NO CROSS, NO CROWN:

A DISCOURSE,

SHEWING THE NATURE AND DISCIPLINE

OF THE

HOLY CROSS OF CHRIST.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED,

The Living and Dying Testimonies

OF

MANY PERSONS OF FAME AND LEARNING,

BOTH

OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES, IN FAVOUR OF

THIS TREATISE.

"And Jesus said unto them all; If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."—Luke, ix. 23.

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness," &c.—2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.

—————

IN TWO PARTS.

—————

BY WILLIAM PENN.

—————

A NEW EDITION, REVISED.

LONDON:
HARVEY & DARTON, GRACECHURCH STREET.

1842.

LONDON:
JOSEPH RICKERBY, PRINTER,
SHERBOURN LANE.

PREFACE.

Reader,

The great business of man's life, is to answer the end for which he lives; and that is to glorify God and save his own soul: this is the decree of Heaven, as old as the world. But so it is, that man mindeth nothing less than what he should most mind; and despiseth to inquire into his own being, its original duty and end; choosing rather to dedicate his days (the steps he should make to blessedness) to gratify the pride, avarice, and luxury of his heart: as if he had been born for himself, or rather given himself being, and so not subject to the reckoning and judgment of a superior power. To this wild and lamentable pass hath poor man brought himself by his disobedience to the law of God in his heart, by doing that which he knows he should not do, and leaving undone what he knows he should do. And as long as this disease continueth upon man he will make his God his enemy, and himself incapable of the love and salvation that He hath manifested, by his Son Jesus Christ, to the world.

If, Reader, thou art such an one, my counsel to thee is, to retire into thyself, and take a view of the condition of thy soul; for Christ hath given thee light with which to do it; search carefully and thoroughly; thy life is in it; thy soul is at stake. It is but once to be done; if thou abuse thyself in it, the loss is irreparable; the world is not price enough to ransom thee: wilt thou then, for such a world, belate thyself, overstay the time of thy salvation, and lose thy soul? Thou hast to do, I grant thee, with great patience; but that also must have an end: therefore provoke not that God that made thee, to reject thee. Dost thou know what it is? It is Tophet; it is hell, the eternal anguish of the damned. Oh! Reader, as one knowing the terrors of the Lord, I persuade thee to be serious, diligent, and fervent about thy own salvation. Aye, and as one knowing the comfort, peace, joy, and pleasure of the ways of righteousness too, I exhort and invite thee to embrace the reproofs and convictions of Christ's light and spirit in thine own conscience, and bear the judgment, who hast wrought the sin. The fire burns but the stubble: the wind blows but the chaff: yield up the body, soul, and spirit to Him that maketh all things new: new heavens, and new earth, new love, new joy, new peace, new works, a new life and conversation. Men are grown corrupt and drossy by sin, and they must be saved through fire, which purgeth it away: therefore the word of God is compared to a fire, and the day of salvation to an oven; and Christ himself to a refiner and purifier of silver.

Come, Reader, hearken to me awhile; I seek thy salvation; that is my plot; thou wilt forgive me. A refiner is come near thee, his grace hath appeared unto thee: it shows thee the world's lusts, and teaches thee to deny them. Receive his leaven, and it will change thee: his medicine, and it will cure thee: he is as infallible as free; without money, and with certainty. A touch of his garment did it of old: it will do it still: his virtue is the same, it cannot be exhausted: for in him the fulness dwells; blessed be God for his sufficiency. He laid help upon him, that he might be mighty to save all that come to God through him: do thou so, and he will change thee: aye, thy vile body like unto his glorious body. He is the great philosopher indeed; the wisdom of God, that turns lead into gold, vile things into things precious: for he maketh saints out of sinners, and almost gods of men. What rests to us, then, that we must do, to be thus witnesses of his power and love? This is the Crown: but where is the Cross? Where is the bitter cup and bloody baptism? Come, Reader, be like him; for this transcendant joy lift up thy head above the world; then thy salvation will draw nigh indeed.

Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown. This is the subject of the following Discourse; first written during my confinement in the Tower of London, in the year 1668, now reprinted with great enlargements of matter and testimonies, that thou, Reader, mayest be won to Christ; and if won already, brought nearer to Him. It is a path, God, in his everlasting kindness, guided my feet into, in the flower of my youth, when about twenty-two years of age: then He took me by the hand, and led me out of the pleasures, vanities, and hopes of the world. I have tasted of Christ's judgments and mercies, and of the world's frowns and reproaches: I rejoice in my experience, and dedicate it to thy service in Christ. It is a debt I have long owed, and has been long expected: I have now paid it, and delivered my soul. To my country, and to the world of Christians, I leave it: my God, if He please, make it effectual to them all, and turn their hearts from that envy, hatred, and bitterness, they have one against another, about worldly things; sacrificing humanity and charity to ambition and covetousness, for which they fill the earth with trouble and oppression; that receiving the Spirit of Christ into their hearts, the fruits of which are love, peace, joy, temperance, and patience, brotherly kindness and charity, they may in body, soul, and spirit, make a triple league against the world, the flesh, and the devil, the common enemies of mankind; and having conquered them through a life of self-denial, by the power of the Cross of Jesus, they may at last attain to the eternal rest and kingdom of God.

So desireth, so prayeth,
Friendly Reader,
Thy fervent Christian Friend,
William Penn.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTERS I. AND II.—Page [1]-23.
Of the Necessity of the daily bearing of the Cross of Christ.
CHAPTER III.—Page [24]-28.
What the Cross of Christ is.
CHAPTER IV.—Page [29]-42.
What the great Work of the Cross is.
CHAPTERS V. AND VI.—Page [43]-74.
Of unlawful Self in Religion and Morality.
CHAPTERS VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. AND XII.—Page [75]-149.
Of Pride, the first capital Lust, its Rise, Definition, and Distinction.
CHAPTER XIII.—Page [150]-167.
Of Avarice, the second capital Lust, its Definition and Distinction.
CHAPTERS XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. AND XVIII.—Page [168]-229.
Of Luxury, what it is, and the Mischief of it to Mankind.
CHAPTER XIX.—Page [233]-294.
The Testimonies of several great, learned, and virtuous Personages among the Gentiles, urged against the excesses of the Age.

CHAPTER XX.—Page [295]-324.
The Doctrine and Practice of the blessed Lord Jesus and his Apostles, the primitive Christians, and those of more modern Times in favour of the Discourse.
CHAPTER XXI.—Page [325]-355.
The serious Apprehensions and Expressions of several aged and dying Men of Fame and Learning.
CHAPTER XXII.—Page [356]-365.
An Exhortation to all professing Christianity, to embrace the foregoing Reasons and Examples.

NO CROSS, NO CROWN.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

I. Of the necessity of the Cross of Christ in general; yet the little regard Christians have to it.—2. The degeneracy of Christendom from purity to lust, and moderation to excess.—3. That worldly lusts and pleasures are become the care and study of Christians, so that they have advanced upon the impiety of infidels.—4. This defection a second part to the Jewish tragedy, and worse than the first: the scorn Christians have cast on their Saviour.—5. Sin is of one nature all the world over; sinners are of the same church, the devil's children: profession of religion in wicked men makes them but the worse.—6. A wolf is not a lamb; a sinner cannot be, whilst such, a saint.—7. The wicked will persecute the good; this, false Christians have done to the true, for non-compliance with their superstitions; the strange carnal measures false Christians have taken of Christianity; the danger of that self-seduction.—8. The sense of that has obliged me to make this discourse for a dissuasive against the world's lusts, and an invitation to take up the daily cross of Christ as the way left us by him to blessedness.—9. Of the self-condemnation of the wicked; that religion and worship are comprised in doing the will of God. The advantage good men have over bad men in the last judgment.—10. A supplication for Christendom, that she may not be rejected in that great assize of the world. She is exhorted to consider what relation she bears to Christ; if her Saviour, how saved, and from what: what her experience is of that great work. That Christ came to save from sin and wrath by consequence; not to save men in sin, but from it, and so from the wages of it.

I. Though the knowledge and obedience of the doctrine of the cross of Christ be of infinite moment to the souls of men, for that is the only door to true Christianity, and that path the ancients ever trod to blessedness; yet, with extreme affliction let me say, it is so little understood, so much neglected, and what is worse, so bitterly contradicted by the vanity, superstition, and intemperance of professed Christians, that we must either renounce to believe what the Lord Jesus hath told us, that whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after him, cannot be his disciple; (Luke, xiv. 27;) or, admitting that for truth, conclude, that the generality of Christendom do miserably deceive and disappoint themselves in the great business of Christianity, and their own salvation.

II. For, let us be never so tender and charitable in the survey of those nations that entitle themselves to any interest in the holy name of Christ, if we will but be just too, we must needs acknowledge, that after all the gracious advantages of light, and obligations to fidelity, which these latter ages of the world have received by the coming, life, doctrine, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, with the gifts of his Holy Spirit; to which add the writings, labours, and martyrdom of his dear followers in all times, there seems very little left of Christianity but the name; which being now usurped by the old heathen nature and life, makes the professors of it but true heathens in disguise. For though they worship not the same idols, they worship Christ with the same heart: and they can never do otherwise, whilst they live in the same lusts. So that the unmortified Christian and the heathen are of the same religion. For though they have different objects to which they do direct their prayers, that adoration in both is but forced and ceremonious, and the deity they truly worship is the god of the world, the great lord of lusts: to him they bow with the whole powers of soul and sense. What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? And how shall we pass away our time? Which way may we gather wealth, increase our power, enlarge our territories, and dignify and perpetuate our names and families in the earth? Which base sensuality is most pathetically expressed and comprised by the beloved Apostle John, in these words: "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," which, says he, "are not of the Father, but of the world, that lieth in wickedness." (1 John, ii. 16.)

III. It is a mournful reflection, but a truth no confidence can be great enough to deny, that these worldly lusts fill up the study, care, and conversation of wretched Christendom! and, which aggravates the misery, they have grown with time. For as the world is older, it is worse; and the examples of former lewd ages, and their miserable conclusions, have not deterred, but excited ours; so that the people of this seem improvers of the old stock of impiety, and have carried it so much further than example, that instead of advancing in virtue upon better times, they are scandalously fallen below the life of heathens. Their high-mindedness, lasciviousness, uncleanness, drunkenness, swearing, lying, envy, backbiting, cruelty, treachery, covetousness, injustice, and oppression, are so common, and committed with such invention and excess, that they have stumbled and embittered infidels to a degree of scorning that holy religion, to which their good example should have won their affections.

IV. This miserable defection from primitive times, when the glory of Christianity was the purity of its professors, I cannot but call the second and worst part of the Jewish tragedy upon the blessed Saviour of mankind. For the Jews, from the power of ignorance, and the extreme prejudice they were under to the unworldly way of his appearance, would not acknowledge him when he came, but for two or three years persecuted, and finally crucified him in one day. But the false Christians' cruelty lasts longer: they have first, with Judas, professed him, and then, for these many ages, most basely betrayed, persecuted, and crucified him, by a perpetual apostasy in manners, from the self-denial and holiness of his doctrine; their lives giving the lie to their faith. These are they that the author of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us, "Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to open shame:" (Heb. vi. 6:) whose defiled hearts John in his Revelation styles, "The streets of Sodom and Egypt, spiritually so called, where also our Lord was crucified." (Rev. xi. 8.) And as Christ said of old, a man's enemies are those of his own house, so Christ's enemies now are chiefly those of his own profession; they spit upon him, they nail and pierce him, they crown him with thorns, and give him gall and vinegar to drink. (Matt. xxvii. 34.) Nor is it hard to apprehend; for they that live in the same evil nature and principle the Jews did, that crucified him outwardly, must needs crucify him inwardly; since they that reject the grace now in their own hearts, are one in stock and generation with the hard-hearted Jews, that resisted the grace that then appeared in and by Christ.

V. Sin is of one nature all the world over; for though a liar is not a drunkard, nor a swearer a whoremonger, nor either properly a murderer, yet they are all of a church; all branches of the one wicked root; all of kin. They have but one father, the devil, as Christ said to the professing Jews, the visible church of that age: he slighted their claims to Abraham and Moses, and plainly told them "That he that committed sin, was the servant of sin." (John, viii. 34, 35.) They did the devil's works, and therefore were the devil's children. The argument will always hold upon the same reasons, and therefore good still: "His servants ye are," saith Paul, "whom ye obey:" (Rom. vi. 16:) and saith John to the church of old, "Let no man deceive you; he that committeth sin is of the devil." (1 John, iii. 7, 8.) Was Judas ever the better Christian for crying, Hail, Master, and kissing Christ? By no means; they were the signal of his treachery; the tokens given by which the bloody Jews should know and take him. He called him Master, but betrayed him; he kissed, but sold him to be killed; this is the upshot of the false Christians' religion. If a man ask them, Is Christ your Lord? they will cry, God forbid else: yes, he is our Lord. Very well; but do you keep his commandments? No, how should we? How then are you his disciples? It is impossible, say they. What! would you have us keep his commandments? No man can. What! impossible to do that without which Christ hath made it impossible to be a Christian? Is Christ unreasonable? Does he reap where he has not sown? Require where he has not enabled? Thus it is, that with Judas they call him Master, but take part with the evil of the world to betray him; and kiss and embrace him as far as a specious profession goes; and then sell him, to gratify the passion that they most indulge. Thus as God said of old, they make him serve with their sins and for their sins too. (Isa. xliii. 24.)

VI. Let no man deceive his own soul; "grapes are not gathered of thorns, nor figs of thistles:" (Matt. vii. 16:) a wolf is not a sheep, nor is a vulture a dove. What form, people, or church soever thou art of, it is the truth of God to mankind, that they which have even the form of godliness, but by their unmortified lives, deny the power thereof, make not the true, but false church: which, though she entitle herself the Lamb's bride, or church of Christ, (Rev. xvii. 5,) she is that mystery, or mysterious Babylon, fitly called by the Holy Ghost, the mother of harlots and all abominations: because degenerated from Christian chastity and purity, into all the enormities of heathen Babylon; a sumptuous city of old time, much noted for the seat of the kings of Babylon, and at that time the place in the world of the greatest pride and luxury. As she was then, so mystical Babylon is now the great enemy of God's people.

VII. True it is, They that are born of the flesh, hate and persecute them that are born of the spirit, who are the circumcision in heart. It seems they cannot own nor worship God after her inventions, methods, and prescriptions, nor receive for doctrine her vain traditions, any more than they can comply with her corrupt fashions and customs in their conversation. The case being thus, from an apostate she becomes a persecutor. It is not enough that she herself declines from ancient purity, others must do so too. She will give them no rest that will not partake with her in that degeneracy, or receive her mark. Are any wiser than she, than mother church? No, no: nor can any make war with the beast she rides upon, those worldly powers that protect her, and vow their maintenance against the cries of her dissenters. Apostasy and superstition are ever proud and impatient of dissent: all must conform or perish. Therefore the slain witnesses, and blood of the souls under the altar, (Rev. vi. 9,) are found within the walls of this mystical Babylon, this great city of false Christians, and are charged upon her, by the Holy Ghost in the Revelation. Nor is it strange that she should slay the servants who first crucified the Lord: but strange and barbarous too, that she should kill her husband and murder her Saviour; titles she seems so fond of, and that have been so profitable to her; and that she would recommend herself by, though without all justice. But her children are reduced so entirely under the dominion of darkness, by means of their continued disobedience to the manifestation of the divine light in their souls, that they forget what man once was, or they should now be; and know not true and pure Christianity when they meet it; yet pride themselves upon professing it. Their measures are so carnal and false about salvation, they call good evil, and evil good; they make a devil a Christian, and a saint a devil. So that though the unrighteous latitude of their lives be matter of lamentation, as to themselves it is of destruction; yet that common apprehension, that they may be children of God, while in a state of disobedience to his holy commandments; and disciples of Jesus, though they revolt from his cross, and members of his true church, which is without spot or wrinkle, notwithstanding their lives are full of spots and wrinkles; is, of all other deceptions upon themselves, the most pernicious to their eternal condition. For they are at peace in sin, and under a security in their transgression. Their vain hope silences their convictions, and overlays all tender motions to repentance; so that their mistake about their duty to God is as mischievous as their rebellion against him.

Thus they walk on precipices, and flatter themselves, till the grave swallows them up, and the judgments of the great God break their lethargy, and undeceive their poor wretched souls with the anguish of the wicked, as the reward of their work.

VIII. This has been, is, and will be the doom of all worldly Christians: an end so dreadful, that if there were nothing of duty to God, or obligation to men, being a man, and one acquainted with the terrors of the Lord in the way and work of my own salvation, compassion alone were sufficient to excite me to this dissuasive against the world's superstitions and lusts, and to invite the professors of Christianity to the knowledge and obedience of the daily cross of Christ, as the alone way, left by him, and appointed us to blessedness; that they who now do but usurp the name may have the thing; and by the power of the cross, to which they are now dead, instead of being dead to the world by it, may be made partakers of the resurrection that is in Christ Jesus, unto newness of life. For they that are truly in Christ, that is, redeemed by, and interested in him, are new creatures. (Gal. vi. 15.) They have received a new will; such as does the will of God, not their own. They pray in truth, and do not mock God, when they say, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. They have new affections; such as are set on things above, (Col. iii. 1, 2, 3,) and make Christ their eternal treasure. New faith; (1 John, 4, 5;) such as overcomes the snares and temptations of the world's spirit in themselves, or as it appears through others: and lastly, new works; not of a superstitious contrivance, or of human invention, but the pure fruits of the Spirit of Christ working in them, as love, joy, peace, meekness, long-suffering, temperance, brotherly-kindness, faith, patience, gentleness, and goodness, against which there is no law; and they that have not the Spirit of Christ, and walk not in it, the apostle Paul has told us, are none of his; (Rom. viii. 9;) but the wrath of God, and condemnation of the law, will lie upon them. For if there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ; who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, which is Paul's doctrine; they that walk not according to that Holy Spirit, by his doctrine, are not in Christ: that is, have no interest in him, nor just claim to salvation by him: and consequently there is condemnation to such.

IX. And the truth is, the religion of the wicked is a lie: "there is no peace, saith the prophet, to the wicked." (Isaiah, xlviii. 22.) Indeed there can be none; they are reproved in their own consciences, and condemned in their own hearts, in all their disobedience. Go where they will, rebukes go with them, and oftentimes terrors too: for it is an offended God that pricks them, and who, by his light, sets their sins in order before them. Sometimes they strive to appease him by their corporeal framed devotion and worship, but in vain; for true worshipping of God is doing his will, which they transgress. The rest is a false compliment, like him that said he would go, and did not. (Matt. xxi. 30.) Sometimes they fly to sports and company, to drown the reprover's voice, and blunt his arrows, to chase away troubled thoughts, and secure themselves out of the reach of the disquieter of their pleasures; but the Almighty, first or last, is sure to overtake them. There is no flying his final justice, for those that reject the terms of his mercy. Impenitent rebels to his law may then call to the mountains, and run to the caves of the earth for protection, but in vain. His all-searching eye will penetrate their thickest coverings, and strike up a light in that obscurity, which shall terrify their guilty souls; and which they shall never be able to extinguish. Indeed, their accuser is with them, they can no more be rid of him than of themselves; he is in the midst of them, and will stick close to them. That spirit which bears witness with the spirits of the just will bear witness against theirs. Nay, their own hearts will abundantly come in against them; and, "if our hearts condemn us," saith the apostle John, "God is greater, and knows all things;" (1 John iii. 20;) that is, there is no escaping the judgments of God, whose power is infinite, if a man is not able to escape the condemnation of himself. It is at that day proud and luxurious Christians shall learn that God is no respecter of persons; that all sects and names shall be swallowed up in these two kinds, sheep and goats, just and unjust: and the very righteous must have a trial for it; which made that holy man cry out, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Pet. iv. 18.) If their thoughts, words, and works must stand the test, and come under scrutiny before the impartial Judge of heaven and earth, how then should the ungodly be exempted? No; we are told by him that cannot lie, many shall then even cry, Lord, Lord! set forth their profession, and recount the works that they have done in his name, to make him propitious, and yet be rejected with this direful sentence, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity; I know you not." (Matt. vii. 23.) As if he had said, Get you gone, you evil doers; though you have professed me, I will not know you; your vain and evil lives have made you unfit for my holy kingdom: get you hence, and go to the gods whom you have served; your beloved lusts which you have worshipped, and the evil world that you have so much coveted and adored: let them save you now, if they can, from the wrath to come upon you, which is the wages of the deeds you have done. Here is the end of their work that build upon the sand; the breath of the Judge will blow it down, and woful will the fall thereof be. Oh, it is now that the righteous have the better of the wicked! which made an apostate cry, in old time, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like unto his." (Numb. xxiii. 10.) For the sentence is changed, and the Judge smiles; he casts the eye of love upon his own sheep, and invites them with "Come, ye blessed of my Father," (Matt. xxv. 34,) that through patient continuance in well-doing have long waited for immortality; you have been the true companions of my tribulation and cross, and, with unwearied faithfulness, in obedience to my holy will, valiantly endured to the end, looking to me, the Author of your precious faith, for the recompense of reward that I have promised to them that love me, and faint not: O, enter ye into the joy of your Lord, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

X. O Christendom! my soul most fervently prays, that after all thy lofty profession of Christ, and his meek and holy religion, thy unsuitable and un-Christ-like life may not cast thee at that great assize of the world, and lose thee so great salvation at last. Hear me once, I beseech thee: can Christ be thy Lord, and thou not obey him? or, canst thou be his servant, and never serve him? "Be not deceived, such as thou sowest shalt thou reap." (Gal. vi. 7.) He is none of thy Saviour whilst thou rejectest his grace in thy heart, by which he should save thee. Come, what has he saved thee from? Has he saved thee from thy sinful lusts, thy worldly affections, and vain conversations? If not, then he is none of thy Saviour. For, though he be offered a Saviour to all, yet he is actually a Saviour to those only that are saved by him; and none are saved by him that live in those evils by which they are lost from God, and which he came to save them from.

It is sin that Christ is come to save man from, and death and wrath, as the wages of it; but those that are not saved, that is delivered, by the power of Christ in their souls, from the power that sin has had over them, can never be saved from the death and wrath, that are the assured wages of the sin they live in.

So that look how far people obtain victory over those evil dispositions and fleshly lusts, they have been addicted to, so far they are truly saved, and are witnesses of the redemption that comes by Jesus Christ. His name shows his work: "And thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sin." (Matt. i. 21.) "Behold," said John, of Christ, "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." (John, i. 29.) That is, behold him whom God hath given to enlighten people, and for salvation to as many as receive him, and his light and grace in their hearts, and take up their daily cross and follow him; such as rather deny themselves the pleasure of fulfilling their lusts than sin against the knowledge he has given them of his will, or do that they know they ought not to do.

CHAPTER II.

1. By this Christendom may see her lapse, how foul it is, and next, the worse for her pretence to Christianity.—2. But there is mercy with God upon repentance, and propitiation in the blood of Jesus.—3. He is the light of the world that reproves the darkness, that is, the evil of the world; and he is to be known within.—4. Christendom, like the inn of old, is full of other guests: she is advised to believe in, receive, and apply to Christ.—5. Of the nature of true faith; it brings power to overcome every appearance of evil: this leads to consider the Cross of Christ, which has been so much wanted.—6. The apostolic ministry, and end of it; its blessed effect; the character of apostolic times.—7. The glory of the cross, and its triumph over the heathen world. A measure to Christendom, what she is not, and should be.—8. Her declension, and cause of it.—9. The miserable effects that followed.—10. From the consideration of the cause the cure may be more easily known, viz., Not faithfully taking up the daily cross; then, faithfully taking it daily up must be the remedy.

I. By all which has been said, O Christendom! and by that better help, if thou wouldst use it, the lamp the Lord has lighted in thee, not utterly extinct, it may evidently appear, first, how great and full thy backsliding has been, who, from the temple of the Lord, art become a cage of unclean birds; and of a house of prayer, a den of thieves, a synagogue of Satan, and the receptacle of every defiled spirit. Next, that under all this manifest defection, thou hast nevertheless valued thy corrupt self upon thy profession of Christianity, and fearfully deluded thyself with the hopes of salvation. The first makes thy disease dangerous, but the last almost incurable.

II. Yet, because there is mercy with God that he may be feared, and that he takes no delight in the eternal death of poor sinners, no, though backsliders themselves, (Ezek. xviii. 20, 23, 24,) but is willing all should come to the knowledge and obedience of the Truth, and be saved, he hath set forth his Son a propitiation, and given him as a Saviour to take away the sins of the whole world, that those that believe and follow him may feel the righteousness of God in the remission of their sins, and blotting out their transgressions for ever. (Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 77; Rom. iii. 25; Heb. ix. 24 to 28; 1 John ii. 1, 2.) Now, behold the remedy! an infallible cure, one of God's appointing; a precious elixir, indeed, that never fails; and that universal medicine which no malady could ever escape.

III. But thou wilt say, What is Christ? and where is he to be found? and how received and applied, in order to this mighty cure? I tell thee then, first, he is the great spiritual light of the world that enlightens every one that comes into the world; by which he manifests to them their deeds of darkness and wickedness, and reproves them for committing them. Secondly, he is not far away from thee, (Acts, xvii. 27.) as the apostle Paul said of God to the Athenians. "Behold," says Christ himself, "I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." (Rev. iii. 20.) What door can this be but that of the heart of man?

IV. Thou, like the inn of old, hast been full of guests; thy affections have entertained other lovers; there has been no room for thy Saviour in thy soul. Wherefore salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to thy door, and thou hast been often proffered it, and hast professed it long. But if he calls, if he knocks still, that is, if his light yet shines, if it reproves thee still, there is hope thy day is not over, and that repentance is not yet hid from thine eyes; but his love is after thee still, and his holy invitation continues to save thee.

Wherefore, O Christendom! believe, receive, and apply him rightly; this is of absolute necessity, that thy soul may live for ever with him. He told the Jews, "If you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins; and whither I go ye cannot come." (John, viii. 21, 24.) And because they believed him not, they did not receive him, nor any benefit by him. But they that believed him received him; and as many as received him, his own beloved disciple tells us, "to them gave he power to become the sons of God, which are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John, i. 12, 13.) That is, who are not children of God after the fashions, prescriptions, and traditions of men, that call themselves his church and people, which is not after the will of flesh and blood, and the invention of carnal man, unacquainted with the regeneration and power of the Holy Ghost, but of God; that is, according to his will and the working and sanctification of his Spirit and word of life in them. And such were ever well versed in the right application of Christ, for he was made to them indeed propitiation, reconciliation, salvation, righteousness, redemption, and justification.

So I say to thee, unless thou believest that he that stands at the door of thy heart and knocks, and sets thy sins in order before thee, and calls thee to repentance, be the Saviour of the world, thou wilt die in thy sins, and where he is gone thou wilt never come. For, if thou believest not in him, it is impossible that he should do thee good, or effect thy salvation: Christ works not against faith, but by it. It is said of old, "He did not many mighty works in some places, because the people believed not in him." (John, i. 12, 13.) So that, if thou truly believest in him, thine ear will be attentive to his voice in thee, and the door of thine heart open to his knocks. Thou wilt yield to the discoveries of his light, and the teachings of his grace will be very dear to thee.

V. It is the nature of true faith to beget a holy fear of offending God, a deep reverence to his precepts, and a most tender regard to the inward testimony of his Spirit, as that by which his children in all ages have been safely led to glory. For, as they that truly believe receive Christ in all his tenders to the soul, so as true it is that those who receive him thus, with him receive power to become the sons of God: that is, an inward force and ability to do whatever he requires; strength to mortify their lusts, controul their affections, resist evil motions, deny themselves, and overcome the world in its most enticing appearances. This is the life of the blessed Cross of Christ, which is the subject of the following discourse, and what thou, O man, must take up, if thou intendest to be the disciple of Jesus. Nor canst thou be said to receive Christ, or to believe in him, whilst thou rejectest his cross. For, as receiving of Christ is the means appointed of God to salvation, so bearing the daily cross after him is the only true testimony of receiving him, and therefore it is enjoined by him as the great token of discipleship, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.)

This, Christendom, is that thou hast so much wanted, and the want of which has proved the only cause of thy miserable declension from pure Christianity. To consider which well, as it is thy duty, so it is of great use to thy restoration.

For as the knowledge of the cause of any distemper guides the physician to make a right and safe judgment in the application of his medicine, so it will much enlighten thee in the way of thy recovery, to know and weigh the first cause of this spiritual lapse and malady that has befallen thee. To do which, a general view of thy primitive estate, and consequently of their work that first laboured in the Christian vineyard, will be needful; and if therein something be repeated, the weight and dignity of the subject will bear it, without the need of an apology.

VI. The work of apostleship, we are told by a prime labourer in it, was to turn people "from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." (Acts, xxvi. 18.) That is, instead of yielding to the temptations and motions of Satan, who is the prince of darkness or wickedness, the one being a metaphor to the other, by whose power their understandings were obscured, and their souls held in the service of sin, they should turn their minds to the appearance of Christ, the Light and Saviour of the world; who by his light shines in their souls, and thereby gives them a sight of their sins, and discovers every temptation and motion in them unto evil, and reproves them when they give way thereunto; that so they might become the children of light, and walk in the path of righteousness. And for this blessed work of reformation did Christ endue his apostles with his spirit and power, that so men might not longer sleep in a security of sin and ignorance of God, but awake to righteousness, that the Lord Jesus might give them life; that is, that they might leave off sinning, deny themselves the pleasure of wickedness, and, by true repentance, turn their hearts to God in well doing, in which is peace. And truly God so blessed the faithful labours of these poor mechanics, yet his great ambassadors to mankind, that in a few years many thousands that had lived without God in the world, without a sense or fear of him, lawlessly, very strangers to the work of his Spirit in their hearts, being captivated by fleshly lusts, were inwardly struck and quickened by the word of life, and made sensible of the coming and power of the Lord Jesus Christ as a judge and lawgiver in their souls, by whose holy light and spirit the hidden things of darkness were brought to light and condemned, and pure repentance from those dead works begotten in them, that they might serve the living God in newness of spirit. So that thenceforward they lived not to themselves, neither were they carried away of those former divers lusts, by which they had been seduced from the true fear of God; but "the law of the spirit of life," (Rom. viii. 2,) by which they overcame the law of sin and death, was their delight, and therein did they meditate day and night. Their regard towards God was not taught by the precepts of men any longer, (Isaiah, xxix. 13,) but from the knowledge they had received by his own work and impressions in their souls. They had quitted their old masters, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and delivered up themselves to the holy guidance of the grace of Christ, that taught them to "deny ungodliness and the world's lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present life:" (Tit. ii. 11, 12:) this is the cross of Christ indeed, and here is the victory it gives to them that take it up; by this cross they died daily to the old life they had lived, and by holy watchfulness against the secret motions of evil in their hearts they crushed sin in its conceptions, yea in its temptations. So that they, as the apostle John advised them, "kept themselves, that the evil one touched them not." (1 John, v. 18.)

For the light, which Satan cannot endure, and with which Christ had enlightened them, discovered him in all his approaches and assaults upon the mind; and the power they received through their inward obedience to the manifestations of that blessed light, enabled them to resist and vanquish him in all his stratagems. And thus it was that, where once nothing was examined, nothing went unexamined; every thought must come to judgment, and the rise and tendency of it be also well approved, before they allowed it any room in their minds. There was no fear of entertaining enemies for friends, whilst this strict guard was kept upon the very wicket of the soul. Now the old heavens and earth, that is, the old earthly conversation, and old carnal, that is Jewish or shadowy worship, passed away apace, and every day all things became new. He was no more a Jew that was one outwardly, nor that circumcision that was in the flesh; but he was the Jew that was one inwardly, and that circumcision which was of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of man, but of God. (Rom. ii. 28, 29.)

VII. Indeed, the glory of the cross shined so conspicuously through the self-denial of their lives who daily bore it, that it struck the heathen with astonishment; and in a small time so shook their altars, discredited their oracles, struck the multitude, invaded the court, and overcame their armies, that it led priests, magistrates, and generals in triumph after it, as the trophies of its power and victory.

And, while this integrity dwelt with Christians, mighty was the presence, and invincible that power that attended them; it quenched fire, daunted lions, turned the edge of the sword, outfaced instruments of cruelty, convicted judges, and converted executioners. (Heb. xi. 32, to the end; Isaiah, xliii. 2; Daniel, iii. 12, to the end.) In fine, the way their enemies took to destroy, increased them; and, by the deep wisdom of God, they who in all their designs endeavoured to extinguish the truth were made great promoters of it. (Dan. vi. 16, to the end.) Now, not a vain thought, not an idle word, not an unseemly action was permitted; no, not an immodest look, no courtly dress, gay apparel, complimental respects, or personal honours: much less those lewd immoralities and scandalous vices, now in vogue with Christians, could find either example or connivance among them. Their care was not how to sport away their precious time, but how to redeem it, (Eph. v. 15, 16,) that they might have enough to work out their great salvation, which they carefully did, with fear and trembling: not with balls and masks, with playhouses, dancing, feasting, and gaming; no, no; to make sure of their heavenly calling and election was much dearer to them than the poor and trifling joys of mortality. For they having, with Moses, seen him that is invisible, and found that his loving-kindness was better than life, the peace of his Spirit than the favour of princes,—as they feared not Cæsar's wrath,—so they chose rather to sustain the afflictions of Christ's true pilgrims than enjoy the pleasures of sin that were but for a season; esteeming his reproaches of more value than the perishing treasures of the earth. And if the tribulations of Christianity were more eligible than the comforts of the world, and the reproaches of one than all the honour of the other, there was then surely no temptations in it that could shake the integrity of Christendom.

VIII. By this short draught of what Christendom was, thou mayest see, O Christendom, what thou are not, and consequently what thou oughtest to be. But how comes it that from a Christendom that was thus meek, merciful, self-denying, suffering, temperate, holy, just, and good, so like to Christ, whose name she bore, we find a Christendom now that is superstitious, idolatrous, persecuting, proud, passionate, envious, malicious, selfish, drunken, lascivious, unclean, lying, swearing, cursing, covetous, oppressing, defrauding, with all other abominations known in the earth?

I lay this down as the undoubted reason of this degeneracy, to wit, the inward disregard of thy mind to the light of Christ shining in thee, that first showed thee thy sins and reproved them, and that taught and enabled thee to deny and resist them. For as thy fear towards God, and holy abstinence from unrighteousness, was, at first, not taught by the precepts of men, but by that light and grace which revealed the most secret thoughts and purposes of thine heart, and searched the most inward parts, setting thy sins in order before thee, and reproving thee for them, not suffering one unfruitful thought, word, or work of darkness to go unjudged; so when thou didst begin to disregard that light and grace, to be careless of that holy watch that was once set up in thine heart, and didst not keep sentinel there, as formerly, for God's glory and thy own peace, the restless enemy of man's good quickly took advantage of this slackness, and often surprised thee with temptations, whose suitableness to thy inclinations made his conquest over thee not difficult.

In short, thou didst omit to take up Christ's holy yoke, to bear thy daily cross; thou wast careless of thy affections, and kept no journal or check upon thy actions; but didst decline to audit accounts in thy own conscience, with Christ thy light, the great Bishop of thy soul and Judge of thy works, whereby the holy fear decayed and love waxed cold, vanity abounded, and duty became burdensome. Then up came formality, instead of the power of godliness; superstition, in place of Christ's institution: and whereas Christ's business was to draw on the minds of his disciples from an outward temple, and carnal rites and services, to the inward and spiritual worship of God, suitable to the nature of divinity, a worldly, human, pompous worship is brought in again, and a worldly priesthood, temple, and altar, are re-established. Now it was that the sons of God once more saw the daughters of men were fair, (Gen. vi. 2,) that is, the pure eye grew dim, which repentance had opened, that saw no comeliness out of Christ, and the eye of lust became unclosed again by the god of the world; and those worldly pleasures that make such as love them forget God, though once despised for the sake of Christ, began now to recover their old beauty and interest in thy affections, and from liking them, to be the study, care, and pleasure of thy life.

True, there still remained the exterior forms of worship and a nominal and oral reverence to God and Christ, but that was all; for the offence of the holy cross ceased, the power of godliness was denied, self-denial lost, and, though fruitful in the invention of ceremonious ornaments, yet barren in the blessed fruits of the Spirit. And a thousand shells cannot make one kernel, or many dead corpses one living man.

IX. Thus religion fell from experience to tradition, and worship from power to form, from life to letter; and, instead of putting up lively and powerful requests, animated by a deep sense of want and the assistance of the Holy Spirit,—by which the ancients prayed, wrestled, and prevailed with God,—behold a by-rote mumpsimus, a dull and insipid formality, made up of corporeal bowings and cringings, garments and furnitures, perfumes, voices, and music, fitter for the reception of some earthly prince than the heavenly worship of the one true and immortal God, who is an eternal, invisible Spirit.

But thy heart growing carnal, thy religion did so too; and, not liking it as it was, thou fashionedst it to thy liking: forgetting what the holy prophet said, "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," (Prov. xv. 8,) and what St. James saith, "Ye ask, and receive not." (James, iv. 3.) Why? "Because ye ask amiss;" that is, with a heart that is not right, but insincere, unmortified, not in the faith that purifies the soul, and therefore can never receive what is asked: so that a man may say with truth, thy condition is worse by thy religion, because thou art tempted to think thyself better for it, and art not.

X. Well; by this prospect that is given thee of thy foul fall from primitive Christianity, and the true cause of it,—to wit, a neglect of the daily cross of Christ,—it may be easy for thee to inform thyself of the way of thy recovery.

For, look, at what door thou wentest out, at that door thou must come in; and, as letting fall and forbearing the daily cross lost thee, so taking up and enduring the daily cross must recover thee. It is the same way by which the sinners and apostates become the disciples of Jesus. "Whosoever," says Christ, "will come after me and be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his daily cross and follow me." (Matthew, xvi. 24; Mark, viii. 34; Luke, xiv. 27.) Nothing short of this will do; mark that! for, as it is sufficient, so it is indispensable; no crown but by the cross, no life eternal but through death; and it is but just that those evil and barbarous affections that crucified Christ afresh, should, by his holy cross, be crucified.

CHAPTER III.

1. What the cross of Christ is. A figurative speech, but truly the Divine power that mortifies the world.—2. It is so called by the apostle Paul to the Corinthians.—3. Where it is the cross appears, and must be borne? Within; where the lusts are, there they must be crucified.—4. Experience teaches every one this; to be sure Christ asserts it, from within comes murder, &c., and that is the house where the strong man must be bound.—5. How is the cross to be borne? The way is spiritual, a denial of self, of the pleasure of sin; to please God, and obey his will as manifested to the soul by the light He gives it.—6. This shows the difficulty, yet the necessity of the cross.

The daily cross being then, and still, O Christendom! the way to glory, that the succeeding matter, which wholly relates to the doctrine of it, may come with most evidence and advantage upon thy conscience it is most seriously to be considered by thee,—

First, What the cross of Christ is?

Secondly, Where the cross of Christ is to be taken up?

Thirdly, How, and after what manner it is to be borne?

Fourthly, What is the great work and business of the cross? In which, the sins it crucifies, with the mischiefs that attend them, will be at large expressed.

Fifthly and lastly, I shall add many testimonies from living and dying persons of great reputation, either for their quality, learning, or piety, as a general confirmation of the whole tract.

To the first, What is the cross of Christ?

I. The cross of Christ is a figurative speech, borrowed from the outward tree, or wooden cross, on which Christ submitted to the will of God, suffering death at the hands of evil men. So that the cross mystical is that Divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, and gives a contradiction to their corrupt affections, and that constantly opposeth itself to the inordinate and fleshly appetite of their minds, and so may be justly termed the instrument of man's wholly dying to the world, and being made conformable to the will of God. For nothing else can mortify sin, or make it easy for us to submit to the Divine will in things otherwise very contrary to their own.

II. The preaching of the cross, therefore, in primitive times was fitly called by Paul, that famous and skilful apostle in spiritual things, "the power of God," though to them that perish, then, as now, "foolishness." That is, to those that were truly weary and heavy laden, and needed a deliverer, to whom sin was burdensome and odious, the preaching of the cross, by which sin was to be mortified, was, as to them, the power of God, or a preaching of the Divine power by which they were made disciples of Christ and children of God; and it wrought so powerfully upon them that no proud nor licentious mockers could put them out of love with it. But to those that walked in the broad way, in the full latitude of their lusts, and dedicated their time and care to the pleasure of their corrupt appetites, to whom all yoke and bridle were and are intolerable, the preaching of the cross was and is foolishness.

III. Well: but then where does this cross appear, and where must it be taken up?

I answer, within: that is, in the heart and soul; for where the sin is, the cross must be. Now all evil comes from within: this Christ taught: "From within," saith Christ, "out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evils come from within, and defile the man." (Mark, vii. 21, 22, 23.)

The heart of man is the seat of sin, and where he is defiled he must be sanctified; and where sin lives, there it must die: it must be crucified. Custom in evil hath made it natural to men to do evil; and as the soul rules the body, so the corrupt nature sways the whole man: but still, it is all from within.

IV. Experience teaches every son and daughter of Adam to assent to this; for the enemy's temptations are ever directed to the mind, which is within: if they take not, the soul sins not; if they are embraced, lust is presently conceived, that is, inordinate desires; lust conceived, brings forth sin; and sin finished, that is, acted, brings forth death. (James, v. 15.) Here is both the cause and the effect, the very genealogy of sin, its rise and end.

In all this, the heart of evil man is the devil's mint, his work-house, the place of his residence, where he exercises his power and art. And therefore the redemption of the soul is aptly called the destruction of the works of the devil, and bringing in of everlasting righteousness. (1 John, iii. 8.; Dan. ix. 24.) When the Jews would have defamed Christ's miracle of casting out devils, by a blasphemous imputation of it to the power of Beelzebub, he says that "no man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, till he first bind the strong man." (Matt. xii. 29.) Which, as it shows the contrariety that was between Beelzebub and the power by which he dispossessed him, so it teaches us to know that the souls of the wicked are the devil's house, and that his goods, his evil works, can never be destroyed till first he that wrought them, and keeps the house, be bound. All which makes it easy to know where the cross must be taken up, by which alone the strong man must be bound, his goods spoiled, and his temptations resisted, that is, within, in the heart of man.

V. But in the next place, how and in what manner is the cross to be daily borne?

The way, like the cross, is spiritual: that is an inward submission of the soul to the will of God, as it is manifested by the light of Christ in the consciences of men, though it be contrary to their own inclinations. For example: when evil presents, that which shows the evil does also tell them they should not yield to it; and if they close with its counsel, it gives them power to escape it. But they that look and gaze upon the temptation, at last fall in with it, and are overcome by it; the consequence of which is guilt and judgment. Therefore, as the cross of Christ is that spirit and power in men, though not of men, but of God, which crosseth and reproveth their fleshly lusts and affections; so the way of taking up the cross is an entire resignation of soul to the discoveries and requirings of it: not to consult their worldly pleasure, or carnal ease, or interest, for such are captivated in a moment, but continually to watch against the very appearances of evil, and by the obedience of faith, that is, of true love to, and confidence in God, cheerfully to offer up to the death of the cross, that evil part, that Judas in themselves, which, not enduring the heat of the siege, and being impatient in the hour of temptation, would, by its near relation to the tempter, more easily betray their souls into his hands.

VI. O this shows to every one's experience how hard it is to be a true disciple of Jesus! the way is narrow indeed, and the gate very strait, where not a word, no not a thought must slip the watch, or escape judgment; such circumspection, such caution, such patience, such constancy, such holy fear and trembling. This gives an easy interpretation to that hard saying, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" (Matt. xxiv. 42; xxv. 13; xxvi. 38, 42;) those that are captivated with fleshly lusts and affections: for they cannot bear the cross; and they that cannot endure the cross must never have the crown. To reign, it is necessary first to suffer. (Phil. ii. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 50.)

CHAPTER IV.

1. What is the great work of the cross? The answer to this is of great moment.—2. The work of the cross is self-denial.—3. What was the cup and cross of Christ?—4. What is our cup and cross?—5. Our duty is to follow Christ as our captain.—6. Of the distinction in self, a lawful and unlawful self.—7. What the lawful self is.—8. That it is to be denied in some cases by Christ's doctrine and example.—9. By the Apostle's pattern.—10. The danger of preferring lawful self above our duty to God.—11. The reward of self-denial an excitement to it.—12. This doctrine as old as Abraham.—13. His obedience of faith memorable.—14. Job a great instance of self-denial, his contentment.—15. Moses also a mighty example, his neglect of Pharaoh's court.—16. His choice.—17. The reason of it, viz. the recompense of reward.—18. Isaiah no inconsiderable instance, who of a courtier, became a holy prophet.—19. These instances concluded with that of holy Daniel, his patience and integrity, and the success they had upon the king.—20. There might be many mentioned to confirm this blessed doctrine.—21. All must be left for Christ, as men would be saved.—22. The way of God is a way of faith and self-denial.—23. An earnest supplication and exhortation to all, to attend upon these things.

But fourthly, What is the great work and business of the cross respecting man?

Answ. I. This indeed is of that mighty moment to be truly, plainly, and thoroughly answered, that all that went before seems only to serve for preface to it; and miscarrying in it to be no less than a misguidance of the soul about its way to blessedness. I shall therefore pursue the question, with God's help, and the best knowledge He hath given me in the experience of several years' discipleship.

II. The great work and business of the cross of Christ in man is self-denial; a word of as much depth in itself as of sore contradiction to the world, little understood but less embraced by it, yet it must be borne for all that. The Son of God is gone before us, and, by the bitter cup He drank and the baptism He suffered, has left us an example that we should follow in his steps; which made him put that hard question to the wife of Zebedee and her two sons, upon her soliciting that one might sit at his right and the other at his left hand in his kingdom, "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" It seems their faith was strong; they answered, "We are able." Upon which he replied, "Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with;" but their reward he left to his Father. (Matt. xx. 21, 22, 23.)

III. What was his cup he drank, and baptism he suffered? I answer, they were the denial and offering up of himself by the eternal Spirit to the will of God, undergoing the tribulations of his life and agonies of his death upon the cross for man's salvation.

IV. What is our cup and cross that we should drink and suffer? They are the denial and offering up of ourselves, by the same Spirit, to do or suffer the will of God for his service and glory, which is the true life and obedience of the cross of Jesus; narrow still, but before an unbeaten way. For when there was none to help, not one to open the seals, to give knowledge, to direct the course of poor man's recovery, He came in the greatness of his love and strength; and though clothed with the infirmities of a mortal man, being within fortified with the almightiness of an immortal God, He travelled through all the straits and difficulties of humanity, and first, of all others, trod the untrodden path to blessedness.

V. O come! let us follow Him, the most unwearied, the most victorious captain of our salvation; to whom all the great Alexanders and mighty Cæsars of the world are less than the poorest soldier of their camps could be to them. True, they were all great princes of their kind, and conquerors too, but on very different principles. For Christ made himself of no reputation, to save mankind; but these plentifully ruined people to augment theirs. They vanquished others, not themselves; Christ conquered self, that ever vanquished them; of merit therefore the most excellent Prince and Conqueror. Besides, they advanced their empire by rapine and blood, but He by suffering and persuasion; He never by compulsion, they always by force prevailed. Misery and slavery followed all their victories, his brought greater freedom and felicity to those he overcame. In all they did they sought to please themselves; in all He did he aimed to please his Father, who is King of kings and Lord of lords.

It is this most perfect pattern of self-denial we must follow, if ever we will come to glory; to do which let us consider self-denial in its true distinction and extent.

VI. There is a lawful and unlawful self: and both must be denied for the sake of him, who in submission to the will of God counted nothing dear that he might save us. And, though the world be scarcely in any part of it at that pass as yet to need that lesson of the denial of lawful self, that every day most greedily sacrifices to the pleasure of unlawful self; yet to take the whole thing before me, and for that it may possibly meet with some that are so far advanced in this spiritual warfare as to receive some service from it, I shall at least touch upon it.

VII. The lawful self which we are to deny, is that conveniency, ease, enjoyment, and plenty, which in themselves are so far from being evil, that they are the bounty and blessings of God to us, as husband, wife, child, house, land, reputation, liberty, and life itself; these are God's favours, which we may enjoy with lawful pleasure and justly improve as our honest interest. But when God requires them, at what time soever the lender calls for them or is pleased to try our affections by our parting with them; I say, when they are brought in competition with him, they must not be preferred, they must be denied. Christ himself descended from the glory of his Father, and willingly made himself of no reputation among men, that he might make us of some with God; and, from the quality of thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, he humbled himself to the poor form of a servant; yea, the ignominious death of the cross. (Phil. ii. 5, 6, 7, 8.)

VIII. It is the doctrine he teaches us in these words, "He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, more than me, is not worthy of me." (Matt. x. 37.) Again, "Whoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple." (Luke, xiv. 33.) And he plainly told the young rich man that if he would have eternal life, he should sell all and follow him; (Mark, x. 21, 22;) a doctrine sad to him as it is to those that, like him, for all their high pretences to religion, in truth love their possessions more than Christ. This doctrine of self-denial is the condition to eternal happiness, "He that will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.)

IX. This made those honest fishermen quit their lawful trades and follow him, when he called them to it, and others that waited for the consolation of Israel to offer up their estates, reputations, liberties, and also lives, to the displeasure and fury of their kindred and the government they lived under for the spiritual advantage that accrued to them by their faithful adherence to his holy doctrine. True, many would have excused their following him in the parable of the feast: some had bought land, some had married wives, and others had bought yokes of oxen, and could not come; (Luke, xiv. 18, 19, 20;) that is, an immoderate love of the world hindered them: their lawful enjoyments, from servants became their idols; they worshipped them more than God, and would not quit them to come to God. But this is recorded to their reproach; and we may herein see the power of self upon the worldly man, and the danger that comes to him by the abuse of lawful things. What, thy wife dearer to thee than thy Saviour! and thy land and oxen preferred before thy soul's salvation! O beware, that thy comforts prove not snares first, and then curses: to overrate them, is to provoke him that gave them to take them away again: come, and follow him that giveth life eternal to the soul.

X. Woe to them that have their hearts in their earthly possessions! for when they are gone, their heaven is gone with them. It is too much the sin of the greatest part of the world, that they stick in the comforts of it. And it is lamentable to behold how their affections are bemired and entangled with their conveniencies and accommodations in it. The true self-denying man is a pilgrim; but the selfish man is an inhabitant of the world: the one uses it, as men do ships, to transport themselves or tackle in a journey, that is, to get home; the other looks no further, whatever he prates, than to be fixed in fulness and ease here, and likes it so well, that if he could, he would not exchange. However, he will not trouble himself to think of the other world, till he is sure he must live no longer in this: but then, alas! it may prove too late; not to Abraham, but to Dives he may go; the story is as true as sad.

XI. But on the other hand, it is not for nought that the disciples of Jesus deny themselves; and indeed, Christ himself had the eternal joy in his eye: "For the joy that was set before him," says the author to the Hebrews, "he endured the cross;" (Heb. xii. 2;) that is, he denied himself, and bore the reproaches and death of the wicked; and despised the shame, to wit, the dishonour and derision of the world. It made him not afraid nor shrink, he contemned it; and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And to their encouragement, and great consolation, when Peter asked him, what they should have that had forsaken all to follow him, he answered them, "Verily I say unto you, that ye, which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," (Matt. xix. 27-29,) that were then in an apostacy from the life and power of godliness. This was the lot of his disciples; the more immediate companions of his tribulations, and first messengers of his kingdom. But the next that follows is to all: and "every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." It was this recompense of reward, this eternal crown of righteousness, that in every age has raised, in the souls of the just, a holy neglect, yea, contempt of the world. To this is owing the constancy of the martyrs, as to their blood, the triumph of the Truth.

XII. Nor is this a new doctrine; it is as old as Abraham. (Gen. xii.) In several most remarkable instances, his life was made up of self-denial. First, in quitting his own land, where we may well suppose him settled in the midst of plenty, at least sufficiency: and why? Because God called him. Indeed this should be reason enough, but such is the world's degeneracy that in fact it is not: and the same act, upon the same inducement, in any now, though praised in Abraham, would be derided. So apt are people not to understand what they commend; nay, to despise those actions, when they meet them in the people of their own times, which they pretend to admire in their ancestors.

XIII. But he obeyed: the consequence was, that God gave him a mighty land. This was the first reward of his obedience. The next was, a son in his old age; and which greatened the blessing, after it had been, in nature, past the time of his wife's bearing of children. (Gen. xxii. 2.) Yet God called for his darling, their only child, the joy of their age, the son of a miracle, and he upon whom the fulfilling of the promise made to Abraham did depend. For this son, I say, God called: a mighty trial: that which, one would have thought, might very well have overturned his faith, and stumbled his integrity; at least have put him upon this dispute in himself. This command is unreasonable and cruel; it is the tempter's, it cannot be God's. For, is it to be thought that God gave me a son to make a sacrifice of him? that the father should be butcher of his only child? Again, that he should require me to offer up the son of his own promise, by whom his covenant is to be performed; this is incredible. I say, thus Abraham might naturally enough have argued, to withstand the voice of God, and indulge his great affections to his beloved Isaac. But good old Abraham, that knew the voice that had promised him a son, had not forgotten to know it, when it required him back again; he disputes not, though it looked strange, and perhaps with some surprise and horror, as a man. He had learned to believe that God, that gave him a child by a miracle, could work another to preserve or restore him. His affections could not balance his duty, much less overcome his faith; for he received him in a way that would let him doubt of nothing that God had promised to him.

To the voice of this Almightiness he bows, builds an altar, binds his only son upon it, kindles the fire, and stretches forth his hand to take the knife: but the angel stopped the stroke: Hold, Abraham, thy integrity is proved. What followed? a ram served, and Isaac was his again. This shows how little serves, where all is resigned, and how mean a sacrifice contents the Almighty, where the heart is approved. So that it is not the sacrifice that recommends the heart, but the heart that gives the sacrifice acceptance.

God often touches our best comforts, and calls for that which we most love, and are least willing to part with. Not that he always takes it utterly away, but to prove the soul's integrity, to caution us from excesses, and that we may remember God, the author of those blessings we possess, and live loose to them. I speak my experience; the way to keep our enjoyments is to resign them; and though that be hard, it is sweet to see them returned, as Isaac was to his father Abraham, with more love and blessing than before. O stupid world! O worldly Christians; not only strangers, but enemies to this excellent faith! and whilst so, the rewards of it you can never know.

XIV. But Job presses hard upon Abraham: his self-denial also was very signal. For when the messengers of his afflictions came thick upon him, one doleful story after another, till he was left almost as naked as when he was born; the first thing he did, he fell to the ground, and worshipped that power, and kissed that hand that stripped him; so far from murmuring, that he concludes his losses of estate and children with these words: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job, i. 21.) O the deep faith, patience, and contentment of this excellent man! one would have thought this repeated news of ruin had been enough to have overset his confidence in God; but it did not; that stayed him. But indeed he tells us why; his Redeemer lived; "I know," says he, "that my Redeemer lives." (Job, xix. 25, 26.) And it appeared he did; for he had redeemed him from the world: his heart was not in his worldly comforts: his hope lived above the joys of time and troubles of mortality; not tempted by the one, nor shaken by the other; but firmly believed, that when after his skin worms should have consumed his body, yet with his eyes he should see his God. Thus was the heart of Job both submitted to and comforted in the will of God.

XV. Moses is the next great example in sacred story for remarkable self-denial, before the times of Christ's appearance in the flesh. He had been saved when an infant, by an extraordinary providence, and it seems, by what followed, for an extraordinary service: Pharaoh's daughter, whose compassion was the means of his preservation, when the king decreed the slaughter of the Hebrew males, (Exod. ii. 1, 10,) took him for her son, and gave him the education of her father's court. His own graceful presence and extraordinary abilities, joined with her love for him, and interest in her father to promote him, must have rendered him, if not capable of succession, at least of being chief minister of affairs under that wealthy and powerful prince. For Egypt was then what Athens and Rome were after, the most famous for learning, art, and glory.

XVI. But Moses, ordained for other work and guided by a higher principle, no sooner came to years of discretion, than the impiety of Egypt, and the oppressions of his brethren there, grew a burden too heavy for him to bear. And though so wise and good a man could not want those generous and grateful acknowledgments, that became the kindness of the king's daughter to him; yet he had also seen that God that was invisible; (Heb. xi. 24-27;) and did not dare to live in the ease and plenty of Pharaoh's house, whilst his poor brethren were required to make brick without straw. (Exod. v. 7, 16.)

Thus the fear of the Almighty taking deep hold of his heart, he nobly refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and chose rather a life of affliction, with the most despised and oppressed Israelites, and to be the companion of their tribulations and jeopardies, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproaches of Christ, which he suffered for making that unworldly choice, greater riches than all the treasures of that kingdom.

XVII. Nor was he so foolish as they thought him; he had reason on his side; for it is said, he had an eye to the recompense of reward, he did but refuse a lesser benefit for a greater. In this his wisdom transcended that of the Egyptians; for they made the present world their choice, as uncertain as the weather, and so lost that which has no end. Moses looked deeper, and weighed the enjoyments of this life in the scales of eternity, and found they made no weight there. He governed himself not by the immediate possession, but the nature and duration of the reward. His faith corrected his affections, and taught him to sacrifice the pleasure of self, to the hope he had of a future more excellent recompense.

XVIII. Isaiah[1] was no inconsiderable instance of this blessed self-denial; who of a courtier became a prophet, and left the worldly interests of the one, for the faith, patience, and sufferings of the other. For his choice did not only lose him the favour of men, but their wickedness, enraged at his integrity to God, in his fervent and bold reproofs of them, made a martyr of him in the end, for they barbarously sawed him asunder in the reign of king Manasseh. Thus died that excellent man, and commonly called the Evangelical Prophet.

XIX. I shall add, of many, one example more, and that is from the fidelity of Daniel; a holy and wise young man, who when his external advantages came in competition with his duty to Almighty God, relinquished them all; and instead of being solicitous how to secure himself, as one minding nothing less, he was, to the utmost hazard of himself, most careful how to preserve the honour of God, by his fidelity to his will. And though at the first it exposed him to ruin, yet, as an instance of great encouragement to all that like him will choose to keep a good conscience in an evil time, at last it advanced him greatly in the world; and the God of Daniel was made famous and terrible through his perseverance even in the eyes of heathen kings.

XX. What shall I say of all the rest, who counted nothing dear that they might do the will of God, abandoned their worldly comforts, and exposed their ease and safety, as often as the heavenly vision called them,[2] to the wrath and malice of degenerate princes and an apostate church? More especially Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Micah, who after they had denied themselves, in obedience to the divine voice, sealed their testimony with their blood.

Thus was self-denial the practice and glory of the ancients, that were predecessors to the coming of Christ in the flesh: and shall we hope to go to heaven without it now, when our Saviour himself is become the most excellent example of it? and that not as some would fain have it, viz. for us, that we need not; (1 Peter, ii. 21;) but for us, that we might deny ourselves, and so be the true followers of his blessed example.

XXI. Whoever therefore thou art that wouldst do the will of God, but faintest in thy desires, from the opposition of worldly considerations, remember I tell thee, in the name of Christ, that he that prefers father or mother, sister or brother, wife or child, house or land, reputation, honour, office, liberty, or life, before the testimony of the light of Jesus, in his own conscience, shall be rejected of him in the solemn and general inquest upon the world, when all shall be judged, and receive according to the deeds done, not the profession made, in this life. It was the doctrine of Jesus, that if thy right hand offend thee, thou must cut it off; and if thy right eye offend thee, thou must pluck it out: (Matt. v. 29, 30:) that is, if the most dear, the most useful and tender comforts thou enjoyest, stand in thy soul's way, and interrupt thy obedience to the voice of God, and thy conformity to his holy will revealed in thy soul, thou art engaged, under the penalty of damnation, to part with them.

XXII. The way of God is a way of faith, as dark to sense, as mortal to self. It is the children of obedience, who count, with holy Paul, all things dross and dung, that they may win Christ, and know and walk in this narrow way. Speculation will not do, nor can refined notions enter; the obedient only eat the good of this land. (Isaiah, i. 19.) They that do his will, says the blessed Jesus, shall know of my doctrine; (John, vii. 17;) them He will instruct. There is no room for instruction, where lawful self is lord, and not servant. For self cannot receive it; that which should is oppressed by self, fearful, and dare not. O! what will my father or mother say? How will my husband use me? or finally, what will the magistrate do with me? For though I have a most powerful persuasion, and clear conviction upon my soul, of this or that thing, yet considering how unmodish it is, what enemies it has, and how strange and singular I shall seem to them, I hope God will pity my weakness: if I sink, I am but flesh and blood; it may be hereafter He may better enable me; and there is time enough. Thus selfish, fearful man.

But deliberating is ever worst; for the soul loses in parley: the manifestation brings power with it. Never did God convince people, but, upon submission, he empowered them. He requires nothing without giving ability to perform it: that were mocking, not saving men. It is enough for thee to do thy duty, that God shows thee thy duty; provided thou closest with that light and spirit by which he gives thee that knowledge. They that want power, are such as do not receive Christ in his convictions upon the soul, and such will always want it; but such as do, they receive power, like those of old, to become the children of God, through the pure obedience of faith.

XXIII. Wherefore, let me beseech you, by the love and mercy of God, by the life and death of Christ, by the power of his Spirit, and the hope of immortality, that you, whose hearts are established in your temporal comforts, and so lovers of self, more than of these heavenly things, would let the time past suffice: that you would not think it enough to be clear of such impieties, as too many are found in, whilst your inordinate love of lawful things has defiled your enjoyment of them, and drawn your hearts from the fear, love, obedience, and self-denial of a true disciple of Jesus. Turn about then, and hearken to the still voice in thy conscience; it tells thee thy sins, and thy misery in them; it gives a lively discovery of the very vanity of the world, and opens to the soul some prospect of eternity, and the comforts of the just that are at rest. If thou adhere to this, it will divorce thee from sin and self: thou wilt soon find, that the power of its charms exceeds that of wealth, honour, and beauty of the world, and finally will give thee that tranquillity which the storms of time can never shipwreck nor disorder. Here all thy enjoyments are blest, though small, yet great by that presence that is within them.

Even in this world the righteous have the better of it, for they use the world without rebuke, because they do not abuse it. They see and bless the hand that feeds, and clothes, and preserves them. And as by beholding him in all his works, they do not adore them, but him; so the sweetness of his blessings that gives them, is an advantage such have upon those that see him not. Besides, in their increase, they are not lifted up, nor in their adversities are they cast down: and why? Because they are moderated in the one, and comforted in the other, by his divine presence.

In short, heaven is the throne, and the earth but the footstool of that man that hath self under foot. And those that know that station will not easily be moved; such learn to number their days, that they may not be surprised with their dissolution; and to redeem their time, because their days are evil; (Ephes. v. 16;) remembering they are stewards, and must deliver up their accounts to an impartial judge. Therefore not to self but to him they live, and in him die, and are blessed with them that die in the Lord. And thus I conclude my discourse on the right use of lawful self.

CHAPTER V.

1. Of unlawful self; it is two-fold: 1st, in religion; 2nd, in morality.—2. Of those that are most formal, superstitious, and pompous in worship.—3. God's rebuke of carnal apprehensions.—4. Christ drew off his disciples from the Jewish exterior worship, and instituted a more spiritual one.—5. Stephen is full and plain in this matter.—6. Paul refers the temple of God twice to man.—7. Of the cross of these worldly worshippers.—8. Flesh and blood make their cross, therefore cannot be crucified by it.—9. They are yokes without restraint.—10. Of the gaudiness of their cross, and their respect to it.—11. A recluse life no true gospel abnegation.—12. Comparison between Christ's self-denial and theirs: his leads to purity in the world, theirs to voluntary imprisonment, that they might not be tempted of the world. The mischief which that example, if followed, would do to the world. It destroys useful society and honest labour. A lazy life the usual refuge of idleness, poverty, and guilty age.—13. Of Christ's cross in this case. The impossibility that such an external application can remove an internal cause.—14. An exhortation to the men of this belief, not to deceive themselves.

I. I am now come to unlawful self, which, more or less, is the immediate concern of much the greater part of mankind. This unlawful self is two-fold. First, that which relates to religious worship: secondly, that which concerns moral and civil conversation in the world. And they are both of infinite consequence to be considered by us. In which I shall be as brief as I may, with ease to my conscience, and no injury to the matter.

II. That unlawful self in religion that ought to be mortified by the cross of Christ, is man's invention and performance of worship to God as divine, which is not so, either in its institution or performance. In this great error those people have the van of all that attribute to themselves the name of Christians, that are most exterior, pompous, and superstitious in their worship; for they do not only miss exceedingly by a spiritual unpreparedness, in the way of their performing worship to God Almighty, who is an Eternal Spirit; but the worship itself is composed of what is utterly inconsistent with the very form and practice of Christ's doctrine, and the apostolical example. For whereas that was plain and spiritual, this is gaudy and worldly: Christ's most inward and mental, theirs most outward and corporeal: that suited to the nature of God, who is a Spirit, this accommodated to the most carnal part. So that instead of excluding flesh and blood, behold a worship calculated to gratify them: as if the business were not to present God with a worship to please Him, but to make one to please themselves. A worship dressed with such stately buildings and imagery, rich furnitures and garments, rare voices and music, costly lamps, wax candles, and perfumes; and all acted with that most pleasing variety to the external senses that art can invent or cost procure; as if the world were to turn Jew or Egyptian again; or that God was an old man indeed, and Christ a little boy, to be treated with a kind of religious mask: for so they picture him in their temples, and too many in their minds. And the truth is, such a worship may very well suit such an idea of God: for when men can think Him such a one as themselves, it is not to be wondered if they address Him in a way that would be the most pleasing from others to themselves.

III. But what said the Almighty to such a sensual people of old, much upon the like occasion? "Thou thoughtest I was such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thee. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver." But, "to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of God." (Psalm l. 21, 22, 23.) This is the worship acceptable to him, "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God." (Mic. vi. 8.) For He that searcheth the heart, and tries the reins of man, and sets his sins in order before him, who is the God of the spirits of all flesh, looks not to the external fabric, but internal frame of the soul, and inclination of the heart. Nor is it to be soberly thought, that He who is clothed with divine honour and majesty; who covers himself with light as with a garment; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the deep; who maketh the clouds his chariot, and walks upon the wings of the wind: who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire: who laid the foundation of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever; can be adequately worshipped by those human inventions, the refuge of an apostate people from the primitive power of religion and spirituality of Christian worship.

IV. Christ drew off his disciples from the glory and worship of the outward temple, and instituted a more inward and spiritual worship, in which He instructed his followers, "Ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," says Christ to the Samaritan woman, "worship the Father; God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John, iv. 21.) As if he had said, for the sake of the weakness of the people, God condescended in old time to limit himself to an outward time, place, temple, and service, in and by which he would be worshipped; but this was during men's ignorance of his omnipresence, and that they considered not what God is, nor where he is; but I am come to reveal him to as many as receive me; and I tell you that God is a spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. People must be acquainted with him as a spirit, consider and worship him as such. It is not that bodily worship, or these ceremonial services, in use among you now, will serve, or give acceptance with this God that is a Spirit: no, you must obey his Spirit that strives with you, to gather you out of the evil of the world, that by bowing to the instructions and commands of his Spirit in your own souls, you may know what it is to worship him as a Spirit; then you will understand that it is not going to this mountain, nor to Jerusalem, but to do the will of God, to keep his commandments, and commune with thine own heart, and sin not; take up thy cross, meditate in his holy law, and follow the example of Him whom the Father hath sent.

V. Wherefore Stephen, that bold and constant martyr of Jesus, told the Jews, when a prisoner at the bar for disputing about the end of their beloved temple, and its services, but falsely accused of blasphemy; "Solomon," said Stephen, "built God an house; howbeit God dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?" (Acts, vii. 47-50.) Behold a total overthrow to all worldly temples, and their ceremonial appendages. The martyr follows his blow upon those apostate Jews, who were of those times, the pompous, ceremonious, worldly worshippers: "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as did your fathers, so do ye." (Acts, vii. 51.) As if He had told them, no matter for your outward temples, rites, and shadowy services, your pretensions to succession in nature from Abraham; and by religion from Moses. You are resisters of the Spirit, gainsayers of its instructions: you will not bow to his counsel, nor are your hearts right towards God: you are the successors of your fathers' iniquity; and though verbal admirers, yet none of the successors of the prophets in faith and life.

But the prophet Isaiah carries it a little further than is cited by Stephen. For after having declared what is not God's house, the place where his honour dwells, immediately follow these words: "But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." (Isaiah, lxvi. 2.) Behold, O carnal and superstitious man, the true worshipper, and the place of God's rest! This is the house and temple of Him whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain; a house self cannot build, nor the art or power of man prepare or consecrate.

VI. Paul, that great apostle of the Gentiles, twice expressly refers the word temple to man: once in his epistle to the church of Corinth; "Know ye not," says he, "that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?" &c. (1 Cor. vi. 19,) and not the building of man's hand and heart. Again, he tells the same people, in his second epistle, "For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said;" (2 Cor. vi. 16;) and then cites God's words by the prophet, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is the evangelical temple, the Christian church, whose ornaments are not the embroideries and furnitures of worldly art and wealth, but the graces of the Spirit; meekness, love, faith, patience, self-denial, and charity. Here it is, that the eternal wisdom, that was with God from everlasting, before the hills were brought forth, or the mountains laid, chooses to dwell; "rejoicing," says Wisdom, "in the habitable part of the earth, and my delights were with the sons of men:" (Prov. viii. 22, 23, 25, 31;) not in houses built of wood and stone. This living house is more glorious than Solomon's dead house; and of which his was but a figure, as he, the Builder, was of Christ, who builds up a holy temple to God. It was promised of old, that the glory of the latter house should transcend the glory of the former; (Hag. ii. 9;) which may be applied to this: not one outward temple or house to excel another in outward lustre; for where is the benefit of that? But the divine glory, the beauty of holiness in the gospel house or church, made up of renewed believers, should exceed the outward glory of Solomon's temple, which in comparison of the latter days, was but flesh to spirit, fading resemblance to the eternal substance.

But for all this, Christians have meeting-places, yet not in Jewish or Heathen state, but plain, void of pomp or ceremony, suiting the simplicity of their blessed life and doctrine. For God's presence is not with the house, but with them that are in it, who are the gospel church, and not the house. O! that such as call themselves Christians, knew but a real sanctity in themselves, by the washing of God's regenerating grace, instead of that imaginary sanctity ascribed to places; they would then know what the church is, and where, in these evangelical days, is the place of God's appearance. This made the prophet David say, "The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold." What is the glory that is within the true church, and that gold that makes up that inward glory? Tell me, O superstitious man! is it thy stately temples, altars, tables, carpets, tapestries; thy vestments, organs, voices, candles, lamps, censers, plate, and jewels, with the like furniture of thy worldly temples? No such matter; they bear no proportion with the divine adornment of the King of Heaven's daughter, the blessed and redeemed church of Christ. Miserable apostacy that it is! and a wretched supplement in the loss and absence of the apostolic life, the spiritual glory of the primitive church.

VII. But yet some of these admirers of external pomp and glory in worship would be thought lovers of the cross, and to that end have made to themselves many. But alas! what hopes can there be of reconciling that to Christianity, that the nearer it comes to its resemblance, the further off it is in reality? for their very cross and self-denial are most unlawful self: and whilst they fancy to worship God thereby, they most dangerously err from the true cross of Christ, and that holy abnegation that was of his blessed appointment. It is true, they have got a cross, but it seems to be in the room of the true one: and so mannerly, that it will do as they will have it that wear it; for instead of mortifying their wills by it, they made it, and use it according to them. So that the cross is become their ensign, that do nothing but what they list. Yet by that they would be thought his disciples, who never did his own will, but the will of his heavenly Father.

VIII. This is such a cross as flesh and blood can carry, for flesh and blood invented it; therefore not the cross of Christ, that is to crucify flesh and blood. Thousands of them have no more virtue than a chip: poor empty shadows, not so much as images of the true one. Some carry them for charms about them, but never repel one evil with them. They sin with them upon their backs; and though they put them in their bosoms, their beloved lusts lie there too, without the least disquiet. They are as dumb as Elijah's mock gods; (1 Kings, xviii. 27;) no life nor power in them: and how should they, whose matter is earthly, and whose figure and workmanship are but the invention and labour of worldly artists? Is it possible that such crosses should mend their makers? surely not.

IX. These are yokes without restraint, and crosses that never contradict: a whole cart-load of them would leave a man as unmortified as they find him. Men may sooner knock their brains out with them than their sins; and that, I fear, too many of them know in their very consciences that use them, indeed adore them: and, which can only happen to the false cross, are proud of them too, since the true one leaves no pride, where it is truly borne.

X. For as their religion, so their cross is very gaudy and triumphant: but in what? In precious metals and gems, the spoil of superstition upon the people's pockets. These crosses are made of earthly treasure, instead of teaching their hearts that wear them to deny it: and like men, they are respected by their finery. A rich cross shall have many gazers and admirers: the mean in this, as other things, are more neglected. I could appeal to themselves of this great vanity and superstition. O! how very short is this of the blessed cross of Jesus, that takes away the sins of the world!

XI. Nor is a recluse life, the boasted righteousness of some, much more commendable, or one whit nearer to the nature of the true cross: for if it be not unlawful as other things are, it is unnatural, which true religion teaches not. The Christian convent and monastery are within, where the soul is encloistered from sin. And this religious house the true followers of Christ carry about with them, who exempt not themselves from the conversation of the world, though they keep themselves from the evil of the world in their conversation. That is a lazy, rusty, unprofitable self-denial, burdensome to others to feed their idleness; religious bedlams, where people are kept lest they should do mischief abroad; patience per force; self-denial against their will, rather ignorant than virtuous: and out of the way of temptation, than content in it. No thanks if they commit not what they are not tempted to commit. What the eye views not, the heart craves not, as well as rues not.

XII. The cross of Christ is of another nature; it truly overcomes the world, and leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements; they that bear it are not thus chained up, for fear they should bite; nor locked up, lest they should be stolen away: no, they receive power from Christ their captain, to resist the evil, and do that which is good in the sight of God; to despise the world, and love its reproach above its praise; and not only not to offend others, but love those that offend them: though not for offending them. What a world should we have if every body, for fear of transgressing, should mew himself up within four walls! No such matter; the perfection of the Christian life extends to every honest labour or traffic used among men. This severity is not the effect of Christ's free spirit, but a voluntary, fleshly humility: mere trammels of their own making and putting on, without prescription or reason. In all which it is plain they are their own lawgivers, and set their own rule, mulct, and ransom: a constrained harshness, out of joint to the rest of the creation; for society is one great end of it, and not to be destroyed for fear of evil; but sin that spoils it, banished by a steady reproof, and a conspicuous example of tried virtue. True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it; not to hide their candle under a bushel, but to set it upon a table in a candlestick. Besides, it is a selfish invention; and that can never be the way of taking up the cross, which the true cross is therefore taken up to subject. But again, this humour runs away by itself, and leaves the world behind to be lost; Christians should keep the helm, and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world, and leave those that are in it without a pilot, to be driven by the fury of evil times, upon the rock or sand of ruin. In fine, this sort of life, if taken up by young people, is commonly to cover idleness, or to pay portions, to save the lazy from the pain of punishment, or quality from the disgrace of poverty; one will not work, and the other scorns it; if aged, a long life of guilt sometimes flies to superstition for a refuge, and after having had its own will in other things, would finish it in a wilful religion to make God amends.

XIII. But taking up the cross of Jesus is a more interior exercise: it is the circumspection and discipline of the soul in conformity to the divine mind therein revealed. Does not the body follow the soul, not the soul the body? Do not such consider, that no outward cell can shut up the soul from lust, the mind from an infinity of unrighteous imaginations? The thoughts of man's heart are evil, and that continually. Evil comes from within, and not from without: how then can an external application remove an internal cause; or a restraint upon the body, work a confinement of the mind? which is much less than without doors, for where there is least of action, there is most time to think; and if those thoughts are not guided by a higher principle, convents are more mischievous to the world than exchanges. And yet retirement is both an excellent and needful thing; crowds and throngs were not much frequented by the ancient holy pilgrims.

XIV. But then examine, O man, thy foundation, what it is, and who placed thee there; lest in the end it should appear thou hast put an eternal cheat upon thy own soul. I must confess I am jealous of the salvation of my own kind, having found mercy with my heavenly Father. I would have none to deceive themselves to perdition, especially about religion, where people are most apt to take all for granted, and lose infinitely by their own flatteries and neglect. The inward, steady righteousness of Jesus is another thing than all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man; and to stand approved in the sight of God, excels that bodily exercise in religion, resulting from the invention of men. And the soul that is awakened and preserved by his holy power and spirit, lives to Him in the way of his own institution, and worships Him in his own spirit, that is, in the holy sense, life, and leadings of it: which indeed is the evangelical worship. Not that I would be thought to slight a true retirement: for I do not only acknowledge but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it: He loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, and sea-sides. It is requisite to the growth of piety, and I reverence the virtue that seeks and uses it; wishing there were more of it in the world: but then it should be free, not constrained. What benefit to the mind, to have it for a punishment, and not for a pleasure? Nay, I have long thought it an error among all sorts, that use not monastic lives, that they have no retreats for the afflicted, the tempted, the solitary, and the devout, where they might undisturbedly wait upon God, pass through their religious exercises, and, being thereby strengthened, may, with more power over their own spirits, enter into the business of the world again: though the less the better, to be sure. For divine pleasures are found in a free solitude.

CHAPTER VI.

1. But men of more refined belief and practice are yet concerned in this unlawful self about religion.—2. It is the rise of the performance of worship God regards.—3. True worship is only from a heart prepared by God's Spirit.—4. The soul of man is dead without the divine breath of life, and so not capable of worshipping the living God.—5. We are not to study what to pray for. How Christians should pray. The aid they have from God.—6. The way of obtaining this preparation: it is by waiting, as David and others did of old, in holy silence, that their wants and supplies are best seen.—7. The whole and the full think they need not this waiting, and so use it not; but the poor in spirit are of another mind, wherefore the Lord hears, and fills them with his good things.—8. If there were not this preparation, the Jewish times would have been more holy and spiritual than the gospel; for even then it was required; much more now.—9. As sin, so formality, cannot worship God: thus David, Isaiah, &c.—10. God's own forms and institutions hateful to Him, unless his own Spirit use them; much more those of man's contriving.—11. God's children ever met God in his way, not their own; and in his way they always found help and comfort. In Jeremiah's time it was the same; his goodness was manifested to his children that waited truly upon him: it was an inward sense and enjoyment of him they thirsted after. Christ charged his disciples also to wait for the Spirit.—12. This doctrine of waiting further opened, and ended with an allusion to the pool of Bethesda; a lively figure of inward waiting and its blessed effects.—13. Four things necessary to worship; the sanctification of the worshipper, and the consecration of the offering, and the thing to be prayed for, and lastly, faith to pray in: and all must be right, that is, of God's giving.—14. The great power of faith in prayer; witness the importunate woman. The wicked and formal ask, and receive not; the reason why. But Jacob and his true offspring, the followers of his faith, prevail.—15. This shows why Christ upbraided his disciples with their little faith. The necessity of faith. Christ works no good on men without it.—16. This faith is not only possible now but necessary.—17. What it is, further unfolded.—18. Who the heirs of this faith are; and what were the noble works of it in the former ages of the just.

I. But there be others of a more refined speculation, and reformed practice, who dare not use, and less adore, a piece of wood or stone, an image of silver and gold; nor yet allow of that Jewish, or rather Pagan pomp in worship, practised by others, as if Christ's worship were of this world, though his kingdom be of the other, but are doctrinally averse to such superstition, and yet refrain not to bow to their own religious duties, and esteem their formal performance of several parts of worship that go against the grain of their fleshly ease, and a preciseness therein, no small cross unto them; and that if they abstain from gross and scandalous sins, or if the act be not committed, though the thoughts of it are embraced, and that it has a full career in the mind, they hold themselves safe enough within the pale of discipleship and walls of Christianity. But this also is too mean a character of the discipline of Christ's cross: and those that flatter themselves with such a sort of taking it up, will in the end be deceived with a sandy foundation, and a midnight cry. For said Christ, "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.)

II. For first, it is not performing duties of religion, but the rise of the performance that God looks at. Men may, and some do, cross their own wills in their own wills: voluntary omission and commission: "Who has required this at your hands?" (Isa. i. 12,) said the Lord of old to the Jews, when they seemed industrious to have served him; but it was in a way of their own contriving or inventing, and in their own time and will; not with the soul truly touched and prepared by the divine power of God, but bodily worship only: that, the apostle tells us, profits little. Not keeping to the manner of taking up the cross in worship as well as other things, has been a great cause of the troublesome superstition that is yet in the world. For men have no more brought their worship to the test, than their sins: nay less; for they have ignorantly thought the one a sort of excuse for the other; and not that their religious performances should need a cross, or an apology.

III. But true worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord. (Prov. xvi. 1; Rom viii. 14.) This preparation is by the sanctification of the Spirit; by which, if God's children are led in the general course of their lives, as Paul teaches, much more in their worship to their Creator and Redeemer. And whatever prayer be made, or doctrine be uttered, and not from the preparation of the Holy Spirit, it is not acceptable with God: nor can it be the true evangelical worship, which is in spirit and truth; that is, by the preparation and aid of the Spirit. For what is a heap of the most pathetical words to God Almighty; or the dedication of any place or time to him? He is a Spirit, to whom words, places, and times, strictly considered, are improper or inadequate. And though they be the instruments of public worship, they are but bodily and visible, and cannot carry our requests any further, much less recommend them to the invisible God; by no means; they are for the sake of the congregation: it is the language of the soul God hears, nor can that speak but by the Spirit, or groan aright to Almighty God without the assistance of it.

IV. The soul of man, however lively in other things, is dead to God, till He breathe the spirit of life into it: it cannot live to Him, much less worship Him, without it. Thus God tells us, by Ezekiel, when in a vision of the restoration of mankind, in the person of Israel, an usual way of speaking among the prophets, and as often mistaken, "I will open your graves," saith the Lord, "and put my Spirit in you, and you shall live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 12-14.) So, though Christ taught his disciples to pray, they were, in some sort, disciples before he taught them; not worldly men, whose prayers are an abomination to God. And his teaching them is not an argument that every body must say that prayer, whether he can say it with the same heart, and under the same qualifications, as his poor disciples or followers did, or not; as is now too superstitiously and presumptuously practised; but rather as they then, so we now, are not to pray our own prayers, but his: that is, such as He enables us to make, as He enabled them then.

V. For if we are not to take thought what we shall say when we come before worldly princes, because it shall then be given us; and that "it is not we that speak, but the Spirit of our heavenly Father that speaketh in us;" (Matt. x. 19, 20;) much less can our ability be needed, or ought we to study to ourselves forms of speech in our approaches to the great Prince of princes, King of kings, and Lord of lords. For be it his greatness, we ought not by Christ's command; be it our relation to him as children, we need not; he will help us, he is our Father; that is, if he be so indeed. Thus not only the mouth of the body but of the soul is shut, till God opens it; and then he loves to hear the language of it. In which the body ought never to go before the soul: his ear is open to such requests, and his Spirit strongly intercedes for those that offer them.

VI. But it may be asked, how shall this preparation be obtained?

I answer: By waiting patiently, yet watchfully and intently upon God: "Lord," says the Psalmist, "thou hast heard the desire of the humble; thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:" (Psalm x. 17:) and, says wisdom, "The preparation of the heart in man is from the Lord." (Prov. xvi. 1.) Here it is thou must not think thy own thoughts, nor speak thy own words, which indeed is the silence of the holy cross, but be sequestered from all the confused imaginations that are apt to throng and press upon the mind in those holy retirements. It is not for thee to think to overcome the Almighty by the most composed matter, cast into the aptest phrase; no, no; one groan, one sigh, from a wounded soul, a heart touched with true remorse, a sincere and godly sorrow, which is the work of God's Spirit, excels and prevails with God. Wherefore stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine, to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and acceptably. And thus taking up the cross, and shutting the doors and windows of the soul against everything that would interrupt this attendance upon God, how pleasant soever the object be in itself, how lawful or needful at another season, the power of the Almighty will break in, his Spirit will work and prepare the heart, that it may offer up an acceptable sacrifice. It is he that discovers and presses wants upon the soul; and when it cries, it is he alone that supplies them. Petitions, not springing from such a sense and preparation, are formal and fictitious: they are not true; for men pray in their own blind desires, and not in the will of God; and his ear is stopped to them: "but for the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy," God hath said, "I will arise;" (Psalm xii. 5;) that is, the poor in spirit, the needy soul, those that want his assistance, who are ready to be overwhelmed, that feel a need, and cry aloud for a deliverer, and that have none on earth to help: none in heaven but Him, nor in the earth in comparison of Him: "He will deliver," said David, "the needy when he cries, and the poor, and him that has no helper." (Psalm lxxii. 12, 14.) He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight. "This poor man," says he, "cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." (Psalm xxxiv. 6-8.) "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivers them," and then invites all to come and taste how good the Lord is; "yea, He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great." (Psalm cxv. 13.)

VII. But what is that to them that are not hungry? "They that be whole need not a physician:" (Matt. ix. 12;) the full have no need to sigh, nor the rich to cry for help. Those that are not sensible of their inward wants, that have not fears and terrors upon them, who feel no need of God's power to help them, nor of the light of his countenance to comfort them, what have such to do with prayer? their devotion is but at best, a serious mockery of the Almighty. They know not, they want not, they desire not what they pray for. They pray the will of God may be done, and do constantly their own: for though it be soon said, it is a most terrible thing to them. They ask for grace, and abuse that they have: they pray for the Spirit, but resist it in themselves, and scorn at it in others: they request mercies and goodness of God, and feel no real want of them. And in this inward insensibility, they are as unable to praise God for what they have, as to pray for what they have not. "They shall praise the Lord," says David, "that seek him: for he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry with good things." (Psalm xxii. 26; cvii. 8.) This also he reserves for the poor and needy, and those that fear God. Let the spiritually poor and the needy praise thy name: ye that fear the Lord, praise him; and ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him. Jacob was a plain man, of an upright heart: and they that are so, are his seed. And though (with him) they may be as poor as worms in their own eyes, yet they receive power to wrestle with God, and prevail as he did.

VIII. But without the preparation and consecration of this power, no man is fit to come before God; else it were matter of less holiness and reverence to worship God under the gospel, than it was in the times of the law, when all sacrifices were sprinkled before offered; the people consecrated that offered them, before they presented themselves before the Lord. (Numb. viii., xix.; 2 Chron. xxix. 36; xxx. 16, 17.) If the touching of a dead or unclean beast then made people unfit for temple or sacrifice, yea, society with the clean, till first sprinkled and sanctified, how can we think so meanly of the worship that is instituted by Christ in gospel times, as that it should admit of unprepared and unsanctified offerings? Or, allow that those, who either in thoughts, words, or deeds, do daily touch that which is morally unclean, can, without coming to the blood of Jesus, that sprinkles the conscience from dead works, acceptably worship the pure God: it is a downright contradiction to good sense: the unclean cannot acceptably worship that which is holy; the impure that which is perfect. There is a holy intercourse and communion betwixt Christ and his followers; but none at all betwixt Christ and Belial; between him and those that disobey his commandments, and live not the life of his blessed cross and self-denial. (2 Cor. vi. 15, 16.)

IX. But as sin, so formality cannot worship God; no, though the manner were of his own ordination. Which made the prophet, personating one in a great strait, cry out, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed, thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah, vi. 6-8.) The royal prophet, sensible of this, calls thus also upon God; "O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise." (Psalm li. 15-17.) He did not dare open his own lips, he knew that could not praise God; and why? "for thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it:" if my formal offerings would serve, thou shouldst not want them; thou delightest not in burnt-offerings. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise:" and why? because this is God's work, the effect of his power; and his own works praise him. To the same purpose doth God himself speak by the mouth of Isaiah, in opposition to the formalities and lip-worship of the degenerate Jews: "Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool, where is the house that ye build to me? and where is the place of my rest? For all these things hath my hand made. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." (Isaiah, lxvi. 1, 2.) O behold the true worshipper! one of God's preparing, circumcised in heart and ear, that resists not the Holy Spirit, as those lofty professing Jews did. Was this so then, even in the time of the law, which was the dispensation of external and shadowy performances: and can we now expect acceptance without the preparation of the Spirit of the Lord in these gospel times, which are the proper times for the effusion of the Spirit? By no means: God is what he was; and none else are his true worshippers, but such as worship him in his own spirit: these he tenders as the apple of his eye; the rest do but mock him, and he despises them. Hear what follows to that people, for it is the state and portion of Christendom at this day; "He that killeth an ox, is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations." (Isaiah, lxvi. 3.) Let none say, we offer not these kinds of oblations, for that is not the matter; God was not offended with the offerings, but offerers. These were the legal forms of sacrifice by God appointed; but they not presenting them in that frame of spirit, and under that right disposition of soul that was required, God declares his abhorrence, and that with great aggravation; and elsewhere, by the same prophet, forbids them to bring any more vain oblations before him; "incense," saith God, "is an abomination to me: your sabbaths and calling of assemblies I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." And "when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; when you make many prayers, I will not hear you." (Isaiah, i. 13-18.) A most terrible renunciation of their worship; and why? Because their hearts were polluted; they loved not the Lord with their whole hearts, but broke his law, and rebelled against his Spirit, and did not that which was right in his sight. The cause is plain, by the amendment He requires; "Wash ye," says the Lord, "make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes: cease to do evil, learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Upon these terms, and nothing short, He bids them come to Him, and tells them, that "though their sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; and though they be as crimson, they shall be white as wool."

So true is that notable passage of the Psalmist, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul: I cried to him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. But verily God hath heard me: he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me." (Psalm lxvi. 16, 20.)

X. Much of this kind might be cited, to show the displeasure of God against even his own forms of worship, when performed without his own Spirit, and that necessary preparation of the heart in man, that nothing else can work or give: which above all other penmen of sacred writ, is most frequently and emphatically recommended to us by the example of the Psalmist, who ever and anon calling to mind his own great slips, and the cause of them, and the way by which he came to be accepted of God, and to obtain strength and comfort from him, reminds himself to wait upon God. "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day long." (Psalm xxv. 5.) His soul looked to God for salvation, to be delivered from the snares and evils of the world. This shows an inward exercise, and a spiritual attendance, that stood not in external forms, but in inward divine aid.

And truly, David had great encouragement so to do; the goodness of God invited him to it and strengthened him in it. For says he, "I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock." (Psalm xl. 1, 2.) That is, the Lord appeared inwardly to console David's soul, that waited for his help, and to deliver it from the temptations and afflictions that were ready to overwhelm it, and gave him security and peace. Therefore, he says, "The Lord hath established my goings;" that is, fixed his mind in righteousness. Before, every step he took bemired him, and he was scarcely able to go without falling: temptation on all hands; but he waited patiently upon God: his mind retired, watchful, and intent to his law and Spirit; and he felt the Lord to incline to him. His needy and sensible cry entered heaven, and prevailed; then came deliverance and rescue to David, in God's time, not David's strength to go through his exercises, and surmount all his troubles. For which he tells us, a new song was put into his mouth, even praises to his God. (Psalm xl. 3.) But it was of God's making and putting, and not his own.

Another time, we have him crying thus: "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" This goes beyond formality, and can be tied to no lesson. But we may by this see, that true worship is an inward work; that the soul must be touched and raised in its heavenly desires by the heavenly Spirit, and that the true worship is in God's presence. When shall I come and appear? Not in the temple, nor with outward sacrifices, but before God in his presence. So that souls of true worshippers see God, make their appearance before him; and this they wait, they pant, they thirst for. O how is the greater part of Christendom degenerated from David's example! No wonder therefore that this good man tells us, "Truly my soul waiteth upon God;" and that he gives it in charge to his soul so to do; "O my soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." As if he had said, None else can prepare my heart, or supply my wants; so that my expectation is not from my own voluntary performance, or the bodily worship I can give him; they are of no value; they can neither help me, nor please him. But I wait upon him for strength and power to present myself so before him, as may be most pleasing to him; for he that prepares the sacrifice will certainly accept it. Wherefore in two verses he repeats it thrice; "I wait for the Lord—My soul doth wait—My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning." Yea, so intently, and with that unweariedness of soul, that he says in one place, "Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God." (Psalm lxix. 3.) He was not contented with so many prayers, such a set worship, or limited repetition: no; he leaves not till he finds the Lord, that is, the comforts of his presence: which brings the answer of love and peace to his soul. Nor was this his practice only, as a man more than ordinarily inspired; for he speaks of it as the way of worship, then amongst the true people of God, the spiritual Israel, and circumcision in heart, of that day: "Behold," says he, "as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy on us." (Psalm cxxiii. 2.) In another place, "Our soul waiteth for the Lord; he is our help and our shield." (Psalm xxxiii. 20.) "I will wait on thy name, for it is good before thy saints." (Psalm lii. 9.) It was in request with the truly godly in that day, and the way they came to enjoy God, and worship him acceptably. And from his own experience of the benefit of waiting upon God, and the saints' practice of those times, he recommends it to others: "Wait upon the Lord: be of good courage, and he will strengthen thy heart: wait, I say, on the Lord." (Psalm xxvii. 14.) That is, wait in faith and patience, and he will come to save thee. Again, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently upon him." That is, cast thyself upon him; be contented, and wait for him to help thee in thy wants; thou canst not think how near he is to help those that wait upon him: O try and have faith. Yet again, he bids us, "Wait upon the Lord, and keep his way." (Psalm xxxvii. 34.) Behold the reason why so few profit! they are out of his way; and such can never wait rightly upon him. Great reason had David for what he said, who had with so much comfort and advantage met the Lord in his blessed way.

XI. The prophet Isaiah tells us, that though the chastisements of the Lord were sore upon the people for their backslidings, yet in the way of his judgments, in the way of his rebukes and displeasure, they waited for him, and the desire of their soul, that is the great point, was to his name, and the remembrance of him. (Isaiah, xxvi. 8.) They were contented to be chid and chastised, for they had sinned; and the knowledge of him so was very desirable to them. But what! did he not come at last, and that in mercy too? Yes, he did, and they knew him when he came, a doctrine the brutish world knows not, "This is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us." (Isaiah, xxv. 9.) O blessed enjoyment! O precious confidence! here is a waiting in faith which prevailed. All worship not in faith is fruitless to the worshipper, as well as displeasing to God: and this faith is the gift of God, and the nature of it is to purify the heart, and give such as truly believe victory over the world. Well, but they go on: "We have waited for him; we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." The prophet adds, "Blessed are all they that wait upon God:" and why? for "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;" they shall never faint, never be weary: (Isaiah, xxx. 18; xl. 31:) the encouragement is great. O hear him once more: "For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God! besides thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him." (Isaiah, lxiv. 4.) Behold the inward life and joy of the righteous, the true worshippers; those whose spirits bowed to the appearance of God's Spirit in them, leaving and forsaking all it appeared against, and embracing whatever it led them to. In Jeremiah's time, the true worshippers also waited upon God: (Jer. xiv. 22:) and he assures us, that "The Lord is good to them that wait for them to the soul that seeketh him." (Lam. iii. 25.) Hence it is, that the prophet Hosea exhorts the church then to turn and wait upon God. "Therefore turn thou to thy God; keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually." (Hos. xii. 6.) And Micah is very zealous and resolute in this good exercise: "I will look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me." (Mic. vii. 7.) Thus did the children of the Spirit, that thirsted after an inward sense of him. The wicked cannot say so; nor they that pray, unless they wait. It is charged upon Israel in the wilderness, as the cause of their disobedience and ingratitude to God, that they waited not for his counsels. We may be sure it is our duty, and expected from us; for God requires it in Zephaniah: "Therefore wait upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I arise," &c. (Zeph. iii. 8.) O that all who profess the name of God, would wait so, and not offer to arise to worship without him. And they would feel his stirrings and arisings in them to help and prepare, and sanctify them. Christ expressly charged his disciples, "They should not stir from Jerusalem, but wait till they had received the promise of the Father, the baptism of the Holy Ghost," (Acts, i. 4, 8,) in order to their preparation for the preaching of the glorious gospel of Christ to the world. And though that were an extraordinary effusion for an extraordinary work, yet the degree does not change the kind; on the contrary, if so much waiting and preparation by the Spirit was requisite to fit them to preach to man; some, at least, may be needful to fit us to speak to God.

XII. I will close this great Scripture doctrine of waiting, with that passage in John about the pool of Bethesda: "There is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-market, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches; in these lay a great multitude of impotent folks, of blind, halt, and withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." (John, v. 2-4.) A most exact representation of what is intended by all that has been said upon the subject of waiting. For as there was then an outward and legal, so there is now a gospel and spiritual Jerusalem, the church of God; consisting of the faithful. The pool in that old Jerusalem, in some sort, represented that fountain, which is now set open in this new Jerusalem. That pool was for those that were under infirmities of body; this fountain for all that are impotent in soul. There was an angel then that moved the water, to render it beneficial; it is God's angel now, the great angel of his presence, that blesseth this fountain with success. They that then went in before, and did not watch the angel, and take advantage of his motion, found no benefit of their stepping in: those that now wait not the moving of God's angel, but by the devotion of their own forming and timing, rush before God, as the horse into the battle, and hope for success, are sure to miscarry in their expectation. Therefore, as then they waited with all patience and attention upon the angel's motion, that wanted and desired to be cured; so do the true worshippers of God now, that need and pray for his presence, which is the life of their souls, as the sun is to the plants of the field. They have often tried the unprofitableness of their own work, and are now come to the sabbath indeed. They dare not put up a device of their own, or offer an unsanctified request, much less obtrude bodily worship, where the soul is really insensible or unprepared by the Lord. In the light of Jesus they ever wait to be prepared, retired, and recluse from all thoughts that cause the least distraction and discomposure in the mind, till they see the angel move, and till their beloved please to awake: nor dare they call him before his time. And they fear to make a devotion in his absence; for they know it is not only unprofitable, but reprovable: "Who has required this at your hands?" "He that believes, makes not haste." (Isaiah, i. 12; xxviii. 16.) They that worship with their own, can only do as the Israelites, turn their earrings into a molten image, and be cursed for their pains. Nor fared they better, "that gathered sticks of old, and kindled a fire, and compassed themselves about with the sparks that they had kindled;" (Isaiah, l. 11) for God told them, "they should lie down in sorrow." It should not only be of no advantage, and do them no good, but incur a judgment from him: sorrow and anguish of soul should be their portion. Alas! flesh and blood would fain pray, though it cannot wait; and be a saint, though it cannot abide to do or suffer the will of God; with the tongue it blesses God, and with the tongue it curses men, made in his similitude. It calls Jesus LORD, but not by the Holy Ghost; and often names the name of Jesus, yea, bows the knee to it too; but departs not from iniquity: this is abominable to God.

XIII. In short, there are four things so necessary to worshipping God aright, and which put its performance beyond man's power, that there seems little more needed than the naming of them. The first is, the sanctification of the worshipper. Secondly, the consecration of the offering; which has been spoken to before somewhat largely. Thirdly, what to pray for; which no man knows that prays not by the aid of God's Spirit; and therefore without that Spirit no man can truly pray. This the apostle puts beyond dispute; "We know not," says he, "what we would pray for, as we ought, but the Spirit helpeth our infirmities." (Rom. viii. 26.) Men unacquainted with the work and power of the Holy Spirit, are ignorant of the mind of God; and those, certainly, can never please him with their prayers. It is not enough to know we want; but we should learn whether it be not sent as a blessing, disappointments to the proud, losses to the covetous, and to the negligent stripes; to remove these, were to secure the destruction, not help the salvation of the soul.

The vile world knows nothing but carnally, after a fleshly manner and interpretation; and too many that would be thought enlightened are apt to call providences by wrong names, for instance, afflictions they style judgments, and trials, more precious than the beloved gold, they call miseries. On the other hand, they call the preferments of the world by the name of honour, and its wealth happiness; when for once that they are so, it is much to be feared they are sent of God a hundred times for judgments, at least trials, upon their possessors. Therefore, what to keep, what to reject, what to want, is a difficulty God only can resolve the soul. And since God knows better than we what we need, he can better tell us what to ask than we can him: which made Christ exhort his disciples to avoid long and repetitious prayers; (Matt. vi. 7, 8;) telling them that their heavenly Father knew what they needed before they asked: and therefore gave them a pattern to pray by; not as some fancy, to be a text for human liturgies, which of all services are most justly noted and taxed for length and repetition; but expressly to reprove and avoid them. But if those wants that are the subject of prayer were once agreed upon, though that might be a weighty point, yet how to pray is of still greater moment than to pray; it is not the request, but the frame of the petitioner's spirit. The what may be proper, but the how defective. As I said, God needs not to be told of our wants by us, who must tell them to us; yet he will be told them from us, that both we may seek him, and he may come down to us. But when this is done, "To this man will I look, saith the Lord, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word:" (Isaiah, lxvi. 2.) to the sick heart, the wounded soul, the hungry and thirsty, the weary and heavy laden ones: such sincerely want a helper.

XIV. Nor is this sufficient to complete gospel-worship; the fourth requisite must be had, and that is faith; true faith, precious faith, the faith of God's chosen, that purifies their hearts, that overcomes the world, and is the victory of the saints. (1 Tim. i. 5; Acts, xv. 9; Tit. i. 1; 2 Pet. i. 1; 1 John, v. 4.) This is that which animates prayer and presses it home, like the importunate woman, that would not be denied; to whom Christ, seeming to admire, said, "O woman, great is thy faith!" (Matt. xv. 28.) This is of the highest moment on our part, to give our addresses success with God; and yet not in our power neither, for it is the gift of God: from him we must have it; and with one grain of it more work is done, more deliverance is wrought, and more goodness and mercy received, than by all the runnings, willings, and toilings of man, with his inventions and bodily exercises: which, duly weighed, will easily spell out the meaning, why so much worship should bring so little profit to the world, as we see it does, viz. true faith is lost. "They ask, and receive not; they seek, and find not: they knock, and it is not opened unto them:" (James, iv. 3:) the case is plain; their requests are not mixed with purifying faith, by which they should prevail, as good Jacob's were, when he wrestled with God and prevailed. And the truth is, the generality are yet in their sins, following hearts' lusts, and living in worldly pleasure, being strangers to this precious faith. It is the reason rendered by the deep author to the Hebrews, of the unprofitableness of the word preached to some in those days; "Not being," says he, "mixed with faith in them that heard it." Can the minister then preach without faith? No: and much less can any man pray to purpose without faith, especially when we are told, that "the just live by faith." For worship is the supreme act of man's life; and whatever is necessary to inferior acts of religion must not be wanting there.

XV. This may moderate the wonder in any, why Christ so often upbraided his disciples with, O ye of little faith! yet tells us, that one grain of it, though as little as that of mustard, one of the least of seeds, if true and right, is able to remove mountains. As if he had said, There is no temptation so powerful that it cannot overcome: wherefore those that are captivated by temptations, and remain unsupplied in their spiritual wants, have not this powerful faith: that is the true cause. So necessary was it of old, that Christ did not many mighty works where the people believed not; and though his power wrought wonders in other places, faith opened the way: so that it is hard to say, whether that power by faith, or faith by that power, wrought the cure. Let us call to mind what famous things a little clay and spittle, one touch of the hem of Christ's garment, and a few words out of his mouth, (John, ix. 6; Luke, viii. 47, 48,) did by the force of faith in the patients: "Believe ye that I am able to open your eyes?" (Matt. ix. 28;) "Yea, Lord," say the blind, and see. To the ruler, "only believe;" (Matt. ix. 23;) he did, and his dead daughter recovered life. Again, "If thou canst believe:" I do believe; says the father, help my unbelief: and the evil spirit was chased away, and the child recovered. He said to one, "Go, thy faith hath made thee whole;" (Mark, x. 52; Luke, vii. 48, 50;) and to another, "Thy faith hath saved thee; thy sins are forgiven thee." (Matt. xxi. 21, 22.) And to encourage his disciples to believe, that were admiring how soon his sentence was executed upon the fruitless fig-tree, he tells them, "Verily, if ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this, which is done to the fig-tree; but also, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and cast into the sea, it shall be done: and all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," (Matt. xviii. 19; Luke, xviii. 27.) This one passage convicts Christendom of gross infidelity; for she prays, and receives not.

XVI. But some may say, It is impossible to receive all that a man may ask. It is not impossible to receive all that a man, that so believes, can ask. (Mark, ix. 23.) The fruits of faith are not impossible to those that truly believe in the God that makes them possible. When Jesus said to the ruler, "If thou canst believe," he adds, "all things are possible to him that believeth." (Matt. xix. 26.) Well, but then some will say, It is impossible to have such faith: for this very faithless generation would excuse their want of faith, by making it impossible to have the faith they want. But Christ's answer to the infidelity of that age, will best confute the disbelief of this. "The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God." (Heb. xi. 6.) It will follow then, that it is not impossible with God to give that faith; though it is certain that without it it is impossible to please God: (1 Tim. i. 5; iii. 9:) for so the author to the Hebrews teaches. And if it be else impossible to please God, it must be so to pray to God without this precious faith.

XVII. But some may say, What is this faith that is so necessary to worship, and gives it such acceptance with God and returns that benefit to men? I say, It is a holy resignation to God, and confidence in him, testified by a religious obedience to his holy requirings, which gives sure evidence to the soul of the things not yet seen, and a general sense and taste of the substance of those things that are hoped for; that is, the glory which is to be revealed hereafter. As this faith is the gift of God, so it purifies the hearts of those that receive it. The apostle Paul is witness, that it will not dwell but in a pure conscience: he therefore in one place couples a pure heart and faith unfeigned together: in another, faith and a good conscience. James joins faith with righteousness, (James, ii.) and John with victory over the world; (1 John, v. 4;) "This," says be, "is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith." (Rom. iv. 1, 2.)

XVIII. The heirs of this faith are the true children of Abraham, (John, xvi. 9, 10,) in that they walk in the steps of Abraham, according to the obedience of faith, which only entitles people to be the children of Abraham. This lives above the world, not only in its sin, but righteousness: to this no man comes, but through death to self by the cross of Jesus, and an entire dependence by him, upon God.

Famous are the exploits of this divine gift; time would fail to recount them: all sacred story is filled with them. But let it suffice, that by it the holy ancients endured all trials, overcame all enemies, prevailed with God, renowned his truth, finished their testimony, and obtained the reward of the faithful, a crown of righteousness, which is the eternal blessedness of the just.

CHAPTER VII.

1. Of pride, the first capital lust; its rise.—2. Its definition and distinction.—3. That an inordinate desire of knowledge in Adam, introduced man's misery.—4. He thereby lost his integrity.—5. Knowledge puffs up.—6. The evil effects of false, and the benefit of true knowledge.—7. Cain's example a proof in the case.—8. The Jews' pride in pretending to be wiser than Moses, God's servant, in setting their post by God's post.—9. The effect of which was the persecution of the true prophets.—10. The divine knowledge of Christ brought peace on earth.—11. Of the blind guides, the priests, and the mischief they have done.—12. The fall of Christians, and the pride they have taken in it, hath exceeded the Jews; under the profession of their new-moulded Christianity, they have murdered the witness of the Lord Jesus.—13. The angels sang peace on earth at the birth of the Lord of meekness and humility: but the pride of the Pharisees withstood and calumniated him.—14. As Adam and the Jews lost themselves by their ambition, so the Christians losing the fear of God, grew creed and worship-makers, with this injunction, Conform or burn.—15. The evil effects of this in Christendom, so called.—16. The way of recovery out of such miserable defection.

I. Having thus discharged my conscience against that part of unlawful self, that fain would be a Christian, a believer, a saint, whilst a plain stranger to the cross of Christ, and the holy exercises of it; and in that briefly discovered what is true worship, and the use and business of the holy cross therein, to render its performance pleasing to Almighty God; I shall now, the same Lord assisting me, more largely prosecute that other part of unlawful self, which fills the study, care, and conversation of the world, presented to us in these three capital lusts, that is to say, pride, avarice, and luxury; from whence all other mischiefs daily flow, as streams from their proper fountains: the mortifying of which makes up the other; and indeed a very great part of the work of the true cross; and though last in place, yet first in experience and duty: which done, it introduces in the room of those evil habits, the blessed effects of that so much needed reformation, to wit, mortification, humility, temperance, love, patience, and heavenly-mindedness, with all other graces of the Spirit, becoming followers of the perfect Jesus, that most heavenly man.

The care and love of all mankind are either directed to God or themselves. Those that love God above all, are ever humbling self to his commands, and only love self in subserviency to him that is Lord of all. But those who are declined from that love to God, are lovers of themselves more than God: for supreme love must centre in one of these two. To that inordinate self-love, the apostle rightly joins proud and high-minded. (2 Tim. iii. 2, 4.) For no sooner had the angels declined their love, duty and reverence to God, than they inordinately loved and valued themselves; which made them exceed their station, and aspire above the order of their creation. This was their pride, and this sad defection their dismal fall; who are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day of God.

II. Pride, that pernicious evil, which begins this chapter, did also begin the misery of mankind: a most mischievous quality; and so commonly known by its motions and sad effects, that every unmortified breast carries its definition in it. However, I will say, in short, that pride is an excess of self-love, joined with an undervaluing of others, and a desire of dominion over them: the most troublesome thing in the world. There are four things by which it hath made itself best known to mankind, the consequences of which have brought a misery equal to its evil. The first is, an inordinate pursuit of knowledge; the second, an ambitious craving and seeking after power; the third, an extreme desire of personal respect and deference: the last excess is that of worldly furniture and ornaments. To the just and true witness of the eternal God, placed in the souls of all people, I appeal as to the truth of these things.

III. To the first, it is plain, that an inordinate desire of knowledge introduced man's misery, and brought an universal lapse from the glory of his primitive state. Adam would needs be wiser than God had made him. It did not serve his turn to know his Creator, and give him that holy homage his being and innocency naturally engaged and excited him too; nor to have an understanding above all the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, joined with a power to rule over all the visible creation of God; but he must be as wise as God too. This unwarrantable search, and as foolish as unjust ambition, made him unworthy of the blessings he received from God. This drives him out of paradise; and instead of being lord of the whole world, Adam becomes the wretchedest vagabond of the earth.

IV. The lamentable consequence of this great defection, has been an exchange of innocency for guilt, and a paradise for a wilderness. But, which is yet worse, in this state Adam and Eve had got another god than the only true and living God: and he that enticed them to all this mischief, furnished them with a vain knowledge, and pernicious wisdom: the skill of lies and equivocations, shifts, evasions, and excuses. They had lost their plainness and sincerity, and from an upright heart, the image in which God had made man, he became a crooked, twining, twisting serpent; the image of that unrighteous spirit, to whose temptations he yielded up, with his obedience, his paradisaical happiness.

V. So that fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience of the love and work of God in his soul, but in a notion of what he once did know and experience: which being not the true and living wisdom that is from above, but a mere picture, it cannot preserve man in purity; but puffs up, makes people proud, high-minded, and impatient of contradiction. This was the state of the apostate Jews before Christ came; and has been the condition of apostate Christians ever since he came: their religion standing, some bodily performances excepted, either in what they once knew of the work of God in themselves, and which they have revolted from; or in an historical belief, and an imaginary conception and paraphrase upon the experiences and prophecies of such holy men and women of God, as in all ages have deserved the style and character of his true children.

VI. As such a knowledge of God cannot be true, so by experience we find, that it ever brings forth the quite contrary fruits to the true wisdom. For as this "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated;" (James, iii. 17;) so the knowledge of degenerated and unmortified men is first impure: for it came by the commission of evil, and is held in an evil and impure conscience in them that disobey God's laws, and that daily do those things which they ought not to do; and for which they stand condemned before God's judgment-seat in the souls of men: the light of whose presence searches the most hidden things of darkness, the most secret thoughts, and concealed inclinations of ungodly men. This is the science, falsely so called: and as it is impure, so it is unpeaceable, cross, and hard to be entreated; froward, perverse, and persecuting; jealous that any should be better than they, and hating and abusing those that are.

VII. It was this pride made Cain a murderer: (Gen. iv. 8:) it is a spiteful quality; full of envy and revenge. What! was not his religion and worship as good as his brother's? He had all the exterior parts of worship; he offered as well as Abel; and the offering of itself might be as good: but it seems the heart that offered it was not. So long ago did God regard the interior worship of the soul. Well, what was the consequence of this difference? Cain's pride stomached it: he could not bear to be outdone by his brother. He grew wrathful, and resolved to vindicate his offering by revenging the refusal of it upon his brother's life: and without any regard to natural affection, or the low and early condition of mankind, he barbarously dyed his hands in his brother's blood.

VIII. The religion of the apostatized Jews did no better; for, having lost the inward life, power, and spirit of the law, they were puffed up with that knowledge they had: and their pretences to Abraham, Moses, and the promises of God, in that frame, served only to blow them up into an insufferable pride, arrogancy, and cruelty. For they could not bear true vision when it came to visit them; and entertained the messengers of their peace as if they had been wolves and tigers.

IX. Yea, it is remarkable, the false prophets, the great engineers against the true ones, were ever sure to persecute them as false; and, by their interest with earthly princes, or the poor seduced multitude, made them the instruments of their malice. Thus it was, that one holy prophet was sawn asunder, another stoned to death, &c. So proud and obstinate is false knowledge, and the aspirers after it; which made holy Stephen cry out, "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as did your fathers, so do ye." (Acts, vii. 51.)

X. The true knowledge came with the joy of angels, singing, "Peace on earth, and good-will towards men;" (Luke, ii. 14;) the false knowledge entertained the message with calumnies: Christ must needs be an impostor; and that must prove him so, to wit, his power of working miracles; which was that which proved the contrary. They frequently sought to kill him: which at last they wickedly accomplished. But what was the chief motive to it? Why, he cried out against their hypocrisy, the broad phylacteries, the honour they sought of men. To be short, they give the reason themselves in these words: If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: that is, he will take away our credit with the people; they will adhere to him, and desert us; and so we shall lose our power and reputation with the multitude.

XI. And the truth is, he came to level their honour, to overthrow their Rabbiship, and by his grace to bring the people to that inward knowledge of God, which they, by transgression, were departed from; that so they might see the deceitfulness of their blind guides, who by their vain traditions had made void the righteousness of the law: and who were so far from being the true doctors and lively expounders of it, that in reality they were the children of the devil, who was a proud liar and cruel murderer from the beginning.

XII. Their pride in false knowledge having made them incapable of receiving the simplicity of the gospel, Christ thanks his Father, that he had hid the mysteries of it from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. (Matt. xi. 25.) It was this false wisdom swelled the minds of the Athenians to that degree, that they despised the preaching of the apostle Paul as a vain and foolish thing. But that apostle who, of all the rest, had an education in the learning of those times, bitterly reflects on that wisdom, so much valued by Jews and Greeks; "Where," says he, "is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1 Cor. i. 20.) And he gives a good reason for it, "That no flesh should glory in his presence." (Verse 29.) Which is to say, God will stain the pride of man in false knowledge, that he should have nothing on this occasion to be proud of: it should be owing only to the revelation of the Spirit of God. The apostle goes further, and affirms, "That the world by wisdom knew not God:" (verse 21:) that is, it was so far from a help, that as men use it, it was a hindrance to the true knowledge of God. And in his first epistle to his beloved Timothy, he concludes thus: "O Timothy! keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called." (Tim. vi. 20.) This was the sense of apostolical times, when the divine grace gave the true knowledge of God, and was the guide of Christians.

XIII. Well, but what has been the success of those ages that followed the apostolical? Any whit better than that of the Jewish times? Not one jot. They have exceeded them; as with their pretences to greater knowledge, so in their degeneracy from the true Christian life: for though they had a more excellent pattern than the Jews, to whom God spoke by Moses his servant, he speaking to them by his beloved Son, the express image of his substance, the perfection of all meekness and humility; and though they seemed addicted to nothing more than an adoration of his name, and a veneration for the memory of his blessed disciples and apostles, yet so great was their defection from the inward power and life of Christianity in the soul, that their respect was little more than formal and ceremonious. For notwithstanding they, like the Jews, were mighty zealous in garnishing their sepulchres, and curious in carving their images; not only keeping with pretence what might be the relics of their persons, but recommending a thousand things as relics, which are purely fabulous, and very often ridiculous, and to be sure altogether unchristian; yet as to the great and weighty things of the Christian law, viz. love, meekness, and self-denial, they were degenerated. They grew high-minded, proud, boasters, without natural affection, curious, and controversial, ever perplexing the church with doubtful questions; filling the people with disputations, strife, and wrangling, drawing them into parties, till at last they fell into blood: as if they had been the worse for being once Christians.

O the miserable state of these pretended Christians! that instead of Christ's and his apostles' doctrine, of loving enemies, and blessing them that curse them, they should teach the people, under the notion of Christian zeal, most inhumanly to butcher one another; and instead of suffering their own blood to be shed for the testimony of Jesus, they should shed the blood of the witnesses of Jesus for heretics. Thus that subtle serpent, or crafty evil spirit, that tempted Adam out of innocency, and the Jews from the law of God, has beguiled the Christians, by lying vanities, to depart from the Christian law of holiness, and so they are become slaves to him; for he rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience.

XIV. And it is observable, that as pride, which is ever followed by superstition and obstinacy, put Adam upon seeking a higher station than God placed him in; and as the Jews, out of the same pride, to outdo their pattern, given them of God by Moses upon the mount, taught for doctrines their own traditions, insomuch that those that refused conformity to them, ran the hazard of Crucify, crucify: so the nominal Christians, from the same sin of pride, with great superstition and arrogance, have introduced, instead of a spiritual worship and discipline, that which is evidently ceremonious and worldly; with such innovations and traditions of men as are the fruit of the wisdom that is from below; witness their numerous and perplexed councils and creeds, with Conform or burn, at the end of them.

XV. And as this unwarrantable pride set them first at work, to pervert the spirituality of the Christian worship, making it rather to resemble the shadowy religion of the Jews, and the gaudy worship of the Egyptians, than the great plainness and simplicity of the Christian institution, which is neither to resemble that of the mountain, nor the other of Jerusalem; so has the same pride and arrogancy spurred them on, by all imaginable cruelties to maintain this great Diana of theirs. No meek supplications, nor humble remonstrances, of those that kept close to primitive purity in worship and doctrine, could prevail with these nominal Christians to dispense with the imposition of their unapostolical traditions; but as the ministers and bishops of these degenerate Christians left their painful visitation and care over Christ's flock, and grew ambitious, covetous, and luxurious, resembling rather worldly potentates, than the humble-spirited and mortified followers of the blessed Jesus; so almost every history tells us, with what pride and cruelty, blood and butchery, and that with unusual and exquisite tortures, they have persecuted the holy members of Christ out of the world; and that upon such anathemas, as far as they could, they have disappointed them of the blessing of heaven too. These, true Christians call martyrs; but the clergy, like the persecuting Jews, have styled them blasphemers and heretics; in which they have fulfilled the prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not say, that they should think they do the gods good service to kill the Christians, his dear followers, which might refer to the persecutions of the idolatrous Gentiles; (John, xvi. 2;) but that they should think they do God good service to kill them: which shows, that they should be such as professedly owned the true God, as the apostate Christians have all along pretended to do. So that they must be those wolves, that the apostle foretold, should arise out of themselves, and worry the flock of Christ, (Acts, xx. 29,) after the great falling away should commence, that was foretold by him, and made necessary, in order to the proving of the faithful, and the revelation of the great mystery of iniquity.

I shall conclude this head with this assertion, that it is too undeniable a truth, where the clergy have been most in power and authority, and have had the greatest influence upon princes and states, there have been most confusions, wrangles, bloodshed, sequestrations, imprisonments, and exiles: to the justifying of which I call the testimony of the records of all times. How it is in our age I leave to the experience of the living; yet there is one demonstration that can hardly fail us; the people are not converted, but debauched, to a degree that time will not allow us an example. The worship of Christendom is visible, ceremonious, and gaudy; the clergy, ambitious of worldly preferments, under the pretence of spiritual promotion; making the earthly revenues of churchmen much the reason of their function; being almost ever sure to leave the present smaller livings, to solicit and obtain benefices of larger title and income. So that with their pride and avarice, which good old Peter foresaw would be their snares, they have drawn after them ignorance, misery, and irreligion upon Christendom.

XVI. The way of recovery from this miserable defection is to come to a saving knowledge of religion; that is, an experience of the divine work of God in the soul: to obtain which be diligent to obey the grace that appears in thy soul, O man! that brings salvation; (Tit. ii. 2, 11, 12, 14;) it turns thee out of the broad way into the narrow way; from thy lusts to thy duty; from sin to holiness; from Satan to God. Thou must see and abhor self: thou must watch, and thou must pray, and thou must fast; thou must not look at thy tempter, but at thy preserver; avoid ill company, retire to thy solitudes, and be a chaste pilgrim in this evil world: and thus thou wilt arrive at the knowledge of God and Christ, that brings eternal life to the soul: a well-grounded assurance from what a man feels and knows within himself: such shall not be moved with evil tidings.

CHAPTER VIII.

1. Pride craves power as well as knowledge.—2. The case of Korah, &c. a proof.—3. Absalom's ambition confirms it.—4. Nebuchadnezzar's does the like.—5. The history of Pisistratus, Alexander, Cæsar, &c. shows the same thing.—6. The Turks are a lively proof, who have shed much blood to gratify pride for power.—7. The last ten years in Christendom exceed in proof of this.—8. Ambition rests not in courts, it finds room in private breasts too, and spoils families and societies.—9. Their peace is great that limit their desires by God's grace, and having power, use it to the good of others.

I. But let us see the next most common, eminent, and mischievous effect of this evil. Pride does extremely crave power, than which not one thing has proved more troublesome and destructive to mankind. I need not labour myself much in evidence of this, since most of the wars of nations, depopulation of kingdoms, ruins of cities, with the slavery and misery that have followed, both our own experience and unquestionable histories, acquaint us to have been the effect of ambition, which is the lust of pride after power.

II. How specious soever might be the pretences of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, against Moses, it was their emulation of his mighty power in the camp of Israel that put them upon conspiracies and mutinies. They longed for his authority, and their not having it was his crime: for they had a mind to be the heads and leaders of the people. The consequence of which was a remarkable destruction to themselves and all their unhappy accomplices.

III. Absalom, too, was for the people's rights against the tyranny of his father and his king; (2 Sam. xv.;) at least with this pretence he palliated his ambition; but his rebellion showed he was impatient for power, and that he resolved to sacrifice his duty as a son and subject to the importunities of his restless pride; which brought a miserable death to himself and an extraordinary slaughter upon his army.

IV. Nebuchadnezzar is a lively instance of the excessive lust of pride for power. His successes and empire were too heady for him: so much too strong for his understanding, that he forgot he did not make himself, or that his power had a superior. He makes an image, and all must bow to it, or be burnt. And when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to comply, "Who," says he, "is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" (Dan. iii.) And notwithstanding the convictions he had upon him, at the constancy of those excellent men, and Daniel's interpretation of his dreams, it was not long before the pride of his power had filled his heart, and then his mouth, with this haughty question, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" (Dan. iv. 30.) But we are told, that while the words were in his mouth, a voice from heaven rebuked the pride of his spirit, and he was driven from the society of men, to graze among the beasts of the field.

V. If we look into the histories of the world, we shall find many instances to prove the mischief of this lust of pride. I will mention a few of them for their sakes who have either not read or considered them.

Solon made Athens free by his excellent constitution of laws; but the ambition of Pisistratus began the ruin of it before his eyes. Alexander, not contented with his own kingdom, invaded others, and filled with spoil and slaughter those countries he subdued: and it was not ill said by the man, who, when Alexander accused him of piracy, told him to his face that Alexander was the greatest pirate in the world. It was the same ambition that made Cæsar turn traitor to his masters, and with their own army, put into his hand for their service, subdue them to his yoke, and usurp the government; which ended in the expulsion of freedom and virtue together in that commonwealth; for goodness quickly grew to be faction in Rome; and that sobriety and wisdom which ever rendered her senators venerable, became dangerous to their safety: insomuch that his successors hardly left one they did not kill or banish; unless such as turned to be flatterers of their unjust acquisition, and the imitators of their debauched manners.

VI. The Turks are a great proof to the point in hand, who to extend their dominion, have been the cause of shedding much blood, and laying many stately countries waste.

And yet they are to be outdone by apostate Christians; whose practice is therefore more condemnable, because they have been better taught: they have had a master of another doctrine and example. It is true, they call him Lord still, but they let their ambition reign: they love power more than one another; and to get it kill one another; though charged by him not to strike, but to love and serve one another. And, which adds to the tragedy, all natural affection is sacrificed to the fury of this lust: and therefore are stories so often stained with the murder of parents, children, uncles, nephews, masters, &c.

VII. If we look abroad into remoter parts of the world, we shall rarely hear of wars; but in Christendom rarely of peace. A very trifle is too often made a ground of quarrel here: nor can any league be so sacred or inviolable that arts shall not be used to evade and dissolve it to increase dominion. No matter who, nor how many are slain, made widows and orphans, or lose their estates and livelihoods; what countries are ruined; what towns and cities spoiled: if by all these things the ambitious can but arrive at their ends! To go no further back than sixty years, that little period of time will furnish us with many wars begun upon ill grounds, and ended in great desolation. Nay, the last twelve years of our time make as pregnant a demonstration as we can furnish ourselves with from the records of any age. It is too tedious, nor is it my business, to be particular: it has been often well observed by others, and is almost known to all, I mean the French, Spanish, German, English, and Dutch wars.

VIII. But ambition does not only dwell in courts and senates: it is too natural to every private breast to strain for power. We daily see how much men labour their utmost wit and interest to be great, to get higher places, or greater titles than they have, that they may look bigger and be more acknowledged; take place of their former equals, and so equal those that were once their superiors: compel friends, and be revenged on enemies. This makes Christianity so little loved of worldly men; its kingdom is not of this world; and though they may speak it fair, it is the world they love: that without uncharitableness we may truly say, People profess Christianity, but they follow the world. They are not for seeking the kingdom of heaven first, and the righteousness thereof, (Matt. vi. 33,) and to trust God with the rest; but for securing to themselves the wealth and glory of this world, and adjourning the care of salvation to a sick bed, and the extreme moments of life; if yet they believe a life to come.

IX. To conclude this head; great is their peace, who know a limit to their ambitious minds; that have learned to be contented with the appointments and bounds of Providence: that are not careful to be great; but, being great, are humble and do good. Such keep their wits with their consciences, and, with an even mind, can at all times measure the uneven world, rest fixed in the midst of all its uncertainties, and as becomes those who have an interest in a better, in the good time and will of God, cheerfully leave this; when the ambitious, conscious of their evil practices, and weighed down to their graves with guilt, must go to a tribunal that they can neither awe nor bribe.

CHAPTER IX.

1. The third evil effect of pride is love of honour and respect. Too many are guilty of it.—2. It had like to have cost Mordecai dear. Great mischief has befallen nations on this account.—3. The world is out in the business of true honour, as well as in that of true science.—4. Reasons why the author, and the rest of the people he walks with, use not these fashions.—5. The first is, the sense they had in the hour of their conviction, of the unsuitableness of them to the Christian spirit and practice, and that the root they came from was pride and self-love.—6. Reproach could not move them from that sense and practice accordingly.—7. They do it not to make sects, or for distinction.—8. Nor yet to countenance formality, but passively let drop vain customs, and so are negative to forms.—9. Their behaviour is a test upon the world.—10. And this cross to the world a test upon them.—11. The second reason against them is their emptiness.—12. Honour in Scripture is not so taken as it is in the world. It is used for obedience.—13. It is used for preferments.—14. A digression about folly in a Scripture sense.—15. Honour is used for reputation.—16. Honour is also attributed to functions and capacities, by way of esteem.—17. Honour is taken for help and countenance of inferiors.—18. Honour is used for service and esteem to all states and capacities: honour all men.—19. Yet there is a limitation, in a sense, to the righteous, by the Psalmist; to honour the godly, and contemn the wicked.—20. Little of this honour found in the world's fashions.—21. The third reason against them is, they mock and cheat people of the honour due to them.—22. The author and his friends are for true honour.—23. The fourth reason is, that if the fashions carried true honour in them, the debauched could honour men, which cannot be.—24. The fifth reason is, that then men of spite, hypocrisy, and revenge, could pay honour, which is impossible.—25. The sixth reason is drawn from the antiquity of true honour.—26. The seventh reason is from the rise of the vain honour, and the teachers of it, wherein the clown, upon a comparison, excels the courtier for a man of breeding.—27. The eighth reason against these honours is, that they may be had for money, which true honour cannot be.—28. The ninth and last reason is, because the holy Scripture expressly forbids them to true Christians.—29. As in the case of Mordecai.—30. A passage between a bishop and the author in this matter.—31. Likewise the case of Elihu in Job.—32. Also the doctrine of Christ to his disciples.—33. Paul against conforming to the world's fashions.—34. Peter against fashioning ourselves according to the world's lusts.—35. James against respect to persons.—36. Yet Christians are civil and mannerly in a right way.—37. But unlike the world in the nature of it, and motives to it.—38. Testimonies in favour of our dissent and practice.

I. The third evil effect of pride, is an excessive desire of personal honour and respect.

Pride, therefore loves power, that she might have homage, and that every one may give her honour, and such as are wanting in that, expose themselves to her anger and revenge. And as pride, so this evil effect is more or less diffused through corrupt mankind; and has been the occasion of great animosity, and mischief in the world.

II. We have a pregnant instance in holy writ, what malice and revenge proud man is capable of, when not gratified in this particular. It had almost cost Mordecai his neck, and the whole people of the Jews their lives, because he would not bow himself to Haman, who was a great favourite to king Ahasuerus. And the practice of the world, even in our own age, will tell us, that not striking a flag or sail, and not saluting certain ports or garrisons, yea, less things have given rise to mighty wars between states and kingdoms, to the expense of much treasure, but more blood. The like has followed about the precedency of princes and their ambassadors. Also the envy, quarrels, and mischiefs that have happened among private persons, upon conceit that they have not been respected to their degree or quality among men, without hat, knee, or title: to be sure, duels and murders not a few. I was once myself in France[3] set upon about eleven at night, as I was walking to my lodging, by a person that waylaid me, with his naked sword in his hand, who demanded satisfaction of me for taking no notice of him, at a time when he civilly saluted me with his hat; though the truth was, I saw him not when he did it. I will suppose he had killed me, for he made several passes at me, or I, in my defence, had killed him, when I disarmed him, as the earl of Crawford's servant saw, that was by; I ask any man of understanding or conscience, if the whole ceremony was worth the life of a man, considering the dignity of the nature, and the importance of the life of man, both with respect to God his Creator, himself, and the benefit of civil society.

III. But the truth is, the world, under its degeneracy from God, is as much out of the way as to true honour and respect, as in other things; for mere shows, and those vain ones, too, are much of the honour and respect that are expressed in the world; that a man may say concerning them, as the apostle speaks of science, that is, they are honours and respects falsely so called; having nothing of the nature of true honour and respect in them: but as degenerate men, loving to be honoured, first devised them, so pride only loves and seeks them, and is affronted and angry for want of them. Did men know a true Christian state, and the honour that comes from above, which JESUS teaches, they would not covet these very vanities, much less insist upon them.

IV. And here give me leave to set down the reasons more particularly, why I, and the people with whom I walk in religious society, have declined, as vain and foolish, several worldly customs and fashions of respect, much in request at this time of day: and I beseech thee, reader, to lay aside all prejudice and scorn, and with the meekness and inquiry of a sober and discreet mind, read and weigh what may be here alleged in our defence: and if we are mistaken, rather pity and inform, than despise and abuse our simplicity.

V. The first and most pressing motive upon our spirits, to decline the practice of these present customs, pulling off the hat, bowing the body or knee, and giving people gaudy titles and epithets in our salutations and addresses, was that savour, sight and sense of God, by his light and Spirit given us, of the Christian world's apostacy from God, and the cause and effects of that great and lamentable defection. In the discovery of which the sense of our state came first before us, and we were made to see him whom we pierced, and to mourn for it. A day of humiliation overtook us, and we fainted to that pleasure and delight we once loved. Now our works went beforehand to judgment, and a thorough search was made, and the words of the prophet became well understood by us; "Who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears?" "He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap." (Mal. iii. 2.) And as the apostle said, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter, iv. 18.) "Wherefore," says the apostle Paul, "knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men:" (2 Cor. v. 11:) what to do? To come out of the nature, spirit, lusts, and customs of this wicked world: remembering that, as Jesus has said, "For every idle word that man shall speak, he shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.)

This concern of mind and dejection of spirit was visible to our neighbours; and we are not ashamed to own, that the terrors of the Lord took such hold upon us, because we had long, under a profession of religion, grieved God's Holy Spirit, that reproved us in secret for our disobedience; that as we abhorred to think of continuing in our old sins, so we feared to use lawful things, lest we should use them unlawfully. Our heaven seemed to melt away, and our earth to be removed out of its place; and we were like men, as the apostle said, upon whom the ends of the world were come. God knows it was so in this day; the brightness of his coming to our souls discovered, and the breath of his mouth destroyed every plant he had not planted in us. He was a swift witness against every evil thought and every unfruitful work; and, blessed be his name, we were not offended in him, or at his righteous judgments. Now it was that a grand inquest came upon our whole life: every word, thought, and deed was brought to judgment, the root examined, and its tendency considered. "The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life," (1 John, ii. 16,) were opened to our view; the mystery of iniquity in us. And by knowing the evil leaven, and its divers evil effects in ourselves, how it had wrought, and what it had done, we came to have a sense and knowledge of the states of others: and what we could not, nay, we dare not let live and continue in ourselves, as being manifested to us to proceed from an evil principle in the time of man's degeneracy, we could not comply with in others. Now this I say, and that in the fear and presence of the all-seeing, just God, the present honours and respect of the world, among other things, became burdensome to us: we saw they had no being in paradise, that they grew in the night-time, and came from an ill root; and that they only delighted a vain and ill mind, and that much pride and folly were in them.

VI. And though we easily foresaw the storms of reproach that would fall upon us for our refusing to practise them; yet we were so far from being shaken in our judgment, that it abundantly confirmed our sense of them. For so exalted a thing is man, and so loving of honour and respect, even from his fellow-creatures, that so soon as in tenderness of conscience towards God we could not perform them as formerly, he became more concerned than for all the rest of our differences, however material to salvation. So that let the honour of God and our own salvation do as it will, it was greater heresy and blasphemy to refuse him the homage of the hat, and his usual titles of honour; to deny to pledge his healths, or play with him at cards and dice, than any other principle we maintained: for being less in his view, it seemed not so much in his way.

VII. And though it be frequently objected that we seek to set up outward forms of preciseness, and that is but as a green riband, the badge of the party, the better to be known: I do declare, in the fear of Almighty God, that these are but the imaginations and vain constructions of insensible men, that have not had that sense which the Lord hath given us, of what arises from the right and the wrong root in man: and when such censurers of our simplicity shall be inwardly touched and awakened by the mighty power of God, and see things as they are in their proper natures and seeds, they will then know their own burden, and easily acquit us, without the imputation of folly or hypocrisy herein.

VIII. To say that we strain at small things, which becomes not people of so fair pretensions to liberty and freedom of spirit: I answer with meekness, truth, and sobriety; first, nothing is small that God makes matter of conscience to do, or leave undone. Next as inconsiderable as they are made, by those that object upon us, they are much set by; so greatly as for our not giving them to be beaten, imprisoned, refused justice, &c. To say nothing of the derision and reproach that hath been frequently flung at us on this account. So that if we had wanted a proof of the truth of our inward belief and judgment, the very practice of them that opposed it would have abundantly confirmed us. But let it suffice to us, that "Wisdom is justified of her children:" (Matt. xi. 19:) we only passively let fall the practice of what we are taught to believe is vain and unchristian: in which we are negative to forms: for we leave off, we do not set up forms.

IX. The world is so set upon the ceremonious parts and outside of things, that it has well beseemed the wisdom of God in all ages to bring forth his dispensations with very different appearances to their settled customs; thereby contradicting human inventions, and proving the integrity of his confessors. Nay, it is a test upon the world: it tries what patience, kindness, sobriety, and moderation they have: if the rough and homely outside of truth stumble not their minds from the reception of it, whose beauty is within: it makes a great discovery upon them. For he who refuses a precious jewel, because it is presented in a plain box, will never esteem it to its value, nor set his heart upon keeping it; therefore I call it a test, because it shows where the hearts and affections of the people stick, after all their great pretence to more excellent things.

X. It is also a mighty trial upon God's people, in that they are put upon the discovery of their contradiction to the customs generally received and esteemed in the world; which exposes them to the wonder, scorn, and abuse of the multitude. But there is a hidden treasure in it: it inures us to reproach, it teaches us to despise the false reputation of the world, and silently to undergo the contradiction and scorn of its votaries; and finally with a Christian meekness and patience to overcome their injuries and reproaches. Add to this; it weans thee of thy familiars; for being slighted of them as a ninny, a fool, a frantic, &c. thou art delivered from a greater temptation; and that is the power and influence of their vain conversation. And last of all, it lists thee of the company of the blessed, mocked, persecuted JESUS: to fight under his banner against the world, the flesh, and the devil: that after having faithfully suffered with him in a state of humiliation, thou mayst reign with him in a state of glorification: who glorifies his poor, despised, constant followers with the glory he had with the Father before the world began. (John, xvii. 5.) This was the first reason of our declining to practise the before-mentioned honours, respect, &c.

XI. The second reason why we decline and refuse the present use of these customs in our addresses and salutations, is from the consideration of their very emptiness and vanity: that there is nothing of true honour and respect in them, supposing them not to be evil. And, as religion and worship are degenerated into form and ceremony, and they not according to primitive practice neither, so is honour and respect too; there being little of that in the world as well as of the other; and to be sure, in these customs, none that is justifiable by Scripture or reason.

XII. In Scripture we find the word honour often and diversely used. First for obedience: as when God saith, "They that honour me;" (1 Sam. ii. 30:) that is, that keep my commandments. "Honour the king;" (1 Pet. ii. 17;) that is, obey the king. "Honour thy father and mother;" (Exod. xx. 12;) that is, saith the apostle to the Ephesians, "Obey thy father and thy mother in the Lord, for that is right:" (Eph. vi. 1, 2:) take heed to their precepts and advice: presupposing always, that rulers and parents command lawful things, else they dishonour themselves to enjoin unlawful things; and subjects and children dishonour their superiors and parents, in complying with their unrighteous commands. Also Christ uses this word so, when he says, "I have not a devil, but I honour my Father, and ye dishonour me;" (John, viii. 49;) that is, I do my Father's will in what I do, but you will not hear me; you reject my counsel, and will not obey my voice. It was not refusing hat and knee, nor empty trifles: no, it was disobedience; resisting him that God had sent, and not believing in him. This was the dishonour he taxed them with; using him as an impostor, that God had ordained for the salvation of the world. And of these dishonourers there are but too many at this day. Christ has a saying to the same effect; "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father; and he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, which hath sent him:" (John, v. 23:) that is, they that hearken not to Christ, and do not worship and obey him, they do not hear, worship, nor obey God. As they pretended to believe in God, so they were to have believed in him; he told them so. This is pregnantly manifested in the case of the centurion, whose faith was so much commended by Christ; where, giving Jesus an account of his honourable station, he tells him, "He had soldiers under his authority, and when he said to one, Go, he went; to another, Come, he came; and to a third, Do this, he did it." (Luke, vii. 8.) In this it was he placed the honour of his capacity, and the respect of his soldiers, and not in hats and legs: nor are such customs yet in use amongst soldiers, being effeminate, and unworthy of masculine gravity.

XIII. In the next place, honour is used for preferment to trust and eminent employments. So the Psalmist, speaking to God: "For thou hast crowned him with glory and honour:" again, "Honour and majesty hast thou laid on him;" (Psalm viii. 5; xxi. 5;) that is, God hath given Christ power over all his enemies, and exalted him to great dominion. Thus the wise man intimates, when he says, "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honour is humility." (Prov. xv. 33.) That is, before advancement or preferment is humility. Further, he has this saying, "As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool:" (Prov. xxvi. 10:) that is, a fool is not capable of the dignity of trust, employment, or preferment: they require virtue, wisdom, integrity, diligence, with which fools are unfurnished. And yet if the respects and titles in use amongst us are to go for marks of honour, Solomon's proverb will take place, and doubtless doth, upon the practice of this age, that yields so much of that honour to a great many of Solomon's fools; who are not only silly men, but wicked too; such as refuse instruction, and hate the fear of the Lord; (Prov. xiii. 18;) which only maketh one of his wise men.

XIV. And as virtue and wisdom are the same, so folly and wickedness. Thus Shechem's lying with Dinah, Jacob's daughter, is called: (Gen. xxxiv. 7:) so is the rebellion and wickedness of the Israelites in Joshua. (Josh. vii. 15.) The Psalmist expresses thus: "My wounds stink, because of my foolishness:" (Psalm xxxviii. 5:) that is, his sin. And, "The Lord will speak peace to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly:" (Psalm lxxxv. 8:) that is, to evil. "His own iniquities," says Solomon, "shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins: he shall die without instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray." (Prov. v. 22, 23.) Christ puts foolishness with blasphemy, pride, theft, murders, adulteries, wickedness, &c. (Mark, vii. 10-12.) I was the more willing to add these passages, to show the difference that there is between the mind of the Holy Ghost, and the notion that those ages had of fools, that deserve not honour, and that which is generally meant by fools and folly in our time; that we may the better understand the disproportion there is between honour, as then understood by the Holy Ghost, and those that were led thereby; and the apprehension of it, and the practice of those latter ages of professed Christians.

XV. But honour is also taken for reputation, and it is so understood with us: "A gracious woman," says Solomon, "retaineth honour;" (Prov. xi. 16;) that is, she keeps her credit: and by her virtue, maintains her reputation, of sobriety and chastity. In another place, "It is an honour for a man to cease from strife:" (Prov. xx. 3:) that is, it makes for his reputation, as a wise and good man. Christ uses the word thus, where he says, "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country;" (Matt. xiii. 57;) that is, he has credit, and is valued, save at home. The apostle to the Thessalonians has a saying to this effect: "That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour:" (1 Thes. iv. 4:) that is, in chastity and sobriety. In all which nothing of the fashions by us declined is otherwise concerned than to be totally excluded.

XVI. There is yet another use of the word honour in Scripture, and that is to functions and capacities: as, "An elder is worthy of double honour:" (1 Tim. v. 17:) that is, he deserves double esteem, love, and respect; being holy, merciful, temperate, peaceable, humble, &c., especially one that labours in word and doctrine. So Paul recommends Epaphroditus to the Philippians; "Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation:" (Phil. ii. 29:) as if he had said, Let them be valued and regarded by you in what they say and teach. Which is the truest, and most natural and convincing way of testifying respect to a man of God; as Christ said to his disciples, "If ye love me ye will keep my sayings." Further, the apostle bids us, To honour widows indeed: that is, such women who are of chaste lives and exemplary virtue are honourable.

XVII. The word honour, in the Scripture, is also used from superiors to inferiors. Which is plain in the instance of Ahasuerus to Haman; "What shall be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour?" (Esther, vi. 6.) Why, he mightily advanced him, as Mordecai afterwards. And more particularly it is said, that "the Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour:" (Esther, viii. 16:) that is, they escaped the persecution that was like to fall upon them, and by the means of Esther and Mordecai, they enjoyed not only peace, but favour and countenance too. In this sense the apostle Peter advised Christian men "To honour their wives:" (1 Pet. iii. 7:) that is, to love, value, cherish, countenance, and esteem them, for their fidelity and affection to their husbands, for their tenderness and care over their children, and for their diligence and circumspection in their families. There is no ceremonious behaviour, or gaudy titles requisite to express this honour. Thus God honours holy men: "Them that honour me," says the Lord, "I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed:" (1 Sam. ii. 30:) that is, I will do good to them, I will love, bless, countenance, and prosper them that honour me, that obey me: but they that despise me, that resist my Spirit, and break my law, they shall be lightly esteemed, little set by or accounted of; they shall not find favour with God, nor righteous men. And so we see it daily among men: if the great visit or concern themselves to aid the poor; we say, that such a great man did me the honour to come and see, or help me in my need.

XVIII. I shall conclude this with one passage more, and that is a very large, plain, and pertinent one: "Honour all men, and love the brotherhood:" (1 Pet. ii. 17:) that is, love is above honour, and that is reserved for the brotherhood. But honour, which is esteem and regard, that thou owest to all men; and if all, then thy inferiors. But why for all men? Because they are the creation of God, and the most noble part of his creation too: they are also thy own kind: be natural, and assist them with what thou canst; be ready to perform any real respect, and yield them any good or countenance thou canst.

XIX. And yet there seems a limitation to the command, Honour all men, in that passage of godly David, "Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? he in whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord." (Psalm xv. 1, 4.) Here honour is confined and affixed to godly persons; and dishonour made the duty of the righteous to the wicked, and a mark of their being righteous, that they dishonour, that is, slight or disregard them. To conclude this Scripture inquiry after honour, I shall contract the subject of it under three capacities, superiors, equals, and inferiors: honour, to superiors is obedience; to equals, love; to inferiors, countenance and help: that is honour after God's mind, and the holy people's fashion of old.

XX. But how little of all this is to be seen or had in a poor empty hat, bow, cringe, or gaudy, flattering title, let the truth-speaking witness of God in all mankind judge. For I must not appeal to corrupt, proud, and self-speaking man, of the good or evil of those customs; that as little as he would render them, are loved and sought by him, and he is out of humour and angry if he has them not.

This is our second reason why we refuse to practise the accustomed ceremonies of honour and respect; because we find no such notion or expression of honour and respect, recommended to us by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures of truth.

XXI. Our third reason for not using them as testimonies of honour and respect is, because there is no discovery of honour or respect to be made by them: it is rather eluding and equivocating it; cheating people of the honour and respect that is due to them; giving them nothing in the show of something. There is in them no obedience to superiors, no love to equals, no help or countenance to inferiors.

XXII. We are, we declare to the whole world, for true honour and respect; we honour the king, our parents, our masters, our magistrates, our landlords, one another; yea, all men, after God's way, used by holy men and women of old time: but we refuse these customs as vain and deceitful; not answering the end they are used for.

XXIII. But, fourthly, there is yet more to be said: we find that vain, loose, and worldly people are the great lovers and practisers of them, and most deride our simplicity of behaviour. Now we assuredly know, from the sacred testimonies, that those people cannot give true honour that live in a dishonourable spirit; they understand it not; but they can give the hat and knee, and that they are very liberal of, nor are any more expert at it. This is to us a proof that no true honour can be testified by those customs, which vanity and looseness love and use.

XXIV. Next to them I will add hypocrisy, and revenge too. For how little do many care for each other! Nay, what spite, envy, animosity, secret backbiting, and plotting one against another, under the use of these idle respects; till passion, too strong for cunning, breaks through hypocrisy into open affront and revenge! It cannot be so with the Scripture honour: to obey, or prefer a man, out of spite, is not usually done: and to love, help, serve, and countenance a person, in order to deceive and be revenged of him, is a thing never heard of: these admit of no hypocrisy nor revenge. Men do not these things to palliate ill-will, which are the testimonies of quite the contrary. It is absurd to imagine it, because impossible to be done.

XXV. Our sixth reason is, that honour was from the beginning: but hat-respects and most titles are of late: therefore there was true honour before hats or titles; and consequently true honour stands not in them. And that which ever was the way to express true honour is the best way still; and this the Scripture teaches better than dancing-masters can do.

XXVI. Seventhly, if honour consists in such-like ceremonies, then will it follow, that they are most capable of showing honour who perform it most exactly, according to the mode or fashion of the times; consequently, that man hath not the measure of true honour, from a just and reasonable principle in himself, but by the means and skill of the fantastic dancing-masters of the times: and for this cause it is we see that many give much money to have their children learn their honours, falsely so called. And what doth this but totally exclude the poor country people; who, though they plough, till, sow, reap, go to market, and in all things obey their justices, landlords, fathers, and masters, with sincerity and sobriety, rarely use those ceremonies; but if they do it is so awkwardly and meanly, that they are esteemed by a court critic so ill favoured as only fit to make a jest of and be laughed at: but what sober man will not deem their obedience beyond the others' vanity and hypocrisy? This base notion of honour turns out of doors the true, and sets the false in its place. Let it be further considered, that the way or fashion of doing it is much more in the design of its performers, as well as view of its spectators, than the respect itself. Whence it is commonly said, He is a man of good mien; or, She is a woman of exact behaviour. And what is this behaviour but fantastic, cramped postures and cringings, unnatural to their shape; and, if it were not fashionable, ridiculous to the view of all people; and is therefore to the Eastern countries a proverb.

XXVII. But yet, eighthly, real honour consists not in a hat, bow, or title, because all these things may be had for money, for which reason, how many dancing-schools, plays, &c. are there in the land, to which youth is generally sent to be educated in these vain fashions! Whilst they are ignorant of the honour that is of God, and their minds are allured to visible things that perish; and instead of remembering their Creator, are taken up with toys and fopperies; and sometimes so much worse, as to cost themselves a disinheriting, and their indiscreet parents grief and misery all their days. (Prov. iii. 9.) If parents would honour God in the help of his poor with the substance they bestow on such an education, they would find a far better account in the end.

XXVIII. But lastly, we cannot esteem bows, titles, and pulling off of hats, to be real honour, because such-like customs have been prohibited by God, his Son, and servants in days past. This I shall endeavour to show by three or four express authorities.

XXIX. My first example and authority is taken from the story of Mordecai and Haman; so close to this point, that methinks it should at least command silence to the objections frequently advanced against us. Haman was first minister of state, and favourite to king Ahasuerus. The text says, That the king set his seat above all the princes that were with him; and all the king's servants bowed and reverenced Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him; but Mordecai, it seems, bowed not, nor did him reverence. (Esther, iii. 1, 2.) This at first made ill for Mordecai; a gallows was prepared for him at Haman's command. But the sequel of the story shows that Haman proved his own invention, and ended his pride with his life upon it. Well now, speaking as the world speaks, and looking upon Mordecai without the knowledge of the success; was not Mordecai a very clown, at least a silly, morose, and humorous man, to run such a hazard for a trifle? What hurt had it done him to have bowed to and honoured one the king honoured? Did he not despise the king, in disregarding Haman? Nay, had not the king commanded that respect; and are not we to honour and obey the king? One would have thought he might have bowed for the king's sake, whatever he had in his heart, and yet have come off well enough; for that he bowed not merely to Haman, but to the king's authority; besides, it was but an innocent ceremony. But it seems Mordecai was too plain and stout, and not fine and subtle enough to avoid the displeasure of Haman.

Howbeit, he was an excellent man: he feared God, and wrought righteousness. And in this very thing also he pleased God, and even the king too, at last, that had most cause to be angry with him: for he advanced him to Haman's dignity; and if it could be to greater honour. It is true, sad news first came; no less than destruction to Mordecai, and the whole people of the Jews besides, for his sake: but Mordecai's integrity and humiliation, his fasting, and strong cries to God prevailed, and the people were saved, and poor condemned Mordecai comes, after all, to be exalted above the princes, whether in this or any other respect. They that endure faithful in that which they are convinced God requires of them, though against the grain and humour of the world and themselves too, they shall find a blessed recompense in the end. My brethren, remember the cup of cold water: "We shall reap if we faint not." And call to mind, that our Captain bowed not to him that told him, "If thou wilt fall down and worship me, I will give thee all the glory of the world:" shall we bow then? O no! Let us follow our blessed Leader.

XXX. But before I leave this section, it is fit I add, that in conference with a late bishop, and none of the least eminent, upon this subject and instance, I remember he sought to evade it thus: "Mordecai," says he, "did not refuse to bow, as it was a testimony of respect to the king's favourite; but he, being a figure and type of Christ, refused, because Haman was of the uncircumcision, and ought to bow to him rather." To which I replied, That allowing Mordecai to be a figure of Christ, and the Jews of God's people or church; and that as the Jews were saved by Mordecai, so the church is saved by Christ; this makes for me; for then, by that reason, the spiritual circumcision, or people of Christ, are not to receive and bow to the fashions and customs of the spiritual uncircumcision, who are the children of the world; of which such as were condemnable so long ago in the time of the type and figure, can by no means be justifiably received or practised in the time of the antitype or substance itself. On the contrary, this shows expressly, we are faithfully to decline such worldly customs, and not to fashion ourselves according to the conversation of earthly-minded people; but be renewed and changed in our ways, and keep close to our Mordecai; who having not bowed, we must not bow, that are his people and followers. And whatever be our sufferings or reproaches, they will have an end: Mordecai, our captain, that appears for his people throughout all the provinces, in the king's gate, will deliver us at last; and, for his sake, we shall be favoured and loved of the king himself too. So powerful is faithful Mordecai at last. Therefore let us all look to Jesus, our Mordecai, the Israel indeed; He that has power with God, and would not bow in the hour of temptation, but has mightily prevailed; and therefore is a Prince for ever, and "of his government there shall be no end." (Isa. ix. 7.)

XXXI. The next Scripture instance I urge against these customs, is a passage in Job, thus expressed: "Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person; neither let me give flattering titles unto man, for I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing, my Maker would soon take me away." (Job, xxxii. 21, 22.) The question that will arise upon the allegation of this Scripture is this, viz. What titles are flattering? The answer is as obvious, namely, Such as are empty and fictitious, and make him more than he is: as to call a man what he is not, to please him; or to exalt him beyond his true name, office, or desert, to gain upon his affections; who, it may be, lusteth to honour and respect: such as these,—most excellent, most sacred, your grace, your lordship, most dread majesty, right honourable, right worshipful, may it please your majesty, your grace, your lordship, your honour, your worship, and the like unnecessary titles and attributes, calculated only to please and tickle poor, proud, vain, yet mortal man. Likewise to call man what he is not, as my lord, my master, &c., and wise, just, or good, when he is neither, only to please him, or show him respect.

It was familiar thus to do among the Jews, under their degeneracy; wherefore one came to Christ, and said, "Good master, what shall I do to have eternal life?" (Luke, xviii. 18.) It was a salutation or address of respect in those times. It is familiar now: good my lord, good sir, good master, do this, or do that. But what was Christ's answer? how did he take it? "Why callest thou me good?" says Christ; "there is none good, save one, that is God." (Verse 19.) He rejected it that had more right to keep it than all mankind: and why? Because there was one greater than he; and that he saw the man addressed it to his manhood, after the way of the times, and not to his divinity which dwelt within it: therefore Christ refuses it, showing and instructing us that we should not give such epithets and titles commonly to men; for good being due alone to God and godliness, it can only be said in flattery to fallen man, and therefore sinful to be so said.

This plain and exact life well became Him, that was on purpose manifested to return and restore man from his lamentable degeneracy, to the innocency and purity of his first creation; who has taught us to be careful how we use and give attributes unto man by that most severe saying, "That every idle word that man shall speak, he shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 3, 6.) And that which should warn all men of the latitude they take herein, and sufficiently justifies our tenderness is this, That man can scarcely commit greater injury and offence against Almighty God, than to ascribe any of his attributes unto man, the creature of his word, and the work of his hands. He is a jealous God of his honour, and will not give his glory unto another. Besides, it is so near the sin of the aspiring fallen angels, that affected to be greater and better than they were made and stated by the great Lord of all, and to entitle man to a station above his make and orb, looks so like idolatry (the unpardonable sin under the law) that it is hard to think how men and women professing Christianity, and seriously reflecting upon their vanity and evil in these things, can continue in them, much less plead for them; and least of all reproach and deride those that through tenderness of conscience cannot use and give them. It seems that Elihu did not dare to do it; but put such weight upon the matter as to give this for one reason for his forbearance, to wit, lest my Maker should soon take me away: that is, for fear God should strike me dead, I dare not give man titles that are above him, or titles merely to please him. I may not, by any means, gratify that spirit which lusteth after such things. God is to be exalted, and man abased. God is jealous of man's being set higher than his station: he will have him keep his place, know his original, and remember the rock from whence he came: that what he has is borrowed; not his own but his Maker's, who brought him forth and sustained him; which man is very apt to forget: and lest I should be accessory to it by flattering titles, instead of telling him truly and plainly what he is, and using them as he ought to be treated, and thereby provoke my Maker to displeasure, and he in his anger and jealousy should take me soon away, or bring sudden death and an untimely end upon me, I dare not use, I dare not give such titles unto men.

XXXII. But if we had not this to allege from the Old Testament writings, it should and ought to suffice with Christians, that these customs are severely censured by the great Lord and Master of their religion; who is so far from putting people upon giving honour one to another, that he will not indulge them in it, whatever be the customs of the country they live in: for he charges it upon the Jews as a mark of their apostasy; "How can ye believe which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" where their infidelity concerning Christ is made the effect of seeking worldly, and not heavenly honour only. And the thing is not hard to apprehend, if we consider that self-love and desire of honour from men is inconsistent with the love and humility of Christ. They sought the good opinion and respect of the world; how then was it possible they should leave all and follow him, whose kingdom is not of this world; and that came in a way so cross to the mind and humour of it? And that this was the meaning of our Lord Jesus is plain: for he tells us what that honour was they gave and received, which he condemned them for, and of which he bid the disciples of his humility and cross beware. His words are these, and he speaks them not of the rabble but of the doctors, the great men, the men of honour among the Jews: "They love," says he, "the uppermost rooms at feasts," (Matt. xxiii. 6,) "that is, places of greatest rank and respect; and greetings," (Mark, xii. 38,) that is, salutations of respect, such as pulling off the hat, and bowing the body are in our age, in the market-places, viz. in the places of note and concourse, the public walks and exchanges of the country. And lastly, "they love," says Christ, "to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi:" one of the most eminent titles among the Jews. A word comprehending an excellency equal to many titles: it may stand for your grace, your lordship, right reverend father, &c. It is upon these men of breeding and quality that he pronounces his woes, making these practices some of the evil marks by which to know them, as well as some of the motives of his threatenings against them. But he leaves it not here: he pursues this very point of honour above all the rest in his caution to his disciples; to whom he gave in charge thus: "But be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." (Matt. xviii. 8, 10-12.) "Neither be ye called Masters; but he that is greatest amongst you shall be your servant: and whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased." Plain it is that these passages carry a severe rebuke, both to worldly honour in general, and to those members and expressions of it in particular, which, as near as the language of Scripture and customs of that age will permit, do distinctly reach and allude to those of our own time; for the declining of which we have suffered so much scorn and abuse, both in our persons and estates; God forgive the unreasonable authors of it!

XXXIII. The apostle Paul has a saying of great weight and fervency, in his epistle to the Romans, very agreeable to this doctrine of Christ; it is this: "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service; and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, that acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Rom. xii. 1, 2.) He wrote to a people, in the midst of the ensnaring pomp and glory of the world. Rome was the seat of Cæsar, and the empire; the mistress of invention. Her fashions, as those of France now, were as laws to the world, at least at Rome: whence it is proverbial, Cum fueris Romæ, Romano vivito more. "When thou art at Rome, thou must do as Rome does." But the apostle is of another mind; he warns the Christians of that city, that they be not conformed; that is, that they do not follow the vain fashions and customs of this world, but leave them. The emphasis lies upon this, as well as upon conformed; and it imports, that this world, which they were not to conform to, was the corrupt and degenerate condition of mankind in that age. Wherefore the apostle proceeds to exhort those believers, and that by the mercies of God, the most powerful and winning of all arguments, that they would be transformed; that is, changed from the way of life customary among the Romans; and prove what is that acceptable will of God. As if he had said, Examine what you do and practise; see if it be right, and that it please God; call every thought, word, and action to judgment; (John, iii. 21;) try whether they are wrought in God or not; that so you may prove or know, what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

XXXIV. The next scripture authority we appeal to, in our vindication, is a passage of the apostle Peter, in his first epistle written to the believing strangers throughout the countries of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; which were the churches of Christ Jesus in those parts of the world, gathered by his power and spirit: it is this; "Gird up the loins of your minds; be sober and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance." (1 Pet. i. 13, 14.) That is, be not found in the vain fashions and customs of the world, unto which you conformed in your former ignorance; but as you have believed in a more plain and excellent way, so be sober and fervent, and hope to the end: do not give out; let them mock on; bear ye the contradiction of sinners constantly, as obedient children, that you may receive the kindness of God, at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And therefore does the apostle call them strangers, a figurative speech, people estranged from the customs of the world, of new faith and manners; and so unknown of the world: and if such strangers, then not to be fashioned or conformed to their pleasing respects and honours, whom they were estranged from: because the strangeness lay in leaving that which was customary and familiar to them before. The following words, verse 17, prove he used the word strangers in a spiritual sense; "Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear;" that is, pass the time of your being as strangers on earth in fear; not after the fashions of the world. A word in the next chapter, further explains his sense, where he tells the believers, that they are a peculiar people; to wit, a distinct, a singular and separate people from the rest of the world: not any longer to fashion themselves according to their customs. But I do not know how that could be, if they were to live in communion with the world, in its respects and honours; for that is not to be a peculiar or separate people from them, but to be like them, because conformable to them.

XXXV. I shall conclude my scripture testimonies against the foregoing respects, with that memorable and close passage of the apostle James against respect of persons in general after the world's fashion: "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons: for if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel: and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, (or well and seemly, as the word is;) and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?" (James, ii. 1-4.) That is, they knew they did amiss: "If ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." (James, ii. 8, 9.) This is so full there seems nothing left for me to add, or others to object. We are not to respect persons, that is the first thing: and the next thing is, if we do we commit sin, and break the law; At our own peril be it. And yet perhaps some will say, that by this we overthrow all distinction amongst men, under their divers qualities, and introduce a reciprocal and relational respect in the room of it: but if it be so, I cannot help it, the apostle James must answer for it, who has given us this doctrine for Christian and apostolical. And yet one greater than he told his disciples, of whom James was one, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, &c. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." (Mat. xx. 25-27.) That is, he that affects rule, and seeks to be uppermost, shall be esteemed least among you. And to say true on the whole matter, whether we regard those early times of the world, that were antecedent to the coming of Christ or soon after, there was yet a greater simplicity than in the times in which we are fallen. For those early times of the world, as bad as they were in other things, were great strangers to the frequency of these follies: nay, they hardly used some of them, at least very rarely. For if we read the Scriptures, such a thing as my lord Adam, though lord of the world, is not to be found: nor my lord Noah neither, the second lord of the earth: nor yet my lord Abraham, the father of the faithful; nor my lord Isaac; nor my lord Jacob; but much less is my lord Paul, &c. to be found in the Bible: and less your holiness, or your grace. Nay, among the Gentiles, the people wore their own names with more simplicity, and used not the ceremony of speech that is now practised among Christians, nor yet anything like it. My lord Solon, my lord Phocion, my lord Plato, my lord Aristotle, my lord Scipio, my lord Fabius, my lord Cato, my lord Cicero, are not to be read in any of the Greek or Latin stories, and yet they were some of the sages and heroes of those great empires. No, their own names were enough to distinguish them from other men, and their virtue and employments in the public service were their titles of honour. Nor has this vanity yet crept far into the Latin writers, where it is familiar for authors to cite the most learned and the most noble, without any addition to their names, unless worthy or learned: and if their works give it them, we make no conscience to deny it them. For instance; the Fathers they only cite thus: Polycarpus, Ignatius, Irenæus, Cyprian, Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, Lactantius, Chrysostom, Jerom, &c. More modern writers; Damascen, Rabanus, Paschasius, Theophylact, Bernard, &c. And of the last age, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, Zuinglius, Marlorat, Vossius, Grotius, Dalleus, Amyralldus, &c. And of our own country, Gildas, Beda, Alcuinus, Horn, Bracton, Grosteed, Littleton, Cranmer, Ridley, Jewel, Whitaker, Seldon, &c. And yet I presume this will not be thought uncivil or rude. Why then is our simplicity (and so honestly grounded too, as conscience against pride in man, that so evilly and perniciously loves and seeks worship and greatness) so much despised and abused, and that by professed Christians too, who take themselves to be the followers of Him, that has forbidden these foolish customs, as plainly as any other impiety condemned in his doctrine? I earnestly beg the lovers, users, and expecters of these ceremonies, to let this I have written have some consideration and weight with them.

XXXVI. However, Christians are not so ill-bred as the world think; for they show respect too: but the difference between them lies in the nature of the respect they perform, and the reasons of it. The world's respect is an empty ceremony, no soul nor substance in it: the Christian's is a solid thing, whether by obedience to superiors, love to equals, or help and countenance to inferiors. Next, their reasons and motives to honour and respect, are as wide one from the other: for fine apparel, empty titles, or large revenues are the world's motives, being things her children worship: but the Christian's motives are the sense of his duty in God's sight; first to parents and magistrates; and then to inferior relations: and lastly to all people, according to their virtue, wisdom, and piety; which is far from respect to the mere persons of men, or having their persons in admiration for reward: much less on such mean and base motives as wealth and sumptuous raiment.

XXXVII. We shall easily grant, our honour, as our religion, is more hidden; and that neither are so discernible by worldly men, nor grateful to them. Our plainness is odd, uncouth, and goes mightily against the grain; but so does Christianity too, and that for the same reasons. But had not the Heathen spirit prevailed too long under a Christian profession, it would not be so hard to discern the right from the wrong. O that Christians would look upon themselves with the glass of righteousness; that which tells true, and gives them an exact knowledge of themselves! And then let them examine, what in them, and about them, agrees with Christ's doctrine and life; and they may soon resolve, whether they are real Christians, or but Heathens christened with the name of Christians.

SOME TESTIMONIES FROM ANCIENT AND MODERN WRITERS IN FAVOUR OF OUR BEHAVIOUR.

XXXVIII. Marlorat, out of Luther and Calvin, upon that remarkable passage I just now urged from the apostle James, gives us the sense those primitive reformers had of respect to persons in these words, viz. 'To respect persons here, is to have regard to the habit and garb: the apostle signifies, that such respecting of persons is so contrary to true faith, that they are altogether inconsistent: but if the pomp, and other worldly regards prevail, and weaken what is of Christ, it is a sign of a decaying faith. Yea, so great is the glory and splendour of Christ in a pious soul, that all the glories of the world have no charms, no beauty, in comparison of that, unto one so righteously inclined. The apostle maketh such respecting of persons, to be repugnant to the light within them, insomuch as they who follow these practices, are condemned from within themselves. So that sanctity ought to be the reason or motive of all outward respect; and that none is to be honoured, upon any account but holiness.' Thus much Marlorat. But if this be true doctrine, we are much in the right in refusing conformity to the vain respects of worldly men.

XXXIX. But I shall add to these, the admonition of a learned ancient writer, who lived about 1200 years since, of great esteem, namely Jerom, who writing to a noble matron, Celantia, directing her how to live in the midst of her prosperity and honours, amongst many other religious instructions, speaks thus: 'Heed not thy nobility, nor let that be a reason for thee to take place of any; esteem not those of a meaner extraction to be thy inferiors; for our religion admits of no respect of persons, nor doth it induce us to repute men, from any external condition, but from their inward frame and disposition of mind: it is hereby that we pronounce men noble or base. With God, not to serve sin is to be free; and to excel in virtue is to be noble. God has chosen the mean and contemptible of this world, whereby to humble the great ones. Besides, it is a folly for any to boast his gentility, since all are equally esteemed by God. The ransom of the poor and rich cost Christ an equal expense of blood. Nor is it material in what state a man is born; the new creature hath no distinction. But if we will forget how we all descended from one Father; we ought at least perpetually to remember that we have but one Saviour.'

XL. But since I am engaged against these fond and fruitless customs, the proper effects and delights of vain and proud minds, let me yet add one memorable passage more, as it is related by the famous Casaubon, in his discourse of Use and Custom, where he briefly reports, what passed between Sulpitius Severus and Paulinus, bishop of Nola, (but such an one as gave all to redeem captives; whilst others of that function, that they may show who is their master, are making many both beggars and captives, by countenancing the plunder and imprisonment of Christians, for pure conscience to God); he brings it in thus: 'He is not counted a civil man now, of late years amongst us, who thinks it much, or refuseth to subscribe himself servant, though it be to his equal or inferior.' Yet Sulpitius Severus was once sharply chid by Paulinus for subscribing himself his servant, in a letter of his, saying, 'Take heed hereafter, how thou being from a servant called into liberty, dost subscribe thyself servant unto one who is thy brother and fellow-servant; for it is a sinful flattery, not a testimony of humility, to pay those honours to a man, and a sinner, which are due to the one Lord, and one Master, and one God.' By this we may see the sense of some of the more apostolical bishops, about the civilities and fashions so much reputed with people that call themselves Christians and bishops, and who would be thought their successors. It was then a sin, it is now an accomplishment: it was then a flattery, it is now respect: it was then fit to be severely reproved; and now, alas! it is to deserve severe reproof not to use it. O monstrous vanity! How much, how deeply, have those who are called Christians revolted from the plainness of the primitive days, and practice of holy men and women in former ages! How are they become degenerated into the loose, proud, and wanton customs of the world, which knows not God; to whom use hath made these things, condemned by scripture, reason, and example, almost natural! And so insensible are they of both their cause and bad effects, that they not only continue to practise them, but plead for them, and unchristianly make a very mock of those who cannot imitate them. But I shall proceed to what remains yet further to be said in our defence, for declining another custom, which helps to make us so much the stumbling-block of this light, vain, and inconsiderate age.

CHAPTER X.

1. Another piece of nonconformity to the world, which is our simple and plain speech, thou for you.—2. Justified from the use of words and numbers, singular and plural.—3. It was, and is the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin speech, in schools and universities.—4. It is the language of all nations.—5. The original of the present customs defends our disuse of it.—6. If custom should prevail, in a sense it would be on our side.—7. It cannot be uncivil or improper, for God himself, the fathers, prophets, Christ, and his apostles used it.—8. An instance given in the case of Peter, in the palace of the high priest.—9. It is the practice of men to God in their prayers: the pride of man to expect better to himself.—10. Testimonies of several writers in vindication of us.—11. The Author's convictions; and his exhortation to his reader.

I. There is another piece of our nonconformity to the world, that renders us very clownish to the breeding of it, and that is, thou for you, and that without difference or respect to persons: a thing that to some looks so rude it cannot well go down without derision or wrath. But as we have the same original reason for declining this, as the foregoing customs, so I shall add, what to me looks reasonable in our defence; though it is very probable height of mind, in some of those that blame us, will very hardly allow them to believe that the word reasonable is reconcileable with so silly a practice as this is esteemed.

II. Words of themselves are but as so many marks set and employed for necessary and intelligible mediums, or means, whereby men may understandingly express their minds and conceptions to each other: from whence comes conversation. Now, though the world be divided into many nations, each of which, for the most part, has a peculiar language, speech, or dialect, yet have they ever concurred in the same numbers and persons, as much of the ground of right speech. For instance; I love, thou lovest, he loveth, are of singular number, importing but one whether in the first, second, or third person: also we love, ye love, they love, are of the plural number, because in each is implied more than one. Which undeniable grammatical rule, might be enough to satisfy any, that have not forgotten their accidence, that we are not beside reason in our practice. For if thou lovest, be singular, and you love, be plural; and if thou lovest, signifies but one; and you love, many; is it not as proper to say, thou lovest, to ten men, as to say, you love, to one man? Or, why not, I love, for we love; and we love, instead of I love? Doubtless it is the same, though most improper, and in speech ridiculous.

III. Our next reason is; if it be improper or uncivil speech, as termed by this vain age, how comes it that the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman authors, used in schools and universities, have no other? Why should they not be a rule in that, as well as other things? And why, I pray then, are we so ridiculous for being thus far grammatical? Is it reasonable that children should be whipped at school for putting you for thou, as having made false Latin; and yet that we must be, though not whipped, reproached, and often abused, when we use the contrary propriety of speech?

IV. But in the third place, it is neither improper nor uncivil, but much otherwise; because it is used in all languages, speeches, and dialects, and that through all ages. This is very plain: as for example, it was God's language when he first spake to Adam, viz. Hebrew: also it is the Assyrian, Chaldean, Grecian and Latin speech. And now among the Turks, Tartars, Muscovites, Indians, Persians, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Germans, Polonians, Swedes, Danes, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, as well as English there is a distinction preserved, and the word thou is not lost in the word which goes for you. And though some of the modern tongues have done as we do, yet upon the same error. But by this it is plain, that thou is no upstart, nor yet improper, but the only proper word to be used in all languages to a single person; because otherwise all sentences, speeches, and discourses may be very ambiguous, uncertain, and equivocal. If a jury pronounce a verdict or a judge a sentence, three being at the bar, upon three occasions, very differently culpable, and should say, You are here guilty and to die; or innocent, and discharged: who knows who is guilty or innocent? May be but one, perhaps two; or it may be, all three: therefore our indictments run in the singular number, as Hold up thy hand: thou art indicted by the name of, &c., for that thou, not having the fear of God, &c. And it holds the same in all conversation. Nor can this be avoided but by many unnecessary circumlocutions. And as the preventing of such length and obscurity was doubtless the first reason for the distinction, so cannot that be justly disused till the reason be first removed; which can never be whilst two are in the world.

V. But this is not all; it was first ascribed in way of flattery to proud popes and emperors, imitating the heathens' vain homage to their gods; thereby ascribing a plural honour to a single person: as if one pope had been made up of many gods, and one emperor of many men; for which reason, you only to be used to many, became first spoken to one. It seems the word thou looked like too lean and thin a respect; and therefore, some bigger than they should be, would have a style suitable to their own ambition: a ground we cannot build our practice on; for what began it only loves it still. But supposing you to be proper to a prince, it will not follow it is to a common person. For his edict runs, We will and require, because, perhaps, in conjunction with his council: and therefore you to a private person is an abuse of the word. But as pride first gave it birth, so hath she only promoted it. Monsieur, sir, and madam, were originally names given to none but the king, his brother, and their wives, both in France and England; yet now the ploughman in France is called monsieur, and his wife madame: and men of ordinary trades in England, sir, and their wives, dame; which is the legal title of a lady, or else mistress, which is the same with madame in French. So prevalent hath pride and flattery been in all ages, the one to give and the other to receive respects, as they term it.

VI. But some will tell us, custom should rule us; and that is against us. But it is easily answered, and more truly, that though in things reasonable or indifferent, custom is obliging or harmless, yet in things unreasonable or unlawful, she has no authority. For custom can no more change numbers than genders, nor yoke one and you together, than make a man into a woman, or one into a thousand. But if custom be to conclude us, it is for us; for as custom is nothing more than ancient usage, I appeal to the practice of mankind, from the beginning of the world, through all nations, against the novelty of this confusion, viz. you to one person. Let custom, which is ancient practice and fact, issue this question. Mistake me not: I know words are nothing, but as men give them a value or force by use; but then, if you will discharge thou, and that you must succeed in its place, let us have a distinguishing word instead of you to be used in speech to many: but to use the same word for one and many, when there are two, and that only to please a proud and haughty humour in man, is not reasonable in our sense: which we hope is Christian, though not modish.

VII. But if thou to a single person be improper or uncivil, God himself, all the holy fathers and prophets, Christ Jesus, and his apostles, the primitive saints, all languages throughout the world, and our own law proceedings are guilty; which, with submission, were great presumption to imagine. Besides, we all know it is familiar with most of our authors to preface their discourses to the reader in the same language of thee and thou: as, Reader, thou art desired, &c. Or, Reader, this is written to inform thee of the occasion, &c. And it cannot be denied, that the most famous poems, dedicated to love or majesty, are written in this style. Read of each in Chaucer, Spenser, Waller, Cowley, Dryden, &c. Why then should it be so homely, ill-bred, and insufferable in us? This, I conceive, can never be answered.

VIII. I doubt not at all that something altogether as singular attended the speech of Christ and his disciples: for I remember it was urged upon Peter in the high priest's palace, as a proof of his belonging to Jesus, when he denied his Lord: "Surely," said they, "thou art also one of them: for thy speech bewrayeth thee." (Matt. xxvi. 73.) They had guessed by his looks but just before that he had been with Jesus; but when they discoursed with him, his language put them all out of doubt: surely then he was one of them, and he had been with Jesus. Something it was he had learned in his company that was odd and observable; to be sure, not of the world's behaviour. Without question, the garb, gait, and speech of his followers differed, as well as his doctrine, from the world; for it was a part of his doctrine it should be so. It is easy to believe they were more plain, grave, and precise, which is more credible from the way which poor, confident, fearful Peter took to disguise the business; for he fell to cursing and swearing—a sad shift. But he thought that the likeliest way to remove the suspicion, that was most unlike Christ. And the policy took; for it silenced their objections, and Peter was as orthodox as they. But though they found him not out, the cock's crow did; which made Peter remember his dear suffering Lord's words: and he went forth, and wept bitterly; that he had denied his Master, who was then delivered up to die for him.