תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

the wind driveth away: therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish;" Psal. i. 3-6.

If yet you are unresolved whether godliness be the only way of safety, I dare say it is because you believe not the holy Scriptures; for there the doubt is as fully decided as any one in all the world. O how blessed is the state of the poorest, most afflicted saint, that may always say, "My soul is safe! If my health, or wealth, or friends be gone, yet am I safe from everlasting misery. Other things I shall have as God seeth best for his honour and my spiritual good; but salvation I may be sure of, if I abide in Christ.. What needs he fear, that hath escaped hell! But O the dreadful case of the ungodly! that are passing to damnation when they never think of it! Their bodies may be strong, their riches great, and they may fare sumptuously every day; Luke xvi. 19. But O what a case are their poor souls in! and where will they be when this mirth is ended! ver. 25. They are not safe from hell one hour.

CHAPTER VII.

Holiness is the only Honest Way.

We have tried whether the way of godliness or ungodliness be the safest. Let us next try which is the most honest, of which one would think we should never meet with a man so shameless as to make a question. But experience telleth us, that such there are, yea, and that they are very common. Even in their reproaching of a holy life, they will join the boastings of their own honesty, and say, Though we swear or are drunk now and then, and make not such a stir about God's service and our salvation, yet we are as honest as these more precise people, that make more ado, and censure us as ungodly.' As truly and wisely as if a common whore should say, 'I am as honest as these precise people that will not play the harlot, as I do.' And as wisely as if a thief should say, Though I steal for need, I am as honest as these pre

cise people that will not steal.' But yet we have this advantage by these shameless boasts, that still the name of honesty is in credit, and the worst men honour it, by pretending to it, while they dishonour themselves by their renouncing the thing itself, and by the impudency of their pretences.

Honesty is nothing but true virtue, or the moral goodness of the mind or actions. An honest man and a good man is indeed all one καλός or καλοκαγαθός with the Greeks; one that is both inwardly virtuous, and manifests it in the cleanness and integrity of his life, in the sight of men. All men, for aught I can perceive, would be accounted honest. This reputation honesty hath among its vilest enemies, that they approve the name, and would not appear to be its enemies, till they have put some other name upon it. While they hate honesty, and persecute it, they would be called honest men themselves. And therefore by the consent of all the world, friends and foes, that is the best way which is the most honest.

O that you would all but stand to this, in the choosing of your course, and in your daily practice! Will you all agree upon a holy life, if I prove it past all doubt to be the most honest? O that you would! Yea, if I prove that there is no man truly honest in the world, that is not truly godly. If you would stand to this, you would soon be changed. Indeed it is nothing but dishonesty that we would have you changed from. And if you will not stand to this, but will refuse honesty when you know it, for shame lay by the name of honesty, and wish not men to call you honest any more. Either be what you would be called; or give men leave to call you as you are. Let us come then to the trial, and see who is indeed the honest man, the godly or the ungodly.

1. I have already told you, that God who is the most infallible Judge, hath given his sentence on his people's side. If you will think yourselves that it is not those that thieves and harlots call honest that are so likely to be honest, as those that wise men and virtuous men call so; we have then far greater reason to conclude, that it is not those that you call honest, that are so fit to be judged such, as those that God calls so. How say you? Will you not freely give us leave to take God's judgment or word before yours? If not, we will take leave. And God calls all the ungodly by the name

of evil and wicked men! and the godly are they that he calleth upright, good, and honest. The whole Scripture, you know, if you know any thing of it, speaketh in this language, It is they that "hear the word and keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience, that receive it into honest and good hearts;" Luke viii. 15. This is the life that is "acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, which is in all godliness and honesty." These are inseparable, godliness and honesty; 1 Tim. ii. 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which signifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour; but that which is frequently translated 'good' is it which signifieth the truly honest. And you know none of the ungodly are ever called good in Scripture, but clean contrary. "The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness;" Prov. xi. 6. So ver. 18-20. "The wicked worketh a deceitful work, but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, doth it to his own death. They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord; but such as are upright in their way, are his delight." Every where you see how God abhorreth the ungodly, and extolleth those that love and fear him. Christ calleth the ungodly "evil men, that out of the evil treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things;" Matt. xii. 35. All is evil; the life evil, the heart evil, and the man evil. "The righteous man is more excellent than his neighbour, but the way of the wicked seduceth them;" Prov. xii. 26. And Psal. 16, David called the godly "the excellent, in whom is all his delight." It is an excellent spirit that is in them (Dan. iii. 12. 14. lxiii.), and an excellent way in which they go (1 Cor. xii. 31.), and an excellent knowledge which the Spirit's illumination causeth them to attain; Phil. iii. 18. Ephes. iii. 18, 19. You have God's judgment of the case, if that will satisfy you, who it is that is the best and most honest man, the holy or the unholy.

2. Do you think that that man is an honest man, that will deny you your due, and rob you of all that is your own? or rather, is not the just man the honest man, that will give every man his own? I know you will give your voices for the latter. O then take heed lest you condemn yourselves! If you be not holy, your own testimony doth condemn you. For it is only the godly that give God his own, when the un

godly rob him of it. Hast thou not thy life, and time, and maintenance from God? Hast thou not thy reason, and thy affections, and all thy faculties from him? And should not all thou hast be employed for him? Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest, yea deniest him one day in seven, when thou owest him all. Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Maker's due unto his vilest enemies: that wastest thy means or strength on sin: that spendest thy precious time on vanity: that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts, and that livest to thy flesh, when thou shouldst live to God. Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies; and of all which thou dost not use to his service. It is less dishonesty to rob thy master that trusteth thee with his goods, than to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time, and parts, and all things. O blind, unworthy sinners! What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker, or denieth him his own, when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you, that in respect of God have nothing of your own? Art thou better than God, that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee, and no dishonesty to wrong him, or deny him that which is his own? God hath an absolute title to you, and that on more accounts than one. You are his own, as you are his creatures. "All souls are mine," saith the Lord; Ezek. xviii. 4. And he hath title to thee by redemption, as well as by creation. For "to this end Christ died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord of the dead and of the living;" Rom. xiv. 9. "We are not our own; we are bought with a price; and therefore should glorify God in our bodies and our spirits which are his;" 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. "For if one died for all, then were all dead, that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died for them and rose again;" 2 Cor. v. 44, 45. And as you yourselves are God's own as being your Creator and Redeemer, so all that you have is his own as the bestower, or as your Master that trusteth it in your hands. "Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people; for all the earth is mine;" Exod. xix. 5. And saith God to Job, Job xli. 11. "Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine; the world is mine, and the fulness thereof." "What hast thou which thou didst not receive?" 1 Cor. iv. 7. Thou

hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God; nor a thought, nor a word, nor a farthing of thy estate. And is it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to thy flesh, and deny them to him, and think his service an unnecessary thing? If thou wilt give the world and thy lusts any thing, let it be that which thou canst truly call thine own. As God saith to the idolaters, Ezek. xvi. 18, 19. "Thou hast set mine oil, and mine incense before them ; my meat also which I gave thee," &c. so may he say to thee. It is his time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sinful delights; and his provision by which thou hast fed thy lusts. But the sanctified man is devoted to God. His study is to give him his own. All the business of his life which you account his overmuch strictness and preciseness, is nothing but his honesty to God, in giving him his own. You look your horse should travel for you, and your ox should labour for you, and your servant work for you, because they are your own. And shall not we give up all that we have to God, that are much more his own? Will you hang them that take your own from you, and count them honest that deal worse with God? Say not, If Christ were here we would give it him: for he hath told you how you should use all his talents in his laws; and if you deny them to the poor, or any holy use that he requireth them, you deny them unto him. Read Matt. xxv. and x. 40-42.

3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an honest man? One that will abuse his father or mother, and scorn the bowels from which he sprung? All the world is agreed on it, that such are dishonest. "Honour thy father and mother," is called "the first commandment with promise;" Exod. xxi. 17. "He that curseth his father or mother shall surely be put to death." See Prov. xx. 20. xxx. 17. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." To be " without natural affections," is the brand of highest wickedness; Rom. i. 31. 2 Tim. iii. 3.

And do you not know that it is worse to be without holy affections to the God that made you, and the Christ that bought you, and to despise, forsake, or abuse the Lord? Thou hadst thy being more from him than from thy parents. They knew not how thy parts were formed! It was he that gave thee thy immortal soul: it is by him that thou hast

« הקודםהמשך »