you cannot the everlasting torments, and shall we inflict on another the venom of our private spleen? I know the furious Bedlams, and malicious wretches, do take all this but for unsatisfactory talk, and it is not words that will serve their turns to repair their honour, and ease their devilish rancorous minds. Flesh and blood, say they, cannot endure it. Answ. And therefore," flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption; 1 Cor. xv. 50. Grace can do more than flesh and blood; and if forgive, you cannot be forgiven. If it be so hard for you to forbear, yea, to love an enemy, it shall be as hard to you to be saved, and escape the portion of the enemies of God; and if the word of God's command be but wind with you, the word of his promise shall be as ineffectual to your salvation, as the word of his precept and persuasion was ineffectual to your conversion and obedience. As "God is love," so his sanctified ones are turned into love: love is their new nature, and love is not of a revengeful disposition. Love is the divine nature in us, and malice provoking to revenge is the devilish nature; and a believer is more afraid of the anger of God, than to take his sword of revenge out of his hand. He hath learned, "Avenge not yourselves, but give place to wrath: vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good;" 1 Pet. ii. 21. 23. 1 Thess. iv. 6. Rom. xii. 19. CHAPTER XXXI. New, Vain Histories, and other Men's Matters, &c. 14. ANOTHER piece of carnal pleasure to be denied, is the delight men have in reading unprofitable histories, and hearing news that do not concern us, and meddling with other men's matters where we have no call. With some fancies this is a notable part of carnal delight: many school-boys, and young effeminate wits, are as much poisoned and carried away with reading romances, feigned histories, and tale-books, and play-books, as by almost any piece of sensuality. O, the precious hours that have been lost upon this trash and trumpery! but of this I spoke before: that which now I speak is, even true history and reports, as matter of mere news, to please a busy, ranging mind. History is a very profitable study, if it be used for right ends, and be rightly chosen. It is a very great help to understand the Scriptures, and to know the former and present state of the church; and see the wonderful works of providence, that otherwise would be as lost to us. It is not fit that the wondrous works of God should die with those that have seen them, and not be transmitted to posterity. God should have the honour of his glorious works from generation to generation, and how shall that be if all be forgotten? He that knoweth nothing of any age but that which he lives in, is as foolish as he that knows nothing of any country or town but that which he lives in. Some history is essential to our faith, and much more is integral to it; and yet much more is very serviceable to it. He that hath not some competent_acquaintance with Church history, will be at great disadvantages in the holding and defending his faith itself against an infidel, or the purity of religion against a papist. And he that knoweth not the present state of the world, and of the church through the world, doth scarce know how to order his affections, or compose his prayers even in those greatest petitions, about the honour, and kingdom, and will of God. They cannot grieve with the church in grief, nor mourn with it when it mourns; so that it is a great duty of a Christian to labour to understand by history the former and present state of the church and it is a great mark of a gracious soul that longs to hear of the prosperity of the saints and free progress of the Gospel; and a mark of a graceless person that careth not for these things. But when history is not used to acquaint us with the matters of God, or to furnish us with useful knowledge, but to please a ranging, carnal mind, then it is but sinful sensuality or vanity. Many persons have no such delight to read the useful history of church affairs, as they have to read the curiously penned, though less useful history of other matters. Though I know that the history of the whole world is very serviceable to the knowledge of divine things, yet they that use it to holy ends will make choice accordingly, and be no more in it than may suit with those ends. It is the most human, with the most light, ridi culous passages, that are most pleasing to vain unsanctified wits; but the godly delight in it so far as it shows them something of God, and leadeth them to him. In the very reading of Scripture, a carnal reader may be much pleased with the history, that hath no savour in the doctrine, but is weary to read it: and yet I must add this caution by the way; if we find a carnal kind of delight in Scripture history, or any other that is profitable, we must not therefore cast off the history, but seek after the cure of our disease, that we may spiritually take pleasure in all for God, and he may be the beginning, and end, and the life, and the all of our studies and delights: and though our carnal delight in news and history be a sin in us, yet God doth sometimes make it an occasion of good by leading us to that holy truth, which after may be the means of our sanctification, though at first we received but as a novelty. And so the carnal pleasure that many have in hearing news, and sitting with folks that will talk of other men's matters, or things that concern them not, is nothing but a sinful pleasing of the fancy, and loss of time, and neglect of greater matters which call for all our time and care. It was the vice of the Athenians, "for all the Athenians and strangers that were there, spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts xvii. 21); yea, novelty of doctrine and religion, and teachers, is a snare and bait to carnal fancies, which many are taken by that are forsaken of God, having first forsaken him, and proved false to the truth received. CHAPTER XXXII. Unnecessary Knowledge, and Delight therein. 15. ANOTHER part of carnal pleasure which self must be denied in, is, a desire after unnecessary knowledge, and delight therein. This is the common sin of man, but not of all alike. Even they that can live without the knowledge. of the saving principles of religion, do yet itch to know unprofitable things; and many a foolish question they will be asking about matters unrevealed, or that concern them not, when they overlook that which their salvation lieth on: but the more learned sort, and especially more prying wits, and those that are bred up among disputes, are the pronest to this sin and though it be an odious vice, yet it so befooleth many, that they reckon it confidently among their virtues. God cannot be known too much, nor can any man be too much in love with the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Without this knowledge the mind is not good, nor can the heart be sanctified, or the man be saved; nor can any man know too much of the will and word of God; nor yet of his works in which he revealeth himself to the world. But the carnal knowledge which is to be denied, is of another nature than the sanctified knowledge of believers. I shall show you the difference in certain particular respects. 1. This desire to know, which is in the unsanctified, is partly from mere nature and partly from a distempered fancy, which is like a corrupt, enraged appetite, that chooseth that which is unwholesome, and yet is over greedy after it. But the desire after knowledge in the sanctified, is kindled by the love of God, and the love of those holy and heavenly things which they are inquiring after. It is not the love of God that sets ungodly men upon their studies, but a common and carnal desire to know: and this appears in the end, which is next. 2. This carnal knowledge is but to feed, and furnish, and please a carnal fancy; because it is some adding to our understandings, and because it is naturally pleasant to know, and because it brings in some novelty and variety, and because it makes us seem wiser than other men, and furnisheth us with matter of discourse and ostentation, and rids the mind of some troublesome doubts; therefore, even the worst have a mind to know. But this is the knowledge that must be denied that which must be valued and sought after, is, to know God, that we may love, and reverence, and trust, and admire, and honour him, and enjoy him. To know Christ, that we may have more communion with him : to know the word and works of God, that in them we may know his nature and his will, and knowing his will, may serve him and please him: these must be the ends of Christian knowledge. There is nothing in the world that God hath revealed, but in its place we may be willing to know, so that we stick not in the creature, or sense of the words, or com mon verities, but use every thing as a book or looking glass we love not a book so much for the letters, as for the matter which they contain; and we love not a glass for itself, so much as for its use to show us the face which we would see in it: so if we go to the creatures but as a book, in which we may read the mind of God, and see his nature, and as a glass in which his glory doth shine forth, our study and knowledge will be sanctified and divine. And thus, as Paul would know nothing but Christ crucified, so every Christian should be able to say that he would know nothing but God in Christ: for though we know a thousand matters, and that of the lowest nature in themselves, yet as long as we study them not for themselves, but for God, it is not them that we know so much as God in them; and so all is but the knowing of God: even as in our duty, though the works may be many and mean that we are employed in, yet all is but the serving of God, as long as we do them all for him. This is the main difference between an unsanctified scholar, and a servant of God in all their studies: one of them is but recreating his curious fancy or inquisitive mind, and seeking matter of honour and applause, or some way or other studying for himself: but the other is searching after the nature and will of his Creator, and learning how to do his work in that manner as may please and honour him most. So that when they are reading the same books, and studying the same subjects, they are upon quite different works, as having contrary ends in all their studies: the one is content with bare speculation and airy knowledge, which puffeth up; and the other studieth and knoweth practically to feed the holy fire of love in his heart, and to guide, and quicken, and strengthen him for obedience. 3. Moreover, there is a difference commonly in the sub ject which they most desire to know: for though there is no truth but a wicked man may know, which a true Christian knoweth, and also but few truths but what he may for selfish ends be desirous to know; yet ordinarily a carnal heart is much more forward to study common sciences than divinity, and in divinity to study least the practical part, and to be most in points that exercise the brain, and lie further from the heart; but the sanctified man delighteth most in knowing the mystery of redemption, the riches of grace, the glory which he hopeth for, the nature and will of God, the |