A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

1. The devil usually beginneth with the fantasy and appetite, and representeth some worldly, fleshly thing, as very pleasant and desirable. 2. Next that, he causeth this complacency to entice the thoughts; so that they are much and oft in thinking on this pleasure. 3. Next that, the will is drawn into a liking of it, and he wisheth he might enjoy it (whether it be riches, or pleasant dwellings, or pleasant company, or pleasant meats or drinks, or fleshly accommodations, or apparel, or honour, or command, or ease, or lust, or sports and recreations, or whatever else). 4. Next that, the understanding is drawn into the design, and is casting and contriving how it may be obtained, and all lawful means are first considered of, that, if possible, the business might be accomplished without the hazard of the soul. Next to that, endeavours are used to that end, by such means as are supposed lawful, and the conscience quieted with the conceit of the harmlessness and security. 6. By this time the man is engaged in his carnal cause and course, and so the difficulty of returning is increased; and the inclination of the heart groweth stronger to the sensual pleasure than before. 7. And then he is drawn to prosecute his design by any means, how sinful soever; if it be possible, making himself believe by some reasonings or other, that all is lawful still; or if the case be too palpable to be so cloaked, conscience, at last, is cast asleep, and seared, and stupified, that it may be silent under all; till either grace or vengeance awake the sinner, and make him amazed at his madness and stupidity. This is the most usual method of the heart's relapse to positive evil.

And by such degrees doth the heart decline from the love of God and goodness: as, 1. The thoughts are diverted to some carnal vanity that is over-loved; and the thoughts of God are seldomer and shorter, than they were wont to be. 2. And at the same time, the thoughts of God do grow less serious and pleasing, and more dead and lifeless. 3. And then the means which should kindle love, are used with more dulness, and remissness, and indifferency. 4. And then conscience being galled with the guilt of wilful omissions and commissions, (being acquainted with the fleshly designs of the heart,) doth raise a secret fear of God's displeasure. And this being not strong enough to restrain the man from sin, doth make his sin greater, and maketh him very backward to draw near to God, or seriously to think of him, or call upon him; and turneth love into terror and aversation. 5. And if God do not stop and recover the sinner, he will next grow quite weary of God, and out of love with a holy life, and change him for his worldly, fleshly pleasures. 6. And next that, he will entertain some infidel, or atheistical, or libertine doctrine, which may quiet him in his course of sin, by justifying it, and will conform his judgment to his heart. 7. And next that, he will hate God, and his ways, and servants, and turn a persecutor of them; till vengeance lay him in hell, where pain and desperation will increase his hatred; but his fleshly pleasure, and malicious persecution, shall be for ever at an end.

3. Backsliders in life and practice, do receive the first infection at the heart; and the life declineth no further than the heart declineth: but yet I distinguish this sort from the other, as the effect from the cause; and the rather, because some few do much decline in heart, that yet seem to keep much blamelessness of life in the eye of men: and it is usually done by these degrees.

(1.) In the man's backsliding into positive sin, (as sensuality or worldliness,) the heart being prepared as before. 1. The judgment doth reason more remissly against sin, than it did before; and the will doth oppose it with less resolution, and with greater faintness and indifferency. 2. Then the sinner tasteth of the bait, and first draweth as near to sin as he dare, and embraceth the occasions and opportunities of sinning, while yet he thinketh to yield no further. And in this case, he is so long disputing with the tempter, and hearkening to him, and gazing on the bait, till at last he yieldeth; and having long been playing at the pit's brink, his violent lust or appetite doth thrust him in. 3. When he hath once sinned (against knowledge) he is troubled awhile, and this he taketh for true repentance: and when he is grown into some hope that the first sin is forgiven him, he is the bolder to venture on the like again; and thinketh, that the second may be as well forgiven as the first. 4. In the same order he falleth into it again and again, till it come to a custom. 5. And by this time he loveth it more, and wisheth it were lawful, and there were no danger by it. 6. And then he thinketh himself concerned to prove it lawful to quiet conscience, that it may not torment him; and therefore he gladly heareth what the justifiers of his sin can say for it, and he maketh himself believe that the reasons are of weight. 7. And then he sinneth without remorse.

(2.) So in men's backsliding from the practice of religion: 1. The heart is alienated and undisposed as aforesaid. 2. And then the life of the duty doth decay, and it dwindleth towards a dead formality; like a body in a consumption, the vivid complexion, and strength, and activity decay. 3. Next this, he can frequently omit a duty, especially in secret where no man knoweth it; till by degrees he grow more seldom in it. 4. All this he taketh for a pardoned infirmity, which consisteth with a state of grace; and therefore he is little troubled about it. 5. Next this, he loseth all the life and comfort of religion, and misseth not any duty when he hath omitted it, but is glad that he escapeth it, and when it is at an end, as an ox is when he is out of the yoke. 6. Next, he beginneth to hearken to them that speak against so much ado in religion, as if it were a needless, unprofitable thing. 7. And if God forsake him, he next repenteth of his former diligence, and settleth himself, either in a dead course of such customary lip-service as doth cost him nothing, or else in utter worldliness and ungodliness, and perhaps at last in malignity and persecution.

Signs of declining

III. Though the signs or symptoms of declining may be gathered from what is said already, I shall add some more. 1. You are declining when you grow bolder with sin, or with the occasions of it, and temptations to it, than you were in your more watchful state.88 2. When you make a small matter of those inward corruptions and infirmities, which once seemed grievous to you, and almost intolerable. 3. When you settle in a course of profession or religiousness, that putteth your flesh to little cost, in labour, reproach, or suffering from the ungodly, but leave out the hard and costly part, and seem to be very religious in the rest. 4. When you are quiet and contented in the daily, customary use of ordinances, though you find no profit or increase in grace by it, or communion with God. 5. When you grow strange to God and Jesus Christ, and have little converse with him in the Spirit: and your thoughts of him are few, and cold, and lifeless; and your religion lieth all in conversing with good men, and good books, and outward duties. 6. When you grow neglecters of your hearts, and strangers to them, and find little work about them from day to day, either in trying them, or watching them, or stirring them up, or mortifying their corruptions; but your business in religion is most abroad, and in outward exercises. 7. Yea, though your own hearts and duties be much of your care and thoughts, you are on the losing hand, if the wonders of love and grace in Christ have not more of your thoughts, or if you set not yourselves more to the study of a crucified and glorified Christ, than of your own distempered hearts. 8. All is not well with you, when spiritual helps and advantages are less relished and valued, and you grow more indifferent to the sermons, and prayers, and sacraments, which once you could not live without; and use them but as bare duties for necessity, and not as means, with any great hope of benefit and success. 9. When you grow too regardful of the eye of man, and too regardless of the eye of God; and are much more careful about the words and outside of your prayers and discourses, than the spirit and inward part and manner of them; and dress yourselves accurately when you appear abroad, as those that would seem very good to men, but go at home in the sordidest garb of a cold and careless heart and life. 10. When you grow hottest about some controverted, smaller matters in religion, or studious of the interest of some private opinion and party which you have chosen, more than of the interest of the common truths and cause of Christ. 11. When in joining with others, you relish more the fineness of the speech, than the spirit, and weight, and excellency of the matter; and are impatient of hearing of the wholesomest truths, if the speaker manifest any personal infirmity in the delivery of them; and are weary and tired, if you be not drawn on with novelty, variety, or elegancy of speech. 12. When you grow more indifferent for your company, and set less by the company of serious, godly christians than you did, and are almost as well pleased with common company and discourse. 13. When you grow more impatient of reproof for sin, and love not to be told of any thing in you that is amiss; but love those best that highliest applaud you. 14. When the renewing of your repentance is grown a lifeless, cursory work; when in preparation for the Lord's day, or sacrament, or other occasions, you call yourselves to no considerable account, or make no greater a matter of the sins which you find on your account, than if you were almost reconciled to them. 15. When you grow more uncharitable and censorious to brethren that differ from you in tolerable points; and less tender of the names or welfare of others, and love not your neighbour as yourselves, and do not as you would be done by. 16. When you grow less compassionate to the ungodly world, and less regardful of the common interest of the universal church, and of Jesus Christ, throughout the earth, and grow more narrow, private spirited, and confine your care to yourselves, or to your party. 17. When the hopes of heaven, and the love of God, cannot content you, but you are thirsty after some worldly contentment, and grow eager in your desires, and the world groweth more sweet to you, and more amiable in your eyes. 18. When sense, and appetite, and fleshly pleasure are grown more powerful with you, and you make a great matter of them, and cannot deny them, without a great deal of striving and regret, as if you had done some great exploit, if you live not like a beast.89 19. When you are more proud and impatient, and are less able to bear disesteem, and slighting, and injuries from men, or poverty, or sufferings for Christ; and make a greater matter of your losses, or crosses, or wrongs, than beseemeth one that is dead to the flesh and to the world. 20. Lastly, when you had rather dwell on earth than be in heaven; and are more unwilling to think of death, or to prepare for it, and expect it, and are less in love with the coming of Christ, and are ready to say of this sinful life in flesh, it is good to be here. All these are signs of a declining state, though yet you are not come to apostasy.

Signs of a graceless state

But the signs of a mortal, damnable state indeed, are found in these following degrees: 1. When a man had rather have worldly prosperity, than the favour and fruition of God in heaven. 2. When the interest of the flesh can do more with him, than the interest of God and his soul, and doth more rule and dispose of his heart and life. 3. When he had rather live in sensuality, than in holiness; and had rather have leave to live as he list, than have a Christ and Holy Spirit to sanctify and cure him; or, at least, will not be cured on the terms proposed in the gospel. 4. When he loveth not the means that would recover him (as such). The nearer you come to this, the more dangerous is your case.

Dangerous signs of impenitency

And these following signs are therefore of a very dangerous signification. 1. When the pleasure of sinful prosperity and delights doth so far overtop the pleasures of holiness, that you are under trouble and weariness in holy duties, and at ease and merry when you have your sinful delights. 2. When no persuasion of a minister or friend, can bring you so thoroughly to repent of your open, scandalous sins, as to take shame to yourselves in a free confession of them, (even in the open assembly, if you are justly called to it), to condemn yourselves, and give warning to others, and glorify the most holy God: but you will not believe that any such disgraceful confession is your duty, because you will not do it. 3. When you cannot bring your hearts to a full resolution to let go your sin; but though conscience worry and condemn you for it, you do but slightly purpose hereafter to amend, but will not presently resolve. 4. When you will not be persuaded to consent to the necessary, effectual means of your recovery; as to abstain from the bait, and temptation, and occasion of sin. Many a drunkard hath told me, he was willing to be reformed; but when I have desired them then to consent to drink no wine or ale for so many months, and to keep out of the place, and to commit the government of themselves for so many months to their wives, or some other friend that liveth with them, and to drink nothing but what they give them; they would not consent to any of this, and so showed the hypocrisy of their professed willingness to amend. 5. When sin becometh easy, and the conscience groweth patient with it, and quiet under it. 6. When the judgment taketh part with it, and the tongue will plead for it, and justify or extenuate it, instead of repenting of it.

These are dangerous signs of an impenitent, unpardoned, miserable soul. And the man is in a dangerous way to this, 1. When he hath plunged himself into such engagements to sin that he cannot leave it, but it will cost him very dear: as it will be his shame to confess it, or his undoing in the world to forsake it, or a great deal of cost and labour must be lost, which his ambitious or covetous projects have cost him: it will be hard breaking over so great difficulties. 2. When God letteth him alone in sin, and prospereth him in it, or doth not much disturb him or afflict him. This also is a dangerous case.

False signs of declining

By all this you may perceive, that those are no signs of a backsliding state, which some poor christians are afraid are such. As, 1. When poverty necessitateth them to lay out more of their time, and thoughts, and words about the labours of their callings, than some richer persons do. 2. When age or sickness causeth their memories to decay; so that they cannot remember a sermon so well as heretofore. 3. When age or sickness taketh off the quickness and vigour of their spirits; so that they have not the lively affections in prayer, or holy conference, or meditation, or reading, or hearing, as formerly they had. But (though they are as much as ever resolved for God, against sin and vanity, yet) they are colder and duller, and have less zeal, and fervency, and delight in holy exercises. 4. When age, or weakness, or melancholy, hath decayed or confounded their imaginations, and ravelled their thoughts, so that they cannot order them, and command them, as formerly they could. 5. And when age or melancholy hath weakened their parts and gifts; so that they are of slower understandings, and unabler in prayer, or preaching, or conference to express themselves than heretofore. All these are but bodily changes, and such hinderances of the soul as depend thereon, and not to be taken for signs of a soul that declineth in holiness, and is less accepted of God.

Direct. II. When you know the marks of a backslider, come into the light, and be willing to know yourselves, whether this be your condition, or not, and do not foolishly cover your disease. Inquire whether it be with you as in former times, when the light of God did shine upon you, and you delighted in his ways: when you hated sin, and loved holiness; and were glad of the company of the heirs of life: when the word of God was pleasant to you; and when you poured out your souls to him in prayer and thanksgivings: when you were glad of the Lord's day, and were quickened and confirmed under the teaching and exhortation of his ministers: when you took worldly wealth and pleasures, as childish toys and fooleries, in comparison of the content of holy souls: when you hungered and thirsted after Christ and righteousness; and had rather have been in heaven to enjoy your God, and be free from sinning, than to enjoy all the pleasures and prosperity of this world. And when it was your daily business to prepare for death, and to live in expectation of the everlasting rest, which Christ hath promised. If this were once your case, inquire whether it be so still? or, what alterations are made upon your hearts and lives?

Direct. III. If you find yourselves in a backsliding case, by all means endeavour the awakening of your souls, by the serious consideration of the danger and misery of such a state. To which end I shall here set some such awakening thoughts before you (for security is your greatest danger).

1. Consider that to fall back from God, was the sin of the devils. "They are angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitations, and are now reserved in chains under darkness, to the judgment of the great day," Jude 6. And shall they entice you into their own condemnation?

2. It was the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve, to revolt from God, and lose their holiness. And is there any sin that we should more carefully avoid, than that which all the world hath so much suffered by? Every one of the creatures that you look on, and every pain and misery you feel, doth mind you of that sin, and call to you to take heed by the warning of your first parents, that you suffer not your hearts to be drawn from God.

3. It is a part of hell that you are choosing upon earth. "Depart from me, ye cursed," is the sentence on the damned, Matt. xxv. 41; vii. 23. And will you damn yourselves by departing from God, and that when he calleth you and obligeth you to him? To be separated from God, is one half of the misery of the damned.

4. You are drawing back towards the case that you were in, in the days of your unconverted state. And what a state of darkness, and folly, and delusion, and sin, and misery, was that! If it were good or tolerable, why turned you from it? and, why did you so lament it? and, why did you so earnestly cry out for deliverance? But if it were as bad as you then apprehended it to be, why do you again turn towards it? Would you be again in the case you were? Would you perish in it? Or, would you have all those heart-breakings and terrors to pass through again? May I not say to you, as Paul to the Galatians, "O foolish sinners! who hath bewitched you, that you are so soon turned back?" Gal. iii. 1-4. Who have seen that of sin, and of God, and of Christ, and of heaven, and of hell, as you have done?

5. Yea, it is a far more doleful state that you are drawing towards, than that which you were in before. For the guilt of an apostate is much greater than if he had never known the truth. And his recovery is more difficult, and of smaller hope: because he is "twice dead and plucked up by the root," Jude 12. "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning: for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire," 2 Pet. ii. 20-22. "For if we sin wilfully (by apostasy) after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries," Heb. x. 26, 27. I know this speaketh only of total apostasy from Christ, (such being worthy "of far sorer punishment, than he that despiseth Moses's law," ver. 28, 29,) but it is a terrible thing to draw towards so desperate a state. A habit is easier introduced upon a negation than a privation; in him that never had it, than in him that hath totally lost it.

6. What abundance of experience do you sin against in your backsliding! You have had experience of the evil of sin, and of the smart of repentance, and of the deceitfulness of all that can be said for sinning; and of the goodness of God, and of the safety and sweetness of religion: and will you sin against so great experience? If your horse fall once into a quicksand, he will scarce be forced into it again; and will you be less wise?

7. What abundance of promises and covenants, which you have made to God, do you violate in your backsliding? How often in your fears, and dangers, and sicknesses, at sacraments and days of humiliation, have you bound yourselves afresh to God! And will you forget all these, and sin against them?

8. By what multitudes of mercies hath God obliged you! mercies before your repentance, and mercies that drew you to repent, and mercies since! How mercifully hath he kept you out of hell! How mercifully hath he borne with you in all your sins! and maintained you while you provoked him! and pardoned all that you have done against him (if you were truly penitent believers)!90 How mercifully hath he taught you, and sanctified you, and comforted you; and plentifully provided for you! And yet do you forsake him, and return to folly? For which of all his mercies is it, that you thus unworthily requite him? Can you remember how he hath dealt with you, and not be ashamed of your backslidings? Doth it not melt your heart to look back on his love, and to think of your ungrateful dealing?

9. Nay, what a multitude of present mercies dost thou run away from! Doth not thy conscience tell thee, that it is safer and better for thee to be true to Christ, than to return to sin? Wilt thou take thy leave of thy God, and thy Redeemer, and thy Comforter? Wilt thou quit thy title to pardon and protection, and all the promises of grace? Wilt thou bid farewell to all the comforts of a saint? Dost thou not tremble to think of such a day? Thou forsakest all these when thou forsakest God.

10. Yea, look before thee, man, and consider what greater things are promised thee, than yet thou ever didst enjoy. Christ is conducting thee to eternal happiness in the sight of God. And wilt thou forsake thy Guide, and break away from him, and quit all thy hopes of everlasting life?

11. Consider for what it is, that thou art about to run so great a hazard? Is it not for some worldly gain or honour, or some fleshly pleasure, sport, or ease? And hast thou not known long ago what all these are? What have they done for thee? or what will they ever do? Can any thing in the world be more causeless and unreasonable, than thy forsaking God, and turning back from the way of holiness? Will the world or sin give more for thee, than God will? or be better to thee here and hereafter? What wouldst thou have in God, or in thy Saviour, that thou thinkest wanting in him? Is it any thing that the world can make up, which hath nothing in itself but what is from him? What wrong hath God, or his service, done thee, that thou shouldst now forsake him and turn back? For thy soul's sake, man, think of some reasonable answer to such questions, before thou venture thyself upon a course which thou hast found so bad and perilous heretofore! Let all the malice of earth or hell say the worst it can against God and holiness, it shall never justify thy revolt!

12. Consider what abundance of labour and suffering is all lost, if thou fall away from Christ. Is all thy hearing, and meditation, and prayer, come to this? Is all thy self-denial and sufferings for Christ and godliness come to this? Heb. x. 32-34, "Call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, while ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. – Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward." You should have let Christ alone, if you would not follow him to the end: he is less foolish that sitteth still, than he that first tireth himself, and then turneth again. The idle beggar is not so foolish, as the husbandman that will plough and sow, and at last lose his crop for want of the labour to reap it, and carry it home. Shall all thy pains and sufferings be lost at last, for nothing?