make him become bloudy God is love fury is not in him naturally but love he delights not in the death of any God is nothing but life and so is his motion naturally and therefore called a fountain of life nothing runnes from him naturally but life if death runne out of the fountain of life 't is because of poyson cast in by you Generation in bloud one mercy to die to bring forth another is such a generation as was not known in the beginning God never appointed things thus to generate but life to bring forth life and such a happy creature to bring forth such a happy creature all happinesse to live each speak out fully the vastnesse of the fountain and the similitude of the stream to it The sinne of the first Adam cost the bloud of the second and all the bloud that ever since hath been shed to keep any good alive in the world Murmuring souls you are blind justice steres the ship when it sails in bloud with jewels to you you would never open your mouths at all the bloud that is shed in the land no nor at all the bloud that ever hath been shed in the world if your eyes were but open to see this first thing God makes his way most sure to such an end let the means proposed to it be what they will through bloud and death or hell I will surely do thee good saith God to Abraham and yet they must into hardship so much and so long and yet still the end sure and this hart-bleeding condition the onely sure way to it and no other way would have been sure to such an end Certainty of an end with us depends upon the standing or falling of such a thing but the certainty of Gods end which he proposeth doth not stand upon the standing or falling of this or that but upon the resolution of his will I will certainly do thee good One may die another may die and yet whilest the will of God remains resolute to such an end the end will live and the dying of such prime persons is onward to it and without which it could not be Heaven and earth shall passe away but not one tittle of Gods will shall fall to the ground The certainty of Gods intention you see depends upon his will heaven and earth may die which are greater bodies then man and yet Gods intention live because his will lives I must say again that murmuring spirits are blind they can see nothing certain in these uncertain times they think that all that God intends must bleed and die because all that men intend bleed and die and the very men too Blind creatures the certainty of what God intends doth not depend upon any of these when all is in bloud and dead God is alive and on in his way to his end the unspeakable good of many God alwayes makes his way most honourable to such an end let difficulties in the way be what they will though God may cast much hardship upon us yet he casteth no disgrace upon himself nor upon his way His way is honourable and glorious saith the Psalmist all his wayes are so when he goes in bloud for he speaks of the execution of justice there when he goes in the death of one thing to the life of another he goes in in state and glory God is alwayes tender of his name when he seems not tender of any person his sonne his onely sonne scoffed crowned hanged used in all the cruellest and basest manner that men and devils could devise and yet this sonne so used by men was so managed by God and all his hardship that the name of God was made wonderfull honourable in all Noble persons stand not upon losse but upon their honour they value not life they will step every step in bloud rather then prosecute their designes basely An honourable spirit is naturall to God he bringeth nothing about basely he eyes not the bloud of men nor the bloud of his sonne nor the bravest bloud that ever ran in bloud vessels but what he eyes is the accomplishment of his will honourably Murmuring spirits you are blind and you are base so you may but have your own ends the fafety of your lives and states you care not how God brings this about whether honourably or dishonourably Unruly hearts are unfit to order weightie matters such spirits must be guided by better then their own what is done with dishonour to God saves a little bloud and forfeits a great deal God will manage his way with honour though he drown and burn worlds and turn all the creation into bloud Our spirits should move like Gods that his will may be done by me to his honour What is my bloud What is God break my back with standing upon it and squeez out my bloud so that it may but colour his garments scarlet and honourable Finally God makes his way most beneficiall when most bloudy and difficult Who can expresse the benefit that redounds to the Church by the bloud of Christ the like I may say of the bloud of Christians the benefit which redounds to God and to man is not to be expressed The like I may say of the bloud that is now shed in England Truth by fiery trialls is made famous Christ is clothed with scarlet and crowned with glory here a mans life is his glory and this given to Christ in flames is double glory put upon Christ a mans bloud veins are the lowdest trumpets on earth to sound out any thing What a noise hath Christs bloud made all the world over And so the bloud of Martyrs is it dried up yet What virtues and graces smell so sweet and look so glorious as those that are died rose-colour with bloud with the bloud of that earthen breast in which they grow Bloud hath a very crying voice it cries up guilt to heaven and so it cries up grace in heaven and earth it makes Christ terrible holinesse immortall truth eternall what is written in bloud never goes out and all that reade wonder I have but one thing more to say and that is for as much as great things come in a way of hardship to fallen man that you would all prepare for hardship London dost thou not see England dost thou not feel that thy mercies come in bloud that thy redemption is likely if ever to be through much bloud but through much more then yet is shed who can say Men die dayly bloudy clouds go up and down and fall upon this citie and that and shalt thou London escape the storm Londoners Londoners are you prepared to welcome in your mercies in bloud You have had a Thames of water bringing in wealth to you for a great while are you prepared to have a Thames made of your bloud to bring in brave wealth to you for another while God hath stirred up some brave spirits amongst you I would all were such and yet I see many
Toads Snakes 2. Common Serpents and Men are all in one room in earth good men bad men yea and devils all in one room together in earth this room is so common that the devil is not shut out of it he hath a doore out of hell into earth and leave to walk from one end of the earth to the other when he will And the Lord said to Sathan whence comest thou and he said from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it The earth is the devils heaven he hath his walk allowed him here Earth is such a common place that you cannot walk alone in it if you would give never so much go never so privately yet if in earth you will have men or devils with you and just in your walk Many together is troublesome especially when of contrary spirits the devill and man never do well together in one walk Community lessens priviledge here 't is a hell to be where all variety and all contrariety dwell together and yet so 't is here scarce two of one spirit throughout the earth and yet these must live together in one room agree together as they will fight or scratch or kill one another all is one there is no remedy in seventy eighty ninety no possibly not in a hundred years Heaven hath some community in it there dwelleth East-country West-country North-country South-country men but then they are all one spirit no walk above in which there is hearing seeing tasting or smelling any contrary thing though there be many millions more above then are here as having been the receptacle of all travellers from hence for this many thousand years besides the natives of the place and yet not two spirits amongst all these innumerable numbers that disagree or will in the space of eternity But here one cannot walk any where but one contradicting and afflicting thing or other meets a man here I see a Toad there I feel a Serpent here I heare a Lion there I smell a Fox and yet all these claim a dwelling just where I do in earth This is the second thing earth speaketh a common room 3. Dark 'T is a dark room In earth we see earth but nothing else we cannot see Heaven in earth no not any mansion there how stately 't is we cannot see Heaven nor any heavenly thing in earth Angels are invisible Christ is invisible Christ cannot be seen now in earth though the Sonne of the bravest world The Father is invisible the Sonne invisible yea the Spirit by which these two work here in earth as the wind which bloweth in your eyes yet you cannot see it invisible We are here a great wide Common full of moles and mole-hills all heaving and heaping up earth but blind and do not see what we do Bring forth the blind that have eyes and the deaf which have eares saith God Earthen creatures look one another in the face as if they had eyes and yet are all blind some sitting in darknesse others walking in darknesse not knowing whither they go The best persons here are as Samson when his hair was gone and taken by the Philistines of some good stirrings and desires but weak and blind not able to find a pillar but as led to find a pillar but as led to it Man is but of yesterday and knoweth nothing because his dayes upon earth are but a shadow saith Job Earth is a great room full of fools which know nothing and set alone by themselves to wrangle and talk non-sence to no bodies disquiet but their own This is a third thing earth speaketh a dark room 'T is a filthy room the earth is corrupt full of snails 4. Filthy that with creeping up and down leave their slime and pollute all One creature polluteth another and man polluteth all the earth he treadeth on Bloud defileth the land saith God Sinne rendereth not onely the person but the very place where that person liveth detestable The earth is curst from Heaven all over which speaketh out the strength of divine detestation 't is a great brave body with face blasted breasts seared bowels torn guts and filth hanging out poysoning and putrifying the inhabitants which first poysoned and putrified it All runneth into this we dwell in a very base place A low common dark filthy room in earth and so indeed is the originall Hebrew word Adamah for earth used Vse How do you like your dwelling Men are carried by corruption against truth and pitch affection upon that which is base O how damnably do many love their dwelling in earth When the body dwelleth in earth and the soul too Ah Lord that is damnable dwelling in earth indeed Though God hath placed your bodies in earth yet he looketh that you should place your souls in Heaven but shew me a man that thus doth God made your bodies earthy but you make your souls earthy your selves and you will answer for it I wonder what you find in earth that you should make your souls dwell here Do you not find it a low common dark unclean room And yet must your souls dwell here because your bodies do then you will perish as beasts worse I might go along this way and do well but I must turn another way and tell you that you have a base dwelling here and therefore expect things answerable Christians have no art to quiet their souls when things go hard you may gather patience from the very place you dwell in you live in a base place and what can you expect but base usage When your dwelling is removed from earth to Heaven things will be better presently as well as you would wish You dwell in earth and in earth dwelleth all sorts and every one will act according to his property and how can it be helpt here Some are back-biters and they will kill your name some are sycophants and they will kisse you and hug you to death like Judas some are hypocrites wolves in sheeps cloathing and they will not onely kill your bodies but your souls too The earth yields variety of deadly vermine and you cannot tread upon all some will tread upon you some will crawl about you and sting you do what you can Distresse should make mortification but not vexation so it did with David it tooke him off from all in earth but one whom have I in earth but thee Distresse should not disturb but subdue the heart and yet 't is hard to keep the spirit quiet when basely used tell it what one will Fallen creatures are full of passion and strong passion can bear nothing and yet must bear it self which is the heaviest burden of all All things in earth do like themselves and therefore turn aside my soul from them whom have I in earth in comparison of thee O Christ There is one good in earth and that 's all I know get acquaintance with him yea that would find comfort in your dwelling here
grace that goeth forth in height goes forth very exact Of his fulnesse we receive and grace for grace Fulnesse works exactly to make the recipient fully like it self grace for grace The best wine is kept till last Full dispensations are best the best wine these are kept till last and they are kept by Christ thou hast kept the best wine till last Grace goeth forth free but not without order no soul hath fulnesse presently though Christ be fulnesse alwayes Vessels of mercy are narrow mouthed weak hearts I speak to you to keep you quiet O ye of little faith You have but little faith and yet complain that ye have not great mercy fulnesse comes in by opening the mouth wide that dead soul that can spread himself upon the living neeses seven times perfect life comes in by spreading our souls upon him that is perfect Every thing in Christ is mine when faith saith this in the heart then every thing indeed actually becomes mine The eye of Christ becomes mine to see the hand of Christ becomes mine to work and the feet of Christ becomes mine to walk Our right lies as concealed till faith acts there is much in the fathers house but the soul starves till it remember it self and own its father I will return unto my father and then I know I shall have bread enough what he hath I shall have strong acting of faith makes Christs fulnesse yours Fulnesse would fill your vessells but your hands jogge and that runnes besides which should runne in There is never a time you come to these waters but here is powring out enough to fill you all but every ones hand jogges almost so that much precious water is spilt and every one returns empty Jacob is ready to draw water to water all to fill the bellies of all the cattle but Rachel will do it her self she is shie and modest and will not take help Christ is willing to draw out his fulnesse and to fill every heart but we are shie and modest and will be doing all our selves and not trouble Christ we will be drawing out of this thing and out of that duty to fill our souls and not out of Christ Let my beloved come into his garden and do his work himself for I can do no more Blow O north-wind Blow O south and make my spices flow out for I beat and blow and nothing will come out but sinne and shame this brings in fulnesse fulnesse comes out of nothing I am nothing preaching nothing hearing nothing but Christ all and this makes him all unto the soul the clearer in self deniall the fuller in the fruition of Christ You rest in your works and stagger at the promise through unbelief and how is it possible that fulnesse should fill you You are full of self and you cannot be full of Christ the promises are pipes from the fountain which are laid of purpose to fill you and you stagger at them I would every bleeding heart did know what wounds him and who is his greatest enemy he thinks 't is Christ and alas t is not thou hast not a dearer friend in the world then Christ is nor one that pities thee more thou art the greatest enemy to thy self and thine own unbelief keeps thee low this is the secret leak in the vessell which thou hast not yet found out thou hadst been full else long ere this Christ is full and art not thou full Search thy soul certainly there is some leak unbelief is long ere it be seen but when it is no monster like it 't is more uggly then Sathan then that cage of unclean birds below as that without which Sathan nor sinne could do any hurt A stubborn child that had blasphemed was to be brought forth and those that heard him to blaspheme were to lay their hands on his head and he was to be stoned Unbelief is the frowardnesse of the heart which makes you to blaspheme God and his gracious word bring forth this froward child and lay your hands upon the head of it and cast stones at it at the throne of grace say Lord this is that child that hath blasphemed thee that hath dishonoured thee more then any evil stone it to death from heaven this suit you must pursue and follow which would be filled with the spirit Finally fulnesse speaks such dispensations as make and settle peace in the soul and Christ is King of peace he is King of Salem he hath the command of peace he can still the raging sea with a word of his mouth so he can a raging conscience and he must be looked upon and acknowledged according to such a transcendent abilitie and then he gives out as he hath in him fulnesse to supply the necessity of the soul Lord I know that thou canst do whatever thou wilt Now Christ works richly Christ will have his prerogative acknowledged grace is his own to dispose as he will all his wealth is his own he can advance a soul at his pleasure if there be no word which the soul ever yet heard that hath spoken peace Christ can create words and make them so drop from his lips as to make peace Devils are at the command of Christ and Angels are at the command of Christ yea the holy Ghost is at the command of Christ he can breath and blow with this wind where he lists Christ is met half way as it were when the soul can thus look toward him when Prerogative is fully acknowledged Coloss 1.18 He is the head of the body HEad speaks fulnesse and that which bears upon this to wit Office of the one we have spoken of the other we are now to speak Divine ordination fills vp one vessell and then makes channell out of that for others Office is a conveyance of gifts for a publick good something to draw out one to the use of many Christ doth bear Office to the creature which is more humilitie then can be exprest he is head The word speaks rule Christ hath government upon his shoulders the government of the choisest body which God hath in the the world He is the head of the Church Every corporation hath priviledge but none more then the Church Jerusalem is free yet not lawlesse she hath a head Universall bodies are great the invisible catholick Church takes up heaven and earth and yet not masterlesse all under rule and Christ is the head of this great body Christs rule is universall God ruleth in Jacob to the ends of the earth saith the Psalmist Yea to the ends of heaven There is a throne in the Church militant and Christ sits upon that there is a throne in the Church triumphant and Christ sits upon that We have such an high priest who is let down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens Hebr. 8.1 There is majesty below and above and Christ sits as head upon them all every knee bows to him The rule of
the least superiority that can be discerned Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth As Christ doth otherwise receive so he doth otherwise impart light then any other teacher Christ was taught none like him and he teaches none like him Christ teacheth internally eternally instantly Our teaching is discursive we can do nothing within Christs words are of authority and make their impression upon the heart not a word that Christ speaks but goes to the heart though many words which we speak come not to the heart yet every word that Christ speaks goes to the hearts Did not our hearts burn within us whilest he talked with us Christ sets the soul on fire with his breath blows up internall powers and breaks open everlasting doors The prince of darknesse fortifieth within us and Christ can mount ordnances where the forts are shoot off terribly within and destroy the works of the devil that is sinne or the soul at every shot Christ doth with his cannon within as you do with yours without rend and tear wofully You take off bodies in the very midst so doth Christs cannon take off sinnes and souls in the very midst as Beza renders that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Apostle useth I will destroy the wisdome of the wise 1. Cor. 1.19 tollam è medio I will cut it off in the midst Sinne is in the midst of the soul and Christ can mount such gunnes as to cut it off in the midst As Christs ministery is internall which none of the Prophets was so it is eternall Christs words are words are words of eternall life or eternall death and this simply as his words We speak words and they stick but a moment Christ speaks words and they stick for ever We make wounds and you lick them whole in an alehouse Christ makes wounds that no art can heal Thy arrows stick fast in me saith the Psalmist The arrows which Christ shoot they stick fast none can pull them out but that hand that shot them Christ can instruct and seal it That is make things so impressive as beyond obliteration O God thou hast taught me from my youth and hitherto I have declared thy wondrous works Psal 71.17 so Psal 119.102 I have not departed from thy judgements for thou hast taught me Christ can teach beyond all other teachers he can open the understanding that is open powers to take in and then close up these powers to keep in for ever Christ can teach internally eternally he can do all this instantly his ministery is an instantaneous ministery We are long hammering and beating to make persons understand and yet all will do nothing but when Christ takes the work in hand he makes the most ignorant creature that is wise to salvation presently Then opened he their understandings c. Luk. 24.45 Then at that instant he made them see throughly what they never saw Use You see what an able teacher Christ is what hath he taught you The wisdome of the world is foolishnesse with God I do not ask you how knowing you are in your particular calling as such and such trades-men but how knowing you are in your generall calling as Christians how knowing of Christ and your souls Light is come into the world a great light Do you see the way to heaven Confidence speaks not saving light but desperate blindnesse many ignorant men conceit they know much when they know nothing as they ought The fool is wise in his own conceit and the world is full of these fools yea the Christian world is full of these fools but Christ is emptying it Blindnesse and confidence makes us all bloudy at this day and the Lord grant it make us not bleed to death We have a Laodicean plague upon us and God seems to be spuing us out of his mouth and yet our Laodicean spirit lives in the midst of us We all of us think highly of our selves that we are rich in all spirituall excellencies and they that contradict our conceits are fools We are fools saith the Apostle but you are wise How strong and how generall this spirit is now you that are spirituall may see and what it presages Christ will explain fully if you can but hold fast a little Let every man look without and look within look abroad and look at home the plague of the multitude is it not your plague Are not you wiser in your conceits then your preacher is not spirituall preaching babbling When things touch your consciences then you rage and then the Minister is mad because you are mad Alas for us Lord thou makest us men of contention our life is a fighting with beasts that will not understand us nor thee If you had no other Prophets but us or did reject no other prophet but us some dispute might be made in the day of account but we will not judge you to the Father there is another prophet which you hear in us and yet will not heare and it is he that will judge you to the Father and to your own consciences If this will not beat off men from deluding themselves and from bearing off Christ I will go on Some spirits are wanton as there be light bodies so there be light souls such as go a whoring after lies Fansie sick longs after fresh speculation if this may be had it satisfies let it be in what it will in things as farre from Christ as earth is from heaven yea as hell is from heaven It is otherwise with the soul that is taught of God he hath a little light of Christ and now cares for no other vision all light is darknesse and all wisdome folly that relates not to make Christ more known I purpose to know nothing but Christ and him crucified Paul had many endowments but they were all sleighted Christ teacheth the heart as the heart is taught love burns nothing satisfies love but what stird it if such an object made love nothing but the fruition of that object will satisfie it You may know whether Christ hath opened any thing of himself to you by your love to him the purity of your light will speak out it self in the purity of your love and the purity of your affection in the purity of your action Should you say nothing yet a man that stands by you may tell what your light is and who hath taught your hearts Christ or the devil Some of you will swear and curse and lie some of you your love as fleshly as base as the earth it self Hath Christ taught such things as these No certainly the devil is the tutour of these and they will take their degree in hell I have a word to you all and conclude A loose life broadly speaks out an uninstructed heart what secretly swayes Christ sees and so shall all the world use what art you will to hide it wherein you are intractable to the teaching of Christ God will discover
ever according to that Ephes 1.10 That in the dispensation of the fulnesse of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ which are in Heaven and which are in earth Gathered together in one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to renew the state and condition of all Angels and men in and under one head which is here mentioned Jesus Christ That Angels have the same common head with Saints and so consequently the completion of their state in the same head together with us is apparent Col. 2.10 And yee are compleat in him which is the head of all principalitie and power Angels are of the quire above together with the Saints and they all sing one tune and they are of the fellowship below also they are brought in as joynt members of the universall invisible Church You are come to mount Sion to the Citie of the living God to the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels The condition of the greatest states is here considerable The noblest creatures are beholding to Christ things in heaven as well as things in earth Nothing is absolute but God men are noble Angels are noble but they all lean upon one more noble then themselves or else they would fall and become as ignoble as those cursed spirits below us Man is a little lower then Angels Angels a great deal lower then Christ their being is founded in his greatnesse and is confirmed in his goodnesse That grace which is redemption to the lower world is confirmation to the upper There would be no place for pride if this point were well digested None apter to swell in spirit then man man sets us up externally a little and then the Devill sets us up internally much few but swell and break eternally when gotten high in the world I wonder at it were you as high as heaven as high as Angels yet were ye below Christ The body of Heaven in its brightnesse is under his feet Exod. 24.10 What is under Christs feet he can trample upon at pleasure pride is no small sin and yet it growes up the Lord knows from very small things What hast thou that thou hast not received What have things in heaven which they have not and hold not from Christ The lesse may be said for sin the greater 't is and the worse that heart in which it growes Pride is a grand plague 't is one that hath taken leave of Christ and conscience to humor himself but Ah Lord when will this man content himself A man will sooner breake his heart then content his heart which pursues the proud lusts of it A soule devoted to it self is as cruell a Master to serve as the Devill to pursue the dictates of a proud spirit is endlesse work and hell enough for any creature if there were none else to come Soules in this consumption should consider their disease and their cure The remedy of every vice is in Christ this tree hath leaves to cure all diseases There is no distemper in the spirit but Christ may be considered under such a notion as to rectifie it Consider Christ as the keeper up of Angels and 't is enough to keep down the spirit of any man COLOSS. 1.20 Whether they be things in earth c. AS the expression points at things in heaven 't is usefull you see as it speaks of things in earth 't is more proper to us The latitude of divine love downward is as large as upward it reacheth all things in heaven and all things in earth That he might reconcile all things to himself whether things in heaven or things in earth The grace of reconciliation as it works towards things on earth is very vast as it works towards creatures above 't is unexpressible a man cannot tell how many love smiles upon in heaven and therefore generally exprest all things a universall term to note the vastnesse of that kindnesse So as it works towards things on earth 't is inexpressible 't is called all things to note the vastnesse the unexpressible company which Christ embraceth here below A man cannot tell the number of spirits in earth which Christ doth reconcile to his Father in heaven Grace works unexpressibly vast to us ward Doct. Grace doth abound The Lord is upon many waters Psal 29.3 As providence externall so providence internall doth reach forth it self to many Many bodies are saved from sinking in the sea because the Lord is upon the waters So many soules are saved from sinking into hell because the Lord moves upon these many waters too The world is full of troubles as the sea of waves not one but meets with enough to over-turn all if God did not uphold the whole world would fall into a consumption and die as big a body as 't is if God did not uphold Not one nor two nor three but all creatures share in upholding mercy or else all would sink 't is so in a proportion in spirituall respects Satan is an industrious creature to overthrow mans welfare he goes about seeking whom he may devoure none would escape hell if God were not exceeding rich in mercy Satans desire is to destroy all and his malice is attended with such art that it would certainly bring forth its end did not the speciall providence of Christ prevent which it doth and doth it to many the grace of Christ unto life is powred out upon many souls There are many last which are made first as well as many first are made last Many are eternally saved out of the power of Satan as many are prey'd upon by him Grace did work more compendiously then now it doth before Christs coming in the flesh lost sheep of the house of Israel found all that dropt from heaven and they were but few the Lord knoweth one of a City and two of a Tribe But since a great dore of love is opened and many hundred soules in one City yea many thousands in one Countrey come in to the Lord Jesus Christ The white sheet of mercy that is let down from Heaven now is great saith the Text and it hath all manner of beasts in it and the Apostle makes a Comment upon it as I do My vision saith he speaks the grace of Christ working now very richly God hath shewed me that I should call nothing common or unclean He speaks it in the case of Saul not a man so vile so bloody and malicious but the blood of Christ may reconcile him to God the love of God doth now so richly work Mercy is infinite and it works so God shews mercy to thousands from generation to generation Abrahams seed are as the stars of heaven for multitude God hath but one Son but Christ hath many he brings many sons to glory Infinite mercy generates infinitely what is in Christ derives it self to all the nations of the earth Aarons rod buds Christs blessing buds it multiplies into many blessings and spreads all the world over In thee
simply considered never ceases they in heaven do Gods will and are proposed as our pattern on earth they are so exact in the observation of it but the painfull observation of Gods will which is by reason of corruption within us and wicked spirits without us this ceases as soon as we step out of this vile body but not before They move to Christ above as Christ doth to them with the same spirit of freedome joy triumph and glory That they may be one as we are There is no sighing and groaning mourning dying to accomplish Gods will above all move there as the Angels with delight every one milks out love from the breasts of Christ and sings over the Pail to behold how full 't is and how free it comes and yet though it cost all these to obey any truth of God here we are not to cease our course Every childe is brought forth with pain but some with more then others it costs life to bring forth some yet it 's horrible wickednesse for any to strangle the birth to prevent the pain Benjamin must be born though it cost Rachel her life She was a shadow of the Church which must bring forth Christ in all his will though we die in travell if you abide throughly of the faith Vse You see how heaven bears break truth and break your back and what groaning will that make no groaning so sad to do as that which is by not doing Gods will Heaven and Gods will are linked together break the link if it be but one link and the jewel falls and is lost Heaven is a Jewel hanged in a golden chain break one link of the golden chain and you lose the Jewel 'T is nothing to desperate souls to make void Gods Law I wonder at them Is it nothing to lose heaven to untwist the golden chain upon which your eternall treasure hangs Transgression stupifies this is the killing quality of sin Sinners mind not what they do when they throw off the will of Christ any part of the will of Christ you throw away your life Heaven lies wrapt up in truth in that truth which you will not submit to Would something would work upon wicked hearts upon the desperate wicked hearts of this age that sin might abate amongst us or else the sword of Gods wrath is like to eat us out Alas for us all I know not what hand of God is upon us wrath findes a great deale of matter among us to work upon and we can finde none When we presse love to Christ and observation of his will every man washeth his hands I do it saith one and I do it saith another Will you lie before the face of the Judge of all the world now he sitteth upon the bench upon the life and death of the kingdome Men are worst which think themselves best if there be any plague that kill thee England 't will be thy Laodicean temper that thou thinkest thou art clean and art not washed from thy filthinesse that thou needest nothing and yet observest nothing Euangelically that looks like a lovely State Our point sets us too high a great deal to speak to this generation it calls for exact observation and we are by the hand of God upon us cast into the quite contrary a generation that had a little conscience but now have none Loosnesse and lewdnesse overspread the multitude brawniness and benummedness the more ingenious good men become bad bad stark naught and stink above ground 'T is worse then blood and death to heare and see in every place where one comes what mire and dirt our troubled waters cast up as if war were a ticket under Gods own hand to dispence with all wickednesse O the oaths the execrations whoredoms oppressions outrages of all sorts that the very highwayes and villages are filled with where ever one comes The stink of your camps enough to kill a good heart at a great distance 'T is sad that the blood and bodies of the dead should taint and poison the living that we should die swearing and blaspheming If there be any tender hearts among you carry these things home and mourn for I am fearfull what they presage The work of this point is not only to winde you off from prophanenesse but wind you up to exactnesse to through walking with Christ We halt the fruit of it is upon us the hand of God will not yet cure it what it may Christ only knowes The heart must have its latitude 't is every ones saying this To hit the white is not needfull one may shoot well that doth not this But can one shoot well that aimes not at this I presse towards the mark I forget what is behinde if by any means I may obtain the resurrection Here is the property of grace in life it owns nothing but perfection makes at nothing else 't is in aim and industry all Christs Men are charmed with their own unsoundnesse the heart secretly sinfully ingaged aim and industry are really correspondent hereunto what ever verball flourish be made to better spirits and persons that stand by here is a man strangling himself in his bed which is a condition that makes little noise every thing is so artificially managed to destruction yet alas it is the common profession of this time How far will these times beare with a profession of Gods will How far will Christs honour and mine consist Here the soul wasts its strength If there be any intense through action now on foot it lies here so to shape the course and posture to the right and left that the man may take in all worldly advantages of both sides along as he â—â—es There is much art in this but 't is all cursed 't were well if the man had lesse policy and more integrity There is much advange in this but it comes to nothing the plague of an hypocrite is upon this condition which will eat a man out if he had all the world There is more of heaven in a plain heart in a moment then this man sees in all his dayes The advantage of through action is this A man gets much of Christ much grace much glory Some mens religion is a principle of jugling with conscience and the world 't is a temptation upon thousands at this day these lose what they seem to have Christ and all grace quite Christ kicks off every Judas quite that kisseth him and kisseth enemies to him too for his own advantage but a soul that cleaves throughly to Christ hath much of him the dispensations of Angels Stephen shined like an Angel owning Christ in the face of deadly and bloody opposers Externall dispensations cannot be stood upon how Christ appears to honour the persons of men that will go to the grave with him is more uncertain they have the face the tongue and the food of Angels when it may do them good and torture devils that vex them Externall concurrence is sure
that might speake matter of hope to thee Despaire in strength is very peremptory in conclusions but never deliberate in examinations of grounds 'T is a soule so tossed and tumbled between Satan and conscience day and night that it hath no power to ponder any thing Pressus ab exemplo discat sperare secunda Thou shalt goe to hell O my soule when thou diest Why I have sinned So did all the Saints that are in Heaven when they were in earth as now thou art did not David sin much in life and yet what a brave hope had he in death Sin enough in life to make him a type of Satan for bloud and unmercifulnesse and yet hope enough in death to make him a type of Christ Thou wilt not leave my soule in grave Yea but some persons sins have a very sad consideration over others have This is a truth but no sin or misery must have any such consideration as to sinke the soule Hold this position all that God doth is to bring us nearer to him If he whip us and strike never so hard or never so strangely 't is to bring us nearer him not to drive us further from him If he strike the body or the soule if he let loose Satan to tempt and let loose the heart to fall 't is to bring the soule nearer to God God doth nothing to drive away thy soule from him nor would he have any thing else doe it and wilt thou doe it thy selfe by every thing thou seest hearest feelest c Despaire makes use of externall senses all together more then of the Bible and construes all things amisse it harpes much upon the intention of God God intends my death he holds me for his enemie fury guides him in all that he doth about me one may run and read his frownes in all his actions Thou frownest alwayes O tempted soule and thou thinkest God doth so Thy soule is precious to Christ he doth not desire its death 't is more precious to Christ then to thy selfe Christ would save it and thou wouldest destroy it he meanes nothing else in the blackest saddest things that are upon thee but love and mercy therefore be not prejudized concerning his intention the saddest things that are upon thee if thou couldest but turne them upside downe thou shouldest see in them the smiling face of God Hold one position more that Gods intentions toward us are accompanied with the readiest means to accomplish them in us Good is long a coming this principle swallowed is destructive to Hope the next step will be this 't will never come Christ long a coming the next crosse makes the soule conclude he will never come Wee may not construe Christ tedious in his motion and yet 't is hard to doe otherwise when much put to it when tryals are sharpest mercy and deliverance is nearest The Heathen rage The Lord of hosts is with us saith the next verse Hold fast I come quickly When 't is as much as ever one can hold tryall being so strong then Christ makes hast and salvation is neare This principle well laid into the soule would make one hope to the end hope to the last man in a battell to the last breath in a sicknesse Jacob comes hindermost of the company Christ comes after all means are done Isaac which signifies laughter is a childe of old age Christ comes out of a withered womb the man-childe that makes us laughter comes out of means given up as barren When Christ throwes a man downe and throwes him very low then is he about to raise him When Christ kills then is he readie to make alive If this were received who could despaire Who would not hope of life when every one gives him over Yea of eternall life Finally hold one position more that Satan and thine own unbelieving heart conspire against thy tranquilitie hope is the joy of a mans life Satan hath none and it addes to his sorrow when he seeth any else have joy it greatens his hell when he sees any else have but a little of Heaven Finall despaire shuts up that cursed spirit and all those that are with him the worme that gnawes me will never die the fire that burnes me is unquenchable the chaines that hold me are everlasting chaines the pit I am in is bottomelesse no possible passage from hence not a drop of mercy falls in here to cole any scorched creature in the space of eternitie this is the tone of Tophet these are the dismall complaints which those restlesse soules below throw out as they role to and fro in that fiery furnace Despairing sinner Satan is fallen in with thy conscience to conjure thy soule into this condition Thou art in hell upon earth as that other phrase is of her that is dead while shee lives Tell me How dost thou sleepe How dost thou eate How dost thou walke How dost thou talke How dost thou looke Is not thy moisture turned into the drought of summer Thy body turned into skin and bones Alas for thee poore soule God never made such a way as this to Heaven 't is Satan and thy owne despairing heart one evill spirit tormenting another just as they doe below and the designe is to seale the soule up for wrath despaire is the black seale of the bottomlesse pit Lay all this together now and doe but thinke how unkindly you deale with Christ for all his love and paines which hath done so much for the tranquilitie of your life to make you hope here and possesse hereafter Christ hath taken upon him your debts there is not a sin that ever you committed not a trespasse against any rule but he will be accountable for it and in your stead and all to make you hope Some friends will undertake for part of ones debt to make one chearfull and this is much love too much to be slighted but then there remaines something behind and that sads and sinkes the heart How shall I pay that Bleeding soule Christ leaves thee no debt to pay no sin to answer for 'T is lively set out in that Parable Luk. 18.32 O wicked servant I forgave thee all that debt because thou desirest it shouldest not thou also have compassion on thy fellow-servant What should make feare when all is discharged If I did know it were so Dost thou not desire it should be so Wouldest thou not have all right and sweet between God and thy soule rather then any thing Yes Why this may be a demonstration to thee that all is right and even between God and thee Did I not forgive thee all thy debt because thou desirest me God forgives debts to Christ upon exact satisfaction but Christ forgives debts to us upon complaining of them and groaning under them and desiring their discharge upon a heart panting to be clean the voice goes forth from Christ I will be thou cleane Panting languishing soule for mercy thou hast obtained mercy thou desirest to
been driving this way and the Majesty and the justice of the Lord hath appeared and preyed upon them that would have preyed upon us fulfilling his word He shall breake in pieces the oppressor Psalm 72.4 As God remembers his word so we should remember him and write down his Noble acts upon our doore-posts bed-posts heart-posts to all which these beasts would have come for their prey These great acts of God prove mercies to men as laid to heart evill will returne and they which have beene so often driven back will be irresistible at length if he be forgotten which hath done all this for us COLOS. 1.24 For his bodies sake which is the Church ALL Christians in and under Heaven are related knit in one body by one soule to wit the same which breathes in God his holy Spirit Sacred society is glorious the Peers of all the world in a body robed and the great King of all the world in the midst of them such a fight as mortall eye never beheld His traine reaches from Earth to Heaven the foremost are in Heaven when the hindmost are here I helped you to a Scaffold to view the forepart the last day I would doe the like now to helpe you to view the latter that part of the traine which is going in at the everlasting doores but not yet quite in You may see a great deale of State at the doore of Heaven in the very hindmost soule of that company which are going in there That part which is gone in with the Bridegroome is mighty great so is that which is going in An innumerable company of believers conflicting with an innumerable company of enemies longing and waiting for the full redemption and liberty of the Sons of God The haires of our mysticall head grow not thin no not in this climate which is the most unhealthy they are thicke and bushy Can you number the haires of your head then may you number that company which Christ hath upon earth Can you number the Starres of Heaven Looke up to the Heavens saith God to Abraham and see if thou canst number the Starres so shall thy seed be which is fulfilled as appeares by the authour to the Hebrewes Therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead so many as the Starres of the Skie in multitude and as the Sand which is by the Sea shore innumerable Heb. 11.12 The haires of our mysticall head are many yet all of one colour blacke as a Raven that is beautifull and flourishing Gray haires are not here and there upon this head the Militant Church is for quantity great a Nation for quality holy the foundation of this Nation Christ the cement faith something above the revelation of reason something above the revelation of the best parts something above flesh and blood Peter there are strange carnall apprehensions of me in the world as if Christ had said how doest thou apprehend me My apprehension is vitall Thou art Christ the Sonne of the living God Observe the reply of Christ Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona Bar is a Chalde word and the same with ben an Hebrew word which signifies a sonne and Jona signifies gracious and as some translate a Dove so that t is as if Christ had said in our language Blessed art thou Simon sonne of grace sonne of that same Dove which descended on mee flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven Thou art Peter and upon this Rocke will I build my Church Matth. 16.18 Ben which is the Hebrew word for a sonne is as much as the word building with us because the sonne is the building of the family our Saviour interprets so much himselfe in his allusive words upon this Rocke will I build my Church and Jona signifying gracious the metaphor is the same in sense with the former that Christs building here below is a gracious building foundation gracious to wit himselfe every stone gracious Bar-Jona's an innumerable company of believers I John saw a great company which no man could number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all sealed the cement of this building holy to wit faith a holy faith a most holy faith as the Apostle cals it Jud. 20. Conflicting with an innumerable company of enemies The Sea is a big body yet tossed perpetually so is the Church of Christ upon earth t is a body very big and very good and yet t is not so big nor so good but it hath as big and as bad a body to encounter it We are here troubled with Frogs and devouring vermin and the pit out of which they come is bottomlesse The gates of Hell are wide open against the Church of Christ here though they cannot prevaile against it they that take away mens soules come forth freely in what numbers they will and goe what compasse they will here all this world over of an instant and get at which hand they will of the best people when about the best worke they will take the wall of the Noblest soules and when about the Noblest worke get at their right hand The Sonnes of God were assembled and Satan stood at their right hand The locusts below goe forth by Troopes they are so populous in that land of death My name is legion for we are many Though but one speake when a poore soule is tempted yet the traine that attends upon this one is many I believe this roome is full of infernall Spirits and that not a soule of you now present but have a legion of them at your right hand jogging of you though these gates of Hell are not suffered to prevaile If there were no intermixing of Satans family and Christs in this world if those evill spirits which he hath at home by him did never come abroad so farre as into this world yet those that are here resident and weare the same skinne and clothes which Christs family doe are very many They that persecute my soule are many saith the Psalmist And he speakes of incarnate devils devils resident in our flesh and in our earth A doore is open to me a great doore saith the Apostle and there be many enemies how many that he could not tell nor no body else but him that set them on worke One doore open and many devils at it to shut it againe many devils at one doore so at every doore of hope that a Christian hath open to him surely Satans strength is great here that he can begirt every holy person and every holy action upon earth and yet this is the condition of the Church militant Elishaes condition shadowes the state of the Church militant mentioned 2 Kings 6.15 An Host compassed the City with horses and chariots in so much that the servant of Elisha cried out Alasse Master how shall we doe we are begirt with innumerable companies of mortall enemies many thousand deaths waite for us at every doore and this is the state
against providence because it doth not jut and jumpe with my will now all is slaine and not till now Heaven and Earth on fire body and soule killed with a canon from Hell and all the powers of darknesse crying victory Doe Serpents sting murmure not remember where Christs church is of which thou art yet a member t is in the Wildernesse yet and but going to Canaan and such places are full of hurtfull beasts Be not overcome of evill then misery dissolves it selfe into sinne then God is stung and thou wilt have secret blowes for this indeed where men cannot pinch thee thou wilt have salt throwne where the spring of unsoundnesse lies and then thy Spirit will burne within thee for something We should not onely be submissive to but joyfull under the crosse of our Lord Jesus You cannot tell how much mercy t is to be any of that body of which Christ is the soule if it be but a foot a bare foot and still in the dirt still upon prickes briers and thornes to be any of that company that is travelling to Heaven though the meanest the hindmost the most misused c. But you will know when you come there The crosse keepes off some from being of the Church militant they cannot militare they had rather die then fight and kill what they love more then Christ Sinne effeminates the soule love any lust more then Christ and you will die ten thousand deaths rather then strike a stroke in good earnest against it or discharge one Piece with a Bullet against that fort where your heart lies Satan deales by stratagem sinners looke to your soules he can kill none that take up Armes against him and stand to it he either betrayes affection with trifles and makes the soule yeeld and so stab conscience and sweare a damnable peace or else he terrifies the soule with corporall dangers and makes men flee and all that flee in spirituall warfare die every one are cut off eternally by the pursuer When there are fightings without there are feares within When I came into Macedonia my flesh had no rest troubles on every side fightings without and feares within Men now love their flesh Paul in this had no rest no neither in his spirit he had stood to it upon pure principles Hee wants fellowes in this age of the world wonderfully The Church of the Lord Jesus travels groanes dies for want of them This generation will have more then the advantage of truth to encourage them to set forth to wit the advantage of time quiet time Deluded soules when will this be you so dote upon your skin that you have quite forgotten the state of Christs church upon earth t is militant You will live in Egypt that you may see no warre that you may save your skin your pompe your wealth this your wisdome is your folly Egypt shall not save you the Sword shall follow you into Egypt into your Egyptian huts and coverings Read Jeremy 42.13 14 15. But if ye say We will not dwell in this Land c. No but we will goe into the Land of Egypt where we shall see no warre nor heare the sound of the Trumpet nor have hunger of bread and there will we dwell c. Then it shall come to passe that the Sword which ye feared shall overtake you there in the Land of Egypt and the famine whereof ye were afraid shall follow close after you in Egypt and there ye shall die COLOS. 1.24 For his bodies sake which is the Church THe word notes a company called out of this world and the scope according to which it is used here carries it in its full bredth to comprize all the blessed company both which are in Heaven and in earth this generall society was shadowed by the generall Assembly at Ierusalem and is called by that name by the Apostle Heb. 12.23 Ye are come to the generall Assembly the Church of the first-borne This Catholique company is great and farre divided some in Heaven some in Earth some in this part of the Earth some in that and yet all have but one spirit and therefore essentially the same and what is done for the good of one part necessarily redounds to the good and glory of all He is of a publique spirit that layes out for the good of a City of a Kingdome and the like thousands will blesse him generations yet not borne will blesse God for such instruments but he is of a publique spirit indeed that layes out his state or blood for the good of the Church of Christ many thousands in this Kingdome in other Kingdomes all the Earth over all Heaven over will blesse him This generall assembly comes all out of one loine and divide themselves into two bands one turnes to the everlasting Hills 'tother to the Plaines and Valleys of this world There is a Lilly of the Valleys and a Lilly of the Hils there is a Church on Earth and a Church in Heaven The great King whom we subject to hath a Chappell of ease a Church in his house the condition of this is farre different from that here below the Lilly of the Hils is another gets Lilly then that of the Valleys the pursuit of each shall be distinct which will demonstrate the condition how it differs The Church which Christ hath in his house is a society of perfect spirits in perfect rest triumphing with Christ over all enemies The Congregation above is very big thousands and thousands of thousands from all parts quarters and countries yet all perfect not one dwarfe in grace in Heaven not one Zacheus a person of a little stature there are no spirits of little stature in grace above though it be all our case here every one is as tall as Christ to any ones beholding I cannot tell else how to interpret that expression of the Apostles Eph. 4 Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ They that are come to that unity and society above are all compleat their measure is the fulnesse of Christ their demensions his stature so tall so big limmed so faire and so accomplished to looke upon What a perfect man now is Christ in Heaven of what a brave stature in grace and in glory an Absolon without spot from the crowne of the head to the soule of the foot so are all that Noble society which are with him without spot or wrinkle and therefore called a glorious Church That he might present it to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing c. Ephes 5.27 the word here translated spot is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies such spots as are in garments by dashing and dirting outside spots they have no spots within nor without above not in their skin not in their clothes nor any such thing that is
creation was up in an outcry against him Man is the prime creature miserable and yet the prime creature cryd out upon to be more miserable man is not miserable enough yet let me overwhelme and drown all saith the Sea let me not leave a man alive saith the deepe Let me open my mouth and eate up all the men in the world saith the earth Let me breake forth and burne all saith the Heavens There is a strong propensity in all the creation to make an utter end of man without the least compassion towards him in any breast There is a joynt conspiracy in the creation just as there was in Noahs latter time to swallow up all and the creation shall obtaine its will upon all the wicked world at last and when that time comes you shall see what Gospell is in the creation not a dram of mercy shall any wicked soule finde so will Heaven and earth and the deepe conspire And as for the Law that is a Volume which heigthens all this cry and avers the justice of the creation in its cry and cries out for blood stronger then it Not a dram of any compassion to be found in the breast of any thing towards man no not scarce in man to man Acts 21.1 2. The Apostle after he had escaped shipwracke wondred to finde man-friendship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being cast upon the Island of Melita the inhabitants there saith he made a fire for us because of the raine and because of the cold and they shewed us no little man-friendship he wondred having escaped the Sea that the people of the Island had not eaten him up and therefore the words that follow are observable When we came to land then we knew the name of the Island Melita quasi Melifluae insula i. an Island flowing with honey because he had found flowing mercie double kindnesse by Sea and Land The Gospell holds out this man friendship t is a Volume full of compassion to man so doth the Apostle expresse it Titus 3.4 But after that the kindnesse of man-friendship of God our Saviour appeared expressing the Gospell The Gospell is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a volume that holds forth Christ not onely as compassionate but as very facile this way and that is riches of glory indeed Love and kindnesse in order to any but Christ are wrought things there is a great deale of art to make some persons smile and it is so generally in point of kindnesse and mercy there must be a great deale of art used to any but Christ to bring them to it men must be heated and warmed againe and againe to make them beath and bend strait to my purpose but Christ is facile this way Titus 3. But after the gentlenesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or facilenesse of God our Saviour appeared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is gentle and facile towards man ready to be brought on to doe him good in the saddest state the word is so translated Galat. 5. The fruit of the Spirit is gentlenesse Christ gives and forgives very much and he doth it without much 〈◊〉 easily chearfully t is his meat and drinke to doe his Fathers will yea and t is his meat and drinke to doe our will so farre forth as it doth conduce to righteousnesse and unto holinesse t is his meat and drinke to give us meat and drinke although it be his body and blood Love comes from Christ just as showers from Heaven and not as water out of a pump I will come as the formes and the latter Raine saith the Prophet and every word of this Gospell and not such another word in any other Book to be found As the formes and the latter Raine i very naturally Love comes from Christ just as leafes out of a Tree those leafes you reade of in the Revelation which are good to heale bud out naturaly and that but an illustration how love comes from Christ it growes and buds out of it selfe where no body can by any art fetch it out and then when buded out smiles and lookes greene upon men truly this is riches of glory indeed and yet thus doe the greatest acts of mercy come from Christ to man The Apostle to the Hebrewes mentions a great act of mercy and he mentions this very circumstance with it to wit how facile it comes But God willing more abundantly to shew his love to man and immutability of his counsell did make an Oath To this great act of mercy solemne swearing to seale and establish man God comes off very willingly or with much strength of affection and so the word is reade sometimes hee was strongly carried this way to sweare to establish and make weake hearts strong God was in such a temper in this very act as he was when he gave up his life J have a sacrifice and O how I am prest together within my selfe till it be sacrificed which expression shewes the great willingnesse of Christ to drinke off that deadly Cup. You have the same word used where the Apostle sayes love constraines mee This is the riches of the glory of the Gospell it holds forth compassion with much strength i bowels sounding very loud The Apostle fastens upon this circumstance to no to the kindnesse that comes from God to be exceeding riches because it goes forth so facile Eph. 2.7 That in Ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his grace in his gentlenesse or facilenesse towards us This doth note exceeding riches indeed that Christ should bee facile in kindnesse towards man that arch Rebell The Gospel is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is an expression used by the Father of his Sonne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set forth that infinite rest he had in him for person and action as our Mediator t is a terme that notes such large affection as is competent onely to God such as is a Heaven to him The Gospel holds forth Christ in this very frame of love towards man even as one in Heaven when he thinks of bringing man thither which spirit is called a thing of highest glory Luke 2.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 glory in the highest things what are those highest things Peace in Earth And what next 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rest and solace in men which is a high thing indeed and may well be called one of the highest things of glory that God should finde rest in man As God speakes of Christ so doth hee of those that are in him this is my beloved Sonne in whom J 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solace my selfe have had my Heaven from all eternity And such a thing is it now for God to looke in Christ towards sinners it is a Heaven to him t is his rest to lie in the bosome of a sinner to lie in the place where his Sonne lies though in a Manger which is riches of glory indeed riches which make glory T is the pleasure and the grace of
gnola an whole ascension holocautomata a whole burnt offering all ascending in a flame to Christ that did so for us to God Divine Light carries Energy with it all tooles and instruments whereby all faculties and organs are made answerable to the eyes it opens it makes not a blinde man open his eyes and lie still but opens eyes in order to legs and armes and all other joynts when God opens eyes he opens cares opens all David is a demonstration of this and Christ Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not Charitha but mine eares hast thou opened digged open Eyes were digged open and eares together when David knew what God would have his Light warmed and opened his heart and made that obedient unto it and so Christ if you apply the words to him when he opened his Commission at his journeys end when come into the flesh and into this world and unto offering age to Priestly maturty for that Office and saw what kinde of offering God expected not such offering as under the Law the bodies of beasts but his own body his Light inflamed his heart and he proclames his Commission what body he might offer a body hast thou prepared me and he longed to give it to its intended use when he knew the intention of God concerning it there is a proportion to this in all the revelations of the same light in our hearts Christ puts his honour here upon us as he doth above as we shall have what he has in heaven so we have in a degree what he had on earth his spirit and his peace his light and his life our life is said to be hid in him t is bravely typified I think Numbers 27.20 Put some of thy honour upon him saith God to Moses concerning Joshua their Unctions were communicative under the Law to shadow that so should Christs Unction under the Gospell be communicative unto us you will be a whole ascension which have a whole light and hee that ascends wholly to Heaven must needs have a sweet and blessed life on 't COLOS. 1.28 Warning every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word here used may be pursued strictly according to what it signifies as so compounded or it may be considered largely according to what it signifies as so in severall Scriptures used The composition of the word notes a putting of a thing into the mind from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the mind and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to put Divine words reach the heart they put themselves into the minde and into the soule This resolution of the Text makes resolution to that question Job 38.36 Who hath put wisdome into the inward parts or who hath given understanding to the heart The words of Christ doe this and nothing else these doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put things into the soule wisdome and understanding into the inward parts The words of God have the advantage of their matter they are pure Justice is of Majesty what shines with the beames of this is strongly impressive O how forcible are right words saith Job that is words made up of rightousnesse and thus are all Gods words necessarily his breath is as himselfe pure Breath is a very internall thing this stinking speakes something filthy in the inward parts God is light and in him is no darknesse Satan comes and finds nothing in me No impurity no unrighteousnesse in God he must needs therefore breath purely Purity is of great Majesty when Adam bore the Image of God his words were as thunder to all the creation his words yea his lookes went through and through Purity and Majesty be joynd together Cant. 6.10 Cleare as the Sunne terrible as an Army with Banners what is pure is of great power and Majesty The words of Christ have the advantage of their forme God opens his mouth in righteousnesse and in wisdom Some have good breath but not good braines and gutterals to shape it and utter it Children come to the birth cannot be delivered or else delivered too soon untimely births are not taking to looke upon none lodge such in their bosomes Indiscretion turnes the point and edge of things that otherwise are very penetrating The words of the wise are like goades and nailes they goe into the heart wisdome takes the utmost of all advantage which is very forcible she sits her down in the center of a businesse and takes into her bosome all the small lines that doe circumstance it and so makes her motion in every thing effectuall heart-reaching and heart-working The heart is put for wisdome in the old Testament and I thinke for this reason because wisdome is that which brings in all to the heart words workes that which makes every thing like goads and nayles piercing or like honey dewes so king melting Behold God is mighty and despiseth not any he is mighty in strength and wisdome Choach leb Iob 36.5 t is strength and heart or strength of heart Wisdome is that which brings in things in strength to the heart and so makes it strong upon the heart Strength and wisdome are joynd together here things that we say or doe are of strength as this conjunction is kept which is never separated in order to God No word of God no worke of God but uttered and wrought in wisdome which makes all his words like goads and nayles in entering The words of God have the advantage of their end They are spirit and life that is they are intended above all words to be spiritually forcible they are appointed to be the Sword of the Spirit that by which one spirit should reach another the Spirit of God the Spirit of man e contra And take unto you the Helmet of salvation and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God The Sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith a critick that which fetcheth blood with delight that which joyes to goe into the veines and into the heart the seat of life Things move delightfully to their end to that scope and center to which they are appointed The center of the word is the soule of man the words of God sinke downe into the eares Let these words sinke downe into your eares saith Christ they are directed from one spirit to another they may knocke without but they will be restlesse till they get in into affection or else into conscience into the marrow and joynts which are the inmost things of man an in-roome they will have Spirit will to spirit the Spirit will use the Word which is to be a Sword according to Divine appointment being put into his hand as a sharpe weapon he will joyfully sheath it in the soule in one part or other of it how painfull soever it be to man hee will wound the spirit pricke the heart let it be never so deepe The words I speake saith Christ they are spirit and life that is they are so
goodnesse is admirably glorious and beautifull as any other beauty so is the beauty both of inside and outside of every thing belonging to Christ and here loftily expressed and admired Who is the image of the invisible God the first born of everie creature The admirablenesse of Christs person makes the admirablenesse of his action as things are made so they act he is incomparably made and therefore incomparably acts he is made higher then the heavens and therefore of more power and glory in action then they though they be most admirable bodies in the world in operation Christ is in his form more noble then the heavens those noblest bodies according to the nobility of form so is action and therefore are his actions mentioned in that place as all suitable to this supreame form wherefore he is said to save to the uttermost for evermore which action is suitable to his form he is made of an everlasting shape above the heavens these last a great while but he longer because higher and because made above them the heavens can make no everlasting operation because they have no everlasting form but Christ being made above them he acts above them and produceth everlasting things suitable to his form See this argumentation used by the spirit of God himself Hebr. 7.25 26. Wherefore he is able to save them to the utmost that is for ever that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them for such an high Priest became us who is holy harmlesse undefiled separate from sinners and made higher then the heavens Christ is made higher then the heavens and therefore can produce higher effects he is made as high as the Highest and therefore suitable to him in action he redeems from hell from the torturing power not onely of men but of devils Alike place is that Luke 1.32 He shall be great and shall be called the Sonne of the Highest as things are in the greatnesse and glory of their birth and formation so in the greatnesse and glory of their action if a Sonne of the Highest he will do the highest things things incomparably great all shall see it and say so if in the image and form of God and equall to him he will do equall to him things which no man can do destroy principalities and powers and lift souls out of hell to heaven This lies along in the story here In whom we have redemption through his bloud the forgivenesse of sinnes who is the image cf the invisible God c. Complement is to expresse and to gain love Christ is in person and action complete to expresse and gain affection God is invisible and hath no image nor lively expression of himself but Christ what he is for wisdome for power for mercy all these are out of sight and have no expression but in Christ the excellency of an invisible God shines visibly and expressely in him in his person and in his action and this to gain man unto him and therefore is it said after the mentioning of his endowments his name shall be called Wonderfull Counsellour the mighty God the government shall be laid upon his shoulders and then he shall be called this and that c. Transscendent honour shall be put upon him by God and this to gain the like from men they shall call Christ as God hath made him and indowed him as they see the image of God in him his wisdome his power his love Invisible things do not work upon sensible creatures therefore are the invisible things of God made visible in Christ in his person and in his action and this to work and winne therefore are all the beauties of Christ so exactly and so loftily related it is the mystery of the Apostles art here in drawing out God in Christ and telling you who Christ is like that he might draw love to both The fumme of all is this Christ is admirable both in person and action Vse Matter of consolation springs from this point what Christ is in compleatnesse of person and action that he is for us his fulnesse is our fulnesse and we are complete in him person and action this very use the Apostle makes In him dwelleth all the fulnesse of the Godhead and then observe what follows and ye are compleated in him Coloss 2.9 10. Christs completenesse is ours what he hath as Christ that is as one anointed he hath it as a designed person in the stead and person of others and therefore may you that beleive say I am complete in person and work and so doth the Psalmist apply this point to his comfort Thou art perfect and makest my way perfect person is comprehended under action the perfection of Christ makes us perfect person and action all together lovely The Lord himself doth approve of this application of him and calls an applicatory beauty our beauty and a perfect beauty And thy renown went among the heathen for thy beauty for it was perfect through my comelinesse which I have put upon thee Weak souls learn to comfort your selves as you should your hearts need never droop for want of holinesse and comelinesse in the eye of God as long as Christ is and he is everlasting and so are all his perfections Pride kills faith you would have an absolute beauty in your selves to commend you to God which will never be pride springs from ignorance and both have a hand in your weak state Weak souls you think duty makes beauty but it doth not it is onely Christ the glorious sunne makes starres glorious Sathan tells penitent spirits that to believe is to presume appropriation is no act of presumption in qualified persons Broken hearts you are commanded to believe Ho every one that thirsteth and every one that is weary come to me saith Christ and you that do not see your uglinesse are wished to come to buy eye-salve that you may see Every state of man hath its proper command and injunction of God upon it men that do not see their deformity the injunction of the Gospel is that such should come to Christ for eye-salve and such as have spirituall sight and sense the injunction of the Gospel is that such should believe that Christ and his comelinesse is theirs and weak hearts you may as well justifie your selves in an act of self murder as in unbelief the one respects the body the other your eternall souls Coloss 1.15 Who is the image c. SCripture expressions are above us where lowest and plainest but how much more where deep and utterred exact to reach the loftiest beings and in such a stile and strain doth the holy Ghost speak here Men over-matched should have help from others your prayers are doubly needed and I intreat that they may be answerably powred forth that our labours may be solid and sweet to the salvation of your immortall souls and to the joyfull giving up of our own account at the great day Christ hath
in husband and sometime in children in houses and in lands but never in Heaven when it setteth about this 't is tired presently As the body so the soul goeth downward with ease but up hill with much pains-taking you must be full of complaints to Christ to keep your souls in his bosome Finally as idlenesse so wilfulnesse destroyes divine contemplation Pride puffeth up and swelld souls go more to hell then to Heaven like-like-spirits bosome The heart swelld thoughts are all prest and taken up to make vent for this that there is scarce a thought to be spared to ascend to Christ When the heart is high and haughty Christ and Truth are under foot and thoughts never bosome themselves in that which the heart tramples upon Every thing that crosseth will vex a wilfull man though it be truth and vexation and contemplation are as opposite as Saul and David as Heaven and hell I look upon some men and they are puft up will leads them and not truth I smite my breast and say Ah Lord where do these souls dwell In hell certainly and not in Heaven Errour is the fruit of pride the soul goeth away from God and bosomes it self in a lie as it groweth heady and high minded Citizens look about you I see an ignorant idle proud spirit amongst you Christ may be much in such mens tongues but surely he is but little in their hearts The excellency of Christ you do not indeed dwell upon nor find sweetnesse in nor cannot as long as these evils are in your hearts Let us all know our dutie and do it all Christ is to be considered so did David so did Paul and so must we consider him I will meditate of all thy works and talk of all thy doings Psal 77. what Christ hath done as a Redeemer and what as a Creatour what he hath done with his finger what with his hand what with his spirit and what with his bloud we must meditate on all his works Divine things are still unfruitfull as unthought of when we seek after Christ then he brings us into his chambers the efficacy of all that Christ is cometh in by contemplation Every thing in Christ is usefull the very leaves of the tree of Life are healing consider Christ under any notion in which the Scripture holds him forth as a Redeemer or but as a Creatour as the image of God as the first-born and the like or under any other more remote consideration and they are all powerfull to take off the heart from earth and send it to Heaven Christs action and Christs person yea and Christs garments all he said and all he did and all he wore very virtuall and instructing Know your duty and know your felicity you have now but a few things to think upon this world is bleeding and dying apace he that giveth all being me thinks every one should now much think upon when all creatures cease to be so fast A mans tranquility is permanent when his thoughts dwell upon Christ let friends means towns kingdomes die and yet his Heaven lives because his heart is lodged in one that can die no more that ever lives Misery is double because losse of the creature doth not reduce thoughts to Christ the end of affliction not accomplished you will be afflicted seven times more till your prodigall souls return home to their father and leave feeding on husks Coloss 1.16 For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers c. I Have given you the respect which this verse bears to those which precede and I am now to give out to you as I am able what it hath in it self If you read this verse you will find it to consider creation in reference to two parts and two causes two parts heaven and earth visible and invisible two causes efficient and finall the first is in the beginning of the verse and the second is mentioned in the latter end the one saith all things were made by him and the other saith that all things were made for him Christs method pleaseth me best I will therefore take terms as they lie and suck as much out of them as I can for my self and you For by him were all things c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in him were all things created saith the originall Christs method and Christs expression pleaseth me best God doth create and new-create in Christ. God doth all things respecting the creature in his Son the Father works in the Sonne the Sonne in the Spirit and the Spirit in your spirits The order of divine action is admirable the beauty of God in his out-goings is held out to us Christ is the wisdome of the Father all that God doth he doth in wisdome The Lord by wisdome hath founded the earth and by understanding hath established the heavens Prov. 3.19 a like place to this you have Jeremy 10.12 He hath made the earth by his power he hath established the world by his wisdome and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion Divine action is made with delight you have many prime agents but God hath but one you look more at abilitie to your work then suitablenesse to your spirits in the agents you imploy but God doth not you can beare discontent in the agent so his work be well done but God cannot he so moveth as to have delight in both not onely in the work done but in the agent that doth it and therefore doth all in Christ I was daily his delight rejoycing alwayes before him saith Christ speaking of God when in the creation of all things Prov. 8. Successe The comfort of the godly is in this point all divine action going forth in Christ we may conclude successe successefulnesse to their good Christ is mighty in strength and wisdome our agents are unsuccessefull for want of power and for want of wisdome but the agent in and by whom God acts is mighty in both God is mighty in strength and wisdome he preserveth not the life of the wicked but giveth right to the poore Job 36.5 Where great humane power is it is Elihu his speech to Job men think to evade the bent and force of divine action and to shun what God intends as they shun what man intends to get out of his reach as out of ours but no such matter for all his action shall acquire his intention and no man shall evade it for he works in him who is mighty in strength and wisdome God intended a world did he misse the accomplishment of it Godly souls you look much in and by whom the king acts such and such skilfull men and mighty men and shake and fear but look in and by whom God acts and comfort your selves Hath the king such an agent as Christ is for strength and wisdome Full successe All divine action going forth in
Blessed be one good neighbour or how solitary should we be in earth Defile not the land which ye shall inhabite wherein I dwell saith Christ Numb 35.34 The earth would be hell did not Christ dwell in it you have much misery kept off by one good neighbour you have and you might have more if you did but get more acquaintance with him You have lived a great while in the earth and so hath Christ do ye know him do ye love him he maketh the earth a blessing as base as 't is to such A mans felicity dependeth altogether upon the favour of God let his dwelling be where ' twill Earth is heaven hell is heaven when God dwelleth with one there Mourning creatures tell me where do ye dwell In a vally of tears In earth doth Christ dwell with you doth he dwell in earth too in your hearts then be cheared for he will wipe all tears from your eyes and if your hearts be a rest for him he will be a rest for them when you have none in earth When the earth trembles and melts you have one that dwelleth in it that will see you shall do well Christians visit your next neighbour often lie in his bosome whilest you live on earth you will live very desolate else were the earth a better place then ' t is I pitty all that live in this world 't is so base and miserable but them that live without God in this world my heart bleedeth over them Some live where they have no good neighbour nor no friend and they truly have a bad life on it some live so in earth that it were as good they were in hell almost whipt in body tortured in soul longing for death and yet it must not be because not yet full ripe for hell Ah Lord here is a dwelling in earth indeed what difference now between earth and hell All you that live in earth and live in your sinnes expect such a life every houre The earth groneth it beareth so many and so naught sinners do not you grone too Do not you grone to Christ to be better The earth will be eased of her burden quickly but not you your place will be changed quickly but not for the better all that are now in earth will be anon in hell that do not leave their sinnes quickly the sword and strange diseases are going about for this purpose and do you not see how they sweep the earth Coloss 1.16 Visible and invisible c. THe works of God afford man a full soul-imployment Some things are subjected to sence and these are called visible but other things are not subjected to sence but ordered for more noble powers of the soul to make at and these are called invisible The soul is manifold in its acts and operations and so is Christ that all the soul may follow him There is a manifold grace of God as the Apostle speaketh a grace visible and a grace invisible and the soul can make at both and so Christ would have it The eye can see the eare can heare the heart can conceive here is working without and within Conception is operation about invisibilia unseen things 't is a spirit at work upon words shaping out to it self what they but mentioned as countries and creatures where the body never was nor never saw but onely shall divine conception 't is a spirit taking shiping as it were in the word and sayling round the world taking in visible and invisible things to leave out none of Christ The soul is noble in its acts and Christ would lose none for want of imployment if visible things be to low to be busied about there be invisible if there be nothing without doore to be found for imployment to wit in earth it may find something within about invisible things by going to Heaven Creation is laid by Christ with gradation higher and higher visible and invisible if one room be too low the soul may go higher as high as it will as high as it hath power the works of Christ lie as high as the tallest spirit can reach The soul is not forc'd but drawn to noble action Creation is temptation the works of God are laid so as to entice the soul higher and higher like Jacobs ladder till it come as high as it should be When the eye of the body is weary of looking upon bruits trees and such like visible things as are here then the eyes of the soul may go one room higher in the ladder towards Heaven to things which are not seen to that invisible place and societie above The soul is remiss'd in his acts in works as well as in words Christ leaveth this without excuse Man was never without full imployment Adam had it and the sonnes of Adam have it There is a double book of words and a double book of works to reade and one higher then the other one visible and the other invisible one for the eyes of the body another for the eyes of the soul and I wonder what idle souls will say for themselves when Christ cometh to reckon with them You have a talent and imployment for it a soul such a noble soul and such noble imployment both neglected will lie heavie upon you Bodily sloth you cannot bear and soul-sloth Christ cannot bear soul-sloth is enraging sinne and observe how angrily Christ chargeth it Thou wicked and slothfull servant shouldst thou not have imployed what I gave thee to my advantage Matth. 25.26 take from him what he hath saith Christ A man hath his soul taken away that imployeth it not an idle soul becometh a besotted soul a besotted soul is no soul a spirit dead and buried in the flesh powers and parts are blasted and withered when neglected Soul-idlenesse about divine things springeth sometimes from too much imployment about humane and such men neither know their hearts nor yet this time worldly now and you will be worldly when the world cometh to be burnt The soul is first let loose from divine things and then when 't is abroad it will not be lured in again by them though held up to them Wicked worldlings you know not what you do when you let your souls loose to the world there 't is curst and becometh wild and will not return though words of God and works of God all that God is and doth be held up to it and therefore is the prodigall said to be lost for this my sonne was lost c. Sometimes soul-idlenesse about divine things springeth from dislike of them Some the God of this world blindeth them and 't is idle to talk to these of visible or invisible things for all that is good is invisible to them they know not how to set their spirits about any thing but to make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts of it Ah Lord how blind how base are some souls No word of God no work of God visible to them under a divine
Mediatour this is talked of as possible but if it were done indeed it would soon set thy soul in a better condition 'T is hard to convince men that they trust in their works though the thing speaks it self in most mens consciences Two things will discover this ruining cheat First consider what doth move you to duty some persons would never pray nor never do any holy duty were it not for mere fear they open their mouths heaven-ward now and then to stop the mouth of hell that is justice in their own conscience This man makes his holinesse his high priest his own action his intercessour to bring him to heaven which if it do then I will answer for him at the great day Observe are spring of action and nothing will more plainly speak whether you make a Jesus of action I am afraid there are souls very ignorant amongst you blind wretches so they be but doing something that is called holinesse 't is enough to them here they rest and look their souls when affrighted by a sremon by the word or the rod of God then they down upon their knees and howl and cry like the mariners in the ship that Jonah sailed in A tossed condition is the onely mother of most mens devotion tossed without or tossed within and therefore so good and yet alas all is stark naught Christ is no priest to this man no chief priest no prince-priest his own action is his prime priest because 't is trusted in Blind wretches consider what kindles your zeal your conscience will be burnt else in your offering your fire is an ignis fatuus a strong foolish fire You that get no satisfaction in this consider the next namely what upholds in duty and this will speak out whether you trust in it Sence is some souls onely relief if duty oyl not its own wheels the soul stands still they can find no sweet in prayer therefore pray no more duty will not conjure their consciences quiet and therefore they will to the alehouse and see whether carnall devils will drive out uncarnall whether one hell will swallow up another the pleasures of the flesh must take off the terrours of the spirit Ah Lord what a black priest is here used This soul is desparate the devil hath ordination to priesthood and the alehouse or whore-house must be his tabernacle to officiate in hands are laid on him suddenly and this made the last remedie to ease and quiet the soul Here is a sad condition O that I could cease preaching and weep now in the face of such a forlorn wretch Will that which dames you save you Will sinne blot out sinne Will adding to transgression plead for mercy in heaven to quiet your consciences and save your souls The devil is Abaddon a destroyer no saviour so is sinne When your souls are wounded will you give them to sinne and the devil to heal the spirit of God will finally leave you for this so it did Saul for the like practise Rebellion makes wounds and when wounds heighten rebellion God will have no more to do with that man Let the soul bleed and bleed and ordain what priest it will Christ will not bleed for him Hardned hearts think on these things the bloud of a mediatour will be charged upon you for trampling it under foot Tender hearts let me turn to you the sweet of this point is your portion Double consolation springs from the priesthood of Christ first in regard of infirmitie You would be pitied concerning your weaknesses and compassion is naturall to Christ he is a mercifull high priest and can be no other to you God hath ordained him to officiate in such a tabernacle as wherein you dwell he is in all things like to you you are in want and so was Christ he had no house you are persecuted so was Christ sinne loads you and so it did Christ A Christians condition needs compassion and Christ knows how much and 't is his work continually to lay it open above There are infirmities distinct from a wounded spirit you know the Scripture makes such a distinction Common distresses have their weight and 't is more then the best soul can bear these if it maintain not an eye to the compassion of Christ men are wolves dogs they have no bowels and the soul beats it self to death with this till it remember the bowels of Christ When good hearts have no compassion on earth they are ready to conclude they have none in heaven but you cannot injure Christ and your souls more then by such conclusions Christ lets men be mercilesse that you may look up and behold how mercifull he is and that he needs not this channell or that to convey compassion in to you Weeping eyes sight fails them oft but compassion never fails 't is mercy that a man can weep to God and do no worse when he can get no mercy from man Doth not relief strangely come in now and then Why write upon the forehead of such favours I have a mercifull and compassionate mediatour in heaven my intercessour above sent me this and he will send me more Christ hath sounding of bowels Where are the sounding of thy bowels you may heare them from heaven to earth in the most distressed condition if you listen and observe diligently in all passages about you Consolation springs from the priestly office of Christ as in regard of conditions which are distinct from a wounded spirit so in regard of a wounded spirit it self Christ is able to save to the uttermost the dolefull cry of the wounded is my sinnes will never be forgiven Silence unbelief be not tyrannicall to thy self for Christ will not sinne shall do thee no hurt nor Sathan no nor God for Christ can work him to any thing if hel but open his wounds in heaven he will so work his father that thy wounds on earth will close presently Christ is a perfect mediatour and being made perfect he became the Authour of eternall salvation unto all them that obey Hebr. 5.9 Either the wound of a Christian lies in the greatnesse of the evill which he hath done or in the fear of what he shall do against God and God against him to all which I say onely this that Christ is a perfect mediatour and being a perfect mediatour no condition can be desperate Coloss 1.18 He is the head of the body c. FRom Christ as head we have gathered many things and I trust sweet to your heart and yet there are more As King Christ is head as Priest Christ is head and of these we hove spoken as Prophet Christ is head Christ ruleth none like him Christ sacrificeth none like him Christ teacheth none like him He spake as never man spake Learned men were astonished at his doctrine Whence hath this man these things and what wisdome is this given unto him Mark 2.6 Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prophet a Prophet indeed aboundantly
of the point What condition but is full of mutation Brave estates brave Kingdomes bleeding to death and brought almost to nothing our sin is ripe wrath is gone forth England that was as the Queen of Nations for all fulnesse is wasting to nothing Natives that for a while have left us and now return'd to visite us scarce know their mother-Land her face which looked so pleasantly is now so besmeared with bloud Here was the seat of my ancestors but 't is burned there had I brave and sweet kindred but now they are slaine and those that live wish for death because nothing left to live upon Wee had treasure as the flints of the brooke estate to accomplish any thing but now we faint in every undertaking for want of silver-sinewes Wee had many callings as so many severall ornaments and pillars of state now all is turned into one all grave-makers one for another every one with his spade by his side to dig into the heart of his brother to dig out a subsistence Light was little but love was much truth could not be found but if it could O how sweet said wee should it be to us dearer then all Truth now shines in our consciences and we care not for it Ah Lord this is the saddest change of all The living are dead the soul-living are slaine with an evill time Gods vowes were upon us but now throwne off and because the times will not beare them Outward changes are bad but inward changes are farre worse England where are those flames of love which blazed so gloriously a few yeares agoe Brethren in New-England were precious O that we had Ilium in Italium New-England in old Brethren in Holland were precious O that wee had them againe and the mercies which there they injoy and now they are with us they are trampled upon as the dirt and all their paines to hold forth Christ and truth to us Are not these sad changes Englands outside inside all changed from vertue to sin from love to malice from wrath to bloud and thus lies weltring and no eye pities her neither Gods eye nor her own Is this Naomi 'T was Naomies friends speech to her her condition was so altered that they knew her not Is this pleasant O no saith shee call mee not pleasant call me Mara bitternesse for the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me So may I say now Is this England Pleasant England O no call it Mara bitternesse for affection is turned into gall and wormewood shee deales very bitterly with God and his people and the Lord deales very bitterly with her Contemplate truth sadly fulfill'd and then set your selves to draw instruction from it Mutation preaches submission Doth God give and take blesse him 't is wis way he doth so with Christ God filled Christs veins with brave blood and then drew it out all he prepared him a body and then destroy'd it he gave him a being on earth and then turn'd him into hell Christs tranquillity was turned into the strongest extremity outside and inside changed he that heard that sweet voyce This is my beloved Son c. cryes My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Condition varies rich are made poor whole are wounded men cannot beare this therefore the land is full of discontent Sin multiplies and hightens it self as misery doth if God be not very mercifull 't will make misery last till there be not a man of us left We feel the rod but do not beare it sense stirs up passion we rage and this foments divine displeasure the heart listens not after Gods meaning in his dealing to accomplish that and when is it likely that our calamities will cease God makes changes without to make changes within he makes broken estates to make broken hearts he brings much to nothing that he may make you contented with any thing with mean things There are many turnings in your heart do you consider them No God writes them out in your life that you may God takes a copy from within for all that he does to us without Mariners are cheerfull when tossed if their Ship be good because they know the nature of the seas The Ark is very good which a Christian sails in 't is Christ the things we meet with here are common to men much more common to holy men tossings tempests All men are partakers of these saith the Apostle Christians therefore should be cheerfull Finally the point in hand should commend the life to come to us and make us long much for it Job from a tossed state here falls a commending the state of the dead They that are in the grave are at rest c. The earth is the grave of the body heaven or hell will be the grave of the soul they that are in heaven are at rest I pity the state of men that live in their sins they are tost and tumbled here and will be worse tost and tumbled hereafter Wicked men you will never have rest there is no peace to you none here nor none hereafter Godly hearts be cheerfull you shall have a condition without all distraction you shall be tossed and tumbled no more Labour and sorrow the Scripture makes the proprium of this life incident to it as the sparks flie upward but there is no labour above much lesse sorrow least of all greatest sorrow which falls out by great changes Every ones labour follows him and they sit still above and eat the fruit thereof they solace themselves in the travell of their souls as Christ doth as for changes they above know none there are no misty foggy dayes above no clouds no clapping in and out of the Sun they are above those regions which make such mutations of weather Were one above those impure regions of aire we breath in and close by the Sun one should have the strong influence and glory of it alway every day alike Here we sojourn and God sojourns God is as a wayfaring man that stays here but a night but above we shall all dwell together and no sojourning to make alteration of condition If there be any felicity here 't is to know that our misery shall end Lord let me know my end and the number of my dayes how long I have to live c. COLOS. 1.20 Made peace through the blood of his crosse DIvine favour according to its formality we have handled to wit Reconciliation according to its causality we are now to pursue it which is here mentioned Synecdochically the blood of the crosse as including all other passions and actions prevening and conducing to make this last act effectuall to so great an end as mans deliverance from the wrath of God Some persons in a businesse bear the name of the whole so some actions in work carry the denomination of the whole The blood of the crosse was the finishing act of our redemption and therefore here and elsewhere mentioned in stead of all other acts Having
sang the song of Moses and the song of the Lambe The head triumphs and then all the members Christ triumphs in himselfe and all that glorious company triumph in him Coloss 2.15 And having spoiled Principalities and Powers hee made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in himselfe so is the originall and so 't is translated in your margents Christ viewes all the slaine death and him that had the power of death the old Serpent with all his seed and triumphs in himselfe all the rest of that royall company triumph in him as the jaw-bone stone and sling with and by which they have slaine Goliah and all the Philistians heapes upon heapes Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne and unto the Lambe and all that stood about the throne Angells and Elders c. said Amen blessing and glory and wisdome thanksgiving honour and power and might bee to our God for ever T is a heavenly practice this and spoken of the Church Militant as imitating the Church triumphant and as guided by one and the same Spirit indeavouring to do the Will of God on earth as the tother part of the same company doe in Heaven You know the state of the new Church is shadowed out in the booke of the Revelation by Heaven and all the lineaments of it it comes so neere to it The very first draught and modell Revelation 4. J was in the spirit and a throne was set in Heaven c. As Moses was made to come up to the top of the Mount neere Heaven and God saith the Text talked with him from Heaven to shew him the pattern of the first house so Iohn was taken up into Heaven and God talked with him in Heaven and shaped his patterne of this last house and the affaires of it by Heaven as that which should come neerer to it then any yet had done But this by the way Vse I have opened to you now a brave state but all will not nay all cannot come to it I wish they could Corruption cannot inherit incorruption if it be true corporally it is true spiritually if the uncleane bodies of the Saints cannot come to Heaven surely the uncleane soules of the wicked cannot Satan hath a synagogue too a great one here and a greater below and a great many will go thither few will believe this and this is the seale of death The Congregation above is holy very holy but this is not heeded here but it must or no man shall see God nor that glorious society which is with him Flesh and bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God and yet the Lord be mercifull unto the soules of men this is the generall rule by which men walke Above flesh for our bloud we cannot move 't will sink Persons Kingdomes 't will make the society below wonderful big What a Congregation hath the Devill in his house but not one at rest all at worke hard tearing rending and rosting one another and yet have no meate nor drink but the flames and fire in which they worke Have any of you a mind to be of this Congregation No why then doe you pursue your flesh your will sense selfe sinne this sinne that sinne any sinne that will serve your turne in these bad times The temptation of this time is terrible not a soule almost but undone by it Heaven and earth shake Church and State crack the Grave and Hell gape the glory above forgotten the dread of these crush parts brave parts yea that which hath gone for brave grace to nothing to worse then nothing many Christians like Cackarells change colour white all the winter like those fish and spotted at spring what with the bloud and filth of bodies and the bloud and filth of soules ah Lord what a stinke is there in all societies all this Land over and yet no body holds his Nose all is sweet as long as any course may be stumbled on to rise and be but to flea the skinnes of the dead to go fine will this bravery be admitted above Where do you finde a soule that longs and pants because of all these things O that I were of that glorious Church above That I did know to what Officer of that society to speake to helpe me in there If any so inquire I will tell thee go to Christ he is the doore by which all enter hee will serve thee as he was served himselfe he was Baptized and the Heavens opened Christ will Baptize thee with the holy Ghost and with fire and then the Heavens which containe him till the restitution of all things shall open and receive thee Thou must be contented to be Baptized with Christs Baptisme his second Baptisme after both there was a Heaven opening At his first Baptisme the Heavens opened but did not take him up and take him in at his second Baptisme they opened againe and then they received him and containe him Thou must be contented to be Baptized with Christs last Baptisme if neede be to leave all as hee did a very Heaven if thou hast it as Christ did riches honours pleasures blood life to follow after Christ After such a Baptisme the Heavens will open also and take in thee into that glorious society above Christ surely is prized but little therefore his Congregation is so small below and above The sinne of the Jewes is become the sinne of the Gentiles my heart trembles to thinke what will become of us What ever wee talke of Christ and boast of his Temple above and below we bid basely for all Though Christ will take nothing for any thing he hath yet you must come to him with all that ever you have in your hand and lay it at his feete thinke nothing too good for him so you may but have him here is now state wife children yea here is body soule selfe doe with all what thou wilt drowne all burne all if thou wilt onely rake the ashes when thou hast done and finde my soule that Jewell of Jewels which cannot be burnt any where but in thy displeasure and put it in thy bosome for ever This is a Gospell frame of heart and miscaries not all the Jewels which Christ weares in his bosome above are raked out of ashes here below out of meere nothings His beloved is one but one a Phenix and it comes out of ashes learne to lay all in the dust if you would have Christ take up all and lay it in his bosome All that he takes up in his bosome here he sets downe in glory above to triumph with that glorious company there COLOS. 1.25 Whereof I am made a Minister DIaconos a deacon the word is a title given to all sorts of Officers almost in Gods new-house as signifyng that which is behoofull to them all especially them that dispence soule vitall things diligence promptnesse speedinesse Soule dangers are all desperate what 's done for reliefe in this
spirit they were such that had not so much as that circumcision which was made with hands much lesse that circumcision which was made without hands by the spirit A Gentile in the spirit is one ignorant without God in the World that is without the knowledge of God it is explained so by another expression like this that at that time yee were without Christ being Aliens Eph. 2.12 And by another expression to them that are without the Law as without the Law 1 Cor. 9.21 that is such as had no knowledge of the Word of God nor did acknowledge any such thing as a rule of life but their own blind traditions and customes Gentilisme is a meere Chaos a little World lying all in confusion darkenesse upon the face of the deepe the understanding which is as the face of the soule blind not able to finde out God in his Word or Workes what in essence or what in existence what hee is or what he doth in Heaven in Earth in the soule of man nor what hee will doe though all these exprest and told of at large a Gentile in spirit is one that cannot see God nor feele after him that can use neither head nor hand no reason nor sense divinely one that fits in darkenesse and cannot stir any power internall or externall towards the true God One that fits in darknesse wich is an expression I thinke in allusion to the Egyptians who had thicke darkenesse such obscurity of darknesse as the originall saith that they saw not any man his brother neitheir rose any man from his place for three dayes mittacheaif de sub se not from under himselfe or not from off himselfe and these were Gentiles and in this I thinke the lively type of all Gentiles who are in such thick darkenesse spiritually that they sit stock still not one can arise from of himselfe to apprehend any thing out of himselfe and above himselfe that which hee worships is himselfe the imagination of his own brain his zeale is seated in blind principles and this is his God that he knowes no God As I passed by and beheld your devotion I found an Altar with this inscription to the unknowne God and these were Gentiles and this blind principle was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Innâ—itten or written in them for the Altar was but an emblem of their heart they did hold out by this what was in them to wit a God adored but no body could tell what no not they themselves any further then selfe some carnall fancies hotly pursued and after no other light would they search with braine or sense The Apostle reproves them in this scope though you have not the Word of God yet you have had the workes of God if you had pursued these as blind men that use their hands in stead of their eyes and make a good shift to finde their way you would certainly have found out God to better purpose then this inscription quotes and then relates the story of the Creation viz. who hath made of one bloud all Nations if happily they might feele after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word notes touching or groaping with the hand not able to imploy understanding nor sense about the Word or Workes of God to finde out God which is just the state of a brute and so are the Gentiles shadowed to be in Pauls vision there were all manner of Beasts in the sheet that was let downe to him but nothing else A Gentile in spirit is one blinde and obstinate he shuts his eyes against some things and none must open them opens his eyes to other things and none must shut them he loveth darknesse better then light and no body must stir nor wake his love till hee please this obstinacy is well exprest by Christ Mat. 18.17 if hee will not heare the Church let him be as a Heathen an Ethnick which is the same word with the Text I stand on if hee will not heare let him be accounted a Gentile a Gentile is a wilfull person Let a man be in Church-state and under-light yet if wilfull in sinne loving darknesse and against light hee is as a Heathen that is he is a Gentile in spirit hee is formerly and really a Gentile onely he is not outwardly called so he is not called so by men but he is so by God The Jewes the greatest amongst them the Scribes and Pharisees that instructed company although of the Jewish Church and eminent in Office yet as obstinate and raging opposers of Peter and his Ministery are cald by the Spirit of God Ethicks and in the second Psalme where the Prophet speakes of Heathenish great ones opposing Christ applied it to them as fulfilled in them Acts 4.25 when they were let goe they reported to their owne company that is to the rest of the Apostles and Disciples all that the chiefe Priests and Elders had said to them and when the Apostles heard it they lifted up their voice with one accord and said O God which hath made Heaven and Earth who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said Why doe the Heathen rage and so forth and there cals them Ethnicks Gentiles and because of this that they were wilfull and raging in their blindnesse and wickednesse against Christ This property also of stubbornnesse was lively shadowed in that Type of the Gentiles forementioned there were such and such kinds of beasts in the sheet that was let down to Paul and wild beasts saith the Text to note that this is one eminent property in an ethnicall spirit wildnesse headinesse obstinacy in his blinde course Spirituall gentilisme is opened have I not done two works at once opened the Doctrine and opened your condition are ye not Gentiles in heart though not so call'd truth should be own'd whether with us or against us or there is no remedy confession of sinne is a necessary Gospell requisite sinners can have no mercy without it if ye lay not open your sinne to God t will lay open you to God Angels and men and a soule laid open by the word is one found out in the fact when God hath found out and seised upon a sinner for him then to deny the fact or seeke to breake away from him as one that breakes bolts by being more boysterous in sin this man will die for it and not have pardon no not hope on 't hee 'l not have his booke there is not the least tender of grace to the soule whilst convictions are strangled but treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath to burne hornets in their nest seeing they will not come out convictions stifled is like Powder in a mine that when sprung it blowes up all and no fire so terrible as this stifled fire for renting and tearing the soule A mans soule discovered by truth God hath found out the man the effect will be this the man will now prove a deare friend or a desperate enemy to Christ the vision
is this when Christ would perfect a soule in himselfe he turnes a man off and out of himselfe out of creatures of Gods making and out of creatures of the mans owne making out of his prayers and all his duties and this he doth sometime by letting the man fall into sin when proud of any parts or workes and sometimes in a more mild sweet way where nature is more meek and sweet and then when the soule is turn'd off and turnd out of all he that is indeed all presents himselfe to him and woes and wins the soule I will be a husband to thee saith Christ friends riches honours whatsoever can be desired to make one blessed the great world is han'gd upon nothing so is the little world to wit a Christian brought first to be nothing in understanding but a brute nothing in action but worse then a brute a devill very poore very poore in spirit and then blest with a Kingdom and now the soule that was nothing nor could do nothing for Christ or against sin can do all having regnum he hath proprium regni having a Kingdome he hath the proprium of that Kingdome which is dominion over all hee that is made a King and hath a Kingdom doth not rule in this Town only or that Town but over all parts in the Kingdom and this order Christ will move in towards you that desire it for this Kingdom and all belonging to it is a perfect gift COLOS. 1.29 Whereunto I also labour TO take soules from off themselves and to set them downe in Christ beares much by divine Ordinance upon our calling and makes our worke very hard which is noted in this terme labour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifies such actions and industrie as faints wastes and weares out all such a labour as Solomon speaks of Eccles 10.15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to goe to the City This Emphasis of the word is held forth to the Thessalonians to worke them to a reverend esteem of their teachers We beseech you brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which spend and waste themselves amongst you to take you off from sinne and selfe and to set you downe in Christ in whom onely soules are fully and perfectly blessed We are as Jonathans armour-bearer whither so ever our Master goes we are to goe after him though we creep upon all foure Your life is our death your fatning is our leaning your Raven-black haires are our milke white We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3.2 Such as wax white with painfulnesse and watchfulnesse reading praing sighing mourning and groaning for your good Coaction with Christ is no idle imployment he doth not attempt small things neither is he of small strength to keep pace with such weak agents as we are 't is hard work to draw in yoke with one that is double and treble in strength above me We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 workers together with Christ he attempts the greatest things that are and the most desperate the taking of holds strong holds Canaanites Hittites c. which dwell in Towns which are walled up to heaven and founded downe to hell he attempts the bloud and death of all the conquest of this whole world the generall making such desperate attempts and taking onely Rams-hornes a sling and a stone such a fraile party as we are you may easily think our work to be desperate full of paine and perill Had man been set to fight with man one man with one man that had been painfull worke but man is drawn out to fight with beasts the fiercest beasts with Lions Beares Wolves Serpents Scorpions yea with devills there was never such a fight in the grand Circue at Rome We wrestle with such creatures as have no hold-fast to be taken of them which have no armes no legs no flesh nor bones we wrestle not against flesh and bloud but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darknesse of this world against spirituall wickednesses in high places Ephes 6.12 We are drawne out to fight upon all the disadvantage in the world against creatures that are upon higher ground that have pitched field in high places that have no flesh to be wounded nor bloud to lose that can make ambushments at pleasure being the rulers of the darknesse of this world this is the Rhetorick of the Apostle We are Stewards of mysteries sentence is past upon us to dye according to the Law which we have broken onely we have the benefit of our book but this book is written as books of such nature usually are very mysteriously with an old strange Character our worke is to stand by and prompt soules concerning their neck verse which is very painfull and trembling worke the book in which sinners are to read for their life is written with bloud which is very inward and ominous inke The Characters and Syllables sutable when put together into words these words are spirit The words I speake saith Christ are spirit What is a more inward and hidden thing then this and yet this are we to interpret our worke is to be an interpreter betweene two of very remote parts that live as farre asunder as heaven and earth as heaven and hell I might say between Spirits the spirit of God and the spirit of man one whereof 't is more proper to say is in hell whilst out of heaven then in any middle place between Transactions between God and the soule are the deepest the weightiest the intricat'st things in the world A sinner is convicted sentenced carried to the place of execution his winding sheet wrapt about his shoulders his handkerchiffe tyed before his eyes his halter about his neck his sentence written upon his forehead in this shalt thou hang till thou bee dead and yet possibly no internall intention concurring or meaning the bloud of the soule Divining in this case at the foot of the Ladder what will become of him that is on the top on 't sitting trembling whether he will be turned off or fetcht downe with a pardon is extraordinary hard work to determine and yet beares not upon any extraordinary office no Angel is dispatcht from heaven to be an oracle in this difficult case but it lyes upon our shoulders by ordinance The Priests lips are to preserve knowledge If there be any divining in this extraordinary worke t is not by extraordinary but ordinary office there is not one from the dead to tell who shall dye next no one sent from hell to tell who is to come next thither Things belonging both to the death and life of the soule are made manifest by our ministration by our labour wee are the Heralds of Heaven the Trumpet of God in which he sounds Retreat and March fight and victory funerall and triumph we are to sound sad and dolefull sweet
of love be to thee what I shall further do beside setting mine own weak house and heart in order to go home I know not more then breath out my dying breath in the bosome of Christ for thee that thou and all thy Worthies in thee may do well and worthily from generation to generation till Christ come Nicho. Lockyer To the READER T Was a very Christian expression that once a very Learned and worthy friend of another Nation and of another judgement to mine own wrote unto me Sir though there be two opinions between us yet I desire there may be but one heart to which my desire doth so concur that my requests to Christ are that this Spirit may be powred out amongst all his people in all the world There are many and I think too many opinions amongst the godly already but if there were as many more I hope I should be one in heart with them all which are in Christ and walk in him Variety of faces is not an affliction but matter of much admiration to behold to such as are but humanely ingenious So truly variety of judgements simply considered is not a grief but a glory to me to behold when one Spirit of grace and heavenlinesse is in them all for I account it a glasse of Gods own making wherein to behold his manifold Wisdome and I further think that he is setting many nobler spirits then mine own at work to dig up some pearle and precious truth for me which yet I have not I differ Reader with none but them that differ with Christ As for them that vary in judgement from me whose lives are holy I am jealous that they are better acquainted with Christ then I and so I lay my hand on my mouth and leave them alone to their Master and mine believing that we are as Laban said to Jacob * Chinissather ish meregnehu Because we are hid a man from his friend Gen. 31.49 but hid from one another neither hid from Christ Our light is so dark that a man a Christian man is hid from his Christian friend in matter of judgement but there is a Mitspah one God watching between us both which will bring us to see one another and himself plainly in heaven Let this be my Apologie for my spirit and opinion to thee Christian Reader and to all the people of God that so Satan by no spirit of prejudice hinder the profitable participation of this work which speaks of no controversie between Christian and Christian betweeen King and Parliament or between man and man but of that controversie which is between God and I fear all men in these Dominions under which we are and how this controversie will end give him that loves Christ and thee leave longer yet to study and pray ere he give thee in an answer under his hand As for errata's the Author Scribe and Presse are too full there need the lesse in the Reader or else things will be too bad A childe wrote from Christs mouth and another from mine which truly I had hardly ease or life to overlook and then when to be printed as hasty in this by other hands I cannot say by other ends then mine own for the undertaker I take to be truly godly as slow in the finishing of it three Presses were employed at once two in the City one in the Countrey and he hardly one that should review them so that doubtlesse many things will displease others more then my selfe who expect to suffer much in preaching and printing by them that have little in them and as for others they will be candid noble and do like themselves take in good part parts and fragments of him whom they honour more then I NICHO LOCKYER COLOS. 1.13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the kingdome of his dear Sonne FItnesse for heaven is generally acknowledged in the foregoing verse and particularly and fully explain'd in this and that which follows and put into two branches Deliverance from the power of darknesse and translation into the kingdome of Christ Who hath made us meet for the inheritance of saints in light c. What is that meetnesse He hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the kingdome of his dear Sonne Deliverance undergoes a double acceptation it means temporall deliverance sometimes Attend unto my cry for I am brought very low deliver me from my persecutours for they are stronger then I Psal 142.6 Sometimes it means eternall deliverance soul-salvation deliverance from sinne it self and the dominion of it and not barely from such domineering evils as sinne sets up to make this life miserable Deliver me from all my transgressions Psal 39.8 Deliver me from bloud-guiltinesse Psal 51.14 These expressions speak soul-deliverance eternall deliverance and of this nature is that deliverance here mentioned in my Text as the words themselves explain Doctr. Man now is in soul-misery our eternall estate is undone our eternall life slain the bloud of our souls is spilt upon the earth There is death and death with Emphasis Who shall deliver me from the body of this death Soul-death is here meant man is spiritually slain stabbed at heart undone inwardly he needs a deliverance from this death So there is wrath and wrath to come wrath that works hereafter upon spirits when then they have laid aside the bodies of flesh in which they dwelt here Even Jesus who hath delivered us from the wrath to come 1. Thess 1.10 That deliverance and this in my Text mean one thing soul-deliverance which every soul stands in need of but some onely enjoy Who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse Naturally Man is in soul-misery naturally we are children of wrath by nature wrath works against us in the very wombe Jacob have I loved Esau have I hated and this ere they had seen the world Corruption is got into the bloud generation is marred man the noblest creature cannot beget a happy creature when he goes about this work he layes the first foundation in sinne In sinne was I conceived c. David was marred from the beginning and made miserable as soon as crudled in the wombe as soon as any matter was laid together for such a form Treason stains the bloud the first man proves a traytour and never since any otherwise but one The first man poisoned his nature and then begat as he made himself and not as God made him and so doth all the posterity to this houre and this makes so many men so many worms and no men so many base miserable things and not one worthy of the name of a blessed creature but the name of an uncreated thing a piece of mere putrifaction a worm so in body and so in soul mere putrifaction in all Judiciarily Man is in soul-misery judiciarily Justice hath traced sinne to its rise and plagued it at the fountain head Man
the desire of that company of men I would not have them now imitated by any other to throw down light every where and keep the kingdome in darknesse and so in loosnesse that every one might rise up one against another to accomplish their will even children against father to cut the throat of purity and Puritans through the land To you more particularly let me speak from this point See here the spring of your neutrality you are dark you can do any thing because you know nothing Truth hath the power of God in it your hearts bend any way because you cannot set up God before them Sinners how have ye heard and what have you learn'd Your course speaks you loose to Christ and to many Christians what does it to your own consciences Have ye light what and live loosely Then you withhold the truth of God in unrighteousnesse and you will suffer doubly namely for the abuse of light and conscience A Libertine against light fights desperately against conscience or else hath kill'd it quite God is very angry with a man that is a sinner in the day O that thou hadst known in this thy day sinners in the day provoke God much and will be beaten with many stripes The prophet Esay speaks of darkning light in the heavens thereof Esay 5 30. Libertines against light darken the sunne in the heavens thereof they can snuff out the sunne that shines in their souls as one snuffs out a candle they pull the sunne out of heaven to make pleasure to themselves in the dark and make as if they knew nothing what they do Your hypocrisie is reigning and if not lookt to t will be ruining quickly these do not perish for want of knowledge but for want of conscience Coloss 1.13 And hath translated us into the kingdome c. WE have been at the border of hell and now we are come to the borders of heaven nature is as near hell as grace is heaven From nature to grace and from grace to glory is lost mans journey home again this journey is long and mans legges weak and not able to go it and therefore doth God bear him from one to another and transferre him along Transferring notes motion from one place to another but upon some bodies shoulders or in some bodies arms by bearing Observe the road to heaven and you shall see none going that way but in Christs arms you will see the way narrow and full of cripples carried along from tithing to tithing from sinne to grace from one grace to another till they come home to glory which is their kingdome Doctr. Grace is Gods carrying the soul to Heaven Christ carries souls in his arms unto eternall blessednesse Fallen man can neither stand nor go his fall hath killed him and the dead stirre not but as they are carried When the Angel stirres the water I have no body to put me in said the cripple if some bodie would take me in their arms or take me upon their backs and carrie me in I might come to health and happinesse The emblem speaks our state we are born from a miserable condition to a blessed from sinfulnesse which is soul cripplednesse to holinesse which is soul soundnesse and blessednesse Some can prevail with their wounds and weare them out but man is not so slightly wounded nature is deeply wounded and lies by it The Samaritan put the wounded man upon his own beast and brought him to an Inne and took care of him saith the Evangelist Luke 10.42 We are born from wounds to health from nature to grace from the kingdome of Sathan to the kingdome of Christ by Christs own power we are transferred into the kingdome Things have their nature and the result of this is their will man moves not heaven-ward nor will not things that will not go to such a place must be carried thither or they will never come there Christ puts himself to no more pains then needs must They will not come to me saith he of some which is true of all I must go to them and fetch them or they will never come to me else Christ speaks all our conditions in these words There is not bare indisposition but opposition resolute and in cases of this nature all must be carried by superiour power or nothing is done 'T is a hell to man to come out of hell and they are as devils tormenting before the time that meddle about this matter you chain and carry distracted creatures to means of remedie corruption hath its destructive haunt They are a perverse and a crooked generation Deuteronomie 32.5 they will not go Gods way and that they may not they wreath up their legges like a Tortoise contorti so saith the originall when a Tortoise wreaths in his legges under it you must carrie him if you will have him Christ saves laboriously he makes a sea of his bloud so deep as to bear the soul he makes arms and shoulders chariot wheels carriages to bear a sinner heaven-ward which is wonderfull heavy A sinner is a heavier burthen then all the creation he sinks all but Christ he makes the creation grone and crack under him he presses a world to nothing with his weight and yet Christ shoulders him The bearing up of the world is not so much burthen as the bearing up the soul of man he does the one with his word but to the doing of the other goeth word person bodie soul arms shoulders heart bloud all and yet Christ submits all these and becomes a porter a servant a slave and bears till his back and and heart break Labour if honourable helps to bear it self the labour it self lends one shoulders and gives one legges but base labour loads it self the servility and basenesse of it is more burthen then the burthen and pulls away all shoulders from it who will put himself to drudgings base service that is of any qualitie And yet Christ did this Drowning waters are up in this low world and Christ strips himself and wades and carries over poore souls upon his back and weaklings in his arms some one way and some another as may be best ease to them though most pain to him Christ saves fatherly Parents know no pains nor cost for children knees arms bosome soul all open to bear them Jacob wrapt up Joseph in his soul and carried him up and down in his bosome Christ is a father and moves just so to his children for every one of his children is a Joseph to him he takes up a child when complaining like the Shunamite and sets him in his lappe and keeps him their till he die all Christs children die in his arms like the Shunamites sonne If a child of God live an hundred years his father never sets him down out of his arms but carries him unto death beyond death as the Psalmist speaks Christ wraps us up in his soul and carries us there alwayes he is ever mindfull of us You
have that expression in the Scripture we are but trifles and yet Christ cannot put these trifles out of his mind he carries our souls as he carries his own thoughts he minds us up and down the world till we come home Compassion is when things are laid to heart and so carried up and down and they are choicely carried indeed which are so carried Compassion carries Christ and us compassion gathers about his heart and that gathers his children about there too and so they are bound up together in that bundle of life and carried through sinne and miserie to eternall felicitie into his kingdome Christ saves surely a father bears over his children to make sure work that they may not fall in Between nature and grace is a great gulf and a remove from one to the other is not without great danger soul transaction from corruption to grace is with perpetuall fierce conflict the soul cannot put out a step for heaven but Sathan lets fly at it and Christ therefore is a convoy and he transferres from sinne to grace and from hell to heaven As transactions of state removing this and that have their bloudy contests so transaction of that great State for eternity within pulling down and setting up have deadly contest and the soul will be killed in the way to heaven if not born along When Israel went out of Egypt not a dog barked but when a soul goes out of the bondage of sinne into the libertie of Christ many dogs and devils bark and bite Christ therefore as he doth pull out so he doth carry in whom he fastens hold on he lets not go whom he takes into his arms he keeps there and still carries them there in all conflicts to make sure work all Christs children fight in his arms if the devil can kill them there so they all fight upon this advantage every battell passage to heaven is secured the great whale that is master of the deep bellies us and saves us from all storms carries us and conveyes us to our haven the kingdome of his dear sonne Christ saves sweetly 't is pleasant travelling in his arms a man may go a great way with ease upon anothers legges the way though long and dirty goes away one knows not how when bravely carried Christ will have none destroyed nor none tired in the way to heaven Wisdomes waves are pleasant they go all in coaches and chariots to heaven 't is the honour of the way the state of the king in his kingdome below to be born up and down so The king brought me into his chambers saith the Spouse Christs yoke is easie easie indeed because born upon anothers neck you yoke creatures so that their yoke may not pinch you use art to lessen labour and make work no work and pains pleasures Christ is excellent at this art he doth so yoke every one that he draws with ease he makes every ones yoke big enough to put in his own neck together with the man and so he draws himself and the man too and that is an easie yoke indeed and a little burthen as you put something of weight sometimes into a childs hand and you carry the child with that in his hand therefore the child easily bears because he and his burden both are born by another This is substance according to shadow this sweet way of salvation was typified in Noah Noah was transferred by an ark from an old world to a new and that shadowed out salvation in Christ and the very manner of it Christ transferring the soul from a bad state to a good So Israel was brought out of Egypt to Canaan and the Scripture tells you how just as an Eagle carries her young and as a father carries his children Have I conceived all this people that thou shouldst say unto me Carrie them in thy bosome as a nursing father carries the sucking children Numbers 11.12 God was more tender then Moses it was tedious to him to bear so many and so froward in his bosome to Canaan yet so did God and so would he have had Moses done and because he had not patience enough to do it he died ere he came there 't is dangerous not to be compassionate according to expresse command though ones burden be never so great God took up the burden that Moses would not and he tells you how he carried them As an Eagle stirreth up her nest fluttereth over her young spreadeth abroad her wings taketh them and bears them upon her wings So the Lord alone did bear them and no strange God with him Deuteronomie 32.11 12. God can bear much alone and will for a sinners good and his own glory that is to answer types and fulfill truth Use As Christ does bear souls to heaven so does the devil bear souls to hell evil spirits are very painfull too Who bears your souls Sathan carries by delusion some are carried about by winds of Doctrine the devil is in that wind when errour rules the life Sathan rules the heart this soul is born in the arms of an evil spirit 'T is a light soul that a ly will carry but his fall will be heavy Whom Christ carries truth carries the word of God and the Spirit of God are the two wings upon which Christ carries souls to heaven Upon what wings do ye flee By these you may know who carries you whether Christ or the devil Christ wraps up spirits in the word and so away with them to heaven Sathan carries by violence The Apostle Peter tells us of some that are carried about by a tempest Sathan certainly is in that tempest souls born by that evil spirit are hurried Tempests are beside rule and beside resistance so are souls carried by Sathan the heart hath chosen its own way and reason must not stirre nor divinity lesse every thing is irksome that opposeth nothing that contradicts can the man heare this soul is in the devils chariot tumbling to misery apace if God stop not no man can The Lord seldom stops souls when they run apace till they have fallen and hurt themselves much if not ruin'd themselves quite Christ drives gently he goes truths way and truths pace souls carried by Christ go no faster then truth such make a stop at every turning and look out they go slowly and surely Christ kicks at wilfull spirits but he doth not carry them they are meek souls willing to be carried onely by Christ whom Christ carries The devil bears to destruction to ruine grace and the soul he bears as he did bear Christ to ruine all body and soul Souls carried by Sathan are carried away from God to the glory of the world to a god which is not God Carrying away from God is a graduall thing some are carried away more then others and some are carried away quite which I will stand upon a little I see some carried away extremely which makes my heart tremble to behold Men are carried away captive that is
whither it will if you fight against it you cannot kill it but you will kill your souls Rebellious strugglings are soul-stabbings carry things by force against all divine resistance and you run head-long to Hell Out of self is the way into the kingdome of Christ pleasure must be nothing parts nothing nothingnesse is the way to all Blessed are the poore in spirit for theirs is the kingdome we speak of Lay your spirits naked before Christ and let him further strip them as he will and then cloath them and order them as he will and this is the way to a kingdome it is something painfull to get into Christs kingdome but when you are once into it you would not be out of it again for all the world Coloss 1.13 Dear sonne or sonne of love CHrists honour and thy foundation of it are the two things which take up this latter clause his honour is great to wit a kingdome the rule of all his favour is great and this raisd him so high he is a dear sonne a sonne of love saith the originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The father loveth the sonne and gave all things into his hand Joh. 2.35 and Joh. 5.20 The father loveth the sonne and sheweth him all things that himself doth c. Love gives forth preferment to all Gods children not any sonne but riseth this way not any adopted sonne no not the naturall sonne he hath a kingdome because a sonne of love Love is the common doore by which all favours go forth to all children some children are higher then others in dignity but none by their wits or any thing else but all from love Wits make their way too much with men and 't is all the friends which some have to rise by but they procure no preferment with God if not beloved let a man be as crafty as the devil he will never be rais'd by God God flatters none whom he cannot love he tells them so in all he doth every thing works to throw them down not to raise them up as every thing tends to the advancement of them that are beloved We do make distinction of talents some bigger some lesser but love hands them out all to children God gives to all his children with his own hand adopted sonnes and the naturall sonne have a kingdome as dear children as sonnes of love God gives orderly his heart first and then his hand persons are indeared and then have all countrey city the whole kingdome Isaac could not blesse at a distance Come near my sonne c. God doth not cast great blessings he knows not upon whom he takes persons very near him relates them and indears them and then advanceth them The Lord did not set his love upon you and choose you because ye are more in number c. Gods order in advancing is here set forth he first setteth his love upon persons and then chooseth them forth for advancement according to that love The Lord did not set his love upon you and choose you c. Love singles out persons and then singles out preferments suitably she culls out and then crowns so naturall and so adopted sonnes rise to the kingdome There are kings in wrath in a temporall sense but none so in a spirituall all spirituall kings are kings in love and from love set up and kept up Kings of a little spot of earth and the king of all the earth all one in the originall of their preferment all children of love therefore children of honour and greatnesse and carry away all from all the world beside The heart of God is the foot-stool up to the throne for all God gives purely nothing without him ingages him to any no not to the naturall sonne You are given unto and therefore give but God gives so to none Who hath given unto him first did the naturall sonne or do the adopted sonnes All his children have what they have because beloved love onely is the wombe that brought forth sonnes and a kingdome for them Designe makes you stir but God cannot be more happy then he is the advancing of love is all his designe in all he raises he makes persons great to make great his love no sonne should have had a kingdome neither adopted sonne nor naturall sonne had it not been to make great his love Love is the efficient and finall cause of all Gods actions towards all his children the naturall sonne and the adopted sonne are made great of love and for love set up by love that love may be set up by them and for no other designe Gods gives solacingly that is so as to delight himself in what he gives so as to delight the giver as well as those that are given to all given in love makes a heaven to God and to man to the giver and to the receiver The motion of father and children each to other is by the same spirit children move towards their father in love and that 's the heaven of their way the advancement and kingdome which they give God in their hearts is in love Father moves to all his children in love and that 's the heaven of his way the fruit of the spirit is love so the reward of the spirit is love the one speaketh that which we give to God and that is love and the other speaketh that which God gives to us and that is love Gods way within and without to all his is in a rapture he makes a heaven to himself in making one for us All motions between father and children make love-meetings we obey him in love and he crowns us in love adopted sonnes and the naturall sonne all Gods children move in love to their father and their father meets them in love and imbraceth them so did Christ advance his father and so did his father advance him as a dear sonne Vse You see Gods generall way of raising persons he first loves and then advances not a person in the world doth God preferre out of this method Many men have a mind too much to a heaven here and hereafter but no mind to look after the love of God wrath secretly consumes these in their blind strugglings to be happy Is hatred or love fastened upon you so will you rise or fall struggle and strive and do what you can Is despised Christ a sonne of God a sonne of love If he be of that seed he will rise and will flourish into a kingdome notwithstanding all the devils in hell oppose Is Mordecai of the beloved seed then he will rise let Haman struggle his heart out Is Haman an Agagite of the cursed Amalekites then he will fall and all the favour in the world cannot keep him up I am grieved to see what preposterous wayes men take for preferment the love of this man and that man is made out after and not the love of God as the onely medium to rise by I view the wayes of men and sigh in secret
your affections burn and your hearts beat to be redeemed That 's well then there is but one step more believe and you are redeemed out of bondage and this will be wrought it will spring and grow insensibly out of those pantings and breathings which are upon you I have seen the bondage of my people and I have heard their cry saith God When bondage makes crying out O what shall I do and who shall deliver me Enemies are got into a body and are deadly strong a body of death besets my soul and in the midst of this body shall not I loose my soul Now the sinner is turned from iniquity and now the redeemer comes to Sion Let the redeemed admire and adore the redeemer this one thing I will touch and give up the point and I am the rather induced unto it because 't is the use made in my text In whom we have redemption through his bloud Which words are spoken in way of admiration and thanksgiving and are but the continuation of that thanksgiving which is begun in the verse fore-going The redemption of the soul is precious silver would not reach it gold would not reach it onely the precious bloud of Christ would do it precious bloud must stirre and precious spirits leap from this consideration as high as heaven and spurtle up in Gods face Freedome binds man all must be sent to heaven that is saved from hell Let the redeemed say this and say that saith the Psalmist Redemption is obligation who ever hangs by his harp a redeemed person must not because he hath his advantage with him above all others his lesson set and laid before him yea his instrument tuned and put into his hand his lips are opened as the Psalmist speaks 't is but stirre thy tongue and matter cannot be wanting nor affections be able to lie still He that died for us must be perfumed and carried home honourably and buried in his own countrey as Jacob was he that died for you on earth must be perfumed by praises and carried to his own countrey and buried in heaven You must not bury Christ in his works but take him up out of his works and words and carry him to heaven and bury him there Nature abhorres burying things in their own bloud you must not bury Christ in his own bloud but take him up out of his bloud and bath him and perfume him and lay him to sleep in the arms of his father The redemption we speak of here and would have you thankfull for respects your souls and your bodies what mercy comes to either is a blessing from Christ as a Redeemer Not a deliverance in these bloudy times but from the bloud of Christ from that great redeemer that sits in heaven Bodily redemption is but the outside of soul-redemption I hope the blindest sight will be able to see the out-sides of mercy Blind wretches look upon temporall redemptions which now Christ makes and see if you can blesse him for these you had not had the lives of your bodies nor the livelihood of your estates at this houre had not your redeemer pleaded for you had not he pleaded for you w th his bloud you had been all ere this tumbling in your own bloud you had had your bloud trod under foot by those which have long trod under foot the bloud of Christ One redeemer works all redemptions for soul and body one redeemer pleads in soul-cases and in bodily cases See a full plain place Prov. 23.18 Enter not into the fields of the fatherlesse for their redeemer is mightie he shall plead their cause with thee It is but one redeemer that pleads for us in spirituall things and in corporall and therefore in all mercies both spirituall and corporall let Christ be honoured and praised Coloss 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his bloud THe way of grace is here considerable life comes through death God comes in Christ and Christ comes in bloud to save The choisest mercies come through the greatest miseries prime favours come swimming in bloud to us Through a red sea Israel came to Canaan Many a man lost his life and much bloud shed the very land flowing with milk and honey made to flow with bloud ere Israel could inherit the promise seven nations were destroyed ere the land of Canaan was divided to the Israelites Acts 13 19. Israel came to Canaan through bloud and kept in Canaan through bloud Samson was strangled in his own bloud like Christ to keep bloud and life in that blessed people The harlot had her life by a scarlet thread and so had the rest of her faith As the promised land so the promised crown came swimming to David in bloud how many men died and how near was David death many times ere that promise of his honour did live Josephs garment was dipt in bloud and he dead alive for so many years and this was the way to his greatnesse and to the saving of the life of all the holy seed Sinne makes mercie so deadly hard in bringing forth to cristen every precious child every Benjamin Benoni every sonne of Gods right hand a sonne of sorrow and death to her that brings him forth Adam's sweets had no bitter till he transgressed Gods will one mercie did not die to bring forth another till he died One creature was a felicitie for another and none a death to or for another mercy generated mercy and man fed upon the cream and top of all and yet the bottom as sweet as the top mans felicitie was no creatures misery under him they were happy in him and he in them and all in the presence of God to each I will rain bread from heaven saith God to Moses and this was an extraordinary thing then and yet ordinary to Adam before his fall spiritually understood he had all his provision without cost or toil his felicity descended from heaven upon him as dew heaven and earth opened and not any ones sides or veins and so mercy streamed upon him he had his felicity with no more hardship then Angels Man would have his pleasure and God would have his too divine pleasure hath turned the course of love The sea hath runne so many thousand years in such a channell yet God can when he will turn it into another though so broad and big an element The sea is bottomlesse but not boundlesse 't is ordered by the pleasure of God and so is mercy the will of God bounds it orders it keeps it in and lets it forth through what channells it will life through death heaven through hell The first covenant was sealed with life the tree of life was the seal of Adams first grace and favour the second covenant is ratified with death the tree of life must die or else none could live by eating of it 't is not life out of life now as out of the first covenant but life out of death and this necessarily because
according to the will of God Verily unlesse a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abides alive but if it die it bringeth forth fruit John 12.24 God hath taken counsell of his will and turned the sea of love into a new channell the first covenant gave out all favours without bloud but the second through bloud through Christs bloud and our own Christs cup is called Gods will and our cup is called Christs will the will of God orders both these and therefore is Christs cup when full of bloud said to be Gods will not my will but thine c. And our bloudy cup also called Gods will if any suffer according to his will c. Great favours to come through great hardships is the will of God Means carry proportion to their end death to make death the death of Christ to make the death of the serpent bruising to bruise it was so proportioned by God It shall bruise thine head and thou shalt bruise his heel Nature hides her choise things closest and bids art use pains sutable to prise to obtain them and so doth grace she hides life in death our life is hid saith the Apostle where In bleeding dying Christ Wisdome orders great things to be obtained with great pains grace and glory in bloud in Christs bloud and our own Christ gets heaven by suffering and all that will live godly with him shall suffer too Means are generally proportioned to their end so by God to Christ and so by Christ to us This world is thrown upon men which is providence disposing sutable to things disposed this world is worth nothing and comes for nothing but the world to come is invaluable and the way to it proportionable the bloud of Jesus Christ and the bloud of his people the one per modum meriti the other per modum congrui Things are prised rather as they come then as they are farre fetched and dear bought makes all the prise and gives all the worth with us weak creatures upon this ground the Scripture when it speaks of our great fortune tells the great prise it cost as eying our weaknesse who look more at what things cost then at what things are and as knowing if any thing will work and take with us this will To him that loved us and washed us from our sinnes in his own bloud Rev. 1.5 Man is a legall creature and looks much at what is given for a thing and prises this more then that which comes for little he values things more under a notion of prise then under a notion of freenesse What did this cost why it cost Christs own bloud Fancie works foolishly in weak brains colour is more then the cloth and scarlet colour a generall taking colour and therefore is Christs garment dipt in bloud and he admired in this habit Who is this that comes from Edom with garments died red from Bozra Use Let no man be offended if mercy come any way to sinners though through never so much bloud and misery Sinne had totally and finally closed up every wombe of grace and it could not enter into the imagination of any creature that ever any dramme of mercy should find any way to them that the earth opens after much sweating and labouring and that heaven opens after much sweating and bleeding to send forth favours to sinners is beyond the expectation of men and Angels Mercy lay buried under impossibility of resurrection impossibilities reduced to difficulties and grace become fesable though with much cost is admirable Deadly sentence was with redoubled strength passed and not with a syllable of revocation for any lost creature to make the least guesse at any restauration By dying thou shalt die c. Here is the grave of a whole world of felicity and a stone rolled upon it daring all powers in heaven and in earth to open it if they can and that grace notwithstanding so buried should rise and become atainable is admirable I wonder that all the world is not bleeding and howling in hell and every one catching his bloud as it falls and writing out his fall in capitall letters to the glory of justice to all eternitie 't is wonderfull to me that it is not the whole imployment of all the creatures in this world to drown one another in bloud to stab tear and rend one another in pieces without any ceasing as that world below doth that there are not two hells a higher and a lower an upmost and a nethermost and that this is not as bad as that that all of this side heaven is not hell out-right Murmuring spirits be patient you think much to see so much spoil and bloudshed in the land 't is the way of God to bring great things to man through the bloud of prime brave persons are brave things brought forth Is there a braver person then Christ in the land or in any land and yet through his sides and through his bloud must great and gallant favours come You eye your pain and not Gods pleasure his way is in the deep the Leviathan tumbles there in the sea in the red sea in bloud and death to life and glory do ye think to justle God out of his wayes as ye justle a man Murmuring is spirit justling against spirit a bad against a good and the worst will have the worst for God treads such to death as will not give him his way You know that God fell out with his own people deadly when they disliked the way of hardship which he had cast them into to humble them and to do them good under heathen princes Let a wise man propose such an end and such a way to it let it be what it will red or white fair or foul you honour him in all and with joy look for good in this way give God this honour Wisdomes way to great things is in bloud in the bloud of some prime persons to the life and welfare of many One or two things may make us give God the honour of his way to such an end let his way be never so sad in our eye God alwayes makes his way most just to what end soever he bends mercy comes clothed but like your sinne when it comes clothed in scarlet your sinnes are crimson scarlet sinnes you die mercies red and bloudy 't is not God Justice treads upon sinne properly upon man accidentally as he lies under it if no body did ly under sinne justice would tread no body to death to bring life into the world nor shed a drop of any ones bloud to bring the greatest blessings to us God goes after man because man will not go after God justice follows sinners because sinners will not follow righteousnesse God doth not step a step in a way of punishment but as you lead him and to trace you in your wayes of sinne all wayes of bloud and death you chalk out to him you lead love out of his way and
all transgressions utterly out of remembrance and esteeming our persons in crucified Christ as Christ the dearest to himself and so held communion with and dispensed to both here and hereafter I say 't is an act of God this act is evangelicall pardon springs from compassion kindnesse makes God ready to forgive and not any motive from without him Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy Psal 86.5 The latter expression explains the former good that is plenteous in mercy and this makes readinesse to pardon were not God plenteous in kindnesse a God rich in love he would never be ready to pardon sinne because it destroyes his visible being all this world and all things in it yea it destroyes his invisible being God is no God without nor no God within The fool hath said in his heart There is no God He affirms it to Gods face within the fool doth this that is the man that lives in his sinne Can you forget such as would crush you to nothing 'T is a conditionall act Men must repent and then God forgives Repent that your sinnes may be blotted out thus runs the Gospel throughout Repentance hath two things sence of sinne and faith in Christ which grace is said to justifie because a necessary condition of justification and without which though not for which doth God forgive Abraham believed and it was imputed to him for righteousnesse which is as much as if the holy Ghost had said Abraham went in the right way of justification and so found it he sought it not by works but by faith for you know that 's the dispute there This was imputed to him for righteousnesse this that is not nudus actus credâ—ndi the naked act of believing the act abstractively considered but conâ—unctively considered as such a hand laying hold of such a person this is the condition which the Gospel calls for that Christ be trusted in which also God works which work beeing wrought justification follows actually 'T is actus numeratas a numerall act an act repeated in order to sense though not in order to the thing it self to wit sinne a repeated act in order to chastisements though not in order to condigne punishment We are forgiven this day and we are forgiven to morrow and when to morrow comes a man must be in this to â—e again we must pray daily for the forgivenesse of debts or else they are as not forgiven in order to internall sense and externall suffering Forgivenesse is a daily thing with him are forgivenesses saith Daniel and God doth multiply to pardon saith the Prophet Esay 55.7 Forgivenesse is actus multiplicatus and this with the property thereof and this property essentiall and which destroyed as many misled persons now do destroy forgivenesse and destroy their souls As such a multiplied act doth David apprehend mercy and maketh towards it According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions Mercy thou hast ordained to go forth in a multipli'd way in a repeated and a renewed way and in this way I come unto thee saith the Prophet Forgivenesse in the court of conscience est actus repetitus I have now opened to you the weightiest point in Divinity that vpon which your temporall and eternall good depends a very considerable point and circumstanced with a very considerable time 't is a bloudy time a very bloudy deadly time Sinners are your sinnes forgiven A dreadfull throne is palpably errected the judge of all the world is now riding his circuit in England and his trumpets sound sadly in every Countie Drunkards swearers bad good come away to judgement Sinners are your sinnes forgiven Execution is generall great and small are truss'd up every where bodies leave bloud bloud leaves spirits spirits leave this world apace but ah Lord to what world do they go England wicked England where dost thou bury thy dead thy dead souls which depart by troups in heaven or in hell One sad thing let me tell you all Death is at your doore therefore let every man smite his breast and say Shall I die in my sinne or shall I die in thy favour Coloss 1.15 Who is the image of the invisible God the first born of every creature YOu have heard of Christ according to the dignity of office a Redeemer a redeemer with his bloud you are now to heare of him according to dignity of person he is as in action so in person the noblest He is the image of the invisible God the first born of every creature Christ is admirable in action and person altogether lovely so in the judgement of God and so in the judgement of those who can discern what God and what the highest beauty is Christ hath his encomium here by men truly discerning and heare what they say and be taken For his office 't is the noblest 't is to make peace between man and God for his person 't is the noblest 't is the highest representation of God that is in this world no creature in this world yields the like he makes similitude to him who otherwise is without similitude if you look at calling if you look at countenance if you look at birth in all these he is beyond all if you look at calling none is imployed like him for he brings souls out of the devils power with his bloud if you look at countenance he is the image of that God which is so glorious that no mortall eye can behold and therefore called here an invisible God if you look at birth he is Reuben a first born not in reference to this little family or that but in reference to Gods great family which consists of two worlds three worlds all that compasse and every one of those rooms which contain every creature Who is the image of the invisible God the first born of every creature Some have beauty onely by their place and office and so had Saul and in this sense merely I think called the beauty of Israel the beauty of Israel is slain Saul was the shame of Israel and the plague of his family if personally and practically considered all his beauty then lay in his chair So others onely have their beauty in their face and skinne as Absolon and others in their birth and pedigree as Esau all over rude and hairy a rough man but of a beautifull stock the first-born of a brave family some have all these beauties without but none within of a good family of a good countenance of a good rank but not of one good quality but none of these are wanting in Christ he hath a generall beauty in place a King in countenance the image of God in birth primogenitus cunctae creaturae inside and outside both are as beautifull as the other his goodnesse as beautifull as his greatnesse therefore both are joyned together by the Prophet Zachary and admired How great is his goodnesse and how great is his beauty Zach. 9.17 Christs
a first-born and here as a creatour Doctr. A holy soul cannot tire it self in the contemplation of Christ. Their is variety of excellencie in Christ varietie of time he is Alpha and Omega Varietie variety of beautie white and ruddie varietie of qualitie mild and fierce a lion and a lamb a servant and a sonne a Man and God a Redeemer and a Creatour Christ is all varietie of excellency he hath all the powders of the Merchants Canticles 3.6 In things below Christ some have excellency and some none some this excellency and some that but none have all and this checks the soul in his game and withers contemplation at the root Contemplation is soul-recreation recreation is kept up by variety one thing tires quickly unlesse that one be all which so is Christ and none else he is all Colossians 3.11 All belonging to well being and all belonging to being Redeemer and Creatour for by him were all things created There is congruity of excellency in Christ Congruity what things are in Christ are all suitable to a holy soul and suitable things tire not we lie down where we are pleased 'T is with a holy soul as 't is with a holy God unsuitable things tire him presently Your new moons and your appointed feasts that is their hypocritical observations I am weary to beare them saith God Esay 1.14 Holy persons and holy actions things congruous to his will in these he takes up his dwelling his thoughts though vast and noble hire themselves here so farre are such things from wearying of him his thoughts respecting this world the people and practices of it rove and wander and tire as weary of all till he come to Sion and then observe what he saith of her This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have desired it Psalme 132.14 Affection makes motion and thoughts go after desires desires suited thoughts sit down and take up their rest and their dwelling and like the place of their habitation 't is thus with God and 't is thus with godly men one holy spirit roves and tires out it self till it meet with another the soul of a christian flies from creature to creature and pitches down upon this and that but rises up again presently as one wearied because it can find nothing suitable and thus it doth in reference to all the creatures till it come to Christ and in him it finds all suitablenesse and then sitteth down suitablenesse to being and well-being Christ is my redeemer and my creatour enough for all that I can wish and therefore here I rest saith the soul Transcendency There is transcendency of excellency in Christ variety and congruity of excellency and all above expression more then can be reached A holy heart is deep and loves to bath it self in deep waters contemplation is a soul making one deep to swallow up another and this is so farre from tiring that 't is the very Heaven of a holy heart Contemplation is a soul widening it self to swallow up infinitenesse what ever God is if it can Not a step of Christ towards man but 't is a great deep Redemption is a great deep and Creation a great deep and 't is delightfull to a divine heart to dive where sweetnesse hath no bottome Carnall contemplation tires because though it find something suitable in the creature yet but very little and that little in a little time turns to nothing and then the soul is not ohely tired but vexed which makes thoughts retreat disorderly Divine contemplation cannot tire for it finds out suitable things and yet there are more besides these still it finds out one Heaven and when the soul is in this and it seeth another beyond this when it beholdeth a Redeemer it seeth a Creatour more plainly Use This point plainly discovers many hearts not to be holy divine contemplation is so burthensome and tiresome to them You have vagabond persons so you have vagabond spirits which had rather be any where then at home Christ and Heaven are the souls home thoughts and spirits are all vagabonds whilest they are from this home and yet few souls care to get here and keep here The soul is sublime of it self but pravitie bowes it down men have their corruptions and these make their thoughts cleave to the dust You do not observe whither your hearts go nor what journeyes they make you do not observe their going out nor their layings out whither they wander nor how prodigall when abroad nor possible will not because 't is pleasing men do contentedly lose their souls in things below Christ Three things destroy divine contemplation blindnesse idlenesse wilfulnesse Some men know nothing of Christ the soul cannot dwell upon nothing Thoughts are soon tired when confounded they clash much where there is no apprehension one fighteth against another and the spirit dieth in this fight because condemned to abide in a dungeon Confusion makes distraction distraction makes madnesse men throw off all when they can understand nothing in divine mysteries and I perswade my self that this hath undone many a soul I have known learned men who though contēplative enough in their way yet when they set to contēplate divine things can make no sweetnes to their souls but knots tricks and fancies to cavill with and 't is impossible but that the soul should tire quickly that can find out nothing in Christ but knots and bones to feed on Learned persons look about you your contemplation is highest and yet lowest the hid things of nature wrap you up and the high things of Christ tire you presently which is nought and speaks the heart bewitcht with curiosity high in fancie but low and carnall in affection such a soul as this makes its nest in the starrs of this world but God will from thence pluck it down every soul that nests not it self in Christ and in those glorious excellencies which shine in him will be judged and perish as carnall As ignorance so idlenesse destroyes divine contemplation thoughts are vain they must be watcht man hath power to observe his spirit which beasts have not The spirit of a man knowes the things of a man You know how carnally your hearts work and what do you do to reduce them You keep no watch sloth-betrayes your souls to lust and lust will betray your souls to the devill How secretly doth many a mans heart steal away Christ and yet not so secretly but 't is seen and the man for want of activity lets it go and so is accessary to the betraying of his own soul Ah Lord what will that man be able to say for himself in judgement that stood still and saw his heart steal away from God to the creature and did nothing to turn it back made no prayer nor shed no tears Men complain of losses now but who complains O God I have lost my soul I can never find it in Christ 't is sometime in wealth
the world with light and life he hath power over all flesh and he speaks it in regard of instruction Joh. 17.2 Some spirits are very fleshly and very sottish yet Christ hath power over these to make them wise Who so is simple let him turn in hither Prov. 9.4 Wisdome keeps a free-school universally receptive that is for all comers though never so simple yea universally instructive whoever comes thrives Wisdomes house hath seven pillars and sends out maidens every where a complete light and a complete power to impart it to any soul in any place Some hearts are very hard to learn and yet not too hard for Christ to teach he can teach blocks and stones of stones he can raise seed to Abraham Christ hath an inspective power over all he hath the preheminence for sight he is oculis eminentior his eyes runne through the earth and behold all his eye is very strong nothing can be hid from it Some could over-rule such and such things were they but aware of them craft carries it with you ofttimes when power cannot but it cannot do so with Christ he discovers deep things out of the darknesse not a mote in the sunne not a hair on your head but he numbers it knows one by one which is very exact knowledge 'T is like that expression in another case Not a thought in our hearts but he knows it altogether The sunne is the eye of the world and 't is a very fair one and looks far and yet looks not so far as Christ who is the eye of worlds of this world and that world as heaven is called Luke 20.35 Christ looks beyond Luther beyond Solomon beyond Abraham who looked a great way and saw Christ very farre off yea Christ looks beyond Adam beyond all that are or ever were All things are naked before him not onely bodies but spirits whose vastnesse is farre deeper and more then all the creation beside in his book are all our members written yea in his book is written that which hath no members and hardly no terms to expresse to wit our souls the fabrick and motion of them He can tell where Sathan is when hid in a sheepskin he knows his voice when he speaks in a Saint as well as when he speaks in a serpent Get thee behind me Sathan said he to Peter And adde but one thing more and it will exceedingly tend to the glory of Christs sight he hath a presentiall sight not a sight of any one at a distance as we have every thing is full in his eye and fast by him because of the vastnesse of his presence All runnes into this Christ hath an universall preheminence a dominion over all Use Let universall power be universally laid to heart so I come to apply this point our reach is short and shallow and yet according to this we frame thoughts still of him that is above us Thoughts of things above us must be carefully shaped by truth and not by fancie divine majesty will fall else and we shall think of Christ as of our selves Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one at thy self Psalme 50.21 Christ will not bear mens base conceptions of him Christ misapprehended his majesty falls majesty fallen in the heart man runnes wild when men flie out God flies out and now you shall see one underfoot presently Christ or the creature that riseth up against him Tremble proud profane hearts at the universality of Christs power he will have the preheminence over you Sinners propose to themselves what pleaseth them though it displease God and bear out themselves that this shall hold they propose what is amisse and yet promise felicity to themselves and that is more amisse A soul at this height is near falling Christ will have the preheminence of this proud person wherein he deals proudly Christ will be above him Watch your hearts sinners they grow desperately wicked quickly a presumptuous soul denies the universality of Christs dominion to his face and stands upon his guard against all the host of heaven truth shall never command me in this Now the man hath made his will he will die presently desperate hearts have suitable justice they go down quick into the pit Stoop to the universality of Christs commands as God hath set him so do you over all in all things Oppose Christs least commands to the commands of the greatest men in the world follow the Lamb whither soever he goeth Moses parents did their duty to Christ in him and kept him alive not fearing the commands of the king Hebr. 11.23 Pharaoh puts forth an universall command every sonne that is born to the Hebrews ye shall cast into the river and Moses parents opposed to this the universality of Christs power and pursued their duty not fearing the kings command What command soever or from whom soever opposing any command of Christ destroyes the universality of his authority and speaks sinfull fear if we obey it The universality of Christs dominion is the great jewell of his crown that which distinguisheth him from all the great ones in the world 't is his Motto King of kings his grand prerogative and yet fear destroyes this quite Let flesh and bloud attend to this nature weak passion strong men transported with pride do they know not what throw down Christ to keep up themselves England thou art unhappy at the practise of this point to raise the Lord Jesus above all to give him the preheminence in all things the Lord grant it be not required of us Is our long bondage so soon forgot Is our present bleeding nothing Can we tell whether we shall live or die Shall we not put Christ inprimis in our will Shall we not give our dying breath to vote up Christ above all are we not low enough yet to set Christ high to give him the preheminence in all things Surely we shall be Let us all look about us and know our duty truth not men must be our rule and blessed are they that can receive this love is bountifull she will give Christ all she seeks not her own she sets Christ as high as God sets him whatever it cost her Affection must have judgement to guide it or else men erre on the right hand and judgement must have love to quicken it and warm it or else men erre on the left hand good men will become very bad and speak and do against their conscience and break their peace to keep a bubble whole their honour with men and the like I know not what hearts you have for Christ I know what hearts we all should have to set Christ at this height my text speaks of Love must be very strong conscience very tender the heart very humble grace very sincere to give Christ the preheminence in all things Cold hearts brawnie hearts proud hearts rotten hearts your plague is great you can never advance Christ to his preheminence and look how farre you are
empty creatures Use Relief is contrived very freely for fallen man Weak hearts should comfort themselves with this point Sinnes lode some souls that they can get no ease Conscience saith too little or else too much sometimes it is asleep and saith nothing sometimes it is awake and crieth perpetually as apprehending no remedy this is a deadly wound and I would I could heale it Misunderstanding makes sorrow unkind we measure mercy by our own comprehension which hath killed many Sinners take heed what thoughts you take up of the kindnesse of God God doth not come to shew great kindnesse as you do with great unwillingnesse and upon hard terms It joyeth God and pleaseth him to meet prodigalls to kisse them and cloth them notwithstanding all unkindnesse undutifulnesse unnaturalnesse Guilt makes horrour and horrour makes distraction distracted persons whip and cut and wound themselves Dolefull conditions would be pitied above but sinners have no pity to themselves to think so What sovereigne balm is in Christs merit if sinners would be pleased to use it It is pleasing to God to do good but 't is not pleasing to us to receive it the devil is too hard for us all Observe Sathans wiles we shall perish by thousands else though God be pleased to provide salvation for sinners and what a pity is that Tempted souls stirre up the grace of God and believe the word of the Gospel you please your selves in the thought of your sins and in the ruine of your souls through unbelief but God is nor pleased with it God is pleased to contrive your salvation and it would adde to his pleasure to see his contrivement please you and save you Action hath circumstance yours hath Gods hath and yet scarce a soul considers this and yet these are the twigs in our rod that whip us or the rayes in our sunne that chear us Deniall of free grace hath foure aggravations 'T is ingratitude Bounty is sleighted Manna is light bread the smiling face of God hath no lustre God puts out his hand and the sinner lifts up his heel which is grosse ingratitude Love should gain love when God smiles we should smile upon him when the King of glory comes we should open the everlasting doores our thankfulnesse respecting divine favours is the reception of them our ingratitude is the rejection of them Israel would none of me Free grace is the sweetest dish in wisdomes house presented to make two merry together 't is wine upon the lees 't is the fat of the kidneys of wheat 't is the fatted calf and the best garment 't is the heart of God held out 't is the glory of heaven visible to gain hearts what heart hath that man that is not taken with these Unkindnesse sinks deep into sweet spirits God is such a spirit Unkindnesse grieves God this unkindnesse most of all that the fairest of ten thousand should make love to a black-moore that a king should make love to a begger and yet be rejected Your unkindnesse is your ingratitude 'T is rebellion to deny free grace Now we are upon a step higher to beat unkind souls then we were before The harlot Rahab by faith received the spies and perished not with the rebels with them that believed not say you Not to receive what God freely proffers is rebellion it is mans will fighting against Gods the King of kings warred against within his own dominions the King kept out from his own chair of state to wit the soul Shall not God dwell in his own Will you keep him out of his purchase that which he hath paid such a dear rate for The workings of our heart we observe not we are undone by this carelesnesse who strives within and who is thrust out Is it Christ or who is it 'T were worth the inquiry to know who 't is that is resisted by the soul now and then Man through carelesnesse continues a rebell against Christ and knows it not gain-sayings of free grace speaks you all rebels and so you are called by the Psalmist as well as in the place forecited Men and women study your own hearts and tell me how they move It is pleasing to God to embrace you is it pleasing to you to accept him Why not now then your rebellion will be written in heaven if you turn off Christ from time to time Rebellion hath its degrees It is rebellion to abide in unbelief one houre The land in which we live is divided it is deadly to behold The Kings side say we are rebells the Parliaments side say that they are rebells by such an account we are all rebells and truly that 's my fear that we are all rebells to Christ and that this is the reason he makes no better use of us but one to destroy another It were well if spirituall rebellion were looked after betimes 't will end us all else Eternall peace and eternall truth are worth nothing men tread underfoot the bloud of the Sonne of God the grace by which they should be saved and take pleasure in unrighteousnesse and no pleasure in the good pleasure of God which is ready to save them 3. 'T is groundlesse wickednesse to deny the free-grace of God Some action hath reason and then the creature can stand upon his defence But sinners what reason have you for rejecting free-grace You refuse many things for cost you cannot refuse free-grace upon this ground you may have it for nothing God doth cloath lillies and souls alike though they do not spin to make their own apparell yet have most royall habit Every one of Gods children are rich but rise to it out of nothing they have clothing of the best lodging of the best feeding of the best and all for nothing None go so richly none lodge so delightfully none fare so daintily as those that embrace the good pleasure of God Some things yield but a little of what you seek and expect and therefore you decline them but you cannot reject free-grace upon this ground Free love is full love nothing is so full it hath all fullnesse in it It pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell What thing of all the things which you are in love with hath all fulnesse in it Things with which you are taken have commonly but one excellency and but a little of that You love some for their wisdome and yet they have not all wisdome and all knowledge You love others for their strength and fortitude and yet they have not all power nor all might yet so hath free grace it hath all kinds of graces in it and the complement of all these The Sonne that smiles upon us is all light and in him is no darknesse Ungracious hearts think of this it will be put home upon you why you have no grace why you have no wedding garment when the great marriage day comes you will presently be espied by one that will then view all here 's a man hath
no grace What 's the reason Could he have none or would he have none To one I answer saith God he might have had grace and life and it would have pleased me to have enriched him with these To the other I will answer saith conscience This wretched soul would have no grace he loved iniquity and hated righteousnesse therefore is he here unrighteous he thought himself rich and vvell cloathed and therefore stands here novv poor and naked 'T is remedilesse wickednesse to deny free grace The miseries of man are many and yet there is but one remedy Free grace hath balm for every wound which rejected every wound is mortall The least sinne is death The wages of sinne that is of every sinne is death For bodily distresses there be many remedies if men will not pitty me when I hunger ravens may If Christians will not pitty when I am sore dogges may but in soul distresses there is but one remedy to wit what God will please to do if God will please to do nothing for me none else will or can No eye pittied thee to do any of these for thee Gods eye pitilesse and there is no eye pittifull nor can be to the soul 'T is storied of the balm that it groweth in the Holy-land and no where else which is the reason of that speech Is there no balm in Gilead Mercy for your souls is in the pleasure of God and no where else Sinners make no more of the favour of God then of the favour of man I live not upon one the heart layeth this conclusion and swelleth and lifteth up the heel Ah wretches you cannot say so of God you live upon one yea upon one thing in God upon the smiles of his countenance upon this that he is free in mercy that it pleaseth him to save souls This point hath been applyed to convince and humble and it may also be applyed in the next place to chear and revive There are burdened hearts I beleeve among you but let no distresse discourage you How great soever the wants of any be let them come to God it pleaseth him to lay out for you Are your wants more then Christ hath where withall to supply What ever Christ hath or can do and what is it that he cannot do it pleaseth God to the heart that he should imploy it for you Men under guilt fancy hard thoughts of God my sinnes are great and God will not pardon yes he will he is ready to forgive it pleaseth him to forgive he hath furnished Christ of purpose and laid out all upon this very designe which is reall demonstration of his pleasure this way If distresse lie any otherwise yet it should not distract because free grace speaketh supply to any distresse that you can mention t is a fountain a fountain open every one may draw and yet none draw drie Your straits are many and you cannot tell which way to get out remember the point in hand that it pleaseth God to contrive relief To undo knots is a troublesome thing especially such knots as unbelief knitteth in the soul and yet God is pleased with this work he is a God of peace made up of peace his whole pleasure as well as his whole imployment lieth this way The God of peace establish and strengthen you saith the Apostle The Apostles words are of great emphasis the Godhead bendeth strongly and delightfully this way to settle poore weak souls which can do nothing themselves Doubts cavills and complaints are many and God quieteth all because his pleasure and delight is in the peace and tranquillity of poore souls He is a God of peace his pleasure is to make peace and a Heaven where he cometh 'T is the pleasure of things to do things naturall to them 't is the pleasure of wicked spirits to torment and vexe and to make hell where ever they come and in this sense the devil may be called the God of warre so 't is the pleasure of God to do things naturall to him to comfort and cheere poore souls to strengthen and establish them to make a Heaven where ever he cometh as a God of and a God at this work Coloss 1.19 For it pleased the Father c. THe reason of what Christ is to man is rendered by the Spirit of God in this Text the cause of his greatnesse and fulnesse to maintain it is the will of God it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell 'T is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word speak will and delight such a pursuit and such action as wherein there is transcendent souls rest Behold my servant which I have chosen my beloved which my soul hath willed Esay 42.1 In whom my soul is at rest saith the Evangelist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same word here in my Text which noteth that the will and the delight of God are in the furnishing of Christ for us Scriptures compared the word you see soundeth double the will and the pleasure of God are wrapt up in it which we shall unfold one after another Doctr. God shapeth every thing to man according to his own will The will of God is absolute he moveth by a perfect rule his motion is without errour and yet guided in all by that which is no guide in us his own will We have many things from earth from Heaven and all shaped out to us according to the will of God Things below man Things below man are many and various and yet God turneth and windeth them all according to his will Can you tell how many good bodies come out of the earth to wait upon one bad Not one of them would do this but that God giveth them such bodies and shapeth them by his will to such qualities and properties and to such ends and purposes as to give their life to keep up dying man That which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be but God giveth it a body as he willeth 1. Cor. 15.38 Things equall to man 'T is the like respecting things equall to us No creatures would serve one another man would not serve man member would not serve member the eye would not serve the hand nor the hand any other part were they not all shaped to this by the will of God God hath set the members in the body every one of them as he willeth 1. Corinthians 12.18 A foot with so many toes a hand with so many fingers a head with so many hairs bodies with such variety of members soules with such variety of gifts have all their shape according to divine will But all these worketh that one and the self same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will 1. Corinthians 12.11 One hath much wisedome another much knowledge another but a little of either onely enough for a toe to be carried and guided by a bigger and nobler member and yet as much
of the will of God in this as in the other Windes Seas Planners Brutes Men Persons Parts Actions all are carried about with one wheel the will of God Things above man are shaped also Things above man and squared according to the will of God Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in Heaven in Earth in the Sea and in all deep places Psalme 35.6 Omnia quae voluit Deus all things which the Lord willed c. God hath no other counsellour but his Will about all businesse businesses here below and businesses above in Heaven God moveth to every thing in Heaven as he pleaseth and maketh conveyance thence of things as he pleaseth God hath many about him and when he hath any businesse to dispatch here below he maketh a messenger to man of whom he will and wrappeth up what good he will and sendeth it along with him The word goeth forth out of Heaven for the souls of men from divine will This wind bloweth where he listeth it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching c. The Spirit goeth forth out of Heaven by the will of God Christ goeth forth from Gods will and all that he bringeth Gods will guideth him to send whom he will and what he will with him from Heaven to Earth It pleased the Father to send Christ out of his bosome and with him all fulnesse from Heaven to Earth All runneth into this that God shapeth every thing to man according to his will Use This maketh a distinction between God and Man Know Gods prerogative and give it him no creature may pursue his own will Man should know his bounds best and he breaketh bounds worst No man may pursue his own will and do whatsoever pleaseth him and yet he thinketh he may Pride is desperate wickednesse the spirit of the Devil is in man he would be as God above God and carry all by his will The enemies said I will pursue I will overtake I will divide the spoil my lusts shall be satisfied upon thee I will draw my sword mine hand shall destroy them Exodus 15.9 All these expressions shew how man doth invade the prerogative of God to move according to his will If they have persecuted me saith Christ they will persecute you Christ relateth many sad things concerning his people but the saddest of all is this that he mentioned at last all these sad things saith he they will do unto you for my names sake Persecuting bloudy wretches is your will absolute May your will be an infallible rule to you as Gods is Are ye men or are ye Gods or are ye Devils Will you do what you will Is it a small thing to you to destroy divine prerogative to step up into the chair of State to slash and cut Truth and the lovers of it with your tongues and pens and hands as you will Malice broke out hypocrisie striveth to hide it men would not have their insides outward but God giveth up man to his will and then the heart is plainly seen Resolution to evill is the punishment of hypocrisie observe these times and you shall see men speak out themselves and write down in red letters what they are A man fast to his will was first very loose from God He that seeth in secret doth not tell all presently loosenesse generateth pride pride generateth perversenesse and now God leaveth the man to his will A man left to his will maketh this his rule as God doth and is a little god in his own eyes doth what he will Know your condition you that know no rule but your will you are hypocrites discovered a generation left of God left by Mercy that Justice may take you Resolution to evill is a sinner upon the top of the ladder putting a halter about his own neck and bidding the hangman to do his office when he will A man pinn'd to his will hath three grand plagues upon him One is this whatever he doth amisse is aggravated still thou didst it wilfully Christ bleeds truth bleeds conscience bleeds and all these take their bloud and throw it in the face of this sinner with this anguish Ah wretch thou gavest us these wounds with thy will thou hast committed wilfull murther we preached unto thee we prayed unto thee we cried and wept unto thee to save our bloud yet thou wouldest not O how is Jerusalems sinne aggravated from their will I would have gathered thee but thou wouldest not I spake words to thee shed tears to thee to save my bloud to love my person and yet thou wouldest not 'T is made self-murther in the Scripture which is the bloudiest murther of all so highly is self-will aggravated O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self 'T is all one as if God had said thou hast been self-willed A man may fall off and yet have his honour with Christ if will move well no sinne is aggravated but all extenuated alas the flesh is weak But 't is enough to me saith Christ that the spirit is willing Bigge-spirited sinners think of this you sinne nothing but bigge sinnes the letters you make are suitable to the penne with which you write them 't is a text penne you write with and they are all text letters which you make and Christ will shew you them in his book hereafter and they will be very plain to be read by men Angels and conscience they are so bigge Aggravation is a willfull sinners plague he sinnes nothing but bigge sinnes all his brats are clothed in scarlet which speaks very loud to conscience Conviction is a second plague of a wilfull sinner this is all his gratulation from Christ fire thrown in his face When ever Christ meets a wilfull sinner he draws his sword at him slashes conscience and wounds it deeply This sinner comes to Church and there Christ meets him and stabbes him to the heart with every word he speaks which is the sword of the spirit this sinner goes into company more suitable to him and yet there too Christ meets him and throws dirt in his face the filth of his action whilst hot that it may be the more scalding in the midst of laughter nips him by the heart Whilest the Saints are before the wicked and the bloud of their names upon their tongues sporting themselves he makes them tremble as he did Felix Bigge vessels that are high above water are easily shot through and through 't is the usuall practise of God to make Pashurs Magor-missabib to shoot them through and through to smite such within as smite his without and to make them fear round about None in stronger terrour at times then stout-hearted sinners This makes vexation which is our next thing to pursue Devils are tormented 't is their proper plague 't is the proper plague of a man pinned to his will to be still crossed and vexed God doth what he can and another doth what he can to please him yet nothing goeth right his will is so
crooked and perverse and this makes him mad and this is Gods way of whipping his bedlams those that are out of their wits against truth and holinesse One calls for morter and the other brings stones the proud Babel will not up did not that vex and torture them think you The great God and great-spirited men meet sometimes and they justle and he justles and crouds their limbs against the wall and that maddes them to the heart Frustration of intention and disprosperity of action you cannot find out a worse hell for a proud man and yet thus God dealeth usually with such spirits God opposeth will to will and what men say shall be God saith it shall not be he sets himself to walk contrarie to them which walk contrary to him and this makes weeping and gnashing of teeth indeed amongst wilfull wretches Can you imagine how this scourges wretches on the kings side that God crosses their will in all things David pleased not Saul Jonathan pleased not Saul God pleased not Saul because none pleased his will this was an evil spirit vexing him continually 'T is the portion of all spirits more or lesse which are pinned to their will they are vexed with an evill spirit of discontent perpetually Continuall raging enrageth God and then he reveals his will and then devils descend to hell which is their place all fiery spirits are put in a room together Let wilfull wretches stoop to the will of God which is the use that Solomon makes of this point Stand not in an evil thing for he doth whatsoever pleaseth him Eccles 8.3 He speaks it in regard of the king how much more true is it of the King of kings That we do evil is not simply damnable but that we stand in it There must be but one God one to rule by will when we make more then we pay for it As God makes his will his rule in all things so do you make his will your rule in all things and not your own Mine own heart is deceitfull 't is an ill guide Sathan can get favour in every court here below not a heart upon earth but he finds something in it when he comes to welcome him 't is dangerous to make this generall commander of a mans military life in this world which holds such correspondencie with such a deadly enemy O that men would thus wisely consider their way and do like disciples of Christ that have denied themselves and not like heady persons that have sould themselves to do wickedly Poore creatures think that there is but one step to felicitie and that is to have their will in this thing or that O if I had this or if I had that what a blessed creature should I be whereas our felicity is not in having our own will from God but in Gods having his own will from us our blessednesse is not in our selves but in him not in any thing that we propose but in what he proposeth 'T is our meat and drink to do Gods will 'T is our felicity to rise dayly to the life of Christ who pleaseth not himself For even Christ pleaseth not himself but as it is written the reproches of them that reproched thee fell on me Romans 15.3 A word of consolation and I have done Some favours are long a coming and then we are sad it should not be for they come as soon as God will and sooner would not be well for us Some persons are very bitter in their carriage this makes others concerned therein to weep bitterly it should not be no creature is bitterer to me then God will the cup of gall and vinegar in Christs hand is Gods will Father thy will be done Men are strong devils are strong lusts are strong and I think they shall never down and this throws me down but it should not be for though I cannot throw these down God will he wills the death of sinners when past remedie and he wills the death of sinnes when past our strength and that he wills this is enough I will be thou clean That God shapes out every thing by his will makes ill for sinners for wilful sinners but very well for such as are humble and penitent COLOSSIANS 1.19 It pleaseth the Father c. AS this terme involves the will of God simply and singly considered so I pursued it the last day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it notes something deare or complacentiall to us and so rendred 1 Thes 2.8 the word also comprehends the strength and intention of affection such a complacencie of love as makes one delight and rest to doe such or such a thing It gave rest to Father and holy Ghost it delighted both to lay out liberally in Christ for fallen mans reliefe Fire hath its propertie which is to burne so doth love in Gods breast to us-ward Wee are now led to speake upon the propertie of mercy how strongly the rivers and streames of life run God is restlesse till befallen man have full reliefe provided Doctr. It gave rest to the Father c. What agents doe naturally they doe it intensly the Sun is restlesse till it rise and shine upon us 'T is naturall to God to shew mercy as 't is to the Sun to shine according to this he wrought as soone as ever he began to worke and could not tell how to worke otherwise God could not tell how to make any thing but blessed creatures and blessed places a Heaven and a Paradise blessed spirits and blessed men God cast all that ever he did into a frame full of mercy but man jogd his hand and turned all out of course God is the same stil restless til all be brought into a state of blessednesse againe As the Needle is restlesse till it stand to the North point so was God till he turned againe to fallen man as may appeare by his speedy provision for Adam God eyes the beautie of action motion with delight unto good is glorious Delight is love in strength love in strength is restlesse till it can vend it selfe Since I spake against him I doe earnestly remember him still Jere. 31.20 Earnest affection makes mind worke memory worke head worke heart worke still it makes all restlesse perpetually till the thing pitied and beloved have rest God goes reluctantly about no act of kindnesse 't is inglorious it may be competent to you it cannot be to God 'T is below God to shew kindnesse to us here reluctantly though wee be all here such base creatures God delights to exercise loving kindnesse in the earth Jerem 9.24 One would thinke that it might be delightfull to him to shine in his owne spheare to exercise loving kindnesse in Heaven to cast pearles and raies upon those noble peeres and so 't is and 't is delightfull also to the Sunne to shine upon dunghils upon us base creatures to exercise loving kindnesse in the earth God eyes the necessitie of action unlesse he acts throughly wee are all
any time Christ makes it up so that the soul is still full full of content full of joy and that 's a blessed life that cannot be made miserable Thou hast no righteousnesse but Christ hath enough which is all thine if thou couldest see it Thou canst not pray but Christ hath the art on 't for he is full of the Spirit and he makes thy requests thou hast no spirituals no corporals but Chist hath all and thou mayst from hence as the Apostle doth conclude that he will supply all thy wants Phil. 4.19 Christ will do for you according to his riches and that will amount to very much to the supply of all your wants let them be what they will But now my God will supply all your wants according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ According to that all fulnesse which now Christ hath in glory will he dispence Lord how full how rich how blessed will all Saints be I leave them to admire this till I can speak of it more COLOS. 1.19 That in him should all fulnesse dwell c. Opportunity and assistance hath continued to pursue our work both beyond our expectation God must have all the glory We spake last day of Christs wealth and we founde his revenue very great we are now to tell you where it lies Much may be nothing so it may be situated situation is the glory of our inheritance Christs inheritance lies very commodiously very blessedly it lies all in him It pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell You dwell in your inheritance but Christs inheritance dwels in him You have a hint here how to raise estimation Doctr. We are to prize persons and things according to the wealth and worth that they have in them Christ hath all worth in him Felicity makes estimation as we contrive things to contribute to this so we put price upon them Mans felicity lies inward as his soul and not as his body is in wealth so is he blessed Sin is a gangrene the bowels are gnawed the plague of man is at his heart health is best wealth that 's wealth indeed that makes the soul well Faculties fight the Devill sets them on the heart cannot still its own stirs if God in this case do nothing within the man is a poor creature for all his riches a million of money cannot give a moments ease the man wil be distracted in the midst of abundance and curse his gold as an Idol god and wish his bags his winding sheet things ill within and nothing can be well without but the spirit full of God though the purse be not full of money the condition is blessed and to be admired as possessing all 'T was Christs case and is here admired by the Apostle It pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell without him he had nothing Internall wealth is great outward things are but seemingly big like watry vapours internall wealth is the Sun himself and no seeming big rayes of the Sun Know ye not that Christ is in you c. So much grace in the heart so much of Christ himself soul-fulnesse is nothing else but one spirit filling up another Magnitude makes admiration a â—rum of grace is great 't is God the great God in you Judgement amongst us is false things should be weighed in an even ballance to make right estimation of persons and things We value the casket only and not what is in it if vastness of estate makes difference in price that 's greatest which lies within The weaknesse of God is stronger then men So may I say the least of God in the heart is more then all the world A thing may take up little compasse and yet be vastly big in price What a great estate lies round together in some little stones can you value one vertue The price of Wisdom is above Rubies and yet the seat of this is within the inner man hath many Jewels about his neck of inestimable price the Bride hath a chain of Pearls given her when married to Christ so had Christ of his Father when married to the flesh which is that according to which he is admired here as so wealthy the Jewels which he had within him in that casket of flesh Internall wealth is delightfullest riches are of two sorts earthly and heavenly base and glorious grace is riches of glory as delightfull as heaven Read how grace is called Colos 3.16 That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit according to the inward man The riches of the inward man are riches of glory Stars twinckle and make the heavens all glorious so Grace sparkles and makes all glorious within Christ is transient in the world but he dwels in the hearts and where he dwels is his chair of State that 's glorious The Kingdome of Christ is glorious that 's within you the killing of sin is sweet the soul drinks the blood of the slain and growes fat 't is heaven to any soul to be conquered by Christ his smitings are precious balm what are his embraces then Not any thing in grace but most contentfull to the soul the bitterest things about grace are sweet the very bark and rind of grace sweet Persons have not heaven as they have much without but as they have much within Heaven is all the person that hath this in him is admirable though never so contemptible in the world It pleased the Father that in him should be all the sweetest delights that are in the bosome of God and therefore admired here by the Apostle Internall wealth is the lastingest Much for yeers begets it self little every hour to think of its end riches yea life is a death under this notion that they will end Life is dated all things here are dated Such a yeer such a moneth such an hour and all mine yea I my self shall die this lies cold about the heart to consider and lessens much Internall wealth is lasting grace is a tree of life Mercy that runs only into the purse runs out again but Mercy that runs into the soule abides there for ever You value estates not as things hazardous but according to what is sure What wealth is in the heart is sure riches leave the bodie but God never leaves the soule Riches and honours are with me yea durable riches and substance Things have a naturall advantage to wit the advantage of their kinde long lived by kinde spirituall life is begotten by him that lives for ever and so long lived by kinde That which is borne of the spirit is spirit so I may say that which is borne of one that is eternall is eternall All wealth within us is borne of the everlastingest Spirit and is everlasting it selfe Things have also an accidentall advantage or an adventitious advantage the advantage of their station In Heaven wealth is sure saith Christ there be no theeves
man naught at heart is Gods enemy Neutrality hath the seeds of enmity there is the buddings of hatred where love is but cold to Christ Men that love not hate truth They that are not with me are against me saith Christ and all that are against Christ though never so gently neutrally and indifferently yet are his enemies Judas was an enemy when no hearty lover as well as when an actuall betrayer of Christ Enmity is sown deep it lies long under ground and puts up with a very little blade at first no body takes it for such a deadly weed as 't is it may be not the party in whose heart it lies but the Lord of the vineyard who knowes all grain in its first bud calls men and things as they are this is a Serpent by kinde though it do not sting yet he will do False love is true hatred Cinders will burn out anon when blown Christ is disobeyed when stubbornly opposed Some are fighters against God and will be so these are deadly enemies Deliver me from my deadly enemies saith David Psal 17.9 There is fighting against God within and fighting against God without strong art and industry to kill conscience in a mans self and others this is a bloody enemy Christ knocks at most mens doors though he can have entrance into few Not a soul where the Gospel comes but he strives and wrestles with it to gain it to God pravity cannot bear these conflicts something is taken to destroy conception vineger is used to prevent vomiting to stay and still the wambling stomack that it may hold what it hath acts of violence rushed upon to darken that light that troubles and any medium good that may but stupifie that faculty that stings when the soul chooseth his own way this is called resisting the Holy Ghost this is a fight under deck a murthering Christ in the cradle these are Christs bloody enemies Christ layes the axe to the root of some sinners and some sinners lay the axe to the root of Christ as soon as ever any word of Christ begins to take hold of the heart as soon as ever Christ begins to stir in the conscience or affection as if the soule were on fire on hell all means are used to quench the Spirit hell is sent for to keep out heaven many bad spirits to keep out one good there are sad issues of this men kill themselves sometimes rather then Christ should live in them Opposition hath rejection folded up in it this is distinguished from that as it carries despight against the spirit of grace makes the hand bloudy if need be as well as the heart and tongue with the bloud of Gods dearest ones these are Esaus red all over And the first came out red all over like an hairy garment and I called his name Esau Gen. 25.25 The summe of all is this An enemy is one that with resolution and delight disobeys the will of God Vse What is your state This is my errand from this point to you Are you enemies or friends to God Amongst Christians this may seeme a strange question yet needfull all are not Israel who are of Israel Christ hath enemies in his own house would we knew them would they knew themselves 'T is a time of much opposition party against party this side against that if wee should all be found opposite to Christ we are undone Heate transports so doth self-ends such persons doe they know not what and are they know not what themselves one while this and another while that constant in nothing but enemies to Christ being secretly sway'd by blind and base principles Say we not well that thou art so and so and hast a Devill Hypocrisie knowes every one but her self exactly knowes another to be a Devill an arch enemy to Christ but knowes not her selfe to be so To mistake others proves sometimes afflicting but to mistake our selves is damning O how should we beg to be delivered from this In a trying time wherein many prove rotten let us doe as Christs disciples lay our hand upon our own heart is it I Tell me O Christ is it I that am an enemy to thee A man that looks into his heart and then looks up to God he will know much He that tasketh himselfe but to know one will certainly finde him out but he that tasketh himselfe to know many and to call them by their names as hypocrites or the like will certainly mistake them or himselfe or both Truth and the heart compar'd speake out one another Christ puts us all upon an exact way to know the thing in question Yee are my friends if yee doe whatsoever I command A friend loves not onely in word but in deed what you are in action for Christ speakes out what you are in denomination whether friends or enemies Yee are my friends if yee doe c. Good talke is cheape hath a great many friends if this were it But what doe yee doe for Christ Action also must have its latitude or els doing is nothing neither The will of Christ runs forth into many precepts that 's obedience which excepts against none Then are yee my friends if yee doe whatsoever I command you Truth is Homogeniall one precept sweet and all precepts are so when the heart is right the heart is naught the man an enemy to Christ that is partiall in his Law Yet this is the plague of most mens hearts Surely Christ hath more enemies a great many then we are aware of We are for dividing the living childe therefore are divisions and rumors amongst us it speakes stony hearts unnaturallnesse to Christ he answerably handles us the truths we scorne are the swords which kill us as Gods enemies as a generation of hypocrites Integrity hath a double universalitie in it all Gods precepts are obeyed alwayes a friend loves at all times it doth not divide Christ to day nor to morrow nor never will his bowels will not beare it all truth is of everlasting sweetnesse in a sound soule Christ is the bright morning Star a Star holds its glory 't is alwayes admirable a man admires it to day and admires to morrow and so as long as he liveth So is Christ in the eye of him which indeed seeth him The Land in which wee live is stony ground Love withers it doth so very frequently men that were friends fall off and become enemies Apostate are the worst enemies Christ hath yet how many doth this time make The Land is full of Apostates therefore it groanes God is avenging himselfe upon these enemies first fire goeth before him and burnes up these enemies round about Psal 97.3 The most notorious are made examplary amongst us 't is so in the proceedings of God All the adversaries of the Lord should tremble when some are executed and learne instruction by his judgements that wrath is kindled which will burne you all such of you as are not burnt here will be burnt
a reason of Gods love to any thing but to Christ if any thing incite him towards us 't is that which deters us from him to wit our desperate condition The poore man that lay wounded when all passed by Christ took compassion upon him Grace doth so worke as best to shew its own nature the lesse you see in your selves the lesse you can say for your selves the likelier to find favour and friendship with God Christ is come of purpose to make favour and friendship for such that see themselves worthy of none Let what will be said of this nature yet tempted soules will put all off something must be on my part to get the favour of God and I can doe nothing I am under the power of darknesse and cannot stirre a limbe what can become of me but ruine I cannot pray nor heare nor believe yet thou maist be blessed When we have no legs to goe forth to fetch in good things they make legs to themselves and come to us As Solomon saith of riches that they make wings to themselves and flie away from us so divine favours make wings and legs to themselves and come to us Salvation is come to thy house Joy comes in the morning I will not leave you orphans I will come to you The doctrine in hand answers this objection too grace is in all points and according to all circumstances free The preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue what to thinke what to say what to doe to make you blessed you shall have all from the Lord. Poore creatures at an utter losse in themselves conclude God is so too otherwise why should you give up your condition as desperate When you can doe no more can Christ doe no more to set the wheele of mercy going Yes he can but he will not for mee Why Because of this and that This is all one to say that his love is not fully free which is a direct contradiction of the doctrine in hand Grace hath riches in it unsearchable riches it workes beyond what you can aske beyond what you can thinke it blots out uncleannesse bloud guilt treason against the highest State grieving quenching resisting the holy Ghost All this is to tempted Christians to men in their carnall condition a word more and this discourse will end Your condition is not supposedly miserable but indeed so You are not the people of God you have not obtained mercy and yet all this may be because grace is in all respects free Conscience though in a dead sleepe is startled now and then and then rages terribly cuts and wounds raves and teares and then lies down againe as your bedlams doe this is a wofull condition and by so much the more wofull because such pangs come and goe and nothing done by them but naked torment and despaire Such distempers of soule are much like those distempers of body which you call convulsions falling sicknesse it takes men by fits upon changes of weather condition and the like such as are troubled with these fits should doe well to have in readinesse such Scriptures as that 1 Pet. 2.10 Which in times past were not a people which in times past had not obtained mercy but now all is otherwise And that Scripture Ezek. 32.36 I will wash you and cleanse you but not for your sakes Though at present you are such and such sinfull livers you may have mercy from the Lord and be changed Diabolicall convulsions wry and wrest your mouthes and eyes gastly against good and make you foame at mouth against Christ and yet as fearfully wicked as you are you may obtaine mercy The Apostle speakes of such a generation as these in the text And yee which were enemies in your minde by wicked workes hath he reconciled God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beare mens manners and then beares their soules out of them at last If these things harden you in your sins they will hasten your ruine but if they melt you and make you inquire after God who is so sweet so giving and forgiving you will be blessed for ever COLOSSIANS 1.22 In the body of his flesh CHrist can make worke with any instrument out of the dust can he raise seed to Abraham he assumes a body of flesh like ours and in this body saves the soules of men Earth is the basest Element and yet out of this Christ makes a body and doth by it the noblest things The meane and low wayes that God goes in to bring about the greatest and bravest workes is wonderfull he chooseth weake things and with these destroys strong Flesh is weake and with this he destroys spirits the strongest spirits principalities powers all the enemies of our salvation Yea he taketh things which are not to bring to naught things which are One is not meaning Joseph which was slaine and by this one which was not by this despised person were all the rest made to stoop yea by this one that was not was all the rest father and children sav'd Joseph was in this a type of Christ by taking a body a humane body he was sold into bondage slaine one that was not and by this brought to nought things that are sin Satan hell and made the way open to heaven which was shut with everlasting dores 'T is no matter what the instrument is so the power used be vast Sampson with a jaw-bone of an Asse slew heapes upon heapes the arme was mightie though the instrument was weake and unlikely The power Christ hath to worke with is absolute he hath much within him he needeth little without him whether he hath any or none it is all one he is himselfe so mightie he is a Sampson every haire of his head stronger then a Goliah every finger stronger then an arme every gloâ—e of his eye more terrible then legions of devills Christ is the power of God the great power of God as they falsly said of the Sorcerer he can with his own hand worke salvation That which can doe a thing alone can doe it with a small concurrence if the hand be the hand of Sampson then whether a bone or feather be in that hand 't is all one the worke intended will be accomplished Sampson will be mortall to his enemies and accomplish his will what ever instrument he workes by The things wee use must contribute joyntly with us to the worke we set upon because we are too weak for it we take up no instrument but wee borrow something from it which we need and therefore picke and choose when wee take up tooles lest we faile in our end 'T is not so with Christ he takes up no instrument from necessitie he is so compleat himselfe and therefore any thing that comes next to hand a jaw-bone a sling a nayle a clod of earth a body of flesh like ours weapon enough to overthrow all the powers of darknesse 'T is
sinful mirth into mourning God will turne it into howling God loves not revenge yet what he is exemplarily eminent in he cannot endure that men should altogether slight God layes to heart all that we undergo for him in all our afflictions he is afflicted so should we lay to heart all that he and his undergoe for us 'T is the grand medium of conversion this that I touch What will melt the heart if that love which bleeds to death for us be forgotten Sinners Christ hath suffered the wrath of God for you he left more wealth then this world is worth and became poore he left a mansion in glory and took a body of flesh a house of clay and in this house dyed and left you all that you might live for ever in the fruition of all Is all this nothing Will you regard your sinnes more then this Christ Shall your lust live though Christ have dyed The death and bloud of the Lord Jesus will be upon you Can you looke upon pierced Christ and not mourne He will shew you your owne hardnesse of heart in a like carriage he will looke upon the wounds and torments of your consciences in the houre when you make your will and not be affected When mercy cannot bring forth justice becomes the mid-wife and this cryes save the womb save the womb let what will become of the childe if this childe die and bee puld to pieces between the legges yet another may live if the womb be preserved God much eyes the meanes he uses to doe us good he will preserve the honour of these though thousands die which trample upon them What Christ hath suffered for us shall gain and save thousands though it destroy you though you lay not Christs love to heart yet Christ will have a great many to do it When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me Christ makes means and then blesseth them to their end men eye not this and so die without the benefit of them What Christ hath suffered for us he hath promised so to order as to make it drawing and winning of us that his lifting up upon the crosse and from thence to heaven shall lift up our souls from sins and from thence to him and to the place where he is These words should be believingly urged and then the work of our welfare would go on an end As mercy stoops lowest it takes up us for God to make means and blesse them is mercy stooping very low to take up them that are quite down Doct. There is one point more I would willingly touch ere I part from these words and that is The mortality of all earthly and fleshly things Death passeth over all now The body of beasts flesh the body of our flesh the body of Christs flesh dies In the body of his flesh through death Some worms are small to look upon and yet will penitrate and consume an Oak Sin is such a thing small in the account of men and yet gnawes asunder the strongest sinews the body of Christ transcendently compacted not of this creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.11 as the Author to the Hebrews speaks and yet sin dissolves moulders this stately fabrick From the greater to the lesse we may argue safely If the body of Christ cannot live in respect of sin surely no body else can The body of Christ would have born more then all the world and not have cracked Vanity of vanity all is vanity the body of Christ dies the body of all other things die which stand further off from sin then the body of Christ and the body of man do The body of Christ and the body of man stand in a more immediate relation to sin and the fruit thereof then other things of the creation do and yet sin eats out every body of the creation those that stand furthest off from it the whole world waxeth old waxeth languishing ' thath made its will 't will die in a moment the glory of this world passeth away the forehead of this world to wit the heavens will become wrinckled and wax old Wisdome will have no heaven here Death shall gnaw the greenest goard the strongest mans body and every body that bears respect to it We and our best friends die your fathers where are they My father my father the chariots and horsemen of Israel c. and yet this would not hold him his dearest friend in the world must be gone It shadowed out Christ he is our Father our Father twice as good and as dear as all other friends that is he is the dearest friend man hath in all the earth and yet a fiery chariot fetches up this Father from his children here Christ goes away I go away and yee shall see me no more So said Paul to his spirituall children and it did cut to the quick Justice doth retaliate We killed God in all and so doth he us we did run away from God and left him solitary and he makes every thing run from us husband wife children one dearer then all Christ and leaves us alone The spirit of the Angels which fell was in us when we fell pride and malice would have puld down God we shew'd our will but could not accomplish it upon God but he hath upon us not we nor any thing in our similitude can live if God see but our shadow and Image he strikes at it as we did at his Christ fared the worse for us he dyes for having to do with us Vse What God means in all this should be inquired into What every carnall thing dying and yet carnall affection alive There is demonstration enough without of the mortality of all things but no demonstration of this within us our inward thoughts are that our habitation shall indure for ever England all over is a demonstration of this point that all things are bleeding and dying Christ had rather that a thousand thousands of bodies should die then one soul one thing is aimed at that all things die to wit the death of your lust the life of faith and this is your lesson from this Doctrine Can you receive it Every thing shall live for ever when you can love all in Christ and admire all in Christ and make an advantage of love by all to Christ All the ruines you behold in this kingdom or in the whole creation all the seas of blood wherin the world is at this day are but to wash our hearts that 's very foul which must have all without even Christ himself turn'd into blood to cleanse it 'T is long ere carnall affections be slain every thing must die and its blood be thrown in the face of conscience ere the man will spit out what offends God The stability of all about you bears much upon the rectitude of your affection Take heed how you love husband wife children you may hug them to death with a sinfull love You complain of Cavalleers for
killing your estates trades friends but your own lust did all this spoile could the Word or any lesser rod have killed your affection to the world the good things thereof would have been all alive and in your hand at this day Poore Christians should cheare themselves from this point Thou hast nothing in this world no wealth no honours no friends thy gay clothing is thy skin thy lands thy hands thy wealth thy health 't will be the case of all all is dying to them that have it naked came every one out of the wombe and naked shall they thither return every thing shall die from him that hath most thou wilt have as much in the grave as he that hath most out The rich and the poor shake hands in the dust There is danger in rich mens joy and poor mens sorrow about worldly things The Doctrine in hand would cure both if studied well that all dies me thinks should make one not love much what one had nor grieve much for what one has not but in both to look out after another state All things are dying here but all things are ever living and everlasting above O that I were there Were I in heaven I should heare no more knels nor passing-bels no noise of warre In the bosome of Christ all is quiet there be a great many there and yet they do not fight nor kill one another nor never wil. They are rivers of pleasure which they drink of above many going to drink at a river fall not out because there is water enough and space enough but many thirsty creatures going to a bottle to drink fight and pull it out of one anothers hand I cannot drink saith one 't will be all drunk up saith another such a one drinks so much none of all these complaints when persons drink at a river though thousands there they drinke all together quietly because a river is a large cup and hath springs at bottome so is the breast of Christ 't is a river of pleasure yea 't is rivers of pleasure thousands and thousand of thousands drink there all together and no falling out for want of convenience to drinke or for feare of want of water because there be springs at bottome 'T were better to enjoy these things then talke of them one can but speake so brokenly of them COLOSSIANS 1.22 To present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight TErmes here are multiplied one thing meant but not to be expressed to us to wit our state with God in another world The end and scope of all Christs industry is exegetically exprest in this clause i one word explaining and opening another To present you holy i without spot and without reproofe so as not to be disliked nor reproved in the least kinde by perfect justice it selfe but honoured and advanced as a compleat being for ever in the presence of God To present you holy and unblamable c. This translation and the originall run along together throughout almost onely they part in the last word You read in his sight the text is before him and unreprovable before him Actions and persons come before God and the purity of both is exactly lookt after but neither to be found in us but both in and from Christ from Christ not simply as the Son of God the second person in the Trinitie but from Christ as Mediator as the Father hath deputed the Son to take our nature dye rise and stand before him with us in his hand presenting himselfe before the face of Justice first and then us in his nature in the body of his flesh c. To present you holy c. Divine presentation must be our subject now to stand upon which I will prosecute according to this method First more remotely and then proximately The object of divine presentation is God All presents under the Law they were brought before the Lord but the goat which was the scape goat was presented alive before the Lord Levit. 16.10 Presents of this nature are our homage wherein we lively testifie who is the Lord of all which is none but God their offerings under the Law they were a certain tenth of severall kinds and these of the best and these brought to the Tabernacle or tent of Gods presence for divine acknowledgement so 't is at this day All is ours onely a certain tenth of the best to wit the heart must be brought to the Tabernacle of presence i to God and to Heaven and presented to him My sonne give me thy heart Wisdome so orders the course of things as to preserve proprietie that every thing should returne to him who is the Lord of all a certain tenth of it to wit the spirit of every thing the spirit in eating the spirit in drinking the spirit in preaching in praying in living in dying the spirit returnes to him that gave it Wisdome hath so ordered that all things in the spirit and vigour of them should be presented to God Man is a possessor of much but not an absolute possessor so as to acknowledge no superior title he hath possession with injunction fruition upon condition he must extract the spirit of all the things he uses and bundle them up in his owne spirit and bring them to the Father of spirits and to him onely for a present of thankesgiving Offer to God the sacrifice of prayse Wisedome so orders the course of things as to preserve state the Sea so gives out as to returne all againe into it selfe to preserve its own supreame greatnesse that how ever proprieties are scattered yet the grand propriety to rest still where it first did Wee have many things given unto us to play the spirituall artist with them to make jewels and bracelets odors and crownes and to put them all upon God and upon him onely to advance his state as the choicest things that could be got in all the holy Land or any where else farre or neare were for the Prince of Judah and for him onely to raise his state and glory which was a type of Christ who is the glory of all the earth who is a King higher then the Kings of Judah higher then the Kings of the Gentiles higher then Agag Divine presentation is adoration adoration is proper to God and proper to Christ onely as God as he sits upon the throne managing the greatnesse of the God-head in the world so crownes are brought and laid at his feete The object of divine presentation may be considered as more distant or lesse distant lesse visibly or more visibly present as 't is held out in the text to be considered 't is to be considered under the most immediate notion as presents are made to him above Persons and actions are oft presented to God in way of dutie here with the concurrence of Christ hereafter both shall be brought before God in way of office onely by Christ we being wholly passive Christ shall appeare first
and then all that are in him Christ as Mediator presents himselfe first and then we are presented by him Here am I and the children which thou hast given me This presentation shall be made very accurately every person and action every act externall to a cup of cold water every act internall every good thought shall be laid open before God every good purpose that we would have built a house for God and that we would have done this and that shall be presented before God as done all good intentions and the person that hath them the persons shall be presented as the person of Christ his intentions as the very actions of Christ as perfect in both as Christ in his person and life so as the Father and Christ are one Christ and we shall be one and so be imbraced for ever We shall be presented to God so one with Christ as a wife is one with her husband as a chaste Spouse without spot throughly one in love with our husband and so fully one in priviledge The properties of this presentation are these 'T is very solemne God all the Saints and glorious Angels of Heaven beholders of it Things are very publikely carried above Jewels are not secretly given and hanged in the breast as Christ doth here every ones instalment is with all the traine and state of Nobles in blisse every ones presentation is matter of a new song and all the quire of heaven have it in their mouths presently not one sits sad and mute as unacquainted with the matter when the rest sing every present is opened all the myrrhe seene and smelt by every one above and so all sing at once as equally revived and reviving the reviver Every presentation brings new acts of God not a soule that is set before God by Christ but peculiar wayes of love and workings of Gods grace found in him and all these laid open before God and all the Saints and Angels in heaven and set to severall songs for all the quire of heaven to sing unto all eternitie There is joy in heaven at the turning home and coming in of a sinner that is in this lower heaven to wit the kingdome of grace all the Saints rejoyce exceedingly as any one comes into God as a shadow of that which is gloriously done above O if a man could but see what a smiling heaven that above is all over when any soule is brought and set downe before God by the Lord Jesus Christ 'T is an eternall act Where the soule is set by Christ when it goes hence there it abides for ever The things which God doth internally are eternall he blesseth and curseth for ever to whom the soule is presented hereafter there it abides for ever soules that are set before Satan there they abide for ever and such as are set before God there they abide for ever to behold the glory of his countenance God when he hath his children brought home he puts them out no more he gives them their inheritance and this lies all before him and there they sit down upon it and feed upon the sweet of it for ever 'T is a large inheritance that every one hath above and yet it doth not occasion any that are brought before God to be placed far off from him Mansions and thrones are all prepared and they lie all before Gods throne and stand as long as his the windows were open towards Jerusalem because there was Gods presence so every ones mansion is so prepared and shaped that the windows all open towards God they can fit in their chambers of rest above and look God full in the face Blessed are they that stand before thee they alwayes behold thy face said that royall person it hints one state above and rather speakes that then this below Blessed yea blessed indeed are they that sit before the Lord for ever which sit in state as Kings even as Solomon himself which sit upon thrones for ever as that greater then Solomon doth which are joynt in concurrence in all acts of state and triumph together for ever that where one goes tother goes and so ever with the Lord ever before the Lord. Your last house your last habit your last condition hath no shadow of change not a thought that any degree of felicitie shall waste and end so much as enters into any soule before the Lord that they shall ever be set one haires breadth out of their place Vse You that are the people of God thinke on your blessed state to sweeten what you meet with in this world You are here made as the off-scouring of all things fit for a present to none but to a dunghill to all the reproaches disgraces and punishments that may be this will last but a little while there are other thoughts of you by great Statists and Peeres above you will be gathered out of the world now quickly as the myrrhe and frankincense of it and be made a present to the King of heaven which he will embrace above all presents and lay in his bosome to smell to and delight himselfe in for ever Precious things are in some Countries but not knowne by the Inhabitants they are so brutish and so not improved but trampled upon 't is so all this world over in a spirituall sense A brutish spirit possesseth this world so that persons know not the jewels and treasures which lie hid in the bowels of it There is such a precious metall amongst the earth and rubbish of this world that shines into heaven that may make a rich and acceptable present to the great State above did the world see it their blindnesse is their plague 't is misery enough one would not wish them more what ever one undergoes by them I am tender of you the Lords people I know you meet with much evill from evill men let nothing sadden nor imbitter you still consider what you are in the eye of God what ever in the eye of man let not the bitternesse of evill men make you lose your own sweetnesse still consider how precious you are and to whom you shall be presented for ever The very influence of heaven is enough for some choice creatures to live upon some sweet dewes that fall the Bees picke out of it a sweet stock and doe well although these dewes fall but now and then so some influences of the highest heaven of that state and condition we shall have choice spirits me thinkes might live well upon and wade strongly through all tryals here though they have these influences but now and then if wee did but pick up the crums from the Table above if we did but consider where we shall be and what we shall be we should rejoyce in tribulation 't was a sweet dish to the prodigall when he was eating huskes to thinke what food was in his fathers house though he could not tell whether he should be admitted thither The world gives us husks
for the thing though uncertain for the manner Christ doth number our haires at all times but what doth he do then when the head is going to be cut off He doth make all our darknesse light that which is upon nature state person Christ is with us alwayes according to an externall goodnesse one way or other They have Rosemary and Bays or some sweet thing or other in their hand in the view of all that go to the grave with Christ But internally they have much of him indeed that cleave closely to him What a box of ravishing odors did Christ open to Maries soul which did perfume his body and go along with him to his grave Can any one explain the depth of divine love wherewith her soul was filled That was heaven in hell What 's heaven but the love of Christ without measure powred into the heart To hearten on Abraham to follow the commands of God throughly to forsake Chaldea Babel and all the confusion of a blind proud generation and to go to the land of divine ordinance observe how God heartens him Thou shalt have exceeding much of me without and within I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward And this promise repeated to him and his â—â—sterity in all straits and dangers Can you measure that love which exceeds all bounds Through action makes through reception through action is a soul giving up all to Christ against all opposition from men When we give all to Christ hee gives all to us and what a deal is Christs all I have all saith the Apostle when he wanted for Christs sake All What all A divine all When you speak of your all i. of all you have it rises sometime to a great deal to many thousands but what Arithmetick will expresse Christs all Shall I call his estate thousands millions millions of millions I shall mis-call it 't was never told never guessed nor never will by all those exquisite beholders and enjoyers above 't is infinite Can any finite creature guesse what infinitnesse is Can you tell the starres all their numbers all their influences Then may you tell all the smiles kisses and embracements which Christ gives to such as follow him to death This is Christs all he sits at the right hand of God embraced with that glory he had with his father before the world was and embracing all with the same glory which are with him COLOS. 1.23 If you continue in the faith grounded and setled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel TErmes in themselves have been considered their intimation also may be usefully taken up which is that man advantaged is an uncertain creature in a good course The state of man is a hid thing what he is what he will be a man looks well and yet that poison lurks in his body which some yeers hence gathers about his vitals and pales him that friends scarce know the man he is such a changling Nothing lurks so secretly as sin not a man that knowes his heart to the botome 't is deceitfull above all things who knowes it A man smiles upon a holy course this yeere and frownes and breaks out against it next So much is hinted here if you continue in the faith and be not moved away Man advantaged is an uncertain creature in a good course Light is a brave advantage to a steady course Demonst 1. We set our compasse by lucid bodies by the Sun and by the Stars and know whither and to what part of the world we are going which setles our minde and makes our journey sweet and our labour and travell lasting Dubitation tires every step is irksome when a man knows noâ— whether he be out or in his way and yet where no dubitation is the soul tires When light unto information when light unto perswasion is made concerning the way and the end the soul is still in danger to turn off If ye continue in the faith i. the truth â—e have understood and believed Pravity at some height will beâ—â—…wn conviction spurn against an Angel in the way turn for Tarshâ—sh when it knowes it should go another way Conviction is a noble advantage to a steady course consolation is a nobler to be convinced of the way and comforted in the way the man hath a coach from heaven to prevent tiring Fruit that is specious to look upon is inviting to appetite but when we bite it and finde it to have no sweetnesse to our taste we throw it away but that which hath colour and taste too we retain firmly we incorporate such substances with our selves we eat them and so keep their vertue so long as we are The Gospel hath these two properties 't is cleer light and glad light They were glad when they saw his starre there was vision and consolation a light of life one would think now none could kill this and yet pravity at some height will put this to death a consolatory light They rejoyced in his light for a season here is light and joy light and life add yet this dies this brisk sparkling wine vapors away all its own spirits and dies This truth lies in the Text too be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel i. that word which makes hope and sets the soul at heaven door and can one be there and not joy Hope sets the soul like Moses within sight of the Holy Land Can a man see heaven and not joy A man may not see heaven and yet joy In whom though now you see him not yet believing ye rejoyce c. But can a man see heaven and not joy Can a man enter within the vaile and yet not joy And yet when at the border of Canaan when at heaven doore there is danger of turning back yea when something of heaven is given out at the door some tastes of the powers of the world to come may come to de distasted A vertuous property is inducing and the more generall this property is the more inducing That property is pleasant to one palate which is unpleasant to another that is fair in ones eye which is ugly in anothers but that which is glorious to every eye that sees it sweet to every palate that tastes it this we are doubly taken with and cleave to Such a thing is the Sun of a generall vertue and glory so in every ones eye no man ever saw the Sun but confest it a very glorious body and a very reviving body Such is the Sun of righteousnesse never soul saw or tasted him but confessed him surpassing all the fairest the sweetest of ten thouâ—â—nd Now 't is a strange stomack that disagrees and nauseates 〈◊〉 â—hrowes up that which is pleasant to every palate that hath tasted it as well as to its own when it did eat it And yet such strange changes there are naturally and the like spiritually a throwing up and a throwing off of that which hath had its demonstration
like his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3.21 no condition desperate to Christ he can give sight to one that is born blinde he 〈◊〉 change the spots of the Leopard plague spots all things touching the fallen condition of man are possible to him 't was spoken you know by himself upon a sad fight which none of Christs Disciples could do good to to wit one rended and torn by Satan which Christ cured with ease There be many thousand impossibilia to us yea in us not a sin in a mans soul the least but is impossible to us to subdue because in our nature Can a Leopard change his spots any one of his spots He may lick at them but can he remove them 'T is as if Christ had said Can a sinner take out any stain in his soul he may lick at them by prayer and the like but he cannot remove them because as a nature to him yet I can do it as if Christ had said I can take out any spot out of any cloth out of any part soul or body He is able to save all that come to God by him Christ hath this vast power and he cannot suspend it If he refuse to do what he can for any distressed creature that comes unto him and be the most miserable in the world he will displease his Father which we know he would not do he would undergo hell first The power that Christ hath for the good of sinners is necessarily acted The Sun shines upon all the world and it cannot do otherwise Christ in the 6th of John when he had discoursed largely according to what latitude and compasse he wrought for the salvation of souls he puts it to this conclusion I can do no lesse saith he for this is the will of my Father that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him might have everlasting life if it be the tatterdst the forlornst creature in the city that looks pitifully upon me I must look pitifully upon him if he hang about me for soul favour I must in no wayes cast him off but take him out of the jaws of death and carry him in my arms to eternall life What is the will of the Father is the will of Christ the will of Christ naturally not artificially in a way of self-deniall and contest as the will of God is said to be a Saints will so that what the Father would have Christ own Christ cannot but own for the same Spirit is in him and in the same measure and therefore you have him setting himself forth by the Prophet just as I do as one bound by that Spirit which anointed him The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and he hath anointed me to preach unto these and these and to comfort all that mourn a Christ doth not say the will of the Lord is nakedly revealed to me how far I shall shew mercy and how far not but the same Spirit that speaks to me saith he is upon me i. in the same measure that it speaks to me 't is in me and so necessitates me to obey or captivates me as my own nature and as my own affection God is captivated with love toward all captives so am I saith Christ he would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth Jewes and Gentiles so would I too saith Christ the same bottomlesse sea of love that fluctuates in his breast is in mine the Father and I are one and often Christ uses this expression when he speaks about love to the creature Vse Sinners if ever you would be saved consider this point well how wide the arms of Christ are how big the bosome of mercy is it hath many thousands between her breasts already and yet there is roome for you The love of Christ is not coy 't is not humerous ' thath not naturall antipathy against any but persons that sleight it Sinners sinners I beseech you consider it at what height you love your sins Do you love your sins above your bodies above your estates and names yet there may be hope Do ye love your sins above your souls this is sad yet there may be hope But do ye not love your sins above that love which stands with her arms open to you yet for all this What hope can there be in this case How can you escape the damnation of hell as Christ spake to this generation There is no art to make the soul set open the everlasting dores like telling him of the King of glory which would come in I conclude so because 't is the art the holy Ghost useth Mercy held out in the extent of it is the King in visible glory drunkards swearers adulterers set open your everlasting dores the King of glory would come into you he would forgive your sins against the light of Scripture your sins against the light of nature your beastly sins I those wherein you have been worse then beasts your sins against your own bodies as well as against your own souls Love would get her self a name upon you by cleansing and kissing of Swine by laying a Toad in her bosome by bringing a devill out of hel to heaven Can you spit in the face of this Love now in the sight of all this congregation and turn to your lusts again Mercy comes to all your dores she falls down at all your feet will you tread upon her Mercy shews you what she would have you do Christ humbles himself to the dust laies himself at all your feet if you would but do the like to him not a soul of you should perish We hold out to you now the riches of grace if it work kindly you shall know it by this the soul longs to be partaker of it this grace must be nourished if longing die ere it obtain the soul is guilty of stifling the Spirit What buds in the soul will blossome do but keep it in the Sun all that are weary and heavie laden have ease all that are opprest with the devill are healed 't is the thing we are upon If this grace work not kindly the soul hardens it self in its sin If love be so large I may go on in my sin yet a while longer and do well enough at last God rejects none not young sinners not old sinners I will make as much as I can of my sin and lie as long as I may in the lap of Delilah if I must part with it I will part with it at last when I must part with all Death is seised violently upon this soul he vomits his excrements Would a Judas speak worse then this man I will keep my covetousnesse and treachery as long as I can if I must leave it it shall be at last when I leave this world my master and my hope for ever You cannot imagine the depth of guile that is in our hearts naturally
and so owned though with never so much weaknesse or with never so many temptations yet that it should be effectuall to your salvation the touch of Christs garment did the cure COLOSSIANS 1.23 Whereof I Paul c. 'T Is for some speciall emphasis certainly that the Apostle doth here articulate his person with his name I Paul onely wee are various at guessing at it Some thinke he points at the signification of his name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cessare which signifies to cease As if he had said I that am stopped and ceased from destroying the Gospel and now made a publisher of it Divine love can quench hell-fire check violence stop and turne a man when in the height of rage against Christ This bloudy sinner had a remarkable stop by a word of love from Heaven Why dost thou persecute me Upon which his name was changed to print and perpetuate providence from Saul to Paul i one stopped and ceased No cords so strong as love a mad-man cannot break them when catched with them Paul was a mad-man a devill yet catched and tamed presently by a sweet voice from heaven If you would conjure a devill quiet if you would quench hell-fire in any ones breast if you would make cords strong enough to hold a Bedlam imitate Christ speake as one from Heaven in the sweetnesse and strength of the Gospel lay a mountaine of love in the mad-mans way Why sinner Why wilt thou goe over Christ This will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cease his course Others thinke the Apostle points at the signification of his name as a Roman name Paulus from the adjective Paulus which signifies little as if the Apostle had said Of which great mysteries I that am little and poore in gifts in place in esteeme little and base every way yet am made a dispenser and so an expression of great humilitie The more grace the lesse in our own eye The sight of God is humbling his majestie and glory is such that the soule necessarily fals at his feete The lesser and lower in our own eye the greater and higher in Gods all that he raises is out of the dust out of the dust he raiseth seed to Abraham and out of the dust he raiseth officers to look to this seede out of the dust he raised our Saviour and out of the dust he raiseth those Saviours which are in his stead Leaders in Israel He giveth grace to the humble i much grace grace enough for the man himselfe and many more Christ doth plow and sow altogether in low grounds these prove very fertile Mountaines are cursed if proud men be drawne out and set high 't is to be hanged by their preferment as Haman I think both significations may be eyed in this speech and the Apostle considered as one much admiring the way of God throughout that would look towards one so much as to intrust him with the care of all the Churches who a little while since was set against them all and now turned from so great wickednesse yet possessing but little goodnesse to discharge so great a trust That I should be turned is wonderful but that I should be so imployed is more wonderfull The freenesse of God in all his dispensations of grace and place should be matter of admiration Doctr. 'T is a brave eye that can tell all the rayes of the Sunne and all the vertues they worke and command all powers to sit downe and warme themselves in the consideration of them The heart is in frame when taken with goodnesse with all the goodnesse of God Thou hast been very pleasant to me saith David to Jonathan Thy love to me is wonderfull This he spake with an eye to all the love he had received from him which is the right frame of the soule in order to Christ and his Thou hast been very pleasant to me O Christ throughout my course and thy love to me hath been wonderfull to my soule to my body in person in office in every condition They are in a perfect frame above the spirts of just men above are all in a rapture because of all the love that shines upon them there is not a beame over-looked not a beame shines upon any soule in Heaven but 't is observed much and warmes him much our hearts are in frame as they arise to this Heat is the right temper of the soule I wish thou wert hot Heat is active activitie is a soule gathering up all the goodnesse of God and feeding upon it and then is the soule healthy and prosperous and not otherwise The constitution of grace is somewhat as the constitution of nature it feeds upon varietie but varietie of God God in riches God in honours God in every thing if God be missing in any person in any dish at the Table it stinkes Heat hath resolution divine resolution tires not in dutie though never so great Then is the soule well when it faints not in the praises of God Heaven is up-hill and to skim off the creame of every creature and to carry it up to Heaven and to present it to God is hard worke to finde out God in every thing here below and carry him home to Heaven and set him upon his throne and admire him is great labour and yet divine resolution doth this doth it in order to all divine dispensations throughout the terme of mans life and lays not downe the worke no lays not down the worke to all eternitie I will mention the loving kindnesse of the Lord according to all that the Lord hath bestowed upon us and his great goodnesse towards the host of Israel according to the multitude of his loving kindnesse Esa 63.7 Nothing is so numerous as sin and mercie but yet of the two mercie is more numerous The world hath not so many sinnes in it as mercies and to act divinely in order to all these to play upon a Lute which hath I know not how many strings to string a mans soule with many thousand thousand mercies that befall him and to play upon this sweely all ones dayes and never lay aside the instrument this is a haile constitution and yet all this but dutie divine president is extant Divine presidents of this nature are doubly binding what any Saint of God ever did as a Saint in order to the rules of sanctitie that comes to me with double authoritie to be observed and therefore is the Scripture cited and the cloud of witnesses as another superadded motive Presidents of sanctitie speake not onely the precept to be obeyed but the possibilitie and honorabilitie of the precept to be obeyed Vse Saints should live at this height they have lived at this height this is good argumentation How doe you live Are your soules in health and are you strong How doe you travaile then up and downe after God The Land wherein we live is full of mercies no Land like it Doe you tread upon them or take them up The latter
this in their heart their not obeying is a demonstration of it A sad temptation is strongly seized upon you if it hold you you are lost the fearfull of this sort are shut out There be troubles in every course under the Sunne dost thou find none in disobedience Then the more is to come Bloud and death and hell are at the end of thy way Sinner and yet darest thou to keepe on in it Surely thou art not so much fearfull as wilfull Instruction cures distemper when 't is but of meere weaknesse when the soule waits to turne in with Christ and yet cannot but where it is otherwise lay open as much danger in one way pleaded for as in another way pleaded against yet the man will hold on his course which speakes the soule ingaged by will and not so much overborne by weaknesse and then there is no entrance for right principles I would let these alone which have shut themselves up till Christ breake open doores upon them and speake to a generation more ingenuous Men that are candid love to doe things that will end well then set upon the workes of Christ If thou be a Minister preach Christ faithfully who ever oppose if thou be otherwise of any other ranke practise the will of Christ sincerely what ever thou suffer Things may goe harsh a time but Christ will bring about a season 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now I rejoyce that ever I did this and that ever I did that for Christ If Christ doe not bring about such a time here he will above O how joyfull are they above that ever they had hearts to suffer for Christ here below Now I blesse God that I lay in such a prison what a mansion have I to make me amends Now I blesse God that ever I was hungry that ever I was naked for Christ what precious meate and what glorious apparell have I to make me amends 'T were enough if the now of a Christians joy did not come till after this life but shall a Christian have one here Let truth and conscience keepe company in stormes and I think I may assure any man a sweet calme here let men and devils doe all what they can but let these two be parted there will never be a season of joy reall joy the soule is betrayed that hath any other opinion or practice The righteousnesse of action should onely be eyed by us as for other things skin and bones and goods and such like lumber should be all ventured in this bottome I am for Christ if I mourne all the dayes of my life and have not one teare wiped off till I come to Heaven all is one so one should set out setting Heaven at the furthest distance that can be thought of and then a man meets with it often long before he accounted in this prison or in that dungeon where one would look for hell rather then heaven so did Paul Now I rejoyce c. COLOSS. 1.24 Now I rejoyce c. PAul was in prison when he spake these words so considered bravenesse of spirit sparkles in every syllable of the expression Now I am in the mouth of the Lion now I am in the belly of Hell now I am in the face of Devils now I own Christ and triumph in all that I undergoe for his Name Divine magnanimitie wee are to stand upon 't is a soule in all conditions openly very stout and very amiable in the pursuit of Gods will Disadvantages are many in a Christian course in none more magnanimitie knowes none 't is one that can make a Trumpet sound admirably where there is no eccho in a pit in a dungeon in his coffin in his grave he will sing and make his chaines Late-strings among the dead he is alive now I rejoyce You have a Latine Proverb of warre Mars communis warre is of various event sometimes against one sometimes with one so I may say of the warre of a Christian 't is Mars communis sometimes we come off well sometimes we are taken and chained sometimes the battaile is so hot that all run away Magnanimitie stands to it then fights alone shee is oft a prisoner but never a run-away one is enough to wit Christ though all else run away or how ever disadvantaged otherwise yet upon this advantage shee stands to it alone and fights with many yea fights and sings thunders and harpes you have the voice of great thunders and of harpes joyned together Revel 14.2 The servants of the Lord fighting and thundring against Antichrist and yet harping and singing Est virtus omnia ad gloriam ferens A vertue that mouldes and shapes all things good things bad things prisons chaines bloud all to divine triumph Magnanimitie is alwayes very stout but alwayes very amiable when shee breaths and collects spirits she doth not curve her brow frowne and fret and the like but smiles in the face of crueltie it selfe Michal scoffed David and stoned him with her mouth but David smiles and dances Paul in chaines at Rome rejoyceth now I joy In the belly of Hell Jonah prayes yea gives thankes I will sacrifice to the Lord with a voice of thankesgiving salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land Jonah 2.9 10. As the verses goe and are conjoyned one would thinke they did carry this brave sense that as soone as God did behold Jonah in this brave posture of spirit not onely big with prayer but with praises even in the belly of the Whale that then he spake to the Whale to give him up that then he spake to Hell to give up that person to Heaven whose spirit and action was there before There is an amiablenesse of person and an amiablenesse of action and Magnanimitie hath both shee sets the countenance right the eye right and the hand right when shee is stout 't is in the truth and for the truth shee pursues a noble game and abhorres all evill means to catch it to get Earth to get Heaven shee will not be bribed when there is any base carriage in a businesse none more ignorant of any such thing then a Christian truly magnanimous Christian magnanimitie is borne of humilitie and simplicitie and hunts after nothing more then the incouraging of the parents of which shee came but this shee pursues to the utmost Things that are of the truest and highest glory these doth a magnanimous Christian Nervis cunctis incumbere intend with every sinew all things that are simply sinfull or but of meane account come not into his thought 'T is virtus tendens ad maxima a Christian that struggles to be of all Christians the chiefe for humilitie for integritie for faith for love for fruition for emission for taking in of Christ for laying out for Christ A Christian indeed magnanimous is the greatest Merchant-venturer to the tother world that is he is mightie in stocke he hath many millions of
as Simeon and Levi brethren in evill and God makes chaines to couple both together in misery and pinches that part most that is worst puts double bolts upon the leader to sin that 's the soule What God joynes he would not have us to part what we joyne he will not part we joyne body and soule in sin and he doth not part them in suffering not in the best Christ can distinguish between these two in the matter of affliction and so lightly touches the flesh that it shall never trouble the spirit but then man usually despiseth the chastening of the Lord yea the best are apt to doe so My sonne despise not the chastening of the Lord. God puts such twigs in all his cords for his children that he makes no wantons of them when they joy in sufferings under one notion they shall sorrow in them under another When they joy in sufferings it shall be against sense and against reason not as if they did feele a little but as feeling much onely apprehending the issue how glorious and how precious that will be Bonds and chaines are so heavie as to make our joy a pure joy the misery of Saints is so ponderous as to presse their joy pure to make it a joy of faith not of sense in the least body and soule being both in paine You squeese out the spirit and puritie of things so doth Christ Christ doth so affect the body and soule in his dealings that if any grace act forth it shall be pure grace such as is fed with no low principle If joy worke it shall be from faith not from feeling if faith worke it shall be from the word without not from any thing that it feeles else or sees without or within Our heights are necessitated with one medium or other When our soules are highest they are wound and screwed up to it with much paine and then when raised to this height 't would not be downe againe for all the world but kisses the rod chaines prisons any bitters that worke about so sweet so heavenly a life as to joy purely in Christ The nature of divine trials is the thing that I would stand upon how the arrowes of the Almightie are shaped now sharpe these are which he shoots at his people they pierce thorow all body and soule Wherefore is life given to him that is in misery and light to him that is in bitternesse of soule Job 3.20 These expressions aptly suite the point I am upon and doe open the nature of those trials that befall the godly they have misery that is not all they have misery wrapt up into such bitter pils as work upon the soule That 's strong physick indeed that sets all a trembling casting body and soule yet such God gives those he loves dearly in bitternesse of soule the expression is very emphaticall like that to Elymas in the gall of bitternesse it speakes a state steeped and soaked long in misery till soaked quite thorow every sinew stretched every bone put out of joynt no whole part within nor without not a thought lying still nor knowing where to find a pillow in any roome of the soule to lie downe on God makes no distinction of persons here I meane in the point that I am pursuing All things come alike to all alike sweet alike bitter alike for qualitie alike for quantitie a vessell of honour filled as full of sorrow here as a vessell of wrath waters coming into the soule I am feeble and sore broken I have roared for the disquietnesse of my heart Psal 38.81 None but evill spirits are broken and tortur'd below they are all cursed creatures that roare there but here good as well as bad are broken all to pieces all roare here wicked men Saints brave Spirits I am sore broken I roare What a dreadfull din and noise is all this world over One would thinke one were in hell whilest here in every Countie in every Citie in every house no dore sprinkled for a passeover in this point of sorrow sorrow at the heart The arrowes of the Lord are within me No house so walled nor so high here but God shoots into it when he will he moves in order to all trials with the godly as he doth in order to all judgements with the wicked according to an absolute will When he will he takes up whom he will amongst the wicked and trusseth him up so or so quarters him and hangs up his quarters makes him lesse or more notorious as he pleases so when he will he takes up whom he will of the godly prisons chaines them till the Iron enter into their soule sets them up as a mark and shoots them cleane thorow Why hast thou set me up as a mark to shoot at Job 7.20 And this a meere exercise of prerogative will which Job could not understand at present but did afterward Though God hath made over much to man yet hath reserved this priviledge to himselfe to have his Range in this great Forest here below to shoot at what he will at what goat he will or at what Deer he will and at what part of this Deer he will at the heart so he doth not make an incurable wound And this Christ can doe and this may be the reason of his priviledge He wounds as he pleases because he can heale as he pleases shoots the body and shoots the soule of his people because he can take out the bullet where ever it lies and heale that part as perfect yea perfecter then ever ' t was Poisons that gangrene and eate upward and inward towards the heart Christ can stop their secret motion and draw out the poison at the pores of the soule at the eyes at the mouth in spirituall breathings and kind soule-sweatings pantings mournings and turne this poison that drops out of these pores into a precious spirited liquid and bottle it up as a cordiall for himselfe to drinke of and to delight his palate withall for ever The rarest spirits are extracted out of the strongest poisons and Christ wants no skill to doe it he is an admirable Chymist and therefore takes whom and what he will to try his skill upon There are no such poisonous things in the world as sin and punishment especially when they meet together in the soule and yet then Christ can extract such a spirit out of both as all this world shall hardly match Christ can bring a body downe to the grave and raise him up againe and make his bones like Behemoth like barres of Iron David found it oft Thou hast renewed my strength like an Eagle So Christ can bring a soule down to Hell and raise it up againe to Heaven yea bring him up so full of Heaven that not one of a thousand not one of fortie thousand comparable and what Christ can doe in this point he doth when and as he pleaseth Mibbor sâ—â—on He brought me up also out of a horrible
pit out of the mirie clay and set my feet upon a rocke and established my goings Psal 40.2 Horrible pit a vault of hideous noises saith the Originall Christ can bring a man downe to such a condition as if his soule were in a vault where are all manner of hideous and dolefull noises and yet then raise the spirit as into Heaven where all manner of melodious and reviving noises are Vse Afflicted Christians should sucke the sweetnesse of this point Doth the paine in thy flesh rage inward to thy spirit Is the cup thou drinkest of bitter to thy soule yet it is a cup of love 't is no other then of what Christ hath drunke and left the sweet of his lips upon for the next to drinke 't is no other then what he gives to the best of his Misapprehension makes burthens intolerable which is heavier then ever Christ intended to any Saint When any twig in the rod stings the soule when any thing stickes and presses hard upon the spirit the conclusion is wrath made this rod and 't will kill me if I had a thousand lives These are our conclusions meerly ours and Satans Christ hath no hand at all in them Fatherly displeasure is love a God setting himselfe against your sin not against your persons he hath imbraced these with an everlasting love Satan visits much when the soule is in paine 't were well if good hearts did know when he comes his counsels his prescriptions are all desperate when the heart is heavie then he shewes such the nailes of that hand that is upon them how long they be and how hard they pinch and what deepe dints and blacke and blew markes they make i he makes an exact collection of circumstances about every stroake of God with his own comment in the margent As to instance Love doth strike her beloved ones indeed but doth shee strike so strong so long so deep Doth shee strike and not stroake a jot Not with her own hand nor no body else Doth shee wither every other womb of love when shee leaves bringing forth her selfe 'T is a frowne of God 't is a pang of death upon the soule certainly thou canst not recover it saith that cursed spirit One would construe the Devill under a notion of simplicitie in this there may be charitie to the Devill he is so under justice himselfe that he can see nothing else and this is the strength of the torment that is upon him but yet then he is to be judged no fit leader in such a case as this when he hath to doe with spirits in a better station then himselfe The workes of God are wonderfull especially such as reach the soule and need to be read over often ere a man venture to make a positive conclusion upon them that this and no other is the meaning Afflicted Christians you are too rash too venturous paine puts you into passion that 's a very mis-judging condition You judge things before the time this in small matters is no small fault nor of no small evill event but what is it when a man doth thus about the greatest acts that relate to him in all the world The tranquillity of the soul is embarked in a right judgement of things let Satan your own passion any wile whatsoever overturne this and you shipwracke and sinke your consolation irrecoverably therefore studie long pray long waite long ere you draw up a judgement upon that hand-writing that is in the wall against you Doe as that Heathen judge others better able to interpret the hand-writing against you then your selves And if you would have the exact meaning of this strange stroake or that doe as he did send for the most experienced spirituall man in all the world Some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let him rather then thy selfe make a judgement upon that hand that writes bitter things against thee Open thy breast and say Sir doe you see any plague-spot in my breast one cannot look very well in his own breast 't is so high open it fully to another Pray Sir deale faithfully with me Do you see any plague spots in my breast There be spots there are they the spots of Gods people or not How black be they How broad be they How many be they If thou wilt make many curious questions about thy state and drive things to an exact disquisition be sure that thou take one by thee better able then thy selfe to guide thee or thou wilt condemne the innocent and execute thy selfe Judgement setled and something may be spoken to the man to doe him good There are two considerations which may much relieve when trials pinch the soule 't is for some through and noble good to the partie and for some through and noble use for Christ The throne of iniquitie is struck at the head of the Serpent is trod upon powers within are Satans strongholds things which paine and shake these come to Satans bed-side and holds a knife to his throat where he lies tumbles and sleepes The Granadoes which are cast into the soule burne the devill in his bed they burne the branch yea they burne the root of sin 't is an axe to the roote Sin considered as it lies lodged in the heart is the root of it therefore saith the Apostle Covetousnesse is the root of evill it being as it were the heart to all other sinnes Exorbitant affections which lie all within these are the roots of all the sin you act that which is so ordered and steeped as to affect these dis-affected passions strikes at the root of sin Seest thou a man prickt in soule Stand still thou wilt see pride come downe branch and root Seven Devils turned out a floare throughly cleansed drosse purely purged away a man made cleane every whit outside inside all faire in the eye yea in the vote of Christ yea in the vote of Christ to the soule it selfe And now and not till now is a Christian fit for noble service thus throughly dead and thus throughly raised Pride slaine all her children that is loose affections murthered in their bed the meek and pure spirit crowned with a vision of God you may send this dove forth any where he will come home with an olive branch in his mouth Set this soule about what worke you will that belongs to a Christian and he will doe it truly and if it be to cloth the naked to relieve the oppressed hee l powre out his soule or state to the needie and he will doe it with tender bowels because he hath needed them himselfe and hath tasted how sweet they are When the soule goes forth in action then is action done nobly indeed The Lord is with them that uphold my soule says David and we thinke he points at Jonathan when he had scarce any else to cleave to him When every ones heart was as Iron Jonathan loved David as his own soule Jonathan had been put to it he knew what
owne it is least considered when so but not least of importance for God hath some great designe upon the man when hee strikes every stroke himselfe Sometimes God stands behind Shimei and le ts fly at a man and wounds deeply and then t is not so easie to see him because an earthen breast-work is before him Sometimes he appeares in the front in person himselfe like Goliah and makes the incounter by duell hand to hand with the Creature the creature smites and God smites Name State Flesh and Spirit God would faine be seene and knowne of the soule when he does thus if it cannot be he lets the creature lick himselfe whole if he can Afflictions from man immediately are here meant and not such as are from God immediately Creatures of the same kind are used to spit in one anothers face to scratch and teare one another a Cat a Cat a Dog a Dog a Man a Man Creatures of the same kind to say no more are used to tread upon one anothers toes to afflict one another All earth beares thornes chuse out what earth you will sift it how you will appoint it to what you will to be a pillow for repose a breast a bosome a bed of flowers to solace in yet there will grow up thornes and pricke Creatures one by creation one by redemption yea one by mutuall election differ fall out afflict one another man afflictes man that was Pauls case here saint afflicts saint husband afflictes wife wife curses husband things made and chosen of purpose to delight sad thornes will grow in ones bosome here You cannot take a rose to smell to here out of any Garden but hath prickles unlesse the Rose of Sharon All is vanity yea vexation all below us all equall with us onely that all excepted which is above us which onely is indeed all and in him is light and no darkenesse sweet and no bitternesse in that earth growes no thornes Man afflictes man yea man oppresseth man that is affliction in strength malum multiplex a manifold evill which is the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here used t is translated by some compression a den of theeves a nest of hornets many afflictions in one or under one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 11.25 simul malis vexari to be vexed with many evills together 't is spoken of Moses who cast himselfe upon oppression with Gods people in Egypt which expression sets out fully what oppression is 't is some vitall wounded some maine part trod upon as name state body soule something brutishly bruised and torne that maims or marres livelyhood internall or extenall some such thing troden to death as hath many little ones in the belly of it t is a Kid killed and seethed in such liquor as should nourish many in Mother-milke t is a Mother-mercy destroyed whilst in travaile for the good of the whole Good name is a Mother-mercy many are nourished by it so is estate so is the body so is the soule all these travell perpetually in this world for the tranquillity of the whole and of the maine to beare up great things Heaven and Earth the glory of God and the welfare of every relation wherein such a creature stands any of these therefore torne and ript up whilest thus in travaile for the good of the whole is cruelty and oppression Oppression speakes injury but no small injury not the dashing ones cloathes accidentally or intentionally as one goes by but it alwayes notes something that dashes the person in one main thing or other 't is a Dog that flies at the throate at something that is vitall and teares that at something that tends to throw downe the person and welfare of such a creature 'T is a diabolicall quality insinuated by a cursed spirit whereby one creatures being is too blessed in the eye of another Men one in birth from the Earth yet wisdome hath ranked them variously upon it some higher some lower some have much some lesse all have wisdomes portion and therefore it should be accounted enough and content but it doth not one mans mansion is not fine enough anothers not big enough one person better beloved better indowed better succeeded if hee were dead dead in esteeme or dead in being all these deepe waters would turne and run into my cisterne if Abel were dead if Iacob were dead if Mordecai were dead then I should be all and have all I should be the onely favorite in the world and so quietly abide Yee kill and desire to have and cannot obtain James 4.2 oppression is a bloudy spirit striking still at something that is vitall at the person livelyhood or life it selfe if one will not fall without the other 'T is an evill springing from the root of all evill to wit covetousnesse yee kill and desire to have 'T is a man of the Earth saith the Psalmist and hee would be alone upon it though there were no Rivers and houses in it for delight but such as hee hath made with the bloud and bones of all such as live neere him That the man of the earth may no more oppresse Psalme 10.18 the word oppresse signifies to terrifie and so you have it noted in the margent intimating what an oppressor is t is a brute that terrifies all that come neere him to eate or drinke by him that he may have all alone and what hee cannot eate or drink he puddles and spoiles Oppression is made vi aut dolis by force or by fraud man can use both as hee is advantaged and as his game lies Parts internall are all subdued by that lust which rules and taught to tumble and set this or that poore innocent soule for their master Innocency sleepes the most securely of any thing dreams of no affrighting things of no injurious usage but from Dogs and Beares and Wolfes from beasts not from any man innocency thinkes every man a man not a Fox nor a Serpent nor a Crocodile where as an oppressor conjureth his wits his parts his practises and so himselfe into all these to catch his prey Therefore is an oppressor imblazed by the Scripture in a Lyon couchant as one lurking for his prey as one whose words are Oyle yet sharpe speares as one who shootes his Arrowes in darkenesse and hits privily the upright in heart Over-reaching is oppression t is strong parts setting their feete upon weake and wringing bloud out of a brothers Nose 't is grinding the face of the poore words and dealings which are the face of a man to the World all by craft and wile ground to such dust as to choak and cheat the man that utters them What fraud cannot doe force externall is pressed to second Oppression commands all within and without to squeese out her will where shee fastens it turnes Iudges into evening Wolfes Kings Nebuchadnezzars into Beasts and gives them Nayles like Eagles-clawes that is makes them turne all their externall advantages
underwent it set him more in Heaven and made his expiration from more inspiration his breathings forth in this world from stronger gales from that world above and made his last words like the last words of that sweete singer of Israel doubly sweet How transendently sweete are all those expressions in the Gospell of Iohn which hee spake as preparatory to his end Pleasant T is very pleasant t is so to every sense which nothing else is or can be such is the constitution of man and things now It sounds pleasant tasts pleasant lookes pleasant c. The breath of Christ casts a dew thou hast the dew of thy youth that hangs the Locks of man with silver drops The Aire in some Countries doth colour and varnish the haire Words in season are like Apples of Gold in pictures of Silver these are shining things indeed and proper to the sight such are all the words of Christ his last words were very seasonable words without which where would have been this Ordinance and these words which now you partake of the gales that come from Christs mouth are all seasonable let this winde sit which way it will and blow how it will sharply or mildly t is still seasonable Christ is wisdome and wisdome never breathes unseasonably and such words are as the Sun irradiant beyond the glittering of gold or sparkling of Pearles to the internall eye Wisdome makes the Face the Tongue the Lungs yea the breath shine which is a wonder The breath of Christ as it is pleasant to sight so to taste this is another wonder Ephraim is derided for feeding on wind Can one tast or eate winde Yet such is the breath of Christs Lips that one may feede on 't like the Dewes of the holy Land and make a very good meale t is so sweet to the taste and so nourishing to the state of the soule the breathings of Christs Lips are beyond expression pleasant to the taste How sweet are thy words to my taste I cannot expresse it as if the Prophet had said yea sweeter then the Honey to my mouth Psal 119.103 they that write of Honey tell us of severall sorts which the Bee makes at severall seasons and answerably differ in their sweetnesse and goodnesse There is a Honey which they call Flower-honey which is made in the Spring and prime of the yeare from choyce flowers and this is accounted the prime Honey and that which they judge best to nourish young Bees withall when they are first put to worke to put them in heart The breath of Christ is Honey-dew his words are combes full of Flower-honey gathered out of the Garden above and admirable to put yong and old in heart There is a great dispute about Honey-dewes whether they come from the Earth as exhalations from it as other ordinary Dewes do or not some affirme it to be nothing else but a pure sweat of the celestiall bodies an unctuous gelly from the benigne Starres and therefore called a Heavenly liquor and say if it could be taken as purely as it falls from the Heavens before it comes into the corrupt Aire in which we breath 't would be much beyond that which we have it would be a soveraine Nectar to cure all diseases it would fetch from death to life and immortalize men There may be something in all this though not so much as authors would have us think and yet if all this were true t is too short to set out the thing in hand The honey dew wee speake of t is no exhalation from any thing here below t is indeed nothing else but the sweat of Heaven an unctuous gelly dropping downe from that bright morning Star Christ the sweat of his celestiall body and indeed is soveraine for all diseases to fetch man from Death to Life to immortalize men Christs Words are Words of eternall Life Vse Transgression is much aggravated by this point Sinne is heartily loved nothing will turne men Do you consider what you go against you go against the breath of God the dying breath of our Lord Jesus Some mens bowells are all torne out such are past recovery When Satan can serve any soule so the case is very wofull and yet this is common Sinners have you any soule-bowells will not a crying dying groaning voyce work upon you The ministration which is here below is glorious but dying it hath been so t is so 't will be so The Prophets where are they The great Prophet Christ where is he The Apostles where are they they that Preached to your fathers where are they we that now preach to you are we not dying is not every light wasting Is it not warme dying breath that is now breathed in your faces by me Are not the lights of this Generation almost burnt out and yet sinne more alive then ever it was This World worsens apace this Generation the dregs of many past Speake who will cry die who will Christ and many thousands more yet sinne must not die no not open sinne What a Sodome is London and England notwithstanding the Word of God! this aggravation kills us this makes our carcasses now that they cannot reach the Sepulchers of our Fathers but bed horse feet and the wrath of God That place is worthy of note 1 Kings 13.21 and hee cried to the man of God which came from Judah saying Thus saith the Lord for as much as thou hast disobeyed the Mouth of the Lord Observe the circumstance of aggravation and hast not kept the Commandement which the Lord thy God commanded thee but camest back and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which the Lord did say unto thee Eate no bread and drink no water thy carcasse shall not come into the Sepulcher of thy fathers He had cried against the Altar at Bethel and against Jeroboam this hee discharged well but he was also not to eate nor drinke in that place to have nothing to do with any there because of their pollution and this also he observed well a while as appeares by his stout Language to the King If thou wilt give me halfe thy house J will not eate Bread with thee in this place But he was fetched back by a flattering Prophet and did eate and drinke in Bethel and so went against the Mouth of God The Prophets obedience was partiall his carcasse fell for this sadly t is our case at best for the generall Such whom sinne doth not wholly sway neither doth truth Those that are against the Altar at Bethel are for eating and drinking in Bethel for countenancing something forbidden about Gods worship mens carcasses pay for this and will till they know how to account of every tittle of what a God speaks till we become faithfull executors of the will of a dying Saviour we shall die We live in a very unhappy time we are spectators of sinne and justice in height Men prize their sinne above their bloud But as sinne is
God to save and so is the word translated 2 Thess 2. Where t is used in order to the wicked having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pleasure in unrighteousnesse c. You may imagine how much the Word doth import being used to set out a sinners love and strongest affection to sinne What a pleasure is a wicked mans sinne to him Can you expresse it why so says God t is to mee now to looke towards poore lost man and to sit downe in his soule The Word is used by the Apostle elsewhere 't is my hearts desire that Israel might be saved c. Just as if the Apostle should have said it would be my Heaven that Jsrael might come to Heaven t is my Heaven to thinke that ever they shall have Heaven and O that they might be called and he speakes there but in the straine and spirit of the Gospell the riches of the glory of this mystery that I am opening the heart of God and the heart of Christ now to man Vse You see now what is the riches of the glory of this mystery t is the proffer of mercy to man with much strength of affection a proffer of Heaven in Heaven i as one in Heaven a proffer of Life in Life or with Life and so are all the dispensations of the Gospell typified Revel 4. A throne was set in Heaven to set out the things of Heaven Let poore sinners know what is the riches of the glory of this mystery and inrich themselves by it Blessed are they that know the joyfull sound which words point at Aarons bells his going into the holiest of all made a joyfull sound to them that could understand it it pointed at Christ offering up his life for us and yet doing it as it were with Musick cheerfully and delightfully You have had this mystery explained all along my discourse do you understand it sinners then inrich your selves with it The Sunne is the riches and glory of all the World such a Sunne is the Gospell of Christ desire that this Sunne may shine into the little World if the Sun did not shine in this great World it could not inrich it nor glorifie it The Apostle speakes of this very thing to wit the Gospell and under this Metaphor of the Sun and he uses such tearmes as signifie in apparition and illustration But after that the kindnesse and gentlenesse of God appeared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word is used to expresse the second comming of Christ and that will be bright and glorious indeed 2 Thess 2.8 i in apparition for otherwise it had beene of no force to those effects which he there mentions a like place 2 Tim. 1.10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospell It is plaine by these following words that the apparition here spoken of meanes in apparition death could not be otherwise destroyed nor immortality be brought to light And the learned agree that the word notes a mighty shining light that searches every corner of the heart is the light that you have of such illustration hath it brought life and immortality to light i a holy life that never end There is a great deale of light now in the World but when wee looke how it illustrates it selfe we are sad because it comes to no more ordinarily then the light of a comet that falles and the matter that bore it resolving it selfe into a filthy stinck to the great disgrace of the Gospel to the death of brave persons and Kingdomes What is it that makes such bloudy worke in the Christian World now but this that the riches of the glory of this mystery doth nothing in men this hath made a long night to our brethren the Iewes and is like to doe the like to the Gentiles The Gospell being riches prize Christ and his Ministers let them be glorious in your eye which bring glorious things Know which way the riches of glory comes to you it comes but by one gate Which puts me in mind of a story In the County of Saba which signifies a mystery when Frankinsence was brought into the chiefe City thereof it was ordered by the Priests that it should come in but at one Gate upon paine of death to wit that which they had consecrated for that purpose T is of lively use the riches of glory come in but one way by Christ and by the Ministry of his Word and therefore keepe open this Cate if all the money in your purses will do it if all the bloud in your veines will do it let all goe rather then this and the Gospel when this departeth the glory departeth the riches of glory departeth There is but one thing that is eminently accessary to the destruction of the riches of glory and that is hardnesse of heart The Balme-Trees when they had wounded them to get the vertue of them to drop forth they laid Wooll upon which the drops might fall that so they might be sure to save it so to gaine the riches of the glory of the Gospel to save the drops that fall from Christs mouth you must lay soft hearts tender and fleshy hearts otherwise you will die poore and miserable notwithstanding all the riches of glory that are amongst you COLOS. 1.27 Among the Gentiles or in the Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ethnick This is the word in the originall by which we are called it may be from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two words which signify a minde accustomed to some thing a heart evill and onely evill that is stout enough and such neither can nor will be made otherwise it speakes a nature of sinne a body of death one in the flesh and led by the flesh I will discribe a Gentile to you generally and particularly t is one uncircumcised in flesh and spirit that hath not the externall ordinances of Christ nor the internall efficacy this is to speake properly and fully a Gentile though where the latter is wanting under the fruition of the former such are called Gentiles For that he hath brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in my sanctuary to polluate it Ese 44.7 they which are called here strangers were Gentiles and their condition is described they were uncircumcised in heart and flesh and this to speake properly and fully is a Gentile one that is beside all culture that that is without the visible Church and without the invisible grace of such estate There is a Gentile in the flesh and a Gentile in the spirit and a Gentile in both The Apostle makes this destinction and in these termes Wherefore remember that yee being in times past Gentiles in the flesh were called the uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh which is made with hands Eph. 2.11 They were Gentiles in the flesh as well as in the
doth cast off former delights utterly upon such a present excellency of delight and joy as doth suffice and fill up the soule now the Word of God got into the heart the voice of the Bridegroom heard in the soule or with the soule it makes a full joy such a joy as beside or beyond which the soule knowes none nor desires none John 3.29 This my joy therefore is fulfilled said John therefore is fulfilled Wherefore why that as a friend of the Bridegroome he could stand and heare the voice of the Bride spiritually heare Christ eare and heart his words take in and take downe the drops that fell from his mouth Though they are but drops that fall from Christs mouth here in comparison of what falls from his lips above yet they are so big that they fill the soule every Grape of this Vine ounce grapes There is a grape in forraigne parts which because of the greatnesse of it is call'd an ounce grape Every grape of this Vine to wit Christ is an ounce grape every drop from his mouth an ounce drop of so much juyce and liquor as fills the soule with joy and the soule filled once then it doth indeed bid farewell to all joyes and all delights parts with all parting things utterly If you finde that the Word is of no spirituall force that it doth not go into your soules Christ in this case must be move'd Divine institutions are not necessarily successefull all meanes are so ordered that the soule in the midst of them should looke up to Christ The word and Christ as well as the creatures and Christ are separable here below though not above and joyn'd together by faith and prayer Many brave things may be spoken to us from the word but we can receive in none unlesse we have a higher helpe then the meere Word which we heare There arose a question between Johns Disciples and the Jewes about purifying John answered the question briefly and pithily A man can receive nothing unlesse it be given him from heaven meaning not extraordinary graces and gifts for office nor ordinary as a Christian John 4.27 Receptions and takings in of divine things these are high things indeed gifts from heaven We may bring many brave things and lay them at your doore at your eares but the taking in of these into your heart this must be given you from heaven And blessed him that had the promises Heb. 7.6 't is more for a person to have the promises then to have meerly the Word preacht to him Abraham was one that had the promises and yet he needed a super-benediction to make all promises blessings to him something from heaven to make all the words he heard on earth heaven to him how much more need there a blessing from heaven attending men which have not the promise as Abraham had but onely the Word sounded to them The spring is in God still therefore let no man mistake himselfe when he looks upon the Trunke The Word is but a Pipe and conveyance of the Spirit All my strings are in thee To have springs in our soules to have words turned into works working words we must with the Spouse look up to God Thou that dwellest in the gardens the companions hearken to thy voice cause me to beare it Cant. 8.13 'T is the complaint of many poore soules that the Word is of no power in them that it gets within such and such and they are melted and delated and run out in strength of love to Christ Why tell your sad story to Christ as the Spouse doth the companions hearken to thy voice cause me to heare it such and such can eare and heart the Word cause me to doe so too COL 1.28 Teaching every man DIscipline is suted to the state of sinners some are obstinate unruly in thy filthinesse is lewdnesse Ezek. 24.13 to such belongs warning that is Blaming Warne the unruly saith the Apostle Obstinacy is not a first but a last growth of sinne it notes a sinner of so long standing a senior in sin one almost ripe for wrath The Word must be sharpe and keene when hearts are hard to make their owne way because the heart will not yeeld and give way Reprehension is not to goe alone without instruction whom we warne we are to teach Men are obstinate because ignorant as reprehension is proper to men as unruly so is instruction proper to them as ignorant the one doth but lop sinne the other doth grub it up by the rootes Christ aimes in the Discipline he uses at the rooting up of sinne he hath a double property in his breath he doth blast and then blesse blast by reprehension and then blesse by instruction by breathing in right principles The nature of a Christians cleansing I am to stand upon Gospell purification is full Doct. 1 Christ doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expurgare purge out filth filth is not detected and then cloakt and hid againe dust is not swept together and then laid behinde the doore but throwne out The eternall God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting armes and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee and shall say destroy Their enemies in Canaan shadowed the enemies in our heart which Christ did not onely detect but thrust out he saies to his Spirit and to ours thrust out sin purge out therefore the old Leaven kill and carry out the dead and 't is so Christs words are actions what he bids what he commands his Spirit and our spirits to do they doe opposition is strong between Christ and Satan and yet the spirit of Justice guides him in all that he doth to the most unjust and cursed things in the world Christ doth no other to Satan and sinne than they would doe to him they have killed Christ and thrust him out of the world out of the great world and they would doe so also to him in order to the little world they would kill him and thrust him out of the heart This and no lesse is in the nature of sinne and without possibility of any thing else and therefore compared to Thornes and in a type named children of Belial seeking to de-throne David yea to take away the life of David i. Christ and therefore are but justly served so themselves But the sons of Belial shall all of them as thornes be thrust away because they cannot be taken away with hands 2 Sam. 23.6 Belial signifies perversenesse sine jugo non ascendens things that are without yoak or things that will not ascend such things Christ do's make to descend Christ doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 repurgare he doth purge out and then repeat this act for perfection sake 'T is in grace as t is in nature there is in nature an expulsive power and this can repeat it selfe till all that offend be throwne out and nature fully quiet and at rest Grace can doe thus it hath an expulsive power to throw
a noble life as we pretend to when we professe a religious life this life is according to every dram drawne from Christ 't is not from the speciousnesse of our owne action nor from other folkes incouragement This time is full of straits externall ingagements byasse men much about internall and externall things if this temptation were over saith one I would take a better course No thou wouldst not courage to the things that are noble springs not from any earthly advantage if all secular authority in the Land should say they would secure thee for any dammage that thou shouldest suffer in pursuite of such a Religious cause yet would thine owne heart fall off like the Jsraelites from entring the holy Land and thou wouldest as they step back when at the doore ready to enter who though Moses and Aaron bid them to enter yet they fell off so though Parliament and Synod were at thy back and did incourage thee to enter yet if thou have no other incouragement thou wilt not step a step in the wayes of God by the grace of God J am that J am saith Paul let all the men in the World be never so gratious to thee yet wilt thou be as ungratious as thou art to the day of thy death if the grace of Christ do not put Spirit and Life into thee Externall inducement is nothing that mans Religion is nothing that thinks otherwise and 't will prove so to his shame and losse if his eyes be not opened to see it If a man speake meerly of a naturall life that is a life as a man as such a creature then a man may say of externall good things as Hezekiah of health and strength and other outward advantages in these is the life of my spirit but if you speake of Divine Life life to that which is Heavenly in riches honours friends parts in no exernall thing in no internall thing but in Christ is the life of my spirit according to his working not according to my own working shall I worke for God and for his glory Stratagents and wiles is much made use of in these times of woe Satan uses it too stay saith hee till Parliament and Synod put life into thee till they doe this and they do that 't is good to honour authority in that which is proper to such authority but so you may stay till the sword of Gods wrath that is in the Land kill you all Worke according to his working within you and take heed of checking this to waite for others working without you to set you forward strangle the quicknings of the spirit and expect quicknings from men and thou wilt be executed by conscience for the greatest murtherer in the World Our life beares upon the operation of Christ Le ts make Christ the fountaine and then le ts draw as much water of life from him as may bee You see how exact and expresse the proportion is made betweene Christs operation and our life such operation such life we strive according to his working therefore le ts set Christ at worke hard and get as much divine operation and life from him as may be Divine operation is the choysest mercy in the World how full of life is my spirit when in the Hands of God! when hee hath it working and moulding of it commend thy spirit therefore often into his hands send him much worke Spirits are so much imployed and over-wrought in the World that Christ hath little or no work sent him no house nor shop to work in A man no an image stands before God in duty a thing without a soule no spirit sent to God to talk with no soule no child of the soul at home to tell where the Parent is children of the soule I meane thoughts desires all sacrificed to devills at the end of the earth and thus farre from home must abide and never be sent for home who ere come to visit them though it be Christ himself what Divine operation can be in the soule when the soule is so given up to gadd after worldy things Divine operation is a very retired act two great Pears in conference may not be interrupted things in discusse being of such great concernment the Spirit of God and the spirit of man Divine operation it is a vision from Heaven of property like that of Pauls that bindes the soule in order to all carnall objects that may make the minde gad and in this vision as in that is a voyce a still voyce Saul Saul sinner sinner why dost thou do this and that against me but this still voyce is full of life to the soule that stilly listens this operation of Christ silenceth that noyse which is in the soule by the operation of other things and then is there a voyce from Heaven to the soule come up hither O soule thou must be above this and that for the tranquillity and felicity of thy life These are the operations of God in which is the life and Heaven of man All divine operation hath voyce the word and the spirit goe together still Christ workes and talkes makes peace and speakes peace makes war and speakes it to conscience You might know what God is a working in your soules hee speakes it now and then very plaine to conscience you that have eares to heare what the spirit saith the spirit workes and then it speakes what it workes the spirit saith now and then in still weather if you listen now and then you may heare what it saith The spirit and the word go together one moves and quickens the soule by the other Hell-ward or Heaven-ward the one should be much dreaded and the other much desired Divine operation is a thing of the greatest concernment in the World 't is as the spirits in the blood if the Pulse beate and worke not spirits are all wasted death is seized upon the state Sinners I know not how God workes in your soules how hee hath stirred or how he doth onely know this when he leaves pulsation that is ceaseth knocking know that your life is departed the operation and the pulsation of God is the life of the soule the life of the soules is the blessednesse of the soule as I am lively and agile in divine things carried upon Eagles wings to God in all duties so am I in Heaven Get as much therefore of this operation and life as you can I speake this because there is a great difference in Divine operation There is an operation that makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to will and there is an operation that makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all readinesse of minde to will 2 Cor. 8.11 Act. 17.11 they received the word with all readinesse of minde speaking of the noble Bereans There is a great difference betweene Divine operations and this makes a great difference betweene Christian and Christian one farre more noble then an other These were more noble then those of
Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readinesse of minde there was not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Willing but all readinesse to will all strength and life of affection to Christ and the Gospell which is the Nobility of a Christian These are the Noble operations that I would have you long and looke after COLOS. 1.29 Which worketh in me mightily Or in power IN-operation simply and in-operation extraordinary are both to be stood upon a little to open this expression unto you the one will open the first part of this expression which worketh in me the other will open the latter part of the expression which worketh in me mightily or in power In-operation simply considered is a supreme act making an eternall impresse upon the soule for life or death Things have their advantage by position so they may be put that every one cannot reach them nor finde them out the heart hath this advantage t is a hidden man an inward creature What you looke upon or touch when you have to doe with a creature of your owne making is flesh and bones but the manhood of this substance or that which makes this substance a man is hidden within so hid that none can reach but by supreme power of its owne or borrowed Among these Nations shalt thou have no ease but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and sorrow of mind Deut. 28.56 The Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart a stone may be stirred and toumbled sometimes when it is not broken Consider the heart under this metaphor as the Scripture doth for some refractory properties of it and this stone that lies at the center of the little world cannot be stirred nor the foundation of this little world shaken in the least but by a supreme power The Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart Those internall operations which make a wicked mans heart shake and tremble sometimes they are from the Lord and when the Lord takes off his hand the stone lies still againe lift and pull whoso will as long and as much as hee will the sinner stirres not which is authority enough that internall operation is a supream act If this be not Job gives further authority and makes a higher instance Consider the stone that lies at the center of the earth the foundation stone of the little world I meane the heart as shaken or as broken and God doth it God maketh my heart soft and the Almighty troubleth me Job 23.16 When a Christians heart melts and is dissolved take it in a refreshing sense or take it in an afflicting sense supreame power doth it man cannot doe this himselfe a sinner a Saint cannot move the stone in his bosome one jot t is an Almighty act that reacheth the heart of any man the Almighty stirs me within Internall operation is as I have said a supreame act This act makes eternall impresse Internall operation is from a high hand and of high concernment t is of everlasting force the Spirit is called an eternall Spirit not so much in order to being as in order to operation the things that this Spirit worketh in us and for us are life eternall the workman the workhouse the worke wrought in this house are all eternall the Spirit eternall the soule eternall the workes wrought here the carvings or cuttings are eternall unalterable if Christ make but the least dint upon the heart I may challenge all powers in heaven and in earth to even it Operations externall are not eternall not a worke you looke upon without though never so great or glorious but fades and shall be turnd into its fitst nothing but operations internall are eternall what God doth in the soule is to last as the soule if he drop mercy into us this drop shall last for ever though all the mercies without us may be gone in a moment if he drop justice and wrath into us this drop abideth for ever God is called immutable not so much in order to being as in order to action and not in order to all action neither but in order to internall actions such as are done about the soule I am God immutable and change not Change not in what in esse that is granted of all and needs no affirmation no this is not the thing but in operari and about this many doubt I have droped mercy into the hearts of the sonnes of Jacob and it shall never out I have begun a good worke a good internall worke and it shall last to the day of Christ it shall last unto Heaven that is for ever therefore is the Spirit according to his presence and internall operation called the earnest of Heaven and the scale to the day of redemption it makes impresse upon the soule so deepe that abides for ever the worke the Spirit doth in us outstands the gates of hell the Temple that Christ now builds in us not a stone not the least pin of it moulders to all eternity t is so wrought t is so on the other hand what he doth internally in poynt of justice he doth it to purpose All the world on fire without you may sooner quench it then one sparkle of the fire of Gods wrath which he casts into a man this is an everlasting fire an alway punishment as the Scripture speaks Bow downe their backe alwaies pointing at Doeg and Judas and such like wretches that were internally punisht A man internally smitten by the justice of God his backe is broke for ever take Job but as hee personates a wicked mans case forbeare the application of it to himselfe as he doth being then in a temptation let his person alone but take the thing as his apprehension is opened fully in this poynt to his triall for a time and you shall have him speake notably of the property of internall operation in order to evill men God is in one mind when he is at worke in wicked soules one cannot turne him what his soule desireth that he doth Job 23.13 If after great provocation workings and strivings without by words and blowes hee goe to worke within to fit the vessell for wrath if this be now the will of God there is no turning of him nor no turning of the point nor edge of the tooles hee workes with no terminating the effect short of the Authors intention the Trinity in their action internall to expresse this property of it are called agents hitherto The Father worketh hitherto and I worke observe about what works Christ was when he spake thus he was about internall action to wit the curing of the cripple which had laine so long at the poole which was a cripled soule as well as a cripled body Internall operation is of eternall force this is generall and indetermined therefore it followes in the definition t is of eternall force to such an expresse end to life and death that which Christ doth within about
great world over all the little world into every roome of the soule into joynts and marrow and set downe himselfe where he will in conscience in affection in what inward part he sees good in some one part or in all parts that is the greatest good in the world when truth is in the inward parts i. not in one faculty but in all not onely in the understanding but in the conscience in the affection in every faculty this Christ loves mightily and what hee loves hee can accomplish there is no torture upon him affection larger then power as t is usually with us All power is given to him to worke without to worke within in Earth in Heaven that is in the more internall and heavenly part Hee giveth wisdome to the heart I will give my Lawes into your mind By Lawes is meant all grace and yet all this made a gift and given into the soule that desires it Christ gives things into the hand yea into the heart all precious things and derives them into all parts and when all this is done in us and the like laboured for to be done by us in all others then is internall operation in power or then Christ workes in us mightily which terme pointing onely at a gradation in the same operation hath raveld out it selfe according to what is difficult in unfolding the former A concluding Speech WHich worketh in me mightily The concurrence of this power wee have had in our measure all along our labour which I would should be much acknowledged to Christ by vertue of which wee are now come to our period of this Verse and of the whole Chapter Our pace in this long journey hath been slow that you might all goe along with mee in the well understanding and imbracing of weighty things and yet how many notwithstanding our double industry are left behind in the blindnesse and mis-beliefe of their soules I know not If our Gospell be hid after all pains fully to lay it open such soules have great reason to feare themselves Child-bearing is no easie worke to any but doubly hard to some so that life out of death may that which comes forth betweene the legges be called This birth though but a hard-favoured child hath beene hard travell to us 'tas made many a sigh and groane many a heart pang and crying out to God What you will doe with the child now borne whither you will be a Pharaoh or a Pharoahs Daughter to it murther it or keepe it alive in your hearts I know not This I know that no man can spill all the blood of any child of God some will stick upon you doe what you can to tell the murtherer at the great day Sighes and groanes are the teares of the heart the heart venting it selfe at the mouth when it cannot at the eyes and other lesser pores every drop that hath fallen from our heart and head from our Eye-lids or Eye-brows shall be all gathered up and put as marginall notes along by all our labours and all put in one Volumne together and this volumne put in your hand at the great day and opened Leafe after Leafe and read distinctly and exactly to you and your soules made to attend regard and remember better then here many of you have done and when all is thus read over this booke shall be closed and this question solemnly put to you all now O soules what have you profitted by all Words Prayers Teares Sighes Groanes As Conscience can answer to this for nothing else may then speake so shall your sentence be and I shall be called out to give witnesse to the justice of it and say Amen Lord Jesus righteous is all that thou hast pronounced upon these soules Our labours lost if this were simply all truly 't were nothing but our labours lost and your soules are lost and yet what is losse to you shall be gaine to us for wee are a sweete savour to God both in them that are saved and in them that perish As wee dresse and as wee water Trees in the Lords Vinyard so shall wee have our wages and not as these Trees beare if Trees be dressed and watered well though they never beare well wee shall have a good Vintage You Londoners are Trees watered choisely indeede 'T is storied of the Plane Tree that at its first transplanting into Italie 't was watered with Wine to make it take and prosper in those parts of the World you are Trees watered with Wine I cannot say that you have beene so watered by mee I dare not but this I can humbly and truly say that if our choisest strength and spirits may bee nam'd in steade of Water Wine or if the blessing which hath gone along with these Waters at any time have turned them into Wine in vigour upon your soules then hath God by mee watered your Rootes with Wine and yet if after such costly watering you grow not nor beare not certainly such Trees are neere unto cursing which sad effect that my Ministey should be an instrument to hasten to this place or to any soule will make mee to continue mourning still in secret for you all and so spend and end my dayes * ⎠* FINIS TABLE MAn is in soule misery page 1 So naturally judicially universally p. 2 3 Whether sensible of soule misery moved and what demonstrates insensibility p. 3 4 5 Christ snatcheth soules out of Hell P. 7 Christ moves swiftly throughly preventingly ravishingly to save p. 7 8 9 Whom Christ hath snatcht out of Satans power p. 10 11 12 That power which workes irresistibly to save the soule with much ease can save our body p. 13 Ignorance makes prophanenesse p. 14 Ignorance pollutes will the practicke understanding the conscience and is the Divels element p. 15 16 The darke Church of England spoken to p. 16 17 Christ carries soules to Heaven p. 18 Christ saves laboriously fatherly surely p. 19 20 Satan carries soules to Hell and how p. 22 23 Demonstrations of Christs Kingdome in this world p. 25 26 Some not far from the Kingdome of God and yet never come there p. 30 31 Love gives forth preferment to all Gods children p. 32 God gives orderly purely solacingly p. 32 33 The folly of men that looke after humane favour to rise p. 34 35 The blessednesse of them which are beloved of God p. 36 37 What redemption meanes p. 38 39 40 41 Bodily bondage lookt after but not soule bondage p. 42 43 What a spirit of bondage and a state of bondage are p. 43 44 What men in bondage and those which are out of bondage should doe p. 45 46 The choicest mercies come through the greatest miseries p. 47 48 Grounds to give God the glory of his way let it be how t will p. 50 51 52 53 Great things comming to us in way of hardship exhorted to prepare for hardship p. 54 What sin meanes p. 55 56 What reconciliation notes p. 56 57 What
of the best men upon earth This makes longing and panting for full redemption which is the property of the Church of God upon earth 't would be in Heaven There is a voice in Rama and t is all over Rama mourning and lamentation Rachel weeping bitterly if you aske her why She will tell you I have many sonnes and daughters sweet children all and yet not one but very hardly handled sore shot at by deadly archers many are slaine and are not and the rest abused and vilified as the off-scouring of all things torne with Lyons and little wormes gnawing and eating up the carcasse pulled downe by great ones and when down trod to death by base ones Rachel hath not a child but sits like the Shunamites in her armes sighing groaning and mourning because of one wound or other within or without and I cannot remedy any of this saith she and this cuts me to the heart my children are slaine in mine armes slaine with the breast at their mouthes yea ripped out of my wombe Would my children were all in my husbands armes saith Rachel then they would all be safe would he would send and fetch me and all mine out of this plundered countrey into his owne city then all would be well soule well yea and body well The world heares little of this noise t is so inward but t is the panting and beating of every good mans pulse and bowels in a degree We which have the first fruits of the Spirit where these fruits lie is the noise we groane within our selves waiting for the adoption For the adoption This they had already The meaning therefore is for the full fruition of what they were adopted to which is explained in the following words to wit the redemption of our body The soule goes first to the society above the body last all is perfect when this comes therefore is this onely mentioned which notes that the militant Church groanes and pants after a perfect state every one sighing and bleeding inwardly inwardly earnestly willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Corinth 5.8 This was shadowed by Davids ascent to Mount Oliver And David went up by the ascent of Mount Oliver and wept as he went up and be had his head covered and he went bare-foot and all the people that was with him covered every man his head and they went up weeping as they went up 2 Sam. 15.30 Christ which David typified and all his followers here below are going up sighing and panting and mourning to that mount above Vse We are come to speake of a Militant church in a Militant time surely our course is steered by a supreame hand for speciall good to some of you Christians lay to heart the state of that body whereof yet you are can you Jerusalem which is above above the world and above Satan is the mother of us all that body which Christ hath upon earth groaned travelled with you and brought you forth this wombe which bare you those pappes which gave you sucke are now wounded with a thousand wounds doe you see them The haire of your mother is torne her bowels ript up her blood runnes in every high way O all ye that passe by have ye observed it Dogs licke the blood of Jezabel yea the blood of Rachel the Sword of the wicked sheds the blood of many a gallant man England a great Parke full of deare soules the pales now plucked up the game of Christ shot at by every base person many a brave Hart falne onely a few Fawnes left women and children crying and ringing their hands for their husbands and fathers doe you heare them Mother where is my Father when will he come home Sir where is my husband when will he come home And a lasse for them he is at home already at his long home Heathens rage on one hand mothers children angry on t'other hand the Boare is abroad the Fox at home one puls off the tender Grapes t'other squeeses and suckes their blood the worke is one the tailes of all the wilde beasts in the Land are together though their faces seem to looke severall waies one shoots at the body t'other at the soule both poison their Bullets the venome whereof feeds that Divine justice which now fights against us all as if it were resolved to consume us all for ought any one amongst us all can yet see Is not the Church of Christ in England militant Men Devils yea a God fights against it for the pollution in it Christians you are witnesses of all this what doe you in secret doe you mourne for the tearings and rendings of Joseph can you doe it doe you move according to your condition Military fight with prayers and teares doe you finde any aptnesse this way I aske this because displeasure sinkes deepe sometimes and drinkes up all Divine moisture in the soule the wombe of prayers and teares closes withers and dries up God secretly saith pray not for this people and then good hearts pumpe and pompe and nothing will come Abraham had some such secret checke surely when hee broke off struggling so strangely for Sodome when God seemed to be upon such an yeelding veine secret providence certainely was in it that he might not yeeld so farre as to null peremptory resolution which was to make an end of a generation whose iniquity was full God felt Abraham holding him and cries let me alone but Abraham did not feels God holding him nor cried let me alone Lord let me plucke a brand out of the fire let me quench Hell fire once with my teares Christians I beseech you observe your spirits the welfare of all is in this point I am now upon and not in your great Armies abroad which you so much looke upon if you feele God tying up and straitning your soules in regard of a Sodome which you struggle for a Land that looks as if it were ripe in all wickednesse and farre worse in some circumstances then ever Sodome was cry Lord let me alone let me draw buckets let me make my Study my closet a Bokim a place of teares let me quench a fire that hath almost burnt a brave Kingdome to ashes let me save a Nation a populous Nation thousands and ten thousands thousands of thousands from swimming to hell in their owne blood If I shall not pray out yet let me chatter so in thine eares that fifteene yeeres may be added to the life of three Kingdomes to set themselves in order to goe hence to be pilgrims and wanderers to any other part where thou wilt Thus doe your duty and then submit We should be affected with our condition but not cast down A state of hardship generates discontent and now Satan hath set Heaven and Earth on fire A man may have a Heaven in his soule when a Hell in his body if submissive still to the will of God but when fightings without make fightings within repinings