Ninevites did and what God himselfe did The actions of the Ninevites concerning The people King of Nineveh The actions of the people are Their faith Fruits of faith The actions of the King are set downe His example Verse 6. His proclamation 7.8 His proclamation is published confirmed The publishing and proclaiming thereof instructeth What they must not doe What they must doe The actions of God what he did He saw their workes that they turned Verse 10. He repented of the evill threatned Verse 10. The beginning of their conversion stood in this that they beleeved the word of God And this helped and furthered to stirre up faith in them that they considered they had to doe with God himselfe and not with the Prophet onely Wherein consider 2 King 14.6 that albeit hee was sent to them with heavy tydings as the Prophet said to the wife of Ieroboam Act. 7.27 yet they did not thrust him away from them as the Israelite did Moses Act. 7.27 they did not stretch forth their hand saying lay hold on him as Ieroboam did to the man of God 1 King 13.4 they did not mocke him and misuse him as the lewes did the Prophets 2 Chro. 36.16 they did not account him a mad fellow for his strange message Act. 26.24 as the Captaines did one of the Children of the Prophets 2 King 9.11 they did not waxe wroth and put him in a prison house as men in a rage as Asa dealt with Hanani the Seer 2 Chro 16.10 then bid them feed him with the bread of affliction with the water of affliction as Ahab gave charge to the Governor of the City concerning Micaiah 1 King 22.27 They did not put him to death and stone him with stones as they dealt with Zechariah at the commandement of the King 2 Chro. 24.31 they did not suggest to the King Ionah hath conspired against thee in the middest of the Citie the land is not able to beare all his words or say unto him O thou Seer goe fly thee away into the Land of Iudah and there eate bread and prophecie there but prophecie not any more at Nineveh for it is the house of the kingdom as Amaziah said to Amos Amo. 7.10.12 Neither did they put him in the stockes and smite him on the mouth with the fist as Pashur did Ieremy and the standers by did Paul Ier. 20.2 Act. 23.2 Neither did they apprehend him and throw him into a dungeon or accuse him saying This man is worthy to die for he hath prophecied against this Citie all the words that ye have heard as the Priests and false Prophets pleaded against Ieremy at an other time Ier. 26.11 neither did they drive him out of their coastes and thrust him out of their Citie as the people of Nazareth dealt with Christ Luk. 4.29 and the Gadarens when they had lost their Swine Math. 8.34 Neither did they stop their eares and gnash on him with their teeth and runne upon him with one accord as they served Stephen Act. 7.54.57 Neither did they beat him or charge command him that he should speak no more in the name of the Lord his God and then let him goe as they dealt with Peter and the other Apostles Act. 5.40 but they heard him attentively patiently and readily they accounted him not as a troubler of the state as the filth of the world 1 Cor. 4.13 and as the off-scouring of all things but they received his words as the oracles of God they perswaded themselues that he was sent unto them of God and constantly beleeved that those things would undoubtedly come to passe which he had spoken Of this faith what it was see more afterward vers 9. This threatning for the certainty of it is utttered in the time present for in the originall it is word for word is overthrowne and therefore the destruction being so neere and so certaine it was high time for them to looke about them We learne from hence that the word preached is the ordinary meanes ordained of God to worke in us faith Doct. 4 The word preached is the instrument of faith as Rom. 1.16 1 Cor. 15.1.2 Iam. 1.18 Examples hereof are plentifull to be found in the Acts of the Apostles after the hearing of the word they were pricked in their hearts and said What shall we do Act. 2.37 they received his word gladly and were baptized vers 41. many of them which heard the word beleeved Chap. 4.4 Cornelius is directed to Peter who should tell him words whereby he and all his house should be saved Act. 11.14 The Gentiles were glad when they heard the word and as many as were ordained to eternall life beleeved chap. 13.48 the Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul chap. 16.14 some beleeved and clave unto him chap. 17.4.12.34 and 18 9.10 The Souldiers the Publicanes and the people that came out to heare the preaching of Iohn were converted and said Master what shall we doe Luk. 3.10.12.14 The reasons Reason 1 First because this is the high ordinance of God which he hath appointed to beginne and worke in us faith and so the conversion of a sinner 1 Cor. 1.21 If he had ordained other means other means should have bin effectuall Secondly faith cannot be without knowledge knowledge cannot be without instruction Mat. 2.7 instruction cannot be without such as instruct us in the faith and therefore we must necessarily heare their voyce and seeke the law at their mouthes Mal. 2.7 Thirdly to this end and purpose God gave gifts to men and called them to beare his word to his people Eph. 4.11.12 so the Prophet teacheth that the Priestslips must preserue knowledge Mal. 2. Lastly our first parents were turned from God and drawne to unbeleefe by hearing the voyce of the old Serpent the devill it is therefore convenient that the elect by hearing the voyce of God should be converted to the faith and returne to him that calleth Obj. 1. If this be so Obiect 1 then it must needes goe hard with deafe men that cannot heare For if faith presuppose knowledge knowledge instruction and instruction hearing which is the sense of learning what shall we thinke of them that are borne deafe How shall they beleeve and be saved Answ Blind men may heare but deafe men cannot I answere albeit God doth ordinarily worke faith by hearing yet he can and doth extraordinarily worke faith without it and of stones raise up children to Abraham as he gave faith to Rahab the harlot by hearing of his workes not of his word Ios 2. For the holy Ghost that teacheth by inspiration supplieth the want of outward meanes by an inward motion in their hearts So that albeit they cannot have knowledge nor salvation by the hearing of faith yet they may have them by an inward worke supplying the defect of the outward senses Secondly Object 2 how shall infants and children
beleeve and be saved seeing they are not capable of this hearing through weakenesse of nature or if they heare they cannot understand which is all one as not to heare at all Answer I answer the doctrine is to be understood of such as are of yeares of discretion as also other precepts are to be taken 2 Thess 3.10 Math. 24.15 We must therefore answere this Objection as the former For deafe men and children are in this point alike God supplying their wantes so that all of them that are elect are taught inwardly and engraffed into Christ for salvation effectually as it is said of Iohn the Baptist He shall be filled with the holy Ghost even from his mothers wombe Luk. 1.15 and thus as the Spirit supplieth the want of Baptisme in like maner it doth the want of faith But cannot God save without preaching Object 3 or must all heare Sermons that will be saved Can he not save them that heare seldome or neuer as well as those that doe heare often What say you of them that have not the word Answ I answere we speake not of the power of God what he can doe but of his will what he promiseth and purposeth to do We doe not deny but he can save without the preaching of the word yea without the word but when he sendeth the ordinary meanes it is great folly to reason what he can do for then he tieth us to the word and we may be wel assured he will save us no otherwise He can preserue life without meat as we see in Moses and Elias but when we have plenty of foode at hand and yet refuse to eate we tempt God and shorten our daies and must needes perish without using the meanes As he fed Israel with Manna in the wildernesse where they had neither seed time nor haruest But when once they came into the land of Canaan a land flowing with milke and honey Iosh 5.12 then the Manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corne of the land neither had they it any more but they did eate of the fruit of the land of Canaan So in the times of the ruines of the Church and desolations of Sion when the word is precious hee giveth it food which the world knoweth not of and feedeth as it were with hidden Manna and setteth up a light in their hearts to guide their pathes in the way of peace as it were in the darkenesse of the world but when he hath sent a plentifull haruest and labourers to gather in the corne and when he hath set up a candle upon the candlesticke to give light to all that are in the house woe unto them that despise the provision he hath provided for them and shut their eyes in the cleere light of the Gospell and so sit in the shadow of death these doe no better than murther their owne soules For they tempt God who have the word and will not heare it and make a needlesse triall of his absolute power what in himselfe he is able to doe God could have taught the Eunuch without the ministery of Philip Act. 8.26 and 10.4.5 as he could have instructed Cornelius by the Angel that appeared unto him but the Angel directed him to Peter to teach us that it is his Ordinance we should submit our selues unto it if we would attaine to saluation for that is the wisedome of God unlesse we account our selues wiser than God and know a nearer way to the kingdome of heaven than he hath shewed us But let such as follow their owne way take heede they neuer come there and so in the end while they professe themselues wise prove themselues to be starke fooles Vse Vse 1 1. This reproueth sundry sortes First of all the Recusants among us and the Popish rabble of that Antichristian generation which stoppe their eares like the Adder Psal 58.5 and will not hearken to the voice of Charmers charming never so wisely and withdraw themselues from our Church-assemblies and so forsake their owne mercy To these we may joyne the cursed crue of damnable Atheists who binde themselues in a league of infidelity and barre themselues of the meanes of faith and saluation let them feare least one day they roare in hell where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth and their Elysian fields proue hellish flames This is Gods deepe iudgement upon them to revenge the contempt of his holy word and for this cause he sendeth them strong delusions that they should beleeue a lie 2 Thes 2.11.12 that they all might be damned who beleeve not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousnesse Both those sortes refuse to ioyne with us in the seruice of God in the word in praiers and in the Sacraments Such may be compelled by the magistrate to the exercises of religion Recusansie and rebellion came in together And the rather because Recusancy came in with treachery and Rebellion For untill treason beganne to be plotted called to this day the rebellion in the North and the Bul of Pius Quintus was published recusancy was not practised nor the name heard of but as they began together so they have growne up and continued together and I am perswaded so long as the one remaineth the other will not be forgotten This is the sottishnes that is found in that Synagogue which hath euermore hatched rebellion in her bosome and shewed her selfe an enimy to princes and their Scepters Hence it is that ignorance is made the mother of devotion Hence it is that Images are made lay-mens bookes But God hath appointed his Church to be instructed in the faith not by looking upon an image Non oculus spectaculo sed animus verbâ— pascenduâ— est Lactant. but by hearing his own ordinance not by feeding the eye with Pictures but the heart with the Preaching of his word Secondly it condemneth the corrupt practise of the Separation who deny to our Church the name of a true Church and Ministers thereof to be lawfull Ministers and as they teach that our Church is false and Antichristian so they charge us to be false Idolatrous and Antichristian ministers no better than the Priestes of Baal These are they that under colour of zeale are revolted from us which say stand by thy selfe come not neere to me Esay 65.5 for I am holâ—eâ— than thou But I would aske the Question of them In what Church they had faith wrought in them and by what Ministers as it were by spirituall fathers they were begotten againe to a lively hope of the heavenly inheritance If there be any faith or grace in any of them as I trust there is in many of them howsoever they iudge uncharitably of us where had they it or how obtained they it but by the Ministery of the Church of England So that we are a true Church and have true ministers even our enimies being iudges I may therefore demand of these as our Saviour did of
are sinners So then this rule teacheth that all men are under the guilt and punishment of sinne which is a matter of such danger as it were better to have the whole weight of the world upon us then to lye under the burden and bondage of one sinne because the wrath of God which is the heaviest thing under heaven doth hang upon sinne and sinners for ever We are all of us condemned men there is not any one which is not in himselfe damned and forlorne Their is nothing in our whole nature but corruption we are loathsome and abhominable in his sight the heires of death and destruction the enemies of God the bondslaves of Satan held under his dominion even from our mothers wombe This doth admonish us of the miserable condition of all mankinde through sin no creature more wretched we have no cause to aduance or magnifie our selues It stirreth up our mindes to seeke after a Saviour Luk. 15.32 to find us being lost and to quicken us being dead It teacheth us to thinke seriously upon the riches of Gods mercy Eph. 2.4 to praise his name for his great love wherewith he hath loved us It putteth us in mind by our owne estate of corruption to reprove others with compassion Gal. 6.1 considering our selues that are no lesse sinners and stand in the same case and condemnation as well as they The fift rule is The fift rule that the naturall man can doe nothing at all that can please God For untill we have faith and repentance all that we do or can doe is sinfull and abhominable in his sight Euery thought of the heart of man is evill and onely evill Gen. 6.5 8 21. and continually evill Gen. 6. 8. It is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it The wised me of the flesh Ier. 17.9 and therefore the best thing in a carnall man even whatsoever he understandeth or perceiveth is enmity against God Rom 8.8 7 18. 3. for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be The Apostle saith of himselfe I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing and generally of mankind he pronounceth Tit. 1.15 There is none righteous no not one they are all gone out of the way and againe Vnto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbeleeuing is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled The doctrine of Pelagius The opinion of Pelagus that a man that is an infidell and unregenerate hath in himselfe and of himselfe a sufficient power to beleeve and to fulfill the law Ezek. 36.26 is as contrary to the whole doctrine of the Scriptures as light to darknesse as sweet to sower For the Prophets and Apostles teach that the heart of man is stony and therefore in it owne nature unfit and uncapable to receive the impression of the law of God unlesse God write on that stone with his singer that the naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.14 2 Cor. 3.5 Phil. 2.13 Eph 2.1.5 Col. 2.13 for they are foolishnes unto him neither can he know them that the Ephesians before their calling yea and all of us are dead in sinnes and trespasses Hence it is that the Scripture calleth the change of man by regeneration sometimes an other birth Ioh. 3. Sometimes the creation of the new man Eph 4. Sometimes an other resurrection from the dead Luk. 15.32 Ioh. 5.25 For as a dead carkasse can by no meanes dispose nor prepare it selfe to the refurrection as Lazarus lay in his grave stinking untill by the powerfull voyce of Christ he was raised up to life or as a thing that is not created cannot further it selfe any thing to the creation of it selfe so man in the state of nature and before his regeneration hath nothing whereby he may dispose himselfe or further his new birth or spirituall life This rule teacheth that many there are who albeit they blesse themselues as men in a good case yet are found the children of wrath the enemies of righteousnesse haters and hated of God Such are they that rest in outward or ciuil honesty that boast and bragge that they are no adulters no theeues no murtherers that they live peaceably and quietly among their neighbours and pay every man his owne and are not all these good Yes doubtlesse they are good but they are not good enough these must we doe Math. 23.23 but other things may not be left â—â—done For if they could looke throughly and unpartially into their soules they should finde there a filthy sinke and puddle of all manner of sinne and nothing else It teacheth that we have no freedome left in any faculty of the soule to spirituall goodnesse and therefore beateth down the doctrine of the Church of Rome that setteth up and aduanceth mans free will as if it were not lost but onely weakned It teacheth that before the naturall man be washed and purged every thing is uncleane unto him yea he tainteth and defileth every thing that he toucheth which way so ever he turneth himselfe all his actions spirituall civill or naturall are polluted because they proceed from uncleane hearts and consciences His spirituall actions which may seeme best of all his hearing the word reading the Scriptures praying to God receiving of the Sacraments all being the sacrifices of the wicked Pro. 15.8 28.9 are abhomination unto the Lord the person must please him before our workes can please him These divine ordinances how pure and precious soever in their owne nature as instituted of him are turned into sinne His civill actions and honest dealings in the world his buying selling giving lending his labours in all the workes of his calling are in him and to him no better then sinnes Lastly his naturall actions as eating drinking sleeping and the like all are vncleane unto him and in his use To conclude it teacheth us the necessity of regeneration in every part especially it should move us to beware that we approach not neere the Courts of God neither compasse his altar without washing our hands in innocency Psal 26.6 and to pray unto him to sanctifie us throughout and to wash the whole man both soule and body The last Rule is The sixt rule that the posting over the denying and diminishing of our sinnes is one of the greatest hindrances of repentance Some post them over and thinke to save themselues by appealing and appeaching of others as Adam his wife Gen. 3. Some deny their sinnes and so thinke to hide them as Ananias and Sapphira Act. 5. Some extenuate and excuse them as Saul 1 Sam. 15. Thus we stop the passage to repentance and harden our hearts that we cannot turne unto God Whereas we should feare our sinnes more then his plagues How many are there that stand in feare of
is not so easie to let it out againe so it is with sinne it is no hard thing to make shipwrack of faith and a good conscience and to pull up the bankes of the feare of God whereby sinne is kept out but we shall find it one of the hardest things in the world to cast it out of the heart when it hath gotten firme possession and therefore it must be our labour and wisedome to prevent sinne in the beginning lest by continuance it take roote and be as a disease that is incurable Secondly it serveth as an instruction to the Ministers of God that we cease not with the Dresser in this place to digge about them that remaine unfruitfull and dung them that is to labour 〈◊〉 â—yeth in us to further their conversion Let us all follow the example of Peter when the Lord had said unto him Launch out into the deepe and let downe your nettes for a draught he answered Master Luk. 5.5 we have toyled all night and have taken nothing neverthelesse at thy word I will let downe the net Matt. 13.27 so must we cast out the net of the Gospel into the sea and gather the good into vessels but cast the bad away And if it fall out that we draw none to the shore 2 Cor. 2.15 yet are we the sweet savour of God as well in them that perish as in them that are saved and God no lesse accounteth of our labours if we have beene faithfull and conscionable then if we had converted many thousand soules To this end the Lord himselfe commandeth Paul not to hold his peace at Corinth Act. 18.10 but to speake boldly because he had much people in that City The husbandman must digge and dung his ground and cast the seed into the earth but he cannot give the earely and the latter raine and albeit he finde a thinne harvest he may be greeved yet het he is not discouraged We are commanded to feed the flocke committed unto us woe to us if we preach not the Gospel but we must evermore commit the successe to him that hath the hearts of all men in his owne power Mat. 3.11 Iohn Baptist did baptize with water to the remission of sinnes but he could not Baptize with the holy Ghost So we may teach and preach the word of the kingdome but as it fell out with the sower that went out to sow some fell by the high way side Matt. 13.4.5.7 some in stony ground and other among thornes so must we make our account it will be with us yet this is our comfort our judgment is with with the Lord and the reward of our worke with our God Esa 49.4 1 Pet. 5.4 and when the cheefe shepheard shall appeare we shall receive a crowne of glory that fadeth not away Lastly it teacheth generally a good duty and direction to all the faithfull namely that upon this ground we exhort and admonish one another and seeke to winne and gaine them to God that so we may bring home the lost sheepe upon our shoulders This the Apostle prescribeth exhort one another daily Heb. 3.13 while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulnesse of sinne Who accounteth not him a mercilesse man that having escaped danger of robbing or drowning yet giveth not warning to him which traveleth that way lest hee fall into the hands of theeves and be robbed or passe by the waters and be drowned but much more is he without mercy and guilty of the blood of the soule that seing his brother overtaken in sinne and taken in the snare of the Devill ever seeketh to set him at liberty Now we have sundry motives to move us to this worke of mercy farre more profitable to men and acceptable to God then the sacrifice of Almes-giving that toucheth the body in respect of God in respect of our selves and in respect of others In respect of God Rom. 11.23 for it maketh manifest his power to be infinite that he is able to graft them in againe as the Apostle speaketh of the unbeleeving Iewes albeit through unbeleefe they were broken off and it turneth to the greater praise of his glory and the honour of his name which we ought to seeke above all things The more dangerous the disease is and the longer it hath continued the more doth the skill and learning of the Physitian appeare Rom. 5.20 so are we the more to magnifie the mercy of God in that where sinne bounded grace doth much more abound Touching our selves we thereby exercise the giftes that God hath given doe not as wicked and sloathfull servants Mat. 25.26 digge them in the earth and hide our Lords mony besides we know not how soone it may be said to us Come give an account of thy steward-ship Luk. 16.1 for thou maist be no longer steward Lastly we shall free our owne soules and not make our selves partakers of other mens sinnes for by conuivence and holding our peace we draw guiltinesse upon our owne soules In respect of others we may be meanes to save a soule as Iam. 5. Iam. 5.19.20 If any of you doe erre from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the errour of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Vers 9. And if it beare fruit well and if not then after that thou shalt cut it downe We heard before of the intreaty and intercession of the Dresser now the condition followeth which is double first if after all his labour it bring forth fruit Secondly if it bring not forth fruit one of the twaine it must of necessity doe there is no third either it must be fruitfull or vnfruitfull either we must make the tree good or evill The first part of the speech is defective for there is nothing in the originall to answere to the Condition the translaters have supplied the word Well and somewhat is necessary to be supplied to make the sense and sentence perfect I would thinke a word might be borrowed and supplied out of the former verse where the Vine-dresser saith Let it alone this yeare also so in this place If it bring forth fruit Let it alone or thou shalt let it alone as also appeareth by the contrary condition in the last words If not thou shalt cut it downe He expresseth bearing fruit first besore he mention the cutting of it downe because it was the chiefe and principall in the dressers intention and because all his labour of digging and dunging tended to this end and purpose Now he intreateth that it may be let alone if it bring forth fruit he yeeldeth to the cutting of it downe Doct. if it continue unfruitfull This teacheth in both the conditions Promises and threatnings are both of them condicionall 1 King 8.25 that as well the promises of grace mercy as all the
name of good workes which neuerthelesse are neither the onely good workes nor the chiefest good workes For we looke upon our selves in the glasse of the law and try our selves thereby These workes are of two sorts some generall and others speciall The generall are such as concerne all among which the workes of the first Table being the first and great Commandements Math. 22.38 must have the first place to love God above our selves to feare him to beleeve in him to trust in him to pray unto him to serve and worship him to reverence his name and to sanctifie his Sabbath and the workes of the second Table are like Gal. 5.22.23 for the fruits of the spirit are manifest love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse faith meekenesse temperance and such like These belong to all and must be practised of all persons high and low rich and poore none may excuse themselves The speciall workes are such as belong to every man in his particular calling For as we have all a generall calling as we are Christians so we are set in severall callings such as are superiors and inferiors as the Magistrate and subject the husband and wife father and sonne master and servant we must labour to be found faithfull in these how low so ever our place be if we be found carefull and conscionable even the meanest servant that drudgeth in the Kitchin if his calling be nothing but to scoure spittes Eph. 6.6.7 or to wipe shooes yet if he be obedient to his Master as unto Christ not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the servant of Christ doing the will of God from the heart with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men he is no lesse accepted of God in his place then he that preacheth the word or he that ruleth a kingdome Well or thou shalt let it alone These words are expresly mentioned but they or some such like must necessarily be understood as if it were said let it stand and continue in the Vineyard that it may bring forth more fruit as Ioh. Ioh. 15.2 15. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit Doct. This teacheth us that the fruits of repentance obtaine the pardon and forgivenesse of all sinnes and offences Repentance obtaineth forgivenesse of sinnes and the favour of God and prevent Gods wrath and judgements and procure his love and favour He hath made a sure promise of remission of former offences to all such as truly turne unto him Thus the Prophet hath Wash you make you cleane take away the evill of your workes from before mine eyes c. then though your sinnes were as crimsin Esay 1.16.18 55.6.7 they shall be as wooll and though they were as scarlet they shall be as white as snow and chap 55. Seeke the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neere let the wicked forsake his wayes and the unrighteous his owne imaginations c. let him returne unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him Ezek. 18.23 And the Prophet Ezekiel chap. 18. I will not the death of a sinner but rather that he repent and live where he coupleth these two together The truth of this point is farther confirmed by sundry examples as 2 Sam. 2 Sam. 12.13 12.13 When David had acknowledged his sinne against the Lord the Prophet said for his comfort The Lord also put away thy sinne The like we see in Manasseth when he was carried away captive and clapt up in prison being in great tribulation prayed unto the Lord 2 Chr. 33.12 and humbled himselfe greatly be fore the Lord God of his fathers and God was intreated of him and heard his prayer and brought him backe againe to Ierusalem and set him upon the throne of his fathers The Publican smote his brest saying Lord Luk. 18.13.14 be mercifull to me a sinner I tell you this man went downe to his house justified rather then the proud Pharisee The like I might say of Paul 1 Tim. 1.13 he obtained mercy and forgivenesse when he was converted so the penitent theefe upon the Crosse said to the Lord Iesus Lord Luk. 23.42.43 remember me when thou commest into thy kingdome and Iesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Mar. 1.4 Hence it is that the Evangelist witnesseth that Iohn did baptise in the wildernesse and preach the baptisme of repentance for the remission of sinnes where we see he knitieth repentance and forgivenesse of sinnes together The reasons first Reason 1 all penitent persons shall have the blood of Christ Iesus to wash clense their soules from all their sinnes a singular benefit This reason the Prophet vrgeth Esay 1.17.17.18 For to speake properly nothing can clense us but Christs blood so foule and filthy we are and therefore it is called cleane water Ezek. 36.25 1 Ioh. 1.7.9 I will powre cleane water upon him and thus the Apostle Iohn saith If we confesse our sinnes he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sinnes and the blood of Iesus Christ his Sonne clenseth us from all sinne Secondly such shall have right to carthly blessings and to a right use of them to their everlasting comfort as Esay 1. Ye shall eate the good things of the land Esay 1.19.20 but if they refused and rebelled they should be destroyed for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Let us apply these things First conclude Vse 1 that all impenitent persons are out of Gods favour and protection and lye under all the plagues and punishments that God denourceth against sinners This is a fearefull estate and condition Deut. 28.16 to be cursed in the whole course of our life at home and abroad in the City and in the field in all that we put our hand unto Deut. 28. The curse of God bringeth with it all miseries of this life and of the life to come If then we repent not we die Secondly they that are truly penitent are truly happy for that man is blessed Psal 32.1.2 38.4 whose transgressions are for given and whose sinne is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity There cannot be a greater blessing befall us in this world then to get pardon of our finnes for all the burdens that we can beare are not to be compared to the burden of sin and therefore to be lighted of it is one of the greatest blessings of all the spottes staines that can sticke unto us Iam. 1.21 sinne is the filthiest and therefore to be clensed and washed from it maketh us cleane in his sight Lastly hence ariseth matter of comfort to all such as earnestly endeavour this worke of clensing and purging of themselves The vvay and the meanes to attaine
it make us not better it maketh us worse A soft heart is a singular blessing they are thrice happy that have attained unto it on the other side the sinner that is as brasse and iron and past feeling lyeth under an heavy curse Pro. 20.12 Hence it is that Salomon sayth The hearing eare and the seeing eye the Lord hath made even both of them We cannot see what is before us untill God direct us Gen. 21.19 Luk. 24.16.31 We cannot heare the voice that soundeth untill he open our eares Act. 22.9 If then he have opened our eares that it may be said of us My sheepe heare my voyce Ioh. 10 27. and I give unto them eternall life and they shall never perish and if withall he opened our hearts as he did the heart of Lydia Act. 16.14 that we may attend to the things which are spoken We have received such a blessing as many thousands do want and for which we are bound to give continuall thankes to almighty God to whom be praise in the Church for ever Amen FINIS A Recapitulation of the Doctrines handled in this Scripture THe way to prevent Gods judgments is to repent Doubtlesse such as continue in sinne without repentance shall perish We are rather to looke to our selves then to censure others Outward judgments neither alwaies seaze upon the worst sort neither alwayes free the best men God hath many wayes to take away mans life and that suddainely when pleaseth him The wicked are by nature bloody and cruell Examples of Gods judgements upon some are profitable to others Jt is lawfull for the Minister of God to use parables and similitudes The end of Gods patience ought to be our repentance The favour and patience of God toward his Church is infinite Patience neglected and abused bringeth destruction Evill minded men are altogether unprofitable to themselves and others Gods children make intercession for others and are heard We should not utterly despaire of the salvation of others howsoever they runne astray The promises and threatnings of God are conditionall The barren estate is very dangerous neere to the fire Repentance obtaineth for givenesse of sinnes and the favour of God All that are in the Church are not true members of the Church The Lrod though he suffer long punisheth at last Such as grow desperate and are past recovery God is determined to destroy FINIS PHISICKE AGAINST FAMINE OR A SOVERAIGNE Preservative against all distrustfull thoughts and cares touching the things of this life prescribed and administred by the best Physicion of soule and body Christ Iesus Comfortable in these dayes Opened and expounded in certaine Sermons by WILLIAM ATTERSOLL Minister of the Word of God PSAL. 37.25 I have beene yong and now am old yet have I not seene the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread ROM 8.32 He that spared not his owne Sonne but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things LONDON Printed by E. A. for Michael Sparke the yonger dwelling at the blue Bible in Greene Arbour 1632. TO THE RIGHT VVORshipfull and worthy Lady the Lady DOROTHY SHVRLEY all happinesse in this life and in the life to come Madam THe saying of the Apostle is remarkable and never to be forgotten 1 Tim. 4.8 6.6 Godlinesse is profitable unto all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come and afterward in the same Epistle Godlines with cōtentment is great gaine For what can it profit a man if hee should gaine the whole world and then lose his owne soule Now the drift of this ensuing Treatise as appeareth by the Title is to shew to a godly Christian received already into the love and favour of God in this life looking for happines in heaven after this life by what holy meanes he may support his heart as posts doe the house with sufficient contentment against all the miseries that doe or may assault him in time of necessity The crosses and tentations wherewith the life especially of a poore Christian is distressed are manifold and Satan worketh upon their severall wants to surprize them and make them often cry out What shall we eate Matth. 6.31 or what shall we drinke or wherewithall shall we be clothed Every calling in the world from the highest to the lowest is assaulted with his proper and peculiar tentations and there are certaine unlawfull and ungodly courses practised by wicked man which we may not unfitly call The speciall sinnes of such a calling Hence it is that the Apostle among other precepts beateth upon this Heb. 13.5 6. Gen. 28.15 Deut. 31.6 8. Iosh 1.5 Let your conversation be without covetousnesse and bee content with such things as ye have for hee hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee so that we may boldly say The Lord is my helper I will not feare what man shall doe unto me and our Saviour to comfort us against feare of famine sendeth us sometimes to God sometimes to our selves sometimes to the Heaven sometimes to the earth and sometimes to the Gentiles that by all these wee might have strong consolation and rest in him that hath given us both our lives and our bodies Consider a little the History of the Creation as it is described in the Booke of Genesis God made all the Creatures to serve for mans use before he made man himselfe wherein wee may behold a perpetuall patterne of his providence that he never bringeth any into the world but that first hee ordaineth things needfull for them for the time alotted them to be there even as milke in the Mothers brests for the child to sucke before ever the child be borne to sucke the same A very gaod patterne alwaies to have before on eyes against that distrust and infidelity which commonly hangeth on and haunteth the nature of man in those matters Let us also take heed of setting our heart upon the world and the things in the world and be ready evermore to confesse in word and shew it by our practice that we account our selves to be but as Strangers and Pilgrims in this world Heb 11.13 Psal 62.10 if riches increase we must looke to it that we set not our hearts upon them and we must use the world as if we used it not because the fashion thereof passeth away And if we doe not set our hearts and affections upon our riches sundry good fruits will follow thereupon First it bringeth comfort and contentment with our estate as being that portion which God allotteth unto us maketh us not to repine against his providence because we have not a larger allowance for he that doth not too much affect their presence will not too much bewaile their absence neither be discontent because he hath not abundance of that which hee doth not much regard but as the Apostle saith 1 Tim. 6.8 Having food and raiment will
of man what is that proverbe that yee have in the Land of Israel saying The dayes are prolonged and every vision faileth Tell them therefore thus saith the Lord God I will make this proverbe to cease they shall use it no more but say to them The daies are at hand the word that I speake shall not be prolonged for in your dayes O rebellious house will I say the word and in your daies I will performe it saith the Lord God Let us therefore stirre up our selves to repentance and amendment of life to prevent his wrath least we rushing on in sinne doe rush into our destruction Thirdly if God threaten and there follow no repentance be well assured that which he hath threatned shall come to passe Gen. 15.16 Gen. 15.16 the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full but when they had filled up the measure then his judgements were to fall upon them O how many examples have we to terrify us and to verify this to our hearts and consciences as the old world Sodome and Gomorrah the falling of the Israelites into the hands of the Cananites the Ammonites and the Amalekites mentioned almost in every place of the booke of Iudges the carrying away of the ten Tribes never restored the captivity of the rest the seven Churches of Asia the destruction of the Iewes by the Romans called the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place Dan. 9.27 Matth. 24.15 and sundry others all which assure us of the truth of this point Let us apply this to our selves and reason as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 11.20.21 If God spared not the naturall branches take heed least he also spare not thee and if the branches were broken off through unbeleefe let not us be high-minded but feare We heare the threatnings of God denounced and his fearefull judgements published and pronounced by his faithfull servants but what repentance what amendment followeth May we not say with the Prophet I hearkned and heard but they spake not aright Ier. 8.6.7 no man repented him of his wickednesse saying what have I done every one turne to his course as the horse rusheth into the battell c. And is it not so in our times nay rather is it not worse We are so farre from repentance and turning to God that the Lord seemeth in his just judgement to have given us over and forsaken us and to have blinded our eyes to have stopped our eares and to have hardned our hearts least we should see with our eyes and heare with our eares and understand with our hearts and should returne and bee saved Sometimes he doth take away his word utterly and hee threatneth it as a grievous judgement unto the Iewes Matth. 21.43 The kingdome of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof and we are assured of the accomplishing thereof Rom. 11.12 because the fall of them was the rising of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles Sometimes he will have it to remaine and continue among a people for the farther hardning of their hearts and the increasing of their just judgement and condemnation This is a secret judgement and therefore more sharpe and greevous than the former as Esa 6. Make the heart of this people fat Esay 6.10 as they had fatted and fleshed themselves in sinne and even glutted themselves in iniquity make their eares heavy as they had stopped and stuffed them with vanity that the word could not enter and shut their eyes as they had drowsie and sleepy eyes and had closed the eyes of their bodies so God threatneth to shut the eyes of their minds as men benummed and past feeling least they should see with their eyes and convert and be healed Lastly as it is with the threatnings of God so on the other side it is with his promises We have many worthy and precious promises mentioned in the word some of this life some of the life to come some temporall and some eternall but all sorts are conditionall and all sorts are to us as if they were never made except wee leave our sinfull waies and so turne to the Lord with all our hearts Psal 130.4 Exod. 20.5 Deut. 28.3 4 5. c. Matth. 6.33 We have the promise of mercy and forgivenesse reserved for us under hope but to whom is it made to them that feare him and love him Wee have the promise of earthly blessings to be ministred unto us Deut. 28.3.4 c. but to whom To such as first seeke the kingdome of God and to none others We are ready to lay hold on the promise but we forget the condition like hirelings that regard the wages more than the worke There is a promise to heare our prayers and to save us but to whome is it made Not to the prophane and to unbeleevers Ioh. 9.31 Psal 66.18 for God heareth not sinners and if we regard wickednesse in our hearts the Lord will not heare us as wee shall shew afterward This admonisheth us of two things One that wee despaire not nor distrust the mercies of God toward us in earthly things or in spirituall transitory or eternall in things of this life or the life to come we have comfort and strong consolation when wee are truly and unfainedly turned to God Psal 37.25 Heb. 13.5.6 The other that we blesse not our selves in our wickednesse adding drunkennesse unto thirst as the manner is promising unto our selves peace when wee are at warre and open defiance with God It may bee said to such as Iehu answered unto Iehoram 2 King 9.22 Esa 57.20.21 what hast thou to doe with peace What peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Iezabel and her witchcrafts are so many and Esa 57. The wicked are like the troubled sea when it can not rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt Iussus fuit pradicare aliquid amplius quà m hìc dicitur collego ex cap. 4 2. Io. Drusij Lection in cap. 1. Ioâ—ae there is no peace saith my God to the wicked Nineveh shall be overthrowne That is the City and the Citizens young and old rich and poore one and other This is the summe and effect of Ionahs Sermon We may not imagine that hee cryed nothing else or spake no more than is here expressed Iussus fuit pradicare aliquid amplius quam hic dicitur colligo ex cap. 1.4.2 Io. Drusiij Lection in cap. 1. Iona. Strabo lib. 5. Geograph Dio. Siculus lib. 3. cap. 1. Herod in Euterpe For no doubt the Prophet lifted up his voyce as a Trumpet and shewed them their sinnes and transgressions as the Lord had before shewed unto him that their wickednesse was come before his face Chap. 1.2 This was a great and wealthy citty seated by the river Tygris famous for the compasse of it and the tops and towers where with it florished as sundry histories doe
and admonish these that had eares to heare and came to the house of God to heare that they should be carefull to heare shewing that a man may heare and yet if he take not heed be as a deafe man and do no more good than a deafe man that heareth nothing it is all one as if he wanted eares or were as a stocke or a stone nay it had beene better he had never heard at all because by his hearing he heapeth up the greater judgement and the deeper condemnation Therefore Salomon saith Prouerb Pro. 4.20 and 8.32.34 4. My sonne attend to my words incline thine eares vnto my sayings and Chap. 8. Hearken unto me blessed is the man that heareth me watching daily at my gates waiting at the postes of my doores This is called the inclining of the eare to wisedome Pro. 2.2 Let it not then be with us as with the multitude and the greatest sort who suppose it to be sufficient to heare though they do no more but it is required of us to listen give eare nay both our eares to God Let it be with us in performing this duty as it is with worldly minded men when they heare of some good bargaine or matter of gaine and profit they raise and rouse up themselues instantly and lift up their eares they hearken very diligently and carefully Or let us deale as such persons doe who being present and hearing some what spoken do thinke that others speak of them O how will they bow forward and incline their bodies how wil they put their eares neere and close to them to heare if it be possible what they say yea sometimes would give much to know what they speake Thus let us doe wee should never heare the word but thinke the Minister speaketh not onely to us but of us and say to our owne hearts This is a word concerning me this is for my good and profit this will bring to me the greatest gaine I must therefore incline mine eare attentively and listen unto it duly and diligently If any aske what is the reason and whence it commeth that one hath an hearing eare and another hath a dull and deafe care the holy Scripture telleth us and testifieth Psal 40.6 Psal 40. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not require mine eares hast thou opened This is the eare-marke whereby we are knowne to be in the number of the sheepe of Christ Ioh. 10. No man can make and frame to himselfe such sanctified eares by his owne wit and industry but they must be prepared and given to us of the Lord and to him we must returne the praise and glory The second duty is to marke and regard what we heare The second duty of hearers How many are there that heare attend yet never once marke nor regard any thing what hath beene spoken and delivered for if they did they could not be so ignorant blinde as they are Life and death is set before us life to our salvation if it be embraced death to our condemnation if it be rejected but the most sort regard neither the one nor the other Hence it is that our Saviour instructing his Disciples warneth them that whosoever readeth must consider what he readeth Math. 24 15. Math. 24. The palpable ignorance that abideth in our assemblies springeth from this fountaine that we never weigh with our selues what we have heard neither call our selues to an account at any time what we have learned The third duty is to understand what we have heard The third duty of hearers For to heare and not to understand is as if we heard not at all or as if we heard a strange language Hence it is that our Saviour after his teaching examineth his Disciples what they had learned and how they had profited Math. 13.51 Have ye understood all these things Act 8.30 they said vnto him yea Lord. So Philip said to the Eunuch Vnderstandest thou what thou readest 1 Cor. 14.9.11.13.14 shewing thereby that reading and hearing and praying or whatsoever we doe without knowledge and understanding is nothing worth it is as sounding brasse or as a tinkling Cimball And in the description of the good and saving hearers it is said they heare the word and understand it and beare fruit so that they cannot bring forth fruite without understanding the word So then right hearers are understanding hearers How many have we that are hearers but how few that we can truely say of them they be understanding hearers These profit nothing alwayes learning and never attaining to any sound knowledge The fourth duty is to hold fast what we have heard The fourth dutie of hearers Pro. 2.1 2 King 7.8 marked and understood we must lay it nay locke it up closely and safely in the heart as in a closet as Pro. 2. receive my wordes and hide my Commandments within thee we must doe as the Lepers did when they had siluer and gold and much treasure they went and hid it and carried it away The word of God is a precious treasure the merchandise thereof is better than siluer and the gaine thereof is better than fine gold We should therefore both hold it fast and hide it safe The Apostle exhorteth us Heb. 2.1 that we ought to give the more diligent heed to the things which wee have heard least at any time we should let them slippe from us Revel 3.11 and Revel 3.11 hold fast that which thou hast till I come that no man take thy crowne from thee We must commit good instructions to memory We use not to lay up Iewels precious stones loosely and carelesly abroad had we rich treasure we would not lay it up negligently but keepe it under locke and key We should not let holy and heavenly instructions slip out of our minde and memory but hold them fast and firme in our remembrance This reproveth such as heare the word but it is with such dull deafe and drousie eares that it is no sooner in at the one eare but by and by it is out at the other Thus it commeth to passe that through the negligence of the hearer the labour and doctrine of the speaker is utterly lost The fift duty of the hearers The last duty is to apply to our selues what we have heard a notable meanes to strengthen memory and to hold fast that which is fading and falling away For as a medicine which is wholesome and healthfull in it selfe profiteth not the sick persons that doth despise and reject it and not apply it to himselfe so the hearing of the word and receiving of the Sacraments are all without fruit if we doe not apply them to our selues and by application make them our owne All hearing is no better than Hypocrisie without this For it is with us as it is at a feast So much is ours as we receaue and digest it skilleth not what others doe we are no way benefitted or
abolished these fundamentall points of religion and not have broched lyes in hypocrisie all men would soone have espied the treachery The like I might say of fasting What the Popish fast is What the Popish fast is I will describe out of their owne writers It is an abstinence from flesh onely and the things that come from it according to the order of the Church upon set and certaine times appointed to make satisfaction for our sinnes to merit the grace of Christ and to obtaine everlasting life Can light and darknesse be more contrary one to the other then these things are to the truth But this I have handled else where Comment upon Esther albeit the bare allegation be a sufficient confutation of this vanity Lastly it behoveth us to meet the Lord by prayer and fasting as the Church in all ages hath usually done in times of dāger It is the Counsell of the Prophet when the Lord commeth out as an armed man against his people to seek reconciliation and attonement with him Amos. 4.12 This will I doe to thee O Israel and because I will doe this unto thee prepare to meete thy God O Israel We are not stronger than he Psal 24.8 who is the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in battel Exod. 15.3 as a man of Warre and therefore we are not able to encounter him Remember the words of our Saviour Luk. 14. Luk. 14.31.32 What king going to make warre against another king sitteth not downe first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that commeth against him with twenty thousand or else while the other is yet a great way off hee sendeth an Ambassage and desireth conditions of peace The Lord is come out already against us and hath his twenty thousand in battel aray and hath smitten downe many thousands of us We cannot now say he is yet a great way off there is wrath gone out from the Lord the plague is begunne among the people Numb 16.46 and yet who almost layeth it to his heart Act. 12.20 O that there were that wisedome in us which was in the men of Tyre and Sidon when they knew that Herod was displeased with them they came with one accord and desired peace because their countrey was nourished by the kings country We know we feele the Lord is highly displeased with us and that we have provoked him to anger why do we then delay the time and send not out to him an embassage of prayer and repentance and offer conditions of peace This we must doe many wayes first accuse and endite our selues as guilty before him like poore prisoners standing at the the barre and holding up our hands Secondly Confesse our sinnes that have procured his heavy displeasure Thirdly Let us vow to forsake them this must evermore be joyned with confession Pro. 28. Fourthly Give no rest to our own soules till we be reconciled to God and restored to his favour againe and he have called in his judgments against us Lastly Eph. 4.22.23 let us leade a new life cast off the old man and be renewed in the spirit of our minde without this all our meetings and assemblies are nothing worth yea our prayers and fastings are turned into sinne Neither circumcision avayleth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature old things are passed away behold all things are made new 6. For word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and he layd his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and sate in ashes Hitherto of the solemne repentance of the Ninevites from the highest to the lowest now consider the actions of the King both in his owne person and in his proclamation Behold a wicked city turned from her wickednesse in the turning of an hand Ionah no sooner proclaimed destruction but the King sent out his Proclamation he no sooner heard of wrath denounced from the throne of God but he presently arose from his owne throne when he heard how they had all covered the whole land with their sinnes he covered himselfe with sackcloth he laid aside his royall robes and clad himselfe with repentance as with a robe See then the outward meanes of their repentance the word of the Prophet Ionah preached judgment through the City this could not long be hidden from the King and hence arose their turning to God Doct. This teacheth Repentance is wrought by the preaching of the word in the hearts of men that God worketh repentance and the conversion of a sinner by the Preaching of the Word The author and giver is God or else we never have it but the meanes and instrument by which he worketh it is the ministery of the Word The Apostle Paul exhorteth the servant of the Lord to instruct those that oppose themselues 2 Tim. 2.25 if God peraduenture will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Iam. 1.18 An other Apostle confirmeth the same Of his owne will he begate us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruites of his creatures And we have a third witnesse of another Apostle We are borne anew not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1. Pet. 1.23 by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever Reasons First the word is quicke and livelie Reason 1 powerfull and piercing sharper than any two edged sword Heb. 4.12 and entreth even to the dividing asunder of soule and spirit and of the joynts and marow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the hearts Heb. 4. Howbeit not from any inherent power in it selfe nor from the mouth of him that Preacheth it for he can give it no force Gal. 2.8 nor set any edge upon it but from the power of God as Gal. 2. He that wrought effectually in Peter to the Apostleship of the Circumcision the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles Secondly faith is the fountaine and beginning of repentance but whence have we faith but by the word as we have declared already that Ionah preached and the Ninevites beleeved This also the Apostle teacheth Rom. 10.17 Faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God So then these three stand thus in order the word faith and repentance How shall they heare saith the same Apostle and in the same place without a Preacher The Ninevites heard Ionah before they beleeved and they beleeved his preaching before they repented if they had not heard the Prophet they had never beleeved and if they had never beleeved they had not to turned the Lord. NO man therefore can be converted except he have beleeved Thirdly the conversion of a sinner is as I may say the onely miracle of the Gospell It is usuall with the Lord to shadow his miracles by outward meanes Pro. 25.2 that he might conceale his owne workes as Pro. 25. The glory of God is to
conceale a thing secret Nay in this many miracles on an heape concurre together Is it not a miracle in the body to open the eyes of the blind Math. 10.8 11.5 Act. 26.18 2 Cor. 7.1 Eph. 2.1.5 to restore hearing to the deafe to raise the dead to clense the Lepers The penitent person hath received all these in his soule his eyes are opened his eares are boared he is clensed from his filthinesse and restored to life for being naturally borne dead in sinnes and trespasses he is quickned O how great a change and alteration is this But here a question may be asked Object whether this be a worke and effect of the Law are the threatnings thereof able to do it Answ or is it a fruit of the Gospell I answer the Law helpeth it forward it cannot worke it or bring it forth It prepareth to repentance but produceth it not so that the law is not excluded or quite shut out Rom. 3.20 Gal. 3.24 It serueth to bring us to the knowledge of our sinnes and miseries and thereby fitteth us to receive grace and mercy like eating salues that make way for curing medicines or like the sharpe needle that maketh way for the threed But it is the Gospell that hath the promise of pardon and forgivenesse and worketh repentance from dead workes and therefore it is a fruit of the Gospel The Law knoweth no remission of sins but is a letter that condemneth it promiseth no mercy but threatneth the curse against the transgressors Gal. 3.13 Vse Vse 1 1. This condemneth such as forsake and forget the ordinary way that God hath left to bring us to saluation and gape after miracles or revelations This is all one as if when the Lord heareth the Heauens and they heare the earth Hos 2.21.22 and the earth heareth the corne and the corne the people they will not feed thereof as base food but looke for Manna and bread from heaven are not such worthy to perish Hence it is that Abraham is brought in Luk. 16.31 answering the rich man that would have the dead sent to his brethren to reclaime them and bring them to repentance If they heare not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead How vainely then and idlely doe they prattle who to disgrace the Ministery of the word and the high ordinance of God to teach man by man alledge that they know not whether men speake the truth because all men are lyars and they are not able to try their doctrine but if they should heare the Lord himselfe speake or an Angel from heaven they would beleeve Iudg. 6 2â— 13.22 Gen. 16.2 Esay 6.3 These men neither know their owne weakenesse nor the power of God Not their owne weakenesse that are not able to endure the glory of him that speaketh from heaven nay this was the common voyce of such as heard an Angel We shall surely dy alas because I have seene an Angel of the Lord face to face not the power of God because he is infinite the Angels cover their faces before him the heavens are not cleane in his sight the earth trembleth when he sheweth his glory When the Israelites saw the lightnings and heard the noise of the thunder and sound of the Trumpet waxing lowder and lowder in the mount Exod. 20.18.19 so that Moses himselfe said I exceedingly feare and quake they sayd unto Moses Speake thou unto us and we will heare Heb. 12.21 but let not God speake unto us lest we die Deut. 5.25.26.28.29 If we heare the voyce of the Lord our God any more then we shall die for who is thereof all flesh that hath heard the voyce of the living God and lived This they spake and the Lord said They have well spoken all that they have spoken O that there were such an heart in them that they would feare me and keepe my Commandements alwayes that it might goe wel with them and with their Children for ever If this were wisedome in them to call for Moses to speake to them and not God what a foolish choise doe they make that call for God to speake to them and not Moses But of this also else where Secondly their case is fearefull and dangerous that are without the word there is no vision and therefore the people must needes perish Pro. 29.18 There the sheepe are without a sheepheard See examples Exod. 32.1 2 King 12.2 and none to have compassion upon them Math. 9.36 Neither is their state any better who albeit they are not without it yet regard it not but despise it in their hearts These are both alike saving that the latter is worser and more fearefull then the former The one are without the ordinary meanes the other without the use of the meanes and therefore without hope to come to repentance It was a fearefull judgement when our Saviour commanded the twelue saying Go not into the way of the Gentiles Math. 10.5 and into any City of the Samaritans enter ye not And when the Apostles went through the Cities to preach the Gospel Act. 16.6.7 they were forbidden by the holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia and afterward when they assaied to goe into Bithynia the Spirit suffered them not Was not this in effect as much as if the Lord had sayd give them no bread let them be famished I will not have these converted and consequently saved He that taketh away the meanes of life it is plaine he would not have that man live Woe then to all such retchlesse and carelesse persons as set light by this high ordinance of God that neither have it nor desire it but doubly wretched are they that despise it and wish in their hearts to be without it Can these perswade themselues they have attained to repentance What without the meanes but such is the necessity of repentance that without it we must perish for ever I may therefore say to such as the Apostle doth to the Iewes Well spake the holy Ghost unto our fathers Esay 6.9 Act. 28.26 Go unto this people and say hearing ye shall heare and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see and not perceive for the heart of this people is waxed grosse and their eares are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed least they should see with their eyes and heare with their eares and understand with their hearts and should be converted and I should heale them Thirdly behold the happy condition of such if they knew their owne happinesse to whomsoever God hath vouchsafed the preaching of the Gospell It is a manifest proofe he hath a people there whom he would have converted For as he shewed the Disciples to whom they should not goe Math. 10.6 Act. 18.9.10 so he sent them to the lost sheepe of the house of Israel Thus also he spake to Paul Act. 18. Be not afraid but speake and
afterward when the passion is past they are haile fellow well met with them This kind of reproofe seeldome or neuer doth any good it is so sharpe and biting So then to conclude this point reproofe must not be too cold neither to hote and hasty As Physicke that is ministred if it be too cold it never worketh but if too hote that it be ready to skald the mouth the patient will never suffet it to descend into the stomacke but both of them instead of doing Good doe hurt so it is in the matter of reproofe which is the Physicke of the soule to cure the diseases thereof when it is seasoned with wisedome and discretion and the golden meane observed between too much and too little but if it be given too cold Aurea mediocritas Horat. lib. â— Ode 10. 1 Sam. 2.24 we can looke for no benefit to come thereof as we see in the practise of Eli toward his sonnes 1 Sam. 2. on the other side if it be applied too hote as the Disciples would have dealt with the Samaritans Luk. 9.54 to call downe fire from heaven to consume them at once no man will suffer it to go downe into the bowels of the belly but distasteth the reproofe and the reprover Thirdly they that would be meanes to bring others to repentance or to godlinesse must first be such themselues for asmuch as otherwise we shall seeme to draw them in jest to speake one thing and to meane another not indeed and in truth to desire that which we make shew off For what man I pray you will be disswaded from drunkennesse by the perswasion of a drunkard or who will regard the words of a blasphemer when he findeth fault with swearing The person reprooved never regardeth or esteemeth any such reproofe he never layeth it to his heart but heareth it as words of course and scoffeth at such folly as one ready to cast the reproover in the teeth with the common proverbe Luk. 4.23 Physition heale thy selfe If we would doe any good with our reprooving and seeke the amendment of such as goe astray we must first cast the beame out of our owne eye Math. 7.5 and then we shall see cleerly to cast out the mote out of our brothers eyes Hence it is that the Apostle saith Rom. 2.21 Thou that teachest an other teachest thou not thy selfe c. Such therefore as goe about to perswade others to a love of the truth and of the house of God where the truth is published must give an example to others and be a patterne and president thereof themselves and so lead them the way Thus the Prophet fortelleth the people should do under the Gospel Zach. 8.21 Let us goe speedily to pray before the Lord and to seeke the Lord of hostes I will goe also as if they should say Come friends come neighbours let us goe to the house of God to pray to heare his word to sanctifie his Sabbaths to learne his wayes and I will goe with you I will beare you company Thus also doth the Prophet David Psal 111. as appeareth in the title compared with the beginning of the Psalme Praise ye the Lord I will praise the Lord with my whole heart otherwise we shall be like the Statues in the high way which point the way to others but never remove out of their place themselves or like our common ringers who helpe to bring others into the Church and then depart themselves Lastly as we must call upon others so we must be content to be called upon by others especially such whose calling is most familiarly to converse together as children servants and such like They must not as the manner is thinke amisse to be often admonished by their Parents Masters or Superiors or esteeme it any disgrant or reproch to be pricked forward by the goad of exhortation much lesse say with the obstinate and refractory Let us breake their bandes Psal 2.3 and cast their cordes from us but stoop downe our neckes to the yoake of God and submit our selves to discipline even from our youth The Apostle Saint Peter saith 2 Pet. 1.12 I will not be negligent to put you in minde of these things though ye have knowledge and be established in the truth already This answereth the Objection of some men that boast they are able to admonish themselves and they know those things already sufficiently for albeit they to whom Peter wrote were well grounded and established in the present truth yet he would not cease diligently to admonish them And the Apostle Paul though he were perswaded of the Romans that they were full of goodnesse Rom. 15.14 filled with knowledge and able to admonish one another yet was he bold by writing to put them in mind of these things Phil 3.1 and it did not greeue him to write the same things to the Philippians because he knew that for them it was a sure and safe thing So that such as are best furnished and well stored with good knowledge with grace and goodnesse oftentimes find they have need to be whet up and put forward and if such as are most forward and furnished need the spurres to be clapped to their sides much more others that are children in knowledge backward in good things rude and raw in the doctrine which is according to godlinesse 8. Let man and beâ—st be covered with sackcloth and cry c. Here we have the summe and effect of the Kings Proclamation that as the danger was common to all which hung over their heads so the meanes must be common to turne away the judgment Doct. they must joyntly together put on sackcloth and call upon God This teacheth Prayer and fasting â—ust go together us that fasting and prayer must be joyned and goe hand in hand together The truth of this appeareth by sundry examples in the old and new Testament as Iudg. 20 23. 2 Chro. 20.3.6 Math. 17.21 Luk. 2.37 1 Cor. 7.5 Ioel. 2.15.17 The reasons are evident for first Math. 19.6 Whatsoever God hath coupled together no man must put asunder This is a generall rule belonging to all Gods ordinances which he hath united Secondly fasting considered in it selfe is an outward ceremony and cannot touch the conscience neither doth the kingdome of God consist therein Rom. 14.17 1 Tim. 4.8 but it is a bodily exercise that severed from the spiritual profiteth little 1 Tim. 4.8 Rom. 14.17 Thirdly the Conjunction of these is the right and ready meaâ—es to turne away the wrath of God from us as Ezr. 8. I Proclaimed a fast that we might humble our selves before our God Ezr. 8.21.23 and seeke of him a right way for us and for our children and for all our substance Fourthly to make our prayers more available and effectuall and that the Lord might be intreated of us Ezra 8.23 The use hereof is first Vse 1 to overthrow the Popish fastings which consist in
holy Sabboths so they are still They were drunkards and filthy livers ignorant and blind in matters of faith and religion so they are still Are these humble and repentant sinners do these turne to God where you saw them long a goe and where you left them twenty or thirty yeares a goe there you shall be sure to finde them never a whit changed unlesse happily from evill to worse But let such marke how it hath beene with other penitents and in them behold themselues as in aglasse I meane Paul the woman of Samaria Lydia the jaylour Zacheus the Iewes that crucified Christ the Lord of life Let him that talketh of Repentance boasteth of it and chalengeth it to himselfe even for his owne assurance shew the like fruites in himselfe for it worketh such a change and alteration that both our selues and others may discerne it as easily as light from darknesse So then as the Apostle saith Shew me thy faith by thy workes Iam. 2.18 so may I say shew me thy repentance by thy change For what shall it profit a man to say he hath repentance when he hath no friutes can such a repentance comfort him The third reproofe Thirdly it condemneth civill men that remaine in the state of nature and glory in their outward vertues that they are alwayes the same but these glory in their owne shame These cannot say they are become new creatures they cannot say they were ever borne againe yet without the new birth they cannot enter into the kingdome of heaven Ioh 3.3 They cannot say Old things are passed away 2 Cor 5.17 behold all thinges are made new yet no other are in Christ and made members of his body Such civill men that content themselues with civill honesty and have nothing wherein to rejoyce but nature stand as yet in a dangerous and damnable estate neither can they come out of it untill they begin to deny themselues and to loath and detest even these outward vertues forsamuch as the trust and confidence in them is no better then a selfe deceiving Secondly it serveth for information in other truthes First that no sinne is great and heinous but there is place for repentance if they can repent This was the end of Christes comming to call sinners to repentance Math. 9.13 he sayth sinners without exception This we see in Manasses a Sorcerer an Idolater a murtherer and almost what not yet he humbled himselfe and obtained mercy according as he prayed 2 Chr. 33. 2 Chro. 33.19 Paul confesseth that he was sometimes a blasphemer and a persecutour and an oppressour yet he obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbeleefe 1 Tim. 1.13 1 Tim. 1. The conspirators against Christ and his kingdome are called to kisse that is Psal 2.12 to embrace and obey him and his doctrine and accordingly they which shed his blood by murthering of him did drinke his blood by beleeving him Act. 2. Act. 2.37 A singular comfort for such as feele the burden of their sinnes lying heavy upon their consciences that they goe mourning all the day long and cannot lift up their heads to God unto such the Lord speaketh Esay 1. Come let us reason together Esay 1.16 if ye will wash and clense your hearts though your sinnes were as red as crimsin they shall be made white as wooll And Christ our Saviour calleth such as are heavy laden Math. 11.28 and promiseth to give them rest Math. 11. Sinne often bringeth us to the brimme or border of hell but it cannot bring us so low but Christ Iesus is able to bring us backe and to raise us vp againe by repentance Secondly there in no sinne so small and little though it seeme in our eyes as a more but it is able to bring to hell and therefore craveth repentance The world of naturall men judgeth that repentance is proper to none but to heinous and hideous sinnes as murther theft periury treason rebellion whordome and such like and that if they be free from the outward act of these they justifie themselues like the Pharisee and thinke repentance belongeth not to them as for others if they have any they hope to be dispenced with all It is nothing so with Gods children they have beene touched to the heart for such sinnes as the world taketh no notice off and never sticketh at as for the evill which appeareth in their best workes that they cannot do them as they would but infirmities creepe upon them and defile them not onely for committing evill but for omitting good things Rev. 2.4.5 the Church of Ephesus is called to repentance for leaving their first love they watch over their idle thoughts and idle words Gen 6.5 remembring that every imagination of the heart is onely evill continually and the threatning of Christ that for every idle word that men shall speake Math. 12.36 they shall give account thereof at the day of judgement Davids heart was smitten for cutting off the lappe of Sauls garment privily 1 Sam. 24.4 1 Sam. 24. Every thing is layd to heart of Gods children which he hath softned by the touch of his holy spirit by giving unto them an heart of flesh they will be troubled for the least sinnes accounting no sinne little which is committed against so great a God which offendeth so holy a law which deserveth eternall death as the just wages thereof and brought Christ Iesus from the bosome of his Father to suffer death for them and lastly they are grieved touched to the quick because they encrease not in grace according to the good meanes and occasions that God hath given knowing that the more is given and committed unto them the more is required at their hands and the streighter shall their account be Lastly let us examine our selues whether we be turned from evill to good and from the power of Satan to God This will appeare by these signes and tokens First there is a turning of the heart upward to heaven and a fastning of the eye upon God that it may be sayd of every true repentant that his behaviour is as of one that is journying going up to the heavenly Ierusalem the mother of us all Luk. 9.53 as it is said of our Saviour that his face was as though he would go to Ierusalem Phil. 3.20 So our conuersation must be in heaven and our whole life a travelling thither and a wandering in the wildernesse of this world untill we be brought into the true Canaan that is aboue But if the hearts of all were tried by this rule it would shew how little repentance is in the world when in all our thoughts workes and employments we are carried wholly downeward which way will bring us to hell in the end forasmuch as we have prophane hearts not savauring the things that are of God like prophane Esau Secondly we grow every day better and better when once we
reconciled I Answer Answ the Scripture speaketh of God two wayes sometimes properly and sometimes unproperly properly it agreeth not to God because in him is no change nor shadow of turning unproperly it may by the figure Anthropopatheja which is an attributing or ascribing unto God the parts properties passions and affections of men the more lively to represent the things spoken off before our eyes So then it is a borrowed speech from men in God it is a change of his worke not of his will as Gen. Gen. 6.6 6. it repented God that he had made man that is he purposed to destroy man whom before he had made From hence we learne where true faith is to apprehend and beleeve the truth and certainty of Gods threatnings Doct. there is a feare of judgements to come Faithworketh a feare of Gods judgments Faith worketh feare and feare often worketh faith This we see in these Ninevites they beleeved God and proclaimed a fast and therefore they feared the dreadfull sentence published and pronounced against them This appeareth in the commendation of the faith of Noah Heb 11.7 Heb. 11.7 He being endued with a justifying and saving faith is also touched with feare and reverence at the consideration of Gods judgements to come So it was with Iehoshaphat he beleeved the Prophets 2 Chro. 20.3 and therefore he feared and set his heart to seeke the Lord 2 Cor. 20. See the further practise of this in Hezekiah Ier. Ier. 26.18.19 26. Micah the Morashite prophesied and spake to all the people of Iudah Thus saith the Lord of hostes Zion shall be plowed like a field and Ierusalem shall become heapes did Hezekiah the king of Iudah and all Iudah put him to death did he not feare the Lord and besought the Lord and the Lord repented him of the evill which he had pronounced against them 2 King 22.19 The like we see in Iosiah 2 King 22. when he heard the plagues and curses that should come upon Ierusalem his heart was tender he trembled himselfe before God and when he heard the wordes against that place he rent his cloathes and wept before him The reasons are evident First God hath coupled both these together Reas 1 and therfore whosoever beleeveth his threatnings cannot but feare the evils threatned He that apprehendeth the wrath of a Prince to be as the roaring of a Lyon cannot but tremble it cannot but worke in him feare Amos. 3. Amos. 3.6 Can a trumpet be blowne in the Citty and the people not be afraid Secondly faith maketh things unseene to be seene Heb. 11.1 Heb. 11 1.1â— For it is the evidence of things me sinneâ—s Moses by faith saw him that is invisible vers 27. and Noah â—aw the worlds destruction as present though it 〈◊〉 an hundred and twenty yeares before it came and 〈◊〉 it But it may be objected Object the faithfull is not afraid of any euill â—idings for his heart is fixed and beleeveth in the Lord Psal 112.7 and therefore faith expelleth all feare I answer the words of the Psalme teach the contrary Answ Blessed is the man that feareth God and therefore to clâ—â—re this seeming-contradiction we must observe a two-fold feare as also care a distrustfull feare and an awefull or reverent feare The distrustfull feare argueth want of faith in God the awefull feare maketh us seeke to God and to fly to his mercy But where the true faith is it expelleth and driveth out distrust Psal 133.18 147.11 and therefore the Prophet ioyneth these two together Psal 133 The eye of the Lord is upon them that feare him that trust in his mercy and 147.11 the Lord delighteth in them that feare him that hope in his mercy Behold the true cause Vse 1 why there is so little feare of God in the world and of his judgments though imminent and ready to fall nay present and already fallen We never had more cause to feare generall judgments in regard of the generall corruptions and floods of wickednesse that overflow in all places yet never more security never lesse feare And what is the cause because there is so little faith Math. 24.37 as Christ our Saviour sheweth that iniquity should abound in the last dayes and men mind nothing else but their profits and pleasures as they did when the flood came and swept them all away at once disobedience to the word proceeding from infidelity was the cause of that cause 1 Thess 5. For when they shall say peace peace suddaine destruction shall come upon them as paines upon a woman in travaile and they shall not escape These shall make a mocke of the last judgment and never feare it untill they feele it These may be sent to schoole to Ahab to Iudas the sonne of perdition nay to the Devils themselues for they have not so much faith as Ahab had 1 King 21.27 not so much as Iudas had Luk. 18.8 Math. 27.3.5 not so much as the Devils Iam. 2.19 who beleeve and tremble where as the ungodly beleeve not and therefore tremble not but they would if they beleeved onely so much as the Devils do How then can prophaine persons escape the torments of Hell who come farre short of these that are already in hell and how fearefull an estate is it to be condemned of such as be condemned themselues Secondly see the difference betweene Gods children and carnall or worldly men these are quite contrary the one to the other as light and darknesse and as farre distant as heaven and hell Hic ubiopus est none verentur illic ubt nihil opus est the verentur Terent Andr. act 4. seen 1. When Gods judgements are threatned and men warned to take heed and looke to themselues they do feare least of all who have most cause and whom they most neerely concerne and they on the other side most of all whom they concerne We see this in the old world evidently and expresly for whom did the threatning of the drowning and destruction therof most neerly touch and concerne Doubtlesse the disobedient world of the ungodly But they feared least nay nothing at all they ranne on in their worldly and wicked courses till the flood came and swept them away Whom did the threatning least of all concerne as being in least danger to be drowned Surely Noah and his family for whom the Arke was prepeared but they feared most of all Nay Gods children oftentimes feare for the wicked Psal 119.53.136.158 when they feare not for themselues as Psal 119.53.136.158 as they pray for them when they pray not for themselues and desire their conuersion when they minde nothing lesse The Prophet was greeved for them when they were not greeved for themselues 2 Cor. 12.21 So it is said by the Apostle God will humble me among you and I shall bewaile many which have sinned and have not repented of the sinnes committed the more sorry he was for
them the lesse sorry they were for themselues These are like drunken men that dread nothing because all their wit is gone to discerne of danger or like little children that feare not the fire till they be burned Pro. 20.11 nor the candle till they be singed with it As Pro. 20.11 even a child is knowne by his doings whether his worke be pure and whether it be right Lastly it behoveth us to examine our owne hearts The trials of a true faith whether we have true faith or not But how shall we try and prove our selues let these be the trials First if our faith be not fruitlesse and barren but worke in us love and hatred joy and greefe hope and feare If this faith be in us it will make us that we shall not be idle or unfruitfull in the knowledge of our Lord Iesus Christ It will make to a â—ound in us both the love of God and our brethren and of good things and the hatred of evill both joy to see Religion florish and greeve to see God dishonoured both hope of everlasting life and feare to offend the everliving God That faith which swimmeth in the braine descendeth not to the bottome of the heart is no found faith but in shew and shadow onely a dead and counterfeite fâ—ith Secondly it is sound if it make us stand in feare of his judgments executed upon others like children that shake and quiver when the father correcteth any of their brethren nay of the seruants of the house so it is with the children of God they feare and lay it to heart when he chasteneth his Church or any of his own people nay the ungodly and prophane persons of the world they by and by looke upon themselues and examine their own wayes to see whether they be not guilty of the same sinnes 2 Sam. 6.6.7.9 This appeareth in David when the Lord in his anger smote Vzzah for his errour that he died by the Arke of God because he put forth his hand and tooke hold of it when the Oxen shooke it be feared God exceedingly that day What did he nor feare the Lord before Yes doubtlesse but exceedingly at that time when he saw a visible example of his wrath before his eyes and this also made him say Psal 19.120 my flesh trembleth for feare of thee and I am afraid of thy judgment This the Evangelist sheweth Act. 5. when Ananias and Sapphâ—ra were suddainly smittendown with suddaine death Act. 5.11 feare came upon the whole Church and upon all thâ—se that heard of it If it be the property of the child of God to tremble at his word Esay 66.2 Esay 66. as the heart of Iosiâ—h melted for feare at the hearing of the Iaâ—v 2 King 22. Because a reproofe entreth more into a wise man then an hundred stripes into a Foole Pro. 17. Pro. 17.10 how much more at his rods at his scourges and at the drawing and shaking of his glittering sword when his hand layeth hold on judgment like the child at the sight of his fathers rod So the Prophet Hab. 3.2 16. when he heard of the judgments of the Lord was afraid his belly trembled his lippes quivered at the voice rottennesse entred into his bones and he trembled in himselfe This feare of Gods anger is a worke of grace in the heart Thirdly if the feare of his judgments be an effectuall meanes preventing in us the feeling of them They that feare most now shall have least cause to feare hereafter and contrary wise such as feare least now when they are called to feare shall be suddainly overtaken with feare hereafter when they can neither prevent it nor avoid it Fourthly we may try the truth and efficacy of our faith if we can beleeve God on his bare word although we see not the performance thereof neither any appearance or likelihood thereof This we must consider in two respectes both of his promises and of his threatnings Touching his promises when we dare trust him on his bare word for the performance of them We say of some men we will trust them no farther then we see them or have some earnest pledge or pawne from them howbeit we must not deale so with God this is as much as not to trust him at all but our owne eyes and to trust our owne pawne not him But for us to trust him 2 Cor. 5.7 when he seemeth to go from his owne word or against his word even deny himselfe this is assuredly a true faith Thus it was with Abrahram when the Lord bad him kill his sonne his onely sonne even Isaac the sonne of promise by whom he looked to have issue in number as the Starres of heaven and as the sand by the Sea-shore he accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure So it was with Iob H. b. 1.29 we must beleeve that God will save us even when he seemeth to goe about to destroy us Iob. 13.15 Thus we are taught to beleeve that he loveth us when he chasteneth us and frowneth upon us and maketh little shew of love toward us we must beleeve that he remembreth us when he seemeth to forget us Esay 49.4.15.16 And touching his threatnings we must beleeve them before they come The threatnings of God are manifold and evident The soule that sinneth Ezek. 18.5 Psal 68.21 shall dy the death Ezek. 18.5 and Psal 68. The Lord will wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalpe of every one that goeth on obstinately in his sinnes But because we see it not presently instantly and immediatly performed the ungodly put farre from them the evill day and they live merrily and pleasantly thereby seeming to escape the scourge here Eccl. 8.11 as Eccl. 8. Because sentence against an evil worke is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sonnes of men is fully set in them to doe evill These thinke God will be better then his word and that these threatnings are spoken onely to fray and affright men as scare-crowes do birdes to keepe them in awe not to bring them to ruine and destruction What are these but infidels who cannot beleeve that God will doe that which they see him not to do presently Here then is the worke of faith to beleeve that which may seeme to carry no likelihood of comming to passe remembring what Salomon saith Though the wicked live an hundred yeares and passe them all ouer in pleasure yet I know it shal not go wel with the wicked Eccl. 8.13 neither shall he prolong his dayes which are as a shadow because he feareth not before God The heathen do account it a point of mans misery above all other creatures that he alone is vexed with care and feare for the future but I account it a point of mans excellency and eminency above other creatures and of true Christians above
heaven he beholdeth all the sonnes of men from the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth And touching the second branch to wit the approoving of of that which is good Moses declareth when Israel offered their submission to the ordinary ministery being ready to heare from his mouth all the words of the Lord he gave this testimony and commendation of them Devt 5.28.29 I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken they have will said O that there were such an heart in them Math. 8.10 15.28 26.13 that they would feare me and keepe my Commandements alwayes c. Thus Christ our Saviour commendeth the faith of the Centurion Math. 8. of the Cananitish woman Chap. 15. and of the woman that anoynted his feet with precious oyntment I say unto you wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world there shall this which she hath done be told for a memoriall of her chap. 26. Let us see both these branches confirmed unto us Reasons of the first branch Touching the first it is great brutishnesse and folly not to know that God knoweth all things This is as much as to deny his nature and to make God to be no God He may be said to be all an eye all an eare all an heart but to deny this principle what is it in effect but to turne the true God into an Idoll which hath eyes and feeth not eares and hearth not Psal 115.5.6 94.89.10 and an heart and vnderstandeth not Hereunto came the words of the Prophet Vnderstand ye brutish among the people and ye fooles when will ye be wise he that planted the eare shall he not heare he that formed the eye shall he not see he that teacheth man knowledge shall not he know All things have sight hearing knowledge and understanding from him therefore he must heare perceive and see forasmuch as that which causeth a man to be so is it selfe much more so Secondly nothing can hinder his sight nor want of light nor distance of place nor dimnesse of the eye which are causes of want of seeing in us Therefore the Prophet saith Psal 139.7.8.9 c. Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I fly from thy presence If I ascend up into heaven or make my bed in the grave or take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea thou art there c. Touching the second Reasons of the second branch he approoveth every good worke for who is it that hath wrought it in us or from whence doth it proceed is it of our selves no doubtlesse every good and perfect gift is from above and commeth downe from the Father of lights And as he must worke it before we can have it Iam. 1.17 so he must strengthen that which he hath wrought in us Secondly to encourage and provoke us to perseverance and continuance in wel-doing It is no lesse vertue to hold fast that which we have gotten then at the first to get it And we have as much need to be exhorted to go on as to beginne seeing we may perish as well by going backe as by not stirring at all or not walking in the wayes of God Heb. 10.35 as also it serueth to draw on others by our example as we also ought by the examples of others The uses follow and first of the first branch And first Vse 1 this directeth us in all our workes to propound to our selues alwayes the presence of God a speciall foundation of Christian religion When thou hast any tentation to sinne or inclination of thy heart thereunto if thou couet to be kept in the feare of God perswade thy selfe of the truth of this principle that whatsoever thou thinkest or speakest or doest Heb. 4.13 all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whrm we have to doe Gen. 39.9 because he searcheth all hearts and say with Ioseph How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God Enoch walked before God and pleased him that he had his power and presence evermore before his eyes Gen. 5.24 in Heb. 11. and Gen. 17.1 On the other side this is a maine cause of all wicked nesse prophanenesse and ungodlinesse among men to be perswaded that God seeeth us not Psal 94. They prate speake heard things Psal 94.4.5.6.7 they smite thy people and spoyle thy heritage flay the widow and murther the fatherlesse what is the cause where is the reason they say the Lord shall not see neither will the God of Iacob regard it It is neere to Atheisme to have such a blasphemous thought as to jmagine that we can hide our counsels deuises from the Lord Esay 29.15 as Esay 29 Woe unto them that seeke deepe to hid our counsel from the Lord their workes are in the dark and they say who seeth us and whoknoweth us True it is men will not speak thus prophanly with the tongue for then all men would condemne them cry shame of them as unworthy to live upon the earth but what should we looke to their words when we may looke upon their deedes or what shall it avail them to hide their counsels when they lay open their conuersations to keepe their mouthes silent when their lives proclaime they thinke there is no God Happy are we if we have the Lord ever before us and have our eyes upon him as we know that his eyes are upon us as the eye of the Master upon the servant to give to every man according to his workes Secondly this offereth much comfort to the afflicted and putteth such as afflict them in mind of their wretched condition wherein they stand 2 Thess 1.6.7 seing it is a righteous thing wâ—th God torecompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest when the Lord Iesas shall be revealed from heaven The Lord seeth the afflictions of his seruants will regard revenge them get glory to his great name in the confusion of their enemies When the children of Israel were oppressed by the Egyptians and afflicted with sore burdens the Lord comforteth them with this I have seene I have seene the affliction of my people Exod. 3.7.9 which is in Egypt and I have heard their groning Act. 7.34 and am come downe to deliver them He considereth the cruelty and injury of the enimy as 2 Chro. 16. 1 Chro. 16.9 the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to shew himselfe strong in the behalfe of them whose heart is perfect toward him It is strange to see the folly of men abusing the essentiall properties of God as were easie to shew in our several state and condition of life sometimes abridging them and cutting them too short and sometimes enlarging them and stretching them too farre See
his judgments who never once consider the causes thereof not hate their sinnes though heinous and horrible which bring them upon us We deale commonly with our sinnes as the vniust Steward did with his Masters debters and debt for an hundred he sets downe fifty Luk. 15.6 See herein how partiall we are when we censure others we are ready for fifty to set downe an hundred and of every mole-hill to make a mountaine but when we cast up our owne accountes we say to our owne soules Take thy bill and sit downe quickly and write fourscore or fifty or happily foure or five so unequall and unjust are our wayes Againe others acknowledge themselues to be sinners in grosse or in generall as Pharaoh Saul and sundry others but come to the particulars of the law which is the glasse to shew us our sinnes for by the Law commeth the knowledge of sin examine these by it from point topoint Rom. 3.20 who never examined themselues they are not ashamed to pronounce themselues innocent For bring them to their triall as it were to hold up their hand at the barre whether they ever brake the first Commandement Exod. 20 3.4.7.8.13 Thou shall have no other Gods before me they answer readily God forbid I should set up strange gods Or the second To make graven images or the rest To kill To steale To beare false witnesse Math. 19.20 and such like they sticke not to plead not guilty and to say with the young man All these things have I kept from my youth up what lacke I yet These are like to a man that saith he is sicke and being asked where and led a long from the crowne of the head to the Sole of the foot should then say he is well in every particular part Thus they shew they understand not the Law which is spirituall Rom. 7.14 and searcheth into the heart Lastly it is our duty to use all meanes to move us and bring us unto repentance The first may be our present necessity Motives to stirre us up to repentance If there were no other but the distresse and calamity that lyeth upon our Churches it were enough to rouse us up out of the dead sleep of sinne into which we are fallen It is not our fasting and prayer that can call in Gods judgements nay they provoke him the more against us except we repent O let us consider the wofull mortality and the pittifull estate of thousands of our brethren and sisters Psal 80.5 79.8.9 that the Lord feedeth them with the bread of teares and giveth them teares to drinke in great measure and thereby be stirred up our selues and stirre up others to unfained repentance then let us say with the Prophet O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low helpe us O God of our Salvation for the glory of thy name and deliver us and purge away our sinnes for thy names sake and he will heare us in the end and send us a gracious deliverance Secondly a man that liveth in this world without amendment of life is farre more uile then the basest creatures that creepe upon the ground it had beene better we had never beene borne or beene brought forth as dogs and swine as wormes of the earth nay as Serpents or a generation of Vipers We are worse then all these lying in the state of impenitency for there is an end of them when this life endeth but our misery shall never have end Thirdly such as ate not truly conuerted are in danger of all the judgments of God which as a suddaine and violent flood may breake in upon them or as a mighty host of men may quickly ouerthrow them and destroy them Happy are they that feare them a farre off and can beware by other mens harmes Let us not tarry till they come upon us Exod. 12.30 as the Egyptians did till one in every house was dead God was neuer more prouoked then at this day Hitherto he hath prevailed little or nothing with us Math. 3.10 now the axe is laid to the root of the trees therefore every one which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewne downe and cast into the fire Fourthly God hath used all meanes to worke in us repentance the greater is our sin if we use them not We are fast a sleep he hath sounded his trumpets to awakeÌ„ us He hath the trumpet of his word and commandeth his Ministers to cry aloud and spare not Esay 58.1 to lift up their voyces like a Trumpet to shew the people their transgressions their sins He hath also the trumpet of his judgements to pierce into our hearts when the word findeth no place in us He hath often sounded the alarme and blowne the trumpet of his Word by the Ministery of his seruants that have spoken unto us early and late in the name of the Lord and warned us of his wrath to come and of our wickednesse present and we would not heare them He is therfore constrained to take in hand an other trumpet and to strike us with the pestilence and mortality Ames 3.6 shall this Trumpet be blowne in the City and the people not be afraid Or shâ—ll there be evill in a City and the Lord hath not done it For as when a trumpet giveth a signe or token out of a watch-tower the people hearkneth and is troubled and prepare themselves this way or that way as the trumpet giveth the token so the Lord cryeth unto us by his judgments as it were by the voyce of a shrill trumpet ought we not then to be attentive and be moved at the sound thereof and according to the warning prepare our selves to repentance and heare his voice while it is called to day Psal 95.8 Heb. 3.7 4.7 lest our hearts be hardned through the deceitfulnesse of sinne It were better for us a thousand times to hearken to the sound of the first trumpet then tarry till be sound the second to heare his word then waite till he take up his sword O how much better had it beene for us to have taken his word which he sends among us and to Obey it then to cause and even constraine him to send his destroying Angel to make havocke of us Lastly he that converteth not is in danger of eternall damnation to be separated from Gods presence at whose right hand is fulnesse of joy and pleasures for evermore Psal 16.11 Dan 12.2 to have fellowship with the Devill and his angels to have shame and everlasting contempt powred upon them and to have horrour and anguish of conscience cast upon them arising from a feeling of Gods wrath Then shall the last trumpet blow and waxe lowder that the dead shall heare the sound thereof 1 Cor. 15.52 1 Thes 4.16 when the Lord himselfe shall descend from heaven with a great shout and with thousands
and dissimulation This was the sinne of Eli other wise a good man 1 Sam. 1. Christ our Saviour conversed much with publicans and sinners to the end he might do them good and draw them from the kingdome of sinne and Satan and make them inheriters of the kingdome of heaven a worke in all respectes most holy and righteous yet the Scribes and Pharisees judged him to be a friend and favourer of them and of their sinnes Lue. 7.34 And albeit he castout Devils by the power of his divine Majesty for the confirmation of his doctrine and edification of the weake in faith yet they said he did it by Beelzebuh the Prince of the Devils Math. 12.24 So in our dayes religion and the zealous profession thereof are reputed no better then counterfeit holinesse Let the examples of the faithfull be before us continually whensoever we find the same measure offered untous and comfort our selves with this that it hath no otherwise befallen us then to many Prophets of God and faithfull seruants of Christ Math. 5.12 who must not looke to be greater then there Master neither to finde better entertainment in the world then he did The second kinde of judgment forbidden is when men commit evill things worthy in themselves to be condemned and thereupon are judged not onely dangerous but desperate offenders past hope of repentance and recovery This is to execute indeede a right Lordship over their soules and Salvation and to step up into the seate of God 1 Cor. 4.5 Of this the Apostle speaketh Iudge nothing before the time untill the Lord come who will lighten things that are hidde in darknesse and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have prayse of God and we are charged to instruct with meeknesse the contrary minded 2 Tim. 2.25 to bring them to God and not leave them in the snares of the Devill No man therefore ought to passe their doome of the everlasting estate of any man and to pronounce peremptorily and absolutely that they shall perish and cannot be saved as if they were Lords of one anothers life and death salvation and damnation or had power to bring them to heaven or cast them into hell This is beyond our reach and commission and to usurpe the office of Christ to whom all judgment is committed No man dare make himselfe a judge and sit downe in the judgement seate to give sentence of absolution or condemnation in matters of this temporall life without the Princes speciall appointment and shall any dare doe it in things of the life to come to pronounce any to be forlorne reprobates and vessels of wrath For who knoweth what one day may bring forth Pro. 24 1 He runneth farre that never returneth We see many notorious wicked men suddainly and mightily called and changed 2 Chr. 33. Act. 9. Luk. 23. We read of some standing idle all the day long called at the eleventh houre to labour in the vineyard Math. Math. 20. 20. The theefe repented and was converted at the instant of his death Let us remember that we are all brethren one no better then another and therefore we ought not presumptuously to chalenge this superiority to judge and condemne one another Christian love hopeth well of all men and so long as they live there is some hope The third kind is when we doe things which in themselues are indifferent which may be done either well or ill either with a pure or a prophane heart with faith or without faith to judge such an action wicked which indeed is to be accounted good or evill according to the intent purpose and affection of the doer whereof God alone is the discerner because he alone is the searcher of the heart he alone is the Iudge of the heart This corruption we read to have beene in Eliab the brother of David Why camest thou downe hither 1 Sam. 17 2â— and with whom hast thou left those few sheepe in the wildernesse I know thy pride and the haughtinesse of thy heart for thou art come downe to see the battell This the Apostle forbiddeth Rom. 14. Rom. 14.3 Let not him that eateth judge him that eateth not c. The faithfull servants of God are hardly delt withall in all these respects their good things are not good or at least it is shrunke up and contracted their indifferent things are pronounced to be starke naught and if they fall into evil it is stretched and made a thousand times worse even by those of the worser sort Lastly it standeth us upon to labour to see the grieuousnesse of sinne in our selves and to feele the waight and burden thereof For commonly we are blinde and see not at all or else we are purblind and cannot see them in their right colours we be hold them as motes or strawes not as beames or if we doe ever judge them as beames How we may perceive the neinousnesse and greinousnesse of sinne Luc. 12.48 it is in others not in our selves Now that we may discerne of sinne in the nature thereof we must consider these few particulars First consider how God striveth with us by his manifold mercies and blessings to draw us to a love of Godlinesse and hatred of wickednesse now unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much of him they will aske the more Secondly if we compare our sinnes with Adams first sinne considered in the fact doubtlesse we have as great in our hearts yea greater and yet by that one disobedience he brought destruction upon himselfe and all his posterity that is the first and second death Thirdly we may behold the grievousnesse of sinne by proportion with the punishment For what is the wages and reward of sinne a subjection to all woe and misery in this life to death it selfe in the end of this life and to eternall death after this life in hell with the Devill and his Angels Fourthly they were laid upon the person of our Saviour Christ who outwardly endured the torments on the Crosse in his body and inwardly apprehended the wrath of God in his soule due unto us and which we should have suffered This made him to sweat water and blood Lue. 22.44 Math. 27.46 and to cry out in the anguish of his spirit My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Math. 27. Are such sinnes to be holden as motes no doubtlesse they are great beames are they as little moul-hills no doubtlesse they be huge mountaines able to crush the sonnes of men in pieces under the heavy indignation of God Lastly the law of God is holy and perfect and forbiddeth the first thoughts and motions in the heart that arise against God or our neighbour yea though we never give consent of will to practise them Rom. 7. If then the first motions be sins in themselves deserving damnation Rom. 7.7 because the law saith
soone be changed the difference wil soon be espied They are now as a Lyon within a grate or a Wolfe kept in a chaine Let the Lyon loose set the Wolfe at liberty ye shall soone see him as fierce and cruell as ever he was Remember what they were when they bare sway such as they were then such they are now in heart affection such as the fathers were such are their children a cruell a barbarous a bloody generation ever delighted with shedding blood Blessed be God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ who hath not given us as a pray unto their teeth and let them fulfill the measure of their sinnes that upon them may come all the righteous blood which they have shed upon the face of the earth Above all the Galileans c. or those eighteene c. The examples of others and the miserable event upon them are propounded to teach the Disciples and all others to turne o God these men judging these punishments to be the wages of unrighteousnesse Doct. Examplesf Gods judgments upon some are profitable to others This teacheth that the example of Gods judgements which he useth and executeth upon nations kingdomes cities families houses and particular persons are profitable meanes to stay from that euil which God hath chastised in others In the glasse of others wee may looke upon our owne faces We see this Deut. 24. Remember Miriam Deut. 24.9 what the Lord thy God did upon her by the way 2 Sam. 11.20 21. after ye were come forth out of Egypt the Like is noted 2 Sam. 11. Wherefore approched ye so nigh the City when ye did fight knew ye not that they would shoote from the wall who smote Abimelech the sonnes of Ierubesheth 2 King 9.31 did not a woman cast a piece of a Mil-stone upon him from the wall that he died c. Math. 24.37 The words of Iezabel are grounded upon this foundation Luc. 17.27.32 Had Zimri peace that slew his master Christ our Saviour chargeth all to beware of excesse propounding the examples of Noah and Lot to tye up their hearts to looke after the appearance of Christ in glory and to draw them from the love of the world and afterward he addeth to the same end Remember Lots wife So that we see Dan. 5.20.22 the examples of Gods judgment in former times are profitable to them that come after to hold them in the wayes of righteousnesse and to keepe them from the pathes of death This is proved plainely from the unchangable nature of God Reason 1 he is one and the same now as he was in former times his words are not yea and nay but yea and amen he is not variable and unconstant Mat. 3.6 Iam. 1.17 like a reed shaken with the winde hither and thither but remaineth ever the same Psal 102.27 With him is no variablenesse neither shadow of turning he is the Lord he changeth not and his hatred against sinne is no way diminished 1 Cor. 10.11 6. Secondly from the end of Gods chasticements which is to respect others as well as those that are chasticed for they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come Rom. 15.4 and these things are our examples to the intent we should not lust after evill things as they also lusted Now let us apply these things Behold here the great kindnesse of God who teacheth and instructeth us many wayes Vse 1 not onely by his word by his mercies by his present judgments by his promises by his threatnings but even by examples of things recorded that have fallen out all of them were written for our good The moe wayes we have the moe meanes God hath used the more inexcusable we are We are giuen to looke upon examples and to behold what is done by others and to follow them even in evill but as we see the examples so let us beleeve the punishments that befell them also Woe unto them and wretched is their estate that are not moved by examples of Gods judgements What will move and peirce our stony hearts if these things will not move us to turne unto him neither the hammer of his word nor the iron rod of his judgements Nay while we lye under a grievous visitation are we any whit softned or do our hearts relent What teares have we shed or what hath our behaviour beene or what sinnes have we forsaken O what can be said of us but that we are brasse and iron a stubborne and stiffe necked generation a people that are secure and senselesse and have our consciences as it were seared with an hote iron God hath executed sundry judgments upon us he hath given us cleannesse of teeth and want of bread in all our places Amos. 4.6.9 yet we have not returned unto him he hath smitten our great Gardens and the fruits of the earth with blasting and mildew yet we have not returned unto him he hath sent among us the pestilence after the maner of Egypt and now threatneth us with the sword of the enemie yet we have not returned unto him what marveill then when we profit by none of them and nothing will doe us good if he make us fearefull examples to others This we read Deut. 29. When God hath brought all the curses of the law upon the land the generation to come of their children that shall rise up after them when they see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it made like the overthrow of Sodome and Gomorah shall say Deut. 29.24.25 Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land what meaneth the heat of this great anger then men shall say because they have forsake the Covenant of the Lord God of their fathers c. The Lord God setteth former examples before our eyes to teach us and he will teach our posterity by the examples of his judgments before our eyes to teach us and he will teach our posterity by the examples of his judgements fallen upon us When the generation to come shall read and heare of his great judgments upon us that he hath smitten downe many thousands of us in his great wrath and heavy displeasure so that the former plagues will be forgotten in comparison of this if yet we will not returne and repent he will double and trebble his strokes and encrease his plagues yet seven times more and cause this to be forgotten in comparison of those to come and when any shall aske wherefore hath the Lord done this unto his people shall not men say as the truth is because they were warned and they would not be warned Is it not for the raigning sinnes in it that cry to heaven He hath spoken unto us and besought us by innumerable his mercies but they will not enter now he is constrained to send his destroying Angel and to scourge us with furious mortality and yet our dul
made his servants and cattell fly into he houses Exod. 9.20.21 but he that regarded not the word of the Lord left them in the field and there they all both man and beast perished Is it any better with the most sort no doubtlesse for why hath God executed his judgements and doth daily cast them abroad as the firebrands of his wrath is it not because we regard neither his promises nor his threatnings doubtlesse if we had taken his word he had never drawne his sword and had we beleeved his threatnings we had not felt his punishments if we had hearkened to his mouth to heare his voyce he had not stretched out his hand to smite with his rod. So it was with the Iewes when the Prophet denounced the 70. Ier. 25.12 29.10 yeares captivity they would not beleeve it till the Babylonians came indeed and carried them away It is a great mercy of God to open our eares and to give us beleeving hearts before his plagues fall upon us whereas others runne on and are pâ—nished Thirdly seing our God is thus patient and gentle even towards us that provoke him every day what ought we to be one toward an other As he is not soone provoked so we should be kind toward those that provoke us and disturbe our peace and patience forgiving one another as God hath forgiven us and as he is called the God of patience sowe should approove our selves to be the children of patience It is our duty therefore to learne meeknesse and mercy toward our brethren As we are exhorted to be perfect Math. 5.48 because our heavenly father is perfect and to be mercifull because he is mercifull so we should be patient because he is the God of patience This is the exhortation of the Apostle Luc. 6.36 put on the bowels of mercies kindnesse humblenesse of minde meekenesse long-suffering Rom. 15.5 forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrell against any Col. 3.12.13 even as Christ forgave you so also doe ye Eph. 4.31.32 But on the other side if we be given to hatred and revenge and doe not put away all bitternesse wrath and anger and evill speaking let us take heed we doe not make a law against our selves and so finde the same measure at the hands of God which we shew toward our brother Cut it downe c. Hitherto of the patience of God now followeth his Commandement directed to the dresser of the Vineyard to cut it downe When once the dayes of his patience are expired at the last he executeth judgement Dcto and chargeth him to cut downe the Fig-tree And wherefore Patience abnsed causeth destruction he had waited for fruit three yeares and yet findeth none now the time approched that it must be hewen downe For where the acceptable time of grace is neglected there judgement is most worthily called for This reacheth that patience neglected bringeth forth destruction If we make not his patience to worke in us repentance he will cause his patience to worke out his judgements He doth desire our amendment that we should not deserve revengement As then Gods patience tendeth to this end to bring forth repentance so his patience and kindnesse abused and despised bringeth forth utter confusion Thus the Prophet speaketh Esay 5. Esay 5.5 I will tell you whâ—â— I will doe to my Vineyard that bringeth forth no fruit I will take away the hedge thereof it shall be eaten up troden downe and laid waste This doth Nathan preach to David in the name of God 2 Sam. 12. 2 Sam. 12.9.10 I have given to thee the house of Iudah and Israel c. if that had beene too little I would have given unto thee such and such things Wherefore then hast thou despised the commandement of the Lord to doe evill in his sight thou hast killed Vriah with the sword c. now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house c. We have examples hereof in the old world in Sodome and Gomorah in Pharaoh and the Egyptians yea in the Israelites themselves Rom. 2.5 of them all we may say with the Apostle Thou after thine hardnesse and heart that cannot repent heapest up wrath against the day of wrath c. behold here a sharpe and severe threatning of most heavy vengeance to come at the last upon such as abuse the great lenity and long-sufferance of God and are not bettered but hardned thereby and not made wiser but worser by them And wherefore shall this abuse cause destruction Reason 1 First because God will take vengeance and execute judgement upon every man according to his workes It is justice to give to every one that which is his owne and of right belonging unto him but destruction is as due to such as neglect his patience as wages is to the labourer Gen. 18.25 Thus doe such deserve to be proceeded against for shall not the judge of all the earth doe right This is the reason rendred by the Apostle where the doctrine hath his confirmation Rom. 2.6 He will render to every man according to his deedes Rom. 2. Secondly there is no respect of persons with him it skilleth not whether we be rich or poore Iew or Gentile bond or free all that neglect his patience ly with all under his punishment as it is concluded vers 11. of the same Chapter Thridly sinne is thereby encreased for the longer he waiteth by his patience the more heavily will he pursue us by his vengeance Luc. 12.48 as our Saviour teacheth To whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much of him they will aske the more This reproveth the fond perswasion of such as imagine Vse 1 that albeit all other mens sinnes should be punished yet they alone may escape Gods judgements as if they had made a covenant with death and were at an agreement with hell We promise to our selves impunity even in those sinnes for which his wrath hath lighted upon other the children of disobedience Marveilous have beene the mercies of God toward us in this kingdome we have had peace within our walles and plenteousnesse within our dwellings he hath made us hitherto the head and our enemies the taile defeating their policies and turning their mischeivous plots devises upon their own heads and what could he have done that he hath left undone But what hath all this bountifulnesse of God wrought among us and what effect have his blessings taken in us but a blessing of our selves in our wickednesse and an adding of one sinne to another as it were drunkennesse unto thirst and running up and downe from one extreme to another Have we not nay doe we not for the most part heape up our sinnes without measure or conscience of turning to God If we would behold with a single eye the state of Church and common-wealth as now it
haue filled up the measure of their sinne being disobedient and to every good worke reprobate Math. 23.32 it is now come to the top and his judgments lye even at the doore ready to fal heavy upon them then will God fill up the vials of his wrath and powre them downe upon their heads To apply these things to our selves it ought to move us to turne to the Lord betimes Vse 1 while there may be an healing and binding up of the wounds least the heart be hardned through the deceitfulnesse of sinne which of all judgments is the most grievous If it be once said of us as it was of the Iewes That the Lord sent to us his servants rising up continually and carefully because 2 Chro. 36.15.16 he hath compassion on his people but we on the other side mocke his messengers ministers despise his words what remaineth but that the wrath of the Lord arise against us either by the plague pestilence as he hath upon our brethren or by the sword of the enemy which wil have no coÌ„passion upon the yong the maiden or him that stooped for age He hath other man or secret judgements which the world taketh no knowledge of neither judgeth them to be any judgements at all these as they are more secret so they are more sharpe as when he taketh away his word from us or if he continue it yet maketh it unprofitable through our abuse and contempt of it Secondly wofull is their estate which goe forward in their evill wayes are not these nigh destruction Doubtlesse there is but a step betweene death and them nay they have as it were one foot in hell already being readier to draw the other after a thousand times then to withdraw the other from thence Hence it is that the Prophet saith Ier. 30.12 Thus saith the Lord thy bruise is incurable and thy wound is grievous there is none to plead thy cause that thou maist be bound up thou bast no healing â—â—dicine there is no Balme in Gilead to heale them whom the Lord seeth thus without remedy and thus past recovery They are like a man desperately sicke whom all the Physitians have forsaken The husbandman taketh his weeding instruments and laboureth to grubbe up the thornes and thistles and weedes out of his ground that the good corne might the better prosper and flourish but when once he seeth there is no end of his worke nor fruit of his labour but the more he toyleth and moyleth the more they grow and encrease he is without hope to overcome them and so withdraweth himselfe and letteth all alone For why or to what end should he busie and bestirre himselfe in vaine Thus it is with the Lord he sendeth his messengers and chargeth them to warne his people in season to admonish and exhort them but when they stop their eares and pull away their shoulders and refuse to hearken what can we thinke but that the Lord is determined to lay waste his Vineyard that it shal not be pruned or digged or dunged any longer but there shall come upbries and thornes Esay 5.5 and to command the cloudes that they raine downe no more raine upon it yea to take away the hedge thereof that it may be eaten up and to breake downe the wall thereof that it may be troden downe as he threatned to the Vineyard of the house of Isâ—ael when he looked for judgement but behold oppression and for righteousnesse but behold a cry Thirdly let not the Ministers neverthelesse be discouraged though they see oftentimes they must be driven to plough the waste and barren wildernesse and then sow among thornes and thistles The sower goeth out to sow his seede and it falleth not all or alwayes in good ground but some by the high-way side some in stony ground and other falleth upon thornes without any fault either of the sower or of the seed We may not not be ouâ—own chusers to chuse our ground where we will sow neither lay our plot-forme where we will build much lesse can we make the earth fruitfull or the building healthfull The Prophet complaineth Esay 53.1 49.4 that no man beleeved his report and prophesying of the labours of Christ Iesus to plant the Gospel who was the best labourer in the field and the best shepheard of the sheepe he bringeth him in complayning that he had laboured in vaine and spent all his strength in vaine neverthelesse he was not discouraged but comforted himselfe in this that the reward of his worke was laid up in heaven Salomon giving directious for workes of charity Eccl. 11.1.6 chargeth them that have this worlds good to cast their bread upon the waters because they should find it after many dayes and afterward he addeth to the same purpose In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withdraw not thine hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that or whether they both shall be alike good much rather should it be thus with us we should cast the bread of life upon the waters even when we have small hope to find it againe as if a man should sow his seed in the sea and use all diligence and take all occasions to doe good leaving the issue of our labours to the cheife husband man And the rather we ought to doe it because we are unto God the sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved 2 Cor. 2.15 and in them that perish that is in all persons because all men whatsoever either are such as shall be saved or such as shall be condemned and the reward shall be according to the faithfulnesse of the Ministers teaching not according to the fruitfulnesse of the peoples hearing Lastly it behoveth us in time to take heed how we heare not onely what we heare touching the matter Mark 4.24 Mar. 4 24. Luk. 8.18 but also how we heare touching the manner Luk. 8.18 and regard how it be performed as well as that it be performed The more the word of God soundeth in our eares and we respect it but as a sound the more our hearts are hardned like the anvill that is beaten and hardned by the continuall strokes of the hammer Gods word is in regard of the effectes resembled compared to fire to an hammer as Ier. 23. Is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord Ier. 23.29 and like an hammer that breaketh the rooke in pieces There is more hope of men that never heard the word and never lived under the ordinary ministry and preaching of it then of such as have had their eares beaten with it yet it cannot enter into their hearts as our Saviour speaketh to the chiefe Priests and Elders of the people Math. 21.31 Verily I say unto you that the publicanes and the harlots goe into the kingdome of God before you If the word do not convert us it doth condemne us and if
bee confident What made the Prophet bold to overstride all dangers that he could not be dismaied by them but because his heart was fixed in God to depend upon him and to looke for salvation from him On the other side what doth discomfort and dis-harten many men what maketh them to doubt to murmure and many times to blaspheme but because they imagine the Lords hand is shortned Numb 11.23 and is not able to supply their wants It is an easie matter when we have store and abundance when the Lord blesseth us on every side and our substance is encreased when he washeth our steps with butter Iob 29.6 and the rocke powreth out rivers of oyle upon us to flatter our selves that we have a strong faith and a full perswasion and assurance of his love that we put our whole trust and affiance in him and will never be brought to rapine against him But be not deceived these are not the dayes of triall of our faith these are not the times of the patience of the Saints Before triall Peter was most confident but in the brunt of the battel he was a coward and gave over in the plaine field So doe we triumph before the victory but when wee see persecution famine perill and sword we give over fighting and feare possesseth our hearts When Elisha the man of God was sent with a comfortable message at the siege of Samaria that two measures of barly should bee sold for a shekell and a measure of fine flowre for a shekell to morrow about that time one of the Princes beleeved not the Word of the Lord Behold 2 King 7.1 2. if the Lord would make windowes in Heaven would this thing be the Prophet answered Because thou saist so thou shalt see it with thine eyes but shalt not eate thereof and according to his Word so it came to passe The Disciples being in danger to be drowned when a storme arose they came to Christ their Master for helpe and he saith Why are ye fearefull Maâ—th 8.26 O yee of little faith He accuseth them not to be faithlesse men or to have no faith at all for beleeving and doubting faith and feare may stand together in one subject as they met together in these but he layeth to their charge to have little faith The like wee read touching Peter when he saw the windes blow and the waves arise he was sore afraid and beginning to sinke he cryed out O Master save me Matth. 14.30 31 6.30 Then Christ stretched out his hand caught him and said O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt And in a like case wherein we deale he saith If God so clothe the grasse of the field which to day flourisheth and to morrow is cast into the Oven will he not much more cloathe you O yee of little faith Thus doth Christ evermore upbraid such as are fearefull doubtfull and distrustfull with want or with weaknesse of faith to rest upon him For as the Apostle speaketh of perfect love 1 Ioh. 4.18 so may I say of perfect faith that it casteth out feare Where such feare is there is little faith These testimonies teach us where to seeke and finde the true cause of all our wavering and doubting it springeth from an evill heart and unfaithfull Hebr. 3.12 1 Ioh. 5.4 5. to depart away from the living God this is the ground of all Therefore this shifting for our selves and pensivenesse for worldly things is a strong argument of a weake faith for whatsoever is borne of God overcommeth the world and this is the victory that overcommeth the world even our faith and who is he that overcommeth the world but hee that beleeveth that Jesus is the Sonne of God 1 Iohn 5.4 5. Secondly it is our duty to rely upon Gods providence for earthly things as Children doe upon their Fathers love and care for them in like manner as Abraham speaketh to his Sonne When Isaac said My Father where is the sacrifice he answered with words of faith Gen. 22.8 My Sonne God will provide Doe wee not see how little Children albeit they have nothing and know not to day what they shall have to morrow never disquiet themselves what they shall eate or what they shall drinke or wherewith they shall be clothed And the reason is because they know their Parents provide for them and will not see them want Shall wee rely lesse upon our heavenly Father then these doe upon their earthly or shall we thinke that God hath lesse care of his Children then the sonnes of men have of theirs Nay as great as the difference is betweene that which is infinite and that which is finite so much greater is his love then the love of men Psal 103.11 â—3 and consequently so much greater ought our dependance to bee upon him His love is infinite as himselfe is for the love of God is God and every way as great as himselfe nay it is himselfe it is no quality in him as it is in us To worke this resting upon God as upon a rocke we have sundry exhortations in holy Scripture all of them tending to the same purpose Commit thy way to the Lord Psal 37.5 1 Cor. 10.13 and trust in him and he shall bring it to passe to wit when we can see no end or issue out of our dangers yet hee can we see but before our eyes he seeth the most hidden things of the world And againe Psal 35.22 Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustaine thee Let us not therefore content our selves to depend upon him in light and slight troubles but even then when we have the greatest tentations and afflictions upon us and let us not cry out in anguish of spirit O what an heavy burden doe I beare no man is so troubled as I am No man knoweth what sorrow I sustaine what misery I feele But be it never so tedious and toilsome as waighty and wearisome as a mountaine to carry cast thy care and crosse upon the Lords shoulders he is able to beare it albeit we be not and he hath promised to helpe us to beare it who never faileth of his promise in time of need Thus Salomon speaketh Prov. 16.3 Prov. 16.3 Commit thy waies unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established And 1 Pet. 5.7 Cast all your care on him 1 Pet. 5.7 for he careth for you If a Prince should utter any such gracious words of comfort to any of his poore people and give such a precept accompanied with such a promise O how would they accept of it and rejoyce in it as we see an example in Barzillai 2 Sam. 19. David promising to shew kindnesse to his Sonne I will doe to him whatsoever thou shalt require of me 2 Sam. 19.38 and whatsoever shall seeme good to thee how did his heart rest in the Kings word and how willing was he to trust the King
joyned with it in all that are saved Some upon the Minister as if it were in him to convert the heart he soweth the seed as the spirituall Husbandman but he cannot make it grow as also he washeth the body Matth. 3.11 13 19 20. but cannot baptize with the holy Ghost clense the soule But the Parable of the Sower serveth to rectifie and reforme our judgement and understanding that the fault is not in the Seedman nor in the seed nor in the sowing but in the ground of mens hearts so that wee may say with the Prophet Hos 13.9 The fift reproofe Thy destruction O Israel is of thy selfe Fiftly such as will stay till all men be agreed For if the number of the sheepe be few we may looke long enough before all will meet in the unity of the Spirit Woe then to such as waite for the comming in of all to joyne together and will resolve upon nothing so long as any remaine unresolved as if they strove to be the last that should be added to the Sheepfold When all men thinke one thing then will they joyne and jumpe with them in practice and opinion but in the meane season they will hang and hover in the aire in suspence and expect a generall agreement And that they may doe untill their eyes fall out of their heads and be never the wiser but rather the worser and the wickeder For this is to looke for Heaven upon earth Thus indeed it shall bee when wee come to know even as we are knowne then wee shall have and heare a perfect harmony of all voices singing with one minde and with one mouth Hallelu-iah Revel 19.1 3. but here our musicke hath many jarres and we meet with sundry rubbes in our way for wee know onely in part 1 Cor. 13.9 10. and we prophecy in part but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall bee done away Howbeit it availeth little to speake to such of spirituall things being wholly carnall themselves and therefore set us deale with them in their owne language that is speake to earthly-minded men of earthly things and so keepe our selves within their owne element If these would never buy or sell untill all men be agreed of the due price and just value they should never have any doings or dealings in the world that now overburden themselves with the world If they would never purchase foot of land neither husband their ground or plough or mow or sow untill all men were consenting about the matter or manner or time when to begin and where to make an end or other like circumstances their fields would bee all growne over with thornes and thistles and nettles would cover the face thereof How then are these so sencelesse and sottish as not to consider that there never was nor never will be a generall concord in any thing under the Sunne If then there will never be a full agreement no not in temporall things wherein notwithstanding the sences of carnall and worldly men are expert and wholly exercised how much lesse is it to be looked for in heavenly things which are supernaturall and cannot bee conceived of meere naturall men I may therefore say unto such according as our Saviour reasoneth Iohn 3.12 Ioh. 3. If I have told you earthly things and yee beleeve not how shall ye beleeve if I tell you of heavenly things If these had lived in the dayes of Christ when some spake one thing of him and some another according to their severall fancy and folly Iohn 7.12 40 41 43. some said he was a good man some of a truth hee is a Prophet some this is the Christ but others nay for he deceiveth the people so that there was a murmuring and a division among them because of him doubtlesse they would have denied and refused him at least till they had seene the Scribes and Pharisees and other learned Lawyers among the Iewes wholly to receive him But how many among them thinke you were damned for this device albeit they had fully as much to plead for themselves as these men have And if Noah had never set upon the Arke to build it untill the whole world of the ungodly had consented unto him and counselled him he had perished with them in the waters The sixt reproofe What good thing ever was there that all men allowed and approved Lastly another sort the worst of all the rest are here reprooved who make a scoffe and derision at these Words of Christ as Pilate did when Christ Iesus shewed that he came for this cause into the world that he might beare witnesse unto the truth he said What is truth Iohn 19 20. So doe prophane persons upbraid the faithfull servants of God with this title as with a taunt O you are of the godly ones O you are one of these holy folke you have the Spirit of God and are one of the little flocke thereby scorning and deriding such as honour the Word and frequent the hearing of it nay mocking at the preaching of Christ and bringing the Word it selfe into contempt and as it were flouting God to his face But he that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh at them Psal 2.4 the Lord shall have them in derision nay in detestation For this differeth not from open blasphemy nor these from wretched blasphemers who make scoffes and jests at Gods Word whereby they shall be judged nay condemned at the last day except they repent It is ill jesting with a sharp two-edgedsword that cutteth as a razor Heb. 4.12 which in the end shall cut them in pieces These raise a nick-name upon the Word Psal 138.2 which He hath magnified above all his other Names and are come to the height and top of sinne and take the name of God in vaine in the highest degree not onely walking in the counsell of the ungodly Psal 1.1 and standing in the way of sinners but even sitting downe in the seat of the scornefull whereby they fill up the measure of their sinne that God may fill to them the full viall of his fierce wrath and indignation These doe notoriously belch out their owne shame and manifestly renounce their owne salvation and prove with their owne mouthes that they looke for no other but the portion of reprobates together with the Devill and his angels For I would gladly be informed and receive answer from them whether they beleeve in their hearts that themselves have any true holinesse in them and are in the number of this little flocke or not If they doe then their owne words convince them and by their owne mouthes as the evill servant they shall be condemned If they doe not then they must bee foule and filthy goats that shall stand at the left hand as damned creatures and receive an horrible curse denounced and executed against them and all this by their owne verdict and
taken sometimes personally and sometimes essentially Personally when it is restrained to one of the Persons as to the first Person in the holy and blessed Trinity Matth. 28.19 Ephes 2.3 2 Cor. 13.13 to wit God the Father begetting the Sonne and sending forth the holy Ghost whensoever mention is made of any of the other Persons also Thus likewise it is taken when it is limited to the second Person in Trinity to wit God the Sonne begotten of the Father before all worlds â—say 9.6 as Esay 9.6 Vnto us a Childe is borne unto us a Sonne is given his Name shall be called Wonderfull Counseller the mighty God the everlasting Father And in this sence the holy Ghost the third Person proceeding from the Father and the Sonne may also be called Father because he together with the Father and the Sonne giveth being to all things Sometimes the Word is taken essentially without consideration of any personall relation and then it is referred simply to God and is extended to all the three Persons Deut. 32.6 as Deut. 32.6 Doe yee so reward the Lord Mal. 2.10 Iam. 1.27 O yee foolish people is not he thy Father that hath bought thee and Mal. 2.10 Have yee not all one Father and thus it is taken in this place for the whole God-head the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost who have a Soveraigne Father-hood over the Church loving it defending it delighting in it caring for it bestowing all blessings upon it and withholding nothing that is good from it Doct. 7 This title teacheth us that God is the Father of his Church and Children As a Father loveth his Children to whom hee hath given breath and being as he feedeth and clotheth them nourisheth and layeth up for them so God loveth his Children to whom he hath given their first life their second life and to whom he will give a third life The first life is in the flesh the second in grace the third in glory The first is a naturall life the second a spirituall life the third an eternall life The first is their generation the second their regeneration the third shall be their glorification and therefore he loveth them with a love infinitely above the love of all Parents toward their Children whose love must needs be as finite as themselves when it is at the highest What the love of Parents is toward their Children the Scripture setteth downe by sundry examples 1 King 3.26 2 Sam. 18.23 1 King 3.26 Esay 66.13 Zach. 12.10 2 Sam. 19.37 Gen. 17.18 49.1 1 King 14.2 Esay 49.15 Psal 103.13 17. 68.5 Esay 63.16 69.8 2 Thes 2.6 2 Sam. 18 23. they rejoice at their good Prov. 101. they moutne for their trouble and evill that befalleth them Zach. 12.10 they comfort them in sorrow and anguish Esay 66.13 they procure them what good and preferment they can 2 Sam. 19.37 Gen. 17.18 they provide for the time present and to come Gen. 49.1 they tender them in sicknesse and in health 1 King 14.2 they prevent dangers that doe hang over their heads and may befall them Gen. 27.43 28.2 they regard them in prosperity and adversity in wealth and in poverty so that they cannot leave them nor forget them nor forsake them Esay 49.15 All these being onely in part and unperfectly in men are fully infinitely and perfectly in God as his nature and essence and therefore he commendeth his love to us above all this Esay 49. Matth. 7. of which places before The Prophets and Apostles are full of such testimonies as Psal 103. As a Father pittieth his Children so the Lord pittieth them that feare him and as the Heaven is high above the earth so great is his mercy toward them that feare him And 68.5 A Father of the Fatherlesse and a Judge of the Widdowes is God in his holy habitation So Esay 63.16 Doubtlesse thou art our Father our Redeemer thy Name is from everlasting And 64.8 Thou O Lord art our Father we are the clay and thou our Potter and wee all are the worke of thine hand Thus the Apostle 2 Thes 2.6 The Lord Iesus and God even the Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation comfort your hearts This title is indeed proper to God alone Reas 1 that albeit there be that are called Fathers as indeed there be many upon the earth Magistrates Ministers Masters naturall Parents Exod. 20.12 and all Superiours Exod. 20.12 Yet to us as there is but one God and one Lord so there is but one Father as we heard before out of the Prophet to whom this name is properly and peculiarly belonging Matth. 23.9 This Christ himselfe teacheth Matth. 23.9 Call no man Father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven neither be yee called Masters for one is your Master Obiect even Christ But is it unlawfull to call any Father the Apostle calleth himselfe the Father of the Corinthians 1 Cor. 9.15 1 Cor. 9. Though yee have ten thousand Instructours yet have ye not many Fathers for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospell Answ I answer He doth not simply forbid the appellation but restraine them from ambition neither condemneth he properly the title but absolutely the affecting of the title We may not therefore imagine that Christ would utterly abolish from among Christians the name of Father or Master or Teacher as if it were unlawfull for Children to call those their Fathers of whom they received their beeing or for Servants to call any their Masters to whom they owe their service forasmuch as the Scripture willeth Children to honour their Fathers and Servants to be obedient to their bodily Masters but his purpose is to forbid these names in such sort as the Pharises were called by them who loved or desired to be called Rabbies Fathers and Masters and challenged the names as proper and peculiar to themselves It is not therefore the bare title but their vaine glory that is condemned Againe so to be called Rabbi Father or Master that the people of the Lord should wholly and absolutely depend upon their mouthes 1 Cor. 7.23 to become servants of men and rest slavishly in their opinions and traditions as the onely true Teachers and Fathers of the Church as the Iesuits would be accounted in these dayes may not be admitted in any case or that their doctrines were not subject to triall and examination by the Scripture is wholly to be rejected forasmuch as the spirits of the Prophets are subiect to the Prophets 1 Cor. 14.32 Thus to be called Father or Master agreeth to no mortall man but God is the onely true Father and Christ Iesus the onely true Master as the onely Law-giver that is able to save and to destroy Jam. 4. whose Precepts we must receive and are bound to obey though all the world should teach otherwise God then must be held to be supreme others are
subordinate unto him Secondly God hath set his whole delight on his to love them above all other people Deut. 10.15 21. and doth great things for them that hee hath not done for the whole world beside Hee hath given his owne Sonne for them and to them which is the fountaine of all his love Joh. 3.16 For he so loved the world Ioh. 3.16 that he gave his onely begotten Sonne that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And 1 Joh. 4.9 10. in this was manifested the love of God toward us because God sent his onely begotten Sonne into the world 1 Ioh. 4.9 10. that we might live through him Herein is love not that we loved him but that he loved us and sent his Sonne to be the propitiation for our sinnes From hence flow all spirituall and eternall blessings as reconciliation and atonement sanctification and likewise our justification consisting in the forgivenesse of sinnes and the imputation of his righteousnesse unto us yea hence doe flow temporall blessings to us as they are blessings so that he careth for us as the Eagle for her Birds Deut. 32.11 12. and tendreth us as the apple of his owne eye Zach. 2.5 Thirdly this truth further appeareth unto us by the titles given to the faithfull For as the Names of God set forth his nature toward us so also doe the names that are given to the Godly The names that he giveth are not like names given by men who onely hope or desire to finde them as they are named but they often prove the contrary as we see in Abshalom who had his name of his Fathers peace but hee sought the destruction of his Father It is not so with God he doth not deceive neither can bee deceived in calling his Children by their names They are called sometimes the Lords portion Deut. 32.9 Exod. 19.5 and the lot of his inheritance Deut. 32. Sometimes his chiefe treasure above all people though all the earth be his Exod. 19 5. sometimes his Sonnes and Daughters 1 Ioh. 3.1 begotten of him to a lively hope of an inheritance unspeakable and glorious 1 Joh. 3.1 sometimes the Spouse of Christ Hos 2.19 23. Ioh. 15.24 Hos 2. sometimes his Jewels Mal. 3. and sometimes also his friends labouring to doe whatsoever he commandeth them Joh. 15.14 All these titles and testimonies teach us how dearely hee loveth and accounteth of his people The uses of this point serve Vse 1 partly for information partly for instruction and partly for consolation First for information or bettering of our knowledge we must consider that from hence wee have boldnesse and confidence in prayer to approach neere to the Throne of Grace that he will give us whatsoever we aske according to his will Hence it is that in the Lords prayer we are willed and warranted to begge the sanctifying of his Name the comming of his Kingdome c. and whatsoever serveth for his glory or our owne good and to call him by the name of our Father Matth. 6. â— to stirre up our faith to come with assurance and without doubting to be heard and helped Will a Father deny his Childe any thing that is good for him God is our Father and we his Children he our Shepheard and we his Flocke hee the Creator and we his creatures Hee seeth what wee have need of and hee knoweth better then our selves what is good for us so that we may boldly come in faith and not waver as the Romanists would have us to doe Now to the end we may approach and appeare before him aright and come unto him as to a Father we must come partly with cheerefulnesse and boldnesse and partly with awefulnesse and reverence And these two must be compounded and mingled together boldnesse with reverence and reverence with boldnesse that we may pray and make supplication to him with a reverent boldnesse and with a bold kinde of reverence lest boldnesse severed from reverence breed basenesse and contempt and reverence severed from boldnesse turne into a slavish and superstitious feare To worke in us boldnesse and willingnesse the Scripture layeth before us the promises of God whereupon we must build as upon a sure foundation To strike in us reverence it propoundeth sundry threatnings and admonitions which we ought to call to minde so often as we goe to praier to prepare us thereunto First we must acquaint our selves with the gracious promises of God which he hath made to us in his holy Word that our dull and dead spirits may thereby be quickned and our unbeleeving hearts may be fully perswaded that hee will deliver our soule from death Psal 116.8 our eyes from teares and our feet from falling For as the amiable Word of a Father implieth a readinesse and willingnesse in God to shew mercy so it should stirre up in us a forwardnesse to come unto him and to aske whatsoever wee want The Scripture is full of such heavenly promises Psal 50.15 Matth. 7.7 Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will heare thee Psal 50.15 Matth. 7.7 If wee humble our selves in his presence and turne from our sinnes and wicked waies then He will heare in Heaven 2 Chron. 7.14 15.2 Esay 65.24 and be mercifull unto our sins 2 Chron. 7. If we seek him He will be found of us 2 Chron. 15. Before we call he will answer and while we speake he will heare Esay 65. If we which are evill can give good gifts to our children Luke 11.13 how much more will our heavenly Father give the holy Ghost to them that desire him Rom. 10.22 Luke 11 He that is Lord of all is rich unto all that call upon him Rom. 10. Draw neere to God and He will draw neere to you Iam. 4.8 Iam. 4. All these are so many encouragements to draw us and to drive us to God who by these and a thousand such other promises inviteth us into his holy presence Againe on the other side we must consider that the Scripture withall giveth us sundry advertisements and threatnings to admonish us to come to him with feare and reverence The name of a Father is a title of familiarity but familiarity many times breedeth too much boldnesse and boldnesse breedeth contempt and contempt a base estimation of God and therefore it must bee seasoned with other considerations lest wee come to him in vaine and to our owne hurt Hence it is that as Christ our Saviour teache thus to call God our Father when we fall down before him so withall he willeth us to remember that he is in Heaven that is of infinite glory power and majesty Let us therefore have before us these and such like meditations If I regard wickednesse in my heart Psal 66.18 26.6 Prov. 1.28 15.8 21.27 the Lord will not heare me Psal 66.18 26.6 and often in the Proverbs They shall call upon me but
any were to worke in us such duties as may please him To give The fourth branch of the reason These words containe the manner of bestowing the promise and the meanes how it is convaied unto us As the fountaine of it is Gods good pleasure so the chanell to convay it is his free gift Some kinde of gifts are given but they are first well deserved by them that receive them Againe some things are given Luke 14.11 but it is with hope and expectation to have as great or greater bestowed upon them againe as they that give to Kings and Princes Some things are said to be given when a sufficient recompence is tendred and offered withall as Gen. 23.9 Give me the cave for as much money as it is worth Gen. 23.9 and 1. King 12.2 Give me thy Vineyard and I will give thee for it a better Vineyard then it This giving by way of commutative justice is no other then bargaine and sale or exchange But it is not thus with the gifts of God who is a free giver and bestower hee doth not alter them neither barter them for other he doth not chop and change buy and sell his blessings as men doe Bullockes in a market that he should be as much beholding to us as we to him He offereth with a willing heart Doct. 10 and performeth with a free hand This teacheth us that all spirituall gifts and graces are bestowed upon us frankely and freely They come unto us neither by inheritance nor by exchange nor by bargaine and sale nor yet by purchase True it is our Salvation and Redemption were purchased by Christ who paid a deare price to bring us to God because his Iustice required it Ephes 1.7 yet was this also of meere grace We have Redemption through his blood the forgivenesse of our sinnes according to the riches of his grace So then albeit Salvation were purchased and as I may say dearely bought in respect of Christ yet neither the whole worke nor any part or parcell thereof was purchased in regard of our selves who are made partakers thereof through Gods speciall grace We conferre nothing toward the attainement of Salvation to procure to our selves this unspeakable benefit Wee cannot gratifie Christ Iesus againe in any matter or measure Esay 63.3 who trode the wine-presse of the wrath of the Father alone for us and hath paid the utmost farthing that could be required of us and therefore it commeth as a meere gratuity unto us without any purchase or paiment without any money or satisfaction Rom. 3.24 6.23 This the Apostle teacheth Rom. 3.24 Being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Christ and Chap. 6.23 The gift of God is eternall life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And Peter speaketh to the same purpose 2 Pet. 1.3 According to his divine power hee hath given us all things that pertaine unto life and godlinesse 2. Pet. 1.3 Thus the Prophet long before proclaimed the free gift of God without either money or money-worth or any price all that are a-thirst may come freely to the waters of life Revel 22.17 Esay 55.1 2. John 7.37 The reasons are Reas 1 first from the generall to the speciall All good gifts and perfect gifts whatsoever are from above and come downe from the Father of lights Jam. 1. They spring not out of the earth Iam. 1.17 Ioh. 3.27 as John 3. A man can receive nothing except it be given him from above neither yet come unto Christ except the Father draw him John 6. Secondly wee cannot obtaine a bit of bread to doe us any good but we must have it by Gods gift as appeareth in the Lords Prayer where wee are taught to come to him to have our daily bread given unto us Matth. 6.11 Deut. 9.5 The Israelites could not inherit the Land of Canaan by any inherent righteousnesse in themselves the uprightnes of their hearts neither yet conquer it by their owne sword Psal 44.3 Psal 44.3 They gate not the Land in possession by their owne sword neither did their owne arme save them but thy right hand and the light of thy countenance because thou hadst a favour unto them much lesse then are we able to possesse the heavenly Canaan by any godlinesse in our owne persons This doctrine overthroweth all Iustification by our owne workes and merits whether done before grace Vse 1 or in the state of grace The Apostle saith Rom. 3.20 By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh bee iustified in his sight for by the Law is the knowledge of sinne And Tit. 3. Rom. 3.20 The kindnesse and love of God appeared Tit. 3.4 5. not by workes of righteousnesse which we have done but according to his mercy hee saved us and againe 2. Tim. 1.9 He hath saved us and called us by an holy calling 2 Tim. 1.9 not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace which is given us in Christ Jesus before the world began What can workes before a mans conversion availe for as much as wee are borne dead in sinnes and trespasses as wee have shewed before being without faith without hope without any good so that wee should be justified by our sinnes and our righteousnesse should be by unrighteousnesse if we should bee justified by these or any such workes Neither can workes of righteousnesse done in faith and after our conversion present us as righteous in the sight of God because they are all unperfect even the best and the holiest of them that we cannot challenge righteousnesse by them Psal 143.2 130. 3. 32.1 2. but must with the Prophet cry out Lord enter not into judgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified And againe to like purpose If thou Lord shouldst marke iniquities O Lord who shall stand but there is forgivenesse with thee that thou maist be feared This is our justification to obtaine remission of our sinnes Psal 32. The Servants of God doe not in the pride of their hearts advance themselves against God through their owne righteousnesse but they aske forgivenesse for their unrighteousnesse The Apostle John saith 1 Iob. 1.10 If we say that we have not sinned we make him a lyer and his Word is not in us All our righteousnesse is as a menstruous cloth Esay 64.6 spotted with the flesh Obiect But the Adversaries object that the Scripture never saith We are justified by faith onely and complaine that this word is fraudulently foysted and cunningly thrust into this Question as an Addition of our owne whereupon notwithstanding the chiefe state of the Controversie betweene us and them dependeth I answere Answ The putting to of that word is not alwaies an Addition to the Text but rather an exposition or explication Luke 4.8 Deut. 6.13 as wee see the like case in Christ our Saviour Luke 4.8 compareth with Deut. 6.13 who
not feare the lacke of lesser blessings But the faithfull have a Kingdome promised unto them Therefore the faithfull need not feare the lacke of lesser blessings The power and strength of this reason is good and exceeding great Christ our Saviour doth never argue weakely who ministreth strength to all his that are weake In this reason the giving of heavenly things to us is made an argument to prove the not with-holding of earthly things from us Wee may not feare or faint in our faith and profession as though God would quite forsake us or give us over And wherefore Because he hath promised to us the Kingdome so that there is nothing so great that he will sticke at or doubt to bestow upon us Doct. 12 The force of this reason layeth before us this instruction that the consideration of the Kingdome of Heaven and of the eternall joyes prepared for the faithfull ought to be a strong and sufficient reason to stay us up in all trials and troubles whatsoever True it is the righteous have many troubles and we have likewise many promises fitted to every estate as it were medicines applied to the diseases but among them all there is none more forcible and effectuall then this promise in this place which is the accomplishment of all promises to wit the Kingdome of Heaven Doe we finde our faith at any time weake and faint fearing tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perill or sword or to be separated from the love of God and his Sonne Iesus Christ Rom. 8.35 â— Cor. 11.27 or to be oppressed and overburdened with wearinesse and painfulnesse with hunger and thirst with fastings with cold with watchings with poverty with reproaches with feare of death and such like behold the promise here set before us let us lay fast hold upon it Let us with joy and comfort lift up our eyes or rather our hearts to Heaven and remember that wee have the reversion of a Kingdome promised unto us by him that did never falsify his Word in regard whereof we are more then Conquerers through him that loved us whereby we may easily see an issue out of the former tentations Hence it is that Abraham Moses and all the Prophets in the middest of all their afflictions wherewith they were afflicted did comfort themselves hereby they had respect to the great reward they knew to be laid up for them in the Heavens The Hebrewes tooke joyfully the spoiling of their goods while they were made a gazing-stocke by reproaches and calamities This is no easie thing to beare but hard for flesh and blood to doe For no doubt their goods and good names were as precious unto them as ours to our selves or to any other What then was the cause that made them able to beare all these injuries and indignities Surely this they knew in themselves that they were Heires apparent to a Kingdome and had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance Heb. 10.34 Heb. 10.34 11.9 10 24 35. then they knew that what teares soever they shed he would not onely keepe them in his bottle of remembrance but then he would wipe them away from their eyes that they should shead them no more Revel 7.17 21.4 Here is their time of weeping but then shall be the time of their rejoycing here is their time of sowing but then shall be the time of their reaping as Lazarus while he was here was distressed but after this life he was comforted Luke 16.25 Ioh. 16.20 21 22. 1 Ioh. 3.2 Then there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more paine for the former things are passed away Revel 21.4 the sorrow of the Saints shall bee turned into joy and their joy shall no man take from them The reasons follow First Reas 1 the greatest blessings assure the lesser and take away all doubt from us that might any way stay or stagger us in our obedience No man having a promise of a greater benefit from an honest man that he knoweth hath ever beene wont to bee as good as his word can or will make any doubt of his performance of the lesser so ought wee to learne to strengthen our faith against the feare of earthly wants by consideration of the heavenly promises that are found in the Word of God none of which did ever fall to the ground Rom. 8.32 as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 8. He that spared not his owne Sonne but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Secondly all the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed Rom. 8.18 Rom. 8. Let the meditation of this glory be once thorowly laid up as a treasure in our hearts and we have thereby a soveraigne preservative against all dangers whatsoever which beset us round about whereas such as are daunted and distressed with every blast or bruit of danger like men that are at their wits end it is plaine they were never well grounded in the Article of everlasting life Thirdly all calamities and troubles how many and great soever are short temporall and momentany they endure but a little season as Christ comforteth the Church Revel 2.10 Psal 30.5 Esay 54.7 8. Yee shall have tribulation ten dayes And the Prophet Psal 30. His anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but ioy commeth in the morning But the Kingdome of Heaven is not for a night nor for one yeere nor two yeeres nor five yeeres neither ten yeeres nor twenty yeeres nor as a flower that flourisheth for a season and suddenly fadeth away but it is unchangeable incorruptible and everlasting 2 Cor. 4.15 18. as the Apostle sheweth 2 Cor. 4. Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in us a farre more exceeding and eternall waight of glory while we looke not at the things which are seene but at the things which are not seene for the things which are seene are temporall but the things which are not seene are eternall Lastly this is as a staffe of sufficient force put into our hands to uphold us and stay us up because the Kingdome of Heaven is the end of all sorrowes and miseries whatsoever 1 Cor. 17.54 for then this mortall shall put on immortality and death the last enemy shall bee destroyed and swallowed up in victory The Traveller that hath a great way to goe and to passe thorow many troubles not without much labour and sweating oftentimes comforteth himselfe with the remembrance of the end of all his journey Wee are Pilgrims and strangers in this world and we passe our dayes in travelling toward the Kingdome that is everlasting Wee should make this reckoning and account that our life from our birth day to our dying day is nothing else but as a pilgrimage thorow the wildernesse
therewith rest contented Secondly having store of this worlds good if wee doe not set our hearts upon them then we will be content to leave them whensoever God the supreme and soveraigne Owner calleth againe for them and not excessively mourne for them when they leave us And as we will not refuse and reject them when we have them seeing they are the gifts of God so when they betake them to their wings and flee away we will looke after them with a quiet minde as it was with Iob who because hee rejoyced not when his substance was great Iob 31.25 1 21. and when his hand had gotten much therefore he did not much grieve when his wealth was taken away but in his greatest losse praiseth the Lord. So also it was with Paul who because he used this world as not abusing it and esteemed the best things thereof no better then dung in comparison of Christ and his benefits 1 Cor. 7.31 Phil. 3.7 8. 4.11 12 13. it was no great paine to him to take forth a farther lesson in what state soever he was therewithall to be content he could be abased and abound every where in all things he was instructed both to be full and to be hungry to abound and to have want yea hee could say I can doe all things through Christ which strengtheneth me Thirdly if worldly riches be wanting we will not seeke them by evil meanes nor glory in them when we have them to make us high minded or to put our trust and confidence in them Lastly it will make us keepe a vigilant eye over them that through our abuse they doc not degenerate from their owne nature and become Satans baits to allure us nor his snares to intangle us nor his thornes to choke us that the seed of the Word cannot prosper neither the graces of God grow in us Hence it is that I goe about to perswade to lay hold on Gods speciall providence watching over his children to succour and relieve them out of hopelesse and remedilesse troubles when they appeare destitute of all succour and in a manner in a desperate estate without all meanes left unto them When the Sonnes of Iacob stood gazing one upon another that is Gen. 42.1 they fared as men amazed and at their wits end that they know not what to doe for themselves their wives and their children then the Lord by his good hand opened a way for their reliefe that there was plenty of Corne in Egypt when there was none in the Land of Canaan verifying his gracious promise Gen. 8.22 So when the poore widdow in time of a great famine was brought to that extremity 1. King 17.12 13. that shee had but an handfull of meale in a barrell and a little oyle in a cruse and was now going purposely to gather a few stickes to dresse it for her selfe and her sonne that they might eate and die when she was in this great perplexity necessity and extremity the Lord that never leaveth his by his good providence directed the Prophet Elijah who immediately before had himselfe beene fed by Ravens that brought him bread and flesh in the morning verse 6. and bread and flesh in the evening to tell her good newes that the barrell of meale should not waste verse 14. neither the cruse of oyle faile until the Day that the Lord sendeth raine upon the earth Thus it was with the widdow of one of the sonnes of the Prophets she was left so farre in debt that her children were to be sold to satisfie the griping and greedinesse of the mercilesse Creditor and she had nothing to discharge it 2 Kings 4.2 but a little pitcher of oyle yet she was provided for by wonderfull meanes all which examples as a cloud of witnesses doe verifie the saying of the Psalmist Psa 33.18 19. and 37.25 Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that feare him upon them that hope in his mercy to deliver their soule from death and to keepe them alive in famine and Psal 37. I have beene young and now am old yet have I not seene the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread But if there were no other reasons or considerations then such as are handled in this Scripture to be as a preservative or counterpoison against diffidence and distrust touching earthly things which doe more disquiet disturbe not onely the naturall man but even the Regenerate themselves oftentimes then any thing in the world besides herein we may finde matter sufficient to take from us the carnall feare of future wants first because we are his Flocke and he is our Shepheard Will the good Shepheard starve his Sheepe and not make them lye downe in greene pastures This confidence in God doth the Prophet shew and concludeth from this ground the point in hand The Lord is my Shepheard Psal 23.1 therefore I shall not want how then can they assure themselves to be in the number of the Sheep of Christ that doe not rely upon the care of this great Shepheard As then the Prophet saith in another case Esay 40.11 Ezek. 34.2 Should not the Shepheards feed the Flocke So we may be assured that the Shepheard of Israel that leadeth Ioseph like a Flocke will never be wanting to his sheepe that call and cry unto him Secondly because the Title given to God assureth us hereof he is called a Father Psal 80.1 2. Will the father give over the care of his children and forsake or forget the fruite of his owne body nay doth not the Prophet say Esay 49.15 Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the sonne of her wombe yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee whom I have graven upon the palmes of my hands And Christ our Saviour speaketh to the same purpose What man is there of you Matth. 7.9.10.11 whom if his sonne aske bread will he give him a stone or if he aske a fish will he give him a Serpent If ye then being evill know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that aske him Lastly because we have the promise of a Kingdome and of the glory of heaven which is unspeakeable incomprehensible and everlasting He that hath promised us a Kingdome will he with-hold from us food and raiment nay Rom. 8.32 as the Apostle teacheth us to reason He that spared not his owne Sonne but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things So should we cōclude that seeing he hath called us to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven 1 Pet. 1.4 He will never leave us nor forsake us in this life but if we first seeke the Kingdome of God Matth 33. all other things shall be added unto us He
more favour with God then the true Church by reason of their multitudes by reason of their pomp and glory by reason of their flourishing estate and freedome from inward and outward terrours neverthelesse though there be such an innumerable sort of Queenes and Concubines as these yet the true Church is onely one and indeed the onely one dearely beloved and tenderly regarded of the true God as that which walketh in the truth and professeth the Word truely As for all other societies they are no better then as routes of Rebels and conspiracies of wicked men gathered together and risen up against the Lord and against his Anoynted breaking the bonds Psal 2.3 9. and casting away the cords of doctrine and discipline who in the end shall be broken to shivers with a rod of Iron and dashed in pieces like a Potters vessell Such are all the assemblies of the Turkes Sarazens Savages Iewes Persians Pagans and the like who are no Churches Such are the congregations of the Papists the meetings of the Arrians Anabaptists Libertines Familists Antinomies Tritheits Samosatenians Swinkfieldians all which are false Churches some like the Israelites or ten tribes after they were fallen from the house of David and others worse all of them no true Churches of God but multitudes of horrible Infidels detestable Idolaters and abominable Heretickes departed out of the true Church with whom wee must hold no communion with whom wee must have nothing to doe but rather shun them and separate from them nay abhorre and abjure them as men that walke in the path-way that leadeth to death and destruction A man will not willingly goe into an infectious house but these assemblies are a rout and receptacle of pestilent and prophane persons who have made shipwracke of faith and of a good conscience Hence it is that the Church speaketh in respect of such Cant. 1.7 Cant. 1.7 Why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flockes of thy companions she meaneth swarmes of Idolaters heapes of false Worshippers and societies of Schismatickes and Heretikes 2 Tim. 2.17 whose doctrine fretteth as a canker sowreth as a leaven and spreadeth as a leprosie over the whole body Therefore hee calleth these evill companies flockes because they are many in number and not that one flocke which hath Christ Iesus to be the onely Master the onely Shepheard the onely Teacher of the true service of God There alwaies have bene and now are Revel 3.9 such as are no other nor no better then the synagogue of Satan who say they are virgins but are harlots who say they are Jewes that is the true Church and people of God and are not but doe lye Secondly the Church being but one this point and principle is to be holden that there is no salvation out of the Church as there is no condemnation to them that are of the Church and consequently every one that looketh to bee saved by Christ must necessarily range himselfe in that number that so he may become a member and Citizen of this one Catholike Church For as out of the Sheepfold are Goats Dogs Swine Wolves and such like Revel 21.15 so out of the Church are Sorcerers and Whore mongers and Murtherers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh lies Revel 22. Such albeit they may be in the Church for a season yet are not of the Church for they remaine not in it They that were not in the Arke of Noah perished in the waters so out of the Church and out of this flocke and sheepfold all are condemned Hence it is that Luke teacheth Acts 2.47 Cant. 4.12 The Lord added to the Church from day to day such as should be saved So Salomon Cant. 4. A garden inclosed is my Sister my Spouse a Spring shut up a Fountaine sealed This is plaine in these foure respects First Why there is no salvation out of the Church because Christ Iesus is the onely head of the Church by whom all parts as by certaine joynts and sinewes are knit and coupled together but out of the militant Church there is no Christ Revel 1.13 for he alwaies walketh in the midst of the seven golden Candlestickes out of the Church there is no faith in Christ no obedience to Christ no justification through Christ This reason may bee thus concluded Where no Saviour is there can be no salvation But out of the Church there is no Saviour Therefore Out of the Church there can be no salvation So then where no head is to quicken or make alive there can be no body or members that are alive but out of the Church there is no head to quicken or make alive therefore there is no body or members quickned or made alive but dead members which are so onely in name Secondly out of the Church who ruleth as King 2 Cor. 4.4 Ephes 2.2 but the prince of the aire and god of this world that ruleth in the hearts of the children of disobedience and therefore such as are justly cast out of the Church by the censure of excommunication and cut off by that spirituall sword of discipline 1 Cor. 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 are said to be delivered to Satan that they might learne not to blaspheme 1 Cor. 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 This reason may be thus framed Where Satan ruleth nothing beareth sway but destruction But out of the Church Satan ruleth Therefore Out of the Church nothing beareth sway but destruction and consequently there can be no salvation Thirdly out of the Church there are no ordinary meanes to come to salvation Now what are the meanes to attaine salvation They are these Hearing Faith Prayer the Sacraments and such like But out of the bosome of the Church there is no sound preaching of the Word no true beleeving in Christ no devout calling upon God no right partaking of the Sacraments no sincere holinesse of life no brotherly communion of Saints no pure worshipping of God according to his Word These are the priviledges of the Church and the markes whereby it is knowne Acts 2.42 Act. 2. They continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers Where these are not there can be no Church nor salvation Fourthly the Church and the world are quite contrary the one to the other Iohn 17.9 14. Ephes 5.27 1 Pet. 2.9 Christ prayeth not for the world as hee doth for the Church and for all the parts and members of it John 17.9 14. the whole world lyeth in wickednesse onely the Church is an holy company which followeth the waies and practiseth the workes of godlinesse Lastly labour to be of this Church and joyne thy selfe to it as a part and member thereof If any aske By what signes we may discerne whether we be members of the Church or not I answer It is not hard much lesse unpossible to establish our hearts in this truth For first such are separated from the world
and are called with an holy calling by the voice of their Shepheard and set apart by the power of the Word as the Nazarites were by their vow To this purpose it is said of the Church Loe the people shall dwell alone Numb 23 9. and shall not be reckoned among the Nations If then we joyne our selves with the world we disjoyne our selves from the Church Secondly true holinesse is begun in their nature Wee beleeve this in our hearts and wee must practise it in our lives Tit. 3.5 Tit. 3.5 2 Pet. 1.10 Matth. 5.16 Hereby we make our election and calling sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Matth. 5.16 No sanctification no salvation Thirdly the holinesse of Christ and his righteousnesse is imputed unto them Heb. 10.10 being washed and bathed in his blood Heb. 10.10 These rely wholy upon his merits for their righteousnesse and salvation not upon themselves Fourthly they cleave unto such as feare God and worke righteousnesse with unchangeable affections as the onely people in the world with whom they become one body Rom. Rom. 12.5 12.5 For as they are one in Christ so they are one among themselves and love one another in deed and in truth as fellow servants of the same family as fellow berthren of the same Father and as fellow Citizens of the same City with all meeknesse patience gentlenesse lowlinesse long-suffering love concord and unity As sheepe will not be alone so neither will they sort with Swine or Beares or Lyons or Wolves Let all our delight therefore be in the Saints Psal 16. 2 Cor. 6.16 2 Thes 3.14 Heb. 10.39 On the other side let us avoid the society of the wicked Come out from among them and touch no uncleane thing separate from them and have no familiarity with them Fiftly they strive with might and maine by sanctification and holinesse of life to exceed and outstrip the deeds and practices of Turkes Papists and prophane persons of the world 1 Pet. 2.9 Phil. 2.15 that these may see their good workes and glorifie their Father which is in Heaven For except our righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharises Matth. 5.20 wee cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Our workes not our words onely must speake for us and witnesse with us that we are of this one Church And let us take heed lest by our sinfull lives we slander our profession blaspheme the Name of God our Father dishonour Christ our Head and disgrace the Church our Mother Ephes 1.4 Lastly wee must acknowledge our selves to be Pilgrims and strangers in this world Heb. 11.9 10. as the Patriarkes and holy men of God did For albeit we are in the world yet we are none of the world and albeit we live on the earth yet we must not be earthly-minded Phil. 3.20 but have our conversation in Heaven and from thence looke for our Saviour to change our vile bodies and to fashion them like to his glorious body We live here as in a strange Country but we looke for a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God We must therefore use this world as though we used it not 1 Cor. 7.31 And thus being members of the Church militant in this life wee shall be parts of the Church triumphant in the life to come there to remaine with Christ Iesus our Head for ever Little flocke The third point of the division followeth which is the limitation it is little Though it be a flocke yet it is but a little flocke It is a company yet but a small company Touching the company or compasse of the Church we are to consider two things First the errors that stand on both sides and the strength of the reason that Christ maketh against all carnall feare of want and famine Touching the errors on both hands as well on the right hand as on the left some goe about to shrinke up the sinewes of this little flocke and so contract it into a lesser roome then Christ himselfe hath folded it into True it is hee hath shut it up into a narrow fold but many have gone about to pin it up and to tye it shorter then he hath done Thus the Iewes that were of the Circumcision offended who went about to gather it into a shorter summe then they ought to have done for they contended with Peter and tooke it grievously Acts 11.2 3. that he went in to men uncircumcised and did eate with them They falsely perswaded themselves that the promises concerning the Messiah pertained to themselves alone because they heard in the Scriptures that they were called the peculiar people to whom pertained the adoption Rom. 9.4 5. the covenants the giving of the Law and the service of God and so they dreamed that the Gentiles were quite excluded from salvation and severed from the Church of God Howbeit this is contrary to the ancient promise and prophesie that God will enlarge Iaphet Gen. 9.27 that hee shall dwell in the Tents of Shem and hereunto doe other Prophets accord Thus also did the Donatists shut up the Church into a corner of the world onely to wit in Africk August De Haeres cap. 69. as if it had beene utterly perished out of the whole earth besides Thus doe the Anabaptists and sundry of the Separation as if there were no true Church upon the earth but among themselves who in truth are the true Donatists of our time as whosoever knoweth the history of them will easily acknowledge For these Sectaries were Separatists who had their Conventicles apart under colour of great corruptions in other places persons and Churches and they imagined contagion and infection to arise by communicating with all others This is a generation that say as it is in the Prophet Esay 65.5 Stand by thy selfe Come not neere to me for I am holier then thou But here good and evill are mingled together as cleane uncleane in the Arke as wheate and chaffe in the floore and must so continue to the end of the World So likewise doe the Romanists abridge it who fasten the Church to the sleeve of the See of Rome and therefore define it to bee a company of men under one Pastor Bellar. lib. 3. De Eccles cap. 2. and subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome so that let men beleeve never so orthodoxally and soundly otherwise yet they hold them out of the account of the Church and brand them to bee no better then damnable Heretikes who doe not acknowledge their lord god the Pope to be the Vicar of Christ the head of the Church and their chiefe nay universall Pastor Thus Catholike and Romane with them generall and particular shall be all one which Church when it was at the best Rom. 1.8 and their faith spred abroad thorowout the whole world was never taken to be the Catholike Church but a part thereof which now is no sound part or
mell with Christians as it was in the Apostles times for we are all Christians we have beene all baptized we meet in the House of prayer Answ we come freely to the Lords Table and wee looke for salvation in Christ Iesus True it is wee are all Christians by outward profession but wee doe not all shew it as we ought to doe by an holy conversation For doe we not practise the quite contrary What profit is it to beare the name of Christ in words and to deny him in our workes Tit. 1.16 to be washed with water and not to bee clensed from our wickednesse to come to the Lords Supper and yet to cleave to our sinnes to looke for salvation from Christ and never labour for true sanctification of the Spirit For if he be made to us justification he must also be made to us sanctification and if he be our righteousnesse it cannot bee but he worketh also righteousnesse in us The Iewes were a separate people from the Nations yet if there were not a further separation among them even Iew from Iew the holy from the prophane the cleane from the uncleane and one of Abrahams seed from another they could not be the people of God Rom. 9.6 7. They were not all the Israel of God that were of Israel according to the flesh because even among the Iewes themselves were many found that did iustifie the Gentiles Ezek. 16.51 52. and lived more prophanely and abominably then they So must it in like manner be with us the Word if once it bee sincerely embraced and received will fanne away the chaffe from the wheat and sever Christian from Christian yea neighbour from neighbour acquaintance from acquaintance Gen. 21.10 Gal. 4.30 and friend from friend so that the Bond-woman and her sonne shall be thrust out of the house of Abraham and finde no more place in it Thus much touching our duty respecting God Our duty tovvard our selves learned out of this Title the next concerning our selves For hence also we must learne to beware of excessive cares for earthly things and to have our conversation without covetousnesse which is the maine scope of Christ our Sauiour in all these words that we should not feare want because God is our Father And doubtlesse if we had hearts to beleeve and could haue this comfortable assurance that he is indeed our Father and we his children we need no more we could not but rest in his care and providence over us and provision for us We cannot be ignorant that in the family the father provideth for all If then we be of his family we shall be assured to have him our Father and to spread the wings of his protection over us Will the father suffer his children to starve when he hath store in his owne hand and can give the staffe of bread Matth. 6.25 When Christ our Sauiour sheweth that our heauenly Father feedeth the Ravens and clotheth the Lillies of the field which is the doctrine here deliuered he draweth this exhortation from thence Be not carefull for your life what ye shall eate or drinke or put on Math. 6. O the folly therefore of such as haue their hearts oppressed and ouer-charged with the cares of this life and so forget the Kingdome here promised by our heauenly Father The danger of covetous persons may be considered in these particular points First it is a sinne alive when other seeme mortified as appeareth in the example of Judas and by lamentable experience of many Professours wholly addicted to the world For when other sinnes have left them this sticketh fast unto them as a disease bred in the bones Secondly it is a sinne seldome repented of because it is so close and secret that it is hardly discerned and therefore Christ himselfe saith Matth. 19.23 A rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdome of heauen Many there are that follow after it but few confesse it For where shall you have a rich man though covetous in the highest degree that will acknowledge himselfe to be covetous The rich man that had many possessions came to Christ and seemed no doubt to himselfe and to others very religious and a diligent obseruer of the Commandements yet when he detected him of his couetousnesse he went away sorrowfull and repented of nothing but happely that he had gone so farre We haue particular examples of many grieuous sinners that haue turned to God and not beene ashamed to lay open their sinne to their owne shame * Gen. 19.33 with 2 Pet. 2.8 2 Sam. 12.13 2 Cor. 2.7 Acts 3.15 Gen 9.21 2 Chron. 33.6 12. Numb 12.1 Matth. 26.75 1 Tim. 1.13 Luke 23.40 Matth. 21.29 Philem. 18. some adulterers and incestuous Gen. 19. 2 Sam. 12. 2 Cor. 2. some murtherers 2 Sam. 12.9 Act. 3.13.19 some drunkards Gen 9.21 Some Idolaters sorcerers enchanters witches and wizards 2 Chron. 33.6 12. Some envious and murmurers Numb 12.1 Some cursers swearers and denyers of Christ Math. 26.75 Some persecuters blasphemers and oppressours 1 Tim. 1.13 Some stubborne and disobedient to Parents Matth. 21.29 Some theeves and injurious persons that robbe other men of their goods Luke 23.40 Philem. 14. but among all these very few that are covetous enter into the Kingdome of God who blesse themselves when God abhorreth them Some examples indeed we may finde of Gods mercy vpon them that none should despaire but they are very few that none should presume For when or where almost shall you haue a covetous person repent and confesse with his owne mouth I haue beene covetous And how can they repent of their sinne who doe acknowledge themselves to be sinners we may therefore say of such as Christ speaketh of the High-priests and the Elders Matth. 21.31 Verily I say unto you that the Harlots goe before you into the Kingdome of heauen Math. 21.31 They heare the Scriptures againe and againe threatning and thundring against this sinne to beware and take heed of covetousnesse and the Ministers laying it open but they have neither eares to heare nor hearts to beleeve and therefore they regard them as the Pharises did Christ himselfe who being couetous heard all these things Luke 16.14 and they derided him Thirdly these men so much as lyeth in them doe cancell the whole Law and abrogate it and therefore it worthily may be called the roote of all evill Let us briefely runne ouer the Commandements Covetousnesse the breach of the whole Law They breake the first Commandement because they make their Mammon to be their Master they love their money above God and put their trust in their treasure and so make to themselues a strange God and commit Idolatry unto it worshipping it as an Image Marke 10.24 Ephes 5.5 Psal 62.10 Marke 10.24 Ephes 5.5 Touching the second it keepeth the heart so inthralled to the World that they have no leisure to intend the worship of God What a deformity were it in
the body to see one eye lifted vp to heauen and the other cast downe to the earth It choketh the Word as a rancke Thorne and stoppeth yea stuffeth the mouth so full with earth that it cannot be opened to pray to God Psal 14.4 Ezek. 33.31 Psal 119.36 The third is broken because it draweth men to cursing and swearing and forswearing in buying and bargaining and that sometimes to get a penny Hence proceed false waights and false measures making the rules of Iustice to be the meanes of iniustice Such oftentimes take the name of God in vaine The fourth is trangressed because it thrusteth men headlong to the breach of the Sabbath they thinke it commeth too soone they iudge that it beginneth too earely they suppose that it lasteth too long they imagine that it is urged too strictly being ready to ioyne with those in the Prophet Neh. 13.20 Amos 8.5 When will the Sabbath be gone that we may set forth wheat c The fifth Commandement maintaineth the dignity of our person which the couetous man defaceth If wee should see Kings and Princes or the children of Kings and Princes that are heires to a Kingdome busie themselues in base Trades or handy-crafts and occupations Turk History in the life of Aemet as the Turkish Emperours doe what a reproch would wee thinke it to their high calling God hath made his children Kings and prepared for them a Kingdome shall we therefore be so base bad-minded as to follow after this world and forget the things of the World to come The sixt Commandement is pulled vp by the rootes because this sinne is often a bloody sinne and taketh away life from the owners thereof as we see in Ahab and in Judas When a man is once couetous it cannot be but he shall giue himselfe to hatred malice cruelty violence rage and reuenge It causeth the breach of the seuenth Commandement for when whoredome hath taken away the heart of many to maintaine their unbridled lusts they oftentimes oppresse rich and poore small and great without difference so that sometimes whoredome is the cause of covetousnesse and sometimes covetousnesse of whoredome The eigth Commandement is principally broken by this sinne aboue the rest Here the couetous are as it were in their proper element and make shipwracke upon it as upon a rocke They devise all mischiefe they regard no Contracts nor Couenants their word is yea and nay as standeth most with their owne profit They rush against the ninth Commandement because they are faithfull to no man they are voyd of all true dealing they sticke not to lye and beare false witnesse as appeareth in Gehazi 2 King 5.25 and in those that were hired for mony to dissemble deny the resurrection and to make report that the Disciples came by night Matth. 28.13 15. and stole away the body of Iesus out of the Sepulchre while they slept The tenth Commandement striketh at the root of all these evils and forbiddeth the couetousnesse of the heart before consent which is throughly setled therein All these things considered what a blot is it to our holy profession that wee should professe our selues Christians and yet live as the Gentiles Infidels and Pagans as Christ himselfe speaketh Matthew 6.32 After all these things doe the Gentiles seeke whereas our heauenly Father knoweth that wee haue need of all these things If wee should see a young man rake and scrape all he can together shifting for himselfe and no other upon the earth prouiding for him or looking after him or mindfull of him wee would presently conclude Doubtlesse his father is dead Even so when wee see men in this world bestow all their thoughts studies endeauours and practices reaching and ouer-reaching day and night for the things of this world it argueth plainely that they take God no longer for their Father but imagine in their unbeleeving hearts that he hath cast away the care of them and will no longer provide for them otherwise they would not thus shift and shave for themselues Hitherto of our duty respecting our selves Our duty toward our brethren learned out of this Title now we have somewhat to learne from hence in respect of our brethren For if we have all of us one Father are wee not to demeane and behave our selves uprightly and lovingly toward those that are his Children and our owne brethren Wee must be like our heavenly Father if we beare his Image and not as bastard-children that carry but the Image of his Image And first wee must imitate him and walke in his steppes that hath gone before us 1 Ioh. 4.11 Ioh. 13.34 15.12 loving them heartily that are his Children as well as our selves Jo. 4.11 Beloued if God so loved us we ought also to love one another And againe This is my commandement that yee love one another as I have loved you This duty must appeare especially in two points first in loving them that hate us and in doing good to them that persecute us Math. 5. That thereby we may shew our selves to be the Children of our heavenly Father Matth. 5.45 Luke 6.32 For if wee love them onely that love us what reward have we or what singular thing doe we for sinners also love those that love them And if we doe good to them onely which doe good to us what thanke have we for sinners also doe even the same And if ye salute your brethren onely what doe ye more then others doe not even the Publicanes so Wee must therefore labour to goe beyond them and to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect who maketh his Sunne to shine upon the good and bad and the raine to fall upon the godly and ungodly Secondly wee must doe good and shew mercy to the poore and impotent Luke 6.76 that we may also be mercifull to others as our heavenly Father is mercifull unto us who is a Father of the Fatherlesse of the Stranger and of the Widdow Lastly hence ariseth much comfort to all the Children of God that he is become their Father Consider first from hence the dignity and prerogative of all true beleevers Is it not a great honour to be the Sonne and Heire of a great King an honour doubtlesse that belongeth and befalleth to a few Thus doth David debate the matter with Sauls servants 1 Sam. 18.23 Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a Kings Sonne in law seeing that I am a poore man and lightly esteemed howbeit it is a thousand times greater honour to be the Sonnes and Daughters and consequently Heires of the King of Kings the eternall God This Christ our Saviour sheweth Joh. 1.12 Ioh. 1.12 As many as received him to them he gave prerogative to be the Sonnes of God So the Apostle saith and speaketh it with admiration 1 Ioh. 3.1 Behold what love the Father hath shewed to us that we should be called the Children of God! This preeminence