i. 2, 3, the blessed man's "delight is in the law of the Lord, and

therein doth he meditate day and night."

2. Another means is the public worshipping of God in communion with his church and people. Besides the benefit of the word there preached, the prayers of the church are effectual for the members; and it raiseth the soul to holy joys, to join with well ordered assemblies of the saints, in the praises of the Almighty. The assemblies of holy worshippers of God, are the places of his delight, and must be the places of our delight. They are most like to the celestial society, that sound forth the praises of the glorious Jehovah, with purest minds and cheerful voice. "In his temple doth every one speak of his glory," Psal. xxix. 9. In such a choir, what soul will not be rapt up with delight, and desire to join in the concert and harmony? In such a flame of united desires and praises, what soul so cold and dull that will not be inflamed, and with more than ordinary facility and alacrity fly up to God?

3. Another means is private prayer unto God. When God would tell Ananias that Paul was converted, he saith of him, "Behold, he prayeth," Acts ix. 11. Prayer is the breath of the new creature. The spirit of adoption given to every child of God is a spirit of prayer, and teacheth them to cry, "Abba, Father," and helpeth their infirmities; when they know not what to pray for as they ought, and when words are wanting, it (as it were) intercedeth for them with groans, which they cannot express in words, Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 15, 26, 27. And God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit in those groans. The first workings of grace are in desires after grace, provoking the soul to fervent prayer, by which more grace is speedily obtained. "Ask," then, "and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you," Luke xi. 9.

4. Another means to be used is confession of sin; not only to God, (for so every wicked man may do, because he knoweth that God is already acquainted with it all, and this is no addition to his shame: he so little regardeth the eye of God, that he is more ashamed when it is known to men,) but in three cases confession must be made also to man. 1. In case you have wronged man, and are thus bound to make him satisfaction: as if you have robbed him, defrauded him, slandered him, or borne false witness against him. 2. In case you are children or servants, that are under the government of parents or masters, and are called by them to give an account of your actions: you are bound then to give a true account. 3. In case you have need of the counsel or prayers of others, for the settling of your consciences in peace: in this case, you must so far open your case to them, as is necessary to their effectual help for your recovery; for if they know not the disease, they will be unfit to apply the remedy. In these cases, it is true, that "he that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but he that confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy," Prov. xxviii. 13.

5. Another means to be used, is the familiar company and holy converse with humble, sincere, experienced christians. The Spirit that is in them, and breatheth and acteth by them, will kindle the like holy flames in you. Away with the company of idle, prating, sensual men, that can talk of nothing but their worldly wealth, or business, or their reputations, or their appetites and lusts; associate yourselves with them that go the way to heaven, if you resolve yourselves to go in it. O what a deal of difference will you find between these two sorts of companions! The one sort, if you have any thoughts of repentance, would stifle them, and laugh you out of the use of your reason, into their own distracted mirth and dotage: and if you have any serious thoughts of your salvation, or any inclinations to repent and be wise, they will do much to divert them, and hold you in the power and snares of Satan, till it be too late: if you have any zeal, or heavenly-mindedness, they will do much to quench it, and fetch down your minds to earth again. The other sort will speak of things of so great weight and moment, and that with seriousness and reverence, as will tend to raise and quicken your souls; and possess you with a taste of the heavenly things which they discourse of; they will encourage you by their own experiences, and direct you by that truth which hath directed them, and zealously communicate what they have received: they will pray for you, and teach you how to pray: they will give the example of holy, humble, obedient lives, and lovingly admonish you of your duties, and reprove your sins. In a word, as the carnal mind doth savour the things of the flesh, and is enmity against God, the company of such will be a powerful means to infect you with their plague, and make you such, if you were escaped from them; much more to keep you such, if you are not escaped: and as they that are spiritual, do mind the things of the Spirit, so their converse tendeth to make you spiritually-minded, as they are, Rom. viii. 7, 8. Though there are some useful qualities and gifts in some that are ungodly, and some lamentable faults in many that are spiritual; yet experience will show you so great a difference between them in the main, in heart and life, as will make you the more easily believe the difference that will be between them in the life to come.

6. Another means is serious meditation on the life to come, and the way thereto; which though all cannot manage so methodically as some, yet all should in some measure and season be acquainted with it.

7. The last means is, to choose some prudent, faithful guide and counsellor for your soul,[35] to open those cases to which are not fit for all to know, and to resolve and advise you in cases that are too hard for you: not to lead you blindfold after the interest of any seduced or ambitious men, nor to engage you to his singular conceits, against the Scripture or the church of God; but to be to your soul, as a physician to your body, or a lawyer to your estates, to help you where they are wiser than you, and where you need their helps.

Resolve now, that instead of your idle company and pastime, your excessive cares and sinful pleasures, you will wait on God in the seasonable use of these his own appointed means; and you will find, that he hath appointed them not in vain, and that you shall not lose your labour.

_Direct._ XVII. That in all this you may be sincere, and not deceived by a hypocritical change, be sure that God be all your confidence, and all your hopes be placed in heaven; and that there be no secret reserve in your hearts, for the world and flesh; and that you divide not your hearts between God and the things below, nor take up with the religion of a hypocrite, which giveth God what the flesh can spare.

When the devil cannot keep you from a change and reformation, he will seek to deceive you with a superficial change and half reformation, which goeth not to the root, nor doth recover the heart to God, nor deliver it entirely to him. If he can by a partial, deceitful change, persuade you that you are truly renewed and sanctified, and fix you there that you go no further, you are as surely his, as if you had continued in your grosser sins. And, of all other, this is the most common and dangerous cheat of souls, when they think to halve it between God and the world, and to secure their fleshly interest of pleasure and prosperity, and their salvation too; and so they will needs serve God and mammon.

[Sidenote: The full description of a false conversion, and of a hypocrite.]

This is the true character of a self-deceiving hypocrite.[36] He is neither so fully persuaded of the certain truth of the Scripture and the life to come, nor yet so mortified to the flesh and the world, as to take the joys of heaven for his whole portion, and to subject all his worldly prosperity and hopes thereunto, and to part with all things in this world, when it is necessary to the securing of his salvation: and therefore he will not lose his hold of present things, nor forsake his worldly interest for Christ, as long as he can keep it. Nor will he be any further religious, than may stand with his bodily welfare; resolving never to be undone by his godliness; but in the first place to save himself, and his prosperity in the world, as long as he can: and therefore he is truly a carnal, worldly-minded man; being denominated from what is predominant in him. And yet, because he knoweth that he must die, and for aught he knows, he may then find, against his will, that there is another life which he must enter upon; lest the gospel should prove true, he must have some religion: and therefore he will take up as much as will stand with his temporal welfare, hoping that he may have both that and heaven hereafter; and he will be as religious as the predominant interest of the flesh will give him leave. He is resolved rather to venture his soul, than to be here undone: and that is his first principle. But he is resolved to be as godly as will stand with a worldly, fleshly life: that is his second principle. And he will hope for heaven as the end of such a way as this: that is his third. Therefore he will place most of his religion in those things which are most consistent with worldliness and carnality, and will not cost his flesh too dear; as in being of this or that opinion, church, or party, (whether papist, protestant, or some smaller party,) in adhering to that party and being zealous for them, in acquiring and using such parts and gifts, as may make him highly esteemed by others; and in doing such good works as cost him not too dear; and in forbearing such sins as would procure his disgrace and shame, and cost his flesh dearer to commit them, than forbear them; and such other as his flesh can spare: this is his fourth principle. And he is resolved, when trial calleth him to part with God and his conscience, or with the world, that he will rather let go God and conscience, and venture upon the pains hereafter, which he thinks to be uncertain, than to run upon a certain calamity or undoing here; at least, he hath no resolution to the contrary, which will carry him out in a day of trial: this is his fifth principle. And his sixth principle is, That yet he will not torment himself, or blot his name, with confessing himself a temporizing worldling, resolved to turn any way to save himself. And therefore he will be sure to believe nothing to be truth and duty that is dangerous; but will furnish himself with arguments to prove that it is not the will of God; and that sin is no sin: yea, perhaps, conscience and duty shall be pleaded for his sin: it shall be out of tenderness, and piety, and charity to others, that he will sin; and will charge them to be the sinners that comply not, and do not wickedly as well as he. He will be one that shall first make a controversy of every sin which his flesh calls necessary, and of every duty which his flesh counts intolerably dear; and then, when it is a controversy, and many reputed wise, and some reputed good, are on his side, he thinks he is on equal terms with the most honest and sincere: he hath got a burrow for his conscience and his credit: he will not believe himself to be a hypocrite, and no one else must think him one, lest they be uncharitable; for then the censure must fall on the whole party; and then it is sufficient to defend his reputation of piety to say, Though we differ in opinion, we must not differ in affection, and must not condemn each other for such differences (a very great truth where rightly applied.) But what is it, O hypocrite, that makes thee differ in cases where thy flesh is interested, rather than in any other? and why wast thou never of that mind till now that thy worldly interest requireth it? and how cometh it to pass, that thou art always on the self-saving opinion? and whence is it that thou consultest with those only that are of the opinion which thou desirest should be true, and either not at all, or partially and slightly, with those that are against it? Wast thou ever conscious to thyself, that thou hast accounted what it might cost thee to be saved, and reckoned on the worst, and resolved in the strength of grace to go through all? Didst thou ever meddle with much of the self-denying part of religion, or any duties that would cost thee dear? May not thy conscience tell thee, that thou never didst believe that thou shouldst suffer much for thy religion; that is, thou hadst a secret purpose to avoid it?

O sirs! take warning from the mouth of Christ, who hath so oft and plainly warned you of this sin and danger! and told you how necessary self-denial, and a suffering disposition is, to all that are his disciples; and that the worldly, fleshly principle, predominant in the hypocrite, is manifest by his self-saving course: he must take up his cross, and follow him in a conformity to his sufferings, that will indeed be his disciple. We must suffer with him, if we will reign with him, Rom. viii. 17, 18. Matt. xiii. 20-22, "He that received the seed in stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it, yet hath he not the root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful." If thou have not taken heaven for thy part, and art not resolved to let go all that would keep thee from it, I must say to thy conscience, as Christ to one of thy predecessors, Luke xviii. 22, "Yet lackest thou one thing," and such a one, as thou wilt find of flat necessity to thy salvation. And it is likely some trying time, even in this life, will detect thine hypocrisy, and make thee "go away sorrowful," for thy riches' sake, as he, ver. 23. If godliness with contentment seem not sufficient gain to thee, thou wilt make thy gain go instead of godliness; that is, thy gain shall be next thy heart, and have the precedency which godliness should have, and thy gain shall choose thee thy religion, and overrule thy conscience, and sway thy life.

O sirs! take warning by the apostates, and temporizing hypocrites, that have looked behind them, and, with Demas, for the world forsaken their duty, and are set up by justice as pillars of salt, for your warning and remembrance. And as ever you would make sure work in turning to God, and escape the too late repentance of the hypocrite, see that you go to the root, and resign the world to the will of God,--and reckon what it may cost you to be followers of Christ,--and look not after any portion, but the favour of God and life eternal,--and see that there be no secret reserve in your hearts for your worldly interest or prosperity,--and think not of halving it between God and the world, nor making your religion compliant with the desires and interest of the flesh. Take God as enough for you, yea, as all, or else you take him not as your God.

_Direct._ XVIII. If you would prove true converts, come over to God, as your Father and felicity, with desire and delight, and close with Christ, as your only Saviour, with thankfulness and joy; and set upon the way of godliness with pleasure and alacrity, as your exceeding privilege, and the only way of profit, honour, and content: and do it not as against your wills, as those that had rather do otherwise if they durst, and account the service of God an unsuitable and unpleasant thing.

You are never truly changed, till your hearts be changed; and the heart is not changed, till the will or love be changed. Fear is not the man; but usually is mixed with unwillingness and dislike, and so is contrary to that which is indeed the man. Though fear may do much for you, it will not do enough: it is oft more sensible than love, even in the best, as being more passionate and violent; but yet there is no more acceptableness in all, than there is will or love.[37] God sent not soldiers, or inquisitors, or persecutors, to convert the world by working upon their fear, and driving them upon that which they take to be a mischief to them: but he sent poor preachers, that had no matter of worldly fears or hopes to move their auditors with; but had authority from Christ to offer them eternal life; and who were to convert the world by proposing to them the best and most desirable condition, and showing them where is the true felicity, and proving the certainty and excellency of it to them, and working upon their love, desire, and hope: God will not be your God against your wills, while you esteem him as the devil, that is only terrible and hurtful to you, and take his service for a slavery, and had rather be from him, and serve the world and the flesh, if it were not for fear of being damned. He will be feared as great, and holy, and just; but he will also be loved as good, and holy, and merciful, and every way suited to be the felicity and rest of souls. If you take not God to be better than the creature, (and better to you,) and heaven to be better for you than earth, and holiness than sin, you are not converted; but if you do, then show it by your willingness, alacrity, and delight. Serve him with gladness and cheerfulness of heart, as one that hath found the way of life, and never had cause of gladness until now. If you see your servant do all his work with groans, and tears, and lamentations, you will not think he is well pleased with his master and his work. Come to God willingly with your hearts, or you come not to him indeed at all. You must either make him and his service your delight, or at least your desire; as apprehending him most fit to be your delight, so far as you enjoy him.

_Direct._ XIX. Remember still that conversion is the turning from your carnal selves to God; and therefore that it engageth you in a perpetual opposition to your own corrupt conceits and wills, to mortify and annihilate them, and captivate them wholly to the holy word and will of God.

Think not that your conversion despatcheth all that is to be done in order to your salvation. No, it is but the beginning of your work, that is, of your delight and happiness; you are but engaged by it to that which must be performed throughout all your lives; it entereth you into the right way, not to sit down there, but to go on till you come to the desired end. It entereth you into Christ's army, that afterwards you may there win the crown of life; and the great enemy that you engage against, is yourselves. There will still be a law in your members, rebelling against the law that the Holy Ghost hath put into your minds: your own conceits and your own wills are the great rebels against Christ, and enemies of your sanctification. Therefore it must be your resolved daily work to mortify them, and bring them clean over to the mind and will of God, which is their rule and end. If you feel any conceits arising in you that are contrary to the Scripture, and quarrel with the word of God, suppress them as rebellious, and give them not liberty to cavil with your Maker, and malapertly dispute with your Governor and Judge; but silence it, and force it reverently to submit. If you feel any will in you contrary to your Creator's will, and that there is something which you would have or do, which God is against, and hath forbid you, remember now how great a part of your work it is, to fly for help to the Spirit of grace, and to destroy all such rebellious desires. Think it not enough, that you can bear the denial of those desires; but presently destroy the desires themselves. For if you let alone the desires, they may at last lay hold upon their prey, before you are aware: or if you should be guilty of nothing but the desires themselves, it is no small iniquity; being the corruption of the heart, and the rebellion and adultery of the principal faculty, which should be kept loyal and chaste to God. The crossness of thy will to the will of God, is the sum of all the impiety and evil of the soul; and the subjection and conformity of thy will to his, is the heart of the new creature, and of thy rectitude and sanctification. Favour not therefore any self-conceitedness or self-willedness, nor any rebelliousness against the mind and will of God, any more than you would bear with the disjointing of your bones, which will be little for your ease or use, till they are reduced to their proper place.

_Direct._ XX. Lastly, Be sure that you renounce all conceit of self-sufficiency or merit in any thing you do, and wholly rely on the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Head, and Life, and Saviour, and Intercessor with the Father.

Remember that "without him ye can do nothing," John xv. 5. Nor can any thing you do be acceptable to God, any other way than in him, the beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased. As your persons had never been accepted but in him, no more can any of your services. All your repentings, if you had wept out your eyes for sin, would not have satisfied the justice of God, nor procured you pardon and justification, without the satisfaction and merit of Christ. If he had not first taken away the sins of the world, and reconciled them so far to God, as to procure and tender them the pardon and salvation contained in his covenant, there had been no place for your repentance, nor faith, nor prayers, nor endeavours, as to any hope of your salvation. Your believing would not have saved you, nor indeed had any justifying object, if he had not purchased you the promise and gift of pardon and salvation to all believers.

_Objection._ But perhaps you will say, That if we had loved God, without a Saviour, we should have been saved; for God cannot hate and damn those that love him. To which I answer, You could not have loved God as God, without a Saviour: to have loved him as the giver of your worldly prosperity, with a love subordinate to the love of sin and your carnal selves, and to love him as one that you imagine so unholy and unjust, as to give you leave to sin against him, and prefer every vanity before him, this is not to love God, but to love an image of your own fantasy; nor will it at all procure your salvation. But to love him as your God and happiness, with a superlative love, you could never have done without a Saviour. For, 1. Objectively; God being not your reconciled father, but your enemy, engaged in justice to damn you for ever, you could not love him as thus related to you, because he could not seem amiable to you; and therefore the damned hate him as their destroyer, as the thief or murderer hates the judge. 2. And as to the efficiency; your blinded minds and depraved wills could never have been restored so far to their rectitude, as to have loved God as God, without the teaching of Christ, and the renewing, sanctifying work of his Spirit. And without a Saviour, you could never have expected this gift of the Holy Ghost. So that your supposition itself is groundless.

Indeed conversion is your implanting into Christ, and your uniting to him, and marriage with him, that he may be your life, and help, and hope. "He is the way, the truth, and the life: and no man cometh to the Father, but by him," John xiv. 6. "God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son: he that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life," 1 John v. 11, 12. "He is the Vine, and we are the branches: as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can we, except we abide in him: he that abideth not in Christ, is cast forth as a branch, and withered, to be burned," John xv. 4-6. All your life and help is in him, and from him: without Christ, you cannot believe in the Father, as in one that will show you any saving mercy, but only as the devils, that believe him just, and tremble at his justice. Without Christ, you cannot love God, nor have any lively apprehensions of his love. Without Christ, you can have no hope of heaven, and therefore no endeavours for it. Without him, you cannot come near to God in prayer, as having no confidence, because no admittance, acceptance, or hope. Without him, how terrible are the thoughts of death! which in him we may see as a conquered thing: and when we remember that he was dead, and is now alive, and the Lord of life, and hath the keys of death and hell, with what boldness may we lay down this flesh, and suffer death to undress our souls! It is only in Christ that we can comfortably think of the world to come; when we remember that he must be our Judge, and that in our nature, glorified, he is now in the highest, Lord of all; and that he is "preparing a place for us, and will come again to take us to himself, that where he is, there we may be also," John xiv. 3. Alas! without Christ, we know not how to live an hour; nor can have hope or peace in any thing we have or do; nor look with comfort either upward or downward, to God, or the creature; nor think without terrors of our sins, of God, or of the life to come. Resolve, therefore, that as true converts, you are wholly to live upon Jesus Christ, and to do all that you do by his Spirit and strength; and to expect all your acceptance with God upon his account. When other men are reputed philosophers, or wise, for some unsatisfactory knowledge of these transitory things, do you desire to know nothing but a crucified and glorified Christ: study him, and take him (objectively) for your wisdom. When other men have confidence in the flesh, and in their show of wisdom, in will-worship, and humility, after the commandments and doctrines of men, (Col. ii. 20-23,) and would establish their own righteousness, do you rejoice in Christ your righteousness; and set continually before your eyes his doctrine and example, as your rule: look still to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, who contemned all the glory of the world, and trampled upon its vanity, and subjected himself to a life of suffering, and made himself of no reputation, but "for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame," and underwent the contradiction of sinners against himself. Live so, that you may truly say, as Paul, Gal. ii. 20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Having given you these directions, I most earnestly beseech you to peruse and practise them, that my labour may not rise up as a witness against you, which I intend for your conversion and salvation. Think on it, whether this be an unreasonable course, or an unpleasant life, or a thing unnecessary? and what is reasonable, necessary, and pleasant, if this be not?

And if you meet with any of those distracted sinners, that would deride you from Christ and your salvation, and say, this is the way to make men mad,[38] or, this is more ado than needs; I will not stand here to manifest their brutishness and wickedness, having largely done it already, in my book called, "A Saint or a Brute," and "Now or Never," and in the third part of the "Saints' Rest:" but only I desire thee, as a full defensative against all the pratings of the enemies of a holy, heavenly life, to take good notice but of these three things.

1. Mark well the language of the holy Scriptures, and see whether it speak not contrary to these men; and bethink thee whether God or they be wiser, and whether God or they must be thy judge?

2. Mark, whether these men do not change their minds,[39] and turn their tongues when they come to die? Or think whether they will not change their minds, when death hath sent them into that world where there is none of these deceits? And think whether thou shouldst be moved with that man's words, that will shortly change his mind himself, and wish he had never spoke such words?

3. Observe well, whether their own profession do not condemn them; and whether the very thing that they hate the godly for, be not that they are serious in practising that which these malignants themselves profess as their religion? And are they not then notorious hypocrites,[40] to profess to believe in God, and yet scorn at those that "diligently seek him?" Heb. xi. 6; to profess faith in Christ, and hate those that obey him? to profess to believe in the Holy Ghost as the sanctifier, and yet hate and scorn his sanctifying work? to profess to believe the day of judgment, and everlasting torment of the ungodly, and yet to deride those that endeavour to escape it? to profess to believe that heaven is prepared for the godly, and yet to scorn at those that make it the chief business of their lives to attain it? to profess to take the holy Scripture for God's word and law, and yet to scorn those that obey it? to pray after each of the ten commandments, "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law," and yet to hate all those that desire and endeavour to keep them? What impudent hypocrisy is joined with this malignity! Mark, whether the greatest diligence of the most godly be not justified by the formal profession of those very men that hate and scorn them? The difference between them is, that the godly profess christianity in good earnest, and when they say what they believe, they believe as they say; but the ungodly customarily, and for company, take on them to be christians when they are not, and by their own mouths condemn themselves, and hate and oppose the serious practice of that which they say they do themselves believe.