Direct. XVIII. Keep in a life of holy order, such as God hath appointed you to walk in. For there is no preservation for stragglers that keep not rank and file, but forsake the order which God commandeth them.—And this order lieth principally in these points: 1. That you keep in union with the universal church. Separate not from Christ's body upon any pretence whatever. With the church as regenerate, hold spiritual communion, in faith, love, and holiness: with the church as congregate and visible, hold outward communion, in profession and worship. 2. If you are not teachers, live under your particular, faithful pastors, as obedient disciples of Christ. 3. Let the most godly, if possible, be your familiars. 4. Be laborious in an outward calling.
Direct. XIX. Turn all God's providences, whether of prosperity or adversity, against your sins.—If he give you health and wealth, remember he thereby obligeth you to obedience, and calls for special service from you. If he afflict you, remember that it is sin that he is offended at, and searcheth after; and therefore take it as his physic, and see that you hinder not, but help on its work, that it may purge away your sin.
Direct. XX. Wait patiently on Christ till he have finished the cure, which will not be till this trying life be finished.—Persevere in attendance on his Spirit and means; for he will come in season, and will not tarry. "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain: as the latter and former rain upon the earth," Hos. vi. 3. Though you have oft said, "There is no healing," Jer. xiv. 19; "he will heal your backslidings, and love you freely," Hos. xiv. 4. "Unto you that fear his name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings," Mal. iv. 2: "and blessed are all they that wait for him," Isa. xxx. 18.
Thus I have given such directions as may help for humiliation under sin, or hatred of it, and deliverance from it.
Our warfare under Christ against the tempter.
Grand Direct. IX. Spend all your days in a skilful, vigilant, resolute, and valiant war against the flesh, the world, and the devil, as those that have covenanted to follow Christ the Captain of your salvation.
The flesh is the end of temptation,[104] for all is to please it, Rom. xiii. 14, and therefore is the greatest enemy; the world is the matter of temptation; and the devil is the first mover, or efficient of it: and this is the trinity of enemies to Christ and us, which we renounce in baptism, and must constantly resist. Of the world and flesh I shall speak chap. 4. Here I shall open the methods of the devil. And first I shall prepare your understanding, by opening some presupposed truths.
1. It is presupposed, that there is a devil. He that believeth not this, doth prove it to others, by showing how grossly the devil can befool him. Apparitions, witchcrafts, and temptations are full proofs of it to sense; besides what Scripture saith.
2. It is supposed that he is the deadly enemy of Christ and us.[105] He was once an angel, and fell from his first estate by sin, and a world of evil spirits with him; and it is probable his envy against mankind might be the greater, as knowing that we were made to succeed him and his followers, in their state of glory: for Christ saith, that we shall "be equal with the angels," Luke xx. 36. He showed his enmity to man in our innocency, and by his temptation caused our fall and misery. But after the fall, God put an enmity into the nature of man against devils, as a merciful preservative against temptation: so that as the whole nature of man abhorreth the nature of serpents, so doth the soul abhor and dread the diabolical nature. And, therefore, so far as the devil is seen in a temptation now, so far it is frustrated; till the enmity in nature be overcome by his deceits: and this help nature hath against temptation, which it seems our nature had not before the fall, as not knowing the malice of the devil against us.