to set his love upon his soul he believeth no such things nor the Papists neither Nor many a poor hypocrite Alas they think they have somewhat that deserveth him I some beauty is in us that the Lord saw and so it was meet for him to lay out his love upon us proud wretches that we are it is well we have an infinitely condescending love yea and powerful that can overcome our pride and swallow it up and love not onely poor creatures nothing-creatures but such as falsly suppose themselves somewhat when they are nothing else what would become of many of us Well sure it is because we know not our selves or know not what this love means else we should all of us easily subscribe to this 2. That he would be at such a price for such for alas brethren 〈◊〉 who would lay down his life almost for the cho cest of persons though some in an Agony of Passion and discontent have made themselves away for them they have doated upon yet here was some proportion between the persons loving and loved yea happily the person loved might be the more eminent person and therefore might stand off and a man when he doth this alas he is beloved himself he is wrapt by the violence of his passion out of his choice his understanding and judgement dethroned and then the Affections like wild horses O whither will they not hurry a man but in such a case a man is not a man but now in sobriety of minde consider it and who would lay down their lives and dye for the obtaining the rarest creature in the world for a spouse surely none O no Skin for skin saith the Devil and though a man imagine more to be in what he hath never injoyed then he findeth by experience in what he hath had the flower and cream of yet notwithstanding if a man be himself he will prize his life above all but if he would dye would he dye a most shameful death to have his life taken away by the most violent destructions and convulsions of minde so strongly working upon the body as to moulder it away by degrees surely hardly any man would ever venture in such a case as this Alas What is this to what the Lord Jesus hath willingly undertaken for worms what man would dye for a worm that it might live and he might have it put in his bosom or rather would be contented to â—ay down his body take up the form of a worm and therein dye the most miserable death that he might have worms saved from death and be his nearest relations for ever O doth not this transcend the love of Angels brethren Alas what is this to what Jesus Christ hath paid for poor worms at the best sinful dust and ashes and that we might live and live in union and fellowship with himselfe for ever Ah Brethren if God would but make us sensible what we are at the worst and what the Lord Jesus underwent in some measure for apprehend it fully we cannot but such as have ever tasted what it is to sip of the cup may apprehend more then others what dregs were at the bottom a drop how doth it put the soul into an Agony upon the rack that thou wouldst choose death rather then life O what then was the whole cup brethren that he should undergo this and should with his most precious blood be willing to purchase such poor abjects forlorn Creatures to be a spouse to him yea with his blood drawn from him through the very pores of the body by the very distractions of his soul and wresâ—ling with wrath O was there ever grief like this that the father put him to and was there ever love like this brethren O that we had hearts indeed to admire it 3. That after all this is done he should be at such pains to bring us to himself to wooe us to come himself to send us his messengers to strive with us by his Spirit as you know he strivd long with the old world and strived long with the Israelites in the wilderness and many of our souls can say it by experience he hath striven long with us by his spirit when we have been convinced our ways have been folly and misery and yet we would not yield how hath he followed us up and down with motions of his spirit and waited to be gracious and all but to have our consent to take him for ours Dear friends who are we that the Lord Jesus should thus ambire make so much ado with us to have our consent to take him to accept of him for a Husband O what desperate enmity is in our hearts against him that there must be so much ado to overcome it You would think that poor begger either a very crooked cross piece full of bitter hatred against a Prince or Noble-man that sues to her with all the intreaties that can be sends messenger after messenger cometh himself and beseecheth her to accept of him and yet she will not no is she well where she is desireth not either you will say she believeth not what he saith that it is in reality it will not enter into her heart to think he is real he is so far above her though he tell her he knew that is sensible of it yet maketh love to her meerly because he will and his heart is towards her not for any thing in her self she believeth not or else that she is a desperate enemy and hater of such a Noble-man and would rather perish there or languish in such a condition as an abject then accept of him O this is the condition of many of us brethren some poor deject dunbelieving souls alas their hearts even fail within them to hear that J. Christ should make love to them O it canot be sure to such a worm such a wretch so poor so filthy so full of rags vermin so full of sores and wounds full deeply indebted so deformed and loathsom every way O they know not how to receive this Others they are even stout and proud and care no more for these things then if Jesus Christ had said nothing at all as for them they are well enough if he will let them alone they desire not to mend their conditions by closing with him Now brethren to both these how doth the Lord Jesus apply himself Never were there more powerful Arguments used and never more powerfully prest then he presseth them and that with more diligence and patient waiting upon us and O what love what manner of love is this that all this floweth from A little to touch upou each of them brethren happily the Lord may be pleased to breath in them to some poor soul and as he doth at other times thus so this day brethren Even to you he is pleading with you for this very end that some poor sinners would be perswaded to close with him First then The Arguments are the most
so humble Abigail and from Bâ—az so humble Ruth and shall not this love of Jesus Christ infinitely greater then all humble such poor filthy creatures upon whom he hath set his love Thirdly Let us hence take notice then of the many precious priviledges of the Saints We live much below them because we study them not keep not the relish of them upon our hearts I mean endeavour not so to do the Lord give us hearts now lifted up to him First then As many as by believing are espoused to Jesus Christ they are one with him in the nearest union Surely it is not for nothing that the H. Ghost delights so to set forth the believers relation to Christ by this of a spouse to a husband you know that this is the nearest union among men of one person to another Kindred are near a man his children his brethren they are usually called their bone and their flesh as the men of Judah spake to David we are thy flesh and thy bone but this is aâ— a greater distance but now in Marriage two persons that were strangers one to another never saw the face one of another within a little while by this Ordinance of God are brought to such a nearness as that Father and Mother and Children if they had any before yet they are not so near to them they shall leave Father and Mother and be joyned to their Husband here this union is the stranger by how much greater the distance between the persons were and how much the closer the union is now it is made the distance was great whether we respect the dignity of the person there was no proportion a King and a Beggar are but a shadow and a dark one too to set forth this a King and a worm to take it and lay it in his bosom is nothing to this but chiefly in respect of enmity of mind alas that such as we are at the deadliest feud haters of God and of Christ not only strangers but enemies through evil works that those should be brought so near to Christ as to be made one with him this is something indeed An impotent and weak enemy that could do nothing against him not so much as move any longer then he upheld us and yet we should be look't upon indeed a potent enemy happily in policie may be concerned to such an union but a weak enemy rather would be trampled under foot But then the nearness of the union man and wife are one flesh saith the Apostle but he that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit The union of soul and body is nearer then of man and wife if too bodies could be acted by one and the same soul this were a near union indeed Why the Lord Jesus and the saints are one and the same Spirit whereby they are knit together in love this is a near union indeed Is this a light thing a small thing to be made so near the Lord of life and glory even the Children of Israel a people near to him who is like them that have Christ so near them of that are so near him Secondly There is a sweet Communion and Fellowship ariseth upon this a blessed imparting now of all his fulness to such a soul all that is Christ's is now yours his righteousness yours therefore the Holy City the name of it is called the Lord our righteousness Now his honour is yours where he is King you are Queen as in the old custom with the Romanes they used to say where you are Caius I am Caia saith the woman where you are Lord I am Lady be the poor Creature never so contemptible yet marrying with a noble person it dignifieth her with a rich person it enricheth her because she hath an interest in all But beloved that though this be matter enough to insist upon if I could enlarge things for fear of being too tedious There is fellowship-Communion between the Lord Jesus and the soul that others know nothing what it meaneth the Lord Jesus is more open hearted to them his secrets are with them they are the hidden Manna and they again are most free to power out their souls to Jesus Christ into his bosom to power them out like water as he will hide nothing from Abraham so Abraham will hide nothing from him such a confidence hath the poor Believing soul that he speaks boldly freely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with speaking all so the original word properly imports that which none else in the world shall know they will make known to Jesus Christ they can be more free with him then any other And not only because he already knoweth the heart as I conceive but out of a sweet confidence they have in him and experience of his bowels yerning over poor souls in such a Condition so that if he knew not all that was in their hearts they would out of this freedom open it to him Yea the Lord Jesus he dyed our death and grieves our griefs and we rise his resurrection and rejoyce in his rejoycings he partaketh with us yea indeed bears the heavier end and all indeed of our miseries and we partake of his joys the oyl of gladness we are anointed with But this is the second Thirdly another is the cohabitation of Christ with his people I will dwell with them and I will walk in them when the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven the Church of the Jews shall come in then he will especially dwell in them then the Tabernacle of God is with men but now saith the Apostle that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith though he be absent indeed in some respect at the right hand of his father absent in body yet he is present in spirit as the Apostle saith of himself as he would have us to be in Heaven have our hearts there and so to dwell there to have our conversations there our love there and where the heart is there the man is Animus non est ubi animat sed ub i amat well we then dwell with him and he dwels with us with him will I dwell saith the Lord. It is a Marriage duty to dwell one with another and if a believer have an unbelieving yoke-fellow if he or she will live with the believer they must not put them away they must not depart from them so it is here the Lord Jesus dwels with his people and this is no small priviledge to the Husband the Bridegroom at hand alway ready to pity and compassionate us in our sufferings within or without But this the third Fourthly he nourisheth and cherisheth them No man hates his own flesh saith the Apostle but he nourisheth it and cherisheth it as you have it there in Nathan's parable one poor Ewe Lamb and he laid it in his bosom and it did eat of his bread and drink of his cup by which are meant all manner of supplies
to this readiness a making the calling and election sure by adding faith to faith and grace to grace as it is in that place of the Apostle Peter Then when Simeon had gotten Jesus Christ into this arms of his faith as well as of his body and saw his salvation with the eye of faith as well as of the body then he cryeth out Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Now he was ready to enter into glory And so the Apostle Paul had such a perswasion and therefore he was ready henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of glory c. 2. There goeth many times if not alway to this abundant entrance as a readiness or preparation to it an earnest waiting of the soul for its change a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better There is many a poor heart when the body of death weigheth them down and tryeth them groan earnestly and could be contented to dye that sin might dye with them As Sampson said let me even dye with the Philistians if no other way will destroy their lusts But alas when they are to seek in point of assurance they look upon death as a dark passage that leadeth them they cannot tell whither this maketh them fly back this kills those desires nippeth them as soon as they put forth they come to no maturity But now when a man hath the right art of believing notwithstanding his body of death he groans under as the Apostle that yet he is perswaded through Christ it is pardoned and shall be utterly dissolved and not hinder him then he can bless the Lord and desires with Paul to be dissolved So many of the Patriarks it is said of them they dyed full of daies satisfied with daies that is to say they lived as long as they desired they had now a desire to be at home knowing that while they are present in the body they are absent from the Lord from that near and sweet and full Communion with him whereof they have had a little taste and earnest but if they know not that they shall be present with him by departure but for ought they know more separate from them no marvel if they go to death with drawing back Yet I deny not but a child of God may be ready before he desire it And may desire it before he be ready for this entrance I say a child of God may be ready before he desire it as in the case before mentioned and upon other grounds as Hezekiah and David that I may declare thy power to this generation may be ready and not have such an assurance but he is not ready for an abundant entrance until the Lord come with a full sealing of his love to his heart 2. He may desire it before he be ready as in some passionate impatient fit as Elijah 1 King 19. 4. weary of his life the King persecuting him and thinking he should fall by his hand would have God take away his life from him but he had not yet done his work And so Job God had not yet done with him he must pass through more changes and prosper and flourish again and hold forth his name to that generation before he departed he had not done his work But I speak of the serious settled well-grounded frame of a Believers heart upon a sound perswasion of the Love of God in Jesus Christ and a knowledge that he hath finished his course then for such a one to wait for his change when the blessed hour will come is a part of readiness for an entrance an abundant entrance into glory But this is not the portion of every child of God many Suns set in a Cloud c. For the second thing which are the arguments of the point they are such as these First because else Gods work would be in vain he hath prepared an inheritance for the Saints a Kingdom prepared before the world was and his work upon our hearts what is it but to prepare us for this Kingdom as the Apostle speaks he that hath wrought us to this self-same thing is God he hath wrought us to it there is no suitableness between heaven and an ungracious heart a glorious Kingdom and a vile filthy spirit therefore the Lord takes much pains with us to purge us to himself to purifie us to adorn us with the rich graces of his Spirit and all is to work us to heaven to salvation to prepare us for this entrance and therefore when God hath done this shall his work be in vain surely no not a soul that is so wrought up by the Lord to a heavenly frame and temper and nature that shall miss of an entrance when it is thus prepared else Gods work were in vain the greatest work of God 2. Because else the Lord Jesus would fail of his purchase and prayer for his poople who did buy us at so dear a rate as his own most precious blood was it think you to suffer us for ever to be at such distances from him whom he so dearly loved did his love to us draw him out of heaven to us and will it not think you draw us to heaven to him he will not have his Spouse that he hath redeemed with his blood to be absent from him any longer then is needful for his Fathers glory and their good It is a fruit of his death and of his prayer Father I will that where I am there they may be for they are the fulness of Christ and he accounteth himself as I may say imperfect without them and therefore he will have them there Indeed Brethren so dear is the heart of Jesus Christ to his people that he would not suffer so long an absence at so great a distance from them but that there is a necessity in it though at his first pitching his love upon us he looks at nothing but notwithstanding all blackness and deformity and loathsomness his love overcometh all Yet before they come to this Communion and fellowship with him they must be purified with spices and odors as those were for the King of Assyria and for other holy ends 3. Because else the promise of God and hope of the Saints would fail and heaven and earth shall sooner fail then the word of promise Christ hath promised not only to give life but eternal life God hath promised to give not only grace but glory there is a Crown laid up in the purpose and promise of God and if they should miss of this they would be made ashamed of their hope now this cannot be the Psalmist prayeth that he might not be ashamed of his hope which is virtually a promise it shall not be never any yet were disappointed that hoped upon right grounds Indeed if men make Promises to themselves of heaven let them live after the imaginations of their hearts or whether they truly believe or
in this we may understand two things 1. That they do work iniquity some sin they live in if not many notwithstanding their profession of Christ and therefore they are workers of iniquity 2. That the very form of godliness and all their shew is but a working of iniquity First then they are workers of some iniquity or other and that either in an outward gross manner as gross hypocrites or else more closely and inwardly as close hypocrites and yet they are workers of iniquity and the Lord Jesus will not know them nor own them First then for gross hypocrites such as have their hands full of blood full of bribes their houses are builded by wrong and their chambers by unrighteousnesâ— and yet they bless themselves in being a people to God surely the Lord will not away with this such are the gross hypocrites among us that will all the week long make a trade of lying in their shops in their callings of sweaâ—ing forswearing of drunkenness and adultery and come and wipe their mouths with the Harlot and say hey have done no wickedness they are pure in their own eys yet not washed c. come upon these days and sit before the Lord as his people as if they were delivered to do all these abominations the drunkard will not believe nor the swearer but they are as good Christians as any though all have their infirmities and theirs are no more well th 〈…〉 e are lying words you trust unto they will deceive you for saith the Lord I will not hear when you make many prayers your hands are full of blood God doth not regard the services of such a people he examineth mens hands to see if they be hard with labouring in their iniquities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if so it is not your words that are smoâ—ther then oyl that shall serve your turn Quid verba cum sacta videam to cry Lord Lord and yet go and serve and drudge for the Devil as if he were their good Lord will not the Lord search this out O surely he will not know such a person as this 2. It may be it is more secret there is not an hypocrite but he regardeth iniquity in his heart and in heart he works wickedness if not with his hands it may be he may wash his hands with Pilat but not his heart O how do mens mouths water after the pleasures of sin the stoln waters and bread eaten in secret if they durst do it for fear of being discovered and ashamed before men or for a galled conscience a secret lust a secret wound which bleedeth inwardly is not so visible is as deadly as any other now I say be it never so secret let Judas cover his Treasury never so close and Ananias and Saphira their double dealing their covetousness it is to no purpose burning lips and a wicked heart are like a Potsherd covered over with silver dross it maketh a glorious shew burning of lips with love much love shewed with it but the heart is wicked and therefore base as a Potsherd a vessel of dishonour fitted to distruction and shall never enter into glory but be dasht in pieces But Secondly the very form of godliness though in it self materially it be good yet as they use the matter to make it a cloak for their sin a fair skin over a belly full of Garbidge and filthiness it is iniquity it is iniquity saith the Lord even your solâ—mn meetings Incense is an abomination to me I am weary to bear them What was the matter why they did but flatterwith their mouths their hearts were not with him therefore the Lord hated it this is working iniquity working out a form of godliness with much pains and sticking there the prayer of the wicked is sin it is an abomination it will amount to no more then to filthy garments filthy rags and in these brethren the Lord will not know us O no workers of iniquity shall not dwel with him Dine and Sup with him in heaven the feast of new Wine he will not open to them and what greater iniquity then hypocrisie Simulata sanctitas duplex iniquitas an hypocrite when he thinketh he is at the best is at the worst then his hypocrisie is at the height and God will not admit any he knoweth them not Thirdly Not our part of the Conclusion that at that day it shall be declared openly to hypocrites that the Lord Jesus knoweth them not that is to say that he owneth them not notwithstanding all their seeming delight in his ways and their following of him in a profession yet this is the doom they are like to receive He knoweth them not this is also plain from this Text and also from that in Mat. 7. At that day that is to say the day of general Judgement or the day of death which is every particular souls Dooms day they shall say Lord Lord c. and then will I say to them Depart from me I know you not I never knew you First then Why is this so that at that day many Professors shall have this doom I know you not I never knew you it shall be thus declared from the mouth of the Lord Jesus himself it may be taken from the Office of Jesus Christ to be Judge God hath appointed to judge the world at that day by one even by Jesus Christ and therefore he shal pronounce the Sentence either with his own mouth or the ministration of Angels but rather me thinks with his own mouth this word shal go forth which shal be as a flaming two edged Sword to enter into the bones bowels of sinners and divide them in sunder for ever here sinners are shut up under sin they have chains of darkness upon their hearts already and hypocrites are lyable to this condemnation and are held with the cords of their sins and then shall be the time of the doom therefore then it shall be declared a Prisoner feareth what the sentence may be before he cometh to the triall and so hypocrites sometimes may have some foretaste some fearfulness may surprise them but they skin it over again but now it shall be declared by the Judge himself he knoweth them not and therefore they must depart from him Secondly For a confirmation of the words of his servants and an everlasting rebuke of their unbelief of his Word by them for this hath been the message of Christ to formalists in the mouths of all his Messengers your form of godliness will not carry you through all conditions it will fail you sooner or latter your fig leaves will not shadow you from the everlasting burnings the hope of the hypocrite shall perish and give up the Ghost God loatheth no sort of sinners more though they take themselves to be highly favoured yet they are deeply abhorred of God yet alas there is scarce an hypocrite but hath his shifts to put by an hundred
Servants or to deliver all such relations no but it is meant here surely of a spiritual Liberty a freedom of the soul from its thraldom nay himself cometh to be a servant did he not rather sanctifie such a condition and relation then abolish it Secondly Then taking it for spiritual Liberty that is to say a freedom from Spiritual evils the subjection whereunto is a bondage to the poor creature we must know yet further that we may take it either in a larger or in a more restrained sense in a more restrained only for that liberty and freedom which the Saints have ever had through the Lord Jesus since the Covenant of Grace was preached to them and they closed with it for we must know that ever before Christ came in the flesh Believers believed in him to come they had a liberty through him as to the main parts of it and necessarily to salvation though haply not in that degree that now ordinarily Believers indeed have that freedom but there were some yoaks upon them then which now we are delivered from they are broken from off the necks of the Saints yea and such as were pinching yoaks indeed but yet less considerable by far then those from which they were delivered and set free so that now we see there is a larger liberty and more glorious which the sons of God have which will better appear when we come to speak to the parts of it only this I thought good to premiâ—e lost any should think that liberty began only when Christ was revealed in the flesh for it was the smallest part that then was added though I say the other liberty from the sore condemning destroying bondage of the soul they had before haply is now heightned to believers and so much by way of premise For the opening of this spiritual Liberty we shall consider 1. It s Subject 2. Its Causes 3. Its Parts extensive and intensive if we may so speak that is to say the degrees of it First then for the subject of this Liberty they are all Christians that are so indeed therefore it is called Christian Liberty not only from Christ the Author but from the Subjects they are Christians Believers both Jews and Gentiles Bond or Free Male or Female Jerusalem saith the Apostle which is above is free which is the Mother of us all all such then as receive the Gospel as the poor are said to do all those upon whom the Sun of righteousness doth arise they are set free they do go forth for the partial subject of this liberty that will better appear when we come to speak of the parts of this liberty some are for the freeing the minde some the will some the conscience some the whole man but of this afterward Secondly Then for the causes of this liberty which is here promised we shall speak to some of them First then The principal efficient cause is the Father Son and Spirit the work of the Trinity ad extra are individed the Father it is that cals us to liberty Ye are called to liberty saith the Apostle use it not as a cloke to the flesh I marvel saith the Apostle that you are so soon removed from him who hath called you into the Grace of Christ unto another Gospel The Apostle meaneth the calling to liberty which he cals the Grace of Christ and that Doctrine of the false teachers that would subject them again to the Law and Ceremonies and to that bondage subvert their liberty he cals it another Gospel And for the Son we have it If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free false Brethren came to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage And for the Spirit it is as clear The Law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death the mighty powerful working of the Spirit is called the Law of the Spirit as the powerful operation of Sin is called the Law of Sin and so in that place where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and so the Spirit of Adoption it is that succedeth the Spirit of Bondage and setteth us free from that Bondage Secondly The impulsive cause is meerly his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his good pleasure yea his tender mercy his bowels So it is in the Original The bowels of our God whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us there is the arising of the Sun of rightousness upon us and the effect of it you have before That we being delivered from the hands of all our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness c. It is not misery is the motive only else he would do it for all as well as some for we are all of us in the same bondage naturally one as well as another Thirdly The meritorious cause is the blood of Jesus Christ no less then the blood of the Kings son is the price of the liberty of poor Slaves in bondage this must needs be tender mercy indeed rich love indeed so saith the Apostle That through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death that is the Devil no less then a Kings ransom is paid for the liberty of every poor creature that is made free and therefore he took upon him flesh and blood because the children were partakers of the same that he might die for them and to deliver them that for fear of death were in bondage all their life-time of which more afterward we are now speaking to the meritorious cause the price of his pretious mercy even the blood of Jesus Christ Fourthly The means of conferring or conveiging this liberty to poor Sinners is the Gospel of liberty the Covenant of Grace held out in the Gospel is the means and this is plain in many places As in that of Isaiah The Spirit of the Lord is upon me therefore he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the Captives if ever any preaching was the Gospel Christs preaching was and the Covenant who himself was given to be the Covenant to the people sure he would preach nothing but that or in subordination to that as he doth preach the Law too as would easily appear but we may not digress and so in thaâ— other place of Luke where either that or some of the fore-cited places in Isaiah are quoted Ye shall know the truth saith our Saviour and the truth shall make you free by truth there I take it is not meant indefinitely any truth whatever no nor a scriptural truth but the Gospel of truth which is called the truth Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ it is such a truth so pure and precious For his word is like
greater measure and therefore we may understand this of a general state of the Saints before the coming of Christ the arising of this Sun of righteousness indeed hath shone into the very chambers of death themselves to let us see thaâ— there is not that real terrour in it that otherwise except himself had gone through it and broken the bars of it and pluckt out the sting and sanctified it as a passage to our Glory as well as to his own we should still have been in as great bondage as they were in this respect and therefore Simeon saith Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word now he had embraced the Lord Christ not only in his bodily arms but had a clearer discovery also of him to his soul doubtless and the sence may help faith also But then secondly According to the measure of the faith of his people is the degree of their liberty from this bondage alas it is terrible to many of us yea such as do believe but their faith is weak and the perswasions of sense are strong and hold down the soul many times but the Lord Jesus came to deliver his people also from this bondage and according to the degrees of his manifesting himselfto the soul will the soul go forth from these fears and though Aristotle died doubtful whither he should go and yet cried out Ens entium causa causarum miserere mei Yet the Apostle and those that attained that pitch to know that when our tabernacles are dissolved we have an house eternal in the heavens to know the sting of death and victory of the grave is swallowed up by Jesus Christ it left its sting in his side to know that when we are dissolved we shall be with Christ and know how much better that will be to the soul that is well studied in these things and grown strong in the faith that is in Jesus he will desire to be dissolved and to be with Jesus O here is a going forth now a liberty and freedom indeed by the arising of the Sun of Righteousness upon us Ninthly A freedom or liberty from the Govenant of works What saith the Law Do this and live continue in every thing that is written now when the soul cometh to see how spirittual the Law is and how earnal he is and sold under sin that it binds not only the thoughts but the desires of the heart that there must not be so much as a vain thought pass through his soul but if there do this Covenant knoweth no mercy alas this keepeth the poor creature under much bondage and trouble and doubting concerning his condition now we must know that this is not a bondage of Gods putting upon us though he gave us the Law but of our own making the Lord gave the Law with Evangelical purposes it was added because of transgression it was added that the Covenant of Grace that it might convince poor creatures of their condition by sâ—n and not to be their Saviour or a Covenant of life to them When the Commandment came sin revived and I died saith the Apostle that is the work of it indeed but now we would needs make it to be a Covenant of works and look upon it so and therefore do what we did in obedience to this Law as for life expecting to be saved by our own works and so the Hebrews the Jews to whom that Law was first given we see how they would not submit they would not stoop to have this yoke taken off from them they would not submit to the righteousness of Ged but would have a righteousness of their own they had two strings to their bow and as long as either of them would hold they would not yield to be righteous by the righteousness of God in Christ the one was their freedom by Birth They were the seed of Abraham and not the seed of the Bond-woman and therefore what need they care for this liberty the other was their own works they made account their own penny was good silver enough though the Lord knoweth it was but reprobate silver they went about to establish their own righteousness they would be justified by a Covenant of works And so there were some that came and endeavoured to turn aside the Galathians to another Gospel by teaching them they should again put their necks under this yoke not only of Ceremonies though that be one thing to the Jews if not to the Gentiles that never were under it but it is the Law the Moral Law as a Covenant of Works else to what end doth he mention the curse therein And if ye be justified by the Law Christ shall not profit you you are fallen from the Doctrine of Grace Well now the Lord Jesus when he is revealed to a soul delivereth him from this though I must tell you it is an harder matter to get clearly off it then many do imagine and even the people of God themselves shall find that too often they are turned aside to the bondwoman from the free from the Covenant of Grace to a Covenant of Works Again from the Law as provoking for that is the Bondage chiefly the Apostle speaks of Rom. 7. But the more clearly and fully the Grace which is in Christ is revealed to us with the greater power he ariseth upon us the more fully are we set free from it Here we might discuss the question how far we are delivered from the Law and how far by Jesus Christ I will rather reserve that to another place and proceed to conclude this part Tenthly There is a kind of bondage the people of God are under even that weakness and straitness and deadness of heart towards God you know that sickness doth weaken a man exceedingly in so much that he can scarce go upon his legs he is a prisoner a great while under that weakness from all action to purpose let but a poor prisoner be under hardship a while in the prison and how feeble will he be and scarce worth the ground he goeth upon a while longer he is a prisoner under that weakness so it is here therefore saith the Psalmist Then will I run the ways of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart Now the Lord Jesus when he cometh in with pardon speaking peace smiling upon the soul filling the heart with joy unspeakable this joy of the Lord is the strength of the soul he goeth forth even as a man to his labour in the morning when the Sun ariseth that drousiness heaviness deadness under which he was a prisoner before being now removed Eleventhly There is a liberty and freedom also from outward afflictions for these are also an appendix of the Law a part of the execution of it and therefore the Lord doth set his people free from the fear of these before they come which is a kind of bondage upon them Secondly From the presence of
such as have been as appears by the words following our Rulers and have taught us the Word of the Lord again and again considering the end of their conversation c. for assuredly the living speeches of dying Prophets live for ever Zach. 1. Their word took hold that is it did pursue overtake and seize upon that generation And so will the word of this our dear Brother fasten upon many a soul if not to his salvation certainly to his eternal destruction who if he were alive again would he not speak as now though dead in this present discourse he speaketh Oh! rest not satisfied with the Lamp of profession but get the oyl of saving grace into the vessels of your hearts and go forth to meet the Bride-groom that when he cometh whether at midnight cock-crowing or at the dawning of the day you may not be found sleeping but may enter in with him It s said of Arrius that as his errour with the sad effects thereof spread after his death so his torments were increased in hell for the Lord will render to every man not only according to his doings but according to the fruit of his doings If so as I believe it is a truth O then would we add to this our Brothers Crown and make it more massie and fuller of those choice pearls another day let us remember and forget not what by him was done and taught but say as she said Lord lay up this for me that whenever I have occasion to make use of it as when not I may so remember it as that I may practise and be blessed in my deed But I detain your Lordships too long I shall conclude with my hearty prayers to the Lord that as he hath made you eminently instrumental so he would take pleasure in you both to make you more and more instrumental in the hand of Christ which next to our salvation is one of the greatest priviledges in this life and lengthen out your daies that you may return slowly to heaven which is the humble desire of My Lords Your most devoted servant Sam. Winter The Epistle to the READER Curteous and Christian Reader THou hast here presented to thy view some Sermons os Mr. John Murcot whilst he lived a precious Instrument in the hand of Jesus Christ a Workman that needed not to be ashamed And now being dead yet speaketh by these and his other labours Concerning the Author he was according to his years of an exact judgement which appeared 1. In the choice of apt Subjects with respect to the persons and times wherein he lived as he aimed at the setting up of Christs interest and the welfare of his people so he singled out arguments answerable upon the improvement whereof he spent his best thoughts as might be instanced in these and several other pieces of his 2. In all his undertakings he laboured to discover to poor creatures the vileness of sin Gods free Grace yet ne◠〈◊〉 the prejudice of Gospel-obedience in the promoting whereof he laboured very much knowing the great relactancy of flesh and blood thereto 3. His wisdom appeared in his care and tenderness in that with the discovery of sin he always joyned the nearness of Mercy as he cast down with one hand so he raised up with the other a Bonerges and yet a son of consolation and oh how tender and humble towards poor troubled doubting souls 4. In the healing and preventing of breaches among Brethren he was admirable the Lord gave him wisdom above his years 2 As he was exact in judgement so was he full of affections how warm were they lying in the very bosom of his Master which appeared in his melting frame of Spirit ordinarily and in his thirst to draw down notions that floated in the brain to the heart and feeling wherein he was exceedingly successful 3 As for conversation he was not only spotless but active in good in his studies aâ—dlabours wherein as he was abundant and unwearied which probably helped to shorten his life that when his body came to conflict with the disease he had not strength to overcome at all other times doing or receiving good of whom it may be truly said that he did Epilcopum agere vivere act and live a true Minister of Jesus Christ blessed Bradford connted that hour lost wherein he did not some good with his tongue pen or purse It was the commendation of blessed Hooper that he was spare of Dyet spare of Words and sparest of Time These things being committed to another hand we shall forbear the scope of this Epistle being to acquaint thee with the grounds of publishing these Sermons and to intreat thy candid interpretation and acceptance of our endeavours therein First The satisfying of the longing desires of several some of whom eminent not only in Place but Piety that their hearts may be refreshed their memories strengthened by reading what they formerly heard with much delight 2. The general acceptation of the Author even with all sorts in those places where he lived or was known Secondly The seasonableness of the Subject it being an Antidote against the raigning of that most dangerous evil of the times Formality the most satisfying themselves with the bare Lamp of Profession not regarding the want of oyl in their vessels and the best too apt to be nodding when the cry is made and with the Apostles most sleep when it most concerned them to be watching which renders this Subject not only of present but lasting use and benefit Thirdly The manner of handling which is solid and spiritual so that the ingenuous Reader may find in this Lamp not only light to direct him but heat to warm him when he is a cold and a Cry to awaken him when he is asleep Fourthly The Authors exactness in penning them as if Providence contrary to his approved modesty had designed them for publick view which thou hast here as they were left in his own private notes and you know First That writing and speaking have their several Graces they were publikely delivered with much advantage Secondly They are set forth after his death and you know charity is due to Orphans the Authors more then ordinary growth in a few years assures us that had he lived to have revised this Work it would have been much more digested and refined Thirdly Being left in Characters in the transcribing whereof by the most diligent and exact some mistakes are almost unavoidable so that these may challenge allowance being transcribed by the Authors dearest relation who acquired the knowledge of his Character after his death Wherefore we intreat thee good Reader to bear with what might have escaped upon that or our own accompt which we shall willingly own judging it our duty to prefer the Publike and eternal good of souls to our own names for whose sake as the Pretious Author bestowed much of his oyl in the trimming of this Lamp so we have set it up in
view beseeching the Father of Lights to bless and own it with like success and entertainment in the hearts of those that shall read it as he did when it was at first preached Remaining Christian Reader Thy friends in and for the Truths sake Samuel Winter Robert Chambers Christian Reader MY Design in these few lines to thee is not to commend the work that is here presented to thy view I suppose it will sufficiently commend it self And if it should be otherwise it is not I nor any other who by a bare testimony can add to the Merit of it For though I must ingenuously confess that since it was left with me I have not had time to read it exactly nor could I keep it longer in my hands to satisfie my self that way without some injury having been confined in my retaining of it with me to a certain time Yet so far as I read I have observed that with much satisfaction to my self which I judge may be acceptable to others both to instruct them as also to awaken quicken refresh comfort them so that those who are wise and will diligently observe what they read may be greatly edified thereby My intent is rather to speak of the man that precious servant of Jesus Christ Mr. Murcot who now is taken to his rest in that near Communion which he enjoyes with and in his blessed Head then of any particular work of his I first knew him when he lived in Wirral near Chester and there was reason that I should be familiarly acquainted with him at that time both because he was Preacher at a place and also to a people there to many of whom my self in former times stood related till the violence of the then prevailing Prelates expulsed me thence and also because he took to wife from among us Mrs. Hester Marsden well reputed of by us and who now survives him a serious Mourner under the heavy loss of him He was while he lived there the glory of that Countrey A very quick and lively and powerful Preacher he was and mighty in prayer Eminent for piety gravity and holy innocency warming and heating the hearts of the Saints by his doctrine and life a considerable part whereof he spent in holy Communion with them And over-awing and silencing the rest of men where he lived by his wise grave and harmless conversation Dearly loved he was by some and greatly reverenced by others But in Ireland especially in the chief City thereof Dublin to which place he went when he left Wirrall and where he ended his daies he became like Jonah his Gourd he sprung up as it were in a night his growth was wonderful in that place he filled that City I may say in some sense that Land with his shadow his fame went abroad through the whole Countrey and reached to many parts of this Nation also And when the Providence of the Lord carried me over thither which was about twelve moneths since and about six moneths after he had finished his course though my stay there was but for a little moment yet I met with the sweet savour of his precious name which was like an oyntment poured forth in all places where I travelled God was doubtless very remarkably with him for a great work was done by him in a short time as it is clearly witnessed by all good people that live there He spake the Word of God as one who was much with God and indeed he had alwaies much inward close Communion with God in secret before he revealed any thing of him or from him openly He studied the peoples distempers and found out that formality was the great epidemical disease among professors as indeed so it is every where in this declining age And he was wisely guided in the choice of such soul-searching Scriptures by which he might then separate the Sheep from the Goats the wise Virgins from the foolish which will be Christs work hereafter In a word for prolixity is not so suitable for one who now presents all upon report there being all the while he lived there a Sea betwixt him and me he was a most industrious vigilant Pastor and a most austere and self-observing Christian And this Crown of glory the Lord put upon him which few others have had the honour to wear he was like a rising Star ever to his death in a rising State increasing in spiritual height and stature every day and grew more eminent and excellent in his gifts graces labours usefulness and profitableness continually and he lived not to be at a stay much less to decline but when he was nearest heaven the Lord carried him thither He may be reckoned among the Lords Worthies of whom the world was not worthy The Lord hath taken him but his remembrance will not be so soon gone He will live while any that knew him shall live and afterwards also if the Lords blessing shall accompany the rehearsal of his life and death and his Sermons Printed in such sort as his blessing hath attended the passing and spending of his life and his dying and in the preaching of such Sermons All which were greatly sanctified to the people that beheld and heard them Now that it may be so shall be the earnest prayer of Thy real friend to serve thee in the Lord Sam. Eaton Christian READER I Never knew the Author of this Work in Person while he lived but being dead I know him by his Picture and that the Picture of his better and more noble part The first Part of this Book is formally so being a very exact draft of his whole Life and the image of his inner Man in all the Divine Colours Lights Lineaments and beauties of it Few men have found such a Penâ—il to draw them and few Pencils have found such a man to draw He was but a little while in the world but he lived long else he had never yielded true Materials for so long a History of his Life The following Parts of the Book are vertually so I mean the Picture of his better Part or the image of his mind in which though dead he yet speaketh and breatheth through every Page and Line Truth and Holiness Zeal for God and Compassion to the Souls of men his own Tasts that the Lord is Gracious and â—is longing Desires to make others partake of the same Grace which himself had tasted Read the Book and therein you have the Soul of a faithful Minister of the Gospel copied out It is an amazing Providence to see many unprofitable Drones Idol Shepherds blind Guides Men whose Graces are not at all discernable in their lives and whose gifts are sapless Spiritless and upon the matter useless in their Ministery live to old age and wither upon the Stalk while others of shining Graces of lively Gifts and of unwearied Industry in the Lords Vineyard are cropt off in the very blooming and as soon as shewed to the world called out of it
enabled me to surrender you up heartily at the â—earâ—ng of which he lifting up his hands blessed the Lord. To hâ—s wâ—fe he said haste haste Love for my time is very short and withall told his Sister I shall not reach midnight Then lifting up himfelf he said these raptures tell me I must be gone quickly The consideration of his approaching rest did wonderfully revive The Messenger of the Lord whispered him in the ear and told him his Father had sent for him home which happy tidings made his heart to â—eap for joy within him The glimmerings of the white Throne of the Lamb sitting on that Throne and of the glorious troops of Saints and Angels all in white about the I â—rone with the apprehensions and confident assurance of his bearing a part in the Musick of their Hallelujahs caused in him sublime elevations and springing exultings of spirit in a body depressed and bowed down with pinching pains and the agonies of an approaching death He is now in the Cutfields of Emanuels Land and is gotten almost to the top of the Mount and his soul impatient of delaies is ready to leap out of the crazy and declining Cottage of mouldring Flesh Paper being brought he began thus I resign my spirit into the hands of the Father of Spirits and into the bosome of my dear Lord c. To this there were but three or four lines more added for he was in haste and longed to be at home To his wife having in a very short space dispatched his Will he said Bury me in silence without Funeral Sermon I will have no manner of pomp but was perswaded to yeild to the intreaties of his wife as to a Sermon As his children were called for Doctor Winter came in to visit him who unexpectedly seeing death in his face said with a loud and lamenting voice Brother Murcot are you leaving us who with unaltered countenance said Yes and desired him to pray quickly His children being brought he said to his eldest Will Hester be a good child and serve the Lord His son being presented he expressed himself thus The Lord break thy stubborn heart When the little one hanging on the mothers brest was exposed to his sight he lift up his hands and said The Lord bless thee Being put in mind of his servants he affectionately and even smilingly looked up upon one whom he had been instrumental to convert and said Bess hath a better Master the Lord be with thee Bess The children being taken away and his wife coming to take her last leave and final farewel of him he alone lift up himself and kissed her Dr. Winter desiring an interest in his prayers he said The Lord strengthen you for the double work that now lies on you and withal desired him to pray with him which he did in a most pathetical and doleful manner groaning out his requests unto God The people though desired are loath to leave the chamber and hang so thick on the curtains bed-posts hangings doors having not the power to leave their dear and departing friend so that he is in danger of being smothered and dying before his time Drawing near his end his sister said to him Are you in charity with all the Lords people though differing from you Who lifting up his eyes affectionately said Yes She desiring him to manifest it by his last request he lifted up his hands and requested that all the Lords people might be one as his way was one Then stretching out his arms and lifting himself up he said with a loud and shrill voice Lord Jesus draw me up to thee which sweet expressions by a frequent and fervent repetition wasted his spirits so that afterwards he lay in somewhat a silent posture waiting for his change which was now neer at hand About nine of the clock he breathed out his soul into the bosom of Christ and quietly slept in the Lord. The Wednesday following being the appointed time of his interment great was the confluence of people who attended the corps unto the grave The Lord Deputy Fleetwood followed the Body after him the Council then the Maior Aldermen and Citizens in such numerous troops that the like hath not been usually seen in Dublin Dr. Winter preached his funeral Sermon on Heb. 13. 7. Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose Faith follow considering the end of their conversation Upon the face of the whole Congregation sate a black cloud of sorrow and disconsolation being not able to vent it on that doleful and uncomfortable occasion into showers The Body being brought unto the place of burial the sadned spectators and standers-by sighed him into his grave and mingling his dust with their moist tears departed and left him in his bed of rest Relation I would willing back with Exhortation A few words of spiritual advice in the close of the whole may be of use though from an inferiour hand And first to you my Brethren in the Ministry I address my self and earnestly intreate you in the bowels of Christ Jesus our Lord to remember That you are not only Church-Officers but Christians Spend not your whole time in reading books and studying other men you will do well to study your selves and to be acquainted with the frame of your own hearts The way which you point out unto others walk in your selves and conscientiously practise the duties which you pangatively press Beware of beams in your own eyes whilest you are diligently plucking motes out of your brothers eyes Let not your own cloathes be full of dust when you are brushing other mens backs It s not handsom for us to be alwaies sweeping before the doors of others and picking up the least offensive straw whilest huge heaps of dunghil filth lie before our own doors unremoved It opens the mouths of opposites when we are taken notice of to bind heavy burdens on other mens shoulders we in the mean time refusing to touch them with the least of our fingers Know we not the pleadings of many at the last day Have we not preached in thy name and in thy name cast out Devils whom yet Christ will spurn from his presence and cast forth as an everlasting abhorring What though Judas had the grace of Apostleship so long as he had not grace with his Apostleship It was a wise course that Paul took and deserving imitation who did beat down his own body lest having preached unto others he himself should become a cast-away What though Satan fall down from heaven like â—ightning before us if he be not cast out of our hearts We have more reason to rejoyce in having our names written in the Lambs book of Life then in having the Devils subject to us O whilest we passionately endeavour the salvation of others souls let us have an eye of tender regard unto our own One hint more at parting We cannot be too often put in
indeed Christ is said to have a thousand and they two hundred Sheckels the Keepers of the Vineyard that is to say a fifth part of what he hath Indeed in other goods we have less good in them and a mixture of snares specially in our time of flesh and weakness to weild them aright they are not so desirable in the highest degree David was loth to be the Kings Son in-Law Seemeth it to you a light thing to be 〈◊〉 Son in-Law to a King it is a greater burthen then yo 〈…〉 are aware of to carry it answerably to such a condition Favourites places are slippery and dangerous many envious eyes are upon them to watch their halting much ado to keep the heart humble in such a case but now this good the chief good there is no snare in the fulness of enjoyment of him but the more fully the more happy the more Grace the more Glory and therefore for a man to take up with less here is not Wisdom but folly and great weakness therefore the Apostle puts them on That they should not lose any thing of what they had wrought that they might have a full reward and so neglect not slubber not over your services be exact in them lose not so many Prayers so many Sermons so many Sacraments as you do when you do them so carelesly for want of a litle acurateness you lose them and lose of your reward for there is fruit redounding to your account in the day of Christ Eighthly It is a piece of Wisdom also for a man to make sure his title to an inheritance if worth the having who would be so fooled as to neglect this among men where the good is scarce worth the looking after now here is an inheritance incorruptible that fadeth not away an inheritance of the Saints in light and glory and is it not wisdom to make it sure not to be at uncertainties sure you will all conclude it is now this is the way and no other circumspect exact and diligent walking do all diligence it is not an idle loose profession Brethren that is accompanied with assurance no but a diligence there must be a working and working out and with fear and trembling there must be an adding to Faith Vertue c. for if you do these things ye shall not fall and an entrance abundantly shall be ministred into the everlasting Kingdom Now what wise Master of a Ship would come into his harbour tattered and torn full of leaks and ready to sink if he might come in with the sails filled in a gallant manner which he may do by an acurateness of stearing a right course to avoid the rocks and sands who would chuse to go through a narrow wicket as it were hard and sharp when he might have a wide door opened to him O brethren it is wisdom to make your calling sure every man in distrust will tell you so and when you come to die and look death in the face your souls will say that it is wisdom indeed then to have assurance well an exact walking with God is that way to procure it let men say what they will of peace and assurance while they walk loosly they must give me leave to suspect all that I know that sin will undo our peace if we carelesly fall into it For the Application of this then In the first place it may serve to wipe off that slanderoâ—s imputation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the false accuser of the Brethren and of the wayes of God and of God to us that he casts upon Religion as if it were a thing that were besotting it made men fools this is a slander the Devil hath gotten much by and therefore he useth it much men are loth to be accounted fools and think that to take upon them the strict course of Religion is the next way to it they could never have the liberty nor the free use of their wits and wisdom and policy nor the free use of the Creature nor the good that is in them any more Brethren this is false it is the greatest wisdom in the world â—ure you will say to be wise to Salvation to be wise to a little Popularity and Fame by ostentation of Science falsly so called to be wise to get a good Estate in the World to grow rich this is a poor thing Brethren but to be wise to Salvation is that will stand a man in most stead when for all his other wisdom and the effects of it he shall be at his wits end Beside indeed this is the way to be wise for a mans name for a mans Estate for his Posterity also for who is it that giveth power to get wealth is it not the Lord and is not circumspect walking before him to all wel-pleasing the way to be blessed blessed in basket blessed in store and if he blow upon it and curse it you may sow much and it will come to nothing you may put it into a bag but there are many holes out of which it will run so many lusts unhealed so many holes and for his name you are mistaken it is to be righteous their name shall be had in everlasting remembrance it shall be embalmed the name of the wicked rotteth and stinketh the remembrance of them is loathsom Wisdom it self is folly to a fool and so is the Wisdom of God to Salvation foolishness to the wise men of the World but this their way and judgement is their folly and no greater evidence of folly then to judge the ways of God foolishness Well the foolishness of God as you count it is wiser then men you think it is foolishness to spend so much time in the service of God less ado would serve the turn as the Heathen Seneca derided the Christians that they lost the seventh part of their time that is to say the Sabbath because they spent it not in the service of the world and vanity as they did and so do you when a man is diligent and exact in his times and hours spends so much time in waiting upon God you think he is a fool he will be a beggar but when you and he come to lye upon a death-bed together then tell me who is the fool as very a fool as he was thou wilt then wish thou hadst been such a fool and oh that thou mightest die his death So if some be tender and scruple at the taking an unjust gain in his trading that which others can easily swallow they think this man is a fool he will never do any good with his Trade he will be a beggar Alas they know not that a little with Righteousness with a good Conscience is better then great Revenues without Right a little with Gods Blessing which maketh rich giving contentation and giving the sweet of Mercy making them give down their sweet to them is better then much without it and
word an allegory a continued metaphor and a Parable much what of the same nature Sometimes they hold out a truth more clearly and sometimes more darkly if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only be given or laid down the truth is concluded more obscurely and lies hid under the broad leaves of the similitude As of the Sower that went forth to Sow which you know the Disciples understood not untill our Saviour had opened it to them saith he to you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom but to them it is not given therefore he speaks to them in Parables in such a manner delivering them as that thereby the truth is more shadowed though it be clear when it is explained that seeing they might see and not perceive It is a Judgement to a people to have teaching in such a manner as darkens the truth so as they cannot understand Now he explaineth it to the Disciples and sheweth them what is meant by the several sorts of ground which received the Seed the same Seed but none brought forth except one to perfection Now say his Disciples speakest thou plainly and speakest no Parables so saith he I have spoken to you in Parables or Proverbs but now I will shew you plainly of the father Now this being delivered to his Disciples privately as you have it Chap. 24. for they came privately to him to ask him the sign of his coming and when the destruction of Jerusalem should be which he had immediately before prophecyed of he continueth his speech to them throughout that Chapter and continueth it in this thererefore he speaks somewhat more plainly and clearly not only laying down the proposition but the reddition He not not only speaks of the ten Virgins but tells them what it is that is compared to them even the Kingdom of Heaven It is a field more large then ordinary and therefore that we lose not our affections in it and be not out of breath before we get over it I shall endeavour to speak with more brevity to the things therein couched which are doctrinal and practical though me thinks the great variety that is in it should prevent a nauscating of it For the cohaerence of the words you see they are a continnation of our Saviours Sermon to his Disciples occasioned by their request that he would tell them when those things should be Jerusalem should be so ruined as not a stone should be left upon a stone and what should be the sign of his comming and of the end of the world Haply they might think they would not be much separated in time and thererore they wraâ—t them up in one question to our Saviour He answers them in this Chapter somewhat to the one and somewhat to the other I cannot stand at large upon this I should detain you too long from the Text. But he tels them whatever sign were given them yet the day and hour of his coming no man did know And therefore it lay upon them to watch lest it should find him in a secure condition as in the daies of Noah c. And therefore exhorts them all to watch We know not when the thief will come be ready for him alwaies watch for he will come in an hour ye think not And then sheweth them the happy estate of a servant a faithful and wise servant whom his Master hath set as a Ruler over his houshold to give them meat in due season Which seemeth specially to concern the condition of the Disciples which were to be set over the house of God which is the Church of Christ and to break the bread of life to his people happy is that Servant whom his master when he cometh shall find so doing in the simplicity of his soul When my Saviour cometh would ye have him find me idle saith Calvin oportet episcopum concionantem mori Oh to be spent for Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 Master spare thy self was the envious mans counsel when he whispers that into Ministers ears and can lull us asleep with such a requiem he knoweth what he hath to do while they slept he sowed tares Surely brethren we have been very sleepy else there would not have been so many tares sown And he showeth them the sad condition of them if they presume upon the delay of his coming and eat and drink with the drunken and beat their fellow servants bite and devour one another Ah dear friends if Jesus Christ should now come would he not find many of us thus doing But now as he had quickened them up to watch for his appearing to be doing their work so now he inculcates the same not only upon them but upon all in the words of the Text as appears v. 13. by the application of it watch therefore for ye know not the day nor the hour wherein the son of man cometh For the scope of it which I think meet first to hint to you I conceive it to be this To stir up all that profess Jesus Christ and that have their hope not in this world but in the world to come to look to their state and condition that they be sure to be ready and prepared for him that they make sure of such a viaticum as will carry them through life and death and to persevere that they may be crowned and when they have such a state to continue watching and waiting for his appearing but the main is perseverance that they be sure to have such a work of grace wrought upon them not to rest without such I say as will hold least they fall short of the glory of God This is the general scope which being understood we must know that every particular is not to be squeezed too sore least it give blood in stead of milk And yet some interpretation of the main things we may with sobrietie as the Lord shall enable expound Our Saviour is a President expounding the Parable of the sower shewing us what is meant by the seed falling by the high-way side the stony ground the thorny and the good ground And so in that of the tares telling us who is the sower and what is the seed the good seed and the Tares and the Reapers the Angels the harvest the end of the world and the field c. And therefore by that little measure we have received of the same spirit we may humbly adventure to speak somewhat to the main things in this parable Herein is held forth to us the relation and mutual deportment of Jesus Christ to his Church and his Church to him both in this life which is the way and at death and Judgement which is the end and therefore that which concerneth him and that which concerneth the Church towards him being even as the warp and wafe of the parable we will consider them a little apart and run each of them apart to their end as far as the Lord enables
if you could as easily put by the coming of Christ as you can make a shift to smother the thoughts of it your hearts indeed might chear you and your condition were something like But he will come and though you be asleep in the Arms of your lusts know that your judgement sleepeth not and your condemnation slumbereth not And make what haste you can to be rich or to be honourable and such persons are not innocent make what hast you can in your career of sinning it travels as fast you and will be sure to meet you at the gates of death and hell if not sooner But it may be we think we have done this great work we are through grace acquainted with the Lord Jesus and his spirit which hath effectually wrought in us to believe in his name to love him the main is done with us and therefore sure we may have more liberty then others now Is it so but is this all that must go to watch for his appearing do we not find our hearts thrusting away from us that day and our hands fail and security setzeth upon us the Disciples were in danger to be surprized as well as others Is there any of us so liveth as that we could readily and cheerfully meet the Lord Jesus at an hours warning a daies 〈…〉 and who knoweth he shall have so much to set his house in order O there is need to press this duty upon us all brethren be our condition what it will we have yet somewhat to learn of it and shall have let us hear it as often as we can But I will leave what further may be said unto its proper place in the handling the Parable A word or two to the present occasion we are many of us now called to this sealing Ordinance And though we have been often stirrd up and taught our duty concerning it is there not need to chafe the oyl in upon our hearts our affections still Alas how often have we heard that what it findeth it sealeeth And yet do we not dare to come some of us with hard hearts with covetous hearts uncircumcised hearts I would not speak brethren to grieve the heart of any the Lord would not have grieved as they that have least cause will be most sadly assayling themselves with condemning thoughts but the Lord grant there be none found among us guilty kind As often as ever we come we hear how dangerous a thing it is to come unworthily prepared to it and yet the Lord knoweth how often we have thrust in here some of us without a wedding garment And that you have not been bound hand and fooe bound up in our grave-cloaths and cast out of his sight for ever it is unspeakable mercy O that this might melt us and humble us and though blessed be his holy name I believe there are many poor trembling souls who go about these things with trembling hearts least they should miscarry and grieve him and bring his blood upon their heads I doubt there may be some of us found whose hearts are far from such a frame had we not need then to be put in mind and remembrance again and again of these things It may be we have faith and love to Jesus Christ it may be we have humility and self-loathing it may be we have a mourning spirit over our sins that have grieved the Lord Jesus put him to all that grief for us it may be we have a thankful heart but are these graces now in action are they upon the wing how often have we been minded thereof that we must be actually prepared Alas alas haply some of us have not taken the pains with our hearts which we might and which others would have done if they had had the hearts which we have haply some of us have been striving but in our own strength and have done little haply others may have been helped in the preparing our hearts to seek him herein but by our pride or carnal confidence have lost our frame again It may be some of us brethren have not been very negligent but yet not so diligent as we ought O brethren how needful are these things bear with me if I do press you to them it is not tedious to me because I hope it is safe for you O! that I could do it with such a spirit and such bowels as the Apostle did the Lord set it upon all our hearts we are exceeding dull to believe and more dull to practise and do his will revealed to us Though the good be our own the glory onely his But I will not insist any further here the Lord give us understanding and believing hearts Now for the words of the Text. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to ten Virgins which went forth to meet the Bridegroom I shall begin according to the former method And first speak concerning Jesus Christ with respect to his Church And touching him there are many things in this Parable First he is the Bridegroom 2. His delay of his coming 3. The cry before his coming 4. The coming 5. The time of his coming at Midnight To begin with the first The Bridegroom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However it be that the scope of the parable be to stir up all men that profess the Lord Jesus to a perseverance in watchfulness to stand ready for his coming which being apprehended there is no necessity of pressing each particular in the parable yet I conceive according to our Saviour His opening of other parables we may insist upon the chief things therein as where HE would let us see what need we had to take heed What or How or Whom we Hear by the parable of the several sorts of Ground receiving the seed of the Word he not onely tells us the difference of the Grounds but what the seed is and who the Sower is or else in that parable of the good seed and the Tares he tells us particularly what is meant by each And therefore I must not here pass over this of the Bride-groom The Virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom The note will be The relation between the Lord Jesus and his people He is the Bridegroom and stands in that relation to his people that this is so we need go no further then this parable for who else is it that cometh and with whom they that are ready do enter into the Mâ—rriage then Jesus Christ who is our life who appearing we shall appear with him in glory Again the foolish virgins cry to him Lord Lord open to us Who is the Lord but Jesus Christ as will appear by comparing this with that speech of our Saviour Not every one that saith to me Lord Lord shall enter but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven Many will say to me Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name in whose name but in the name of Jesus Christ and in
pressing that we are capable of indeed For he setteth before us Life and Death life if we close with him death if we refuse him reject him It is not a thing wherein we may choose or refuse and no wrong to our souls no brethren but he tells us let our condition be what it will be we as dead as we may if we close with him we shall be quickned there is warmth enough in his bosom to revive us there are spirits enough in his love to fetch us again O we shall live condemnation shall be taken away for there is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ our bolts and shakles shall be removed the obligations of our souls to the Justice of God it shall cease O brethren here is the case now a poor condemned woman ready to perish the Prince hath so much compassion on her that he intreats her but to accept of him to be espoused to him promise him marriage if so he will pardon all that is past she shall have her life Is not this a pressing Argument 〈…〉 doubtless it is to such a one as this when death is even present to her before her face is ready to be turned off the Ladder and now an offer cometh O if you will but Marry the Prince you shall be saved though before she refused and the Argument had not such force in it because the thing was at a distance yet now you would think her desperate indeed that should refuse it So brethren the Lord Jesus he doth at other times yea and when the soul is as it were on the wrack upon the Ladder under strong convictions the Sentence is received and it is even going forth to execution O now here is life and death before thee wilt thou now marry me be a spouse to me saith the Prince the Lord Jesus the King of Kings Are not these pressing Arguments 2. Again another he useth is his precious blood that he hath not thought too dear for us O brethren when he beseecheth us by such an Argument as this is by the Mercies of God as the Apostle hath it will it not turn all that is within us to him If a man though but inferior to a woman should shew so much love as to expose his life to hazard for her would it not be strong a Argument when he cometh to wooe her O remember my life my blood is not dear to me that it may go well with you will not this move her there 's a heart of stone it must needs be so Why truly brother this is the Argument every time that you have Jesus Christ held out Crucified before your faces O do you not hear how every wound speaks to you as well as for you to the Father O sinners why are your hearts no more towards me have I not dyed for you my blood my life was not dear to me for your sakes If you will not believe me Behold my hands and my feet yea my sides and my heart look upon me in the Garden trace me there where it trickled down my weary body and see how I have loved you and will you still refuse me will you still think that my heart is not towards you or shall your hearts not yet be towards me Yea have I not been willing to lose the light of my fathers countenance to be under a defection to be eclipsed for you which was so much the purer though nothing so dear to me as his love and it were upon me in the greatest heat and glory and my heart most affected with it yet to suffer an eclipse for you and will you not close with me will you not be perswaded 3. Again once more in the most pressing manner and powerful he followeth us up and down with these Arguments O with what bowels how do they yâ—rn over us every step he followeth us O why will you dye why will you endure the everlasting chains to pay the uttermost further when I offer you my merits my satisfaction for all your debts Look upon him weeping over Jerusalem O Jerusalem Jerusalem O with what affection that is the edge indeed of an invitation O if he were now Preaching to you I believe brethren he would do it with bowels And so did Paul that Saint in whom grace did so abound and to him O he warned them day and night with tears O why will ye dye will ye not believe will you not close with me can you find in your hearts to slight me set light by my love that is so drawn out towards you O what love is here brethren And then with what diligence and patience often he would have done this and wayts long How many years have some of us been thus besought to close with a Crucified Christ Again secondly This may serve for ever to keep us low if love work kindly so it works it melteth down the heart the very mountains high and towring thoughts and imaginations flow at his presence you see how it humbled Abigail when David sent to woo her she bowed her self with her face to the earth and said behold let thine hand mayd be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. A Spouse to David Gods Anointed I am not worthy let me be a servant not worthy to wash his feet yea the meanest servant a servant to his servants to do the meanest offices for them to wash their feet So Ruth when Boaz took but notice of her and spake kindly of her Whence is it saith she that my Lord should take knowledge of me who am but a stranger yea thou hast spoke comfortably to me or to my heart though I be not like one of thy hand-mayds It is true the Lord would not upbraid his people with what they have been nor doth he ever do it yet they should keep it before them continually to keep them low So he saith he will betroth his people after their going a whering from him there is much in that expression and one thing among the rest is conceived to be this by Mr. Burroughs upon Hos That he would forget her former unkindness and unfaithfulness and she should be now not onely as an unfaithful wife received again but Marryed as a virgin as if she never had departed But though the Lord will not upbraid us as James saith yet we should keep upon our hearts the sense of our former vileness when the Lord first met with us in the way of his love so Paul doth I am sure God never tells them after the first time Why persecutest thou me he never told him afterward he had been a persecuter and what a blasphemous wretch he had lived But Paul by the spirit of grace and power in him he often looks upon his feet upon what he had been and that kept him in so sweet an humble frame O I am less then the least Saint Shall the thoughts of love from David
tenderly and freely ministred to a yoke-fellow as afterward by the opening of the parable it appears well now thus doth the Lord Jesus dwell with us as many as believe he cherisheth us and nourisheth us 1. He lay's his people in his bosom The Church is said to lay him between her breasts which only is an expression of her love to him not for that he needed any cherishing from thence as David did from Abishai when he was old he must have a young virgin to keep warmth in him This is the case here if we had not such cherishing from Jesus Christ alas brethren we should quickly be benummed and frozen and stiff and unfit for any service he calls us to where should the spouse in her fainting swouning fits lye but in her Husbands bosome this the Prophet setteth forth in another simile of a shepheard the Lambs that are feeble and are not able to go or drive the pace of others he puts them in his bosom saith the Text thence they may gather heat and so the Chicken from the wings of the Hen there is warmth and cherishing so the son of righteousness when they are spread over a soul there is healing and strength in them 2. But then they eat of his bread and drank of his cup when he was upon Earth you know he did eat and drink with his Disciples he desired to eat that Passover with them O blessed are they that eat bread with him at his Table in his Kingdom he speaks of drinking wine new with them that which is a refreshing to them is a refreshing to him as I may say what is the satisfaction of a soul brethren but when he eats the flesh of Christ and drinketh his blood when he feeds upon those real dainties and what is the satisfaction of Christ but to see this He shall see his Seed and be satisfied to see his mercy and his bowels the precious fruits of his death and resurrection made over to a soul to see them living by Faith upon them and eating and drinking abundantly to their souls satisfaction this is the satisfaction of the soul of the Lord Jesus also well he nourisheth them it is the Saints priviledge a man will not feed strangers continually at his Table nor enemies but when once this relation is made up this is the result O what filling is to the hungry and thirsty soul they shall be satisfied Fifthly which should have been before this he will purify his Church his spouse the more Communion he hath with her the more pure she is what is humbling in other Marriages is advancement in this blessed Marriage It is said that the virgins which were to come to King Ahashur were to purify themselves before they came to him much ado there was to purify them with oyl of Myrrh which they say was to make the skin smooth to clear the beauty to free them from Wrinckles and to keep it from decaying The sweet Odours were to make them delightful in their savour to make them lovely to the eye of a man so curious they were but the case is otherwise here Alas he is fain to put his comeliness upon us else we should not have beauty at all that he should desire us as you have it in Ezek. 16. And therefore the Apostle to the Ephesians he gave himself for his Church that he might purify it Though we were nasty sluttish lothsom creatures before the Lord Jesus will not have us continue so but wash us in that fountain opened for sin and uncleanness that Jordan with us to wash away our Leprosy And therefore he himself came by water as well as by blood Alas what should the Lord Jesus do with us bretbren if we should retain our swinish disposition to wallow in the myre and then think to come and lye down in his bosom No he cannot away with this he must wash away this disposition and hath done it for all that are his that now they shall no more delight in sin but if they miscarry now it shall be their grief as well as it is his he purifieth his people A sad word to such as yet mallow in their uncleanness a sign they have nothing to do with Christ An encouragement to poor Creatures who labour under the lothsomeness of their corruptions he gave himself that he might purifie to himself a Church he can do it he will do it his blood doth lye in pawn he will not lose the price of his blood nor shall his people lose such mercies as this which cost the heart-blood whatever they go without they shall not go without this Sixthly He will make them fruitful Marriage-communion is a fruitful communion This is the general complaint of the people of God of their barren hearts and empty lives but he will make them fruitful he will not have a barren spouse whether we speak collectively or distributively of the Church of Christ Collectively Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all a way that is barren and God doth not own with bringing in souls to Jesus Christ hath cause to fear whethether in such a constitution they be the Church of Christ yea or no It is true the Gentiles before they were marryed had no children and the Jews that were the marryed wife when God was casting her off grew very barren but now more are children of the unmarryed then of the marryed woman saith the Lord. But it is clearer to us to speak distributively he will make us fruitful When a man is marryed to the Law which is the strength of sin as the Apostle calls it O how fruitful is he in works of darkness and shall not Jesus Christ be as vigorous and fruitful a husband as the Law can be and sin can be Let Sarahs womb be as dead as it may yet he can make her fruitful Let a mans heart be as dead to good works as you can imagine he can renew strength again as he did Abrahams and Sarahs If he speak the word a green tree is withered if he speak the word a barren tree is fruitful the Apostle his expression we are dead to the Law saith he and so free from our former husband that we might be marryed to another even to Jesus Christ that you might bring forth fruit unto God see what riches of fruitfulness or seeds of it are in the womb of that one Text God is able to make all grace abound towards you that ye alway having all-sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work minde you here is good works and abounding in them that is more yea in every good work good works of all kinds and abounding in them all And whence cometh this he is able to make grace abound towards you though if you had but a Cistern you might be drawn dry or the stream yet there is a fountain which continually overfloweth he is able to make grace abound
Rejoyce in the Lord saith the Apostle and again I say rejoyce it is a duty of that moment he cannot leave it he goeth over and over with it do not think I am mistaken when I bid you rejoyce because happily your condition may be afflicted other ways again I say rejoyce I am still of the same mind The Lord Jesus rejoyceth over you as sad thoughts as you have concerning your selves he rejoyceth over you he is glad to communicate his love and shall not we rejoyce then in the receiving of it Can the Children of the Bride-chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them saith our Saviour it is not sutable to their condition when he shall be taken away then they shall mourn I deny not Brethren but if the Lord do withdraw himself we should lament after him and seek him sorrowing as Mary the Mother of Jesus did and the more love we have received if we grieve him this will be the more grief of heart but if you that have his presence in a sweet manner and yet hang the head and droop as if our joyning to the Lord had been the undoing of our souls So pensively and sadly we many of us walk that indeed we are a shame and dishonour to the Lord Jesus If you should see a Virgin espoused to a man and should from that day forwad never hold up her head but walk heavily what would you think sure she apprehends she hath made an ill choice her expectations are frustrated therefore Brethren look to it that we rejoyce if the Children of the Bride-chamder cannot mourn but rejoyce to hear the voice of the Bridegroom much more then the Bride The Lords takes pleasure in the prosperity of thy soul and why shouldst not thou â—ake pleasure in the prosperity of thy own soul being made one with Jesus Christ 5. Look to it that you be faithful to the Lord Jesus as a Bride when once espoused if she turned aside to another it was death they were looked upon as in a marryed state and condition indeed the truth is when the Lord hath truly espoused his soul to himself he hath done it in faithfulness and maketh the soul faithful to him that in the great Article of the Covenant they never deal falsly with Jesus Christ that is to say they choose not another Saviour another Lord under whose dominion to put themselves constantly yet there may be sometimes to Jesus Christ even in his own people If that once it cometh to this that we imbrace sin and consent to it and take any delight in it this is to play the harlot with Jesus Christ O take heed of this brethren indeed the heart is all that he looks at how we stand affected to those evils which yet remain if Paul have a body of death yet he delights not in it but groans being burtheued this he accounts not unfaithfulness but when a mans heart beginneth to sit loose from the Lord Jesus to be almost indifferent he could sometimes in a fit of wretched carnality be content to have another Lord to rule over him to be free from Christ O! this the Lord looks at and he will search out this will move him to jealousie therefore take heed of this a woman may do as much service and seemingly as readily to her husband as before but yet her heart be gone and she could be contented to be loose this is heart-Adultery this the Lord Jesus in us brethren looks at as such if we serve him and do duties but in such a manner that we could even be contented to be at liberty it is not right take heed of provoking the Lord Jesus lest it prove in the end that he never knew us indeed Labour to be faithful then in this in the main Again In managing all he puts into our hands be faithful The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her It is the commendation of a woman of a thousand in the Proverbs she will be improving It may be you have not so much to turn as others have others have ten times more parts and opportunities to do good let them look to it they have ten times as much to answer for and must do ten times as much but thou mayst be as faithful in a little as they in a great deal One servant is a Steward in the family hath all under his hand and another he is a poor under-servant hath some mean service committed to him why now he may be as faithful in his place as the other in his Moses was faithful in all the house of God he had a great command Caleb might be as faithful for what was committed to him following God fully as the Text hath it say not then If I were a Magistrate a Minister a publike person had such opportunities to do good I might do much but I am an obscure person Well be thy condition what it will be thou mayst do good and be faithful in thy place according to what thou hast received thy lips may drop like a hony-comb and feed many and like choice silver and inrich many though thou be never so mean and so for the Family and up and down where ever thou comest look that thou be faithful to do all from Jesus Christ and to do all to him that thou rob him not of the glory of what he hath done for thee and by thee for then thou art not faithful 6. Another Exhortation shall be then to desire the coming of the Bridegroom the Spirit and the Bride say come the spirit in the bride breathing in her as it is in the Revelation they say come We looke upon the day of death as if it were the day of divorce from the Lord Jesus for the most part truly for them that are out of Christ it is no marvel if it be a King of terrors to them but to the Saints me thinketh who look for the appearing of the Lord Jesus to consummate the marriage between them it should not be so terrible as it seemeth to be to the most of us and to this end take ye here brethren at the marriage feast he turns our water into wine but in heaven our wine into spirits and setteth them a flaming our love flaming to all eternity 7. Exhortation which is to look to our Ornaments to get them ready why do we hang back but because we are not ready we have somewhat or another unready still our work is not done can a maid forget her Ornaments or a Bride her attire yet my people have forgotten me As a Bride adorneth her self with her Jewels so he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness Eleazer put jewels upon Rebecca before she came to Isaac and therefore the spouse is called Callah in the Original because of her perfect adorning therefore look to this brethren that you be adorned O every
in the Gospel who put off the day of death so long thou hast goods laid up for many years Eat drink and be merry I but what was there laid up for eternity was there any Grace laid up to carry him through death no not a jot thou fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee and then whose shall these things be these are things which in themselves are not either they take wings and are gone as a flock of Birds in a mans ground or else they are taken from them and leave them to they know not whom for naked must they return thither to the grave which Job had in his mind and happily pointed at it in that speech he was a fool that put off the thoughts of death for many days upon the greatness of his riches which could not profit him in the day of wrath nor day of death neither but now this wisdom if the heart be applyed to it will provide somewhat that will carry them through they will provide some oyl in the vessel that shall not fail somewhat to follow them when they are dead to enter with them into the Marriage of the Lamb A man may number his days and think of his death and wish it much yet if God teach him not to make this use of it it will not be O therefore beg of him such a heart so to number them as that you may apply your hearts to this wisdom if death be so near eternity at hand there is entering with him into the Marriage or being shut out for ever O what need had we then to bestir our selves get this oyl this grace in the heart for indeed we shall find brethren though we may live by a form we cannot dye by a form of Godliness but it must be the Power of it that must carry us through death It may be a further Instruction to us then surely there must be a great change in us to this true wisdom for alas we are born like wild Asses Colts none more stupid An Ass a wild Ass a wilde Asses Colt what more brutish now this must be a wonderful change to make such a man wise to salvation but what is too hard for the grace of the Almighty we are fools by nature and yet we have a conceit we are wise affect wisdom and because we would be wise we easily believe we are so self-love bribing our judgements also but now when God cometh to work in us he emptieth us of our own wisdom first and our conceit of wisdom rather for indeed the wisdom of the flesh and the world is foolishness with God but the conceit of wisdom is much this must be captivated those high thoughts and we must become fools that we may be wise there must he a great change indeed which alas many a Professor never had experience of Be not satisfied nor contented then to use the Ordinances of God which are the means more remote from the end until you find and feel that the Lord Jesus doth in them embrace your souls and your souls embrace him until you feel this oyl poured into your hearts until you find your selves changed into his image your hearts coming in to a better frame thereby and kept in a holy frame thereby in some measure is it not better to try now then he tried by his hand at death when there is no place to get it c Alas you will say how shall we know we have this oyl of grace in our hearts It is a notable way Brethren to know it by the overflowing of it when it abounds you shall see it as it is set forth the presses burst out with new wine then it discovers it self the reason why we see it not nor cannot see it is because we have yet so little of it thought it be a Well springing up to eternal life yet while it is low and much mud it is hard to discern it but doth it spring up when the vessel is filled with oyl you shall see it is there and have the comfort of it O but this is little comfort to them that are weak you will say Why press forward forget the things which are behind Slothfulness and Ease are not the way of comfort and peace but the diligent hand which maketh rich Again ye know grace is set forth by oyl as it softens and sweetens so we shall find that operation of it in the soul doth it change thy nature from harsh and crooked and perverse to sweet and gentle this is a fruit of this spirit a consequent of this annointing And so it will be uppermost what it is that lies highest in thy soul which thou liftest up Is it this Hast thou ever been upon serious examination and dost thou make God thine end thy happiness Canst thou say Whom have I in heaven but thee c the world is not thy end And then for Jesus Christ dost thou close with him hast thou ever believed rouled thy self upon him by faith receiving him and the spirit by faith this is the oyl here is a fountain a cruse that will never fail a spring springing up to eternal life Verse 5. While the Bridegroom tarryed they all slumbered and slept THe Coming of Christ is compared to the coming of a Bride-groom to take his Bride who cometh with the Virgins her Companions to meet him Now these solemnities used to be performed at the beginning of the night but here in the Prothesis of the similitude it seemeth which was more then usuall he delayed until midnight he came not at the time expected and they were ready for his coming and going out to meet him but he came at a time they looked not for him when their waiting was at an end they fell asleep and then the Cry goeth before him behold he cometh You have heard already who is the Bridegroom Jesus Christ Here we have his coming the delay of it and the occasion which the wickedness of some and the weakness of others took from hence to fall asleep It was abused for an occasion to the flesh A double Note from the words but of the first only at this time The Lord Jesus doth delay his coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall a little prove it by some Scriptures parallel and then open the terms confirm it by Arguments and apply it by use to our selves 1. Then for the Scripture-proof take that place where our Saviour stirreth up his disciples to watch they knew not what hour their Lord cometh of which hereafter if the Lord will Blessed is that servant which being set over the houshold to give meat in due season shall be found so doing but now if the wicked servant say in his heart my Lord delayeth his coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and begin to beat his Fellow-servants and eat and drink with the drunken here you see there is a delay and from hence this wicked servant
tardiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who reckon it according to Days and Months and Years and Ages no saith the Apostle alas a thousand years are but as one day to the Lord to eternity eternity doth not bid us with the unjust Steward sit down and write 50 for an 100 but a thousand for one 366000 for one for it is to one day that a thousand years are compared to in eternity and so one day as a thousand years it is as long as a thousand years with him which we cannot conceive of because we are not able to reach to eternity Now if Sentence against an evil doer be deferred but a day we count this a swift witness against such a mans sin as in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death but if it be a thousand years it is all one with God So that though to us poor finite Creatures who number actions according to days and months it may seem a delay yet to God it is not for all times past present and to come are present to him it is but one eternal nunc or now and therefore there is no delay in that respect 2. Yet further there is no delay but he cometh quickly suddenly very speedily in another respect Because he doth not stay longer then the appointed time Hab. 2. 3. the vision is for an appointed time it will not tarry then we are said to delay properly when there is a time prefixed for such a thing and we keep not touch but stay longer this is properly delaying Now you know there is a day appointed wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained there is a a day an hour which no man knoweth indeed and therefore men but do proclaim their vanity in guessing at it the times and seasons it is not meet for us to know which the Father hath kept in his own power Well then this day now he will not out-stay not a day longer will he stay but come quickly very speedily the very self same day as the very self same day he came to deliver Israel and to judge their Enemies The people might indeed think it long whiles they were in bondage groaning that he delayed his comin yet he did not for if the day appointed before had come sooner he had delivered them sooner he keeps touch to a day 3. He doth not delay his coming that is to say so as to omit the season of it for every thing is beautiful in its season there is a season to suffer the enemies of his Church to ride over their heads and there is a season to bring them under their feet again and give them their necks to trample upon there is a season to permit them to eat up his people as they eat bread and to make themselves drunk with the blood of the Saints and there is a season to give them blood to drink for they are worthy You know if a man omit his season for any thing he may never have another he is lookt upon as a slack negligent person as now he that puts off his gathering of harvest from Summer to winter so to day if you will hear his voice there is a time limited a season of getting grace which if omitted and put off by delays we shew much hardness of heart and little wisdom to think we shall do that to morrow which we have not heart to to day men think God is slack when indeed he is onely patient and they are ignorant and see it not but for the season he doth it most opportunely for his own glory and the good and salvation of souls as will appeare in the Arguments of the Doctrine But I will not anticipate my self 4. He doth not delay as some men may count delays or slackness as if he would never come they are ready to think because judgement is not speedily executed â—ush the Lord seeth not he regardeth not what they do he watcheth not over their sin he will not bring them into judgement for these things and so think he is just such a one as themselves Why because when they are offended happily except they take revenge when they are moved at the first they forget it afterwards and never set themselves in cold blood to it though many mens malice is much more durable a little tract of time will not do it out though we should go to school as children in this respect but I say If it be not presently we judge the Lord and measure him by our own thoughts if he hold his hands for any while our hearts are fully set in us to do wickedly we are ready to think he will not come at all to witness against our wickedness or formality and luke-warmness in his ways but thus he will not delay And so much for the Negative Secondly then for the Affirmative In what sense he is said to delay his coming and 1. In respect of the long time between his first and second coming his appearing it is long enduring many ages and generations many believers dying in faith and not receiving this promise of his second coming as those did who were before his first coming they lookt for him from age to age and the Prophets searched what and what manner of sins those were which they spake of they did a little pierce into them as much as they could they might think it long that the promise made to Adam so many ages before should yet be unfulfilled And so the coming of Christ the second time it is long between 1600 years already but this is not so properly a delaying but surely his delaying of his coming is to be understood according to our apprehensions of it and not according to his determinations who hath appointed the time and staies not a jot longer and hath appointed it according to the Counsel of his own will with admirable wisdom in the best season 2. Then he is said or may be said to delay his coming because our daies are short and we are ready to reckon upon it according to our daies it is many daies indeed and many years before he cometh to take a poor weary soul to himself and because he is poring upon the daies and upon the years and moneths therefore he thinketh it is very long and tedious the delay and therefore the Apostle doth meet with this covertly in that of Peter be not ignorant of this one thing saith he that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day Alas if we number by daies which are short and nothing it will seem a delay indeed but if we look upon eternity wherein a thousand years are but as a day then it is but short but this is understood by the opposition it hath to that which went before therefore the less of it here 3. Because of the
shortness of our patience alas it is very short the Apostle to the Hebrews doth exhort them to hold out against persecutions to hold fast their confidence which hath recompence of reward Alas but it is tedious thus to run through fire and water to have wave upon wave and billow upon billow why it is true saith the Apostle But you have need of patience that when you have done his will you might receive the promise the promise of his coming the apearing of Christ who is our life Alas but can we endure it O it is long No saith the Apostle for yet a little while and he that shall come will come do not think it long think not he is slack he will not tarry O brethren a man under a hard bondage groaning as the Israelites did in Egypt thinketh every day seven until he be delivered and therefore the Prophet exhorts them to wait for the vision which was for an appointed time it would not tarry by the medicine you may gather the nature of the malady it was impatience under their bondage and trouble and therefore you find so many sad complaints in the Psalmist how long Lord c. how long wilt thou forget me for ever c. and so the souls under the Altar how long Lord holy and true wilt thou not avenge our blood And so under spiritual pressures suppose temptations from without or inward pressures a body of sin and death we are ready to cry out how long Lord how long How did Job long for death he had such wearisom nights and moneths of vanity when God made him possess the iniquities of his youth Well in this respect also he may be said to delay according to our apprehensions 4. In respect of the importunity of our desires as well as impatientcy under afflictions this is an impatiency too and might be a branch of the other but a man that hath not that pressure upon him yet if he be deeply in love with Jesus Christ and with his appearing O how importunate are his desires after it so that as the Apostle calls it there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a looking out after it with a neck or head stretched out as a man that looks for a thing stirring up himself stretcheth out his neck lifteth up his head that he may see as far as he can looking many a wishly look after the thing he desires or person he desires The proverb is true in this case etiam celeritas in desiderio mora est And in this case now a man is ready to think there is a delay when there is most swiftness when God is a most swift witness for or against such a person our desires run before it usually and so it seemeth to slack and come behind O when shall I come and appear before him in Sion Not only Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart c. but O how long wilt thou thou keep me prisoner in this Tabernacle of clay Now in all these respects he may be said to delay his coming but so much for the opening of the Doctrine Now for the Arguments I shall speak a little to them And the First may be this The time is appointed for his coming he hath appointed a time wherein c. which he will not anticipate so neither will he stay beyond it the Second shall be this it is to excercise his peoples patience to inure them to bear patience works experience and experience hope the richer the patience is the richer the experience is and the nearer we come to a full assurance of hope the riches of it Now the exercise of patience the spirit breathing in it to his people is that whereby it groweth and increaseth with the increases of God the patience of the Saints is one of their greatest exercises and therefore the Lord takes much pains with his people to make this jewel in their Crown shine gloriously Consider the patience of Job c. behold here is the patience and faith of the Saints and in another place it is ushered in with a Behold Now God will have our patience have its perfect work be as long and as broad as the tryals are And therefore he delaies his coming in that sense as you have heard this waiting for the reward after we have done the will of the Lord is harder then the other of bringing forth fruit with patience Another ground shall be 3. That the measure of the sufferings of Christ may be filled up in us the Apostle is said to fill up in his body the measure of the sufferings of Christ that is to say there is a proportion of sufferings for the body of Christ to undergo and he in his body filled up his measure in a great part not as if they were more righteous but his people being so nearly united to the head as that they and he make one Christ therefore the sufferings of his people are called the sufferings of Christ now there is a means to be filled up and this he will have filled because these less afflictions which are but for a moment they work out saith the Apostle not meritoriously a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory he was made perfect through sufferings and so must his sâ—ns which he bringeth to glory be made perfect through sufferings and drink of the brook in the way and so lift up their heads suffer with him and then be glorified with him now if there were not such a time as we count a delaying of his coming there would be no room for this 1. That the fulness of Christ may come in for there is a fulness of Christ as the Apostle cals it both of Jews and Gentiles as the several members of his body make up the fulness of his body and it is not compleat if any of them be wanting there is some of its perfection wanting indeed it is a glorious honour he puts upon the Saints and dear affections he sheweth and a near union that he accounteth himself not perfect without them until they be come in so this is the answer the importunate cry of the souls under the Altar receive how long Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge us and judge our enemies there were white robes given them and it was said to them they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren also which should be killed as they were should be fulfilled If a man bid many guests to a Feast they must stay until they all come to sit down together As Christ is imperfect that is to say without his fulness with his body so is the soul in a sort without its body and as the Lord desires the work of his hands as Job speaks touching the Resurrection thou shalt call and I shall answer c. the soul may desire also that work of his hands to be re-united
though it be delayed and you know not how soon it will come upon you Now your waiting must be of another sort 1. With fear and trembling that which a man fears he expecteth in some sort as well as what he hopeth for O that this dreadful sound were but in the ears of Sinners wherever they went there is a day coming which will pay for all your pleasures of sin when God shall pluck your sweet morsels out of your belly and turn your stolen waters and bread eaten in secret which were pleasant and sweet to you into the poyson of Asps O do not say you are at an agreement with hell and with the grave for alas that agreement shall be broken the grave shall receive you and reserve you for this day of wrath and then give you up it will not hide you from the wrath of the Lamb hell will open for you Faelix trembled when Paul disputed of righteousness and temperance and judgement to come this day of Christs coming how terrible will it be to foolish Virgins O that all such would tremble before the Lord fear it fear it it is coming upon you it lingers not he is not slack 2. In order hereto you must labour to believe it it is an Article of our faith we profess the resurrection of the dead which is either to life or condemnation and thou that livest in sin canst expect no other but a resurrection to Condemnation But alas men do not believe this Devils are afraid of that day to which they are reserved in chains of darkness when they shall have their full cup given them to drink Ah dear friends that the Lord would single out such as he would perswade this day from the terrors of the Lord to fly-from this wrath to come to make ready for this day that is a coming wherewith I shall wind up all I shall say to this doctrine The last word therefore is of Exhortation since Jesus Christ doth delay his coming That we would make good use of the time he giveth us time and space to repent The people of God they have need to make use of this time have we not work enough to do before we can expect to be glorified with him how many of us have a world of iniquity to subdue how far are we from being as little children in malice and humility such we must become our Course is far from being finished O brethren Jesus Christ will adopt us to himself and we by the Spirit are to do it that we may be meet spouses to him then it will appear that we desire his coming indeed if we lay out all your might to prepare for it if the heart be â—luttish and so we let it lie if we neglect our ornaments are careless put them not on be not decking our selves how can we say we love his appearing even the appearing of the Bride-groom But then 2. How much more have Sinners to do It is true he delays his coming and so he hath a great while in respect of thee how many years hath he waited upon thee to be gracious to thee and yet thou are where thou wast at first Ah dear friends if Jesus Christ find you that profess his name in your blood at that day what will become of you Will you have time to repent if you repent not it will not be the time of love but of displeasure it had been better for you you had never had such warning O do not despise the riches of his goodness and long-sufferings towards you O consider your ways and the Condition of your souls at the last and turn to the Lord your God with all your hearts and not feignedly close with Jesus Christ get oyl into your Lamps and into your vessels for why will ye die why should that day come upon you before you are ready for it O make hast Brethren you are this day warned to fly that is to say with all speed to haste away from the wrath to come for judgement lingers not it will not stay beyond the appointed time even your own appointed time for the number of your moneths are with God it will not stay a jot longer now you do not know whether this may be the day the night this Sabbath the last this warning the last therefore lay hold upon the opportunity O that the Lord Jesus would seize but upon some of our hearts that we might make a good Vse of this delay And O bless his name and let us all admire his goodness to us that he doth delay his coming that we have time and space to repent to work out our salvation in and that until all the fulness of Christ be come in It is his long-suffering not willing we should perish but come to repentance O that we were thus wise that we could thus consider our latter end But so much for this Doctrine THEY ALL SLVMBRED AND SLEPT Here I say you have the occasion which the flesh took from the delay or carrying of Christ to slumber and sleep all of them both wise and foolish Some have understood it of the sleep of death that they al dyed good as well as bad but this cannot be so for it is not true understand the coming of Christ which way you will If for his coming to the universal judgement it is not true for all shall not sleep but some shall be changed as the Apostle hath it If we understand it of his particular coming to summon us to appear before him It is less true for when the summons cometh it is before we dye Death indeed is his Messenger or Serjeant and therefore they are not dead before he cometh to fetch them besides it is not so usual to set forth death by a double expression of slumbring and sleeping but rather sleeping onely Besides this slumbring and sleeping here is noted as a failing in the wise virgins as well as the foolish if I understand it aright for it is the privation of that watchfulness which is injoyned and wherewithall is wound up in the close and by this parable he sheweth us the sad inconveniences of sleeping and slumbring and the incidency of it to us and therefore exhorts us to watch Now sure to dye is not any fault when we are called to it but an appointment of God for us to dye to submit to which to be willing to which is a grace and not a sin Again in this parable there seemeth to be some time for the getting of oyl or at least for them to use some endeavours to get it though it be in vain which may be indeeed after a summons to death there may be some little time which a hypocrite may think to improve to get grace though it prosper not but after death there remaineth nothing but judgement The particular first and afterward the general The time of their sleeping is considerable indeed
must needs perish God will not be merciful to them Isa 27. He hath a controversie because there is no knowledge of God in the Land Hos 4. and where no vision is the people perish they perish for want of knowledge which cometh by vision and yet it is not knowledge alone will stand them instead the Devils are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that for their knowledge and yet are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their malice thou mayst have enough then to light thy Lamp and yet have no Oyl in thy vessel remember this Secondly A Hypocrite may have not only knowledge but his affections may be stirred also he may be warmed in the Lamp before it be extinguished there was heat as well as light Some have light without heat such are meer notions others have heat without knowledge and this is not good so far but the Hypocrite he may have light and he may have heat and affection also and yet be a foolish Virgin when all is done Let me speak a little to some affections among many others which they may have As 1. They may have sorrow for sin being convinced of it and what it exposeth them unto How doth Darius when he had signed the Decree against Daniel and his kingdom lay at stake his people would rebel if he executed not the Decree he laboured to deliver him he was sorry for what he had done and he could not rest nor sleep that night and early in the morning cometh with a lamentable tone to him O Daniel servant of the living God art thou yet alive There may be a spirit of bondage to fear or witnessing to a man that he is in a condemned state which is not succeeded with a Spirit of Adoption Sinners you may have your Consciences so galled sometimes with the Law that you cannot rest but cry out of sin O sin sin what a bitter thing is sin yea so far may this sorrow prevail that it may make you vomit up your sweet morsel make you make restitution with Judas God may so fire the Coal you cannot hold it in your bosom any longer the fire of Gods wrath upon Judas even melted his pieces they were too hot for him to hold and yet but a Judas still And I tell you brethren this is much a strong effect of those troubles 2. There may be some desires and seemingly earnest desires after things really good and which bring to salvation as those there in that place of John were they not much affected when they cried out Lord evermore give us of this bread As very a wretch as Balaam was yet he had his wishings and wouldings O that I might die the death of the righteous c. O how beautiful are his Tabernacles c. he seemeth to be taken with them or desires to enjoy that communion and fellowship with them in their Ordinances how beautiful are they And the young man in the Gospel had he not good desires and is it not said our Saviour loved him for that good that was in him though not with that special love of pitty to save him that we read of his desires carried him out far and yet never reach heaven I doubt not brethren but many of us this day have sometimes some good desires and you would have it go well with your souls you may cry out sometimes with the multitude O Lord evermore give us this bread you would be loath to part with the Ordinance of Christ it is good but all this may be in you and yet you may be hypocrites foolish Virgins O that you could lay it to heart 3. There may be also some hope we read often in Job of the hope of the Hypocrite he hath certainly an hope for heaven else he would never be at so much pains as many a Hypocrite is at as you shall hear afterward would the foolish Virgins think you have done so much as they did if they had not had a hope when hope expireth all endeavour giveth up the ghost with it 4. There may be also a joy and delight in holy things as those that kindled a fire of their own in that place of Isaiah saith the Text They walk in the sparks of their own fire that is to say they delight themselves in it And surely brethren the Galathians when they would have pluckt out their eyes for the Apostle they had no ordinary rapture upon them and yet alas how did they apostatize some of them And is is not sad to see in our days many that the Ministers of Jesus Christ whom he hath made instruments of God to their souls they have been as dear to them as their eyes and what is it come to with many of them are they not come to cast off all what shall we think brethren of such in such cases According to the hope so is the joy if the hope be sound so is the joy if the hope be false so is the joy which springs from it the Lord hinders it not haply doth not damp and overcast the soul and O how Satan endeavours to water such a plant as that is for what more available to lay a soul asleep then this he hath joy in holy things this is an high attainment indeed they take delight in approaching to God And we read in Heb. 6. that such as fall away may have a taste of the joy of the world to come such a temporary faith the light of it doth convince and shew us things worth the rejoycing in and then a false hope of a title to them when it is no such matter it will raise the spirit to rejoyce Well this is no ordinary pitch of affections and yet but a Hypocrite the stony ground received the word with joy and they rejoyced in John Baptists light for a season Thou art unto them as one that hath a pleasant voice c. 5. There may not onely be those affections and others but the fervor of them a mans affections may seem to be boyled up to a great height Zeal for God seemeth to be much this is Jehu his case how hot and zealous was he for God and so Judas seemed very zealous of good works when he would have had the box of oyntment spilled Ananias and Saphira seemed to have more heat of love then others to sell their possessions to be with the forwardest and yet you see what became of them and so may we brethren Not but that zeal is exceedingly to be commended and lukewarmness is the most loathsom temper to the Lord he will spue such a man out of his mouth yet there may be this fire which is not of Gods kindling The false Apostles did zealously affect those Christians to whom the Apostle writeth they seemed to be men of more then ordinary love and warm affections to their souls but yet they were but false Apostles they did it enviously to work the Apostle
is wonderful ready to help in such a case above what we can conceive for it is he indeed in case of such backslidings that puts words into his peoples mouths when they have nothing to say and cannot look up nor hold up the head for shame nor look their God and Father in the sace they have so grieved him and shamed their profession yet then the Lord puts words into their mouths in that fourteenth of Hosea It is the very case of the Prodigal for he was a Son and therefore calls God Father in his return denyeth not the relation nor calls it in question notwithstanding his unworthy carriage towards him but he had mispent all as sadly as thou hast done likely and yet when he came and returned his Eather giveth him the meeting and runs and falls upon his neck and kiseth him and was ready to make up all again therefore go to him be earnest with him and see if he make not your Lamps to shine again gloriously and swallow up that glory in his greater glory his presence for ever Verse 8. And the foolish said unto the wise give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are gone out IN this Verse we have another part of the Parable wherein we have upon the awakening of the conscience of these hypocrites and formal professors and the discovery of their condition their request to the godly their Application of themselves to them and the reason of that request The request Give us of your oyl the reason of it for our Lamps are gone out The reason being first in order of nature as the cause of the other the root from whence the request doth spring we will begin to speak a little to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are extinct or they are going out and yet we have not a supply to keep them alive they are gone and for their own part they had no oyl in their vessel to do it with the Note from this Clause is An hypocrites profession will not carry him through all Conditions These foolish Virgins made a shift to satisfie themselves and blind the world with their Lamps which they carryed and went as far with them a great while as the wise did but the end is that which differenceth persons conditions as the Holy-Ghost speaks by the Psalmist Mark the perfect man behold the upright the end of that man is peace he doth not say mark the perfect man for in his life time he hath such a distinguishing Character his life is peace and the other is trouble No but the end whatever his life hath been before his end is peace This is a clear case his profession will not carry him through all conditions and that for these two reasons One of them will be sure to meet with them all for either 1. Their profession fails them before the day of death and so carries them not through or else 2. At death First then ordinarily I think it is a truth that a formality or profession of Christianity if there be no more doth fail a man and is discovered to others and to himself so that though he hath rested upon it and made it his hope heretofore yet now it fails him Here you see it is the very case when the cry came to prepare them to awake them that they might fit themselves for his appearing which is infinite mercy that he did not rather surprise them while they were in this sleep and security Now I say before the Bridegroom himself came actually to fetch them that were ready it is discovered to themselves and they see they are hypocrites And it is discovered to others that their Lamps are gone out they are themselves made the Publishers of their own shame therein You know Judas was discovered unmasked before his death and laid open to be what he was indeed a thief a wretch a traytor And so those many Disciples that followed Jesus Christ he knowing their hearts not to be right delivered such a trying word as gave them offence and they went backward and walked with him no more And the Reason of this is very plain Because they have not a spring within to feed their profession As far as the spring they have or the wet or mire they move by little as far as that will carry them they will go but then not a step further A beast and a servant or a child follow a man the one followeth him for a bottle of hay so soon as he laies that down before him he goeth no further after him but the son followeth him home and will not be shut out by any means As haply now while Religion thrives he will be on the Sun-side of the hedge where it is warmest he is a Summer-bird suppose now a time of tribulation come for the word sake will he abide No he withers as the sandy ground in the 13. Matth. Will he delight himself in the Almighty and alway call upon God No their profession are like Jobs friends deceive him in the day of trouble as a brook and as the stream of a brook they pass away like a loud flood make a great shew run very fiercely carry all before it for a time but it is presently dryed up because it hath no spring to feed it as some note that in Peru there is a diurnal-River which runs in the day with a great stream but in the night the channel is dry because in the day the Sun melteth down the Snow upon the Mountains and that maketh a great stream but in the night it ceaseth In grace now it is otherwise there is a principle within there is the Spirit of grace dwelling in the hearts of Believers and this supplyeth them continually there is a new nature and that is a thing durable But Secondly If it fail not before death as here it doth yet some passions being longer then some Joas◠held out long yet he was discovered before death but suppose they continue longer yet usually they will not carry them through death men may make a shift to live by a form but they cannot dye by a form indeed affliction opens many mens eyes to see that they were but rotten counterfeit gold will not endure the fire or not the seventh fire at least fire is of a searching nature and yet notwithstanding some they pass this tryal and are not discovered until death and then it fails them If Balaam dye his own death and not the death of the righteous what a miserable creature will he be And death doth open many mens eyes O what labouring is there then many times to be spared a little that they may recover strength before we go hence and be no more seen All the life time they thought all was well but now they find they are deceived their Lamps are gone out O brethren the valley of the shadow of death is full of such damps as every Lamp will not
endure every profession will not abide but it overcometh them But haply they may go down quietly and go away with confidence in their conscience a strange confidence have many poor blinded hypocrites whose consciences are seared Yet Thirdly Be sure brethren It will not carry them through the Judgement after the death the Judgement we may make a shift to pass through this world and haply delude our selves and think all is well and through death and yet never dream of our misery but if we be hypocrites be sure that a form will not endure to appear in Judgement before the ever lasting burnings the consuming fire There the Lord will examine mens hands what ever their professions have been and their hearts as it is said of Tiberius when he examined a fellow that pretended to the Crown he was so confident and cunning he could not trap him in his words at last he examined his hands and finding them hard with labour he found him to be but a servile mechanick fellow he was then so startled saith Mr. Caryl that he had no more to say So the Lord will examine mens works then and the principles of their works from which they acted and they shall be forced to confess they are hypocrites and their mouthes shall he everlastingly stopt depart from me ye workers of iniquity you tell me ye have preached in my name or prophesied c. let me see your hands you are workers of iniquity For the Application then What a terrible word to all formal professors who have only a Lamp a form of godliness but deny the power of it in heart and in their conversations Let all such if any such be here present know First Your profession will fail you sooner or later You think when you have done so many duties you have acquired such gifts and such supposed graces of the spirit and 〈…〉 w all is well these are enough to lift you up to heaven a Tower a Ladder that will reach to heaven But alas it is not so it is but a Castle builded in the air they are lying words you trust in who cry The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these You are his people and have his Ordinances a fine web a spider weaves takes great pains spins it out of her bowels but alas it never cometh to any thing it will not make a garment to cover their nakedness from the Lord Jesus Hypocrites rest in a formality and some observances of the Law as if it were their hope that should secure them from all storms and injuries whatsoever but alas it will not these things will fail Secondly Is it not worthy observation also that an hypocrite if he go to decay in this life his hypocrisie be discovered he decaies quickly suddenly more suddenly then another man ordinarily therefore he is compared to a Bull-rush that withers before any other plant when they are once blasted cursed as God doth curs them many times alas the next day they are gone and withered as the tree that was dryed up by the root which the Disciples wondered at a sad thing to-have leaves without fruit a form without power the withering curse doth light upon them soonest sooner then prophane persons and how quickly are they withered they are like the grass upon the house top that withereth before it groweth up Thirdly It will be sure to sail a man when he hath most need of it as in the hour of temptation the hour of affliction the hour of death and the hour of judgement in all these usually it fails as a man standing him in no stead◠as the brooks run in the winter when there is no need of them but in Summer when the traveller is ready to perish for thirst then are they dryed up in that place of Job Like the Apples of Sodom if a man come to touch them would be refreshed by them they turn to dust poor creatures think they have faith until an hour of temptation or affliction when they should act it then they have none So they think they have love and bowels but when an opportunity is offered and they have most need of them then they fail like the house there in Matth. 7. It was builded as fair to see to as another as the wise mans house and served him while it shone upon his Tabernacle but when once the storms arose the winds came and the waves beat against it alas it fell and great was the fall thereof Fourthly that which will set an edge upon all the former is the sad disappointment of the hypocrite or formalist in all this for his hope is cut off like a spiders web there are two Pillars he leans upon as Sampson upon the Pillars in the house the Jachin and Boaz What are they but the good things of this world and life eternal and alas both fail him For the good things of this life they many times leave him the mire and the water which made the Bull-rush to grow they are dryed up what is become of his hope then he leans laies hold on his house and is loath to let it go but let him hold it as fast as he can yet down it must go when the Lord cometh to manifest his displeasure against him Secondly For things eternal those he expecteth and is as high until he be discovered to himself in his expectation of heaven as any other but alas he is but in a golden dream all this while as an hungry man dreameth he eateth c. but it is nothing but a fancy when he awakes he is never the fuller but rather vexed so much the more being disappointed for a man to have his hope cut off is the greatest cut in the world nothing breaks the creatures heart more then this O how great hope may a Minister be raised to being an instrument in the hand of God to save others that he also shall be saved they themselves have means to castout the Devil and shall they go to the Devil It is indeed the very emphasis of damnation to be cast down from such a height of hope to be so near to heaven in their hopes and yet miscarry O how should this make us afraid of hypocrisie and formality which is ready to creep upon us how bitter a thing is it in the end to hypocrites yea to the people of God in their way when God opens their eyes to behold it in its colours therefore let us be exhorted every one of us to take heed of it lest it be found in such prevalency among us as to denominate us hypocrites believe it brethren If we be hypocrites our duties will not commend us to God be they never so many never so plausible because our hearts are not changed which is a notable sign of an hypocrite he doth much duty but never reacheth to a better heart is not changed
world What comfort had Judas of his thirty pieces of silver when God opened his conscience and let him see his condition what an hypocritical dissembling wretch he had been to betray the Lord of life and glory with a kiss a sign of love and a bloody traiterous heart to sell his Saviour whom he had followed so long and acted by commission from him so long and his Master that had never done him hurt but good to sell him the Lord of life and glory for thirty pieces of Silver O this could not but gall and cut him to the heart the Devil helped him to a booty indeed but God added this sorrow with it Indeed of all sins God hath not revealed himself so terribly against any in Scripture as this and therefore when the soul cometh to see it that hath any knowledge of the terrors of the Lord displayed against it he must needs be for the present in a hell above ground this shall they have of my hand saith the Lord they shall lie down in sorrow Yea and sometimes he anticipates their death and they live in sorrow and wo and misery God doth as I may say set a mark upon them as upon Cain Secondly That they might be warnings to others for ever to take heed of Hypocrisie for when men that regard the work of the Lord and consider the operation of his hand shall behold a Judas hanged up in Gibbets being made a Magor Missabeb to himself doth it not preach aloud this Caution to take heed and beware of hypocrisie these things saith the Apostle were written for our ensamples that we might not do as they did so are these things acted for our ensamples that we might take heed or if they have not such terrors but their professions are blasted only and wither and they prove fearful creatures their latter end worse then their beginning is not this a warning written in Capital Letters that he that runs may read O take heed of rottenness at the root for all our fruit will give up as the dust as the Apples of Sodom we shall wither and come to nothing and go out like a snuff as well as them if we be not sound at the heart Thirdly It may be a stumbling block to some others who are ready to receive any prejudice against the ways of Christ and therefore they shall have a block to stumble upon O here you see what becometh of this preciseness and flourishing profession of Religion it is all but rotteness at the root it is better to take on fair and softly a soft pace in religion saith the Moralist or civil honest Man as good continue in a meer wallowing as being washed to enter into it again yea better saith the profane man and therefore he satisfieth himself in his carnal state which is wosul for suppose some professors wither yet do all Some they keep their leaf it shall never fail some lose their verdour but recover it again and what if some wither will you therefore offend against the generation of the upright saying they are all of the same stamp God forbid It is a sad thing to consider how many poor hearts are hardened in sin upon this very account which addeth to the Hypocrites doom but what if a discovered Hypocrite be so vile the condition so dangerous is not their own as dangerous if thou be prophane and a worker of iniquity there is no more entrance into glory for a Dog or Swine then for a Goat no more for workers of iniquity that professedly commit iniquity then for them who profess longer do much in his name and yet when all cometh to all they are found but workers of iniquity though secretly but so much for the second The third and last thing considerable in the Observation is That many times it is too late when Hypocrites are discovered to themselves this is plain in the Parable for the foolish Virgins all the time of the getting oyl in their vessels they complain not not see their want of it nor the going out of their Lamps but only when it was too late for before they could get it the gates were shut We must not here understand it generally of all Hypocrites as if none might be discovered to themselves while there is hope and so as to recover themselves for then it would follow they should none of them be pardoned for the Lord Jesus is the Prince exalted to give repentance and remission of sins Now if they never come to know themselves to be guilty of this great evil even their hypocrisie how should they repent of it and if they repent not of it how should it be pardoned It is true indeed there may be hypocrisie in a Child of God which he may acknowledge only in the general among his secret sins which he knoweth not of but I think where hypocrisie is so raigning a sin as to denominate a man an Hypocrite he must surely come to the knowledge of it and acknowledge it before the Lord or else how can he hope of pardon for it now I say there is pardon for all manner of sins only that against the Holy Ghost excepted and therefore sure some Hypocrites God doth uncase and unmask and rip up and shew them the abominations of their hearts that they may mourn over them and mourn after Jesus Christ and loath themselves for it and so be pardoned therefore remember this lest if God should come now and open any painted sepulchre any rotten-hearted Hypocrite among us when we see our wound we should faint away for though many times it is so that God discovers it not to Hypocrites until it be too late yet sometimes he doth and the sin in it self is pardonable therefore there is hope concerning this thing in Israel But for the making good this assertion consider either they are discovered not until judgement or else not until death or else not until their day of grace â—e expired many times though it be before death 1. If they be not discovered to themselves until judgement God never reproveth them of their hypocrisie and sets it in order with all its circumstances and aggravations until the day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be displayed and all the nasty corners of sinners souls all the hidden things of darkness then surely you will all acknowledge there is no remedy it is past help there remaineth nothing then but a fearful looking for of their doom and some may go down in peace to the grave that is to say not a peace of God but of Satan a security and stupidity of conscience knowing nothing of their fearful condition which others also which are not so much as Hypocrites may do 2. If it be not discovered until the day of death or the time of deaths approach then though not alway yet ordinarily I believe it is too late and that is not a time that ordinarily God is
no their own promises may fail but Gods promises never fail nor a lively hope founded upon them 4. That the poor weary tossed afflicted people of God may have rest in the bosom of the Father and the Son and holy Spirit there remaineth a rest to the people of God they have not their rest here expect it not but either from within or without or both we have our troubles the world casteth them out as the off-scouring of all things they are the despised hated mocked people the song of the drunkard the laughing-stock of the world and therefore because they cast them out the Lord will receive them If we have not persecution without we shall have our exercises what between corruption and temptation and sometimes the terrors of God and sense of his wrath sometimes breaking bones hiding his face from us there is no rest until we come to enter with him now we lie among the pots but then we shall indeed be made glorious like the wings of a Dove in sulness Now this is agreeable not only to the truth but the goodness tenderness bowels of the Lord to his people that his poor afflicted People should rest with himself when he hath by these filings and scourings and siftings and turnings up and down made them meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light So much for the Arguments For the Application of this that they that are ready do enter into Glory First it serveth to shew the blessed condition that the diligent lively prepared soul is in heaven Gate is ready to receive such a soul the bosom of Abraham of Christ opened ready to receive him he shall enter they have this priviledge that many that profess Jesus Christ have not many shall seek to enter but shall not be able that strive not as he doth Blessed is that servant saith our Saviour that his master shall find watching shall find ready for his coming why he will not leave any such soul behind they shall all enter into glory how blessed a condition this is may appear by many considerations more 2. Such a soul as this cannot be surprized so far as he is ready he is never surprized surprizals are terrible if Jesus Christ had come without any warning upon the wiâ—e Virgins while sleeping it had been terrible to them though they might have entred with him also but if we be ready that day will not take us at unawares indeed if a child of God be once ready he cannot be altogether surprized more though in part he may if he carry it not the better he will be still habitually ready if not actually so the foolish Virgins were not They still have the root of the matter though it may be under ground and hid from their eys and is not this a blessed thing as often as you think of the coming of Christ to think now let my Saviour come when he pleaseth I am through rich grace ready for him A servant when his work is done a Spouse when her ornaments are put on and the house trimmed and all ready for her Bridegroom now come when he will I am ready for him before the thoughts of his coming are troublesom and painful now they are pleasant and delightful 3. When death comes how shall they lift up their heads with comfort because their Redemption draweth near O how will they be able to welcome death welcome Jesus Christ welcome the kingdom of heaven it is their entrance into a kingdom though it be bitter indeed and terrible to the wicked and though there be some reluctancy in nature against death and a Paul would rather be cloathed upon then dissolved and since it is the birth of sin that brought it into the world no marvel if Grace it self have no delight in it yet considering that it is an entrance though narrow and pinching into Heaven into Glory the Saints that are ready for it they can bid it welcom As a poor weary tossed Marriner can bid his Port welcome though there may be some fear of Rocks or the like in his landing 4. Are they not blessed souls that shall enter that now all their distances between them and Jesus Christ shall be done away now he whom your souls loved and longed for yea your souls have many times broken within you for the longing for him now he cometh to take you to himself that you may be with him near him alway in his bosom Is not this a blessed Condition what tends all your striving and running and fighting your wrestling praying and weeping to but this now the end of your hope the salvation of your souls cometh upon you blessed yea for ever blessed is such a soul if Christ and heaven the Father Son and Spirit enjoyed in an unspeakable bosom-communion will not speak a man blessed nothing will but thus much for this first 2. Then methinks brethren now we should be putting the question to our own hearts now whether we be ready or no O here is blessedness indeed you cannot but judge that man or woman though a man of sorrow while in the world haply through temptations and a heavy body of death yet that shall enter in Glory when all is done sure you cannot but judge this man a blessed man that is ready for it for he and he only shall enter And can it be but you should reflect now and enquire of the Lord and of your own hearts Lord am I ready for this coming of Jesus Christ or am I not for one of the two I am Dear friends I shall not use any more arguments to you but these two or three considerations 1. How uncertain this coming of Christ to you to call for you is do you know when he will appear do you know brethren whether you shall be warned again called upon again to prepare for his coming this may be the Cry it may be the Cry is past with many of you already is it not high time to awake to look about you to consider whether you be ready or no 2. To consider That there will be then no time given to prepare If you be ready well and good you enter if not you are shut out as afterward we shall speak O then how can we satisfie our selves and quiet our Consciences with an ignorance how it is with us It is high time surely brethren to enquire 3. Except we do enquire we are not likely to take a course to make ready he that thinketh he is ready or careth not whether he be ready or no if he be unready now he is like to be unready for such a man will not set about the work O that the Lord would therefore perswade you this day to consider with your selves are you ready or are you not 4. There is very great need of this enquiry because alas many are ready and think they are unready and then cannot have the comfort of their Condition except
just in the very harbour this is the saddest of all the rest many a storm they have ridden out they have indured many a wave and to split themselves in the very harbour within sight of the land as a man miscarrying just at the gate of the City of Refuge O how high must such mens hopes have been and how low will their hearts sink now when so â—adly disappointed hope so disappointed maketh ashamed confoundeth the soul as Esau his hopes were at the highest when he came with his Venison to his â—ather this will kill the heart O Brethren above all others hypocrites will be cloathed with the deepest confusion because they have been men of the fairest hopes for heaven Therefore it is said he went away sorrowful for it must needs be so for he was a man of more light then others and surely had a conviction that Jesus was the Messiah that it would be advantagious to have him and therefore coming so near to him and yet put back he went away sorrowful another man would have made nothing of such a repulse hypocrites have great enlightnings and they have had a taste of the heavenly gift as I may say as Israel had a bunch of grapes to taste the sweetness of Canaan and encourage them to go in to possess it O this when God turned them back into the wilderness for their rebellion that they should perish there was a great aggravation of their misery if they had never come so near it and never tasted of it they had not known what they had lost what they had deprived themselves of So here surely Brethren hypocrites have many a taste they have some glimmerings of heavens light and glory somewhat they have to draw them on to the very borders therefore for them to be turned off here and shut out O sure it will much aggravate their misery Ah wretch that I was to come so near take so much pains for heaven and yet that I should miss it will be the doleful ditty of hypocrites to eternity Thirdly It may teach all young beginners that are now as I may say starting in the race that is set before us that you look to it Brethren you be so furnished as to be able to run so as to obtain you are now launching into the deep O look to it there be not a privy leak somewhere though it be but small yet it may make a shift to sink you even at the very haven of heaven Ah dear friends it will be worth your pains to look into the truth of your condition though it cost you many an hour many a hot and cold fit yet give it not over be sure of this one thing that you be bottomed on Jesus Christ and have his Spirit to dwell in you his fear put in you according to the Covenant of grace and then you shall never depart from him you shall never fall short If once you be but in him you shall enter in with him the reason why these foolish Virgins entred not they were not in Christ they had nothing but their own account their own profession and what they could rap and rend and get from the creature alas this was nothing though it might carry them thus far it would not make way for their entrance into glory therefore let me beg of you to make this one thing necessary sure neglect this and all is nothing Fourthly It may teach all of us even such as have not only begun but gone far taken much pains for heaven to tremble and fear lest for want of a little more we fall short Ah dear friends if we would offer violence to heaven it must be while we are here when the door is shut it is too late therefore now let us press and spare no pains and look to these two things 1. That what we do we do it in Christ and for Christ else what do we differ in our work from the glistering Sinners among the heathens And 2. That our hearts be changed and made better and growing liker heaven every day then other else they will nothing avail us at all we shall be shut out notwithstanding all our prayers preaching gifts performances priviledges nothing but an interest in Christ and an heart sanctified by him will give entrance into heaven but so much for this Doctrine Another Note I will take up from the Virgins crying to God now when they saw the Gate of heaven shut against them That the hearts of sinners are full of self-confidence and presumption That they could have an heart to cry to Jesus Christ to open the door to them when it was shut it is strange presumption and boldness indeed for they had not one word to say for themselves why they should have entrance but only Lord Lord open c. in respect of any pleadings of Faith or the Covenant of Grace they were dumb not a word of this but if they had any thing to say it was such as those in Mat. 7. had to say for themselves he had preached in their streets and they had eat and drunk in his presence so here Lord Lord open to us why we had Lamps burning until a little before thy appearing we walked in fellowship with them that are truly admitted now into thy presence we have endeavoured to get some oyl to renew our Lamps though alas they found none but however they would have heaven this is very strong impudence and confident presumption that is in the hearts of Sinners the Lord Jesus turns them off and they will not be turned oâ—f now they will offer violence to the kingdom of heaven when it is too late Whence ariseth this Haply out of the ignorance whereupon heaven is to be had upon what conditions or else out of the presence of their eternal misery now they see they are sinking to hell they begin to cry out for opening of heaven Gate to them now the Gate is shut upon them they never cried before but I will not insist upon this Only a word or two of Application First then it is no marvel brethren if sinners are so full of boldness and presumption now let us tell them that we will set life and death before them as you have had it set before you many a time every Sabbath every opportunity almost alas they care not for it they hang out a flag of defiance against God they have made a covenant with death and an agreement with hell and this they make account shall stand let the Lord say what he will though he tell them he will break that Covenant he disanulleth it in the day he heareth it for both they and death are under his command and therefore he may disanull their Covenant he is Soveraign over them all yet they believe it not they rage and are confident for when the very overflowing scourge cometh upon them they are so confident to go and cry to God
when they see the very gate of mercy shut against them O say sinners here we shall have peace though we walk after the imaginations of our own hearts to add drunkenness to thirst thoâ—gh God have told such men His anger shall smoke against that man yet they are confident nothing will drive them to seek a Christ to make their peace with him to accept of deliverance and no marvel for when they see the mouth of hell opened for them and the belly of hell moved for them and the gates of heaven shut against them and they have no Christ to appear in yet they have the face and boldness as to cry Lord Lord open to us Secondly It may teach us to have an holy jealousie and an holy pitty over poor creatures that can be and are upon their death-beds so confident so presumptuous they can come to God without a Christ having all their life long trampled his precious blood under their feet rested in their formalities and yet can cry out then to God to open to them as if thy were the only Saints upon earth and were the only men of faith Ah brethren so they may do and yet be but foolish Virgins how have they carried it in their lives they would never be perswaded to call upon God morning and evening to pray in closet in family to make sure of Christ and yet now they will not stick to appear and cry for heaven without him O this presumption will not prosper though believing alway prosper you may have the Gate of heaven shut upon you your souls shut out for ever and yet in your extremity have a Lord Lord in your mouths therefore look to it betimes before hand but enough of this The third Note of Doctrine is this Though men will not come to Christ for Grace yet they will come to him for Glory While Jesus Christ is dispensing the Grace of the Kingdom they neglect him and his Grace they are busied about somewhat else but when he is to dispense the Glory of his Kingdom then every one will come to him Luke 14. 18. They cannot come but now they will come This is clear in the present case These foolish Virgins they would not come to Christ for Grace for you see how many times they were beaten off from the Creature and yet they fastned again when their Lamps failed which were sparks of their own kindling or else some common work at most then they went to the wise Virgins not to Christ when they repulsed them sent them away empty they went to them that sold they would by no means come to Jesus Christ not a word of that and yet now the Glory of the Kingdom is to be dispensed you see n ow they cry Lord Lord open to us if they had taken this course before and cryed Lord Lord when their Lamps were gone out O Lord now we see our own sparks dye before they reach heaven O pardon this our Hypocrisie and O give us of thine oyl thou art the Olive-tree pour out of thy oyl into our vessels as they went to the wise Virgins and this in truth of heart they had had oyl they had been ready and entred with Christ no but they would not and see now when the Gate was shut upon them now they cry Lord Lord open to us they would not come to him for the wedding Garment but they would be beholding to him to let them in to the Feast without one though heaven would have held them but a little while if they had entred in that condition So the Jews They would not come to Christ that they might have life that they might have the life of Grace and then the life of Glory but they would come to him to have the life of Glory Ye shall seek me and ye shall not find me but shall die in your sins This is Esau's case prophane Esau he would not keep his birth-right when he had it nor seek it again when he had lost it but the blessing he would have without the birth-right he could part with the birth-right for a mess of pottage for his lust rather then extreme hunger as some think but the blessing he could seek it with tears The grounds of this are such as these First Because it is a principle indelebly written in nature to will happiness the end in general that is to say happiness is not that which cometh under deliberation and matter of choice at all but only the means that tend to that end no man living can possibly prevail with himself to be willing to be miserable it is as natural as for the fire to fly upward or the stone to decline downward A Balaam would die the death of the rigteous he would go to heaven when all is done notwithstanding his Sorceries and Enchantments against Jacob and Divinations against Israel A man would think such a wretch as he that would have cursed Israel fain if God would have hearkened to him a deadly enemy he was to them that he should scarce have desired to come where they should be As I have heard of some whose spleen hath been so great against the people of God that if they came to heaven they would never come thither such are worse then Balaam yet he would die the death of the righteous Secondly Because of the woful ataxie and disorder that is in all our souls whereby we are in all things preposterous in all things that are supernatural in things purely natural and civil we do not expect the end without the means none but fools and mad men do it A man would live and have his health this he desireth therefore he will eat you cannot perswade him to starve himself with hunger he will take physick though never so loathsom never so bitter to him what ever it cost him skin for skin and all he hath he will give for his life this is the highest end he hath in these things but now in spirituals there is nothing but confusion the end we do confusedly aim at we would have it doubtless there is not the veriest unbeliever that heareth this this day but would have heaven and you cannot with all the arguments you can bring make him willing to perish in an everlasting separation from God if he understand any thing what he saith yet he would have this without the means without this union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus whereby he may be made meet for it 3. Because of mens unbelief and unacquaintance with the mysterie of salvation the mysterie of free Grace in Jesus Christ they do not believe that a man must come to Christ for Grace or else they can have no Glory from him That he is the way the truth and the life they think he will save them upon any terms he came to be a Saviour of sinners and sinners they are and a Saviour he is and therefore let Ministers say what
this terror and this bondage a means to their inlargement Ah blessed Prison that is only to make poor creatures willing to be at liberty well now this the Lord Jesus when he cometh and revealeth himself to a soul he brings him out of these labyrinths of fears and terrors letteth the poor creature see that himself is the way and the only way he hath undertaken the work for his people only if they will believe though they have no strength in them to do any thing nor to extricate themselves from the difficulties they find themselves in by reason they cannot fulfil the Law yet he is the mighty one upon whom help is laid and withal letteth them understand how his bowels do yern over them and how his heart is open ready to inlarge them and so perswadeth them to close with him and then they go forth when faith cometh so Christ is the end of the Law and the â—aw a School-Master to bring us to Christ But that is but the Sixth Seventhly Another part of this bondage is those after-claps of fears and terrours that after Christ hath been revealed to and in a soul may befall the creature alas you find it so they may be clapt up afterward in the pit of noise the horrible pit and be in the deeps and in darkness and like Jeremiahs dungeon sink in the mire where there is no standing they feel no bottom of their misery their fears are overwhelming or like Jonahs Whales belly they are in the belly of hell and all the waves and billows of God go over them O this is sore bondage however it be true that the Spirit of God is never any more a spirit of bondage to them to witness to them they are children of wrath afterward yet he doth not say but they may have bondage again and all fear hath torment and is bondage to the Spirit it doth fetter it and shut up and contract the spirits exceedingly Now I say the darkness of a mans own heart which doth naturally gender fear and Satan to help and the frowns of Gods displeasure for the present though he do not witness any more that a man is a child of eternal wrath and displeasure these may bring the poor creature into sad perplexities Well yet the Spirit of the Lord Jesus when he cometh brings also liberty with him from this bondage David will tel you so and Heman will tell you so do but consider what conditions they were in how came they to be delivered O lift up the light of thy countena nce upon me Son of God arise upon me shine upon my soul and then I shall be healed O restore to me the joy of thy salvation make me to hear joy and gladness c. Well the Promise doth extend even to this bondage also and to this may we refer the next I will speak of it distinctly Eightly There is another Bondage and that is the fears of death and judgement whereby many a poor creature is kept in Bondage all the days of their lives as the Apostle saith in that to the Hebrews to which I will speak a few words He came saith the Text and took part of flesh and blood that through death be might destroy him that hath the power of death that is to say the Devil and deliver them that through fear of death were all their life-time subject to Bondage Brethren death it self is a terrible thing the Simplex could say but hardly could he tell the reason of it for them that have no fear of God before their eyes but have put out the eye of reason and live like Beasts giving up themselves to commit wickedness with greediness though while they can keep off the apprehensions of death they may go on merrily but when that seizeth upon them it marrs their mirth it maketh a change in their faces and they are not now truly death is not so terrible in it self considered but that the stoutness of a mans spirit specially where there is no other consideration of it he may overcome it and live above the fears of it as the Heathens some of them did but now a man that knoweth indeed what death is not only a dissolution of the union between the soul and body taking down this mouldring Tabernacle but a Serpent with a sting it is where sin and guilt lies upon the soul it is the beginning of sorrows the arrest of the soul to judgement to come to receive its doom for all its bloody evils he hath been guilty of The wordling is not willing to give up his soul O he knoweth he can never answer for his wasting of his spirits and spending his time to lay up treasure here and in the mean time neglecting his soul and Jesus Christ and tenders of Grace he knoweth this well enough and therefore he will not yield up his Spirit they shall take it from him as it is in the Parable This night shall thy soul be taken from thee and so for any other sin and now I say this maketh death terrible and by reason of these fears of death men that have any sight or sense of their condition they are in Bondage all their lives long yea even the people of God themselves are in some measure under this bondage and according to the measure of the discovery of Christ to them and the power of faith in them is this fear and this bondage broken and the Lord Jesus came for this end to deliver them alas before his coming the Saints may be specially meant here who had indeed the knowledge of Christ to be crucified for Sinners and beheld him crucified though darkly in the sacrifices c. and in the promise from the foundation of the world but yet notwithstanding they had not that confidence usually but there was more room for doubtings and fears because they died still without the accomplishing of that promise now though such as had an extraordinary measure of faith and a prophetical spirit might see this clearly and so it might raise them much what above this bondage yet ordinarily I believe it was not so that they had such clear conviction of the freeness of grace and the abundance and riches of it in Jesus Christ and therefore it did not so fâ—lly quiet their Spirits in respect of fears of death and judgement they did not so clearly see the sting pluckt out therefore the Apostle saith those Sacrifices though they did hold out Christ could not make the comers thereunto perfect and therefore they were often repeated But now the Lord Jesus he hath by once offering for ever perfected compleated their salvation and therefore you shall find that the Apostle and others do so triumph over death and the grave and sin as we hardly find any before the coming of Christ and it must needs be so because now the Spirit which is the liberty of the Saints was poured out in a
them when they are come Or Thirdly From the evil of them the pinching and wringing and galling of the yoke First In respect of the fear of them They shall go forth he speaks here plainly to the believing Jews they were afraid of the judgments of God in the threatning while they did but hang over their heads and they were in a kind of prison or bondage by reason of this fear Well saith the Lord Fear not you shall go forth the Sun of righteousness shall arise upon you Job was afraid of his sorrows take and compare Job the none-such in the East a most eminent Saint and Paul in the New Testament and the one you find he is afraid of his sorrows Paul he glories in his tribulations you never hear him complaining of his sufferings no nor feared them he knew that bonds and imprisonments did abide him in every City but he cared not for any of these things he had a richer discovrey of the Grace of God in Christ then Job had and clearer it is like and therefore this set him free in a great measure from them and indeed his soul that knoweth the things that are freely given him in Christ knoweth now that he is his Father and what ever shall befall him it shall turn to his good what need he much to fear Secondly They shall go out from the presence of them this the Lord doth many times for his people what though the day of the Lord burn like an oven and burn up the chaff and stubble and devour them root and branch I will be an hiding place to you saith the Lord You that fear my name indeed and tremble at my word O the Sun of righteousness shall arise upon you and by vertue of his death ye shall be delivered as the Jews were in Egypt By the sprinkling of the blood of the Passover upon the Posts of the Doors which did represent and typifie the blood of Jesus Christ and in that place of Zâ—ch Mark you saith the Lord concerning his peoples Deliverance out of Babylon a type of spiritual deliverance and freedom of his people as for thee also by the blood of the Covenant I have sent forth thy Prisoners out of the Pit wherein there is no water this is done by vertue of the Covenant of Grace whereby this freedom and going forth is made out to Believers therefore you may observe when the Lord cometh to deliver Israel out of Egypt he ushers it in thus I remember my Covenant the difference between the deliverances of Israel and other people are the one is a Covenant mercy the other a common mercy meerly Well now saith the Lord ye shall go forth of the burning even as the children in the Furnace it burned but they escaped the Lord Jesus was with them so shall ye go forth and the Lord did provide a little Zoar for his people in the destruction of Jerusalem many of them escaped to Pella as the story goeth a little Town beyond Jordan and so the Lord doth seal the 144000. before he brings those bloody calamities upon the earth the persecuting world and those in the ninth of Ezekiel O who would not be in Covenant with God! they shall go forth Or thirdly They shall be freed from the destroying evil the hardening evil of affliction which is a bondage and a sore one too being bound in affliction and iron and so Job in the 13. ch ver 27. God writeth bitter things against him and puts his feet in the stocks and all his affliction together is called Jobs captivity he was as I may say resigned up to the pleasure of Satan for a while who led him from one affliction to another but the Lord brought him out and brought him off without the evil the Devil expected that he should curse him and dye curse him to his face now I say the Lord maketh his people go forth brings them through and not only so but without any of the hurt seizing upon them Sinners are the harder for being in the fire but they are melted as very a stone as Pharaoh was he began to burn in the fire and be hot and a man would have thought his heart had given but it was a stone still but his people came out melted refined with this Epiphonema to all their afflictions O it was good for me I could not have been without it much of my dross is gone by it and thus the Lord maketh his people go forth â—e shall go forth Twelfthly There is one more and that is the yoak of Ceremonies traditions of men I will put them both together the Ceremonies were a yoak you know circumcision was a hard service to draw blood of their children at eight daies old their journeys to their feasts at Jerusalem their offerings and oblations they were very chargeable insomuch that they grew weary of them and snuffed at them c. And for the Traditions of men they are a grievous burthen where their Doctrines are taught and received the Apostle comprehends both-under that word the rudiments of the world whereunto he would not have them be brought in bondage again the difference of meats and drinks c. the Lord Jesus hath let us loose from those observations and therefore it is a desperate doctrine a doctrine of Devils or at least of them that speak lies in hypocrisie to forbid to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving and blessed be his name that by the rising of the Sun of righteousness among us he hath brought us out from this bondage generally and if he would be pleased to shine among the poor ignorant Papists that they might but come to the knowledge of his will doubtless this would be quickly shakt off with them also but you have the parts of this liberty For the degrees of it we must know this that it is not in the same degree to every believer you have already heard how that before Christ's coming it was not in such power as since Ye shall go forth hath been accomplished in many respects since the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the more faith and the clearer sight we have of Jesus Christ with the greater power and splendor and glory he shines upon us the more of the riches of his grace we come to apprehend the more fully and perfectly to rest upon that grace the more shall we find that all these bondages shall be broken we have been speaking to but thus much for the two things which is what this liberty is Which are the arguments for the further confirmation of the Doctrine Where the Lord Jesus ariseth upon a soul there is liberty and enlargement First from the very nature of that gift of grace the arising of the Sun of righteousness upon them what is this but the giving of himself unto a soul
the Lord who is most slighted in all this should pitty and make a way for their deliverance this is unspeakable rich grace that the Lord should as I may say study a course to make them willing to come forth to which end all the sad and fearfull Characters of this bondage in Scripture are to which end is the Law given that sin might appear to be sin and exceeding sinful and the bondage very great that they might thereby see themselves shut up to this end all those sweet invitations and powerfull expostulations with poor sinners in the Gospel O why will ye die why will ye perish and rot in prison since there is a ransom found for you the Lord takes no pleasure in your death and why will ye delight in your own death O what powerfull Rhetorick are these loving intreaties expostulations the yearnings of his bowels over them his tears over Jerusalem when they would not be gathered under his wings and all this to make the poor sinner willing and when all will not do that he should even put forth a power upon their wills and hearts inclining them to it by a sweet and yet strong though not compulsory influence of his Spirit upon them this is admirable what tenderness was there towards Lot that when he lingered and delayed the Angel took him by the hand and brought him without the City and bid him haste for his life truly there is not a soul delivered from this bondage but there is as much exercise of the patience and bowels of Christ toward them to make them willing yea to take them by the hand when they linger and make excuses as those in the Gospel I will follow thee but let me go and bid farewell to my friends I must not come off abruptly from my old Companions in sin but take leave of them handsomly I must go bury my father saith another but the Lord Jesus takes by the hand plucks us out as I may say by head and ears before we will come out Again consider how we have worn out our selves in the bondage and slavery of sin and with these fetters upon our souls or else spent so that now he may even say we our selves may say of our days there is no pleasure in them so Luke 4. 18. to set at liberty them that are bruised Dimittere confractâ—s in remissionem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words are not in Isaiah 61. neither Hebrew Greek nor Latine but they are added 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Luke as some conceive â—atabl and others read them vâ—lneratos persons wounded shattered worn out with the hard bondage and service they were put to bondage is a weary thing at the best but when a man is such a slave as that he must like a Gally Slave work like a horse in the service of sin O what pains sinners do take with both hands earnestly they come to iniquity and so exhaust their spirits the best milk and marrow in the bones so that they are as dry sticks that are good for nothing and yet that the Lord Jesus should to such proclaim liberty bring them forth that are able to do him no service in a manner so the thief upon the Cross and so the Jew that Andreas is said to convert hanging upon the Cross and so many a gray headed sinner that never ceased serving sin yet now c. Truly if the Lord Christ should set us free with a respect to any service we should do him afterward I doubt none would ever be set free for Brethren what can we add to him if thou be righteous it profiteth him not at all he is a God infinitely perfect in himself our goodness extends not to him all the best of Lebanon and the wood are not enough for a burnt offering so great a God he is and yet though he be not advantaged by our service when we are set at Liberty but what commandments he giveth us to observe and giveth us hearts inclineth our hearts thereunto they are for our own welfare as in that of Deuteronomy The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath for his good his advantage and so is all the services or if it were yet alas I say how are we broken many times with the bondage of sin so that we are fit for nothing the understanding and affections so weakned and wasted and besotted with sin that afterward we can do little for him because of that sad effect sin hath left upon our souls and yet he delivereth us this the fourth Vse 5. Then it shall it be for Exhortation and invitation this day to every poor sinner that is in bondage that they would close with this promise that they would go forth O Sinners that you would but accept of Deliverance and Liberty that now the Lord Jesus after so dear a purchase of it doth tender to you you see he is willing he came on purpose into the world to preach and proclaim liberty to the Captives Now art not thou a Captive and hast thou no minde to be set free And for some Motives to stir us up a little at least to a consideration of our condition and what we do all this while First Consider this is the acceptable year of the Lord as in that of Isaiah O it beginneth with the preaching of the Gospel indeed the acceptable year minde you acceptable to Jesus Christ It pleaseth him wondrous well if sinners be willing to come out of prison to be set at liberty there is many a poor soul that thinketh with himself I am willing if the Lord Jesus be willing that I shall go forth O it is the acceptable year of the Lord there is nothing more pleasing to him then to see the ransom he hath laid down for you sinners take effect and bring out many out of bondage the Apostle applyeth it to the times of the Gospel There is joy in heaven c. The Father of the Prodigal how willing was he and then it is the acceptable year to sinners too O how did men that were in bondage long for the Jubilee and breath and pant after it especially if their bondage were hard that set them all free Dear Friends Consider this is the great Jubilee proclaimed solemnly with the Silver Trumpets of the Gospel that every poor creature that will may go forth out of prison yea that if now they go forth the Lord Jesus is willing we should but if we shall trifle away this year of the Lord which we know not how long it may last to us either the Gospel may be taken away from us or else we from the Gospel or else the things which concern our peace in the Gospel be hid from our eyes that we shall never see them O that sinners would but consider this these seasons the Father hath kept in his own power that sinners might be afraid to
trifle away one Sabbath wherein this grace is offered for fear that it never be offered more to us If the Servant did neglect to take the opportunity of the Jubilee he must be in bondage he and his until another Jubilee and so he himself was like to perish in that service There were only three things that did hinder their going free in that acceptable year 1. Either they were strangers and of the cursed Canaanites who were doomed to bondage now there was no going forth for them Or else 2. The Matters would not let them go free Or else 3. They themselves had no minde to go free and so bound themselves for ever to their Masters First I say The Strangers alas the Jubilee was not proclaimed to them and therefore though they might he willing to go free yet they could not they were as good never think of it it concerneth them not and the Masters knowing this would never let them go free surely this is not our case though the time was when we were sinners of the Gentiles and afar off and the year of Jubilee was not proclaimed to us yea the Lord Jesus forbid his disciples to go into the way of the Gentiles If this were our case then there were some excuse for our continuing in bondage and thus it is with many a poor people under the Sun this day the Lord Christ hath never said to them that sit in darkness go forth else haply Tyre and Zidon would have done it sooner then Coraz and Bethsaida Secondly then the unwillingness of him to whom we are in bondage to let us go free it is true sin is unwilling to let the sinner go alas how shall lust be satisfied and served then And so is Satan as long as ever he can he will hold his hold but doth not the Lord threaten the hard hearted Jews since they would not let his people go out of bondage that he would proclaim a Liberty to them to the sword and to the famine and to the pestilence Pharaoh was very loth to let Israel go as long as he had a being therefore he was destroyed And so sin and Satan they will not let the sinner go O how a mans lusts do cling about him then when he should go free what will ye forsake me now have I not brought you in so much content so many sweet hours you have had of repose in my lap so much gain and advantage have you not lived by me and will you now leave me these will stratle the soul and then for Satan either he multiplyeth his baits maketh the best of every thing in the way of sin that now beginneth to be laid open to find colours and glosses to put upon them or else he rageth and tells the soul thou go free dost thou think that now thou hast served sin so long Jesus Christ will accept of thee and indeed all that his wit or power can do he bestirreth himself now he seeth his kingdom going down and his yoak breaking I but remember this that the Lord will break him to pieces tread him under-feet if he refuse to let you go the Lord will pluck you out of his hands destroy his power Thirdly Our own unwillingness for if the servant said he loved his Master and his Masters service and he would not go free then the Jubilee served him in no stead he must have his ear bored to the door-post by the Magistrate and so be his servant for ever either this might be as a punishment of his contempt of liberty now he might have liberty which is rather to be chosen as the Apostle saith and the Lord out of a tender respect to them as his people that he hath bought out of bondage would not have them kept in bondage by their Brethren Now if he would not go free but loved his Master so well that he preferred his service before freedom he should have this torment and publike shame to be bored through the ear And I tell you Brethren it will not be the piercing of the ear that shall be the recompence of your refusing of this liberty but the piercing of your hearts as with a sword when you come to see what your bondage will bring you unto or else secondly That now they must never go out of their Masters doors without his leave the servitude must be stricter then ever it was and so truly I do believe Brethren that now where the acceptable year of the Lord is preached to sinners they have liberty offered and they will not accept of it that now they are more fully under the command of Satâ—n and sin then they were before Thirdly that hereby might be signified the willingness of their service for the time to come that they had as I may say their ears opened now to what ever their Master should command them and so in that Psalm Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but mine ear hast thou bored or digged so the words may be read that is to say thou hast made me willingly obedient to thee to the death that obedience is better then sacrifice and truly this is the saddest of all the rest when men shall give up themselves with a fuller will to serve Sin and Satan then ever they did before in steaâ— of going forth O let us fear and tremble before the Lord lest while liberty is proclaimed we in stead of going forth be bored in the ear and become Satans servants for ever never go forth from our bondage Again Consider yet further that the day if liberty is proclaimed it is the day of the vengeance of our God also as the Prophet hath it as if he had said if it be not a day of liberty and of going forth to you it will be a day of vengeance to you as well as to the enemies of Christ for what desperate love is this to sin against Christ that when he hath been at so much pains and cost to purchase a liberty for us and we refuse and reject it will not part with our chains will rather rot in prison then come forth what can be expected but wrath to the utmost to come upon such a soul O surely the Gospel will be the savour of death to death to such a soul a savour of bondage to bondage and everlastâ—ng chains of darkness will be their bonds for ever Brethren think of this before the prison doors be shut and barred before you be sealed up unto this destruction Lastly Consider how sweet and precious Liberty is even civel libetty how sweet a thing it is else men would never expend so much treasure and blood as we have done for it Ah this is nothing to a freedom from sin and from other bondages which arise upon sin unto the soul Ask but any poor creature that is newly come out of the dungeon out of the horrible pit where there was no standing will they not
into fet ters under this Law So that if you look upon it in this subserviency to the Gospel though the creature may be put to much grief by it yet it is good when pardon is proclaimed that a Prince should cast those rebells into prison to make them willing of a pardon the Gospel is a savour of death to death you know and yet it is a sweet savour in them that perish and them that are saved the Gospel is never the worse for that and if the Law prove fetters to a poor sinner to keep him under bondage for ever and bind him over to everlasting Judgement this is through his own wickedness that he will not accept of deliverance in the Gospel where it is preached the Law is never the less good and holy But the second is the main thing how far we are said to be freed from the Law of God and how we are not freed from it First we are delivered from it as a Covenant of righteousness do this and live that is to say be thou exactly conformable to this Law for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of suitableness to this Law is a sin and every sin the wages of it is death if thou break it but in one thou art guilty of all Alas Brethren the Law was weak through our flesh and could not justifie it could discover sin as a glass but not purge it it could work wrath work it out but it could not pacifie therefore the Lord Jesus came and took upon him that name the Lord our righteousness and he is now saith the Apostle the end of the Law for righteousness It was a School-master to whip us to fright us out of our selves to Jesus Christ therefore every soul in Christ now is delivered from the Law as a Covenant of life that is clear but this was mentioned before Secondly Now from the rigorous exacting of obedience for according to the Law nothing is obedience except perfect if a man miscarry in one thing he is guilty of all there must be a doing of every thing written yea in the fullest most spiritual sense of it yea a continuance in every thing to the end or else it is not obedience but now the Lord accepteth of the desires of the upright heart he heareth the prayer of such as desire to fear his name the will now goeth for the deed where the poor soul striveth to do and is not able Dear friends how sad a condition were we in many times if the Lord did so rigorously exact our obedience how often do we come to pray and can say nothing in his presence can scarce sigh or groan and in hearing and speaking his Word though we do stir up our selves to watch O how often do vain thoughts run away with our hearts now if we were under this exacting of the Law what would become of us what had become of Paul when he did the things he hated the things he would not c. if he had been under the rigour of the Law If there be first a willing mind that imprimis Brethren doth legitimate all the following Items though never so weak now the Law is in the hand of Christ as a Father who pittieth and spareth us alas what had become of the best of us else long since thus we are delivered Thirdly From the curse of it Gal. 3. 18. our Saviour being made a curse for us so that the curse of it doth not lie upon us to sink us that is to say the weight of the wrath or displeasure of God Nor yet as a compulsion to obedience to this Law as slaves and very wretched sinners may do much for the fear and dread of this curse of God but this the Lord delivered his people from he maketh them a willing people he now sheweth them greater reason against sin then ever they saw now opens to them the grave they see the rottenness of it which they saw not before now he opens his treasures of rich grace in Christ and so by mediation of the understanding works upon the will sweetly inclining it to God though there be a moral swasion by apposition of object as a Lamb is led by a green bush up and down yet this is not all there goeth more to the taking away the stone in the heart and giving a heart of flesh which doth most what lie in the making the will flexible and plyable not so much in sorrow and tears and meltings which doth many times accompany it and sometimes not at all or very little Pharaohs heart was hardened for he obeyed not he was stiff and stubborn and therefore said to be a stone Now I say a moral swasion will not reach to this a man may use much oratory to a stone and yet it remaineth a stone still a Preacher may hold forth sin to be sin and exceeding sinful and hold forth Christ crucified by them and for them before their eyes and yet alas all will not do they remain stones still No no an enclining of the heart he turns the hearts of men whithersoever he will as he did the heart of Esau to Jacob upon his prayer there was more then a swasion and as he did the thief upon the Cross in the midst of his torments and agonies of death then to think upon a Christ then to have his heart towards him that never regarded him in his life-time and in the midst of a people reviling him as you know and upon the Cross suffering and dying and yet then to be wrought upon argues a wonderful divine power put forth upon the will Well then when the will is overcome we are made free to the service of Jesus Christ now we can delight in the Law of God after the inward man it was a weariness to a sinner to hear the Word specially if it came near to him he could not endure to be grated upon and a weariness to pray now he delights in these things So far we are delivered from the curse as the great inforcement of Obedience Fourthly From the provoking power of the Law as you have often heard now that Law that was the occasion of the rebelling of lust is hid in the heart that we might not sin against him this is a great change indeed in a child of God from the former condition when before God would put his yoak upon our souls we writhed and pluckt away our neck would not endure it now it pleaseth us to be under it it is sweet and easie to us now it is a provocation to obedience that before was a provocation unto sin But now on the other hand we are not set free from the Law as a Law a rule of holy walking of new obedience our Saviour did not by fulfilling the Law destroy it but accomplish it because we were not able of our selves to do it he under went the rigour of it and took away all the condemnation of
grow in this Grace may he not say to us O ye of little Faith why do ye doubt why do you walk so pensively and hang the head to the dishonour of my Grace may he not say O ye of little Faith why do you perplex your selves and rack your selves with cares of the World what ye shall eat and drink and how ye shall be prvoided for doth not your heavenly Father take care of you O ye of little Faith why do ye in every perplexity and trouble as men at a loss run to this creature and that creature and not to the Lord wherein your help doth lie O ye of little Faith why do you when means fail then cast away your hope as if there were no help in God as if because the streams were dried up therefore the fountain must needs be dry also therefore Brethren labour to grow in this Grace if ever you would do any eminent service for Christ or honour him set the crown on him in any condition labour to be strong in Faith Thirdly In that Grace of Love labour to grow therein First to the Lord himself to Jesus Christ It may be thou dost love him and according to the measure of Faith and Knowledge of him the soul will love him usually but we must labour to love him much more love we take it kindly if it be from the meanest person and so doth the Lord Jesus O love the Lord ye his Saints you cannot love him too much do you alway err in his love the more you love him the more you may for there is no end of his perfections his love his mercy his bowels towards you there is no searching of them you may go yet deeper and deeper and find a ground for the increase of your love still you love Relations Husband Wife Children and more for relation then for any excellency in them many times fond we are O that we could be so fond of Jesus Christ how sick of love was Rachel yea sick to the death for children and so is many a fond mother O we cannot live without them Ah how few are thus sick of love to Jesus Christ well lobour to love him and to this end First Labour to present the Lord and Jesus Christas most lovely to thee while thou entertainest hard thoughts of Jesus Christ thou canst not love him if thou thinkest thus with thy self I would fain have him but he is not willing to have me if thou look upon him as rigorous and cruel and one that delights in your blood it is impossible that you should love him O no labour to present him to your selves as one whose bowels are continually yearning over poor souls poor sinners one full of compassions full of mercy and tenderness he desires not the death of a sinner the Lord Jesus Brethren is altogether lovely it is true for his holiness his purity as well as his grace and mercy but this is that which most moveth to love at least while we are under weakness it is an high pitch to love him for the beauty of Holiness that is in him Think often then seriously upon it what dear thoughts the Lord Jesus had to poor sinners that rather then they should perish he would interpose between them and the everlasting burnings though be were sorely scorched for it O will not this draw love look upon him with his precious blood trickling down and one drop overtaking another O what haste did love make O how lavish was his love he would not spare any pains any travel of soul that sinners might live and can you but love him then O what an heart must that creature have that can look upon the Lord Jesus wrestling with strongest wrath of his Father so that he needed the Ministry of Angels at that time and yet not love him try see whether such considerations as these will not heighten your love to him we complain of want of love Brethren we cannot love a thing we know not or that we consider not see then if you do not find still some new beauty in him for which you should love him yet the more Secondly Let it be much upon your hearts how much he hath forgiven thee Alas saith the poor soul if I knew that that my sins were forgiven I should love him indeed abundantly It may be thou hast not a full perswasion of it but hast thou not a good hope through Grace and such a lively hope as setteth a working out the scum the pollution of thy heart more and more Is not this cause of great love to him why he hath not left thee to sink in despair and perish O how much did that sinner love him because he had forgiven her much therefore she loved much Dear friends could this be think you without her heart dwelt upon this consideration it was fresh upon her spirit O the more she considered it the more apparent were the riches of Grace towards her O so many Devils cast out of me would the Lord Jesus have such precious thoughts toward such a wretch as I what an Harlot a filthy unclean wretch and would he think upon me and pitch his love upon me and pass by many others that had it may be but one devil and make love to me that had seven O she could not hold her bowels within her were ready to break she must love him she must hang upon him even upon his feet she must wash him with her tears and wipe them with the hairs of her head though before as harlots use to do she had been much in tricking and trimming her head yet now they shall be dishrifled and now they shall be a Towel to wipe the feet of Jesus Christ O here is love kiss his feet if she may not kiss his lips and blessed soul that had such an heart given her Now Brethren consider this have not some of us had seven devils have there not been seven abominations in our hearts O it may be we have been fornicators adulterers filthy unclean wretches as vile wretches as ever breathed now consider this often is it so indeed hath the Lord looked upon such as we have been pitched his love upon the vilest of us and to make us so nigh to himself and shall we not love him O where are such workings of love towards the Lord Jesus as that poor woman manifested our hearts are dead and dry So the Apostle Paul His love of Christ constrained him O he was the chief of Sinners and the Lord did so eminently save him and call him out of darkness when he was in the very height of his wickedness that then mercy should â—eet with him that then a pardon should descend from heaven when he was fighting and rebelling against heaven and he should be conquered by the love of Christ whose heart was full of blood against him O this lying upon his spirit did indear his soul to
daub and heal them deceitfully get it skinned over a little and so the world will do it building and planting and marrying and drinking and pastimes these may skin over the wound but it heals not and miserable is the condition of poor creatures so deluded but now they that are taught of God and learn they learn this effectually and practically that there is nothing in the creature that can do it Fourthly They learn this also that though all the world be but as a cloud without rain when the soul is a fire a Well without water a broken Cistern that leaks out all a Torrent a Brook that is dried up when the soul is parched and burnt up with the scorching heat of the displeasure of God O when the Lord setteth a soul in his sight and looks upon him as a consuming fire with his eyes as a flaming fire ready with a sight of him to devour him and he cannot get out of his sight O now the world all their comforts will not skreen them from his eyes but what will only the Lord Jesus he can be a cooling shadow to shadow us from this scorching heat and this the Spirit of the Lord perswadeth the soul we all of us will talk of it O Jesus Christ is our help and hope and look for salvation in no other but in him it is grown now so cusâ—omary a thing among us that it is in every mans mouth but to how few hath the Lord spoken this to our hearts that thus it is Fifthly Again another thing that we are taught of God before we come to Jesus Christ is this that he is willing to let out of his oyntments to heal he is willing to expend that precious balm of Gilead upon us else the soul will never come to him it is that that keepeth off many a soul a long time the Spirit of the Lord perswadeth the poor soul that though he hath been an enemy to Jesus Christ and grieved him and torn his wounds and rent his flesh with horrid oaths and blasphemies trampled his blood under foot have been never so horrid a transgressor yet he perswadeth him that the Lord Jesus is willing to receive sinners without exception if they come to him Suppose there was a Physitian whose skill were so great and his store of Medicines so inexhaustible and soveraign and his heart so large as that he proclaimeth to all that whosoever is wounded though never so desperately whosoever is sick unto the death one of the Stone another of the Gout another of the plague I will cure you all O then if poor creatures did believe this were perswaded of it they would come and not before O saith one mine is a plague sore and it is past cure mine is an hereditary disease saith another and so far gone I cannot be cured they come not and perish O mine is such a disease it will cost more pains and charge then I think he will be willing to be at to cure and therefore he cometh not to him and so perisheth just so it is in this case except the Lord do secretly insinuate it into the soul how willingly the Lord Jesus writ it upon his Spirit and that the Lord Jesus is willing to receive to heal to save the soul that will not come to him but thus much for these things which in the order of nature go before a coming to Christ now for the acts wherein it formally consist First then when the heart is thus made sensible of what is in himself working to death and what is not in himself nor in any other creature to save then I say there is from the teaching of the heart how able and willing the Lord Jesus is there ariseth a desire in the soul after the Jesus Christ not as if this did flow or were produced by the former apprehensions of a mans own necessities of Christ and of the fulness in him as a fountain and the openness of the fountain which is sealed to none that come for alas one grace though never so habitual and deeply rooted cannot produce another no not faith it self produce love but the Spirit which works faith works love in our hearts also much less then can a conviction be the cause of a conviction or a turning unto the Lord Jesus but it is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus when he hath so opened the eyes of an Hagar to see the fountain opened that was near her before but she saw it not and let us see that our bottle is dryed up and all other hopes in the creature perished then I say the Spirit inclineth the Will to come to Jesus Christ then he works sweetly though strongly an inclination a desire after him It is not in these things as in nature an ordinary providence concurring with the actings of the creature according to their necessities When Hagar saw the fountain she needs no further perswasion to go unto it her necessity was a cord strong enough to draw her yea a weight a spring to carry her swiftly to it but alas when we see the bottles dryed see that the creatures say it is not in us to be had and see there is a fountain opened yet such is the waywardness of our hearts yea such the enmity in our hearts against the Lord Jesus though the streams of his love toward us were as strong as death that we will not yet come to him we had rather sit down as you see some sullen creatures taken from their damms will rather perish then receive food at the hand of man such an indisposition and aversness to man there is and so it is in this case except the Lord Jesus come in by another act of his Spirit and bow the will and make us desirous of himself O then when this act of power is put forth the soul beginneth to long to desire after Jesus Christ O that I had him O that I might but have a sight of him then there is getting upon the tree by a low Zacheus then there is an ascending in this Ordinance and that Ordinance and everywhere the desire of the soul is for Jesus Christ this is a coming for the affections are to the soul as the feet to the body that which carryeth the soul in and out in all to this object or from that object O then when shall I come and appear before him Secondly In this coming to Christ is included a passing all other stands and rests on this side Jesus Christ many a poor soul cometh near to Christ and to the Kingdom of God and yet falls short of him as an arrow not drawn up to the head falls short of the mark and there it sticks where it fastens goeth no further So here some upon their convictions the discovery of their conditions run to this Ordinance to that to this duty to that as things that of themselves as performances should give rest to them and
there are in the heart of Jesus Christ towards a poor sinner as a Father that for a time to humble his child will make it strange to him O how full is his heart how much ado hath he to hold as Joseph to his Brethren O it is the rejoycing of Jesus Christ when poor sinners do come to him to see his seed to see his blood that was sowed and his Semen Ecclesiae to come up it is his rejoycing and will any Husband man in the world that sows precious seed when it puts forth beat it down again nip off the buds the tops of it it cannot be he is grieved when poor creatures will not be perswaded to come through hardness of heart and unbelief and waywardness we will not come to the fountain but sit down it may be some of us with Hagar weeping over our empty bottles and making sad moan and complaints for want of righteousness because of sin and yet come not to him this is a grief to him as it was among the Jews O did he ever in the daies of his flesh refuse any poor creature that came to him either for healing of soul or body which is the lesser yea when they came some of them for the healing of the body did he not heal the soul and all out of the abundant riches of his love to poor creatures O surely then now he is in heaven at the right hand of the Father being no less tender of his poor people if any come now he will in no wise cast them out Well the Lord write these arguments upon our hearts it may be some of us may have occasion or have at present need of them to perswade us of this truth We now come to the Application Vse 1. And first in the first Vse It may serve for a lamentation to lament the backwardness of our hearts to come to Jesus Christ for if our hearts were not backward to come to him what need all this ado to make poor creatures willing to come to Jesus Christ O what is the reason what a strange enmity is in our hearts against the Lord Jesus that we run away from him instead of coming yea though he follow with a Pardon in his hand purchased with his blood O I am Jesus who dyed for you turn unto me my heart is toward you turn unto me I delight not in your death turn unto me O why will ye die and yet poor creatures will not be perswaded to come to Jesus Christ O what is it what is it Brethren that can keep us off thus from Jesus Christ in our unwillingness to close with him to come unto him have not many of us many times clearly been convinced that our condition hath been slark naught that we stand guilty before God and he will by no means clear the guilty and convinced that in Jesus Christ there is a doing away of this guilt a bloting out of the hand-writings that are against us and contrary to us if we will but come to him No we are like sullen creatures will rather perish then come to Jesus Christ I do not believe but many of us are convinced and what shift can we make to smother our convictions I know not but it appears we come not to Jesus Christ As long as the Prodigal could have husks to fill his belly with he would not come home to his Father as long as ever the poor woman in the Gospel had any thing to spend upon the Physitians she came not to Jesus Christ as long as ever poor sinners can make a shift to daub over the breaches that sometimes the Word maketh upon their consciences they will not come O the fault lies in the Will Brethren Ye will not come unto me saith our Saviour that ye might have life how often would I have gathered you as a Hen doth her Chickens and ye would not they would rather perish then be healed by such an hand even the hand of Jesus Christ O the deadly enmity that is in every one of us by nature What we are not willing to part with sins and therefore we come not to Jesus Christ we are not willing to be healed wilt thou be made whole we are prophane and we would be so still proud and would be so still unclean and would be so still We know if we come to him put on Christ we must put off the lusts of our former conversation O wretched love to sin that preferreth it before the Lord Jesus before the salvation of our poor souls What are we loth through the pride of our hearts to take the shame of our iniquities Haply something of this nature kept off the Prodigal Is it not more shame to do sin then to acknowledge it when it is done what is it Brethren how strange a thing is it that men should take such pains to hew out broken Cisterns to themselves that will hold no water dig deep into the world to find some rest there exhaust their strength in duties in prayers and tears as many self-Saviours do specially the Papists and I wish there be none among us rather then they will come to Jesus Christ to accept of that righteousness that pardon which shall cost us nothing but acceptance O the pride of our hearts O the enmity of our hearts against the Lord Jesus and is there such an heart in every one of us Brethren Yea even in the best until he overcome us with his loving-kindness and is not this a thing worthy to be bewailed Yea if it were possible with tears of blood being such an aversion from the blood of Jesus Christ and the dearest love of our Saviour to poor creatures Or what is it Brethren is it the more love we find from Jesus Christ are our hearts the more averse from him if he did profess himself an enemy to us to destroy and slay us if we came near him to scatter us with the streams of flaming indignation issuing from his throne and presence we could do no more then run away from him as many of us now do O that we could lay it to heart The second Vse shall be to shew us the grievous nature of the sin of unbelief and haply this may make poor creatures afraid of straining curtesie with Christ and afraid to come to him because of their vileness c. to complement with him First Consider but the unreasonableness of the sin of unbelief above other sins indeed though all sin be unreasonable other sins they have some pretence of profit or pleasure but this hath nothing but wo and misery attending it condemnation But that I shall not insist upon for there is hardly any thing but Satan and a mans carnal reason will put a specious pretence upon it Therefore consider this unreasonableness First in respect of our selves that being plunged into such a depth of distraction and misery of sin and guilt and wrath that
it formally consists are 1. In a desire of the soul after Christ 658 2. In passing all other stands and rests on this side Christ 659 3. In coming to him 660 4. In coming with heart-words 661 1. Words of Confession 2. Words of Petition ibid. 5. In closing with Christ 662 The Second thing in the Doctrine What is meant by not casting out 663 1. Not out of his heart 664 2. Not out of his Church ibid. 3. Not sending away empty either at the first or after-coming 665 666 4. Not out of heaven ibid. The Doctrine proved 1. From the promise of Christ 66 71 If otherwise Then 2. from Christs being argued unchangeable 668 3. From Christs slighting of his Fathers gift ibid. 4. From Christs failing in his trust 669 5. From Christs undervaluing of his blood ibid. 6. From undoing what the Father had done 670 7. From Christs bringing upon himself the imputation of delusion 671 1. Because of the many invitations made hy him to poor creatures ibid. 2. Because of his being contradicted of imposture 672 3. Because inconsistent with Christs bowels and tenderness ibid. The first Use is to lament the backwardness of our hearts in coming to Christ 673 The second Use shews the grievous nature of the sin of unbelief By considering 1. The unreasonableness of this sin 675 1. In respect of our selves 675 2. In respect of Christ 676 2. The injuriousness of this sin ibid. 3. The unkindness of this sin 678 4. The danger of this sin ibid. 1. Binding the guilt of all other sins upon the soul ibid. 2. Bringing blood upon a mans own head 679 3. Bringing the blood of Christ upon a mans head ibid. The third Use serves for Exhortation to every poor soul to come to Christ 680 From whence several considerations against the many hard thoughts of coming to Jesus Christ As 1. How injurious it is to grace 681 2. Christ leaves the soul altogether without excuse ibid. 3. How prejudicial to Jesus Christ 683 4. The experiences of all the Saints ibid. 5. The soul can have no evidence of being given to Christ until it come ibid. 6. How willing to run at hazard seeing there is so much certainty of speeding 684 7. It s a grief to Christ that the soul will not be perswaded of his good will ibid. The fourth Use exalts the riches of the grace of Christ to poor sinners 685 The fift Use declares that there is no falling away from Christ either from Justifying or Sanctifying grace once received 686 The sixth Use puts in a double caution 1. That impenitent sinners encourage not themselves in an evil way upon the account of Christs tenderness and mercy to poor sinners 687 2. That they that are in Christ take heed they abuse not this grace to wantonness 689 The seventh Use serves for a comfort to Gods people in all their fears and doubts that Christ will never cast them out 690 The first Objection That the soul thought it came to Christ c. but saies he is cast off and therefore concludes it was never truly in Christ is answered 691 The second Objection that the soul knows not whether ever yet it came to Christ and therefore is cast off is answered 692 1. Though Christ seems not for a time to own the soul yet he doth support it 693 2. When the heart is unsatisfiedly drawn after Jesus Christ ibid. 3. When the soul is willing to receive him as King and Saviour ibid. 4. When the soul is content to wait a while 694 5. When the soul is frequent in acting of faith to receive Christ ibid. FINIS Non loqu 〈…〉 nur magâ—a sed vivimus 2 Tim. 2. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est substantivum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1. 12. Iob 5. 26. Iohn 15. 16. Eph. 2. 10. 1 Cor. 3. 9. * How sparkling is knowledge when set off with the â—oll of a modest self depression Ignorance checkered with Impudence is all the stock that many confident Predicants set up withall * O the stupendious stupidity and dismal blockishness of those who having contracted the guilt of most monstrous and abhorred villanies are yet as sensâ—â—ss as stocks as hard as rocks and complain not of any stirrings and gripes of con science Esa 57. 16. So sparks fly over from Dublin Zeal Ex. 32. 19. Mat. 5. 9. * Cap. Johnson W. Fisher Iohn 21. 17. * Though the Ocean bubble and boyl like a pot yet the falling tears of conâ—â—ite self-condemning Christians do suddenly asswage the Seas rising roughness and check its mutinous and menacing motions * Oritic S. 5. Courage Exâ— 4 13 14. Heb. 2. 13. 2 Car. 11. 23. Luke 9. 61. 1 Tim. 3. 5. * They are great enemies to their own comfort who live in the neglect of this Ordinance and whilst the Congregation is trumpeting out Gods praises sit like mopish mutes with a discontented eye and cloudy countenance as if the musick which they hear were howling rather than Singing †He was far from the opinion and temper of those whom the very thoughts much more debates of having their poor Babes Baptized do strangely transport with rage and an high indignation 〈…〉 inst any that shall attempt it Phil. 3. 19. 3 Tim. 6. 8. Phil. 3. â—o 2 Cor. 9. 2. Prov 3. 28. Eccles 11. 1. Prov. 19. 11. Prev 24. 29. Rom. 12. 20 21. 1 Pet. 5. 6. Prevented by his coming out of his closet at 11 clock in the night * Awake O sleepy slâ—ggard and let not the rising Sun find thee flâ—t on thy back and when the great eye of the world is up and open let not thine be shut me thinks its bright and penetrating raies should scatter that cloud of sleep and security that hangs upon thy dull and depressed brow Knowest thou not O drowsie drone that thou hast a great deal of work to do and but a little time to dispatch it in 2 Sam. 2. 23. Nov. 19. 1654. * 1. It produceth a calm a quietness in the soul against all distracting fears O he is come saith a Martyr and death was nothing to him 2. It is the most real good in heaven or in earth other goods are vain and empty this is â—ound and solid this is bread indeed and no delusion as the world and Satan would perswade 3. It brings-with it all manner of good which way soever God turns all the creatures that depend on him turn 4. It seasons prosperity to us it melâ—eth out the sweet and giveth us the marrow and fatneâ—s of it 5. It will season the bitterest cup of affliction the valley of the shadow of death will be but as another place Hab 3. 6. It will work effectually deliverance out of affliction 7. It will make us more then Conquerors Triumphers Rom. 8. 31. 8. It is of a teaching nature Psal 119. 125. When the Lord shines on our Readings Studyings Meditating then we are taught indeed 9. It melteth the heart kindly in a
compass of this Covenant of Grace and afterward perish the deeper will they sâ—nk those will burn with a witness that are cut off from the Vine the visible Church of the Olive as unprofitable dead and barren branches Yet it is a priviledge and a great act of grace to be of the Olive Is it nothing to be one of Gods houshold or family to be under his provision his protection and guidance in a special manner to be in the state of separation to God of old and sealed up therein to God by Circumcision It was profitable much every way the Apostle said Yea I will say more That the greater force a thing hath to aggravate the condemnation of poor Creatures the greater the mercy is Shall we say the Preaching of the Gospel is not a mercy because this is the condemnation indeed that light is come into the world The second use may be to help the people of God over a stumbling block which may be an offence to them happily in some Churches of Christ either such as themselves walk with or others It may be there are some in such or such a Church whose spirits thou canst not savour thou hast them in suspition and therefore thou canst not be free to have fellowship with them Or if thou be in Fellowship thou art ready to withdraw upon such an account First be sure to take heed of making breaches in thy love It thinketh no evil hopeth all things that are hopeable And dost thou know how much smoke there may be with some fire how much corruption and ashes there may be and yet some fire Therefore take heed of judging the state and Condition of men where they are not in the course of their lives prophane and scandalous 2. Much more take heed of that dividing and separating upon such an occasion as this for did not our Saviour walk with his disciples though he knew Judas a devil and doubtless it was more a grief to him then it can be to us the less holiness the less evil will grieve and a man is more tender there must needs be all tenderness where there is no sin to harden it O then let us arm our selves with the same minde There were great abuses in the Church of Corinth and yet he stirreth not them up to division but love rather Why but you will say when they become scandalous what should we do then Why then the Church ought to deal with them judiciously to enquire into them admonish them censure and cast them out if the other preparative means with waiting upon God in them will not do it That is clear in the incestuous person and again If any that is called a brother be a drunkard or a rayler c. with such a one no not to eat it is clear whether they might so withdraw from him before the Church had censured him under tryal I think not for then he was to be as a heathen in respect of communion and yet not accounted an enemy but esteemed as a brother now truly if the Church be so over-run with this hem 〈…〉 k for want of weeding like the slothful mans vineyard over-grown with thorns and thistles Through the sloth of the Church and officers the ordinance of excommunication so neglected that now they are grown so corrupt as there is no way lefâ— according to the rule of Christ to purge them what other means is left in such a case but withdrawing I do not understand 3. It may teach us notwithstanding the sad condition of such as continuing members of the visible Church yet remain in an unregenerate state happily we all look upon our selves to be members of the Church of Christ but have we this grace in our hearts this oyl in our Lamps we have a name and profession but can we say that Christ is in us the hope of glory If not brethren our condition is sad indeed we are a people that happily the world can lay nothing to our charge we may put the best side outward like painted sepulchers but what is within what is within but rottenness remember that though men cannot judge your hearts but hope the best of you brethren yet there is one which searcheth the heart and judgeth the heart and of you according to your hearts though his Disciples cannot finde out Judas yet our Saviour would finde him out at last hâ—s eys are like a flaming fire Let your hypocrisie be as deep as it may it shall not be hid from the light nor from the scorching heat thereof Yea consider seriously brethren that those things you glory most in and pillar up your selves with they will be your ruine if you remain in this condition and that is the Ordinances you have the Covenant preached and sealed to you from time to time and communion with the Saints you think this is enough you cannot miscarry the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord you trust in lying words for they will deceive you may you not be children of the Kingdom and yet cast out yet will not this be the thing which will sink you that you have been children of the kingdom and yet fall short of the kingdom You come to the feast for theâ—e is a wedding feast the Gospel and the Ordinances are whereof see pag. 106. which you are to understand all the administrations of the grace in the Kingdom the Gospel-Ordinances this is the feast of fat things the fat things of heaven you may be admitted to this feast to all the Ordinances not a dish upon the table but you may eat of it But alas brethren if you be yet in the gall of bitterâ—â—ss though you go for sweet Christians all turns to gall and poyson to your souls It is impossible for such a man or such a woman ever to come worthily to partake of the Ordinances a child of God hath much ado with his heart to bring it into frame to get the spirit fixed to sing and give praise to prepare his heart and much pains many times and the work done but in a little part yet there is mercy to accept where we do our best there is habitual preparation there are the graces of the spirit and there is Christ put on by faith for righteousness and holiness but the graces are not so lovely so stirred up and much ado to blow away the ashes and they flye about our ears sometimes that we even lose our selves in the work But yet God will be mercifull and cover our shortness if we reach but this the sense of our unpreparation and be â—uâ—bled for it But now thou that art a hypocrite and an unregenerate man thou canst never be prepared to come to hear to receive the Supper and so they prove the savour of death to death thou hast no promise thou canst build upon but that they will be thy bane Alas poor soul how many times hast thou
drunk the cup of the Lord and it hath been a cup of deadly wine to thy soul thou hast eaten and drunken thy judgement and condemnation so often that thou art even stupifyed and past feeling it is to be feared it not onely argues a desperately hard heart to come and look upon Christ crucifyed held out in those Ordinances as our meat and drink to nourish us and not to relent but it hardens us so much the more Thou mayst yet come oft ento receive the Supper of the Lord but as often as thou dost it thou dost but more deeply poyson and fill thy soul O! Brethren that the Lord would let us see this day whether this be our condition and we have rotten hearts covered over with a glorious profession that we might not dare to draw near for we cannot have a Wedding-garment upon us brethren if we have not the habits of grace if we have not Christ for righteousness and holiness how can we act that grace which we have not Thou art fit for any thing else but for the worship of God thou art fit for thine own occasions and fit to serve the Devil to be at his beck but not to worship God in those Ordinances remember remember brethren though you may have somewhat now to answer us when we preach this word and to answer your own consciences and can make a shift to silence them when they tell you though you have a profession and name and are reckoned among the Saints yet you never were born again never did put on Christ indeed you cannot have a wedding garment though you may brethren deceive your selves and us and take this and that for a wedding-garment when the Lord Jesus shall come and ask you how comest thou in hither without a wedding garment thou hadst not a dram of grace thou never puttest me on for righteousness in believing how camest thou hither how durst thou be so bold as to draw nigh to my table to meddle with my precious blood and body broken for sinners when thou haddest not a wedding garment on you shall then be speechless it shall be so evident O take him bind him hand and foot hang these Ordinances and priviledges which he hath so long abused my blood and body which he hath eaten and drunk that is to say Sacramentally the signs of them as those in 1 Cor. 10. they did all eat the same spiritual meat c. and yet most of them perished sink him sink him he hath trampled my blood under his foot counted it an unholy thing else he would never have cared to have come with an unholy heart to it therefore now I will trample his soul in my fury unto the lowermost hell O! how this will sharpen the teeth of the gnawing worm to eternity O how this will inrage the flames of those everlasting burnings therefore consider this your sad condition let it be a terrible word to you the Lord give you hearts to tremble at it And in the last place Let us take heed how we rest and lean upon a profession and a name Methinks there needs no more Arguments to move us then what hath been spoken already What folly is it for a man to hang his weight upon that which he is told will break and then he falls into an irrecoverable gulf O! that we had that alway sounding in our ears in the seventh of Mat. Lord Lord open to us we have done this and that heard thee preach done wonderful works they were visible Saints surely at least and yet he calls them workers of iniquity which they might do in secret acts with pretences for God but intending themselves What if Simon Magus had had that power to give the gift of the Holy Ghost and had done it and replenished his purse by it for likely he that would have bought it would have been as ready to have sold it again he might have past for a Saint but what would his end have been O Brethren consider your latter end the Lord teach you that one point of wisdom that so in time 〈◊〉 may flee from that wrath to come But so much for this Doctrine also Verse 3 and 4. And they that were foolish took their Lamps and took no oyl with them But the wise took oyl in their vessels with their Lamps WE may read a wise man or a fool in his actions and so here the foolish took no oyl with their Lamps and what more foolish then that For the opening of the words I shall not need to say much by the Lamps I understand here a profession of Jesus Christ a name a shew the Apostle speaks of the Saints as light-bearers they should be burning and shining lights as John was Light there is and sometimes appearing heat even in formal professors as you see in the case of John how zealous for God And Judas a man would have thought him zealous when he said Why is this waste but it is like the light of the glow-worm touch it and it hath neither light nor heat they are indeed sparks of our own kindling as it is in that place of Isaiah the sparks there may be the action of Devotion and Duty which may be elicited or educed by the help of nature and of education and custom the conscience being enlightened by the Law of God in some measure and self-love working somewhat in men will put them on to do something to quiet their Consciences but alas these sparks quickly go out and the Lamp is put out in obscure darkness There may be also somewhat of Common-grace some enlightning of the minde and some kinde of affection as the second ground received the word gladly and Herod heard John gladly but a great difference between these and the Disciples who receiveed the word gladly the one rejoyced happily in that which in the word is suitable to a carnal appetite as the Eloquence as those in the Prophet thou art to them as one that plays on an Instrument but the other rejoyced in that of Christ which is therein found So the Bee is pleased with the Flower the Sheep with the Blade the Bird with the Seed and the Swine with the Root But new for the oyl in the vessels what is that The foolish took no oyl in their vessels with their lamps By this I understand brethren the oyl of the Spirit ye have received an anointing the Spirit of grace and the grace of the Spirit of Christ the Spirit dwelling in us there is a Cruse opened that will never be drawn dry like the Fountain of waters or Rivers springing up with eternal life it never sails By this then I understand the true saving work of grace in the heart a receiving of the Spirit of grace the Spirit of Christ by faith as the Apostle speaks by the hearing of faith by the Gospel the word of faith which was blessed to the working of saith in
and that is it seemeth to be just a little before their Lord cometh the L. Jesus for it was the cry that wakened them Behold the Bridegroom cometh Whether we look upon this coming of Christ to be his last and general coming so understand the ten Virgins collectively for al the visible Church then found on earth it is considerable that they shall generally be found sleeping you know how the Evangelist setteth forth in the former chapter wherein the Disciples ask him when those things shall be and what shall be the signs of his coming and of the end of the world When Jerusalem should be destroyed when he would come gloriously by his Spirit and word prevailing over the world suddainly like lightning passing from one end to the other as some understand that Or whether we make that coming of Christ and the end of the world all one It should seem this is to be referred to the answer to the third the end of the world as it was in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking and never minded were careless and asleep until the world was in a flood about them note here in the end they shall be asleep alike secure and drowsie and as little look for the end of the world until all be on a flame about their ears And Satans letting loose after the thousand years being imprisoned seemeth to speak sad work he will make among men immediately before the last end Or if we understand it distributively of each Saint as sometimes in the same Scripture the H. Ghost speaks of the Church collectively and distributively draw me we wil run after thee so here the Virgins they all slumbred and slept and so they might do if they did it singly near the time of his approach to each of them to take them to himself for ever or separate them from himself for ever which is the case of the foolish virgins I say it is alike considerable and may give us ground of a note of observation by and by It is true indeed some understand that in the beginning they went forth to meet the Bridegroom by a Prolepsis or Anticipation as if they did not go forth at all to meet him until after the cry was made but I cannot see the reason of it They would have it that Christians are very apt to be sleepy in the beginnings of their faith and work of faith which indeed may be so but methinks that doth not so well suit with the time of first-love which the Scripture often mentioneth men are usually most forward then and most watchful and wakeful then Nor do I know any inconvenience but they might sleep in the way in their journey going forth to meet the Bridegroom and methinks the tarrying of the Bridegroom being interposed between their setting forth towards him and their sleep doth plainly argue it if we may argue from these things but they will argue as much for the one way as for the other so that I would rather take it thus And however it be that with particular circumstance be not to be too much strained when we have the scope of the Parable yet remember that this we are now upon is the main thing if I understand it aright for this sleeping here is the privation of that watching which is a duty so often and so much pressed upon the Disciples in the former chapter and this and many other places and this appears to be the scope by our Saviours winding up all in that Exhortation therefore watch for ye know not what â—our he will come the foolish virgins and wise both were too foolish in this when he tarryed they slept and while they slept he came and what prejudice it was to them afterward likely you may hear more fully therefore saith our Saviour watch Therefore this if I do insist a little upon it I hope it will not be amiss it being the scope of the Parable They all slumbred and slept here it will not be amiss for the further opening the words to tell you What kind of sleep this is and the degrees of it for the kind you must know brethen we are not speaking of a bodily sleep whether ordinary or extraordinary from a natural or a supernatural cause such deep sleep as fell upon some though the Disciples were much blamed for their sleeping when they should have watched and prayed I take it their natural sleep was not there considered but as an effect of their spiritual sleep their souls were asleep and thence they slept when they should have been praying to have been a comfort to Christ in that his Agouy but we are now to speak of a spiritual sleep the sleep of the soul Indeed the soul considered as a spiritual being in its natural capacity properly never sleepeth but the body It is never weary of its actings but the body is which it useth as its instrument as it never groweth old so it never groweth sleepy and therefore we do not consider the soul neither in a natural capacity onely as it is a spiritual being but in a supernatural capacity that is to say as it hath some divine qualities put upon it whereby it acts and works towards God and towards Christ as natural Agents act by their qualities the fire by its heat so the soul by its faith and by its love and by its humility So then we are here considering not a naked soul but a soul as it hath either in reality or else in appearance put on Christ for righteousness and for holiness is raised up from that death in sin to a liâ—e of grace or love to God Now this soul so considered alas sometimes it fals asleep So much for the kind of sleep For the degrees of the sleep here they are two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two words and of two significations as indeed our own English words do plainly distinguish you know to slumber is much less then to sleep in our experience of it to slumber is when a man onely doth nap or nod he is not fast asleep as it were between sleeping and waking a little thing waketh him now he is awake and then is napping again but not so fast as to have the senses altogether sealed up as in a sleep then it is otherwise there must be much ado to wake a man when he is in such a sleep So it is in this case This spiriritual sleep there are degrees a napping and nodding now asleep and then awake again we are neither awake nor asleep there are interruptions successively in our sleeping and waking But when a man is asleep he goeth on away with it continueth so great a while sleep hath seized upon him lockt him and sealed up and made him sure as I may say which what it is shall farther be opened by and by onely here let us take up the Doctrinal Observations from the words which shall be onely these two