exercised your patience to the full and the time far gone yet give me leave a little more have patience for your dying Minister God knows whether ever or never I shall trouble you thus again the pains is mine I pray God the profit may be yours If the Word of God's Grace be such Security Comfort to a left People Be exhorted 1. To attend upon the Publick Preaching of the Word This is the ordinary and appointed means to get benefit for your souls Those that came to Christ were healed of their several infirmities and maladies Would you have your spiritual maladies healed your natures sanctified corruptions mortified Grace implainted Grace increased strengthned Wait on the Word for this is the standing and appointed means When Joseph and Mary sought for Christ they could not find him in the Company nor amongst their Friends nor in the City but in the Temple Luke 2.43 44 45 46. Think not to find God and Christ in sinful company in your houses nor in your fields nor flocks but in his Ordinances these are his Wine-Cellers and Banqueting-houses wherein he will feast your souls with spiritual dainties and varieties Cant. 2.4 2. Be frequent in reading it labour to understand and believe it The oftner you reade it the more you shall understand it the more you understand it the more you shall believe it and the more you believe it the more comfort and benefit you shall reap by it What advantage will all the excellencies be to us if we do not believe them and how can we believe them unless we understand them and how can we understand them unless we reade it and hear it preached Therefore be constant in reading every day some part of God's Word season your souls with it in the morning let it lock up your thoughts in the evening Here you have a prescribed remedy for every malady a plaister for every sore here is comfort for every sorrow and in all affliction here is counsel in all your straits Deprive not your selves of the benefit for want of reading studying the Word You feed every day your bodies with your daily food feed your souls with this food 3. Treasure up the Word in your hearts Let the Word of Christ saith the Apostle dwell in you richly in all wisdom Col. 3.16 Where there is a Malady there the Remedy must be applied Your Malady is within So many sins so many diseases so many sins so many wounds This will be Physick to cure your diseases A Plaister to heal your wounds Blindness is the disease of the understanding Vanity the disease of the mind Stuborness the disease of the will And the sin of each faculty of the soul and member of the body is the disease and wound of that faculty and member But this Word dwelling powerfully in you enlightens your understandings fils your minds with heavenly mindedness makes your wills obedient heals every faculty and every member though it be in part Physick doth not cure us Cordials do not comfort nor strengthen us unless we drink them Plaisters do not heal us unless we apply them Food doth not nourish us unless we eat and digest it No more will the Word of God be as Physick as a Cordial as a Plaister as Food to purge sin to comfort us to heal us to nourish our Graces unless it dwell within us How can a Souldier defend himself and beat his enemies when he is a naked man without his Weapons you are naked unarmed if the Word dwell not in you Well than Be well acquainted with God's Menaces against sin and his Judgments upon it Be well acquainted with his Promises that you have both in readiness when occasion requires 4. Walk according to it Make it a light to your feet and a lanthorn to your paths Psal 119.105 This is the way of peace And as many as walk according to this Rule peace be upon them and the whole Israel of God Gal. 6.16 It is the way of security read Isa 33.15 16. It is the way of blessedness Not the hearers but doers of the Word shall be blessed in the deed Jam. 1.22 23 24 25. I shall give you three or four instances First In sanctification of the Sabbath God hath given us six dayes to do our work in and hath taken himself but one in seven to be served in and it is a robbing of God not to keep his Day holy The Christian Sabbath is a weekly commemoration of Christ's arising from the dead and accomplishing the great work of our Redemption and in thankfulness for so great a mercy be sure you keep holy be strict in religious Duties publick and private Make conscience of performing duty and make conscience of a right manner of performing duty when others play sport walk abroad sleep or talk at home reade you the Word or good Books pray and sing praises to God Such as are not careful to sanctifie God's Day care not for God nor Religion any day Such as deny him publick Worship will deny private Worship Such as are careless in performing publick Duties are careless in performing private Duties and Cursed be they that do the work of the Lord negligently Mal. 1. ult Secondly Be careful to govern your Families according to the Word It was Joshuahs resolution That he and his house would serve the Lord Chap. 24.15 and David would suffer no wicked man in his house Psal 10â— Be careful to offer to God a morning and an evening Sacrifice reading some portion of God's Word Be careful and constant to instruct your Families your Children and Servants in principles of Religion in the fear of God season them while they are with you that they may be preserved from infection when they are from you Endevour that Husbands be holy that your Wives be holy that Children be holy that Servants be holy that your Families be as little Churches of God The holiness of a Family is the glory the safety the riches of a Family Thirdly Live in subjection to Supream Power and Authority of the Nation We are branded for Rebels Fomenters of divisions labouring to fire the Nation with civil Discord and engage it in another War but our Practice and our Doctrine shall witness the contrary to the world And therefore I charge you before God's holy Angles and God himself the great Judge of the world that ye be subject to the higher Powers Be actively obedient so far as you may keep peace and a good conscience within and when you cannot obey actively obey passively Fear not Josephs Prison nor Jeremiahs Dungeon nor Daniels Lions Den for a good conscience Praying for all in Authority that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in ALL godliness and honesty Labour I beseech you by your quiet and peaceable lives to vindicate the innocency of your Ministers and their Doctrine from those black-mouthed blasphemies and reproaches envie and malice and ignorance hath cast upon them and doubtless
flourishing in the Courts of God under that plenty of Heavenly Manna that hath been rained down upon me and those soul-fatting Ordinances I have partaken of Thus improve your remembrance how you have received and heard When you find your hearts to grow dead and cold O then say Was it wont to be thus Where are those high estimations those lively affections those holy resolutions that seriousness of spirit those powerfull Impressions and gracious Effects of the Word and Sacraments that I have found in and under them Oh let this consideration excite you to this Duty in the Text and make this use of former Gospel-enjoyments and the good you found in them to shame and humble you that you have made no better improvement of them 3. A third Benefit of remembring how you have received and heard is That through the blessing of God upon it it will be a means and help to keep from sin in practice It will be a special Preservative against the Infection of the sins of the dayes and times into which you may be cast As you desire to be preserved from sin make conscience of this duty and it will be a means to recover you again when you have fallen into sin Psal 119.9 11. Hiding the Word of God in his heart was a means to keep David from sinning against God Attending to the Word of God is prescribed by him as a means to cleanse the wayes even of a young-man This will keep you from being superstitious profane and loose when others are so but if once you forget what and how you have received you will soon swim down the stream with others and quickly be over-run with sin Peter first forgot the word of warning Christ had given him and then he soon forgot himself and his own duty and fell into that foul sin of denying his Lord and Master Oh therefore remember how you have received and heard and improve your Remembrance of it to preserve you from falling into sin and to recover you when you are fallen When you are tempted to sin say I have been otherwise taught I have not so learned Christ I have been warned against these and these sins As Peter's forgetfulness of Christ's words was the cause of his fall so it was the remembrance of what Christ had spoken that helped to raise him up again when he was fallen And you should endeavour to improve the remembrance of the Words of Christ unto this end 4. A fourth Benefit of this Remembrance how you have received and heard is That it will be a spur to quicken unto Duty and a means to excite and strengthen Grace 2 Tim. 1.6 2 Pet. 1.12 13 14 15. 2 Pet. 3.1 2. In all these places you will find that this Remembrance of what men have received and heard is a means to stir up the gifts and graces of God's Spirit in them When you remember what you have received from God in Ordinances and in the performance of holy Duties it will make you desirous to converse in them and to love them the better the longest day you live You will say It is good to be here you will never be weary of waiting upon God whilst you retain a favoury remembrance of the sweetness power and efficacy you have found and felt in the Word and Ordinances of God And this will be also a means to increase and strengthen Grace in the Soul Grace in the Soul is nourished by the same means by which it is begotten Those Promises that inclined the heart to believe at first will now being remembred and fed upon by Faith raise Faith to higher pitches and degrees Remembring your former experiences of God's helping you when you have been in straits will help you to trust in God in future straits and tryals Labour therefore to remember and to make this use of the remembrance of what and how you have received and heard to quicken you to a more constant attendance on God in Ordinances and to increase and strengthen Grace in your souls 5. The Remembrance how you have received and heard will be of great use and advantage to your souls for it will keep up in your judgments an high estimation of and in your affections a sincere love to those precious Truths and those plain pure powerful dispensations of Ordinances you have partaken of even then when by sickness or any other hand of God upon you you may be deprived of the actual enjoyment of them If God should remove Ministers and Ordinances from you or you from them that you cannot enjoy them as you have done yet the very remembrance of them will be precious when you remember what heart-warmings you have had under them Labour to make this use of the remembrance of old Truths and former Enjoyments to make you esteem and love them 6. A sixth Benefit of remembring how you have received and heard is That it will keep up in you earnest and hungring desires after and stir up in you a mighty Spirit of Prayer for the keeping and restoring when you have lost them those precious Truths and Ordinances wherein you have found so much of God It will cause you to say with the Disciples Lord evermore give us this Bread It will and should cause you to cry to your Father for the Bread of Life to say as the Psalmist Psal 42.1 2. Psal 63.1 2. David remembred what he had seen of the power and glory of God in the Sanctuary and this sets his soul a longing for the restoring again of those blessed opportunities he had been priviledged with O make this use of this Remembrance how you have received and heard to cause you to wrestle with God in Prayer for the continuance and restitution of those comfortable Sabbaths and Sacraments that pure and powerful Preaching Praying and Administration of Ordinances God hath vouchsafed It was this remembring of what and how he had received that made that holy Martyr Bishop Latimer cry out Lord restore the Gospel once again to England And in such or the like cases it should make you and will make you pray that God would restore the Liberty of his Ministers and the Power and Purity of his Ordinances and try you whether you would not through his Grace improve them better than you have done 7. A seventh Benefit of this remembring how you have received and heard is that it will bring into your souls the comfort and sweetness of former Truths and Ordinances It will be as the rouling of a sweet morsel under your tongues You may hereby reap the benefit of former Sermons and Sacraments many years hence Many times Truth is more sweet and makes a more powerful impression on the soul in the meditation and repetition of it than it did at its first delivery And so it may do in you if you be careful in the practice of this duty 8. And lastly The remembring of what and how you have received and heard may and
worship ye know not what saith Christ to the woman of Samaria We know what we worship including himself among the rest that worshipped God aright for Salvation is of the Jews But may this suffice here to prevent a great mistake and mis-judging which many Christians of late have discovered themselves but too forward unto 2. This also lets us see how sad it is to be of the Popish Religion which teacheth halting This is a Religion that teacheth halting wherein it differeth from ours from the true it teacheth nothing but halting Halting in Faith enclining in part to God's written Word and in part to their unwritten Traditions Halting in Obedience betwixt God's Commands and the Decrees and Constitutions of the Pope or their Church Halting in Worship betwixt God and Saints betwixt God the living God and dumb and sensless Images The Apostle Peter was blame-worthy when he halted betwixt the Jews and Gentiles Gal. 2. The Popish Religion allows and teaches Dissimulation and Equivocation before men The Religion of the Samatitans was a strange composition when they feared the Lord and served their own gods such is the Religion of the Papists who add to the Worship of God a multitude of Jewish and Paganish Rites and Ceremonies How intollerable is their confounding of Christ and Moses how abominable their joyning their own works with Christs merits in the business of Justification How dishonourable unto Christ and dangerous undoing to themselves their depending partly on Christ's mediation and partly on the Saints intercession O What a miserable lame Religion Popery is A Wavering Religion A Religion as we may hope that shall not stand long It is sure to fall and to be crusht in pieces with its own weight The Lord keep us and ours that we never come under it Better dye and perish in a Wilderness than return to this spiritual Egypt Vse 2. For Reprehension and Humiliation that so much halting in Religion is to be found amongst us 1. What halting among our common Professors Halting between GOD and Mammon Though you know what Christ sayes Matth. 6.24 You cannot give your hearts both to God and to the World If you would give them to God you must take them off from the world if they are set on the world you do not give them to God Ezek. 33.31 Again I wish there were nothing to be found like halting between God and Baal Some more observant of the Custom of the place than of the Scripture-rule in their Worship Some that worship God partly according to his Word and partly after their own and others fancies besides or against the Word How ill the Lord takes this may be guessed at by that passage Matth. 15.9 In vain do they worship me q. d. they might as well do nothing Halting between God and Belial Modo Ecclesias modo Theatra replentas Some for the place of God's Worship to day and for a Playhouse or the Tavern or Alehouse to morrow One while for the Service of God another while for the satisfying of their lusts Some that have their good moods now and then their Consciences being awakened by a powerful Sermon or some smarting rod by a sharp correction come to them now and you would think they were â—â—lly resolved to break off their sins and turn to God whereas a temptation doth no sooner present it self again but they are drawn away by their own lusts and enticed How many that are turning with the various companies they fall into That can carry fairly and smoothly while in company with such as are of note for Religion and an holy strictness and are as ready to fly out be vain and carry like one of the fools in Israel when they are in place were they may take their liberty in the company of such as are loose and prophane How many that will turn with the times seem very forward in Religion while it is a thing in fashion but cast it off again if once it grows out of credit in the world Like the Samaritans who would pretend kinderd to the Jews but only while they were in a prosperous state 2. Come to the best of us such as are upright in the main O how much halting yet may such be taxed with How great unevenness in the frame of our spirits our hearts sometimes up in holy duties but soon down again our affections sometimes lively but soon flat and dead again Alas What inconstant creatures are we Aliud stantes aliud sedentes One thing in religious services another out of them If we get any warmth into our spirits on the Lords Day how soon that we take cold again when we go into the world How great unevenness in the course of our conversation At one time a little diligent at another time exceeding sloathful in our business One while serious and conscionable in the practise of secret duties another while too ready upon any slighty occasion to neglect and omit them or else to slubber them over One while fruitful in our discourse desirous to do some good to all with whom we converse other while as barren as may be How faint and weak sometimes in our resistance of sin whereas we should go from strength to strength Do we not many times suffer a foiled routed enemy to rally again are we not sometimes worsted by those very lusts which before we had put to flight driven out the field What shall we say that after some conquest of our corruptions we have turned our backs again have yielded unto and been overcome of them How ready to shrink at the apprehension the approach of Sufferings How little have we to say for God his Truth Ministers c. when there may be the least danger in owning God and His Interest here Like these in the Text answered never a word How willing to spare our selves Too ready to venture the favour of God to keep the favour of men or to venture upon His displeasure to avoid mans displeasure Other whiles we seem full of confidence in God and sometimes again as full of fears O what cause have the best to be humbled even such as do not hover or hang in suspence betwixt two contrary wayes such as are set in the right way yet alas we go very weakly lamely here What cause to complain of feeble knees Do we not find a clog of corruption at our foot which is a great hindrance to us in our spiritual course There is flesh as well as spirit and hence as Jacob halted in his wrestling with God so do we halt in our walking with God The Child of God sayes Mr. Perkins is like a lame man that goes the right way but yet halts at every step This should be matter of humiliation and lamentation to us all Use 3. Hence be persawded to take heed of halting in Religion Now my work shall be to give 〈◊〉 some moving considerations to press you to an holy care and watchfulness over your selves here and
Christ as ver 1. more flesh than spirit Motives to grow in Grace 1. That we may answer not frustrate God's expectation Luke 12.48 Where much is given there much is required Isa 5.3 I looked for grapes and well he might expect store of fruit of a Vineyard so husbanded 2. Much Grace will produce much Obedience greater Faith greater Obedience and that hereafter will conduce more to the glory of God Rom. 4.20 Abraham being strong in Faith gave glory to God The more Grace the better lives will Christians lead whereby God is more glorified John 15.8 Hereby is my Father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit 2. Much obedience wil be more to our own comfort for God will reward every one according to his works 1 Cor. 15. ult Knowing your labour not to be in vain in the Lord. If there be degrees of Glory sure they are bestowed according to improvment of talents here He that had gained ten pounds had Authority over ten Cities and he that had gained five pounds was made Ruler over five Cities Luke 19.17 19. He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he that soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully 2 Cor. 9.6 2. Here in this life God usually metes to us as we measure to him according to our obedience so is our comfort Luke 6.38 Where no care of obedience no comfort little Faith little comfort hence Christians of little Faith little obedience are much disquieted about their comfort and assurance 3. We need much Grace to conquer many corruptions great lusts to resist strong temptations Some sins like those Devils are not easily cast out Matt. 17.21 It is by Faith Christians overcome the world 1 John 5.4 but a little Faith will hardly overcome the temptations on the right hand from worldly prosperity temptations on the left hand persecutions of the world it must be a strong Faith that must stop the mouths of Lions subdue Kingdoms quench the violence of fire Heb 11.35 small strength of Grace will be more like to faint in the day of battel than conquer strong opposition Prov. 24.10 If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 4. There be hard lessons to be learned hard duties to be performed in Christianity whereunto is requisit more store of Grace Some stick at easie duties how will they go thorow with harder Who cannot hold out with soot-men how will they run with horse-men They who are tired with family duties how will they perform those of self-denial heart-examination mortification which are as the cutting off the right hand or plucking out the right eye How will they love their enemies forgive injuries fobear revenge to the performance of which Christians need pray as Luke 17.4 Lord increase our Faith If God bid us do some great thing as to lay down our lives we ought to refuse none of his commands How much less ought we not to stick at duties of so easie a nature 5. Christians may be brought into great straits out of which to extricate themselves they need store of Grace much Faith more wisdome great courage Let not your hearts be troubled saith Christ to his Disciples sorrowing for his absence John 14.1 How shal they remedy that Ye believe in God Believe also in me Some Faith they had already but they will need more to prevent trouble of heart Hab. 1.2 The Prophet complains of bad times violence and spoil all along that Chapter How shall the iniquity of times be helped See Chap. 2.4 The Just shall live by Faith the best remedy for sad times then they must have Faith store of Faith that intend to live upon it when times are so bad that Believers have nothing else left but Faith to live upon In great storms we need great courage â—est we sink Psal 112.7 He shall not be afraid c. his heart is fixed 6. The best evidence of truth of Grace is growth If plants grow if young cattel thrive be sure they live when Christians thrive not are as ignorant now as they were seven years ago are as luke-warm c. they may suspect whether ever they were born again or began to live the life of Grace Helps to grow besides those which belong to the former branch of Exhortation which may be useful here 1. Beware thou judge not thy self strong when thou art weak nay when thou hast no Grace at all as is too usual Laodicea-like Rev. 3.17 Thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods c. Prov. 13.7 There is that maketh himself rich yet hath nothing Thou maiest have long time enjoyed the means yet not have made answerable progress in practical Godliness Some children go to school seven years yet arrive not at so good degrees of learning as others do in half that time Israel in their wilderness wanderings spent neer forty years in going eleven dayes journey Deut. 1.2 Heb. 5.12 Some at sixty years Profession are inferior to others of sixteen who for the time they have had to learn ought to be teachers of others had need one teach them the principles of Religion and have need of milk c. 2. Beware thou never entertain a conceit of having Grace enough nor ever stint thy self to a certain measure of Grace of worldly riches a man may have enough and surfet but of Grace thou canst not surfet canst not be too greedy thou maist love the world too much canst not love Christ too much canst not have too much humility too much meekness zeal so it be according to knowledge here the proverb is most true Store is no sore much Grace will be no burden 3. Be sure thou live be in Christ for dead things grow not in Christ is all fulness of him must we receive John 1.16 in him are all treasures of wisdom and knowledg The branch cannot grow that is cut off from the stock John 15.4 no more can ye except ye abide in me Christ is Author and finisher of our Faith and all Grace to him must we be united receive influence from him have much recourse to him communion with him 4. Be very humble ascribe all thy sufficiency to God He must be as the dew to Israel ere he can grow as the Lilly Hos 14.5 8. from me is thy fruit found God hath great respect for humble Persons because they will be most thankful and ascribe all their fruitfulness unto God which proud Persons arrogate to themselves Therefore God will teach the meek hath respect to the lowly giveth more Grace to the humble Jam. 4.6 5. Improve what thou hast exercise Grace received exercises in Learning Scholastick disputatious declamations speaking Latine increase learning Acts intend habits The more a child exerciseth his writing reading the better he will write and read the more a Christian putteth forth acts of Piety Charity Mortification Prayer c. the more Pious and Gracious he will prove himself To him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundance
relations Satâ—n and corrupt nature would soon cut the cords of amity dissolve bands knit angry looks weave vexations gestures contrive evil surmises hinder domestick Prayer c. 2. Manner Secret Prayer is elbow-room-Duty The knoâ—s in the Actus exerciti quoad indivuum cut No Act of Vniformity takes place here In a word Thou maist be what thou wilt be if ipse locus sis as Bernard I leave thee with thy Bridegroom in secret U S E. Let me hear my Will read give leave to the impropriety of speech what I have bequeathed to you Your deeds are good if you have every parcel You count right as we say in Arithmetick if you answer the total or All. 1. My eldest Son in the Closet Read 1 Cor. 11.22 though in another case What have you not houses to Pray in or despise you the Church I mean forsake you the assembling of your selves together for one duty to swallow up another it spoiles All. The whole City to be in the Gates is not good 2. My second Son in the Family You have your House well adorned but there 's something wanting A man is a man though he want an arm or a leg but is not integral Your Prayers are not Mathematically total but when they are then are you 3. My third Publick Prayer is good when there is a concurrance of Family and secret You do well when you believe the History but to rest in Historical faith is not that I commend I give to every one of you an allowance and yet you are found too light Ment mene tekel But first What light peeces without allowance Secondly With allowance First We consider secret Prayer 1. It may be thou makest thy closet but a creep-hole hiding thy self from reproof pleading that thy heart is as good as those that make the greatest shew Though I make not that appearance in the Church nor that noise in my house yet I pray in secret Pardon my mistrust I fear thy prayers are not constant Again thou wilt say I pray alwayes I answer As it is in point of Sabbath when men plead every day ought to be kept a Sabbath and then no Sabbath is kept So thy praying alwayes is not to pray at all 2. Admit thou prayest in secret Dost thou perform Duty out of Conscience to the Command If not thy sacrifice is not accepted 1 Sam. 15.22 Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and Sacrifices as in obeying the Voice of the Lord Behold to Obey is better than Sacrifice and to Hearken than the fat of Rams For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft c. If thou say out of Conscience of Command then what answerest thou to God who commands all Prayer James 2.11 For he that said pray in secret said also pray in family now if thou prayest in secret and not in family thou art become a transgressor of the Law 3. Thou being a Master of a family contentest thy self with secret prayer 1. My Family will not be subject to house-House-duty Art thou a King in thy House as Jezebel in a far different case said Dost thou now govern the Kingdom Dost thou give up thy Lordship Lose not thy Authority O King say I and my House will serve the Lord. 2. Wilt thou say I am ashamed to appear in publick If Prayer be a black deed than let red cover thy face Art thou afraid of children or fools even such are scoffings Michals think it not much to be vile in their sight and thine own sight too Be not ashamed of Christ who is not ashamed of thee his Brother but fear lest be be ashamed of thee when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the holy Angels Mark 8.38 3. My thronging family business will not permit Answ As we are to pray with all Prayer so to watch with al Watchfulness not only to watch in prayer and after to hear God's answer but unto Prayer He is a strange God who gives thee Lands Labourers c. and gives thee no time Why hath God given thee two Oxen together two Horses two Servants together but thy hours not two together but minutatem this certainly to index to thee and to give thee warning that time is to be improved and weighed very strictly and more regarded than thy Horses c. Let me perswade thee to look after Blessings in God's Way Dayly bread is sweetest that is got by Prayer and Labour Secondly Light with allowance Though I give thee the allowance of that weighty duty of Family-Prayer yea if thou couldst truly say with the young man Thus have I prayed from my youth up what lack I yet I must answer thee One Prayer more is wanting i. e. Publick Prayer As it is in Petitions to ask daily bread and not hallowed be thy Name is but a lame prayer and to pray for Justification in that Petition Forgive us our trespasses but not for Sanctification in that following and lead us not into temptation it measures not out the blood of Christ rightly which reacheth to the purifying of his People as well as pardoning because of something wanting the foresaid Prayer is but a mutile halting prayer So when one limb is cut off all Prayer is maimed thy Deed is imperfect Thou hast both House and Land but not the Commons thereunto belonging II. Family Prayer First If there be nothing but this Family-Prayer it is not one half of All. 1. I mistrust that something besides the glory of God moves thee to it may be thou wast brought up in a praying Family and custom puts thee upon duty or else the sought applause of thy Family or Neighbours thou art desirous to seem â—o be a good Christian rather than to be so and seekest after the gift of Prayer rather than the grace of Prayer 2. I mistrust thou art not constant in duty may be upon the Sabbath but not in thy six dayes may be at night when thou hast time but not in the morning may be when business is not throng but seed-time and harvest or strangers will easily put thee by 3. Admit a constancy it 's not obedience to the Law-giver for he that hath commanded thee to attend him in thy Parlour hath said the like of the Closet Obedience must be copulative and connexive The Soveraignity of God is alike in all kinds of Prayer The disregarding of secret Prayer is the disregarding the Soveraignity of him who is Unicus Praeceptor Mat. 6.6 Secondly But though I give thee an allowance of one weighty kind viz. secret Prayer Yet for all this thou art not currant For as it is in the Commandments to respect one and not another shews a want of sincerity and thou mayest be ashamed when the wicked call thee an Hypocrite Psal 119.6 So as it is in the parts of a Commandment the negative part of the fourth Commandment it is good not to labour but when thou hast no respect to the positive the sanctification of
the Apostles of Christ It hath been the design of Satan and the work of the corrupt hearts of men in all Ages to be making Additions to the Commands of Christ and to be mingling mens Inventions with the Institutions of Christ in matters of Worship Churches are very apt to degenerate from plain Spiritual Worship and the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ into a name to 〈◊〉 a meer outward form of Religion and a gay and pompous way of worshipping God such as may most please the flesh and fancy of men Now in such a case it is the duty of God's People to remember how they have received and heard They should remember that God hath said he will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth Joh. 4.23 24. and what Christ hath said Mat. 15.3 10. and Mark 7.7 8 9. Reade these Scriptures at leisure This was Christ's Doctrine And when the Church was very much degenerated God bids them Jer. 6.16 Ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein Not the old paths of Custom Tradition the opinion and practice of forefathers but those wayes that are as old as your Bibles are as the Word of God and the Gospel is for these are the good old way Other wayes may be old but not good When things of mens devising are put upon men and crowded into God's Worship Christians should run to their Bibles and ask Was it so from the beginning Did Christ and his Apostles preach pray administer and receive Sacraments thus how did they appoint them to be dispensed Christians should account it wisdom enough to follow their direction and example Certainly they worshipped God decently yet they contented themselves with what they had received of the Lord without making additions of their own When any thing is obtruded upon God's People in matters of Worship they should try all things by the Word of God It is a saying of Cyprian to this purpose in an Epistle of his Si canalis aquam ducens subito deficiat nonne ad fontem pergitur c. If the Conduit-pipe or Cistern which was wont to give forth water plentifully suddenly stop do not men go to the Fountain to find out the cause whether the Fountain be dry or the veins stopped c. Sic â—â—portet facere Dei sacerdotes si in aliquo nutaverit aut vâ—â—â—llaverit veritas ad originem Dominicam Evangelicam Apostolicam traditionem revertamur c. Let us return to the Word and Gospel and Apostolical tradition that which is truly so called and can be proved from undisputable authority to be such This is a safe Rule and the way to keep Churches from corruption and rightly to reform them if they be in any thing corrupted 3. It is the duty of Christians and a means to recover them from spiritual deadness to remember what they have received and heard for the directing of their practice and ordering of their conversations They should remember practical Truths the Commands Counsels Exhortations Directions they have found in and heard from the Word of God These should be had in everlasting remembrance They are to be remembred by Christians all their dayes and never to be forgotten Though some notions should through weakness slip out of your minds yet practical Truths should be written not in the dust but on your hearts as on marble engraven as with the point of a diamond never to be razed out Oh Beloved many many of these have you received and heard You have been pressed unto publick family secret relative duties you have been directed how you should hear reade pray confer receive Sacraments how you should carry your selves as Magistrates Ministers People Husbands Wives Parents Children Masters Servants in commerce traffique and dealings with men Oh remember these things And especially if such times should come when you may not hear so much and often of these things as heretofore you have done 4. It is the duty of Christians to remember the reproofs and warnings against sin they have received and heard The remembrance of these will be a means to keeâ—â—ou from sin You have been many times warned to take heed of sin as a most venemous Serpent and the most inveterate enemy both of God and of your own souls God hath sent his Messengers rising early to warn you to take heed of all sin You have been warned to beware of Prophaness Sabbath-breaking Error Superstition yea and of Hypocrisie Formality Deadness Apostacy you should remember what and how you have received and heard so as to take heed of these and all other sins and especially when you shall be in an hour of temptation when these sins may be rise common and grow in fashion 5. It is the duty of Christians and a means both to keep and recover from deadness to remember the forewarnings they have had of God's Judgments You have been told of God's Judgments against sin in general and against such and such sins in particular You have been told of Afflictions Sufferings Persecutions that you must look for You have been told of these in the written Word and by Gods Ministers And you should especially remember these when you see Judgments coming or feel them already executed Remember those warnings in the Word of God John 16.1 2 3 4 33. Acts 14.22 2 Tim. 3.12 O Christians you have been forewarned that Error in Judgment Wantonness in Opinion and Practice under the Gospel loathing of Manna would bring a famine of the Word that decayes in and leaving of first Love would cause God to remove his Candlestick that deadness and formality would cause God to come as a thief in the night to take away the Gospel and all your precious things O therefore Christians when you see such Judgments coming or feel them upon you remember what and how you have received heard and this Remembrance will be a special means to bring you to Repentance 6. And lastly It is the duty of Christians 〈◊〉 â—emember the comforts they have received in and heard from the Word of God those grounds of comfort precious Cordials and strong Consolations you have read and heard to bear up your hearts under the sence of sin and apprehensions of God's wrath and in a time of dissertion and against the fierce and fiery assaults of Satan the strength of corruption weakness of grace difficulty of duty as also under afflictions from God and sufferings and persecutions from men This will be a means to keep the hearts and hopes of Christians alive in the saddest conditions they can be brought into It will be of great use in an evil day And thus I have shewed you what it is for the matter Christians are chiefly and especiallp to remember Secondly For the further explication of the duty in the Doctrine I come now to shew how for the 〈◊〉 Christians are to remember how they have received and heard And this is more expresly spoken of in the Text
and that under two heads 1. They are to remember how Truths have been delivered to them and Ordinances dispensed amongst them 2. How and after what manner they have received and imbraced the Truths and Ordinances of God First It is the duty of Christians to remember how the Word of God hath been preached and Ordinances dispensed to them and that in these four particulars 1. Christians should remember how plainly and in what simplicity of the Gospel of Christ the Word Sacraments and other Ordinances have been dispensed how close and home the Word of God hath been brought to their hearts and consciences This the Apostle Paul often minds those of to whom he writes and this as a means to keep them from being taken with flourishes external pomp and empâ—â— things in Religion 1 Cor. 2. five first verses As if he had said to them as I may say to you You have not been fed with gingling expressions meer flourishes of Rhetorick or empty speculations but with plain and wholsom Truths you have had Ordinances not in the dress of mens inventions but in the simplicity of the Gospel 2 Cor. 2.17 4.2 Paul was very jealous lest men should be drawn from the simplicity of Christ 2 Cor. 11.2 3. So that I say the remembrance of the plainness and simplicity in which the Gospel hath been dispensed among men will be a means to keep them from being taken with a meer outside Religion and way of Worship 2. It is the duty of Christians to remember how purely you have received and heard with what purity the Word Sacraments and other Ordinances have been delivered and dispensed without the mixtures of mens inventions how you have received the sincere milk of the Word without sophistication and Sacraments without any of the sinful additions of mens own devising Thus you have received them in the Scriptures thus Christ and his Apostles delivered them and so have faithful Ministers their successors endeavoured to do 1 Cor. 11.23 24. That which I have received of the Lord I have delivered unto you Paul though an Apostle added nothing of his own head 2 Cor. 2.17 and 2 Cor. 4.2 Oh Christians it is your duty to remember this and will be a means to make you in love with and adhere to pure Ordinances and fortifie you against all sophistications of them when you see men corrupting of them or adding to them 3. It is the duty of Christians to remember how powerfully they have received and heard with what power the Word hath been preached and Ordinances dispensed among you not so as to tickle your ears and please your fancies but to reach your hearts come home to â—nd work upon your consciences how the Gospel came to you not in word but in power 1 Thess 1.5 commending it self to your consciences as the Apostle phraseth it 2 Cor. 4.2 Hath not the speech and preaching of the faithful Ministers of Christ among you in some measure been as Paul saith his was not with enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and in power 1 Cor. 2.4 Have not you found the weapons of your spiritual warfare such as Paul mentions 2 Cor. 10.4 5. even mighty through God Oh! Christians should never forget this but continually remember it all their dayes 4. It is the duty of Christians to remember how plentifully they have received and heard in what great plenty they have enjoyed the Word and Ordinances of God Oh Christians you should remember what dews yea showers of heavenly Manna God hath rained about your tents ye have not been straitned in God If you be straitned it is in your selves even in your own bowels The heart and mouth of God yea and the hearts and mouths of God's Ministers they have been opened and enlarged to you 2 Cor. 6.11 12. You have had the Word in season and out of season the Word frequently preached and Sacraments frequently administred you have had line upon line and precept upon precept Christians should remember how much planting and watering they have had You should remember Christians what great pains cost and charges God hath been at with your souls to bring you home to himself at the first and to make and keep you lively and fruitful ever since O keep this for ever in your minds as a means to make you lively and fruitful Secondly It is the duty of Christians to remember as how Truths and Ordinances have been dispensed so also how and after what manner they have been heard received and imbraced by them This will be a means to keep the heart lively and to keep from degenerating into deadness and formality in Religion and in the Service of God And this in several particulars 1. It is the duty of Christians and a means to keep and recover them from deadness to remember how seriously with what seriousness of spirit they attended on the Service of God and holy duties at their first entertaining of them Christians at first are wont to wait on Ordinances as matters of great weight and moment yea as matters of life and death to read hear pray meditate receive Sacraments as for their very lives and as if every one were the last they should enjoy So those hearers of Christ received the Word Luke 10.48 they hung upon his lips received the Word as the Word of God Christians this should be remembred by you especially when you grow slighty and formal you should say to your souls It was not wont to be thus with me I was not wont to hear play receive Sacraments in this formal manner This remembring how you have received will be a means to keep your hearts lively and to cure you of spiritual deadness 2. Christians should remember how they have received and heard namely with what high estimations and appreciations of the Word and Ordinances you heard and received them how highly you prized the Word and the Dispensers of it how you ran after them as those who see the Sun but one half of the year are ready to run after it and even to adore it upon its first approach Did you not esteem the Ambassadors of Christ even as the Angels of God How beautiful were the feet of them that bring glad-tydings Were you not ready to do as those Galatians Gal. 4.15 When at any time you seel your estimations to abate of the Word Ordinances and Ministers of Christ Oh then remember how you have received say to your hearts Are Ordinances worse than they were Is there any change in the Word or rather am not I grown worse Is not the change in my own wretched heart The remembrance of this will be a means both to keep and recover you from deadness 3. It is the duty of Christians to remember with what lively affections they heard and received the Word and Ordinances of God the difficulties they were ready to break through to enjoy them the fight of afflictions they were ready to
endure So Christians you should do as you are exhorted Heb. 10.32 Remember what baths of godly sorry and compunction of spirit you found in hearing what earnest pantings after Christ and his Ordinances Could you not once say as the Psalmist Psal 42.1 2. 63.1 2. 84.1 2. Remember what flames of Divine Love to God Jesus Christ and his People you once felt burning in your hearts Remember those Raptures of Joy you have felt while you have been with joy drawing Waters out of the Wells of Salvation Remember with what delight and complacency you conversed in holy duties what zeal you had for God and his Ministers how even the zeal of Gods house eat you up O when you begin to feel your affections cool and grow flat say Why am I thus Is not God and Christ as lovely and desirable the Wayes of God as delightfull and pleasant as ever Such a remembrance how you have received will be a means to keep up a lively frame of heart in most dead times 4. Christians should remember with what readiness of mind they heard and received the Word of God with what holy resolutions to obey the Truth and to give up themselves to be guided by it and to walk with God to live and die in Gods wayes and for them too if God called them to it Thus God's People have received the Word So did those mentioned Isa 2.2 3. Acts 10.33 and so have you if ever you received it savingly Oh remember this as a means to quicken you when you find holy resolutions to cool in you 5. Christians should remember with what impressions upon their hearts they have received the Word and Sacraments Oh remember Christians what impressions Truths and Ordinances were wont to leave upon your hearts what work they made in your souls what wounds were given to sin what heart-meltings and heart-revivings you have found while one while your hearts have been melted yea even dissolved into penitential tears and another while filled with raptures of spiritual joy What workings of Faith Love Desires Hath it not been thus with you sometimes Christians Oh remember this to quicken you when you grow dead and can yea do sit under Ordinances with few if any such impressions as these are 6. And lastly Remember with what efficacy you have heard and received the Word and Ordinances of God You should remember what gracious effects have been wrought in and produced on your souls by these Oh Christians you should remember what good you have got by the Word Sacraments Prayer Communion of Saints what communion with God you have enjoyed in them and what of God you have received by and through them what quicknings what comforts you have been made partakers of while you have been attending upon them Have you not found the Word and Sacraments and other Ordinances of God wounding yea killing your corruptions enabling you to overcome temptations strengthening of grace enabling you to duty Hath not God spoken Peace to your souls in and through these Hath he not administred comfort to your souls in times of dissertion under sore afflictions against most bitter sufferings and most hot and fiery persecutions Oh remember this to keep your hearts alive in and your love warm and lively unto those precious Truths and Ordinances you have received so much good through how much soever they may be despised and scorn'd by others SERMON II. Preached Lords-day July 6. 1662. Rev. 3.3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent c. BEloved when I entred on this verse in my coâ—â—â— of the Friday-Lecture I little thought that I â—aâ—â— so short a time to preach among you I hoped I shoâ—â— have enjoyed some further opportunities for some â—ew weeks at least as long as the Act of Vniformity â—llowes But it hath pleased God by his wise and holy Providence to order it otherwise I being suspended from preaching here from this day forward for Non-conformity how regularly or legally on mans part I shall not dispute but leave to the righteous God to determine I desire that both you and I may not eye man but God in this dispensation I did not think to have preached my Farewel-Sermon to you from these words but having begun this Text and finding the matter of it so seasonable and suitable to rhis sad occasion I shall by God's assistance proceed in the handling of it Being probably like to preach no more unto you I judge it very seasonable to leave the Exhortation in the Text with you to call upon you that you would remember what and how you have received and heard and 〈◊〉 hold fast those wholsom Truths you have heard and those precious Ordinances at least the remembrance impressions and gracious effects of them that you have enjoyed and been priviledged with and also to repent of those sins which have provoked and may further provoke God to come on us as a thief to take away many of his Ministers from among us The words as I have already shewed are Christs counsel to a languishing Church and to decaied Christians to repair decaied Godliness and Religion in a Church and in the hearts and lives of particular Christians which renders them more seasonable to these days we live in and to the condition of many of our souls I have already opened the Doctrine and confirm'd it by several Scriptures Namely That it is the duty both of Churches and particular Christians and a special means to recover them from formality decaies and deadness in Religion and the exercise of Grace to remember what and how they have received and heard I should now proceed to give you the reasons of the Doctrine but I shall chuse rather to reserve them to the Application and then press them as Motives to inforce the Counsel and Exhortation grounded on the Text and Doctrine and so shall immediately proceed to Application Vse 1. The first Use is of Information 1. It informs us that there is somewhat more required of Christians than bare hearing of Sermons receiving and partaking of Sacraments and other Ordinances It is not enough to hear and receive but it is the duty of Christians also to remember what and how they have received and heard what good they have got by and what communion with God they have injoyed in the use of the Word and Ordinances 2. It informs us what it is we are to make the rule of our Faith Practice namely the Word of God contained in the Scriptures and the Truths you have heard rightly grounded theron They ought to be the Standard to which we should bring all Doctrines preached all things introduced into Divine Worship and imposed upon us in practice Bring all things to this Test It is your duty to search and study the Scriptures and bring all things to the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to these it is because there is no light in them
You must not believe every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God When either Doctrine or Worship is corrupted in a Church the way to reform both is not to fly to humane Authority or Antiquity but to the golden Rule of the Word this is the only safe Rule Other rules may erre but this is infallible Vse 2. The second Use is of Reproof To reprove forgetful hearers such as seem very eager in hearing and receiving Divine Truths attending on Gospel-Ordinances but are not careful to remember what and how they have received and heard such who return not on the things they have heard but leave all behind them Such as a Divine expresseth it who come from Duties as from a Grave where they leave their dearest Friends behind them not as from a Dole from whence they carry somewhat with them Of such hearers as these the Apostle James speaks Jam. 1.22 23 24. Yet I speak not here of that forgetfulness which proceeds meerly from weakness which is bewailed and is the burden of their souls This is indeed an infirmity to be bewailed yet deserves rather pity and compassion from men than reproof but the forgetfulness this Doctrine reproves is that which proceeds from carelesness when men do not make conscience of the duty pressed in the Text namely remembring how they have received and heard Vse 3. But the third and last Use of this Doctrine which I shall further make and insist on is a Use of Exhortation To exhort all of you to the practice of the Duty in the Text. Oh labour to remember what and how you have received and heard I am like no more to speak to you publickly in the Name of the Lord. Let me therefore leave this Counsel and Exhortation with you as that which may be of great use to you in hours of temptation that may come upon you I beseech you Beloved by the mercies of God in the bowels of Christ and out of the respect you bear to your own precious and immortal souls that you would labour and endeavour to remember those soul-saving Truths and precious Ordinances you have received heard and enjoyed and those impressions you have felt upon your hearts from them Oh be not forgetful hearers let not the Truths of God slip out of your minds Beloved I may say to you there is scarce any Truth necessary to salvation but you have heard of it once and again from some or other of Gods Messengers that have been sent unto you though not without the mixtures of sin and weaknesse as to the instruments which God in mercy pardon You have heard what God is and how he will be worshiped even in spirit and in truth and not according to the inventions and traditions of men you have heard the Doctrine of God's Decrees and of his works of Creation and Providence opened and applied You have heard of the sinful and miserable condition of a man in a natural condition You have heard the Doctrine of the Covenant of Grace and of the means of our recovery by Christ alone You have had Christ set before you in his Person Natures Offices Obedience Sufferings You have heard many other both Theoretical and Practical Truths set before you in Preaching Expounding Catechising and by these you have been antidoted against Popish Socinian and Arminian errors and many others Oh labour to remember these keep them by you as a choise treasure lay them up in your heads and hearts that you may be able to bring out of your treasury things both new and old O! let not any of the Truths of God slip out of your minds or be as water spilt upon the ground Ministers must dye but let not the Truths of God dye in your hearts Ministers may be forcibly parted from you and have their mouths stopt as ours and many others are and are like to be yet let not the Word of Truth depart out of your minds when we are gone Let the Word of God even that Word of his we have spoken to you in his Name abide with you for ever Let it live with you and let it dye with you also Oh let truths be written on your hearts as with the point of a Diamond never to be razed out A stony heart is a grievous plague but an iron memory is a great mercy Oh therefore remember what you have heard in point of Doctrine and remember also the counsels and directtions you have had given to you as to the performance of publick family secret relative Duties Remember the warnings you have had against sin Sinners you have been warned against your sins Thou Drunkard Swearer Sabbath-breaker Vnclean person thou enemy to Godliness thou scoffer at and persecuter of Religion yea you Formalists Hypocrites that rest in civility morality or outside-performances you have been warned of the danger of your condition of the wrath of God hanging over your heads for these sins of the necessity of repentance for and from your sins and of faith in Christ if ever you be saved Remember the fore-warnings you have had of God's Judgments of the things you now fear yea feel Have you not been told many a time Christians what wantonnesses in opinion and practice the deadnesses worldlinesses decaies carnal policy divisions of Professors would bring upon them And you that are Saints remember what soul-refreshing comforts you have had in and from the Word of God Remember how plainly purely powerfully plentifully the Word of God hath been preached and Ordinances dispensed among you And remember also with what seriousness of spirit high estimation holy affection readiness of mind strong resolution powerful impressions you have heard and received the Word and Ordinances of God and what Gracious effects you have found of them Now to press this Exhortation as a lesson I would leave with you I shall first lay down some Motives 2ly Some Directions 3ly Helps to inable to performance of this duty The Motives shall be what I might have laid down as Reasons of the Doctrine Mot. 1. The first Motive to stir you up to this Duty of remembering how you have received and heard is this That the Truths you have heard and Ordinances you have partaken of they were not of use only for the time past or present while you were or are hearing or receiving of them but they are of use a great while after The Sermons you have long since heard and Sacraments you have received may do your souls good the longest day you live The vertue and use of the Word and Ordinances may and doth often put forth it self long after the participation of them and therefore you should remember them that you may bring them forth for use in the time to come which you cannot do if you let them slip out of your heads and hearts The Truths of God are as Treasuries and storehouses which are not onely for present use but for time to come for men to live on
believing hungry souls sake that are to be found in this place God may provide you in his due time with some such Teachers as may give you some wholsome food and not feed you with stones instead of bread For some such I doubt not will be found if God shall vouchsafe to you the mercy of a faithful Minister Though I dare not advise you actively to join in any thing that is in it self or in your judgement evil till you be satisfied about it yet I must advise you to take heed of separation from the Church or from what is good and God's own Ordinance If sound Truth be powerfully preached make use of and improve that though you cannot approve every thing the Minister doth I the rather add this because there are many that if Ministers do but mention the loss of Ministers are ready presently to accuse them of monopolizing all Religion to themselves and to their party But far be this from me and others I well know while the best of men are on earth there is likely to be variety of apprehensions and some men of sound judgements in the main of holy lives may satisfie themselves in the lawfulness of some things which others judge sinful And if God send such to you though I do not bid you approve their practice or justifie what they do yet bless God for them and improve their gifts and graces And yet at the same time you have just cause to bewail the laying aside of so many hundreds of Ministers Had so many hundreds of Ministers dyed a natural death in one day you would have looked upon it as a great judgement And sure it is no less when so many shall dye a civil death 2. A second means to enable you to hold fast what you have received is To be much in conference in considering one the other to provoke to love and to good works As this is a help to remembring so also to holding fast what you have received Heb. 10.23 24 25. 3. Hold fast the Word and Ordinances by prayer that God would continue them and that he would keep them in your minds and hearts 4. Be sure you hold fast God and Christ by faith It is God that vouchsafeth all these to you If the streams should fail be sure you hold fast the Fountain and you will be and do well enough 5. The fifth and last Counsel and Direction Christ gives to this languishing Church is To Repent Whence observe Doct. That Repentance is a soveraign means to repair decayed Religion and Godliness in a Church and in the souls of men Repentance is the souls Physick that purgeth out ill humors heals the souls distempers and restores it to a healthful constitution I intend not to handle this but to turn it into an Exhortation Let me leave this Counsel and Exhortation with all of you this day as that which probably may be the last and I am sure is the best Counsel I can give Oh Repent Repent both sinners and Saints Repent thou Drunkard Swearer Sabbath-breaker Unclean person thou Opposer of Godliness or what ever else thy sin be Remember thou hast been called on to repent this day O repent while it is called to day before the things that belong to your peace be hid from your eyes Repent even all both bad and good of those sins that have brought these Judgments upon us which this day we lie under More particularly 1. Repent of that Opposition against the Gospel and against the Ministers and Ordinances of Christ that any of you have been or aâ—e guilty of For this sin provokes God to take away Gospel-Mercies from a People 'T is true indeed that we may say and bless God for it that for the time we have laboured among you we have met with as little of this as any have done in a place of this bigness Yet some there have been that have been guilty of this though not many and they may have time enough to repent the hastning of their own calamities Repent of this sin Consider what God saith of such 2 Chron. 36.16 2. Repent of your Unthankfulness for the Gospel Repent of your not enough prizing Ordinances of your too much loathing or at least even by the best too little loving Spiritual Manna 3. Repent of your Barrenness and Unfruitfulness under and too little improvement of the Word Sacraments and Sabbaths you have enjoyed Bewail your sin that you have got no more good by all these that you have laid up no more in your years of plenty against years of scarcity 4. Repent of that too much Wantonness in Opinion and Practice that hath been to be found among Professors under choicest Gospel-enjoyments that you have played by the light and with the bread that God hath vouchsafed to you and not wrought by the one or fed heartily upon the other which may justly provoke God to put out your light and take away your bread 5. Repent of your decayes in Religion and Grace for which God threatens to remove the Candlestick from a Church and people Rev. 2.4 5. 6. Lastly Repent of that Deadness and Formality in Religion and in the Worship of God which you see to be in others but most of all of that you find and feel to be in your own hearts For for these and such like Sins it is that God comes as a thief on Churches or Persons And to stir you up to repent Consider First If you do not Repent God will come as a thief on you even suddenly unexpectedly when you least think of it and that to take away your Treasure your most Precious things which are so in themselves and should be so in your esteem even his Word Sacraments Sabbaths Ministers and all the tokens of his Gracious presence This will God do if you do not repent but remain hard-hearted and formal still contenting your selves with a name to live 2. Consider If you do repent of the evil you have done against God God may yea you have ground to hope he wil repent of the evil he is doing unto you He can find out ways agreeable to his Word and Will to continue or restore Ministers to People and People to Ministers He may yet return and leave a blessing behind Him O therefore Repent let us all set upon this work of Repentance And now Beloved I have finished what I at this time intended to speak upon this Text and probably with that my Testimony in publick among you Let me beseech you seriously to consider and set upon the practise of the Duties I have in the Name of the Lord from this Scripture exhorted you to Beloved It is no small grief and trouble to my self and Fellow-labourer to part with you It was in our hearts to have lived and died with you and among you if God had seen it fit But the will of the Lord be done We must acknowledge to the glory of God and â—our just
may have some hand in stopping the mouths of your poor Ministers let the thoughts of it cause you now to open your mouths and lift up your your cryes more earnestly in prayer to God for them It follows Now much more in my absence q. d. if ever you desired to promote your salvation now much more it concerns you to mind it if you want other Monitors to stir you up to diligence here you had need be more watchful over your own souls you should have the greater care of them your selves As the Syriac Version hath it But now when I am absent from you much more with fear and trembling work the work of your salvation Hence note That the want or loss of Ministers of means formerly enjoyed will not warrant or excuse our cooling in Religion but should rather produce a greater care and solicitousness in the working out of our salvation Disadvantages here are no plea for remisness but rather ought to provoke unto greater industry And for our encouragement the Lord will not forsake such as diligently seek him Were we not straitned in our selves we should find we are not straitned in him When we may want ordinary helps yet he can convey his Grace and manifest himself extraordinarily unto our souls Remember when outward means and provisions fail God hath hidden Manna for his people If he leads them into a Wilderness he knows how to feed them there Rev. 12.6 In a solitary place he can speak to their hearts I may here allude to Isa 37.30 Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of it self and the second year that which springeth of the same and in the third year sow ye and reap and plant Vinyards and eat the fruit thereof Be not ye wanting to your own souls and you shall find God is not Do you in good earnest intend the business of your salvation follow your work close and trust God to provide for you The Lord will turn stones into to bread before he will suffer your souls to starve Well beloved as many of you have shewed your selves a willing and a forward people blessed be God while Ministers have been present with you labouring among you hold on still when we may be removed from you I hope we can say from our hearts We are glad when we are weak when we are of least account under most contempt in the world if ye are strong and this also we wish even your perfection Yea Beloved now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord. This if any thing will keep our hearts alive under our troubles O look to your selves that ye lose not those things which ye have wrought If we must not be suffered to preach any more in publick amongst you yet it would be a joy to us to see and know that in our former Labours we had not run in vain nor laboured in vain But I proceed Work out your own salvation The meaning is not that they should merit their own salvation that were to take Christs work out of his hand but strive and endeavour with might and main to be partakers of that Salvation and Redemption purchased by Christ And this every one ought to mind and lay out themselves about as the chiefest business they have in the world to look after Oh how should we fear lest any of us should in the end come short of it Work Note That a Christian-Profession is not an idle Profession it sets men a-work If we are in Christs Vinyard we must be Labourers Matt. 20.1 c. Your own Salvation or the things that conduce to your Salvation Follow the things that accompany Salvation your own Salvation Elsewhere in Scripture it is called the Salvation of God The Lord is the Author of Salvation that it is properly called His Salvation It is also called our own salvation as we are partakers of it Work out your own salvation Note That Religion teacheth us first and chiefly to look to the state of our own souls This would learn us especially to eye our own hearts to observe our own duties and to secure the condition of our own souls Many work not at all but are busie-bodies Very busie concerning this man and the other but do nothing for themselves Many could like to enquire of others with Peter Lord what shall this man do Rather than with the Publicans and Souldiers that came to John's Baptism Master what shall we do Now how unlikely is it that they should do much to promote the salvation of others who neglect are unwilling to be at any pains about their own With fear and trembling Metalepsis pro eo quod est cum summa diligentia With the greatest diligence saith Vatablus With humility and lowliness of mind as Camero who observes these words used together five times in Scripture scil Psal 2.11 1 Cor. 2.3 2 Cor. 7.15 Eph. 6.5 and in the Text and always in this sence As elsewhere the Apostle hath opposed the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fear unto the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 11.20 The Papists from this Text would exclude a particular perswasion of ones Salvation and commend doubting and hesitation in this matter That which the Scripture excites all the faithful to use their best diligence to obtain as a means to facilitate their passage and entrance into Heaven 2 Pet. 1.10 11. this the Papists would disswade us all from looking after and declaim against as an impediment in the way to Heaven a thing that would hinder our progress therein But the fear and trembling in the Text is not such as is opposite to Faith or to a certainty of ones Salvation a glorious Crown which is sometimes set upon the heads of Believers even here below But such fear as is opposite and contrary to security and self-conceit Indeed these are two grand impediments to the working out of our Salvation which the Apostle is very careful here to remove Security maketh us negligent and careless of doing what we ought Pride makes us arrogate unto our selves what properly belongs to the Grace of God and Christ As there are two main Designes Satan is continually driving on the world and where one fails he prosecutes the other 1. He doth what in him lies to keep men in security as by Nature we are all in a state of Security Rom. 3.11 There is none that understandeth there is none that seeketh after God And the Devil knows we are his own sure enough if he can but keep us at this pass But 2dly If we have our consciences awakened that we can have no rest but must do something in Religion then he hath this after-game to play he will seek to puff us up with conceits of our own works and abilities To countermine whose destructive hellish designes the Apostle gives us this direction here Work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling for it is God as he further adds in the next verse which worketh in
modesty by the woful experience of his false heart answers not to the degree of love but only that he loved Christ 4. It is possible that many Christians may hate Christ as much as we doâ— the memory of those Jews that crucified him albeit we be strongly perswaded that if we were called to formal trial we would rather dye than openly deny him or his Gospel Do we from our hearts detest the mention of Annas Caiaphas Judas and that rabble which conspired the death of the Lord of life In like manner did those Jews abhor the memory of Korah Dathan Abiram and the rest of those that rebelled against Moses Do our spirits rise in indignation against them that stoned Stephen persecuted the Apostles forbiding them to Preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved 1 Thes 2.16 With no less displeasure were they moved against the memory of Ahab and Jezebel and those though their own Princes who slew the Lord's Prophets Matt. 23.30 If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers c. The name of Abraham they had in high esteem he being the prime person of their Progenitors with whom God Almighty made that glorious Covenant wherein they had the priviledges of the First-Born The memory of Moses was amongst them very precious with whom God was pleased to talk face to face who received the lively Oracles to give unto them Acts 7.38 To have upbraided the softest spirit in that Rebellious people with treachery or disloyalty against the Messias when he should be revealed would as much have moved his choler as to tell some forward professor amongst us he would betray his Lord were he now on the earth for half the money that Judas did yet these men brake first in their love to Abraham so our Saviour telleth them John 8.39 then in their fidelity to Moses John 5.45 46. and the Prophets Matt. 23.35 No marvel then if they took offence at our Saviours life his carriage and conversation amongst them and afforded him such entertainment as they did Let not then Hypocrisie deceive us by suggesting these or the like suppositions they are the words of Dr. Jackson if we should be urged by the Turk or Jew to deny him we would sooner dy the death he did then do it or were he present in person to exhort us to such duties as his Messengers enjoyn us we should sure be as forward as any man living to do them these or the like imaginations do but foretoken our need of that apology and argue our inclination to use it though alas it cannot stead any in that day of tryal Lord when saw we thee naked or an hungred When in the Pulpit or preaching in our streets deterring us from evil and exhorting us unto good Much more to this purpose see in Dr. Jackson of Justifying Faith That we may not therefore deceive our selves with vain pretences of love let us try the sincerity of it and weigh it in the ballance of the Sanctuary Notes of sincere love to Christ. 1. The first shall be that which you have in Psal 97.10 Ye that love the Lord hate evil Lovers have enemies and friends in common Gen. 12.3 I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee God will be a Friend to Abrahams friends an Enemy to his enemies Who love Christ unfeignedly hate sin which he hateth Rev. 2.6 Sin is evil the greatest of evils The work of the Devil which Christ came into the world purposely to destroy 1 John 3.8 If thou art a friend to sin any way of wickedness If thou love Ignorance superstition If thou love a false oath Zech. 8.17 If thou love flaggons of wine Hos 3.1 If thou delightest in scorning Prov. 1.22 if thou make a mock at sin Prov. 14.9 If thou hate knowledge despise duty scoff and scorn at Holiness which Christ commandeth thou lovest him not If thou regard iniquity in thy own heart if thou allow of it in thy children thy friends if thou plead for sin undertake the patronage and defence of it thou proclamest thy enmity and hostility to Jesus Christ But if thou hate and abhor the way of lying Psal 119.163 If thou hate every evil way Psal 119.128 in thy self first then in others as he that hates a Toad hates it most in his own bosome as saith D. Sibbs if thy hatred of it be universal against the whole kind if thy hatred be rooted irreconcilable so as there is no appeasing of it but by the crucifying and abolishing of thy hated corruptions this is right hatred of sin which argueth thy conversion to be sound and thy self an unfeigned lover of Jesus Christ Note 2. Who love Christ in sincerity love what ever hath relation to him As 1. His House and Worship there performed Saints love Communion with Christ love to be where he is The Lord loveth the gates of Zion his People love the threshold of the Sanctuary Psal 120.14 Thy servants take pleasure in her stones they favour the dust thereof Psal 26.8 Lord I have loved the habitation of thy House and the place where thy Honour dwelleth Psal 122.1 I was glad when they said Let us go up to the House of the Lord. Our feet shall stand in thy gates O Jerusalem 2. Saints dearly love the Truth and Word of the Lord. As their voice is sweet to him in prayer Cant. 2.14 So his voice in his Word is sweet to them Psal 119.103 How sweet are thy words unto my tast Yea sweeter then honey to my mouth vers 72. The Law of thy mouth is dearer to me then thousands of Gold and Silver The very reproofs of Christ are precious to them Psal 141.5 Our love to Christ is not right if we be impatient of admonition if we cannot endure reproof for sin but swell against it it is a sign we love sin which cannot consist with unfeigned love to Christ 3. His Messengers are welcom their feet beautiful Rom. 10.14 Because they are the servants of Christ and shew us the way of savation therefore we have them in reputation Phil. 2.29 Because they are over us in the Lord and admonish us therfore we esteem them highly in love for their works sake 1 Thes 5.13 But if we repine stomach or maligne his Embassadors taxing our crimes though in sharpest terms or if we neglect to examine our hearts and consciences at their request or instance it is a sure token our perswasions of Faith and love unto him are but fancies that we are still in the gall of bitterness enemies as cruel to him as these Jews were c. Dr. Jackson 4. His Day the Lords Day Rev. 1.10 is to all sincere lovers of Christ a joyful Day a Day of delight Isa 58.13 On this Day Christ appeared to his Disciples after his Resurrection upon this Day he still appeareth to his People making neer approaches to their souls in his blessed Ordinances teaching them inlightning them comforting their hearts
Sabbaths and yet in vain how many Sermons and yet in vain how many Threatnings Promises Entreaties and yet in vain how many strivings of the Spirit and yet in vain How hath God fed this Nation with the finest of the Flower and best of the VVheat and made the Rock to drop with Honey and yet how lean wonderfully lean are the souls of these Nations like Pharoah's lean Kine in the enjoyment of thrice seven years of plenty of the Gospel how hath he made his Clouds to rain upon you even to the emptying and wasting of themselves and yet in vain Are you not Rocks and Mountains hard and barren now even as before how little Reformation in your Parish in your Families how little are Husbands and VVives how little are Parents and Children Masters and Servants reformed how little is Religion and God's VVorship set up in your Families how little do you endeavour to bring your VVives your Husbands your Children and Servants to a saving knowledge of God! how little do you catechise and instruct them and how little do you labour to see Christ formed in the hearts of your domestick relations How few old sins do you leave how few new duties do you take up and practise How little do you endeavour to perform duties in a more holy humble and servent manner than before May not his Ministers cry out in the language of the Prophet they have laboured in vain they have spent their strength in vain And judg I pray you Sirs is it not just with the Lord when our Nation our Parishes your Families remain unfruitful after such multiplied cost and pains and this for so many years is it not just with the Lord now to say England such Towns and Parishes such Families such Persons are given to barrenness let them alone I will command the Clouds they rain no Rain upon them 2. The Second ground and reason of a Ministers removal from a People is those persecutions and afflictions that befal them Sometimes the Persecution falls upon the Church in general upon People and Pastors and then Ministers cannot with that clearness and justifiableness leave their Flocks as when some Ministers only are aimed at God's Church is compared to a Lilly among Thorns to a flock of Sheep amongst Wolves and Noahs Ark upon the deluge tossed to and fro with storms and tempests upon the Sea of this troublesome world There is an irreconcileable enmity betwixt the interest of Christ and the interest of Satan and therefore no wonder if the gates of Hell the policy and power of infernal darkness are united and combined against the Church of Christ The Devil is called a Red Dragon Rev. 12. A Dragon denoting his hurtful poisonous and destructive nature and a red Dragon denoting his cruelty that he is delighted in and becoloured with the blood of God's People and all the storms and persecutions that have befallen the Church he hath raised them He labours with might and main with rage and fury by imprisonments by banishments by fire and faggot to eradicate and totally to destroy Christ's Kingdom and Interest out of the world either by falling upon the Church in general or upon her Lights Guides and Watch-men in particular Remove the Watchmen and the Garison is easily surprized and taken put out the Lights and you are surrounded with darkness take away the Guide and the Travellor is eaeasily seduced and therefore Satan sometimes in his persecutions aimes chiefly at pious learned painful and zealous Ministers because they most of all like burning and shining Lights squander and dispel the darkness of his kingdom discover and manifest his hellish and subtile stratagems and methods of deceiving poor souls and lead them from them into the wayes of Piety and Salvation because they are as God's Boanarges's and Barnabasses battering down the walls of his kingdom presumption security and dispaire by awakening men and women out of their spiritual lethargy and letting them see their danger and misery that they may escape it and on the other hand by comforting raising up such as are dejected and under temptations to despaire and on both hands lessen and weaken his interest in the world and therefore the Devil to secure his own interest and to oppose to hinder and to destroy the Interest of Christ will have them burnt or banished silenced their mouths stopped that no more lightning and thunder no more Cordials and Comforts come from them or by violent on-set of hot Persecution make them run and fly for it When they persecute you in one City flee ye into another And as the interest of Satan is one ground of Persecution so the irreconcilable enmity betwixt the Interest of Christ and the sinful corrupt interests of ungodly men is another ground of Persecution upon the Church of banishing imprisoning and silencing Ministers to be a friend to the one is to be an enemy to the other The friendship of the world saith James is enmity with God and whosoever will be a friend of the world is a enemy of God Jam. 5.4 If Ministers dare and will comply with the sinful interests of great men and become Court-flatterers and Parasites to Kings either to preach up or not to preach down their State-Corruptions and Wickedness they shall have peace and protection If you were of the world saith our Saviour to his Disciples that is of the principles customes fashions of the world the world would love you for she loves her own Joh. 15.19 And this was the reason why Antichristian false doctrines were so much imbraced in the dayes of John because they were doctrines of the world doctrines pleasing flesh and blood and sutable to the principles customes and interests of sinful men They are of the world therefore they speak of the world and the world heareth them 1 John 4.5 Never was there any Interest of Great men so sinful and corrupt nor any Religion owned countenanced and established by Authority so superstitious idolatrous and abominable as to want Defenders and Promoters some for favour some for fear some for secular advantages to preserve and keep what they have or to gain honours preferments and riches by it others from their choice and election loving and delighting in that way The way and means that Jeroboam and his Council contrived to withdraw and keep the People from going to Jerusalem to sacrifice and to secure the ten revolted Tribes to him his posterity was abominable idolatry against which they had many caviates and cautions from God for which their fore-fathers had been severely punished Exod. 32. Judg. 2.10 11 12 13. 3.5 6 7 8. yea for this their famous King Solomon lately deceased was threatned with the renting of part of his Kingdom from his Posterity and verified in this revolt 1 Kings 11. Yet notwithstanding all this the sinful contrivance of Jeroboam wanted not owners and promoters for besides the Courtiers and the common People the lowest of whom he consecreated
God's Grace is great Comfort and Security for a departing Minister to commend his People unto This is the second part of the Remedy I shall be brief herein Now I commend you to this Word 1. Because it is of indispensible Necessity Happiness is the great principle Nature hath implanted in every creature all its motions are in tendency to its rest and tranquility Now the happiness and chiefest good of the rational Creatures is God who is the Fountain and supream End of all good to enjoy him is an Heaven to his People here on Earth and the Heaven of heavens to Saints and Angels to behold and enjoy his beatificial Vision And though the light of Nature works of Creation and Providence do manifest that there is a God his Goodness Lordship and Sovereignty over all as to leave men inexcusable Rom. 1.19 yet are they not sufficient to give that Knowledge of God and his Will which is necessary to Salvation 1 Cor. 1.21 2.13 14. How little doth the Book of Nature teach us what an one God is that there is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity three Persons and but one God every of the three Persons God the Father God the Son God the holy Ghost God yet not three Gods but one God! How little doth it teach us how this God will be worshiped how little doth it acquaint us with the excellent state of our Creation our miserable Apostacy how God came to be displeased with man and how he must be reconciled it tells us nothing of our Redemption from Sin Satan the Wrath of God by the Incarnation Death and Suffering of the Son of God it saith nothing of the Day of Judgement and Resurrection of our Bodies it tells us nothing and though it may possibly acquaint us with an immortal State yet what that Happiness is and what that Misery is how we came to be deprived naturally of that Happiness and how it must be recovered and who they be that shall enjoy it it saith nothing all which must be known before they can be believed Rom. 10. and they must be believed before we can be saved John 3.16 And therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and by divers manners to reveal himself and declare his Will to his Church Heb. 1.1 and afterward for the better preserving and propagating the Truth and for more sure establishment comfort of the Church against the corruptions of the flesh the malice of Satan and the World that she be not drowned in prophaness dejected by persecution blinded by ignorance misled by errours poysoned by heresies superstition and idolatry it pleased God to commit the same to writing which makes the sacred Scriptures most necessary those former wayes of God's revealing his will to his People being now ceased The Sun is not more necessary to enlighten warm and make fruitful this inferiour the World than the Word of God is for the World better to want the Sun in the Heavens than the Word of God in the World 2. I commend you to this Word because it is a compleat Word it is perfect as well as necessary such is the perfection of this Word that nothing is to be added to it nor diminished from it Deut. 4.2 Ye shall not add unto the Word I command you nor diminish from it Yea if an Angel from Heaven should preach and reveal another word than this he is accursed Gal. 1.8 9. God threatens that if any man shall add to the things wrote in his Word to add to him all the Plagues wrote in the Book And if any man shall take away from the Words of the Prophecy God will take away his part out of the Book of Life Rev. 22.18 19. all which Commands and Threatenings had not been given if God's Word had not been perfect it is compleatly perfect for the information of our understanding and will in things to be believed and for our direction in things to be avoided and practised 2 Tim. 3.17 18. All Scripture is of Divine Inspiration and is profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in Righteousness that the man of God may be perfect and thorowly furnished unto every good Work This teacheth you all things necessary to be known and believed in order to Salvation that there is a God and what an one this God is it teacheth you that there is a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity that there is three Persons and but one God every one of the Persons God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost-God yet not three God's but one God It teacheth you what an one God is in his Attributes in his Works of Nature and of Grace This tells you what was our Primitive Excellency and Happiness in Creation our Deformity and Misery in our Fall This perfectly declares our Redemption from Sin Satan Gods Wrath by the Incarnation Death and Passion of Jesus Christ the Son of God that as Mediator and Redeemer he is the Priest Prophet and King of his Church what he hath done suffered and purchased for Us Pardon and Justification Peace with God and Reconciliation Adoption Grace and Glory It assures us of a Day of Judgement and Resurrection of all Persons from the Grave Of the blessed Estate of the Godly of the Misery of the Ungodly and the Eternity of both This directs you in things to be avoided all Duties of your several Relations to be practised Duties of your general and particular Calling Duties of Piety in the first Table Duties of Righteouss Charity and Temperance in the second Table as Husbands and Wives as Children and Parents as Masters and Servants according to your Relations of Consanguinity Affinity Friendship and Neighbourhood and therefore we are commanded to lay the Word up in our hearts richly in all Wisdom Col. 2.16 and to speak of it to our Children when we sit down in our houses walk by the way when we lye down and when we rise up Deut. 11.18 19. Yea Kings and supream Authorities of a Nation must reade in this Book all their dayes that they may fear God and administer Justice and Judgement to the People that they may relieve the Oppressed to be Encouragements and Defenders of the Good and Terrours to Evil-doers 3. I commend you to this Word because of its daily Usefulness and Profitableness every day and in every condition it is useful and profitable unto you and very suitable 1. It is a Light to enlighten and guide you How useful and comfortable is Light to man shut up in a dark Dungeon How useful and beneficial is a Light to a Traveller when the night is very dark the Moon and Stars covered with pitchie Clouds the way very miry and dirty dangerous by pits and precipices and easie to be mistaken By nature your souls are like a dark Dungeon having no saving knowledge of God of your selves your sin and misery nor of Christ the Sovereign Remedy But this Word
diminish from it we may not close with added substantial parts of worship Whatever power a Church hath about natural Circumstances they have none about the substance of worship either to add or take away by putting in or putting out To add new Ordinances or parts of Worship is a breach of the second Commandment The Pharisees ered on this hand Mat. 15.19 teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men they pressed Gods Commandments as indifferent and mens Traditions as necessary God commanded to Honour Father and Mother they teach contrary to this ver 4. this was a diminishing They teach that the washing of hands before meat the cleansing of cups c. as necessary to Salvation this was to err by addition See Rev. 22.18 To add in God's Worship is to make our selves wiser than God and to accuse Christ of unfaithfulness in God's House Moses was a faithful Minister in God's House much more was he who was Mose's Master Well be sâ—re in all your worship that it be according to the Parâ—â—â— shewed in the Mount viz. according to â—he â—â—â—script and Standard of the Scriptures 〈◊〉 very dangerous to offer strange fiâ—â— such as God commands not Levit. 10.2 Give not God cause to say to any of us Who hath required this at your hands 8. Be spiritual and zealous in God's Service Take not God's Name in vain either by vain praying hearing or reading Bring your hearts to and keep them at prayer I will pray with my spirit Psal 25.1 Unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul Prayer consists more in the elevation of the understanding and desires than in the lifting up of the eyes and hands and so bring your hearts to the preaching and hearing of the Word Rom. 1.9 Paul served God with his spirit in preaching and we should serve God with our spirits in hearing When Paul preached Lydia's heart was opened that she attended to the things spoken by him Acts 16.14 When God's Embassadours deliver their Embassy imploy your understandings to discern your memories to retain your wills to choose your affections to love and delight in your consciences to apply what you hear And so sing Psalms with your heart as well as with your voice Col. 3.16 Singing with Grace in your hearts to the Lord. God complains of those who bring their bodies before him but leave their hearts behind them Isa 29.13 They draw near me with their mouth and honour me with their lips but their heart is removed far from me this is a mocking of God Therefore be fervent in spirit when you serve the Lord rest not in bare enjoymment of the Means but get Grace by the Means Labour to enjoy the God of Ordinances in the Ordinances of God God is much displeased with eareless heartless and superficial worship If we offer ignorant heartless and distracted prayers will he accept them Cursed be the Deceiver that hath in his flock a Male and voweth and facrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing Mal. 1.13 14. Well then rest not in a formal customary way of serving God serve him out of Conscience and give him your heart in every duty 9. Maintain an high esteem and make great Conscience of the Lords-Day Keep the whole day holy morning and evening It 's not said remember to keep part of the Sabbath Day But keep the Sabbath viz. the whole Sabbath holy sanctifie it in private as well as in publick in your own houses as well as in Gods House in your Closets as well as in your Families do not only keep a Rest but sanctifie that Rest How By Meditation meditate on the Sabbath of that Sabbatism that remains for the People of God Heb. 4.9 Muse upon the Joys of Heaven which are pure spiritual constant and perpetual Think of the sweet Company you shall have even Angels and Saints besides God and Christ whose Presence makes Heaven Dwell upon your Immunities and Freedom from Sin Temptations of Satan and the World from troubles as Sickness Poverty Crosses and every thing that makes your life uncomfortable Imitate the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ by raising your hearts from Earth and ascending into Heaven by spiritual Comtemplations Moreover continue the day by reading and singing of Psalms attend upon God in publick also let not private duties hinder you from publick neither strive to attend so much upon publick Ordinances as to abridge your selves of private secret Opportunities I think those Christians do much wrong themselvs who spend all the day in attending upon publick prayers and hearing I would not have you strive to hear four or five Sermons a day unless you can take so much time besides as is necessary to meditate of and apply what you hear so order the day that secret Communion with God may fit you for publick and publick Ordinances fit you again for private and secret converse with God It is not much eating but eating moderately and digesting what we eat that encreaseth strength Two or three Sermons seriously heard and ruminated upon in secret do more good than ten Sermons heard without meditation Brethren what shall we think do those sanctifie a Sabbath to the Lord who hear a Sermon and a few prayers and then go to the Alehouse they who drink sleep sport walk or work away the Sabbath all these are forbidden Isa 58.13 Thou shalt call the Sabbath a delight not finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thine own words nor doing thine own works Again Christ and his Disciples did not spend this Day partly in religious Exercises and partly in Recreations or Workings John 20.18 and Acts 20.7 we find there that Christ came amongst the Disciples on the First day and that Paul and the Christians used to spend this Day in Prayer preaching and receiving of Sacraments Moreover God will bless us inwardly and outwardly if we conscienciously observe it Isa 58.14 He will curse us inwardly and outwardly in soul and body if we prophane it See Jer. 17.27 Well then my Brethren do not prefer a Holy-day before the Lords-Day It s sad to think that hundreds should more scruple to work on a Saints-day which is of humane institution than on the Sabbath which is of God's Sirs you of this place have got shall I say an undeserved name of more than ordinary piety but I assure you that if you fall to neglect and prophane the Sabbath as some of our neighbours do you shall lose your very Name I should be very sorry to hear when I am gone that you should prove a Sabbath-breaking-People 10. Make great Conscience of Prayer family and secret Let your houses be Houses of Prayer Those families are called Heathenish Families that call not upon God Psal 79.6 Power out thy Fury upon the Heathen the Families that call not on thy Name Let God have a morning and an evening Sacrifice from you Under the Law God called for the first Fruits and there was a Feast of Ingathering or of the Last Fruits
have Tribulation but be of good Comfort As you should be humble in Prosperity so quiet and chearful in Adversity Carry an even frame in each state Let your Moderation be known unto all men even in bearing Afflictions Be not overmuch cast down with any trouble Let the Enemy see that you have been with God by the Gladness of your Countenance You 'l discredit Religion by too much drooping Let not others say You serve a hard Master God that knows all things knows what condition is best for you and how to deal with you Rejoyce in the Lord alwayes Though Adversity and the Wicked may intermeddle with your outward comforts and take them away yet let them see you have inward Joyes with which they cannot intermeddle nor take away 13. Esteem and approve Time as a precious Commodity Husband Opportunities for Soul-Advantage When you have spare hours improve them in Reading Meditation and Prayer Redeem Time from sleep your callings and recreations in order to Heaven Men usually work sleep and recreate more than necessity calls for and then cry out they have no time for holy Exercises Oh what would damned spirits give for two or three of those hours which we throw away Oh how would they spend them would they sleep play or work them away Nay how would they Pray Read and Repent more in one hour than we do in many Brethren the time is short your work is much you have God to honour your Relations to watch over your own Evidences to make clear O then redeem precious Time do not throw it away Ephes 5.16 15. Contend earnestly for the Faith Jude 3. Maintain fundamental Truths I do not mean that you should fall a wrangling with every one you meet The Apostle indeed takes notice of some men that place their Religion in fightings of Words in conflicting with the Air in janglings and disputings about things they understand not 1 Tim. 1.5 6. Some place their Religion in being of this and that Opinion and indeed they are meer Opinionists Our meaning is this When the Enemies of the Church labour to root up the necessary and very foundation Truths of Christianity that we should stick to them As Paul he did earnestly contend for the Doctrine of Christ being the Messiah against the Jews He maintained the Doctrine of the Resurrection against the Saduces The Doctrine of Justification by Christ's Righteousness against the Teachers of the Law He doth strongly and vehemently maintain Divine Worship against the idolatrous worship of the Athenians And so should we contend opportunely and wisely with tongues and lives Contend against Justification by Works against Idolatry rather than God's Honour should be given to dumb Idols give your honour to the Dust Consider fundamental yea every Truth hath been confirmed by no less than Miracles preserved in a miraculous way and sealed in the Blood both of Christ and of Martyrs Never then sell the Truth but buy it 16. Get longing Desires after the Enjoyment of God in Heaven Let your hearts be often sending sighs thither Long till you be at home Groan earnestly till mortality be clothed with Immortality 2 Cor. 5.1 2. Say as he When shall I come and appear before God Long till you be in Heaven that so you may have constant Communion with God's Angels and Saints that ye may be wholly freed from sin and made perfect in Holiness Let your Conversation be in Heawhilst you are on Earth To this end get more acquaintance with Heaven Study till you be convinced that it is and what it is Understand what that Happiness is that Saints enjoy there When you have got minds informed and hearts affected with it often muse and meditate of it This heavenly Conversation is very sweet it will comfort us when we are never so sad Well may the soul say Now I am full of sin O but then no sin I am now sold under sin O but then I shall be free Now I dishonour God but then I shall honour him altogether Now I am in continual fear of falling into sin but then I shall be past all danger Now I am in continual sorrow but then all tears shall be wip'd away Now I am kept in bondage through fear of death but then there shall be living and no more Death and so no more fears of it Moreover this would teach us to understand the World When we do experimentally taste Heavens Joyes we shall despise Earths Pleasures when we seriously think of that Friendship and Communion we shall have with Friends in Heaven even God Christ Angels and Saints it will wean us from Friends on Earth and make us more willing to leave them And when we think of Heavens Honour we shall undervalue the honours and scorn the contempt we meet with in this world Get now and then upon the top of Pisgah and solace your selves with a view of the Heavenly Canaan Having now given you an account of those main Duties and Counsels that relate more immediately to God and your souls I shall briefly give you the sum of those Counsels I have to leave you about things that relate more nearly to you and others with whom you converse and have to do The first is this 1. Discharge domestical Duties Study and perform the Duties that every Relation calls for Act as Christian Parents and Christian Masters towards your Children and Servants bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord call on them to reâ—d the Scriptures frequently that even of Children they be acquainted with that which will make them wise to Salvation keep them to a form of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 hold them to the Principles of Religion Catechisms are called A Form of sound words because they keep the Judgment and Affections sound they help to discern betwixt Truth and Error fit and prepare for hearing of the Word preached and for the receiving of the Lord's Supper For want of this we may observe notorious ignorance in grown youth and old men also For want of this how many that are Fathers in years are meer Children in understanding Again pray with and for your Children and Servants and set them to pray by themselves for this end give them time convenient do not so much forward them in your service as to hinder them from serving God your Servants have God to acknowledge honour and serve as well as you they have sins to be pardoned corruptions to be subdued Graces to beg wants to be supplied and souls to be saved as well as you and will you make them throw their souls over-board to secure your goods And so study to carry as Christians in every other Relation Carry as Christian Husbands and Christian Wives are directed and ought to do that the Gospel of Christ be not blamed upon your account And so you that are Children and Servants as you expect your Parents and Masters should discharge their duties towards you so it is expected you should
Candles and then to put them under bushels I do not remember that the like ever was heard or read of in England before that so many Ministers should have the doors shut upon them in a time when the Protestant Religion is professed and countenanced In the former times when Prelacy was Tyrannical though here one and there one had their mouths stopt so that they could not preach in their own places yet they might preach in another Extraordinary Eclipses usually presage some extraordinary Events The Lord alone knows what the the effects of this Great Eclipse will be And the rather this is to be look'd upon as a great affliction if we consider that we cannot tell when or whether or no there shall be a restauration of Pastors to their People How many poor People may cry out as in Psal 74.9 We see not our Prophets neither is there any amongst us that knoweth how long Well do but see Acts 20.37 38. and think how many Pauls are saying to their People this day Ye may see our faces no more and think how many weeping eyes and sad hearts there are Friends weep many times for a short parting when People are deprived of their Ministers they part with their best Friends 8ly Pray for the Faithful Minâ—sters of God both those that stay behind and especially for those that are constrained to depart 1 Thes 5.25 They have prayed for us many a time In every prayer of mine making mention of you all They have shed many a tear and sent up many a sigh They have mourned for your deadness and unteachableness They do now especially need your prayers 1. Pray that God would keep them stedfast They are Leaders of the People Pray they may not cause them to erre They have many temptations to sin they may be in necessities and that is a great temptation 2. That they may have counsel from God Both those that stay in and those that go out may be in the dark as to their own and the Churches affairs Pray therefore that God's Vrim may be with them both Pray that God would discover to both sorts of Ministers wherein they are defective in any thing that might or should be done and wherein either of them have exceeded that knowing their error they may repent 3. For provision Though bread be taken from their mouths pray God would provide some Obadiahs that may feed them though it be with bread and water In Deut. 10.9 we reade that because Levi had no inheritance amongst his brethren therefore the Lord promised to be his inheritance The Lord knows that many of Levi at this day have little or no inheritance amongst their brethren therefore pray that God himself would be their inheritance They are willing to leave House and Land for the sake of Christ and that they may keep a good and quiet conscience O beg that God would not leave them That seeing they are desirous to honour God that of him they may not be slighly esteemed 4. For their return That you may see their faces once more Rom. 1.10 That they may have a prosperous journey to you again if it be the Will of God If God delight in us he can bring his Priests into his Temple again he can bring Ministers to their People and People to their Ministers O beg that God would speed and hasten the time Plead with God the honour of his Name the necessity of his Church and the shortness of the lives of many of his Ministers Many of them are aged and at the most their dayes are like to be few and those that are younger know not how soon a period may be put to their lives O beg that they may not stand all their dayes idle The door is shut and bars are set so that they cannot enter into God's Vineyard as formerly O beg that the Lord would hasten the opening of the doors of the Temple for them and that he would break these bars assunder What the resolution of God is in this particular you and I know not however do you your duty and perform this office of Love to your Ministers and then let both them and you sit still and acquiesce with the same humble resolution that David had 2 Sam. 15.25 26. If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again and shew me his habitation but if he thus say I have no delight in thee Lo here I am let him do to me as seemeth good to him So if God see it good for you and us he can and will restore us to his House again but if he say he hath no delight in us behold here we are let him do to us as seemeth good in his eyes We do acknowledge we are unworthy to be Priests any longer to him and that God can bring about his own glory though we were all really dead and if God should lay us aside all our life time as vessels in which he hath no pleasure we desire to submit And now Brethren not knowing when or whether or no you may see our faces again in a publick manner I bid you farewel Acts 20.32 Commending you to God and the Word of his Grace which is able to build you up And with the words of the Apostle in Heb. 13.18 19 20. Pray for us and the rather that we may be restored to you the sooner And the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ make you perfect in every good work to do his Will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen SERMON XVI Zeph. 3.18 I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn Assemblies who are of Thee to whom the Reproach of it was a burden THe Prophet Zephaniah supposed by some Mayer ex Gualth cap. 1. v. 1. as the Prophet Isaiah was of a Family of some Note amongst the Jews some Noble were and are called prophesied in those times that bordered upon the Captivity which was Israels second Egypt and in regard that the body of the People were in his time corrupt and sensless he is a Son of Thunder unto them and in that there was in that corrupt body some sound members a few names that had not defiled their garments he is a Son of Consolation to them The body of the People would not believe enough to humble them nor the Faithful amongst them take in so much as to chear them The Prophets of those times found it little less difficult to prop up good men under their dejections than to throw down bad men castled in their own presumptions The most were perswaded that Captivity would never be and the best had much ado to believe it would ever end as appears by Jeremiah's Purchase Jer. 32.6 7 41 42 43 44. The Text is in the Promissory part of this Book The Prophet ascends the Mount of Blessing at the
thereby taken away from the evil to come And then 3. The shortning of this life doth but the sooner bring them to a Life of Glory in Heaven Indeed if their condition were the same with the condition of the ungodly if they lost Heaven and Earth the lives of their souls and bodies together If their death were an eternal death and the end of their temporal miseries the beginning of eternal torments it were a very sad argument but the case is not so bad Whatever they lose for Christ in this world shall be recompensed a thousandfold in the world to come with eternal Life Now lay all these things together and consider that this strictness or preciseness is commanded by God and is most sutable to the Rules of Christianity And dost thou profess thy self a Christan a Disciple of Christ a Servant of God and one that lives in hope of everlasting Life and hast thou not yet learn'd to forsake all deny thy self take up thy cross and follow Christ Certainly if thou be a Christian indeed and hast received that Wisdom which is from above none of these things will move thee neither wilt thou count thy life so dear to thee as for the saving it to forsake the holy Commandment Having now vindicated this Truth from those Objections that might seem to weaken it I proceed to give a brief hint what use may be made of it Use 1. If they that live most exactly are the wisest men then it is so far from being a shame to live exactly Psal 119.6 that it tends much to the justification and commendation of those that so order their conversations And certainly the world is much mistaken in their censure and judgment concerning them They think it strange that all do not run to the same excess of riot with them 1 Pet. 4.4 and speak evil of them as fools and mad men because they willingly forgo the pleasures and advantages of this present life for things future and invisible but the end will make it sufficiently to appear who are the fools and who are the wise men Therefore 2. Be exhorted and perswaded to exercise this piece of wisdom Wisdom it is and that of the best sort for it is Divine and Heavenly Wisdom So the Apostle tells us Jam. 3.17 That Wisdom which is pure and full of good fruits comes from above it is saving Wisdom In 2 Tim. 3.15 the Apostle tells us that the Scriptures are able to make a man wise to Salvation in as much as they were given by God to make men pefect throughly furnished unto all good works Labour then for this Scripture-Wisdom and search for it as for hid treasures it alone shall abide and the good fruits thereof remain with thee to Eternity when all other wisdom in the world shall perish and by its fall shall ruine the owners and professors thereof I have now finished the third Observation I must use much more brevity in those which remain and so I pass to the fourth which is this Doct. 4. That then especially in evil times we have much need of spiritual wisdom for the circumspect and exact ordering of our conversations Thus the Apostles Argument runs Walk circumspectly and redeem time because the dayes are evil This is a duty at all times but especially in evil times it is both a Duty and an Advantage That we may understand what is meant by evil times or Dayes we must know that there are two sorts of evil First The evil of sin whereof Devils and men are the only authors Secondly The evil of punishment or misery in this sence it is used in Jer. 17.17 18. Amos 6.3 and though sin be the meritorious cause of this evil and Devils and Men yea and good Angels also are made use as instruments of it yet God takes it upon himself as the Author thereof Amos 3.6 Thus the Times or Dayes are evil First When they are sinful Times such times as our Saviour foretold Mat. 24.11 12. When false prophets should arise and deceive many When iniquity should abound and the love of many should wax cold Secondly The Dayes are evil when they are full of trouble and misery These evil Dayes of both sorts are either 1. Common by reason of that sin and misery which are incident to every mans life Eccles 12.1 in respect whereof Jacob told Pharoah that the dayes of his life had been few and evil Gen 47.9 2. Or special When both sin and trouble do abound in more than ordinary measure Again these evil Dayes are either 1. General When both sin and misery do more than ordinarily abound in the World or in a Kingdom 2. Or particular When a man 's own particular life hath been extraordinarily full of sin and trouble The Apostle in the Text doth principally respect the special and general sinfulness and troublesomness of the times but in what kind soever the dayes are evil the evilness of them is an argument for circumspect walking and exact ordering of our conversations For if the Times be sinful 1. In sinful Times there is much liberty and encouragement to sin The Multitude run to sin the stream goes that way and it is an easy thing to go along with the stream but it is certain that the stream will carry a man to perdition So that if we would not perish in sinful times we must strive against the stream by circumspect walking These are those perillous Times from the authors whereof the Apostle warns Timothy to turn away 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5 6. 2. In Sinful Times there are many temptations and enticements to sin in which respect the Apostle calls such dayes evil dayes and therefore adviseth at such times especially to put on the whole Armour of God that we may be able to stand and keep our selves unspotted from the pollutions of the world Ephes 6.13 If the Times be evil in respect of the trouble and misery that attends them Then 1. In Times of Trouble and Misery a man hath most need to get and keep peace of conscience Oh! it is a sad thing for a man to be lost as much with storms of guilt within as with waves of trouble without But there is no getting or keeping true peace of conscience without circumspect and exact walking The fruit of Righteousness is sown in peace Jam. 3.18 2. In Troublesome Times a man had most need to get and keep the love and favour of God and thereby an interest in the Promises of this life or if those be forfeited yet to be sure of an interest in the Promises of the Life to come But this cannot be done without circumspect walking for it is only Godliness that hath the promises of the life that now is and that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Use How preposterous and foolish a course is it then for any man to think to secure himself from the evil of the times by complying with the times to comply with the evil