Psal 41.1 2. Blessed is he that considereth the Poor the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive c. Lastly A Godly man hides himself in the whole work of self-reformation and holiness of life In carefulness to please God in all things and to do those things which he requires of him sin it makes a man naked it exposes him and lays him open to evil and all manner of danger but a good and Pious Conversation is a sure defence Innocency is the the best shelter that can be and that which will keep a man safe when nothing else will And thus we see how in all these respects a good Christian hides himself which is his Activity or Practise Now to join these two Points both together in the Improvement and Application We see here two Properties of a wise and Godly man The one as to matter of Fore-sight He fore-sees the Evil. And to other as to matter of Indeavour He hides himself What now remains but that we for our particulars should be careful to put those both into practise and to be carefull of them in regard of our selves First To Fore-see the evil to look after that We see how in every thing else it is counted a peice of wisdom in men and that which they indeavour after In matter of trade to fore-see the Dearness of the Market In matter of Wars to fore-see the devices of the Enemy In matter of Health to fore-see the coming on of a Disease And why should we not also in Providence fore-see also the arising of a Judgment Surely as we do ever disire to approve our selves for wise men it concerns us to be skilfull in this We see how the want or neglect of it is still reproved and upbraided in Scripture Thus the Prophet Jeremy Jer. 8.7 The stork in the Heaven knows her appointed times and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow know the time of their coming but my people know not the Judgement of the Lord. And so our Blessed Saviour we find him upon this censure likewise of the Jews Matth. 16.2 3. When it is Evening ye say it will be Fare weather for the sky is Red and in the Morning it will be fowl weather to day for the Sky is Red and lowring O ye Hypocrites ye can discern the face of the Sky but can ye not discern the sign of the times He reproves them for that they had skill in natural Predictions but yet had not skill in spiritual There are some kind of foresights sometimes in the world and fore-tellings of evil but what are they Even the bold and presumptuous undertakings of insolent persons your Astrologers and Star-gazers and the like whom God suffers in his judgement to seduce and deceive a people that love to be deceived But as for this Christian fore-sight here spoken of It is thas which few are acquainted withall or which care to be acquainted It is our Wisdom to regard it our selves that so evils may not surprize us or that day come upon us unawares For which purpose we should first pray to God to instruct us and direct us and to open our eyes we should beg of him the spirit of Revelation as whereby to see the Mystery of Religion so likewise to see the Mystery of Providence and understand Gods dealings in the world That which I see not teach them me as it is Job 34.3 Secondly We should also our selves mark things and take notice of what is done in the world we should as I said lay things together and compare one thing with another and see how one thing follows upon another This should be done by us in order to our fore-sight and pre-apprehension of any evil which is to come As we desire to shew our selves discreet and prudent Christians so we should be carefull of this Fore-seeing of Evil. And then again also farther to hide our selves let us look to that also As our knowledge should tend to practise to us in every thing else so amongst the rest in this As we do any thing pre-discern and apprehend it we should we should hide our selves from it which is done especially in the fore-named Graces There are many false coverts in the world which will not do it The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it as it is Esai 28.20 Such is Wealth or strength or Wit or Friends or any of such things as these are It is not these which will be able to cover us in the day of the Lords anger No it is nothing but the love and favour of God himself that will do it when nothing else will He shall cover thee with his Feather and under his wings shalt thou trust Psal 9.19 And that we may do this the more effectually it will concern us to acquaint our selves with God without this there is no expectation of shelter from him For he hides none but his Friends and his houshold-servants And therefore Eliphaz does very properly give Job such Counsel as this Acquaint thy self with him c. Then shall the Almighty be thy defence He is a buckler to all that trust him and he is good to them that know him and whom himself does know Therefore labour to get an interestand propriety in him yea and that before trouble comes the evil it self which is fore-seen Let the Ark be built before the flood and deluge over-flows there 's no hiding then if we take not care to hide our selves before-hand Therefore let us have a regard to that Close with God before the Plague comes that so when it does come we may find favour and mercy with him and refuge and safety in him which will be our greatest security And those which are in some measure acquainted they should labour to be more and to perfect their acquaintance with him Yea not only to have acquaintance but Communion and dayly Converse We should take heed of being in such a state and condition of Soul as from whence God may refuse to shelter us and protect us when Evil draws near But then again He hides himself We are to take this not only as an Expression of Enedavour but of Success He foresees the evil and hides himself that is he so behaves himself as from whence God does undertake to hide him The Lord hides such prudent persons as these are in the days of evil and danger as Jeremy and Baruck Jer. 36.26 it is said the Lord hid them This he does to the rest of his prudent and provident Servants In his Presence in his Pavilion under his Wings in the hollow of his hand he has many Receptacles and Hiding Places for them His Providence is large and broad enough to hide them from any Evil which may happen unto them sometimes in other Countries sometimes in their own sometimes in the Grave as Job 14.13
All things disparaged in comparison of the one thing necessary 51 58 59 To chuse the one thing necessary an argument of four things 55 Natural ability See free-will and free-grace What it may what it cannot do 155 Pelaginas confuted 166 Natural condition A miserable condition 159 160 O Ordinances Touching those who are without Gospel-ordinances 9 Whence their efficacy arises 31 P Pharisee What their righteousness was 1 Touching Pharisaical righteousness See Rightousness Prodigies and signs 266 Punishments Degrees of punishments 4 Peace What peace Christs death obtains 275 What it implies 406 Patience Of God 29 Why God bears long Ibid Pride How it discovers it self 39 430 Proveing How taken 385 Prayer Satan sometimes prays 65 Comfort when we cannot pray See Comfort VVhy Christ prayed although he could do all things without it 72 Incouragement to it 446 Papist And Jew wherein a like 266 Transubstantiation 267 269 Against their Tradition 339 Perseverance True Christians shall persevere 76 87 369 See Grace Persevere in two things 103 Helps to it Ibid VVhence the opinion of falling away arises 369 Motives to it 408 Providence Our ignorance touching Providence twofold 111 The intricacies of Providence and the reason thereof 112 Not for us to foretell its future events 113 VVhat in Providence God will at last make manifest 114 The properties of Gods Providence Ibid. VVhen God will vindicate his Providence 115 Prophesie See Enthusiasts Not for its to foretell future events of Providence 174 213 Imagainary Revelations censured 337 Opposers of Christs prophetical office 436 Perswading How taken 305 Preaching How men come to count it foolishness 261 VVhat it is 261 337 VVhence its efficacy arises 261 VVhy it profits not without faith 263 Directions touching it 270 271 298 350 274 278 437 382 301 VVhat it is to preach Christ crucified 276 VVhence it becomes unprofitable 263 279 280 Parents Duty to their Children 266 R Pighteousness OF Scribeds and Pharisees what 12 Defectiveness of the righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees 3 10 The Principles of Pharisaical righteousness 3 VVhy Pharisaical righteousness cannot bring to Heaven Ibid. Pharisaical righteousness in a sense worse than notorious sins 4 Civil righteousness commended 5 The righteousness exceeding that of Scribes and Pharisees Ibid. Moral righteousness not meritorious of saving-grave 11 Reproof How to be administred 41 46 The best of Christians ought to be reproved 41 Cautions to be observed in reproving a good man 42 Riches Their vanity 25 Resurrection VVhy Christ is so called 144 Religion The one thing necessary 47 Motives to diligence in it See Diligence VVhat required unto being acceptably religous 56 VVhence staggering in it arises Ibid. Religion justified 59 47 91 VVhat in it chiefly to be minded 296 Relations VVhence discord between nearest relations especially arises 53 Comfort under the loss of them 132 450 Reason The impotency of humane reason 90 91 112 173 254 255 259 269 How it discovers God 133 A check to the Contemners of it 269 Rehearsed In Scripture of the same words what it implies 341 Repentance How the goodness of God leads unto it how not 353 Reward Touching it 423 S Scribes Their office 1 Stumling-block 281 Satan Why he most tempts the godly and those especially most godly 62 Why most of all be iempts Ministers 64 His winnowings what 67 Sincerity A double effect of it 101 Sinner In what respects a fool 19 His danger and misery in this life 24 426 His ignorance 90 Incouragement ot prosligate sinners to repent 108 His impotency 163 Different sinners have their different corruptions whence it is 265 Why God bestows many good things on them and bears long with them 347 How without God in the world 426 Spirit Of God why compared to wind 85 How to get its supplies 168 What it is to walk in it See Walk How it witnesseth the Truth of Scripture 435 Scepticism The danger of it 266 Scandal VVhat it is implied 281 Lords-Supper What eating and drinking damnation signifies 282 Sin An umprofitable thing in what respects 356 Whence men come to be ashamed of it 359 Its aggravations 422 Its heinous nature discovered 442 How men sin against the blood of Christ 443 Speaking A threefold speaking 411 Security The danger of it 416 417 Salvation A Christians certainty of it 433 In what sense it 's said a Child of God cannot sin 325 T Thoughts Vanity of them 18 The evil of distraction in them 45 50 Causes of distraction in them 45 52 Remedies against their distraction 45 52 Taking freely what it imports 458 Temptations Why Satan must tempts the godly and those especially most godly 62 Why he most of all tempts Ministers 64 Support under Temptation 65 72 75 79 87 Walk against them 66 74 Why God suffers his to fall into them 73 How faith helps under them 75 Whence Christians come to recover out of them 78 The evil that comes by them 80 The good that comes by them 62 Time What knowledg of the times concerns us what not 113 130 171 What times it 's not fur us to know 169 Terrors Of the Lord what 303 Thirst spiritual what it implies 455 The excellency of spiritual thirst 456 Teason Gun-powder Treason 317 Truth How taken in Scripture 328 Toleration Against universal toleration 337 Tradition When equalized with Scripture condenned 339 V Vanity OF Thoughts See Thoughts Unity Among Christians 408 409 Bounded 409 Unbelief The hainousness of it 436 Voice of Christ in the Ministry the voice of the spirit in the conscience and the voice of the spirit in the Spouse to be heard 453 454 W Way Incourage any coming on in the Ways of God why 14 Word Ingemindation of words its end 41 60 World Take heed of worldly-mindedness See Mind Why continued 106 How taken in Scripture 152 Watch. Against temptation why 66 67 Motives to it 418 Work How Christ helps to the performance of a good work 164 Good works in what respects disparaged 156 Wisdom Humance in what respects disparaged 156 Walk To walk in the spirit what 372 373 What it implies 374 400 How walking in it secures against sin 380 Touching a Christians rule to walk by 403 404 Water of life what understood by it 456 What understood by Whosoever will let him take of the water of life Y Youth Motives to early Godliness 52 Good education a great blessing 266 Z Zeal How Christians come to decay in it 421 FINIS
people as we shall see he was there in his Book what was it that he so much begged and desired of him why it was that the good hand of his God might be still with him And Moses when he was to lead up the People he desired that God's presence might go with him And Solomon when he was to rule the Kingdom what was it that he askt for at God's hand That God would give him Ability to do it and to go in and out before so Great and mighty a People Assistance is that which is much desirable in any Business or undertaking whatsoever That God's Hand may appear with us in it And thus it is Especially to a double purpose or Effect First As to the facilitating of the Business to make it come off more Easily Secondly As to the Successfulness of the Business to make it come off more Prosperously To each of these purposes it is a Business of great Concernment to us to have Gods Hand go along with us First It is very requisite and desirable as to the facilitating of any business we undertake That which we doe in God's strength and by Ability communicated from Him we doe it the more easily and lightly and with less Difficulty and Disturbance to our selves in the doing of it When we take not God along with us or He voluntarily withdrawes himself from us in any work we take in hand it has an infinite company of troubles and remoraes in it and it falls out to be so with us as it was once with the Egyptian Chariots when the Lord had taken their wheels off from them of which it is said That they drave them heavily in Exod. 14.25 Thus does every man drive who has not God assisting him in his work and concurring with them he is sure but to drive it on heavily and to have a great deal of interruption in it Yea even then and in such kind of persons where there are otherwise simply consider'd the greatest Abilities that can be habitual and fundamental Qualifications for any performance will not suffice and serve the turn without actual and present assistance from God in the performance it self A touch of His Hand makes the work to goe on with a great deal of expedition This is very comfortable and carries a great deal of sweetness and pleasingness in it for a mans work 's not to stick in his hands but to come off readily and nimbly in it this is a very great Advantage and it is the gift and blessing of God and a consequence of His Assistance so far forth as His Hand shall be with us Secondly As it is requisite to the facility of the work so it is likewise requisite to the success as to make the work easie so in like manner to make it prosperous and to have some good coming of it Every Business does so far forth speed and has a good issue and effect of it which follows upon it as it pleases God to give efficacy to it His Hand is very desirable to this purpose as well as to the other It is the Account which is given of the success of Christ Himself in those Actions which were undertaken by Him That He went about doing good for God was with Him Act. 10.38 So long as God is with us and His Hand is Assistant to us so long is there some Hope of Good to be done by us and that our works may succeed and prosper which we take in hand This is true of all the particular works and services which we undertake in any kind whatsoever whether in the Magistracy or in the Ministry or in the businesses of our common Imployment they all prosper in the strength of God which make the Church in the Psalms to have recourse still to him for it Psal 90.16 17. Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy Glory unto their children And let the Beauty of the Lord our God be upon us stablish thou the works of our hands upon us yea the works of our Hands stablish thou it Thus let us also learn to do upon the like occasiont have our eyes still to Gods hand in every enterprise As the eyes of servants looking to the hand of their Masters and as the eyes of an Handmaid looks to the Hand of their Mistresses so let our eyes also look to the Hand of the Lord our God as it is in Psal 123.2 Not onely to His Hands of Bounty in the bestowing of Rewards upon us Nor yet to his hand of Protection in Rescuing and Delivering us from evil but likewise to His Hand of assistance in directing of us and inabling us to our work and carrying us through the several Businesses and Performances which are to be done by us And so we have also the second particular whereof Jabez prayer doth consist That God would bless him in his supplies And that thine Hand might be with me The third and last is that God would bless him in his person and vouchsafe his Gracious Preservation And oh that thou wouldest keep me from evil that it might not grieve me we may know what evil he means by the Coherence and Connexion of the words No question but this good man desired very heartily to be delivered from the evil of sin as being the Great evil of all and without which he had in vain desired to be kept from any other evil but it was not that which he here intended so much in this particular place because withal he desires this that it might not grieve him which had not been proper for him to desire Though we may desire to be kept from sin yet we may not desire to be kept from grief for sin when we speak of this evil the more it grieves the better especially if it be in a right manner sorrow for sin is the truest Ground and Foundation for joy that possibly can be But here Jabez understands it of the evil of affliction and so of Temporal Grief that he might not have the former and so consequently might be freed from the latter And thus it very well comes into the making up of this Blessing indeed without which a man indeed cannot be said to be blest Let a man have many comforts bestowed upon him yet withal if he have many afflictions with them yea but one and that a great one it will much diminish them and take from them One grievous and pressing calamity it does draw and swallow many a comfort which it is mingled withall Therefore does Jabez here very cautiously joyn this to the rest that as God would be pleased graciously to be with him in regard of Good so that likewise he would preserve him from evil And here again in these words we may take notice of two things more First The Request it self And Secondly the Amplification of the Request The Request it self That thou wouldst keep me from evil The Amplification That it may not be grievous First Here 's
handled this Proposition consisting of two Branches that where God will give peace to a Kingdom none shall hinder it Where he will deny the same peace none can procure it We took this Proposition asunder and handled each Branch by it self c. THe Second reference of these words is as they respect a particular Person a man onely and so are to be considered of us at this present time and accordingly they have this proposition which is exhibited in them That when God will give a man quietness none can trouble him when God will hide his face from him none can uphold him where we see that the Proposition in this reference as well as that which we had before consists of two Branches and so together with that is distinctly to be handled by us Wee 'l begin in order with the former and that 's this That where God gives a man Quietness none can make him Trouble And this again may have a double sense in it either First Thus where God gives inward and Spiritual peace a man shall suffer no great inconvenience from outward trouble Or Secondly thus Where God gives inward and Spiritual peace a man shall there be kept and preserv'd from inward Trouble either of these may be here understood First I say where God gives inward and Spiritual peace a man shall suffer no great inconvenience from outward Trouble that which seems troublesome to others and also is so in the nature of the thing yet shall not be troublesome and molesting to such a Person Trouble to speak properly of it is not so much from the Condition as the Affection It is not so much from the State as the mind we see in ordinary Experience that one and the self same thing which one man makes a great deal of stur with another is not troubled at all with it So then this is the result of this Busines That no Condition shall be troublesome to that Person which is in favour and peace with God When he gives quietness c. Where a man has peace and quietness of Conscience he is so far forth provided against all trouble and disturbance whatsoever whether Publique or Private This the Scripture does abundantly reach forth to us in several places As Psal 23.4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death I will fear none Evil for thou art with me thy Rod and thy Staff they comfort me And Psal 27.1 c. The Lord is my Light and my Salvation whom shall I fear The Lord is the strength of my Life of whom shall I be affraid Though an Host should Encamp c. So Psal 46.1.2 God is our refuge and strength a very present help in Trouble Therefore will we not fear though the Earth be removed and though the mountains be Exalted into the midst of the Sea And Psal 112.7.8 Speaking of a Godly and Righteous man Surely he shall not be moved for ever c. He shall not be affraid of Evil Tidings his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. His heart is Established he shall not be affraid untill he sees his desire upon his Enemies These and the like Testimonies there are to make this truth good unto us And the Grounds of it are these First Because he which has peace and atonement with God he has that within him oftentimes which does swallow all outward sadness and trouble whatsoever Those which are full of Comfort a little trouble is not troublesom to them but is easily swallowed up in them and they do not regard it Now thus is it with those which have this inward and Spiritual peace they are so exceedingly ravish't and transported with joy that lesser Evils are in a manner and in Comparison nothing with them Look as it is on the otherside in the terror and trouble of Conscience those which lye under the pressures thereof and have the Arrows of the Almighty sticking in them they take but little Content or delight in any outward refreshment Those things which others are taken with they are all nothing to them even so is it also here in peace and quietness of Conscience those which have the sweetness of this it makes them to forget and to despise any outward trouble whatsoever This Comfort of a good Conscience is like the Wine which has wont in times past to be given to Malefactors when they were going to Execution Prov. 31.6.7 Give strong Drink to him that are ready to perish and wine unto those that be of heavy Hearts Let him drink and forget his Poverty and remember his misery no more Even thus is it with this wine of the Spirit it causes a forgetfulness of those Evils which are upon us Thus it was with the Martyrs in former days they needed not Cordials and comforting Potions to sustain them and chear them in those Conditions No but they had that within them which was Enough to do it alone even the peace and Comfort and Tranquility of their own Consciences this was to them as a continual Feast and which made them to forget that Misery which their Enemies and Persecutors cast upon them And so it is still to the Saints of God in those Conditions which they now fall into They have so much joy and Comfort within doores as it makes them slight all the Trouble without Si fractum c. Secondly He which has peace with God there is nothing which is able to trouble him because that which is the main ground and Occasion and Foundation of trouble is removed and taken away from him And that in one word is Sin and guilt and the anger of God Affections are not so far forth troublesome to speak off as they are displeasing to Nature or rather as they are reflecting upon Conscience The Sting of Death says the Apostle is Sin and that which he says of Death is also true of every other affliction which is tending thereunto It is Sin which puts a bitterness and Malignity into it Now where God is pleased to give quietness this is removed I say and taken away that is to say in regard of the guilt and condemning power of it Thirdly Where God gives this Quietness and Peace whereof we speak there is also an intimation and assurance of all those Evils and outward Calamities as working and making for our good Though they take impression upon us according to the apprehension which we have of them and as we may conceive and imagine either good or evil comming to us from them we make a great deal of difference in our selves detwixt the wounds which are made by a Souldier and the wounds which are made by a Chyrurgian Because the one we know strikes to Kill whereas the other strikes to Cure Evils are there less troublesome to us when we look upon them as meanes and Conducements to further good Now thus does a person reconciled upon all the troubles and Miseryes and Calamities which he meets with here below he looks
with us whatever speculative knowledge we may at any time have of them we do as yet not know them That 's the third Explication He knows it not that is knows it not practically Lastly He knows it not i. e. knows it not cireumstantially in the latitude and extent of it with all the disparagements and aggravations which are upon it some slight kind of conceits he has of it but does not think it to be so bad a matter in good earnest as indeed it is Not to know a thing throughly and perfectly is so far forth not to know it at all and so here exprest Why but if he do not know it all the better there 's the less evil in it That misery which is not known it is not felt it is as good as no evil at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nay but soft take heed of that this makes it to be so much the worse if we duly consider it There is a double evil in sin or Judgment not known as an aggravation of it The one in regard of the symptoms which are concurrent with it and the other in regard of the effects which are consequent to it First It is an ill symptom in regard of the concurrences with it It is an Argument of a greater distemper Look as in matter of the body when sickness is not felt it is a sign the Patient is so much the worse and his disease has more predominancy upon him and prevalency over him Even so is it also in case of the soul where there 's senslesness there 's the greater distemper It is a sign that wickedness is more wrought and incorporated into mens hearts than otherwise Where there is some tenderness and reluctancy and remorse there 's an Argument of some life but where all 's quiet and no stirring there 's nothing but spiritual deadness which has seized upon it Therefore the Apostle speaking of the Gentiles makes this to be an aggravation of their sinfulness that they were past feeling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 4.19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to commit all uxcleanness with greediness It is ill for the symptom Secondly It is ill for the effects It is of the more dangerous consequence to those which are in such a condition Sickness where 't is not felt it is desperate the Patient is in an unrecoverable condition no helping or curing of him And so here Those that know not either their sins or Judgments will still persist and go on in them and so expose themselves still to further danger and inconvenience from them as not discerning the snares which they are in nor the evils whereof they are likely to partake It is ill for the effects What does all this now teach us as the use which we are to make of it Two things especially First Pity to others Secondly Caution to our selves There 's both of these which do issue from it First I say Pity to others When at any time we see any poor wretches in such a sad condition as this is whereof we now speak lying under great miscarriages and yet not knowing it or exposed to great Judgments and Punishments and yet knowing it not we see here what couse we have to commiserate them and to have compassion upon them as being indeed most miserable We pity men who are so in bodily distempers When we see a mad-man triumphing in his chains ah poor creature say we that knows not the misery which he is in And how much more cause have we to do so likewise even in spiritual We see how the Prophet does here bewail it in Ephraim c. Especially considering this that it will not alwaies be so with him If people as they do not know their misery now so they could ever be ignorant of it there might be somewhat in it but that they cannot conscience will one day be awake and they shall know whether they will or no yea perhaps when it is too late for them and they shall then know to purpose God will make them then to know as Gideon did the men of Succoth Judg. 8. The daies of visitation are come The daies of Recompence are come Israel shall know it Hos 9.17 Secondly Here 's Caution also for our selves to take heed that we be not willingly ignorant but labour thoroughly to know the state and condition which we are in either in regard of sin or Judgment Consider what a sad thing it is to be in a fools Paradise and to go on laughing and singing to Hell Do but think of that how dangerous a thing it is here not to know and therefore search and study our own hearts and lives and conversations and Gods providence towards us and be mindful of every thing which we see to happen out unto us Yea for this purpose desire God himself herein to help us as David himself did Psal 139.23 24. Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting So much also of the second General The aggravation of Ephraim's misery from his stupidity He knows it not yea and he knows it not twice repeated SERMON XLVI JER 18.12 And they said There is no hope but we will walk after our own devices There is nothing wherein the naughtiness and perversness of the heart of man which is most deceitful and desperately wicked is more discovered than in its cross and unsutable entertainment of the dealings of God with it especially in his gracious excitements and invitations of it to Repentance and Conversion and Turning to himself in that these have oftentimes very little impression upon it or prevalency with it Nay farther not onely so but also that now and then it proves to be from hence so much the more confirm'd and setled and rooted in evil An instance whereof we have now here before us in the Text which I have now read unto you We shew'd the last day out of the verse immediately preceding the seasonable and serious Exhortation which was made by God to these people the men of Judah and Jerusalem and in them to all others besides for their returning from their evil ways and the making of their ways and their doings good Now here in this Verse in hand we have the obstinate and refractory Answer and Reply which they make hereunto in a flat and absolute denial with the pretended ground of it And they said There is no hope c. IN the Text it self there are two General parts considerable First a desperate Conclusion Secondly a peremptory Resolution or Determination following thereupon The Conclusion is in that word there is no hope The Resolution upon it in those But we will walk after our own devices We begin with the first viz. the Conclusion There is no hope The Hebrew word is Noash the same expresly which is in Jer. 2.25 There is
action in us are by our fall miserably depraved what therefore can be expected concerning the actions which do proceed from them These principles are the several faculties and powers of the soul of man which are distinctly to be examin'd by us to this purpose First The mind and understanding of man is sadly darken'd If the understanding be bad the will cannot be good as much depending upon the understanding and following the ultimate and punctual dictates of it The sight of the body is the eye says our Blessed Saviour If therefore thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness And if the light which is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness Matth. 6.22 23. Where from the sight of the body is argued to the sight of the soul Because what the eye is to the body the same is the understanding to the soul Now the understanding of all men by nature is very much corrupted and left in the dark This St. Paul speaks to the Ephesians Ye were sometimes darkness but now ye are light in the Lord Eph. 5.8 Sometime when was that namely in the time of your natural condition and before conversion not only dark but darkness it self And so concerning the Gentiles he says that they were darkned in their understandings through the ignorance that is in them that is which is inherent in their natures Eph. 4.18 The mind of man through corruption does lye under a double ignorance Frist of the true and chiefest end and Secondly of a fit application of the means to this end It is ignorant of the true and chiefest end namely of God himself to whom all humane actions are chiefly and ultimately to be directed And it is ignorant also of the means which tend to this end or if it have at any time some general apprehensions of them whereby it knows them as we say in Thesi yet in hypothesi pro hic nunc upon this particular occasion and in these present and particular circumstances so it knows not the manner of applying those means to the end as it ought to know And this depravedness and corruption of the understanding does the Scripture every-where declare as Rom. 1.21 22. They became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned Professing themselves to be wise they became fools 1 Cor. 2.14 The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 2 Cor. 3.5 We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to find it out by our reason namely in spiritual things but our sufficiency is of God Gen. 6.5 Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil and that continually Rom. 8.5 6 They which are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Where the very understanding of the flesh is said to be enmity against God and death it self This for the corruption of the understanding But Secondly The will it is no less corrupted or depraved neither but has also a proper and peculiar depravation belonging unto it so that though the understanding should judge of things a-right yet without a peculiar work upon it as it now stands by nature and without a special work of Grace upon it it would not yet follow the dictate of the understanding truly enlighten'd but by a strange perversness would reluctate and hold off from it The will which is the governess of all our actions and the commander of the whole person is as much depraved as to the desire of good as the understanding is to the knowing of it and refuses to do that good which the understanding is sometimes convinced of and shews that it is to be done by it being desperately carried and enclined to all manner of evil From the corruption whereof together with the corruption of the understanding with it this business of free-will it must of necessity fall to the ground As because it is necessary for a man to go on both his legs therefore he must needs limp if he fail but only in one of them but if both his legs fail him he is then downright lame indeed and a perfect cripple Even so is it here the blindness of the understanding were enough to take a man off from the doing of what is good consider'd alone but the perversness of the will joyned with it does perfectly disenable him indeed Now this is here further observable and considerable of us Jer. 17.9 The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Eph. 2.3 We all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind we all that is in the state of corrupt nature and doing the wills of the flesh and of the mind whereto may be referr'd that Gal. 5.16 Walk in the Spirit and do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh And so Rom. 2.24 He gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts Ye see then the force of the argument An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit as I have shewed before Now an evil tree is an evil man or an evil will as Austin interprets it Now the will by original sin is turn'd from God to the creature and so altogether indisposed and disenabled to any spiritual good Thirdly The higher and superior part of the soul namely the understanding and will which are the principles of humane actions being wholly corrupted and depraved this poyson it does farther spread it self to the inferior faculties Hence is that great strise betwixt the sense the appetite and reason which the Apostle Paul himself complains of Rom. 7.23 I see another law in my members rebelling against the law of my mind and leading me captive to the law of sin which is in my members See here rebelling or fighting against a word of wars And again leading me captive a word of triumph Hence all the affections in man since his fall do not follow the commands of reason but rather prevent reason it self bind it and tye it up and lead it captive whithersoever they are carried Now let us lay all these things together The understanding hath lost its light and is overshadowed with darkness The will hath lost its rectitude and is fill'd with perversness The inferior appetite hath lost its subjection and delights in rebellion And so the whole man in this latitude is spiritually dead How then can he possibly thus dispose himself to any thing which is good or by the power of his own free-will produce any spiritual good action Surely as every natural
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thrusts them forth as it is Matt. 13.52 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you c. says St. John in 2 Joh. 1.3 But Secondly As here 's an acount of their knowledg what they did with that so here 's likewise an account of their practice what put them upon that For that 's another question which is sometimes put in such cases to those who are the servants of Christ What need ye to be so earnest and importunate and to make such a stir as ye do to persade men to this and that to look after their souls and to mind eternity and to have a regard to their future condition c What needs all this instruction and exhortation and admonition and threatning that comes from you Can't ye as well let men alone and be quiet and there 's an end No says he we cannot do so There 's very good reason for it why we should be thus earnest as we are to call upon men to leave their sins and to amend their ways and to reform their lives and that is Knowing the terror of the Lord. We cannot know that and not practice this Scientes ideo suademus there 's that also in Because we know therefore we perswade Where this knowledg as it here lies in the Text seems to carry a threefold force on Emphasis with it First As a word of discovery in opposition to ignorance knowing it that is being advised of it Secondly As a word of certainty in opposition to conjecture Knowing it that is being assured of it Thirdly As a word of consideration in opposition to forgerfulness or non attendency Knowing it that is being mindful of it The Apostle Paul and the rest of the Ministers upon the account of that knowledg which they had of the terror of the Lord in this threefold explication they were therefore thus diligent to deal with men for their hearkening unto them First Knowing it in a way of simple discovery in opposition to Ignorance Knowing it that is being advised of it it is a great advantage to any man that undertakes to speak of any thing or to perswade any other to it for himself to have an understanding of that which he speaks about to know what he says and whereof he affirms Those that are ignorant themselves will be but sorry Teachers of others So then the blind must lead the blind Teachers should be persons of knowledge 1 Tim 2.7 and those which are so will be ready to be so which St. Paul does seem to intimate and insinuate here in this place As if he had said thus much If we are ignorant we should be content to silent if we thought there would nothing come on it we should let men go on in their sins without interruption and say nothing at all to them of them let them sleep in an whole skin and go to Hell and our selves with them but as for us we know better we are not ignorant of this one thing That all men shall appear before the judgment-seat of Christ that every one may receive according to that which he hath done in his body whether it be good or evil We are sensible of the thing it self the day of judgment and of the great danger which lies upon those which are neglectful of it And therefore we can't but speak of such things as these are Secondly Knowing in a way of certainty and in opposition to conjecture Knowing that is knowing perfectly of exactly fo as it is in 2 Thes 5.2 Your selves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night c. There are many things which we have sometimes some kind of hint of but we are not altogether sure of them but only by guess we think they may be so but we are not sure they are so yea but now this business which the Apostle here speaks of was of another nature it was that which he knew that is it was that which he had a clear and manifest discovery of to him and therefore it was that he was so earnest about it For men to vent their meer fancies an conceits and speculations for Truths and to impose them upon others judgments and belief that may carry a great deal of weakness and imprudence in it to say no worse of it yea but St Paul here went upon a better ground and argument Therefore here it was as our blessed Saviour exprest himself sometimes to Nicodemus We speak that we do know and testifie that which we have seen and therefore ye are to receive our witness John 3.11 3. Knowing in a way of Consideration in opposition to forgetfulness or non-attendency There are many things which we know habitually which yet we do not know actually that is which we know but we do not remember or think of them and reflect upon them And the want of Knowledg thus is a great occasion of the neglect of our Duty in many things which are to be done by us But where this is it is a great help unto it and so it was here in this particular case with the Apostles in the discharge of their Ministry who because they did not only believe but also remember and frequently consider and meditate upon this terrour of the Lord in their own minds and spirits therefore consequently did so diligently commend it to the thoughts and hearts of Gods People and put them upon the study of it also And thus have we seen the full Emphasis of this word Knowing as it lyes here before us in the Text as a word of Intelligence as a word of Assurance as a word of Remembrance For a further account yet still of the practice of the Apostles here exprest in these words Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men We may take notice of a threefold Illustration which is observable and considerable in it First The principle or foundation whereupon it was laid Secondly The matter or argument which it was conversant about Thirdly The method or order for the carriage of it 1. The principle and foundation whereupon this practice of the Apostles in their perswading of men was laid and that was Knowlege knowing we perswade We never do any thing as we should do at least in that manner as we should do especially in the work of the Ministry till we hold our selves to this We then perswade most effectually when we perswade knowingly Thus in the beginning of this Chapter We know c. that we have a building of God an house c. 2. Here was the matter which this his perswasion was conversant about and that was of judgment to come a principal and fundamental point of Christian Religion as we find it to be declared in Heb. 6.2 This was that which he prest upon Christians and others in the course of his Ministry as we may observe in divers instances of it Thus when he preached at Athens to the Philosophers
there he told them of this day in which God had appointed to judg the world c. in Act. 17.30 31. And when he preached before Felix the Governour it is said he reasoned of temperance and righteousness and judgment to come Act. 24.25 so considerable a point is this among many others to be discours'd about 3. Here was the order and method of this practice Beginning first with the terror of the Lord and laying a ground-work there that 's the right method of the Ministry to begin with the Preaching of the Law and shewing them their lost condition in regard of themselves And so from thence to proceed and go on to the Preaching of the Gospel and the free grace of God in Christ First The threatnings of the law to terrifie men and then the Preaching of the Gospel to allay them Thus the Apostles did discharge their Ministry towards the Corinthian and all others after the compleatest manner that might be for principle for matter for order Terror is never more terrible than when it comes in expectation of the contrary when people shall go on in their sins and the fulfilling and prosecution of their lusts in hope of escape and presuming that they shall never be called to any reckoning about them and then at last shall be surprized with judgment before they are aware this will be very terrible indeed Therefore there is great cause for this seasonable and timely perswading of them and to save them with fear pulling them out of the fire as the Apostle Jude speaks in the Epistle of Jude and the 23d verse And this again we may conceive them to have done upon a threefold Consideration which is further observable of us and improvable by us First Out of faithfulness to God Secondly Out of affection to Gods people And thirdly Out of respect to themselves 1. Faithfulness to God Knowing the terror of the Lord we perswade men that we may discharge the Duty to him who has intrusted us with this Message and laid this charge upon us that we should be careful to declare it Cry aloud and spare not lift up thy voice like a Trumpet As we were allowed of God to put in trust with the Gospel even so we speak says the Apostle not as pleasing men but God which tryeth our hearts says the Apostle Paul as himself and others in 1 Thes 2.4 c. 2. Affection to Gods People Knowing this terror we perswade men that so thereby we may thus better secure them and prevent them from future destruction We admonish them because we love them and bear a special good will unto them and would have them to avoid the evils which are likely to follow upon this judgment being neglected by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being affectionately desirous of you that is of your good and welfare we were willing to impart unto you not only the Gospel of God but also our own Souls because ye were dear unto us says the Apostle in 1 Thess 2.8 There 's no greater expression of true love and affection than in the faithful discharge of the Ministry in waking and rouzing Admonitions Indeed it is not always thought so The world for the most part has other opinions of it counts it a matter of enmity and ill-will and disaffection yea but it is not so if it be duly and seriously considered It 's rather the quite contrary It is an argument of the greatest love and there 's the greatest love shown and discovered in it because by giving warning of the danger we prevent the evil it self 3. Respect to our selves that 's another thing in it and to our selves not in a corrupt sense but in a good and warrantable sense to our selves i.e. to our own souls as we desire to tender them Knowing the terror of the Lord that is the account which we must give to the Lord of our neglect He had mentioned as I said before in the foregoing verse Christ's Tribunal which he had said That not only they but himself also was top be cited to with them and to receive what they had done in the body We must all appear now therefore even for this alfo would he not neglect his duty towards them That of the Lord in the Prophet Ezekiel Ezek. cap. 3. v. 18. is very peremptory to this purpose where he tells him That if he gives not the wicked man warning to save his life the same wicked man shall dye in his iniquity but his blood will I require at thine hand Where Ministers shall forbear to admonish and to give notice of what is to be done or not to be done by such and such persons they do by this neglect and omission run an hazard of their own safety and salvation who whiles they know the sad effects and evil consequences of such and such courses yet do indulge and sooth men up in them nay says Prosper though they live holily themselves yet if they neglect to admonish others they shall be sure to smart for it Et quid ei proderit non puniri suo qui puniendus est alieno peccato And what will it avail him not to be punish'd for his own sin who shall yet be punish'd for anothers De vit contempt lib. 2. c. 20. Thus you see how the Apostles reason does consist and hang very well together for the practice of that which he did in the Preaching and publishing of the Gospel and inviting men to close with it Knowing the terror of the Lord we perswade c. This account of the Apostles practice may be further amplified and illustrated to us from some other Considerations besides which do likewise lye in the Text and are very pertinent to be observed by us As first From the principle and foundation whereupon it was laid and that was Knowledg Knowing we perswade c. And indeed that 's the best perswasion of all which does arise and proceed from hence and we never do that we should do at least in that manner as we should do in the Ministry till we hold our felves to this till we speak what we do upon good assurance and certainty of that thing which we speak about And this is done most successfully when we keep within our own sphere and compass and cognizance and apply our selves to that which our calling and profession leads us unto otherwise we may chance to miscarry and perswarde that which is contrary not without danger to others and prejudice likewise to our selves Ministers do then perswade most effectually when they perswade most knowingly when they know what they perswade to This is that which St. Paul here did and which he did likewise in other places And he had learn't it first from his Master even from Christ himself Joh. 3.11 Verily verily I say unto thee we speak that we do know and testifie that we have seen c. So Peter 2 Pet. 1.16 and Paul our Gospel came to you in much assurance 1
Jabez simple Prayer and Request it self and that is That thou wouldst keep me from evil Namely whatsoever might be annoying or afflicting unto him whether in body or goods or good Name or whatsoever else This is that which the nature of man is ready upon all occasions to decline and to shift off as much as it can the suffering of evil It is tedious to flesh and blood to think of Affliction and the Cross and therefore desires if it be possible to be dispenst withal for it And this desire no question in it self is warrantable and lawful It is agreeable not to Nature Corrupted but to Nature Created God has himself in our very Creation placed such Affections and Dispositions in us as to cause us to run from evil Yea we see how our Saviour himself did warrant this desire in us and gave us an allowance of it in His own Person and Particular Example When he desired if it were possible that the cup might pass from Him as an expression of Humane Affection This is that which is accordingly allowable in our selves also We may lawfully and warrantably desire to be kept from sicknesses and oppressions and the calamities of the times and places which at any times we live in This is no other than very reasonable and sutable to our nature onely I must put in some Additions by way of restraint for the Explanation of this Business First when I say we may lawfully desire to be kept from evil we must not understand it absolutely and indefinitely and upon any terms but still with submission to the good will and pleasure of God so as may stand with his honour and glory and the good and salvation of our own souls and upon no other considerations at all There are some cases in which our sufferings may much tend to the advancement of Gods truth and the justifying of Him in the world and to decline and run from evil is in a manner to deny Him now here it may not be done Again There are some cases wherein Afflictions may be profitable to our selves and for God absolutely to keep us from them might be perhaps in the issue of it to destroy and undoe our own souls we have need sometimes though we think not so of such dispensations as these are as well as of any thing else as so much Physick to work out our corruptions and spiritual diseases now therefore here to say keep me from evil is in effect to say bring us into it No but rather thus Lord if it seem good unto thee if it may stand with thine own good pleasure If I may honour and glorifie thee as much in another way then I beseech thee to keep me and preserve me from this evil that threatens me Secondly When I say we may lawfully desire to be kept from evil we must not understand it of any manner and way and means for the accomplishment of it we must no desire much less indeavour to be kept from Affliction by Transgression to be kept from the evil of punishment by the evil of sin this is to go out of a less evil into a greater which is a very bad and bootless exchange There are two many now and then which are of that temper and disposition of mind that Elihu charges upon Job how truly I doe not say in Job 36 21. To choose iniquity rather then affliction so they may escape outward trouble and calamity and distress in the world they care not what sins and miscarriages and enormities they fall into lying and falshood and backsliding and denying of the truth This is a very sad and fearful condition which we ought to take heed of Jabez here desired that God would be pleased to keep him from evil but it was still in a good way and by such means as were lawfull to be used and undertaken by him we must take it with this restriction upon it This Prayer of Jabez being thus explain'd there are two Observations which are plainly included in it and do result from it First That preservation from evil and misery here in this world is a very great Priviledge and favour and blessing indeed to those who are the subjects of it Secondly That the blessing of this blessing is in the hands of God First I say It is a Favour and Priviledge to be kept from evil here in the world This appears by the reference of it here in the Text where Jabez reckons amongst those things which are blessings indeed when he desired that God in Blessing would bless him he puts in this as appertaining to this blessing and as a part of it First It is so in the nature of the thing it self and as all men are ready to acknowledge it as very pleasing to flesh and blood to the which no Affliction at present is joyous but grievous as the Apostle speaks Look how far ease and quiet and rest and peace is a blessing so far forth is it a blessing also to be kept from evil Secondly That 's not all but moreover in other respects as in the next place that hereby we are so much the freer for the service of God and chearfulness and alacrity in it Those that are prest under many evils they cannot so attend upon the Lord without distraction as they desire to doe they cannot serve him with that freedom as they desire to do All the strength and grace they have is little enough for the supportment of them under the present Affliction but as for any thing else they have hardly any leasure or Ability thereunto How difficulty and hardly do those which are tormented with sickness or prest and pinch't with want attend upon the exercises of Religion and other duties which are required of them whereas those which are kept from such evils they have great advantages and opportunities to this purpose and more occasions for the praising of God Thirdly In reference also to others as an occasion being helpful to them which cannot so easily be done when men are in grief and trouble themselves An afflicted person is oftentimes a helpless person whereas those which are more at liberty have more Opportunities and Abilities in this respect What does this teach us but from hence as many as partake of this mercy to acknowledge it and to be thankfull for it and accordingly to improve it There are some whom God is pleased now and then to be very gracious to in this particular that whiles he brings others into evils yet he does free and exempt them This is not to be slighted or disregarded but to be looked upon as a very great favour and mercy towards them We may see here by Jabez his Importunity what to think of the thing it self and how to esteem it And that 's the first Observation which is here intimated and implyed in this Expression The thing it self is a mercy The second is this That the bestowing of this mercy is from God
Where speaking of the Devils The Angels that kept not their first Estate it is said that they are reserved in Everlasting Chains under Darkness unto the Judgment of the great Day So then they shall be silent in Darkness is as much as they shall be Continued in Darkness and does denote the Immoveableness and Irrecoverableness of their miserable Condition being such as from which they shall never be freed or delivered which Exposition is sutable to that of Moses in his song speaking of the Enemies of the Church to wit the Egyptians Exod. 15.16 Fear and Dread shall fall upon them by the greatness of thine Arme they shall be still as a Stone In the Hebrew it is ijdhmou that is they shall be silent Tacuerint tanquam lapis fuerint the Chalde Paraphrast Thus we see how as the Wicked are in Darkness So in what sense also they are said to be silent in it Now to joyn them both together they are such as doe very fitly agree to such kind of persons Both Darkness and also silence in it are very sutable to wicked men First the Darkness of Condition answerable to the darkness of sin Wicked men they abhorre the light because their deeds are evil They delight in works of darkness and now that light is come into the world yet they love darkness rather then light as it is in the Gospel Joh. 3.19 And therefore it is very sitting that Darkness should be inflicted upon them That their punishment may be answerable to their disposition Seing they delight in darkness there 's good reason that they should have enough of it and so they have sit in darkness and in the shadow of death Secondly Silence in evil answerable to silence from good Wicked men they care not to speak any thing which may be to the Honour of God They are silent as to prayers and praises and good speeches which should come from them They have a driness and barreness and dumbness and speechlesness here and accordingly they are made silent as to affliction and the sad effects and consequences which that does cause and occasion to them They are silent in Darkness There 's one thing more which we have not yet mention'd which yet may be very proper and pertinent to the scope of the place and that is the wicked's uncertainty and want of due advice and resolution what to doe in those conditions of perplexity in which they are They shall be silent as to the giving of Counsel either to others or else to themselves as being non-plust and at a stand from that dubiousness and ambiguity of affairs which are upon them This is a sense which will very wellhold and it is a case which does oftentimes fall out that whereas the Saints and servants of God He keeps their feet for them And gives light to them that sit in Darkness and the shaddow of Death yea and also guides their feet in the way of peace as it is in Luk. 1.79 The wicked on the otherside they shall reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and be at their wits end as the Scripture sometimes expresses it they shall not see their way before them nor yet know what course is best to be taken by them That 's the second Branch here considerable to wit the state of the wicked in opposition and contradistinction to the Godly and so the first General part of the Text which is the condition of two ranks of persons good and bad He shall keep the feet of the Saints But the wicked shall be silent in Darkness The second General is the Reason or Account which is given of both That we have in the last words For by strength shall no man prevail This refers to both precedent clauses of the former General in the conditions both of good and bad therefore doe's God keep the feet of His Saints because there 's no strength prevailing without Him And therefore again shall the wicked also be silent in darkness because there 's no strength prevailing against him so it holds strong as a very good reason in either reference We begin with the first viz. As it refers to the first clause He shall keep the feet of His Saints That is by taking it exclusively He and He alone There 's no man prevails without God by any strength which is in Himself And therefore our old Translation expresses it so By his own strength shall no man prevail This is true according to the Notion and Acceptation of strength in the full latitude and extent of it whatever strength there 's of a man 's own it is such as whereby He shall be never able to prevail unless he have another and better strength joyn'd together with it Wee 'l reduce it briefly to three Heads First The strength of Body and Humane power with the appurtenances thereof Secondly The strength of Parts and the improvements of wit and understanding The strength of Grace in the meer purpose of it First I say not by the strength of Body and Humane Power with the Appurtenances thereof there 's no man shall prevail by this not by strength of outward force and arms and such helps as these These have a strength in them and such an one as one would think to be very prevalent but it is not this simply consider'd which carries the business And the Scripture does accordingly so set it and represent it unto us Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Zech. 4.6 It is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel So Eccles 9.11 The race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong And Psal 44.3 They got not the land in possession by their own sword neither did their own arm save them but thy right hand and thine arms and the light of thy countenance because thou hadst a favour to them There 's the resolution of all not into man's strength so much as into God's There are divers instances and examples of those which have had little or no strength of their own and yet have much prevailed again their are instances of those which have not prevailed where they have had strength in great abundance And the Lord delights to have it so that so His own strength and power and glory may the more appear and that all Nations and People and Persons may acknowledge him in the Government of the world who is the Blessed and onely Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lord's as the Apostle Paul declares him in 1 Tim. 6.15 Therefore As the Prophet Jeremy makes Application of it to our hand Let not the strong man glory in his strength Jer. 9.23 We see hence what little cause we have to put our confidence in man or to make flesh our arm as the same Prophet likewise intimates and pronounces a curse upon such persons as are guilty of so doing Jer. 17.5 Ther 's not the Greatest Humane strength which of it self
present Famine and as to the giving of this following Plenty It was because he did not remember and call to mind the like former Dispensations The manna rain'd down from Heaven the Meal not wasted in the Barrel the Oyl multiplyed in the Cruse If he had thought but of these he would not have stuck so much at this nor called in question God's Power about it whom he would have easily thought could have done one as well as the other Therefore does our Blessed Saviour upon this score also check his Disciples when they were troubled amongst themselves concerning their want of bread after the experience of the Miracles already wrought in that particular Math. 16.8 9. Oh ye of little faith why reason ye among your selves because ye have brought no bread so Mar. 8.18 Do ye not yet understand neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets ye took up nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets also ye took up He rubs up their memories that thereby he might quicken their faith as implying that their want of this latter proceeded from their defect of the Former Thirdly This questioning of Gods power as concerning the Variations of Providence it does proceed in men oftentimes from too much fixedness upon their present condition whether it be good or evil If their condition be good it proceeds from a spirit of presumption and carnal security If their condition be evil it proceeds from a spirit of Despair and carnal despondency Those which are under either of these distempers they are apt to limit and doubt of Gods power as to the changing or altering of their conditions First Take it in Good and matter of prosperity in the Distempers of a Presumptuous spirit and ye shall see it there David When he was in his prosperity he said he should never be moved God had made his mountain so strong in Psal 30.6 7. And so it is with many more besides and a great deal worse who have the like thoughts with themselves In health that they shall never know sickness in abundance that they shal never have want In Society that they shall never know desolation There are a great many people in the world which are sometimes so besotted and intoxicated with this present welfare and worldly prosperity as that they do verily believe that God Himself is not able to divert it or to obstruct it to them Nay it were well if some did not almost say so in plain terms and so fully come home to this instance here before us So again Take it as to matter of Adversity and Affliction and ye shall see it there also out of the principles of Despair and carnal despondency Men do from thence also question Gods power and providence towards them and think it is impossible that he should ever better their condition to them In times of straitness and famine that they should never see plenty more as it was here in the Text this is that conceit and imagination which does fasten upon them As they confine God to their Prosperous condition that he should not be able to remove that so they confine him also to their Afflicted condition that he should not be able to relieve their need This is that which the Psalmist does again take notice of in himself though at last he recovers out of it Psal 77.10 When he was for a time in a sad condition he began to think he should be so continually and that there was no remedy for him Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Hath God forgotten to be Gracious c. But then he seasonably corrects himself in it Then I said this is mine infirmity c. Thus this too much fixedness and settledness upon mens present condition whether in good or evil it makes them doubt of and suspect and call in question even the Power of God that he shall be able to do no more than what they fancy or imagine to themselves from either of these distempers to wit of security or despair presumption and carnal discouragement And that 's the first branch of this infidelity here mentioned in the Text namely as to the questioning of the power of God for the possibility of the thing it self The second is as to the questioning of the truth of God for the certainty and infallibility of the Message There is this also observable in it to make it more remarkable To have question'd whether God could have wrought such a thing as this is it had been bad enough though there had been nothing said of it But now when the Lord himself had absolutely and expressely declared it that indeed it should be so now to question whether it could be so or no was a further inlargement of the sinfulness and wickedness of it This was to make the God of Truth to be the Authour of falshood and to give the lye as it were to his word And this is another piece of Desperateness which is further observable in the Nature of Man not to receive or give entertainment to Gods most serious and solemn Protestations or intimations whether of evil or good Not to believe the Threatnings of God in matter of Judgement but to question whether God will be so severe as indeed he denounces nor yet to believe Gods Promises in matter of Mercy but to question whether he will indeed be so gracious as he signifies and pretends Thus is the Truth of God call'd in Question as well as his Power Thus it is more particularly and especially in the mouthes of his Servants who are his Ministers and Messengers to this purpose Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed as the Prophet himself complains Isa 53.1 And all the day long have I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and a gainsaying people Rom. 10.21 There is that stubborness and peivishness abiding in mens hearts that they will not receive the word of God in the love and imbracement of it but rather oppose and set themselves against it though in it self never so acceptable and worthy to be received Even the Promises of Mercy they have no other then the returns of Rebellion and contradiction against them as the Jewes which were Auditors of St. Paul contradicting and blaspheming Act. 13.45 The true ground and reason of all is that pride which is naturally in mens hearts and especially when it is further prenoted by outward advantages This makes men to scorn the word of God and to think themselves above it specially when it is conveyed by the Ministery of meaner persons The Prophet is a fool and the spiritual man's mad with such Persons as these are Disobedience and unbelief and rebellion it is the fruit of Pride Therefore let us as much as may be bewail this cursed root in us and labour to have it rooted out of us let us take heed of
Congregation of evil doers but also every particular person that shall ingage Himself in evil ways and there is nothing which shall stand in his way as an Obstacle or Impediment hereunto He is resolved and determined to do it without any Gainsaying or Contradiction wound them he will And that 's the Second thing considerable to wit the Evil in General threatned and that 's wounding The Third is the part wherein and that 's here exprest to be the Head This is not Exclusive but Specificative it is not the Head so as if no where else besides but the Head as therein Especially As for obstinate Sinners they have many wounds inflicted upon them in other respects As First In their Good Names they have a wound oftentimes in them Prov. 6 33. A wound and a Dishonour shall he get and his reproach shall not be wiped away Those that go on wilfully in base and unworthy Courses they do hereby much desparage themselves in point of Reputation this is somewhat and that which is to be minded by them The very Heathen man could say Puto cum perisse c. I think he is lost and quite undon that has no regard to his good Name and Estimation This is the Lot of a Foolish Bold Presumptuous Sinner that refuses to be reclaimed he lies under a Reproach and Contempt He has a wound and a blast oftentimes in his Credit an Account in the world Secondly A wound in his Estate that does also many times from Hence lie a bleeding Idleness it is clothed with Rags as Solomon speaks Prov. 23.21 And he that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man Prov. 21.19 Loose and Licentious Courses they are such as bring men to Beggery and want which as an Armed man comes upon them Thirdly A wound in their Consciences which is the great wound of all This is another which God does inflict upon them As St. Peters Auditors Acts 2.37 When they heard these things namely their Guiltiness of such and such Sinns they were prick't in their Hearts That 's a wound which is not easily Cured or made up A wounded Spirit says Solomon who can bear This is that which is attendant upon Sins especially from the Continuance in it it does very much lay wast the Conscience and make holes and furrows in it All these wounds does God inflict upon his Enemies as it pleases him which are not to be Excluded But that which is here specified is in the Head and hairy Scalp God does especially wound them there This for the opening of it to us does denote three things to us according to the different notion which the Head does carry in it First In their Intellectuals takes away their Brains from them Secondly In their Vitals takes away their Life from them Thirdly In their Principalities and Eminencies takes away their Glory from them First I say In their Intellectuals takes away their Brains from them God infatuates wicked men besots them and spoyles them of their wits He confounds the wisdom of the Wise and brings to nothing the Vnderstandings of the Prudent c. 1 Cor. 1.19 Such a wound as this it was that which was inflicted upon Nebuchadnazar when his Vnderstanding was taken away from him Dan. 4.34 And when he was turned to eat grass like the Ox. This God does with many such Persons bereeves them of their Vnderstandings or if he does not doe it in a natural way yet he does at least in a Spiritual gives them up to a blind mind and to a seared Conscience and to a reprobate sense which is one of the Greatest Evils and Judgments that may be Thus it is recorded of the Heathens Rom. 1.28 That as they did not like to retain God in their knowledg God gave them over to a Reprobate mind c. Those that go on in Sin they many times come to such a pass as not to discern it or judg of it especially such as this Sin may be which they are guilty off which sometimes may so much the more stupify them and take away their Understanding This is one way wherein God wounds those which are his Enemies in the Head And we cannot wonder at it if we do but consider how they use their Heads oftentimes against Himself which they do by a double practise First In the contriving of Sin And Secondly In the defending of it Wicked men they use their Heads against God to each of these purposes and therefore does he wound them in them First As to the contriving of Sin they do many times abuse their Heads thus in being witty to invent and devise evil attempts the Brain of an Ungodly person is very fruitful in this particular he is still musing and plotting and casting about some evil or other never well but when he is taken up in such Devises as these are And therefore does God meet with him in them he disappoints the devises of the Crafty c. Secondly As to the defending of it this is another thing wherein men use their Heads and imploy their wits to strain an excuse of Sin a justifying and a maintaining of it such Heads as have evil Hearts joyn'd with them they labour all that may be to make Sin as little odious as they can to palliaâ—â—â—t and extenuate it and to put the appearance of Virtue upon it thus they use their Heads 〈◊〉 and accordingly does God punish them for it by wounding them in their Intellectuals and takes away their wit from them Secondly In their Vitals he takes away their Life from them The Head as it is the Seat of Reason and Vnderstanding so likewise of Sense and Motion it has all the Senses in it in a more full and perfect measure and degree then any other parts of the Body now therefore when it is said here that God will wound the Head of his Enemies we have hereby signifyed that he will destroy their Life He will give them a mortal wound so as to extinguish them and take them away out of the World This is that which he will do and which he threatens to do here in this place when he says that he will wound their Head And it is sutable likewise to other places besides where God does threaten as much against them Look through the whole Scripture and ye shall find it the currant Doctrin of it that God will wound the head of his Enemies thus Thus he did with Pharaoh with Senacherib with Herod and such as these Examples are frequent to this purpose Nor there are two principles which do ingage him and move him hereunto The one is his own Glory the other is his Churches good First His own Glory in the Vindication of his Justice upon evil men and so prevent Atheism in the word If God should suffer wicked men to go on without Controul they would be ready to think that there were no God at all but now when he punishes them he does here convince them so
is a Cup full of mixture How may we reconcile these two Expressions one with another in one place without mixture an aggavation and in another place an aggravation that it is full of mixture This is according to the nature of the things themselves which are related unto without mixture in the former place that is without mixture of Grace and Goodness whereby the Affliction might be allayed unto them Judgment without Mercy Correction without Mitigation Again full of mixture here in this Text that is of the Wrath and Anger of God with the Evil and Affliction it self which several phrases being thus explain'd we may here learn how to take this present Expression here before us which according to a double reference may admit of a double sense There is a mixture of Strength and Patience There is a mixture of Comfort and Goodness We may take it either way and first of the former of these two as it carries a reference to the Godly and children of God This Cup of red wine and affliction which is tendered to them it is full of mixture in this sense as it is mitigated and mollifyed unto them Forasmuch as their Corrections are dispenst in much Mercy and Love unto them In all the Afflictions of Gods people there 's an intermixture and temperament of love and favour which shews it self in them The cup is full of mixture to them as may be made good in sundry particulars which are Ingredients into it As First of all There 's a mixture of Strength and Patience for the bearing of it God never lays any thing upon his Servants though it be never so harsh and terrible but he gives them some ability to indure it and to wrastle and buckle with it this is called in other places of Scripture a Correcting in measure which God does often make promise of that he will be sure to take care off The Lord is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able but will with the Temptation find a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it The Lord as he strikes with one hand so he still supports and holds up with another that 's one friendly intermixture Secondly There 's a mixture of Comfort and Goodness as to the things themselves God is not altogether in Affliction but he is very much in Mercy with it and as he is pleased to exercise his Servants with several troubles so he does likewise vouchsafe them many blessings together with them which he does comfort them withall He turns his Anger away and does not stir up all his wrath as it is in Psal 78.38 But as in one kind he brings Evil so in another kind he brings good with it His work is Checker-work as we may so call it of black and white Indeed this mixture is not always so taken notice of by them as it were fitting to be No if at any time we have any Troubles or Afflictions upon us we do not for the most part observe the many Mercies which we injoy with them but yet they are never a whit the less for all that There is a mixture of bad and good together in regard of Gods Dispensation And then Thirdly There 's another thing also which is much observable in the Afflictions of Gods People which makes up this Temperament Compleat and that is a mixture of Improvement and Edification God is still doing his Children good by all the Evil which he brings upon them He Chastises them for their profit that they may be made partakers of his Holiness as it is in Heb. 12.10 There 's the Excellency of it That so now though no Chastening for the present be joyous but grievous yet nevertheless afterwards it yeilds the peaceable fruit of Righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby What a sweet mixture is this And that 's now the First sense of the words according to the first reference of them to wit as to the People of God and so full of mixture that is full of Love and Mercy which is mingled and temper'd with it Secondly We may take it in reference to the Wicked the Enemies of God and his People and so full of mixture that is full of Wrath and Revenge which does mingle it self in the Judgments which here fall upon them This is considerable in the Miseryes which they indure not onely the Evil of the Affliction in its own Nature whatsoever it be but of the Hatred and Fury and Vengance of God Himself which is intermixt with it He Distributes Sorrows to them in Anger as Job speaks Job 21.17 This is that which is considerable in them this cup of red wine it is without the mixture of Sweetness and it is full of the mixture of Bitterness which is added unto it Thus we have it in Psal 11.6 Vpon the Wicked he shall Rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and an horrible Tempest this shall be the portion of their Cup. And Rom. 2.8.9 Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish upon them that obey Vnrighteousness And Revel 14.10 They shall drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the Cup of his Indignation These are the Phrases and Expressions by which the Scripture uses to set forth the Misery of wicked men in this particular And so the Terrours of the Almighty and the Arrows of the Almighty and the Gall and Vinegar and Wormwood and such as these What does all this come to but from hence so much the more to awaken men out of their natural Condition and especially as they do any thing abound and overflow with Sin that the Judgments of God they do not come singly or simply to them but with very sad and grievous intermixtures even of Gods wrath and fierceness with them which does aggravate and extend them and set them out so much the more this is their great Misery and Unhappiness that as the Comforts which they partake off they have them without the rellish of Gods Love and Favour in them so likewise the Judgments which light upon them they have them mingled with his Anger and Indignation and the Portion of their Cup. Comforts are less Comfortable and Afflictions are more Afflicting to them this is their Lot and Condition and so ye have also the Second particular considerable in this Resemblance namely the Liquor or matter which is here first in the simple Nature of it which is red Wine And Secondly In the Composition It is full of mixture The Third and last is the Posture and Situation of this cup or the Orderer and Disposer of it In the Hand of the Lord. All things are in the hand of God as the Scripture does all along signify unto us and among the rest these Judgments and Punishments which are sent abroad into the World This cup of red Wine it is in the hand of God Himself It is so and it is said to be so
one to labour what he can to know it and understand it and to be acquainted with it that so he may the better avoid it as David exprest it to be his Care in another place Psal 18.23 I kept my self from mine Iniquity Where there is the greatest Inclination there had need to be the greatest Causion Thirdly From the Coherence of these words with the foregoing verses and the Demonstration Thus we see here what to judge of Staggering at Gods Promises and Providences which is the main point here intended and that is no other then an Infirmity This is mine Infirmity what does he mean by this Why this Desparing Distemper which was now upon him occasionally from his present Condition that he should have such thoughts in his mind and utter such words with his mouth as now he had and did against the ways and dealings of God This was a very great weakness and Infirmity in him and so it is likewise in any other Christian or Person besides so to do And it has these several Branches in it wherein it Consists First There is Ignorance and want of Vnderstanding Ignorance it is a peice of Weakness Especially in those matters which it is required of them that they should know now this is that which is considerable here whosoever quarrels with the Providence of God he is so far forth ignorant of the ways of God yea indeed of God Himself he does not sufficiently know or understand what an one he is for if he did he would think better of him and be better satisfied with that which is done by Him Secondly Infidelity there is that also pertinent hereunto a unbelieving person is a weak Person Faith it does strengthen and Corroberate now such Persons as these they are short and deficient in Faith to ask whether Gods Mercy be gone for ever and whether his promise fails for evermore and such questions as these they do beray much Infidelity and consequently much Infirmity Thirdly Impatience that 's also an Argument of Weakness If thou faint in the day of Adversity says Solomon thy strength is small Prov. 24.10 Not onely thy Natural strength but thy Spiritual so much Patience so much strength but so much Impatience so much Infirmity Now this does eminently discover it self in our Exceptions against God his Providence It is the Sign of an Impatient Spirit more or less and so has the just Censure of Weakness and Infirmity upon it thus in all these respects is this Expostulating with God an Infirmity as the Psalmist here expresses it to be and gives this black Character of it in this present Scripture The Consideration of this point should work us so much the more to the Hatred and Detestation of it and opposing it as much as may be we should not Cherish that in our selves which is rather Weakness then any thing else but expell it and drive it away from us and labour to recover out of it as soon as we can as men would do in the case of the Body When we Censure the Dispensation of God and and find fault with his Providence we do not prove any weakness in Him but rather discover weakness in our selves It is our Infirmity And so much of the point as it is Considerable in the simple Proposition and thing it self Now further Secondly We may look upon it in it's Reflexion as it comes here from the mouth of the Psalmist Himself I said this is mine Infirmity As it was so in it self considered in it's own Nature so it was moreover so according to his Expression about it In which again there are divers particulars Observable of us as pertinent hereunto First The Quickness of his Apprehension in that he spies and discerns this Weakness and Infirmity in himself while he says it it is Evident he spies it he discovers it and finds it out This is one thing which is observable and Commendable in Him it is a part of Spiritual strength to be sensible and apprehensive of Weakness and take notice of Spiritual Infirmities And thus did David here As for Wicked and Carnal men there is a great deal of Blindness and Ignorance upon them from whence they go on in Sin without any Reflexions but Gracious Persons who are inlightned by Gods Spirit they are made apprehensive of these matters they can distinguish betwixt Good and Evil in themselves Sees when they do that which they should do and again see when they do that which is amiss They have the Spirit of Discerning which is conferred and bestowed upon them whereby they are inabled to judg of things as they are and to be rightly opinionated of them they do not call Good Evil nor yet Evil Good as it is said of some in the Prophet Esay 5.20 Secondly Here was the tenderness of his Conscience not onely in that he discerned this Distemper and Infirmity in Himself but likewise that he check'd Himself for it for so we must here take it I said this is mine Infirmity that is I blamed and taxed my self for it that such thoughts should arise in me and he did it likewise which is here further to be added in a Justifying and acquitting of God there is no fault in him in regard of his Providence but rather the fault is in my self that do not sufficiently understand and consider him this is the meaning of it this is the manner and Disposition of the Saints and Servants of God that though they fall into Sin through Infirmity yet they do not rest and abide in it but recover and get up again They smite upon the Breast and they smite upon the Thigh when they have been guilty of any Miscarriage they do not allow or defend themselves in it but are sorrowful and Greived for it as David here was he speaks of it with a kind of remorse and trouble of Spirit And the reason of it is this because they have a principle of Grace and Spiritual Life n themselves which is ever and anon working Corruption out of them and suppressing it in them Dead men they feel nothing though they have never so many slashes or wounds made in their Bodies yet they are all nothing to them because they are Dead and devoid of life and so it is with those which are in a State of Nature and Vnregeneracy they are in the like manner Affected though they have never so many Sins upon them yet they are not at all affected with them nor lay them to heart no more then if there were never any such thing that they could be charged withall being alienated from the life of God they are past feeling as the Apostle speaks And so have given themselves over to Laciviousness to Commit all uncleaness with Greediness Eph. 4.19 But the Children of God they are alive through the work of Grace which is in their Hearts And this makes them to be so much troubled and perplexed and Afflicted in themselves for that guilt which is
signified or exprest unto us Leaving the scorner here in a doubtfulness and uncertainty of condition which is commonly and for the most part accounted to be very sad and grievous It is some kind of ease and satisfaction if men must needs undergo punishment that they may know what it is aforehand to fit and prepare themselves for it But this is that which is here denyed to a Scornful person That he shall not know his doom and misery Let him take what follows upon it at a venture but what that is he shall not understand till he come by experience to feel it and to be made sensible of it This is the misery of Scorners that they run themselves upon infinite hazzards and do not know where they shall stop Thou shalt bear it but what that is no body knows neither He himself nor any one else for him Secondly Heres 's the Vniversality of it Forasmuch as whiles none is named all are in a manner implyed and so indeed they are Here 's a blanck prepared for the putting in of whatsoever we please not one excepted Judgements are prepared for Scorners that is all kind of Judgments whatsoever one with another Prov. 19.29 Judgements are prepared for Scorners and stripes for the back of fools Look as Vniversal good is attending upon wisdom and Godliness as we have shewen out of the former Branch Thou shalt be wise for thy self at large in whatsoever may be convenient for thee So here also Universal evil is attending upon Scornfulness and folly Thou shalt bear it in all evils whatsoever which may befall thee In Outward man in Inward man In thy Body in thy Estate in thy Friends and which is worst of all in thy soul If there be any thing worse then other it thou shalt be sure to bear Thou shalt bear it Thirdly Here 's the Vnavoidableness of it It is not onely an indefinite expression and Vniversal but also absolute and peremptory Thou shalt bear it it may be not as yet but in time and within a while thou shalt suffer for it Those that Scorn they shall suffer punishment and not escape He that being often reproved hardneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy Prov. 29. vers 1. This it meets with security and presumption of a Scornful Spirit which promises it self freedom from punishment because of present Indulgence They do not yet find no evil by it therefore they shall never well but they shall at last for all this and that in good earnest And there are these Considerations following which lay ground hereunto First Because Scorners they do still persist and go on in Sin and thereby aggravate it so much the more to themselves He that refuses to be admonish'd he perseveres and continues in Sin now that does alwayes make Sin so much the worse to those which are guilty of it Repentance that makes some amends where any thing hath been done amiss but proceeding in Sin it is a kind of further justifying of it this is the case of a Scorner and so he deserves Punishment even for that Secondly It is an abuse of Love and Friendship which is exprest in Admonition there is no truer love or kindness if it be duely thought of then a seasonable and pertinent reproof Encline not my Heart to any Evil thing to practice wicked works with men that work Iniquity And let me not eat of their dainties Let the Righteous smite me it shall be a kindness and let him reprove me it shall be an excellent Oyl which shall not break my head for yet my prayer also shall be in their Calamities When their Judges are overthrown in stony places they shall hear my words for they are sweet Psal 141.4.5.6 Now a Scorner undervalues this kindness and mis-interpret's it lookes upon that as a discurtesie which is the greatest Curtesie of all and carries himself contrarily to it which has the greatest sinfulness in it Thirdly Which is worst of all it is a slighting even of God Himself and the motions and stirrings of his Spirit men are ready to think that when they neglect good Counsell which is given them that they offend none but men who are the conveyers of that good Counsell to them Well but there is somewhat more then so in it This their Contempt it arises a little higher even to the Divine Majesty Himself He that despiseth dispiseth not man but God who hath also given to us his holy Spirit as the Apostle Paul tells us But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you for ye your selves are taught of God to love one another 1 Thes 4.8.9 Therefore is the Lord himself an Avenger of all such as the same Apostle also has it in that place while either Ministers or Christian Friends are scorn'd and despised in their Counsels God himself is despised in them and will call them to an account for them Hence it is said also of the Pharisees But the Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the Connsell of God against themselves being not Baptized of him And the Lord said whereunto then shall I licken the men of this Generation and to what are they like They are like unto Children sitting in the Market place and calling one to another and saying we have piped unto you and ye have not Danced we have mourned to you and ye have not wept Luk. 7.30.31.32 Where as it is said to be against themselves the point which we shall come to anon thou alone shalt bear it So it is said to be the Counsel of God which was rejected by them Forasmuch as it is God Himself that speaks in such as these They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me says God to Samuel of the Peoples casting him off Let this then teach us to beware of such a Sin as this is what ever we be guilty of besides let us be sure to take heed of Scorning which is the aggravation of guilt upon us and that which adds to the weight of all other Sins besides and which God does in a more especial manner abhor and set himself against when men come once to this they begin to be almost past hope of Recovery and the influences of Gods Grace upon them Surely he scorneth the Scorner but he giveth Grace unto the Lowly The wise shall Inherit Glory but shame shall be the promotion of Fools Prov. 3.34.35 There is none that is more scorned by God then those which are most scorning of Him Those that Honour me says he I will Honour but those that despise me shall be lightly esteemed 1 Sam. 2.20 There is none which God can worse away withall then such persons as these are nor whom he will proceed more in wrath and Judgment against them and that in what ever Circumstances we may possibly consider them in Better is a poor and wise Child then an old and foolish King that will no more be admonished says the Prophet
if they have been careful to do their best in it we are unto God a sweet Savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish says the Apostle 2 Cor. 2.15 Therefore let none think that by their Disobedience and neglect and Contempt they do injure us so much as they do themselves This is useful and may be improved by us in all cases and Expressions of Scorn as may at any time fall out ye shall have some kind of people in the World who if a Minister do not fully humour them and come up to their fansies and Conceits or it may be checks and reproves them and meets with some bosome-Lust and Corruption which is raigning in them they know not how better to revenge themselves with him then by withdrawing themselves from him declining his Ministry refusing to come to hear him Now I pray in conclusion who do ye think will be the looser by it will it be He or they He that tenders such Instruction to them or they that refuses it and keeps away from it Surely the Text here resolves it If thou scornest thou alone shalt bear it Thou withdrawest thy self perhaps from the opportunities of thine own Salvation from the hearing of such points as might be most pertinent and seasonable for thee and which through the Blessing of God might tend to thine everlasting improvement Therefore do not deceive thy self with such conceits as these are what is the Sun the worse when men shut their Windows against it or what is the Conduit the worse when men refuse to draw water from it what hurt is it to the Physitian when the sick man will not be healed and recovered by him And so what evil is it in this case to Teachers when those which should learn from them will not give ear and hearken unto them nor be instructed by them none at all it returns upon themselves Again Secondly This meets with another Distemper in some kind of persons Come and tell them of such and such Miscarriages which at any time they are guilty of and what an answer will they make you for it Why my self shall have the worst of it no body shall smart for it but my self I alone shall bear it c. Is this now a sufficient answer to take of a seasonable reproof and rebuke which is fastened upon them Ye see here how in the reasoning of the Holy Ghost it is quite contrary who makes this a principal Argument why men should give heed to Instruction and admonition of them because if they neglect to do they themselves shall have the worst of it because thou alone shalt bear it therefore thou had'st need so much the rather to beware of it And that upon the Consideration of both those Terms together It is thy self and thy self alone First Thy self Thou hast cause to be moved with that which every one is bound to regard and especially in that which does most nearly and closely concern him thy self that is thy Soul and thy Salvation and thy Eternal good it is not in any ones liberty to mind or slight this as he pleases no but he is ingaged to attend it and to have respect unto it Injuries against a mans self are the greatest Injuries of all because there is the greatest Ground and argument for the shuning of them As self-Murder it is the greatest Murther of all and carries the most haniousness in it of any others so self-undoing and destroying and damning is more hanious then of any other whatsoever which no man may therefore give way to That which men make as a means to shun and decline reproving by does set it home more strongly upon them Again Secondly Thou alone shalt bear it There is somewhat in that also which does make it so much the worse for thou that sayest it is so with thee Art thou indeed able to indure it alone canst thou grapple with the wrath of God alone and stand it out at a single Combate Dost thou know what thou sayest when thou usest such an Expression as this is Thou alone shalt bear it is indeed Thou shalt not be able to bear it It shall be unsupportable and intollerable for thee Besides That in this sense in which it is used for the most part by Scorners it does not hold true for how and to what purpose do they use it Namely hereby to take men off from the reproving of them Let us alone in our Sins for we alone shall bear it This is not so I say rightly considered It is an argument for a Scorner to take heed of Scorning but it is not an argument for a Teacher to withhold from reproving for if so he shall bear it too as well as the offender Himself as we heard before out of the Prophet Ezekiel But to conclude Thou alone shall bear it It may be understood as to the Excluding of simpathy and Commiseration There is many which are alone in suffering if we speak of the Evil it self none suffers with them in reality which yet are not alone as to the Affection many here having Compassion on themâ— But now this is further the punishment of Scorners that they shall be denyed this peice of ease and Comfort to them they shall have none in this case to pitty or bewayl them or mourn over them because as they are miserable so they will be so and none could restrain them as long as any takes Evil Courses and knows no better men are apt there to Commiserate the Condition in which they are Their Bowels yearn towards them and they pitty them and are sorry for them but when their Willful and Refractory and obstinate and perverse and Incorrigible here they do abate and qualifie and diminish men's Affections unto them so that if they will needs perish perish they may Their Blood shall be upon their own Heads though they may mock yet God will not be mocked nor his servants will not take it well from them This is the Misery of all scornful persons which neglect and slight good Counsell and Admonition among many other Evils befall them and it is not the least of them that they many times set their nearest and dearest friends that are against them and make them turn into their greatest Enemies As Affections being disturb'd they turn for the most part into the quite opposite and contrary to them This is the case with such as these they turn their friend into Enemies yea their very best friend of all and make him to have no pitty on them neither which is worst of all It is said of them in the Prophet Esay 63.10 They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit therefore was he turned to be their Enemy and sought against them And Prov. 1.25.26 Because ye have set at nought all my Counsell and would none of my reproof I will also laugh at your Calamity and will mock when your fear cometh See here how he scorneth Scorners and takes no
no hope c. which is differently rendred by Interpreters we shall take notice of that which is most probable our own Translators give it according to the Reading which I have made of it Desperatio est No hope Now this may be explicated by us according to a threefold reference which may be made of it for it seems to respect three sorts of persons either first themselves or secondly the Prophet or thirdly God Themselves thus There is no hope i. e. there is no hope of us our lusts do so far take with us and prevail with us that there is no hope we should ever get the mastery or victory over them The Prophet thus There is no hope i. e. there is no hope in regard of thee and thy Ministery amongst us thou maist for thy part put up thy pipes and hold thy tongue and save thy breath and spare thy pains for we tell thee thus much thou art not likely to do any good upon us God himself thus There is no hope i. e. no hope of favour from him though we should haply change our course and amend our lives and reform our ways as he desires us to do yet we should be still where we are there is no likelihood or probability that we should be ever the better for it or that he notwithstanding all this would shew any mercy to us or divert his judgments from us This word and expression before us it has the force and emphasis of all these senses with it First in reference to themselves to begin with that There is no hope in regard of us that we should ever get the better of those lusts and corruptions in us or that we should ever return to God we have no heart or mind at all to it nay we are utterly averse from it and find our spirits and inclinations against it with despair in this point of our selves as to our amendment and and reformation This is the state and condition of many Persons and People in the world that they are desperate in this regard And there are two things which do make up this unto them and seem to be involv'd in this distemper First an absolute indisposition and aversness to all kind of good Secondly an absolute thraldom and subjection to all kind of evil First an indisposition and aversness to good There is no hope as if they had said We have no heart or affection in us at all to God and to his ways we cannot love him or close with him Thus the Chaldee Paraphrase expounds it Aversi sumus a cultu tuo We are averse from thy Worship and all Religion And another Translation Expectoratum est We are heartless and our minds are off from them This is the sad condition which many sinners are brought unto to have their hearts quite taken off from all that is good and to have no savour or relish or sense of Religion in them yea sometimes though they have formerly made some shew and profession of it This is the complaint of these people here of themselves upon their own experience they know not what 's the matter with them but they wish the Almighty to depart from them for they desire not the knowledge of his ways Job 21.11 This distemper it hath sundry grounds and causes of it from whence it proceeds as First A neglect and intermission of the Duties and Exercises of Religion or of the powerful and fervent acting and performing of them Christian and Religious Exercises they are great means to keep up the heart in a gracious and holy frame and to dispose the Soul to God in a blessed course of communion with him But now when these are intermitted or are carelesly and negligently per formed without any life or power or zeal there does from thence for the most part grow a deadness and awkness upon the mind and listnesness to that which is good men from hence grow strangers to God and he to them and as strangers in regard of communion so likewise in regard of affection and spirit which may dispose thereunto So dangerous a thing it is for any to be guilty in this particular of neglecting Prayer or neglecting Hearing or neglecting the search of their hearts Meditation and communion with Saints and such things as these are This neglect it breeds aversness Secondly A persisting and wallowing in some base and filthy course of life This it doth also wonderfully take off mens hearts from God and all favour of goodness that they have no contentment nor delight in it or in those things which tend unto it Hos 4.11 it is said That whoredom and wine and new wine they take away the heart Fornication and Drunkenness and such courses as those are which are more scandalous and notoricus they make sad impressions upon the Soul in this particular they do enervate it and take away the strength and sinews of it A lustful heart will always be an unsavoury heart so far forth as lust is predominant and prevailing in it We may see it even in David himself who whilst he lay under those grievous miscarriages his heart was very much taken off from God and he found a wonderful alteration in him over what he was before which made him so to pray for the creating of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit in him and the bestowing of a free spirit upon him Psal 51.10 Thirdly A walking contrary to light and knowledge and conviction and the dictates of Conscience a quenching of the motions of Gods Spirit and suggestions to the heart This does very much take off the heart also and cause a flatness of spirit upon it For it is a grieving of the Spirit of God himself and it provokes him to withdraw his help and assistance which being done there can be no good temper expected in any whatsoever Lastly Worldliness and too deep an implunging in earthly and secular affairs Those whole hearts are full of the world they are for the most part empty of God and of such thoughts and affections and dispositions as do tend unto him There is a great deal of danger in such a course as this is Ye cannot serve God and Mammon both at once These and the like are the occasions of this heartlesness and indisposition to God which is one thing here considerable Another thing here impli'd is a thraldom and subjection to evil from whence men come to despair of ever getting the mastery of their lusts and the corruptions which are in them There are some kind of people in the world their sins and and impieties do at the present so prevail upon them as that they are quite out of hope of ever getting the better of them they now begin to lay down the buckler and to think it is in vain for them to resist them and to set themselves against them they say There is no hope This is that which in a special manner seems to be intended here
word or two unto them And first to begin with the former namely that of Doctrine and Instruction which are taught to do evil so this is properly teaching and has therefore the name of it put upon it and 't is appliable to this business of sin There is a great deal of such teaching as this is oftentimes in the world a Talmnd as to matter of iniquity Thus in Matth. 5.19 Whosoever shall break one of the least of these commandments and teach men so to do he shall be call'd the least in the kingdom of heaven So Tit. 1.11 Teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake And Mark 7.7 Teaching for Doctrine the commandments of men There is a great deal of ill teaching in the world now and then and ill-learning also following thereupon people are here very quickly taught so capable and apprehensive are they yea they seek to themselves teachers to this purpose and Lessons also as we have it in 2 Tim. 4.3.4 The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turn'd into a fable Teachers after their own lusts that is such Teachers as by their Doctrine do nourish and strengthen their lusts in them as many Teachers and Doctrines do There are divers and sundry Teners and Opinions which have very great influence upon the life for the perverting and corrupting of it and those which are tainted with them do much miscarry in that particular yea indeed they cannot well do otherwise as it is here implied in the Text. Those which are thus taught to do evil cannot do good there is an impoiency and there is an indisposition upon them to all good and proneness to all manner of evil This is the condition with them There is nothing more leading and conducing to a vitious life than is the infusion of unsound Principles and the sucking in of erroneous Opinions especially such as they may be for the nature and kind of them As in Popery and Pelagianism and Antinomianism and such as these Those which are taught and principled thus they must needs miscarry If they do not always actually break forth into the very enormities themselves yet they have that within them which does carry them to them and whensoever they have an opportunity for them they are in great hazard and danger of them This shews what great cause we have to be advis'd and take heed hereunto to be careful what we teach and what we learn especially we which live in these places of Teaching and Learning the Schools of the Prophets It is a matter of great concernment both to our selves and others as to the regulating of our lives and conversations How can ye which are taught to do evil do good that is taught in a way of Doctrine and Instruction That 's the first Explication Secondly In a way of Pattern and Example Which are taught so Such a kind of teaching as this is there is also sometimes yea and that no less effectual than the other if it be not more That which men see to be done and practised before their eyes they do the more easily fall into to do it and in nothing sooner than in sin Here wickedness is taught There where it is seen not onely as acted upon the Theatre but especially as acted in the life which has been the reason why some of the very Heathen have withdrawn their children from beholding the miscarriages of their servants lest seeing them they should be tainted with them It is a dangerous thing to converse in places of scandal and ill example and to be present in evil society Here sin is quickly learnt and 't is not easily un-learnt where it is so it is a very hard and difficult matter to escape the temptations of it and not before one's aware to be involved in it How can ye which are taught to do evil do the thing that is good that is taught by evil patterns and examples That 's the second Explication The third is by Practise and Vse which are taught so that is as 't is here in our own Translation Which are accustomed unto it Use it makes perfect and as in other things so also in sin which the more that any are exercised unto the more prompt and ready they are in it There is an Art even in wickedness it self although a bad one and therefore we read of some who are wise to do evil This as others is got much by practise those which are but young beginners they are Bunglers as it were at it and they go about it with some kind of awkness and difficulty and aversness unto it especially as their education at any time has been better and more Religious than others when such as these do first of all enter upon sinful courses they are not so expert and expedite in them as one would think they should be but do a little stop at them Swearing and Drinking and Gaming and such sins as these they do some what stick with those sometimes who have been better taught but now after a little while when they have been used and accustomed unto them they now grow experienced in them and are carried to them with a great deal of violence and importunity of affection They drink in iniquity as water and they draw on iniquity as with cart-ropes and they commit all uncleanness with greediness and they do evil with both hands earnestly they turn unto their course as the horse rusheth into the battel c. These are the phrases and expressions which the Scripture puts upon them Here in the Text it is said of them that being so accustomed to do evil they now cannot do good This for the Qualification of the Persons Which leads me now to the second thing considerable here in this passage namely the Invincible necessity which follows upon custom in sin those which are used unto it they know not how to free themselves from it Ye may as soon wash a Black-moor white or scrape off the spots of a Leopard which are expressions of Labour in vain as ye may reduce an habituated sinner To open this Invincible Necessity and Tyranny of accustomed sin so much the better unto us we may take notice of it in two particulars whereof it consists First in an impotency to good And secondly in a precipitancy unto evil Each of these are here implied though but one exprest Custom in sinning it is both obstructive and likewise provocative it hinders men and takes men off from good that they cannot do that and so it also furthers men and puts men on to evil that they can do nothing but that Each of these are the inconveniences of evil custom and accordingly to be considered by us First Impotency to good that is here exprest in the Text which it is said that such as these they
cannot do they cannot do good Take a man that lives in a vile and sinful course and his heart is off from all good whatsoever he has no mind not list unto it cannot pray cannot read cannot hear cannot communicate cannot sanctifie a Sabbath cannot perform any duty of Piety or Religion which is required of him but is very backward and averse thereunto Or if it may be he may come off to the bare work and outward performance yet his heart is altogether flat and dead in it he has no life no spirit at all in him nor favour or spiritual rellish of that which he goes about but is as 't were out of his Element Nay further let it be one who has some beginnings of Grace in him and who is in some manner changed by the Spirit of God yet so far forth as he has any sin which is prevailing and domineering in him so far forth will his heart and Soul be much averse and indisposed to any goodness and he will find a great deal of difficulty in himself as to the managing of it Ye know how it was with David a man as I said before after Gods own heart whilst he lay still in those great sins whereof he was guilty how his heart was from hence out of frame and temper as to that which was good and therefore when he begins to recover and to come to himself he prays to God for a clean heart and a new spirit to be bestowed upon him and then he could teach transgressors the ways of God which before he could not do in that manner as he ought As Paul says of himself The good which he would do he could not do And as he tells the Galatians Ye cannot do the things that ye would that is indeed that ye ought This is the great thraldom and slavery which sin brings men into Men may do that which is good materially though evil but not good formally Secondly There is precipitancy to evil that 's another thing here considerable and is impli'd though it be not exprest as we may see if we make up the comparison in its full force for the strength of the sense runs thus As the Ethiopian cannot change his skin but as he is black so will he be black still and never but black And as the Leopard cannot alter his spots but as he is spotted so will he be spotted still and never be otherwise In like manner is the case with such a person as is accustomed to do evil so he does and so he will do continually and never give over A man that 's rooted and confirm'd in sin by daily and constant practise it is an hard matter ever to wean him or to pull him from it he has upon the point taken up his course which he will hold on and persist in to the end His heart is fully set in him to do evil as ye shall find that expression used by the Preacher Eccles 8.11 The ground of this prevalency of Custom is the fixedness and setledness of it it being as it were a second Nature which is sure and constant to its Principles Naturalia non mutantur Those things which are natural are unchangeable and this custom seems to be and therefore compared to those things which what they are they are by a Natural impression upon them as it is with the fore-mentioned resemblances which we spake of before Custom in sin it breeds an habit and that is such as it is not easily removed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but is as radicated as Nature it self The use which we may make of all this to our selves is briefly this First take heed of any thing to do with sin at first What Solomon says of strife it holds good as to any other miscarriage The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water therefore leave off contention before it be medled with Prov. 17.14 The same we may say to this purpose concerning sin Principiâ—s obsta stop it in the very beginning and the first entrance upon it of all if we do not we know not where we shall make an end after we have begun but are in danger of proceeding from one degree of wickedness to another from lust to consent from consent to act from act to custom and from custom to hardness of heart which being brought to the perfection of it as the Great Transgression of all proves unpardonable It is a good and safe course for a Christian not to think slightly of any sin at all though never so little for lesser sins make way for greater and beginnings make way for proceedings in such persons as dare to venture upon them Take heed brethren says the Apostle lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin in Heb. 3.13 and it is good counsel for sin will harden where at any time our hearts are enclined and carried unto it yea and it will entice too and bring the sinner from snare to snare till it has quite undone him and overwhelm'd him in absolute destruction There are many people which are ready to think when they make bold with such and such evil practises as the occasions which tend unto them that they will certainly go no further Alas when they are once got into the briars they do not know how to get out or to expedite themselves but like those which run down the hill they are at the bottom before they are aware We see it again in the example of David who when he had once begun he had almost never done but was miserably perplexed Again secondly If any should perhaps by chance fall into sin at the first yet as near as they can let them not stay and abide in it still but hasten out of it as soon as may be Shall we continue in sin says the Apostle God forbid No but as those which are out of their way and perceive and know themselves to be so they get into it as soon as can be because every step which they take otherwise leads them so much the further from home than they were before Even so should it be here with us as to the ways of Godliness and Religion where we find our feet any thing to slip and turn away be careful presently to rectifie them and bring them into rights again Lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet lest that which is lame be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed Heb. 12.13 Again further thirdly Take heed of Relapses and falling back to sin again If sin be such a Tyrant as it is and especially a slave in sin let then those which are in any measure delivered and freed from the Tyranny of it take heed of coming within the compass and snares of it again For who being set at liberty from imprisonment or captivity or any great bondage would willingly return to it again and undergo the
done by a man 's own skill and power it is a work of Heaven Secondly Can he do it i. e. can he easily do it It is not done with a meer sleight or turn of the hand it is a work of difficulty Each of these limitations are implyed And First of the former He cannot do it that is he cannot do it of himself An unregenerate person or such an one as is accustomed to evil he cannot alter his own heart or course This is one thing here implyed as the same Prophet also else-where O Lord I know that the way of man is not in himself it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps Jer. 10.23 We see here the impotency of nature and the inability of free-will to the doing of any thing which is good It is possible for the heart to be chang'd but this is not within its own power Therefore it is worth our observing that it is not said here Can the Ethiopian's skin be changed in a passive expression but can the Ethiopian change his skin in an active that is can he do it himself and by his own power No he cannot do it We are not able to think any thing of our selves our sufficiency is of God in 2 Cor. 3.5 And it is he which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13 We can no more alter our corrupted nature than we can our created no more make our selves of bad good than we can of men Angels We can no more convert our selves than we can create our selves give our selves a spiritual being than we can a natural nor raise our selves from the death of sin than we can from the death of the grave That 's the first limitation Secondly He cannot do it that is he cannot easily do it it is a business of some work and labour and which carries some difficulty in it the reclaiming of such an one which is used and accustomed to any sin yea and that even there where there is some work of Grace wrought in the heart and so some ability conferr'd and bestowed in order hereunto yet the thing is not so easily brought to pass Those that let themselves loose to any evil or vitious custom it costs them a great deal of pains with their hearts ere they recover and get up again Naturam expellas furca licet usque recurret Still there will somewhat arise and bubble up of the old corruption in them The ground of this difficulty if we would know it lies in this First because Satan will be very busy in the presenting of his temptations where he has a long time conquered and prevailed he will not easily there go over his hold but will keep his ground as long as he can and will not endure to be dispossest without a great deal of trouble Secondly Lust in the heart of man will also have its course and vent and being unhappily wrought into the soul will work forth and shew it self as there is any occasion for it so to do especially when the object is strong and enticing which is propounded unto it The flesh lusts against the spirit c. says the Apostle Gal. 5.17 Thirdly Grace is oftentimes asleep which should suppress and keep sin down and restrain it from breaking forth And when that is so sin and the flesh takes occasion to work in the room and place of it These are the reasons why sin where 't is rooted and habituated is not so easily removed And thus much of those Points and Doctrines which are mainly intended as the chief scope of the Text. Now besides these there are divers others which are collaterally observable from it and which do also implicitly lye in it As to instance in one or two of them First observe here thus much that it is not enough for us to abstain from evil but we must likewise do good This we may gather from the manner of the expression here before us According to the proper manner of speaking the words should have run thus How then can those which are accustomed to do evil cease to do evil but the Holy Ghost was not content with that to say no more but so and therefore he adds likewise further to do good why and upon what account namely that hence he might teach us what is required and expected from us This we shall find also in other Scriptures as Psal 34.14 Depart from evil and do good c. Isa 16.17 Cease to do evil learn to do well Rom. 12.9 Abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good c. Still we are put upon this practice of vertue as well as upon the abstaining from vice and doing good as avoiding of evil Therefore this meets with your negative Christians which are always harping upon this that they are inoffensive and do no no hurt like the Pharisee there in the Gospel that he was not as other men no Extortioner no Thief no Adulterer nor even as the Publican Well but what are they in the mean time and what good do they do according to those abilities and opportunities which are afforded unto them This would be demanded of them as being that which God himself does look for That 's one thing which we may here observe by the way Again Secondly observe thus much That sins of commission they have sins of omission in them They that do that which they should not they neglect to do that which they should This is also in the Text for ye see here that they which are accustomed to do evil they are taken off from doing good the one it still follows upon the other and ye shall always observe it And that upon a threefold account which may be rendred as an occasion of it First they want the opportunity Secondly they lose the ability Thirdly they betray the assistance They want the opportunity First we may observe that Those which are much in sin they have little leisure to any thing else they are so addicted and given to their vile and vicious courses that they have no time for any thing besides they are so hot in the pursuit of their lusts that they cannot mind those things which are better and contrary to them Hence it is that evil men do so delay and put off their repentance or any other good work which is to be done by them Secondly They lose the ability If they had time and leisure for good yet they have little strength or power unto it which is eaten out by the strength and prevalency of lust and corruption in them as I in part intimated in a point before Every new sin as it encreases the habit of evil so it weakens the habit of good in us Thirdly They betray their assistance for God himself in such cases does withdraw his Grace from them which should be helpful to them in that which they undertake The Spirit of God being grieved by them
following explications c. First It is defective in the Principle from whence it doth proceed Pharisaical Righteousness is not enough to bring a man to Heaven because it hath not a sufficient ground and foundation for it and that is a changed and renewed heart The Tree must be good before the fruit can be good that comes from it as our Saviour himself has told us Now this Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees it was such a Righteousness as did issue from such persons as had none of this change wrought in them And so may likewise do from any others of the same stamp with them Therefore of it self it is ineffectual to bring men into the Kingdom of God Wheresoever there is not Regeneration there cannot be Salvation and whatever falls short of the one falls consequently short of the other Now this is that which is here observable of us as to this particular Men may abound in all the outward duties both of piety and justice and yet remain in their natural estate and unconverted And so 't is defective in the Principle There are divers false and sinister Principles which Pharisaical Righteousness may proced from which are far short of the New Creature and the work of saving grace in the heart As 1. first of all the want of Temptation and pravation to evil The reason why many are not so bad as otherwise they would be is because they have not those instigations in them to evil as some others have It is not because they are in themselves any thing better but because that evil which is in them is not drawn out as possibly it might be were these persons in such company had such Arguments propounded to them and such perswasions fastened upon them as others have they would be as bad as others are should God but let Satan loose upon them and expose them to his fiery darts we know not what would become of them no more than of any others besides whom perhaps they most disdain Secondly The want of opportunity and occasion to be afforded unto them We use to say that opportunity makes a Thief And so it does any other sins besides that we can think of The reason why many persons do no more mischief than they do is because they have not those means and advantages for it but are outwardly restrained from it As good men do not alwaies that good which they would do for want of an opportunity so evil men do not that evil But this does not therefore make them to be any thing better in themselves it being no thanks to any man to abstain from that evil which he has not ability to commit Impotency is not Innocency nor want of opportunity Grace Thirdly Natural Ingenuity and the principles of moral honesty these are such as go very far to the producing of this Pharisaical Righteousness There are many who by the common light of Nature and the dictates thereof are convinced that such sins are to be avoided and such duties are to be practised who yet in the mean time do retain evil hearts in themselves loving even that evil which they abstain from and hating the good which they do The Pharisees they did all things to be seen of men Matth. 23.5 Lastly Self-love in fear of shame and punishment and the like this is that which hath an influence upon them and makes them to be that which they are The Laws of Men are such as prevail upon many persons more than the Laws of God and the fear of Men more than the fear of God It is not renewing Grace but restraining that keeps them in order and which is productive of Righteousness in them which is one ground of the defectiveness and insufficiency of it the principle from whence it proceeds But secondly As it is defective in it from its Principles so it is defective also from its Concomitants and the consistencies of it A man may be much in the outward duties of Religion and yet for all that favour himself in the basest and vilest lusts pride and malice and envy and covetousness and hatred both of goodness it self and those which are good The Scribes and Pharisees they were the greatest enemies to Christ and his Doctrine and that sometimes a great deal more than some persons of a more loose conversation such persons as these think both to cover and also to excuse their secret and inwad abominations by outward and glorious practices which are seen in the eyes of the world Thirdly This Pharisaical Righteousness it is also defective in regard of its Effects in that it does not reach to these things which are desirable in it As first it is such as do not satisfie the Justice of God That Righteousness which does not satisfie God's Justice it cannot bring a man to Heaven because notwithstanding that Righteousness he is liable to eternal condemnation Where the Debt is not paid the Debter cannot be discharged All a man's external Righteousness it will never make a satisfaction to God's Justice neither to God's Preceptive Justice in commanding nor to God's Vindictive Justice in punishing This Righteousness it falls short of both and so consequently makes him that hath nothing else in him to fall short of Eternal Life and Salvation First God's Preceptive Justice in commanding it does not satisfie that For God's Law and Command it reaches farther than this not only to the outward man but to the inward not only to the body but to the heart not only to the matter or subsance of the action but to the manner and circumstances the latter whereof this Righteousness whereof we now speak does not reach or attain to not to the Law in the Spirituality of it and as our Blessed Saviour here expounds and interprets it in the present chapter Secondly For God's Vindictive Justice in punishing it does not satisfie that neither All that a man can do in a way of obedience cannot satisfie or make amends for what he has not done or done otherwise than he should do in a way of Transgression Pharisaical Righteousness it is no way expiatory of sin and therefore no way productive of Salvation Secondly As it does not satisfie the Justice of God so neither does it satisfie the clamours of conscience and so it is defective in that of conscience that is if conscience awakened and thoroughly inlightened Indeed some kind of consciences and according to the circumstances which they may be in this Righteousness it does abundantly satisfie and give contentment unto them There are a great many of people in the world with that Pharisee which I before mentioned in the Gospel who sit down very confidently with such a Riheousness as this is and think their state and condition to be very good occasionally from it But alas it is such kind of persons as know no better who never had sin set home upon their hearts nor their consciences ever enlightened to see the wretchedness of their
measure and degree of goodness which might be desired can hardly be perswaded to acknowledg any good in them at all but set them at an absolute distance and remoteness from the Kingdom of God and as having nothing to do with it This we must take heed we do not do as carrying too much rigour and severity in it Indeed we must be careful we do not sow pillows under mens elbows and nourish them in a course of security perswade them that it is well with them and in good case when 't is no such matter but on the other side we must not blemish their Graces nor deny the work of God in their hearts Woe unto them which call either evil good or good evil which put darkness for light or light for darkness which put bitter for sweet or sweet for bitter as the Prophet speaks there in that place in Isa 5.20 That 's the first Notion in this expression as it is a word of commendation and so has with it the force of encouragement Secondly It is also a word of diminution Thou art not far from that is thou art not quite at home thou hast somewhat further yet to go and so now it is a word of excitement Christ by shewing him his distance does perswade him to go a little further He takes him as it were by the hand and directs him to a further pitch in Christianity which he would have him to attain unto Thus should we do likewise so acknowledg beginnings of goodness as to carry on to further progress that so as on the one side we may not dishearten them or discourage goodness in them so on the other side we may not flatter them or sooth them up in a more remiss condition and so make them contented with less Grace instead of labouring to attain to greater This we learn here from our Saviour's practice whose drift was to carry on this Scribe to further perfection And this speech of our Saviours it was effectual to him hereunto in sundry respects First as it shewed him his defects and imperfections for which he had need to go forward and proceed a little further whiles he says he is not far from it he does imply he has not fully attain'd it There 's nothing which is at any time a greater hindrance and impediment to improvement than an apprehension and conceit of perfection when men shalll think they are at their journeys end they will not step any further but when they shall be perswaded and consider that they are not yet at home this will set them upon going This now is the speech of Christ to this person before us thou hast not absolutely come to the mark and therefore go on It was the text which wrought upon St. Paul as himself relates it to us Phil. 3.12 13. Not as though I had already attain'd or were already perfect but I follow after c. Brethren I count not my self to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press c. Secondly It shew'd him also his hopes and possibilities that 's another encouragement and excitement and provocation to endeavour Those which think they shall never attain they will never undertake But this expression thou art not far off it takes off that there is hope of coming thither for you are almost there already Do not give over now in the very end and close of all He that has begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul speaks in Phil. 1.6 Thirdly It shewed him also his engagements from what he had done already to proceed Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God that is thou hast hitherto made some endeavour after it do not now decline and grow worse There 's no greater engagement to perfect goodness than this consideration that we have begun it that so we may not lose the labour of all our former undertakings and attempts We should imitate this example of Christ in helping others forward in Religion as Aquila and Priscilla did Apollos And thus has this expression in it the force of a peroration and an excitement not only shewing what now was but what ought to be for time to come in pursuit of what was already We might here now further look upon these words not only consider'd in themselves and as declaring the state and condition of this Scribe to whom they are spoken but also reslexively as coming from our Saviour the Speaker of them and that as the words of judgment and discretion Whiles our Saviour passes this censure upon this person he does it out of a spirit of discerning and as one that knew what was in man as it is said of him in Joh. 2.25 Now although we cannot expect to reach to this in the perfection of it yet we may and ought to imitate it in a degree as much as may be namely to discern and distinguish of persons that so we may be able to pass true and right judgment upon them and what verdict we give of them we may give it out of a sound understanding Our Blessed Lord and Saviour he did not converse with men carelesly or heedlesly without any regard but he did mind them and took notice of them and observ'd what they were He discerned the Pharisees and Sadducees in the foregoing part of the Chapter as to their hypocrisy and dissimulation and treachery against him and here now he discerns the Scribe in his sincerity and honesty and plain-dealing and the integrity that was in his heart together with the weakness and imperfection of Grace within Thus it should be with us proportionably in our conversation in the world as Politicians study men so also should Christians especially those above others who live in places of society and converse and have many persons to deal withal Here it is very useful and necessary in sundry regards that so according to variety of circumstances and occasions which are upon us and the difference of dispositions and affections we may either learn or teach or rebuke or encourage or decline or close withal and that we may neither wrong our selves nor other men This is another thing which we gather from this practice and example of Christ And so now I have done with the first General Part of the Text which was the censure at first in these words Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God The second General is the occasion whereupon this censure was past that we have in the words before When Jesus saw that he answer'd discreetly Where again there are two things more considerable of us First the thing it self in the simple proposition and that is that he answer'd discreetly Secondly the Inference which is made hereupon in the connexion and that is that therefore he was not far c. First for the thing it self simply propounded it
even in the seed of the woman betwixt themselves And it is that which is to be bewailed when it is so as a fruit of the flesh The spirit that is in us lusts to envy but God giveth more Grace as the Apostle James tells us Jam. 4.5 6. Though it be common yet it is not to be allowed of but rather so much the more to be condemned and resisted and striven against It concerns Christians therefore to be more wary and watchful over themselves in this particular and jealous of their own hearts for it is a very great and sad evil and such as for which Martha was here justly though tacitly rebuked by Christ himself And that 's one thing here observable from the occasion Secondly We may observe somewhat here also from the carriage and practice of Christ who here takes the part of Mary who was censured and accused by her Sister Perhaps there might be somewhat that Mary was to blame in it is very likely she was not altogether excusable there might be a sault in her that we will not deny but suppose there were yet it was not so much as Martha made of it nor such as Christ would here take notice of being she was good and right for the main lest by this means he should have discouraged her in Religion and have check'd that good which was in her That which we learn from it is to take heed of disheartening and of discouraging Grace in any persons wheresoever we observe it but rather to use all means for the confirming of it all that we can This was the property still of our Blessed Saviour upon all occasions He would not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax as it is noted of him But where at any time he saw Grace in sincerity he was willing to pass by some weaknesses and infirmities in circumstantial matters and commend and encourage that good which he saw and observed He takes no notice of all that which her Sister Martha had aggravated against her but says that Mary hath chosen that good part c. Thus should we learn to do likewise in the like cases take notice of that which is good rather than of that which is evil where there is good mixt with the evil as Christ himself here did Thirdly Observe here further in general the different temper of these two Sisters in opposition one to the other Martha she chiefly minded and looked after her houshold affairs But Mary she sate at Christ's feet and heard his word Martha she was busy in the entertainment of the Person of Christ but Mary she was intent upon the entertainment of the Doctrine of Christ Martha she was diligent in her particular Calling but Mary she was zealous in her general So that whiles the one was the better Housewife yet the other was the better Christian at least did more express her Christianity at this time and upon this present occasion So that we see how hard and rare it is to excel in two things at once and to be eminent in a variety of Perfections Those that are noted for the one they are commonly more or less deficient and failing in the other Those that are much in the world they are for the most part more remiss in Religion And again those that are much in Religion they are not always so mindful of the world This is so far to be observ'd and taken notice of by us as to make us the more careful of our selves as there is occasion for it namely to give every work and business that portion of care which is due and proper unto it It 's easy for us to run into extremes and therefore we had need to be more watchful and industrious to keep the mean To give Religion what is due to that and again to give our particular Callings what is due to them likewise For there 's a miscarriage which may be on either hand and so often-times is Some they are so intent upon the outward exercises and performances of Religion as that occasionally from thence they neglect their particular employments They sit at the feet of Christ and hear his word but they neglect the care of their Families and their houshold-affairs This is a weakness in them and such as is to be avoided by them One duty does not cross another whiles we are commanded to hear the word we are commanded also to follow our Callings in the season of them And these two they may very well hold and consist together Again there are others which are so intent upon their Callings as that they have no leisure to look after their Souls nor Religion and the worship of God have no time to attend upon the Ordinances and the means of Grace which are afforded unto them This is a great miscarriage on the other side and the greatest of all and therefore chiefly to be shunned by us as of the saddest consequence with it And thus much of these Points which do arise out of the Text in general Now to come to the handling of the words more particularly and distinctly by themselves wherein there are two General Parts considerable of us First The Judgment of Christ which he past upon Mary's choice Mary hath chosen that good part Secondly The Illustration or Amplification of this choice in her which shall not be taken away from her First Here 's his Judgment it self which is in a way of praise and commendation Mary hath chosen that good part Christ commends Mary for her choice where there are divers things observable of us We 'll take them as they offer themselves to us to be handled by us First We learn from hence thus much That it is the commendation of a Christian to make choice of such ways as are best and most approvable to Christ If there be any way better than other in the course and tenour of his life to be sure to pitch and fasten upon that This was here the commendation of Mary she made a good choice for her self in that which was to be done by her which our Saviour commends in her So it was also the commendation of Joshua cap. 24. ver 15. Choose you this day whom ye will serve but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. And so Moses to the Israelites See I have set before you this day life and good death and evil Deut. 30.15 And he wishes them to make choice of the best This is also commendable in every one else besides and that upon these following grounds First It is an argument of a good and sound judgment it is an argument of persons well grounded and principled in Religion and that know what belongs unto it Thus Psal 111.10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom A good understanding have all they that do his Commandments His praise endureth for ever Men would usually and for the most part be counted wise men and have
be sometimes the first occasions of goodness to us As many being godly and religiously educated they do thereby first come acquainted with Religion But then afterwards if they be that which they should be they have a proper love of that inherent in themselves and so they may be said to choose it as they do upon choice adhere unto it though at first propounded by others unto them As the Samaritans that believed at first upon the report of the woman of Samaria afterwards they did so upon their own account and consideration Jâ—â— 4.42 They said unto the woman now we believe not because of thy saying but because we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the world Therefore we should endeavour to bring our selves to such a state and condition as this is in point of Religion which for our encouragement will from hence be so much the more rooted and setled in us and we constant to it Take men that are religious but upon extrinsecal considerations of custom or example or credit or education and the like and their Religion it lasts no longer with them than such motives and arguments continue But those that are religious upon choice it is sure to last and to abide with them for ever and they are not easily removed or taken off from it but do persist in it And further They have also more delight and contentment in it That which is forced it is commonly burdensome and men undertake it with a great deal of reluctancy and are not themselves in it But that which comes from them upon their own choosing it is so much a great deal more pleasing and acceptable to them Now when we say of Religion that we must choose it we do not hereby advance the power of nature as if we could do it of our selves without the Grace of God assisting us for that we cannot do It is God that gives us Grace at first to make choice of the best ways and then we being sanctified by his Grace are enabled to walk answerably to that Grace which he has given us and to make choice of such means as may serve to nourish that Grace in us as Mary did here in the Text. But how may we know that we are Christians and religious upon choice namely by our affections to it by our delight in it by our esteem of it by our resolutions for it and the like If we have truly chosen Religion we shall always defend and maintain it and own it even where others decline it and are opposite against it And that 's the Second thing here observable That Religion it is a matter of election Thirdly Another thing here observable in Mary was her solitariness in the prosecution of Religion and the exercises of it that she heard Christ's word alone even when her Sister for the time did avoid it and withdrew her self from it Though Martha was otherwise employed yet Mary sate at the feet of Christ and attended upon his discourse Whence we may observe that those who are truly good and religious in good earnest they will be so though none be so but themselves They are quicken'd by good examples but they are not hindered and taken off by evil others carelesness shall not abate their forwardness Thus Joshua in the place before cited Choose you what you will do c. But I and my house c. The ground hereof is that which we had before in the Point above-mentioned because they aâ—â— religious out of choice and upon intrinsecal motives Those that are religious only upon example their Religion goes no further than those examples but those that are truly religious it is otherwise with them And so it was here with Mary in this Scripture her Religion it was not only dependant upon the example of her Sister and therefore she would do that which was her duty even in the failing of such an example Now accordingly should all other Christians labour to be like minded and affected we should not so much consider what others do as what lies upon us to do our selves where we are convinced of our duty there to practice it even where others neglect it In the last place We may here take notice of the Object it self here propounded That good part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mary she had made choice of that Now what was that namely an attendance upon Christ's Ministery and receiving of his heavenly Doctrine and thereby profiting and bettering of her inward man This was the good part that Mary here chose being all one in effect with that which in the beginning of the verse is call'd unum necessarinm the one thing which is needful Now this whiles it is called that good part it seems to carry a special emphasis in it by way of preheminence and we are to take it not only absolutely but comparatively not only absolutely as good in it self but comparatively as better than any other And so it is preferr'd before that which her Sister Martha had now chosen at this time I say which she had chosen at this time For there 's no question but Martha also had chosen this good part for the main only at present was somewhat forgetful of it So that the scope of our Saviour in this place is not so much to compare the persons as to compare the actions of these two Sisters together at this present time And his meaning was no more but this That Mary in sitting at Christ's feet and hearing of Christ's word and discourse had done a more honourable service to him and had employ'd her self to better purpose than Martha who neglecting this performance was taken up in the entertaining of his person And so there is this in it That it is better to thrive in Religion and to advance in our spiritual estate than to improve in any outward excellency or ability and perfection whatsoever Though other things may be good in their kind yet this is the best and chiefest of all The reason of it is that which we have spoken to and handled already out of the beginning of the verse because it is the one thing needful And it is better to improve in necessaries than it is to abound in superfluities Therefore this teaches us what especially to apply and bend our minds unto Covet earnestly the best gifts but yet shew I unto you a more excellent way There are other commendable qualifications and such as in their time and place are to be regarded by us but Religion is to be the main object of our care which it is to be spent and employ'd about We see here in the Text before us how that attending upon the means of Salvation it is preferred before the feasting and entertaining of Christ himself And indeed it is far before it It is more to take Christ into our hearts than to take Christ into our houses As it was more for the Virgin Mary
lose nothing by such improvements as these are but gain by them rather and they return upon us with so much the greater advantage that so we may be encouraged thereunto in the practice of them This Oyl it encreases in the spending and this Bread in the breaking of it And to him that thus hath it shall be given We should therefore be perswaded to put this duty in practice upon all occasions God has made and appointed us for the good one of another and not only for our selves therefore as we have any thing our selves we should mind one anothers good in it As the Ministerial official parts of the body The heart and liver and stomach they do not only receive nourishment for themselves but for the whole body So should we which are Christians in spiritual things As the Heavens what light and influence they have in themselves they bestow upon the earth even so should we do to those which are below us especially in these places of society We see how active evil men are in that which is evil Those which are themselves perverted they 'll be sure to pervert their Brethren and make others as bad or perhaps a great deal worse than themselves And why should not we then do the contrary in matters of goodness What a shame is it for the children of this world to be in this sense also wiser in their generation than the children of light Oh! let us cast off this sluggishness and remisness from us let us make it our business to make others partakers of the same Grace and comfort with our selves This is done divers ways as First by discovering and laying open the flights of sin and the subtilties of the spiritual enemy The reason why many miscarry and are surprized with spiritual evils is because they are not aware of the danger which is incident to them and which themselves are subject unto They are apt to think that there is no such great hazard in such ways as are undertaken by them as indeed there is Now here it concerns us being our selves converted to admonish them and warn them of it Peter who had now unadvisedly gone into the High Priest's Hall and mingled himself with the evil company which he met withal there in that place he was better fitted to advise others to take heed of such kind of temptations Exhort one another daily whiles it is called to day lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Secondly By quickening and exciting and stirring up one another to good we do hereby strengthen our Brethren There 's nothing does more strengthen men in goodness than the practice of goodness And there is nothing which does more promote and advance this practice in them than the quickening and exciting of them Therefore it is the Apostle's Exhortation in Heb. 10.24 Let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works We should be putting one another upon good as much as we can and thereby settle them in it yea we should encourage them and hearten them in it by convincing them of the great good and advantage which comes by it This is a means to confirm and strengthen them What strengthens men at any time in evil why it is the apprehension of little hurt in it and as they conceit a great deal of contentment The same would also confirm men in good if it were truly and really understood which we should therefore labour and endeavour to assure them and perswade them of and to fasten upon them Thirdly By imparting and communicating of our own Experiences we do hereby likewise strengthen our Brethren when we shall shew them what good we our selves have found by such and such good courses This is a means not onely to draw on but to confirm others with us And so when we shall shew what comfort we have felt in such and such like cases our selves this is a means to comfort our Brethren and to give satisfaction to them Therefore we shall find the Prophet David to be mindful of this practise in Psal 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my Soul As persons which are themselves recovered of such and such a sickness or distemper they are apt to tell what has done them good and thereby to refresh their Neighbours which are exercised with the like infirmities Even so should it be also with Christians in their spiritual conditions In case of temptation to sin I have found benefit by such a word of Command which has restrain'd me from it And in case of temptation for sin I have found benefit by such a word of Promise which has comforted me in it When I have been ready almost to sink in my self an to faint under such an affliction such a Divine Truth or such a Divine Attribute has been a Cordial and a Relief unto me and kept me up When Christians do thus mutually impart and communicate their Experiments to each other they do hereby wonderfully establish and confirm each other in good whether as to point of Grace or of Comfort And then further Not onely by imparting but by comparing these Experiences together one with another I was just in such a case my self and found these workings in me as you have done for your particulaâ— Why this is now a great Confirmation It appears from hence that Religion is no matter of meer fancy or imagination but has a Truth and Reality in it because it is thus uniform and consistent to it self as it is in one man as well as another Thus we see what ways those which are themselves converted may strengthen their Brethren To help us and enable us hereunto we must labour especially for such Graces as are conducing to the practise of it As first A Spirit of Discerning whereby to judge aright of the case and condition which our Brethren are in It is a great part of skill in a Physician to be able to find out the Disease and to know the just temper and constitution of his Patients Body and so is it also for an Healer of Souls All kinds of Remedies are not to be used to all kind of Persons some have need of one kind of help and others have need of another which is a piece of spiritual wisdom and prudence in our selves to be able to discover There is a word in season which must be spoken to the weary Soul or else it will do no good Isa 50.4 Secondly A spirit of love and tenderness and condescention There is a great deal of meekness required in a Spiritual Strengthner and Restorer Gal. 6.2 Restore with the spirit of meekness Men which are rough and austere and which stand too much upon their own terms they 'll never do good to others No there must be a yielding and bearing and pitying in such works and ways as those are There must be a putting on of the
one who is unchangeable one that does not upon every turn withdraw his affection but abides constant in his love unto them he does not turn them out of doors upon every miscarriage but though he maintains the Authority of a Master yet he still keeps the tenderness of a Father and Husband unto them which is not to cast them out And as he does not cast them out himself so neither does he suffer any thing else to do it for him They shall not cast out themselves for he puts his fear into their hearts that they may not depart from him Jer. 32.40 and they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1.8 neither shall Satan or any of his Instruments pull them away from him Joh. 10.28 29. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of mine hand My Father that gave them me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hand But farther when 't is said here He will not cast them out we must not take it as a meer Negative signifying what he will not do to them but as a Positive and Affirmative likewise included in it that is that he will by all means nourish them and preserve them and watch over them He will not onely receive and admit them when they come to him but likewise afterwards when they are come and with him he will most kindly entertain them As Christ is the best Guest and Inhabitant to be entertained where he comes so likewise he is the best Host and Landlord to entertain those that come unto him Him that cometh unto him he will in no wise cast out So much for the second General which is Christs Entertainment And so much of the Text. SERMON XVI JOH 13.7 What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter The Conversation of Christ in the World whiles he was here below in the days of his Flesh as it was with a great deal of awfulness so it was also with a great deal of meekness and as it was full of Majesty and Authority and holy Conviction so it was likewise full of Humility and Condescension And sometimes again also of Intricacy and Admiration being carried in such a way as at least in some particulars was not presently so well understood by the persons he converst withal An instance whereof we have here in this present story before us of his washing of his Disciples feet with the ceremonies and circumstances of it which seem'd at the first appearance to have some strangeness and uncouthness in it And therefore by Simon Peter is at the first declin'd and rejected with a modest expostulation Lord doest thou wash my feet as who should say Thou should'st not do so in the verse immediately preceding Now this Verse which I have now read unto you is Christ's reply by way of satisfaction Jesus answered c. IN the Text it self there are two General Parts considerable First the simple Proposition Secondly the additional Qualification The Proposition is in these words What I do thou knowest not now The Qualification of the Proposition is in these But thou shalt c. We begin with the First viz. The simple Proposition What I do thou knowest not now This is occasionally spoken concerning Peter's ignorance of one action of Christ's in particular to wit the washing of his Disciples feet but it is appliable and may be referr'd to the whole Providence of God in general and his transaction of things in the World In which sense we will now at this time consider it and look upon it and so observe from it thus much That even the Servants of God themselves are sometimes very much to seek in the actings and dealings of God Christ's Disciples do not always now presently understand Christ's actions When we say they do not know or understand them the meaning is not this That they do not simply discern or apprehend the things themselvs in the transaction of them for that they do Peter knew that Christ went about to wash his feet and of the other Disciples But they do not discern or apprehend the drist or meaning of them no more than Peter here did This is that which they do not do nor vet are able for some time to do it Acts 1.7 It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power says Christ there to his Disciples when they ask'd him whether or no at that time he would restore again the Kingdom to Israel God had reserv'd it to himself and it did not belong to them Therefore Job expostulates in Job 24.1 Why seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty do they not know him not see his days For so the words should be rendred according to the Original Text though our Translation carries it otherwise by referring Not to them that know him therein as I conceive under favour a little obscuring the sense and falling short of the meaning of it There are two Particulars especially in which those who are the Servants of God are notwithstanding very much ignorant of the providential ways of God The one is as to the scope of them And the other is as to the issue of them They know not what he does that is what end he has in doing them And again they know not what he does that is what effect will come of them They know not his actions either in the intent or extent of them First Not as to the intent Not the scope or drift of his actions What end he does propound to himself in the doing of them This they do not presently understand Indeed they know the general end as they do also the general effect and are sufficiently perswaded of it which is his own Honour and Glory and the greatest good and welfare of his people This they know to be mainly in his eye and which he will at last most certainly effect and bring to pass But for the particulars here they are to seek The Lord has many gracious ends and aims which he does intend and propound to himself which we are not presently acquainted withal nor are yet able to guess at them As Joseph when his Brethren sold him into Egypt who would ever have thought that God had intended good to him by that dispensation which in it self in its own nature was so contrary thereto But yet ye see how he tells them that God intended good to him by it Gen. 50.20 As for you ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day and to save much people alive The Lord intended good in that evil Secondly As to the extent and effect They know not this neither they know not what such things will come to in the issue and event of them this is also unknown to them We see
and acknowledged on both parts whether orthodox or heterodox in this business whether of the right or of the contrary judgment Secondly by shewing what it is that the former do deny to the latter and wherein they do dissent from this First then by way of concession and acknowledgment as to the first term in the Proposition which is a man fallen and lapst in Adam it is granted that even such an one when he once comes to be restored by Grace and to be renewed in the Spirit of his mind that then he hath some power even of his own to such a work as is truly and spiritually good Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty says the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.17 And again Being made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness c. Rom. 6.18 When God hath once changed us and converted us and brought us home to himself there is then restored unto us that freedom and liberty to good which we once lost by our fall God that in our first creation did put into the will an habitual inclination to good he hath also in our new creation restored unto us an habitual conversion to the same good The will being freed by Grace becomes free Secondly As to that term of free-will If by freedom of will be meant no more than a freedom from natural necessity or extrinsecal violence and coaction so that a man does will and choose and do that which he does upon counsel and reason and advice leading him thereto there is no controversy at all in this business For freedom of will in this sense does as essentially belong unto a man as reason it self and to strip him or spoyl him of it were to turn him into a very beast We do will indeed we do will freely neither can we otherwise will any thing Therefore it is one thing to enquire of the nature and another thing to dispute of the power and ability of free-will in us Which latter especially taken in the active sense of it we say is wholly lost and extinguisht in man by his fall as to the performing of such things as do belong to eternal Salvation It is true that in the will of man fallen there is a passive power for the receiving of a supernatural being which by God shall be conferred upon it but there is not an active power for the producing of such a being as this is either of it self or with any thing else That Speech of St. Austin's is very significant to this purpose and which all must yield unto Libere velle est opus naturae bene velle gratiae male velle corruptionis To will freely is the work of nature to will well of grace to will ill of corruption As also that of Tapperus Opus pium quatenus opus ab arbitrio est quatenus pium a sola gratia quatenus opus pium ab arbitrio gratia simul A good work as it it a work it is from free-will as it is good from grace as it is a work and good from free-will and grace both Thus free-will in the true and right notion and acception of it is not rejected by us Thirdly As to the last term which is here exprest in the Text by nothing If we speak of that which is evil here we have freedom of will more than enough our corrupt nature carrying us too readily and freely hereunto But therefore we are here to understand it only of that which is good we are naturally prone to evil but to good we have no mind And here again there are divers particulars which we do further yield and acknowledg as First that a man in the state of nature and out of Christ may be able to do that which is good as to the matter and substance of the action By taking this word doing for the bare and simple effecting of the work in it self consider'd without any respect had either to the principle from whence it is produced or to the end whereunto it is directed Secondly A natural man he may be able to perform a work morally good according to a kind of moral honesty and the conditions of a virtuous action as prescrib'd by moral Philosophy not only as to the substance and matter of the action it self but also as to the very circumstances and manner of doing of it namely such as moral Philosophy does teach and require as honouring of Parents giving of alms and the like Thus the Apostle Paul tells us that the Gentiles which have not the Law they do by nature the things centained in the Law Rom. 2.14 Thirdly We also grant that the Grace of Sanctification and the power of living holily is not infused into any persons living idly and taking no care of any thing but in the diligent use of such means as God has appointed and sanctified to this purpose as coming to Church waiting upon the Ministry hearing the word of God both read and preach'd c. God will not save us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom speaks nor sleeping and snoring and doing nothing but in our conscionable endeavours And so far forth as any one hath power to move and walk so far forth has he power to those things also as are ordinarily consequent and following thereupon in a way of ordinary providence Fourthly It is also acknowledged that an unregenerate person and as yet unconverted may be able to perform not only those outward good actions but some even inward good actions likewise As he may be able to have some kind of knowledg and apprehension of the will of God he may be able to meditate of God and of the things of God He may consider his own sins reflect upon his own guilt and have some kind of fear and horror in him upon the reflexions of it and much desire to be delivered from it These and many such things as are previous and antecedent to Faith and true repentance are required of men before the infusion of sanctifying Grace and accordingly may be performed by them Fifthly We likewise yield that in the Church of God where the word of God is ordinarily preach'd and the means of regeneration are ordinarily administred this Grace which does make men able to do such good works as are truly spiritual and saving is not denied to any before the repulse of initial Grace that is before they have resisted the Spirit of God in his preparatory works and refused those free and gracious offers and invitations which he has made unto them Lastly It cannot be denied but that some of the ancient Fathers did sometimes let fall some speeches and passages in their writings which at the first hearing or reading of them do seem somewhat to encline to this Doctrine of free-will whereof we now speak And thus have we seen what is granted and acknowledged on all hands by way of concession Now further it remains we should shew wherein the difference and
saving Grace but also a contrary principle of death that is of sin dwelling in him whereby the sinner is both habitually turn'd from God as also habitually turn'd to the creature and carried contrary to the Law of God The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be The Third Proposition All the works which are wrought by any man before the Grace of Christ and the Spirit of God changing his heart they have in them the nature of sin As for example the vertues of many of the Heathen Aristides Socrates Scipio and the rest although they might be called civil vertues and so far forth as they were thereby useful and serviceable to humane society they might deserve to be commended yet forasmuch as they were defective of such conditions as in the Law of God are required to the making of good actions for the subject a sanctified heart for the end the glory of God and for the principle Faith working by love however in regard of the matter they may be accounted good yet for the manner they must be esteem'd vicious as deprivations of good works rather than as performances of them The Fourth is this That forasmuch as man in the state of nature is so miserably depraved and prone to all manner of evil and indisposed to any thing which is truly and spiritually good we conclude that as to the first work of conversion and actions of the like nature with it man is meerly passive and receptive not active or operative that is that he hath no free-will or power working with God but is a meer subject receiving the mighty work of God upon his soul According to that of St. Bernard which is very full and express to this purpose Deus est Author salutis liberum arbitrium tantum capax nec dare eam nisi Deus nec capere eam valet nisi liberum arbitrium God is the Author of Salvation free-will is only the receiver neither can any give it but God neither can any take it but free-will Which yet notwithstanding is not so to be understood by us as if in the workings of Grace the mind and will of man did not at all move themselves but were only moved as inanimate instruments as the hand moving the hatchet or the like this we do not say But thus That God in the work of conversion does by his regenerating Spirit so reform the will of man as that the natural power thereof which before did carry and apply it self to evil it does now carry and apply it self to good Wherein the act of willing is indeed from the will it self as the proper subject of that action but the supernatural goodness of this act is wholly from God who does use to work suitably and agreeably to the nature of the creature The will of man in his regeneration is not as a meer stock or stone or forced to Faith and conversion against the created properties of it but naturae voluntatis congruentes suitable to the nature of the will For besides that passive power which is in the will of man to God which is not in a stock or stone God does moreover in conversion not violently force the will but sweetly drive it with the reserving of those properties to it which were bestowed upon it in its creation The last Proposition is this That for the conversion of man in the state of nature and the performing of any good work by him it is not sufficient to have his will only excited and assisted by extrinsecal and additional Grace but it is also necessary to be healed and quickned by intrinsecal and renewing Grace and to have new qualities and principles and dispositions put into it That life which was not before is to be newly created not that life which was before to be newly excited This Grace of God in conversion it is not only a moral suasion or indifferent influx which it is in the power of men to assent or not assent unto but a strong and effectual motion as whereby he raised Jesus Christ from the dead Eph. 1.19.20 The Grace of God I say in conversion is not a meer moral suasion or indifferent influx which it is in the power of man to assent or not to assent unto As a Guest which stands without doors which a man may either take in or keep out as himself pleases but it is a strong and efficatious motion whereby God according to his mighty power raised Jesus Christ from the dead doth quicken a man which is dead in sin makes him a new creature and works in him not only a power of willing but even to will it self According to that of the Apostle Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Mark he does not only excite but work which hath some efficacy with it And these now are the Propositions which do serve to clear this Ponint unto us From all which thus laid together both the consent and dissent of adversaries together with the explication of the terms the whole matter in hand comes to this result and conclusion viz. That man being fallen in Adam not as recovered and restored by Grace but as still abiding in this his lapst condition hath not free-will not understanding it of the nature of the will but of the power of it And of the power of it not in a passive sense but in an active Not with Grace but without Grace And Grace not only exciting and moving and assisting but also changing and healing and quickening to a good work not which is good only Philosophically but good Theologically And for the doing of this work not only as to the substance of the action but also as to the manner of the performance the end and principle and all requisite circumstances And these circumstances consider'd not only according to the rules of morality and which are to be sound even in Heathen Authors but according to the principles of Religion and which are derived from the holy Scriptures I say A man that is at present out of Christ and so still continuing in this his state of nature hath not any freedom of will thus explained remaining in him to any thing which is good And so this speech of our Blessed Saviour truly fulfilled Without me ye can do nothing This we shall now labour to evince by these following Arguments First From the general and universal corruption of our whole nature where the principles are corrupted the actions which slow from those principles must of necessity be corrupted likewise As the spiring and fountain is so are the streams that issue from it Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean says Job not one in Job 14.4 Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles says our Saviour A corrupt tree must needs bring forth evil fruit Matth. 7.16 17. Now all the principles of
distinction of Ages yet the truth of it is they do make up but one main and principal deliverance and are all as I may say in a manner referring one to another they hang in one common link and chain from which they cannot be severed as belonging to that chief and main end which God propounds to himself about his people If the Lord should deliver his Church in some Ages and not deliver them in following or if he should deliver us now in some particulars and let us perish in regard of others this work of his would be lame and intercepted and brought to no issue which does not sute I say with his exactness His work is perfect as Moses speaks in Deut. 32.4 And it is so in all the kinds and branches and specifications of it It is perfect in the work of Creation He finisht all his work And it is perfect in the work of Redemption he never left till he had said It was finisht And it is perfect in the work of Regeneration He that has begun a good work in you will finish or perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ And here now it is perfect also in the work of Providence and deliverance and preservation He hath delivered and does deliver and we trust he will yet further deliver us as it is here in this present Text before us And thus do we see the ground of this present Point The Improvement of it may be in a double way of Application either in reference first of all to private persons in particular or else secondly to the whole Church and State considered in general Either of these may make a very profitable use and improvement of this Point which we now have been here upon all this while and to bring it home a little to each First For our own private and particular we should learn from this present Doctrine to treasure up unto our selves ground of expectation of more from God in a way of deliverance and preservation by considering what he has done for us heretofore in like exigencies and straits we may make use of it in all the several passages and occurrences and turnings of our lives Thus the Marriner or Traveller by Sea may reason God has delivered me in such a storm and such a tempest I am now in the same lawful way and he will deliver me again Thus the Warrier and Soldier may reason God has delivered me in such a Battel and in such a Battel and he will also deliver me in this which is undertaken upon the same warrantable ground as the former was Thus the Travelling woman may reason God has delivered me of such a child and such a child when I was in as great anguish and extremity I am now in the same way of his Providence and I trust he will yet deliever me still Thus should we still upon all occasions get ground as it were upon God and fortifie our selves against distrust from the consideration of his former goodness towards us The mercies or deliverances which God does at any time vouchsafe unto his people they have a threefold sweetness in them which is worth our taking notice of First The sweetness of the thing Secondly The sweetness of the fountains And thirdly The sweetness of the Experiment First The sweetness of the thing it self that 's a natural sweetness and such as is competent to sense which any natural or carnal man may find and have in the deliverance he partakes of Secondly The sweetness of the fountain or principle that 's such a sweetness as consists in the apprehension of Gods love in Christ and such and such blessings as flowing in to us from this ground and conveyance of them to us Thirdly We have the sweetness of the Experiment so far forth as those mercies and deliverances which at present we partake of serve to teach us to expect as much again at another time and this is that which we here now speak of Every new blessing and deliverance it carries another as it were in the bosom of it and is a pledg and forerunner of more which accordingly we should look for from it As Soldiers which have gotten one victory they are heartened to make account of another so it should be here with us O passi graviora dabit Deus his quoque finem We should learn from hence by answering God in his goodness towards us in our obedience and as we have obeyed formerly so to obey still But here it may be haply interposed that this does not always seem to hold so good as for us to found this confidence thereupon We find by many experiences that God does deliver his people from some evils and yet does not deliver them from others from this sickness and not from that from this danger and not from that from these enemies and not from others yea for this very instance here in the Text though Paul was delivered from this great danger in Asia and escaped death at this time yet afterwards he was under the power of his enemies and taken away by them How can we then make former deliverances to be grounds for trusting and expecting of future as here we do For answer hereunto thus much This holds good in regard of God though it does not so well in regard of us or the things themselves which do here make the difference as to Gods dispensation As for God himself he has the same power still that ever he had he is as able to deliver his people at one time as he is at another from one evil as well as from another from the greater as well as from the less And further he has the same bowels in him still as ever the same love and affection to his servants now as he has had heretofore and in former times So that upon these considerations they may very well make these conclusions But it falls out otherwise sometimes in these regards First That those which should be the subjects of these deliverances do vary and alter in their carriage and behaviour towards God perhaps neglect to seek unto him and to maintain their communion with him and give themselves liberty in some evil course and then as God tells the Israelites though he had delivered them formerly yet he would now deliver them no more they way go to the gods whom they have served Judg. 10.13 14. Secondly It is not always so conducing either to the glory of God himself or the greater good of the person in particular to be delivered in such a manner and way as it may be formerly they have been and then he does deal otherwise with them God still in all his dealings with his servants looks at the main chance which is to advance his own glorious name and to save their precious and immortal souls and to bring them to Heaven at last And so far forth as any deliverance may best consist with either of these so far forth they are
sure not to want it God does either actually and absolutely deliver from the evil or else so sanctifie and dispose his Providence towards them as that it shall be either as good or rather indeed better than the deliverance from the evil it self to them And this is that which may abundantly satisfie their minds both as to the truth of this Point as also as to contentation in a mean condition And thus now this Point may be improved to particular persons So likewise in the second place we may also carry it as more pertinent to the occasion to the Church and State in general and reason so for that He has delivered and does deliver and we trust that he will yet deliver us It is an observation which is sometimes made concerning some kind of men and persons that they are Homines boni pedis happy and successful men which prosper in whatsoever they undertake whom God does in a special manner delight to make the objects of his mercy and goodness as Jacob and Joseph c. Now as it is thus with private persons so we may conceive it to be so with whole Nations and people at large Thus 't is noted of Israel Happy art thou O Israel who is like unto thee O people saved by the Lord c. Deut. 33.29 the Epithet there given unto them And thus as it has been with Israel so we may observe it to have been with England with us of these fortunate Islands we have been the admiration of all the world for happiness and blessing never any Nation partaked of such mercies and deliverances as we have done It is true that God is not tyed to Countries nor places nor people any further than he is pleased to tye and engage himself out of his own free goodness and bounty But it is a great advantage if we do not forfeit it to be under such a Providence as this is and to be the ancient objects of Gods favour and miraculous dispensations yea which is now the improvement of this Doctrine in hand a great argument to trust and depend upon him for his goodness God has done many great and wonderful things for his people of this Land and Nation even of latter years and that within the cognizance and observation even of other people Then they said among the Heathen The Lord has done great things for them And we may eccho it back again unto them as the Church does there in that Psalm The Lord has done great things for us whereof we are glad But has he done all he means to do for us or which we may expect and look for from him sure I hope he has not but that he has more and greater blessings in store and reservation for us unless we by our unthankfulness frowardness wickedness and abuse of his blessings and mercies do for time to come deprive our selves of them surely if we do not very much provoke him God will not unravel that thread which has been of his own spinning which is the work of his own hands but will rather perfect that which concerns us as the Psalmist speaks It was good Logick that of Manoahs wife which she read to her Husband and as good Divinity in Judg. 13.23 If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would he as at this time have told us such things as these And it was as good also that of Hamans wife to him in Esth 6.13 If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews before whom thou hast begun to fall thou shalt not prevail against him but shalt surely fall before him God does not do things all at once but by time and leisure and degrees he makes one thing a preparation to another and a ground and argument for the expectation of it and so as we may in a manner see his footsteps in it This is the Improvement which we are now to make of the mercy of this present day we do not sufficiently or as we should improve it when as we only take notice of it in it self but when-as we make it a ground and argument and reason for the expectation of more and further acts from him This is one of our standing mercies and deliverances which in our discouragements and faintings of heart we should still have recourse unto for the quickning and reviving of us and putting us in heart again He that has delivered us from the Gunpowder-Treason what will he not now do for us and what will he not deliver us from Which as in matter of humiliation it is good to reflect upon some special sin or the original corruption of nature which is the greatest and chiefest of all thereby to work us to repentance and contrition of spirit So likewise in matter of Thanksgiving it is good to reflect upon some special mercy and extraordinary providence of God towards us thereby to work our hearts to answerable thankfulness for all the rest This is the proper Application of this present Point both for the General and also the particular Some of us have been under great sicknesses and God has freed us from them and some of us in other great troubles and exigencies and God has brought us out of them What 's the use which we should now make of all to our selves but what the Apostle here dictates unto us and gives us a pattern of in his own example speaking of God Who delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver in whom we trust also that he will yet deliver us SERMON XXXV 2 Cor. 13.8 For we can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth There are two things especially which either are or ought to be in the care and principal study of every true Minister of Christ the one is the Truth of God and the other is the Church of God The Dignity and Authority of his Ministry and the souls and welfare of his people and these two in a mutual compliance and subordination of one to the other so to assert his ministerial authority as not to prejudice his peoples comfort and so to tender the peace of his people as that the Name of God and his Doctrine may not be blasphemed Now both of these very eminently concur in the practice of the Apostle Paul through the whole course of his Ministry and did more particularly shew themselves in him in the course of this present Epistle and Scripture which we have here before us Wherein he seems not so much to stand upon his own private honour and reputation as rather upon the improvement of the Corinthians and the Dignity and Authority of the Ordinances and Truths of Christ amongst them that they might receive no violation or diminution of them Not that we says he should appear approved but that ye may do that which is honest though we be as
now the Servants of God they do receive the Truth in the love of it and as they discern it with their understandings so they likewise imbrace it in their hearts and therefore cannot act against it Look as there is an impotency in evil men to that which is good so there is likewise in some sort an Impotency in good men to that which is evil And so the Scripture seems to set it in another place as Gal. 5.17 The flesh insteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things which ye would Cannot in either reference as the reluctancies of the flesh hinder ye that ye cannot do that good which ye would do from the principles of Grace so again the reluctancies of the spirit hinder ye that ye cannot do that evil which ye would do from the remainders of corruption And this latter is that which we are here to take notice of when the Apostle says of himself and other faithful servants of God that they can do nothing against the truth he means so far forth as regenerate and living by the principles of grace and regeneration in them so they can do nothing against the truth indeed though otherwise when as left to themselves and the natural corruption of their hearts they are sufficiently capable of it and prone and inclinable to it as in case of desertion and temptation is too abundantly declared unto us This is the sum of all that as the work of grace in Believers which is sometimes call'd the seed of God does preserve them from other sins and the presumptuous commission of them so amongst the rest from opposing the Truth and setting against that they cannot do it because they are born of God and have his Truth setled in them Thirdly From a spirit of faithfulness and ingenuity which is over and above in them The Children of God they are conscious to themselves of many engagements which are upon them to truth from the vows and promises which they have made and from the favours and mercies which they have received and therefore can do nothing against it Where men are under any Covenant they are tyed thoug they had never so good mind and inclination to the contrary And so it is here If we could suppose the Children of God to be such as whose affections would serve them for the hindring of the Truth yet their promises and voluntary Covenants are a restraint upon them they have solemnly dedicated and given up themselves to the Truth and so upon that account are now able to do nothing against it And so likewise for the mercies which they have received there 's a restraint from them also The Truth where-ever it is imbraced it does sufficiently reward those who have been imbracers of it besides that they are intrusted with it Now for them therefore to do any thing against it it would be very unworthy they cannot do it upon the point of ingenuity That 's another and the third Consideration Now all together may serve as a satisfaction to mens minds in this particular There are many which are apt oftentimes to wonder at that strictness and rigidness which is in many of Gods servants that they keep so close to the Truth so that there 's no shaking or removing them from it or perswading them to do any thing against it Here 's now a true account of it whence it is so indeed in them It is from hence that they cannot do otherwise we cannot do any thing says the Apostle Paul against the Truth And as he could not do it himself no more can others do it with him They are better taught and they are better affected and they have other kind of Bonds upon them and restraints than other men have who are more loose and at liberty in this respect as for them they cannot do it It is not selfishness or peevishness or perverseness or a spirit of singularity as the world is ready for the most part to construe and judg and interpret it in them no but it is Grace and Religion and Christianity we cannot i.e. we will not there is a restraint upon us of Principles Thirdly We cannot i.e. we shall not It is a restraint likewise of Power we cannot although we would but herein shall be prevented and intercepted we cannot attempt it and we cannot effect it there 's both in it cannot attempt it as prevented by the Providence of God denying us opportunities cannot effect it as prevented by the power of God denying us success First We cannot attempt it God preserves his servants from this even from endeavouring any thing against Truth he keeps them graciously from such temptations and occasions as might put them hereupon and besides what we spoke of before the general frame of their own hearts considered as regenerate there is the particular actings and restrainings of his own spirit in them whereby he does keep them from such a miscarriage and sin as this is Gods servants are under a blessed conduct and government which does prevail upon them whereby they are preserved from those evils and snares which others are taken with and do very readily fall into We cannot that is we shall not attempt it he denies opportunities But then secondly we cannot i.e. we shall not effect it as denied success This it holds good both of themselves and all men else We cannot do any thing against the truth That is we cannot prosperously we cannot successfully we cannot safely We may do it but we had better let it alone Cannot to our own comfort and contentment And we may do it but we had as good spare our selves a labour Cannot as to any real prejudice or disparagement to truth it self Those that seem to do most against it yet indeed they can do nothing at all nor never shall This although it be not the proper and direct sense of the place but rather the other which we mentioned before with some other which we shall speak of afterward as also the analogy of faith yet it agrees very well with the words and may by way of overplus and redundancy be taken in to the explication of them to us even to signifie and declare thus much That all endeavours against the truth are in vain and to no purpose Veritas magna est praevalebit the truth is strong and is sure to prevail When we have done all that we can do against it yet this all is as good as nothing it will at last be too hard for us But I will not insist upon this Point now as not being that which is so much intended I only give an hint of it by the way So much of the first word of Emphasis which is here to be explained and taken notice of by us and that is the word cannot there 's a force in that The second is the word any-thing for so indeed it
First I say here 's the carriage and behaviour of God towards wicked and worldly men and that is in much patience and kindness to them that 's here supposed and implied in the Text Thou de spisest his goodness to thee therefore there is his goodness to thee This is that therefore which we may observe and take notice of from it that the Lord is oftentimes very kind and gracious to such kind of persons And his kindness is here exprest in two particulars First In the Positive by the good which he does for them the riches of his goodness i. e. by an Hebraism Abundant goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly In the Negative by the evil which he withholds from them Forbearance and long-suffering c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First In the Positive by the good which he does for them God does shew a great deal of goodness and kindness even to evil men and bestows a great deal of good upon them though it does not always prove good to them And this whether we take it in a Temporal Consideration or in a spiritual First If we take it in a Temporal He does here bestow many outward comforts upon them and gives them sometimes a great portion in the things of this present life Health and wealth and honours and parts andcredit and success in imployment and favour and esteem and repute in the world Whatever belongs but to the world a wordly man may injoy and oftentimes does and that in great measure and abundance as it is here exprest Thus the Scripture sots it forth to us in sundry places of it Psal 17.14 Deliver my soul c. From men which are thy hand O Lord from men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose belly thon fillest with thy bid treasure They are full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes So Psal 73.5 6 7. They are not in trouble as other men nor plagued as other men therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain violence covereth them as a garment Their eyes stand out with fat ness they have more than heart could wish So Job 21.9 10. Their houses are safe from fear neither is the rod of God upon them their bull gendreth and faileth not their cow calveth and casteth not her calf they send forth their little ones c. So Job 12.6 The tabernacles of robbers prosper and they that provoke God are secure into whose hand God bringeth abundantly And so as for Temporal good things so likewise for spiritual they do enjoy as to the outward means many good things here they have the Gospel Preached unto them and the Ordinances administred amongst them and many good counsels and admonitions cast away upon them yea sometimes they have also secret touches and girdings of conscience within them and motions and tendencies to repentance and amendment and reformation though ineffectual and which dye again in them They are almost perswaded to be Christians but they are not perswaded altogether and they are not far from the Kingdom of God but yet they are such as will never come thither whiles they continue in their present estate And this is God's positive kindness to them in doing them good The second is his Negative in withholding evil from them This for fashion-sake is exprest in two words at once it is forbearance and long-suffering he bears with much in them and is long-suffering as to his punishments of them he puts up many an insolency and provocation from them and does not presently proceed to the ruin and destruction of them but spares them in this particular This the Scripture it self takes notice of and sometimes in a way of disad vantage as Jer. 12.1 The Prophet there expostulates with God Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously c And so Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he All which shew God's patience in this regard Now to give some account of both these Branches together this kindness of God to wicked men both in the positive and negative Explication there is a various account may be given of it First God is pleased in his Providence thus to deal with them out of the redundancy and overflowing of Bounty and Magnificence in himself Thus the Sun it shines upon a dunghil as well as upon the pleasant meadows not for the benefit of the dunghil but from the excellency of its own light which is of a spreading and diffusive nature And so is it with God himself whose creature that is he causes his Sun to shine both upon good and bad and maketh his rain to fall both upon the just and unjust Matth. 5.45 and that as having abundance and variety of â—od in him the riches of Goodness as it is heâ—â— exprest in the Text he has enough in him for all sorts Secondly God bestows good things oftentimes upon wicked men as a reward of some good in this life which has been here done by them those which for the main are evil men yet they may have some sprinklings of goodness in them and there may be some good things done by them at least in a civil way We shall find if we look into Scripture how many persons whose hearts were naught and had no work of grace at all in them yet they had many commendable and plausible actions which did come from them and did gain them repute and esteem in the eyes of the world In the Lives and Stories of the Heathen Philosophers and other famous men amongst them we meet with many notable exploits which were eminent and praise-worthy in them Now God is pleased many times to recompence such as these with many outward and temporal favours because they are not good enough to go to Heaven and yet he would not have them to be altogether unrewarded therefore it is that he does follow them and inlarge them here below God will be a debter to no man whosoever he be indeed he cannot be a debtor properly any other wise than he makes himself because we owe all we are unto him but he will not receive any thing from any man which he will not sufficiently pay him for when those which otherwise are no better than they should be yet shall do somewhat which is good in the world in order to the preservation of it they shall be satisfied by him for it Thirdly To stop mens mouths and to leave them inexcusable that they may have nothing to say for themselves Oh ye shall have some ready to say If I had been thus and thus and had had these advantages and opportunities and encouragements this health or this estate or this power or this favour and the like Oh
perhaps you were very little or nothing at all affected with it Now ye are ashamed This now it may admit of a various and manifold Explication First Now since the time of your Conversion and Regeneration and coming home to God Secondly Now since the commission of your sins and the intermission or the withdrawing of the temptation Thirdly Now since the experience of Gods Goodness and the sense and apprehension of his special love and favour towards you since these all or either of these ye are now ashamed of those things which formerly had no impression upon you or at least which ye did not look upon as any great matter of shame unto you First I say now that is since the time of your Conversion and Regeneration and coming home to God Conversion as it makes a change in a mans condition so also in his affections it makes him to have other thoughts and apprehensions than formerly he had and in particular in point of shame he is a shamed of those things which before he did not regard And whereas before sin was nothing with him now he looks upon it as the greatest reproach can befal him A man after Conversion will be ashamed and confounded in himself for those ways which he walked in before Thus it was here with these Romans yea thus it was with the Apostle Paul himself when he looked back sometimes upon his former condition before his Conversion he was ashamed to think of it and he speaks of it with a great deal of abhorrency and indignation as we may see in Act. 26.10 11. 1 Cor. 15.9 1 Tim. 1.13 14. Thus it proceeds upon these following Considerations First The clearer discovery of the nature and condition of sin it self which is the ground and matter of shame shame in the affection is according to the apprehension of it in the occasion those that are not thoroughly convinced and perswaded of any thing to be shameful they are not consequently ashamed of it but those which are so they will be affected with it And this is when it is apprehended to be filthy and base in â—â—self as the Philosopher describing this affection sets in forth unto us that it is properly imployed about those things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which seem to have some vileness in them and which are apprehended so to be Why thus now is it with a man which is converted in regard of sin He looks upon it as a shameful business and proportionably is ashamed of it he sees sin in its colours and in its nature what it is by the light of Gods Spirit assisting him and inabling of him so to do which another does not It 's a good observation of Chrysostom's which he has to this â—urpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every sin does then indeed appear how vile and filthy it is when you empty it and strip it off the affection of him that commits it Tell an angry man when he is cool of the words which he spoke in his passion and then he will be ashamed Then a drunkard when he is sober the things which he did in his cups and then he will be as contented bring an unchast person to his harlot when his lust is over and he will then abominate both her and himself and so he goes on These Romans when they â—â—ere here converted the Apostle dares appeal to themselves and needs no other witness besides for the confirmation of that which he said If people had but the same thoughts of sin in the committing as they are likely to have after it they would never be guilty of it There 's a double light which is communicated to a Christian as pertinent to this purpose the one is whereby he sees the filthiness of sin it self and the other is whereby he sees himself as guilty of sin Where either of these is wanting there is not this shame which we now speak of when either we see not sin in it self or see not our own interest and propriety in it as belonging to us then we shall not be affected with it no more than a blind man is with those spots which are upon his garments but where both these concur there is blushing and shame of heart and thus in a person converted Secondly This shamefacedness does arise from a serious and due apprehension of the Omniscience and Omnipresence of God Those which many times are not much ashamed of things simply considered in themselves yet when they think they are taken notice of by others this is a means to work shame in them Now a good Christian he is sensible of this he has set God always before his eyes that thereby he might be restrained and considers him as everywhere beholding both the evil and good Therefore it is emphatically exprest there in Ezra and twice repeated in the place before cited O my God I am ashamed and I blush to lift up my face to thee O my God if we had real and daily and constant apprehensions of him as present with us as it becomes us to have it would make us ashamed of doing any thing which were unworthy of Christians from the sense of his presence This is more than to set before us some Cato or Socrates or Seneca or any such persons as those were as the Philosopher advised in such a case Thirdly A Christian after conversion comes to be ashamed of his ways and courses before from the height and nobleness of his Principles and that spirit of Grace which is now in him over what formerly he had Men when they come to be men and are grown up to years of maturity and riper understanding they are ashamed to think of those toys and tricks which they plaid in their child-hood and Scholars when they come to some perfection they are ashamed of those exercises which they made in their former and younger time and all from this Consideration because they are now better qualified and more inabled than formerly they were even so is it also with a Christian upon conversion and turning t6o God He is not now the same man that heretofore he was and therefore the same things will not satisfie him or give him content but he is apt to quarrel and find fault with them yea to blush and to be ashamed of them when he reflects and looks back upon them especially his sins and evil courses which is that we speak of at this time because he has a new nature in him which does bear in most direct opposition and contrariety to all such courses as these are Yea further which is also pertinent hereunto a gracious person has an holy reverence and awe of himself which does encline him and carry him hereunto it was that which some of the Heathens did sometimes advise unto in their Moral Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all others reverence thy self This a good Christian does and from hence comes to blush and to be ashamed of
thence matter of rejoycing but only such an one as upon tryal does approve it and give allowance unto it And so is that place also to be understood 1 Cor. 11.28 Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread c. What barely examine Is that all no but approve upon examination and even so all here Let every man prove his own work that is let every man so order it that upon due tryal he may approve it Where yet again further for the better understanding of this phrase This expression even in this sense also namely by way of approbation it is not to be taken only nor so much in reference to judgment but to practise when the Apostle says Let every man approve his own work his meaning is not this That he should absolutely think well of his work whatsoever it be whether good or bad for that many are forward enough unto of their own accord whereby they do now and then judg unrighteous judgment and besides it is not always in a mans power so to do Heman cannot approve what he pleases but the meaning of it is this That he should so manage and dispose of his actions as from whence he may have just cause and ground for the Approbation of them so that probare here in the Text it is as much as probatum facere to prove that is to make approved And so it is to be taken by a Metonymie of the effect for the cause because he that does any thing as he should do he does deserve and receive approbation therefore the doing of it in that manner it is expressed by approbation This now for the further illustration of this point unto us is considerable in two particular Branches First In reference to what And secondly in reference to whom we are to prove or to make our works to be approved we are to do it in the thing it self and we are to do it also in reference and order to such and such persons First In reference to what and for the thing it self Take it in three particulars more in which it is to be done by us for the matter of it for the manner of it and for the principle First We must approve our work in regard of the matter of it and the substance of the action it self This is necessarily to be premised as the very ground and foundation of all the rest that which is not a good work substantially it can never be made good by circumstances let them be the best that possibly can be A man may mar a good work by bad circumstances but he can never mend a bad work by good because Bonum oritur ex integris causis malum ex quolibet defectu It is a rule in Divinity that which is good must have all things concurring to make it good but that which is evil may be so but from some particular defect As a man is not a compleat man except he have all his parts but he is a lame man if he want but one limb This is that then which we say That that action which is materially evil it cannot be warranted or made good from any good which is concomitant with it or adhering unto it It is not the best end that any man can propound to himself which will justifie his action where it is sinful and unlawful in it self A man may not lye for God as Job speaks Job 13.7 Neither may we do evil that good may come thereof as the Apostle speaks Rom. 3.8 Indeed there were some that both thought so and said so of the Apostle that it was so with him but they wronged him in so doing as himself there declares it as we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say no the damnation of such is just which so argue and reason and conclude and it 's such as will not hold water For this purpose we must know thus namely that there are some actions which are evil simply and intrinsecally and in their own nature there are others which are so only conditionally and in such and such cases but in their own nature and out of those cases are indifferent and neither good nor bad The latter of these actions according to the several conditions which may be upon them of circumstances which they may be cloathed withal may become good and warrantable but the former of these they cannot be warranted from any condition whatsoever but being evil formally are therefore so indispensably That 's the first Explication that work which is approved it must be approved for the matter and substance of the action it self Secondly It must be also approved for the carriage and manner of performance It is a good rule also of Nazianzene's to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is good is not good except it be well done there 's a peculiar Modification which is proper to every action to be attended and observed by us and without which it cannot be accepted nor we in it This is appliable to all the particular exercises and duties of Religion Prayer Reading Hearing of the word and such as these where it is not enough for us to do these things simply in themselves which yet are not to be omitted by us but we must be careful to do them in such a manner and fashion as God does require Thirdly We must approve our work also for the Principle and Spirit from whence it does proceed and arise in us Prov. 21.27 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord how much more when he brings it with wickedness or a wicked mind A wicked mind makes a good action to be abominable which is no further good than it has goodness for the Original of it This same spring and principle of our actions it hath a very great influence upon them for the Goodness and Approbation of them And thus much of the first Head namely in reference to what we are to prove or approve our work The second is in reference to Action and the persons which are to be regarded by us Now these are likewise of a threefold specification First To God Secondly To Man Thirdly To our selves First We must approve our work that is we must approve it to God that he may like it and be well-pleased with it This is that which the Servants of God have been careful still especially to do and it concerns them to do so and that especially upon these following Considerations First As he is one of the most exact and accurate judgment and best able to discern of our work what it is In all approbations of mens selves for any thing which is done by them they are commonly most careful to do it to such perfons as have most skill in it and are of greatest worth and dignity in themselves The approbation of one person of quality and that knows what belongs to a business is more than an
in thine heart I am and none else besides me I shall not sit as a widow neither know the loss of children in Isa 47.8 There 's a great deal of strong presumption upon the minds of many carnal people in this particular This it is so much the more considerable according to the aggravating circumstances in which this security of theirs is in them which are two especially First Notwithstanding the greatness and multitude of their own abominations Secondly Notwithstanding the nearness and eminency of God's Judgments though they provoke God by their sins and though God threatens them with his Plagues yea not only threatens them but in some sort falls upon them yet they cry Peace and safety for all that This is that desperate security and presumption which is observable of us in the hearts of men Thus in Deut. 29.19 There 's mention made of such a person who when he hears the curses of the law blesses himself in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst that is though he go on and continue in sin and add one wickedness to another the accomplishments to the desires yet for all this that he shall do well enough and no evil shall befal him notwithstanding This security it may be thus far accounted to us for the Grounds of it from whence it does proceed First From a spirit of ignorance of God himself and of his ways of proceeding the men of the world they have strange thoughts and conceits of God and so of the things which are done by him Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thy self says the Lord to him there in the Psalm this is that which they think of him and so are mistaken in the ways of his Providence Evil men understand not judgment says Solomon Prov. 28.5 And because they do not understand it they do not fear it as they fear where no fear is because they have a guilty conscience so they hope where no hope is because they have a stupified conscience and a mind not exercised to discern betwixt good and evil Secondly From a spirit of delusion and misconstruction Wicked men they have many false reasonings and arguings in them which make them to speak peace to themselves where there is no cause or ground for it as to instance in one or two of them especially amongst the rest First Their present freedom and exemption from punishment They consider that they scape hitherto and that God does not as yet take them to task and deal with them for their wickedness and therefore they think that they shall escape always and that he will never deal with them at all as it is in Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil-doer is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the ssons of men are fully set in them to do evil Secondly The escape of others whom they think to be as bad as themselves they think that such and such persons they have peace and safety in their wickedness and that therefore they shall have the like in theirs Thus they incourage one another in an evil matter as the Scripture speaks Thirdly The carnal refuges which they take up to themselves these are Grounds for this security to them they think they shall have peace and safety because they are sufficiently furnished and provided for the contrary and especially sometimes from their own wickedness it self They think themselves to be so much the safer as they are so much the viler and think they shall suffer nothing because indeed they can do any thing This is that which the Scripture it self does sometimes take notice of in others as Isa 28.15 They said We have made a Covenant with death and with hell we are at an agreement when the overflowing scourge shall pass thorow it shall not come unto us Why upon what Consideration for we have made lies our refuge and under falshood we have hid our selves But what says the Lord there to them in the very same Chapter in the 17th and 18th verses of it Lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place and your covenant with death shall be disanulled and your agreement with hell shall not stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass thorow then shall ye be trodden down by it So again Psal 52.7 Lo this is the manthat made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness This is that which many people do this makes them to say Peace and safety many times where they have no cause to say so And that 's the first Explication of this saying of it which is mentally they say it in their minds The second is verbally or orally they say it with their mouths that is they do not only think it but utter it and speak it out This security it does not only rest in their hearts but it breaks out at their lips and they say it it not only to themselves but also to others And this they do again to atwofold purpose First In a way of triumph and vain exultation they say it that is they say it vanntingly and boastingly and in self-applause And secondly In a way of flattery and soothing and daubing of others they say it that is they say corruptingly and inticingly and in order to seducement Each of these ways do they say it as to this outward expression in words First I say in a way of triumph and self-applause and vain exultation We shall hear such speeches as these are from divers people in such a way as this as boasting and glorying in the prosperity of their sinful courses that though they have been thus and thus wicked yet they never as yet found any evil or inconvenience in it but rather the contrary but that the worse and viler they have been so much the better and happier it has been with them Thus it was with the people in Jeremiah Chap. 44.17 When we burnt incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink-offerings to her we had then plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil Secondly In a way of flattery and corrupting of others This is especially observed and taken notice of in seducers and false-teachers as in Jer. 6.13 From the Prophet unto the Priest every one dealeth falâ—ly they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying Peace peace when there was no peace And so likewise Ezek. 13.9 10. Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies because even because they have seduced my people saying Peace peace and there was no peace Now abundance of such sayers as these there are in the world which first of all speak peace to themselves and put away far from themselves the evil day as
child and they shall not escape Which passage may be looked upon by us two manner of ways Either first of all simply and absolutely as it lyes in it self Or secondly Relatively and Comparatively as it carries a dependance upon that which went before First To look upon it in its simple and absolute Consideration Wherein again we have two branches more First The condition it self or punishment mentioned Secondly The amplification or aggravation of this punishment and condition The condition or punishment mentioned that 's exprest in the word destruction The amplification of this punishment and condition that 's exprest in these words It cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape it First For the condition or punishment it self which is here threatned to such kind of persons which were before mentioned it is signified to be destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is a very terrible word and we may look upon it as it here lies in the Text according to a threefold Gradation First In its Negative conception Secondly In its Positive And thirdly In its Superlative This word destruction as it is here mentioned carries each of these intimations with it First It has its Negative acception It is destruction it is not peace and safety It was peace and safety which those secure and presumptuous persons before spoken of promised to themselves and pleased themselves in the thoughts of but there 's no such thing happens to them and so it is a frustration and disappointment This is the lot and condition all along of wicked men that they have that least of all which they most of all look for they are cut short both of their desires and expectations which do fail and come to nought The reason of it is this because they go upon an ill ground and foundation where the foundation is but weak the building which is raised upon it must needs sink and fall to the ground Now thus are the hopes and expectations of all wicked persons whiles they say peace and safety they are upon a weak and false bottom and ground which they proceed upon and that is fancy and lust and humor and such things as these and what can follow upon such proceedings as these but even miscarriage and disappointment it self the hope of the Hypocrite shall perish This is good to be taken notice of by us as a check upon all such extravagances as those are to restrain and keep men within the bounds of majesty and holy Awfulness that they may not be too full of confidence and vain expectations as they are sometimes subject to be which there is nothing does so much cure them of as experience and sense of that which is otherwise as it is here declared to be in this Scripture They said peace and safety and behold no such matter it is destruction That 's the first acception of it in the Negative what it was not But secondly Here 's also the Positive what it was and that was the quite contrary and opposite hereunto it was so far from being peace and safety as that instead of it it was affliction and trouble God does not content himself only to disappoint wicked men of their hopes and of the of the good which they expected but also to surprize them with fears and the evils which they have not expected Instead of peace to follow them with horror and instead of safety to expose them to danger not only to punish them with the punishment of loss but with punishment of sense They wait for light but behold obscurity for brightness but they walk in darkness Isa 59.9 Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after other gods Psal 16. Ways of wickedness are ways of affliction to such persons as walk in them so far are they from peace and safety But thirdly That 's not all here 's the Superlative sense also which is considerable of us and that is dectruction and absolute ruine which carries it further yet for the compleating of the punishment of such persons they are not only disappointed of that peace and safety which they expected nor they are not only exercised with that affliction which is quite contrary thereunto but they are moreover absolutely destroyed and brought to nought Vpon the wicked God shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horribla tempest this shall be the portion of their cup Psal 11.6 Destruction it is of two sorts and comes under a double Consideration either as temporal or as Eternal and each of them are here considerable as the reward of wicked men both one and t'other First For Temporal destruction they have oftentimes a great share in this as it respects this present world God does oftentimes bring strange judgments and calamities upon them and therefore Job puts that question Is there not destruction to the wicked and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity Is there not that is indeed there is it is a question that carries a strong assertion and asseveration with it there are many persons who by their dissolute courses do bring outward ruin and misery upon themselves and do undo themselves as to this present world But secondly As for Eternal destruction this does to be sure more especially fall upon them as most proper to them Destruction that is damnation and the punishment of body and soul for ever in Hell This is that which here seems more especially to be intended in the Text though the other is not excluded because the Apostle here speaks more particularly of the day of the Lord that is as I have already shewn and of the day of judgment with the consequents of it Now this is that which in that day shall be inflicted upon such kind of people The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God Psal 9.17 This is the sentence which Christ shall pass upon them when he sits upon his Throne of Judgment Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Matth. 25.41 And accordingly it is there said that they shall go away into everlasting punishment ver 46 of the same Chapter And 2 Thes 1.9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power And thus much of the condition it self or punishment mentioned in the word destruction which we have considered three manner of ways in its Negative sense in its Positive and in its Superlative The second is the amplification or aggravation of this condition which is considerable in three things more First In the suddenness of it Secondly In the vehemency of it And thirdly In the unavoidableness each of which are illustrated from a very proper and significant similitude of travail upon a woman with child as most lively expressing it We begin with the first aggravation and that is the suddenness or speediness of it it is sudden destruction
Now that which Christ submitted to for us was the worst and most grievous of any other Now the greater was the suffering by so much greater also was the love Thirdly In the full and perfect Application of this his death unto us It is said That he washed us in his own blood He did not sprinkle us only but bath us He did not only bestow some few drops of it upon us but he did drench us and souse us and immerse us over head and ears in it he did give us a plentiful share and interest in it And lastly There 's an Emphasis also in the word of propriety in that it is said His own blood The Priests under the old Law in the discharge and execution of their office they sprinkled the people with blood and did in a sense and after a sort wash them from their sins in it But that blood it was not their own but the blood of beasts yea but Christ he hath of himself purged us from our sins in his own blood as it is here intimated to us And this is a further inlargement of his love towards us The Use of all to our selves is to inlarge our hearts in all thankfulness and acknowledgment to Christ for his goodness which we should be very much quickened unto Oh it is that which we can never sufficiently prize or be affected withal and therefore we should be often and frequent in the thoughts and meditation of it He hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood Oh what an high favour was this and what could he have done more for us It was the highest expression of love that possibly might be And we should be exceedingly ravisnt with it It is a great piece of dulness and deadness in us when it is otherwise with us For it has the perfection of all love in it And we should make it a ground of Incouragement in the expectation of all things else from Christ which are requisite and necessary for us He that has not stuck at this great expression of love which is here mentioned in the Text will be sure not to stick at any thing which is inferiour to it and he that has given us the greater will not stick to give us the less And so the Apostle himself teaches us to reason Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Again we may also carry it higher as to the expectation of higher things from him and as reason from the greater to the less so likewise from the less to the greater and in particular as to the expectation of Heaven and Glory to come If he has received us he will also actually save us as the Apostle reasons Rom. 5.10 For he that has done the one he will do the other likewise upon it He that hath loved us and washed us in his blood will also love us and set us in his throne and will fully perfect and accomplish the work of Salvation for us And so I have done also with the second General part of the Text which is the Description of Christ from the particular discovery of his Affection Who hath washed us c. The third and last is from the effect and result of it in these words And hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and his Father Wherein there 's a twofold Dignity which Believers do partake of from and with Christ the one is the Dignity of Kings and the other is the Dignity of Priests All true Believers they have a share in each of these Offices First In his Kingly Office all true Believers are Kings This is to be taken not in a Temporal sense but in a Spiritual and so the Scripture still expresses it Thus Luk. 12.32 Fear not little flock for it is your Fathers pleasure to give you the kingdom and Luk. 22.29 I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me This it consists of two Parts which are belonging unto it the one is the state of Grace and the other the state of Glory First For the state of Grace All true Christians they are Kings in this particular namely so far forth as they have power over their spiritual Enemies and all those things which might hinder their salvation A true Believer he has power over his own lusts and the corruptions of his own heart in some kind of measure and degree and so in that respect is a King Take men that are slaves to their lusts and they are the greatest slaves and vassals that are But now a Christian he is free from this slavery through the Grace of Christ which is communicated to him And so as he has power over Sin so in some measure over Satan also the King of the bottomless pit as he is call'd the Prince of the world A good Christian by the help of Christ's Spirit hath some power over him also and at last shall be inabled to trample him under his feet in Rom. 16.20 And then for the World also A good Christian he has power over this also so far forth as all things are order'd and disposed to his good All things are yours c. There 's no Providence whatsoever but he is still getting good out of it if it be prosperity it makes him more cheerful in God's service and if it be adversity it draws him so much the nearer to God All things work together for good to them that love God whether in themselves they be good or evil Take even Death it self which is sometimes called the King of Terrours A true Believer through the Grace and help of Christ is in a sort a King over this as having the sting of it taken out of it to him and of an enemy made a friend unto him as being the passage to Glory Thus is he a King in reference to the state of Grace And then in reference to the state of Glory also so far forth as he is an heir of Heaven and shall reign with Christ for ever and ever Thus he is a King in regard of right and title even here in this life though he be not in actual possession Therefore we should learn so to carry and demean our selves as suitable to this condition we should abhor to conform to the world and the lusts and vanities thereof as considering to what we are appointed we should endeavour to have a frame of spirit suitable to such a noble estate as this is wherein we are And this for the first piece of Dignity which is here mentioned and that is of Kings The second Dignity is of Priests And hath made us Priests c. These were another sort of persons who in times past were anointed and Christians are spiritually thus also in sundry respects First In regard of the Prayers which are continually put up by them both for themselves and others