hazard, our all, as Christians in this life, is this day exposed into. I mean the mystery of the gospel of the grace of God, wherein the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus, hath been shown. We have enjoyed for a considerable time, a clear and powerful dispensation hereof, in great purity and plenty; but, alas! is it not manifest to all, that will not wilfully shut their eyes, that this mercy and goodness of God hath been wickedly abused, and the pure administration of his grace and love perfidiously sinned away, by this apostate generation. Are our spots this day the spots of his children? Are their fruits answerable to the Lord's pains and labour about us, to be seen even amongst the greatest of professors? Is there that gospel holiness, tenderness, watchfulness, growing in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that growing up in Christ, in all things that heavenly mindedness, that fellowship with the Father and with his Son Christ Jesus, and that conversation in heaven, that the dispensation of grace, we have been favoured with beyond many, and have been long living under, did call for at our hands? Alas! our grapes are but wild and stinking. Wherefore (and who can think it strange, if it be so?) the Lord seemeth to be about to contend with us, by covering our horizon with Egyptian darkness; many who would not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved, being already given up to strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, and many more in hazard to be drawn aside to crooked paths, by men of corrupt minds, who have been, and are still busy to vent and spread abroad, with no little petulancy and confidence, damnable doctrines, to the perverting of the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the subverting and overturning of the very foundations of our hope and assurance; and that in such a way, and by such means and stratagems, as seem to have wrath written upon them in legible letters; for the more plausible and taking a corrupt doctrine be, it is the more dangerous and judgment-like, and more are thereby in hazard to be deluded and drawn away.
Nay (which is yet more terrible and dreadful) it is to be feared, that the jealous God, in his holy and righteous judgment, hath given a providential commission (to speak to) unto the seducing spirit, to persuade and prevail; for is not this the clear language of the present holy and righteous dispensations of God, and of the stupendously indifferent frame and disposition of the generality of men, called Christians, not only provoking God to spue them out of his mouth, but a disposing them also unto a receiving of whatsoever men, lying in wait to deceive, shall propose and obtrude?
Alas! the clouds are not now a-gathering, but our horizon is covered over with blackness, and great drops are a-falling, that presage a terrible overflowing deluge of error, and apostacy from the truth and profession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be at hand, if the Lord wonderfully prevent it not. And behold (O wonderful!) the generality of professors are sleeping in security, apprehending no danger. Satan is more cunning now, than to drive men to Popery by rage and cruelty, (and yet what he may be permitted to do after this manner, who can tell?) or by openly pleading in his emissaries, for this abomination, (and yet even thus is he already prevailing with not a few) or to send forth his agents for Arminianism and Socinianism (though even this way too, he is too much prevailing.) But his main work now seemeth to be, to bring in another gospel, (and yet there is not another) or rather an antievangelic and antichristian delusory dream, overturning at once the whole gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and for this end he employeth the Quakers, on the one hand, men of desperate and antievangelic principles, the very sink of all abominations, old and late, (as I shall show, if the Lord will continue health and strength, in an examination of their doctrine and principles, lately emitted by one Robert Barcley) and, on the other hand, men, (or moralists, if you will call them so) pleading for, and crying up an antievangelic holiness, a mere shadow without substance or reality; and that in place of Christ himself; and in order to the carrying on of this desperate design, the old dragon is employing men of seeming different principles and ways, whom, though their faces seem to look to contrary airths, yet he holdeth notwithstanding fast tied by their tails (as Samson's foxes were) that thereby, if the Lord permit it, he may, by the fire of enmity to the pure gospel of the grace of God, burning in their tails, cause a conflagration of that truth, wherein lyeth all our hope: For this new model of religion, that many are so busied about, is such as Pelagians, Arminians, Papists, Socinians, Quakers, yea Turks, and moral heathens; yea, and all who are enemies to, and not reconcilable with the true grace of God held forth in the gospel, will willingly admit of, and harmoniously agree in: A way which complyeth so well with proud self, and with the corrupt nature of man, that it is little wonder, if it have many abettors and admirers. I shall say no more of this; but only infer,
That sure the consideration of this should move all, in whom is any thing of the zeal of God, and love to souls, their own and others', to appear in the defence of the gospel of our salvation, by all means incumbent to them, and possible for them; for if this citadel and stronghold, wherein our all, and the all of pure and true religion, lyeth, be blown up, we are gone; and indeed no less is intended by this antichristian and antievangelic enemy, than the utter subversion of true Christian religion. Who would not then be hereby alarmed, and upon their guard, when matters are at this pass? Should not all, who have any love to their own souls, any zeal for the glory of Christ, anointed of the Father to be our prophet, priest, and king; my desire to see the crown flourishing upon his head, and to have the gospel preserved pure and uncorrupted, be pleading with God by prayer, in the behalf of his Son's kingdom, crown, and glory; and wrestling with him till he were pleased to dispel these clouds, and prevent this black day: especially should they not be labouring to be acquainted, in truth and reality, with the gospel of Jesus Christ, that having the mysterious truths thereof imprinted on their souls, and their hearts cast into its mould, they may be preserved from the hurt of this deadly poison; for this, with a constant dependence upon, and use-making of Christ in all his offices, will prove the best preservative against this infection.
The persuasion whereof did induce me to publish the following heads of some sermons, after they have been translated into Dutch, and published here: Knowing that they might be of no less use to the people of God in Britain and Ireland. I know not a more effectual mean to unstable souls from siding with and embracing every new notion; and from being carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lye in wait to deceive; than to put them upon the real exercise of gospel godliness, and to the daily practice of the main and fundamental gospel work, of living by faith in Jesus Christ, and of growing up into him, in all things, who is the head, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted, by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love. Such, I am sure, as have thus learned the truth, as it is in Jesus, and are practising the same accordingly, will have an antidote within them against the strongest poison of these seducers, and a real answer to, and confutation of, all their subtile sophisms. The soul exercising itself into gospel godliness, will find work enough to take it wholly up; and find such a solid ground to stand upon; and see such a satisfying fulness, answering all its necessities and wants, and such a sure heart-quieting ground of peace, hope, and consolation in Jesus Christ, as that it will have no leisure, and small temptation to listen to seducing perverters, and no inclination to seek after empty cisterns.
I know much may be desiderated in this following treatise, and many may have exceptions not without ground against it. Some may think it arrogancy, and too great confidence in me, to attempt the handling of such a mysterious and necessary part of Christian practice, wherein few, (if any, so far as I know,) have gone before, in direct handling of this matter, at least in this method and order, I mean that part which is about sanctification. Others may be displeased with the mean and low style; with my multiplying particulars, which might have been better and more handsomely couched under fewer heads, and with my unnecessary contracting of the whole into such a narrow bound, and other things of that kind; for which, and many other failings of the like nature and import, which may without any diligent search, be found in it, even by ordinary and unprejudiced readers; I shall not industriously labour to apologize, knowing that my very apology in this case, will need an apology; only I shall say this, that considering how the snare, which the vigilant and active enemy of our salvation, the devil, was laying by an unholy morality, did nearly concern all, and especially the meanest (for parts and experience) and less fixed Christians, I thought a discourse on such
