The Christians labour and reward, or, A sermon, part of which was preached at…

to have respect to every Command, which yet he must have that will not be put to shame, Psal. 119.6. willing in all things to live honestly. Yet this he must do, that will keep a good conscience, Heb. 13.18. is not here enough to fill the Christians head with care, and his heart continually with an holy fear and trembling? But this is not all his work; for secondly, the Evangelical Law is also bound upon the Christian; the sum of which the Apostle gives us in these two comprehensive duties,¹ Repentance towards God, and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ; and are these to be got, or exercised when got, without ⟨p. 14⟩labour? When the poor Christian hath done his utmost to keep the Law, how far short doth he fall of that exact Rule? Now these deficiencies and obliquities call for repentance, and is it easy for him to comply with this duty? is it easy to rifle his conscience, and search his own heart, so impartially, as if he forgot it was his own house he was searching, and his own shame he was to discover; yet this is a necessary antecedent to the act of repentance: how can he correct the Errata's or faults of a book, that never read nor examined it? and to do it surely will cost some pains. I confess this review the Christian is to make, is more easily done, when he doth it daily, and examines his life (if I may so say) sheet by sheet, as it is printed off in every particular days conversation: but even this is a labour too heavy for a slothful heart to endure, is it easy when the poor creature hath found out his many sins and failings, upon this review, to get his ⟨p. 15⟩heart into a melting frame and sorrowful sense of his ingratitude and disingenuity to God in them, so as to throw up those sweet morsels with more bitterness of spirit, than they were swallowed down with pleasure. In a word, Is it easy for the poor Christian to get these Inmates out of doors, which he hath so unadvisedly let in, to clear his affections of that poison, with which these his sins have infected them? Is it easy to recover the strength of his resolutions, which his sins must needs have much loosened and weakened? The second great duty of the Gospel is Faith, and this is as hard as the other; for indeed the difficulty of believing makes that of repenting so hard.