is in danger of abusing the holiest things? How many have been tempted to be overcome by, and perish in reigning sins, under the pleasing conceit and deceit of a favoring propriety, in God, Christ, the Spirit, and Grace? Happy are they that fear always the sinners of the Fowler, not only laid in Creature-comforts, but Ordinances of grace, in the very grace of God and Christ: Most happy are they that are out of the enemies Country and reach, that are in the state of blessed Indemnity, without the fear of being overcome by Satan's snares, laid most cunningly, and vain pretenses, though never so fairly gilded over.

SECT. 9.

9. Inference: Libertinism puts the highest affront upon God: It abuseth him there where he is most glorious; should have most praise, his grace; The praise of the glory of his grace, Eph. 1.6. Moses said to God, I beseech thee show me thy glory; and God said, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, Exod. 33.18, 19. They are Libertines in nature that abuse the Creature: God hath given the sweet succors of this life to be rightly used not abused, 1. Cor. 7.31. To serve him, not lusts; to be stairs of Ascension unto him, not Aversions from him: The rich wantons of the world, the Apostle James tells, shall pay dear for abusing his Creatures, to Voluptuousness, Oppression, hard heartedness, forgetfulness of God: But the Libertines in grace are the worst and most injurious. To cast dirt on Canvas is a wrong, but on Scarlet is a greater: To abuse a great man in his servant, is an indignity, but in his Wife, in his Sons, a greater. The abused goodness of God in his grace and Christ, goeth nearer his heart, then in his Creatures. Grace is God's saving Arm; The Libertine doth what in him lies, to weaken, yea wound the arm of God, that it cannot save: In some things Almightiness is at a stand. He could in his own Country do no mighty works, but heal a few sick ones, because of unbelief, Mark 6.5, 6. The grace of God cannot save the constant and willful abuser of it: Paul was careful, lest he should abuse his power in the Gospel, 1. Cor. 9.18. Be careful, O Christian! Lest the Indulgences, Powers and Liberties of the Gospel be abused.

CHAPTER IX.

Containing a use of Humiliation.

Perverting of God's grace, calls for Lamentation: If prizing the gospel, the love of God, the zeal of his name, the honor of Christ: Gratitude for the infinite mercy of redemption, are mighty arguments to move serious Christians, to magnify the grace of God in their hearts and lives, and to rejoice in its exaltation, then surely the sense of undervaluing the gospel: The want of love to, yea, positive hatred of God, luke-warmness, yea key-coldness for his name: The dishonors of the Mediator of Grace, unthankfulness for the costly grace of Redemption, should load the heart with deep sorrow, and draw forth holy mourning and tears, and that for two sorts of injurious dealers with God's grace; the best and the worst of persons under the profession of God's grace.

SECT. 1.

1. Bewail, O upright, tender hearted Christian! Thine own and thy fellows unsuitableness and dishonor to the grace of God: 'It is too much, the old man hath been too dissolute within thee; I know thou seest, and when thou art thyself, canst not but bewail the neglect of the holy government of grace in thy soul, the wanton uproars of thy unruly affections, the swarms of undisciplined, unregarded loose thoughts; the secret filthiness, which for shame thou darest not word, but shamelessly give way to in thy watchless mind, thy backsliding in heart, and in some things whoring imaginations, fancies, contemplations, affections about false loves, it is too much thou hast a bosom Libertine: But art thou convinced thyself, and thy co-heirs of glory, and livest shamefully and dishonorably below the hopes of Heaven, the high, holy, and heavenly profession of propriety in God, an everlasting Portion? Doth the guilt of abusing God's grace visibly and scandalously appear against that holy principle of immortal life, that is in thee and others? Never leave thinking of this, till thine heart be broken before the Lord: O what reproach is brought to the God and Gospel of grace, when his precious name is wounded in the house of his friends, when he hears ill in the world from the dishonors of his own Family. As David upon the death of Saul lamented, The shield of the mighty is vilely cast away in Gilboa, as though Saul was not anointed with oil, 2 Sam. 1.20. So may it be for a lamentation, The shield of the mighty, endowed with grace, is vilely laid aside, as if he were not the anointed with the Spirit: As Jeremiah lamented, That the precious stones of Zion, comparable to fine gold, were esteemed as earthen Pitchers, Lam. 4.2. So it is deplorable, that the precious living stones of Zion, darkened by some loose scandals, are esteemed as dirt.

Five things may urge thee, O gracious soul! To mourn over thy wrongs to God's grace.

1. Thou sinnest against a Principle of life, that should and would, if excited, make thee sensible of God's dishonor.

2. Thou abuseth that that sets thee off from the lost world, distinguishing grace.

3. Thy injury against saving grace, is deepest ingratitude, tis walking unworthy of that which must fit thee for Heaven.

4. Thine offensive discoveries of wronging grace, tempts carnal observers, too prone to be loose, to turn more bold Libertines.

5. Thy open offenses, may be, yea probably have, been prevailing temptations to speed others damnation.

These and such like considerations, set home by the Spirit of God, on quickened sensible spirits, will put them in a mourning frame before the Lord.

2. As pious hearts should bewail their own and others dishonors, who have abused the love of God to them, and the grace of God in them; so also let them lay to heart the loose, general, carnal profession, of them who in unregeneracy wrong the grace of God, in five things.

SECT. 2.

1. In his sparing grace: How sadly hath the abuse hereof been revenged: God hath not only spared the sons that serve him, but the enemies that rebel against him: When this goodness hath been answered by insolent provocation, God hath dealt with the darers of his Majesty, as Abner did to Asahel: The adventurous man, to his own ruin, would needs be following Abner: The angry man bid him once turn aside, but he would follow; a second time, Turn thee aside Asahel, why should I smite thee to the ground; but he followeth still, was smitten and killed, 2 Sam. 2.21, 22, 23, so audacious, wanton sinners, in the ways of sin, are once bid to turn aside, and are spared, but following on still in wanton provocations, are smitten dead and sent to hell. The Lord of Hosts deals like men of War, that meet with galloping Travelers, charged to stand, or else they die for it; are spared, and bid again to stand, or they are dead men; but pressing on, are shot and perish. Many now in Hell have heard the Lord's warning stands, but though often spared, would still gallop in the road to destruction, and their blood is justly upon themselves: Sparing grace abused, hath been repaired with unsparing vengeance.

SECT. 3.

2. Bewail the abuse of God's long-suffering grace: Though God's patience be lasting, it is not everlasting; Vessels of wrath turn it into fury: How sad is it, That which leads a few to salvation, accidentally ripens others destruction: As they fill up sin, they fill up wrath. God, that is angry with the wicked every day, smites not every day, but hath the reserves of wrath, which is paid out in whole-sale vengeance: His sword is whet, his bow is bent, the arrows are on the string, instruments of death are prepared, the un-erring eye and hand of vengeance cannot miss the mark, when the Decree comes forth to let fly, Psalm 7.4. Damnation slumbers not: The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have performed the intents of his heart, Jer. 30.24. Pharaohs personal destruction spared Plague after Plague, was at length effected in the Red Sea: Visions of destruction, as well as of salvation, are for an appointed time, and then terrors and sorrows come, like a Woman in travel: Long prosperous wickedness should be pitied, not envied. Fret not at the full Tables, the silken Scarlet glory, the gold of Ophir, wherewith sin is served: How sad will the reckoning be, when the transitory sweets of sin, must have eternal sour sauce. Habakkuk's sense of sure, though long delayed vengeance on the enemies of God, made his belly tremble, his lips quiver, and rottenness to enter into his bones, Hab. 3.16. The imagined Ideas of the sad ends of abused long-suffering, will make tender Bowels of compassion to yearn, hearts to pray, lips to cry out to God for mercy, yea, and eyes to weep out charitable desires, that those who are unbettered by large space to repent, may return and live.

SECT. 4.

3. Bewail the abuse of God's reconciling grace, who almost under Gospel preaching, but believe God, and they are Friends by Jesus Christ. It is sad to think how this is abused. May not the Lord Jesus say of his false friends, as David of his, they that fed on his bounty lift up their heel against him, Psal. 41.9. As Job of his Friends that forgot him, Job 19.14. How is Christ forgotten, when those who pretend interest in him, wantonly cast his Laws behind their backs, and are malapert in his presence: This loving style Friend, the title Christ gave to Judas, Matth. 26.50, was for his reproach, not his honor, that he, who should have been the friend, was the enemy of Christ. You know his woeful end who eminently wronged the grace of Christ.

SECT. 5.

4. Bewail the abuse of God's freeing grace. How many boast of Christian Liberty, while they are loose Libertines. Christ hath bought them to do his own will, whom he intends to save, not to do their own. This pleasing misery is common. Outsides in Christianity vote themselves free, as the Jews did themselves, Joh. 8. Christ's Freemen, while they are the servants of sin, the light is as sorrowful, as to see a Prisoner in chains cry out of his civil freedom. Can you believe him free, that cannot stir from the block he is tied to? Christ hath called men to be free from the reign of sin, and they think sins service liberty, which is their thralldom: yea, which is lamentable, after (as one complains) by the admirable and singular grace of Christ, men are delivered from the chains of Papacy, they would also be free and loose from the gospel and commands of God, and that only they would account right and just that seems so in their own eyes. May not the complaint of the loose German Protestants be verified of the loose English profaners of Gospel grace. They are content the Word should be preached, but there is no Reformation of manners, but a horrid Epicurean bestial life, in their drunken meetings, worldly pomp's. Prophanations, yea Blasphemies of the name of God. They would as freely and impudently sin as Papists in their Idolatry; God requires serious and Christian discipline, but this is among us a new Papacy, and a new Monkism. The thanks we mostly give to God, for being rescued from the yoke of Antichrist is mostly casting off the yoke of Christ. O God provoking England, that so abusest Christian Liberty! Thine ungrateful and wanton throwing off the golden yoke of Christ, cries for vengeance to put upon thee again to bear the Iron yoke of Antichrist. It is, O it is, a sorrowful consideration, that men count it their freedom under the gospel, to sin freely, and without sorrow. O the numerous Libertines among us, past feeling! And, as the word bears it, past sorrow, Eph. 4.19, that have given themselves over to Lasciviousness. Unsorrowing sinners are most sad spectacles for yearning bowels. O tender hearted Christians! In your secret mourning's, pity hardened Libertines that pity not themselves; weep for them who neither can, nor care, nor desire to weep for themselves. A sorrowless stupidity and lethargy, that feels not the check, and lash of the natural conscience, and is deaf to the Spirits motions, that is contracted by a benumbing liberty and custom in sin, is a woeful judgment.

SECT. 6.

6. Bewail the abuse of Pardoning grace. How sad will be their account, whose Faith, or rather Presumption of Pardon, adds to their sin? Christ said to the pardoned woman, sin no more. Carnal confidence says, Sin more, you shall be pardoned; though daily dear sins are written down in the conscience, the Sponge of pardoning grace will blot them out. The truly tender conscience cleared from old guilt, would not willingly, but is afraid to contract new; but the brawny seared conscience makes use of Christ's indulgence, to ease his spirit, not to heal his lust. Its a lamentation, Men wallow in their pollution because of free remission. The Lord hath spoken in that verse, where he proclaims the glory of his grace, a sad word, He will not clear such guilty persons.

To lay the Dishonors of gospel grace to heart, three things may be heart-affecting expedients.

1. Such as are grieved for this sin, write after the copy of Jesus Christ, and the choicest Saints, of Christ: He beheld Jerusalem, where the Messengers of grace, the Prophets were abused and slain, where himself, the author of grace, was to be condemned and crucified, where the sweet Messages of grace were delivered and despised, and wept over its sin and punishment, Luke 19.41. Again, a dolorous sense of the injuries of grace, is like to that mourning frame of spirit that was in the pious Jews, who sighed and cried for all the abominable prophanings of God's grace, Ezek. 9.3, 4. This suits with eminently holy Paul's spirit, who spying looseness among his knowing, but wanton Corinthians, expressed thus his jealousy, I fear lest when I come to you, my God will humble me, and I shall bewail them that have not repented of their wantonness, 2 Cor. 12.12, 13.

2. Such as are humbled for this sin, discover a childlike ingenuous disposition. A good Son is afflicted for his Fathers dishonor. If I be a father, where is mine honor, Mal. 1.6. It speaks us Strangers, not Children, the born of the Flesh, not the Spirit, if we see the reproaches of God's grace, with contented spirits.

3. Such as mourn for this sin in others, and have some taint of the guilt of it in themselves, shall find this a sovereign preservative against it for time to come. Godly sorrow works repentance, and by the real sadness of the spirit and countenance for sin, this great sin, the heart is made better, Eccles, 7.3. The ingenuous child that feels the smart of the rod, will be fearful of falling into the sin that brought it. Holy anguish of soul for abusing God's grace, will be a memento, and a Medicine to heal it.

CHAPTER X.

Containing a Use of Examination.

In that God's grace is turned into Wantonness, its useful for Examination; Whether or no this odious guilt be fastened upon us. We may know it by a serious perusal of the kinds and ways wherein this great sin is committed, laid down in the Doctrinal part. If the trying, reflecting conscience, find any of the particulars, wherein grace is abused experimented either in heart or life, there the sin is impartially to be charged home. In, and about the great duties of conviction of sin, sorrow for it, and returning from it, we ordinarily through self-love, carnal flattery, supine carelessness, yea too often willful ignorance, put off particular arraignments, close indictments, self-condemnation, and so resolutions and endeavors to reform. Though, as hath been showed, the abuse of God's grace is a universal sin, yet there is not one of a thousand that seriously and sadly saith, I am the wretch that hath wronged God's grace. Who almost, though eminently guilty, but can smooth and applaud himself in the thoughts of innocence, he is no enemy but friend of grace; or if faulty, but a very little inconsiderably peccant? Though all are offenders, yet very few lay it to heart, by sound conviction, and say, We are the persons that have wickedly affronted the grace of God. Unless reason, and conscience be feared, and judgment besotted, and spiritually mad, if thou hast any degree of the fear of God, and sober sense left thee, and thou wilt be judged by the Word of God, wherewith, whether thou wilt or no, thou shalt be at the great day: I shall set before thee guilty Reader, a glass wherein thou mayst see the spotted, deformed face of this ugly sin, be ashamed of it, be humbled for it, and repent. No because it is in this kind of sin, as it is in Hypocrisy; there is a gross and a close hypocrisy, so there is an evident and notorious, and less discerned and suspicious perverting the grace of God. I shall therefore endeavor to discover the more visible and palpable symptoms, and the more hidden, close, and less evident tokens of this disease. As touching enquiry, who are more notoriously, clearly, grossly guilty of this sin, I shall lay down many symptoms.

SECT. 1.

They may know themselves to be manifest gross abusers of God's grace,

1. Who first oppose Gospel-merits, and mercies to the Worship of God. Such as call God gracious in himself, and to them, and yet call not upon him, how do they vilify his grace? He makes light of that thing which he desires not, and he of the grace of God that he prays not for. God is free of his grace, but to them who by the aide of the same grace ask it. The spirit grace is a spirit of supplication, Zach. 12.10. A man may pray and have no grace, being a trifler, cold, hypocritical, unbelieving, tired in his Devotion; but no man ever had grace, but in faith, fervency, and perseverance prayed to God for it. Prayerless are graceless souls. Families past Prayer, are past grace. If Prayerless, professed Christians were asked the question, Have you any part in the grace of God? The Answer would be Ignorantly, Boldly, Roundly returned from some; Yea I hope I have; from others, Yea, I thank God, his grace hath helped me; from a third sort an answer in angry looks, sharp words, that the Questionist should doubt it the confident Atheist hath not God's grace in him. All take it for granted they are the favorites of grace, though they pray not to the God of grace by the Spirit of grace. Do not these clearly prophane God's grace? Things we basely account of, we think not worth the craving. O prayerless ones, that think God's grace will save you; How basely do you account it, that seek not for it?

SECT. 2.

They may argue their gross abuse of God's grace,

2. Who formally, and carelessly pray for it; look not after their requests, nor in a ridiculous, sporting devotion are solicitous that the desire of grace should be obtained in heart and life. It is as if jeering companions should in a Market cheapen commodities, which they care not for, nor are resolved to buy; such scoffing Christians in their seeming drawings nigh to God, seem to bid fair and high to obtain heavenly commodities; If God will enrich them with such and such grace, they will part with their carnal Lusts and Loves, and so they ever turn their backs upon the grace they ask; have no estimate, see no need of it, make no inquiry about it, and live without it. This is in effect, as if in plain terms abominable petitioners should thus say to God, Lord I ask thy grace, but I care not for it, yea shouldst thou give it me I would not have it: Thou hast honor enough, and I salvation enough, though I barely ask it, and never receive it. The enemies of Christ bowed the knee to Christ on the Cross in mockery. Prayer for grace without a real sense of the want of it, and longings after it, deep sorrow for its absence, wrestling's to get it, restlessness to attain it, is a bowing the knee to Christ in mockery. Princes do not use to send their Ambassadors, but they desire a return of the Ambassage from Foreign Potentates: Israelites Princes in Prayer, Gen. 32.28, do not use to send their Ambassages to Heaven, but they earnestly desire their return. How grossly do most abuse Prayer for grace, praying with no grace, no spiritual understanding in their cold formal words. Lord give me grace, when they know not, lay not to heart, what they ask in saying so. Did they understand what they ask, and were willing to receive it, the grace of God would do the things which their corrupt nature abhors; nor cannot heartily say Amen unto. It would mortify dearest lusts which they nourish, pull down the pride they live in, break their hard hearts, which are now stoney, forgive the wrongs they cannot forget, turn the spirit of the world out of their hearts, cause them to deny self they seek, new mold the inward and the outward man. Common petitioners are false-hearted to the saving interest of their own souls, and the honor of God in his grace: The grace they pray for amiss they miss; for as in the Poetic Fiction, Ixion had but a cloud for Juno; so these in their Devout Fiction have what they sought for, but a shadow for grace. The Picture, not the Life of grace will serve their turn; and this is ever the just plague of these fantastic Christians, their Religion, and their Felicity are both a fancy, in the black dismal shadow of Death: God will put off them, as they put off themselves, with a shadowy grace, and a shadowy heaven: And as a painted fire giveth not a spark of warmth to a freezing body, so painted Devotion, that had the color, not the fervor of grace, will not give a spark of comfort to a cold departing soul. If thy conscience tells thee, Reader, thou art such a one, who hast palpably abused the grace of God, and hast as often mocked the God of grace, as thou hast unconscionably and impudently prayed unto him: Know assuredly God will teach the in the other world to distinguish between prayer for thee semblance and the life of grace. This would make thee a glorious convert, a Samuel asked of God; that will neither dispossess Satan, out the world, nor crucify the old man. Grace where ever received, hath kingly dominion. 'It is sad to think how vulgar sottish people who pretend to prayer; when they say they would have grace Reign in them, it is but a King of clouts, not a living Authoritative Monarch, furnished with the mighty Militia of Heaven, able to throw down stoutest enemies in the soul.

SECT. 3.

They may undoubtedly conclude, they are open and evident abusers of God's grace

3. Who shroud unrighteous and oppressive courses under the grace of God. Paul taxed the Corinthians, called to be Saints, and sanctified in Jesus Christ, at least in Church Judgment such, with the abuse of their gracious calling, in that they were so far from suffering, that they defrauded, 1 Cor. 6.7. Nay you would wrong and defraud, and that your brethren, ver. 8. So under the color of the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the figure of God's grace in Christ, Theft, Murder, and Adultery had quiet Patronage. Jer. 7.4, 9. If the grace of God that brings salvation, teacheth to deny worldly lusts, and to live righteously. Ordinary injustice cannot be the spot of God's children. A pious man may unawares be surprised by a temptation to unrighteousness, but to live by, and in the gain of secret fraud, or open violence, the bread of wickedness, Prov. 4.17, the penury, the tears, the blood of Orphans and Widows, the ruins of the unjustly desolate and oppressed, is a high inconsistency with the grace of God. It never made Rapine sacred, Robbery for Burnt-offering is abominable. The most reiterated, sweet presumptions of interest in grace, will ever lastingly be confuted by an unjust conversation. Injurious dealing is so far from being alleviated, that it is aggravated by a profession of religion. 'It is double, three-fold, ten-fold, hundred-fold guilt to make God justify Satan, the straight rule of his Nature, Law, Gospel, to call the crooked and unequal designs and practices of men. Darkness itself stays not but vanisheth before the light, and the unequal dealings of men before the grace of God. Jezebel was too unjust, cruel, bloody, to counsel to the Robbery and Murder of Nabaoth; but to make a Fast the Prologue to, and Sanctuary of a false possession, and effusion of blood, was accumulated wickedness: The turning of long Prayers into strong Snares, to devour widows houses, was the Pharisees sin of deeper die, of greater damnation, Mat. 23.14. As on the one hand the righteous Moralist will perish, who doth not influence his second Table obedience by first Table piety; so on the other hand, the unjust worshipper of God will be condemned, for confuting first Table Religion by second Table unrighteousness. God hath not opposed godliness to righteousness, nor righteousness to godliness, no good man must, nor dares to do. He that here impenitently separates what God hath joined together will be undone forever. Unjust possessors will with cold comfort look upon their fair and rich estates, when by undue artifices, unequal methods, the breaches of divine and just human Laws, they are guilty possessors. The cries of wrongs, decry and out-cry the cries of Prayers. O let everyone among us that lay claim to the Mediator, Spirit, Gospel, Ordinances, Comforts of Grace, seriously examine the efficacy and glory of grace, as well downwards, in exercise of a just conscience void of offense towards men, as upwards in a pious conscience void of offense towards God. O let everyone try the obloquy and infamy of grace, whether dishonest dealing have not opened the mouths of malicious observers, to asperse the strictness of the first Table, and break out thus reproachfully against gracious profession. Are there not everywhere such sharp taunts in England; These are your Sermon-hunters, these are your Devout ones; these are your Sabbatarians; against Recreations on the Lord's day, very precise, arrant Hypocrites; why they will not Swear, but they will Lye; they are dishonest in their dealings and bargains; they will not pay their debts; they will over reach, they are not square in their walking's; better deal with other men that are not so strict in religion as they seem to be that now and then say by faith and troth, are good merry neighbors,, keep not such ado about Reading, Hearing, Praying, whining Talking, as they do, as if looseness in the first Table helped to strictness in the second, or the strict duties of God's worship did give men liberty to deny men their dues. This is the sad consequence of the open abuse of Gods grace by oppression and unrighteousness. O unjust Reader! If in this Section thou readest thy character, fear, tremble, repent, thy wickedness is great, thine iniquity is infinite, and thine inditement is plain against thee; thou hast openly, and fear fully abused the grace of God.

SECT. 4.

They may clearly be convinced, they are evident profaners of God's grace.

4. Who account these faint desires, Lord have mercy upon me, God give me his grace, satisfactions for daily sins. How many thus at once wrong themselves and the grace of God, thinking such words enough to pacify the conscience, and make God amends for all the wrongs done to him. When there is added Drunkenness to Thirst, one act of uncleanness to another, oath to oath, willful sins stand thick to one another. 'It is not the bare, vocal, natural force of these words, Grace and Mercy, that can allay the Devil, and appease God, but their supernatural efficacy. Satan can laugh at words, trembleth only at power. O the sad and vast numbers of profane professed Christians among us, who no sooner utter from profane spirits those sweet gospel-words, Grace and Mercy, but all is presently at peace within them, and as they think above too; and now filthy drunken Swine, unclean Goats, and cheating Foxes, the visible contemners of both Tables, sleep as securely under the favor and protection of these sweet words, God's Grace and Mercy, as if they were innocents: Such as these ignorant, profane persons that never considered what is the worth, power, what should be the renown of God's Grace and Mercy, evidently abuse their precious names to vile things.

SECT. 5.

They may know they openly injure the grace of God,

5. Who by restraints sometimes laid upon sin, are licentiously bold to sin the more freely at other times. 'It is the sad experience of multitudes who abstain from sin not still to abstain, but to give after the freer reins to lust; as gluttons fast for a while that they may devour the creatures more liberally and largely; thus many for a time fast, that in the feeding the old man in the next meals they may be gluttons; while Sermon-sick they forbear acting over the old sins, but when the fits are over, they are at the usual trade again, like intemperate Seamen, while Sea-sick abstain from disorders, but when at shore are at the old drinking and excess, while the terrors of God have been on many spirits, and have wrested humble confessions, and holy resolutions, one would think some men not only Agrippa-like, Almost Christians, Act. 26.28, but Paul -like, Altogether Saints; but when the pangs are over, the abstinence from sin is over too: They are like the water, colder after it is heated, colder after Hell-heats have been upon their consciences: Seven worse Devils enter into Formal Spirits. They are not a few, who before the Lord's Supper, have unbent their bodies, slackened their intentions, and vigorous prosecutions of their sinful courses, and put stands to their career Hell-wards; the gaming, drunken, wanton company is left, the oaths and worldliness are for a while suppressed; the Communicants with bended knees, eyes lifted up, sad composed countenances, reverend gestures, personate an Angelical respect; for a season the Devils Terms are adjourned, and there is a Vacation for God, and a seeming austere Discipline of Repentance; but as a Traveler leaving his beast at the door to speak with his Friend, comes to him again, and is on his old rode, so these travelers in the broad way to destruction, seem to leave their sin when at the Communion Table, and in their Sabbath worship, but come to them again, yea with more confidence gallop on in the Road to everlasting misery, because they have made some seeming profession wherein they boast. Thus because the religiously wicked Harlot began with God, and paid her homage in Peace-offerings, might, as she pretended, cum privilegio, with heavens leave do the work of Hell. Grace that holds the bridle of restraint at one time, would hold it at all times; gives dispensation to sin at no time. Accursed be that abstinence from sin, that doth not dispose still to abstain, but is an allowance to more excessive riots: If this be not gross abuse of Grace, what is?

SECT. 6.

They may be assured they do undeniable evident wrong to God's grace

6. Who turn it into a Sanctuary for unnatural sins. Such there are, who are so far from an obediential compliance with the reign of grace, that they grossly deny the demands of nature, and put a cloak of spiritual grace on unnatural sins. If there be but a confident fancy of, and bold challenge to the grace of God, though in the Court of Nature there be a sufficient jury to cry guilty, guilty, the grace of the gospel is pleaded as sufficient security and indemnity. These Anomala, errata naturae, Monsters in nature are pictured out in the word of truth. What they know naturally as brute beasts, void of reason (yea worse) in those things they corrupt themselves. Jude Ep. v 10. The stains and blots of the Church, and Reproach of grace are dishonorably peccant against the Light and Laws of Nature.

Against that great Law of Nature, Summary of Duty commanded by Christ, commended by the Emperor Severus, urged in Pagan Writings; Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do ye to them, Matth. 7.12. What sad contradiction is there everywhere, not only among looser, but stricter Christians? Were there nothing else to judge the world but this rule, what infinite numbers of unnatural persons, arraigned before this tribunal, would soon be speechless, self-condemned, and justly perish forever: Pretenders to grace would not be wronged in their estates, but they will wrong; they would not be defamed, but they will defame; they would in poverty have relief, but they will not relieve. In many other particulars is this equitable Lex talionis, requiting rule trampled under feet.

Further, 'tis not more true than sad, this black brand of a reprobate sense is to be found not in a few, that secure themselves in the Sanctuary of grace, viz. the want of natural affections, Rom. 1.36. Have we not instances of Parents unnatural to children, cruel to their bodies and souls, matter not what become of either; Ostrich Progenitors, forget their natural issue, as if they were not theirs, Job 39.19, nor feed, nor clothe inside, nor outside; hardened against them, provoke them to wrath, tempt them to undoing courses, Murderers before the Lord. Are not loose children Monsters of ingratitude? Who should endeavor to requite their dear Parents, a debt can never be paid, a degenerate offspring, forget their Mothers travelling pangs, their yearning bowels, their solicitous thoughts, their bitter tears, their wakeful spirits, their expense of time, their willing slavery to be confined to attendance on, and labors for, a proud, fancy, and stubborn brood: Do they not slight their dear, poor, afflicted Fathers, whose sleep hath been broken, purses emptied, hearts leaping within them to provide for such who are better fed than taught? Forgetful Rebels! Will the natural piety of the young Storks to the old ones, shame and doom the unnatural seed of unreturning, yea positively defaming, robbing, cursed children, who either without, or under color of Law, undo their Parents? Thus also, even under Christian profession, and propriety to Gospel grace, Brethren are unnatural to Brethren, Sisters to Sisters, Husbands to Wives, and Wives to Husbands. Moreover, God the Author, Lover, Teacher, and Maintainer of Human Society, hath implanted noble principles in the minds of men, to solder together the children of men, help one another, be among men God's to men, and not Wolves to men, and Devils to men, as too many are. Amongst these sweet civilities and humanities are engraven natural clemency and kindness. Hence Heathens have shined in works of Mercy: The Barbarians at Melita were kind to Paul, Act. 28.2. But, O Prodigies of Christianity! As far different from Jesus Christ in Mercy and Loving kindness, as Darkness is from Light. There are many thousand ungracious Gospellers (for they are no better) who as if they were not born of women, nor ever beholding to God, their Parents, nor others for sweet mercies, show none, yea show cruelty for mercy, as if they had sucked the Milk of Tigers, no more moved at the bitter miseries of others, then if they were stones, so far from giving Alms to relieve them, that they have not a sigh to pity them. These feed on the pleasing dreams of interest in divine, saving mercy, and are unmerciful. If the merciful are blessed, and they shall have mercy; the merciless are cursed, they shall have none. He that stops his ears at the cry of the poor, shall read his sin in his Punishment, to his smart and shame, and shall cry to God and not be heard.

Add hereunto another sort of loose Christians, are debauched in Drunkenness, a deed of darkness, prohibited by the light of Nature; who riot also in the day time of Gospel-profession, yea though this unmanly excess, evil at all times, is fitter to be covered by the black Mantle of the night, then to appear before Sun, yet filthy beasts will reel at noon-day, yea are morning, early sots; They that be drunken are drunken in the night, 1 Thes. 5.7. The Policy, not the Innocence of Nature. But now men owning the grace of God are not ashamed to declare their shame, betray their nakedness, spend the precious hours of the day, the creature, their money, as if God made his Sun, his Earth, his Barley, his Vines, to use them all in the service of an Intemperate Lust. O all you English Drunkards! Goodly Christians forsooth in your own conceits, that think to have a share in Gospel salvation, as well as others, that are strong to drink, like strongly hooped Barrels, can hold much drink; yea like the Brewers horse, can carry your burden from morning till night, do you think to indemnify your surfeits in cool blood by the grace of God? You need no condemnation from the Tribunal of Grace, from that of Nature you will have a sufficient avenging sentence, Heathens, Moral Philosophy, and Sober Conversation will cry out upon you. If Providence guide your eyes to read your own character, I beseech you the next meeting you carouse it, and health it in Flaggons of strong drink, and bottles of wine, ask yourselves the question, Doth this sordid lavishing the goodness of God suit with Beatifical grace. The style we give God, he is gracious to us, our Prayer for grace (unless as Atheists you have laid by prayer) our time of grace, our Ordinances of grace, our Hopes to be saved by grace? You have too long veiled your unnatural drunkenness under grace.

Lastly; another sort of False Christians that want not confidence, such as it is, in the grace of God, sin against the dictate of nature, chastity of body and mind. Some make nothing of Fornication, a trick of youth, defended by some Libertines, though not to be named among Saints, decried from Reasons school. Others sin against Natures dictate, the Marriage-bed undefiled, are as Horses that neigh after their neighbors wives, Jer. 5.8. Abimelech would not defile himself with Abraham's Wife, Gen. 20.5, 6, nor Alexander himself with the beautiful Wife of Darius: And for shame let not Christians to the dishonor of the Gospel attempt such wickedness. If the Reader be such an unclean wretch, to forsake the wife of his youth, and forget the Covenant of his God, let him with fear and trembling among other Scriptures read these two; Adulterers God will judge. This Reverend Latimer presented with a Poesy in a Bible to Henry 8. Adulterers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6.9, 10. And to these add a third, which though it intend not the impossibility, yet it doth the rarity, and exceeding great difficulty for Adulterers (and Adulteresses too) to repent; All that go unto her return not again, neither take they hold of the paths of life, Prov. 3.19. Others, worse than Fornicators and Adulterers, are Sodomites. Degenerate Christians are Sodomites and Gomorrheans. Pride, Luxury, Abuse of the creatures, Contempt of God, Sodom's sins, Christians sins; yea ('tis sad to mention) Sodomy, that abominable, unnatural sin, is sometimes among pretenders to Jesus Christ. It were well (said one) if those that would be accounted among Christians, Church-guides, the greatest props and pillars of Faith and Religion, were free from Sodom's horrid burning in unnatural lust. How well at Rome, the great pretended Church-men will quit themselves from burning in lust to men, yea to boys, they shall be judged in the other world. How sad is thy guilt, O England! If to the huge mountain heaps of thine other sins, thy wanton children should write after Sodom's copy. If God and his Angels are witnesses of such unnatural, secret villainies, O then the infinite patience of God, that Sodom's sins pull not down Sodom's plagues. To conclude, whatever are the kinds of impure flames of deeper or shallower malignity, whosoever pretends to the grace of Christ, whose bodies should be the Temples of the Holy Ghost, and let these Hellish fires burn within and without, they are to know, and be ashamed, they are most notorious abusers of God's grace, which would teach them to live soberly, not incontinently: Let them hearken to that of Augustine, wondering at the pernicious wickedness of burning lust, in these words, O infernal fire! Whose fuel is gluttony, whose flame is pride, whose spark is filthy communication, whose stink is actual uncleanness, whose end is hell.

SECT. 7.

They may conclude themselves manifest depravers of the grace of God,

7. Who think it will afford an indulgent protection to their vile affections. What communion between these and the grace of God. The carnal Gentiles abused nature to vile affections, Rom. 1, and carnal Christians so abuse grace: mortifying inordinate affections is the work of grace, Col. 3, keeping it alive, and feeding it, speaks wanton indulgence. To particularize in some vile affections, wherein loose Christians dishonor the grace of God.

1. Vile love, vile self-love that should be swallowed up in self-abhorrence, and ever is so where grace hath dominion. The love of what the Devils love, of what God abhors; the love of disingenuous, degenerous, base courses, like dogs and swine, to wallow in filthiness, the love of oaths, lies, Rev. 22.15, filthy lucre, Hos. 4.18, strange women, Prov. 5.20, intemperate flagons of wine, Hos. 3.1, wandering from the infinite fountain of goodness, Jer. 2.13. Such things as with infinite abhorrence God turns his pure eyes from, and for which he will punish the abominable affectionists of vile love with everlasting contempt, and most justly because their noble affection of love, which should be bestowed on the highest beauty, should cleave to carrion, dunghill lusts, and have the Image of the Devil on it.

2. Vile hate. Vile indeed, hating the chiefest good, the blessed God. Haters of God are put in the black Roll of gross sinners, Rom. 1. Hating him as hell, as the word bears it. Vile hate of knowledge, Prov. 1.29. Instruction, Psal. 50.17. Reproof, Prov. 15.10. The beautiful Image of Christ, Gen. 4.6. Joh. 15.23, the sinners own soul, Prov. 29.24, the spiritual presence of God which is heaven upon earth. He that hates his brother is a Murderer. O what swarms of Murderous Christians are among us, that carry killing hatred, dispositively killing in their bosoms! Are we not (O the sad reproach of grace) hateful, and hating one another? Is not hatred breaking forth (as one complains) by evil tongues, in biting calumny to be found nowadays among Protestants. We may be ashamed that there should be among us such as stain the splendor of the Christian name by malice against one another. The baptized into the love of Christ, and one another, inflamed by mutual hatred, immortalize their enmities, write injuries and revenge as with a pen of a Diamond. Yea, which is sad, the fellow heirs of glory, the brethren and sisters of the same heavenly Family, called to, and by the same grace, have sometimes too much of this cursed leaven, the hating of one another, who should in an Orthodox, and good Practical sense be a Family of Love, and have lost much of the character of Christ's Disciples, the loving of one another.

3. Vile Joy, void of purity and charity, vilely rejoiceth in iniquity, sports in sin, Prov. 10.23. Takes pleasure in unrighteousness. These delight in abomination, Isa. 66.3. Is glad at heart when another's corruption breaks forth: O, said one, I am glad that such a ones sin is discovered. This gladness is madness. O wicked mirth, to be glad of that which is the Devils triumph, the Spirits grief, God's dishonor, the Gospels Reproach, the Laws breach, the Sinners guilt, the Souls defilement, and Hels danger. To turn one another's weakness and wickedness into merriments, is too common a sin; a most unbecoming sin to them that have the grace of God, who should use it in holy mourning, not carnal mirth, when others sin. We feast not ourselves like men, like Saints, who like Toads, like worms, feed on Dunghill corruption. We read not that Scripture Saints were guilty of such vile joy, as to sport either in their own, or others sins. 'It is one piece of the looseness of the times, there is too much complacency, profane comical triumph in one another's nakedness.

4. Vile Anger. Unmortified, raging, frequent defended wrath reigns among us, is by most professed believers hurried up and down with wild-fire, thought no sin, by many a less sin than it is. How many Bedlam Furiosos, set on fire by the fire of Hell, are in such fearful flames, that standers by have just cause to say, Fire, Fire, Quench, Quench, with the waters of Patience and Meekness those dreadful heats. Yea 'tis the shame and blame of persons in the state of grace, they neither use their reason, nor their grace, to quench those hasty impure flames, which their own, and others corruptions have kindled: That in their fiery, peevish, rash moods, and hellish feverish fits, they have grossly abused the grace of God. The departing Spirit of grace from them is a sad testimony, the Dove-like Spirit dwells not in a filthy house. The calm, delicate, tender Spirit abides not in a Whirlwind, but in a sedate, quiet, composed soul. Wrath before, or in Prayer, and the Spirit of Prayer meet not together. Tempestuous minds make sad work in Prayer. 'It is pitiful stuff when they are in an uproar. Ungoverned passion grieves and chaseth away the Spirit of God, that hath sealed meek, orderly, regenerate souls to the day of Redemption.

SECT. 8.

They cannot shift the charge of open abuse of God's grace 8. Who oppose God's grace to necessary civilities. As Christ came not to destroy, but establish the Law, so Grace comes not to destroy, but establish civility; it teacheth no man to be Cynic, morose, crabbed, austere, to human order, calling, relation, but it sweetens those bosoms wherein it dwells; it hath such sweet, and pure Communion with God, that it knows not how to be sour and rugged with men. The gracious person may be uncivil; grace never is. It is a great fault and dishonor to grace, in persons of grace, that they do not study and practice the Scriptures civil, as well as religious Precepts and Presidents. For want hereof in some persons religious strictness is loathed, God's imprudent, discourteous servants are called Cynics, Clowns, Block-heads, Proud ones, Pharisees, unfit for society; their holy profession is too strait laced, and shriveled up, that it is so dainty of giving men and women, be they what they will be, their just external respects. I confess it is a strong temptation to contemn them that contemn God, not to honor them who dishonor God, to lay their honor in the dust, who cast God's commands behind their backs. However, God will vindicate his name, and make it glorious, though the ungrateful persons of civil precedency have made it by their loose lives odious. Yet sin in one is no excuse for sin in another. He sinneth that abuseth his civil honor and enjoyments to slight loyal subjection to God; and he sinneth too that denies him his lawful honor. Satan hath in the Apostolical times, in after Ages of the Church, and in our present times too, spotted the beauty and weakened the power of strict Practical Religion, made this a case of conscience, whether Believers should be under Civilities to wicked men. He hath tempted some, when they see their high preferments, as heirs of glory contemplate their high-born natures, that they are born of God, partakers of a divine resemblance, to think themselves too great and too good to be under the observance of human civilities, an un-scriptural, unchristian irrational, seditious, and clownish temptation. Whoever they are, really gracious, or in pretense that oppose the grace of God to civilities among men, in three things they are gross abusers of Grace.

1. In civil possessions. 'It is not grace, but spiritual Pride, Error, Confusion, Self-love teacheth that Lesson, that a wicked man hath no right to the Creature; Dominion is not founded on grace, but human constitutions and providence, which shines on it, and approves it if just, decreeth its permission, futurity, and ordereth it only if evil, for good and wise ends. However be Masters of Estates and Domination never so wicked, yet if they have a rightful title and possession of either, 'tis a graceless principle not to own them Masters. Though wicked Libertines that possess and devour the creatures have no Gospel-right, they have a civil right, though not by the Covenant of grace, yet by the compacts of men; though not in capite, in special Tenure, in Christ the Head, yet in the Common hold of Providence. When gracious persons, especially poorer Christians, see Rich Gluttons and Drunkards, know they lay on beds of Down, and fare deliciously every day, and question themselves as to their heavenly estate, how they can be the great heirs of God, who have neither money in the purse, nor bread in the Cupboard, look on them with invidious eyes, and fretting hearts, and think themselves have only right to the sweet comforts of dissolute Masters; let them know this persuasion is not from grace but sin. Fret not poor, yet rich Christian, above what the Gold of Ophir, the Indian Mines, Cartloads of Jewels and most Precious Stones can make thee, thou art more like Christ in Poverty than Riches. What though thou art a hungry sheep, feeding on bare Commons, and seest fat Goats in rich Pastures, prosperous wicked worldlings, fatted Oxen, it is for an eternal slaughter. Wait a while, thou shalt be removed to the rich heavenly food above. When the rich at once in sin and wealth shall be outed of their delicious demeans, and be exposed to eternal hunger.

2. In withal subjection. 'It is vanity to think Mastership and Grace are equipollent. None but the good must be obeyed; Usurpers and Right Owners, Godly, and Ungodly Rulers, in Lawful things must be obeyed. Herein the National and Domestical Tyrant binds the conscience, Roman Caesar's in the judgment of Christ and the Apostle Paul, Mat. 22.21. Rom. 13, and froward Masters by the counsel of the Apostle Peter, 1 Pet. 2.18, are to have subjection from their inferiors. 'It is pleasant to obey the good, 'tis necessary to obey the bad, 'tis commendable to obey all. If bare grace be the ground of subjection, the world should not stand. It would run to Anarchy and Confusion. For besides that very few have grace, every fanatic spirit can pretend it, Saint only a party, ungrace the rest, vote them as wicked, pull them from the Seats of their Principalities, cut throats, rob estates, and all under the favor of this unquiet and turbulent Principle. There is no subjection to be given to wicked persons. The Apostle taught a better Lesson that converted Christian servants should abide with their idolatrous heathenish Masters, 1 Cor. 7.20, 21. We read of Saints in Caesar's house, Phil. 4.22. Good Joseph dwelt with bad Potiphar, Gen. 39.2, and Jacob with Laban, Gen. 31.30. Indeed none should be, none may be so good servants as the good. This loose humor was stirring and condemned in Calvin's time: He wrote against this wanton Principle. The same Error hath infected our times; insomuch as some servants when once turn Quakers, think themselves free from subjection to their Masters, pleading that they ought not to yield honor to men.

3. In Civil Compellation. We live not among Angels, nor all Saints, but good and bad. The Kingdom of Christ is in the Kingdoms of the world. Civil respects are due to men as well as religious honors to God. The whole Scripture is Canonical. 'It is a part of divine inspiration, we are commanded as well to be courteous, as to be gracious; civil treatment are not unbeseeming the strictest Saints. Men may, yea must have their titles according to their different orders, stations, conditions in the world. The Appellations of Worship, Honor, Lordship, Excellency, Highness, Majesty, are no sin in themselves; indeed when they come from the vain mouth, naughty heart, and tend to a bad end, of a loose sinner they are sin to him; and thus as the ploughing of the wicked is sin, so is his compliment. Because with some persons civilities are so abominable, though they are not like to read this Page, yet the holy Scriptures will assure the sober Reader, their folly is manifest, and notorious. Put case persons of honor are wicked, as too many are, who are like to smart for it to all Eternity, for staining their own honor and God's too: Yet Paul, a vessel of honor, without courtship, but by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, had learned this good manners, to give great, though bad persons, their civil respects: Noble Felix, Act. 24.3. King Agrippa, Act. 25.26. I appeal to Caesar, Act. 25.11. Paul's persecutors at. Antioch were yet styled Honorable Women, and chief Men of the city, Act. 13.50. No unmannerly, railing Quakers in Apostolical times. But because in civil, courteous Appellations, it is not more easy than common to err, there is a huge generation of vain complementists, whose immoderate compellations are the froth of language, the vanity of mind, the waste of time, the impertinency of Christian society, I would willingly caution the gracious person, convinced of his duty, he must be courteous, and give honor to whom honor is due, to observe these Rules. Christian, when you give civil honor to others, according to their worldly Quality and Precedency,

1. Do it with Reverence of the Majesty of God: Persons of Honor are the Image, the bright Beams of God, the infinite Fountain of Honor. 'It is he hath set the children of men in their Titles, Seats, Estates of Honor. Neither Affliction nor Promotion comes from the ground. God is the Judge, sets up whom he pleaseth, Ps. 75.7. As in Wisdoms left hand are riches and glory, Pro. 3.16, so he distributes worldly honors mostly to vile men. However they are, civil honor is not vile, though the persons that have it, be vile, come vilely by it, and use it vilely.

2. Give civil honor for conscience sake, the sense of duty, God hath commanded it, not so much to please them, as to please God.

3. When the lip honoreth, let the heart reverence. We may neither give men civil worship, nor God religious, hypocritically.

4. Lavish not out too many words nor time in civil courtesies.

5. From a prudent observation of Persons, Time, and Place, mix religious and spiritual with civil discourse. To spend whole hours, mornings, afternoons, as very many vain, frothy persons do, in air-beating, soul-unbettering, windy courtesies, and merry discourse, without a thought, a word of the Majesty of God, who as he hath a Book of remembrance to note down the pious words of them that fear him, so he registers too the numerous superfluous words of them that fear him not, will have a sad account in the great day.

6. If among your civil treatments, as the Spouse, let your lips drop like the Honey-comb: when you speak of by a secret ejaculation beg a blessing on your gracious words, for your own, and the companies advantage.

7. Labor to affect your heart with the good things, that in gravity and wisdom you deliver.

8. If you see civil courtesy swalloweth up piety, yourself and heavenly language be a burden to the company, savoring not the things of God, preferring a Romance before a Sermon, vain chaffy Tales before the precious Truths of God, they had rather be foolishly, carnally, constantly merry, than really wise, go home, and mourn in secret, you have given vain spirits their due honors, who denied God his, they have been all for courtesy, nothing for piety, visited only one another's bodies, not souls, spent their time and strength in outward, while strangers to inward mirth.

SECT. 9.

They, without breach of Charity, do grossly wrong the grace of God,

9. Who under glorious pretensions to Saving-grace, are eminent worldlings. When Heaven and Earth meet together, then will Heavenly and Earthly minds. Grace, as it is heaven-born, so it doth make heavenly. The Mediator of Grace hath taught us, We cannot serve God and Mammon. How many go among us in their own thoughts, and in others opinion, for persons in the state of grace, and yet dexterously, deeply, with all the powers of their understanding and carnal reason, design, project for the world, affect it vehemently, pursue it fervently, keep it basely, part with it sorrowfully, heap it up covetously, desire it endlessly, admire it, adore it idolatrously, are afraid to put too much in Christ's coffers, the bellies of the poor. Is this the fruit of grace? Did ever grace come with power, but it did unglue the heart from the world? Is not this Scripture, The love of the world, and the things of the world, and the love of the Father dwell not together? 1 Joh. 2.15. Will this pass for good Divinity? Will either the Scriptures, a Death-bed, or the Last Judgment own it? Viz. A gracious Mammonist, a gracious Worldling, a gracious Hold-fast, a gracious Hard-heart, a gracious Rebel against the Laws of Christ, that commands labor for Heaven more than Earth, laying up Treasure in Heaven more than in Earth, more to be rich in good works, than in wealth, to settle the affections on things above, and not on earth: will cordial and practical contradiction to these and many such Laws of Christ, speak a gracious person, the honor of grace, the power of grace, O no, the nullity of grace, the infamy of grace. Else the Apostle would not with tears speak of earthly minds as enemies to the Cross of Christ, whose end is (a sad word, a very sad one) destruction. Let the Masters of great Estates consider it, that had such before the Wars among us, or since the Civil, bloody commotions, by providence shining on gracious profession, in Court, City, Country, the Bench, the Pulpit, the Army, who have not walked, but suddenly leapt to huge riches, some to hundreds, others thousands by the year. Whoever they are, be they assured of it, they grossly abuse the grace of God, who give sad proof they are eminent worldlings; I beseech you all, who are so, and shall cast your eyes on these lines, seriously ask your own souls, Do you not set your hearts on the Mammon of iniquity? Are not your stupendous, sweet possessions your Idols? Are they not your treasure? Do not your thoughts, esteems, affections, run out in full stream to them? Do not your poor neighbors, in the Countries, places where you live, see and bewail it, your bowels move no more to them than rocks? Do you know when to say we have enough, to give largely to Jesus Christ as well as to your families? In these years of Judgment when Lordships, Farms, great Riches have changed Masters, are there none that say, Poor creatures, that think on it with tears? Ah woeful change, our old Masters fed and clothed us, but we may starve under our new Possessors. I dare not charge you all for graceless worldlings, God will, your consciences one day will charge those that are guilty. I hope there are a few of you, the successors as well of others religious Liberality, as Patrimony. As for you that are not, you may be ashamed, by what name soever you are called, Presbyterians, Independents, or Anabaptists, that are covetously scraping, sordidly tenacious, linked, yea chained to your money, fear and tremble in your perilous Prosperities; Dominion and Riches are slippery places; you that stand in England's high ground, take heed lest you fall: Let not your wanton dissoluteness give you the denomination of Kine; Amos, the plain country Prophet called the great wantons of Israel, Kine of Bashan, Amos 4.1, for lusty, fat, feeding Kine, for rich Pastures, Kine of Bashan, a very fertile mountain. Is this your all to graze, and fill, and luxuriate in the plentiful pastures of rich estates? Are you, Jesurun-like, waxen fat, better fed than taught, kicking against your sovereign maintainer, lightly esteeming and forgetful of the God of your salvation, be sure of it, the jealous God can soon pull you down from your Principalities, and cause your abused Riches to take wings and fly to other owners. God is no respecter of persons, what is sin in one he counts not innocence in another. As the Wisdom, so the Justice that is from above is without partiality. God hath made many persons of sublime Honors, and great Estates his angry rods to chastise others sins. Successors in sins have reason to fear, they shall be fellows in punishments. White providence hath lifted you up, O tremble, lest black providence pull you down. Do you abuse divine Protections, Exaltations, vast provisions for yourselves and families to Pride, Luxury, Covetousness, Impiety, Unrighteousness? Are you wanton Libertines in opinion and Practice, do you fear black reckoning days are coming upon you, lest you that have abused Providences, and the grace of God, drink the dregs of the cup of Trembling? So I leave you, and pass to another Generation of men, persons of Honor and huge Estates, that look upon themselves as the suffering party, egregious abusers also of the grace of God in eminent worldliness. We have in this Nation a vast number of great ones, who have, and ought to have the civil titles of Worship and Honor, that own Baptismal grace, enjoy and use time and means of grace, and hope to be saved by grace as well as others, that give tokens of eminent earthly-mindedness. They keep not houses in their respective Country-Lordships, get into Cities, and Towns Corporate, and either there they liberally riot in their Families, Game, Feast, Drink away that Estate, their poor, naked, hungry neighbors want; or else, if Parsimonious, lay up every year vast sums, for greedy Purchases, and spend little or nothing in works of Mercy. Though I know not the dimensions of your yearly laying's up, yet it is twenty to one I may speak that which your consciences know to be true as to the secret methods and ways of your worldly increase. One, it may be, at the years end hath laid up a hundred pound, another two, another five, another a thousand pound, another two, another more. And wherefore this Bank, I beseech you? Hath the Lord Jesus for Religious uses, acts of Piety, and Mercy, the Tenth part, the Twentieth part, the Fortieth part, the Hundreth part? Have you honored God with your substance, your annual increase? Hath he had in nothing, or next to nothing, a thin inconsiderable charity, a real-gratitude from you, and will you appear good Stewards in the Accounting day? When you shall be asked what you have done with God's Money and Land, and all the Items you will bring in, will be Items of Pride, Luxury, costly fancies, Covetousness, &c. Will he be put off with such returns? Learn Wisdom, and holy Policy against the great day, O all you thriving old and new Gentry, rich thriving Merchants and Tradesmen, wealthy Lawyers and Pulpit men; and for the time to come abhor the baseness of self-hatred, which it may be you count self-love: To greaten your Families, and undo yourselves, to make rich heirs and dis-inherit yourselves, to expose yourselves to eternal penury, that your successors may live in luxury. 'It is without peradventure, The grace of God that brings salvation teacheth to deny worldly lusts, Tit. 2.11. You have been bad Scholars in Christ's School, that fulfill them. O do no more in a hot, greedy chase hunt after the Profits and Pleasures of this world. Hearken to the words of one, who hath spoken the true experience of present worldlings. Is it not a crime, that many nowadays who profess the name of Christ, glue their hearts to the Mammon of Iniquity, and the Treasures of Wickedness? 'It is a very base thing that Christians should enslave bodies and souls to the getting, keeping, increasing of treacherous, perilous, and uncertain riches, and are so captivated by them, that they cannot serve the living God. Take Augustine's judgment of this vain world; The sweetness of this world is deceitful, fear perpetual, labor unprofitable, height perilous. Why do you set your hearts on vanity and vexations, Eccles. 1.14. Broken Cisterns, Jer. 2. Lying vanities? Jonah 2.8. Shadows, Psal. 102.11. Non-entities, that which is not. Be ashamed, O Christian Gospellers! That stand on the worlds higher ground, have best wages, and yet do your great Master least service, to give up the strength of your souls, your time, your estates, in the brutish service of worldly and carnal pleasures, contemning in mean time the sweet peace and joy of the Holy Ghost. Such of you as serve pleasures, Tit. 2.3. Live in them, 1 Tim. 5.6, are voluptuous wantons, as if you came into the world to be as the Leviathan to take your Pastime only to sport and feast your souls in your sensualities. Seneca had a far braver spirit than you have; He thought it was true pleasure to contemn pleasures, and is it your heaven to enjoy them? You live not like men: The delights of reason far excels those of sense: You live not like Saints: The delights of Grace transcend them both. O come and see, come and taste, feed on the Marrow and Fatness, the luscious, sweet soul provisions of God's House, and the Heavenly dainties of grace, will soon make you dis-relish the perilous unsatisfying delights of this life.

SECT. 10.

They may, with little study, run and read their gross abuse of God's grace.

10. Who are senseless, stupid, Lethargic Libertines: Are these the Darlings of Grace, the Favorites of Heaven, who in a dead, cursed insensibility, blunt the goads of Conscience, are strangers to the fear of God, are deaf to the Canon shot, the dreadful volleys of the Laws curses, who startle not when they hear Boanerges Pulpit Sons of Thunder, but slight pious admonitions, and grievous commination's, as if they were vain Bugbears to fright children, Fantastical, Poetic Hyperbolies, that have taken the Devils Opium, and are cast in a dead sleep? National Judgments, Personal Afflictions do not awaken them: Satan rocks them asleep with his sweet Lullabies, of promising life, interest in Christ, and the hopes of Heaven: And are you indeed the persons of Grace? 'It is strange you should be, 'tis impossible: Grace is a living Creature, a new Creature, a delicate Creature, a tender Creature, quick and sensible, feels the least grievance, the least sin. Alas for you, stupid Libertines! The Devil may lay upon you sin upon sin, mountain upon mountain, and yet you feel not, you complain not, you mourn not, you weep not, you weep not, you cry not with strong cries and tears to Heaven to be dis-burdened: I have this sad tidings to bring you, your Lethargy will, in spite of your hearts, be cured: But when? I fear, O I fear, never till you are in Hell flames, there will be no sleeping fits there: O you senseless ones of the love or fear of God! Blessings or Cursing's, Promises or Threatening's, you cannot sleep in an uneasy, tormenting, eternal Bed of Tribulation; you will have none to make your Bed easy, no Julips, no Cordials, to succor your fainting hearts in your hot scorching fits. Will you not believe? O that you would believe! Your fellow graceless, senseless, wantons in Hell, would tell you, could they speak with you, after scores of years sleep in sin, they are now with a vengeance awakened out of their dead sleep: O happy were that voice of the Son of God, that would do the kindness to thee, slumbering drowsy Reader, as to bid thee, and make thee to awake! O awake, awake to repentance, and gracious Gospel indulgency, lest thou awake to eternal vengeance! O shake off that cursed unbelief that makes thee an Atheist, a mock-god, a dissolute debauched wanton! Hell is no Fable, Scripture threatening's are no vain Fancies: God hath sworn in his wrath, a graceless, impenitent contemner of his angry words, shall never enter into his rest: If thou beest such a one, he hath said it, and his Almighty avenging Arm will make good his word, such a wicked Wretch as thou art, that forgettest God and thine own duty, shall be cast into hell, Psal. 9.17. O folly! O madness! O sadness! Presumption of Gospel-grace is made a pillow for loose sinners to sleep quietly on: It will not always be thus, God will change thy soft, downy, Gospel-pillow, for a hard, thorny, legal one. Visions of wrath, as well as mercy, are for an appointed time; they will speak, and not tarry. O Devil-ridden secure ones! Hearken to that of Chrysostom; he calls secure sinners, The Devils Horses: He is a fierce, cruel Rider, he spares no flesh, he spares no souls he backs: He hath ridden thousands off their legs, off their spirits, off their strength, off their lives, off their pleasures, off their ease, off their hopes: The rider and the horses, both will be forever cast into the fiery Lake, and never come out again. O wretched, wanton, secure Libertines! You would be secure, and you shall be secure; you would not have your cursed peace disturbed, and it shall not be disturbed; you would be persuaded you are under the wing of saving grace, though in the broad road to destruction, and you shall be persuaded: God chooseth your delusions, Isa. 66.4, your own election will prove your destruction. O Judgment of Judgments! Carnal security, thou doest pave the way to eternal Judgments: See, O see your sad resemblance! Sisera slept in Jaels Tent, she wooed him, Turn in my Lord, turn in to me, and fear not; she went softly to him, and her nail and hammer smote his soul into the other world, Judge. 4.18, 21, so loose Libertines sleep in the Tent of presumption: Carnal security woes them, Turn in soul, turn in, fear not, the issue is, it softly and cruelly smites sleeping souls into the other world. Samson slept on Delilahs lap, and lost his locks and his strength: Libertines sleep in the lap of security, and lose their hopes of Heaven. Eutychus slept, while Paul was Preaching, and fell down dead, Acts 20.9. Carnal Gospellers sleep, while they enjoy the means of grace, and fall dead into the bottomless Pit. Crafty Ulysses gave Polyphemus a sleeping draught, and when he was asleep, he run a hot Iron into his eye. The Devil, the crafty Ulysses of Hell, he gives secure sinners a sleeping Potion, and when they are fast, he blinds them, and shoots his deadly, fiery shot at them. Carnal security, under presumptions of Grace, is both a sin and plague, God's Judgment, the Devils Triumph, Souls ruin.

SECT. 11.

They are apparently gross Prophaners of the Grace of God.

11. And lastly, Who are guilty of a wrong use of the Creatures; God made them, that his grace, by the professors of, and pretenders to it, should be exalted in the use of it.

Four things demonstrate that it is not so.

1. When they are used ungraciously: This is a perverting of the intention of Creation: Every Creature of God is good, which God hath created to be received, with Thanksgiving of them that believe, and to be sanctified with Prayer, 1 Tim. 4.3, 4, 5. A strong Implication, that everyone that useth the Creature aright, must first be gracious, and then use it graciously. Three graces are here set down; The grace of Prayer in Invocation, for God's not only natural, but spiritual blessing on the Creature. The grace of thanksgiving, in returning to God the praise of Lip, Heart, and Life, for his good Creatures: And the grace of Faith, in using them in and for Christ, in the strength of Christ, to his praise.

Add to these the grace of holy Fear, not to offend the Author of Creature-goodness: For as the Feast-makers eye is on his guests, to see their behavior; so the great House-Keeper of the World, that feeds and clothes millions every day, is strictly observant who useth his goodness, according to the rules of holy Temperance, contributes to right Creature-use, in guarding the sensitive appetite, that it doth not clog the immortal spirit with burthensome surfeits of any kind: When the Creatures are not thus graciously used, it is a wrong to grace, whose office, honor and power, is to regulate their use.

2. When they are used to a sinful end, either to the satisfaction of Lusts, or hindrance of God's service.

1. To the satisfaction of Lust, the Israelites abuse, They asked meat for their lust, Psal. 78.18, not for their convenient use, but for the satisfaction of their corrupt lust, which God granted in wrath, as they desired in sin, Psal. 78.29. Much of the Creatures is desired to consume upon Lusts, Jam. 4.3. Drunkenness, Gluttony, Pride, Voluptuousness, Ambition, Domination: Sad will be the account of vast expenses of the Creatures, sacrificed in and upon the service of Lust, against which usurpation, the voices of Reason, Grace, and the Creatures, will give severe testimony.

2. To the sinful end of hindering God's service: we should use the Creatures only to fit and whet our attendances on God; but when they prove Obstructions (as mostly they do) take off our leisure and pleasure to do his will, we wrong God and our own souls: Christ told the busy man, who excused his following of Christ (one would think a tolerable excuse) by going home to bid his friends farewell, that his civil courtesy, at that time, did unfit him for the Kingdom of God, Luke 9.61, yea, concluded that the civil burial of the dead, in opposition to religious service, argued a soul dead in sin. And so the Field, the yoke of Oxen, the married Wife, are set down as Remora 's and Impediments to come and feed upon Christ's Gospel-feasts, Matt. 22.4, and those that flow in Creature-comforts, say, Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways, Job 21.14. Why doth Christ say, Woe to you that are full, Luke 6.25, but to threaten at once rest in Creature-fullness is a temptation to forget God and duty? The poor in the world, rich in faith, Jam. 2.5, receive the Gospel, Luke 7.22. Have any of the Rulers believed on him, Joh. 7.48. 'It is true, there is not an absolute inconsistency of grace with Riches and Greatness: Rich Abraham, as well as poor Lazarus, are in Heaven. But ordinarily the Creatures are used to a sinful end, to estrange and arm the heart with weapons of Rebellion against God, which should be inducements of obedience.

3. When they are used only to a perishing end, a Belly that shall be destroyed, a fine back that shall be unclothed, and lay in the chamber of death, rottenness and silence, a mortal body, a posterity that must die. When rational Creatures, use the creatures unreasonably, only like brute Beasts to satisfy sensualities, that must give up the ghost with the Sensualists expiring breath; when they have not an eternal end in their eye, to use money, meat, drink, health, strength, life, to fit for eternity; when men do not make them friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, Luke 16.9, and though they cannot at once serve God and Mammon, yet do not so manage Creature use, as to make Mammon serve God, they are exceedingly unserviceable, and injurious to the grace of God.

4. When they are not used to God's ends: They are four.

1. Stronger engagement unto God: The pious intention of Jacob, if he might have the mercy of Divine protection, convenient food and raiment, he promised, The Lord should be his God: These were the holy Patriarchs binding words, Gen. 28.30, 31. As courtesies bind to men, so creature-mercies bind pious men to God: When the sweet silken cords of mercies do not bind the heart to God, grace is dishonored; when it is common dis-ingenuity to break the bonds of kindness, to despise the riches of creature-goodness, this is a signal, evident ingratitude to the God of grace.

2. End of God's Creature-mercies is faithful and cheerful service, Deut. 28.47. But when it is usual, and sad practice, as Israel served not God in a good and fat Land, Neh. 9.35, so the unworthy Professors of Gospel-grace, and the Christian name, do not conclude a necessary, joyous, and rational service, from the free and plentiful allowances of sweet Creatures, do not seriously ponder with themselves; Why have I hundreds, and thousands by the year? Why have I food convenient, and competent allowance between envy and pity? Why have I any House to dwell in, any food and raiment? Why have I had sweet repose this night, when others in waking tortures count the tedious hours? Why have I health? Am I strong? Do I live? Have I so good a Master? Is it that I should be a loose, wanton servant, and do him no work? What blushing will sit on the face, trembling on the limbs, horror on the hearts of pretenders to God's grace, in the accounting day, when large Creature-allowances, shall in all their sad inventories, be proved to be wrested from the employments of God's reasonable service.

3. End of God's Creature-mercies, is the exaltation and commendation of his loving kindness. David's gracious spirit, versed in the high praises of God, did ordinarily take the elevation of God's goodness and kindness from Creature-mercies, and spent Psalms in Doxologies, seeing the glory of God in the glass of the Creatures shining before his spirit, and in and in high strains of praise, exalted the great and glorious name of God, made the Creatures Trumpets to sound his praise, and an occasion of high thoughts of God. Indeed he that is thankful to God for his unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ, cannot, but having the best Gospel-tenure of common mercies, holding them in capite, praise God for every perishing mercy, as a token of special everlasting love, and an earnest penny of eternal mercies. His bread to him is Covenant-bread, his Apparel Covenant-apparel, his Money Covenant-money, yea, his Afflictions Covenant-afflictions; whether he have much or little, its all to him the dispensation of choice kindness, and the allotted sufficiency of infinite Wisdom and Love, to bear his charges in the narrow road to life, until he come to his Fathers House and eternal Inheritance: But now to rob God of this glorious end, the exaltation of his love, or to resent no love but of Creature-mercies, and to prostitute that to self-love and carnal sensualities; How below is this to the honor of man, the glory of God, and the power of Grace?

4. End of God's Creature-mercies, in spiritualizing the Creatures: Turning Earth into Heaven, making visible created Excellencies, Ladders to climb up to the invisible God: The pious practice of our Lord Jesus, in his holy, heavenly travels, to lead the understandings of men, by the light and hand of Creatures, to the apprehensions of heavenly and immaterial things, by a Well of water still springing up, signifying the eternal Spring of the Spirit of grace in regenerate souls; what by fleshly relations, leading us to believe the high account he hath of spiritual kindred; by seed lost in evil ground, fruitful in good, instructing us in the word, lost to most hearers, successful in a few good and honest hearts; by all his Parables, elegantly picturing out the Orient Beauties and Glories of his Kingdom of grace and glory, and the ugly face of sin. Holy Bradford was happy this way, who made Creature-mercies his advantage ground to see into Gospel-glories: When putting on Apparel, his thoughts were, O Christ clothe me with thine own self, that I catch not the cold of this World! When the clothes were put off, he thought of death, he should be unclothed of Flesh, and of the Resurrection to put it on again, as his clothes were put on in the morning: When the day-light appeared, he minded Christ the light, that knows no Night nor Evening, but is always as bright Mid-day: His Journeying taught him to think this life a Pilgrimage, the way is dangerous, that there is need of Christ the Guide in the high way to glory. How injurious are we to God's end of his Creatures, unto our own rational faculties, and to the ingenuities that grace would put upon us, if we gain not affective and active Meditations, by what daily comes into the doors of our senses? If so great be the sweetness and glory of God's out-house, the visible World, what transcendencies of delight and honor are the happy reserves, in the invisible state and place of heavenly glory in the next life? It is an ungracious frame of spirit that is confined to the things below: They are strangers and enemies to their own happiness, that could take up with a visible Eternity of poor sublunary things, and cannot abide the thoughts of death, the destruction of their earthly God's.

Thus Reader, in the forementioned eleven Sections, mayest thou try and take a measure of thy loose heart and life, if in impartial Judgment thou canst, and wilt be so faithful to the Truth and thine own soul, as to believe thy guilt of manifest and gross abuses of God's grace, confess it to God, deeply lay it to heart, repent of it, lest it prove thy ruin.

CHAPTER XI.

Containing a second Branch of Examination, how we may know the secret, close, and more refined Abuses of God's Grace.

Having inquired into the more visible and notorious affronts of God's grace: My next labor shall be rifling bosom-work, to go into the inward Rooms of the heart, and there to find out the inward Libertine, that dares impurely and immodestly to licentiate before the Lord: This searching, inward, filthy cells of darkness, by the bright Candle of the word of Truth, as it is always unpleasant to a close Hypocrite, all whose Religion is a constant juggling with God and men, so to soundest upright hearts it is very desirable. If the secret, rotten, double-hearted Professor, shall read the following Conceptions, without a blush, fear and trembling, laying a better foundation for his propriety to Christ, assurance of Grace, and the hope of Heaven, then cheating appearances; If he have scarce patience and heart, to try himself by ensuing discoveries, yea though he read them, will wickedly deny the signs of close dishonors to God's grace are not in him, he may shift of Paper Arraignments, he shall not the unbosoming Judgment of the great day, when his Sheep's skin shall be plucked off, the inside shall be turned outwards, and the close Hypocrite shall appear a wicked, impenitent abuser of God's grace. Indeed, I have little hope to do good to the habitual Juggler in the things of God, who hath made a play of his Religion, and never been in good earnest: My hope is a Blessing from Heaven may second Convictions in the sound heart searching Reader, who is ever most charitable to others, but most jealous of, and severe against his own heart: for thy sake, O self-basing, abhorring mourner in Zion! I have endeavored to lay down the Transcript, the Counterpane of thy wretched heart: I know thou wilt say the next Pages are thine own experience, look over, weep over, pray, strive against the ungrateful, unkind wrongs to thy gracious God, thy dear Redeemer, the Spirit of Grace gracious motions, thy principle of grace: I know, by the help of grace, thou wilt lay to heart and repent of the secret Injuries of grace, where the profane hypocritical world scarce see any sin, or if so, very slightly think of it, and have no care and conscience to reform: Weigh and ponder then the evidences of close and less discerned abuse of God's grace, as laid down in the subsequent method.

SECT. 1.

1. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace, is a sinful close of spiritual Enjoyments: By these I mean, all the Ordinances of grace, whose ends and fruits are spiritual, where successful; also the gifts of Grace, Knowledge, Judgment, Invention, Memory, Utterance in Divine things. Add hereunto the sanctifying graces of the Spirit, the sweet motions of the Holy Ghost, the joys of the Spirit in the light of God's countenance, in the Faith of Atonement by Christ's blood, in the sight of sincerity, victory over Lusts, &c. These are all spiritual enjoyments: Now when the close of these is sinful, there is a secret abuse of grace.

It is sinful in five things.

1. In self-advancement: God's free grace is either wronged by his Servants, as a Benefactor, by a boasting Beggar, he is well fed, fat and fine, and while he should lift up the bounty of the giver, he is glorying in himself as a receiver: So when the giver of grace in his heavenly Alms should be magnified, how often do the best of men advance themselves? The richest Saints in Earth and Heaven are but vessels of mercy, Rom. 9.22. Utensils, Instruments God is pleased to use: No thank to the tool, but to the hand if it work: No house builds itself. When we see a comely building, we praise the Art of the Builder. The action of the Instrument is reduced to the efficient: Ashur forgot himself and God, when he looked not on God, but himself. Boasting in an Instrument, is as if the Saw should magnify itself, it cut well; and the Ax should magnify itself, it hewed well, Isa. 10.15. If the Workman holds his hands, the Tools do nothing. Believers are the spirits Instruments, God works in and by them, and they dishonor the grace of God, by transferring the work to themselves, saying, I prayed, I preached, I wept, I gave alms, I rejoiced in God, I did this and that good. As lofty Nebuchadnezzar looked only on his great boasting, This I did, this was my doing: Is not this Babel that I have built for the glory of my Majesty? So I have done this and that, is the Poison that mars all; the breathing of Satan turned angel of light, the high abuse of God's grace. Ah Christian, be humbled for it, and correct it, by the Glass of Paul's self-abasing, Grace and Christ-advancing: I labored more than the other Apostles, yet not I, but the Grace of God, 1 Cor. 15.10. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Gal. 2.20.

2. In dulling the edge of holy zeal: This is the sad and frequent lacquey of spiritual enjoyments: We converse with them to a blunting and dulling of our spirits: They should be as whetstones to set a keener sharpness on our hearts, but they are as stones to the Scythes, that gap and blunt them. It is rare to meet with the fellows of a precious Minister, of whom it was said, That he got, but lost no heavenly heat and vigor by holy duties, the more in it, the more furnished with heavenly power, love, delight, and warmth in renewed exercise. There was renewed influence of the spirit of grace, the picture of the spiritual enjoyments of the next life: The Apostles rule is, It is good to be always zealous in a good thing, Gal. 4.18. Not in fits, and pangs of holiness, but always: the Ceremonial Fire was always to burn on the altar: They are the choicest happy Christians, in whose hearts the heavenly fire of zeal is still burning. It is our wantonness we keep not close with God, but after heats, we cool our hearts in the worlds cold Air, and are so benumbed in our earthly affections and employments, as if we had never been by Heavens fire: The counsel to wanton Sardis, is good to us, Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die, Rev. 3.2.

3. In slacking diligence: How are we too often in Heavens way, like Jading Steeds, who though well, yea high fed in the Inn, yet go lazily, and worse than before: God hath given Heavenly Travelers sweet and full Baits, how is his goodness dishonored, when after Tastes how gracious he is, we yield rather to spiritual slumbers, then hold on our way? How do those wanton Laborers disparage a good meal, that slack their diligence, play, but work not? When our industry in the Lord's work abates, it is good to put these spurs in our dull spirits. O thou wicked and slothful servant! The sad charge of the last Judgment, Matth. 25.26. The diligent hand makes rich: Be not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, Rom. 12.11. Show the same diligence unto the full assurance of hope, unto the end, Heb. 6.11. Abounding in the work of the Lord, as knowing pious labors shall not be in vain in the Lord, 1 Cor. 15.58. Work out your own salvation, Phil. 2.12, make thorough work of it.

4. In carnal security: Even sound hearts, after they apprehend the sweet tastes of God's love, and the bitterness of death is past, are too apt to think their mountain strong, sing a false Requiem to their spirits, as if they were out of the dangers of ruin, committing from their loose unregenerate part in them, the sins, against which God threatens Hell, upon the assurance they are heirs of Heaven, thinking themselves secure, are not safe: Whereas the way of life, is the way of holy Jealousy, not security: It is not the least of Satan's wiles to suffer himself to be overcome, that he may overcome. As conquering Soldiers, yet unsuspicious of dangers, are taken Prisoners by a routed Army; so unjealous Christian Victors, by laying by their Watch and Alarms of holy fear, are suddenly surprised: 'It is an imprudent conclusion, because the Bird hath escaped the Fowler, therefore he shall ever be out of the danger of the Net and Gun-shot. The heart is deceitful: We are still in the Enemies Country: Christ's Garrisons have false friends in them, will open the Gates to the destroyer, and while every soul hath Judas 's in it, to kiss, and kill, and betray the grace of God into the hands of enemies, there is urgent need of a constant watch. Fear was the Apostles watch-word to the privileged Gentiles, lest they that stand by Grace, should fall by security, Rom. 11.20. Happy is he that feareth always, Prov. 28.14. We abuse spiritual enjoyments, when we suspect no loss: Greatest Beauties, Riches and Honors, call for most waking eyes, and strictest guard: When Christ had sweet tidings from Heaven, he was God's beloved Son, Matth, 3, ver. last: he was forthwith set upon by the Devil, Matth. 4.1. If the envious, vigilant Tempter, seeth our private Prayers and tears of Joys, hears our joyous triumphs of God's kindness in Christ; malicing such hated glory, he will presently lay traps to damp our joys, defile our spirits, wound our consciences, and bring us to the very Suburbs of Hell: Ye are partakers of Christ, said Paul of the Christian Hebrews, if you hold fast the beginning of your confidence, steadfast unto the end, Heb. 3.14. 'It is not enough, in first conversion, to hold the precious Jewel Jesus Christ in the hand of Faith, but there must be a constant hold-fast. Is he who is among Thieves careful to hold fast the Pearl in his hand, and fearful to let it go? So it should be with every prudent Christian, he should fear his own laziness, cowardice and weakness, should lose his riches: 'It is the Apostles counsel to his Hebrews, useful to all that think they stand, and a sovereign preservative against security: Let us fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it, Heb. 4.1.

5. By dallying with Temptations, we pray we may not enter into temptation: God's grace is our deliverance: Corruption casts us into the fire, the hand of mercy plucks us out. But how often do God's foolish, fearless children, like ours, after we have been burnt and cured, we adventurously play with the same fire that scorched us, and renew our pains and cries. 'It is not an experimentally true spiritual Proverb, That all God's burnt children always hate the fire: Even after David had sweet visits and walks with God, and the refreshing joys of his salvation, he wantonly dallied with temptations fire in the roof of his house, defiled his soul with forbidden lust of strange beauty, and Body too, and lost spiritual, for carnal delight; the joy of his salvation, for the pleasure of sin: Grace doth not perfectly crucify the old Man; while Lust is an in-dweller, it will be an enticer: We may as well play with fire near Gun-powder, as play with Temptations near Lust: 'It is no safe dancing near Pits brinks, taking fire into our bosoms, welcoming temptations into our hearts: The old man is too willing and too pressing to tempt us out of heavens way; we need no world nor devil to drive us: 'It is good counsel, and singular indemnity to our souls, if practiced; Abstain from all appearance of evil, 1 Thef. 5.22. Hate the garment spotted by the flesh.

SECT. 2.

2. Evidence of close abuse of God's grace is Irreverence of God's Majesty. The best are too apt to wrong their nearness to God, by forgetting their distance. God is so his children's Father, as that he is their King. Though the name Father speaks boldness, yet the name King speaks greater reverence. Irreverent are saucy children, more bold than welcome. I am a great King, saith God, Mal. 1.14. His name is great: Mal. 1.11, and reverend, Psal. 111.9. We need grace to serve God with reverence and godly fear, because he is a consuming fire, Heb. 12.28, 29. It is a wrong to grace when we do it not. Is it the state of earthly gods to keep their distance with them on whom they shine the brightest beams of their royal favors? And shall we think the infinite, great, and blessed God, before whom the Kings of the Earth are as Grasshoppers, Worms, Nothing, less than Nothing, will not have the rails and vails of holy reverence, the humble tokens of distance? The Apostate Angels at once lost their good manners, and their happiness, they kept not within their limited station. Should the standing Angels lose their Reverence, they should lose their Glory. It is the Gospel Prophets Hieroglyphic. The holy, heavenly, Angelical Host are Birds of Paradise, and have six Wings; two to cover their faces, two their feet, two to fly with, are said to have flying wings, to resemble their quick and nimble obedience; face-covering wings, to shadow out their reverence, as not daring to pry into, nor bear God's infinite glory; are said to have feet-covering wings, to teach our distance from the Angels, who are too weak to behold their finite little rays of glory, much less that infinite bright Sun of the divine Essence. This Lesson the Prophet teacheth us, those spotless Spirits that see the blessed face of God to their everlasting happiness, are ever full of a Reverential awe of God's Majesty. But how unsuitable are the heirs of salvation to their heavenly guard? Angels are reverent, Saints are unmannerly: These are wanton, those dare not be so. Believers, study your hearts, gestures, words, conversations, that they all may be Holiness to the Lord? Is he sanctified in you when you draw nigh him? Levite. 10.3. When you are before him, as in no minute, no place, no darkness, no solitariness, you are out of his flaming eyes, piercing views; your insides and external deportments are laid in his unerring balance. He tries you every moment, Job 7.18. What mean your uncomely spirits, your external indecencies? Your slight services? Would your governor like such carriages you present to, and abuse your gracious God with? As Ahasuerus said to Haman, Will he force the Queen before me? Esth. 7.8. So lay it to heart, will you abuse grace before God? It was a God-wearing sin, evil men did evil, and yet thought they were good in God's sight, Mal. 2.17. What a God-affronting sin is it, to think because Free-grace hath made you good and accepted in God's sight, therefore you may abuse it to irreverence in his presence. I know your hearts, if sound, abhor this doctrinal inference, from so glorious a principle; but doth not the frame of your spirits, words of your mouths, loose carriage prove, you dare be irreverently and abusively bold with your Fathers kindness? Who that seeth a grown Son come to years of understanding, knowing his duty to walk mannerly, yet standing with his Hat on, playing ill feats before, yea with his Fathers face, slighting his commands, but will say there is a wanton unmannerly boy? It is no calumny to say so of many of God's unmannerly children, their unbecoming Irreverencies are their heavenly Fathers reproach. A Reverent Christian that hath the mighty awe of God upon his spirit, in all times, places, companies, providences, temptations, is a Phenix, an Angel among Professors. Happy, holy, harmless, preserved are they that maintain the reverent awe of God upon their spirits.

SECT. 3.

3. Evidence of close abuse of God's grace is Forgetfulness of God. The House of Israel perverted their way and forgot the Lord their God, Jer. 3.22. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked off the rock that begat thee, thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee, Deut. 32.15, 18. Too often the answers of God's kindness are like the chief Butlers of Joseph. The holy man gave a comfortable interpretation of the Butlers Dream, Pharaohs restorement of him to his office, with this rational caution, but think of me when it shall be well with thee: Yet did not the chief Butler remember Joseph but forgot him, Gen. 40.13, 14, 23. Thus the Holy God speaks comfort to many a gracious soul in the deeps of trouble, with those equal motions upon their spirits, that they would think upon this name and not return again to folly, yet in sundry duties they do not remember God, but forget him. They know not their own hearts that in the trust and boast of their own sufficiency's, promise God if he will reveal his love in his Son to them, they will be exact walkers; but many of his loose children, after they have seen his face, have opposed his will and answered the Kisses of his love by unkind Rebellions. God's Israel of the spirit have need of the same cautions the Israel of the flesh had. When the Lord thy God shall give thee for his promise sake, Cities, Houses, Wells, Vineyards, and Olive-trees, when thou shalt have eaten and be full, then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God, Deut. 6.10, 11, 12. So Believer when the Lord thy God for his covenant sake shall privilege thee in the heavenly blessings of Reconciliation, Justification, Adoption, the Joy of Atonement, and the sweet sight of thy name written in heaven, when thou shalt eat, and be full of the heavenly feast of fat things, beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God. 'It is no seldom indignity put upon the grace of God, to forget him in Temptations, Vocations, Relations, Conditions in the world. We charge upon our servants such and such duties, call them to account; our pleasure is neglected: The excuse is, we were forgotten, doth not this speak a loose careless Spirit? Surely the Lord's servants forgetfulness of their charge argues their wantonness. A serious, faithful, considering spirit would remember—Christian, charge home the baseness and unfaithfulness of thy spirit with sharp reproof. Ah foolish heart and unwise, How have I requited the Lord's grace? I forget not vanity, but how have I forgotten the great concernments of Eternity? A Bride will not forget her Ornaments, the Worldling his Market, and Teeming sums. Pleasure-hunters forget not their delights, nor the children of Revenge their opportunities of doing mischief. How hast thou forgotten the Lord, his blessings on thee, his cautions to thee, his motions in thee, his hoped glory laid up for thee, his everlasting love, designing distinguishing mercies unto thee? How hast thou forgotten the Lord in numberless sins? Should he cast thee out of his mind thou hadst been cast into Hell long before this. O let the thoughts of thy dear Lord be precious to thee. Love quickens memory; let him be the dearly beloved of thy soul, as thou art of his, and thy memory will be the faithful treasury of his glory and thy duty.

SECT. 4.

4. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace is secret acting of Heart-sins. Close pollutions in the best hearts deny and oppose the savory power of grace. Scripture Records are sad experiences of a world of filth, gathered together in the heart, like a heap of dust, a load of dung. There is heart iniquity that mars Prayer, Psal. 66.18. There are close heart Idols, Ezek. 14.3, which have too much account and adoration. The heart in the time and place of solemn, divine service goeth after covetousness, Ezek. 33.31, is the work-house where the practices of it are daily exercised, 2 Pet. 2.14. The heart is of a gross brawny constitution, Matth. 13.15, insensible of fleshly or spiritual motions. It is whorish corporally sometimes; often spiritually, had rather lie in an earthy, yea sometimes a hellish than heavenly bed of Loves. 'It is often the complaint of serious, gracious spirits, when their lips are pure, their hearts are unclean; when their language is heavenly, their spirits are earthly. O the sighs, the tears, that are the issues of spiritual observing eyes, when they turn inwards, and behold defiling Pride, Passions, Dumb sins, Abominable impurities; yea, which aggravates inward wickedness in pious souls, even in cleansing times and means, Hearing, Praying, Humbling hours; so that were hearts transparent, and their hideous filthiness exposed to common view, the Readers of bosom wickedness would say, Religious minds were not God's Temples, but the Devils Synagogues, not the sweet Repositories of the Holy Spirit, but the Augaean Stables of the unclean. How filthy is the scent of holy men's impure souls, to their heavenly acute smell. They are weary of their lives, in their right sense, when they see such close wickedness to wrong the Grace of God, but that there is a discerning eye, and loathing spirit of this filthy sink of sin, all were naught, and all profession a delusion. O Christian! Wouldst thou load thine heart with the sight and sense of those ugly hellish characters, thy spiritual Lyncaean eyes behold? See the vileness of it in a parable. A King entirely affectionate to his Subjects, his favorites especially, would be honored everywhere, but especially in his Court: what affronts do his ennobled and promo-creatures put upon him, who although they do not make him vile in the streets, yet before his face pollute his chamber with mire and dirt, yea spit in his face? The King of Glory loving to all, deserves every ones highest respects, his favorites especially, though the world wallowing in wickedness abuse him, he should not be wronged where he keeps his Court, what affronts do his ennobled new creatures do to him, who though they do not make him vile in the open streets of public scandal, yet they pollute the heart his chamber, with the mire and dirt of filthy sins, yea spit on the fair face of his Grace, by secret presumptions. O infinite mercy, compassion, and condescension, that the great God jealous of the State and Glory of his Majesty, seeing his Mansion house so abused, will yet vouchsafe to call it his, and to dwell in it.

SECT. 5.

5. Evidence of close Abuse of God's Grace, is adventuring on lesser sins, Grace is that Wisdom that is from above without partiality, in its Heavenly Executions, will spare no sins, fat and lean must all be a Sacrifice to its sword; great and small like all the Egyptians in the Sea must perish: it hath no reserves of cruel pity, says of all sins as Jehu of all the Worshippers of Baal, Let none of them live, 2 King. 10.20. Hypocrisy speaks like that hypocrite Saul, spare some, O Christian! 'Tis thy wanton indulgence when thou sparest any: little it may be doest thou think, when the flattering old man says spare this and this sin, it is as if he should say, damn thou soul, little sins like little poison, being of a killing nature as well as greater: that of Chrysostom, is true experience, He that a little is carried away by his carnal Lust, will be a greater Revolter: his Counsel is safe, wherefore, says he, take heed, this little is not little, it is almost all. Sins motion is downhill motion, like the stone when it begins a little to fall, it still falls, he that goeth one mile with his Lust and the Devil, will go two, ten, twenty, knows not when to stop, a little allowed weakness soon grows to allowed wickedness, what enemies are we to Grace and our own Souls, when in the just day of its vengeance we will secure little sins? Say we not as Lot of Zoar, is it not a little one, and my Soul shall live? Gen. 19.20. This sin is a little one a Saints infirmity, my Soul shall live, how do we practically indent with God, that his gracious Patents should be securities for little sins? Well, were it if these had not too liberal allowances, protections, and Respect, When I bow, said Naaman, in the house of Rimmon, in this thing the Lord pardon thy Servant, 2 King. 5.18. So when we yield subjection to little sins, in these things there is scarce doubt, the Lord will pardon his servants, when we protect the least sins, how do we forget that command Cast away all your transgressions, Ezekiel. 18.31. And what in us lays cast ourselves out of mercies Protection? Repentance must be as universal as Remission, that Grace that pardons, purgeth all sin, though all sins are not equal, yet all are mortal in their nature, a little sin as well as a little needle sticking in the heart, is deadly vain thoughts, idle words, deadness of heart, formality in duties, foolish jesting, petty oaths, with many such sins of course, though little sins in common repute by many thought no sins, yet like little Toads and serpents spit poison on the Soul, we read indeed of least Commandments, Matth. 5.19. But it is in men's opinions, not their own nature: No command is little, that hath the stamp of the great Law-givers authority, what sacrilege is it to slight the precepts of the great God as little? The spiritual wisdom from above, looks upon every command and sin as great, doing no little mischief against the sovereignty and purity of no little God, deserving no little Hell, the loss of no little Heaven. Servants are not their own, may not presume in little offenses, like and dislike, pick, and choose, obey, and rebel as they please, but obey in all things Col. 3.22. Else they do not their Masters will but their own: What we account a most insolent abuse and badge of pride in our servants, is in God's, they wrong his Sovereignty, when they are fast and loose, will do and not do, and are not through paced in repentance and Obedience: It speaks our soundness in the cause of God, in our faithfulness to the crown of Christ, if we dash in pieces the Babylonish brats, the little Thieves of sins first motions, the petty traitors of Insurrection, as well as the signal Rebels: happy are they that in the high improvements of, and honorable respects to God's grace, dare not adventure on the lest sins, A little Leaven will leaven the whole lump, a little sin without great mercy, will ruin the whole man.

SECT. 6.

Evidence of close Abuse of God's Grace, is discontent at God's gracious corrections: his frowns on his children are his favors, his rods love tokens, Heb. 12.6. His family discipline, hath not only good instructions, and liberal maintenance, but wholesome chastisements, he is his children's Father and Physician, as wise to know, so able and willing to cure their diseases, their sins are ill humors, affliction Physic, themselves patients. But alas, how under the discipline of correction are the Lord's people like delicate wantons, that will not take from, but give their Physician directions, this Physic is not right, that were better; any Affliction, any Potion rather than this, as if God knew not better our disease, the way of cure, and our strength better then ourselves, we are no sit choosers of our rods, the cross we would exchange for might be ten times heavier: when we repine at the wise allotments of our heavenly physician, make faces, and spit at his ways of healing, we discover our folly and wantonness: that Looseness that contracts Diseases, will not bear the method and smart of cure: this is the holy and humble submission of Grace, Lord give power to bear, and blessing to sanctify the Cross, and keep me under it while thou pleasest. Shall good children pay reverence to their chastising parents, and not God's children to him correcting? Heb. 12.9, choosing our trouble, fretting under God's present hand, as imprudent or injurious, despising his corrections, declares us have wanton kicking spirits, we never sweetly, humbly, and quietly bear the healthful indignation of the Almighty, till we by Faith give him the glory of the gracious wisdom and sovereignty of his corrections, then be the trial never so fiery, the soul will say, I shall come forth as tried Gold.

SECT. 7.

7. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace, is daring to do that when the Rod of God is off, which would not be done when it is on. In affliction there is pouring out of prayers, Isa. 26.16. Hanging down the head, and heaviness of heart for sin, sense of civil reverence of God, a stop to carnal delights, good words of Holiness, promises of better Obedience, reforming appearances, Saint-like deportments: But it is frequent injury to the gracious chastisements of God, that their Physic hath rather been a skinning over, than a cure of diseases. As unsound Recoveries break forth into old sores, and worse relapses, so the universal work of Correction betrays itself either into a neglect of Prayer, or a Praying formality, carnal Merriments, Remorselessness of Spirit, impudent Irreverence, Breach of Vows, loose Conversation, these are great enemies to strictness. There are not a few that have exceedingly shamed God's School of Correction, like some unbettered children under the Rod, who acknowledge their sin, kneel down and cry pardon, and mingle the sense of their folly and smart with tears, promise they will never do so again, fear and tremble at the next blows, are very humble and show much good manners; but when the smart is off, the old sauciness, stubbornness, and disorders return. How hath that righteousness that hath light impression in the mind by affliction, like the print of the Rod in the flesh, soon worn out? This Insincerity is deservedly deplorable of all them that know their own hearts, and find these true charges flying in their faces. Such as these that in and out of Affliction are so unlike themselves, betray they are not sound in heart by their unsteadiness in God's Covenant, Psal. 78.37. Hath God in mercy not chastened us sore, nor delivered us up to death and hell to cure, not to kill us? How dishonorable is it to the sparing, chastising grace of God, and perilous to our own souls, when the holy manners we seemed to learn, under the Rod are lost, when it is taken off?

SECT. 8.

8. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace is shamelessness before the Lord for acknowledged sinners. If grace be not so strong as to resist sin, it is so sound and ingenuous as to blush at it. The Moral blush at uncivil, and unvirtuous baseness, speak a good moral heart. And the spiritual blush at ungospel, unchristian vileness, speaks a good, gracious heart: O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God, Ezra 9.6. Ye gracious Romans are now ashamed of your fruitless sins, Rom. 6.21. Mary Magdalene an infamous sinner, but famous Saint, looked on her sins with tears and shame, and in token of her blushing conscience, stood behind Christ as ashamed, her once impure eyes should behold his sacred face, Luke 7.38. Were they ashamed, said God of the impudent Jews? Jer. 6.15. They could not blush, they wanted the color of grace. What disgrace is it to the grace of God, that persons in grace, weak ones, God knows, are convinced of their sinful, foolish, frothy, idle, yea sometimes eminently wicked language, of venomous Serpents, lurking under the hidden leaves of filthy consciences, of ugly monsters harbored in their bosoms, proud, vain-glorious, envious, malicious, adulterous, unrighteous, oppressive, Atheistical, profane, abominable thoughts, every day flying up and down in their souls, like birds in the air, and that this filthy, hellish vermin crawling up and down the precious soul, should possess it with little or no shame in God's presence. Here is an affront indeed to God's grace; no wonder if the sense hereof beget this terrible Question in careless, and too too shameless Professors, Can I possibly have grace with such an heart? Ah miserable wretch, I fear I have none; I see my soul like a vessel wherein there is no pleasure, a stinking sepulcher, like a miry sink, and though I know it, I cannot be ashamed before the Lord. Ah, to be sinful and shameless too, that is double misery. Ah Christian, labor with thine heart to pour out thy sins with the sense of holy shame before the Lord. The Sacrament of Circumcision taught the Lesson of holy shame. It cut off the foreskin of the flesh, uncovered the shameful part, to teach, as Lactantius thought, That the foreskin of the flesh, the inward shame of corruption should be uncovered before the Lord. Ah Christians, never leave upbraiding and rubbing your shameless hearts till you made them blush: Reason away the whores forehead from your consciences thus; What I think, I should blush to say and do, before a child, before a godly, before a wicked man: What do I make of God, the great God, the blessed God, the infinitely pure, and holy God, the observing God, the remembering God, the avenging God, the judging God? Shall I set up a child above God, a Saint above God, a Son of Belial above God? Shall I run the hazard to hear of all my closet, soul-wickedness again before Angels and men? Can I endure the blush of the great day, and the everlasting contempt of unrepented impudence? Will not mine ears tingle to hear this dreadful charge? Loe this is the man that sometimes had a golden tongue, and a dirty one at other times, that blessed God, and cursed with the same mouth: Lo this is the man that had an heavenly tongue, and an hellish heart, no Temple for my Holiness, but a stable of filthy lusts; that spat on my face while he sought my face; that came for mercy for his sins, not against his sins; that either thought me a senseless stock, I discerned not his shamelessness, or thought me a spirit, a living, eternal spirit, but an impure one like himself, or a weak one that could not revenge my dishonors, or an unjust one, that would not make my threatening's good. Such thoughts as these, if we have any sense of a Divinity, any love to our own souls, may make us ashamed for secret sins. As the Lord said to Moses of Miriam, if her Father had spit on her face should she not be ashamed? Numb. 12.14. So Christian I say to thee, if thine impure Lusts do spit on the face of God's grace, and his gospel, and vent their poison upon thine own soul, shouldst thou not be ashamed? Set the Apostles words home: It is a shame to speak of those things which are done in secret, Eph. 5.12. When thou reflectest on the horrid wickedness that lies covered under the black Mantle of thy souls secrecy, O then think it is a shame to think of them, and yet thou must think of them and be ashamed. Never leave shaming thy soul, till holy shame for secret sin committed, prevent and fortify the soul against commission. Shame keeps us from doing many things in the street, in the Market; let shame keep thee from thousands of inward sins, that shamelessness hath brought forth and nourished.

SECT. 9.

9. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace is insensibleness of others misery. Grace is life, and life is sensible, and sense apprehends its dolorous objects. Grace hath bowels of compassion: The gracious must put them on, Col. 3.12. It is a wonder to consider how boldly, that is called grace that hath no tender bowels. 'It is selfish wantonness that feels no miseries but at home. They were Zion's wantons that lived at ease, and wallowed in sensual pleasures, that were not grieved at the afflictions of Joseph. When men either do, or may, and will not acquaint themselves with the miseries of others sins and sorrows, and feel them no more than a stone doth the wounds cries and pangs of a dying man, care not though others sink or swim, may evils keep distance from themselves; Call ye this grace? Doth the God of grace, the God of pity and compassions cast off his miserable people with such senselessness? Is not he (to speak after the manner of men) afflicted in their affliction? Isa. 63.9. Is it his command, weep with them that weep? Rom. 15.15. Is it not the Law of Christ, Bear ye one another's burdens? Galat. 6.2, increase not one another's load? Was it the practice of Christ, who when he saw Many and her kindred weeping for dead Lazarus, wept also, not only to show his Humanity, but a President of his holy Sympathy? Joh. 11.33, Was it Paul's practice, Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who offended, and I burn not? 2 Cor. 11.29. What mean ye to weep, and break my heart? Acts 21.13. Implying his Converts tears would draw his. Doth the life of Nature abhor senselessness of misery? Is one living members pain another's torture? If the foot be pricked, the tongue cries out. Did you ever hear such a stupidity and monstrous carriage in the body Natural? When the feet are tormented with the Gout, the brains for pain are exceedingly afflictive, doth the tongue usually rejoice and sport, and the countenance laugh? This monster of uncompassionateness and strangeness to bowels of Mercy is too common among Christians. How little do professed Christians mourn and weep under the burden of others sins, Wants of grace, absence of Christ, the fiery darts of Satan, the wounds of corruption, the penury of creature comforts, the sicknesses and diseases, vexations, imprisonments, crosses in relations, loads of afflictions they labor under? Little or no feeling of others evils, is a sad sign of little or no grace. It hath grieved my heart, at what mine eyes have seen, what mine ears have heard, that my wretched heart hath no more grieved. The God of pity make us more pitiful: Want of compassion is a great blemish to Christian profession, and Disparagement to God's grace.

SECT. 10.

10. Evidence of close abuse of God's grace, is un-improvement of grace received. Grace is a living new creature, and life hath growth. A painted child groweth not, but a living doth. A painted Christian groweth not, a living doth. The Imaginary Birth of the Spirit is like the Still-born in nature. There are the delineations and proportions of a child in face, hands, &c. but no life of a child, and so no growth. Where there are the professions and convictions of a Saint only, not the life of a Saint, there is no growth. How dost thou wrong the stock God hath put into thine hand, when not improved? Thy little increase, I will not say speaks thee no Christian, it doth a Dwarf in Christianity. There is some great fault in nature, that living Dwarfs grow not: Surely there is some great fault in profession, that Christian Dwarfs grow not as others do; God's Talents are not to be hidden in a Napkin: He looks to receive his own with Usury, Luke 19.20. It was the fault God charged upon Sardis, The practice and profession of godliness in sundry of her members was ready to die, Rev. 3.2. A Christian is a Tradesman, his dealing lies in heavenly commodities. God entrusts some with a large stock of Knowledge, and Memory, heavenly Instructions of the Word, and Motions of the Spirit, Visions of his Love. Where he gives, he expects much, and takes it ill, his rich Merchants in a fair estate should trifle and peddle, and bring him in a smaller Revenue of glory, than meanly gifted, but more faithful Trustees of his Goodness. Will not Merchants blame their Factors, if neglecting their gaining opportunities, their Estate increase not? How may the Lord blame the professed Factors for his name in the world, if they prove negligent in heavenly proficiencies?

SECT. 11.

11. Evidence of close abuse of God's grace, is Pride, and desire of Preeminence. Outward and inward Riches both puff up. Charge the rich of the world they be not high minded, 1 Tim. 6.19. Be not high minded, Rom. 11.20. It is the Apostles Dehortation and Caution of the Gentiles excelling the Jews in means of grace. It was the Corinthians carnal wantonness, their parts were abused to puffing up and vain-glory, 1 Cor. 4.6. 7. The Apostle reproved their windy puffing humor, 1 Cor. 5.2. Precedency in gifts puffed up one against another. This vanity of swelling preeminence the Apostle derided: Ye are full and reign as Kings, 1 Cor. 4.8. Your common Endowments have made you happy. How poisonous is our nature, that envenoms the best things? How doth it turn shining Excellencies in gifts and graces into prevailing Temptations, to schism and contempt of inferior endowments, yea to darken the glory of God in a lesser Star, because a greater out-shines it? It is the mischief of spiritual Pride, it either over-magnifies, or vilifies God's gifts. It idolizeth one, and debaseth another, is an unjust Judge of God's gifts. It saith one Christian hath more than he hath, another less than he hath. Yea this evil comes of it, that the bestower of different gifts and graces is abused; Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker, Prov. 17.5. He that reproacheth the poor Christian in gifts and graces, reproacheth his maker, such a one he is a poor Preacher, (though a holy sound one) will you hear him? Such a one prays poorly, hath poor lean brains, a silly soul (though a precious Saint) and so is slighted, a nobody, a common Abuse of God and grace, and gracious spirits, discovered by high-flown Christians, whose fancy runs before their judgment. The abasing of some of lower stature than others, is an Interpretative abuse of God. The Lord rejoiceth in all his works, Psal. 104.31. They are all in wisdom, Psal. 9.1. He seeth they are very good, as they come out of his pure creating hands, Gen. 1.31. And he hath a sweet delightful complacency in them all. But cursed spiritual Pride is all for superlatives and singularities, rejoiceth and triumphs in the chiefest works of the Spirit. Take heed, if when God honoreth thee above others, Pride turn not his glory into shame. Arrogance, saith one, is the Lacquey of Honor, but Humility the Preservative. Hast thou Eminence, suspect and tremble at Self-conceit. Satan knoweth how to make Pride of heart grow out of works of Mercy, words of Piety, tears of Humility. This stinking weed grows out of the best soil. 'It is good to prick this bladder, by these thoughts, God resists the proud, Jam. 4.6. Sets himself against them, like a fierce mighty enemy in battle array. He scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts, Luk. 1.51. Wherein they deal proudly he is above them, Exod. 14.11, They are an abomination to him, Prov. 16.5. Are in the high road to destruction, Prov. 16.18. I have heard it was the confession of a proud Professor (yet to seeming a peerless meek one) of a very haughty spirit, that the Lord suffered him to fall into woeful scandal, to the reproach of his name, and the Gospel to punish his Pride. God gives grace to the Humble. In Christ there was a Fullness of Grace, and Eminence of Humility. This rare shining grace, is the Ornament, and will be the Improvement of Grace.

SECT. 12.

12. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace, is declining Hardship in the practice of Religion. Christianity is a Warfare, Christ the Captain of Salvation. Every true Christian is a Soldier by profession, 2 Tim. 2.3. The spiritual as well as the civil Soldier must endure Hardship. Paul a great Leader in this heavenly War, was a man of sufferings, beat down his body, 1 Cor. 9.27, did bear in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, Gal. 6.17. Grace enables to endure hardship. 'It is the effeminate wantonness of corrupt nature, if in Christian profession it can have beds of Down, full Tables, glorious Apparel, sweet Pleasures, to swim in securities from pain and losses, Christ is allowed; but when the Doctrine of the Cross, and owning the hated truths of the Gospel, brings persecution, affliction, call for Mortification, the subtle self-preserving Old man, can make a politick retreat out of dirty Lanes into the flowery Meadows, and leave the hardship of flesh-curbing, self-denying, and pleasure-renouncing, holy discipline for worldly gain and delights. We can think and talk of the grace of God, but where is its stout masculine virtue to be found among us? It is with much ado and great regret, to suffer the exercises of Religion to injure us, to Master the sensitive appetite, in Fasting, Watching, Cold, Hunger. The Reason and Practice of Philosophy hath more kept under the senses delights and demands, and governed passions, than the grace of Christianity in many delicate Gospellers. How highly dishonorable is this to God's grace, that it should do less than Moral reason? The sad difference lies not in the eminence of Reason, and impotence of Grace, but the wantonness of those persons, that weakens its power; oppose its counsels and commands, and disgrace its glory. The wisdom of the flesh is over-ingenuous to decline trouble, and at every trial of enduring hardness, in the ways of godliness, saith, spare thyself, consult thine ease: This severe rigor is more than needs.

SECT. 13.

13. Evidence of close Abuse of God's grace, is neglect of daily Repentance. The best of men renew sin every day, and sin renewed, guilt reneweth, and the daily renewing of guilt should necessitate a sense of daily pardon and repentance. But as Jezebel repented not when she had space of repentance, so too many careless Christians that daily sin, omit their daily serious repentance. When sensualities have had too much indulgence, unmortified lusts their provisions, head-strong, blind passions their reins and violent careers, when the Spirit in relishing creature sweetness's, hath been out of taste of heavenly things, when close wickedness hath been acted, when sad estrangements from God, cold barren formalities, have been the bane of holy duties, many indecencies, impieties, and ingratitude's, call for rent hearts, broken spirits, sorrowful confessions, loathing detestatious: and weeping eyes, how hath the daily discipline of repentance even by them that have the seed of repentance sown in their hearts, been carelessly neglected? This sadly comes to pass through the want of daily registering our sin in the book of conscience, and reading them over before we sleep; a sorrowful sense of them, suing out a pardon, self-displacency and abhorrence, and earnest begging power to repent. 'It is good counsel Chrysostom gives. Say, O soul, we have spent the day, what good is done, what evil is committed: what good soever thou hast done, give God the praise: whatsoever evil, do so no more. Passe a terrible judgment on thyself. Too many days have passed over Christians of strict profession, without observing, bewailing, repenting of their sins. The Sun hath often gone down upon much wrath, worldliness, hypocrisy: the body hath had its rest before the soul its cure of daily sins. It was Paul's holy jealousy of his over-loose Corinthians, I fear, said he, lest when I come, my God will humble me among you, and shall bewail many that have not repented of their lasciviousness, 2 Cor. 12.21. This godly suspicion is very needful for the best of men, lest those daily sins, carnal Libertinism betrays them to, should lie upon them unpardoned, and unrepented of. Happy are they whose tender, enlightened, watchful spirits, are a constant day-book to note down and read the disorders of the heart, tongue, and life, in sad convincing characters, and by the hand of Faith take the blood of sprinkling, as a sponge to blot them out, and resent them with daily hatred, confession, and godly sorrow, working repentance. It is otherwise with wanton lusts in the best hearts than with rank luxuriant Vines. These need not always to be pruned, those need not only frequent, but constant pruning's of Mortifying grace. Often reckoning we say makes long friends. Repentance the more frequent, the more easy and effectual, will at once be the peace and comfort of the Spirit, prevent much carnal wantonness, show the power of grace, and fit us to live and die.

CHAPTER XII.

Containing a Use of Caution.

The Symptoms of this too common spiritual disease depraving the Grace of God being laid down, both in the gross and close <H&G> discerning indications thereof, it will next be needful to lay down some cautions, touching the gross Abuse of God's Grace, concerning the close wronging of it, and touching the differences between the injuring of God's Grace, in a Regenerate and Unregenerate person, though this sin be in all, it is not alike in everyone: This sin is in the present fruits of it more heinous, and in the event more perilous to some than others. The next use then will be the fourth in order, Caution, 1. To them who grossly. 2. To them who closely Abuse God's Grace.

1. To them who are gross abusers of God's Grace, let them hearken to four things.

SECT. 1.

Beware that you put not off the trial of turning the Grace of, God into Wantonness, too many are hardened in their apparent indignities to the Grace of God, by delaying the trial, as diseased persons put off inquiry into their mortal diseases, and careless Stewards their loose carriages, their unfaithful squandering away their Lord's goods, spend-thrift Tradesmen the crackle Estates, yet though the open, loose, doctrinal, and practical enemies of God's Grace never try themselves whether they have evidently turned the Gospel Antidotes into poison, and in open hostility opposed that Grace they seemed to own, yet God tries them every moment: possibly, Reader, thou art the gross profaner of God's Grace, if thou canst hardly be persuaded, thou art such a notorious Libertine as indeed thou art, I beseech thee take some pains with thine own precious soul, that this dreadful stain and guilt may be purged and pardoned. O that I could on my knees, passionately beg it at the Throne of Grace, that thou wouldst see the foul ugly countenance of thy notorious loose heart and life, in the large glass set before thee. I beseech thee in the name of the Lord Jesus, for God's sake, whose Grace thou hast depraved, for Christ's sake, who so dearly bought Grace thou hast despised, for the Spirits sake, whose gracious motions thou hast resisted, for the Gospel sake, whose gracious Call thou hast refused, for thy Souls sake, which will infallibly be damned, if thou dost not repent of thy most evident Abuse of Grace. Study the eleven Sections of the tenth Chapter of this Treatise, read them not over slightly, mingle them, fortify them with Faith, that they are real Truths, never leave questioning thy Soul, Thus, Soul! Art not thou guilty? Is not this charge drawn up against thee? O thou art guilty, thou art guilty, Art thou cast in the Court of Conscience for a wicked wanton Libertine? Then further I entreat thee, never leave the sad thoughts of thy woeful estate, till they work on thee fear and trembling, and then further awaken thy secure heart with these sad, what iff's? What if thou shouldst die suddenly? What if thou shouldst shortly be forced into the presence of thine angry Judge, whose Grace thou hast many thousand times desperately abused? What if now I resist the moving's of the Spirit of Grace, and he never stir up a thought of Repentance in me more? What if in the other World the avenging remembrance of my wanton sporting's in sin and mocking my plain dealing instructors, more torment my wounded conscience, than all the Tortures of Tyrants have tender bodies? What if God laugh at my destruction who have laughed at the Counsels of Reformation? Then go further, and thus upbraid thyself, saying, O monster of men and Women! O wonder the Earth hath not swallowed me up quick, as weary of such a burden! O marvel that I am not in Hell! O fool! O wretch! O beast! O mad one! Worse than a Devil! He never had the time nor offer of Grace, The grace of God teacheth to deny ungodliness: I have an Atheistical heart, and have led an ungoldly life; the grace of God teacheth to deny worldly lusts, and I have made provisions for them and pampered them; the Grace of God teacheth to live godly, but I have been so far from leading a godly life, that I have not only hated the power, but the form of godliness in my family, The grace of God teacheth to live righteously, but I am guilty of unrighteous dealings, with my neighbors name and estate, The grace of God teacheth to live soberly, but I have been a wanton intemperate Glutton and Drunkard, and an unclean incontinent person, if these thoughts, and such as these O loose Reader, shall put in thee resolves in the strength of Christ to repent of the worst of pardonable sins, the gross Abuse of Grace, if they shall bring thee on thy knees, if thou shalt cry mightily to God, to repent to give thee a better heart, to honor that Grace of God and Jesus Christ which alone must save thee, if ever thou be saved, when thou shalt lie on thy Death Bed, thou wilt never repent of following this Counsel, delay not to search, try and amend thy loose heart and life, lest thy Libertinism prove thine everlasting ruin.

SECT. 2.

2. Take heed of denying the proof of gross affronts to God's grace, such as have been named, herein the guilty plead innocent, though they oppose Gospel merits and mercies, to calling upon God, they will say they though they do not, though the Grace they pray for be never received into their hearts, nor is seen in their lives, yet think they, yea they affirm the contrary, though they shroud unrighteous and oppressive courses, under the Grace of God, they will not own the charge, though Lord have mercy on me, and God give me his Grace, be thought daily satisfaction for daily reigning sins in their account, yet this will not be believed, and so other symptoms of palpable wrong to God's grace, are rarely credited. This wickedness was among the Jews, though the manifest tokens of impiety and cruelty were upon them they denied it, the Prophet was put to it to convince their injuries to God's grace, in abusing the Prophets their soul Physicians, by ocular demonstrations, the Thief is ashamed when he is found, so the Jews were taken in the open acts of wickedness, Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor Innocents, Jer. 2.26. As innocent Blood on the outside of the Murderers garments, demonstrates cruelty; so their open butchering of the Prophets, and yet thou sayest, I am innocent, v.35. Again, How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim, Jer. 2.23. Thus the open enemies of God's grace, that will not be persuaded, though they be persuaded they are guilty, are impudent deniers of their wickedness, as Thieves and Murderers deprehended in the Fact, like Frantic men in a Fever, that talk idly, rage, have scalding flesh, spirits inflamed, cannot sleep, and yet say they are well; like men that have the Plague sores in their faces and hands too, very visible, yet deny the infection: Take heed of denying the palpable symptoms of wronging God's grace: This mischief comes on it. As the mortally diseased, that denies his danger, will not seek out for, nor welcome the Physician, so nor these be capable of healing grace.

SECT. 3.

3. See to it that you slight not the conviction: It is a small matter to offer open injury to God's grace? Is it a light matter to have the fearful marks of the spiritual and eternal death, without sound repentance? Is it the manner of condemned persons slight the convictions of death? Wantons before it, are serious spirit-smitten, and wounded after it. When Physicians tell their Patients they are dead in their disease, if such and such means be not used and blessed; Are not men usually deeply affected with such sad news? O sinner, thou hast the gross Characters of abusing grace upon thee! Thou hast the visible marks of death upon thee! The Lord affect thine heart with thy condition, that thou mayest see it, be converted, and repent.

SECT. 4.

4. Refuse not to put sad and serious questions to thy soul, these eight especially.

1. Question. Shall I make a mock of God and Christ? This I do, If I profess myself a friend of Grace, and kick against it, and say, Hail Master, to Christ the Author of Grace, and betray the honor and power of Grace. I am one of those mockers the Apostle Peter and Jude prophesied of, May not God mock at my destruction, surely he scorns the scorner, Prov. 3.24.

2. Question. Shall I be the worst of enemies? David charged his pretended friends, with higher guilt then his open enemies, Psalm 55.14. Christ will not bear it, that his name should be wounded in the House of his friends. The Duke of Florence said, he read, He was to forgive his enemies, not his friends. Turks, Infidels, are not such deeply guilty enemies against Jesus Christ, as profane Christians, that openly abuse his Gospel-grace, and Baptismal-mercy. Such friends, without deep Humiliation and Repentance, Christ will not forgive. When Judas profanely ushered in his open Treason against his professed Lord, with a Hail Master, and a kiss, Matth. 26.49. Christ's immediate word was (Friend) And Jesus said unto him, Friend, Wherefore art thou come? v.5 c. As if he had said, I am betrayed by a professed Friend; A term of Exprobration and just Condemnation. Christ forgave not this false Friend: He died impenitently in the abuse of his grace, and had not Faith to believe his betrayed innocent blood should heal the Traitor.

3. Question. Shall I have the heaviest wrath in Hell? Capernaum, Bethsaida 's high abuse of Grace, should have more intolerable vengeance, then Sodom's wantonness against nature, Mat. 10.15. The least of Hell will be intolerable. If I perish under gross abuse of Grace, the Oven of Eternal fiery Wrath will be heated seven times hotter for me, then for Heathens: Ah soul-hater, and self-destroyer! Shall I cast myself into hottest eternal flames?

4. Question. Shall my mouth be stopped in the accounting-day? Can these thoughts be born without Spirit-woundings, when enlightened conscience shall say, I wanted not offered convincing means, of the necessity, beauty, advantage of Grace: I hated the life of grace, and consumed the time of grace, in playing the wanton, not working by the light of grace: All under means of grace, are invited to the Gospel Wedding-feast of the Son of God, and to come in fitting Wedding-clothes, that the Feast-maker and the Feast be not disparaged. Every guest pretends to come handsome, in sitting Ornaments; but the abusive guest that is found without his Wedding-garment, will be speechless, Matth. 22.12, 15. This Wedding-garment is parti-colored, red, and white; Red, in the Blood of the Lamb; White, in the sanctifying grace of the Spirit.

5. Question. Shall I be kicking against the Bowels of mercy? It was a sad charge, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me, Isa. 1.2. Is there nothing for wanton feet to spurn at, but a Fathers Bowels? Do you say, Our Father which art in Heaven? And whenever you say so, profess God your Father, and spit in his loving face, <H&G>. What thou my Son, Caesar's Son, stab him in the Senate? Shall God's Sons, in large profession, stab his name, and cause him to be reproached in the world, by gross abuse of his grace?

6. Question. Shall I make sport and triumph for Devils? It was David's grief, by Saul and Jonathan's death, the uncircumcised Philistines would rejoice and triumph, 2 Sam. 1.20. The uncircumcised, infernal Philistines, rejoice and triumph at the wrongs of grace. David's enemies watched for, and were glad at heart, at his halting, Psal. 38.16, 17. His welfare was their grief, his falls their Songs: These invisible enemies of Mankind, triumph, when any that own the Christian name, and the grace of the Gospel, grossly profane both.

7. Question. Shall I tread underfoot the Son of God? Heb. 10.29. Strong, thriving, wanton lusts, are the impure feet, that tread underfoot the Son of God, in his humbling Incarnation, who came into the world, to destroy the works of the Devil, in his bitter Passion; who died as a Ransom, to redeem from the reign of his Sin, in his Sovereign Dominion; who is a ruling Lord over all he saves: The gross abuse of his Grace, plainly, what in it lieth, declares that he was Man in vain, died in vain, and that he is but a Precarious titular Lord and King.

8. Question. How shall I look the Judge in the face? The time is coming, when he shall appear in terrible flames of Wrath: How dreadfully will he judge, when the precious ends wherefore in his Fathers Counsel, and his own Covenant, he was judged to death, are not obtained, but abused? If David commenced a War against Hanun, the King of the Ammonites, because he abused the Message and Messengers of kindness, sent in Embassage to comfort him; who instead of loving entertainment, were shaved, had their Garments cut off in the midst, shamefully and ungratefully dismissed, 1 Chron. 19.4. What a dreadful and eternal War will the Lord Jesus commence against those Hanunites, unworthy the name Christian, who abuse the Messages and Messengers of Gospel-kindness and grace, to open, profane licentiousness?

Lay all these Queries to heart, and let them stick on, O grossly loose Reader! Till they have produced Fears, Astonishments, Prayers for Amendment, and Resolutions, by the help of God's grace, not to live a notorious Libertine for the future, against the call and honor of Grace.

SECT. 5.

2. Use of Caution, is concerning the close wronging of God's grace.

1. Take heed of wresting Gospel-grace, to the allowance of the least sin: Holy Paul durst not do it in his own person. The grace of God was abundant in him through Faith and Love, 1 Tim. 1.14, and though through the power of this grace, he was no absolute Perfectist, yet a universal Enemy of sin, the root and branches of it, least and greatest had his disallowance and abhorrence, Rom. 7.15. David too, that had a large share in God's grace, his sweet experience, Thou art my Portion, O Lord, Psal. 119.57. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, according to thy word, 65, was so devoted to the fear of God, 38, as this produced an hatred of vain thoughts, 113, and every false way, 128, and therefore hid God's Word in his heart, that he might not in the least willingly sin against him: The choice subject of saving grace may not continue in the least sin, because grace abounds: When Believers find inward persuasion in their spirits, to adventure on little sins, on vain thoughts, small inordination in Creature-desires and affections, yielding to dullness and deadness in Holy Duties, pride of Apparel, self-lifting thoughts of spiritual Precedency: This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth them, Gal. 5.8. The grace of God doeth neither father nor nurse the least sin, but commands and enables to be holy in all manner of conversation.

SECT. 6.

2. Beware of judging wantonness against Grace, by a false rule: The example of the best, Others good Opinion, The judgment of thine own heart, are not true Rules to judge abuse of God's grace by.

1. Not the example of the best: Though the Apostle had the Philippians be followers of him and them that traced the Apostles steps, Phil. 3.17, yet elsewhere he limits his counsel, Be ye followers of me, as I am of Christ, 1 Cor. 11.1. They are both joined, 1 Thess. 1.6. Ye became followers of us, and of the Lord; of us, as we followed the Lord: The Lord is sub-joined to correct the easy and common error of following the best of men; sometimes in Doctrinal, sometimes in practical Error. Even Paul, the brightest Star in the Churches Firmament, had his Eclipse: He is not to be followed in all things; though the wariest goer, he stepped awry: He that wrote in his Epistles against bitterness of spirit, yet in the difference between him and Barnabas, discovered therein some distemper: Barnabas would have had Mark go with Paul to visit the Brethren in every City, where they had Preached the Word, but Paul refused his Company, and the contention was sharp between them, Acts 15.39, there was a Paroxism, a bitter fit between them. These golden Cisterns, Paul and Barnabas, that were wont to send out sweet Waters, now sent out bitter: Barnabas, a Son of Consolation, was in too hot contention; Paul, a man of meekness, sweetness, gentleness, whose tongue usually dropped as the Honey-comb, now breathed gall. Follow the eminentest of Saints in some things, you will wrong the grace of God: 'It is one of Satan's persuasive wiles: Do you not see such choice servants of God speak and do such things, use such Fashions and worldly delights? No danger in this and that Dish, they are your Tasters: If the Gestures, words and actions of the best, be well weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary, they will sometimes be found too light, too wanton: So the Thessalonians were examples to all the Believers in Macedonia and Achaia, 1 Thess. 1.7, not in everything, but in their successful sound of the Gospel-Trumpet, ver. 8, and in their eminent reforming-faith, turning them from Idols unto God; but examine some of these Converts in other things, and they were to be declined, not followed: We hear there are some, that walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies, 2 Thess. 3.13. Workers round about (as the word imports) the round of whose life was to carry tales, discontented at their condition, living on others Purses, casting off industry in their particular Calling, accounting their idleness holiness; and under pretense of the Gospel, (like the late upstart Sect) and obedience to the spirit, living lazily: Now did Satan lay the seed of idle Monasteries, under color of heavenly conversation, laying by earthly Callings and Relations: The best of men are no Adequate rule of life: Their fairest Copies have some blurs: Their face of conversation, like the Moons, hath some sports: Their infirmities are to comfort the disconsolate in their falls, not to Patronize the least presumption.

2. Not others good opinion: The most acute Christian cannot look into thy heart, and see all the wanton pranks there, that prove hidden Libertinism: Thou mayest have a serious, accurate outside, and a loose inside; be like some Houses, fair without, but sluttish within: After they that see thee, judge thee exact, thou hast no reason to rest in their charity, when thy conscience either doth, or may tell thee, thou hast a filthy heart: Besides, beholders of thee may be unfaithful, and to please thee, displease God; see wantonness in thee, and either bury it in silence, or cover it with flattery, and bely their opinion of thee; praise thee strict, when they know thee loose, and be a false glass to represent thine outward ill behavior, either through cowardice or advantage: Others good opinion, is no true rule to judge of wantonness in the matters of grace.

3. Not the judgment of thine own heart: It is deceitful, and not more dangerous then foolish, to rest in it: What wise man will trust in a common infamous Knave? The old man, in the best of men, is a Wanton and Impostor: It will call wickedness, Saint-ship; looseness, strictness; deformity, beauty; confusion, order; distemper, health; the flesh, the spirit; delusions of Satan, the impulses of the holy Spirit: 'It is easy and frequent, to misconstrue loose passion, zeal, and self-glory, for God's glory: In judging the abuses of God's grace, lean not to thine own understanding, measure all by the golden line of the Sanctuary.

SECT. 7.

3. After the sweetest taste of God's grace, fear the danger of wantonness: Beware of security, after inward Tranquility. After Aaron and the Israelites had pleased and filled themselves, at their Idolatrous Feast, they played the Wantons, They sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play, Exod. 12.6. It is too sad experience, after the Israel of God have pleased and refreshed themselves in Gospel-feasts, they play the Wantons, betray their nakedness, intemperately frolic about the Creatures, leap over Gospel-hedges, are irregular in lawful things, yea sometimes adventure on unlawful, and all Cum Privilegio, under the favorable allowance of sweet grace: Thus the Corinthians promoted in Temporals and Spirituals, rich in goods, gifts, and conceited graces; when full, and reigning as Kings, played the Wantons in haughty puffing's, in vainglorious boastings, in crying up some, in decrying others, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, Are ye not carnal? 1 Cor. 4, v.6, 7, 18, 19.1 Cor. 3, 3, 4. I shall not cast such dirt on the fair face of grace, nor so asperse the Generation of the Righteous, as to say, or stain my soul with such a thought, that the abuse of grace, is the lesson Grace teacheth: 'It is denying, not fulfilling worldly Lusts which grace teacheth: Libertinism is a Bastard Issue, laid at the door of Grace, which it neither can, nor will father. The Generation of the righteous, as such, shut the doors unto, but open not to wanton enticements: Looseness from Gospel-Principles, and against them, is the fruit of the flesh, nor the spirit.

SECT. 8.

4. Be not content with a slight humiliation, for close abuse When Moses told the Israelites of their murmuring against God, despising Canaan's pleasant Land, and wanton whoredoms, Numb. 14.27, 31, 33. They mourned greatly, 39. In the sense of God's wrath, so Christian, when thou readest over the forementioned symptoms, of less discerned, though abominable wrongs of God's grace, mourn greatly for them. If the Apostle Paul, that could not openly be charged with common abusing grace, that felt the inward ordinary power of it in his soul, that found in sweet experience the grace of God was not in vain, 1 Cor. 15.10, that exercised a conscience void of offense to God and man, yet in passionate exclamation, cried out, O wretched man, for the remains of sin, which the glorious grace of God kept under, and still abated, what cause, O believers, have you not in light transient touches of grief, but abiding sorrows, to bewail the close indignities you have put upon the grace of god.

CHAPTER XIII.

Showing the Difference between wronging the Grace of God in the regenerate and unregenerate.

Caution is touching the difference between the wronging of God's grace in the regenerate and unregenerate think not that the spot of Gods children and the Devils is alike, as the same disease is in several persons, but not in the same manner, degree, and event, so the same sin, Abuse of Grace, is exceedingly diversified in gracious and ungodly persons: the difference lies in five things.

SECT. 1.

1. Difference, The Abuse of God's Grace in a child of God is only from the unregenerate part, that is kept under by the prevailing dominion of grace, so that though the corrupt part make sudden, frequent, and sad captivating, spoiling invasions, as a Tyrant, yet it reigns not as a King. Indeed carnal Lust in a gracious Soul, with vehement hostility and fury doth set upon the law of God and the pious will, in which respect the Apostle giveth it two titles, calling its Tyrannical Government a Rebelling and captivating Law, Rom. 7.23. Whereby its fierce rage and hot assaults are expressed, yet in the same soul dwelleth as well a King as a Tyrant; and as a Puissant King, often beats down, and at length quite ruins the forces of a Tyrant, so doth the sweet and mighty government of grace, keep under, weaken, and in conclusion quite destroy the Tyranny of Corruption. The Denomination followeth the better part, Ye are under Grace, Rom. 6.14. It is spoken of the holy Romans, who yet had the onsets and relics of sin, because the Abuse of grace is not the offspring of grace but sin, the humble Christian injurious to God's grace, may say with the Apostle, Not I, but sin that dwells in me, Rom. 7.17. Paul said, not he, because not wholly he, said one, we may say not chief he, as he was gracious, and grace was commander in chief, he sinned not so against God, but as corruption was in him like a lurking secret, traitor in a garrison. But the Abuse of grace in a child of the Devil, is from total unregeneracy, the full Reign of corruption grace, hath no part in him to enter a Protest, and to oppose the wrongs of grace, the whole man freely and fully resigns up the keys to loose wanton lusts, the agreement is full like a Kingdoms, where the King and Subjects are all of a mind, the wholly carnal yield their Members servants to uncleanness and iniquity, Rom. 6.19. Yea their hearts, They set their heart on their iniquity, Hos. 4.8. Their heart is fully set to do evil, Eccles. 8.12. Full of evil, Eccl. 9.7. Why hath Satan filled thy heart? Act. 5.3. The whole world lies in wickedness, 1 Joh. 5.19. It is in spiritual as in corporal diseases: One man's sickness is from the blood in part corrupt, when the main mass is pure, another's sickness is from the blood wholly corrupt, when the whole Mass is infected. A child of God hath this disease of wronging grace from a corrupt part, when the main is sound, a child of the Devil wrongs grace, wholly corrupt heart, when the whole Mass is defiled.

SECT. 2.

2. Difference. A gracious man abuseth grace, and is deeply humbled for it. David, Hezekiah, Peter abused it, and it cost them bitter mourning and tears. A graceless person wrongs grace, and is hardened in it, grieves not for it, Jer. 5.3. It troubles him not, though he sin freely and fully upon the score of grace. It is in this case as it is with two children; one is a towardly melting child, that hath wronged his dear Parents, and being convinced of it, thus cries out; O wretch that I was, what have I done? I have abused my dear Father, that hath cared for me, maintained me, brought me up, instructed me with tears. Ah vile creature! I wronged my Mother, my dear Mother that bare me, that travelled in pains for me, that mourned over me, that had bowels yearning on me, that thought nothing too much for me. Another child, cross, stubborn, careless, wrongs his Parents, knows it, but without a sigh, a tear, never lays it to heart. So it is with a soft-hearted, melting spirited child of God, he looks over all the Indignities and Indecencies against his dear Lord, with a loaden heart and weeping eyes: But a rocky, Adamantine child of the Devil loads the Lord with daily abuses, and mourns not under it.

SECT. 3.

3. Difference. A servant of God that wrongs grace, watcheth his heart, Luke 11.37, is the happy one that is found watching, he hath his eyes in his head to see the like dangers, Eccles. 2.14, and prevent them. But a servant of sin abuseth grace, and his reigning lusts may do it as often as they please, he notes it not, nor cares to do it. Sleep not as do others, but watch and be sober, 1 Thes. 5.6. Strongly implying the servants of sin are wantons, but like men in a deep sleep watch it not. The difference is here as in two servants; The one over saucy, and loose hath abused his loving Master, seeth his error, watcheth over his heart, lest he do so again; the other disrespectful, and stubbornly willful, hath once and again wronged his goodness, and watcheth not his heart and temptations, but carelessly perseveres in abuses. Such is the disagreement between a servant of God and sin, in the injury of grace.

SECT. 4.

4. Difference. A Regenerate man abuseth the grace of God, and doth it less and less. He finds power from grace to honor grace, more than formerly. The spirit lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace, Jam. 4.6. So that the renewed Christian is not carried by the old envious spirit that dwells in him, but by a more gracious spirit given unto him. The old affronts to grace pass away, and new respects and subjections to it are afforded, 2 Cor. 5.

When a real convert by, and to the grace of God, hath seen what dishonors he hath put upon grace, then he says it is sufficient (yea too much) that I have walked in wantonness, lusts, excess of riot, 1 Pet. 4.3, 4. I dare do so no more. Take this as a sure evidence of the truth of grace. He that is convinced of abusing it, will get power over it, and be less in it. But now an unregenerate man abuseth the grace of God, and doth it more and more. He that is unjust and filthy will be so still, Rev. 22.11, ye will revolt more and more, Isa. 1.5. Evil men under the Abuse of grace will wax worse and worse, 2 Tim. 3.13, and under the form of godliness increase the power of wickedness, 2 Tim. 3.5, continue in sin because grace abounds, Rom. 6.1. It is here also as it is with two men that abuse their friends. One doth it, and seeth the ungrateful disingenuity of it, and mends the fault; another doth it, and loads his dear friend with more disgraceful insolencies. So a gracious man wrongs his best friend Jesus Christ, and says of his abuses, as Ephraim of his Idols, what have I to do anymore with them? A graceless Professor wrongs the Lord Jesus, his owned friend, and multiplies still ungrateful injuries.

SECT. 5.

5. Difference. A real Christian wrongs God's grace, and as it is repented of, so it is pardoned. This iniquity proves not his ruin. There is pardoning grace for the abuses of pardoning grace. The blood of Christ washes away believers wanton abuses of the blood of Christ. Gospel grace, like the Sun, blots out the thin and thick clouds of sin. A pretended Christian wrongs God's grace, and as he hath no repentance, so no pardon. He is not cleansed by the blood of sprinkling, that hath been without ceasing and remorse, abused by a profane wanton heart and loose life. The contrary events of Abusing God's grace, are like the different issue of two Subjects abusing their King: The one doth it, is humbled for it, accepted, and pardoned; the other doth it, is hardened, rejected and hanged. Be veiled, pardoned Abuses of grace, hinders not heirs of glory from their eternal Inheritance. Unreformed wrongs of grace in vessels of wrath, not blotted out by the blood of Christ will cast them into hell.

CHAPTER XIV.

Containing a Use of Exhortation.

5. Use is Exhortation in these things. Observe the [Use 5] helps to escape this great sin, the Abuse of God's grace. Bless God for Preservation. Be always jealous of the sin, long for a riddance from it, and joy in the hope of it.

SECT. 1.

1. Learn of the gracious and precious heart and life of Jesus Christ. Fullness of grace dwelt personally in him. He never in the least played the wanton with his Fathers grace; sought not himself in pleasing his own will nor glory, had nothing of the loose spirit of the world in him, was not taken with its empty pomp's, ever went about doing good, Acts 10.38, was his Father and his Churches faithful servant, Isa. 42.1, busy in saving work, while in the flesh, Luk. 2.49, wrought by, did not idle and play away his light, Joh. 9.4, was solid, weighty, serious, in all his affairs with God and men. To be still writing after his fair copy, would mend the loose Errata of Christians lives. 'It is the Apostles counsel, Let us walk decently, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, Rom. 13.13. If it be said how? the next words show, But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, v.14. Christ is two ways put on: By Justification, when the chief Robe of his imputed Righteousness is put on; and by Imitation, when the Garments of his communicable graces are put on; Put on as the Elect of God, bowels of mercy, kindness, &c. Col. 3.12. Did we learn the truth as it is in Jesus, and trace the steps of his Faithfulness, Zeal, Meekness, Humility, Heavenly mindedness, Divine communion, Self-denial, Spirituality, we neither should, nor could be such wantons with the Gospel, as our loose spirits tempt us to do. Christian set before thee the heavenly purity, gravity, solidity of the Lord Jesus, it will awe thy daring, insolent spirit. What is Christianity but a transcript from the original copy Jesus Christ? Should not servants that go in their Masters Livery, do his work? Really put on the clothes of Heaven, and thou wilt not do the work of Hell. What a horrid incongruity is it to pretend to be like Christ, and act like the Devil? The lazy Philosopher talked of virtue, but did it not; and the lazy Christian can discourse of the grace of Christ, and act it not. As the Greeks professed Philosophy, so do Libertines Christianity. The real imitation of Jesus Christ would be a prevention of looseness. These daily thoughts would do well; I am a professed Disciple of Christ, Did he think as I think? Reason as I do? Were his affections like mine? Did such words come from his mouth? Were such designs driven by him?

SECT. 2.

2. Help is a cleansed purged heart. Legal pollutions, the Types of Moral, debarred from serving the holy God. An impure heart serves not God, but abuseth him. The purging of the conscience from dead works, and serving the living God, are put together. As well may a dead man serve a living Prince, as a polluted heart with dead works, serve the living God. To the pure all things are pure, to the impure all things are in their use impure, Tit. 1.15. An impure heart makes an impure use of the holy God, his Prayers, Confessions, Confidences, Hopes are impure, whose heart is so. Cleanse your hearts, said James, then draw nigh to God, Jam. 4.8. It is with a pure heart as with a pure fountain, it will work out mire and dirt. It is with a clean heart as with a clean stomach, it turns good meat into nourishment, not ill humor. Christian, purge thy heart by the wholesome working Physick of God's grace, of self-love, worldly lusts, voluptuousness, covetous, proud, filthy desires, vain-glory, vanity of mind, folly, carnal security, and then wholesome meat, the food of blessed Angels, will not accidentally prove as hurtful to thee as the carrion food of Devils. 'It is a sweet truth, Believers draw nigh to God by the blood of Christ, Ephes. 2.13. Without a bloody screen God would be a consuming fire to every sinner for the least sin. But what doth the impure unwashen heart count of the blood of the Covenant, but as an unholy thing, Heb. 10.29, when not used in a way of gracious cleansing, but emboldening allowance of sin? A cleansed heart will neither profane the blood, spirit, nor word of Christ.

SECT. 3.

3. Help is the fear of God. It is a Sovereign remedy against all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 2 Cor. 7. It beats off Satan's insinuations, to wanton Thoughts, Reasonings, Glances, Affections. Joseph would not hearken to his wanton Mistress, Shall I commit this great wickedness, and sin against God? Overcame the loose temptation, Gen. 39.9. When the flesh grows wanton, as it is ever apt to do, it is good to look upon the sad monuments of God's wrath, his judgments, and so to hedge up sins way with thorns. David made this holy use of them, My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments, Ps. 119.120. They cast a saving fear on pious minds, that teach to decline ruinous sins. God's fear is like a stout, faithful Porter, that will not suffer the Kings Enemies to come within his Court-Like a resolute Steward that suppresseth loose misrule within his House: These wanton Professors in the Text, wanted the fear of God, They feasted without fear, v.12, and they ungraciously abused the grace of God: Till men that have banished the fear of God out of their hearts, entertain it, they will never mend their loose hearts and lives. Christian, when thou art tempted to abuse God's grace, or either in a gross or close way, set the fear of God before thee, and say with thyself, The Lord seeth me now wronging his grace, by praying for that grace I care not for, I cannot abide to see in another, by sheltering injustice under his grace, by shamelessness in the sense of acknowledged sins, by insensibleness of others sufferings, by unimproving the talents of his gifts and graces; Shall I not be afraid to wrong the grace of God in his presence? Are not Kings Favorites afraid to abuse his goodness in his presence, and good children afraid to be saucy in their Parents eyes? Wantonness, and the holy fear of God, are inconsistent: We never are boldly irreverent, but looseness ensues it: The fear of God in the heart, will not allow departure from him.

SECT. 4.

4. Help is the Christian watch: It is a great advantage to holy sobriety that it keeps from wantonness, both in worldly and Spiritual things: Watch, and be sober, 1 Thess. 5.6. Vigilance and Sobriety, Drunkenness and Sleeping, are fitly joined: Tenebrarum Cives, The dark Citizens of Satan's Kingdom, sleep in stupidity of Spirit, incogitancy, madness, and security, and then they are drunk with carnal Lusts, Affections, Delights, Covetousness, Pride and Passion; whereas a perpetual watchful mind, like a Soldier in duty, would prevent that looseness, that exposeth to the enemy. The watchful adversary, soon surpriseth the riotous, drowsy Soldier in his Quarters, and observing Satan the loose sleepy Professor: The wanton Tongue needs a watch, lest it vent indecent Impieties and Impurities; Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips, Psal. 141.3. The wanton ear needs a watch, lest from a diseased itch, not enduring sound Doctrine, it turn from the truth to fables; watch against this, tis Paul's counsel to Timothy, 2 Tim. 4.3, 4, 5. Delicate itching ears, must have scratching Doctrine, to please carnal Lusts, and hereby sound truth is loathed and contemned. It is the common bane of Sermons, Humor, not Health, carries away the credit: And loose Appetites are more for delicate sauce, then wholesome food: Not the goodness, but the newness and fineness of the Diet and Cook is regarded: The wanton eye needs watching, lest it be a Casement to let in Vanity: I made a Covenant with mine eyes, why then should I think upon a maid, Job 31.1, much less on another's Wife, to tempt to wanton lust; I bridled mine eyes, that it should neither there behold sin, nor the baits of sin. The wanton heart needs watching; without this inward guard, the outward watch of the senses is in vain. A loose heart is so ingenuous, it can shape the Idea 's of wickedness. The profane heart of a blind man may burn in lust; while the outward doors are locked and barred, the unguarded Chambers of the heart may be lascivious: Sound Christianity is severe and difficult, it alloweth no sleeping minds in secure sinning in worldly ensnarement's, in injuries to the Gospel. That sleep that chains up the senses, must not close up the eyes of the mind. The heart may be carnally and spiritually wanton, when the Body sleeps: 'Tis good to pray, that spiritual wickedness may not act in natures sleep: Noisome dreams, secret impurities, are the issues of Original sin, and Satan's injections. Keep a strict watch against the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The resolved vigilant Steward, prevents much loose disorder in the Family, and the resolved watchful Christian in his soul.

SECT. 5.

5. Help is Prayer in the Holy Ghost: Praying always was Christ's remedy against the wanton excesses of the world, Luke 21.36. It is good against Libertinism in the Church; It casts out the unclean Spirit, Matth. 17.21. It will cast out unclean temptation: Pray that you enter not into it, that neither you tempt temptation, nor temptation tempt you: To pray wantonly, or through wantonness not to pray at all, is the ready way to open the door to all lasciviousness of flesh and spirit. Fit it is that he perish under loose temptation, that either slightly, or not at all, seeks for a defense, our continual help in Grace. No wonder we have it not, when we ask it not, or amiss. The Apostle Jude propounded it as safe, sovereign counsel, to avoid the wantons in the Text, But you beloved, praying in the Holy Ghost, &c. Set Grace awork in Divine, Holy Prayer: Run to your strong hold: God's grace is able to keep you from the abuses of it. It was David's practice, uphold me according to thy Word, Psalm 119.116. Hold me up, and I shall be safe, 117. I fly unto thee, Psalm 143.9. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, Psalm 119.37. Incline not mine heart to covetousness, v.36.

SECT. 6.

6. Help is walking in the Spirit, a safe Direction: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, Gal. 5.16. To be spiritually minded is life, Rom. 8, ye purified your heart by the spirit, 1 Pet. 1.22. The spirit mortifieth the deeds of the body, Rom. 8.13. Let us walk in the spirit, not desirous of vain glory; provoking, envying one another, Gal. 5.25, 26. He that hath not the spirit of Christ, (saith one) belongs not to him, although he should a thousand times over glory he is a Christian: Where Christ with his Spirit dwelleth, there is a proof of his inhabitation, the guidance of his Spirit is followed, the body of sin is gradually destroyed: The spirits walks are clean principles, are holy motions, are pure: Much wantonness in Religion is entertained from the spirits allowance, and is guilty of this real blasphemy, as if the holy Spirit were an unclean one: It is not because men live in the Spirit, but because they live not, that they live and speak so loosely, in filthy Ranterism, in odious Libertinism. When the Apostle prayed that the Colossians might be filled with all spiritual Wisdom and Understanding, have enlightened minds, and renewed wills and affections, Col. 1.9, his meaning was, that they might walk holily and strictly, not uncleanly and loosely, That ye might walk worthy of the Lord, unto all well-pleasing, ver. 10, not by a Popish worthiness of Merit, but by a Gospel-worthiness of fitness, decency, and non-repugnance to Gospel-grace, walking worthy a Christians call, Eph. 4.1. Worthy of God, 1 Thess. 2.12. Worthy of the Gospel, Phil. 1.27. All which is done by following the guidance of the spirit, and not serving the lusts of the flesh, which is the fruit of spiritual Wisdom and Understanding: Sensual, not having the spirit, Jude Ep. ver. 19. Will be a condemning evidence, that wanton Sensualists were but pretended Spiritualists, and real Carnalists: The Spirits way, is a way of holiness, a clean way: Impure Libertines never walked in it: Get in it, and the dirty miry paths of the worlds pollutions will be avoided.

SECT. 7.

7. Help is serious thoughts, what it is to crucify lusts: The not understanding of, nor submitting to the crucifying work of grace, is an experienced grand omission in all loose delicate Christians: They choose and like only that Religion, that gives most liberty, ease and life to the flesh: Crucifying grace hath three irksome, terrible, and unpleasing severities, which carnal wisdom and wantonness abhors, Restraint, Pain, and Death.

1. Restraint: The Roman Malefactors that were fastened to the Cross, had not the free use of their members: So when the Body of sin is Crucified, its earthly Members are as it were nailed and fastened to the Wood, that they cannot have liberty to move as formerly: The Spirit never crucifieth, but the flesh is nailed to the Cross, and is compelled to be subject to its dominion.

2. Pain: Piercing with nails, Hanging, bleeding on the Cross, was a tormenting penalty; when the Grace of God crucifieth, it torments the flesh: Its spiritual arms puts corruption to pain: When it is vexed and afflicted, it is as it should be: No crucifying without pain.

3. Death: The kind of death Christ died, was Crucifixion: He gave up the Ghost on the Cross. Crucifying grace, is killing grace, it at length utterly destroys this grand Malefactor, the old man. The same spirit of grace that is said to crucify, is also said to mortify, Rom. 8. As the Apostle Characterizeth true Christians by this, They have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts, Gal. 5.24, so he exhorts, Mortify your earthly members, Coloss. 3.5. For want of serious and solid pondering, what the hard and rigorous work of Christian Religion is, it gives no liberty to the flesh, but nails it to the Cross of grace, puts it to pain, and at length tortures it to death; it comes to pass, that effeminate, pleasant, carnally jocund, flesh-pampering, professed Christians, in their indulgent wantonness's, are as far off from the severities of repentance, as if they had never read, nor believed Christ was crucified, and that on pain of damnation, the old man must be crucified also. Take this wholesome counsel, O loose Reader! If thou wouldst repent of thy wantonness; Be informed in, and submit to the power of Crucifying grace; when thou art loath to pinion and imprison thy lusts, this is not to crucify: Canst not endure to torment thy covetous, vain-glorious, malicious, unclean, intemperate lusts? This is not to crucify: When thou doest reprieve them, and deliver them, as they that did Barabbas, this is not to crucify: But when corruption would have a large room, restrain it rather; this is crucifying: When thy heart is vexed and grieved to part with a dear lust, it is great inward pain and smart to thee, the rather smite and afflict, deeply wound thy corrupt nature; this is to Crucify: When it is death to thee to deny thy wisdom, will, and part with thy money, delights, carnal ease, and interests, yet to deny these things, this is to Crucify. As Papists deal with their Crucifixes, they please themselves with a painted Crucifix, that have not the virtue of Christ crucified in their hearts and lives: So loose Protestants have a fancy Crucifix, imagine their old man is crucified, not a real Crucifix: Their flesh is not at all crucified in their spirits and conversations.

SECT. 8.

8. Help is a thankful spirit: It becomes the upright to be thankful. Sincerity is the luster and glory of every grace. Hypocrisy keeps mercy, returns it not; uprightness will: Can that heart be upright in itself, that returns sin for grace, nay, makes grace to serve and lacquey to sin? Do ye thus requite the Lord, O ye foolish people and unwise? Deut. 32.6. Do you give him Straw for Pearls, Dirt for Gold? Are rebellions good thanks for pardons? Are sparing no allowances to Lusts, good answers of sparing Grace? Is long-sinning with a high hand, without remorse, a good requital to longsuffering grace? Deal you ingenuously with the despised and rejected offers of grace, when at the same time you close with the offers of sin? Deal you kindly with the gifting, purifying, sealing spirit of Grace, when you turn you turn your back upon him, and betray a spirit of pride, worldliness, and security? Well doth the Apostle join together, Unthankful and Unholy: The Libertine is unthankful and unholy: The Gentiles were unthankful, and wantons against nature: Pretended Christians are unthankful, and wantons against Grace: That thanks for the infinite goodness of God in Christ, that would give up body and soul a reasonable sacrifice unto God, would not dishonor the dominion of Christ, and Temples of the spirit, by loose wantonness: Study and practice that of the Apostle, What soever you do, in Word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, and the father by him, Col. 3.17. And this will secure against looseness in the duties of our Relations, worldly enjoyments, Ordinances of Grace, Talents committed to us.

SECT. 9.

9. Help is godly sorrow: Those ill humors that are contracted by carnal mirth, godly sorrow will help to cure; as in Nature, so in grace contraries cure: Fasting is one remedy of distempering feasts: Godly sorrow is the spirits sack-cloth and fast for sin: When it wrought in the Corinthians repentance, it wrought carefulness, which shook off security, and fear of relapse into the old sin by fresh temptation: By the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better, Eccles. 7.3. True sorrows eat out the love and liking of sin: Men lay not to heart the abuses of grace, and then adventure them: The three principal things that God requires, are Justice, Mercy, Mourning: The last is a singular help to the two first: Could we walk mournfully before the Lord, we should love Mercy, and do justly, Mic. 6.8. The Jews were wanton in their marrying Idolatrous Wives, and their mourning ushered in their reformation, Ezra 10.1, 3. Good natured children's ingenuous sorrows for their loose pranks, are Preservatives against like disorders: In Malachi, the practical Atheists did look upon Religion as vain serving God, keeping his Ordinances, and walking mournfully before the Lord of Host, Mal. 3.14. Those mock-God's and loose Libertines, that laugh at mournful walking with God, and are ever irreligious, they keep not his Ordinances, nor serve him at all. The tears of repentance do sweetly water the seed of grace. Zion's mourners are the most thriving Christians. None are further off from the dangerous snares of soul-ruining wantonness, then humble souls that sow in tears: They reap in Grace and Joy, while others that sow in carnal security and delights, reap in sin and wrath. It is told in Gath, and published in Askelon, that many that seemed to set their faces Heavenwards, are loose Libertines. They dare to think, speak, and act, what once to think on would make them tremble: They dare sin without remorse, and count it their perfection: And whence this sad Apostacy? Surely, as in part, from an ungrateful glut of, and formality in the Ordinances of Grace? Partly from the spiritual pride of high attainments, and partly from exchanging the house of mourning for the house of mirth, walking mournfully before the Lord with them, is Apocrypha, sorrow for sin is legal and antiquated: The holy Spirit exhorts rich Wantons to change their mirth into mourning, Jam. 4.9. But what Spirit it is that moves them, to change their mourning into mirth, you may easily guess. It is just with God, that when dissolute ones in sinful hardness have laid by sorrow for sin, in judicial hardness, they should be not more merry, then mad jocund Wantons. The Pulpit is no place. The Sabbath no time to speak vainly. I hope I speak the words of Truth and Soberness, of all the holy frames of the Spirit, I would desire of God in my sinful Pilgrimage of imperfection, this choice gracious endowment, That the top-power of the Spirit in me, might be in the Gospel-humbling's of brokenness of heart and contrition of spirit. Believers are called, should be little ones, Matth. 18.6, are ever best and safest, yea nearest God, when lowest.

SECT. 10.

10. Help is close union to God. The whorish woman at distance from her husband played the wanton, Prov. 7, 19, and impure souls fornicate, when they thrust themselves out of God's presence: wanton spirits distance from God, their choice and delight, Job. 21.14. Is their damnation, Lo they that are afar from thee shall perish, Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee, Psal. 73.27. They that love anything above God, leave Heavens bed of Loves, for Earthly delights, and shall pay dear for their wantonness. The remedy against it was close union to God, But it is good for me to draw nigh to God, 28. As if he had said, Unchaste Fornicators, that leave God the Fountain of living waters for lying vanities, to their eternal loss, shall be indicted for whoredom: but my soul enter not into their secret: though they are Wantons behind God's back, I see it is safe, it is happiness to me to get near his Face, in his presence is Aye, Purity, and Joy: I dare not be loose, while I see him before mine Eyes: will a promoted favorite abuse his Prince, wrong his grace before his Face? The close union of God's Reverence, Love, Purity, Joy, Contentment, Admiration, will not be abusive. The nearer to the Holy God, the further from corruption, as the nearer the fire, the further from cold, the nearer the sun, the further from darkness: it is sinners turning their backs upon God which makes them wantons, the true vision, fruition of, and delectation in God's face is grave, serious, holy, and heavenly. What Christian that ever had sweet tastes and close views of the blessed God, but his experience is sweet testimony, he feared to think, desire, do, say, that evil in close addresses to God, which at other times of distance hath had too sinful allowance. The happiness of the next life will be divine, sweet vision, and union, without darkness and separation, eternal closures between God and souls, will shut out wantonness: so much as there is of spiritual conjunction now, there is provision against sin.

SECT. 11.

11. Help is a constant subduing the first depraved motions to carnal desires and affections, he that denies the first parly, and specious offers of a treacherous enemy, prevents consent: when we give the subtle motions of sin audience, and listen to their pleasing arguments, it is a thousand to one, but we grant them wanton indulgence, and ready obedience: turning the deaf side to the whorish flatteries of sweet corruption, is a sovereign Antidote against Libertinism. Are we sure an enemy knocks at the door, we lock and bar against him, but open not unto him? Spiritual Judgment says, the loose motions of sin knocks at the door, says open not; O my soul! Open not, they are Thieves and Robbers, My Son (saith Solomon) If sinners entice, consent thou not, Prov, 1.10. So say, O my Soul! If that great Pandor to all the Wantons of flesh and spirit, corrupt nature entice, consent thou not: when lust hath conceived in consent, it is ready to bring forth in Execution, Jam. 1.15. Let not the seminal wickedness of Lust in its first motions conceive, and its loose births will be hindered production: while evil inordinate affections begin to kindle and smoke, tis safety and prudence to quench them. A few blown sparks may fire a house, yea a whole street: The flesh is rank, puts forth luxuriant branches of evil desires, by both a sin and punishment, our hereditary vice, corrupt nature, and therefore they are constantly to be cut off by the pruning knife of mortifying Grace: daily putting forth of loose motions, calls for every days pruning: while life lasts, the body of sin is kept under, and consumes, is not quite dead. Bernard gives sweet and safe counsel, diligently to observe, and by a prompt severity, speedily to cut off, the renewing Hydra's heads of sins motions, so soon as they arise.

SECT. 12

12. Help is planting and filling the soul with holy spiritual desires and affections: the field that stands thick with corn, hath no room for rank overgrowing Weeds, the clean vessel that is full of good Liquor, is secured from Mustiness. Souls filled with the Spirit are armed against the temptations and intrusions of the flesh. Carnal desires cannot be suppressed, unless in the room of dangerous affections saving ones be introduced. Cassian saith well, If we desire to thrust evil desires out of our hearts, let us plant spiritual ones in their stead, that the mind being fixed upon them, may always dwell on them, and refuse the snares of present and carnal delights. The more the soul songs and pants after God and Christ, and the Joys of Eternity, the less leisure and pleasure it hath to play the wanton in the pleasures of the creature and sin.

SECT. 13.

13. Help is, Beating down that grand Idol, Carnal Self-love. As the Apostle in setting down the black and sad character, of loose Libertines, that make the last days perilous, begins his prophesy with self-love; Men shall be lovers of themselves; and then sets down a following black Train of carnal Dissoluteness. They shall be (wanton) Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, 2 Tim. 3, 1, 2, 4. Make outside Religion their play, not work, form not power, v.5. Politic engine, not real design. So that power of grace, that destroys this esteemed, adored, sweetest Idol, Self-love, makes excellent provision, against the darling, frolics, impudent attempts, carnal delights of the old man. Spiritual self-loathing is strict and severe, can lay by self in will, wisdom, pleasing, seeking, carnal, self-love, is loose, indulgent, sensual, brutish prostitutes Religion, creatures soul-body, in the service and sacrifice of sweet flesh-pleasing. O the sad, and frequent, carnal love of carnal Gospellers, who above all things love themselves, estimate, relish, and seek nothing but themselves; make themselves their ultimate end, themselves their God? Two Loves (saith Augustine) have made two Cities: Self-love joined with the contempt of God makes the City of the world: The love of God in conjunction with self-loathing, makes the City of God. Dry up the impure vast fountain of carnal self-love, and the filthy streams of dissolute hearts and lives will soon be dried up. 'It is hard to learn this Paradox in Practical Divinity, to find a man's self by losing himself, to love oneself by loathing himself. If self-love be self-losing, then self-denying is self-finding. Voluptuous worldlings must have great estates to riot and feed their lusts; lay by self-love, religious liberality would have larger portions in sensualists estates; less riches would serve their turn. The game of Pleasures, Profits, and Honors, would not with intemperate hot chases be so hunted after. The crucified to self-love would be compassionate forgiving, bear others burdens, and not wantonly rejoice in the miseries of others sins and sufferings.

SECT. 14.

14. Help is the lively Faith and sense of the heavenly country. The spiritual and heavenly expectation of glory, would purge out the rank, corrupt humors of Libertinism, Faith would teach holy Reason thus to argue; Are there such loose Designs, Desires, Affections, Expressions, Actions in Heaven? Will this cockering indulgence to my Lusts fit me for the pure active, reverent delights of heavenly Communion? Am I fit to Honor, Glory, who thus abuse grace? Let the mindful sense (saith one of the heavenly country) stand as door-keeper at the gate of the will, in which carnal desires are wont to dwell; and as one wedge drives out another, so this will drive out loose desire.

SECT. 15.

15. Help is a fervent keeping up of Grace in Exercise. The busy services of Christianity, allow no time to wantonize. The labor of the spiritual man is the Vacation and rest of the carnal part. When the gracious heart is not with the spirit of burning, the flesh freezeth. The standing water putrefies, the running crystal stream is clean and sweet. The active currency of grace, contracts not, or soon purgeth out the muddiness of loose corruption. 'It is constant experience, the most lively exercised Christian in the power of godliness, is ever the strictest observer, and severest mortifier of the dissolute motions of carnal lust. When we read the grace of God was exceeding abundant in the Apostle Paul, in Faith and Love, 1 Tim. 1.14. That to finish his Christian and Ministerial course, he counted not his life dear to him, Act. 20.24. That he exercised a conscience void of offense toward God and men, Act. 24.16. That the care of all the Churches laid on him, 2 Cor. 11.28. That he labored more abundantly than all the Apostles, 1 Cor. 15.10. That he was willing to spend and be spent, 2 Cor. 12.15. Like a burning, consuming candle to light others: That he kept a strict guard over his heart, and was jealous lest abundance of heavenly revelations should be temptations to spiritual pride, 2 Cor. 12.7. It is no wonder we read this choice language of holy austerity, I keep under my body, 1 Cor. 9.27. Not only the body of flesh, lest like an over-fed beast it grow wanton, but the body of sin; The word will bear it, I beat it, I wound it, I make it black and blue. When Lust and the Devil find the active Christian occupied in heavenly Traffick, and Negotiation, they want that audience, indulgence, and allowance, which are ever wont to be granted out to them from either quite dead and graceless Christians, or gracious, slothful, sleeping ones.

SECT. 16.

16. Help is the hope of Glory. It purifies the heart from the worlds pollutions, 1 Joh. 3.3. It by the large perspective of Faith, looks into celestial Canaan, the supernatural Paradise, and takes such a satisfying view of eternal delights, that it is weaned from temporal. It neglects gain for the hope of gain, is as one saith, Treasure before treasure, the present image of absent profit. When the flesh tempts to wanton laziness, the hope of eternal riches cures sloth. Have we not seen the hope of gain hath stolen away the tediousness of travel and pain, shortened hours, and lightened labors? Get, O Christian! The hope of Glory into thy soul, it will steal away the tediousness of thy heavenly travel. We little look for glory when holy hours are too long, and our patience in well-doing, too short. The wanton flesh in the ways of godliness is scared by a Lyon in the way, and flies dangerous piety, declines the exercise of grace as afflictive, and the way to heaven as strewed with thorns. The hope of glory will quell this cowardice. Hope makes the booty expecting Soldier fear no showers of Bullets, Swords, nor Pistols. Hope makes the glory expecting Christian to run through Armies of Temptations, the Volleys of Hell, fire and water, to come to a wealthy place. 'It is the cure the Apostle laid down against wanton sensuality. But you beloved, looking for the mercy of God to eternal life. Jude ep. v.21. The Grace of God teacheth to deny wanton lusts, to live soberly and righteously by the hope of glory, Tit. 2.11, 12, 13.

CHAPTER XV.

Showing what great cause of Thankfulness we owe to God for preserving from this sin.

2. Exhortation. Bless God for Preservation from this great sin. Have ye been kept within the hedge and confinements of God's fear in a holy awe of his Goodness, and improvement of his Grace, know, and praise the spring of your sufficiency, the God of grace. My grace is sufficient for thee to keep thee, was God's Encouragement, Paul's experience, and ground of doxology, when under Nero's Persecution he was rescued from fleshly wantonness, that fears affliction, and declines duty, and though left alone, like a stout champion among his enemies, he stood to suffering because God stood by him, 2 Tim. 4.16, 17. The sense whereof made him to believe he should break through all the dangers of sins, persecutions, and devils, and safely arrive in glory, 2 Tim. 4.17, 18, and made him to resent it with praise, to whom be glory forever and ever. So for his Romans preserved by grace, he said, Thanks be to God, ye that were sins servants, are God's, Rom. 6.7, ye have paid hearty service to him, as ye did to your lusts. Surely when so many go to Hel with the abused notions and professions of Gospel grace: what rare mercy is it to be the preserved in Jesus Christ, from the ruining snares Satan lays in heavenly things. Upon a double account bless God.

1. That his grace within hath kept you. Inherent graces are the souls Armor. It is mercy to be girt with them, it is another to have the skill to use them: It is further grace to make them Armor of proof, successful defense against the worlds taking, destructive temptations.

2. That his power without hath kept this grace. 'It is mutable, finite, a creature, and may change to loss. If God leaves it, it dies. Foolish man may, and will leave it too, if God leave it and him. As the child by the faithless, careless Nurse may starve, so through carnal neglects, disuse, pride, should God stand off it would perish: Besides, Lust and Satan would still stab it at the heart. Behold a spiritual wonder, a wonder, in heaven, the heaven of the kingdom of grace, that grace by the mighty power of God stands invincible, immortal, in the midst of all the shot, its enemies make against it. To spiritual understanding divine power is glorious, that upholds brittle grace, as to natural reason, it is illustrious in upholding frail nature.

CHAPTER XVI.

Containing an Exhortation, that fouls should always be jealous of this sin.

3. Be always suspicious of this sin. It is with wanton corruption as with a loose servant, they both call for a jealous eye. What temptations have been, may be, yea will be as occasions renew to take liberty. The allurements of the flesh are numerous and prevalent. The Devil wants not his Pandor's and Factors to solicit and ripen filthy conversation, and secret impurity with the Gospels leave. As he is happy that fears sin always, Prov. 28.14, so as for this scarlet sin, the blasphemy of Grace, and infamy to the Gospel, heart, and life wantonness. He is more ways happy than one, that fears it always: He is happy in a constant, filial reverence, that doth nothing unbeseeming his Fathers name. Happy in the glorious testimony of sincerity: happy in an innocent indemnity, and security from others hypocrisies and apostasies: happy in the lively exercise of Grace: happy in sweet daily communion with God. Paul, that blessed man, full of piety, and jealousy of sin, that was afraid lest his Corinthians espoused to Christ should have corrupt, wanton glances to loose errors, 1 Cor. 11.2, 3, and leave the purity and simplicity of the Gospel, for impure principles and practices, was very jealous of his own heart. As he could, and did approve his blameless walking to, and before others, so to and before God. He preached and lived as in the sight of God: Knew the true Christian is he whose praise is of God, a rare president. Carnal interest is jealous, and so is spiritual. Learn daily godly jealousy over thy loose heart. When thy severe eye is off from it, it will dare to be licentious. Oh the sad liberty the impudent old man boldly takes! Where the inward discipline of a strict eye is neglected, and the judging's, checks, and lashings of the conscience are suspended, be jealous to God of the bosom traitor to thyself, lest God be offended, the Gospel be abused, and the soul be damnified.

CHAPTER XVII.

Containing an Exhortation to long for a riddance from this sin.

Be much in longing, O Christian! For a perpetual deliverance from this sin; some of this leaven will infect the purest mass. The strictest Christian off his watch is in some things loose. The pure eyes of God see every impure secret glance. The inward and outward eyes are sometimes carnally or spiritually adulterous, or both. The purest garments in the worlds dirty Lanes are spotted. When divine Light shows Gospel abusing pollutions in gracious spirits, how vile, how loathsome are they? Then woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, the loose messengers of a filthy heart. O that I were rid of this filthy body of sin. The captive exile longs for his enlargement: the weary traveler for his Inn; the storm-scared, seasick Passenger for his Harbor, and the afflicted Christian under his unkindness's to Grace for a deliverance. 'It is good when the wanton flesh wrongs covenant mercies, to say of a deliverance from it, as Jeremiah of the Jews repentance, when shall it once be? Jer. 13.27. When shall it once be, that impure lusts shall never wrong the kisses of Love? They that have the first fruits of the Spirit, should be still longing and groaning for their eternal, holy, happy harvest. Pure heart-longings should be like the Harts panting's. The hunting, trembling creature hath an enflamed appetite after refreshing water; tempted souls are, or should be longing after pure communion with the blessed God. Ingenuous afflicting sense of corrupting the best things, the smiles, the compassions, the love tokens, the promises of God, by the loose flesh, should beget doleful complaints of present pollutions and imperfections. I know, believer, it troubles thy precious tender spirit, when thou seest thy unkindness's to thy dearest Friend, the Lord Jesus. Be longing and breathing after a purer heart, As Sisera 's Mother said, Why tarry the wheels of his chariot? Judge. 5.28. So in thy devout recitements say, why tarry the wholly prevailing motions to heavenly perfection? Oh that they were like the Chariots of Aminadab! When shall I see and never asperse again the face of my dear Lord with carnal indignities? Love longs for its beloved. There is much grace in much, and sorrowful longing for more.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Containing an Exhortation to Joy in the Hope of Glory.

5. Be much upright, Christian! In the hope of glory. The Gospel eternal rewards of the next life, will be eternal security against the wrongs of grace. Glory will not admit throughout eternity the least imaginable minute of under-prizing, of idle contemplating, of dis-affecting precious grace, it and its Author, it and its Mediator, it and its Messenger, it and its golden Cisterns that conveyed it, shall have their high account. It shall have no obstructive creatures, whorish lusts, wily devils to wrong it. It shall have no glut in its glorious exercise. Its use shall be the Whet-stone of use. Its delight shall set a keen edge upon the Spirit still to delight in it. It shall never be made an Advocate to speak for the least sin. You spiritual sons and daughters of Zion, did the hope of Babylon's Captives in the civil graves of their bondage rejoice them, that they should arise and come with singing to Zion? Be you ever sipping through Gospel faith and hope out of the cup of everlasting consolation, that though at the present you are captives of your loose flesh, yet you shall with everlasting joy come to your heavenly Zion.

CHAPTER XIX.

Containing persuasive Motives to take heed that the Grace of God be not abused.

To stir us up to the holy practice of the forementioned Directions and Exhortations, it will not, I hope, be impertinent to lay down some pressing Considerations, that may spur our dull, lazy spirits to the vigorous promoting of this great duty, Exalting the Grace of God, and shunning this eminent, and frequent sin, The wrong of his Grace. These following things, well digested, pondered, and fixed on, our spirits may urge us profitably. As,

SECT. 1.

1. Consideration. The Titles given to Holy Professors in sacred Writ, should excite to use all means not to abuse God's grace. They are styled, God's peculiar treasure, Psal. 135.4. His Jewels, Mal. 3.17. Shall their worthless hearts, drossy lives speak them barren commons, wildernesses, pebbles, dunghills, They are God's Tabernacle, Temple where he placeth his name? Lev.26.11, 12, and shall they that should bear it up to shine gloriously in the world, darken it, blaspheme it, prophane it? Amos 2.7. They are the dearly beloved of his soul, Jer. 12.7, and shall their loose Apostasies provoke him, that his soul should have no pleasure in them? Heb. 10.38. They are the children of the Kingdom, Mat. 8.12, and shall they carry themselves like such rebellious children and subjects, as to provoke their angry, professed King, the Lord Jesus to cast them out? They are God's vineyard, planted to bring forth sweet, and ripe grapes, Is. 5, shall they answer God's care and cost by the sour grapes of ungodliness and unrighteousness? They are a royal Priesthood, and shall they live base, abject lives? 1 Pet. 2.9. They are styled the kingdom of Heaven, Mal. 13.47, whose conversation should be in heaven, Phil. 3.20, and shall they be worldlings in heart and life? They are Christ's garden, Can. 8.13, and shall they be overrun with rank weeds? They are The Spouse of Christ, Can. 4.11, and after Espousals to him shall they run a whoring from him, Ps. 73.27, and cleave to strange loves? They are Laborers, Mat. 20.1. And shall they stand idle all the day of grace? Mat. 20: 6. They are Christians, Act. 11.26. And shall they dishonor Christ, And the Christian Name by unchristian principles and practices.

SECT. 2.

2. Consideration, The honor of Christian Liberty, civil freemen are chary of their Liberties, spiritual ones must be, and make their dear bought Liberty a plea to duty, not a cloak of maliciousness, being free from the guilt and reign of sin, they are De Jure, the servants of Righteousness, Rom. 6.18. And as the professed servants of Righteousness, they are free from the dominion of sin. They are Christ's freemen to do God's work, and serve him, not their Lusts under Christ's Livery: what honor hath liberty from the curse, rigor, damnation of the Law, as a covenant of works? If Freemen by profession are as willing and industrious slaves by disposition and practice, as if they had heard of the author of Liberty, the infinite price of Liberty, the bounds of Liberty, the peace of Liberty, the purity of Liberty, the design of Liberty, which was to imprison, chain up, and chastise felonious Traitors, Rebels, evil thoughts, carnal reasonings, perverse desires, inordinate affections, dissolute courses, not to give them the least allowance, latitude, and affection? What honor can this be to Christian liberty, when as huge multitudes of Libertines manage it, Hell is broken loose under the favor of it, whose intendment was to open heaven in a free practice of piety, and pardon of bewailed failings, in a free assurance by the spirit of Libertine, to endeavor to do every part of Gods will, and a free acceptance of imperfect, yet sincere service? Carnal worldly Liberty saith, indulge your Genius, feast your senses, deny your sensitive appetite in nothing, the pleasures of this life, are the chiefest good, be not a slave to straight laced, mopish, melancholy rules, exercises, and society; but true Christian Liberty says, use no unlawful delights, you deny yourself in lawful, be not under the power of Creature sweetest allowances, it counts that part of life most sweet freedom, that in the zeal, pursuit, and affection of spiritual delights, can be contented without, and mortified to fleshly unnecessary delights. The words of Tertul are weighty, Thou art delicate, O Christian, if thou seekest worldly pleasures, yea a fool, if thou accountest this pleasure: what is more pleasant then Reconciliation with God, then acknowledgment of errors, then pardon of sin past? What is greater pleasure, then the loathing of pleasure, the contempt of the whole world, then true liberty, then an upright conscience, then a life of contentment, then living above the fear of death? These are the pleasures, these are the spectacles, the rare sights of Christians, Indeed an holy authority over sensual delights, a vacation and attendance to, and pursuance of spiritual pleasures, do speak the only Free-man in the World: It is rare to find that mighty Apostolical spirit, among professed Christians, not to be under the power of anything: they use not specular delights with Liberty, but slavery, not being possessors of them so much, as possessed by them; not to help, but hinder the spiritual Race, not to sharpen, but dull the edge of holy Devotion, Meditation, and delight in God; not as Ladders of ascension to him, but as Leaden Plummers to pull down the soul from him.

SECT. 3.

3. Consideration, The credit of the Gospel, how doth the School boy honor his Master, when he is a thriving Grammarian, the Pupil his Tutor, when he is a rare proficient in the Liberal arts, and the Believer his great Teacher Christ, when in the Gospel School he is come to high attainments in the deep and holy practical mysteries of Faith? It is said of Demetrius, He had a good report of the truth, 3 Epist. Joh. v.12. The gospel of Salvation the highest word of truth, gives a good Report of its strict Professors, when it is so powerful over them, as to make them stand in awe of its Lust-curbing-requiries; when its spiritual weapons are mighty through God, to bring every thought to the obedience of Christ, to hush the peevish insurrections of discontented imaginations, to curb loose, inward, filthy motions, to purge out their defilements, to bewail inward pollutions, to watch them and beat them down, in holy indignation and chastity of Spirit, as they rise up and importune with their flattering insinuations to Rebellion, and drawing aside from God: When the Gospel is thus the power of God to holy strictness, it speaks well of its religious observers, (so taking is its Majesty) in the minds and mouths of loose wicked men, who commend strict Gospellers, yea wish sometimes they were in their case. It speaks well of fellow conscientious Christians, who are glad to see their fellow Travelers in the Road of Christianity, making hast to their eternal inheritance, their fathers house: It speaks well in the joyous observance of the holy Angels who rejoice in the Tears, Prayers, Strict services of the penitent, it will speak well in the Lord Christ, who will be admired in careful and conscionable Believers at the great day, 2 Thessal. 1.10. Who have not put off themselves and others with the words, but shined forth the power of the Gospel, in holy, humble, heavenly, close walking with God, and living up according to the measure of Grace, to its injunctions.

SECT. 4.

4. Consideration, The strict, and heavenly call of Christians: they are called from the Creature to Christ; from dissoluteness to regular life; from lying vanities to the blessed realities of Eternity; from the delights of sense to those of faith; from a portion in this life, to an inestimable one in God; from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit, to the clean paths of holiness; from the cursed impure life of Devils, to the holy Angels conversation. Great spirits called to Court dignities and delights, have ordinarily an answerableness of spirit to their secular greatness, Christians are called to be the high Courtiers of the Heavenly Court, their very call, if seriously weighed, is a mighty motive to strictness, God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness, 1 Thes. 4.7. When God called us, we were unclean, lived in uncleanness, but now (saith Musculus) He hath called us, that of profane and unclean, we might be holy: As if one be called to a Bath, he is not called to abide in his impure distempers, but to purge them out; As if a boy be called to school, he is not sent thither for barbarous rudeness, but to get learning; Or as he that sends for the Physician, doth not call for him for sickness, but health, to remove, not to retain his disease: Such is the condition of our calling in Jesus Christ, to accommodate ourselves to the will of God, and not to wander from the scope of our calling: hence the Apostle mentions Christians call as argumentative of a strict life, and regular conformity to the Gospels precepts.

SECT. 5.

5. Consideration, A lively sense of the Excellency of grace. Grace is the new Creature, By it the sinner (saith Aquinas) is created in a new being; now how unworthy is it of the new Creature to look again like the old man. It must be with the supernatural as it is with common Creatures, they show according to their properties, forms, and inclinations, what is put into them by the benefit of their creation.

Grace is the glory of God, Let me see thy glory, saith Moses, God showed it in his grace. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, Exod. 33.18, 19. God in his Grace is a King in his Throne, The Throne of grace, Heb. 4.16. Abuse grace and you spit upon the King in his Throne: this is to deal with God, as David's, enemies did with him, to Turn his glory into shame.

Grace is the arm of God, his strong arm, by which he aids and defends his people, and casts down Satan, to wrong grace, is to weaken the arm of God.

Grace is a matchless goodness, of finite excellencies the chiefest, exceeds all the good of nature: All the Creatures, Riches, Honors, Pleasures of this world, are inconsiderable to Grace: the least filing of its precious gold, the least dram of its sovereign worth, the lowest degree of it excels the Abstract, the Quintessence, the Composition, the Spirits, the united Glory of the whole worlds desirables. The poorest Saint doth outwealth the richest sinners, rich Libertines that swim in pleasures, have reason to wish they could change states with poor Believers, the rich heirs of glory; but it was never yet known, that a real needy Saint would change conditions with graceless prosperous worldlings, and mighty Cedars. Look not upon the wicked of the world with envy, but with pity: they that see in the Sanctuary of God what will be their dreadful end, fret not to see brutish Christians fatted in their wealthy pastures, like Oxen for the slaughter: they know their delicate and superfluous meat is sweet, till the reckoning come, weigh things by their ends, not present enjoyments, the references they bear to eternity, not this life.

Grace is a Christians holy water, a crystal spring, the well of water springing up to eternal life is the spirit of Grace, Joh. 4.14. To debase the grace of God to sin, is to throw dirt into a pure spring, to muddy a pure stream, that the Christians face cannot be seen in it.

Grace is spiritual light, a saving beam of the Sun of righteousness, that makes day in the soul where it is, and speaks its enlightened subjects children of light. Now loose wanton works of darkness, what in them lies, turn the day into night, make the beautiful Sons of Zion to look like uncomely Negroes, black Ethiopians; turns Heaven into Hell, the Christians fairness into foulness, his glory into shame.

Grace is the choice love token of God, Hos. 14.2, 4. Eph. 2, 4, 7. To Abuse Grace is as if a Spouse should blot and blur her Bridegroom's Love-Letters, and cast his kind tokens under feet.

Grace is a Christians ornament, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, 1 Pet. 3, 4, the ornament of grace unto the head, and chains about the neck, Pro. 1.9, a ravishing comeliness to Jesus Christ, Can. 4.9. A gracious Christian, though his outward appearance be never so mean, is a more comely piece to spiritual eyes, then the fairest face of the Limners art; yea then the most beautiful face of flesh and blood that ever God made, the filth cast upon grace, is like dirt cast upon a brides ornaments, or dung on scarlet.

Grace is a Christians distinguishing character, by it said Paul, I am what I am, 1 Cor. 15.10. It makes the great difference in the world: it differs the spiritual from the carnal, as the reasonable soul doth a man from a brute: to sin by grace, is to make the sun darkness, to turn a man into a beast, to be filthy by a clean spring, is a great contradiction to the nature and distinguishing formality of Grace.

Grace is God's image, to wrest grace to sin, is to make God's picture look like the Devils.

Grace is a Christians heaven begun, eternal life, to mingle sin with grace, is to mingle hell with heaven, and death with eternal life.

Grace is the souls health, to abuse grace, is to turn health into sickness, the sweet temper of the mind, into a diseased distemper.

Grace is a Christians walled city, his safety lies in this, that he is walled round with grace: to shelter sin under grace, is to throw down a securing wall, and to make it useless: grace in its vigor, liberty, and exercise will shelter the soul against all its assaults.

Grace is a Christians store house, gives out supply for Life and godliness, My grace is sufficient for thee: this one word grace is an Abridgment of gospel blessings, all are in grace. Paul was wont to begin and end his Epistles with grace, as the foundation and top-stone of eternal happiness. Sin against grace by the leave of grace, is the pick-lock thief that comes into the Christians storehouse, and robs him of all his blessings.

Grace is the earnest for glory, to make grace give liberty to sin, is to turn the earnest of Heaven into an earnest for hell; it is like a wanton servant, to cast his masters earnest into the gutter. Thus, O Christian! Get a lively dwelling sense upon thy spirit of the fair face of grace, and thou wilt not dare by thy filthy thoughts, words and works, to bemire it: consider the high honor of grace, and thou wilt not disgrace it.

FINIS.

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The Abuse of God's Grace, Copyright © 2023

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Table of Contents

To his honoured Cosen, WILLIAM CLAGETT

To the Christian Reader

Preface

CHAP. 1. Containing the coherence of the words

CHAP. 2. Containing the Explanation of the words, Deduction of the Doctrin, with the Method of handl

CHAP. 3. Shewing in how many waies or kinds the grace of God may be turned into wantonness

CHAP. 4. Shewing when the grace of God is turned into wantonness

CHAP. 5. Wherein are set down the causes why the grace of God is turned into wantonness

CHAP. 6. Shewing wherein the greatness of this sin appears

CHAP. 7. Wherein are set forth the punishments of this great sin, abusing Gods grace

CHAP. 8. Containing an use of Infomation

CHAP. 9. Containing an Use of Humiliation

CHAP. 10 Containing an Use of Examination

CHAP. 11. Containing a second branch of Examination, how we may know the secret, close, and morerefi

CHAP. 12. Containing an Use of Caution

CHAP. 13. Shewing the difference between wronging the grace of God in the Regenerate and Unregenerat

CHAP. 14. Containing an Use of Exhortation

CHAP. 15. Shewing what great cause of thankfulnesse we owe to God for preserving from this sin

CHAP. 16. Containing an Exhortation, that souls should alwaies be jealous of this sin

CHAP. 17. Containing an Exhortation to long for a riddance from this sin

CHAP. 18. Containing an Exhortation to joy in the Hope of glory

CHAP. 19. Containing perswasive Motives to take heed that the grace of God be not abused