A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

These four directions truly practised, will yet set you on safe ground, as sad and dangerous as your condition is; but it is not the hearing of them, or the bare approbation of them, that will serve the turn. To find out your sinful, miserable state, and to be truly humbled for it, and to discern the remedy which you have in Christ, and penitently and believingly to enter into his covenant, and to see that your happiness is wholly in the love and fruition of God, and to believe the glory prepared for the saints, and to prefer it before all the prosperity of the world, and love it, and set your hearts upon it, and to resolve on a holy life if you should recover, forsaking this deceitful world and flesh; all this is a work that is not so easily done as mentioned, and requireth your more serious, fixed thoughts; and indeed had been fitter for your youthful vigour, than for a painful, weak, distempered state. But necessity is upon you; it must needs be yet done, and thoroughly and sincerely done, or you are lost for ever. And therefore do it as well as you can, and see that your hearts do not trifle and deceive you. In some respect you have greater helps than ever you had before; you cannot now keep up your hard-heartedness and security, by looking at death as a great way off. You have now fuller experience, than ever you had before, what the flesh and all its pleasures will come to, and what good your sinful sports, and recreations, and merriments will do you; and what all the riches, and greatness, and gallantry, and honours of the world are worth, and what they will do for you in the day of your necessity. You stand so near another world, and must so quickly appear before the Lord, that methinks a dead and senseless heart should no longer be able to make you slight your God, your Saviour, and your endless life: and one would think that the flesh, and world, should never be able to deceive you any more. O happy soul, if yet at last you are not only frightened into an unsound repentance, but can hate all sin, and love the Lord, and trust in Christ, and give up yourself entirely to him, and set your heart upon that blessed life, where you may see and love him perfectly for ever!

Of late repentance

Quest. But will so late repentance serve the turn, for one that hath been so long ungodly?

Answ. Yes, if it be sincere: but there is all the doubt; and that is it that your salvation now dependeth on.

Quest. But how may I know whether it be sincere?

Answ. 1. If you be not only frighted into it, but your very heart, and will, and love are changed. 2. If it extend both to the end, and the necessary means: so that you love God and the joys of heaven, above all earthly prosperity and pleasure; and also you had rather be perfectly holy, than live in all the delights of sin. And if you hate every known sin, and love the holy ways and servants of God, and this unfeignedly: this is a true change. 3. And if this repentance and change be such as will hold, if God should recover you, and would show itself in a new, and holy, and self-denying life; which certainly it will do, if it come not only from fear, but from love: but if you renounce the world, and the flesh, against your wills, because you know there is no remedy; and if you bid farewell to your worldly, sinful pleasures, not because you love God better, but because you cannot keep them, though you would; and if you take not God and heaven as your best, but only for better than hell; but not as better than worldly prosperity, which yet you would choose, if you had your choice; this kind of repentance will never save you; and if you should recover, it would vanish away, and come to nothing, as soon as your fears of death are over, and you are returned to your worldly delights again. Though now in your extremity you cry out never so confidently, Oh I had rather have heaven than earth, and I had rather have Christ and holiness, than all the pleasures and prosperity of sinners; yet if it be not from a renewed, sanctified heart, that had rather be such indeed, but from mere necessity and fear and against the habit of your hearts and wills; this is but such a repentance as Judas had, that is neither sincere at present, nor if you recover, will hold you to a holy life.

II. Directions to the Sanctified, for a safe Departure

When the soul is truly converted and sanctified, the principal business is despatched, that is necessary to a safe departure: but yet I cannot say that there is no more to be done. They were godly persons that were exhorted, 2 Pet. i. 10, "to give diligence to make their calling and election sure;" which being (as the Greek importeth) not only to make it known or certain, but to make it firm, doth signify more than barely to discern it. These following duties are yet further necessary.

Direct. I. Satisfy not yourselves that once you found yourselves sincere; but if your understandings be clear and free, renew the trial; and if you are insufficient for it of yourself, make use of the help of a faithful, judicious minister or friend. For when a man is going to the bar of God, it concerneth him to make all as sure as possibly he can.

Direct. II. Review your lives, and renew your universal repentance, for all the sins that ever you committed; and also let your particular repentance extend to every particular sin which you remember, but especially repent of your most aggravated, soul-wounding sins. For if your repentance be universal and true, it will also be particular; and you will be specially humbled for your special sins: and search deep, and see that none escape you. And think not that you are not called to repent of them, or ask forgiveness, because you have repented of them long ago, and received a pardon: for this is a thing to be done even to the last.

Direct. III. Renew your faith in Jesus Christ, and cast your souls upon his merits and mediation. Satisfy not yourselves that you have a habit of faith, and that formerly you did believe; but fly to your trusty rock and refuge, and continue the exercise of your faith, and again give up your souls to Christ.

Direct. IV. Make it your chief work to stir up in your hearts the love of God, and a desire to live with Christ in glory. Let those comforting and encouraging objects which are the instruments of this, be still in your thoughts: and if you can do this, it will be the surest proof of your title to the crown.

Direct. V. If you have wronged any by word or deed, be sure that you do your best to right them, and make them satisfaction; and if you have fallen out with any, be reconciled to them. Leave not other men's goods to your heirs or executors: restore what you have wrongfully gotten, before you leave your legacies to any. Confess your faults where you can do no more; and ask those forgiveness whom you have injured; and leave not men's names, or estates, or souls, under the effects of your former wrongs, so far as you are able to make them reparation.

Direct. VI. Be still taken up in your duty to God, even that which he now calleth you to, that you may not be found idle, or in the sins of omission; but may be most holy and fruitful at the last. Though sickness call you not to all the same duties, which were incumbent on you in your health; yet think not therefore, that there is no duty at all expected from the sick. Every season and state hath its peculiar duties, (and its peculiar mercies,) which it much concerneth us to know. I shall anon tell you more particularly what they are.

Direct. VII. Be specially fortified and vigilant against the most dangerous temptations of Satan, by which he useth to assault the sick. Pray now especially, that God would not lead you into temptation, but deliver you from the evil one: for in your weakness you may be less fit to wrestle with them, than at another time. O beg of God, that as he hath upheld you, and preserved you till now, he would not forsake you at last in your extremity.126 Particularly,

Tempt. I. One of the most dangerous temptations of the enemy is, To take the advantage of a christian's bodily weakness, to shake his faith, and question his foundations, and call him to dispute over his principles again, Whether the soul be immortal? and there be a heaven, and a hell? and whether Christ be the Son of God, and the Scriptures be God's word? &c. As if this had never been questioned, and scanned, and resolved before! It is a great deal of advantage that Satan expecteth by this malicious course. If he could, he would draw you from Christ to infidelity; but Christ prayeth for you, that your faith may not fail: if he cannot do this, he would at least weaken your faith, and hereby weaken every grace: and he would hereby divert you from the more needful thoughts, which are suitable to your present state; and he would hereby distract you, and destroy your comforts, and draw you in your perplexities to dishonour God. Away therefore with these blasphemous and unseasonable motions; cast them from you, with abhorrence and disdain: it is no time now to be questioning your foundations; you have done this more seasonably, when you were in a fitter case. A pained, languishing body, and a disturbed, discomposed mind, is unfit upon a surprise, to go back and dispute over all our principles. Tell Satan, you owe him not so much service, nor will you so cast away those few hours and thoughts, for which you have so much better work. You have the witness in yourselves, even the Spirit, and image, and seal of God. You have been converted and renewed by the power of that word, which he would have you question; and you have found it to be owned by the Spirit of grace, who hath made it mighty to pull down the strongest holds of sin. Tell Satan, you will not gratify him so much, as to turn your holy, heavenly desires, into a wrangling with him about those truths which you have so often proved. You will not question now, the being of that God who hath maintained you so long, and witnessed his being and goodness to you by a life of mercies; nor will you now question the being or truth of him that hath redeemed you, or of the Spirit or word that hath sanctified, guided, comforted, and confirmed you. If he tell you, that you must prove all things, tell him, that this is not now to do; you have long proved the truth and goodness of your God, the mercy of your Saviour, and the power of his holy Spirit and word. It is now your work to live upon that word, and fetch your hopes and comforts from it, and not to question it.

Tempt. II. Another dangerous temptation of Satan is, When he would persuade you to despair, by causing you to misunderstand the tenor of the gospel, or by thinking too narrowly and unworthily of God's mercy, or of the satisfaction of Christ. But because this temptation doth usually tend more to discomfort the soul, than to damn it, I shall speak more to it under tit. 3.

Tempt. III. Another dangerous temptation is, When Satan would draw you to overlook your sins, and overvalue your graces, and be proud of your good works; and so lay too much of your comfort upon yourselves, and lose the sense of your need of Christ, or usurp any part of his office or his honour. I shall afterward show you how far you must look at any thing in yourselves: but certainly, that which lifteth you up in pride, or encroacheth on Christ's office, or would draw you to undervalue him, is not of God. Therefore keep humble, in the sense of your sinfulness and unworthiness, and cast away every motion which would carry you away from Christ, and make yourselves, and your works, and righteousness, as a saviour to yourselves.

Tempt. IV. Another perilous temptation is, By causing the thoughts of death and the grave, and your doubts and fears about the world to come, to overcome the love of God, and (not only the comforts, but also) the desires and willingness of your hearts, to be with Christ. It will abate your love to God and heaven, to think on them with too much estrangedness and terror. The directions under tit. 3. will help you against this temptation.

Tempt. V. Another dangerous temptation is fetched from the remnants of your worldly-mindedness; when your dignity, or honour, your house, or lands, your relations and friends, or your pleasures and contentments, are so sweet to you, that you are loth to leave them; and the thoughts of death are grievous to you, because it taketh you from that which you over-love; and God and heaven are the less desired, because you are loth to leave the world. Watch carefully against this great temptation; observe how it seeketh the very destruction of your grace and souls; and how it fighteth against your love to God and heaven, and would undo all that Christ and his Spirit have been doing so long. Observe what a root of matter it findeth in yourselves; and therefore be the more humbled under it. Learn now what the world is, and how little the accommodations of the flesh are worth, when you perceive what the end of all must be. Would you never die? would you enjoy your worldly things for ever? Had you rather have them, than to live with Christ in the heavenly glory of the New Jerusalem? If you had, it is your grievous sin and folly; and yet you know that it is a desire that you can never hope to attain. Die you must, whether you will or not! What is it, then, that you would stay for? Is it till the world be grown less pleasant to you, and your love and minds be weaned from it? When should that rather be than now? And what should more effectually do it, than this dying condition that you are in? It is time for you to spit out these unwholesome pleasures; and now to look up to the true, the holy, the unmeasurable, everlasting pleasures.

Tit. 2. Directions how to Profit by our Sickness

Whether it shall please God to recover you or not, it is no small benefit which you may get by his visitation, if you do your part, and faithfully improve it, according to these directions following.

Direct. I. If you hear God's call to a closer trial of your hearts, concerning the sincerity of your conversion, and thereby are brought to a more exact examination, and come to a truer acquaintance with your state, (be it good or bad,) the benefit may be exceeding great. For if it be good, you may be much comforted, and confirmed, and fitted to give thanks and praise to God; and if it be bad, you may be awakened speedily to look about you, and seek for a recovery.

Direct. II. If in the review of your lives, you find out those sins which before you overlooked, or perceive the greatness of those sins which you before accounted small, the benefit may be very great; for it helps to a more deep and sound repentance, and to a stronger resolution against all sins, if you recover. And affliction is a very great help to us in this: many a man hath been ashamed and deeply humbled for that same sin, when sickness did awake him, which he could make his play-fellow before, as if there had been neither hurt nor danger in it.

Direct. III. There is many a deep corruption in the heart, which affliction openeth and discovereth, which deceitfulness hid in the time of prosperity; and the detecting of these is no small benefit to the soul. When you come to part with wealth and honour, you shall better know how much you loved them, than you could before. Mark therefore what corruptions appear in your affliction, and how the heart discloseth its deceits, that you may know what to repent of, and reform.

Direct. IV. When affliction calleth you to the use and exercise of your graces, you have a great help to be better acquainted with the strength or weakness of them. When you are called so loudly to the use of faith, and love, and patience, and heavenly-mindedness, you may better know what measure of every one of these you have, than you could when you had no such help. Mark therefore what your hearts prove in the trial, and what each grace doth show itself to be in the exercise.

Direct. V. You have a very great help now to be thoroughly acquainted with the vanity of the world, and so to mortify all affections unto the things below. Now judge of the value of wealth, and honour, of plenty, and high places. Are they a comfort to a dying man that is parting with them? Or is it any grief to a poor man when he is dying, that he did not enjoy them? Is it not easy now to rectify your errors, if ever you thought highly of these transitory things? O settle it now in your firm resolution, that if God should restore you, you would value this world at a lower rate, and set by it, and seek it, but as it deserveth.

Direct. VI. Also you have now a special help to raise your estimation of the happiness of the saints in heaven, and of the necessity and excellency of a holy life, and of the wisdom of the saints on earth; and to know who maketh the wisest choice.127 Now you may see that it is nothing but heaven that is worth our seeking, and that is finally to be trusted to, and will not fail us in the hour of our distress; now you may discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those that serve God and those that serve him not, Mal. iii. 17, 18. Now judge whether a loose and worldly life, or a holy, heavenly life be better? And resolve accordingly.

Direct. VII. You have also now a very great help to discern the folly of a voluptuous life, and to mortify the deeds and desires of the flesh: when God is mortifying its natural desires, it may help you in mortifying its sinful desires. Now judge what lust, and plays, and gaming, and feasting, and drunkenness, and swaggering, are worth? You see now the end of all such pleasures. Do you think them better than the joys of heaven, and worthy the loss of a man's salvation to attain them? Or better than the pleasures of a holy life?

Direct. VIII. Also now you have a great advantage, for the quickening of your hearts that have lost their zeal, and are cold in prayer, and dull in meditation, and regardless of holy conference. If ever you will pray earnestly, sure it will be now; if ever you will talk seriously of the matters of salvation, sure it will be now. Now you do better understand the reason of fervent prayer, and serious religion, and circumspect walking, than you did before; and you can easily now confute the scorns, or railings of the loose, ungodly enemies of holiness; even as you confute the dotage of a fool, or the ravings of a man beside himself.

Direct. IX. You have a great advantage more sensibly to perceive your dependence upon God alone; and what reason you have to please him before all the world, and to regard his favour or displeasure more, than all the things or persons upon earth. Now you see how vain a thing is man; and how little the favour of all the world can stand you in stead in your greatest necessity: now you see that it is God, and God alone, that is to be trusted to at last; and therefore it is God that is to be obeyed and pleased, whatever become of all things in the world.

Direct. X. You have now a great advantage to discern the preciousness of time, and to see how carefully it should be redeemed, and to perceive the distractedness of those men, that can waste it in pastimes, and curiosity of dressings, and needless compliments and visits, and a multitude of such vanities, as rob the world of that which is more precious than gold or treasure. Now what think you of idling and playing away your time? Now do you not think that it is wiser to spend it in a holy preparation for the life to come, than to cast it away upon childish fooleries, or any unnecessary worldly things?

Direct. XI. Also you have now a special help to be more serious than ever in your preparations for death, and in your thoughts of heaven; and so to be readier than you were before; and if sickness help you to be readier to die, and more to set your hearts above, whether you live or die, it will be a profitable sickness to you.

Direct. XII. Let your friends about you be the witnesses of your open confessions and resolutions, and engage them, if God should restore you to your health, to remember you of all the promises which you made, and to watch over you, and tell you of them whenever there is need. By these means sickness may be improved, and be a mercy to you.

Directions to them that recover

I might next have given some special directions to them that are recovered from sickness; but because I would not be needlessly tedious, I refer such to what is here said already. 1. Let them but look over these twelve directions, and see whether these benefits remain upon their hearts. 2. Let them call to their lively remembrance, the sense which they had, and the frame they were in, when they made these resolutions. 3. Let them remember that sickness will come again, even a sickness which will have no cure. And, 4. Let them bethink themselves, how terribly conscience will be wounded, and their souls dismayed, when the next sickness cometh, to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery, and how falsely they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises. Foresee this, that you may prevent it.

Tit. 3. Directions for a Comfortable or Peaceable Death

Comfort is not desirable only as it pleaseth us, but also as it strengtheneth us, and helpeth us in our greatest duties. And when is it more needful than in sickness, and the approach of death? I shall therefore add such directions as are necessary to make our departure comfortable or peaceful at the least, as well as safe.

Direct. I. Because I would make this treatise no longer than I needs must; in order to overcome the fears of death, and get a cheerful willingness to die, I desire the sick to read over those twenty considerations, and the following directions, which I have laid down in my book of "Self-denial." And when the fears of death are overcome, the great impediment of their comfort is removed.

Direct. II. Misunderstand not sickness, as if it were a greater evil than it is; but observe how great a mercy it is, that death hath so suitable a harbinger or forerunner: that God should do so much before he taketh us hence, to wean us from the world, and make us willing to be gone; that the unwilling flesh hath the help of pain; and that the senses and appetite languish and decay, which did draw the mind to earthly things: and that we have so loud a call, and so great a help to true repentance and serious preparation! I know to those that have walked very close with God, and are always ready, a sudden death may be a mercy; as we have lately known divers holy ministers and others, that have died either after a sacrament, or in the evening of the Lord's day, or in the midst of some holy exercise, with so little pain, that none about them perceived when they died.128 But ordinarily it is a mercy to have the flesh brought down and weakened by painful sickness, to help to conquer our natural unwillingness to die.

Direct. III. Remember whose messenger sickness is, and who it is that calleth you to die. It is he, that is the Lord of all the world, and gave us the lives which he taketh from us; and it is he, that must dispose of angels and men, of princes and kingdoms, of heaven and earth; and therefore there is no reason that such worms as we should desire to be excepted. You cannot deny him to be the disposer of all things, without denying him to be God: it is he that loveth us, and never meant us any harm in any thing that he hath done to us; that gave the life of his Son to redeem us; and therefore thinketh not life too good for us. Our sickness and death are sent by the same love that sent us a Saviour, and sent us the powerful preachers of his word, and sent us his Spirit, and secretly and sweetly changed our hearts, and knit them to himself in love; which gave us a life of precious mercies for our souls and bodies, and hath promised to give us life eternal; and shall we think, that he now intendeth us any harm? Cannot he turn this also to our good, as he hath done many an affliction which we have repined at?

Direct. IV. Look by faith to your dying, buried, risen, ascended, glorified Lord. Nothing will more powerfully overcome both the poison and the fears of death, than the believing thoughts of him that hath triumphed over it. Is it terrible as it separateth the soul from the body? So it did by our Lord, who yet overcame it. Is it terrible as it layeth the body in the grave? So it did by our Saviour; though he saw not corruption, but quickly rose by the power of his Godhead. He died to teach us believingly and boldly to submit to death. He was buried, to teach us not over-much to fear a grave. He rose again to conquer death for us, and to assure those that rise to newness of life, that they shall be raised at last by his power unto glory; and being made partakers of the first resurrection, the second death shall have no power over them. He liveth as our head, that we might live by him; and that he might assure all those that are here risen with him, and seek first the things that are above, that though in themselves they are dead, "yet their life is hid with Christ in God; and when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory," Col. iii. 1, 2, 4, 5. What a comfortable word is that, John xiv. 19, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Death could not hold the Lord of life; nor can it hold us against his will, who hath the "keys of death and hell," Rev. i. 18. He loveth every one of his sanctified ones much better than you love an eye, or a hand, or any other member of your body, which you will not lose if you are able to save it. When he ascended, he left us that message full of comfort for his followers, John xx. 17, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God." Which, with these two following, I would have written before me on my sick bed. "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also shall my servant be," John xii. 26. And, "Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," Luke xxiii. 43. Oh what a joyful thought should it be to a believer, to think when he is a dying, that he is going to his Saviour, and that our Lord is risen and gone before us, to prepare a place for us, and take us in season to himself, John xiv. 2-4. "As you believe in God, believe thus in Christ; and then your hearts will be less troubled," ver. 1. It is not a stranger that we talk of to you; but your Head and Saviour, that loveth you better than you love yourselves, whose office it is there to appear continually for you before God, and at last to receive your departing souls; and into his hand it is, that you must then commend them, as Stephen did, Acts vii. 59.