Reasons shewing the great necessity of laying up this heart-treasure.

AT last we come to the confirmation of this Doctrine; That a good treasure in the Heart, is necessary to good expences in the life, and the

1.Ground is taken from Nature and Reason, which prompteth to us, those undoubted maximes, [Note 1] that a thing must first be, before it can act, nothing can give what it hath not, such as the cause is, such are the effects: Of nothing, nothing can be made, without a Miracle of Creation, and we cannot expect to be fed by Miracles, where ordinary means are proposed, and supposed to be used: If we wilfully neglect to lay in provision while we have a season for it, we are guilty of groundless presumption, if we conceit we can lay out in a necessitous condition: How can any expect liquor from the Still, meat from the Cupboard, garments from the Ward-robe, where none of these were laid in? What mad man would think to reap without sowing, or teach others when hee hath no learning himself? Was there ever a bringing forth without a conception? Is it not fond dotage in a Shop-keeper to think to sell wares, that hath none? And is this preposterous in Naturals, and can it hold in Spirituals? Joseph could not supply the Countrey with Corn without a store. A Tree cannot bring forth good fruit, except it be good: The Scripture saith, [Note 2] Can a Fig-tree bear Olive-berries, or a Vine Figs? And can we think men can act graciously without a principle of Grace?#

2.Reason is drawn from the Offices of Christ, the second person in the sacred Trinity, was filled with a treasure, that he might fill the Saints with a Treasure of Grace: In him are hid all the Treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge. [Note 3] The fulness of the God-head dwells bodily in Christ. And for this very end hath God stored Christ, that he might supply his Members, that of his fulness wee may receive, and Grace for Grace, John 1:16. [Note 4] The plain simple sense of which Text, saith Calvin, is that, what Graces God heaps on us, they all flow from this Fountain, therefore are we watered with the graces that are poured upon Christ. For observe it, this is the nature of Gospel-dispensations; What spiritual good things the Saints receive, they have them not now from God as Creator, so much as through the hands of Jesus Christ as the great Mediator of the new Covenant, he is the Channel or Cistern, or rather Fountain of all Grace, that our souls expect or receive: Hee is our Aaron annointed above his fellows, that the Oyle of Grace might in its proportion fall from the head to the Members. Hence it is that he is called Christ, and we Christians, from this holy unction: For this end was our Lord Jesus advanced to be the head of the Church, that he might fill it with all gracious supplies: and hence it is, that the Church is called his Body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all, Eph 1:23. i. e. the effect of Christs fulness, who filleth all the Saints, in all Ordinances and means of conveyance of gracious Influences: Truth of Grace is from him, growth and strength of Grace are from him; both the least measure and a large treasure are to be had in him; John 10:10. I came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. i. e. the Essence and Abundance are both from him. So then we see Christ is designed to bee our Joseph, to furnish our souls with a treasure, and therefore hee that neglects to stock his heart from this store-house doth undervalue the great Office of Christ, and doth what hee can, to frustrate God of his end in souls-supply: This is horrible ingratitude.#

3.Reason is drawn from the end and design of all Providences and Ordinances: They are given to be helps to promote this Heart-Treasure: God puts a price into our hands that we may have Grace in our hearts; He gives us a summer season to lay up for this pinching Winter. Naturalists say, that while the bird called Halcion sitteth on her nest, there's calmness and serenity upon the Sea: Such Halcion-daies of tranquility, and Gospel-opportunities have we enjoyed in this tempestuous Sea of the world, not to feather our nests below, much less to hatch the Cockatrice-eggs of sin, but to warm and ripen the brood of Grace in our souls, and to lay up a precious treasure for the evil daies of Old-age, Sickness, or Persecution, and for the long day of Eternity. When God affords a season, he expects things should be done in that season, and if man neglect it, [Note 5] his misery wil be great upon him. The very. Ant lays up for Winter, and reads a Lecture to man, of good husbandry: Gathering in summer is a token of wisdome, but sleeping in harvest, is a sinful, shameful, beggaring practise. God expects that we should work in the light, and walk in the day, while this day of Grace lasts; John 12:35, 'Tis a sad astonishing thing, that God should hold men a Candle for them to play by; especially, when time is short, uncertain; death and eternity are so near, and of such vast consequence. Oh what a confounding question will that be one day? Prov 17:16. Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdome, seeing he hath no heart to it? Observe it, God takes a strict account of our helps, and of our hoard, and expects a due proportion. Oh what a sad reckoning wil many make, whose negligence wil be condemned by the diligence of bruit creatures, [Note 6] and Heathen Philosophers in moral studies? Yea, by the light of their own Consciences.#

4.Another Reason is taken from our hearts natural emptiness of a treasure of good: In me (saith Paul) that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing, Rom 7:18. This barren soil hath the more need to be Manured; this empty house to be wel furnished, least the heart continue still destitute of all saving good, and the soul depart out of this world as naked of saving-Grace, as it entred: 'Tis pity so brave an house should stand empty of Inhabitant, and Furniture. The souls of Gods people are vessels that are to be wel-fraught with the Liquor of all saving-graces, that they may bee fitted for, and filled with Eternal Glory, Rom 9:23. The Christian is to be holily covetous of these riches of Glory, that amends may be made for his natural vacuity. Oh the vast Chaos of an unregenerate heart! A long time, and great pains must go to the replenishing of it: There's many waste corners to be filled, even after the truth of grace is planted, before the soul be inlarged to a due capacity of service here, and heaven hereafter: The soul of a Believer, [Note 7] saith one, is a house well-built, where faith laies the foundation: hope helps up the walls, knowledge sets open the windows, and love covers the roof, and this makes a room fit for Christ; And I add, there must be every day a sweeping, and watching, and decking of this House with further degrees of grace, embellishing it with divine Ornaments, and furnishing it: and every Room, I mean every faculty, with a rich treasure of heavenly blessings: it will be some cost and toyle to hang every room of the heart with lively pictures of the divine Image: for it is altogether empty of that which is truly and spiritually good, or may be called a Treasure: But thats not all; for#

5.The soul is by nature filled with an evil treasure: the heart is desperatelie wicked, Jer 17:9. every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart is only and continually evil, Gen 6:5. the mind, will and affections are stuffed with a world of blindnesse, hardnesse and wildnesse: the soul is naturally propense to evil, averse to good, and therefore a treasure of good is necessary to preponderate and extrude this treasure of wickednesse: to season and seize upon the soul for God, as sin did for Satan; the love of God is to be shed abroad into those veines and Channels of the heart, [Note 8] where sin did run with a violent current; the Christian is to be circumcised in the most polluted part: and certainly, 'tis not a little grace that will obstruct the active motions of sin, for though grace be of greater worth, yet its disputable, whether it attain to greater strength than corruption, even in the hearts of the sanctified, in this life: But certainly, the greater measure of grace and treasure of sanctifying truths, the more power against corruption: the whole Armor of God, (which is also the Saints treasure) resist inward lusts and Satans assaults, Eph 6:12,#

14.The Spirit is compared to wind, now some have called the winds, [Note 9] the beesomes of the world. But I am sure the spirit of grace with the fruits thereof, are choice beesomes to sweep the filth of sin out of the soul, and also to adorn it with divine Jewels, and assist it with notable Antidotes against corruption, these are as water to wash the heart from filthinesse: the smallest measure helps against sin, but the more grace, the less sin in the heart; grace is a principle of life and opposeth dead works, which otherwise will leade the soul to the chambers of death: therefore this treasure is of absolute necessity, and the same might we say of the word, [Note 10] which being hid in the heart helps against sin in the life.#

6.Another reason is taken from the inbred motions of humane nature: All men on earth seek after a treasure, it is the harmonious inquest of all rational creatures, who will shew us any good, [Note 11] any thing to make a treasure off? Man hath a capacious soul an active and laborious spirit; the whole world is not a morsel big enough for his capacious swalow: our covetous desires, saith one, are a long sentence without a period: Finite things are dry meat to an hungry soul, they sooner glut than fill: nay, they put on this busie Bee to buzze about one Flower after another, till it hath weatied it self in vain, and sit down in utter despair of comfort and satisfaction; only interest in the God of Heaven, and the image of the God of Heaven make up all defects: See Ps 73:25,#

26.A Christ alone to justifie, and a Christ within to sanctifie, make the soul compleatly happy; [Note 12] for Christ within is the hope of glory; a glorified and a gracious Redeemer, is the Christians onely treasure, his all in all; God hath furnisht man with an immortal soul, learning may widen it, but grace fills it: nothing else will reach its large dimensions: [Note 13] Man is a little world himself, nay bigger and better than this greater, by Christs own verdict, who is truth it self; the soul it self is better than the world, and it must have something better than it self to be a treasure for it. Philosophy seeks, Christianity shews, the sound Believer onely finds true happinesse, [Note 14] which the wise Merchant fetched out of the field of the Gospel, into the Cabinet of his own heart.#

7.Whatsoever men have or love, they desire a treasure thereof, no man but would have a large treasure of a precious Commodity, he that hath Gold and Silver would heap it up to a treasure: he that hath wisdom and learning would still have more: Men join house to house, and field to field to procure for themselves and heires, a fair demain, a large estate. How many rich men are still as eager for more, as if they had not enough to purchase a meals meat? yet these seek for earth, as if abundance thereof would purchase heaven; like the Partridge, they sit close on these eggs, though they hatch them not, [Note 15] nor are ever likely to bring them to their desired maturity; [Note 16] Oh the unhallowed thirst after filthy lucre! Many think to fill their souls with wealth, whereas they cannot fill one of the least members of their body: [Note 17] the eye which yet a Nut-shel will cover; the world at the best is like Pasotes Banquet, which when the guests begun to cat, vanisht into nothing: And shall so many men set their eyes (and hearts too) on that which is not? [Note 18] And shall not Gods children make a treasure of that which is enduring substance? Shall men think to make a treasure of coales, and chaffe, and empty shadows? and shall not the Christian gather store of Pearls and Jewels for his treasure? Shall the children of the world be more wise and wary for earth, than the children of light for Heaven? God forbid. Surely the Christian hath as great reason to heap up as any; these commodities are more rare, rich and necessary than any other, and why then should they not get an heart-treasure? For in these reasons I would both convince the judgment, and perswade the affections; these are the chief motives I have: for I would spend most time in Direction.#

8.This, and onely this doth discriminate betwixt persons and persons: my meaning is, this heart-treasure puts a difference betwixt Saints and Sinners, betwixt weak and strong Christians: as the treasure in the heart is, so is the Professors state, as Salomon saith in another case, Prov 23:7. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he; not as he speaks with his lips: Formalists will speak God as fair as any, they honour him with their lips, [Note 19] and flatter him with false and fawning fashions, as though he were an Idol; But the heart-searching God is not pleased, except the heart be upright with him, it is the upright in whom he delights: nor is a person as he acts with his hands, or walks with his feet, in many passages of his life; A man may with Ahab walk softly: with Herod do many things: with Simon Magus make large professions of faith: yea, its possible a man may suffer many troubles, and even death it self in a good cause, yet, except he have a heart treasured with grace, he is rejected, and may go to hell at last: God judgeth of the fruits by the Root, though men judge of the Root by the fruits: a heart after his own heart is better than the tongue of men and Angels: [Note 20] the distinction of persons, is in respect of inside principles and workings: a good man may sometimes do an evil work, and a bad man may do a good work, but how are their hearts? the best conferences or performances are not currant coyn with the God of heaven, except they issue out of the mint of an heart where Gods Image is stampt: a little good is accounted much when there's a treasure within, much seeming good is lookt on as nothing when theres no treasure: this also puts the difference betwixt a strong and weak Christian: let their gifts and outward seemings be what they will, yet the greater or lesser degree of real grace distinguisheth their attainments; and accordingly these measures have different influences upon their lives, duties, comforts, or preparednesse for death.#

9.This treasure doth assimilate the soul to God: the great Jehovah is the onely self-existent, and self-sufficient good; He is the absolute, compleat, and independent Being, and needs no accession of Creatures or created Powers to make him happy: nothing can adde to, or detract from his infinite and incomprehensible blessednesse: He is a treasure of all [Note 21] good, in and to himself; and needs neither Gold nor Silver to make him rich: [Note 22] parallel to this in some proportion is the Saints sweet and secret heart-treasure, and solitary recesses: The Christian is a little world, and is purely independent upon the creature to make him happy: [Note 23] he can through grace live comfortably without the world, though not without, but upon God: yea God is so much in him, as well as to him, that he can live comfortably when other things are dead, a good man is satisfied from himself, Prov 14:14. i.e. he shall have sufficient content from his own conscience: there is but one word there for a back-slider, being filled with his wayes of sin and guilt, and a gracious soules satisfaction from the sweet result of his own heart, to shew that a mans own conscience, is either his heaven or hell, his greatest comforter or tormentor: the World cannot alter the joy or sadnesse of the heart: a through-paced well-tryed Childe of God, hath his rejoycing in himself alone, and not in another, Gal 6:4. 'Tis a pedling beggarly life to wander abroad for morsels, but thats a noble kind of living, when a man hath all within doores, and needs not creatures sorry contributions: I speak not of the fancied Familistical deification, which is nothing lesse then blasphemie, but certainly the sound Christian in a sound sense beares some resemblance of the Divinitie in this [αὐταρκεία] self-sufficiency; and the more treasure, the more like God; for such a soul is elevated above the creature, and fixed in an higher Orb, whither stormes and tempests cannot reach; nay, a soul whose conversation is in Heaven, hath no dependance upon, nor intelligence with the creature, in order to compleating his felicity: no more than the Sun needs the glimmering light of the Stars to make day: who then would not have this treasure? I might also add herein, the Christians resemblance to the infinite Jehovah, because he hath a principle of motion within himself, and not from without, for as God is a free agent, yea a pure act, so in a sense are the Saints acting from an inward principle: hence those Scripture-expressions of a mans Spirit, making him willing, and the heart smiting a man or witnessing for him, [Note 24] or with him: And in the exercise of Repentance, 'tis said of Lot, he vexed his righteous Soul; or put himself upon the Rack. Wicked men are dead, but Grace is a principle of life, and resembles the Authour of it; For that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit; John 3:6. The decayed liberty of the will is in part by Grace restored; and so far as the soul is Spiritual, the soul of a Saint is a flame of fire ascending to, and acting for God, and the greater treasure of this a man hath in his breast, the liker he is to God.#