A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

13. God is not so forward to cast you off, who hath just cause; and why then should you be forward to turn from him? If he had, what had become of you long ago? Yea, what abundant occasion have you given him, when he never gave you any at all! Thy sins have testified and cried against thee! abused mercies have witnessed against thee! and yet he hath not cast thee off! Satan hath stood up before God to accuse thee, and glad he would be to see thee utterly forsaken of God, and yet he hath not utterly forsaken thee: even while thou art forsaking him, he is protecting and supporting thee, and providing for thee! Did he forsake thee when thou wast in sickness, want, and danger? If he had, thou hadst not now been here. And wilt thou begin and run away from him? What if Christ should offer thee a bill of divorce, and say, Seeing thou hast so little mind of me, or of my service, take thy course, and seek another master; I discharge thee from all thy relations to me, follow thy own way, and take what thou gettest by it. Would this be welcome tidings to thee? Or durst thou accept of it, and be gone?

14. If thou do turn back for the pleasures of the flesh, or the preferments or profits of the world, thou wilt have less pleasure in them now, than thou hadst heretofore, or than the unconverted have. For they that sin in the dark, do not know their danger, and therefore sin not with so much terror, as thou wilt hereafter. Thou hast known the danger, thou hast confessed the folly; the reasons of God's word will never be forgotten, nor thy convictions ever totally blotted out: thou wilt be remembering the ancient kindnesses of Christ, and thy former purposes, and promises, and ways; and thou wilt be thinking both of the days that are past, and the days that are to come, and foreseeing thy terrible account: so that thou wilt sin in such terrors, that thou wilt have a taste of hell in the very exercise of thy sin, and be tormented before the time. And will the world and sin be worth the enjoying on such terms as these?91

15. Either thou hopest to recover from thy backsliding by a second repentance, or else thou purposest to go on. If thou shouldst be so happy as to be recovered, dost thou know with how much pain and terror it is like to be accomplished? When thou thinkest of thy backslidings, and what thou hast done in revolting after such convictions, and promises, and mercies, and experiences, thou wilt be very hardly kept from desperation. Thou wilt read such passages, as Heb. vi. 4-6; x. 26-29, with so much horror, that thou wilt hardly be persuaded that there is any hope: thou wilt be ready to think that thou hast sinned against the Holy Ghost, and that thou hast trampled under foot the blood of the covenant, and done despite to the Spirit of grace. And thou wilt think, that there is no being twice born again! Or, if thou be restored to life, thou wilt hardly ever be restored to thy comforts here; if thy backsliding should be very great. But indeed, the danger is exceeding great, lest thou never be recovered at all, if once thou be "twice dead, and plucked up by the roots," Jude 6; and lest God do finally forsake thee! And then how desperate will be thy case!

16. Is not the example of backsliders very terrible, which God hath set up for the warning of his servants, as monuments of his wrath? Luke xvii. 32, "Remember Lot's wife," saith Christ, to them that are about to lose their estates, or goods, or lives, by saving them! How frightful is the remembrance of a Cain, a Judas, a Saul, a Joash, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, a Julian! How sad is it to hear but such a one as Spira, especially at his death, crying out of his backsliding in the horror of his soul! and to see such ready to make away with themselves!

17. Consider, that there is none that so much dishonoureth God as a backslider. Others are supposed to sin in ignorance; but you do by your lives as bad as speak such blasphemy as this against the Lord; as if you should say, I thought once that God had been the best master, and his servants the wisest and happiest men, and godliness the best and safest life; but now I have tried both, and I find by experience that the devil is a better master, and his servants are the happiest men, and the world and the flesh do give the truest contentment of the mind. This is the plain blasphemy of your lives. And bethink thee how God should bear with this!

18. There is none that so much hardeneth the wicked in his sin, and furthereth the damnation of souls, as the backslider. If you would but drive your sheep or cattle into a house, those that go in first, do draw the rest after them; but those that run out again, make all the rest afraid, and run away. One apostate that hath been noted for religion, and afterwards turneth off again, doth discourage many that would come in: for he doth, as it were, say to them by his practice, Keep off, and meddle not with a religious life; for I have tried it, and found that a life of worldliness and fleshliness is better. And people will think with themselves, Such a man hath tried a religious life, and he hath forsaken it again; and therefore he had some reason for it, and knew what he did. "Woe to the world, because of offences! and woe to him, by whom the offence shall come!" Matt. xvii. 7; Luke xvii. 1. How dreadful a thing is it to think that men's souls should lie in hell, and you be the cause of it! "It were good for that man, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea," Matt. xviii. 6, 7; Luke xvii. 2.

19. There is none that are so great a terror to weak christians, as these backsliders. For they are thinking how far such went before they fell away; and those that think that true grace may be lost, are saying, Alas, how shall I stand, when such that were better and stronger than I have fallen away? And those that think that true grace cannot be lost, are as much perplexed, and say, How far may a hypocrite go, that after falleth away! How piously did this man live! How sorrowfully did he repent! How blamelessly did he walk! How fervently and constantly did he pray! How savourily did he speak! How charitably and usefully did he live! And I that come far short of him, as far as I can discern, can have no assurance that I am sincere, till I am sure that I go further than ever he did. Woe to thee, that thus perplexest the consciences of the weak, and hinderest the comforts of believers!

20. Thou art the greatest grief to the faithful ministers of Christ. Thou canst not conceive what a wound it giveth to the heart and comforts of a minister, when he hath taken a great deal of pains for thy conversion, and after that rejoiced when he saw thee come to the flock of Christ; and after that, laboured many a year to build thee up, and suffered many a frown from the ungodly, for thy sake; to see all his labour at last come to nought, and all his glorying of thee turned to his shame, and all his hopes of thee disappointed! I tell thee, this is more doleful to his heart, than any outward loss or cross that could have befallen him: it is not persecution that is his greatest grief, as long as it hindereth not the good of souls: it is such as thou that are his sorest persecutors, that frustrate his labours, and rob him of his joys; and his sorrows shall one day cost thee dear. The life and comforts of your faithful pastors, is much in your hands, 2 Cor. vii. 3. 1 Thess. iii. 8, "Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord."

21. Thou art more treacherous to Christ, than thou wouldst be to a common friend. Wouldst thou forsake thy friend without a cause? especially an old and tried friend? and especially, when in forsaking him thou dost forsake thyself? Prov. xxvii. 10, "Thy own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not." Prov. xvii. 17, "A friend loveth at all times; and a brother is born for adversity." If thy friend were in distress, wouldst thou forsake him? And wilt thou forsake thy God, that needs thee not, but supplieth thy needs? Ruth was more faithful to Naomi, Ruth i. 16, 17, that resolved, "Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; where thou diest I will die – ." And hath God deserved worse of thee?

22. Nay, thou dealest worse with God, than the devil's servants do with him: alas, they are too constant to him. Reason will not change them, nor the commands of God, nor the offers of everlasting life, nor the fears of hell; nothing will change them, till the Spirit of God do it. And wilt thou be less constant to thy God?

23. Consider also that thy end is so near, that thou hadst but a little while longer to have held out; and thou mightst have known that thou couldst keep thy worldly pleasures but a little while. And it is a pitiful thing to see a man that hath borne the sorest brunt of the battle, and run till he is almost at the end of the race, to lose all for want of a little more; and to see a man sell his God, and soul, and heaven for fleshly pleasure, when perhaps he hath not a year or month, or, for aught he knoweth, a day more to enjoy it. For a man to be weary and give over prayer, just when the mercy is at hand! and to be weary and give over a holy life, when his labour and sufferings are almost at an end! How sad will this day be to thee, if death this night be sent to fetch away thy soul! Then whose will all those pleasures be that thou soldest thy soul for? Luke. xii. 19-21. If thou knewest that thou hadst but a month or a year to live, wouldst thou not have held out that one year? Thou knowest not that it shall be one week. This is like the sad story of a student in one of our universities, who wanting money, and his father delaying to send it him, he staid so long, till at last he resolved to stay no longer, but steal for it rather than be without; and so went out, and robbed and murdered the first man he met, who proved to be his father's messenger, that was bringing him the money that he robbed and killed him for; which when he perceived by a letter which he found in his pocket, he confessed it through remorse of conscience, and was hanged; when a few hours' patience more might have saved his innocency and his life. And so is it with many a backsliding wretch, that is cut off, not like Zimri and Cozbi in the act of their sin, yet quickly after; and enjoy the pleasure which they forsook their God for but a little while.

Direct. IV. When you are awakened to see the terribleness of a relapsed state, presently return and fly to Christ to reconcile your guilty souls to God; and make a stop and go not one step further in your sin, nor make any delays in returning to your fidelity. It is too sad a case to be continued in. If thou darest delay yet longer, and wilfully sin again, thou art yet impenitent, and thy heart is hardened; and if the Lord have not mercy on thee, to recall thee speedily, thou art lost for ever.

Direct. V. Make haste away from the occasions of thy sin, and the company which insnareth thee in it. If thou knewest that they were robbers that intended to murder thee, thou wouldst be gone; if thou knewest that they had plague-sores running on them, thou wouldst be gone. And wilt thou not be gone, when thou knowest that they are the servants of the devil, that would infect thee with this sin, and cheat thee of thy salvation? Say not, Is not this company lawful, and that pleasure lawful? &c. If it be like to entice thy heart to sin, it is unlawful to thee, whatever it is to others; it is not lawful to undo thy soul.

Direct. VI. Come off by sound and deep repentance, and shame thyself by free confession, and mince not the matter, and deal not gently with thy sin, and be not tender of thy fleshly interest, and skin not over the sore, but go to the bottom, and deceive not thyself with a seeming cure.92 Many a one is undone, by repenting by the halves, and refusing to take shame to themselves by a free confession, and to engage themselves to a thorough reformation by an openly professed resolution. Favouring themselves and sparing the flesh, when the sore should be lanced and searched to the bottom, doth cause many to perish, while they supposed that they had been cured.

Direct. VII. Command thy senses, and at least forbear the outward acts of sin, while thy conscience considereth further of the matter. The drunkard cannot say, that he hath not power to shut his mouth: let the forbidden cup alone; no one compelleth you; you can forbear it if you will. The same I may say of other such sins of sensuality. Command thy hand, thy mouth, thy eye, and guard these entrances and instruments of sin.

Direct. VIII. Engage some faithful friend to assist thee in thy watch. Open all thy case to some one, that is fit to be thy guide or helper; and resolve that whenever thou art tempted to the sin, thou wilt go presently and tell them before thou do commit it; and entreat them to deal plainly with you; and give them power to use any advantages that may be for your good.

Direct. IX. Do your first works, and set yourselves seriously to all the duties of a holy life; and incorporate yourselves into the society of the saints: for holy employment and holy company are very great preservatives against every sin.

Direct. X. Go presently to your companions in sin, and lament that you have joined with them, and earnestly warn and entreat them to repent; and if they will not, renounce their course and company, and tell them what God hath showed you of the sin and danger.93 If really you will return, as with Peter you have fallen, so with Peter go out and weep bitterly; and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren, and help to recover those that you have sinned with, Luke xxii. 32.

I have suited most of these directions to those that relapse into sins of sensuality, rather than to them that fall into atheism, infidelity, or heresy; because I have spoken against these sins already; and the directions there given, show the way for the recovery of such.

Tit. 2. Directions for preventing Backsliding, or for Perseverance

Apostasy and backsliding is a state that is more easily prevented than cured; and therefore I shall desire those that stand, to use these following directions, lest they fall.

Direct. I. Be well grounded in the nature and reasons of your religion. For it is not the highest zeal and resolution that will cause you to persevere, if your judgments be not furnished with sufficient reasons to confute gainsayers, and evidence the truth, and tell you why you should persevere. I speak that with grief and shame which cannot be concealed; the number of christians is so small that are well seen in the reasons and methods of christianity, and are able to prove what they hold to be true, and to confute opposers, that it greatly afflicteth me to think, what work the atheists and infidels would make, if they once openly play their game, and be turned loose to do their worst! If they deride and oppose the immortality of the soul, and the life to come, and the truth of the Scriptures, and the work of redemption, and office of Christ; alas, how few are able to withstand them, by giving any sufficient reason of their hope! We have learnt of the papists, that he hath the strongest faith that believeth with least reason; and we have been (truly) taught that to deny our foundations is the horrid crime of infidelity; and therefore because it is so horrid a crime to deny or question them, we thought we need not study to prove them: and so most have taken their foundation upon trust, (and indeed are scarce able to bear the trial of it,) and have spent their days about the superstructure, and in learning to prove the controverted, less necessary points. Insomuch, that I fear there are more that are able to prove the points which an antinomian or an anabaptist do deny, than to prove the immortality of the soul, or the truth of Scripture, or christianity; and to dispute about a ceremony, or form of prayer, or church government, than to dispute for Christ against an infidel. So that their work is prepared to their hands, and it is no great victory to overcome such raw, unsettled souls.

Direct. II. Get every sacred truth which you believe, into your very hearts and lives; and see that all be digested into holy love and practice. When your food is turned into vital nutriment, into flesh and blood, it is not cast up by every thing that maketh you sick, and turneth your stomachs; as it may be before it is concocted, distributed, and incorporated. Truth that is but barely known, is but like meat that is undigested in the stomach: but truth which is turned into the love of God, and of a holy life, is turned into a new nature, and will not so easily be let go.

Direct. III. Take heed of doctrines of presumption and security, and take heed lest you fall away, by thinking it so impossible to fall away, that you are past all danger.94 The covenant of grace doth sufficiently encourage you to obey and hope, against temptations to despair and casting off the means: but it encourageth no man to presume or sin, or to cast off means as needless things. Remember that if ever you will stand, the fear of falling must help you to stand; and if ever you will persevere, it must be by seeing the danger of backsliding, so far as to make you afraid, and quicken you in the means which are necessary to prevent it. It is no more certain that you shall persevere, than it is certain that you shall use the means of persevering: and one means is, by seeing your danger, to be stirred up to fear and caution to escape it. Because it is my meaning in this direction, to save men from perishing by security upon the abuse of the doctrine of perseverance, I hope none will be offended that I lay down these antidotes.

1. Consider, that the doctrine of perseverance hath nothing in it to encourage security. The very controversies about it, may cause you to conclude, that a certain sin is not to be built upon a controverted doctrine. Till Augustine's time, it is hard to find any ancient writers, that clearly asserted the certain perseverance of any at all. Augustine and Prosper maintain the certain perseverance of all the elect, but deny the certain perseverance of all that are regenerated, justified, or sanctified; for they thought that more were regenerate and justified than were elect, of whom some stood (even all the elect) and the rest fell away: so that I confess, I never read one ancient father, or christian writer, that ever maintained the certainty of the perseverance of all the justified, of many hundred, if not a thousand years after Christ. And a doctrine, that to the church was so long unknown, hath not that certainty, or that necessity, as to encourage you to any presumption or security. The churches were saved many hundred years without believing it.

2. The doctrine of perseverance is against security, because it uniteth together the end and the means: for they that teach that the justified shall never totally fall from grace, do also teach that they shall never totally fall into security, or to any reigning sin; for this is to fall away from grace. And they teach that they shall never totally fall from the use of the necessary means of their preservation; nor from the cautelous avoiding of the danger of their souls: God doth not simply decree that you shall persevere; but that you shall be kept in perseverance by the fear of your danger, and the careful use of means; and that you shall persevere in these, as well as in other graces. Therefore if you fall to security and sin, you fall away from grace, and show that God never decreed or promised that you should never fall away.

3. Consider how far many have gone that have fallen away: the instances of our times are much higher than any I can name to you out of history. Men that have seemed to walk humbly and holily, fearing all sin, blameless in their lives, zealous in religion, twenty or thirty years together, have fallen to deny the truth or certainty of the Scriptures, the Godhead of Christ, if not christianity itself. And many that have not quite fallen away, have yet fallen into such grievous sins, as make them a terrible warning to us all, to take heed of presumption and carnal security.

4. Grace is not, in the nature of it, a thing that cannot perish or be lost. For, 1. It is a separable quality. 2. Adam did lose it. 3. We lose a great degree of it too oft; and the remaining degrees are of the same nature. It is not only possible in itself to lose it, but too easy; and not possible without cooperating grace to keep it.

5. Grace is not natural to us: to love our ease, and honour, and friends, is natural; but to love Christ, and his holy ways and servants, is not natural to us: indeed when we do it, it is our natural powers that do it, but not as naturally disposed to it, but as inclined by the cure of supernatural grace. Eating, and drinking, and sleeping we forget not, because nature itself remembereth us of them; but learning and acquired habits may be lost, if not very deeply radicated, and it is commonly concluded as to the nature of them, that habitus infusi habent se ad modum acquisitorum: infused habits are like to acquired ones.95

6. Grace is, as it were, a stranger, or new comer in us. It hath been there but a little while, and therefore we are but raw and too unacquainted with the right usage and improvement of it, and are the apter to forget our duty, or to neglect it, or ignorantly to do that which tendeth to its destruction.

7. Grace dwelleth in a heart which is not wholly dispossessed of those objects which are against its work, nor delivered from those principles which have an enmity against it. The love of the world and flesh was in the heart, before the love of God and holiness, and ignorance was before knowledge, and pride before humility, and selfishness before self-denial. And these are not wholly rooted out; we have dealt so gently with them, (as the Israelites with the Canaanites, Jebusites, and other inhabitants of the land,) that they are left to try us, and to be thorns in our sides. And the garrison is not free from danger, that hath an enemy always lodged within. Our enemies are in the house with us, they lie down and rise up with us, and are as near us as our flesh and bones: we can never be where they are not, nor leave them behind us, whithersoever we go, or whatever we do. No marvel, if brother be against brother, and the father against the son, when we are so much against ourselves.96 And are we yet secure?

8. And the number of the snares that are still before us, and of the subtle malicious enemies of our souls, may easily convince us, that we are wholly free from danger. How subtle and diligent is the devil! How much do his servants imitate him! Every creature or person that we have to do with, and every common mercy which we receive, hath matter of danger in it, which calleth us to fear and watch.

9. Perseverance is nothing else but our continuance in the grace which we received: and this grace consisteth in act as well as in habit: and the habit is for action; and the act is it that increaseth and continueth the habit. And the fear of God, and the belief of his threatenings, and repentance, and watchfulness, and diligent obedience, are a great part of this grace. And the acts are ours, performed by ourselves, by the help of God: God doth not believe, and repent, and obey in us, but causeth us ourselves to do it. Therefore to grow cold, and secure, and sinful, upon pretence that we are sure to persevere, this is to cease persevering, and to fall away, because we are sure to persevere, and not to fall away: which is a mere contradiction.

10. Lastly, bethink you well what is the meaning of all these texts of Scripture, and the reason that the Holy Ghost doth speak to us in this manner. Col. i. 21-23, "And you – hath he reconciled, – to present you holy: – if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel." John xv. 4-6, "Abide in me, and I in you. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withered. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will." Heb. iv. 1, "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." Jude 21, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." 1 Cor. x. 4, 5, 12, "They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ; but with many of them God was not well pleased: wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Rom. xi. 20, 21, "Be not highminded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee." Gal. v. 4, "Ye are fallen from grace." Matt. x. 22, "He that endureth to the end shall be saved;" Matt. xxiv. 13. Heb. iii. 6, 14, "Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. For we are partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end." Heb. iv. 11, "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." Rev. ii. 25, 26, "Hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations;" Rev. iii. 2, 3; ii. 4.