DIRECTIONS FOR HOLY CONFERENCE OF FELLOW-SERVANTS OR OTHERS.
BECAUSE this is a duty so frequently to be performed; and therefore
the peace and edification of christians is very much concerned in it,
I shall give a few brief directions about it.
_Direct._ 1. Labour most for a full and lively heart, which hath
the feeling of those things which your tongues should speak of. For,
1. Such a heart will be like a spring which is always running, and
will continually feed the streams. Forced and feigned things are of
short continuance; the hypocrite's affected, forced speech, is
exercised but among those where it may serve his pride and carnal
ends; at other times, and in other company, he hath another tongue
like other men. It is like a land-flood that is quickly gone; or like
the bending of a bow, which returneth to its place as soon as it is
loosed. 2. And that which cometh from your hearts, will be serious and
hearty, and likeliest to do good to others; for words do their work
upon us, not only by signifying the matter which is spoken, but also
by signifying the affections of the speaker. And that which will work
affections, must express affection ordinarily. If it come not from the
heart of the speaker, it is not so like to go to the hearts of the
hearers. A hearty preacher, and a hearty, feeling discourse of holy
things, do pierce heart-deep, and do that good, which better composed
words that are heartless do not.
_Direct._ II. Yet for all that, when your hearts are cold, and
dull, and barren, do not think that your tongues must therefore
neglect their duty, and be silent from all good, till your hearts be
better, but force your tongues to do their duty, if they will not do
it freely without constraint. For, 1. Duty is duty, whether you be
well-disposed to it or not: if all duty should cease when men are
ill-disposed to it, no wicked man would be bound to any thing that is
truly holy. 2. And if heart and tongue be both obliged, it is worse to
omit both than one. 3. And there may be sincerity in a duty, when the
heart is cold and dull. 4. And beginning to do your duty as well as
you can, is the way to overcome your dulness and unfitness; when you
force your tongues at first to speak of that which is good, the words
which you speak or hear, may help to bring you into a better frame.
Many a man hath begun to pray with coldness, that hath got him heat
before he had done; and many a man hath gone unwillingly to hear a
sermon, that hath come home a converted soul. 5. And when you set
yourselves in the way of duty, you are in the way of promised grace.
_Object._ But is not this to play the hypocrite, to let my tongue
go before my heart; and speak the things which my heart is not
affected with?
_Answ._ If you speak falsely and dissemblingly, you play the
hypocrite; but you may force yourselves to speak of good, without any
falsehood or hypocrisy. Words signify, as I told you, the matter
spoken, and the speaker's mind. Now your speaking of the things of God
doth tell no more of your mind but this, that you take them to be
true, and that you desire those that you speak to, to regard them: and
all this is so; and therefore there is no hypocrisy in it. Indeed if
you told the hearers, that you are deeply affected with these things
yourselves, when it is not so, this were hypocrisy. But a man may
exhort another to be good, without professing himself to be good; yea,
though he confess himself to be bad. Therefore all the good discourses
of a wicked man are not hypocrisy; much less the good discourse of a
sincere christian, that is dull and cold in that discourse. And if a
duty had some hypocrisy in it, it is not the duty, but the hypocrisy,
that God disliketh, and you must forsake: as if there be coldness in a
duty, it is the coldness, and not the duty, that is to be blamed and
forborne. And wholly to omit the duty, is worse than to do it with
some coldness or hypocrisy, which is not the predominant complexion of
the duty.
_Object._ But if it be not the fruit of the Spirit, it is not
acceptable to God; and that which I force my tongue to, is none of the
fruits of the Spirit. Therefore I must stay till the Spirit move me.
_Answ._ 1. There are many duties done by reason, and the common
assistances of God, that are better than the total omission of them
is. Else no unsanctified man should hear the word, or pray, or relieve
the poor, or obey his prince or governors, or do any duty towards
children or neighbours, because whatsoever is not the fruit of the
special grace of the Spirit, is sin; and without faith it is
impossible to please God; and all men have not faith, Heb. xi. 6;
2 Thess. iii. 2. 2. It is a distracted conceit of the quakers, and
other fanatics, to think that reason and the Spirit of God are not
conjunct principles in the same act. Doth the Spirit work on a man as
on a beast or stone? and cause you to speak as a clock that striketh
it knoweth not what? or play on man's soul, as on an instrument of
music that hath neither knowledge of the melody, nor any pleasure in
it? No, the Spirit of God supposeth nature, and worketh on man as man,
by exciting your own understanding and will to do their parts. So that
when, against all the remnant of dulness and backwardness that is in
you, you can force yourselves to do your duty, it is because the
Spirit of God assisteth you to take that resolution, and use that
force. For thus the Spirit striveth against the flesh, Gal. v. 17;
Rom. vii. 16-18. Though it is confessed, that there is more of the
Spirit, where there is no backwardness or resistance, or need of
forcing.
_Direct._ III. By all means labour to be furnished with understanding
in the matters of God. For, 1. An understanding person hath a mine of
holy matter in himself, and never is quite void of matter for good
discourse. He is the good scribe, that is instructed to the kingdom of
God, that bringeth out of his treasury things new and old, Matt.
xiii. 52. 2. And an understanding person will speak discreetly, and so
will much further the success of his discourse, and not make it
ridiculous, contemptuous, or uneffectual through his indiscretion. But
yet if you are ignorant and wanting in understanding, do not therefore
be silent; for though your ability is least, your necessity is
greatest. Let necessity therefore constrain you to ask instruction, as
it constraineth the needy to beg for what they want. But spare no
pains to increase your knowledge.
_Direct._ IV. If your own understandings and hearts do not
furnish you with matter, have recourse to those manifold helps that
God vouchsafeth you. As, 1. You may discourse of the last sermon that
you heard, or some one lately preached that nearly touched you. 2. Or
of something in the last book you read. 3. Or of some text of
Scripture obvious to your thoughts. 4. Or of some notable (yea, or
ordinary) providence which did lately occur. 5. Or of some examples of
good or evil that are fresh before you. 6. Or of the right doing of
the duty that you are about, or any such like helps.
_Direct._ V. Talk not of vain, unprofitable controversies, nor
often of small, circumstantial matters that make but little to
edification. For there may be idle talking about matters of religion,
as well as about other smaller things. Especially see that the
quarrels of the times engage not your thoughts and speeches too far,
into a course of unprofitableness or contention.
_Direct._ VI. Furnish yourselves beforehand with matter for the most
edifying discourse, and never go abroad empty. And let the matter be
usually, 1. Things of weight, and not small matters. 2. Things of
certainty, and not uncertain things. Particularly the fittest subjects
for your ordinary discourse are these: 1. God himself, with his
attributes, relations, and works. 2. The great mystery of man's
redemption by Christ; his person, office, sufferings, doctrine,
example, and work; his resurrection, ascension, glory, intercession,
and all the privileges of his saints. 3. The covenant of grace, the
promises, the duties, the conditions, and the threatenings. 4. The
workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul, and every grace of the
Spirit in us; with all the signs, and helps, and hinderances of it. 5.
The ways and wiles of Satan, and all our spiritual enemies; the
particular temptations which we are in danger of; what they are and
how to avoid them, and what are the most powerful helps against them.
6. The corruption and deceitfulness of the heart; the nature and
workings, effects, and signs of ignorance, unbelief, hypocrisy, pride,
sensuality, worldliness, impiety, injustice, intemperance,
uncharitableness, and every other sin; with all the helps against them
all. 7. The many duties to God and man which we have to perform, both
internal and external, and how to do them, and what are the chiefest
hinderances and helps. (As in reading, hearing, meditating, prayer,
giving alms, &c.) And the duties of our relations, and several places,
with the contrary sins. 8. The vanity of the world, and deceitfulness
of all earthly things. 9. The powerful reasons used by Christ to draw
us to holiness, and the unreasonable madness of all that is brought
against it, by the devil or by wicked men. 10. Of the sufferings which
we must expect and be prepared for. 11. Of death, and the preparations
that will then be found necessary; and how to make ready for so great
a change. 12. Of the day of judgment, and who will then be justified,
and who condemned. 13. Of the joys of heaven, the employment, the
company, the nature, and duration. 14. Of the miseries of the damned,
and the thoughts that they then will have of their former life on
earth. 15. Of the state of the church on earth, and what we ought to
do in our places for its welfare. Is there not matter enough in all
these great and weighty points, for your hourly meditation and
conference?
_Direct._ VII. Take heed of proud self-conceitedness in your
conference. Speak not with supercilious, censorious confidence. Let
not the weak take on them to be wiser than they are. Be readier to
speak by way of question as learners, than as teachers of others,
unless you are sure that they have much more need to be taught by you,
than you by them. It is ordinary for novices in religion to cast all
their discourse into a teaching strain, or to make themselves
preachers before they understand. It is a most loathsome and pitiful
hearing (and yet too ordinary) to hear a raw, self-conceited,
ungrounded, unexperienced person to prate magisterially, and censure
confidently the doctrine, or practices, or persons of those that are
much better and wiser than themselves. If you meet with this proud,
censorious spirit, rebuke it first, and read to them James iii.; and
if they go on, turn away from them, and avoid them, for they know not
what manner of spirit they are of: they serve not the Lord Jesus,
whatever they pretend or think themselves, but are proud, knowing
nothing, but doting about questions, and making divisions in the
church of God, and ready to fall into the condemnation of the devil,
1 Tim. iii. 6; vi. 3-5; Rom. xvi. 17; Luke ix. 55.
_Direct._ VIII. Let the wisest in the company, and not the weakest,
have most of the discourse: but yet if any one that is of an abler
tongue than the rest, do make any determinations in doubtful,
controverted points, take heed of a hasty receiving his judgment, let
his reasons seem never so plausible or probable; but put down all such
opinions as doubts, and move them to your teachers, or some other
impartial, able men, before you entertain them. Otherwise, he that
hath most wit and tongue in the company, might carry away all the rest
into what error or heresy he please, and subvert their faith when he
stops their mouths.
_Direct._ IX. Let the matter of your speech be suitable to your
end, even to the good of yourselves or others, which you seek. The
same subject that is fit for one company is very unfit for others.
Learned men and ignorant men, pious men and profane men, are not fit
for the same kind of discourse. The medicine must be carefully fitted
to the disease.
_Direct._ X. Let your speech be seasonable, when prudence telleth
you it is not like to do more harm than good. There is a season for
the prudent to be silent, and refrain even from good talk, Amos v. 17;
Psal. xxxix. 1, 2. "Cast not pearls before swine, and give not holy
things to dogs, that you know will turn again and rend you," Matt.
vii. 6. Yea, and among good people themselves, there is a time to
speak, and a time to be silent, Eccles. iii. 7. There may possibly be
such excess as tendeth to the tiring of the hearers; and more may be
crammed in than they can digest; and surfeiting may make them loathe
it afterwards. You must give none more than they can bear; and also
the matters of your business and callings, must be talked of in their
time and place.
_Direct._ XI. Let all your speech of holy things be with the
greatest seriousness and reverence that you are able. Let the words be
never so good, yet levity and rudeness may make them to be profane.
God and holy things should not be talked of in a common manner; but
the gravity of your speech should tell the hearers, that you take them
not for small or common matters. If servants and others that live near
together would converse and speak as the oracles of God, how holy, and
heavenly, and happy would such families or societies be!