Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

be found, who do nothing else but lead one another into temptation, by drawing forth each the other's corruption, from one end of the year to the other; what can we call such families, but so many Hells above ground? A man may live with as much safety to his body in a pest-house, as he can there to his soul. And truly the godly are not so far out of danger, but that the devil may make use of their passions to roil and defile one another. I am sure he is very ambitious to do them a mischief this way, and too often prevails. Abraham's fear laid the snare for Sarah his wife, who was easily persuaded to dissemble for him she loved so dearly, Gen. xii. 13. And Rebekah's vehement affection to Jacob, together with the reverence both her place and grace commanded in Jacob's heart, made him of a plain man become the subtle man, to deceive his father and brother; which, though it was too broad a sin for him at first proposal to swallow, as appears: "I shall seem to him to be a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing;” Gen. xxvii. 12. yet with a little art using by his mother, we see the passage was widened, and down it went for all his first straining at it; and yet both godly persons. Look therefore to thyself, that thou dost not bring sin upon thy relations; it would be a heavy affliction to thee, to see thy wife, child, or servant sick of the plague, which thou brought home to them, or bleeding by a wound which thou unawares gavest them; alas! better thus, than be infected with sin, wounded with guilt, by thy means. And be as careful to antidote thy soul against receiving infection from them as breathing it on them. Thy love is great to thy wife, O let it not make the apple of temptation the more fair or desirable, when offered to thee by her hand. Thou lovest thyself, yea thy God, too little, if her so much as to sin for her sake. Thou art a dutiful wife, but obey in the Lord; take heed of turning the tables of the commandments, by setting the seventh before the first. Be sure to save God's stake, before thou payest thy obedience to thy husband; say to thy soul, Can I keep God's command in obeying my husband's? In paying of debts, those should be first discharged, which are due by the most, and those the great

est obligations. And to whom thou art more deeply bound, God or thy husband, is easy to resolve: thus in all other relations. Go as far with thy relations as thou canst travel in God's company, and no further; as thou wouldest not leave thy holiness and righteousness behind thee, the loss of which is too great that thou shouldest expect they can recompence unto thee.

Fourthly, Then holiness is in its power, as to our relations, when the Christian is careful to improve the graces of his relations, and get what good from them he can while they are with him. May be thou hast a holy father, a gracious husband or wife; let it be but a servant in the family that is godly; there is good to be got by his gracious conversation; speeches and holiness, like ointment, will betray itself wherever it stays awhile. O Christian, if any such holy person be with thee in the family, observe what such a one in his speeches, duties of worship, behaviour under affliction, receipt of mercies, returns of sabbaths and ordinances, and such like, affords for thy instruction, quickening and promoting in the ways of holiness. The prophet bade the widow bring all the vessels she had or could borrow, to catch what should fall from the pot of oil, that she had in the house, and therewith pay her debts, 2 Kings iv. 3. Truly I think it were good counsel to some that complain, or may justly if they do not, how poor and beggarly they are in grace, to make an improvement of that holy oil of grace which drops from the lips and lives of their godly relations; set your memories, consciences, hearts, and affections, as vessels to receive all the expressions of holiness that come from them; thy memory let that keep and retain the instructions, reproofs, comforts, drawn by them out of the Word; thy conscience, that applies these to thy own soul, till from thence they distil into thy af fections, and thou becomest in love more and more with holiness thy own self, from their recommendation of it to thee. It is a sad thing to consider what a different use a naughty heart makes of the gifts and graces of the godly with whom they live, as they sparkle forth, to what a humble sincere one doth. A naughty heart does but envy and malign such a one the more, and instead of getting

good, is made worse; whereas the sincere soul labours to treasure up all for his good. When Joseph told his prophetic dream to his brethren, their envy, which before lay smothering in their breasts, took fire presently, and awhile after flamed forth into that unnatural cruelty practised upon him by them: there was all the use they made of it; but of good Jacob it is said, by way of opposition to them, "his brethren envied him, but his father observed the saying;" Gen. xxxvii. 11. he laid it up for future use, as that which had something of God in it. Thus, Christian, do thou by the holy breathings of the Spirit in those thou livest with.

Note the remarkable passages of their gracious conversations, as thou wouldest do the notions of some excellent book, which is not thine own, but lent thee for a time to peruse indeed upon these terms, and no surer, do we enjoy our gracious friends and relations. They are but lent us for awhile; and improve them or not improve them, they will be called for ere long; and will it be for thy comfort to part with them, before thou hast had a heart to get good by them? It was a solemn speech of that reverend holy man of God, Mr. Bolton, to his children, when on his death-bed: I charge you, O my children, not to meet me at the great day before Christ's tribunal in a Christless, graceless condition. God keeps an exact account of the means he affords us for our salvation, and the lives of his holy servants are not of the lowest rank; you shall observe that God is very curious. in Scripture to record the time how long his faithful servants lived on earth, and sure, among other reasons, he would have us know, that he means to reckon with those that lived with them, for every year, yea day and hour, they had them among them. They shall know they had a prophet, a father, husband, that were godly, and that they had them so long; and God will know of them what use they made of them.

[blocks in formation]

CHAP. X.

OF EXERCISING THE POWER OF HOLINESS IN OUR CARRIAGE TO OUR NEIGHBOURS WITHOUT DOORS.

SECONDLY, thy righteousness to others must not stay within doors, but walk out in the streets, and visit thy neighbours round. Thy behaviour to and conversation with them must be holy and righteous. In Scripture, righteousness, and living righteously, do oft import the whole duty of the Christian to his neighbour; and so stands distinguished from piety, which hath God for its immediate object, and sobriety or temperance, which immediately respects ourselves. See them all together, Titus ii. 12. where the "grace of God that bringeth salvation" is said to "teach us to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." He that would be the death of all these three, needs do no more but stab one of them, no matter which; the life of holiness will run out at any one door, hére or there, wherever the wound is given. It is true indeed there is a moral righteousness, which leaves us short of true holiness, but no true holiness that leaves us short of moral righteousness. Though the sensitive soul be found in a beast without the rational, yet the rational soul is not found in man without the sensitive: grace and evangelical holiness, being the higher principle, includes and comprehends the other within itself. This is the dignity and honour due to Christianity, and the principle it lays down in the Gospel (the enemies of it being judges) that though some who profess it are none of the best, yet they learn not their unrighteousness of it. Most true it is what one saith, No Christian can be bad, except he be a hypocrite. Either therefore renounce thy baptism, or abominate the thoughts of all unrighteousness. To be sure thon mightest escape better, if thou wouldest let the world know thou didst claim no kindred with Christ before thou practisest such wickedness. Some are unresolved where to find Aristides, Socrates, Cato, and

some few other Heathens eminent for their moral righteousness, whether in Heaven or Hell; but were there ever any that doubted what would become of the unrighteous Christian in the other world? Hell gapes for these above all others: "Know you not (saith the Apostle) that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" 1 Cor. vi. 9. as if he had said, Sure you have not so far lost the use of your reason, to think that there is any room for such cattle as these in Heaven. And if not the unrighteous, what crevice of hope is left for their salvation whose unrighteousness bath a thousand times more malignity in it than any others in the world is capable of? The Heathen shall for their unrighteousness be indicted and condemned as rebels to the Law: so shall the unrighteous Christian also, and that more deeply; but the charge which is incomparably heaviest, and will lay weight upon him far above the other, is that which the Gospel brings in: that by his unrighteousness he hath been an "enemy to the cross of Christ." Phil. iii. 18. Indeed, if a man had a mind to shew his despite to the height against Christ and his cross, the Devil himself could not help him to express it more fully than to clothe himself with a gaudy profession of the Gospel, and, with this wrapt about him, to roll himself in the kennel of sordid base practices of unrighteousness. O how it makes the profane world blaspheme the name of Christ, and abhor the very profession of him, when they see any of this filth upon the face of their conversation who take the name of saints to themselves more than others do. What! shall that tongue lie to man, that even now prayed so earnestly to God? those eyes be sent on lust's or envy's errand, that a few moments past thou tookest off the Bible from reading those sacred oracles? those hands in thy neighbour's pocket, to rob him of his estate, which were not long ago stretched forth so devoutly to Heaven? those legs carry thee to-day into thy shop or market to cheat and cozen, which yesterday thou wentest with to worship God in public?

In a word, dost thou think to commute with God, so as by a greater semblance of outward zeal to God in

« PoprzedniaDalej »