faving of the world about them! It is the fenfe of Chrifts prayer before his death. John 17. 21, 22, 23, 25. that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that the world may believe that thou bat fent me -1 in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfe& in One, and that the world may know thar iken baft fext me, and haft loved them, as thʊu best loved me. Direct. 4. Be fure at least that your bely, loving and blameless lives, be an example to thofe that are about you. If you cannot Convert Kingdoms, nor get other men to do their duty towards it, be fure that you do your part within your reach: And believe that your lives muft be the best part of your labours, and that good works, and love, and good example muft be the firft part of your doctrine. Direct. 5. When you fee that the world lyeth ftill in wickedness, and there feemeth to be no poffibility of a cure, yet Search the Scripture, and fo far as you can find any Prophecy or Promife of their converfion, believe that God in his time will make it good. Dired. 6. But take heed that on this pretence, you plunge not your felves into any inordinate studies, or conceited expofitions of the Revelations, and other Scripture Prophecies, as many have done, to the great wrong of themselves, and the Church of God. By inordinate ftudies, I mean, 1. When you begin there where you thould end, and before you have digefted the neceffary greater truths in Theology, you go to those that should come after them. 2. When an undue proportion of your zeal, and time, and ftudy, and talk, is bestowed upon these Prophecies, in comparison of other things. 3. When you are proudly and cauflefly conceited of your fingular expofitions: That when of ten of the learnedeft and hardest studied Expofitors of the Revelation, perhaps in many things fcarce twe are of a mind; yet when you differ from them all, or all fave one, you can be as peremptory and confident in your opinion, as if you were far wifer, or more infallible than they. 4. When you place a greater neceffity in it than there is; as if falvation or Church-communion lay upon your conceits. Whereas God hath made the points that are of neceffity to salvation, to be few and plain. YYY Dire Dirca. 7. When you look on the fin and mifery of the world, and fee fmall hope of its recovery, look up by Faith to that better world, where all is Light, and Love, and Peace. And pray for that coming of Chrift, when all this fin fhall be brought to Judgment, and wifdom and godliness be fully juAtified before all the world. Let the badness of this world drive up your hearts to that above, where all is better than you can with. Dired. 8. When you are ready to ftumble at the confideration of Gods defertion of fo great a part of the world, quiet your minds in the implicite fubmiffion to his infinite wisdom and goodnefs. Dare you think that you are more gracious and merci ful than God? Or that it is meet you should know all the fe crets of his providence, who must not know the myfteries of Government, in the State or Kingdom where you live? He that cannot reft in the wifdom, will and mercies of infinite Goodness it felf, but must have all his own expectations fatiffied, thall have no reft. And think withall, how little a fpot of Gods Creation this earthly world is: and how incomprehenfibly vaft the fuperiour Regions are in comparifon of it. And if all the upper parts of the world be poffeffed with none but holy Spirits, and even this lower earth, have alfo many millions of Saints, prepared here for the things above, we have no more reafon to judge God to be unmerciful, becaufe this lower world is so bad, than we have to judge the King unmerciful, when we look into the common Jayle,nor to judge of his government by the Rogues in a Jayle, but by his Court, and all the fubje&s of his Kingdom. If God fhould forfake no place but Hell, of all his Creation, you could not grudge at him as unmerciful; And it is a very hard question whether this earth, and the air about it, be not the place of Hell, when you confider that the Devils are caft down from Heaven,and yet that they dwell and rule in the Air, and compass the Earth, and tempt the wicked, and work in the children of difobedience, Ephef, 2. 1, 2. Job 1. 2 Tim. 2. 26. And that Satan is called, the God and Prince of this world, Joh, 12.31. & 14.30. & 16. 11. 2 Cor. 4. 4. Ephef. 6. 12. But if it be not the place of final execution, it is the place where where they are kept in prison till the great Affizes, and where they are referved in chains of darkness, to the Fudgment of the great day, and where they are tormented before the time, a Pet. 2.4. Jude 6. Matth, 8. 29. Look then from this Dungeon,to the glorious incomprehenfible manfions of the holy ones; and judge by them, and not by this prifon, of the goodness and infinite benignity of God. And if he will give fo many obftinate defpifers of his grace, a place with thefe Devils that did feduce and rule them, think not God to be therefore unmerciful; but behold his mercy in the innumerable veffels of honour and mercy, that fhall poffels the higher manfions for ever. CHAP. XXV. How to live by Faith in the love of one another, against Self love. Dirca. 1. Et Faith fire employ you in the knowledge of God: and when you know him who is Love it felf, you will beft learn of him to love. You will fee that that is beft, which is likeft unto God; and that is worst, which is most unlike him. And when you confider how univerfally, though variously, he loveth his creatures, and how he expreffeth it, and how he loveth benevolently, because be is good, and loveth complacentially, becaufe alfo the thing is good which he loveth, you will learn the art of love from God, Rom. 9. 13. Deut. 4.37. & 7.8. & 23.5. & 33. 3. 1 John 3. 16, 17. & 4. 7, 9, 11, 12,19,20,21. Direct. 2. Study Jefus Chrift aright, and you will also learn to love of him. There you will fee Self-denying Love, which stooped to earth, to reproach, to fufferings, to labours, to death,and fpared not life or any thing to do good: It is the chief Leffom which you go to School to Chrift to learn: And it is as proper to go to him to learn to love, as it is to go to the Sun for light, Rom. 5.8.7obn 13. 34. 1 Thef. 4.9. John 11.36. 5. & 13. 1. & 15.9. Ephef. 5. 2, 25. John 15. 12. Dirca. 3. Know God in bis Works and Image, and then you will will fee him in his natural Image, in all men as rational, and in his moral Image in all his Saints, and then you will fee what to love, and why. He that cannot fee God in a glass in this world, cannot fee him at all, and cannot love bim. Remember that it is in his fervants and creatures, that he expofeth himfelf to be feen, and known, and loved, 1 Job.2.10. & 3.10,14. & 4. 7,8,20,21. & 5. 1. Matth. 25..40. Direct. 4. Abbor that proud malignant cenforitufuefs, which is apt to make the worst of others, and to deny, and extenuate, and overlook Gods graces in them (as the Devil did by Fob :) and which can fee no goodness in them that are not eminently good. For this is but the Devils artifice, to kill mens love to one another. Though he pretend the honour of Godliness, and the hatred of fin, when he telleth you, [fuch an one is an Hypocrite, and fuch an one hath nothing but a form, and no power of Godliness: I can fee nothing of God in him; alas, they are poor carnal people;] all is but to destroy your Love. And thus he mightily profpereth in the malignant spirit of feparation, by which he can make you unchurch whole Churches, and unchriften whole Towns and Parishes, and all because that you that are Arangers to them, and fee not their godliness, or bear of nothing eminent in them. But the world of dividers. will take no warning, any more than the world of the prophane. Satan doth deceive them all. Direct. 5 Abhor therefore the fin of backbiting and evilSpeaking and when you hear a malignant cenfurer thus unchriften and unchurch men without proof, behind their back, if gentler reproofs will not ferve the turn, frown them away, and fay [Get thee behind me Satan:] the accufer of the brethren, and the fpirit of hatred, maketh it his work in the world to deftroy mens love to one anothers and he hath no fuch way to do it, as by making them feem unlovely to one another: And he that perfwadeth me that my neighbour is not good, perfwadeth me that he is not lovely, and fo perfwadeth me from loving him, Prov. 25.23. Rom. 1. 30, Pfal. 15, 3. 2 Cor. 12.20, Rom. 14. 3,4,10,13. James 4.11, 12. Matth. 7. 1, 2. 1.Cor. 4. 5. 4.5. .: Direct. 6. Above all, seek to mortifie selfishness, which is the great enemy of love to God and man. A selfish man can faithfully love none but bimself; for he loveth all others but for himself: His own opinions, interefts and ends, are the difpofers of his Love. Therefore he never heartily loveth his enemy: no nor the best, that do not honour him, but seem to flight him. If any should negl.& him, or speak hardly of him, or do him any real or feeming wrong, or be of another fide, against his party, or his caufe, no cenfures are too fharp, nor no love too little for fuch a one. And yet thefe that can love none heartily bur themselves, will find that they had no greater enemies than themselves, and that Hell and Earth did not fo much as themfelves against them. Die. 7. Subject your felves truly to Gods authority, and bis commands will further Love: For it is the fumm of them all, and the fulfilling of his Law, both old and new, Gal. 5 14. Rom. 13.8,9, 10. John 13. 34. & 15. 12, 17. Math. 12. 30, 32, 33. Diract. 8. Remember that Love is the bond, and life, and interest of the Church, and of the world. Without Love the world would have neither unity, peace or fafety: What were a family without it? Were it not for Love, men that were not kept fettered in Jayles, or Bedlams, would be as Robbers, or Wolves, or mad Dogs to one another. Were it not for Love, the Church would be crumbled into malicious Seas, that would spend their time in prating and militating against each' other, and preach and talk down Love to one another; and would call this devilish work, the preaching of the Gospel, or the worshipping of God; while they blafpheme him by offering him a facrifice of hatred and reviling, as they do that offer him a facrifice of mans blood, Ephef. 4. 15, 16 But Speaking: the truth in Love, you may grow up into him in all things, which is the bead, even Chrift. From whom the whole body firly joyned together, and compacted by that which every joynt fupplyeth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketb increase of the body to the edifying of it felf in Love. ( Yea their own Sects would turn to duft and atoms, if Love, which is there confined, did not foder them together, when. it is dead in them as to all others, or as to the moft. Direct. 9. Love is our spiritual health, and Selfishness is our fickness, fin and death. When we fell from the Love of God to our YYY 3 felves, |