CHAPTER VII.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS.

The passions are to be considered, 1. As in themselves, and the sin of them as respecting God and ourselves only: and so I am to speak of them here. 2. As they are a wrong to others, and a breach of the commandments which require love and duty towards our neighbour: and so I shall speak of them after.

Passions are not sinful in themselves, for God hath given them to us for his service; and there is none of them but may be sanctified and used for him. But they are sinful, 1. When they are misguided and placed on wrong objects. 2. When they darken reason, and delude the mind, and keep out truth, and seduce to error. 3. When they rebel against the government of the will, and trouble it, and hinder it in its choice or prosecution of good, or urge it violently to follow their brutish inclination. 4. When they are unseasonable. 5. Or immoderate and excessive in degree. 6. Or of too long continuance. 7. And when they tend to evil effects, as to unseemly speeches or actions, or to wrong another.

Passions are holy when they are devoted to God, and exercised upon him or for him. They are good when, 1. They have right objects; 2. And are guided by reason; 3. And are obedient to the well-guided will; 4. And quicken and awake the reason and the will to do their duty; 5. And tend to good effects, exciting all the other powers to their office; 6. And exceed not in degree, so as to disturb the brain or body.

_Tit._ 1. _Directions against all sinful passions in general._

_Direct._ 1. Trust not to any present actual resistance, without any due, habitual mortification of passions, and fortification of the soul against them. Look most to the holy constitution of your mind and life, and then sinful passions will fall off, like scabs from a healthful body when the blood is purified.

No wonder if an unholy soul be a slave to passion, when the body is inclined to it: for such a one is under the power of selfishness, carnality, and worldliness; and from under the government of Christ and his Spirit; and wanteth that life of grace by which he should cure and subdue the corruptions of nature. The way for such a one to master passion, is not to strive by natural, selfish principles and reasons, which are partial, poor, and weak; but to look first to the main, and to seek with speed and earnestness for a new and sanctified heart, and get God's image, and his Spirit, and renewing, quickening grace: this is the only effectual conqueror of nature. A dull and gentle disposition may seem without this to conquer that which never much assaulted it: (the trial of such persons being some other way); but none conquereth Satan indeed but the Spirit of Christ. And if you should be free from passion, and not be free from an unholy, carnal, worldly heart, you must perish at last, if you seemed the calmest persons upon earth. Begin therefore at the foundation, and see that the body of sin be mortified, and that the whole tree be rooted up which beareth these evil, bitter fruits; and that the holy, victorious new nature be within you; and then you will resist sin with light and life, which others still resist but as in their sleep.

_Direct._ II. More particularly, let your souls be still possessed with the fear of God, and live as in his family, under his eye and government, that his authority may be more powerful than temptations, and your holy converse with him may make him still more regarded by you than men or any creatures. And then this sun will put out the lesser lights, and the thunder of his voice will drown the whisperers that would provoke you, and the humming of those wasps which make you so impatient. God would make the creature nothing, and then it would do nothing to disturb you, or carry you into sin.

_Direct._ III. Dwell in the delightful love of God, and in the sweet contemplation of his love in Christ, and roll over his tender mercies in your thoughts, and let your conversation be with the holy ones in heaven, and your work be thanksgivings and praise to God: and this will habituate your souls to such a sweetness, and mellowness, and stability, as will resist sinful passion even as heat resisteth cold.

_Direct._ IV. Keep your consciences continually tender, and then they will check the first appearance of sinful passions, and will smart more with the sin than your passionate natures do with the provocation. A seared conscience, and a hardened, senseless heart, are to every sin, as a man that is fast asleep is to thieves; they may come in and do what they will, so they do not waken him. But a tender conscience is always awake.

_Direct._ V. Labour after wisdom, strength of reason, and a solid judgment; for passion is cherished by folly. Children are easily overthrown, and leaves are easily shaken with every little wind; when men keep their way, and rocks and mountains are not shaken. Women and children, and old, and weak, and sick people are usually most passionate. If a wise man should have a passionate nature, he hath that which can do much to control it: when folly is a weather-cock at the wind's command.

_Direct._ VI. See that the will be confirmed and resolute, and then it will soon command down passion. Men can do much against passion if they will. Nature hath set the will in the throne of the soul; it is the sinful connivance and negligence of the will, which is the guilty cause of all the rebellion; as the connivance of the commanders is the common cause of mutinies in an army.[323] The will either consenteth, or is remiss in its office, and in forbidding and repressing the rage of passion. When I say, you can do it if you will, you think this is not true, because you are willing, and yet passion yieldeth not to your will's command; but I mean not that every kind of willingness will serve; it is not a sluggish wish that will do it; but if the will were resolute without any compliance, or connivance, or negligence in its proper office, no sinful passion could remain; for it is no further sin, than it is voluntary, either by the will's compliance, or omission and neglect. Therefore let most of your labour be to waken and confirm the will; and then it will command down passion.

_Direct._ VII. Labour after holy fortitude, courage, and magnanimity. Great minds are above all troubles, desires, or commotions about little things. A poor, base, low, and childish mind, is never quiet longer than it is rocked asleep or flattered.

_Direct._ VIII. Especially see that you want not self-denial, and that worldliness and fleshly-mindedness be thoroughly mortified; for sinful passion is the very breath and pulse of a selfish, fleshly, worldly mind. It is not more natural for dogs to fight about a bone, than for such to snarl and quarrel, or be in some distempered passion, about their selfish, carnal interest. Covetousness will not let the mind be quiet. It is as natural for a selfish man to be under the power of sinful passions, as for a man to shake that hath an ague, or to fear that is melancholy. Fleshly men have a canine appetite and feverish thirst continually upon them, after some flesh-pleasing toy or other.

_Direct._ IX. Keep a court of justice in your souls, and call yourselves daily to account, and let no passion escape without such a censure as is due. If reason and conscience thus exercise and maintain their authority, and passion be every day soundly rebuked, it will wither like a plant that is cropped as fast as it springeth.

_Direct._ X. Deliberate and foresee the end; examine whether passion tend to that which will be approvable when it is past. Looking to the end doth shame all sinful passions: they are blind, and moved only by things present; they cannot endure the sight of the time to come, nor to be examined whither they go, or where is their home.

_Direct._ XI. Keep a continual apprehension of the danger and odiousness of sinful passions, by knowing how full they are of the spawn of many other sins. See the evil of them in the effects. Mark what passion doth in others and yourselves; what abundance of evil thoughts, and words, and deeds do come from sinful passions!

_Direct._ XII. Observe the immediate troublesome effects, and the disorders of your soul, and so turn the fruit of passions against themselves. Mark how they discompose you, and disturb your reason, and make your minds like muddied waters, and breed a diseased unquietness in you, unfitting you for your works, and breaking your peace; so that you can neither know, nor use, nor enjoy yourselves.

_Direct._ XIII. Let death look your passions frequently in the face. It hath a mortifying virtue; and as it showeth us the vanity of the creature, so it taketh down those passions, which creature interest and deceit have caused. It exciteth reason, and restoreth it to its dominion, and silenceth the rebellion of the senses. A man that is to die to-morrow, and knoweth it, would easilier repel to-day a temptation to lust, or covetousness, or drunkenness, or revenge, than at another time he could have done. One look into eternity will powerfully rebuke all carnal passions.

_Direct._ XIV. Remember still that God is present. Will you behave yourselves passionately before him, when the presence of your prince would calm you? Shall God and his holy angels see thee like a bedlam lay by thy reason and misbehave thyself?

_Direct._ XV. Have still some pertinent scripture ready to rebuke thy passions; that thou mayst say as Christ to Satan, "Thus it is written." Speak to it in the name and word of God; though the bare words will not charm these evil spirits, yet the authority will curb them. For this "word is quick and powerful, a discerner of the thoughts," Heb. iv. 12. "Mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

_Direct._ XVI. Set Christ continually before you as your pattern, who calleth you to learn of him to be meek and lowly, Matt. xi. 29: who desired not the wealth or glory of the world; who loved his own that were in the world, but loved not the things of the world; who never was lifted up, or sinfully cast down; who never despised or envied man, nor ever feared man; who never was over merry or over sad; who being reviled, reviled not again; but was dumb as a lamb before the shearers.[324]

_Direct._ XVII. Keep as far from all occasions of your passions as other duties will allow you; and contrive your affairs and occasions into as great an opposition as may be to the temptation. Run not into temptation, if you would be delivered from evil. Much might be done by a willing, prudent man, by the very ordering of his affairs. God and Satan work by means; let the means then be regarded.

_Direct._ XVIII. Have a due care of your bodies, that no distemper be cherished in them which causeth the distemper of the soul. Passions have a very dependence on the temperament of the body; and much of the cure of them lieth (when it is possible) in the body's emendation.

_Direct._ XIX. Turn all your passions into the right channel, and make them all holy, using them for God upon the greatest thing. This is the true cure; the bare restraint of them is but a palliate cure, like the easing of pain by a dose of opium. Cure the fear of man by the fear of God; and the love of the creature, by the love of God; and the cares for the body, by caring for the soul; and earthly, fleshly desires and delights, by spiritual desires and delights; and worldly sorrow, by profitable, godly sorrow.

_Direct._ XX. Control the effects, and frustrate your passions of what they would have; and that will ere long destroy the cause. Cross yourselves of the things which carnal love and desire would have; forbear the things which carnal mirth or anger would provoke you to, and the fire will go out for want of fuel. (Of which more in the particulars.)

_Tit._ 2. _Directions against sinful Love of Creatures._

Love is the master passion of the soul, because it hath the chiefest object, even goodness which is the object of the will; and simple love is nothing but complacency, which is nothing but the simple volition of good; and it is a passionate volition or complacency which we call the passion of love.[325] When this is good and when it is sinful I showed before; but yet because the one half of the cure here lieth in the conviction, and it is so hard a thing to make any lover perceive a sinfulness in his love, I shall first help you in the trial of your love, to show the sinfulness of it; when I have first named the objects of it.

Any creature which seemeth good to us, may possibly be the object of sinful love; as honour, greatness, authority, praises, money, houses, lands, cattle, meat, drink, sleep, apparel, sports, friends, relations, and life itself. As for lustful love, I shall speak of it anon.

_Helps for discovering of sinful Love._

_Direct._ I. Make God's interest and his word the standard to judge of all affections by. That which is against the love of God, and would abate or hinder it, yea, which doth not directly or indirectly tend to further it, is certainly a sinful love; and so is all that is against his word. For the love of God is our final act upon our ultimate end, and therefore all that tends not to it, is a sin against our very end, and so against our nature and the use of our faculties.

_Direct._ II. Therefore whatever creature is loved ultimately for itself, and not for a higher end, even for God, his service, his honour, his relation to it, or his excellency appearing in it, is sinfully loved. For it is made our god when it is loved ultimately for itself.

_Direct._ III. Suspect all love to creatures which is very strong and violent, and easily kindled, and hardly moderated or quieted. Though you might think it is for some spiritual end or excellency, that you love any person or any thing, yet suspect it if it be so easy and strong; because that which is truly and purely spiritual is against corrupted nature, and comes from grace which is but weak: we find no such easiness to love God, and Scripture, and prayer, and holiness; nor are our affections so violent to these. It is well if all the fuel and blowing we can use will keep them alive. It is two to one that the flesh and the devil have put in some of their fuel or gunpowder, if it be fierce.

_Direct._ IV. Suspect all that love which selfishness and fleshly interest have a hand in. Is it some bodily pleasure and delight that you love so much? Or is it a good book or other help for your soul? We are so much apter to exceed and sin in carnal, fleshly-mindedness, than in loving what is good for our souls, that there we should be much more suspicious. If it be violent and for the body, it is ten to one there is sin in it.

_Direct._ V. Suspect all that love to creatures which your reason can give no good account of, nor show you a justifiable cause. If you love one place or person much more than others, and know not why, but love them because you cannot choose, this is much to be suspected: though God may sometimes kindle a secret love between friends, from an unexpressible unity or similitude of minds, beyond what reason will undertake to justify, yet this is rare, and commonly fancy, or folly, or carnality is the cause: however, it is more to be suspected and tried, than rational love.

_Direct._ VI. Suspect all that fervent love to any creature which is hasty before sufficient trial; for commonly both persons and things have the best side outward, and seem better at the first appearance than they prove. Not but that a moderate love may be taken up upon the first appearance of any excellency, especially spiritual; but so as to allow for a possibility of being deceived, and finding more faultiness upon a fuller trial than we at first perceive. Have you dwelt in the house with the persons whom you so much admire? and have you tried them in their conversations? and seen them tried by crosses, losses, injuries, adversity, prosperity, or the offers of preferment or plenty in the world? you would little think what lurketh undiscovered in the hearts of many, that have excellent parts, till trial manifest it!

_Direct._ VII. Try your affections in prayer before God, whether they be such as you dare boldly pray God either to increase or continue and bless; and whether they be such as conscience hath no quarrel against. If they endure not this trial, be the more suspicious, and search more narrowly: the name and presence of God in prayer, doth much dispel the frauds of carnal reasonings. Yet persons who by melancholy are cast into diseased fears and scrupulosities, are uncapable of this way of trial.

_Direct._ VIII. Consult with wise, impartial persons; and open your case to them without deceit, before affections have gone so far as to blind you, or leave you uncapable of help. In this case, if in any case, the judgment of a stander-by that is faithful and impartial is usually to be preferred before your own. For we are too near ourselves; and judgment will be bribed and biassed even in the best and wisest persons.

_Direct._ IX. Yet cast not away all because you discover much excess or carnality in your affections; for frequently there is mixture both in the cause of love, and in the love itself of good and evil. And when you have but taken out all that was selfish, and carnal, and erroneous in the cause, the carnal, violent love will cease; but not all love: for still there will and must remain the moderate, rational, and holy love, which is proportioned to the creature's worth and merit, and is terminated ultimately on God: the separation being made, this part must be preserved.

_Direct._ X. Mere natural appetite in itself is neither morally good nor evil; but as it is well placed and ordered it is good, and as unruled or ill-ruled it is evil.

_Helps to mortify sinful Love._

_Direct._ I. The greatest of all means to cast out all sinful love, is to keep the soul in the love of God, Jude 21, wholly taken up in admiring him, serving him, praising him, and rejoicing in him: of which see chap. iii. direct. xi. We see that they that are taken up in the love and service of one person, are not apt to be taken much with any other.[326] But it is not only by diversion, nor only by prepossessing and employing all our love, that the love of God doth cure sinful love; but besides these there is also a majesty in his objective presence which aweth the soul, and commandeth all things else to keep their distance; and there is an unspeakable splendour and excellency in him, which obscureth and annihilateth all things else (though they are more near, and clearly seen and known). And there is a celestial kind of sweetness in his love, which puts the soul that hath tasted it out of relish with transitory, inferior good. As he that hath conversed with wise and learned men, will no more admire the wit of fools. And as he that hath been employed in the government of a kingdom or the sublimest studies, will be no more in love with children's games, and paddling in the dirt.

_Direct._ II. The next help is to see that the creature deceived you not; and therefore that you be not rash and hasty; but stay while you come nearer it, and see it unclothed of borrowed or affected ornaments: and see it not only in the dress in which it appeareth abroad, which often covereth great deformities, but in its homely habit and night attire. Bring it to the light; and, if it may be, also see it when it hath endured the fire, which hath taken off the paint and removed the dress.[327] Most of your inordinate love to creatures is by mistake and rashness. The devil tricks them up and paints them, that you may fall in love with them; or else he showeth you only the outside of some common good, and hideth the emptiness or rottenness within. Come nearer therefore, and stay longer, and prevent your shame and disappointments. Is it not a shame to see you dote on that place, or office, or thing this year, which you are weary of before the next? Or to see two persons impatiently fond of each other till they are married, and then to live in strife as weary of each other? How few persons or things have been too violently loved, that were but sufficiently first tried!

_Direct._ III. The next great help is to destroy self-love (as carnal and inordinate); for this is the parent, life, and root of all other sinful love whatever. Why doth the worldling over-love his wealth, and the proud man his greatness and repute, and the sensualist his pleasures, but because they first over-love that flesh and self which all these are but the provision for. Why doth a dividing sectary overvalue and over-love all the party or sect that are of his own opinion, but because he first over-valueth and over-loveth himself?[328] Why do you love those above their worth who think highly of you, and are on your side, and use to praise you behind your back, or that do you a good turn, but because you first over-love yourselves? Why doth lustful love inflame you, or the love of meat, and drink, and sport, and bravery, carry you into such a gulf of sin, but that first you over-love your fleshly pleasure? What insnareth you in fondness to any person, but that you think they love you, or are suitable to your carnal end. See therefore that you mortify the flesh.

_Direct._ IV. Still remember how jealous God is of your love, and how much he is wronged when any creature encroacheth upon his right. 1. You are his own by creation; and did he give you love to lay out on others, and deny it to himself? 2. He daily and hourly maintaineth you; he giveth you every breath, and bit, and mercy that you live upon; and will you love the creature with his part of your love? 3. How dearly hath he bought your love in your redemption! 4. He hath adopted you, and brought you into the nearest relation to him, that you may love him. 5. He hath pardoned all your sins, and saved you from hell, (if you are his own,) that you may love him. 6. He hath promised you eternal glory with himself that you may love him. 7. His excellency best deserveth your love. 8. His creatures have nothing but from him, and were purposely sent to bespeak your love for him rather than for themselves. And yet after all this shall they encroach upon his part? If you say, it is not God's part that you give them, but their own; I tell you, all that love which you give the creature above its due, you take from God. But if it be such a love to the creature as exceedeth not its worth, and is intended ultimately for God, and maketh you not love him the less but the more, it is not it that I am speaking against, or persuading you to mortify.

_Direct._ V. Look on the worst of the creature with the best, and foresee what it will be when it withereth, and what it will appear to you at the last. I have applied this against worldliness before, chap. iv. part vi. and I shall afterwards apply it to the lustful love. Bring your beloved creature to the grave, and see it as it will appear at last, and much of the folly of your love will vanish.

_Direct._ VI. Understand well the most that it will do for you, and how short a time you must enjoy it, and flatter not yourselves with the hopes of a longer possession than you have reason to expect. If men considered for how short a time they must possess what they dote upon, it would somewhat cool their fond affections.

_Direct._ VII. Remember that too much love hath the present trouble of too much care, and the future trouble of too much grief, when you come to part with what you love. Nothing more createth care and grief to us, than inordinate love. You foreknow that you must part with it; and will you now be so glued to it that then it may tear your flesh and heart. Remember you caused all that yourselves.

_Direct._ VIII. Remember that you provoke God to deprive you of what you over-love, or to suffer it to grow unlovely to you. Many a man's horse that he over-loved hath broke his neck: and many a man's child that he over-loved hath died quickly, or lived to be his scourge and sorrow: and many a husband or wife that was over-loved, has been quickly snatched away, or proved a thorn, or a continual grief and misery.

_Direct._ IX. If there be no other means left, prudently and moderately imbitter to thyself the creature which thou art fond of: which may be done many ways, according to the nature of it. By the seldomer or more abstemious use of it: or by using it more to benefit than delight; or by mixing some mortifying, humbling exercises; or mixing some self-denying acts, and minding more the good of others, &c.

_Direct._ X. In the practice of all directions of this nature, there must abundance of difference be made between a carnal, voluptuous heart, that is hardly taken off from sensual love, and a mortified, melancholy, or over-scrupulous person, who is running into the contrary extreme, and is afraid of every bit they eat, or of all they possess, or wear, or use, and sometimes of their very children and relations, and ready to overrun their mercies, or neglect their duties, suspecting that all is too much loved. And it is a very hard thing for us so to write or preach to one party, but the other will misapply it to themselves, and make an ill use of it. All that we can write or say is too little to mortify the fleshly man's affections: and yet speak as cautelously as we can, the troubled soul will turn it into gall, to the increase of his trouble: and what we speak to his peace and settlement, though it prove too little and uneffectual, yet will be effectual to harden the misapplying sensualist in the sinful affections and liberty which he useth. Therefore it is best in such cases to have still a wise, experienced, faithful guide, to help you in the application in cases of difficulty and weight.

_Tit._ 3. _Directions against sinful Desires and Discontent._

I shall say but little here of this subject, because I have already treated so largely of it, in my book of "Self-denial," and in that of "Crucifying the World;" and here before in chap. iv. part. vi. and vii. against worldliness and flesh-pleasing, and here against sinful love, which is the cause.[329]

How sinful desires may be known, you may gather from the discoveries of sinful love: as, 1. When you desire that which is forbidden you. 2. Or that which will do you no good, upon a misconceit that it is better or more needful than it is. 3. Or when you desire it too eagerly, and must needs have it, or else you will be impatient or discontented, and cannot quietly be ruled and disposed of by God, but are murmuring at his providence and your lot. 4. Or when you desire it too hastily, and cannot stay God's time. 5. Or else too greedily as to the measure, being not content with God's allowance, but must needs have more than he thinks fit for you. 6. Or specially when your desires are perverse, preferring lesser things before greater; desiring bodily and transitory things more than the mercies for your souls which will be everlasting. 7. When you desire any thing ultimately and merely for the flesh, without referring it to God, it is a sin. Even your daily bread, and all your comforts, must be desired but as provender for your horse, that he may the better go his journey, even as provision for your bodies, to fit them to the better and more cheerful service of your souls and God. 8. Much more when your desires are for wicked ends, (as to serve your lust, or pride, or covetousness, or revenge,) they are wicked desires. 9. And when they are injurious to others.

_Direct._ I. Be well acquainted with your own condition, and consider what it is that you have most need of; and then you will find that you have so much grace and mercy to desire for your souls, without which you are lost for ever, and that you have a Christ to desire, and an endless life with God to desire, that it will quench all your thirst after the things below.[330] This, if any thing, will make you wiser, when you see you have greater things to mind. A man that is in present danger of his life, will not be solicitous for pins or fool-gawds: and the hopes of a lordship or a kingdom will cure the desire of little things: a man that needeth a physician for the dropsy or consumption, will scarce long for children's balls or tops. And methinks a man that is going to heaven or hell, should have somewhat greater than worldly things to long for. Oh what a vain and doting thing is a carnal mind; that hath pardon, and grace, and Christ, and heaven, and God, to think of, and that with speed before it be too late; and can forget them all, or not regard them, and eagerly long for some little inconsiderable trifle; as if they said, I must needs taste of such a dish before I die; I must needs have such a house, or a child, or friend, before I go to another world! O study what need thy distressed soul hath of a Christ, and of peace with God, and preparation for eternity, and what need thy darkened mind hath of more knowledge, and thy dead and carnal heart of more life, and tenderness, and love to God, and communion with him; feel these as thou hast cause, and the eagerness of thy carnal desires will be gone.

_Direct._ II. Remember how much your carnal desires do aggravate the weakness of your spiritual desires, and make the sin more odious and unexcusable. Are you so eager for a husband, a wife, a child, for wealth, for preferment, or such things, while you are so cold and indifferent in your desires after God, and grace, and glory? Your desires after these are not so earnest! They make you not so importunate and restless; they take not up your thoughts both day and night; they set you not so much on contrivances and endeavours: you can live as quietly without more grace, or assurance of salvation, or communion with God, as if you were indifferent in the business; but you must needs have that which you desire in the world, or there is no quiet with you. Do you consider what a horrible contempt of God, and grace, and heaven, is manifested by this? Either you are regenerate or unregenerate. If you are regenerate, all your instructions, and all your experience of the worth of spiritual things, and the vanity of things temporal, do make it a heinous sin in you to be now so eager for those things which you have so often called vanity, while you are so cold towards God, whose goodness you have had so great experience of. Do you know no better yet the difference between the creature and the Creator? Do you yet no better understand your necessities and interest, and what it is that you live upon, and must trust to for your everlasting blessedness and content? If you are unregenerate, (as all are that love any thing better than God,) what a madness is it for one that is condemned in law to endless torments, and shall be quickly there, if he be not regenerate and justified by Christ, to be thirsting so eagerly for this or that thing, or person, upon earth, when he should presently bestir him with all his might to save his soul from endless misery! How incongruous are these desires to the good and bad!

_Direct._ III. Let every sinful desire humble you, for the worldliness and fleshliness which it discovereth to be yet unmortified in you; and turn your desires to the mortifying of that flesh and concupiscence which is the cause. If you did not yet love the world, and the things that are in the world, you would not be so eager for them. If you were not too carnal, and did not mind too much the things of the flesh, you would not be so earnest for them as you are. It should be a grievous thing to your hearts to consider what worldliness and fleshliness this showeth to be yet there. That you should set so much by the creature, as to be unable to bear the want of it; is this renouncing the world and flesh? The thing you need is not that which you much desire; but a better heart, to know the vanity of the creature, to be dead to the world, and to be able to bear the want or loss of any thing in it; and a fuller mortification of the flesh: mortifying and not satisfying it, is your work.

_Direct._ IV. Ask your hearts seriously whether God in Christ be enough for them, or not? If they say, no, they renounce him and all their hope of heaven; for no man takes God for his God that takes him not for his portion, and as enough for him: if they say, yea, then you have enough to stop the mouth of your fleshly desires, while your hearts confess that they have enough in God. Should that soul that hath a filial interest in God, and an inheritance in eternal life, be eager for any conveniences and contentments to the flesh? If God be not enough for you, you will never have enough. Turn to him more, and know him better, if you would have a satisfied mind.

_Direct._ V. Remember that every sinful desire is a rebelling of your wills against the will of God; and that it is his will that must govern and dispose of all, and your wills must be conformed to his; yea, that you must take pleasure and rest in the will of God. Reason the case with your hearts, and say, Who is it that is the governor of the world? and who is to rule me and dispose of my affairs? Is it I or God? Whose will is it that must lead, and whose must follow? Whose will is better guided, God's or mine? Either it is his will that I shall have what I desire, or not; if it be, I need not be so eager, for I shall have it in his time and way; if it be not his will, is it fit for me to murmur and strive against him? Remember that your discontents and carnal desires are so many accusations brought in against God; as if you said, Thou hast not dealt well or wisely, or mercifully by me; I must have it better: I will not stand to thy will and government; I must have it as I will, and have the disposal of myself.

_Direct._ VI. Observe how your eager desires are condemned by yourselves in your daily prayers, or else they make your prayers themselves condemnable. If you pray that the will of God may be done, why do your wills rebel against it, and your desires contradict your prayers? And if you ask no more than your daily bread, why thirst you after more? But if you pray as you desire, Lord, let my will be done, and my selfish, carnal desire be fulfilled, for I must needs have this or that; then what an abominable prayer is this! Desire as you must pray.

_Direct._ VII. Remember what covenant you have made with God; that you renounced the world and the flesh, and took him for your Lord, and King, and Father, and yielded up yourselves as his own, as his subject, and as his child, to be disposed of, ruled, and provided for by him; and this covenant is essential not only to your christianity, but to your taking him for your God. And do you repent of it? or will you break it, and forfeit all the benefits of the covenant? If you will needs have the disposal of yourselves, you discharge God of his covenant and fatherly care for you; and then what will become of you, if he so forsake you?

_Direct._ VIII. Bethink you how unmeet you are to be the choosers of your own condition. You foresee not what that person, or thing, or place will prove to you, which you so eagerly desire: for aught you know it may be your undoing, or the greatest misery that ever befell you. Many a one hath cried with Rachel, "Give me children or else I die," Gen. xxx. 1, that have died by the wickedness and unkindness of their children. Many a one hath been violent in their desires of a husband or a wife, that afterwards have broken their hearts, or proved a greater affliction to them than any enemy they had in the world. Many a one hath been eager for riches, and prosperity, and preferment, that hath been insnared by them, to the damnation of his soul. Many a one hath been earnest for some office, dignity, or place of trust, which hath made it a great increaser of his sin and misery. And it is flesh and self that is the eager desirer of things that are against the will of God, and nothing is so blind and partial as self and flesh. You think not your child a competent judge of what is best for him, and make not his desires, but your own understanding, the guide and rule of your dealings with him, or disposals of him. And are you fitter choosers for yourselves in comparison of God, than your child is in comparison of you? Either you take God for your Father, or you do not. If you do not, call him not Father, and hope not for mercy and salvation from him: if you do, is he not wise and good enough to dispose of you, and to determine what is best for you, and to choose for you?

_Direct._ IX. Remember that it is one of the greatest plagues on this side hell, to be given up to our own desires, and that by your eagerness and discontents you provoke God thus to give you up. "So I gave them up to their own heart's lust, and they walked in their own counsels: Oh that my people had hearkened to me!" &c. Psal. lxxxi. 12. "Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts," &c. Rom. i. 24, 26. "For this cause God gave them up to vile affections," ver. 28. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient," 2 Thess. ii. 10-12. God may give you that which you so eagerly desire, as he gave "Israel a king, even in his anger," Hos. xiii. 10, 11. Or as he gave the Israelites "their own desire, even flesh which he rained upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea; they were not estranged from their lust: but while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them," Psal. lxxviii. 27, 29-31. "They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert, and he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls," Psal. cvi. 14, 15. God may say, Follow your own lust, and if you are so eager, take that which you desire; take that person, that thing, that dignity which you are so earnest for; but take my curse and vengeance with it: never let it do you good, but be a snare and torment to you. "Let a fire come out of the bramble and devour you," Judg. ix. 15.

_Direct._ X. Take heed lest concupiscence and partiality entice you to justify your sinful desires and take them to be lawful. For if you do so, you will not repent of them, you will not confess them to God, nor beg pardon of them, nor beg help against them, nor use the means to extinguish them; but will cherish them, and be angry with all that are against them, and love those tempters best that encourage them: and how dangerous a case is this! And yet nothing is more ordinary among sinners, than to be blinded by their own affections, and think that they have sufficient reason to desire that which they do desire. And affection maketh them very witty and resolute to deceive themselves. It setteth them on studying all that can be said to defend their enemy, and put a deceitful gloss upon their cause. Try your desires well (as I before directed you). Q. 1. Is the thing that you desire a thing that God hath bid you desire, or promised in his word to give you, (as grace, Christ, and heaven)? If it be so, then desire it, and spare not; but if not so, Q. 2. Why then are you so eager for it when you should at most have but a submissive, conditional desire after it? Q. 3. Nay, is it not something which you are forbidden to desire? If so, dare you excuse it?

_Direct._ XI. Remember that concupiscence or sinful desire is the beginning of all sin of commission, and leadeth directly to the act. Theft, adultery, murder, fraud, contention, and all such mischiefs, begin in inordinate desires. For "every one is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed: then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death," James i. 14, 15. By "lust" is meant, any fleshly desire or will; therefore when the apostle forbiddeth gluttony and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envying, he strikes at the root of all in this one word, "make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lusts," (or wills,) Rom. xiii. 13, 14.

_Direct._ XII. Pull off the deceiving vizor, and see that which you so eagerly desire, as it is. What will it be to you at the last? It is now in its spring or summer; but see it in its fall and winter? It is now in its youth; but see it withered to skin and bone in its decrepid age. It is now in its clean and curious ornaments; but see it in its uncleanness and in its homely dress: cure your deceit, and your desire is cured.

_Direct._ XIII. Promise not yourselves long life, but live as dying men, with your grave and winding-sheet always in your eye; and it will cure your thirst after the creature when you are sensible how short a time you must enjoy it, and especially how near you are unto eternity. This is the apostle's method, 1 Cor. vii. 29-31, "But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use the world, as not abusing it (or as if they used it not): for the fashion of this world passeth away." So you will desire as if you desired not, when you perceive well how quickly the thing desired will pass away.

_Direct._ XIV. In all your desires, remember the account as well as the thing desired. Think not only what it is now at hand, but what account you must make to God of it; "for to whom men give or commit much, of them they require the more," Luke xii. 48. Will you thirst after more power, more honour, more wealth, when you remember that you have the more to give account of? Matt. xxv. Have you not enough to reckon for already, unless you had hearts to use it better?

_Direct._ XV. Keep yourselves to the holy use of all your mercies, and let not the flesh devour them, nor any inordinate appetite fare ever the better for them when you have them, and this will powerfully extinguish the inordinate desire itself. We are in little danger of being over eager after things spiritual and holy, for the honour of God; resolve therefore that all you have shall be thus sanctified to God, and used for him, and not at all to satisfy any inordinate desire of the flesh, and then the flesh will cease its suit, when it finds it fares never the better for it. You are able to do much in this way if you will. If you cannot presently suppress the desire, you may presently resolve to deny the flesh the thing desired, (as David would not drink the water though he longed for it, 2 Sam. xxiii. 15, 17,) and you may presently deny it the more of that you have. If you cannot forbear your thirst, you can forbear to drink; if you cannot forbear to be hungry, you can forbear to eat whatever is forbidden or unfit: if Eve must needs have an appetite to the forbidden fruit, yet she might have commanded her hands and teeth, and not have eaten it. If you cannot otherwise cool your desire of curious apparel, wear that which is somewhat homelier than else you would have worn, on purpose to rebuke and control that desire: if you cannot otherwise quench your covetous desires, give so much the more to the poor to cross that desire. You cannot say that the outward act is out of your power, if you be but willing.

_Direct._ XVI. When your desires are over eager, bethink you of the mercies which you have received already and do possess. Hath God done so much for you, and are you still calling for more, even of that which is unnecessary, when you should be giving thanks for what you have? This unthankful greediness is an odious sin. Think what you have already for soul and body, estate and friends; and will not all this quiet you, (even this with Christ and heaven,) unless you have the other lust or fancy satisfied, and unless God humour you in your sick desires?

_Direct._ XVII. Understand how little it will satisfy you, if God should give you all that you earnestly desire. When you have it, it will not quiet you, nor answer your expectations. You think it will make you happy, and be exceeding sweet to you; but it deceiveth you, and you promise yourselves you know not what, and therefore desire you know not what. It would be to you but like a dreaming feast, which would leave you hungry in the morning, Isa. xxix. 8.

_Direct._ XVIII. Remember still that the greatest hurt that the creature can do thee, is in being over-loved and desired, and it is never so dangerous to thee as when it seemeth most desirable. If you remembered this aright, you would be cast into the greatest fear and caution, when any thing below is presented very pleasing and desirable to you.

_Direct._ XIX. Consider that your desires do but make those wants a burden and misery to you which otherwise would be none. Thirst makes the want of drink a torment, which to another is no pain or trouble at all. The lustful wanton is ready to die for love of the desired mate which nobody else cares for, nor is ever the worse for being without. A proud ambitious Haman thinks himself undone if he be not honoured, and is vexed if he be but cast down into the mean condition of a farmer; when many thousand honest, contented men live merrily and quietly in as low a condition. It is men's own desires, and not their real wants, which do torment them.

_Direct._ XX. Remember that when you have done all, if God love you he will be the chooser, and will not grant your sick desires, but will correct you for them till they are cured. If your child cry for a knife, or for unwholesome meat, or any thing that would hurt him, you will quiet him with the rod if he give not over. And it is a sign some rod of God is near you, when you are sick for this, or that, or the other thing, and will not be quiet and content unless your fancy and concupiscence be humoured.

_Tit._ 4. _Directions against Sinful Mirth and Pleasure._

Mirth is sinful, 1. When men rejoice in that which is evil; as in the hurt of others, or in men's sin, or in the sufferings of God's servants, or the afflictions of the church, or the success or prosperity of the enemies of Christ, or of any evil cause: this is one of the greatest sins in the world, and one of the greatest signs of wickedness, when wickedness is it that they rejoice in.[331] 2. When it is unseasonable, or in an unmeet subject: as to be merry in the time and place of mourning; to feast when we should fast; or for an unsanctified, miserable soul to be taken up with mirth, that is in the power of sin and Satan and near to hell. 3. Mirth is sinful when it tendeth to the committing of sin, or is managed by sin: as to make merry with lies and fables, and tempting, unnecessary, time-wasting dances, plays, or recreations; or with the slander or abuse of others; or with drunkenness, gluttony, or excess. 4. Mirth is sinful when it is a hinderance to our duty and unfitteth the soul for the exercise of that grace which is most suitable to its estate: as when it hindereth a sinner's conviction and humiliation, and resisteth the Spirit of God, and bawleth down the calls of grace, and the voice of conscience, that they cannot be heard: and when it banisheth all sober consideration about the matters that we should most regard, and will not give men leave to think with fixedness and sobriety, upon God and upon themselves, their sin and danger, upon death and judgment and the life to come: when it makes the soul more unfit to take reproof, to profit by a sermon, to call upon God. This drunken mirth which shuts out reason, and silenceth conscience, and laughs at God, and jesteth at damnation, and doth but intoxicate the brain, and make men mad in the matters where they should most show their wisdom, I say, this mirth is the devil's sport, and the sinner's misery, and the wise man's pity: of which Solomon speaketh, Eccl. ii. 2, "I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doth it?" Prov. xxvi. 18, 19, "As a mad-man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?" Prov. x. 23, "It is as sport to a fool to do mischief." 5. But mirth is most horridly odious when it is blasphemous and profane: when incarnate devils do make themselves merry with jesting and mocking at Scripture, or at the judgments of God, or the duties of religion; or in horrid oaths and cursed speeches against the servants of the Lord.

_Direct._ I. First see that thou be a person fit for mirth,[332] and that thou be not a miserable slave of Satan, in an unregenerate, unholy, unjustified state! Thou wouldst scarce think the innocent games or sports were becoming a malefactor that must die to-morrow. An unregenerate, unholy person, is sure whenever he dieth such to be damned; if he believe not this, he must deny God or the gospel to be true. And he is not sure to live an hour. And he is sure that he shall die ere long. And now, if you have not fooled away your reason, tell me whether your reason can justify the mirth of such a man? Dost thou ask, what harm is it to be merry? None at all for one that hath cause to be merry, and rejoiceth in the Lord. But for a man to be merry in the way to hell, and that so near it; for a man to be merry before his soul be sanctified, and his sin be pardoned, or before he seeketh it with all his heart, this is harm; if folly and unbelief, and contempt of God and his dreadful justice, be any harm. O hearken to the calls of God; abhor thy sins, and set thy heart on heaven and holiness, and then God and conscience will allow thee to be merry. Get a renewed heart and life, and get the pardon of thy sins, and a title to heaven, and a readiness to die, and then there is reason and wisdom in thy mirth.[333] Then thy mirth will be honourable and warrantable; better than the lame man's that was healed, Acts iii. 8, that went with Peter and John into the temple, "walking, and leaping, and praising God." But it is a most pitiful sight to see an ungodly, unregenerate sinner, to laugh, and sport, and play, and live merrily, as if he knew not what evil is near to him! It would draw tears from the eyes of a believer that knoweth him, and thinketh where he is like to dwell for ever. I remember the credible narrative of one that lived not far from me, that in his profaneness was wont to wish that he might see the devil; who at last appeared to him in his terror; and sometime he smiled on him; and the man was wont to say, that he never seemed so ugly and terrible as when he smiled (and the man was affrighted by it into a reformed life). So though a servant of the devil be never comely, yet he never seemeth so ghastly as when he is most merry in his misery.

_Direct._ II. Yet do not destroy nature by overmuch heaviness, under pretence that thou hast no right to be merry. For, 1. The very discovery of thy misery puts thee into the fairer hopes of mercy. 2. And many of God's children live long without assurance of their justification, and yet should not therefore cast away all joy. 3. And so much ease and quiet of mind must be kept up by the unsanctified themselves, as is necessary to preserve their natures, that they may have time continued, and may wait on God till they obtain his grace. Above all men, they have reason to value their lives, lest they die and be lost, before they be recovered. And therefore, as they must not famish themselves by forbearing meat or drink, so their sorrows must not be such as may destroy their bodies (of which more anon).

[Sidenote: The true method of rejoicing.]

_Direct._ III. See that you first settle the peace of your souls upon solid grounds, and get such evidences of your special interest in Christ and heaven, as will rationally warrant you to rejoice; and then make it the business of your lives to rejoice and delight yourselves in God, and take this as the principal part of grace and godliness, and not as a small or indifferent thing; and so let all lawful, natural mirth be taken in, as animated and sanctified by this holy delight and joy; and know that this natural, sanctified mirth is not only lawful, but a duty exceeding congruous and comely for a thankful believer in his way to everlasting joy.

This is the true method of rejoicing. Though, as I said, so much quietness may be kept up by the unregenerate, as is needful to keep up life and health, and the gospel where it cometh is tidings of great joy to those that hear it; yet no man can live a truly comfortable, merry life, but in this method; but all his mirth, beside that which either supporteth nature, or meeteth mercy in his returning to God, will be justly chargeable with madness; and maketh him a more pitiful sight.[334]

The first thing therefore to be done, is to lay the groundwork of true mirth. And this is done by unfeigned repenting, and turning to God by faith in Christ, and becoming new creatures, a sanctified, peculiar people, and being justified and adopted to be the children of God; and then by discerning (upon sober trial) the evidences and witness of all this in ourselves, that we may know that we have passed from death to life.

And though there are several degrees both of grace and of the discerning of it, some having but little holiness, and some but little discerning of it in themselves, yet the least may afford much comfort to the soul upon justifiable grounds, though not so much as the greater degrees of grace, and clearer discerning of it, may do.

The foundation being thus laid, it must be our next endeavour to build upon it a settled peace of conscience, and quietness of soul; for till we can attain to joy, it is a great mercy to have peace, and to be free from the accusations, fears, and griefs which belong to the unjustified; and peace must be the temper more ordinary than much joy, to be expected in this our frail condition.

Thirdly, Peace being thus settled, we must endeavour to rise up daily into joy, as our great duty and our great felicity on earth; it being frequently and earnestly commanded in the Scriptures, that we "rejoice in the Lord always," and "shout for joy, all that are upright in heart," Psal. xxxiii. 1; Phil. iii. 1; iv. 4; Deut. xii. 12, 18; xxvii. 7. Thus he that "proveth his own work," may have "rejoicing in himself," Gal. vi. 4, "even in the testimony of his conscience," of his own "simplicity and godly sincerity," 2 Cor. i. 12. And this all believers should maintain and actuate in themselves.

Fourthly, With this rejoicing in God, our lawful, natural mirth must be taken in, as subordinate or sanctified; that is, we must further our holy joy by natural mirth and cheerfulness, and by the comforts of our bodies in God's lower mercies, promote the service and the comforts of our souls. And this is the right place for this mirth to come in, and this is the true method of rejoicing.

_Direct._ IV. Mark well the usefulness and tendency of all thy mirth: and if it be useful to fit thee for thy duty, and intended by thee to that end, (though you alway observe not that intention at the time,) and if it tend to do thee good, or help thee to do good, without a greater hurt or danger, then cherish and promote it; but if it tend to carry thee away from God to any creature, and to unfit thy soul for the duties of thy place, and to carry thee into sin, then avoid it as thy hurt: still remembering that the necessary support of nature must not be avoided by good or bad. A christian that hath any acquaintance with himself, and with the work of holy watchfulness, may discern what his mirth is by the tendency and effects, and know whether it doth him good or harm.

_Direct._ V. Take heed that the flesh defile not your mirth, by dropping in any obscene or ribald talk, or by stirring up fleshly lust and sin. Which it will quickly do, if not well watched; and holy mirth and cheerfulness is very apt to degenerate on a sudden into sinful mirth.

_Direct._ VI. Consider what your mirth is like to prove to others as well as to yourselves. If it be like to stir up sin in others, or to be offensive to them, you must the more avoid it in their presence, or manage it with the greater caution: if it be needful to cheer up the drooping minds of those you converse with, or to remove their prejudice against a holy life, you must the more give place to it: for it is good or bad as it tendeth unto good or bad.

_Direct._ VII. Never leave out reason or godliness from any of your mirth. Abhor that mirth that maketh a man a fool, or playeth the fool: and take heed of that ungodliness which maketh a man merriest when he is furthest from God, like the horse or ox that leapeth and playeth for gladness when he is unyoked or loosed from his labour. Something of God and heaven should appear or be dropped into all our mirth, to sweeten and to sanctify it.

_Direct._ VIII. Watch your tongues in all your mirth; for they are very apt to take liberty then to sin. Mirth is to the tongue as holidays and play-days to idle scholars; who are glad of them as a time in which they think they have liberty to game, and fight, and do amiss.

_Direct._ IX. If a word break forth from yourselves or companions to the wrong of others in your mirth, as of backbiting, evil-speaking, jeering, scorning, defaming, (yea, though it be your enemy,) rebuke it, and cast it out, as dirt or dung that falleth into your dish or cup.

_Direct._ X. If profaneness intrude, and any make merry with jesting at Scripture, religion, or the slanders or scorns of godly persons, with a tendency to make religion odious or contemptible; if they are such as you may speak to, reprove them with reverend seriousness to their terror: if they are not, then show your abhorrence of it by turning your backs and quitting the place and company of such devilish enemies of God. Be not silent or seemingly-consenting witnesses of such odious mirth against your Maker.

_Direct._ XI. If the mirth of others in your company grow insipid, frothy, foolish, wanton, impious, or otherwise corrupt, drop in some holy salt to season it; and something that is serious and divine to awe it and repress it. As to remember them of God's presence, or to recite such a text as Eph. v. 3, 4, "But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named amongst you as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting; which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks."

[Sidenote: Considerations to repress excessive mirth.]

_Direct._ XII. If mirth grow immoderate and exceed in measure, and carry you away from God and duty by the very carnal pleasure of it, have always at hand these following considerations to repress it. 1. Remember that God is present; and levity is not comely in his sight. 2. Remember that death and judgment are at hand, when all this levity will be turned into seriousness. 3. Remember that your souls are yet under a great deal of sin, and wants, and danger, and you have a great deal of serious work to do. 4. Look on Jesus Christ, and remember what an example he gave you upon earth; whether he laughed, and played, and jested, and taught you immoderate or carnal mirth; and whether you live like the disciples of a crucified Christ. 5. Think on the ordinary way to heaven, described in Scripture; which is through many tribulations, afflictions, fastings, temptations, humiliations, sufferings, and mortifications; and think whether a wanton, jesting, playful life be like to this. 6. Think of the course of the ancient and excellent christians, who went to heaven through labour, and watchings, and fasting, and poverty, and cruel persecutions, and not through carnal mirth and sport. 7. Think of the many calamitous objects of sorrow that are now abroad in the world! of the millions of heathens and Mahometans, and other strangers or enemies to Christ! of the obstinate Jews; of the dark corrupted lamentable state of the Greek, Armenian, Ethiopian and Roman churches, where religion is so woefully obscured and dishonoured by ignorance, error, superstition, and profaneness: of the papal tyranny and usurpation; and of the divided state of all the churches, and the profaneness, and persecution, and uncharitableness, and contentions, and mutual reproaches and revilings, which make havoc for the devil among the members of Christ.

_Tit._ 5. _Directions against sinful Hopes._

Hope is nothing but a desirous expectation; therefore the directions given before, against sinful love and desire, may suffice also against sinful hopes, save only for the expecting part. Hope is sinful, 1. When it is placed ultimately upon a forbidden object: as to hope for some evil to yourselves which you mistakingly think is good. To hope for felicity in the creature, or to hope for more from it than it can afford you. To hope for the hurt of other men; for the ruin of your enemies; for the hinderance of the gospel, and injury to the church of Christ.[335] 2. When you hope for a good thing by evil means: as to hope to please God, or to come to heaven by persecuting his servants, or by ignorance, or superstition, or schism, or heresy, or any sin. 3. To hope ungroundedly for that from God which he never promised. 4. To hope deceitfully for that from God which he hath declared he will never give. All these are sinful hopes. But it is not these last that I shall here say much to, because I have said so much already of them in many other writings.

_Direct._ I. Hope for nothing from God against faith or without faith; that is, for nothing which he hath said he will not give, nor for any thing which he hath not promised to give, or given you some reason to expect. To hope for that which God hath told us he will not give, or that which is against the holiness and justice of God to give, this is but to hope that God will prove a liar, or unholy, or unjust, which are wicked and blaspheming hopes. Such are the hopes which abundance of ignorant and ungodly persons have; who hope to be saved without regeneration, and without true holiness of heart or life; and hope to be saved in their wilful impenitence and beloved sins: who hope that God forgiveth them those sins, which they hate not, nor will be persuaded to forsake: and hope that the saying over some words of prayer, or doing something which they call a good work, shall save them, though they have not the Spirit of Christ: or that hope to be saved, though they are unsanctified, because they are not so bad as some others, and live not in any notorious, disgraceful sin: all these believe the devil who tells them that an unholy person may be saved, and believe that the gospel is false which saith, "without holiness none shall see the Lord," Heb. xii. 14; and they hope that God will prove unholy, unjust, and false to save them, and yet this they call a hoping in God. Hope for that which God hath promised, and spare not; but not for that which he hath said he will not do, yea, protested cannot be, John iii. 3, 5.

_Direct._ II. When thou hopest for any evil to others, or thyself, remember what a monstrous thing it is to make evil the object of thy hope, and how those hopes are but thy hastening unto chosen misery, and contradict themselves. For thou hopest for it as good; and to be greedy for evil on supposition that it is good, doth show thy folly that wilt try no better the objects of thy hopes: like a sick man that longs and hopeth for that which if he take it will be his death. Thus sinners hope for the poisoned bait.

_Direct._ III. Understand how much of the root of worldliness consisteth in your worldly hopes. Poor worldlings have little in possession to delight in; but they keep up a hope of more within them. Many a covetous or ambitious wretch, that never reacheth that which he desireth, yet liveth upon the hopes of it: and hope is it that setteth and keepeth men at work in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil; as divine hope doth set and keep men at work for heaven, for their souls, and for Jesus Christ. And many a hypocrite that loseth much upon the account of his religion, yet showeth his rottenness by keeping up his worldly hopes, and going no further than will stand with those.

_Direct._ IV. Hath not the world deceived all that have hoped in it unto this day? Consider what is become of them and of their hopes; what hath it done for them, and where hath it left them: and wilt thou place thy hopes in that which hath deceived so many generations of men already?

_Direct._ V. Remember that thy worldly hopes are a sin so fully condemned by natural demonstration, that thou art utterly left without excuse. Thou art certain beforehand that thou must die; thou knowest how vain the world will be then to thee, and how little it can do for thee; and yet art thou hoping for more of the world!

_Direct._ VI. Consider that the world declareth its vanity in the very hopes of worldlings. In that it is still drawing them by hopes, and never giveth them satisfaction and content. Almost all the life of a worldling's pleasure is in his hopes. The very thing which he hopeth for, doth not prove so sweet to him in the possession, as it was in his hopes. A hoping and still hoping for that which they never shall attain, is the worldling's life.

_Direct._ VII. O turn your souls to those blessed hopes of life eternal, which are sent you from heaven by Jesus Christ, and set before you in the holy Scriptures, and proclaimed to you by the messengers of grace. Doth God offer you sure, well-grounded hopes of living for ever in his joy and glory? And do you neglect them, and lie hoping for that felicity in the world which cannot be attained, and which will give no content when you have attained it? This is more foolish than to toil and impoverish yourselves in hope to find the philosopher's stone, and refuse a kingdom freely offered.

_Tit._ 6. _Directions against sinful Hatred, Aversation, or Backwardness towards God._[336]

The hatred to God and backwardness to his service, which is the chief part of this sin, is to be cured according to the directions in the first chapter, as a state of wickedness is: and more I shall say anon, about the worship of God; and chap. iii. direct. xi. containeth the cure also. Only here I shall add a few directions to a God-hating generation.

_Direct._ I. The first thing you have to do, is to discover this to be your sin. For you are confident that you love God above all, while you hate him above all, even above the devil. You will confess, that this is horrid wickedness, where it is found, and well deserveth damnation: take heed lest thy own confession judge thee. Remember then that it is not the bare name that we now speak of: I know that God's name is most honoured, and the devil's name is most hated. Nor is it every thing in God that is hated: none hateth his mercifulness and goodness as such. Nor is it every thing in the devil that is loved: none loveth his hatred to man, nor his cruelty in tormenting men. But the holiness of God, which is it that man must receive the image of, and be conformed to, is hated by the unholy; and the devil's unholiness, and friendship to men's sin and sensuality, is loved by the sensual and unholy. And this hatred of God (and love of the devil) one would think you might easily perceive:

1. In that you had rather God were not so just and holy; you had rather he had never commanded you to be holy, but left you to live as your flesh would have you: you had rather God were indifferent as to your sins, and would give you leave to follow your lusts. Such a God you would have: and a God that will damn you unless you be holy, and hate your sins and forsake them, you like not, you cannot abide, but indeed do hate him.

2. Therefore you will not believe that God is such a holy, sin-hating God: because you would not have him so, you will not believe he is so; and so hate his nature, while you believe that you love him; and love but an idol of your unholy fantasies.[337] Psal. 1. 21, 22, "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence: thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver."

3. You love not the holiness of the word of God, which beareth his image. You love not these strict and holy passages in it, John iii. 3, 5; Luke xiv. 26, 33; Matt. xviii. 3; Rom. viii. 13; Col. iii. 1-4; 2 Cor. v. 17, with abundance more. You had rather have had a Scripture that would have left you your ambition, covetousness, lust, and appetite to their liberties; and that had said nothing for the absolute necessity of holiness, nor had condemned the ungodly.

4. You love not the holiest ministers or servants of Christ, that most powerfully preach his holy word, or that most carefully, seriously, and zealously obey it; your hearts rise against them, when they bring in the light, which showeth that your deeds and you are evil, John iii. 19, 20. They are an eyesore to you: your hearts rise not so much against whoremongers, swearers, liars, drunkards, atheists, or infidels, as against them. What sort of persons on the face of the earth, are so hated by the ungodly in all nations, and of all degrees, and used by them so cruelly, and pursued by them so implacably, as the holiest servants of the Lord are?

5. You love not to call upon God in serious, fervent, spiritual prayer, praises, and thanksgiving: you are quickly weary of it; you had rather be at a play, or gaming, or a feast: your hearts rise against holy worship as a tedious, irksome thing.

6. You love not holy, edifying discourse of God, and of heavenly things: your hearts rise against it, and you hate and scorn it, as if all serious talk of God were but hypocrisy, and God were to be banished out of our discourse.

7. You cannot abide the serious, frequent thoughts of God in secret; but had rather stuff your minds with thoughts of your horses, or hawks, or bravery, or honour, or preferments, or sports, or entertainments, or business and labours in the world; so that one hour of a thousand or ten thousand was never spent in serious, delightful thoughts of God, his holy truths, or works, or kingdom.

8. You love not the blessed day of judgment, when Christ will come with his holy angels to judge the world, to justify his accused and abused servants, to be "glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that do believe," 2 Thess. i. 8-11. And can you be so blind after all this, as not to see that you are haters of God?

_Direct._ II. Know God better, and thou canst not hate him; especially know the beauty and glorious excellency of that holiness and justice which thou hatest. Should the sun be darkened or disgraced, because sore eyes cannot endure its light? Must kings and judges be all corrupt, or change their laws, and turn all men loose to do what they list, because malefactors and licentious men would have it so?

_Direct._ III. Know God and holiness as they are to thee thyself; and then thou wilt know them not only to be best for thee, as the sun is to the world, and as life and health are to thy body, but to be thy only good and happiness; and then thou canst not choose but love them. Thy prejudice and false conceits of God and holiness cause thy hatred.

_Direct._ IV. Cast away thy cursed unbelief. If thou believe not what the Scripture saith of God and man, and of the soul's immortality, and the life to come, thou wilt then hate all that is holy as a deceit, and needless troubler of the world. But if once thou believe well the word of God, and the life everlasting, thou wilt have another heart.

_Direct._ V. Away with thy beastly, blinding sensuality. While thou art a slave to thy flesh, and lusts, and appetite, and its interest reigneth in thee, thou canst not choose but hate that holiness which is against it, and hate that God that forbiddeth it, and tells thee that he will judge thee and damn thee for it if thou forsake it not: this is the true cause of the hatred of God and godliness in the world. God's laws condemn the very life and pleasure of the fleshly man. Godliness is unreconcilable to concupiscence and the carnal interest. Lay by thy fleshly mind and interest, or, as sure as thou art a man, thou wilt be judged and damned as an enemy to God. Dost thou not feel that this is the cause of thy enmity, that God putteth thee on unpleasing (holy) courses, and will not let thee please thy flesh, but affrighteth thee with the threatenings of hell?[338] Rom.