apprehension of the approaching day Now seeing the Text is Hortatory Directive and Encouraging hereto and hath as such been treated on accordingly I will wave all further application and only give you the Directions and Prescriptions for the curing of a luke-warm temper 1. Love-quenching and abating principles Interests and Practices are to be exploded and avoided If once you entertain hard thoughts of God as if he were morose and captious a barren Wilderness or Land of darkness and only careful to ruine and distress his creatures upon the meer accounts of Soveraignty and the Prerogative of Dominion tho a poor penitent lye prostrate at his feet for mercy in tears and shame and self abhorrence or in a readiness to do so were there but any hopes of merciful acceptance If you shall represent him to your selves as if he were so tenacious of revengeful purposes and of advantages put into his hands for the full executions of such deserved revenges through former crimes provoking thereunto Alas how can you think upon him or address your selves to him with hope and pleasure We find grace represented to us as Gods Image in his creatures we find that holiness in creatures makes them the sweetest of all persons in their dispositions and deportments and readiest to be charitable and abundant in benign and alluring and obliging remissions constructions and dispensations Such are most backward to make rigid interpretations and constructions of mens miscarriages and neglects when they arise from rather infirmity than malignity and from ignorance and surprize than from contrivance or perverse resolution They hate above all men every thing that savours of stinginess and of a sordid Spirit and they like not to retain revengeful purposes to ruin or disturb those criminals who seriously and pathetically implore their pardon and beg admission to their now much valued favour And doth grace make such persons better than their maker and is that Gods Image in them which hath nothing in God correspondent herewith Or can we think that the Image can exceed its Grand Exemplar Such black and dismal thoughts of God can never kindle love in us to him Did I not know and think that God is love how could I seek to him in hope and love him For my part I verily believe God sent his Son into the world to convince us of his love and goodness and to invite us to himself under the power of this alluring principle of Truth That God loves us dearly and that he will reject no sinner whose heart is touched with such love to him as makes it restless and uneasie in it self till it obtain his pardon image fellowship and presence See Heb. xi 6. And as for Jesus Christ the liveliest Image and the truest and most glorious Mirrour of the Invisible God that ever any Eye beheld or can behold How sweet indulgent humble gracious and endearing was he unto all and how ready to receive all that come to God through him O! do not then mistake his grace design or temper Love cannot live and do its work where Christ is not duly represented in his lovely Excellencies And yet on the other hand represent not God below himself as fond in his respects partial in his dealings slack and easie in his proceedings apt to favour us tho' neglected by us as one ready to indulge us in our sins and to connive and wink at our miscarriages or one that we may trifle with and fondly think that we can at any time procure his favour and extinguish or evade his anger and displeasure by some trifling applications to him or flattering Elogies of his name upon the knee or a copious verbose declaiming against our sins and selves in our stated or occasional addressings of our selves to him when pangs of Death horrours of Conscience or the tasts and expectations of his Wrath make us uneasie to our selves as if by complements and petty observances of God in lower matters we could turn and toss a ductile nature into any aspect shape or posture that may serve our private turns and please our arrogant and presumptuous humours and court God to strip himself of all the glories of his Name and Throne and prostitute his Interest and Honour Laws and Majesty unto the fond conceits of fools and sinners for this is blasphemy and presumption to the height both fit and sure to be punisht by the Judge Could God be Love or lovely in the eyes of sober and discerning men were he thus facile so as to be infuenced by the conceits and humours of sinners in their dotages He that would not signifie one thought of mercy to our revolted Parents before he had represented himself most awful in his Judiciary Process and that so guarded both his Laws and Throne with awful Majesty and Sanctions and that exacted so severe a satisfaction from his Son he surely neither will nor can debase himself and tempt his creatures by unfit relaxations of his Laws and Courses to think him despicable even by such unfit deportments of himself towards them That fool which takes Gods mercies and indulgencies to be at his commands so as to sin and pray and that makes such easie pardons and redresses the continual encouragements of sinful practices and hopes that fool I say again that is of this perswasion and deportment is no way likely to be cured of his luke-warm temper Deut. xxix 19 20. For so easie pardons and redresses would evidently and effectually mortifie the Spirit and defeat the glorious designs of Divine Government amongst men See Heb. xii 25-28 29. x. 26-31 Rom. ii 6-10 Gal. vi 7-9 i Sam. ii 2 3-29 30 ii Chron. xv 2. And if you take your Christianity to be a state of drudgery and disconsolateness if you degenerate into worldliness luxury or voluptuousness as in John ii 15-17 James iv 4. If you grow so tender of your selves as to be swayed more by what affects the outward than the inward man If you give way to partiality to jealousies heats and ferments to a censorious jealous and detracting Spirit or to the Spirit of domination and division or if you form your principles interests and actions according to the measures and concerns of this vain transient world and of the animal life This malady will prove incurable 2. Heart-warming objects are to be contemplated Such as the glories of Gods name The Grandeurs of his Majesty and Throne the Accuracies of his Government in all its Constitutions and administrations The Stores and Treasures of his Goodness with all their provident and yet generous distributions unto all his creatures the riches of his grace in his kindness to us by Jesus Christ the exhibition of his Son and all the amiable excellencies and endearing aspects and addresses made to us by him the life that is in Christ the grace and promises that are given us by him so great and precious all the fellowship and intimacies that we are hereby called and admitted to Gospel Treasures
the most notorious Sinners among all the Heathens worse than Tire and Sidon before mention'd or any Heathen City and yet shall fare better than Capernaum though none of Sodom's sins be charged by our Saviour upon it But they repented not under the means of Grace and Salvation Because they repented not saith the Text this was their sin Q. But what is this Impenitency under the Gospel A. 1. It is not all hardness of Heart that is Impenitency many good Christians may still find something of it but it is when men harden their own hearts Heb. 3.8 which are two different things 2. It is not any particular act of Sin that may be call'd Impenitency but a trade and course of Sin 3. It implies a wilful rejecting the Offers of Grace and Salvation by Christ in those that live under the Gospel 4. It implies a slighting and contempt of the threatnings denounced against Sin and Sinners 5. It implies a resolved purpose to persist in Sin though Man knows it to be Sin when the Sinner's mind is not changed nor he comes to himself and to grow wise after all his folly as the Greek word for Repentance doth import this is Impenitency This I premise to clear my way to the following discourse As also by answering the following Objection Obj. But Capernaum's case is not ours Capernaum saw Christ in the Flesh which we never did they heard Doctrine preached from his own mouth which we never did they saw his Miracles wrought before their eyes which we never saw Had we had their advantages and priviledges we would not have done as they did nor been impenitent as they were Ans This Evasion is much like that of the Scribes and Pharisees mentioned Matth. 23.30 Had we been in the days of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets When they at the same time were fill'd with that malice against Christ which issued in the shedding of his precious blood But I answer 1. Though we have not Christ with us in his fleshly Presence yet we have his Doctrine still with us and preached to us And it was not his fleshly Presence that brought any Sinners to repentance but his Doctrine 2. Though we see not Christ's Miracles wrought before our eyes yet we hâ—â—e them recorded by the four Evangelists and by such as were either eye-witnesses or wrote by an infallible Spirit or rather both And if we believe the Gospel we believe what is there recorded and Faith is the evidence of things not seen and will make their impression upon the Heart as if seen with the Eye 3. Of those many thousands both of Jews and Gentiles that were brought to repentance by the Gospel in the Primitive times not one of an hundred or of a thousand did either see Christ in the Flesh heard him Preach or saw him work any Miracle 4. Of those many thousands that did see him and his Works and hear him preach when he was upon Earth not one of an hundred were brought to repentance thereby vid. John 12.37 And are any sure in these days had they then lived they should not have been of that number Considering that men have now the same blindness and hardness upon their minds and hearts which they had then and the same love to their sins and prejudices against Holiness as was then And therefore Impenitency now will expose a man to as severe punishment and present him as guilty before God at the day of Judgment as it will Capernaum And doth not our Saviour denounce the same severities against them that received not his Disciples preaching as his own Matth. 10.14 15. Whosoever shall not receive you having offer'd peace to them depart and shake off the dust of your feet against them Verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the Land of Sodom and Gomorrah than that City And this holds true in every Age and in the present Age in every City and in this City in every Nation and in our own Nation Thus having made my way clear I now proceed And shew That Impenitency under the Gospel will expose men to the most intolerable Judgment in the day of Christ 1. I shall prove that it will do so 2. Why it will do so 3. Wherein will this greater Intolerableness consist 1. That it will do so I need not prove it by any other Argument than what we have in the Text. I say unto you saith our Saviour And again v. 22. I say unto you it shall be more tolerable c. And he adds his Amen and Verily to it Matth. 10.15 Verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for Tire and Zidon in the day of Judgment c. If we believe not that Christ hath said this we are Infidels to the Gospel If we think he hath said false we are guilty of Blasphemy Is it not he that saith Heaven and Earth shall pass away but my Words shall not pass away that saith this Is it not he who is styled the Amen the true and faithful witness that hath said this Is it not he who came down from Heaven out of the bosom of God and spake nothing but what he had seen and heard from his Father that saith this And therefore it may seem some reflection upon Christ's Veracity and my Auditor's Infidelity and incredulity to bring any other proof 2. Next Why will it be so at the day of Judgment R. Because Impenitency under the Gospel hath more of sin in it than any sin of the Heathen And this is the general Reason And where there is most Sin there will be the severest Judgment I suppose none of you think as some Philosophers of old that all sins are equal And inequality of sin requires in justice inequality in punishment That saying of Christ to Pilate shews that there are degrees of sin He that delivered me to thee hath the greater sin John 19.11 And so we may conclude there will be degrees of punishment And these degrees of sin must needs be known to God who is a God of Knowledge and being known to him his Justice requires of him Punishment in a proportion though not in this life yet at the day of the Revelation of the righteous judgment of God When all men shall be put into the Scale as Daniel told Belshazzar and Judgment past upon them according to what weight they bear And their Actions also consider'd and weighed in all their Circumstances what Grace and Holiness may be found in the actions of some and what Sin in the actions of others So that many sins that may pass for no sins now may be found sinful then and such as pass for small sins and of little scandal before men now may be found highly sinful in that day There are many sins that have more Scandal than Impenitency under the Gospel and yet not so much guilt As we use to say in Divinity that
about the Person Natures and Offices of our Redeemer against all Hereticks both Old and New In short we agree in the same Creeds in all the Articles of the Christian Doctrine yea we agree in the Substance of the same Worsâ—â—â— and in the same Sacraments against both Papists Socinians and Quakers We have one Lord one Faith one Baptism And then in Civils we agree in our hearty Approbation of our Monarchy and in a dutifull Allegianâ—â— to our King and in refusing the Supremacy of any other at home or abroad And how many Particulars of the greatest weight are contain'd under these Heads wherein all we Protestants are agreed And if Unity in the Truth be any ground for Love and Charity it is incomprehensible that they who agree in all these things should be more inveterate against one another than against such as differ not toto Caelo but toto tartaro from them both But it is observed that the nearer some men are to a conjunction some difference remaining the greater is their hatred thus a Jew hates a Christian more than he doth a Pagan and a Papist hates a Protestant worse than he doth a Jew and a nominal Protestant hates a Puritan more than he doth a Papist as Dr. Featley notes The Contention of Brethren are like the Bars of a Castle Prov. 18.19 A most unreasonable though a very common thing 2. Consider the Imperfections of our humane Nature Our Understandings were sore wounded by the Fall of Adam and they are but imperfectly and unequally recovered by all the means which the Gospel affords Why should we condemn every one that is not endowed with our Abilities or advanced to our Capacity Do we fall out with one that is purblind because he cannot see so far nor so quick as we we should rather pity him and praise God who hath been kinder to us They that are most intelligent know but in part And if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8.2 That was therefore a good Answer which Melancthon made to those who objected to the Protestants their Divisions saith he The judicious agree in fundamentals but as in a great Army the skill or strength of all the Captains and of all the Soldiers is not equal but they all agree in their wills and honest designs to serve their Prince so all good men have not the like knowledge but all agree in their sincere love to goodness 3. Consider that you who are so violent do differ from others just as far as they differ from you Do you think that one kind of Government in the Church is best they do as verily think so of another do you hold such and such Ceremonies in Religion to be unlawful they are as confident of the lawfulness of them Do you conclude that all Private mens Opinions in such matters ought to be swallowed up and to acquiesce in the publick Determination they verily believe that the Church should leave them as the Apostles did in their first Indifference Now when such as do not otherwise forfeit their Veracity come and profess that they cannot for their Hearts think otherwise than they do you cannot yield to them they cannot comply with you what remedy then is so proper so Christian as Charity to each other relying upon that Promise Philip. 3.15 If in any thing ye be othâ—â—wise minded God shall reveal even this unto you 4. Consider that there have been greater Differences than Ours among those that were the true Members of Christ's Church Witness Act. 15.1 Certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved A material Point and urged you see with great confidence and yet God forbid we should blot these out of the roll of true Christians How resolute were some Great Divines in the Church pro and con in the Case of Rebaptizing those that were lapsed in the Primitive times And what Heart can be so hard as to deny the Lutherans and Calvinists a place in the Church of Christ who yet differ in greater matters than ours Wherefore seeing their Differences were greater than ours we should not aggravate them against one another nor by our violence render them intolerable 5. Consider your own personal moral Failings Hath not each of us some right Eye are we perfectly good are not we all Men of like Passions What if our Judge shall say And why beholdest thou the more that is in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye thou Hypocrite c. Matth. 7.3 Alas if we were truly conscious of our own Neglects of many Duties whereof we have been convinced toward our God our Neighbour and our selves and of the many Transgressions and Faults which we frequently commit we should much abate our Rigour towards others and turn our Indignation against our selves How sad a business would it be if any of those who have censur'd and damn'd their Opposites for some dubious matters should prove Slaves to their own Lusts and be found at last to be wretched Hypocrites in the main things of Religion Vse 2. If Uncharitable Contentions do prepare for utter Destruction Then Woe be to the Instruments and Bellows of our Contentions If the Evil of them be so great if the Danger from them be so dreadful then most wicked and wretched are the promoters of them Wo to the World because of offences for it must needs be that offences come but Woe to that Man by whom the offence cometh Matth. 18.7 If those that set an House or Town on Fire be justly reckon'd and treated as Enemies to humane Society certainly they who inflame the Souls of Christians against one another to the ruine of a Church and Nation deserve the worst Character and the worst Punishment But as Ahasuerus once said to Esther c. 7. v. 5. Who is he and where is he that dare presume in his heart to do so And as she answer'd The Adversary and Enemy is this wicked Haman so I may answer 1. Our common Adversary and Enemy in this matter is Satan Our Contentions do plainly smell of fire and brimstone Legions of Devils though we cannot see them are employed herein He is the Old Accuser of the Brethren both to God and to one another that wicked Spirit is the truest Salamander that lives in the fire of Contention Divisions are the Devil's Musick but that which makes the Devil laugh should make us weep How often have there been Essayes and Endeavours to reconcile our unhappy Differences and this cunning and malicious Enemy hath defeated them all I have somewhere read of a Treaty between a former King of England and another of France which was held and concluded in an old Chappel while their several Armies stood ready expecting the issue The Kings agreed and coming out of the Chappel a Snake or Viper crept out of the
knowledge of Christ in comparison of which all other things were loss and dross and dung That he might know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable to his Death Phil. 3.8 10. And this is one way of clearing the difficulty and reconciling the seeming contradiction 2. Others have recourse to a Hyperbaton and would clear the Thing by transposing the words And they order the words thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To know the surpassing Love of the knowledge of Christ and then the sense will be this I pray that you may know that surpassing that incomparable Love of God which appeared in giving you the knowledge of Christ And it must be for ever acknowledged that this was a marvellous instance of the Love of God that he was pleased to Communicate to the World the knowledge of a Redeemer but yet it seems rather to impoverish the sense than to give us the full import of the expression 3. There is no need to fly to Critical Niceties nor to call in Rhethorick and its figures to our Relief The words will be consistent and freed from all appearance of self-contradiction if we attend to these following Positions 1. That which cannot be known by a meer humane understanding may yet be understood by the Spirit of Christ which searcheth all things even the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 And the Spirit of God is given for this end to shed abroad the Love of God and so the Love of Christ in our Hearts Rom. 5.5 2. That which cannot be fully known of the Love of Christ in this present state where our understandings are very much clouded and our faith weak thro' the remainders of inward Corruption yet shall be more gloriously known when we come to see God in Christ face to face 1 Cor. 13.12 Now we know but in part but then we shall know as we are also known 3. Although there be much of the Love of Christ which passes all our present knowledge yet there 's enough of that Love that may be known enough to feed our knowledge that it starve not in this life and yet to whet the edge of the Souls appetite to know more in the life to come enough to guide us and conduct us thro' our pilgrimage and abundance more reserv'd for our portion The Love of Christ has Depths in it wherein the daring Soul may drown and yet those shallows wherein the humble Soul may safely wade and comfortably bathe it self without danger of being swallowed up And we have some parallel expressions in Scripture which may well illustrate this of the Text Phil. 4.7 The peace of God passes all understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it exceeds all conception and yet there is that in the Peace of God which may be conceived and expressed too even something of that inward satisfaction which arises from a well grounded hope that our peace is made with God and that peace copied out upon and exemplified in a pure and quiet Conscience so in the verse following my Text we read that God is able to do exceeding abundantly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above that we can ask and think and yet we may conceive something of what God will do for us and cloath those conceptions with suitable expressions and make our humble Addresses to him for what he has promised to give to us and do for us in such a way as shall be acceptable to God thro' the Interest of our Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ In a word As Moses could not see Gods face and live Exod. 33.20 And yet Moses could not live except he saw Gods face so is there a measure a degree of the knowledge of the Love of Christ which we cannot reach if we would die for 't and yet there is such a measure such a Degree of the knowledge of that Love of Christ which we must reach or we die for 't And hence I will briefly touch upon two Propositions I. Prop. There is something in the Love of Christ which in this present state surpasses all perfect knowledge of it Something of which we may say as one said of a Learned Book If that which I understand be so admirable what is that which I do not understand Take any one mystery of the Gospel and when we have pursued it as far as our faculties are able to trace it we must be forced to make a stand and as Paul upon the shore of the Ocean of Gods unsearchable untraceable Counsels Rom. 11.33 to cry out O the Depth or as Job chap. 26.14 Lo these are parts of his ways and how little a portion is heard of him There are two things that are unmeasurable The evil of sin and the Love of a Saviour And the Love of a Saviour must be therefore unmeasurable to the sinner because the evil of sin is unmeasurable He that knows not the exceeding greatness of his debt can never fully know the exceeding greatness of his Love that became a surety for it He that cannot measure the greatness of the Curse he lay under can never measure the Love of his Deliverer And he that never could fully estimate the misery of his bondage can never fully value or conceive aright of the Love of his Redeemer 1. The evil of his is unmeasurable It is so whether we consider the Object against whom sin is committed or the Punishment which sin hath deserved or the Agonies which the Redeemer suffer'd to Atone it 1. If we consider sin as committed against an infinite God so sin is infinite objectively and therefore unmeasurable the malignity of sin is unconceivable it strikes at the Authority the Glory the very Being of the chiefest Good Every sin would in its tendency dethrone the most High 2. If we consider the demerit of sin it is that which passes all understanding Psal 90.11 Who knows the power of thine anger We cannot take the just and Adequate measure of that wrath which is due to sin by all the Plagues and Judgments by which God ever bore witness against the evil of sin The fire of Sodom and Gomorra was dreadful fire but yet it was quencht a little time extinguisht it but that fire of wrath which burns upon but never burns up sinners is inextinguishable fire Mark 9.44 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fire is inextinguishable It is everlasting punishment Matth. 25.46 The Deluge that drowned the old World argued great Displeasure against sinners yet neither was that a just measure of Gods wrath that is due to sin for the waters of the Deluge were soon dryed up but so will not the Floods of Divine Vengeance poured out upon sinners to the uttermost for the breath that is the anger of the Lord as a stream of fire and brimstone kindles and feeds the matter of those flames The Plagues of Egypt were exceeding great demonstrations of Divine anger against sin yet they were determinate for number
of that fulness of God which is attainable even in this life Many might have had more grace if they had not been under the delusion that they had grace enough already The dream of Perfection attained has prejudiced the perfection which is attainable As Tully observes Multi ad sapientiam pervenissent nisi eo jam se pervenisse putassent Many Men had arrived at a high degree of Wisdom had they not fondly conceited that they had already reacht the top of it The Apostle's frame was most excellent and imitable Phil. 3.12 13. Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect but I follow after it that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus He considered more what was before than what he had left behind that is he more lookt forward to what he had not yet attained than backward to what he had 2. Let us pray that we may know more of the Love of Christ to us as the proper mean to be filled more with the fulness of God in us This is the expedient of the Text and what greater encouragement can there be to love serve obey and glorifie our God than that he has so freely wonderfully loved us in Christ 3. Let us strive to keep our vessels pure and clean tho' they be small and narrow that however they are of a narrow capacity yet being pure and clean God may delight to fill us and to enlarge our hearts that we may receive more of his fulness Matth. 5.8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God The sight of God which a pure and holy heart qualifies us for is the enjoyment of God i. e. Gods communicating his love in its sanctifying and saving effects and so we shall find if we compare John 3.3 Except a Man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God with vers 5. Except a Man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God 4. Labour to experience poverty of Spirit The way to be rich in Grace is to be poor in Spirit which poverty of Spirit does not consist in having little Grace but in a sense that whatever we have little or much it s not of or from our selves but from the fulness of God The more we empty our selves in that sense the more God will fill us Luke 3.5 Every valley shall be filled The humble valleys are often fruitful when the high hills are commonly barren self-sufficiency discharges and disobliges the all-sufficiency of God Luke 1.53 The rich he sends empty away Now as by the Rich we are here to understand such as are rich in their own conceit tho' they be really poor so by the poor in Spirit we are to understand them that are convinced of their own original indigency though by the Grace of God they are enriched and their spiritual wants supplyed Phil. 4.20 This poverty of Spirit tho' it pretend not to merit yet has a meetness for the fulness of God Jer. 31.25 I have satiated the weary Soul and I have replenished every sorrowful Soul 5. From this Spiritual poverty arises a Spiritul hunger and thirst after more of the grace of God which temper of Soul lies directly in the way of that promise Matth. 5.6 Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled for 't is upon him that is thirsty that God promises to pour out water and 't is the dry ground that God promises to satisfie with the floods Isa 44.3 6. Attend in Conscience and Faith with constancy and perseverance upon all the Ordinances of the New Testament you read Zech. 4.12 of two olive branches that through the two golden pipes empty the golden oyl out of themselves Let the two Olive branches be the Person of Christ in two Natures the golden oyl will then be his precious Grace and the golden pipes the Ordinances of Christ by which he empties out of himself that precious Grace into holy and clean tho' earthen vessels Amongst many other terms which the Ancients gave to the Lords Supper they called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The perfect or the perfection so Zonoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To come to the Perfection is to come to the holy Eucharist And indeed where do believers find their choicest derivations from God their sweetest Communion with God but in that Sacred Ordinance worthily received 7. And lastly To all these we must add and with all these we must joyn fervent and believing Prayer which as it glorifies God God will glorifie it and make it the means of conveying down to our Souls such a measure of fulness as may serve us in the time of our need we can never be poor whilst we can pray He that is the Spirit of Supplication in us will be th◠Spirit of Grace to us Let us therefore pray with the Apostle Rom. 15.13 That the God of hope would fill us with joy and peace in believing Let us pray that the God of all Grace would make us perfect stablish strengthen settle us 1 Pet. 5.10 That the God of Peace would sanctifie us wholly 1 Thes 5.23 And let us pray that the same God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would give us to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God Quest How are the ordinary means of Grace more certainly successful for Conversion than if persons from Heaven or Hell should tell us what is done there SERMON VII Luke XVI 31. And he said unto him If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead WHether the Narrative of our Saviour beginning at the 19th verse of this Chapter concerning the Rich-man and Lazarus be an History relating really matter of fact or a simple Parable representing the matter by way of similitude Or an useful discourse by way of Delineation partaking of both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Martyr viz. a Parabolical History or Historical Parable Hath been variously determined both by the Ancients and Moderns * Voss Thes Dispt 5. One †Lomierus indeed would go further and have it to be a Prophetical Parable representing by Dives Judaism and by Lazarus Gentilism This latter as he thinks from the name Lazarus imports one before Christ came that had no help forsaken of all kept out of doors amongst the Dogs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They who conceive it to be an History argue it from the proper Name of Lazarus others who judge it to be a Parable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr. Lightfoot c. alledge that the Talmudists do frequently use Lahazar contractly for Eleazar yet here not as a proper Name but common denoting a destitute beggar indefinitely or him who of himself is bereft of help or one to whom help should be shew'd As Rachel is used Appellatively
God asserts his Power he declares himself to be an Almighty God So to Abraham Gen. 17.1 and in the new Testament he often asserts his Power that all thing are possible to him Omnipotency sticks at nothing knows no difficulties what cannot the exceeding greatness of his power do 2. God doth exert and put forth his Power in some visible exemplification of it that fully demonstrates his Omnipotency and can signifie nothing less such an instance we have in the Text in the Resurrection of Christ this overt act Speaks out his infinite power 't is matter of fact and cannot be deny'd 3. God gives the Saints some feeling and experience of the exceeding greatness of his power put forth in their own Souls by working faith in them they see 't is the Lords doing that nothing in Man would ever lead him out to it if God did not perswade him and bring over his heart to believe the Gospel Believers under the new Testament though they hear much of the power of God set forth in the letter of the word and though they experience the efficacy of this power in their own hearts yet that which puts the matter quite out of doubt with them is this undeniabl instance of divine power in the Resurrection of Christ Abraham wanted this though he saw much of the power of God towards him in calling him alone from his Fathers house and greatly increasing him afterwards when he became two bands Gen. 32.10 and in giving him a Son in his old age c. yet the greatest proof of Gods power to Abraham was the inward efficacy of it upon his own heart that he should be brought to believe a Resurrection when there was never any instance of such a thing in the world before 't is a sign he was satisfied in the almighty power of God accounted that God was able to raise him up Heb. 11.19 though he received him from the dead in a figure Isaac was not really slain therefore Abram's Faith was more remarkable that he should believe that God could raise his Son from the Dead and that he would do it rather than break his promise he resolved to obey God for the present and to trust him for the future All that we believe now is but the consequent of Christs Resurrection and follows upon it the Head being risen the Members will also rise every one in his own order not only by a bodily Resurrection at the last day but by a Spiritual Resurrection in their Souls here when the time of their Conversion and Regeneration comes That which convinces us of the Almighty Power of God to perform his Promises is the Resurrection of Christ but that which was the chiefest proof of God's Power to Abram was the inward impression of it upon his Heart when he was first called That he who as a Man had this Law written in his Heart That he should not kill should so readily yield to the killing of his Son and when he was resolved so do had the Knife in his hand ready stretched out was under the highest impulse of Faith to do what God commanded him that he should presently be taken off from it by a counter-command from Heaven How did God try Abram as if he had set himself to puzzle him turns him and winds him this way and that way backward and forward he must not kill and then he must kill and by and by he must not kill God was resolved his Faith should move as he would have it according to his Will and Abram was as ready to comply He is my God says Abram and I will obey him Isaac shall die and Isaac shall live what God will He sees further than I do I 'll follow him though I know not whether I go nor what I do God knows that 's enough for me I 'll trust him Lord what wilt thou have me do tell me and I 'll do it shall I kill my Son or shall I spare my Son it shall be as thou wilt Lord. Herein Abram excelled all Believers under the New Testament though they have some experience of God's Power put forth upon their Souls in believing yet they don't bear only upon this as Abram did they have the Resurrection of Christ to support their Faith which Abram had not and yet believes a Resurrection Power as firmly as they who saw Christ risen from the Grave God appeared to Abram and made such immediate Impressions of his Power upon his Heart that he needs no Sign no visible Instance to confirm his Faith he was satisfy'd without it he saw that in God himself that made him never to dispute his Power afterwards Saints now though they have experience of a Divine Power touching their Hearts and drawing them to Christ yet they cannot so clearly discern this conquering subduing Power of God in themselves as they may in Christ their Head because they are under many infirmities not yet removed they don't see Sin and Death and the Devil and the World quite overcome in themselves but they see all overcome in Christ his Resurrection proves all and they are fain often to reflect upon that to strengthen their Faith and Assurance of Victory in their own persons at last they know that Christ did not die for himself nor rise for himself but for them they see Christ crowned with Glory and Honour Heb. 2.9 he suffers no more in his Person though he still suffers in his Members but they shall e're long be as free from Suffering as the glorified Person of Christ now is in Heaven thus it will be when Christ mystical shall have all things put under his Feet then Christ and his Saints will reign gloriously to all eternity all tears shall be wiped from their eyes then and this will as surely come to pass as Christ himself is risen from the Dead Be of good cheer I have overcome the World I have and you shall overcome it in me you already are more than Conquerors and in your own Persons you shall be when I come again II. Because no natural Principle in Man can take in the objects of Faith Flesh and Blood can't reveal them to us Faith is an act above Reason how is it possible for a Man as a Man to act above his Reason 't is absurd and irrational to think so Gospel-truths are so deep and mysterious that they do transcend our humane capacities and cannot be discern'd but by the light of a Divine Faith What is humane we may undertake and count that easie to us but what is Divine is above us quite out of our reach therefore Faith is said to be the work of God fulfilled by his Power 2 Thess 1.11 The knowledge of Faith by which we are perswaded of that which we conceive not is higher than all rational understanding we acknowledge the truth of that as Christians which as Men we do not Scientifically know by any Logical Demonstration Faith gives us the certainty of those
also how to qualify our selves and how to manage our spirits speeches and behaviour to the procurement of this end and how to provoke our selves to Love and to Good Works by what we see in others and hear from them or concerning them Phil. iv 8 9. Rom. xv 14. i Thess v. 14 15. for we are all of us obnoxious unto very great decays in Christian Affections and Behaviour and who is free throughout from guilt herein and equally concerned in this healthful exercise and temper 3. Actual Endeavours upon consideration to fix the temper and behaviour right for thoughts and purposes are vain things till they be put in execution Such as Mutual Exhortation attending on assembling of our selves together and our growthful progress in these things under the reinforcements and frequent representations of the approaching day Hence then consider we 1. The Text. 2. The Case First The Text. And here we have 1. The Objects to be considered one another 2. The Duty here required as conversant about these Objects Consider 3. The End Provocation to love and to good works 4. The means and manner of performing it to purpose and with good Success not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another 5. The great inducement hereunto so much the more as ye see the day approaching Improving the thoughts belief and expectations of this approaching solemn day and consequently our concerns therein as the most awful motive and quickning encouragement of our Preparatory State and Work And here I must premise that the case here proposed to our present thoughts may and must be resolved into two 1. How a luke-warm temper may be cured by us in our selves 2. How to be cured in each other Now seeing we are all related to the same God and under the same circumstances as to our capacity of pleasing or displeasing God of deserting or adhering to our Christian State and work and all of us as Christians under the same powerful and manifold obligations to be found Right and Faithful in this day And as all of us are determined to solemn Judgment and an Eternal State according to the temper of our Spirits and tenor of our Lives as found to be when that day comes What can we say to one another to provoke each other to love and to good works that will not equally concern our selves Whatever then we consider in each other is as considerable in our selves Whatever we design hereby to provoke others regularly to is to be equally designed and enterprized and promoted upon our selves Whatever we speak to others or plead with others hath the same Errand to and ought deservedly to be as cogent and prevailing with our selves We are all concerned in the helpfulness of present Assemblies and in the process and results of the last general Assembly and what we propose or press by way of Counsel Request Encouragement c. must be as spoken to our selves Taking it then for granted and concluded and needless to be proved and demonstrated 1. That luke-warmness is an heart-distemper 2. And that the formal Nature of it lies in the remissness of due Affections unto their proper worthy objects and so in too mean resentments and distastings of whatever is contrary thereunto 3. That the Cure of this Distemper formally consists in the due fervour of provoked Love invigorating and producing its congenial Operations and Effects here called Good Works which are but answerableness of Practice and Behaviour to this Principle or Grace 4. And that all these means and courses which genuinely and statedly relate hereto as divinely instituted by him whose Blessing is entailed hereon to make them prosperous and successful hereunto are the most likely means to work this Cure 5. And that the purport of my Text amounts to this and is it self of Divine Inspiration and so of God's appointment for this End Taking I say these things for granted for brevities sake I shall dispatch the Text and Case together in the close Consideration of these three General Heads or Topicks of Discourse 1. The things to be provoked to Love and Good Works for herein the Cure consists 2. The things that are most likely and prepared to provoke hereto and so the Remedy or Means will be directed to 3. The Course and Method of improving these most regularly and so the skilful faithful management thereof will be considered 1. The things to be provoked to Love and Good works Fervour and Vigour in the heart to and for its proper Objects productive of their right Effects are the Soul's Health indeed the very esse formale of this Cure in hand for Knowledge ministers to Faith in its Production and Proficiency and in all its Exercises and Designs Hence establish'd in the Faith as ye have been taught Col. ii 7. and 1 Joh. v. 9. 14. for we must know whom to believe in what and why The credibility of a Witness the trustiness of a Promiser and Undertaker the valuableness and certainty of things Promised and the way of acquisition and attaining what is promised if Promises be attended with and ordered to depend upon any thing commanded by the Promiser to be done by us these must be duly known ere Faith can fasten on them Faith is no blind no inconsiderate no rash no groundless act I know whom I have believed ii Tim. i. 12. And 't is the evidence of things not seen Hebr. xi 1. And Faith works by love or it is inwrought and becoâ—â—â—â—ergetical by Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. v. 6. Building your s◠〈…〉 your most holy Faith keep your selves in the love of God Jude â—â— 21 Faiths proper work and great design upon the Heart or Will 〈◊〉 tâ— kindle feed and keep this holy flame of Love within and to direct and keep it to its due Expressions and Employments Thus Truths and Hearts are brought together and fixt in their reciprocal Endearments ii Tim. i. 13. And then God and the Image Interest Saints and things of God are like the King upon his Throne with all his lovely train about him And then this Faith makes Christ upon the Heart and dwelling there like Manoahs Angel working wonderously in these flames of love for now no faculty sence or member can be idle languid or indifferent amidst such glorious and lovely Objects when urged and provoked by such powerful and busie Principles as Faith and Love to be imployed for God Truths Duty Souls and Glory Let us then consider it in its 1. Objects 2. Actings And 3. Effects I. The Objects of this Love towards which it is to move for which it is to act wherewith it must converse and wherein at last it is to rest and to repose it self for ever and these are the Name the Things the Children of God the good of Men or rather God as in himself the essential source and abyss of perfection bliss and glory Of through and to whom all things are who
Palace Good Name and Honour be your precious Oyntments The things that make you cheerful in your selves grateful and useful unto others True I would rather my own Heart should commend me than all the World's Mouth beside Next to Gods own praise of us the praise of a well informed Conscience is the most desirable Nevertheless mens good esteem good mens especially is useful to the foresaid purposes And your Conversion is requisite thereto For 't is the King of Heaven is the true Fountain of Honour and he maketh Converts and no others Vessels of Honour Honour both below and above Hypocrites know this and therefore for the praise of men they make an outside Conversion to God Converts do know this and therefore by all the Reproaches of Men will not be beaten off from the way of God Plato could say a wicked man was the Earths vilest Dunghill and a Religious one its most sacred Temple Under the Law we know that God would have those that touch'd a dead Man to be held unclean seven times as long as those that touch'd a dead Beast So teaching how debased and defiled a thing an ill man is more than a brute Creature What need words who be those that you see earthly Potentates advance to Honours but their true zealous and active Friends Turn you truly zealously actively to the King immortal he shall forthwith love you more than any of his Angels can love him And that love it self shall be a crown of Honour enough to make all the Divels in Hell envy you many of the worlds Hypocrites wish themselves in your state and all the Saints of God with holy Angels to prize you beyond expression and without Flattery Every convert whether he consider it or no hath a name greater than of Earls and Dukes God writeth them that give up their names unto him Princes in all Lands and Kings and Priests unto him for ever Psal 45. Rev. 1. Indeed the world counts them and tramples on them as dirt but God calls them and will make them up as Jewels See 1 Cor. 4.13 with Mat. 3.17 The world's Dusts be God's Diamonds If then the best things of both worlds can oblige you see your selves obliged to Turn presently unto God R. 4. You are convinced by your own Consciences as truly as other people be that you ought presently to turn unto God Therefore 't is Duty Young people God's Commands Threats and Promises do oblige whether you learn and know and mind them or not Your Negligence and Unbelief cannot make them of no effect though to your selves they may easily make them of very ill effect But when the kindness of God brings them unto your Knowledge and Thoughts when he sets Conscience which is his Vice-roy and Deputy in your Souls to the work and makes it in your very Heart and Reins to Command his Commands to Promise his Promises and to Threaten his Threats what think you then Believe it then he accounts your Engagement to be heighthened with your Advantage And he stands up for the Honour and Reverence of Conscience the Honour of which he takes for your utmost Honour of himself and Contempt of which he takes for your utmost Contempt of him And if now it appear that his Vicegerent Conscience hath been contemned and you have sinned against the Edicts and Commands thereof your sin then is exceeding sinful in his Eyes Then have you broken many yea all his Bonds and must be beaten with many yea the worst of his stripes The Conscience then which you would not have to be your Ruler shall be your Tormentor Sooner or later it shall What plead you therefore Which of you all can look me in the Face and say that your Consciences are convinced of no such thing And therefore whatever Witnesses I do bring your Consciences are none unto the Truth of my Doctrine You are Men and not Brutes You are English people too You live where the Gospel shines And I must tell you I nothing doubt but the Holy Ghost beams in Light very early into English Children Light convincing them of the Necessity of Conversion and of the Malignity of Procrastination I would be understood especially of the Children of Religious Parents and such as are carried to hear Ministers that do understand and preach Christianity and not scoff at all Regeneration beside Baptismal and do not dispense Stones for Bread and Serpents for Fish But do give Babes sincere Milk designing to Edifie not to Amuse them All such as are like to Hear or Read my Labors I would ask these Questions 1. Think you not that your Minds Wills and practick Powers were given to you to Know Love and Serve your God 2. That you are bound from your first Capacity to exercise them thereunto 3. That in order to your so Exercising them 't is incumbent on you to go learn the Gospel-Covenant and Accept it 's gracious offers and Rely on its Promises and Purpose Promise and Vow by the Grace of Jesus Christ from this time for ever to be the Lords 4. That Haste hereto is your Duty and Delay is Sin very manifold Sin 5. That present Conversion will be unto the present Pardon and Mortification of all Sin but the Delay of it will keep every sin Unpardoned Mortifie no sin but give a growing strength unto all 6. That present Conversion is most Honour to God benefit unto your selves joy to your pious Friends c. I am so far from suspecting the more grown of you that I have satisfactory grounds to believe that most of five six and seven years old do in their hearts believe all Yea and have their Consciences oft-times telling them these things as Parents and Ministers are inculking of them As St. Austin said of Seneca I dare say of most of you youngest ones You make much of what you think nothing worth and declaim against that which you do above all prefer in your heart However can you chuse but see that you all who are convinced are all extraordinarily obliged to convert presently 'T is infinitely the Duty of all but yours it would be if possible more than infinitely No man must tell me Regeneration is a great Mystery above Childrens reach and therefore for all my Confidence I do mistake them Well I know Regeneration is a Mystery of the greatest but I deny that the Necessity of it is a Mystery That is of the plainest principles And I utterly deny that so young Children as I have named are uncapable of Understanding as much of Conversion as God will accept of from them Know it O little ones Give God your All he will not reject it as little give him your Best he will accept it as little good as is in it But oh greater and lesser of you hear and fear Hell gapes for all delaying Unconverts And of any is likest to swallow up those whose delays are against Convictions Peter Martyr says St. Paul dealt more severely with the
at him (e) Psal 8.2 Out of the mouths of very unlikely persons hast thou ordained strength that thou mightest still the Enemy and the Avenger q. d. God doth by the Spiritual Skill and Strength which he gives even to young weak Converts unfit to grapple with an Enemy God enables even such to silence confound and conquer the Enemies of God and his People and the Devil in the head of them whose Kingdom and Power is broken by this means and those that fight under his Banner against God and Christ And pray observe the Title here given him viz. the Avenger he being Sentenced by God to Eternal Torments makes it his business to revenge himself what he can upon God and Christ upon his Children and Servants Christians if you can through Grace make Satan himself against his will help you to profit by the Word this will raise your Souls beyond what is ordinary both for Grace and Comfort Or if God in his Wisdom suspend such manifestations of himself yet such exercise of Grace shall certainly tend to the multiplying of Praises in the other World And now though I have in my pitiful manner answered the Case my work is not yet done till I have answered a Complaint upon the Case and 't is the Complaint of those who have least cause of those who give Christ that Answer to his Question which satisfies him but yet can't give an Answer will satisfie themselves Their Hearts ake from the very proposing of the Question and their Hearts misgive them under all that 's said in Answer to it Complaint We have more Cause to complain than we are able to express Oh the Sermons that we have lost of which we can give no account at all and of those that are not utterly lost we have made no suitable improvement We are convinced that we should be as impartial now in examining whether we have got saving Faith by hearing of the Word We should be as strict now as if we were upon our Dying Bed We know not whether ever we shall have a Death-bed many more likely to live than our selves dye suddenly and why not we Nay rather now for we have not now wearisome Sickness to disable us We have now those helps that we can't have then Freedom of Ordinances in publick Capacities for Duties in secret We may now bring things to an issue which is then next to impossible These and a Thousand such Considerations even fright me when I sit down to think my Thoughts even overwhelm me to reflect what a sorry account I can give of all that I have heard These and more doleful Complaints are the usual entertainments of their most serious Christian Friends To all which I shall offer these Answers Answ 1. The Word of God which they apply to their Sorrow they ought as well to apply to their Comfort for those who are really grieved that they can't satisfie themselves much less as they think Christ They are mistaken for Christ is ordinarily best satisfied with that which the gracious Soul is least satisfied e. g. That Prayer which he is most ashamed of Christ most approves of (f) Cant. 2.12 The Flowers appear on the Earth the time of the Singing of Birds is come and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land 'T is Spring-time in the Soul When the Groans of a contrite Heart sound harsh to others they are Musick in Christs Ears not that Christ delights in his peoples Sorrows but as they are Evidences of his Graces in them and of his Spirit 's abiding with them It is only the gracious Soul that is grieved at Heart that he can't give Christ a better account of his profiting (g) Ezr. 9.6 10. ch 10.2 O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee my God What shall I say after this There 's hope in Israel concerning this thing The Apostle expresly assures us that (h) 1 Cor. 11.31 32. those that judge themselves shall not be judged with a Judgment of Condemnation Chear up therefore poor dropping Soul and to thy comfort consider whether this be not the only thing wherein Christ and you Believers be not of the same mind Christ puts a better interpretation of his actings than he himself dares many a time Christ owns that as Grace which he condemns for Hypocrisie Christ forgives him that which he can never forgive himself Christ says Well done good and faithful Servant for that which he ever finds fault with But the complaining Soul saith I mistake him I speak to the rong person Propose comfort to those that are grieved they can't give Christ a satisfying account whereas I am not troubled enough nor grieved enough a serious reflection upon such returns as mine to Christs kindness would certainly break any Heart but mine But alas I am next to nothing affected with it 2. I therefore further answer Thy complaining for want of sensible complaining entitles thee to Comfort Darest thou own so much as this that thou art troubled thou can'st be no more troubled at the shameful account thou givest to Christ Thou art afraid that Word has overtaken thee (i) Isa 6.9 10. Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not make the Heart of this People fat and make their Ears heavy and shut their Eyes least they see with their Eyes and hear with their Ears and understand with their Heart c. Surely thou canst not think worse of thy self than this Let me tell thee the more thou thinkest of this the less cause thou hast to apply this to thy self for those who God gives up to judicial hardness never think or speak of such things but in scorn and to make a mock of them and that thou darest not do there 's another word for thee to think of (k) Isa 66.1 2 Thus saith the Lord The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Footstool where 's the place of my rest To this Man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and that trembleth at my Word If God hath any place upon Earth for his Repose it is in that Soul that stands in awe of his Word and with due Reverence receives it What! Dost thou complain thou art not troubled enough Nor contrite enough Not humbled enough How do many Souls bring their Complaints to Ministers and bring their Bills to Congregations for brokeness of Heart and a deep sense of Sin when they are so much broken already that their other Duties are almost justled out by it Don't therefore overlook that Text (l) Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost We should make it our business to live in a ferious course of Holiness towards God and Righteousness towards Men in the love and practice of Peace with all and in the joyful sense of the love of God and hopes of Glory
low vallies that are most fruitfull (a) 1 Cor. 27.28 God hath chosen the foolish things of the world God picks up those that seem to others to be the Refuse of the World to confound the wise As Christ chose the poor Fisher-men to convince the most knowing part of the World God hath chosen the weak things of the world such Persons as seem most uncapable of understanding the Mysteries of the Gospel to confound the things that are mighty to put to silence those that are far above them And base things of the world and things which are despised God hath chosen Yea and things that are not to bring to nought things that are God by those who are as contemptible as if they had no Being to be taken notice of manifests the emptiness of those that seem most excellent Pray consider when the whole World was drown'd and when Sodom and the neighbour Cities were burn'd there was not one Servant saved But now under the Gospel (b) Tit. 2.10 they are in a special manner charged and honoured by the charge To adorn the Doctrine of God in all things and they stand upon even ground as to Spiritual Priviledges with any rank of men in the World There is (c) Col. 3.11 neither Greek nor Jew circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian bond nor free but Christ is all and in all It 's neither the Grecians being the most learned part of the World nor the Jews being the only National Church in the World 't is neither the observing the Ceremonial Law t is not the Barbarian that wants Accomplishments nor the Scythians who are of all Barbarians most barbarous t is not bond i. e. those who are in the worst of humane slavery nor free i. e. those who were never in bondage to any but Christ is all and in all i. e. He infinitely supplies all outward defects he 's infinitely better to them than all outward Priviledges so that you have comparatively nothing else to do but to clear up your Union with Jesus Christ 2. Practise what you know tho it be never so little improve what helps you have thô they be never so few 〈◊〉 your Graces will grow more than you are aware of (d) Mar. 4.26.27 So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how Those that receive the good Seed of the Word into good honest hearts or the Word hath made 'em so it hath an insensible efficacy which produceth a gradual increase of Grace even beyond observation But you complain that you see no such thing in some respect I may say The less you take notice of your own Graces the better provided you do not bely the Spirit of God in overlooking and denying what he hath wrought Things necessary to Salvation are but few and plain easie to be thrô Grace sufficiently understood and practised thô there is not any thing so inconsiderable but may exercise the greatest Parts and Learning attainable in this life yet there is not any thing necessary to be known but Jesus Christ who is our Prophet to teach us will both give Instruction and Capacity to receive it to all his willing Disciples and Christ will require an Account for no more Talents than he gives 3. Endeavour to make a true Observation how those things which are in their own nature Hinderances to the Soul are graciously and powerfully governed by God for our Souls profiting by them that as the Apostle I would ye should understand (e) Phil. 1.12 brethren that the things which happened to me have fallen out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel When Paul was first taken off from preaching and cast into Prison who would not at first hearing be ready to cry Oh! many a poor Soul will rue this day this is the blackest Cloud that ever darkened our Gospel day The Apostle doth as it were tell 'em They are greatly mistaken at present the same of his Sufferings rung through Court City and Countrey and persons were so far from forsaking the Truth through discouragement that they boldly own the Gospel And now was he more at leisure to write those Epistles which would benefit the Church in future Ages But to bring this down to ordinary Christians You know that groundless fears and trembling mis-givings of heart are the ordinary diseases of a scrupulous Conscience these now dispirit us and hinder us from that chearful behaviour that might render Religion more amiable and so hinder the spreading of it And besides this Satan that subtile Angler for Souls strikes in with our Spiritual Diseases and plyes the Soul with next to overwhelming temptations and he never fails of success through want of skill or through want of industry But blessed be God for over-ruling all this God by but upholding the Soul under not delivering the Soul from its fears keeps it humble and makes it more usefull throughout the whole course of its Regeneration and as for the advantage that Satan takes God is pleased to give the poor trembling Soul those experiences that it is our sin not to take notice of them e. g. That Christian that is in his own eyes the poorest weakest filliest Sheep in Christs Fold shall out-wit Satan in all his Stratagems and over-power him in all his Assaults though he knows not how he does it Thus the poor Soul when he is hard beset retreats to Christ and though he dare not call his carriage an acting Faith upon Christ Christ will own it as such and reward it as such For how is it that such a poor Soul hath held out so many years under its own fears and Satans Temptations but that Christ upheld both it and its Faith Here 's Faith not discern'd yet victorious 4. Endeavour thankfully and impartially to take notice of the Advantages of your Condition Do not so much look at what you apprehend more desireable in anothers Condition as to know and consider the circumstances of your own Condition Anothers condition is better for them God sees your condition to be better for you 't is the station wherein God sets you (f) 1 Cor. 7.24 Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God your station in the World is not so high as others and your distractions in the World are not so great as others God hath not set you in his Church so high as others God doth not require so much of you as he doth of others But alas you have not the Graces that others have neither have you the temptations nor desertions that others have Those who have the largest measure and the highest degrees of Grace have always exercises suitable to their Receipts they have sometimes the sorest Tryals sometimes the greatest Corruptions and if not that yet you 'll find 't is such as Job and Asaph and Heman
continues still to do in order to the freeing and delivering the Children of God from the fear of death and the bondage that ensues thereon 1. He worketh and increaseth those Graces of his Spirit in them which are destructive hereof and opposite hereunto you 'l say which are they 1. There is the Grace of Faith This is the Grace that conquers the World that conquers the Devil and that conquers also the slavish fear of Death This excellent Grace of Faith hath such an excellent hand in the conquering of all these that it is call'd the conquest and victory it's self This is the victory says the Apostle John 1 John 5.4 even your Faith Our Saviour tells Peter Luke 22.31 32. That Satan had desired to have him that he might sift him as Wheat And with what did he sift and shake him Why it was with the fear of Death he was afraid they would deal with him as they did with his Master It was his slavish fear of Death that made him deny Christ and to do it once and again but anon he recovered himself and got above this fear he was reâ—dy by and by boldly to confess Christ and that in the face of Death and danger How came this about Why it was by means of Faith Christ had pray'd for him that his Faith should not fail it may be said of those that are fearful of death that they are of little Faith 2. A second Grace is Love An ardent love of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ will banish all slavish fear of death out of the Soul 1 John 4.18 There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear Of what fear doth he speak The next words tell you he speaks of slavish tormenting fear of that fear which hath torment By perfect love he means a greater measure and degree of love I said but now of fearfull Christians that they have but little Faith I may add also that they have but little Love for perfect or great love expells all tormenting and servile fear 3. A third Grace is Hope The very nature of Hope is quite contrary to fear Where there is a Hope of eternal life there can be no prevailing fear of Death 'T is said of the righteous Prov. 14.32 that they have Hope in their death and those that have Hope in their death they are not afraid to dye Then Hope doth more especially free us from an inordinate fear of Death when it grows up to that which the Scripture calls The full assurance of Faith Heb. 6.11 this is a gracious Gift which the Father bestows upon many of his Children they know that they are in him that they are pass â—â— from death to life 1 John 2.5.3.14 2 Cor. 5.1 that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolv'd they shall have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Ay this is that which steels and fortifies them against the fear and terror of Death This leads me to consider of a second way or means whereby Christ delivers the Children from a slavish fear of death 2. He delivers them from it by convincing and parswading them that they shall not be Losers but Gainers yea great gainers thereby It was this perswasion that made the Apostle Paul to desire death rather than to dread it I desire says he to depart or to be dissolv'd which is far better Philip. 1.23 And again v. 21. he saith For me to dye is gain It were easie here to expatiate and shew the advantage the exceeding great advantage that Believers have by Death It is commonly said to consist in these two things in a freedom from all Evil in the fruition of all Good 1. It consists in a freedom from all Evil which is sub-divided into the evil of Sorrow and the evil of Sin Believers are freed by Death from the evil of Sorrow 'T is one blessed Notion of the life to come that God will wipe off all tears from his peoples eyes and remove all sorrow and causes of Sorrow from their Hearts Believers also are freed by Death from the evil of sin which is indeed the greatest evil the evil of evils all the evils of sorrow are but the effects and fruits of the evil of sin By Death they are deliver'd from all actual sins not only from Fleshly but Spiritual filthiness Now they are deliver'd ordinarily from inordinate actions but then also from inordinate affections they shall never any more be troubled with Pride Passion Discontent Unbelief or the like By Death also they are discharg'd from Original sin and all remainders thereof when the Body dies Believers are rid of that body of death which dwelleth in them and is always present with them they no more complain of themselves as wretched creatures upon the account thereof 2. It consists in the fruition of all Good Believers when they dye they enjoy God Himself who is the chiefest Good He is bonum in quae omnia bona all other things that are good and desireable are comprized in him as the Sun-beams are in the Sun the Saints enjoyment of God in this life is a Heaven upon Earth but our enjoyment of God after death will be the Heaven of Heavens David says in one Place Psal 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee There are Saints and Angels and Arch-Angels in Heaven says Musculus with whom David and such as he will have to do but what are these to God Believers won't barely enjoy God after death but they will enjoy him fully In this life they enjoy a little of God and oh how sweet and refreshing it is But in the life to come they shall have as much enjoyment of God as their hearts can wish or hold Now they enjoy God in the use of means in Prayer in hearing the Word and in receiving the Lords Supper but hereafter they shall have not only a full but an immediate fruition of God Now they see the Face of God in the Glass of his Word and Ordinances and 〈◊〉 what a lovely sight is it But then they shall see God face to face and what tongue can mention or heart imagine the loveliness of that sight If it were not too great a digression I could readily demonstrate the gain and advantage of Death from other Topicks Believers in the other life shall possess and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven which doth more transcend the Kingdoms of this World and all the glory of them than the light of the Sun doth excell the light of a Candle they shall be most gloriously perfected both in their Souls and in their Bodies their vile bodies at the Resurrection shall be changed and fashioned like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 3.21 Their gain and happiness will be greatly augmented in the other life by the work and employment that they shall do and by the Society and Company that they shall
to Condemnation as by the whole of St. Paul to the Romans ch 8.33 may appear Now we must suppose that the convinced Sinner sets himself as in God's sight and having seriously considered what the Law threatens dreading that Curse and Wrath to come hearing his Conscience pleading guilty to the Accusations of the Law against him he seems to hear the Judge asking of him what he hath to say for himself why the sentence of death should not pass upon him here it is that he names Christ and remembers in Prayer unto God what the Blessed Jesus did and suffered unto the utmost for him he became sin for him he could not be a Sinner but he was dealt withall as if he had been one because he was in the Sinners stead Now the convinc'd Sinner urges God's Promise and Covenant with Christ that He should see of the travel of his Soul c. Thus the Name of Christ is the Souls strong Tower Isa 53.11 Prov. 18.10 Isa 44.24 he runneth unto it and is safe and in Christ who is also the Lord Jehovah he hath righteousness and strength Again Is the penitent Sinner so oppress'd that words fail him only sighs and groans which in his case are never wanting are frequent with him the Name of Christ upholds him for he knows as God said of Aaron that he can speak well Exod. 4.14 Heb. 7.25 and he ever lives to make intercession for him I do not wonder that our being thus made whole only thro the Name of Christ should be by so many gainsayed and ridiculed Rom. 10.3 2 Cor. 5.21 for 't is hard to bring our Thoughts into subjection unto the Kingdom of God and Jesus Christ and when I read it so often call'd the Righteousness of God in Scripture as surely he alone could find out the Ransom c. I know it must be something beyond the ordinary apprehension of Man for no man knows the things of God but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 and Nil diurnum nox capit May this suffice concerning the Subject of my Text viz. He that nameth the Name of Christ We must now speak of the Injunction that is laid upon him or the Direction given unto him Let every such an One depart from Iniquity In which we shall have cause to enquire how it consists with the naming of Christ especially for our Justification as I have explained it and these four Particulars I shall offer to your consideration 1. That departing from Iniquity or Holiness is no Cause of our Justification properly taken notwithstanding 2. Holiness hath an Influence upon our Salvation and also 3. Holiness is indispensibly necessary to all justified Persons 4. Nay more Free Justification or Justification by God's Free Grace in Jesus Christ is the best and most forcible Incentive unto Holiness Departing from Iniquity is no cause of Justification Reason 1 1. It will appear that Holiness is no Cause of our Justification It did neither move God when foreseen to choose us or when actually existing to justifie us Mercy is only from something in God 1. For all God's Works of Mercy arise from something in God himself who is the fountain of Mercy or of living waters and Judgments are said to be his strange Work because he never proceeds to them but when he is necessitated to vindicate the Glory of his injur'd Attributes that is Jer. 17.13 the cause of all God's severities is out of himself and only to be found in the provocations of his Creatures The Cause of all his Mercies are his own Bowels and Compassions and wholly in and from himself O Israel Hos 13.9 thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help Nay when God says unto the Soul Live Ezek. 16.6 he sees it in its Blood and it remains in its Blood untill he says unto it Live for in the Apostles Phrase Rom. 4.5 6. he justifies the ungodly and the sinners that is God does for Christ's sake discharge and acquit Sinners who flee unto him and desire Pardon and Acceptance thro the Blood of his Son The Lamb of God that thus taketh away the sin of the World And yet thus the Judge of all the Earth does right too when he makes Christ to become Righteousness unto the believing and penitent Sinners for by the same Reason and Justice that they fell in one Adam they may be made alive in another and where is the Disputer Rom. 5.19 2. There is no commutative Justice betwixt God and his Creature 2. Reason There is no commutative Justice between God and his Creature We can give no Equivalent for the least mercy the least crumb the least drop to be sure as coming from God The giver puts a suitable price upon the Gift as the Giver is in excellency so is the Gift in esteem what a Prince or a King gives is much magnified tho many times otherwise a trifle but here is Eternal Life and a Crown immortal given by the great King of Heaven and Earth to such as know themselves to be but dust and ashes and to be sure they cry Grace Zech. 4.7 Grace unto it God gets nothing by all our holiest Performances devoutest Prayers Job 22.2 and most spiritual Duties Our righeousness cannot profit him Can a Man be profitable unto God that is he cannot by any ways be profitable unto his Maker no 't is for our sakes that God hath given us his Commandments and Institutions that we might by them mend the frame and temper of our hearts and be fitted for to enjoy him to all Eternity in the mean while to stay our longing after him he affords us to see him thus tho as in a glass darkly But if God could be promerited as they speak and obliged it must be by some things that are our own and Secondly It must be by such things as are not due upon any other account whatsoever 1 Cor. 4.7 Now what hast thou which thou hast not received Thy Faculties and Powers thy Grace and Goodness a Heart and Will to do good every Enlargement of Prayer and Exercise of Faith or any other Grace is his it is he that works in us to will and to do accord-to his own good pleasure Phil. 2.13 Luke 17.9 and if thanks be not due to a Servant when he does what he is bidden as our Saviour expresses what can be due to a Creature from his Creator who gives him Food and Rayment Life and Breath and all things Where is there any proportion betwixt these and any returns we can make In all Trading or Exchanging there 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quid for quo which cannot be given to God by us 2. Departing from Iniquity hath an Influence upon our Salvation tho it be not a Cause of our Salvation Departing from Iniquity hath its influence upon tho no cause of our salvation And tho it cannot
tells us may be gained to Christ by his Wife thus a Servant that does his Service as to the Lord may convert his Master Oh! up and be doing your labour shall not be in vain No 1 Cor. 15.58 but great shall be your Reward in Heaven When you shall be taken up to shine as the Stars in the Firmament for ever and ever Dan. 12.3 Matth. 25.11 But if you shall neglect or refuse my Soul shall mourn in secret for you as knowing that the crying Lord Lord will not avail you nor any confident Profession of Christs Name stand you in any stead When the Deluge came how many perishing Wretches ran to the Ark and laid hold on it cryed earnestly for to be admitted into it but in vain Fac quod dicis fides est You know whom the Ark represented even this Christ in whom alone is Salvation Oh get into him by a true and living Faith and that to day whilest it is called to day 2 Pet. 2.1 least swift destruction come upon you 2 Cor. 5.11 May we all so know and consider the terrors of the Lord that we may be perswaded Quest What is that fulness of God every true Christian ought to pray and strive to be filled with SERMON VI. Ephes III. 19. And to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the Fulness of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THESE words are a considerable part of that excellent Prayer put up to God by the Apostle for his beloved Ephesians from vers 16. to the end And indeed Prayer was his tryed Engine by which he always could bring down supplies of Grace from the God of all Grace for his own and the Souls of others In this Branch of it you will easily observe he prays for Grace the End and Grace the Mean to reach that End 1. He Prays for Grace the End That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God This being the utmost of the Souls Perfection ought to be the height of its Ambition beyond this we cannot reach and therefore in the attainment of this we must rest 2. He Prays for Grace the Mean to compass that End viz. To know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge As we grow up into a greater Measure of the knowledge of the Love of Christ to us we shall enjoy more of the fulness of God in us But here we meet in each of these parts of the Text with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a seeming contradiction in the Terms To know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge What is that but to know what is unknowable And to be filled with all the fulness of God What is that but to comprehend what is incomprehensible The narrow vessel of our Heart can no more contain the boundless and bottomless Ocean of the Divine fulness than our weak intellectual Eye can drink in the glorious Light of that knowledge And yet there are many such expressions in the Holy Scripture Thus Moses Hebr. 11.27 saw him that was invisible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saw him by the Eye of Faith in the glass of a Revelation whom he could not see by the Eye of Reason in the glass of Creation And thus we are instructed in the Gospel how to approach that God who is unapproachable 1 Tim. 6.16 To approach that God by Jesus Christ according to the Terms of the New Covenant to whom considered absolutely in himself we could never approach Let us therefore first clear and remove the obscurity of the Phrases that we may more comfortably handle the Divine matter contained in them Always taking along with us this useful caution That we run not away with a swelling metaphor and from thence form in our minds rude undigested Notions of Spiritual things nor fancy we see Miracles when we should content our selves with Marvels 1. The former of these seeming repugnances is To know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge If this love of Christ passeth knowledge why do we pray why should we strive to know it If it be our duty to pray that we may know it how is it supposed to pass knowledge Must we endeavour to reach that which is above all heights To fathom that which is an Abyss and has no bottom Or to take the Dimensions of that which is unmeasurable To remove this difficulty there have been many expedients found out 1. I. Some carry the sense thus To know the Love of Christ which passeth or surpasseth the knowledge of all other things There is an excellency an usefulness in the knowledge of Christs Love which is not to be found in the knowledgc of any thing else A man may know to his own pride to the Admiration of others he may have the knowledge of all Tongues and Languages may understand all Arts and Sciences may dive deep into the secrets of Nature may be profound in Worldly Policies may have the Theory of all Religions true and false and yet when he comes to cast up his Accounts shall find himself never the better never the holier indeed never the wiser never the nearer satisfaction till he can reach this blessed knowledge of the Love of Christ Only the excellency of the knowledge of the Love of Christ consists herein 1. It must be a knowledge of Christs Love by way of Appropriation to know with the Apostle Gal. 2.20 That he loved me and gave himself for me 2. By way of efficacious Operation Rev. 1.5 That he loved us and washt us from our sins in his own blood 3. By way of Reflection that his Love has kindled a mutual Love in our Souls to him 1 John 4.19 We love him because he first loved us 4. By way of practical Subjection when his Love subdues our Hearts to himself and constrains us to new obedience 2 Cor. 5.14 The Love of Christ constrains us it restrains us from sinning against him and engages us to obey him To know that we may know and make knowledge the end of it self is nothing but vain curiosity To know that we may be known is nothing but vainglorious arrogancy To know that we may make others know is indeed an edifying charity but to know that we may be transformed into the image and likeness of what we know of the Love of Christ this is the true the excellent the transcendent way of knowledge And this was that knowledge of Christ and of his Love which the Apostle set such a price upon 1 Cor. 2.2 when he determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified That he might there see the Love of Christ streaming out of his heart at his wounds in his blood and there see Divine Justice satisfied the Law fulfilled and thence feel his Conscience purified and pacified and his Soul engaged and quicken'd to walk in all new obedience This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The transcendent
it Cant. 8.7 So much we know and may blush that our Love to Christ is so easily quenched discouraged and disheartned 3. Although our knowledge of Christ be imperfect yet so much we may know as may serve to guide and encourage our obedience to him All our knowledge of Christ is vain all our love to him is a pretense if we know him not that we may love him and love him not that we may keep his Commandments 1 John 2.4 He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him for as that is not reputed with God to be any obedience which is not performed by a principle of love so neither is that accepted as any love that is not productive of obedience The Authority of Christ over us is the reason of our obedience but the Love of Christ in us is the true principle of that obedience John 14.21 He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me Christ will not acknowledge any Man to love him that does not serve him And as the Love of Christ was an universal Love it extended to all our Spiritual necessities so must our Love to Christ be as universal and have a sincere respect to all his Commandments And upon lower terms than these Christ will not own our love to be any thing John 15.14 Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you 4. Although we cannot perfectly understand the Love of Christ in this our present state yet may we know so much of his Love as shall be of more true use and worth than all we know besides we may know something of God and know it to our terror and confusion There may be such rays of Divine knowledge let into a guilty Soul as may make it wish it could shut them out again And hence it is that sinners say Job 21.14 Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways The most ungrateful unwelcom thing to an impenitent sinner in the World is to see God and to be convinced that God sees him That Gods omniscience looks into his rotten heart and the sinner must needs sit very uneasie under this knowledge of God till he can see God reconciled to him in Christ and have the light of that knowledge comfortably shinning into his heart in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 There is no knowledge to be compared with the knowledge of God no knowledge of God comparable to the knowledge of God as reconciled in Christ no knowledge of Christ to be compared with the knowledge of his Love nor any knowledge of his Love to be compared with that knowledge of it which subdues our hearts to his obedience transforms our Souls into his likeness and raises up the Soul to aspire after his enjoyment Thus it is that we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement Rom. 5.11 All other knowledge may swell the head sooner than better the heart or reform the life A Man may go silently down to Hell by hypocrisie he may go triumphantly thither by open prophaneness and he may go Learnedly down to Hell with great pomp and ostentation what-ever he knows if he knows not the Love of Christ ruling in him and giving Laws to him and conforming him both to the Death and Resurrection of his Saviour And let this suffice to have spoken of the second Proposition That tho' the Love of Christ in its highest elevation passes all perfect knowledge in our present dark imperfect state yet there 's enough of the Love of Christ that may be known to engage our desires and endeavours to know more to shame us that we know so little of what may be known to engage our hearts to him and make us confess that whatever else we know without this is not worth the knowing Come we now to the second part of the Text viz. the Apostles Prayer for Grace the End That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God wherein we meet with a second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or something that implies a contradiction in appearance The Apostle prays that the Ephesians might and certainly we ought to add our Prayers to his that we may and to second our Prayers with endeavours that God would fill us with all his fulness And yet we are here aground again To be filled with Gods fulness With all his fulness seems rather the object of our Despair than of our Prayer 't is that which startles Faith discourages Hope which supersedes Prayer and Endeavour for how can our finite grasp his Infinite Our narrow vessel comprehend the Sea of his Divine perfections We can no more comprehend the incomprehensible of God than we can apprehend the unapprehensible Love of Christ Our hearts must needs be narrow because our minds are so we can see but little we can love no more than we can see what the Eye cannot behold the Hand cannot hold For the solution of this I shall only observe at the present That as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which may be known of God Rom. 1.19 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which cannot be known of God in which respect we are like the Athenians and erect our Altar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the unknown God Acts 17.23 so there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which may be comprehended of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which cannot be comprehended in which respects we are all scepticks and must confess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I cannot comprehend it For the clearing therefore of this difficulty perhaps we may have some relief from the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we may render thus That ye may be fill'd unto all that fulness of God There is a measure of Grace unto which the Divine Wisdom has appointed Believers unto that measure that degree of fulness we ought to aspire and to pray that God would fill us with it which seems to be the purport of that other Prayer of this Apostle for the Thessalonians 2 Thes 1.11 We pray always for you that God would fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is the Fountain his Saints are Vessels These Vessels are of several capacities God according to his good pleasure has gaged these Vessels now it is our duty to pray and strive to strive and pray that God from the inexhaustible Fountain of his goodness would fill these Vessels with Grace up to the brim and that according to that capacity which God has graciously bestowed he would graciously fill up that capacity For if you should pour the whole Ocean upon a Vessel yet it receives only according to its own Dimensions And this is the Interpretation of Theophylact who when he had recited and rejected some other interpretations fixes on this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive says he this
influence the Faith of some confident Professors has upon their Lives they are not they will not be governed by the Faith which they profess the Devil allows of such a profession and 't is all the Religion he will admit of in his followers provided they don 't touch upon the power of godliness all forms are alike to him and in some cases the purest and most Scriptural serve his turn best when separated from the power of godliness then he has some Scripture on his side to perswade them that all is well then he cries The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are ye setled in a Church way according to all the Rules of Discipline laid down in the Word and is not this Religion enough to save you Thus the Devil will sometimes give the best form its due commendation from Scripture when it may serve as an Argument to perswade a formal Christian to sit down short of the power of Godliness he knows God's own form will not save us then though he would make them believe otherwise He put the Jews upon pleading this and possessed them that all was well while they held to the outward form of Worship that God had appointed which made the Lord himself so often to declare against them and the outward forms of Worship that he had appointed because he saw they rested in them and played the Hypocrites under them Let us have a care in these Gospel-times that we do not rest in Gospel-forms only placing the whole of our Religion in that which God has made but a part of it and such a part that should never be divided by us from the Power and Spirit of the Gospel We talk of damnable Heresies and there are such the Lord keep us from them but let me tell you you may pass though more silently into Hell through a formal Profession of the Truth and have your porticn with Hypocrites who profess'd what you do had the same form of Godliness that you have but deny'd the power of it I don't say as some of you do I hope otherwise of you all but let every one examine himself what powerful Influence those Gospel-truths have upon him which he has lived so long under the profession of you know this best and others may more than guess at it by your Lives and Conversations but I spare you having laid my finger upon the soar place I take it off again and leave every one to his own feeling Obj. You seem as if you would put us off from our Profession Answ It may be better off than on in some respects but my design is to bring you up to your Profession that you may be real in it and not mock the Lord nor deceive your selves I have often thought that he who makes a solemn Profession of his Faith and says I believe in God and in Christ had need consider well what he says lest he lie unto the Holy Ghost though what you profess be truth yet your Profession may be a Lie if you say you believe what you do not believe with the Mouth Confession is made but with the Heart Man believes believing is Heart-work which the Searcher of Hearts only can judge of therefore you should consult your Hearts whether you do indeed believe before you tell God and Man that you do 't is a sad thing that the frequeut repetition of our Creed and the renewed Profession we make of our Faith should be charged upon us as so many gross Lies as Psal 78.36 37. Thirdly They who count it an easie matter to believe are destistute of Saving Faith I prove it thus 1. They who have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing are destitute of saving Faith But they who count it an easie matter to believe have never found any Conflict in themselves about believing ergo If Faith did not act in opposition to carnal Reason and carry it against all the strong reasonings of the Flesh to the contrary Supernatural Truths which never enter never be admitted never find acceptance in the Soul we should never be brought over to assent to them so as to make them the sure ground of our trust and confidence in God but Faith captivates all rebellious thoughts that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 10.5 as if they could disprove all that the Gospel says but the demonstrations of the Spirit are with that power that we cannot resist them Christ teaches as one having Authority besides the instructive evidence of Truth in clear reasonings and full demonstrations of it by the Spirit there is Authority and Power to back all this so that having nothing to object that is and fully answered we dare not but obey because of his Authority lesh Power over us were it not for this Authority and Power proud F the would pertinaciously stand out against all the Reasonings of the Spirit but when the Rationale of the Gospel is made out by art Spirit beyond all contradiction from Flesh and Blood the carnal p et is nonplust and silenced cannot speak sense against the Gospel y e however 't will be muttering and kicking against the Truth her comes in the Authoritative Act and Power of the Spirit suppressing the insolence of the Flesh and commanding the Soul in the Name of God to obey and not stand it out any longer against such clear evidence resisting the Wisdom of the Holy Ghost You must know that Flesh and Blood i. e. that carnal corrupt part that is in every Man is never convinced 't is not capable of any such thing but the Power of the Spirit of God brings on a Conviction upon the Soul from a higher Light notwithstanding all that the Wisdom of the Flesh can say to the contrary Flesh is Flesh still in all chose who are born of the Spirit but 't is overpower'd and kept under by the stronger reasonings of the Spirit which is the cause of that continual Conflict that is between the Flesh and Spirit to talk of easie believing without any resistance from our own corrupt minds is to talk of that that never was nor can be in any man whatever Saints are inclined two contrary ways though one Principle be predominant yet the other is not extinct has not yet lost all its power 't will stir and fight and resist though it can't overcome and Faith it self feels the struglings of unbelief and bears up with more Courage against them 2. They who were never convinced of the sinfulness of sin and of the dreadfulness of God's Wrath against Sinners are destitute of Saving Faith but they who count it an easie matter c. ergo I don't mean that all must pass under the like terrors of Conscience some have a more easie passage from a state of Nature to Grace from Death to Life from Terror to Comfort they may sooner get over their Tears and attain to peace than others may But this I say that
really do not believe they say they have Faith but have it not How to find out such Men and to convince them of their unbelief How to dig up this Fox that is so deeply earthed under a specious profession of Faith This requires some skill we shall find it difficult work yet I conceive it may be done they may be so narrowed up that unless they deny their sense and their reason they must own their unbelief Though we cannot by reason bring Men to believe yet we may by reason convince them of their unbelief here we offer nothing new or surprizing to them we only state the matter as it is in their own Hearts which they know to be so we do but bring them to reason to their own reason we make them Judges of themselves in a matter of fact of their own doing though they say they have Faith yet being close put to it they must needs unsay that again the evidence of the thing it self overthrows all they can say against it I would argue thus with them 1. Let them if they can produce any of those fruits and effects of Faith that are inseparable from it James 2.14 c. To pretend to such an active principle as Faith is and yet do nothing by it is very unreasonable they say they have Faith they may as well say they have Wings and can fly though they cannot bare up themselves one inch from the ground unless some part of the body rest upon it indeed if a Mans feet be upon the ground all the other parts of the body may be erect but for the whole body to carry all its weight upwards through the Air this is flying 'T is equally absurd for Men to say they have Faith are risen with Christ are in an ascending posture when they visibly rest upon the Earth nay when they lie flat upon it are sunk into it covered all over with it are as it were buried alive in their carnal affections Men may say what they will 't is apparently otherwise upwards and downwards cannot be so confounded that one should be taken for tother 't is against common sense Men may and must be convinced of this that what is contrary to Faith is not Faith Faith without works is dead were there any thing of the true Nature Life and Spirit of Faith in them they could not carry it as they do They make Faith an easie thing who make just nothing of it and do nothing by it nay they do that which they might with far more colour of reason do if they did not at all pretend to Faith but to say they believe in Christ and yet act in a direct opposition to him and to their own Faith also is that which no Man in his wits will give credit too 2. Let them try their skill in those indispensible acts of Faith that Christ requires in all his followers Mat. 16.24 25. The reading of those words is enough to convince any considering Man that 't is no easie matter to believe that which is not easie to do is not so easily believed 3. Let them consider the misterious points of Faith that are above our reason and do transcend our humane capacities as the Doctrin of the Trinity of the incarnation of Christ of the Resurrection of Justification by imputed Righteousness how have Men stumbled at these things could never come to any satisfaction in by their own reason and shall we say 't is an easie matter to believe these things they are stupidly ignorant of the misteries of Faith who say so if this be easie there is nothing hard or difficult in the World Object How comes it to pass that any do believe Answ Because God puts forth his power in some and not in others there is not a greater instance of the power of God in the whole World than this In bringing over the heart of a sinner to believe in Christ O the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe This is the undoubted experience of every true Believer You who know not how you came by your Faith but slid into it by custom education and long continuance under the means of Grace and have always counted it an easie thing to believe let me tell you you know not what it is to believe to this day 'T is true God makes it easie to believe but so that we still see it impossible to believe without his help I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me I live yet not I We may soar aloft when upon Eagles wings we may move any where as we are carried but all this while we know we are not the cause of our own motion the Spring of it is not in our selves acti agimus we act as we are acted the root bears us not we the root we feel Christ living in us We live because he lives in us What we receive from another is ours when we receive it but 't is not from our selves because we receive it from another God makes us so to work in such a dependance upon him that we see 't is He that worketh in us both to will and to do To ascribe the free acts of own will to another requires a humble mind sensible of its own weakness and of the secret ways of Gods divine communications to his creature Man exactly suted to the rational nature of so free an agent as Man is the freedom of whose will is preserved under a constant dependance upon God in every thing he do's God that gave him this freedom can cause him freely to act it as he pleases otherwise Man would not be a governable creature if the natural freedom of his will did exempt him from a due subjection to God that made him in which subjection he is as free as he could be supposed to be if left to himself to do what he list A Believer lists and wills what he do's and yet he do's not do what he lists but freely subjects his own will to the will of God whose service is perfect freedom A Saint keeps up the liberty of his will by a voluntary obedience to the will of God and this is his Grace till our stubborn Hearts are brought to this they are and will be rebellious against God What I have said may be convincing to these easie Believers that they are void of true saving Faith unless they resolve not to be convinced and though they do so resolve yet they must be convinced whether they will or no Truth and Reason plainly proposed never want a witness in the Conscience of Man that will speak sometime or other as the thing is Quest What 's the danger of a death-bed Repentance SERMON IX Luke XXIII 42. And he said unto Jesus Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom WE have in this little History of the two thieves crucified with our Lord Jesus a great instance both of Man's wickedness and of Divine grace I.
for using means to attain it when they have not room for so much as a thought of it 2. Suppose Men have time and warning given them Death knocks at the door before it enters and besieges them before it storms them they lie by the brink of the grave before they fall into it yet they may want the Means of grace by which God ordinarily works when he brings Men to Repentance Publick Ordinances in such a case they cannot have and private ones they may not have They may have none with them that have the tongue of the Learned to speak a word in season to them Isa 50.4 they may lack oyl but have none that can tell them where they may buy it None that understand the nature of Repentance none that can instruct them in it or direct them how they may attain it Friends may be as carnal and ignorant and unacquainted with the things of God as themselves and so may Ministers be sometimes They may seek a vision of the Prophet but the Law may perish from the Priest and counsel from the Ancient Ezek. 7.26 True indeed God can work repentâ—nce in Man or any grace without means by his immediate power or by some extraordinary means but he never promiseth to do it and therefore it is a bold presuming and tempting of him to expect he should What if God once stopt a sinner in the midst of his carrear when not only running away from the means of Salvation but bidding defiance to them and converted him in a miraculous way by a glorious light shining about him and the immediate voice of Christ to him Acts 9. shall others hope for the like Live in sin all their days and look for conversion by miracle at last 3. If they have means when they come to die yet they may not have an heart to use them First By reason of bodily weakness failing of natural Spirits racking and tormenting pains which often afflict Men in such a casâ— These may blunt and dull Mens minds or distract them and draw away the intention of them from other things and hold them only to the consideration of their present anguish How unfit are Men for serious minding even of their Worldly affairs when under bodily indispositions and how much more than unfit for Spiritual work When the Soul is wholly taken up with helping the body with which it sympathizes to bear its present burden it is ill at leasure to think of any thing else The Israelites harkned not to Moses tho sent of God to deliver them for anguish of Spirit and cruel bondage Exod. 6.9 and is it any wonder if a Man groaning under a distemper scarce able to bear his pain or think of any thing but his pain be in an ill case to look into his Heart consider his ways listen to the best counsil joyn with the best prayers c. If Gods children that have grace in their Hearts yet in time of sickness may through present weakness find much indisposedness in themselves to the actings of grace so that they are fain to bring forth their old store and comfort themselves with their former experiences rather than with the present frame of their Hearts what wonder is it if they that are altogether graceless be alike indisposed to seek for grace Secondly By reason of contracted hardness Men are naturally backward to good but much more when habituated to evil for the more inclined they are to evil the more averse they are to good and the more accustomed they are to sin the more inclined they are to it The practice of sin hardens the Heart and strengthens the sinning disposition and still the longer Men continue in sin the stronger such dispositions grow Hence the Apostles advice to the Hebrews chap. 3.13 Exhort one another while it is called to day lest your Hearts be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin implying that that would follow upon their continuance in sin We see even in natural things that Mens being accustomed to one sort of actions unfits them for another When Men have lived in the practice of sin all their days and their natural disposition to sin is hightned into an habit it is not strange if they be much more averse to the contrary good Jer. 13.23 How can you that are accustomed to evil learn to do well If one gross sin in a believer may so debilitate and enfeeble those gracious dispositions that were before in him as to unfit him for and deaden him to spiritual duties to what a superlative hardness may a thousand and a thousand repeated acts of wilful sin bring the Heart of a carnal Man and to what not only aversness to any good but confirmedness against all 4. They cannot work repentance in themselves not make the means effectual for the enlightning of their minds the changing softning spiritualizing their Hearts or working a vital principle in them If they say they can either they must assume to themselves a Creating power a power of making themselves new Creatures or creating this grace in their own Hearts there being nothing of it in them by nature and antecedently to their making such a change Or they must say that there is some seed of grace in them beforehand some root or stock which being watered and cultivated by outward means diligence and industry may be made fruitful so that the working repentance in them is not the infusing a new principle into them but a correcting of the old one Conversion not the giving or creating in them a new nature but only a freeing the old one from its former impediments and setting it at liberty to its proper actions But this is 1. Contrary to the whole current of Scripture which affirms Mans will since the fall of Adam to be void of all saving good and impotent to it till renewed by grace John 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing Rom. 5.6 When we were without strength 2 Cor. 3.5 We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves And prone to evil Job 15.16 Man drinks iniquity like water Prov. 2.14 Rejoyceth to do evil Rom. 6.17 He is a servant of sin Gen. 6.5 All the imaginations of his Heart are only evil continually Eph. 2.1 He is dead in trespasses and sins This is broadly to charge a lie upon the God of truth 2. To deprive God of the glory of one of his chiefest works the new Creation in which he is said to put forth the same power which he did in creating the World at first 2 Cor. 4.6 and in raising up Christ from the dead Eph. 1.19 20. compared with chap. 2.1 They are said to be born of the Spirit John 3.5 And not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of Man but of God John 1.15 Whereas they that assert the contrary take Gods work out of his hands and grudge him the honour of it 3. To go contrary to the common
any thing our Apostle tells him He knoweth nothing as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8.2 He is not sufficient as of himself for one good or true thought 2 Cor. 3.5 which cuts the top sinew of Pelagianism and the Champions of the power of Nature 2. His judgment therefore must needs be dubious or wrong whereby he is to compare things that differ or agree together If God leave him or give him up to himself the Prophet is a fool and the Spiritual Man is mad Hos 9.7 so as he will put darkness for light and light for darkness bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter call good evil and evil good Isa 5.20 Conscience the Souls taster and common sense is so vitiated and defiled Tit. 1.15 that he hath no true judgment or discretion having not his senses exercised to discern between good and evil Heb. 5.14 3. His conclusions therefore must needs be distorted from these premises and the Errors in the first and second concoction are not corrected and amended by the third he who cannot make one strait step can never take three together All the Errors and Fallacies in the World are but the products of his Ratiocinations viz. I can go to the Tavern or Exchange I find therefore I can Repent and Believe when I will whereas these are actions of another Life and Nature which he was never born to unless Regenerated by the Spirit of God To Repent and Believe are God's gift Acts 5.31 His work in us John 6.65 and Ephes 2.8 Though for this very Doctrin many of his ignoranter Disciples went back and walked no more with him John 6.66 And so Men jog on in their sensuality presumptuously as if there was something in the pleasures of sin which was sweeter and dearer to them than God or Heaven and when they have no more strength to serve their Lusts nor any thing else to do but to die they can in one quarter of an hour make their peace with God as one of that herd said to me who soon after drawing Water out of his own Well and being Drunk was by the weight of the Bucket drawn into the Well and drown'd Another saith I may sin because Grace aboundeth this is a most disingenuous and unnatural argument I may hate God and my Saviour because he hath so loved me when holy Herbert said Let me not Love thee if I love thee not love being stronger than Death or Hell in the Hearts of Gods beloved ones So without holiness none shall see God therefore we must be justified by our Evangelical Obedience and Righteousness whereas this is only a concomitant for the cause for God pronounceth and declareth none to be Righteous but such as are Righteous now there is none Righteous no not one Rom. 3.10 but in the Righteousness of Christ who of God is made Wisdom Righteousness and Redemption Dav. de Just 1 Cor. 1.36 In sound Davenant's words An Alderman sits in the Court not because he is to come in his Gown but because he is an Alderman by Election c. So you must obey the Laws of the Church if that wedge will drive if not the Laws of the State both which are inconsequent if they be not according to the Law of God the establishing perversness by a Law Psal 94.20 made neither Davids nor Christs sufferings the worse but their sin the greater who twisted such a Law So that we need a new Logick from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Word as a directory to our Reasonings as well as the common Logick which teacheth us the regulation of the operations of our minds II. As we are lame in our Feet by our Naturals so even those who by the light of the Gospel and Grace are brought over to better understanding yet by vertue of the old crasiness they are not throughly illuminated and refined The very Apostles themselves Luke 18.34 were plainly told by our Saviour that he should suffer Death and rise again the third day yet they understood none of these things these sayings were hid from them until he opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures Luke 24.45 We have all a dark side and Paul says We know but in part 1 Cor. 13.12 we see but one side of the Globe we cannot view things round about they are above our Hemisphere These weak Jews were Zealous for their Ceremonies as being instituted by God the Gentiles as hot for theirs let no Man think himself infallible for these were all out and mistaken Form Custom and Education do wonderfully confirm Men in Error How hardly were People in our first Reformation drawn from their Prayers in Latin to English yet they understood not Latin as hardly would they still be weaned from little formalities though it were to entertain the most real and reasonable service in the World So great a Tyrant is tough custom over Phlegmatick Souls so apt are Men to heats for trifles by which Straw and Stubble they turn the Church into a Brick-kiln These Jews had Divine Right to plead and the usage and practice of all the seed of the Faithful enough to stagger a weak Christian Errors fairly set off may pass for Truths and if but weakly confuted may hang a doubt in Mens minds so Truths ill guarded may go for Errors objections not well cleared had better never have been started for they may puzzle a weak Head and Heart and make them both ake with fear of mistakes A Sophistical Disputant will prove there is no Motion the best way to confute him is in our Saviours words rise up and walk John 5.8 which is a real silent demonstration of it III. Nothing so convulseth Mens reason as interest as Hobs saith Though there is no Problem in Mathematicks more demonstrable than that all strait Lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equal yet if this did but cross any Mans interest it would be disputed Now 1 John 2.16 the Apostle reduceth the whole World to those three Elements the lust of the Flesh the lust of the Eye and the pride of Life a threefold cord strong enough to pull any Truth in pieces as easily as Sampson did his Wyths 1. The lust of the Flesh modo hic sit bene pleasing the Flesh goeth a great deal further than the Monks Bellies who yet have a lusty share in it as one of their own said They had all things so complacent that they wanted only a Vicar to go to Hell for them when they should die The Bishop of Romes Kitchin and Purgatory mutually support one another Disorders of Life hold up Celibacy in Men in Orders The lust of Idleness inviteth to Stage-plays the nurseries of Vanity and Vice to Cards and Dice in defiance of that Canon which pronounceth them unlawful Games A lusty Dinner makes the Veins so strut they can leap or fly to Heaven by their Free-will without the necessity of Free-grace so strong is Flesh and Blood without the
eateth up both Truth and Love For such contentions are rather for Victory than Truth Now passion doth nothing well which made one Emperor say over his Alphabet to get the Dominion over his anger Ahasuerus fann'd himself in his Garden Esth 7.7 and he in Plutarch would not smite his Servant because he was angry Passionated persecution makes only Hypocrites become Proselites and in their Breasts also lodge such a revenge as will be satisfied one time or another upon them who have made them offer violence to their Consciences Religion is a free choice upon judgment or 't is not Religion therefore it gets in by perswasion not persecution Yet 't is strangely true they who are so tender of their own Wills that God must not touch them unless by Argument yet laxate themselves to Club Law with their Brethren not content with a moral swasion 2. Loving converse taketh off those prejudices which hinder Mens minds from a true knowledge of others Principles and Practices which at a distance seem horrid and monstrous Opinions and Practices when as a little free converse with them breedeth quite other apprehensions The Papists picture the Protestants as bruits with Tails as Devils with Horns to terrifie the Vulgar but knowing Merchants dare trust them So some Protestants have represented the Puritans as Pestilent and Seditious persons as Mad and having a Devil as the Scribes and Pharisees did John Baptist and Christ but the plain hearted people saw thorough those pious frauds and tricks and were astonished at their Doctrin and Life when they healed Souls and Bodies on the Sabbath day 3. Sincere love and converse breedeth a good opinion of persons who differ from us they can taste humility meekness and kindness better than the more speculative Principles of Religion These get into Mens affections and so bore away into their judgments and cause them to alter their minds Two Heads like two Globes touch but in one point the whole Bodies at a distance but two Hearts touch in plano and fall in with each other in all points Love openeth the Heart and Ear to cooler consideration and second thoughts The Spirit of God directed Elijah 1 Kings 19.12 not in the strong Wind which rent Rocks and Mountains nor in the Earthquake or Fire but in the silent whisper or tranquil voice Vse of Instruction How to carry our selves towards them who are weak in the Faith in these days and doubtless it is a sickly season when there are so many feverish heats among us I will not say what once a Romanist said to me That these are the spuria vitulamina the Bastard frisks of our Reformation in Henry the Eighths days But I rather think the violent endeavours after External Uniformity without the Inward the smothering of the industrious Bees in one Hive was a great cause of their castling into several Swarms Threshing the Corn hath driven it out of the Floor and the grasping so hard the Granes all into the Hands and Power of some hath made them creep out through their Fingers Rigid Impositions and violent Prosecutions and Exactions of Conformity to things extra Scriptural and Divine Institution and without any manifest tendency to Edification have and will make fractions without end As D. W. said Till Men be Infallible and the World Immutable moderation becometh every Man who is in his senses and considereth himself 1. There are some who have all Faith believe incredibly as that Katharina Senensis praying for a new Heart she had her real Heart cut out of her Body and after some days had a new Heart formed by Christ put into her That making a cross on the Body with a Finger driveth the Devil away That a Priest by these words this is my Body transubstantiateth the Bread into the Body of Christ and so he offereth that Sacrifice to deliver Souls out of Prison and then by his Dirges conducteth them to Paradise 2. Others have no Faith at all as that Infallible one who said What vast Wealth hath this Fable of Christ acquired to the Church So when some had Disputed about the Immortality of the Soul most gravely determined in a Verse Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil That which is nothing must needs come to nothing And I fear there are more Atheists than Papists who seem to believe all on the Stage nothing in their retiring thoughts We are not bound to receive such into our Bosoms or Communion lest we sting our own Breasts out of charity to our Souls we must take heed of receiving such 3. But there are others who seem seriously to believe the Doctrin of the Gospel yet have a weakness in their judgments about little things These we must receive and instruct them Rom. 14.17 That the Kingdom of God is not in Meat or Drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Shew them all kindness pity them pray for them and let them see Col. 2.5 Nothing but your order and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ 1. Stand fast and fix'd in the good Word of God which is setled for ever in Heaven Psal 119.89 as the Copy of the Divine Nature and Law Stand having your Loins girt about with Truth Ephes 6.14 and having on the Breastplate of Righteousness This is the grand and perfect rule of Faith Worship and Life Keep within these Trenches and you have an assurance of protection I know no other method possible to Peace but in an universal resolution to impose nothing upon others but what Christ himself hath imposed what Scripture commands Matth. 28.20 Teach Men to observe whatever I have commanded you and then I am with you to the end of the World This is a Minister of Christs Commission and he cannot look for Christ to be with him if he go either coâ—trary to beyond or not according to his instructions Let this be first done and then Men may consider whether any thing further be necessary or convenient Let us therefore in the Name of God beg his holy Spirit whom Christ hath promised and that he shall lead us into all Truth John 16.13 He is the only infallible Interpreter of Gods mind He shall take of mine says our Saviour and shew it unto you vers 14. Then read the Scriptures as Christ himself did Luke 4.16 his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read and when the Book of God was delivered to him he read the 61 of Isaiah a Prophesie of himself and so he closed the Book and gave it to the Minister then he expounded and applied it to the present circumstances That he came to preach to the poor heal the broken hearted give deliverance to the captives open the Eyes of the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised Oh blessed pattern for every Minister of Christ to follow And sing the Psalms or Hymns as we read he also did Matth. 26.30 and the Ancient Christians
Jesus You are espoused to Him and should you not consent to be like to him who has betrothed you unto himself in Loving-kindness Mercy and Faithfulness for ever Hos 2.19 20. Nay you are members of his body Therefore you should grow up into Him in all things which is the Head even Christ Eph. 4.15 You should discover such a mind as Christ had you should manifest the same Spirit and act as he acted when he was here in the World 3. Consider that God did fore-ordain you that are Believers to a conformity to the Lord Jesus Rom. 8.29 For whom he did fore-know he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son that he might be the first-born among many Brethren If you would appear with Christ in Glory you must be now changed into his Image Holiness and patient suffering will make you like him and is the decreed way unto his Kingdom 4. Walking as Christ walked will make it evident that you are indeed in him 1 Joh. 2.6 He that saith he abideth in him ought to prove what he saith and himself so to walk even as he walked To be in Christ is to be a new creature And these new Creatures do all resemble him for he is formed in them Naming the name of Christ will never demonstrate your Christianity unless you depart from iniquity which makes you so unlike unto your Lord. But likeness to him will prove you His in Truth And an evidence of this what strong consolation will it afford If you are in Christ how safe are you you are secured from the curse of the Law the stroke of vindictive Justice the wrath of the Destroyer the bondage of Corruption and Sin the sting of the first Death and the power of the second If you are in Christ His God is your God his Father your Father Joh. 20.17 You are loved as He is loved Joh. 17.23 That the World may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me And v. 26. That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them You are joint-heirs with Christ unto the same incorruptible inheritance how firm and sure is your title how certain and soon will be your possession and after possession is taken you shall not be dispossess'd unto Eternity 5. Your following the Example of Christ very much honours Him and credits Christianity 't is a sign that Christs death has a mighty vertue in it when it makes you to die to Sin and to be unmoved by the biggest offers that Mammon makes to you 'T is an argument that He is truly Christ when you are truly Christians that He is indeed alive when he lives in you and makes you to live to him and like him 'T is a demonstration that our Lord is risen indeed when you rise with him and seek those things that are above Col. 3.1 Christ is very much unknown and being unknown is undesired and neglected because so little of him is seen in Christians conversation How few deserve digito monstrari to be pointed at and to have such a Character given them There go the persons who discover such a Spirit who talk and walk too after such a manner that 't is evident Christ dwells and speaks and walks and works in them Be all of you prevailed with to honour your Lord Jesus by shewing the world what he was when here upon Earth and how powerfully he works in you though now he is in Heaven Chrysostom with great reason does call good works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unanswerable Syllogisms and demonstrations to confute and convince Infidels The World would flock into the Church being struck with the Majesty and Glory shining forth in Her if She were but more like unto her glorious Head But when they who are called Christians are so like unto the World 't is no wonder if the men of the World continue still as they are 6. Christ frequently speaks to you to follow him and observes whether and how you do it His word is plain that you should learn his Doctrine and live after his example And his eyes which are as a flaming fire are upon Professours ways His Omniscience should be more firmly believed and seriously considered by the Church it self Rev. 2.23 All the Churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the Reins and Hearts and I will give to every one of you according to your works I shall here by a Prosopopeia bring in our Lord Jesus speaking to you and himself propounding his own Example that you may hear and heed and follow the Lamb of God To this effect Christ speaks to you Look unto me and be ye saved all ye ends of the Earth Look unto me and become like me all you that profess your selves to be my Members What Do you see in me that in any reason should turn away your faces or your hearts from me Blessed is He whosoever shall not be offended in Me. The Father is well pleased in Me and so should you as you value his favour and would consult your own interest I never took so much as one step in the ways of misery and destruction be you sure to avoid them I always trod in those paths which to you will prove pleasantness and peace though to satisfy for your deviations and going astray I was fain my self to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Consider your Lord and Master you that call your selves my disciples Many look upon you that will not look into my word and will judge of Me by your practices Be not so injurious to Me by misrepresenting Me as if I allowed those evils which you allow your selves in Why should I be wounded in my honour in the house of my Friends Why should you crucify me afresh And put me to an open shame When you yield to Satans temptations are you like to me When you are eager after worldly wealth the applause of men and flesh-pleasing delights are you like to me When you are proud and haughty bitter envious and revengeful do you at all resemble Me When you seek your selves and please your selves and matter not how much God is forgotten and displeased Am I in this your example O all you upon whom my name is called content not your selves with an empty name Be my disciples in truth and let the same mind that was in me be in you also be my disciples indeed live as I did in the World to honour God and to do good to man let it be your business for I have left you an example that you should follow my steps 7. Follow Christs Example that you may enter into his glory For if we be dead with him says the Apostle we shall live with him if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him 2 Tim. 2.11 12. Be of good courage and conflict but do it in his Strength with your Spiritual enemies and
be exerted thence That thoughtless Idle Souls should be luke-warm is no such wonder or strange thing The contrary would be stranger even to a miracle And being thus awakened and prepared your selves drive all things home upon each other and plead the cause of every Duty Truth and Motive throughly in free and frequent conversation each with other Mal. iii. 16. Luke xxiv 32. i Thes v. 11-15 Rom. xv 13-16 Col. iii. 16. ii Thes iv 18. Christian conference well managed makes and speaks warm hearts and leads and helps to better lives Men that rarely transiently or triflingly think upon or talk about the things of God must needs be cold within and when such pray that God should warm them can they expect returns to prayer when neither hearts nor pains are after them And here How many heart warning Topicks of discourse and edifying conference might I now entertain you with but let the text speak for it self and though it here offer but one yet is that one impregnated with many 1. It is the day 2. 'T is an approaching day and 3. They saw it thus approaching 4. The sight ought because so fit to quicken them to growthful care and diligence in this heart-warning course and work Whence 4. Preserve and practically answer and improve a quick deep constant sence of the approaching day i Thes v. 1-11 ii Pet. iii. 1. 14. and Jude 20 21. Col. iii. 2-5 Luke xxi 34-36 xii 35-40 Perhaps the Reader will not lose his time and labour in perusing and pausing upon these cited Texts Nor find them impertinent nor inexpedient as to the case in hand See also ii Pet. i. 5-13 How copiously and closly might all these passages be insisted on did not the Press stay for me and the stated confines of a short discourse restrain me and the fruits and labours of abler heads and better pens and hearts urge me severely because deservedly to give place thereto Well Sirs Consider the Approaching day and represent it to your thoughtful and concerned selves in all its Grandeurs and Solemnities of Process and Results and try then if it do not warm your hearts and urge you pungently and severely to Good works As to the persons here most Immediately concerned these Christian Hebrews There was a day of reckoning with their malignant Enemies by Providential Controversies and Rebukes which also was a day of great Redemption and Establishment to the persecuted faithful Christians There was to be a day of great Conversion and divine Attestations to the Christian Faith and to its Proselytes and what was more congenial herewith than this endeavoured provocation to love and to good works And they that are provoked hereto are also fittest for a day of tryal But I shall here consider it as the great day of Christs appearance and his Kingdom ii Tim. iv 1.8 i 18. That day of God of Christ of Judgment and Perdition of Vngodly Men. That day of Revelation of God and Christ in their Majestick glory that day of searches sentence and full execution and adjustments in all the accuracies of governing wisdom holiness and grace Who can contemplate this and yet be Cold and Barren Then in the glorious splendours solemnities and proceedings of that day shall it be evident who and whose Son Christ is What cost and care he hath been at to bring men to this warm and active course and temper and what an estimate he and his Father set hereon by what they then dispense and testify by way of recompence of reward thereto Christ in his threefold glory Luke ix 26. God sending him forth and appearing in him by him and for him as his own dear Son the Son of such a King i Tim. vi 3-16 Father and Son making so vast a difference amongst the Sons of men by everlasting punishments and rewards as they are differently found as to Christian love and practice Rom. ii 6-10 ii Cor. v. 9-11 Mat. xxv 34-46 And all that vast Assembly and Convention applauding Gods proceedings and joyfully Congratulating the great endeavours and rewards of our provoked and Successful love Are not these warming thoughts Secondly The Case And of this I have given you this textual resolution You have seen 1. The Seat of this distemper of a Luke-warm Frame or Temper that it is in the heart or will 2. The formal nature of it 'T is a defect or chilness of practical love and zeal to and for God and their concerns with us and ours with them The things which claim and merit the highest place in and that should engage and exercise our best affections and most active zeal are 1. Gods glory in the Church and World 2. The life and growth and the vivid Exercises Profession and Effects of Godliness in our selves Tit. ii 11. 14. Rom. xiv 17 19. Jude 20 21. ii Pet. i. 3. 11. For we must begin at home and set our all in order there 3. The Power Peace and Progress of the Gospel in the World Phil. i. 3. 11. ii 19.21 That it may have its free course and be glorified 4. The Harmony and Prosperity of the Church of Christ wherever this Gospel is accepted and profest 5. The Case and Circumstances of particular professours as they variously are and are evidently considerable as to their Growth Tryals Duties Dangers Decays Wants or Weaknesses c. 6. And the Sons of men as Strangers Enemies Persecutors or any ways Endeavouring to supplant the Gospel interest or to obstruct it or discourage it And these it considered as reducible or incorrigible Now heartlessness Neutrality or Sluggishness of our affectionate concernedness about these things is what we call Luke-warmness 3. The Cure hereof doth formally consist in our Enflamed love Exercised and Exprest unto the life by constant activity congenial with this principle The practical accommodating of all the regency vigours of this principle of love to the concerns of Christian godliness and of those that are concerned therewith pursuant to the growth and prosperousness thereof When we so value these concerns have such Sympathizing with and such genuine adherence to resolutions and activity for and satisfaction in the prosperousness of the things of God and Christ and Souls and Christian Churches as that nothing can stand before us nor be regarded or dreaded by us that rivals or opposes them then are we indeed effectually cured Here our thoughts naturally fix and work here our hearts cleave and flame and hereunto our vigors time interest and treasures are most entirely and cheerfully devoted Where is there then the least remainder of a Luke-warm Temper When we are wrought up to this Frame and pitch 4. The way and means of working this great cure are 1. Persons considered 2. Assemblies attended on 3. What there and thence and otherwise is or may be derived improved by Mutual Exhortation 4. And all this under the powerful influences of and in fit and full proportion to a quick and constant apprehensiveness and
they may Minister unto him And ver 41. Thou shalt take the Levites for me I am the Lord instead of all the first-born among the Children of Israel And as this is the way to prevent Judgments when upon their way so to remove them when they are already come For the proof hereof you have a famous instance in Numb 25. The Case was this The People did double their Transgression in committing Idolatry and Whoredom at once It is indeed no cause of wonder to see Spiritual and Corporal Uncleanness going together in Company This kindled the Wrath of God against them which rose to that height that it brake out into a Plague The Plague did not stop the Sin wicked men will harden themselves against God and run upon the mouth of the Cannon on the bosses of his Buckler Notwithstanding the Judgment Zimri one of the Children of Israel a Prince too that should have set a better Example impudently and daringly brought a Midianitish Woman in the sight of Moses and of all the Congregation of Israel while they were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle While the Congregation was drown'd in Tears these two Wretches burned in Lust Phinehas was an eye-witness of it and his Heart was hot within him upon the sight thereof he took a Javelin in his hand entred their Tent and ran both of them thorow With this remarkable Act of Justice and holy revenge God was exceedingly pleased As appeared by the happy consequences which were two healing Mercy upon Israel with a Blessing upon himself and his Posterity You may read what God himself said upon this occasion Numb 25.10 11 12. The Lord spake unto Moses saying Phinehas the Son of Eleazer the Son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the Children of Israel while he was zealous for my sake among them that I consumed not the Children of Israel in my Jealousie Wherefore say Behold I give unto him my Covenant of Peace and he shall have it and his Seed after him even the Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the Children of Israel Do you stem the Tide of prophaneness and in so doing you will stop the Bottles of Divine Wrath. And then hereupon it followeth Eighthly The Suppression of prophaneness is an excellent way for the making Rulers an eminent and choice Blessing unto the People over whom the Providence of God hath set them By this means they will indeed prove as our holy Apostle speaks in the verse immediately following our Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministers of God to them for good For it is a great deal of good that is ministred and conveyed by them golden Oil that is communicated by and through these golden Pipes the whole Land is the better for them every Mothers Child hath reason to rise up and call them blessed Briefly thus By this means they confirm and establish it They are strong supporters while others are wicked and cursed underminers Psalm 75.2 3. When I shall receive the Congregation i. e. The Government of it when I shall be once seated upon the Throne I will judge uprightly or Righteousness a vein of Righteousness shall run through every one of my Actions they shall be done according to the Rule of Equity The Earth and all the Inhabitants of it are dissolved The Reins are now let loose there is a visible apparent disorder both in Church and State all things are for the present in Confusion and therefore running apace to Ruine and Dissolution I bear up the Pillars thereof Some do look upon Religion and Righteousness as the Jachin and Boaz those great and mighty Pillars which uphold a Nation and Magistrates are the Persons appointed to bear up those Pillars if those be the Pillars these are the Basis upon which they stand and these bear up them by judging uprightly In this way it is they bear up the Fabrick and keep it from crumbling into pieces and falling to nothing And further as by this means they bring unto a Nation the Blessing of Stability so they also yield that other lovely and very desireable Blessing of Peace So that all good men shall sit under their own Vines and Fig-trees without others making them afraid they shall have a quiet and comfortable enjoyment of themselves and the good things which God hath graciously vouchsafed to them Unto this I say Magistrates both supreme and subordinate the higher and inferiour Officers in a Kingdom do very much contribute by the Diligent and Faithful discharge of the Work and Duty of their several places This is evident from that Psalm 72.3 The Mountains shall bring Peace to the People and the little hills by Righteousness That Word Peace is very comprehensive carrying in it not only a freedom from War Commotions Quarrels and Disturbances but Prosperity too and Happiness Plenty and Abundance of all good things so that there shall be no complaining in our Streets This is to be brought to a People and sure when it is they will bid it welcome but who shall bring it The Mountains and little Hills i. e. The Metaphorical Ones the Magistrates the King and all that are in Authority under him but it will come only in a way of Righteousness Gods Peace always keeps Gods Way This you learn from that of the Prophet Psalm 85.10 Righteousness and Peace kiss each other They meet and embrace and so go hand in hand Righteousness in the Throne in the Senate and Courts of Judicature is accompanied with Peace in the City yea and all the Countrey over Lastly A Conscientious care for the Suppression of prophaneness in a Land is the way to engage the great and Holy God on the behalf and for the good of those Rulers in whom that care is found And this Argument will I am sure signifie much with all those with whom God signifieth any thing As the place of Rulers is high so the work of their place is hard It carrieth a great deal of difficulty and of danger along with it As wicked men are very filthy so the Psalmist tells us they are always grievous They are like the raging Sea which is continually casting up Mire and Dirt specially when there is a Storm upon it Let there be endeavours used to put a stop to them in their sinful course by a vigorous Execution of Righteous Laws their Hearts do presently swell against those that restrain and punish them and they break out into a rage whereupon they often study to avenge the quarrel of their sordid and impetuous Lusts upon those Worthies who would promote the cleanness of their Lives and the welfare of their Souls Upon this account it is no more than necessary for the Omnipotent God to stand at their right hand for the encouragement of their Hearts and the preservation of their Persons Now see Psalm 7.10 My defence is of God who saveth the upright in Heart
the Lord What Promises more inviting and encouraging than those he hath given us which are exceeding great and precious Where if any one can let him tell us where we shall see Sin so clearly and fully in its deformity and ugliness in order to a real and thorow aversation from it or Religion Godliness and a Conversation order'd aright more in it's loveliness and enamouring beauty in order to our setting our Hearts upon it than we do or at least may see it in the Gospel When all is said and done that can be it is the Grace of God Tit. 2.14 The Doctrine the Gospel of Grace which bringeth Salvation and hath appeared to all men Jews and Gentiles men of all sorts and ranks it is that yea it is that which teacheth us and all thâ—t sit under it to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World Oh therefore that this precious and everlasting Gospel of God our Saviour may be the main object of Ministers study and the Principal Theme upon which they insist in their several Congregations therein imitating the great Apostle of the Gentiles who told the Corinthians He determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ and him crucified But this is not all Ministers ought not only to preach Christ but likewise to live him What good are those pretended Ministers like to do in whatever Place Countrey or Nation they are to be found who are scandalous and prophane Grant that some of them preach well I would fain know whether that be enough either to save themselves or those that hear them What such men seem to build up by their Doctrine they pull down by their Practice Let any rational man judge whether they are like to convince and perswade others who do lead self-contradicting lives How can they prevail with others to be sober who will sit and quaffe and be drunk themselves With what face can they perswade others to possess their vessels in Sanctification and Honour who are unclean and filthy themselves In short how are they like to lead others in the way everlasting who do themselves turn aside to crooked paths with the workers of Iniquity Oh that therefore care might be taken by all those who are invested with Power and have the oversight of such things as these that those and none but those may be set as spiritual Guides and Leaders over the several Flocks and Congregations in the Land as may without blushing say to their hearers Walk so as ye have us for an Example and be ye Followers of us even as we are of Christ Tenthly and Lastly In order to the effectual Suppression of prophaneness I would and do heartily commend to all those that are in Authority over us diligent yea and utmost care for the strict observation of the first day of the Week which is in Rev. 1.10 Called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords Day and ought to be kept as the Christian Sabbath to the end of time A day sanctified and set apart for the solemn publick and private worship of God both in Churches Families and Retirements and for a sweet close and intimate Communion with him while we are deliver'd and taken off from those secular affairs that upon the other days of the Week do necessarily engage us and cannot but divert us A day not to be spent in any thing no not any the most minute part of it but the duties of Religion and works of Godliness except those works of Necessity and Mercy which God out of his Goodness and Pity to man doth allow for he will have Mercy rather than Sacrifice so that when Acts of Mercy are of absolute Necessity Sacrifice shall give place to it This is a day which God hath seen fit to usher in with a Memento in the fourth Commandment Remember that thou keep Holy the Sabbath day As if the Lord should have said I know your frailty that you have slippery and treacherous memories and possibly may yea certainly will forget some nay many other things in which you are concerned but let this be fastened as a nail in a sure place be sure to think of this to be mindful of this I charge and command you to remember it Remember the Sabbath day before it comes so as to rejoice in the thoughts of it to long for it and to prepare for it that upon the day of Praise you may have on your Garments of Praise Souls in a right frame and remember to sanctifie and keep it Holy when it is come We find the Sabbath was given unto Israel for a sign between God and them So you have it in Ezek. 20.12 I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifie them By this they were distinguished from all other Nations These were a plain and evident proof that they were the Lords People and that Jehovah was their God This did loudly proclaim Gods choosing and calling them out from the rest of the World and gracious setting them apart for himself as his peculiar Portion and Inheritance And indeed where there is no care of sanctifying the Sabbath by Nations Families or Persons it is a plain case it amounts to a demonstration that they are unsanctified Nations Families and Persons It is an evident sign of a people estranged and alienated from the Life of God of a wicked people that savour not the things of God but only those things that be of men of a People that have not the fear of God before their Eyes that are not carried out in desires of honouring him and lifting up his Name or of enjoying Communion with him in the World To prophane Sabbaths is a very great and notorious piece of prophaneness Sins willfully and out of choice committed upon a Sabbath are Sins in grain Scarlet and Crimson-sins To mind worldly Affairs to sit brooding upon worldly Thoughts to follow the Trades and Callings of the World to open Shops and buy and sell upon a Sabbath-day are God-provoking Sins acts of prophaneness These are lawful upon other days in which God hath given you leave nay more he hath made it your Duty to labour and do all that you have to do of this Nature but they are very sinful upon the Sabbath Let me propound Nehemiah to the Consideration of Magistrates and Inferiour Officers and his care and activity in this point as an example richly worth their Imitation Take the account of him as it is drawn up by himself in Neh. 13.15 c. He saw some treading Wine-presses upon the Sabbath-day and bringing in Sheaves and lading Asses as also Wine Grapes and Figs all manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem upon the Sabbath-day the men of Tyre also dwelt there who brought Fish and all manner of wares and sold on the Sabbath to the Children of Judah and in Jerusalem This was exceeding evil
and one would wonder it should be found among a people but a little before come back to their own Countrey out of a sore and tedious Captivity Yet thus it was But let us see what good Nehemiah that excellent Governour did hereupon and how he bestir'd himself He testified against them in the day whereon they sold Victuals and he contended with the Elders of Judah and said unto them What evil thing is this that ye do and prophane the Sabbath-day Did not your Fathers thus and did not our God bring all this evil upon them And yet ye bring more evil upon Israel by prophaning the Sabbath And after this He shut the Gates and set his Servants to watch and would not suffer the Merchants and Sellers of wares to lodge about the Walls but threatned to lay hold upon them and did not desist nor give over till He had prevented their coming any more upon the Sabbath-day Oh that there were many such Nehemiahs in the World among Christian Nations Shall I gather up what this Scripture affords and shew you what is to be learned from it Briefly thus 1. Trading upon the Sabbath-day is a violation and prophaning of it 2. It is such a prophaning of it as is highly displeasing unto God and will bring down his wrath upon a People that are guilty 3. It is the proper work of the Civil Magistrate not unbecoming the Supream to punish and prevent it 4. In order thereunto He will find it necessary to be very vigilant and active 5. It is not enough to begin well and do something but there must be a going on till there be a thorow Reformation And let not any say such care as this would be Judaizing and the Gospel brings along with it a greater Liberty for though we have a blessed Liberty yet not a sinful one We are delivered from the Ceremonial Law which was an heavy and oppressing yoke but not from the Observation and Obedience to the Moral Law as it is and still it is and to the end of the World it will be a Rule of Life And Gods abounding in his goodness to us whose lines are cast in New Testament-times is a very bad argument for an abating in our care of Sanctifying his Name and his Day Time my beloved hath been when England as well as our Neighbour Nation of Scotland was famous for the sanctifying of the Sabbath and truly for these many years it hath been and to this day it is as infamous for the breaking of it and upon that account and by that means it hath lost much of it's Pristine Glory Do you not see I am sure with grief of Heart I do how vile and wretched Persons set forth their wares to sale upon that Holy Day in our Fields and Streets Do you not see how the Victualling and Alehouses are frequented and filled upon that day Do you not see or at least hear of Plays and Pastimes upon that day As if the Book of Sports were revived and allowed How many among us do make that their Gaming day and their Fuddling day which God hath made his Holy Day What! Oh What is the matter Where doth the fault lie We have something of Law against this blessed be God and what have we no Officers to put the Law that is into Execution I earnestly beseech all those who are concerned as they fear God and as they have any Affection Good will and kindness for the Land of their Nativity that they would put on strength and appear vigorously on this behalf For if you will tolerate the prophanation of the Sabbath you can rationally Promise to your selves no other but a tremendous overflowing of wickedness all the Week after it will be so through the Corruption of man and the most righteous Judgment of God with whom it is far from unusual to punish Sin with Sin Do but read Histories and if you have minded things consult your own Observations and you will find that according to a peoples Holy care or Vile neglect of keeping Holy the Sabbath-day Religion doth flourish or Wickedness abounds and grows rank and rampant among them Having finished the Doctrinal part I proceed to the Application and therein direct my speech to all sorts of Persons among us and oh that it may be acceptable to them and come upon their Souls with Power that so there may be some stop put to these crying Abominations and the wickedness of the Wicked among us may come to an end and they may come over upon this call from God to a temperate sober and Religious Life or if not so yet at least their wickedness may not make such prodigious advances nor rise up to that height as it hath done for so many years to the dishonour and provoking of God the grief of all good men and almost the ruine of the Nation and the pleasing of none but a cursed Company of the Antichristian brood who made it their design and business to introduce Popery at the door of Debauchery Which indeed was the most likely way for when Persons and a People have cast off the fear of God and run cross to the Principles of that Religion which they profess and by leading flagitious lives offered violence to their Consciences they are in a frame ready for the basest impressions and to follow that Devil who shall first tempt them and however it comes to pass through the all-ordering and over-ruling Providence of a wise God who when he pleaseth and as he pleaseth chains the Sea and restrains the lusts of men so that though they go thus far they shall go no farther I shall not at all wonder to see a Practical Atheist become a Doctrinal Papist that so his Religion it 's self may spread his wing over his prophaneness But I come to the Application Vse 1. Let me not by any be counted too bold and going out of my place while I turn me to the great men of the Nation and speak to them as Persons not too high for the Counsels Commands and Exhortations of the Word of God I mean the King as Supream Nobles Gentlemen and all under him to whom any part of the Government in this Nation is committed and these all these from the highest to the lowest I do with all due Humility as knowing my distance from many of them yet with utmost earnestness I do beseech that they would awake unto Righteousness and see to it that they be found faithful in their place and to their trust filling up every one the Province which God hath set them in and trading every one with their Talents whether more or fewer five or two nay let not him that hath but one hide it in a Napkin and bury it in sloth but be abounding in this work of the Lord that through your care and industry Justice may run down among us like a Flood and Judgment like a mighty Water for the washing away that loathsome filth which
what there is in that prophaneness and numberless number of God-daring abominations which are to be found in the midst of us In short this is that which I propound and desire of you judge of sin by its utter contrariety to the great holy and ever blessed God and by the sufferings of Christ who was his peoples surety and died a Sacrifice the iniquities of them all being laid upon him and by the fatal consequences of sin upon men and Devils yea upon the whole world upon the face whereof it hath thrown dirt and deformity and in the bowels whereof it hath caused Afflictive Painful Agonies and Convulsions Secondly Be sure that all of you get your hearts filled and awed with the true fear of God In which you ought and are commanded to be all the day Prov. 23.17 Lye down at night in it awake and rise in the morning in it and so walk up and down in all Places and Companies and about all your businesses and affairs No persons in the world are so audaciously and impudently vile as those who have their hearts hardned from this fear That passage is very observable which you find in Psal 36.1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart there is no fear of God before his Eyes Sin hath a voice it cries aloud in the Ears of God and it speaks loud to men to the hearts of good men It speaks that which grieves and saddens them it speaks that which informs them So here The transgression of the wicked his visible and open transgression the life he leads which is flagitious the course he takes which is Leud the Villanies he commits these speak within my heart saith David they speak to my mind and understanding but what do they say Enough so much as amounts to a plain and full evidence so much as is to me a sufficient and firm foundation to build this conclusion upon that there is no fear of God before his Eyes Either he doth not believe that there is a God or else he believes that he is not a terrible God a Consuming Fire and Everlasting Burnings but such an one as himself Psal 50.21 A God not to be trembled before but to be trifled and plaid with One that did not mind what is done here below or that hath pleasure in wickedness as he hath himself What was the reason that Abraham though a good man eminently good and strong in faith yet was not willing to have it publickly known that Sarah was his Wife when he sojourned in Gerar You have the account thereof given in Gen. 20.12 I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place Here is not the worship of God therefore here is not the fear of God but what did he gather from thence What if there be not the fear of God Then there is the fear of nothing they will stick at nothing they will have their will they will stay me for my Wifes sake This is indeed a sweet Place a lovely and pleasant Countrey it wants for no earthly accommodations but as I Conjecture and that not without reason the best and principal thing is wanting here is none of the fear of God and where there is not that curb to restrain men they will certainly run wild and their impetuous lusts will hurry them into the vilest and most monstrous practices Vbi non est timor Dei ibi regnant omnia vitia All vices reign and rage in those places where the fear of God hath not a commanding power Whereas on the other side no persons do hate and oppose sin so much as those who do fear God most for this is that which doth teach men and that effectually to depart from evil Former Governours did so and so but said good Nehemiah so did not I because of the fear of God There was none like Job in all earth and it is said of him by the Lord himself that he feared God and eschewed evil He avoided and resisted it This fear will set the heart of a man against sin and constrain him to lift up his hand against it or his voice at least when there is not any power in his hand Wheresoever there is the fear of God as the greatest and best good there will inseparably accompany it the fear of sin as the basest and worst of evils and that person will be sure to make an universal opposition to it wheresoever it is to be found both in himself and in others at home and abroad in enemies and in Friends too yea in them most As a man that hath a natural antipathy to a Viper cannot endure it lying in his bosom nor lurking in his Chamber no nor creeping in the high-way Thirdly Pray that your Souls may be fill'd and fix'd with an holy zeal for God A zeal for his name and honour for his Law and Interest Cold Lukewarm and basely indifferent persons will never be famous and renowned upon the account of any vigorous appearings for God or against sin A sordid Spirit of indifferency greatly unworthy of every one that is honoured with the Christian name doth evermore carry along with it a Spirit of Slothfulness and Inactivity let the matter be never so important the concern never so great In Acts 18. you read that the blind and hardned Jews with one accord made insurrection against Paul and the Greeks took Sosthenes the Apostles Friend and Companion and beat him before the Judgment Seat but Gallio appear'd neither against the one nor the other He cared for none of those things He thought what were those things to him I believe this wretched Spirit influenceth and acts many a great many among us God is greatly dishonoured his name is taken in vain his precious Sabbaths are openly and wickedly prophaned Religion suffers in its honour and interest the Nation is indanger'd and exposed to the dismal effects of divine indignation young ones are corrupted perverted and drawn aside to their destruction and wrath is pulling down apace and who can tell how soon a holy jealous provoked God may unstop his vials and distribute sorrows in his anger But what is all this to them so long as they can follow their callings and enjoy themselves and gratify their proud vain wanton humours and go fine and fare well and lay up money and live in quiet and mirth and plenty But let me be believed by you whilest I tell you that if there were in you a zeal for the honour and interest of God you would judge and conclude that this is something to you and this concerns you and accordingly it would go to your very hearts and be as a Sword in your bones as it was in the holy Prophet's which extorted from him that passionate exclamation Is it not enough for you to weary men but you will weary my God aâ—so It was this holy zeal that put Eleazar upon that Heroick act of taking such speedy revenge as he did upon
Zimri and Cosbi God himself took notice of it and imputed it to his zeal and was highly pleased with it and mention'd it twice Numb 25.11 He was zealous for my sake among them And again v. 13. He was zealous for his God His heart did burn within him he was all in a flame and could not with any patience endure to see his God so unworthily dealt with and dishonoured While I am writing of this I am informed of that excellent precept against the prophaning of the Lords day sent out by the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Pilkington our present Lord Mayor which being of a more than ordinary strain I look not upon as a matter of custom but an effect of his zeal and let it be for his honour to succeeding generations and an embalming of his name and let God himself remember it for good to him both in time and to eternity One thing more Lastly Frequently seriously call to mind that account which you are at the last and great day to give of your selves and your power and all your actions to a better greater and higher than any of you even to God himself He will for certain he will call you all to a strict account therefore awe and quicken your Souls with the thoughts of it It is but a little very little time that the youngest and strongest of you have to spend in the World Death will certainly come and summon you hence And when it comes it will not stay for you till you have mended faults and supplied defects possibly it will not allow you time enough to say Lord have mercy upon me And then your places will know you no more and your power will know you no more and your comforts and enjoyments will know you no more You that now sit upon thrones and in Parliament-houses and Courts of Judicature must then stand before the divine Tribunal upon an equal level with the meanest of the people everyone of you give an account of himself to God of his trust power how he did carry himself and manage and improve his power And therefore if you have any kindness for your selves make it appear by your care so to live now so to act and rule as that you may give up a good account with boldness and comfort and hear the Judge say Well done good and faithful Servants you have been faithful in your little you have done your duty and fill'd up your places now enter into the joy of your Lord. I shall conclude this Sermon with that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.10 11. We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or evil knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men so to live in the World so to order their Conversations so to trade with those talents of interest and estates of parts and power for the present that then they may be found faultless and presented with exceeding joy Quest. How may we enquire after News not as Athenians but as Christians for the better management of our Prayers and Praises for the Church of God SERMON XVI ACTS 17.21 For all the Athenians and strangers that were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing IN the Text chosen for me to speak of and for you to hear I do observe and would have you also consider we meet with a Concourse of people who pretended to be the Virtuosi of that Age and for ought I do discern may as well deserve the Character as they do in our Age who spend their time in enquiring into useless Novelties If our Learned Men equal the Learning of these Athenians If Students from Foreign parts flock to us to perfect their course of Studies as to Athens If Merchants in equal Numbers but with unequal Riches attend the Custom-houses and fill the Exchanges with us as with them If there were some Travellers who came onely to see and talk who were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strangers there If each sort had business of greater Importance to mind than to spend their time in hearing what others could tell or telling what others would be pleas'd with hearing which was the Folly and Distemper of those Athenians and Strangers the same is the Epidemical Folly and Disease of our Age and of all sorts of the Beaux-Esprits refineder Spirits with us The Cure of this Disease is the design of this Discourse in this Case How may we Enquire after News not as Athenians but as Christians for the better management of our Prayers and Praises for the Church of God He that Enquires to satisfie his Curiosity or his sinful Prejudices or malicious Wishes and to boast and triumph in the Sorrows of the Church of God and He that Enquires not at all nor concerneth himself with these Works of God do both highly offend The one rejoyce in the Destruction of Sion as 't is Obad. 12. v. The other is at Ease in Sion Amos 6.1 and are not grieved at the Affliction of Joseph Amos 6.6 and each do provoke the displeasure of the Lord against themselves Amos pronounceth a Wo against the one Chap. 6.1 and an utter Extirpation is threatned against the other Obad. 18. v. Such careless ones as neither fear the Evil nor hope for the Good of Sion neither pray for its Deliverance nor do praise God for his Salvation to Sion greatly Sin and are likely to be deeply Punished Isa 32.9 10 11 12. That we may Escape both the Case warns us Not to Enquire Athenian-like but to Enquire as becomes Christians and suitably Pray for a Distressed or Praise God for a Delivered Church In stating this unusual Case it will I think be best to draw it out into some previous Propositions which shall make way for the clearer Resolution of it 1. The Casuist doth grant that in some Cases we may Enquire what is the News that is abroad Whosoever asketh Direction how to do an Action is first perswaded of the lawfulness of the thing he would do How shall I come before God implieth that I may yea ought to come before him Mich. 7.6 So here the Casuist is of opinion we may Enquire but is solicitous lest you should with the most enquire amiss and therefore would direct you the best way of doing what is lawful to be done If there were a doubt the Case should be first May it be done not How is it to be done 2. News which spreads abroad in the World is of very different Nature 1. Some Trifling Reports below the gravity and prudence of a Man to receive from a Reporter or to communicate to any Hearer 2. Others of a very particular private personal Concern and among such as are of mean and abject state which as they rise among them so 't is fit they should die
repent of their own sins as well as the sins of Unbelievers They must be humbled for their own decays Contentions Worldlyness Barrenness Vanity Pride though less gross then others as well as for the Idolatry and Profaneness of the Irreligious The Reason is that these sins of theirs contribute to the bringing down Judgments and obstructing of Mercies as well as the grosser sins of Unbelievers nay in some sense more because they ought to be Witnesses for God in a degenerate Land Their Examples encourage the grosser Villanies of others they have more Light and Strength to keep themselves pure yea if the number of good Men be considerable in a Land the lot of a Nation is mostly determined by them and Gods regards is much more to them than others If you take the Epistles to the seven Churches to be so particular as most do you may see how God reproves and threatens them though small portions of those States of which they were Members in Civil Respects I think I may say that the Repentance of Believers for their sins must exceed the Repentance of Unbelievers in some proportion to that Life Grace and Aids which they have above those Unbelievers their Humiliation must be deeper and more ingenuous their resolves stronger their return more universal their Prayers more fervent their Reformation more extensive spiritual and vigorous than other men In this its true as a man is so to his strength If their Repentance be no greater than others they may expose a Nation and prove its ruine I might proceed to Gentry and Commonalty to Ministers and People but time prevents me and the same Rules may guide you in these as in the instances before described I shall only add that supposing a part of the Land Persecutors and the other Persecuted for Truths sake these latter must be humbled for the sins of Persecutors and repent of their own sins and that according to the advantage which their Afflictions give for their Humiliation and Amendment While men throw repenting work off of themselves to others as if they could acquit themselves of Gods Challenge are there not also sins among you are you no way guilty The Land is like to suffer and the common condition to be deplorable It 's true if the design of God be to single out any one sort of a Nation to suffer by themselves the impenitents of that sort may not dammage the body of the Nation further than their struggles with or their loss of that part may affect the residue As if God resolve to punish Professors of Religion only their impenitence may affect the whole no further than the distress of such Professors amounts to except as it is an awful omen because Judgment seldom begins at Gods House but it reacheth in woful issues to others afterwards Or if God hath a Controversie with the Gentry of a Land their impenitency may not fatally reach the ordinary people if penitent For if God resolves to punish ravenous domineering Pastors or Persecutors their neglect of Repentance shall not hurt the whole that repents nay it will be their advantage to have them blasted if they remain impenitent as the Kingdoms plagues It 's much more so as to particular Families whether the highest or less influencing the corruption of a Common-wealth But where God designs not a distinct respect in his Judgments the stubbornness of any one sort doth threaten the Nation their not repenting in a way proper to them may plunge the whole into a loss of Mercies Thus I have according to my small light resolved the Case The decision of the Case proved 1. The described Repentance doth ordinarily afford a people National Mercies notwithstanding National Sins In the resolution of the Case there occurred some Reasons and many Scriptures to evidence this so that I shall need to say little more for proof There seems to be an express Rule in this matter Jer. 18.7 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation or concerning a Kingdom to pluck it up and to pull down and to destroy it If that Nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them The Repentance which God hath accepted so as to prolong the wellfare of Nations was of this sort as you see in Niniveh and other places 2 Chron. 12.7 Should we examine the Repentance of any Land it hath rarely arrived to a greater height A defect of the Repentance injoined in the Covenant of Grace is obvious in that Repentance which hath yet been effectual as to National Mercies This Repentance answers the great methods and ends of Gods general Government as to the Temporal Weale of Nations and provides a Foundation to proceed upon in those methods whereby his Spiritual Kingdom is advanced and the Eternal Welfare of Souls is promoted we may expect God will continue National Mercies to a People who come up to that Repentance which hath preserved other Nations 2 Chro. 7.14 And 30.8 9. Jer. 26.3 13. We have great Encouragement to our Hopes from many Texts 2. Where this Repentance obtains not a People cannot justly expect National Mercies Isa 8.9 Let a Nation seem never so safe its security is vain and all its supports shall be blasted by Impenitency Jer. 15.7 What though a People are related to God I will destroy my people sith they return not from their evil ways May not their priviledges and pledges of Gods Presence secure them No Trust not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these will ye steal murder commit Adultery and swear falsly and say we are delivered to do all these abominations Go to Shiloh and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel and now because you have done all these works and I spake unto you but you heard not I will do unto this house Jer. 7.4 9 10 12 13 14 15. wherein you trust as I have done to Shiloh and I will cast you out of my sight Mock shadows of your Repentance and weak uneffectual Attempts for it and 14.4.7 12. 44.1 10 11. will leave men under disappointments When a People is given up to impenitency and God with-holds a Blessing from the Methods Isa 6.9 10 11. that tend to their Repentance there 's just cause of Fear that Judgments are determined against that Land Hear you indeed but understand not make the heart of the people fat and shut their eyes least they see with their eyes understand with their hearts and convert and be healed How long Lord till the cities be laidwaste God is so positive against a land refusing to return that their Felicity is impossible Wrath came upon Judah for this their trespass 2 Chro. 24.18 19 20. yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them back to the Lord but they would not give ear Thus saith God Why
transgress you the commandments of the Lord that ye cannot prosper Were it otherwise Gods Name would not be Sanctified no order in this lower World would be kept But further Impenitence is not onely a Moral Obstacle to good as it provokes God to with-hold it but it s a Natural Obstacle the wickedness of men is efficient of Wo to a People and is in many senses destructive of Mercies and inconsistent therewith Many Enormities of a Nation are its Plagues as bad Laws wickedness in Magistrates a corrupt Ministry Oppression c. It s Iniquity is even materially its Ruin APPLICATION Many Inferences are obvious As How dreadful an Evil is Sin How dangerous to a Land are multitudes of Offenders A Nation is foolish that discountenances Piety and destroyeth the godly Party whereby it strikes at its own Refuge How good and long-suffering is God that calls the vilest Nations to return waits long for their Answer and destroys not till their Repentance be even hopeless What Enemies to themselves Neighbours and Posterity bound up in their doom are an impenitent people What sottish and Atheistical Men are they that guide their hopes and fears of a Nations Welfare by Fancies or second Causes but without regard to Gods Favour or Anger or the influence that Repentance or Impenitence have upon the wayes of God towards a People What a dismal Prospect is a Wicked Nation sporting with their Provocations and Warnings How uncertain a Tenure do most Nations hold their Mercies by But I have not time to insist on these I shall briefly apply the Resolution of the Case to our own Nation We are a Nation we have National Sins Repentance of these Sins is a presage of our future State as well as others I know no exemption or peculiar allowance we can expect at the hands of the righteous Governour of the World Oh that our Hearts were under the Power of this awful Truth that our iniquity may not be our ruin Ezek. 18.30 In order to this 1. I shall insist on some things in order to our Repentance 2. Enquire Whether we may groundedly expect National Mercies from our present Frame 3. Conclude with an Use of Lamentation of our National Impenitency and Dangers In order to our Repentance I shall 1. Represent to you the National Sins we ought to Repent of Hereby you 'l know what we should be humbled for resolve against and reform What a Terror ought it be but to mention our Provocations Oh that a Land of Light should be chargeable with such Enormities and yet be secure and hate to be reformed Where shall I begin the Charge We and our Fathers for some Ages have been guilty of the same sins yet unrepented of Against whom shall I level the Inditement Alass we have all sinned and done wickedly as we could Magistrates and Subjects Ministers and People the Unbelievers and Believers To what sorts of Sins shall I confine my self to Wo is us what Sins did God ever destroy a Land for that are not National with us But that the sound may not appear uncertain I account my self bound in Conscience to be more particular My subject forceth me not any uncharitable design Oh that my own heart were more filled with Zeal for God and deepest sorrows for the Nations Sin whiles I am recording what may offend the guilty though the Charge be too plain to admit a Denial Let us Enquire Is England altogether innocent as to its Laws Do not we see that some of the terms of Conformity are far other than our blessed Lord hath instituted Are they not remote from a tendency to advance real Piety and exclusive of some things that would much conduce thereto Is not a Diocesan Bishop set up whose sole Jurisdiction barrs all the other Ministers from the Exercise of a great part of their Office while the Bishop is utterly unable to perform it through the largeness of his Diocess Is there not more than an Umbrage of Lying and Perjury imposed on all Ministers when they must Assent Subscribe and Swear to what is more than suspicious yea utterly false Are not a heap of Ceremonies and corrupt Usages re-assumed though once cast out to the facilitating of the return of Popery dividing of Protestants and the scandal of the weak who are too apt to place Religion yea all their Religion in those Vanities How many severe Laws were made against Dissenters and severely executed to the ruin of Thousands Was it no provocation to silence Two Thousand Faithful Ministers when their Labours were so necessary and their places were to be filled up with many young Men who have proved fatal to serious Religion The Sacrament is made a Politick Engine to further the Damnation of unworthy Receivers that all such may be kept out whom they suspect any way hazardous to excessive Pomp and Ecclesiastick Pageantry Can the Land be Innocent where Atheism is so professed the most Blasphemous Oathes are fashionable Perjury Uncleanness Drunkenness Malignity against all credible Holiness so common and consistent with Reputation VVas it not among us that the Covenant was burnt by the hands of a Common Hangman and horrid Murthers committed as legal Executions Is not that Christian Nation guilty where prophanation of Sabbaths is so notorious yea pleaded for as warrantable Most Families have nothing of Gods VVorship the plainest Essentials of Religion by few understood the Operations of the Spirit turned into Ridicule and Religion placed in things that bear not a faint resemblance of the very form of it while Sobriety its self is meer matter of Scoff and the Fountains of Learning send forth many more fitted to Infect than Reform the Age Is it to be concealed that Men enter on the Ministry as Apprentices on a Trade and use it as a meer means for a Livelihood How many are Pastors without the peoples Consent And too many preach while unacquainted with the Gospel as a Law of Faith and Rule of the Recovery of Apostate Sinners The Labors of such have no tendency to Convert or Edifie their Hearers yea alass Conversion is judged a Foolish thing to urge All the most Debauched and Prophane are Regenerate if they were Baptized and come to Church Many Souls eternally perish by the influence of this one principle and the Ministry is diverted from its greatest end Have we not seen the Ministry too much laid out to serve the late Governments in designs of enslaving the Nations and ruining the Life of the Protestant Religion Though amazing was the Providence which almost too late opened some Mens Eyes by a close attempt against their own places and so swayed their Minds that they contributed to save the Land from that Ruin which a few more Sermons of Non resistance if believed by the Nation had rendred unavoidable The good Lord continue that impulse least our Miseries become greater by the beginnings of our Deliverance I design not this Account of all our publick Ministers blessed be God
amendment and a Testimony from Heaven against our crying Evils and shameful Impenitency By terrible things God will prepare us for Blessings and introduce our Happiness by that which will try our utmost Faith I can hardly account our Foundations sure while men justifie their Sins and persist in them Our very Reformation is impossible whiles men of most influence have no heart to it yea hate and fear it Whenever I see Magistrates engage in reforming us as their great Duty and with their whole might VVhen men of power esteem Repentance to be the truest Interest of the Nation VVhen the Ministry is awakened to cry aloud and doth impartially represent to the Land all its Sins and Dangers not mistaking or palliating our Offences VVhen the Body of the Land at least a considerable part of it do crave and approve of Reformation and concur with the Means God shall prepare for it Then and not till then shall I account our Repentance hopeful and consequently expect the Blessings to be established which God seems earnest to bestow Numb 24.22 But who shall live when God doth this VVhat overturnings will effect it when so many have failed to do us any good It s something very amazing which can alter Minds so averse or remove men unchangeably Obstinate Yet the Providences of God towards England are like to be terrible in proportion to all this I do not herein limit the Holy One but humbly propose my thoughts as to the usual aptitude of Means to their End not wholly neglecting the indications of present Providences as to this matter much less would I overlook Scripture Prophesies VSE of LAMENTATION Let us Lament the Impenitency of the Nation and its forfeiture of Mercies and hazard of Judgments hereby Jer. 8.6 What can be Cause of Mourning equal to our Obstinateness We are guilty of bloody Crimes and most regard it not We seem reconciled to our Abominations as if they were innocent and are as secure as if God had not threatned to punish a people for them The Land is full of Sin after all the means which were sent to cleanse us The Fire hath devoured yet our Dross remains The plague hath in its Rage swept away Thousands yet the provocations of England abate not How oft hath the Lord cried Wilt thou not be clean when shall it once be Jer. 12.27 But we have held fast our several Iniquities It s but lately that Popery and Slavery were coming on us like a Deluge to the amazement of all that could with any Zeal consider it but the Nation now seems sorry that it was at all Convinced and repents that there was the least motion in it towards amendment Oh the ferment that hastily succeeded our Fears least Sobriety or Holiness should obtain God hath followed his rebukes with undeserved yea unexpected Mercies but this Sun-shine hath made Weeds to grow instead of rendring Judgments effectual to make us Holy What Methods have been untried but none succeed Which is the Nation that ever withstood so many and various Calls to Repentance Niniveh is England's Reproach she repented at the first warning Sodom would have condemned us had it been trusted with half our Advantages Can the Earth shew an Instance of perverseness equal to ours As if the Gospel had extinguished Natural Conscience or a Christian Profession did make us more regardless than Pagans Every thing seems to harden us we grow worse by those things that recover others Alass We have few that bemoan our want of Mourning are all our Jeremiah's asleep that none drop a Tear for England's Security Do all think it needless or hopeless to turn unto the Lord that so few seem to set themselves in earnest about it How very few symptoms have we that we are not under a judicial Hardness Many are convinced they ought to Repent yea many resolve it but how Abortive doth all prove Our Iniquities baffle our Resolves and Satan triumphs over the vanity of our Purposes What a hateful prospect doth our Nation afford to God and Angels We are a wonder to our selves when a Drowsie Mind allows us to entertain any serious Considerations Lord what will the End of these things be Wilt thou always bear and seem to observe our Provocations as slightily as we do Alass this would make us more miserable than Gods sorest Rebukes Judgments more awful than any we have yet felt are become even necessary to our Happiness but though they be needful what heart can endure them What Terror must attend those Dispensations which will separate the Precious from the Vile pluck up Constitutions so rooted by Interest Custom Malignity and Ignorance Disable the Irreligious from settling Church or State and imbitter our reigning Sins to careless scornful and resolute Offenders How dreadful is that storm that will drive all good Men together when they are canton'd into so many Parties embittered by mutual Prejudices fond of and valuing themselves by fond Opinions and distances from others especially whiles self-conceit and ignorance so prevail How hot is that Fire which will purge out the Dross among Churches when it s eaten even into our Hearts What 's that which can awaken drowsie Saints make the selfish publick Spirited bring the careless to holy Watchfulness and revive that simplicity savouriness and heavenly-mindedness which is become such a Mystery and so unfashionable Surely we may expert a complication of Woes and each filled with unusual degrees of Gods avenging Skill and Power What may not we awfully expect Disappointment by the likeliest men dissolution of the most conceited Churches a shaking of the Nations Pillars a successive change of Instruments frequent blasts on begun Deliverances revivals by the most improbable Instruments many entire over-turnings and changes opposition among the best Friends very near Approaches of the most dreaded Mischiefs Mens minds struck with tremblings all Carnal Refuge failing us Reason put to a Non-plus Probable and Improbable confounded beyond Conjecture Counsel hid from the Wise Force and Power baffled Authority become weak all Order disturbed Men at a loss what to wish or deprecate uncertain what to Hope or Fear whom to distrust or confide in These and many such things seem obvious in the Constitution of that day of the Lord that is like to be upon us And how many more awful things are in his Treasures to fill up that Dispensation of which he hath so long warned the World as strange and unusual We cannot judge of this great Earthquake which will affect us as well as other Nations by what hath been for it is to exceed all that is past Who knows what new sights strange stroakes upon the Spirits of Men and unheard of Judgments may be reserved for this Season Can we love our Nation and be unmov'd Can we hate our selves so as not to Lament that these awful things should find us impenitent yea carry in them displeasing rebukes for that impenitency Should not we all wish that each of our Eyes were Fountains of Tears to bewail at once the Obstinateness and the impending Dangers of the Land of our Nativity Look away from me I will weep bitterly labour not to comfort me Isa 22.4 5. because of the spoilings of the daughter of my people For it is a day of trouble and of treading down and of perplexity by the Lord God of Hosts in the valley of vision breaking down of walls and of crying to the Mountains FINIS