of blood yet at length sin shall sting like an adder and bite like a serpent of the wilderness Prov. 23.32 Vse To yong ones Now to come up from the the wildernes Hearken then you yong ones unto me and I will shew you an excellent way Youth I know is of all ages and states most desirous and indeed most free for travel but it pities me to think that so much gallant youth and the strength thereof should be spent in wandring up and down in the worthless wilderness of sin Encouragement 1. The fitness of youthful time for that travel rather if you will be traveling remember Canaan Oh! what a time is the strength of your youth to make out your way from the wilderness of sin Thou hast some strength to rush through the thickets more then an old man hath and if thou lose a little of thy flesh in breaking through the thorns thou art yong and thy flesh will come again if thou lose by repentance as to carnal respects there 's time enough before thee to have amends made thee I observe as the yong ones were those of the Israelites that got through the wilderness unto Canaan Numb 26.64 so at this day those that are converted are converted yong ten to one of those that live to be old and yet come to be new born If old men will have their old ways still and scorn to learn a new lesson being old yea if their joints be stiff and their knees feeble that they cannot travel yet let us yong men get up and be going and the Lord be with us This day the Lord calls you yong ones from the Lions deâ— and Leopards mountains if you refuse this call to day you will mourn at the last when your strength is consumed and say How have I hated instruction and mine heart despised reproof Prov. 7.11 12. Take a tree from the wilderness when its young set it in your Garden keep it and water it c. and little fear of its death but take an old tree from the wilderness and transplant it in your Orchard and do what you will there is little hope of the life of it if there be 't will cost much ado much weeping to water it c. hear David crying Psalm 25 6 7. Remember thy tender mercies remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions If thou have only thy youth transgressions or bewildrings to reckon for it will be work enough for thee though thou have thy youth strength to do the work in Secondly As this is the fittest time for thee 2. The acceptableness of youth herein unto God so is it the most welcome time to God young ones if you did but know how kindly the Lord would take it to see you come up from the wilderness such youthfull Spouses leaning upon the Beloved it would ravish your hearts within you I le give you a tast for God hath bidden me go and cry in your ears saying Thus saith the Lord I remember the kindness of thy youth the love of thine Espousals when thou wentest after me in the wilderness in a Land that was not sown Jer. 2.2 Oh Christ the Shepheard is come into the Wilderness to seek and to save that which is lost Oh if thou wilt in thy youth be so kind as to follow him till thou shall come to Canaan God will never forget this love of thine espousals say not that thou art too young to marry Christ the younger thou art the better Christ will like thee CHAP. III. A fifth particular to wit that mans estate is a bewildred estate the world is a wilderness proved generally proved particularly the first particular poverty a wilderness opened and applyed Fifthly Mans estate a bewild red estate FIfthly Men and women as soon as they enter upon the world as we say that is upon the heart of the world they enter upon the heart of the Wilderness The world is a Wilderness to the unregenerate for here grow those Thorns that choak the word of God The world is a wilderness here are the thorns Mat. 13.22 He that hath the word choaked by the Cares of this world is said to receive it among thorns When the Word meets with a worldly heart it is like good seed sown in a thorny wilderness Worldlings you that hear me this day I appeal to your consciences if it be not so In comes a note or an observation an advice or a conviction and up start the thorny worldly thoughts that are within thee even whilst thou art within the reach of the word and choak that good seed Here are the the entangling waies that it brings not forth Again The world is a wilderness to the unregenerate for here are those crooked and foul waies that are the entanglements of the poor soul the Apostle 2 Pet. 2.20 mentioning the pollutions of the world saith They are entangled therein and overcome The world is a thorny thicket and entangling wilderness to the unconverted My friends were it only your Babes and children They that enter upon the world enter the very midst of the wilderness and youth that were bewildred it were less to be feared you might hope that when they came to have experience of and to understand the waies of the world they might come to understand their own waies or at least if you were not your selves lost you might set them into the way But let me tell you what ever you think or speak of Men of the world know not what way they wal in or unto any man Oh say you I know well enough what I do and about what I go and what way I am in there is not an unregenerate heart amongst you but is so far bewildred as not to know the way that thy soul is in Prov. 20.4 Mans goings are of the Lord how then can a man understand his own way He that is a stranger from Gods waies is altogether ignorant of his own waies nay how can he understand them Mans goings are known of the Lord The interpretation of this Scripture may be according to Prov. 5.21 Mans waies are before the Lords eyes and he pondereth all his wayes T is Gods prerogative to understand not only his own waies but thy waies as it is the Saints prerogative that know God not only to understand their waies but Gods waies but it is thy misery neither to know Gods waies nor thine own Prov. 12.26 The way of the wicked seduceth him Seduceth that is his very way leads him out of his Way It seems a right way unto him but the end thereof are waies of death Prov. 14.12 The end of his way he thinks is thriving and riches and a comfortable life this thinks he will be the end of his grinding the faces of the poor and cheating the rich and this he thinks is a right way he may lawfully buy as cheap and sell as dear as he can But the end
make insurrections against the Apostles and this lies at the bottom of all Act. 19.25 that by this craft we have our living They thought it could not be that they should live if they should part with their Idolatry So say Sinners how shall we live if we leave sinning We live by selling Malt and then helping the Alehouses that have it from us to such Company as may again have it from them How shall we live if we leave our lying dissembling cheating flattering sinfull compliance with sinfull men How shall wee live in office except we be partiall sparing the great and pinching the smal sparing our Relations and pressing others How shall we bear up our Interest except we give some Countenance to every sort of men Do you wonder the silver-Smiths were angry with Paul why his Doctrine went about to take away their livelyhood Do you wonder a lame man should send a curse after you if you come and snatch away his Crutch from under him Why he cannot stand if you take away his prop from him do you take Michahs Gods from him as Judg. 18.24 and then do you ask him what he ailes Do you go to take a sinners sin from him which is his prop his pillar support and then do you wonder that he rails on you and reviles you Why he thinks you go the way to undoe him he can neither stand nor go without his sin let that sink and he sinks with it And this is the reason that powerfull preaching hath many Enemies few fast friends and how plain a conviction is this also that sin is indeed the sinners leaning-stock The second Positive Hindrance that keeps lost soules from leaning to Christ is their leaning to Satan This is 2. Pos hind Sinners lean to Satan Proof of it I think the fullest importance of that passage Isa 28.15 With Hell are we at agreement that is by a Metonymy with the Devills of hell when the overflowing scourge passeth thorough it shall not come unto us why what shall secure them for we have made lies that is Satan the Father of lies our refuge and under falshood that is under his temptations though deceitfull ones have we hid our selves Had not Eve as this Scripture speaks leaned more to the Serpent the Father of falshood and of lies then to the God of truth it had not been with us as it is this day In two particular I shall declare how sinners leane upon Satan for their work and for their wages 1. For their work First Sinners lean on Satan for their employment This our Saviour speaks out Ioh. 8 44. You are of the Devill and his lusts you will do Satan wills and they work Satan commands and they obey As much as the Son leans to the Father for Counsel and command in his Employments so much do you saith Christ to Satan for he is your Father and his lusts yee will do therefore he is called their Prince on whom else doth the subject depend in all his services for his Commissions He is the Prince that rules in the Children of disobedience Eph. 2.2 It would seem a strange Expression Rules in the Unruly Children But it is a true expression for their being ruled by Satan makes them unruly as to the things of God Children of disobedience unto God What doth this mean Even that as those that work constantly with some of you Tradesmen and depend as you call it or lean on you for their every daies work will not be taken off by any other unlesse upon discovery of eminent advantage so unlesse God draw them in by a thorough discovery of the reall gain of godlinesse they wil not obey Gods call or set their hand unto his plough though we call them and pray them and presse hard upon them yet sirs to which of these Masters God or the Devill they do lean for their work and the management of their affairs judge you 2. For their wages Secondly Sinners lean on Satan for their pay when according to his lusts they take paines and for their wages when they have done his work Therefore Isa 28.15 We are at a Covenant with Hell Now when a man hath made Covenants to do so much work for so much wages unto whom doth he lean for payment but to him whom he covenanted to serve You find Satan called the House-keeper amongst sinners when a strong man arm'd keeps his House or Pallace Mark 3.27 and Luk. 11.21 Now to whom doe all the Souldiers in a Pallace of Defence or servants in an House leane for their wages and pay but to him that keeps the House or the Pallace And assuredly if any thing may be drawn from these scriptures this may be one thing That foolish sinners vainly thinke that in doing the worke as Satan would have them Satan will give them such hire as they would have him and because they are punctuall in performing whatever his Precepts have been to them that he will also be as punctuall in whatever his promises have beene to them Oh! foolish people and unwise lies are your leaning-stock and the father of them your support CHAP. XXI Two other positive Hinderances leaning to World Selfe THird Positive hinderance that keepes lost soules from leaning on Christ is leaning upon the world 3d. Pos hind Sinners leane upon the world worldly Friends Conveniences Comforts and Estates c. That worldlings doe so I know not whether scriptures or our owne wretched experiences of our owne wretched hearts doe most fully or frequently confirme some trust in Chariots some in Horses Psal 20.7 Proofe That is in worldly and carnall accommodations What doe they doe use them that they should doe or may doe but they trust in them that they neither should doe nor may they do what if they should the sad inconvenience is hinted But we will remember the name of the Lord as who should say they cannot you can never trust in the Lord of Hosts while you trust to Horses and unto Chariots for war-provisions and as for peace-provisions see Psal 52.7 Loe this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches That was the reason he leaned not upon God because he leaned upon the incomes of the world So then as to warre or peace strength in the former or wealth in the latter let the abundance be never so great there is no trusting or leaning to either if you would lean upon this beloved Heare Christ himselfe Luk. 16.13 No servant can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one what 's that but leaning and despise the other what meanes Christ by all this You cannot serve God and Mammon so Isai 31.1 Woe to them that stay on Horses and trust in Chariots because they are many and horsemen because they are strong but looke not unto the holy one of Israel nor
dark these dark ways are thorny and these thorny ways enclosed and so exactly is it with the ways of sin First Because First The wilderness is great The coming out of the wilderness is dâ—fficult and desperate because of the greatness and immensity of the wilderness were the wilderness never so thick and thorny if it were but small and little in space one might the better make his way out of it as in our woods and groves but that which renders the wilderness so terrible is because it is so great This is that taken notice of Deut. 1.19 We went through all that great and terrible wilderness and Deut. 8.15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness The wilderness is great in length and great in breadth and therefore when one is in the wilderness he may go forward and yet be in the wilderness to the right hand and yet be in the wilderness to the left hand and yet be in the wilderness to the east west north south backwards and forwards whither soever he turn all is wilderness and thus it is with sin Sin is wider greater and mâ—re terrible by far then the wilderness Wide and broad is the way that leads to destruction Matth. 7.13 therefore saith our Savior so few finde the way out of it Would you know the extent of this wilderness 't is in a word as wide as the world the whole world is a wilderness of sin East West Europe Asia c. Ireland England City Countrey if a man could leave sin behinde him in any place and not finde a new part of the wilderness whither ever he goes he might have some hope of getting out of it but Caelum non animum mutant they carry this wilderness with them where-ever they go yea they finde it where-ever they come and how should they then get out of it 1 John 5.19 The whole world lies in wickedness Is not this a great wilderness yea but sin is yet a greater wilderness 't is as large as the heart of man which is much larger then the world Gen. 5.6 All the imaginations of the heart of man are onely evil continually he thinks of this and sins of that and sins and where-ever his heart turns it turns but like a man in the wilderness from one part of it to another he goes forward and yet sins Isa 30.1 They adde sin to sin as those that adde drunkenness to thirst They go backward and yet sin tracing over their former wandrings and are as a dog returning to his vomit and a fool to his folly Prov. 26.11 They go to the left hand and grow covetous and to sin they were prophane they grow hypocritical and so both on the right hand and left turn off from the way of God Isa 30.21 so that as one in the wilderness having gone far and some they say having gone forty days journey in the Hercynian Forest have yet come unto no end hath yet room enough to wander still and to go on yet again so men having been sinners and in this wilderness forty yea threescore years have yet new parts of the wilderness to wander in new discoveries of sin to make still and say of every morning as he Prov. 23.35 When I awake I will seek it yet again 1. The wilâ—erness full of various ways Secondly The wilderness is so full of divers paths that its hard to finde the way out of it There 's the way to the Lions den and the way to the Leopards mountains Cant. 4.8 there 's the way to the habitation of Dragons Isa 55.7 and there be many other deadly tracts in the wilderness though not a living way amongst them all thus is it with sin also There 's the way of the fool Prov. 12.15 and the way of transgressors Prov. 13.15 and the way of the wicked Prov. 12.26 and the way of the slothful Prov. 15.19 and the way of a man with a maid Prov. 30.19 and the way of an adulterous woman Prov. 30.20 and the way of Balaam who loved the wages of unrighteousness 2. Pet. 2.15 and many more such ways and if all these ways with the rest of the paths of sin be not enough to make a wilderness judge ye This is that then that makes the coming out of sin so exceeding difficult the exceeding diversity of ways that are in sin A man you say may change his path and yet keep the way a man may much more change his way and yet keep the wilderness Thus many are converted not from sin to God but from one sin to another and many think they have left their sins when they have onely changed their sins 'T is the diversity of lusts that deceives souls Tit. 3.3 'T is the diversity of lusts that leads away silly souls 2 Tim. 3.6 In these our days what are many that thinks themselves Converts and Saints now and count that themselves were sinners before but turned from the lusts of the flesh to the lusts of the minde for there is such variety spoken of Eph. 2.3 that turn from licentious practices to licentious principles thus doth Satan turn men from carnal conversation to carnal profession and this is the policy of the harlot sin least thou shouldst ponder the path of life that path is but one her ways are moveable that thou canst not know them Prov. 5.6 The sinner when he is weary of one path hath another way to recreate himself in from the Ale-house to the Game-house and from the Game-house to the Whore-house from gross ignorance to gross superstition from gross prophaneness to gross formality and from gross formality to gross presumption thus hath he many ways to satisfie his hearts lust with that he may enjoy his fill of sin yea and if he love to wander in this wilderness he shall have his fill of the wilderness before he get out of it The backslider in heart shall be fill'd with his own ways Prov. 14.14 Thirdly Though there be so many ways 3. The wilderness ways are entangled and perplexed yet this is not all but these ways are all of them perplexed Many ways meet together and cross one another and you by them are put into such a confusion as that you know not indeed which is which Exodus 14.3 Pharaoh will say they are intangled in the wilderness It seems the wilderness is an intanglement to our ways and is it not so with sin These are called as we hinted at first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bewildrings it signifies the intricate windings and turnings of Satan we reade it the wiles of Satan not impertinently Eph. 6.11 as a wily man that moves backwards and forwards to and again hither and thither and you say you know not what to make of him Thus doth sin hurry the soul sometimes forward sometimes backward sometimes it turns the soul round and yet brings it where it was at first so that the soul is quite bewildred thinks it should know
saith God of those waies are death Prov. 16.25 Thus far are the men of the world themselves though never so wise in their generation from understanding the wayes that themselves are in Therefore thy plottings to grow great or rich or honourable in the world are but all of them as so many plottings to entangle thy self in the wilderness Psa 9.16 The wicked is snared in the works of his own hands Higgajon Selah Mark it well What dost thou when thou plottest thou makest a snare for whom for thine own feet So true is that Prov. 5.22 23. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself c. and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray Were there no temptations from Satan His own are great enough to make a wilderness and therein therefore he shall go astray Thy little one speaks it knows not what but one phansie and thought coming in after another makes it at a lose in its language and thou canst not understand what it at first intended and as thy child hath word upon word till it lose it self and bewilder its wits in speaking so hast thou vain thought upon thought untill thou bewilder and lose thy soul in thinking and worse in working Thy child is a little fool and thou art a great one Thy child is a little astray and thou art much more In the greatness of their folly they go astray I shall first speak more generally to the bewildrings of mans estate then more particularly to those two eminent dividers of this estate I mean poverty riches and unto their bewildrings Proof 1. General First then more generally the world is a wilderness unto all whether rich or poor one and other All that I shall farther speak hereunto shall be some notes from Mat. 21.13 compared with Mark 4 9. and with Luk. 8.14 In these three places you have Christ speaking to one and the same thing and that is the comparing of the word sown upon the world unto seed sown upon the wilderness where thorns come up and choak it Now what are these thorns of the wilderness Saith Mathew The cares of the world and those you know entangle all relating to all whether rich or poor Saith Mark The cares of the world and the lusts of other things and that relates more properly to the needy what they want they bewilder themselves in lusting after Saith Luke The cares of the world and the pleasures of this life and that relates more properly to the wealthy what they have that they bewilder themselves in taking pleasure in They that want lose themselves in the thoughts of what others have and how to reach unto their estate a garment a gown of such a fashion a kitching so adorned a room so furnished an orchard a garden so fair and beautiful Oh! that they had it Here are bewildering lusts of other things They that have enough and abundance lose themselves in the thoughts of what they have how to dispose of it They can keep Hounds and Hawks and race-horses and what not Bauds and Parasites to flatter them and Whores to satiate them and all to bewilder them Or if they be not wholly so vainly disposed as the former or so wickedly as the latter yet still there are wilderness wayes enough This corner of the house must be pulled down and built again in another mode and this takes up a twelve moneth perhaps that they cannot tend their souls but they poor fools go astray they know not they mind not whether As they are in bed at night they fall a fancying their building till they fall asleep and as soon as awake or up in the morning they must look upon their workmen before they look upon their hearts and when this end is done the other end must be made suitable when one bewildering way is passed through they câ—me into another From their workmen to dinner from dinner to bowles c. from bowles to supper from supper to bed These are the bewildring pleasures of this life You may enlarge according to your own experiences and whilst you consult with them you will have reason to admire that such foolish vanities as do should so bewilder your noble and immortal souls And as to the third The cares of the world bewilder all Apprentices may think when God at a Sermon toucheth their hearts Oh that I were as free as my master is I would hear Sermons oftener then he doth and perhaps as soon as thy time is our the world the same wilderness gets thee in thou hast a wife and a stock and a great deal to do and now wilt thou get out thy self as little or let out thy servants as little as ever thy master thy cruel carnal master would let out thee Improve these experiences you in whose bosoms I have been this day and let me intreat you to lay them to heart Have not your hearts been a woolgathering sometimes as our proverb is I speak unto you that trade into the Wool country whilst your bodies are here in the Congâ—egation if so then lay it to heart Proof partic But Secondly More particularly There are two sorts of men I will speak unto Poverty is a wilderness 1. The poor of the world To these their poverty is a wilderness They think were they rich they could and would give God more time c. than they do This is their weakness but yet verily their poverty is their snare into the wilderness ' I le turn you to the poor mans wilderness as you shall find it described from a poor mans mouth even holy Asaph Isa 73. and how doth he express it vers 2. As for me my steps well nigh were slipped my feet almost were gone Mark that Poverty is almost enough to take a Saints feet from under him or to turn them aside and so to cause him to go astray There are two sorts of transgressions or bewildrings that poverty quickly entangleth the soul in First those of the heart Secondly those of the life Those transgressions are goings astray of the heart or thought-bewildrings poverty readily leads unto such as these I will instance as I said in Asaph To the thoughts 1. Swelling thoughts against Gods dispensations towards others wherein there is great transgression Psal 73.3 I was envious when I saw the prosperity of the foolish and wicked Why saith the heart what is there in such a one but God might as well have given me hundreds a year as him Why should such a one thrive and I want grow rich and I grow poor this is a great and I fear an usual transgression 2. Over-high thoughts of the estate of the rich because of their wealth and this also is a great transgression vers 4. There are no bands in his death What a strange fancy is this as who should say death cannot hold a rich man Oh! thinks a poor man I shall dye of this sickness but if I were as
such a rich man is I could have such a cordial and such a Physician and such attendance that doubtless I should quickly get up again 3. Over-hard thoughts of Gods dispensations towards himself vers 10. Waters of a full cup are wrung out unto them Nothing but wrath and the dregs of the wrath the very wringings out of wrath are he thinks reserved for him And vers 13. All the day long have I been plagued What all the day long take heed of saying so nothing but plagues no mercy no refreshment no breathing-time no intermission I do not beleive it You think to hardly of the Lord. This is a great transgression to think that there is nothing but plagues in poverty 4. Wretched yet ordinary thoughts of losing the bands of poverty for slacking the cords of conscience thoughts of getting more liberty in the world by taking more liberty in the wilderness I mean in sin vers 13. Verily I have washed mine hands in innocency and cleansed mine heart in vain I had better turn flatterer and so get favor with the rich or cheater and so grow rich than be as I am having a name of innocency but consumed and undone with poverty this is a great and grievous heart-transgression though it never come so far as it did not in Asaph and will seldome do in the Saints as unto the act 2. The transgressions of the life and conversation 2. To their lives and practices Prov. 30.9 Least I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vaine You cannot steal without taking Gods name in vaine and you cannot be poor unless you be rich in grace but you 'l be ready to steal 1. From men by dishonesty in your callings and dealings with them and this is to make Gods commandment which is his name to be in vain 2. Or at least from God by taking that time to thy worldlie cares and labors which thou oughtest to reserve for Gods service and herein thou contractest such guilt as that God will not hold thee guiltless for the Lords Ordinances are his name 3. From thy self by hindring thy soul of those precious advantages which the gain of ten thousand worlds cannot recompence Perhaps thou art earning two pence or a peny at thy loom whilst thy soul might have been converted and for ever enriched at a Lecture And judge you when the word is preached and thou neglectest it because of thy poverty when thou mightest rise well perhaps one day in the week an hour sooner or go to bed an hour later dost thou not herein steal from thy poor soul and take the name of the Lord in vain Vse To poor ones bewildred by poverty Advice as to their thoughts of heart 1. Then a word as to the wilderness of thy thoughts then of thy waies 1. If thy poverty-thoughts bewilder thee take Christs councel take thou little or none of them better for a poor man to be quite without thoughts then to be bewildred by his thoughts Mat. 6.25 Take no thought for your life vers 31. Take no thought what you shall eat or drink or be cloathed with vers 34. Take no thought for the morrow that is no distracting disturbing bewildring thought better no thought at all then such thoughts Or if you will be thining 1. Think of your God often Daniel had nothing but pulse to live on Dan. 1.12 yet Daniel could think of God and make solemn supplication three times a day Dan. 6.12 Seek then the Kingdom of God first and those things shall be added Mal. 6.33 Therefore 2. Think of your voyage out of the wilderness often if you be never so poor God will bear your charges unto Canaan God will enable thine old cloaths to keep thee warm still if thou canst not get new Deut. 29.5 I have led you fourty yeers in the wilderness and your cloaths are not waxed old nor your shoe upon your foot And God will make thee as fat with pulse as the children fed at the Kings Table Dan. 1.15 2. As to the wayes of their lives 2. As to your life maintain holiness in your waies when the beasts of the wilderness even the strongest and most ravening of those beasts the young Lions shall suffer hunger that is those that can range in the waies of the wilderness in the pathes of sin to get an estate or a liveliehood any how then they that fear the Lord are sure to want nothing Psal 34 10. God will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly that 's in the right and strait waies Psal 84.11 CHAP. IV. Riches a wilderness to the unregenerate opened and applyed SEcondly 2. Riches a wilderness to unregenerate ones Riches themselves are but a wilderness to carnal ones 1 Tim. 6.10 The love of money is the root of all evil What then grows up from that root truly thickets enough to make a wilderness remarkable are the two things that follow in the same verse First they that have coveted it have erred from the faith there are the paths Secondly they have peirced themselves thorough with many sorrows there are the thorns of the wilderness Hence 2 Pet. 2.15 They have forsaken the right way and have gone astray following the way of Balaam What 's the reason Who loved wages of unrighteousness Express is that language in all three Evangelists Mat. 13.22 Mark 4.19 Luk. 8.14 We read it the deceitfulness of riches but the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies a way and the privative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in plain English riches whose property it is to lead out of the way Or which translation of the word cannot be quarrelled with the bewildrings of riches More particularly riches of the world are subject to bewilder by the multitudes of their occasions temptations and excuses 1. Riches set men round with a wilderness of occasions 1. Their occasions so that they know not which way to turn toward Canaan Pro. 30.9 Give me not riches saith Agur vers 7. least I be full and deny thee vers 9. When the house is full of Mammon seldom it is that there 's room for God I am bold to understand fulness of business created by riches as one sort of fulness here meant He hath so great trading and so many to speak with so many wayes at once to go that he hath not time to speak with God as he goes by or to walke in the wayes towards Canaan or to trade for heaven I have very rarely observed that any man hath had more time for heaven then another by having more of earth then hath another If the rich man can finde time enough from his occasions to have a lesson set him or to hear it read Good master what shall I do to be saved he can by no means stay to take it forth He went quickly away for he had great possessions Mat. 19.16 22. The rich have barns to
pull down and greater to build and a thousand more occasions Ask them and say Come let us go up to Zion they must needs deny you their hands are already full of their own occasions I have seen what time some had to take money in but I have wondred what time they have had to pray in Or if you turn unto duty which yet is as sad do not the occasions of the world go along with your hearts Ezek. 33.31 They come and sit and hear but their heart goes after their covetousness 2. Their temptations 2. The temptations of riches are a wilderness to the soul This the poor man thinks not of when he would so fain change estates with the rich 2 Tim. 6.8 9. Having food and raiment let us be content But they that will be rich fall into temptations and into a snare and into many an hurtful lust Such as these 1. Temptations to forget their dependance upon God they that are fed from hand to mouth are not so subject But the rich man if carnal Psal 10.3 4. boasteth of his hearts desire and God is not in all his thoughts 2. Temptations to sensuality and carnal lusts These men have fuel to cast upon the flame more than others have The rich man can go alwayes in purple and fine linnen and fare deliciously every day Luk. 16.19 Poor men though they would cannot And verily what is all that they have in the world more than others but the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life 3. Temptations to desire alwaies to be here to undervalue heaven to build upon earth to neglect yea to forget their latter end If the fool hath much good he presently dreams of many years Luk. 12.19 and saith he shall never be moved Psal 10.6 such and a thousand more such like temptations are enough to bewilder a poor soul 2. A wilderness of excuses The more riches 3. Their excuses the more occasions and the more occasions the more excuses and excuses as one said are as hilts upon the hands and make it much more difficult to make men lay down their weapons Such a friend must be seen I and that this day to morrow will not do so well let this excuse mine absence from this days Lecture Such a customer must be waited on who just now is to go out of town let this excuse another time Luk. 14.18 19 20. What with rich bargains and rich leases and rich wives or one thing or other all with one consent began to make excuses There were different excuses but all with one consent If he had not had money enough to have bought those Oxen to have hired that farm to have joyntured that wife he might for ought I know have been a guest at the wedding supper Mark further the language of excuses I have bought a peice of ground and I must needs go and see it I pray thee have me excused I have pointed the man to meet me there and he will be frustrated except I go pray tell your master if it were not a case of necessity I would have come unto him but now I must needs go another way There is a wilderness of excuses Give me leave then you that are rich in this world Vse Advice unto rich men and perhaps I might say in this wilderness to present a few things to your considerations 1. May not this be a worm unto all your enjoyments 4. Considerations for rich men to think as perhaps you have reason to do if unregenerate you ought to do that what ever you have gotten you have gotten it in the wilderness T is the Lords own notion not mine Read Job 24.5 6. Behold as wild Asses in the desert go they forth to their work rising betimes for a prey the wilderness yeeldeth food for them and for their children c. Thou hast got thou canst say an estate for thy self an inheritance for thy son portions for thy daughters but if thy neighbors or thy conscience can say thou hast got it in the wilderness that sin hath yeelded food for thee and for thy children dost thou nor think this thought will spoil all in the day that thy wilderness shall become an howling wilderness Surely it shall Therefore Go to now rich men lament and howle for the miseries that shall come up on you James 5.1 2. Consider T is not more hard for any to get out of the wilderness then for the rich as strait as the gate is that enters into life so strait is the gap that leads out of the wilderness And surely it is not for those that are fat like Jesuron cloathed as the Prophet speaks with thick clay to croud or creep out at so narrow an hole The passage is no bigger then a needles eye therefore one way or another by losses or self-denial or contempt of the world thou must be brought to a single thred to go thorough the needles eye The yong man might else have got out of the wilderness but he was too thick to go thorough for he had great possessions Mat. 19.22 3. Consider what a foolish and vain purchase it is to grow rich in a wilderness for whilst an estate is gotten thy self is lost And upon this account what would it profit thee to gain the world whilst thou losest thine own soul Mark 8.36 This was the folly of that fool Luk. 12.19 He boasted what an estate was his when that very night it appeared that his soul was none of his then Whose are the things that he had provided vers 20. 4. Consider Whatever thou gettest in the wilderness thou shalt undoubtedly leave there The thorns and the bryers of those thickets will never suffer thee to go away with thy fleece that grew there Thus he that gathereth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his dayes and in the end shall be a fool Jer. 17.11 Therefore let rich men learn to chuse the way of truth as David Psal 119.30 Yea to turn their heart thereto and not to covetousness as vers 36. Yea To rejoyce in the way mark the phrase the way of Gods testimonies as much as in all riches My friends Gods testimonies are a way all riches without them are but a wilderness CHAP. V. Old Age a wilderness to the unregenerate opened and applyed SIxthly The unregenerate aged ones are yet bewildred 6. Old ones unregenerate act as old trees rotting in the wilderness and even old age a wilderness unto their souls These are the trees of the wilderness of 60. 90. 100. yeers old Verily I was much affected when I spake of your babes as born in the wilderness but oh how shall I speak unto thee who art already rotten and every day falling to dust in the wilderness of sin you have a phrase for an old man that he hath one foot in the grave oh how sad a case is he in when both feet are
and in the imagination of their evil heart So chap. 11.8 So chap. 13.10 Mark their walk or their way is that he speaks of And where is it Why in their evil hearts here their hearts are made the wilderness And othertimes God complains that they walk after the counsels c. of their own hearts So Ier. 9.14 But they walked after the imagination of their own hearts So chap. 18.12 We will walk after our own devices and we will every one do after the imagination of our own heart So chap. 23.17 They say to every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart c. Here their hearts are become guides to lead them into the wilderness Wonder not then that we are so easily bewildred spiritually since our hearts are not onely a wilderness unto us but tempters also that lie at catch to seduce and bewilder us 1. Our hearts by nature are a wilderness First then this is Satans great advantage that herein he hath from us our souls by nature are a wilderness unto us Perhaps some carnal one might say What do you talk so much of a wilderness I see none Where is' t What is' t How can these things be Why look within and thou canst not look off of the wilderness Men walk saith God in their own evil hearts Why there 's the wilderness I said saith God Ier. 7.23 Walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you but they hearkned not Sure you 'l grant now that they are in the wilderness when they are out of all Gods ways and what 's that wilderness Where did they walk then Why In the counsels of their evil heart and what follows They went backward and not forward v. 24. Whilest men and women go aside from Gods counsels and ways they go backward and if you 'l ask me where 'T is in the imaginations of their own hearts So in Ier. 11.7 You have God rising up early and protesting his ways from day to day unto them And now that God is in such a serious posture a protesting God whose bare word is truth infallible What hinders them now from Gods way Why saith God 't is this their heart is a wilderness they walk every one in the imagination of their own evil heart v. 8. Memorable is that Scripture Psalm 95.8 You have mention of Israel that he was in the wilderness provoking God there But what was it that grieved God yea grieved him fourtie years Was it that Israel was in that material Wildernesse Oh that was not the worst of it but ver 12. 'T is a people that do erre in their hearts and they have not known my waies Sirs what say you now to this heart-wil-dernesseâ— 'T was erring in heart 't was heart-bewildring that kept them out of Gods waies Hence that sad but pregnant expression Ps 64.6 They search out iniquities That is in their Counsells and imaginations in their hearts Search them out That is as one that hath lost a sheep in Wilderness he looks into this corner and that quarter and another quarter and a fourth Corner untill he hath searched it out So when they design such an Evill they search this affection and that affection and this phancy and that phancy this thought and that thought untill they have searched out their iniquity and this is the Wildernesse of the heart but how sad a Wildernesse it is who can declare For Ps 19.12 Who can understand his Errors that is bewildrings which he speaks of the Wilderness of his heart For saith he cleanse thou mee from secret sins For further Evidence hereof Evidence hereof I shall look to Children to Fooles to your own Experience First Children they say speak their hearts 1. In Children and if so I 'm sure as soon as ever they begin to speake they speak them to be a Wildernesse Childrens words are as vain and foolish and as inconstant and inconsistent as mens thoughts are For Children speak as Children 1 Cor. 13.11 Men and women have as confused thoughts as Children have words trace a Childs sentences and in two or three of them the Child will have quite lost it self and doth not this speak what a Wildernesse the heart of the Child is out of the abundance whereof the mouth speaks yea what a Wildernesse thine or mine heart is by nature Though thou canst cover thine heart-bewildrings in more wisdom then the Child can do yet God complains of men and women as much as thou canst note from Childrens most childish words Jer 4.14 How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee Children speak of one thing and of another and a third thing almost with one breath and thou thinkst of as many almost with one glance of thine heart Children talk as thou thinkest of impossibilities Children put themselves out of what they began with by heaping up more new and vain words and thou dost the like by multiplying new and vain thoughts Is it not too true when thou settest thy self apart for meditation of thy souls estate before the Lord of thy former condition of repentance from dead works c. Oh! how doe a thousand thoughts come in of one thing and another and one upon the neck of another so that thou art presently at a losse as to thy chief businesse and so thine own heart becomes thy Wildernesse Secondly Fooles These you say as well as Children speak truth 2. In fools and madmen and if you will believe it undoubtedly you must conclude their hearts to be no other then so many Wildernesses of confusion Have you not observed how madly mad men and women will expresse themselves Why they do but write upon their own foreheads what thou writest upon thine own heart such madnesse is in the heart if it bee not in the mouth of the Sons of men Eccles 9.3 3. In your own Experience But thirdly I will rather choose to convince the intelligent Christian hereof from his own Expetience Thou saist thou wouldst keep holy daies after an holy manner and pray frequently and perform all duties strictly and why dost thou not Oh! saist thou because of the bewildring multitude of my vaine thoughts they come in and lead me from one thing to another from that to a third from that to more and by all from the businesse in hand and thus doth thine own heart prove a wildernes unto thee somtimes bad thoughts sometimes good but bad for thee sometimes good in themselves and good for thee too such as thou mightest be glad of at another time but bad for thee at this time as carrying thee off from thy present duty The Psalmist complains Psa 94.19 An account or reasons hereof of a multitude of thoughts within him It seems there are enough to bewilder there are a multitude but alas shall I need to tell you so I 'm sure you find it so I shall therefore rather passe on to declare how it comes to be so Take
with you this threefold account The exceeding bignesse and vast latitude and Dimensions of the heart The extream numerousnesse of the waies that are therein The windings and turnings that are in those waies First consider the vast Dimension of the heart of man 1. The vastnesse of the heart The World as you have heard is big enough for a Wildernesse but the heart is much bigger The world is not large enough to hold thine heart but thine heart is big enough to hold a great many worlds Alexanders heart was too big for the world for when he had conquered it he sate down som say and wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer Eccles 3.11 He hath set the world in their heart The World is nothing so big as the heart I remember I once saw the pictures of our severall faculties as Will Memory c. one was the phancy of phancy or the figure of the phantasie and O it was a painter painted painting an heart in that heart the world in one Corner an harlot the Emblem of the flesh in another and the Devill in the third and I judge it lively expressed The heart is so much bigger then the World as to be able to hold the flesh that is corrupt Nature and the Devill too Now put together our own Corruptions all Satans temptations and the World allurements and if that heart that is big enough to comprehend all these be not large enough by these to become our Wildeernesse judge you CHAP. VIII Contains further proof and discovery 2. Many waies that are in the heart SEcondly Consider the great many waies of this great heart I 'l warrant enough to bewilder you Pro. 19.21 There are many devices in the heart of man and Pro. 16.9 A mans heart deviseth his way Put both together There are many Devices of mans heart and all these are the waies of mans heart therefore many are the waiee of the heart of man Like so great a City that hath so many streets that one supposed to be bred and born in it is not able to reckon or to know them all such a City or Wildernesse rather is mans heart To understand this I would have you know that all the waies of a mans life that are properly mans waies are first in mans heart A mans heart deviseth his way 'T is said Psal 84.5 Blessed is the man in whose heart are the waies of them c. that is of Gods people Gods peoples waies are in their hearts So sinners waies are first of all of them in sinners hearts Hence I prove that their hearts are Wildernesses unto them As if a man be to ride to London to morrow the nature of the heart is to ride the journey before-hand to night when it goes to sleep or in the morning when he wakes So his heart sins over his sin before-hand And how can these waies but be an heart-wilderness to the unregenerate Therefore saith God Isai 47.13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy Counsels and verse 15. The Merchants which thou hast laboured with from thy youth shall wander every of them to his Quarter none of them shall save thee Evidences of the multitude of wayes in the heart The waies and counsels of their owne hearts were that which undid them I shall farther offer two or three things under this head to your Consideration which may abundantly prove the multitude of the wayes of our heart and readinesse of those wayes to bewilder us First There never was any way of sin in any heart but thine heart and mine are expose thereunto 1 Cor. 10.13 There hath no tentation taken you but that which is common to man c. but God will make a way to escape Marke Every temptation is a bewildring tentation unlesse God make a way thou canst not scape and every such temptation is common to man even every one upon the Earth The same temptation that undid Cain and Cham and Jeroboam and Judas are common to thee and thy soule might be bewildred in the same wayes if God made not a way to escape Now thinke what multitudes of waies are there for sinners that live now to walke in even all the wayes that ever sinners walked in hitherto therefore 't is registred of some afterward that they went in the way of Cain before them Jud. 11. and followed the way of Balaam 2 Pet. 2.15 Their wayes and the wayes of all other sinners that ever were are before the eyes of their unregenerate heart Secondly There was never way of sinne in any heart but thine heart and mine are naturally disposed to it Prov. 27.19 As face in water answers face so the heart of man answers to man Thy face in the water which was then I suppose their onely looking-glasse is not more like thy very face then thine heart and anothers are by nature alike the same dispositions to cruelty as in Cain to covetousnesse as in Balaam to betray Christ as in Judas or what ever else was comitted by whomsoever else you have heard of or read of or knowne are naturally in thine owne heart Thou art not onely subject and exposed but inclined and disposed unto them And truly I thinke it becomming us when we heare of anothers sinne in the Act and Fruit to looke upon it as our owne in the Root and so to be humbled for it and rapt up in admiration of his Grace who hath made the difference Thirdly There was never any sinne in thine owne life but it was the way of thine heart first Psal 14.1 The fool hath said in his heart c. They are all gone aside verse 3. so Prov. 7.25 Let not thine heart decline to her waies go not astray in her paths The heart goes alwaies before the rest goes Now then if all the waies of sinne that ever thou wert in or that ever any other were in are and have been either actually or as we say in actu primo in their originall root and spawn in thine heart thou canst not but rest convicted that there are in thine heart wayes enough to make a wildernesse 3ly The many windings of those wayes Thirdly As the heart of man is very great and full of waies so are those waies full of windings and turnings to and againe and therefore the heart cannot but be a Wildernesse The heart of man is compared to the belly of a man Prov. 20.27 because of any creature a mans bowels as Anatomists note are fullest of windings so full of windings are the wayes of the heart so full I say that himselfe that walkes in them can't know where he is Jer. 17.9 The heart is deceitful above all things and who can know it In the fifth verse you have mention of an heart departing from the Lord and therefore becomming an Heath in the Desert a salt Land and a Wildernesse verse 6. And this is the heart that is so desperately full of windings and
Wildernesse Thine heart is exposed yea and disposed too to all the wayes and windings of spirit that ever entangled any soule in the world Vse and surely they are enough to bewilder thee Oh let this consideration to purpose humble thee whereever thou goest thou carriest thy wildernesse about thee Come we now to a second sort of Satans Advantages that he hath from us to bewilder us which is CHAP. IX â—pntaines the second advantage from our selves our hearts are tempters into the wildernesse opened and applyed 2d Advant Our hearts are tempted into the wilderness SEcondly Our hearts are not only a Wildernesse unto us but tempters and seducers into the Wildernesse Naturally they are a sinfull Wildernesse and as naturally doe they inveigle us into the Wildernesse of sinne And alas how easie is it for Satans devices to bewilder us since he hath such advantage of us Our hearts advise counsell and perswade us having been first perswaded by Satan Hence are the expressions of that other sort Jer. 9.14 and 18.12 and 23.17 They walke after the devices and counsels Note and imaginations of their own hearts Their hearts are their guides and they goe after their hearts Now when man followes his hearts guidance if his heart lose it selfe in sinne he must needs be lost in the same Wildernesse Mat. 5.28 Whosoever lookes on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart In this case the heart is the Baud the heart is lost first the whole man goes after it and is lost with it 'T is said of the young Man and the Whore Prov. 7. She was the first she caught him and kissed him and with an impudent face tempted him verse 13. And he goes after her verse 22. Our hearts being forwardest as Harlots tempt us and we as fooles straight-way go after them And this our hearts take up of themselves Naturally so 't is naturall to them to lead us to the wildernesse Their bent is that way Looke what way the bent of any thing in the world is that way will it goe Compare two Scriptures Hos 11.7 They are bent to backslyding from me to slide back from my counsels and calls and waies to slide back into their own waies wildernesse c. And then Prov. 14.14 The backslyder in heart shall be fill'd with his own waies Marke Backslyding that is before the peoples bent is here called the hearts own way You shall therefore finde that the Lord challengeth the heart as first in the transgression or going astray Act. 7.39 In their hearts they turned back to Egypt Our hearts subject to be tempted into the wilderness from these two reasons Now then a word or two to give you an account first that our hearts are bent to walke after the waies of the wildernesse and then that we are bent to walke after the waies of our own hearts First then The bent of our hearts is by nature to the wildernesse There are but these two things that engage the bent ones heart to one place rather then another 1. Innate affection First An innate affection I like this place the best of any place that ever I saw saith one How much is that place my darling saith another Beloved the Wildernesse of sinne is our hearts darling wee fancy no place naturally so much as this wildernesse no wayes please us so well as the wayes of sinne There is something in every particular place that suits some mans particular fancy that makes him abide there There is something in every particular sinne that suits some sinners particular fancy and that makes him dwell there still Our heart naturally suits with these wayes of sinne therefore it is that men walke in them still 2ly Cuflomatinesse Secondly A Customary aboad I have lived saith one all my dayes in the City and I doe not know how now to dwell in the Country I have lived saith another all my daies in the Country and I cannot tell how to away with the City Aire the City-noises the City-Company c. Our hearts by nature are and ever have been accustomed to the wildernesse therefore the bent of our hearts is to the Wildernesse-ward still We cannot brook dwelling in Gods holy City the heavenly Jerusalem We have not been accustomed to such manner of living such company such converse You have both these pregnantly expressed in one scripture Jer. 14.10 Thus saith God to this people Thus have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet They have loved to wander there 's their innate affection to this spirituall Wildernesse They have not refrained their feet there is their Customary bewildring Wandring they love and wandring they are used to It suites with their phancy and it is that which they have spent their daies in and upon these two accompts it is that the bent of their hearts is towards the Wildernesse And now Secondly Our hearts prevalent in tempting us upon two grounds If the bent of our hearts be Wildernesse-ward it 's easie to conceive how they bend us towards the Wildernesse Hos 4.8 they set their heart on thoir iniquity and I will punish them for their waies Verse 9. Their waies are according to the bent of their hearts So 2 Tim. 3.6 Led away with divers lusts Lusts those are the stirrings and motions of the heart and these are the tempters to lead us away Remarkable is that Ezek. 12 21. But as for them whose heart walketh after their abominations I 'le recompence their waies upon their own heads Such therefore as their hearts are such will their waies be And that upon these two grounds First our hearts are the men of our Counsell 1. They are our Bosome-Counsellors They lie in our bosoms and therefore as to the choice of all our waies with them it is that we consult Our bosom-friends and darling relations are our hearts If man be refractory as to any way It 's policy to perswade the wife of his bosom prevail with her and 't is likely she will prevail with him Satan when hee would seduce us into any of his waies hee first makes it his businesse to overcome our hearts in our bosoms and us by them Pray thee husband go saith the wife and then he goes Pray go saith the heart and away he goes 1 Tim. 2.13 Adam was not deceived that is not first but the woman being deceived was in the transgression Two things there are here remarkable First the woman that lay in Adams bosom was bewildred for so the word signifies before the man Secondly the heart of the woman was bewildred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before she her self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was led to go astray The woman in Adams bosom bewildred him the heart in Eves bosom bewildred her The influence of the wife of thy bosom to perswade thee is grounded upon propriety Shee being thine own so nearly so dearly thou think'st she will not
darknesse and sweet for bitter and whence is this but because the Devill can appear as an Angell the first view of temptation is as Paradise the last view or end thereof as Hell The young man is inticed Pro. 7. with a deckt bed Coverings of Tapestry carved works fine linnen of Aegypt perfumes of Mirrhe Aloes and Cinamon fill of love solaces with loves ver 16 17 18. Fair words and shewes but flattering ver 19. and he goes after these but 't is like an Ox to the slaughter or a fool to the Correction of the stocks This then is Satans leading-influence his temptations though as Hell as Devills seem as faire as Angells Therefore I may say of Satan though he speak thee fair believe him not for there are seven abomination in his heart as Pro. 26.25 Thirdly As he is a Spirit and an Angell 3dly He is a Devil and so cares not what meanes he useth so is hee a Devill and therefore hath yet the more advantage A Devill therefore he cares not what means he useth to bewilder soules A Minister must not lie for God he must not vent a lie to save a soul But Satan will tell a thousand to undoe a soul Yea he had as live damne them with speaking false as true he is a Devill and therefore cares not what way he goes One of you shall betray me saith Christ One of us Lord might they say who could find in his heart to do so who could dare to doe so why saith Christ One of you is a Devill He can do any thing he is a Devill A Devill cares not what he saith nor what he swears in order to the ruine of a poor sool An high-way man cares not though he swear you or lye you into a wrong way telling you its right that there he may have opportunity to rob you Ioh. 8.44 When he that is the Devill speaketh a lie hee speaketh it of his own for he is a lyer and a Father of it and that because he is a Devill CHAP. XI Contains its further opening and improvement FOurthly The Relations that Satan stands in 4. Head His relations to the men of the World do greatly advantage him as to their bewildring what was 't think you that perswaded the little Ones amongst the Israelites to adventure into that Wildernesse sure it was because their Relations went Their parents went and what made their Parents go why because Moses their Prince and leader went and what was 't that made Moses go because God had told him that he would be with him and go before him as you may clearly observe in that story And verily one great advantage that Satan hath to bewilder soules is the relations that he stands in to unregenerate souls 1. He is a father to the World therefore followed readily First Satan is in relation of a Father to them Suppose you should chuse to live in a desert doe you think your Children would not be willing to bear you Company to do as you doe and be where you are surely most Children would You would follow a Father even into a Forrest though it were a place of danger you would bee loath your Father should goe alone Naturall relation teaches in such a Case to say as Ruth to Naomi Ruth 1.16 Whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge And such indeed is the language of our hearts to Satan who as we are unregenerate stands related as a father to us The very reason why men doe his workes and walk in his waies Our Saviour gives Jo. 8.44 You are of your Father the Deuill and his workes you will do They do them and they will do them and what 's the reason they are of their Father The young mans Father in the Gospell bids him go into his Vineyard and he cryes I go sir Satan your Father bids you drink and rail and curse and revenge c. and the Lord knowes you goe sirs at his Command 2. He is a Prince to the world 2ly Satan stands related to them as their Prince therefore they 'l follow him into the Wildernesse What hath beene the common voice of these times What shall not I go after my King shall not I follow my Prince yea that they would though into a Wildernesse You have mention of thousands of murderers in the Wildernesse Acts 21.38 and whence was it oh oh their leader that Egyptian went before them thither So in spiritualls Eph. 2.1 2 3 You were dead in trespasses that is in your goings out of the way Wherein in times past ye walked according to the course of this world and what followes according to the Prince of the power of the air the spirit that now rules in the Children of disobedience among whom we also had our Conversation in times past c. By nature we all walk in this Course that is race or way as long as we stand in relation to and are under the power of this Prince Thirdly 3. He is the God of the World Satan stands related as a God unto them What gracious heart would not willingly follow God though he should lead them into a Wildernesse of affliction and surely Satan being their God they are soone perswaded to follow him into this Wildernesse of sin you have mention made of some that are lost spiritually 2 Cor. 4.3 If our Gospell be hid it 's hid to them that are lost If the light be hid or the guidance be in vain it is to those that are lost yea but how came they to be lost ver 4. In whom the God of this world hath blinded their Eyes c. He is their God hence it is that they are lost Fifthly Consider Satans Experience 5. Head His experience He hath bewildred all meerly men therefore hee may easily bewilder thee it gives him great advantage to bewilder thee Oh Satan is so old a serpent that he knowes all the turnings of the Wildernesse and he can soon tell when hee doth but see thee which of them all will best suit with thee It is not strange Satan should bewilder thee that hath bewildred so many thousands before thee There never was a meere man but Satan both led him into the Wildernesse and lost him there Avoid her waies saith Solomon of the tempting harlot Pro. 7.25 go not astray in her paths for she hath cast down many wonded yea many strong men have been slain by her ver 26. Take heed of comming near this Lyons Den for he hath drawn as many as ever pass'd by into it And dost thou thinke amongst all the soules that Satan hath bewildred in former ages there hath not been some one just of thy complexion and constitution if there have beene then as a last made for anothers yet if it be of the same size with thy foot it will fit thy foot So the same temptation the same way wil serve to wilder thee David was a ruddy
man of complexion and the Devill knew by a look of him what path of the Wildernesse would entangle him The Devill hath bewildred passionate folks before and proud folks before and lustfull ones before and covetous ones before c. and it cannot be but what ever the length of thy foot is that Satan by this time should have a way in the Wildernesse fitted for thee As an old cheat that will have more tricks then one that if one fail another may take and that the young fool might not know all So Satan Pro. 5.6 lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life his waies are moveable so that thou canst not know them And this is his great advantage It may be thou art a young Christian a young Saint but thou hast to doe with an Old Serpent Use If Satan have so great advantage to bewiider you And thus you have heard what advantages on all hands Satan hath to bewilder the soul I shall desire the improvement of it in a word or two You have heard that our own hearts are Wildenesses of sinne and tempters too into the Wildernesse that Satan by Legions and their ageement being a spirit himselfe and and â—n Angell and a Devill as also being a Father a Prince a God to the naturall man and lastly being an old Serpent experienced in all the windings and turnings of the Wildernesse is easily able to bewilder soules and if you be convinced then 1. Caution in the choice of your way First Be very carefull in the choice of your way Would you cleanse your way then take heed thereto Ps 119 9. My friends as you would tremble at the thoughts of following Satan as your King and God and Father in his way bee very carefull in the choice of your own waies I have observed that carelesnesse of our waies is the adding of advantage to Satan to all his advantages and 't is as if you should say Satan hath not enough already I le give him more How many are there that goe on and on and never consider in what way or to what end He that goes and considers not whither is like to be lost he knowes not where Jer. 3.12 God calls Israel a back-sliding people It followes ver 13. acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed or gone out of the way and and hast scattered thy waies to strangers Mark that Those that are inconsiderate and heedlesse of what things they have are they that scatter them Here 's a scattering of waies to this strange temptation and that strange lust c. now what is the way to keep from scattering but by narrow looking to that which otherwise we should scatter As David saith I said I will take heed unto my waies Psal 39.1 Those then that are heedlesse of their waies are scatterers of their waies and know it sirs whatever waies you scatter Satan will be sure to gather Scatter a Sermon out of your memories and these fowls of the aire will pick it up and carry it away Scatter but a thought or any affection on a carnal or sinfull object the Devill will snatch it up and carry it away This then is the desperate folly of our hearts that by heedlesnesse wee should scatter our waies to strangers Therefore saith the same Prophet to the same People Jer. 6.16 thus saith the Lord stand ye in the waies and see and ask c. Surely many a man 's bewlldred because when time was he did not stand and ask Oh that I could bring but sinners to a stand this day whither away so fast thou galloping drunkard ranting roister What wilt not once stop before thou lightest at Hell-Tavern Wilt thou take all the wayes thou hittest upon without once enquiring whether thou art in the right way Oh! Pause a little and aske and see Perhaps there may be nere another house betwixt thee and the Wildernesse to inquire at Perhaps thou maist never heare a Sermon more or be at a publique meeting more and therefore whilest thou passest by the doore of this dayes discourse stand a while and aske and see What madnesse is it to runne preposterously into any way when a sober inquiry might find a right I am confident this is the undoing of many a soule they are never brought to a stand till Hell stops them But let us take Gods counsell to day in Gods feare to stand and ask and see and choose Two Expressions of David laid together may engage Christians hereunto Psal 119.30 I have chosen the way of truth I have stuck unto thy testimonies verse 31. And I will run the way of thy Commandements Oh! sirs Choosing Christians will be sticking Christians If you will walke in Gods wayes deliberately and of choice you 'l find in your heart to stick to those wayes yea though you mend your pace yet to keepe your way though you runne yet to stick still and then though thou see the God and King and Father of the world going another way and all the world in course following after him yea though thy naturall heart had been accustomed too and had loved the other way yet having made such a stand and in thy stand such a choice of this way here thou wilt stick notwithstanding all the other wayes 2ly Be carefull of your Way-markes 2ly Since Satan hath such advantage to bewilder you be very observant of your Way-markes you heard before of taking heed unto your waies and this must be according to Gods Word Psal 119.9 If a Father send his Sonne such a dangerous journey where there are many upon the Way whose businesse it is to turne the traveller aside that they might in a Corner make a spoile of him the young man knows not the way only the Father gives him a Paper of directions concerning it At such a place you must turne on the left hand of such a steeple and when you goe farther you must turne on the right hand of such a Wind-mill c. Now when he comes to such a place and sees such a steeeple he perceiveth the marks to be true markes a Robber enters discourse with him enquires his way tells him his way lies right with his they come neare the steeple or windmill c. The Robber tells him he must turn one way he lookes on his Note and that saith he must turne another upon this he seasonably and securely parts and avoids the danger by due observance of his Way-marks Therefore saith God to Ephraim his Son and deare Child to repenting Ephraim Jer. 31.21 Set thine heart towards the high way set thee up Way-marks My Brethren lest the lying Devill should bewilder us God hath given the Holy Scriptures for Way-marks unto us Keepe your Markes or lose your way God hath blessed be his name set down in a Paper which way we should goe and what way we should turne from both upon the right hand and upon the left And this use of the Scriptures is
even to despair And how doe bold prophane sinners urge Scripture for themselves and for their sinnes And bold presumers to hinder their soules from being humbled unto conversion and to the justifying of themselves and their courses even unto that presumption I tremble to think and I dare not speake what I have heard in this kind lest I should put a sword into any mad mans hand whereby hee might kill himselfe unlesse I had time enough as to each particular to take it out of his hand againe I have heard Tipling Chambering long Haire painting of the face c. defended and pittifully too by abusing and by wresting holy Scriptures But surely they that sinne by Scripture-shelter will have a miserable Comforter of it in the latter end Now because there 's so much danger of being lost under a mistaken Scripture-guidance I dare not leave the Saints without a word of serious Exhortation that by frequent prayer they would effectually and frequently put in suit that precious Scripture-promise concerning the holy Scripture-guide Joh. 16.13 I will send the Comforter ver 7. and when he who is the spirit of truth shall come he shall guide you into all truth for he shall not speake of himselfe but whatsoever he shall heare that shall he speak And thus much of Satans bewildring souls by false guidances The CHAP. XVII Containes the third sort of bewildring meanes viz. Darknesse with foure generall Considerations concerning soules bewildred therein applyed Third sort of bewildring meanes viz. Darknesse THird sort of meanes of spirituall bewildrings are spirituall darknesses And nothing is more frequent then this in both kinds You 'l say Those that are bewildred are usually bewildred in the night I 'm sure so it is with sinners They that are drunk n are drunken in the night 1 Thes 5.7 And so for other sinnes for a drunken sinner is a notable resemblance of every bewildred sinner see Isai 19.14 They have caused Aegypt to erre as a drunken man staggereth A drunken man cannot keepe the way no more can erring Aegypt a bewildred people or person they stagger out of the way first on one hand then on the other and this is in the night the dark gives advantage hereunto so Ephe. 5.8 You were darknesse sometimes though now you are light in the Lord therefore walke as who should say it 's good walking now If our light be darknesse sure our walk will be a Wildernesse Therefore if Paul turne sinners from the power of Satan unto God it must bee by turning them from darknesse to light Act. 26.18 And if his Gospel be hid in others and they be lost it will be by Satans blinding their eyes lost the light of the glorious Gospell should come unto them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. It s Satans work then to casts mists and fogges and thick darknesse before the eyes of poore Creatures and so to blind their souls Now what darknesse is in Naturalls Or ignorance Note that ignorance is in Spiritualls And as Darknesse bewilders Travelling persons outwardly so Ignorance bewilders travelling soules Rom. 3.12 They are all gone out of the way Why What 's the reason verse 11. There 's none that understandeth verse 17. The way of peace they have not known so Heb. 3.10 They do alwaie erre in their heart and what 's the reason still and they have not known my waies Object But will you say if ignorance be the cause of soul-bewildrings whence is it that so many that have much knowledge and light enough to come out of the Wildernesse keep there still Solu I deny that There is not any soule that 's in the wildernesse that hath enough of true light to helpe it thence Verily all the notionall knowledge Note and brain-light in the world is little better then darknesse if not darknesse according to that intimation of Christs Mat. 6.23 If the light that is in thee be darknesse how great will that darknesse be and I would have you know that all the knowledge the head can hold is not enough to disentangle the bewildrings of the heart The Pharisees could say we see they had sooner got out of the Wildernesse if they had been blind as Christ tells them Joh. 9.41 You have a strange passage Mar. 12. by the way the Pharisees and Sadduces too were such knowing men hat they had exquisite Observations upon the Scriptures they could quote them and gloss upon them and start Queries about them and notably discourse out of them as here verse 19. Master Moses wrought thus c. Yet Christ tells these very Sadduces verse 24. You do erre not knowing the Scriptures And here 's enough in this one place to prove all that I have spoken upon this account together You that is you Sadduces that can quote Scripture and argue out of it do erre that is are out of the way not knowing the Scriptures Here ignorance or spirituall darknesse is made the very cause of spiritual be wildrings On this Theme as mainly necessary I shall somewhat insist and propound some particulars and therefore I shall prepare my way with these more generall Observations Four generall Considerations concerning souls bewildred in the daâ—k of ignorance in number foure Those that are bewildred in the dark they are they know not where they go they know not whither they stumble they know not at what they fall they know not when and thus it is with bewildred and benighted Sinners 1. They are they know not where 1. They are they know not where If you should meet a bewildred Traveller on an Heath or in a Forrest in a dark night and should aske him where he is hee might say I am here here yea but where is that truly must he say I know not well where I am Thus God demands 1 Cor. 1.20 Where is the Wise where is the Scribe where is the Disputer of this world Where Why the wise man is at the Councill you will say the Disputer is in the Schoole the Scribe is at the Deske Ah poore wretches themselves know not where they are else why doth God aske the Question so likewise Isai 19.12 saith God Where are the wise men c. I will warrant you they thought they could give a very full answer a very faire and prudent account hereof where they were what they were doing and how to come off they thought no doubt they knew well enough but God knows they know not Let me aske you therefore as God did Adam Gen. 3.9 Adam where art thou Why it may be thou wilt say Lo here I am Yea but friend where is thy soule hap'ly thou maist say my Thoughts they are after my work my businessâ— mine Affections they are after the world my Heart that is in my Coffers my Compting-house my Ware-house my Work-house on my Markets in my Barne on mine Harvest my marrow and strength are yet in my bones and my breath is in my nostrills and so I
thanke God I am in a good thriving way a way that I and my friends like well and wherefore is it that you doe so question me Oh! but friend Where is thy soule all this while my soule againe Yea thy soule tell me truly dost thou know where thy soule is thou tellest me thy condition in respect of the world but what is thy soules condition and estate towards God I feare the most of you may be ready in heart to answer me as Cain answered being asked of God where his brother Abel was I know not saith Cain am I my brothers keeper Gen. 4.9 Where 's my soule I know not am I my Soules keeper I know I am the keeper of my Moneys and Means and I know where they are but where my soule is truly I know not if there be such a thing I never knew that I was the keeper of it Secondly Those that are bewildred in the dark 2ly The goe they know not whither they goe they know not whither Joh. 12.35 He that walketh in the dark knowes not whither he goes so 1 Jo. 2.11 He walketh in darknesse and knoweth not whither be goes because the darknesse hath blinded his eyes So he that walks in the Works of darknesse knowes not whither he goes The way may seem right unto him as you have heard from Prov. 16.25 but what the end is knows he not for the end of those waies is death The young man Prov. 7. went he thought to a carved bed c. but indeed he knew not whither he went for he went as a bird that hastneth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for his life ver 23. So Drunkards drinke drunk and Swearers blaspheme and Cheaters cozen and Hypocrites dallie with and prophane ones trample upon the things of God and little do they know that all this is for damnation so Prov. 5.6 Her waies are moveable that thou canst not know them What doth not the Drunkard and Oppressor and Adulterer know his own way No he doth not neither can hee know them He knowes perhaps what they begin at but where they end he knows not whither they go he knows not because they are all of them in the darke Alas who knows the power of Gods wrath Psal 90.11 Who knowes the infinity of his justice who knowes how much sinne deserves or how much the sinner shall suffer Sirs then let me aske you this day and let your Consciences answer Whither away so fast sirs where are you going you that make such hast after your pleasures such hast to be rich where are you going to Hell or Heaven to God or the Devill Oh! where will you lye down at night where will you lodge when you come to dye you that are so hasty in your journey that you can't stay to bait at a Lecture where doe you think you shall lodge at night that you make so much hast now That 's a sad demand Isai 10.3 What will you do in the day of Visitation and where will you leave your glory saith God Sirs every ones master sinne is his glory yea though it be their shame it is yet that which they glory in as one in his Pride another in his unrighteous Mammon a third in his profusenesse c. Every Traveller upon the Road of this World hath a truss behind him of that which hee counts his glory but now let me aske you yea rather God demands of you and answer you him Oh! where will you lay downe your Truss at night Oh! where will you leave your glory You know where you tooke up your Honours and upon what termes you know where you took up your Estates and upon what termes whether with a good Conscience yea or no But oh where will you leave them leave them you must nothing more sure but where Why with my Sonne thinks one in such an Inheritance and with my Daughter thinks another in such a Portion Thus in their inward thought that their Houses shall continue for ever Psal 49.11 but verse 13. This their way is their folly thou fool thou neither knowst whither thy selfe nor they are a going In the darke thou hast taken them up in the darke thou shalt lose them in the darke it is that thou walkest and whither thou goest thou dost not know Oh! let this Querie bee a stop to your speedy course and post-hast in the darksome Wildernesse Often aske your selves this question when passion begins to get up or any other Corruption ô animula Quo vadis O my poore soule whither is it that thou art now a going Thirdly They that are bewildred in the darke 3ly They stumble they know not at what stumble at they know not what Joh. 11.9 If any man walke in the day he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world verse 10. But if any man walk in the night he stumbleth because there is no light in him And this you shall find expresly of sinne too Prov. 4.19 The way of the wicked is as darknesse they know not at what they stumble Tell a wicked man that hee gets a fall and a bruise by every sinne he knowes it not he 's not sensible of it I le mind you in a word or two of what you stumble at and tell me whether you have been sensible thereof or no I remember God saith Ezek. 3.20 If such a one sinne and I lay a stumbling block before him There 's not a sinner of you but God hath laid stumbling blocks before you and without all peradventure you have stumbled over them and yet I believe you have not known at what you have so stumbled I le instance therefore in two things 1. Instance Gods Works 2 His. Word God in his Works Christ in his Word First Dark soules and bewildred sinners 1. In Gods providence stumble at all Gods providences and it know it not I tell you you stumble over your very Tables which your bread stands upon over your very Beds that your bodies lye upon over your very Houses that you dwell in c. and this I feare you have not known Isai 5.12 They he speakes of rich voluptuous ones consider not Gods works nor the operations of his hands and what 's the reason verse 13. They are without knowledge i. e. they are in the dark and what of this Why they stumble and fall and sadly too so as to rise up no more for verse 14. Therefore Hell hath enlarged her selfe and opened her mouth without measure and their glory and their multitude and he that rejoyceth shall descend into it Doe you think that joviall sinners think that Gods providences are such a stone of stumbling No they have no knowledge thereof There are some that fancie that Sunne Moon and Stars preach Christ I am farre from thinking that Creation or providence alone are enough to be a Jacobs Ladder to lead us up to Heaven but thus much I know that they
God will not but let them stay upon the Lord they may injure themselves and dishonour God in this one farther work of Darknesse as much as in all the rest that were before it 6ly A mixt darkness of all these Sixthly and lastly A mixture of all that have been named is a bewildring darknesse to many a soule some things they know not and there they are in the dark other things that they know they doe not consider and so they are in the dark and bewildred still that which they doe consider they will not be perswaded of or unto and so from such willfull unperswasion passe on to Presumption and from Presumption strait forward when time serves unto Despaire and surely all these blended together are enough to make a darknesse more darke then that of Aegypt Therefore when the Apostle tells you what Methods Satan hath to bewilder souls Eph. 6.11 He calls the Devills immediately verse 12. The Rulers of the darkness As a Commander would order such and such a Party for one place such an one for another a Forlorn-hope a Left-wing a Right-wing a Reserve c. So doth Satan Marshall and order various darknesses to undoe poore soules for he is the Ruler of them that if Ignorance can't doe it Inconsideratenesse may if that will not that willfull unperswasiblenesse may if God sometimes almost perswade as he did Agrippa that Presumption may still hold or if ever Presumption leaves them that cursed despaire may seize upon them for he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Ruler or Generall or Commander of Darkness CHAP. XIX Containes the second sort of bewildring darknesse viz In conversion whereof three kinds 1. Such as relate to our selves Foure particulars removed THe second sort of bewildring Darknesses 2d Sort of darkness In Conversion are such as attend the soule in or unto Conversion And these are a wildernesse of Gods own providing not a wildernesse of sinne but a wildernesse wherein to afflict the soule for sinne as it is said of that Wilderness wherein the Lord led Israel forty years that it was to humble and to prove them Deut. 8.2 And to do them good in their latter end ver 16. So when God intends to convert a soule he brings it usually if not alwaies first into a Wildernesse but the designe of God is to humble it and to prove it and at length to doe it good The first view that soules have of God is as if his waies were a Wildernesse a Land of darknesse and it is the pleasure of God it should be so Hos 2.14 I will allure her and bring her into the wildernesse that 's a dark dispensation indeed Oh! but then saith God I will speak comfortably to her I will first bewilder her to humble her and then at her latter end I will do her good Verily sirs if you will walke as we all naturally doe in the darke wildernesse of Soul-transgression though you be the deare Elect of God yet shall you walke in the darksome wildernesse in Soul-affliction and be as those Isai 50.10 Walking in darknesse and seeing no light at all As God tells Israel Ezek. 20.34 c. so will he deal with the soule that he brings home to himselfe I will bring you out of the people and ver 35. I will bring you into the wilderness of the people and there will I plead with you face to face and verse 37. I will cause you to passe under the Rod and bring you into the bond of the Covenant and verse 38. I will purge out the Rebels from among you These are the pure designes and aims of God in bringing soules into such a Darknesse into such a Wildernesse namely to gather them out of other Countries i. e. from the world and their vaine Conversation to cause them to passe under the Rod that is to humble them and to bring them as Israel in the Wildernesse into a new bond of Covenant and to purge out the Rebells c. that is by making sinne the hearts rebellion a bitterness to their soules to give Corruption a Deaths-wound in their soules As God of old by bringing Israel into the Wildernesse thereby first brought them out of Aegypt and then humbled them to purpose there and â—ade them enter into Covenant to be his people and there he wasted the rebellious ones that were amongst them so usefully however irksome it was for Israel to be brought into that Wilderness and verily so needfull is it if not much more in all these respects that God should first lead a soul into this darksome Wilderness before he lead them into Canaan or speak comfortably unto them Neither may a sinner take this ill at the hands of God for if he find a Convert perverting his way he will make him know that he wae againe in the Wilderness by bringing him back by an Hedge of thornes and by setting darkness in his paths and fencing up his waie that he cannot pass therefore wonder not at the Thornes Hos 2.6 7. or the Wilderness verse 14. Onely as you know how busie Satan was to lead them whilest they were in that Wildernesse into temptation so that it is called The day of temptation in the wilderness Heb. 3.8 So verily will he be sure exceedingly to endeavour to make this time of thy being led into the Wilderness of Gods owne providing an houre of temptation unto thee that so he may in sinne bewilder thee whilst God designes by such bewildring of thee to lead thee out of the wilderness of sinne I shall rank the bewildring-darkness of such a day Of these three kinds under this Threefold Head such as respect our selves such as respect God such as respect the way of Reconcliation betwixt us and God All which God at least disposeth for our good though in them Satan purposeth our ruine First In the time of Conversion 1. Kind such as relate unto our selves we are exceedingly subject to be bewildred with much darkness relating unto our selves as to have exceeding darke thoughts of our selves Of this kind are to passe darke sentences upon our selves to take up dark resolves concerning and against our selves and make darke resolutions with our selves First 1. Darke thoughts concerning and of our selves Soules in such a time have dark thoughts of themselves and in them they are bewildred before they were be wildred in sinne now they are bewildred in the sence of sinne so that they cannot find any way out no way but one and that is Death there they must die for it they must fall in this Wildernesse Memorable is that passage The sence of sinne Rom. 7.9 Sin revived and I dyed that is the sence of sinne then it followes verse 11. For sin taking occasion by the Commandement deceived me and by it slew me When the terrours of the Law joyne with the serious sense of sinne and these surround the soul this is the entangling killing wildernesse
hee was perfectly weary of any toyle that can be so soone fresh for the same toyle You are a little weary perhaps that use to ride to London weekly when you lye downe but as fresh you say in the morning as at first setting out Thus many an Hypocrite is a little weary of sinne for the present but saith as the drunkard Prov. 23.35 When I awake I will seeke it yet again and thus they return as the Dogge to his vomit or the Swine that is wash't to the wallowing in the mire You have heard who they are that are fit to lean on Jesus Christ the weak and the weary soules Of both these I have spoken severally CHAP. IV. Containes a farther joynt discovery of this weaknesse and wearinesse also improvement to the weakening of your Christless strength THat which I shall further doe A farther inquiry into the state of this weakness and wearinesse joyntly shall be to enquire joyntly concerning the true state of these qualifications and to endeavour to worke your hearts farther hereunto You have heard of weak and weary ones and what manner of ones they are for surely 't is not every weaknesse nor wearinesse that drives a soule to Jesus Christ Pharoah was weakened by some visitation wearied by others and there are many plagues that weaken and weary many but drive few to Jesus Christ Now then the Question yet worth our searching into will be What weakness and weariness that is which we have been speaking of and which we shall desire to work you to A three-fold Declaration of it 1. As to their kind they must be spiritual I answer They must be for the kind spiritual for extension universall for intensivenesse burthensome First That weakness and weariness must be spirituall Many there be sensible enough that their Estates are weak thyir bodyes weary c. but few that are disturbed with spirits-weaknesse or souls-wearinesse But these must be such 1. Spirit-weaknesse First This weakness must be soul-weakness Isai 35.4 Say unto them that are of a fearfull heart be strong Thy want must be heart-strength or spirit-strength for no man can soberly understand that of the carnal or corporal heart you know the scripture-Dialect When thine understanding wants strength to conceive thy will and affections to receive thy whole heart to practice the things of God as is further explained in the following verses thou art spiritually deafe and blind and lame c. that is the weakness there and here spoken of Question How that shall be known Answ By spirit-complainings But perhaps wilt thou say How shall I do to know then whether my weaknesses be spiritual or no I answer Let me but heare thy complaint and I will salve thy doubt Oh! I have a poor weak Husband saith one and weeps bitterly I have a poor weak Child saith another and wrings her hands I have a poor weake stomack that can take nothing saith a third My strength is even done I am at deaths door saith a fourth Oh! How weak is mine Estate now come to be saith a fifth Where was the Childs weaknesse 2 King 4.19 Oh! you may quickly know if you but hear him speake he cryes to his Father My head my head Now speake Conscience and tell me what thy complaint is and I 'le tell thee what thy weaknesse is Oh! there are amongst the many other mourners over weaknesse that I speake of some precious ones whose dayly groans are my soul my soul Woe is me how weak my prayers are how unfit and unable am I for any the least thing that is spiritual Thus David cryed and what wast he cryed for He cryed to be strengthened with strength in his soule Psal 138.3 In his soul mark that Sirs If you have but a weak Estate in the world and are yet more weak in spirituals I would have you narrowly to watch when as your hearts are most feelingly carryed out in prayer when you come to that Petition Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven or that Give us this day our dayly bread If to the former 't is a signe that thy weaknesse is truly a soule-weaknesse and such as will spur thee unto Jesus Christ Secondly 2ly Spirit-wearinesse This Wearinesse must also be a spirit-weariness Many are wearied with their sutes of Law that never come to be wearied with their sins against the Gospel but saith Sion My soul is wearied Jer. 4.31 It is soules wearinesse and not barely so but soul-wearinesse This also you may discerne by your Complainings What saist thou herein art thou weary of the world because of poverty or iniquity art thou weary of thy life because thou continuest shining or because thou continuest suffering Thou art sick but sinfull which tyres thee most which complain'st thou of most which is most wearying to thee to go without the Creature or without the Creator You know the complainings of that holy Asaph Psal 77.1 2 3. He could not get God to hear his prayer nor to cure his soul and therefore he complained and his spirit was overwhelmed Selah that is mark that it was spirit-complaining Secondly This weakness and weariness 2ly As to their extent they must be universal 1. Weaknesse must be for the extent of it whole and universall First The weaknesse must be universall weakness as they that have Isai 35. Neither eye to see nor ear to heare nor tongue to speak nor feet to walk verses 5.6 All this is summ'd up in the fourth verse where the heart is said to be weak for heart-weakness you know is whole-weakness so saith the Apostle I will glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me or that I may rest upon the power of Christ weaknesses not weaknesse Paul opposeth and so must thou Christs single power to all thy weaknesses I tell you if you fail of unniversall weakness when you come to Christ you shall be sure to fail of universall strength when you come away from Christ for where ever thou hast any strength of thine own the strength of Christ shall not advantage thee and as the Lord saith to Israel concerning Egypt Isai 30.3 So say I to you That strength of yours shall be your shame and your trust under the shadow thereof your confusion You shall heare some say I confess I have but a weak memory and I am not able to discourse as many of them are but I thank God I have as good an heart as any of them all Fie fie if you have any thing good all is naught So 2ly Vniversal wearinesse Secondly Thy wearinesse must be universall which necessarily followes from what I said in answer to the first Question whereof we must be weary and therefore if thy soul have any resting place on this side Christ thy wearinesse of one sinne or another of one support or another can no wayes amount to true wearinesse 3ly As to the intensivenesse it
that trust on Christs name Jo. 14.26 The Holy Ghost whom the Father shall send saith Christ in my name shall teach you all things and shall bring all things to your remembrance even whatsoever I have said unto you If young Preachers that know what beleeving meanes could but lean more upon Christ in this promise they need not lean so much as themselves complaine to their Notes Hath not Christ said that his Spirit shall bring to our remembrance what soever he hath said And what have we to say more If we have for ought I know our memory may be indeed most faithful to us wherein it may seem most to fail us whilst we forget against our wills what we should have omitted with our wills And how can it harme us or spoyle our Sermons if we be content to forego our fancies that we may act our faith The former may please and advance our selves the latter shall advance Christ and please the Lord. 3ly Leane upon Christ as the strength of your Wills I le grant to the Arminians that our wills are strong enough for Rebellion and too strong too even as an iron sinew but alas alas as to the strings of God even a Ephraim 〈◊〉 heartlesse Dove Wouldst thou now be strengthned there also Read Psal 110. Which is evidently spoken of Christ to whom it is affixed Heb. 1.13 ver 2. Send forth the Rod of thy strength out of Sion and then mark vers 3. Thy people shall be a willing people in the day of thy power If ever thy Will get any sanctified strength it is onely in the day of Christs power and by the sending forth his strength Fourthly Leane 4ly Of thine affections one Christ as the strength of your Affections Sirs God will never be contented with your affections unlesse he may have the strength of your affections Thou 〈◊〉 love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength Luk. 10.27 Now unlesse thou have Christ in thine Affections as their strength they will be too weake for God or the things of God Now if you could lean more you would love more and feare and desire and hope and joy and put forth every other affection in more strength You have the Spouse leaning upon Christ in my Text which is verse 5. And as soone as she leanâ— see how she strengthens affections you would wonder there should be such suddain virtue in leaning for veâ—â— 6. she breaks out Love is strong as death the Coals there as the Coals of fire with a most vehement flame many waters cannot quench it neither can the floods drown it if man would give all the substance of his house for love 〈◊〉 would utterly be contemned If Satan saith she should uâ— never so much meanes if the Serpent should cast his golden Apple before me it would not allure me if the Dragon should send all the floods of his mouth after me it would not affright me but that I should still zealously ardently vehemently and unto death affect the dearly beloved of my soule such was the strength of her affections and this she gat by leaning on Jesus Christ CHAP. VII Containes Answer 2d Lost soules are to leane on Christ for all their rest 2ly You must lean on Christ for all your Rest SEcondly Leane upon Jesus Christ for all your Rest Sirs There are times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord for repenting and converted souls Act. 3.19 but those are onely by the sending of Jesus Christ verse 20. Till God send Christ to thy soule never looke he should send refreshings to thy soule Observe that of the Apostle Heb. 4.3 We which have believed do enter into rest and then verse 8. If Jesus that is Iosuah had giâ—â—â— them rest c. From which it appeares that there 〈◊〉 true and spirituall rest but of Christs own giving Iosuah brought them to Canaan but it is onely Christ Jesus that could give them rest And againe that there is no way for poore bewildred soules for of such is the Apostles discouse there to come at this rest but by leaning that is by believing But more particularly leane on Christ as the resting place of your Understandings Consciences Affections whole soules when wearied with the wayes of the wildernesse of sin 1. As the rest of your understands Fiâ—st Leane upon Christ as the resting place of your Understandings he is the great Prophet of his people Secondly Consciences Leane upon him as the resting place of your weary Consciences He is the great high Priest of his people Thirdly Affections Leane upon Christ as the resting place of your tyred affections he is the Lord and Husband of his people Fourthly Leane on Christ as the resting place of your whole soules Soules he is the God and Saviour of his people For the first viz. Our Understandings I shall lay down these two Propositions First 1. Of your understandings Two Propositions 1. Proposition That there is no resting place for our understandings in the knowledge of any other thing That there is no rest for them in the knowledge of any other object but the Lord Jesus Christ I shall prove it by the most eminent instance that any age in the world could give of it and it is Solomon who gave his heart to know wisdome and to search out all things by understanding as himselfe saith Eccle. 1.13 He had moreover all Opportunities and helpes which other working heads have wanted I am come saith he to a great estate and great experience of wisdome and knowledge verse 16. And what shall the man do that commeth after the King 2.12 such a King so great so wise so studious This wisdome of his reacheth so farre as to excell all the Children of the East and people of Egypt the wisest quarters of the world yea he had knowledge of all the Trees and Plants from the Cedar of Lebanon to the Hysop of the wall yea also of all Beasts and Fowls and Fishes He had exceeding much understanding and largenesse of heart and wisdome as the sand on the Sea shore 1 King 4.29 30 33. And yet this Solomon saith of much study though undoubtedly as easie to him as to any man 'T is a wearinesse to the flesh Eccle. 12.12 And in much wisdome is much griefe and he that encreaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccle. 1.18 So that both wearinesse to the flesh and toyle to the spirit is the onely rest to be expected in the confining of our understandings unto any other speculation save onely the knowledge of Jesus Christ 2d Propos That there is sufficient and ultimate refreshing to our understandings in knowing Christ But secondly Jesus Christ and the knowledge of him is the resting place of a tyred understanding Psal 94.12 Blessed is the man whom thou correctest and teachest him out of thy Law Though God take the Rod into his hand to teach him his lesson by yet blessed is
he and wherein is he thus blessed that comes to learne in Christs Schoole why verse 13. That thou maist give him rest from the time of trouble this will make thee a goodmends for the soarest whipping if thou learn the lesson of Christianity to day thou shalt have rest to morrow Thus God expresly speaking concerning this knowledge Isai 28.9 10 11. saith of it verse 12. This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest and this is the refreshing And it must needs be that the knowledge of the Lord Christ must be a refreshing knowledge to the soule upon three accounts For 1. It is a spirituall First It is a spiritual therefore a refreshing knowledge to the Spirit 't is a knowledge of spirituall things and after a spirituall manner The understanding of things carnall or spirituall things in a carnal sort cannot indeed satisfactorily refresh the Spirit The soule that knowes Christ knowes him not after the flesh but spiritually and whosoever to knows him knowes the things that God hath prepared for them that love him and what are the things prepared but Mansions adequate and eternall rest which things being revealed by the Spirit and spiritually discerned by the soule are ravishing and refreshing to the soul your hearts bear testimony hereunto compare 1 Cor. 2.9 10 14. with Jo. 14.2 2ly It is an experimentall 2ly An experimentall and therefore a refreshing knowledge They that know Christ feele Christ and the feeling of him must needs be refreshing to them 1 Jo. 1.1 Our hands have handled the word of life this experimentall knowledge the Apostle communicates as being abundantly himselfe refreshed that their joy also might be full ver 4. Thirdly To know Christ 3ly A soule Centring knowledge must needs afford rest to our understandings because Christ is the very Center of all knowledge knowing him you need go no farther knowing him you may well sit down and rest and refresh your your selves for you know enough you know all 1 Cor. 2.2 I determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified so Phil. 3.10 That I might know him and the power of his Resurrection and fellowship of his sufferings If Paul as learned as he otherwise was could but reach unto this knowledge he doth not once entertaine a thought that his wearied understanding should travell any farther 2ly 2ly Of your wearied Consciences Come and leane your weary Consciences upon Jesus Christ Oh! how do some complaine of tyred Consciences and how falne would they sit down but know not where to rest themselves This was Davids sad out-cry Psal 38.3 There is no rest in my bones because of my sin Now what shall such a soule do in such a case I le tell you in Isaiahs words Thus saith the Lord God the holy one of Israel Isai 30.15 In returning and rest you shall be saved in quietnesse and confidence shall be your strength that is return to Christ and lean upon him and you shall have rest and strength from him unto the quieting of your wearied and distracted soules But how shall weary Consciences doe to refresh themselves by leaning on Jesus Christ Question How that shal be Answer I answer Bring all your Conscience fraught and laiden and unburthen it upon Jesus Christ Christ doth not bid weary and loaden Consciences to lay downe their burthens 1. Lay downe thy burthens upon Christ and then to come unto him but come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden which undoubtedly and peculiarly refers to Conscience-loadings and I will give you rest Mat. 11.28 That is bâ—ing your burthens to me and I le take them down 1. Vnlade the acknowledgements of your sins into Christs bosome First Let weary Consciences unlade all their acknowledgements and disgorgings of sinne into Christs own bosome immediately Thus David in the fore quoted Psalme 38.18 He resolves upon acknowledgement of his sin and this he empties into the Lords own bosome verse 9. 1. Your sinne-sorrowes Secondly As you bring your sin-acknowledgements so bring your sin-sorrowes to Christ let your faith put the Lord Christ to the same worke whereunto he is called by the Father to carry our griefes and sorrowes So Isai 53.4 Thus David Psal 38.6 When he was troubled and bowed down greatly going mourning all the day long he had immediate recourse to the Lord Christ 3ly Your wearying sighs and groanings Thirdly Let us also disburthen all wearying sighs and tyring groanes of our troubled minds into the bosome of Jesus Christ Thus David Psal 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Wouldst thou pray down the guilt or groan down the power of any Corruption that clogs thy poore Conscience even to the making of thee weary of thy very life then leane on Jesus Christ and thou shalt find rest Yea this I would Note unto you before I leave you that Christ doth not bid weary soules to go to the Father Note but to come to him with their heavy loadings believe it 't will be ill leaning of a tyred Conscience upon God the Father with Christ the Advocate If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father 1 Joh. 2.1 Come not to the Father first but to the Advocate and by the Advocate to the Father If a man have a Creditor to speak with he will speake with his Surety first and if he can but engage him he can with boldnesse look his Creditor in the face But woe woe to that Conscience that comes sinful and Christlesse unto the great and righteous holy and sin-abhorring Majestie of the Lord God 2ly 2ly Take up Cordials from Christ Let thy weary Conscience take from Christs hand his Cordials as well as lay downe thy burthen on his shoulders 'T is true I am the chiefe of sinners so let repentance speak in thy soule yea But this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation so let thy faith speak viz. That Christ came into the world to save such I shall oâ—e day fall by such a strong Corruption if Conscience-trouble say so let faith say nay but Christ came into world that he might destroy the works of the Devill c. And thus in any other case of Conscience the way to have an heart sprinkled from an evill Conscience is to draw near in the full assurance of faith unto Jesus Christ having him as an High Priest over the houshold of God Heb. 10.21 22. 3ly 3ly Your wearied affections Leane your tyred affections upon the Lord Christ and in him let them rest themselves As to know Christ is the only true stay to the understanding so to love him c. is the onely true stay to the affections Set your affections on things above where Christ sits Col. 3.1 As who should say else will they flutter about as the wandring dove without any rest at all but in Christ they
enough on the world and as they think comfortably on their duties and have no need of Jesus Christ If you you see a man go about to sell Crutches and come to one man and he answers I have leggs of mine own and to another and he saith you see I can goe without a Staffe and what need of a Crutch I will warrant you shall see that man makes but a poore living on 't So friends from hence from hence it is that Christ drives no greater trade in the world although he doth not set to sale new Crutches but new Legges new Strength yea better then you had in the beginning at such rate also as none can except against viz. without money and without price and I read not in the whole Gospel that ever he took a farthing for any cure yet oh the thinnesse the thinnesse of Christs Market amongst poore soules notwithstanding all this because there are so few that need him Give some upon the Lords Day or a Lecture Day but an Esans mess Bread and Pottage and they 'l neare complaine of the need of a Christ and this is the reason that the doores of your houses are so thick of poore and the Allies of this house so thinne And verily sirs It is an hard matter to come truly to need Christ fully to need Christ some see their need of Christ that doe not see it fully and even these come short of leaning upon Christ Oh! saith Satan saith the World saith their own desperately deceitfull heart what need you goe so farre there are shops nearer that will supply your need as well as Christs and so comes one man to drink away his need of Christ and another to pray away his need of Christ Another parts with his convictions of his need of Christ in an Alms that he gives to the poore I meane when either sinfull delights or religious duties become our suports instead of Christ The Wordling needs him not he hath Mammon to lean upon the Duty-monger needs him not for he hath hapn'd upon a righteousnesse before ever he came at Jesus Chist he prayes heares reads fasts and saith he Frustra fit per plura what need we to put Christs righteousnesse upon all this But memorable is that scripture Luk 9.11 He spake unto the people of the Kingdome of God and healed those that had need of healing O sirs the hearing of the voyce of Christ may be unto all people that need him or need him not but the healing vertue of Christ doth never goe forth unto any but the soules that need him Second Hinderance 2. Hindrance Fewer yet feel him Of those that come to need Christ many there are that cannot feel him know not how to come at him Soules there are that need a Saviour but have not yet any experimentall perception that Christ is that Saviour and therefore they come as the High Priest Mark 14.61 with an Art thou the Christ the Son the blessed or as John by his Disciples sent to Christ Luk. 7.19 with an Art thou he that should come or do we look for another But saith Sampson to the lad that led him Judg. 16.26 Let me feel the Pillars that I may leen upon them The reason why so few leane upon Christ it because so few feele Christ that is there are few thoroughly convinced and perswaded that with Christ is salvation and with none other You have already heard of the Disciple that leaned upon Christs bosome and how expresseth he his experiences of Christ 1 Jo. 1.1 saith he Our hands have handled the word of life Oh! when the soul comes to feel Christ in a promise as Sampson felt the Pillars then will the soule cordially leane upon Jesus Christ and not tell then Therefore it is no such wonder that there are so few that leane upon Christ because you know they are a few indeed that come up to such sweet and soul-satisfying experiences of Christ As for all men naturally they want an hand to feele Christ for a carnal hand cannot take hold of a spiritual object Sirs we are all born not Mephibosheths not Agrippa's onely that is lame of our feet but lame of our hands also so that whilest we are onely naturall we cannot take hold of eternal life 1 Cor. 2.14 The naturall man cannot receive the things of God because they are spiritually discerned He cannot receive spiritual things because he wants a spiritual hand for the force of the whole verse lyes clearly in that and that he wants a spiritual hand because he is no more then a naturall man If Christ would be touched with the feeling of our infirmities he must be connaturallized with us Compare Heb. 2.16 17. with Chap. 4.15 And if we would be able to feel spirituall things we must as 1 Cor. 2.12 Be spiritualized together with Christ as he partook of our natures to feel the things of our natures so must we partake of the divine nature to feel the things of Jesus Christ And as for many men their hands and hearts are judicially seared as their Consciences are cauterized so that if ever they had any thing like feeling by any common conviction of the Word or stirring of the spirit in them or rather striving of the spirit with them verily they are past it now and so no likelihood of their leaning upon the Lord Jesus 1 Tim. 4.2 Having their conscience seared with an hot iron and Ephe. 4.19 Who being past feeling Now these are the reasons why so few feel and this is the reason why so few lean So that the Lord hath sent me with this word in my mouth unto you that as it is written Act. 17.27 You should seek the Lord if happily you might feel after him though he be not far from every one of us If we may say so as the Apostle there upon the account of our naturall relation to God how may we much more say that God is not far but the Kingdome of God near unto every one of us upon the account of our Gospel-relations unto God therefore let us seek him for to them that have no might of their own he reneweth strength that they may wait upon him and they that waitingly seeke shall feelingly finde and when thou shalt thus come to feele Christ there will be most likelihood of thy comming out of the Wildernesse leaning upon thy beloved The CHAP. XIV Containes three Negative Hinderances few like Christs Port Person Discourse Carriages and why THird Negative Hinderance 3d. Hindrance Fewest of all do like him Of those that feele Christ some doe not like him I meane of those that come to have some kind of sence of Christ many there are that doe not like him It s Christ crucified not Christ glorified that goes a woing in the world that do not find in their hearts to marry him or to make him their soules Beloved You may perhaps thinke it strange if Christ doe goe a wooing
that all the world should not be won But the Prophet Isaiah before-hand tells us Isai 53.2 3. There is no form nor comlinesse in him when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him Againe That he is despised and rejected of men and that we hid as it were our faces from him As when he goes a woing whom some coy Gentlewoman undervalews she forsooth will not see him but chambers up and concealeth her selfe from him Thus Christ came to his owne and his owne received him not Jo. 1. So when Christ comes a woing to our carnall or naturall hearts and we see him out of the window as it were truly we hide our faces from him we do not desire to be married to him And the reason he supposeth all along that Chapter because it is Christ Crucified that goes a woing in the world I find that is in the day of his Espousals and not when he goes a woing that Jesus Christ puts on his Crown Cant. 3.11 It is Christ Crowned that marries but it is Christ Crucified that woes 1. Cor. 2.2 I determined to know nothing among you being an Apostle a Paranymph a Spokesman amongst you for Christ but Jesus Christ and him crucified Sirs If you can not find in your hearts to love a crucified Christ I dare not goe a wooing for Christ under any other Notion We preach Christ crucified 1 Cor. 1.23 and therefore to one a stumbling block to another foolishnesse and this being supposed that it is a Crucified Christ that goes a wooing in the world truly never was any suiter more universally undervalued by the proudest Dame then Jesus is by carnall hearts for they neither like his Port nor Person nor Discourse nor Carriage nor Estate 1. Few like Christs woing Port. 1. Caâ—nall hearts are prejudiced at the Port of Jesus Christ when he goes a woing in the world When a Noblâ—man comes a wooing to some great personage in the World notice is taken of the Port that he comes in what Chariots come with him what Geldings what Servants what Retayners If a man should come a wooing to a great Lady upon the back of an Ass or with a beggerly retinue were not this one thing enough to hinder all hopes of a match Now such is the pleasure of the Lord Jesus Christ that such shall his wooing Port such shall his Retayners be Instead of Coach or Sedan or led Horses or Chariots Christ rides a woing on the Foal of an Ass the foolishness of preaching see Zach. 9.9 Rejoyce O Daughter of Sion shout O daughter of Jerusalem behold thy King commeth unto thee lowly and riding upon an Asse and upon a Colt the Foal of an Asse And if you will have the mystery unfolded 't is this It pleaseth Christ whilest he passeth by the enticing words of mans wisdome and the pompous port of humane Oratory by the foolishnesse that is the plainnesse of preaching to wooe and to win soules unto himselfe 1 Cor. 1.12 and this is the preaching of Christ Crucified in a Crucified style to the Iews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishnesse vers 23. Hence it is that the wise the Scribes the Doctors the Disputers of this world dash and stumble upon Christ instead of leaning upon him because Christ is preached as Crucified and so evidently by plain preaching set forth as Crucified amongst us Gal. 3.1 Note I have observed but two dumb beasts whose mouthes were opend in the Scriptures One by Satan the other by the Lord Satan he makes use of the mouth of the Serpent the subtilest Gen. 3.1 God he makes use of the mouth of the Asse the simplest Numb 22.38 The Lord opened the mouth of Balaams Asse If you would chuse a Speaker you usually pitch upon the most eloquent but God often speaks by the Stammerer and out of the mouths of Babes and weaklings ordaineth his praise and by such spokesmen wooes home most souls many time to Jesus Christ Againe Instead of Pâ—inces and Rulers Christ brings his poor kindred and despised spokesmen with him and chief Captaines and Counsellors of the world for his Companions He chooseth to beare him company even in the view of the world and when he goes a woing not many wise not many Nobles 1 Cor. 1.26 But he hath chosen the poore of this world that they may be rich in faith and so beare him company though ragged in Cloathes Iam. 2.5 Fishermen Magdalens Lazars and these when they keep his sayings must be accounted his Mother and kinsfolk and Brethren Mark 3.35 Now even we our selves account her unworthy of a rich Husband who cannot find in her heart to acknowledge his poor kindred I have heard a Gentlewoman should say and I feare too many say so in their hearts that if it were not for Christs followers she could be content to follow Christ Ah! if it were not for Christs great Charge of Children and poore kindred many perhaps would looke towards him more then doe But if you be ashamed of them know that Christ will be ashamed of you I was naked saith Christ in my little ones and you cloathed me not hungry and you fed me not depart from me Mat. 25.41 42 43. 2ly Few like his person 2ly Carnal hearts are prejudiced at Christs person when he goes a wooing in the world Sirs I am sent to woe you to Christ but it is unto him crucified and consequently for His Rayment either he is naked they rent his Coat asunder and cast lots upon his Garments as Mat. 27.35 or clad with Garments dyed in the Wine-presse and red in his Apparel Isai 63.1 2 3. viz. Vestures dipt in his owne blood Rev. 19.1.3 which one would thinke were enough to frighten from Christ in stead of wooing to him And as for His Countenance 't is marred more then any mans and his form more then the Sons of men Isai 52.14 His Face instead of being washed with sweet waters as wooers wont to do is spit upon and instead of shaving is given to those that pulled off the hair Isai 50 6. As for His Head 't is Crown'd indeed but it is with rending Thorns Mat. 27.29 As for His Back 't is new-come as it were from the whipping-post and whealed with scornfull stripes of mercilesse men For he gave his back to the smiters Isai 50.6 As for His sides They are launced with Speares Jo. 19.34 And behold a mingled stream of water and blood As for His hands and feet they also are pierced as he himself recordeth Psal 22.16 Now friends can you find in your hearts as Joseph of Arimathea did Mat. 27.57 to make much of Christ in such a posture thus used thus abused if you cannot it is in vaine to perswade you to marry the Lord Jesus Christ therefore stand you by also 3ly 3ly Few like his woing discourse in general viz. Conviction Carnall hearts are as much prejudiced at Christs wooing discourse
and pricks them even to the heart as he did those Converts Act. 2.37 Strange woing you will say yet is this alwaies the manner of Christs woing more or lesse CHAP. XV. Few like Christs Estate and why Considerations opposed to the foresaid hinderances viz. How soules may come to the needing and feeling of Christ 5ly Few like his estate or the terms relating unto it such as these 1. He must have your portion out of your own hand at his dispose FIfthly Neither doth any carnal heart like the Estate business better then the former for such as these and onely such as these are Christs Termes as to matter of Estate First Saith Christ If you will marry me I must have all your portion ready down Go and sell all thou hast and come and follow me Mat. 19.21 You shall not have a penny saith Christ but I will have the command of it Leave your Onyons your Aegypt your Fleshpots if you expect I should joynture you in a Canaan And know that whosoever loves Houses and Lands in comparison of me is not worthy of me 2ly Saith Christ If you marry me 2ly You must take your joynture upon trust You must take my word for your security as to your joynture fom me You must live by faith not by sence The name of the Land I shall joynture you in is Promise-land I may perhaps if you please me give you some distant view of Canaan from the top of some Pisgah some Mount of transfiguration but as for the frame of your life it must bee by faith Hab. 2.3 For the vision or sight of it is yet for an appointed season but in the end it shall speak if you will but tarry for it Not I saith the Worlding let who will tarry for it or trust to it here are terms indeed part with all and all upon trust for my part I think it not safe venturing a portion upon this Christ if promise c. be the best assurance he can give Well then if thou be so minded stand thou also by But 3ly I have yet more saith Christ to indent 3ly You must goe into another Country for possession if you will marry me You must go beyond Sea into another Counry another World and then it is that I will make you Queen for Jo. 18.36 My Kingdom is not of this world My Lands lie on the other side of the stood My Canaan on the other side of Jordan And sirs this is most certain that if you will be the Lambs wife you must follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth Yea but saith a carnall heart I know not how to stay for an Estate till I come at Heaven therefore adiew to Christ I hope to marry one that will joynture me nearer home Yea but Lastly Here is more yet saith Christ 4ly You must die by the way If you will marry me You must follow me into my Native Country out of your own Land as Abraham of old and you must suffer shipwrack by the way and be cast away as to your flesh and blood for they cannot enter into the Kingdom of God which is my Fathers Country 1 Cor. 15.50 Of a truth you must dye before you can be possessed of my joynture and live as my Queen I will give you the title to it now but your own life shall keep you out of possession My Country is Canaan and the Red-sea of death you must past thorow before you can enter into my rest and these things I tell you that you may know upon what termes I take you and that you may not be offended in me Joh. 16.1 Now then as for those that when they see Christ neither like his Port his Person nor Discourse nor Carriage nor Estate what hopes are there left of wooing winning these soules unto Jesus Christ and herein have I desired to deale faithfully this day that I might if it be possible bring one sober and beat off wanton lovers and so leaners from Jesus Christ I have heard of some women that have been in good earnest engaged in affection to some whom some of their Acquaintance and Relations have solicitously disswaded them from that have silenced all with such an answer I will marry him though I never have good day with him And truly Christians it is somewhat sad if your love to the Lord Jesus doe not exceed the love of women Jobs language is somewhat like this Iob 13.15 Though he slay me yet will I trust in him though he kill me yet will I not be beaten from him Though he speak hardly to me yet will I speak humbly to him though he smite me I will love him and though he slay me yet will I lean upon him Which that you may the better be encouraged to give me leave to subjoyne as I promised unto these Negative Hinderances Considrations opposed unto those Hinderances 1. As to the first hinderance viz. Few need Christ 1. Help Labour to see your need of Christ some Considerations for Helps And 1. As to the first Hinderance viz. That few need Christ though Christ be that one thing when there is but one thing needfull as himselfe saith Luk. 10.42 yet doth the world see their need of every thing but of this one thing Every one needs Food and Rayment House-roome and Fiering Money and Friends c. but who needs Jesus Christ Now if this be the reason that few leane upon him because but few need him then those Considerations that may helpe us to become needing souls may helpe us to become leaning souls Question How then shall a lost soul come to need Christ for a leaning-stock Answ I answer Let poor soules come into a sick shaken sinking condition I le undertake for a soule in such a state that it shall verily stand in need to lean upon Jesus Christ First Labour thou that art a lost soul 1. by becomming a sick soule to become a sick soul that is the way to become a leaning soul Mat. 9.12 The whole need not the Physitian but the sick so the whole need not a Keeper but the sick There are many things the same man wants when he is sick that he needs not when he is well A man leanes upon his own skill as for his dyet and all other accommodations when he is well but he leanes upon his Physitian and his skill for direction for dyet c. when he is sick and the reason he leanes on him now and not before is because he needs him now and not before Sicknesse makes him need him and therefore lean upon him so there are many things that the same soule never needed that is saw no need of before that when it comes to be spiritually sick it comes to need in good earnest before it could trust to its owne wisdome and leane to its own understanding and order its affaires according to its own will but now it needs a Christ as Physitian as
not a suiter make the worst of it good enough for thee who art naked and in thy bloud and thy person to be loathed as well as thou art as to thy state an outcast and forlorn 2ly 2ly Christ is beautifull if not to thy sence yet to thy conscience As uncomely as Christs outward appearance is to thy outward sence yet how beautiful is the inside of him to thine inward Conscience As she saith of her selfe who is his Spouse I am black but comely or as the spirit of God of her The Kings daughter is all glorious within glorious and all glorious at least wise all glorious within so may we so must we yea so shalt thou say of Jesus Christ The Angells call him an holy thing yea the Devils saw him looke so like his Father that they acknowledged him to be the Son of God Yea doubtlesse whatever thy flesh and thy heart now say yet shall Christ be glorious in the Consciences of the worst of men yea of Devils unto all eternity He that comes riding upon the Colt of an Asse is just as well as having salvation therefore lovely both in Port and Person though despised by the world in both Zach. 9.9 3ly Even Christs crucified outside is glorious in the eyes of the God of glory 3ly Yea and the very outside of Jesus Christ contemned by the vain-glorious world is exceeding glorious even to admiration in the eyes of the God of glory that surely knows better what beauty glory comlinesse c. are then such a vaine worme as thou art see Isai 63.1 God speaks there unto Christ and of Christ Who is this that commeth from Edom with dyed Garments from Bosrah this that is glorious in his Apparel I that speake in righteousness mighty to save saith Christ by way of answer God asks the Question as if he wondered at the glory as if Christ were glorified quâ crucified as if his Cross were his Throne his Crown of Thorns were his crown of Glory and his blood-scarlet were his richest Robe Yea view Rev. 19. where you have Christ in Majestie upon his white horse verse 11. And on his head many Crowns and verse 12. He was cloathed in a vesture dipt in blood and his name was called the Word of God As if Christ Crowned and possessed of glory did borrow a Robe of Christ crucified to make up his glory 4ly If his visage be marred yet to be more loved by thee because it was marred for thee 4ly Objectest thou that the Visage of Christ is marred more then any mans Answer thy selfe and take away this prejudice by believing Sirs whom was it for that he was bruised battered buffeted smiten spit upon scorned scourged rent torn and wounded Was it not the chastisment of thy peace are not his wounds and stripes for thy healing and were they not for thine iniquities and not for his own Read Isai 53. And tell me if thou darest now despise his person and not as Joseph make much of his Crucified Corps I meane spiritually Darest thou stumble at that Cross whereon he hung for thee Wilt thou love him the worse for skars which he gat by standing between thee and the stroke of divine vengeance for venturing his owne life to secure thine My friends what shall we make of such a soule If this be not to returne hatred in the highest kind for love in the highest if this be not to kick against tenderest bowels to give a Scorpion for an Egge to returne a Stone for a Fish yea for his best worke to stone him let Conscience judge Greater love hath no man then that greater hatred can no man have then this 'T is as if this should render a suiter contemptible to some woman of yours because hee hazarded his life to save thine The Emperour could affectionately kisse the Martyrs deformity where he had in the foregoing persecution lost an Eye accounting his blinde side most beautiful because he had lost an eye for Christ Now Christ lost not eye or a tooth or a limb but his life for thee and being now come to life again he comes a wooing to thee Oh! wilt not thou wash with thy very teares those pierced feet wilt thou not kisse those pierced hands wilt thou not annoint those precious Temples of his head so torn with the thornes of thy wilderness or wilt thou make a scorn of him seeing thou wert in the same condemnation with him yea and it was for thy default not his when he already was derided despised rejected pierced for thee shall he againe be derided despised rejected and pierced by thee I hope better things of you my believing Brethren and fellow Christians CHAP. XVII A removall of remaining prejudices THirdly As to Christs wooing-discourse 3ly As to Christs wooing discourse in general He speaks Conviction instead of Complement in the generall and his particular Terms in his Discourse are altogether crosse to flesh and bloud I shall endeavour to remove these prejudices and to make you acknowledge the lovelinesse of this kinde of Christs Discourse and these termes in speciall And Christs Convictions First As to Christs Convictions these three Ingredients sufficiently sweeten that bitter Cup. They are Wise Affectionate and Consolatory 1. They are wise therefore lovely First The sharpest of Christs wooing-convictions are altogether lovely because altogether wâ—se Heare what the wise man saith of wise Convictions Prov. 25.12 As an Earing of Gold and an Ornament of fine Gold so is a wise reproofe Now if I can but prove what I hope you dare not deny viz. That Christs Convictions are wise Convictions what can be more sutable for a suiter to bestow on her that he intends to espouse then Earings of Gold and Ornaments of fine gold Well then may these passe for Christs dear love Tokens in his first wooing Wise reproofs are from riches of grace and are themselves a rich present too rich for any to despise in this Case that soule that you may call Coy God will call no lesse then Scerner Prov. 15.12 A scorner loveth not him that reproveth him If Christs Convictions be not lovely to thee it is not becaus they are poor Tokens but becaus thou art a proud person and a scorner And whatsoever heart dare scorne the riches of Christs wooing Convictions that heart would scorne even his Marriage-Consolations Yea God will account thee a fool as well as a scorner Prov. 9.8 Reprove a wise man and he will love thee He that is wise enough rightly to estimate these Convictions in his judgement will highly esteem them in his affections He that knowes them will undoubtedly love them I meane that knowes the valew of them The wise will say Let Christ reprove me and it shall be an excellent oyle that shall not break mine Head Psal 141.5 Now to convince you of the wisdome of Christs Convictions Consider the seasonablenesse and sutablenesse of them For 1.
Consider whom thou art to trust That you must take Christ Estate upon trust Consider 1. Whom you have trusted I have wondered sometimes at Bonds that have been drawne wherein the Husband hath stood engaged to his Wife as to money matters that she should trust him to be her Husband whom shee dares not trust to be her Steward or that she dare adventure her person into his hand into which she dare not venture her Estate Surely if Christ be faithfull and worthy to cammand thee wel may he command thine Estate and if thou darest trust him for thy soul well maist thou trust him for thy joynture 'T is Christs promise though but a Land of promise Christs I say that cannot lye Did you ever heare that he dealt faithlesly with any that you dare not trust him Oh the hellish the cursed nature of this unbeliefe thou darest not trust him that never proved untrusty Consult with Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 I know whom I have believed and that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that day Secondly 2ly Vpon what grounds Upon what grounds you are to trust him for your joynture The Fathers Oath The Sons hand-writing the Spirits seal First God hath sworn as well as promised 1. The Fathers Oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lye we might have strong consolation If thy spirit strive in unbeliefe let Gods oath end this strife for God willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an Oath Heb. 6.16 17 18. Secondly Christ hath written as well as spoken 2ly The Sons hand-writing and will himselfe by his own hand-writing which he never can nor will deny become thy Witnesse in this Matter Search the Scriptures saith Christ himselfe when you have to doe with the things of eternal life and they are they that testifie of me Jo. 5.39 I will give you but one Scripture instead of many urge it upon Christ and try if he can deny it to be his own words and hand-writing Joh. 17.20 21 22 23. Neither pray I for these alone but for all that shall believe through their word that they all may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one with us or in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me and the glory that thou hast given me have I given them c. Mark that deed of GIFT under Christs own hand that the world may know that thou hast loved them and verse 24. Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me that they may behold my glory c. 3ly The Spirits seale Thirdly The Spirit hath sealed what the Father hath sworn and the Son written in his own blood Eph. 1 13 14. In whom after that ye believed you were sealed with that holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance untill the redemption of the purchased possession shall come to the praise of his glory And now Christians upon such assurance doe but act your faith and as I have seene some London-Merchans that have purchased Lands in the Plantations beyond sea which they never saw but are taken up for them by their Factors Note they have Cards and Maps of them here so will thy faith in this Christ be the Evidence of thy things not seen and of the things that are hoped for as Heb. 11.1 And so the Joynture promised to thee shall come aforehand to be possessed by thee To the 3d. viz. You must goe into another world for it Consider 1. It lies more sutably there 1. Where thine Head is viz. Christ To the third viz. That this Canaan is beyond Jordan this Land of promise in another World I answer Thine Estate lyes where it 's most sutable and most sure for thee 1. 'T is more sutable for thee then if it lay in the world and on this side heaven for 1. It lyes where thine Head is Phil. 3.20 Our Conversation is in heaven from whence we also look for a Saviour which is Jesus Christ the Lord. Secondly It lyes where thine heart should be Mat. 6. 2ly Where thine heart should be 20 21. Lay up treasure in heaven c. for where your treasure is there will your hearts be also Secondly 'T is more sure for thee lying there 2ly It lâ—es more safely there then if it were scituate otherwhere There was never any thing that Saints enjoyed that was of this World or in common with the World but some Saints or other at some time or other have been plundered of it by the World yea so are all Saints at their going out of the world Were thy happinesse on this side Heaven thou must forgoe it when thou goest under ground But Mat. 6.20 Lay up for your selves treasure in heaven where Moths corrupt not not neither can Theeves break through and steal away The Theives of the world can steale thine the moth of death can corrupt thee but what Christ hath for thee in heaven 't is an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away reserved in the Heaven for you 1 Pet. 1.4 To the fourth viz. That you must die by the way To the fourth viz. That you must dye by the way 1. 'T is all mens necessity as you journey towards your joynture I answer 1. 'T is all Mens and Womens necessity once to dye whether marryed to Christ or to the Devill whether joyntured in Heauen or in Hell Heb. 9.27 It is appointed to men once to die Sirs some must die to be dammed therefore well may you be contented to die to be saved some must dye to be actually and fully possest of Hell therefore let it not grieve you to dye to be actually and fully possest of glory Secondly 2ly 'T is thine advantage 'T is all good Men and Womens advantage though necessity to dye before they are possessed of Heaven Christ will subdue your Enemies ye Christians and bruise Satan and the last Enemy shall be destroyed and that is Death And when that is done when there is none to take your joy from you then shall it be fully giuen to you Yea when all your Enemies and those that hated you shall be chained up from ever harming you any more then shall you in their sight be possessed of all reall and glorious enjoyments in the world to come Therefore to that soule to whom to live is Christ surely to die shall be advantage Phil. 1.21 A closing word And now for a closing word unto all that I have beene sent to speak to wooe you or as Paul saith 2 Cor. 11.2 To espouse you to one Husband that I might present you a chaste Virgin unto Christ To make you LOVERS that you may be LEANERS upon Christ which was my great businesse in this Discourse Let me tell you that as
seeke the Lord. What can be plainer let your Riches in peace or Forces in warre be never so augmented the more you leane unto any of them the lesse will you lean to Jesus Christ I shall give you a two-fold word of Conviction for this viz. That worldlings leane upon the World and therefore not on Christ Evidence 1. Because they rise and fall as the world riseth and falls with them First Because it appeares that worldlings rise and fall as the world riseth and falls therefore it is evident that the world is that they leane upon Psal 20.7 They lean on Chariots they are down and fallen but we remember thy name and rise up They that have nothing but Chariots c. but men and monies to trust unto as their men fall and monies faile c. so they fall and their Spirits faile also but they that leane upon the Lord are not so the remembrance of his name bearer them up when their enemies seeme to beare them down If the world rise with sinners then their hearts rise too Eze. 28.5 6. Thou hast by thy wisdome and traffique encreased thy riches and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches and thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God Oh! they take themselves now to be pettie-Gods as happy as happy may be and as high as high may be and all because that riseth which is under them Who sees not in this case but that they leane upon it Again though they said they were Gods they shall die like men and though their heart was set as the heart of God when the world went with them yet when the world goes against them as you call it truly then their heart groweth like Nabals dead within them 1 Sam. 25.37 c. If Worldlings did not leane upon the world they would never thus rise and sinke with the world as you daily see they doe 2ly 'T is hence evident 2d Evidence They can make better shift with the world without Christ as they account then with Christ without the world that most leane upon the world and not Christ because the most can make as they count a better shift with the world and without Christ then with Christ and without the world Many Worldlings are convinced that they have much need of Christ but they thinks also that they have more need of Mammon Now this is evident that which we can lest spare is our greatest leaning-stock the last things a Creeple forgoes shall be his Crutches the can ill spare many other things but he can worst of all spare them 'T is cleare in the Rich man Mat. 19.22 He went away sorrowfull for he had great possessions He was perswaded that Christ was to be leaned upon and that he had need of support and succour from Jesus Christ else why went he sorrowful away Oh! but for all that he could make better shift without Christ of the two then without the world for he had great possessions And now let the issue speake which of these two Christ or Mammon was that which he finally leaned unto The fourth and last positive Hinderance from leaning upon Christ is leaning upon selfe 4th Pos Hind Leaning upon selfe I am now to speake unto such as I find my master Jesus Christ speaking to before He spak saith the text unto certain that trusted in themselves Luk. 18.9 I shall reduce to four heads what I shall say hereon Leaning either to our own Wisdoms or Wills or Righteousnesses or Lives will hinder us from leaning upon the Lord Jesus 1. Self-wisdom 1. It must needs be that leaning to our own Understandings and to the carnal Counsells of our own unregenerate hearts must hinder us from leaning upon the Lord Christ This I shall evince both from clear Scripture-Testimony Scripture-testimony as also from clear Scripture-Reason Expresse is that passage Prov. 3.5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own Understanding If you trust in the Lord Christ with all your hearts you must not lean to your own Understandings if you lean to your own Understandings you cannot trust in the Lord with all your hearts So far as you lean to your own Counsell you will not lean unto the Lords and if you will incline to the dictates of Gods spirit you must disown the dictates of your own spirits Therefore saith Wisdom Pro. 22.17.19 Bow down thine Ear and hear the words of the wise not the voice of thine own heart and apply thine heart unto my knowledge not thine own knowledge that thy trust may be in the Lord I have made known this day to thee even to thee Our own understandings when most corrupted can make known unto us to lean to carnall Confidences and sensible supports but it is onely the wisdom of the Lord that can make known unto us to trust in the Lord. Scripture-reasons Secondly As for Scripture-reasons I shall assigne these two Our Understandings unsanctified are foolishnesse with God and Enmity against God Therefore leaning unto them must needs hinder us from leaning unto Christ 1. It is foolishnes with God 1. The Unregenerate mind is foolishnesse as to the apprehending of this Mystery of leaning upon the Lord Jesus Amongst the Highest improvers of the Vnrenewed Intellectuals we read of many enquiring after their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or felicity and upon inquiry one saith in one thing another in another the best of them say that virtue is the way to that felicity which yet they define not according to the Scripture-notion of it or as identical with divine graces but an Habit inherent in our selves the feeds whereof are from our selves also and the springing and fructifying and Maturity of the fruits from our own studious improvement of what is in us And who amongst the wisest of them ever pointed at a Jesus as did that Heaven-taught John Baptist Io. 1.9 Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World Nay how was it possible they should so do When Scripture saith expressly that the Lord hath hid the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven from the wise and prudent of the World as Mat. 11.25 and as expressly that this is one of the great Mysteries of Godlinesse that Christ should be believed on in the world 1 Tim. 3.16 that is that any soule should lean for salvation to the righteousnesse of another 1 Cor. 2.14 The naturall man receives not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him 1 Cor. 3.19 Even as the wisdom of this world is foolishnesse with God As the Lord knowes thy leaning to the Counsells of thine own heart to be very foolishnesse So dost thou naturally think leaning to the Lords Counsell concerning Christ to be very foolishness What 's that to mee saith thy reason how good another is what can I be the better Or how is it possible that the dying of one man
this case thou must either put the lie upon the Scripture or upon Sin I believe thou darest not doe the former and therefore why is it that thou wilt not do the latter Or 2ly At most 't is but a Spiders web Secondly If sinne have any being at all make the best of it it is but as a Spiders web A poore thing you 'l say for an House to lean upon when all it's support is in very deed by leaning on the House Take but downe the House and you need not take downe the Cobweb My Brethren if Scripture be true then the very best head that sinners can bring their work unto is but the spinning of a Spiders web a poore thing you 'l say and a very vanity for the soule which should be an house for God to dwell in to leane upon and yet read Isai 59.4 5. They trust in vanitie there 's my charge against sinners they speak lies conceiving mischiefe and bring forth iniquitie they spin Spiders webs there 's the proofe Would not he be accounted a foolish one that would not yeeld to the taking downe of a Cobweb for feare least his House should fall And what shall we account of foolish sinners that thinke that if their soules be but swept and their sinnes their Spiders webs but taken downe that then they shall fall also and that their Reformation would be their ruine Miserable madnesse why Sinne is not the House and thy Soule the Cobweb but thy Soule is the House and sinne the Spiders web Thy soule hath not it's dependence being and subsistence upon sinne but sin hath it's dependence by hanging upon thy soule It 's sad that so many cleanly and houswisely for the world that cannot indure Spider or Cobweb in their Houses should to freely suffer both in their hearts and thinke that they goe about to undoe them that would sweep them downe Oh! downe with Spider and Web and All down with Satan and Sinne too and instead of danger I 'le warrant thee decency and that thy soule shall become a Temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in But if thou wilt still conceipt that thou canst not be or subsist without thy sin when in very deed it is thy sinne that cannot be or subsist without thee know from the mouth of the Lord Job 8.14 That thy hope shall be cut off because thy trust is a Spiders web Secondly 2ly This will be the veriest vexation of Spirit 1. If this Reed bear not up the hand it will pierce the hand This will be the veriest vexation of spirit which will easily appeare in these severall particulars 1. Sin is not of an indifferent nature If it cannot profit thee to leane upon it it will be sure to prejudice thee This is that very Aegyptian Reed 2 King 18.21 That staffe of Aegypt whereon if a man lean it will not onely breake and so shrink from under his hand but it will go into his hand and pierce it thorough Oh! what is that which leaves the deepest markes behind it in wounded Consciences and distressed Spirits but this or the like I have sinned and trusted in my wickednesse and strengthned my self in my sin When a man flees the judgements of the Lord and leanes to his sinne untill the guilt and horror thereof meet him he is compared to a man fleeing from a Lyon and going into the House 2ly The harder you lean upon sin the heavier it will lie upon you and leaning his hand on the wall and a Serpent bites him Amos 5.19 2ly The harder you leane upon sin now the heavier will sin lie upon you another day What is observed of the Irish Nations Genius that while they are Underlings they are faire and flattering but ever plotting for the Mastery and the more they are trusted or leaned unto the more easily they attaine it but their little fingers are as others loynes when they have gotten the upper hand of those that by leaning to them were prevailed upon by them this may be verily said of sinne the more you adventure to leane upon it the harder it will be sure to lie upon you 1. In the Commanding power sinne will not long bee a servant when once you come to trust it Sinne promised to be your servant at the first but you must be it's slaves afterwards Though sinne will be daily offering its service such as it is to the Saints as I remember the Irish used to doe to the English before their massacre in the late Rebellion yet the way to keepe it from Mastery is to keepe from trusting it If once you be deceived so farre as to trust it for then I am said to be deceive when I lean'd or trusted to a man and found him not according to my trust reposed in him I say if once you be thus deceived by sinne sinne will be servant no longer but you shall be presently found serving divers lusts and pleasures Tit. 3.3 2ly In the condemning power of it Sirs The more you put stress upon sinne now the more weight of horror and guilt and condemnation sinne will be sure to lay upon you afterwards You will finde Scripture more expresse to this pupose then you willingly would have it I shall give you but one proofe and thinke that enough Isai 30.12.13 Thus saith the holy One of Israel because you trust in perversenesse and staie thereupon therefore this iniquitie shall be as a breach ready to fall swelling out in an high wall whose breaking comes suddainly at an instant Your sinne will not alwaies be your Underling but if you make it your wall and leane upon it and stay thereupon it will quickly get above your head and grow higher then you and the more you leane the sooner it will swell and the harder you leane the heavier it will fall upon your heads you shall not need to call to Mountaines to fall upon you this high wall of your own building and whereunto you trusted will be weight enough upon your Consciences and vexation enough unto your spirits 3ly Lean on sin and looke that God should leave you 3ly Lean on sin and God wil leave you he that trusts in sin hath a God on this side God he makes sinne his God and then as Hos 10.3 What should a King do unto us so what should God do unto him What will he doe why he tells you Hos 4.17 Ephraim is joyned unto Idols let him alone When men are joyned to sinne that is hold sin as hard as sinne holds them and stick unto sinne as close as sinne sticks unto them God will say and they had as good he should say any thing let such a soul alone Lastly Though God leave thee for the present 4ly The harder you press upon sin the harder will God presse upon you yet will he leane the harder upon thee another day the harder thou leanest upon sinne now What a dreadfull passage is that Job 27.20 22. Terrours
the World Not the great men of the world no not to the Ablest the Strongest the Greatest that is in the World Isa 31.1 Wo be to them That stay on horses and trust in Chariots because they are many and in Horsmen because they are very strong Psal 146.3 Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of man in whom there is no help It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in man Psa 118.8 That you 'l quickly grant Yea but it follwes ver 9. It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in Princes Secondly Lean not to the things of the Word Nor great things of the world No not to the greatest to the fullest to the certainest enjoyment of these things Trust not in Riches boast not of them lean not to them no not to the multitude of your Riches Psa 49.6 If riches encrease set not your hearts upon them Isa 62.10 That is lean not unto them for though wee ought not to set our loves upon them and that may be there forbidden yet I believe the speciall meaning is that we should not repose the trust of our hearts in them which I gather both from what goes before both in the eighth and ninth Verses Trust in him at all times why so why Men of high degree are a lie therefore if riches encrease set not your hearts upon them as also from what followes after ver 11. This God hath spoken twice have I heard it That power belongs onely to God Therefore set not your hearts on riches the Encrease whereof hath no power to support you And yet wherewithall shall I disswade you worldlings from leaning to the World Consider there is but little in all the World for your support should you lean upon it And that little strength that these Reeds have wil upon your leaning bee sure to break in pieces and then what were thy Crutches before shall then become thy firebrands Disswasives 1. There is but little in the things or men of the world to support for First There is but little in Worldly things to bee leaned unto which may easily appeare under these Considerations They are unsuitable uncertaine unsatisfactory unserviceable supports to thy poore soul 1. They are unsuitable supports First Unsuitable The actings of the soul which I here call leaning are the Outgoings of a spirituall substance therefore how improper an Object are Carnall things How unapt a leaning stock is a fleshly Arm for a spiritual hand God saith that he spake like a fool that said Soul take thine ease or rest O soul for I have laid up much goods Luk. 12.19 20. If he had said here 's a table to refresh my body here 's a bed to refresh my bones it had not been such height of folly But soul take thine ease this was the foolishnesse and perhaps is thine David was wiser then so Psa 141.8 O God the Lord in thee do I trust leave not my soul destitute Whatever of these things thou trustest to yea whomsoever of these Persons yet may thy soul be destitute for all them the Lord is onely my support let thy soul sing for Isa 49.6 7 8. They that trust in their Wealth and boast in the multitude of their Riches none of them can by any means redeem his Brother nor give to God a Ransome for him for the Redemption of the soul is pretious and ceaseth for ever Meat may support the outward man Money the outward Estate Physick may repair the strength of the Body but the soul is out of the reach of these things Secondly Uncertain Such are the things of the world 2. Uncertain therefore not to be lean'd unto 1 Tim. 6.17 Trust not in uncertain riches Such are the men of the World Psa 73.18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places Certainly they are in uncertain places slippery places their heads are a lost to day their heeles as high as their heads to morrow They are great men and thy great friends and thou leanest confidently on them great things and perhaps they intend thee so but between the writing of the Will and the subscription between the draught of the Commission and setting of the Seal hee is snatch away and thou remainest as thou wast Psa 136.3 4. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the Son of man in whom is no help How comes that Why his breath goeth forth he returneth to his Earth in that very day his thoughts perish But as for the beloved lean on him for as he was so he abides and so shall he abide for ever So Psa 18.2 The Lord is my Rock in whom I will trust the Lord is my high Tower A strong guard you will say both in Front and Rear a Rock before an high Tower behind and his confidence comes marching in the middle Among all things made by the Art of man nothing is more durable certain stable then a Tower of Defence Among all things visible made by the hand of God himselfe nothing more abiding stedfast and unmoveable then a Rock God is as both therefore wil David lean upon him here 's an unmoveable support a sit leaning-stock for an immortall soul Thirdly Unsatisfactory 3. Unsatisfactory They that labour for Carnall or for wicked things lay out their labour for that which satisfieth not Isa 55.2 and therefore they that lean upon them shall never have any satisfying support from them Which of you are more satisfied with your thousands then you were when you were worth but hundreds who of you saith I have enough to sit down upon and to rest fully contented with A Saint may say to another as Jacob Gen. 33.11 I have enough my Brother yea I have all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for I have the beloved who filleth all in al. Eph. 1.23 but who besides the Saint can say so Those of you that have much goods wax unwearied in getting more and they that have great Estates in getting greater and they that have good friends as to worldly account in procuring better yea they tire themselves on their beds of rest whereon they lean and this their way is their folly and yet their posterity approves their sayings 4. Unserviceable Fourthly And lastly Unserviceable When is it that we say such a thing would do us a great deale of service but when we have most need of it And if so Then are the men and the things of the World unserviceable supports to the poor soul As for worldly men Isa 49.7 None of them can by any means redeem his Brother c. And as for worldly things when we have most need have they least help for Riches profit not in the day of wrath but Righteousnesse delivers from death Pro. 11.4 In daies of health peace and prosperity when thou art able to help thy self friends thou hast many that are willing to help thee then Riches will proffer
their service to thee But when you shall be under the greatest want of help Then comes that cutting Question to bee stated against thee Luk. 12.20 then whose shall those things be That is if they were thine before they shall not now be thine when thou most needest some support But lean unto the Lord who is a present help in the time of trouble yea a very present help therefore let him be thy present refuge and thy very strength as Psa 46.1 Remember thine owne Experiences and trust in him yea what thy Fathers have said unto thee Psa 22.4 5. Our Fathers trusted in thee they trusted 2. Leaning on them will break their shoulders and so they will lose the little strength they would otherwise have and thou didst deliver them They cryed unto thee and were delivered they trusted in thee and were not confounded Secondly That proportion of strength that the Lord hath given unto any Creature to serve thee thou takest the most certain and ready course to despoyle it off if thou designest that it should support thee The Lord intended that these should in their degree bee thy comforts but never that they should be thy Confidences Ier. 48.7 Because thou trustedst in thy works and Treasures thou shalt be taken and the shall go into Captivity You may use them and still hold them but if you trust in them you sink them Of all things nothing is more serviceable to man then Bread and Water yet if you make bread the staffe of your life and doe not make God the staffe of your Bread the Lord threatens as Isa 3.1 That he will take away the stay and the staffe the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water He doth not say hee will take away the bread and water but the stay of them which he may do though he leave them with you You may eat as Pharoahs lean kine the fat and yet be never the more nourished untill you come to know that Man lives not by bread alone but by the word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Mat. 4.4 Note Sirs of all things that I know in the World I know none so heavy and weighty as sin and faith Sin is such a weight that would sink the whole Creation to hell and ruine did not God as well as Man undertake to bear the burthen of it Faith is such a weight that if it be not objected upon the Creator it can not but sink the most Potent Creature What is it that hath sunk so many Popular men and Eminent instruments in the Common-wealth but that they have beene the Common confidence Lean upon Parliaments Armies or Navies though the best accomplished and most hopefull in the World and you presently break their shoulders There 's not a readier way in the World to sinke the Minister in his abilities gifts or successe yea to sink his life also into the grave then to lean upon him Set thine heart upon thy wife thy friend thy child if thou wouldst fain love them to death and kill them with kindnesse If thou hast a desire to break thine Estate to pieces then set thine heart upon thy Riches This I have found and search thou it and know it for thy good That I have never been so near the grant or continuance of any of these enjoments as when the Lord hath brought mine heart to a kind I say not of listlesse carelesse but of yielding indifferency Lean thou not upon any of these things which are but Reeds lest the harder thou hold the sooner they break and the heavier thy fall be I have seen an heavy lad slide lightly over an Ice when a lesse weight hath broken it by pressing hard upon it Worldly places as you heard are slippery or Icy places and therefore take the Apostles Counsell 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Let those that have wives be as if they had none and those that buy as if they possessed not and they that use the world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away 3. If you make them your Crutches God will make these Crurches your fire-brands Thirdly If you make them your Crutches God will make these Crutches your fire-brands Isa 30.3 The strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame and the trust in the shaddow of Aegypt your Confusion Because you have had and have trusted for it is not the bare having that shall be thus punished unto your own good things here therefore shall you be tormented Luk. 16.25 and your Gold and Silver shall eat your flesh as fire Ja. 5.3 And that which you have called strong and made your strength shall be as tow and you the makers of it as a spark and you shall both burn together and none shall quench you Isa 1.31 Conclusion I have been the longer speaking to this last particular because I find not onely that this is the great sin of our times but even of Gods own people They dare not make Covenants plainly with hell yet dare they confederate with Earth and they that dare not lean to sinfull supports yet are they not so shie of carnall Confidences Even gracious Josiah leans to Garchemish though hee die for it 2 Chron. 35. and good Asah relies on the King of Syria 2 Chron. 16.7 rather then on the Lord and in his his disease seeks and trusts unto Physitians rather then the Lord. ver 12. But yet so far forth as the soul is Married unto the Lord 'T is a widdow to the world and so farre as it is a Widdow indeed it will be desolate that is as in a Wildernesse in it selfe and therefore trusting in the Lord 1 Tim. 5.5 CHAP. XXV Containes the improvement of the whole by way of Exhortation and Direction how to improve Christ as the onely Guide ANd thus have I done with the Obstructions Privative and Positive having endeavoured to hinder them from hindring leaning upon Christ There remaines but one Question the Resolution whereof let it serve as the Application of the whole The fifth and last Question is 5th Quest What advantage is to be had for lost sinners by leaning on Jesus Christ What advantage a lost or bewildred sinner may attaine as to its spirituall Estate by leaning on this beloved Even as much as heart can wish The soule that takes hold on Christ takes hold on the Way the soule that leanes upon Christ leanes upon the Guide that goes to God and leanes to Canaan and therefore that soule shall never perish in the Wildernesse Now therefore for APPLICATION Application Is it so that sin is a Wildernesse that a sinfull Estate is a bewildred Estate that it is the soules great businesse and onely needful concernment to come up from this Wildernesse and that there is no comming up but by leaning upon the Lord Jesus Oh! Exhortation If Christ be a guide to leane upon him If Christ be a way to walke in him then
which are without Christ but by-paths that even then God Law and Conscience will arrest thee sooner or later Ps 50.16 What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or to take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest to be reformed to be set right in the way and castest my word my Christ behind thy back But as for you that walk in this way viz. Christ if Satan interrupt you in your duties in your walking in your believing go and complain to God the King and hee will right you for this is the King of glory his high-way And the way faring man though a fool is not shut out of it Isa 35.8 Thirdly Christ is a broad way 3. Christ is a broad way What makes men so mad of going to Hell but that it is a Broad way As sure as can be whatever you fancy friends you mistake your selves and Satan guls you For Christ is the onely truly broad way You 'l say our Saviour calls sin a broad way 〈◊〉 a broad way Mat. 7.13 Note but I would have you know that Christ onely speaks your mind in it not his own the way that you count broad hee calls broad there 's elbow-room for all sin and nature with ease moves in it therefore ha calls it the broad way and there calls his own way narrow not because it is so as you shall see but because your base carnall hearts think it so It streigtheneth you in your lusts and therefore you call it narrow yet speaking of the same thing in other language he saith his Yoak is easie Easie in it self though hard to flesh and blood My meaning is this there is all spirituall and true enlargement in the waies of Christ what ever perfection you desire it 's streight it 's narrow poor and scanty untill you come to the waies of Christ Psa 119.96 I have seen an end of all perfection but thy Commandement is exceeding broad Go thou as fast as thou canst and as far as thou canst in the waies of Christ the more way thou goest the more lies before thee the more enlargement thou meets with the more thou yet discoverest therefore then onely can we run in this way when God hath enlarged our heart Psa 119.32 Surely there 's need of a broad way for the heart which is wider then the world to stand in but now for a heart enlarged to run what breadth and latitude must be there And verily to bring up a good report of this way out of the Wildernesse unto Canaan let me challenge all the world what streightnings can you with truth object unto the waies of Jesus Doth Christ forbid you to eat when you are hungry or to drink when you are thirsty to rest when you are weary or to marry when you have not continence or to rejoyce in the wife of your youth or to feast upon occasion or to provide for our family or to labour for the things that are honest or to rejoyce in all your labour under the Sun Or what is' t that Christ streightneth you in that you should ' count yours the broad way Truly sirs there 's nothing more streightning then of the Child which the mother will 〈◊〉 â—hrust its finger inno the flame Christ would not have you hurt your selves What reason is here to complain of streightning let carnall ones think or speak what they please of the waies of Christ oh then farewel our liberty yet wil the waies of Wisdom be justified of her Children and those that are sons will bear witnesse to the glorious liberty of the sons of God Rom. 8.21 indeed Christs waies are like the Temple windowes narrow without but within that 's when your soules are once in them exceeding broad if you find them not alwaies so 't is want of largnesse in your hearts but not in them 4. Christ is a pleasant way Fourthly Christ is a pleasant way pleasant waies doe much delight and suite with nost mens phansies And pray what is it endears men to the waies of dark Aegypt but onely the pleasures of sin which are but for a season Now friends the waies of Christ are pleasant all and pleasant ever Solomon therefore preaching Christ under the name of Wisdom tells you Pro. 3.17 Her waies take them all are waies of pleasantnes in the abstract there is a Fountain it seems of pleasures in them which is the very nature of them and which can never bee drawn dry You know Summer waies are pleasant waies now Christs are all Summer waies Cant. 2.11 Rise up my love and come away ver 12. the Winter is past the rain is over and gone storms of wrath spirits of bondage terrors of the Lord are over and gone the Flowers appeare on the Earth here 's delight for the eye thy soule gathers sweetnesse from the word the promises the time of the singing of birds is come here 's delight for the eare and the voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land the Holy Ghost the Turtle speaks peace to thy soul and thou hast communion with the Saints ver 13. The figtree puts forth her green figgs the Vines with their tender grapes give a good smell The ground thou goest on makes thee also to bud and blossome pleasantly wherefore saith Christ Arise my love my fair one and come away ver 14. And who would not delight to walk by the beds of spices since the Rose of Sharon Cant. 2.1 is the way to Sion and the lillie of the Vallies to the Lords holy mountain Fifthly Christ is a clean way 5. Christ is a clean way hadst thou the pleasures of ten thousands Saints yet if thou find thine heart polluted and be indeed a Christian and canst not get rid of thy corruptions these pleasures will but little cheare thee Oh! saist thou wherewithall shall a poor sould cleanse his way Oh! who will lead me into clean paths why Jesus Christ is a clean way and the onely way to walk cleane is to walk in him and with him They shall walk with me in white Rev. 3.4 I confesse we must wait for the perfecting of this in glorification but this is wrought true in sanctification You are washed you are sanctified This is the accomplishment of that promise to the Wildernesse Isa 35.8 This high way shall be called a way of holinesse and the unclean shall not passe over it Cease not to improve that promise till grace bee swallowed up of glory 6. Christs is a well-provision'd way Sixthly Christ is a well-accommodated and provision'd way Say you I do not like such a way for when a man 's hungry there 's no good entertainment to be found when weary no good lodging to be had no good accommodations no good way And truly this I do believe is the great scruple of many a soul Oh! I would willingly go to Heaven but it is a great way thither and I fear if I should set foot in the way
though thou hast been an Underling in Aegypt an Inhabitant of the Wildernesse who hast wrought among the Bricks and lyen among the Pots and gone among the Thornes and trod upon Serpents Art thou in Christ thou and now going homeward to the heavenly Canaan the Rest of Gods people to the Jerusalem that is ABOVE and is TREE Above Aegypt its Brick-kiln and Fleshpots Earth and all its allurements and all their embitterments Above Pharoah and his Hosts Satan and his Instruments above he Wilderness windings and woundings of sinne And therefore thou shalt be FREE from feares from falls from sinne from sorrowes from the Death of the Body and from the Body of Death and from all the evill that is in the World and from the world of Evill that is in the heart The Gulfe shall be fixed and thou shalt be free'd and though these would passe over to thee they shall not be able The Aegyptians that followed thee thou shalt see them no more for ever They followed thee but shall never finde thee There 's a Jordan betwixt thee and them which though it were dryed up before thee yet shall not be so for them to passe after thee Thine old Aegypt is on the other side of the Sea and thine old Wildernesse on the other side of the Flood The Waters shall returne and thine Enemies be cut off Where the Serpent found thee thou shalt leave Him even in the Wildernesse and where thou leavest the Serpent thou shalt leave the poyson and the sting even Satan and Sinne and Death together The first is a Murtherer the next is a Lyer the last is a Dogge that will grumble and snarle at thee but cannot hurt thee and without are Murtherers and Lyers and Dogs but within are true Israelites Feare not poore Convert that are crucified with Christ though a Prisoner among men and condemned of the World where thy legges are broken thy supports taken away the way that thou art in is life as well as Way and the sooner men breake thy legges the more hast shalt thou make to suppe with Christ in Paradice Yea thou art a stranger and strangely dealt with as in a strange Land Art thou but in Christ thou art going homeward to thine owne Country and to the house of thy friends to the Spirits of thy dear deceased Relations that are now made perfect There is Eunice thy Mother and Lois thy Grandmother if thou be a Timothy Yea Jesus himselfe will doe the Right of a Kinsman unto and will owne thee in the Gates of Heaven and before the Elders of thy people Then shalt thou that wast afraid to glean after the Reapers possesse the whole joyes of the Harvest and thou that wast afraid to uncover his feet shalt lye then in his bosome and thou shalt be ever with the Lord. And now who is there among you that are in Christ as the way to this Rest and have Christ in you as the hope of his Glory can hear of this home without desire to be dissolved and to depart if the Lord would let you to this rest in peace And yet this is but a little of that that may be spoken and all that may be spoken is but a little of that that shall be made good unto you when you come at home This is but a short Pisgaprospect of the promised Land which your owne life keepes you out of possession of These are but a few of the clusters of Canaan that are brought you for a taste by a poore Spye lest any of you should have evill thoughts of the good Land and so take up on this side Jordan but who shall reveale unto you what is the fruite of the Vine in your Fathers Kingdom This is but your Provision sent you to support you by the Way but who can Divine without Josephs Cup what a Land is that Goshen whence these Provisions come This is but the Raine that filles your Pooles in the Vale of Baca but who can tell you how it shall bee with you when you appeare before the Lord in Sion This is but Mount Tabor 't is Mount Sion that is your dwelling place and there is the City of the living God there are the innumerable companies of Angells the Church of the first born and Jesus the Mediator And if to thinke of these things seriously while wee are at home in the Body make this home an Heaven sure it will be good for us to be where this Heaven shall be our home This is the Inheritance of the Saints in light the Inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away but is reserved in the Heavens for them This is their Habitation made but not with hands and purchased but not with money This is their Rest prepared by Christs travailes their life purchased by his Death the joy of the Lord dearely paid for by that Man of sorrowes their Glory bought by his shame their true Riches gained through his povertie the Kingdome wonne for them by his subjection the blessing obtained through his being made as a Curse for them Oh! thanks be to God for his unspeakable GIFT This is the HOME whereunto Christ is the WAY In and By whom whilest the Ransomed of the Lord come up from the Wildernesse they shall obtaine joy and gladnesse and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Wherefore you see deare Brethren partakers of the heavenly Calling that there is a promise left us of entering into his Rest .. Let us therefore feare lest any of us should seeme to come short Heb. 4.1 The Lord hath this day shewne you the good way and hath said unto you Walke in it and you shall finde Rest to your soules Jer. 5.16 But now if any of you shall answer as they in the next verse We will not walk therein Know of a surety that every soule that goes Christlesse goes both Guidelesse and waylesse and therefore shall never find this Heavenly habitation I cannot say but Christlesse sinners have got as many Guidles as there are SATYRS and as many waies as there are windings in the Wildernesse and they also make hast to their own home for Judas who hanged himself is said to go 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his own place Act. 1.25 But alas as is the difference of the Waies so of the Homes the waies differ as Darknesse and light and the Homes as Hell and Heaven He that is in Christ goes home to be comforted but the Christlesse to be tormented he to his good things but thou O wretch from thy good things Hee dies to live thou diest to die He descends as to his body that he may ascend thou ascendest as to thy spirit which returns to God that gave it to give sentence on it that thou maist descend and go down into Hell for ever He may complain Abroad the sword bereaveth but thou shalt lament At home there is as death he cannot say so As death I say but worse thou death Where thou shalt
And all his Attendants should be flaming fire If he give but a word among the Angels great verily shall be the number and company of those that publish it Psal 68.11 So that you see it is choice and not constraint the free pleasure of the Lord to make use of such as wee are as Embassadors for Christ 2ly 'T is of abundant condescension Secondly It is out of an abundance of Condescentsion to all our infirmities and frailties to mean mens weak Capacities and to all our strong unbelief 1. To the infirmity of all our Natures First 'T is riches of Condescension to the weaknesse of all our Natures that Christ comes a wooing in so meane a Port and by such despised Messengers Friends God could have sent an Angell from Heaven this day in my poore roome to have wooed you for Christ and I dare say Glad would the chiefe among the Angels have been of such an employment and now behold a poor handfull of despicable dust in your Pulpit a vile sinner a man of unclean lips and dwelling among a people of unclean lips and he must espouse you to one Husband hee must wooe you for Jesus Christ Yea but if an Angell had come to preach where would you have sat to heare Alas alas if God had come to preach Gospel to you from Mount Sion to day as he once did preach Law to Israel from Mount Sinai when there were thunders and lightnings and Clouds upon the Mount and the exceeding loud voice as Exod. 19.16 Oh! we should have the stoutest heart of you comming before next Sermon as they in the next Chapter Ezod 20.18 19. And all the people when they saw the lightning and thunders and Mountaine smoaking c. they saw it and removed and stood afar off and said to Moses speak thou to us and we will heare but let not God speak lest we dye 2ly 'T is rich Condescension to the plainest amongst us 2. Particularly to the mean plain ones amongst us May some say If Christ would not wooe by Angels or Thunders yet might he employ great Doctors and Schollars of the world to preach to us in elegant stile and accurate expressions and then we think we should be won Ah! but still it is not enticing words of mans wisdome but foolishness that is plainness which they count foolishnesse of preaching that Christ ordinarily both commissions and crowns with successe in this wooing worke and doubtlesse in riches of condescension to the poore I have often thought that the most learned may understand the plainest Preacher but the plain Hearer cannot understand the high-flown Preacher Men may and some doe preach English and yet to the ignorant and poore which yet Christ hath ordained to receive the Gospel as it were in an unknown language and how shall they receive what they are not able to conceive Oh! that some Doctors in our Israel would often aske their Consciences that Question 1 Cor. 14.16 What shall the person that occupieth the place of the unlearned or plain man do I am not worthy to advise this yet this will I pray for because I have had some comfort in plaine preaching from those that sit at the footstoole or stand in the Alley and this I know that God would not have the least of these little Ones to perish Therefore comes Christ a wooing not only by plain men but also by plain language 3ly 3ly To the weaknesse of our faith 'T is riches of Condescension to the weaknesse of our faith If a Great man should come to some poor widdow of you in Gold or Crimson or Scarlet c. Could you believe he intended to marry you in good earnest we finde it worke hard enough to perswade convicted sinners that Christ thus mean as his Port is will indeed marry such as they are and I cannot think but that if his Pomp his wooing pomp were greater by so much would their unbeliefe be greater What such a Prince marry me sure he never said so or if he hath so said I cannot imagine that ever he will so do But now if a mighty Prince should come a wooing disguised as I may say with reverence to Christ in as meane habit and Port as thine own thou wilt not be so afraid or ashamed to keep his Company or so unwilling to believe his reality This Moses foresaw and forespake of concerning Christ Deut. 18.15 The Lord will raise thee up a Prophet of thy Brethren out of the midst of thee like unto me unto him shall you hearken Oh! it gives great advantage to our otherwise unperswasible hearts that Christ comes a wooing to us as one of our Brethren and as like us in all things sinne excepted Upon this account we can entertaine some little beliefe that when Christ wooes us hee doth not mock us Heb. 12. We are not come to mount Sinai but mount Sion c. vers 18. And in the close of the Catalogue of your company there to Jesus the Mediator and the bloud of sprinkling that speaks better things then the bloud of Abel 't is crucified Christ unto whom wooe you let this speake encouragement to you that Christ will have you And methinks you might believe that that Christ that hath chosen such a wretch as I know my self to be for his spokesman to thee will not disdain to chuse thee though a wretch in owne eyes for a spouse to himselfe 3ly 'T is with a rich compensetion 3ly Though he come a wooing in poore Port as to the eye of sence yet with a rich compensation as to the eye of faith Therefore rejoyce O daughter of Sion for though thy King is meek and lovely riding upon an Asse yet he comes having salvation Zach. 9.9 You call such preaching foolishness but it pleaseth God thereby to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 Christ comes in meane Port but with a rich Present behold whatever his Port be his reward is with him and 't is no lesse then Salvation When Satan comes a wooing 't is in the Hackney-Coach of this world laden with lies and gilded with deceit Now then if you will despise this day the poore spokesman of the Lord Christ yet neglect not Christ though his pomp be small lest you neglect so great a salvation 2ly As to this wooing person 2ly As to Christs wooing person Against that also carnall hearts are prejudiced To remove which Consider these four things 1. As despicable as Christs person is to the carnal 1. If it be to be despised yet not by us whose persons are to be lothed and unregenerate eye yet what can be objected by the carnall and unregenerat heart Though there be any thing of uncomlinesse to be objected unto him yet unworthily by thee Is he naked and in his blood Canst thou say that there is no form in him or comlinesse desirable Read Ezek. 16. And tell me when thou hast laid it to heart if he be
smites thee that hath been so often smitten by thee Art thou pierced by Christ he was pierced by thee first therefore hast thou little reason to complaine that he hath pierced thee Zach. 12.10 They shall look on me whom they have pierced Doth his Word or Spirit wound thee how often have thy vain and vile words and impenitent and unbelieving spirit wounded him Doth his wooong Carriage now prick thee to thine heart how often have thy wandering Carriages struck Jesus Christ to the heart It s fit that thou shouldest feele what it is to be smitten since thou hast so often tryed what it is to smite And well maist thou take it quietly to be under wounds of spirit many hours yea many weeks that hast in thy sinful Conversation been wounding Christ it may bee twenty forty or threescore years 3ly It s he smites thee 3ly He that is smitten with thee that in the mean while is smitten with thee and therefore surely will not smite to hurt thee There 's no great feare that that Father will wrong his Childe that as we say smites himself while hee strikes his Child Surely in all thine Afflictions most of all spirituall which are greatest is Christ afflicted Isai 63.9 If either Satan Sinne or the Law persecuteth thee Christ will say Why persecute you me I have born suffered done and dyed for that soule therefore I will not see that soule perish but though I smite it with mine own rod yet will I not suffer you to ruine it Surely as Paul saith 2 Cor. 11.29 Who is weak and I am not weak who is in the scorching furnace of an afflicted Conscience and I burn not so will Christ say 2ly Consider Why is it that Christ smites thee 2. Consider Why he smites looke backward or forward and there is little reason to murmur on either hand 1. Look backward upon what thou wert 1. Look backward upon what thou hast been and doe not complain and art thou smitten wonder that thou art not struck down to Hell never thinke strange that thou art sore bruised as in the place of Dragons but rather that thou art not damned and so turned down into the place of Devils Lam. 3.30 He gives his Cheeke to him that smiteth him saith Jeremy of the afflicted Spirit and wherefore saith he verse 39. Doth a living man complaine a man for the punishment of his sin Art thou a sinning soul and yet a living soul oh though thou be a bruised soul thou hast small reason to complaine 2ly Look forward upon what thou art to be 2ly Look forward upon what thou art to be and complain no more and doe not count it hard that Christ hath smitten thee Friend Christ intends thee though thy heart have beene crooked and knotty hitherto for a piece of Timber in his living house for a living stone though thy heart hath been a dead and rough stone 1 Pet. 2.5 Ye are built up as lively stones a spiritual house I hope this will satisfyingly answer what is said Hos 6.5 I have hewed them by the Prophets If you will be part in Christs building you must be content with Christs hewing Againe We are called to be Vessels of mercy and these must be prepared unto glory Rom. 9.23 And whoever prepared Vessels of gold but by the Furnace let this answer Isai 1.25 I wiil turn mine hand upon thee Oh! that think you is a scaring word but why will God do it I will purely purge away your drosse and take away all your Tinne Againe You are called to be the Lords Iewels and these Jewels must be made up Mal. 3.17 The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He will finish his Iewels And what Jeweller is there though never so sparing but will have some instrument in his hand to cut away the part or parts that are redundant and so to fit the Jewel before he finish and make it up in the ring of Gold This answers that gracious promise though to a carnall heart a bloody threatning Deut. 30.6 The Lord will circumcise thine heart to love him with all thy soul c. That is the Lord will pare it round he will take away the fleshly and carnall and redundant parts of it this will cost sharpe work to thy fleshly heart Thus will Christ deale with thee to make thee to love him when he wooes thee to love him onely be not thou as Zipporah crying out to Christ as she to Moses Exod. 4.16 A bloody Husband art thou unto me because of the Circumcision So that all the expressions that import thy future glory doe abundantly engage thee to receive with meekness 3ly Consider What these smitings shall conclude in Thine Enemies ruine and thanksgiving thy present sufferings and buffetings 3ly Consider what these smitings shall conclude in and be satisfied viz. In the ruine of thine Enemies and in the healing of thee First When God casts soules as those three Shadrach Meshach and Abednego into the furnace and the Son of God comes to take acquaintance with them and to beare them company in that Furnace as Dan. 3.25 What shall that fire doe more then burn their Enemies as verse 22. Verily upon them shall it have no power nor shall the hair of their head be singed verse 27. Thy Corruptions thy sins thy drosse thy dirt shall consume and be burnt up but it shall not be able to hurt thy soule But 2ly As for thy soule if that be bruised 2ly Thy souls healing it shall bee annointed by that balm that is in Gilead and the Physitian that is there Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque feret Christ doth use to wound us as Enemies doe and then to let us lie and perish for want of looking too neare feare so great unkindnesse from so kind a suiter no no but if sense say as Hos 6.1 The Lord hath torn and he hath smitten let thy faith say also as theirs there and he will heale and he will bind us up after two dayes that is some short season he will revive us and the third day at farthest he will cause us to live verse 2. Hearken my friends what Hezekiah can say after all his chatterings like a Crane and shatterings to pieces both which you have together Isai 38.13 14 verse 16. O Lord by these things men live and in all these things Marke all these things as if he could not be without Note or misse one blow of them and doe well is the life of my spirit so wilt thou recover me and make me to live so wilt thou as if God had as it were limited himselfe to that way of working unto the reviving of a dead heart So then either Christ must marry thee whilest a Carkasse and lay thee a dead piece of flesh in his bosome or thou must be contented to be smitten but and if thou be smitten he will verily revive thee and cause
thee to live so that upon the matter the worst that you can object unto these wooing blowes is this that Jesus Christ will quicken you to marry you Compare two Scriptures Return O backslyding Children and I will heal you Hos 14.1.4 Return O backslyding Children for I am married to you Jer. 3.14 So then to desire that Christ should marry you before he smite you is to desire that Christ should marry you before he revive you and without controversie great is the mystery of godlinesse Blowes from others strike you dead but blows from Christ strike you alive If Christ in his wooing work give strange strokes he will make such strange worke of it before he have done that all that were incensed at him shall be ashamed as Isai 45.24 CHAP. XIX A yet farther removall of remaining prejudices 5ly As to Christs estate THe fifth and last prejudice against Christ is as to matter of Estate in foure Particulars viz. That he must have your portion out of hand That you must take his word for your joynture That you must go into another Country To the first term viz. You must trust him with your portion first 1. Consider 't is but what thou hadst from him at first and die by the way before you can be possessed of it I come now to remove this prejudice To the first of these particulars I have four things to say for thy satisfaction First Though Christ require your portion ready downe to be put into his hand and to be at his disposall yet is it herein the more reasonable in that you had it all from him and from his Father at the first It is not an ordinary match when Christ the only Son of the only Creator goes a wooing to poor Creatures 'T is as if when the Father hath got an Estate under the Stewardship of some Noble Lord or Prince and that Princes Heire should come a wooing to his Stewards Daughter If hee require all her portion at his dispose 't is but what came from his Father see Hos 2.9 I will take away my Corn and my Wine and recover my Wool and my Flax given to cover thy nakednesse Mark that Given to cover thy nakedness yet my wool c. still So Money is given to fill thy Cofer yet is it the Lords still Meat is given to cover thy Table yet is it the Lords still So that if Christ will have thy Wine or Corne or Wool to dispose of to a poore Member of his now and then 't is no more then his own even what thou hadst received of him first 2ly If Christ take any thing from thee that is called tine it is not with intention that thou shouldst want it 2ly He intends not that thou shouldest want it whilest he useth it or be a loser by it Christ will not aske thy Coat that thy nakednesse may be seen nor thy Meat from thee to starve thee But if thou lend unto the Lord Christ that which thou lendest shall he pay thee again as he did the Widdows meal and oyl in her Cruse You have the Spouse inviting Christ unto her Garden Cant. 4.16 Awake O North wind and come thou South and blow upon my Garden that the spices thereof may flow forth Let my Beloved come into his Garden eat his pleasant fruits And you have him requiting her love and returning her kindness with advantage Cant. 5.1 I am come into my Garden my Sister my Spouse I have gathered my Myrrhe with my spice my Hony Comb with mine hony my Milk with my Wine Eat O friends and drink abundantly O beloved This she had even this rich entertainment and abundant welcome because she had beene so free to Jesus Christ So Rev. 3.20 I will sup with him saith God and what of that and he shall sup with me Sirs Let me tell you whatever the wisdome of this world Note which is foolishnesse with God shall say against it you cannot trust your Estate in any certaine hands except you put it into Christ hand whatever confidence you can have of their repaying you yet can you have no certainty The uncertainty of what they have and what they are forbids you to be certaine of it but trust Christ with it and read Psal 37.3 Trust in the Lord any do good and verily thou shalt be fed Lend to others and conclude it may be I shall be repaid againe Lend to Christ and write downe verily though Christ can finde but few Creditors yet blessed are they for they have trusted the very Paymaster 3ly He takes it to give thee better for it 3ly If Christ take from thee any thing of thine 't is to give thee a better in the room of it 'T is as if an Husband should say Wife Prethee give the poor woman at the door thy old and plain Garment and I le give thee a new a lasting a richer Garment in the roome of it Friends what can we part with for Christ but these momentany vaine things that perish in the usage and what we shall receive from Christ are durable riches and substance Mat. 19.21 Go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor Yea but would flesh and blood say that is the way to want my selfe Nay saith Christ thou shalt have treasure what kind of Treasure heavenly treasure 4ly To husband it for thee not to spend it for thee 4ly and lastly Christ asks it not of thee to spend it from thee but to husband it for thee The men of the world as wise as they are have not wisdome enough to husband their unrighteous Mammon that little time which they doe enjoy it therefore beg of Christ to husband thine Estate for thee Your Usury brings you but five or six or the like in the hundred there is an Usury that you know not of that would gaine you an hundred and more in five Sirs if you be of Peters minde and must needs know before hand what you shall get by parting with all for Christ and to Christ read that passage Mat. 19.27 Peter said unto Christ we have forsaken all and have followed thee what shall we have therefore Christ answers v. 29. They that have forsaken Houses or Lands c. for my sake shall receve an hundred fold and shall inherit life eternall An hundred fold in this time as the other Evangelists and after that eternal life It followes verse 30. But many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first Many that are the wisest and richest and best husbands and the first in the accompt of the world shall appeare the most foolish and improvident and beggarly and poore in that day when Saints shall know what they have trusted Christ for and hide-bound worldlings shall see to what little purpose they have heaped up treasure together against the last days To the second viz. To the 2d viz. You must take his estate upon trust 1.