had said I have waited long and come often looking for Fruit and hitherto my expectation hath been disappointed therefore I am weary of forbearing and will suffer the abuse of my patience no longer Cut it down that is execute against it the deserved Judgment And as this is injoyned to his Ministers to be performed by them it implyes 1. That the Fruitless Tree is worthy to be Cut down and is actually under the Sentence of Condemnation tho the Execution may be defer'd by way of Reprieve Every unfruitful sinner under the Gospel is in a state of actual condemnation there is only a small respiting for a while and a short reprieve allowed to afford him time to sue out his pardon according to that from our Saviours own mouth St. John iii. 18. He that believeth not is condemned already So he that repenteth not is condemned already 2. He bids his Ministers Cut them down that is cut them off by sharp reproof and cutting rebukes and Church Censures cast them out of my Vineyard my Church from my Ordinances that they may be ashamed that they may be afraid that they may be awakened 3. To shew the unavoidable certainty of it if they continue impenitent let them know what will certainly be their end Jer. xv 1. Cast them out of my sight declare they shall be cast out and Jer. i. 10. I have set thee over the Nations to root out to pull down to destroy to throw down that is to declare who shall be so dealt with and I will make it good what is bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Say to the wicked it shall be ill with him thou also shall be cut off as before the Text you shall all likewise perish that is unless you repent 4. Why cumbreth it the Ground This contains the reason of the Righteous Sentence of cutting down and intimates that God never proceeds to severity without cause And ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Eze. xiv 23. 'T is a reproachful upbraiding the Fruitless-tree the word is rend'red variously it signifies to make unprofitable why takes it up a room to no purpose and keeps out a better and robs others both of nourishment and influence by drawing the fatness of the soil and casting a malignant shade And teacheth us that a man who continues in the Church impenitent 1. Robs God of the Glory which would redound to him if he brought forth the Fruits of Righteousness which he ought for Christ saith his Father is glorified when his Disciples bring forth much fruit John xv 8. and commands that our Light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father in Heaven And St. Paul tells us that the fruits of Righteousness are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God Phil. i. 11. which Glory God loseth by every Tree which stands on his ground and bears no Fruit. 2. Such a man does abundance of mischief by his bad example imboldens others to be and continue as bad as himself and hinders and discourages them from being better 3. Disparages the Soyl causes the way of truth to be evil spoken of Gods Ordinances to be vilified and his name to be Blasphemed and his faithful Ministers to be reproacht as if they were the causes of all that wickedness which they mourn over and endeavour to reform with all their might As we say of servants or beasts that thrive not look ill are in bad plight they shame their keeper as if he starved them or allowed them not what is sufficient So when you who have been Baptized lead bad lives and go on in impenitency you give great scandal cause much offence and put an excuse into the mouths of those who prophanely neglect and slight Christs Institutions and when they are exhorted to frequent them or reproved for neglecting them they have this answer ready why so much ado about these matters we see those who use them most are never the better but as bad or worse than those who seldom or never meddle with them what a shame is it to be thus reproached and to be so ill furnisht to refute it 'T is a great offence that 's given by this means but wo to the man by whom the offence cometh it had been better for him to have been plunged in the Sea then Planted in the Vineyard For God will severely avenge these many evils which are the Consequences of their unfruitfulness unless speedy and sincere Repentance and amendment prevent the Execution of the denounced Sentence And this may suffice for the meaning of the two first verses of the Text which concern the Lord and Owner of the Vineyard both as to what he did and what he said And may be summed up in this short recapitulation The Great God hath in much mercy admitted you into his Church by Baptism and hath often come to see whether you do and long expected that you should make good that solemn Covenant you then made with him by bringing forth the Fruits of sincere Repentance sound Faith and Universal unreserved new Obedience but hitherto hath not found them but the quite contrary And therefore bids his Ministers and you by them with attention and admiration take notice of his past goodness and that he takes severe notice of your continuing badness and provoking disappointment of his expectation and patience and therefore pronounces Sentence against you to cut you off from his Church by his Spiritual Sword and that he will cut you off from the Land of the Living for your robbing him of his Glory for your hindring others by your bad example to be better or imboldning them to be as bad as your selves and causing his Holy Institutions to be evil thought of and evil spoken of as if they were useless and of no efficacy and his Holy name to be blasphemed I now proceed to the other two which concern the Dresser of the Vineyard the former of which contains his Intercession that it may be spared a little longer and tryed one more if yet it may amend The latter his concession that if it do not then the denounced Sentence take place and be put in execution there remaining no shaddow of pretence for farther arrest of Judgment I shall endeavour the Explication of these with the greatest clearness plainness and brevity I can in order to the Application of them which I again tell you I chiefly intend In the former His Intercession are two particulars First an express Prayer in behalf of the barren tree in which are included two requests one for respiting the Sentence and allowing it more time Lord let it alone this year also The other for leave to bestow more pains and cost about it digging and dunging Secondly An implied promise on his own behalf that if his Lord will give him leave and spare the Tree he will spare neither cost nor
did Isaac or Esaw Jacob or as a Wolfe doth love a Sheep The Righteous is abomination to the Wicked Prov. xxix 27. And what a kind of Heaven would it be for an unsanctified man to be shut up with such Company as he hates with the worst of Antipathies and vilifies with the bitterest censures and most despightful scorn Nor could the Company of Heaven like him better than he likes them For God is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness nor shall evil dwell with him Psal v. 4 5. Christ saith to them depart from me ye that work iniquity Matth. vii 23. The Holy Spirit will not entertain him who would never open the door to him knockt he never so earnestly and long but all ways shut him out of his heart 'T is the Offices of the blessed Angels to gather out of the Kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity and to cast them into a furnace of fire Matth. xiii 41 42. And they will do their Office impartially As for the Saints as they could give them no Oyl to help them in Matth. xxv 9. So would they give them no countenance should they get in without it Moses accuses them John v. 45. The souls under the Altar cryed against them whilst they lived Revel vi 9. And shall judg them when they dye 1 Cor. vi 2. The whole Herd makes head against a blown Deer Those Loyal Subjects will not harbour such Traitors against their Lord and King Then shall be the great Excommunication and the Church of the first born will put from amongst them every wicked person as 1 Cor. v. 13. injoyns Therefore Oh unsanctified sinner bethink thy self in time To which of the Saints wilt thou turn Job v. 1. Thirdly The Work of Heaven which he hath neither skill to perform nor time nor heart to learn renders an unsanctified man as uncapable of Heaven as either of the former For the Work of Heaven is to serve the Lord incessantly And his servants shall serve him Rev. xxii 3. To do his Will so perfectly that 't is fet as a pattern how to do it on Earth Thy will be done on Earth as 't is in Heaven Mat. vi To love the Lord with perpetual extastes and ravishments of Soul to Worship him that sits upon the Throne and give him glory throwing down their Crowns at his feet and saying thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power to sound forth Eternal Hallelujahs and not to cease either day or night from crying Holy Holy Holy to him which was and is and is to come Rev. iv To sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb who redeemed them from the Earth and made them to his Father Kings and Priests to offer up the pure incense of Eternal Praises And such as this being the incessant endless imployment of Heaven I beseech you give me leave with freedom to Appeal to your Consciences who either never Pray nor Praise or slubber over a few formal Devotions for custom sake and to stop the Mouth of Conscience with the greatest weariness as the most irksome task and druggery of your lives and are so tyr'd at a Prayer or Sermon that nothing tries your patience like it or seems so tedious and so much the more as the service is more spiritual and searching what would you do in Heaven what corner would you find to sleep in How many wearyed and longing Eyes would you cast upon that Glass of Eternity which will never be run out How tedious would that everlasting Sabbath seem when you so often ask of these below when will they be gone Amos viii 5. I intreat you therefore be convinced of the indispensible necessity of Sanctification to make you fit to go to Heaven with Christ For either God must change the Nature of Heaven to fit it to thy Phansie which he will never do or thy heart must be made like it even Holy and Heavenly to savour and delight in the things of God or else Heaven it self would be no Heaven to thee In a word without Justification thou canst not go to Heaven as a state of happiness tho thou wouldst and without Sanctification thou wouldst not go to Heaven as a state of Holiness tho thou mightst See Col. i. 12. Giving thanks to the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light Mark 'T is an Inheritance thou must be made a Son to have a Title to Inherit there 's Justification But 't is an inheritance of the Saints in light and thou must be made a Saint and Child of Light to be meet to enter into the possession of it There 's Sanctification 1 Cor vi 9 10 11. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God be not deceived neither Fernicators nor Idolaters c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God and such were some of you how then came they to be capable But ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God Here you have them both expresly St. Paul again tells you Rom. viii 30. Whom he justified them he also glorified In which place also we have both these the first explicitely you must be justified before you can be glorified the second implicitely for therefore glorified signifies perfectly sanctified Grace is glory in the Bud and Blosom Glory is Grace in the full blown Flower and ripe Fruit Now as no ripe Fruit without a Blosom no full blown Rose without a Bud so no Glory without Grace preceeding From glory to glory 1 Cor. iii. ult That is from Glory inchoate in Grace on Earth to Glory consummate in Bliss in Heaven As child-hood is before man-hood and he that never was a child shall never be a man So he in whose heart Christ was never formed by the immortal seed Who never was born of the Spirit Who never as a new born Babe desired the sincere Milk of the Word to grow thereby shall never arrive at the Stature of the fulness of Christ shall never attain to that perfect Image of the Son of God to which all his are Predestinated to be Conformable shall never be a perfect man in Christ nor appear before him perfect in Zion to follow the Lamb upon that Holy Mountain The Conceptions which the best men have of Heaven are very low obscure and imperfect but certainly those which ignorant and prophane men have of it are strangely absurd and brutish or it were impossible they should ever hope to get thither till their sins be both pardoned and subdued for 't is next to a contradiction to think they can reign with Christ in whose mortal Bodies or immortal Souls sin is allowed and continues to reign For least of all in this sence can corruption inherit incorruption Thirdly Tho the two things we last insisted on are the main to constitute us
injoy the Holy Scriptures to be a light to your Feet and lamp to your Paths and have the truth and excellency of the Gospel fully set forth and plainly preacht explained and applyed to you and the whole counsel of God concerning your Eternal estate declared and nothing kept back which may be necessary or profitable for you You have the Holy Sacraments Administred to you according to Christs Institution without maiming or defiling them with mens Superstitious inventions added You have Prayers made in a Tongue you understand and directed to him alone who stiles himself a God hearing Prayer and in his Mediation who is the true and only Mediatour in whose name we are allowed and commanded to ask what we need with assurance given that it shall be granted And what ever else that 's requisite to promote your Sanctification Consolation and Salvation even all the means of Grace which he hath appointed that was faithful in all his house A Mercy so invaluable that all other mercies of Life and Health of Peace and Plenty are greatly inferiour to it and nothing but Heaven it self exceeds or is above it Secondly You have stood a long time in this Vineyard lived a great while in such a Church Not three years only but more than three times three yea threescore years many of you and all of you many tho not so many all And know that the longer you have stood and the oftner God hath come to look for Fruit the greater your account will be and the nearer cuting down you are and if you mend not if you repent not now speedily and throughly the more sudden hasty sure sore and dreadful will your cuting down be Thirdly The more cost and pain hath been bestowed upon you the heavier the stricter reckoning you must be called to and the severer vengeance will God inflict if you continue to receive his Grace in vain and with obstinate security delay to bring forth Fruit. Fourthly If after long ordinary means injoyed fresh alarms be given and new and more vigorous calls and applications be made to you by extraordinary dispensations of Gods Providence and other circumstances he brings you under which are like the letting it alone another year after Sentence given to cut it down for the three former years barrenness and these be lost and prove as unsuccessful as those which went before them then you perish inevitably without remedy without excuse or any pitty For First God will do no more It shall not be digged nor pruned any more Isa v. 6. Whatever God doth he doth with respect to his Mercy or his Justice they are Principia imperantia in Deo as the Schools speak they engage and set all his Attributes on work as his Wisdom and Power c. and all he doth is for the glory either of his Mercy or his Justice and when neither of them can be farther glorified then he ceases to work and will proceed no farther do no more And such is the case here neither of them would be glorified by his doing more for such men and therefore Mercy is not for it and Justice is against it His Mercy hath hath been hitherto glorified in ingaging his Wisdom to use such variety of means and methods to bring them to repentance and his patience in allowing so much time to see what the effect would be but to continue always to do so and longer to do so when abundantly enough hath been vouchsafed to magnifie his Mercy both in his Wisdom and his Patience he will then give over And to go on still would but be to expose his Wisdom to censure and his Patience to contempt He will not be always trying conclusions in vain and to no purpose after he hath done abundantly enough to manifest yea magnifie his Mercy in the Eyes of all impartial witnesses and excuse his Justice in what he shall inflict by leaving them inexcusable on whom he shall inflict it As he saith to the incorrigible Why should you be stricken any more you will revolt more and more Isa i. 5. Seeing you are like the Anvil which grows harder the more blows are laid upon it So to the indocible and impenitent why should ye be taught called on warned reproved any more seeing ye refuse to learn hearken take warning and return Why should the Word of the Lord be precept upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line upon line to those who have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell Who have made Lyes their refuge and have hid themselves under falsehood unless that they might go and fall backward and be snared and taken Isa xxviii 13 15. And why any more vain endeavours to charm them who have made themselves like the deaf Adder which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer charming never so wisely whose doom is therefore to be taken away suddenly both living and in his wrath Psal lviii 4 5 9. Why any more Piping to them who will not Dance or mourning to them who will not weep Luk. vii 32. Who will be won neither by promises nor threats overcome neither by hopes nor fears nor gained as we say either by fair means or by foul How oft would I have gathered you as an hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not such shall be left desolate Luke xiii He will not always Cluck them nor offer them his shelter any more those whom he hath often called and they would not answer he will call no more Nay he will not answer when they call to him Abused Patience will turn into Fury and 't is fit Justice should have its turn and at length take place on them who have long despised Mercy Secondly He can do no more What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it Isa v. 4. All hath been done that Art and Industry and the best Husbandry can do and all that in that respect it is capable of having done for it The Scope of the Parable is to shew the care and faithfulness of the Planter and the Dresser of the Vineyard to whom it belongs to give good Tillage and Culture and to perform what 's to be done below on Earth but not to send Rain and seasonable Weather or the kind and needful influences of Heaven and it must not be stretcht too far nor applyed to the internal Operations of the Holy Ghost Nor to limit the extraordinary power of God as if by his Almighty Grace he could absolutely have done no more to make his Vineyard Fruitful For in a Parallel case we are told He is able to raise children to Abraham out of stones and he that hath promised To take away the heart of stone and give an heart of flesh must not be denyed Ability to do it when and for whom he pleaseth But it is to be restrained to and understood of the external means of Grace and Gods ordinary power
of man cometh in an hour when ye think not 'T is the Motto and brand of a Fool to say non putaram I never thought of this excuss therefore this stupidness shake off this folly and bethink your selves there 's no watch in the night there 's no hour in the day when Christ may not come therefore be ever preparing and prepared to meet him I have thus brought the occasion and the Text together and led you through the Context to the Words as clearly and as briefly as I could So that nothing remains but to make the best improvement of them that I can Be ye ready First 'T is vox Respectiva The very word implies a respect to somewhat He that is ready is ready for some person or some thing And 't is so obvious the naming of it is next to needless 'T is for the coming of our Lord. Secondly 'T is vox Praeceptiva 'T is a word of command from our Great Lord and Master making that our duty which is our greatest interest and happiness Thirdly 't is vox Directiva Directing us to that in which our true our only wisdom which makes wise unto Salvation doth consist Fourthly 'T is vox Comprehensiva a very large and comprehensive word in two regards first including all things which concern our being Good and Happy For to be ready for Christ implies our being compleat in Christ There 's a receiving fulness of Grace from him 2. It implies our going to Heaven with him For they that were ready went with him in to the marriage Matth. xxv 10. there 's our happiness Secondly It comprehends all persons ye that 's all this indefinite is Universal as Thou in the Commandments is every one So here Ye signifies All. These put together fall naturally and without any strayning into this Doctrine 'T is every mans indispensible Duty and highest Interest to be presently Ready for Christs coming A Principle of Duty to Gods Authority requiring it And a Principle of Wisdom for our safety necessitating it are the two unshaken Pillars on which this Truth is so firmly built that it can never be moved No Cavils from men or Devils can overturn it no evasion can ever dispence with mens Obligation to it But as long as man is bound to do what God bids Or believe what God tells him As long as 't is the part of a wise man to escape the utmost misery and to desire and persue after infiâ—ite happiness and glory So long will this truth abide more fixed than the Earth Yea establisht in and as the very Heavens So that I shall say no more for its confirmation in this place but proceed 1. To shew wherein this Readiness consists 2. What is required on our parts to attain to it 3. Press the performance with most cogent Arguments But because a wise Builder will carry off the Rubbish and clear his Ground before he lays his Foundation I shall First Negatively shew you wherein Readiness doth not consist or what is not sufficient to make you so And this is very needful to be done because prepossession of the mind by error hinders the Truth from entring and leaves no room in the Heart to entertain it And too many are prone to rest satisfied with that which will deceive them supposing 't is enough to make their condition safe and happy and would go farther did they not verily think they had gone far enough Many saith Seneca had become wisemen had they not thought themselves already such And Gregory Nazianzen the greatest hindrance of proficiency is an Opinion of sufficient proficiency 'T is no wonder those Marriners strike Sail who think themselves in safe Harbour Nor that he sets by his Staff and takes up his rest who verily believes he is at the end of his journey Now to pass by the excuses many make for neglecting to be ready there seem to be six things which men are prone to trust to as sufficient to make their condition good and safe which really are not so 1. Their being born of Godly Parents 2. Being of very good Natures or sweet Dispositions 3. Being Baptized and using and injoying the means of Grace 4. Outward Conformity to the Letter of the Law in the practice of Moral Vertues and Duties 5. Being of the true Church or of such a Party or persuasion 6. Believing in Christ or presuming rather that they do so without those Fruits which prove their Faith to be Holy and Lively It would require more time than our present streights will allow to speak fully to all these it must suffice to Nonsuit every of these Pleas in a word to undeceive those who are prone to deceive themselves with shaddows and appearances instead of Realities For 't is an error very incident to weak and partial minds as we are all prone to be partial to our selves to judg every thing which is good to be enough and good enough Which is a great mistake as you may be easily convinced by a plain similitude Your mony may be very good both for Mettal and Stamp and as currant as any in the Kingdom Yet twenty Shillings of such mony will not pay a Debt of ten pounds What 's the reason Not because the mony is not good but because there is not enough of it So in our present Case these things I have named will not make us ready for Christ why so Not because they are not good in their place and kind they are good in tanto but not in toto but because they are not good enough In degree and measure Therefore I beseech you think not I condemn or dispraise them or discourage your attainment of them I only warn you not to rest in them as sufficient to make you ready for Christ or fit to go to Heaven For this they cannot do First not the being born of Godly Parents tho it is a great mercy to be so and is attended with many advantages and many have put confidence in it How often do we hear it from the Jews mouths we are Abrahams seed we have Abraham to our Father John viii 43 39 and St. John Baptists warning them against it think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Matth. iii. 10. intimates their hearts were full of it and placed much confidence in it But our Saviour tells those very men John viii 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil And St. John Baptist call these a generation of vipers 'T is not generation from the best men but regeneration from the good Spirit must do our business non nascimur sed â—enascimur Christiani Men beget children not as good men but as men and therefore beget not good men but meer men As Circumcised Israelites begot children which needed Circumcision And the best drest Wheat grows up again with Chaff So those whose Parents were Circumcised in heart come into this world with a Foreskin on their hearts which must be taken off Whatever
of Faith in new obedience as testimonies of thy sincere thankfulness love being best seen in keeping the Commandments Thirdly to be ready for Christ you must 1. be Justified 2. Sanctified 3. Exert and exercise that Faith by which thy person is Justified and thy Nature sanctified in watching for and preparing against Christ coming The two former may be called our Habitual readiness such as the Wise Virgins had even whilst they slumbered and slept The third our actuals Readiness such as theirs was when they awaked and trimmed their Lamps The two first put us into a safe Estate of Readiness for Christ coming the third into a comfortable present disposition to meet him at his coming The first gives us a Title to Heaven The second a fit qualification for Heaven the third an immediate and proximate disposition for Heaven and confident hope of our admittance into it The two former concern our dying without danger the third our dying without fear of danger willingly joyfully triumphantly Singing with old Simeon nunc dimittis Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace And St. Pauls Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And St. Johns veni domine Jesu Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly A word of every of them First to be ready for Christ thou must be Justified to give thee Right and Title to Heaven For we are all by Nature Children of wrath Eph. ii 3. And can claim no Inheritance but Hell as our due And we are hold under an unalterable Covenant Do this and live Rom x. 5. Which exacts and will abate nothing of perfect personal Obedience which God knows and our selves must acknowledg we are far from having performed or any ability to perform and an inexorable Law which denounceth a curse against all that continue not in all that is written Gal. iii. 10. And an inflexible Justice which can neither be bribed nor forc'd Not bribed because 't is Justice not forc'd because 't is Gods And all these keep the passage to Heaven more strictly than the Cherubim with the Flaming Sword did that of the Tree of Life and there 's no hope or possibility of getting in till these be satisfied which in and of our selves we can never do 'T is an eternal and immutable Truth who ever is once a sinner can never come to Heaven till his sin be pardoned and done away and his person Justified in the sight of God If there were no other Texts in all the Bible tho there are abundance more of like import that must be erazed and cancelled before an unpardoned sinner as such can have any hope Rom. iii. 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God Being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins c. Now whether Justification be wholly comprehended in forgiveness of sin as many great Divines do hold or besides Pardon it include somewhat which must render us Righteous in the sight of God As neither fewer for number nor less for name and note have taught I list not to Dispute Polemical Divinity fits not the Pulpit and is never less seasonable than at a Funeral Dust cast on fighting Bees soon ends the fray This dust of Death sprinkled amongst us should mind us of our Work or Hives And wherein soever the strict notion of Justification doth consist this I may say is without Controversie that we must be pardoned and accepted as Righteous before we can stand in Gods sight and both these we must have by Faith in Christ His Blood and Obedience purchase both and our Faith must receive them and apply them that we may be Justified First Pardon Eph. i. 7. In whom we have redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of sins Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts xiii 38 39. And 1 John i. 7. The Blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin and if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins Chap. ii 1 2. And in the Institution of his Holy Supper he gives this Reason for the drinking of the Cup. Matth. xxvi 27 28. Drink ye all of it For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins And in Gal. iii. from the 5. to the 15. too long to be transcribed God's Justifying the Heathen by Faith and the Just's living by Faith are argued from Christs being made a Curse for us Secondly Righteousness He is the Lord our Righteousness Jer. xxiii 6. He was made sin for us 1. A sin offering That we might be made the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. v. 21. As by the offence of one judgment came upon all to condemnation even so by the Righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to Justification of life For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made Righteous Rom. v. 18 19. Read the whole Chapter not to say the whole Epistle the chief Scope of which tends this way 1 Cor. i. 30 Christ is made unto us of God Righteousness which made St. Paul so earnestly desire to be found in him not having his own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ The Righteousness which is of God by Faith Phil. iii. 9. Secondly We must be Sanctified by his Spirit as well as Justified by his Merit This must qualifie and make us fit for Heaven The pure in heart shall see God Mat. v. 8. And without Holiness none can see the Lord Heb. xii 14. For into the New Jerusalem shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth neither what soever worketh abomination or maketh a lye Rev. xxi 27. Without being Sanctified no man is fit 1. For the Place 2. For the Company 3. For the Work of Heaven First Not for the place 'T is his Holy Heaven Psalm xx 6. All the Types of it were Holy Paradice the Tabernacle the Temple yea the Hill on which it stood even a temporary and transient manifestation of Gods Presence or Glory Consecrates the place how much more Holy then is that place which is the Habitation of Gods Holiness and Glory as Heaven is called Isay lxiii 15. That part of the Temple where the Ark stood under the Wings of the Cherubims the type of Gods constant residence for the Mercy Seat was his Throne and he dwelt betwixt the Cherubims was called the most Holy the Holy of Holies the Holiest of all
how Superlatively Holy then must that place be of which this was but a figure What ever God Sanctifies by his presence must not be defiled by the approach or touch of any unclean thing When God appears to Moses in the Bush or Joshuah in the Vale both must put off their shooes from their feet because the ground was holy on which they stood Paradice could bear our first Parents no longer when they had sinned away their Innocence Nay the Angels fell from Heaven when they fell from the Holiness in which they were created And Possession which you call Eleven Points could not secure their stay And thinkest thou with an unsanctified heart which bears Satans Image to be admitted into that place from which that very Image cast them out 'T is said some Vessels are so delicate and pure that they will hold no Poyson but crush and break in pieces to be rid on 't Should one sinner get into Heaven with his unchanged his invenomed Nature Heaven would cleave under him as the Earth did under Korah Dathan and Abiram rather than not discharge it self of him Yea when he saw his own loathsomness in that pure place he would save and prevent their labour who would cast him out and partly for shame to be so unlike the rest and partly for the unagreeableness of the place to his expectations and desires he would leap down headlong rather than tarry there As Vzziah when the Leprosie arose in his Forehead the Priests thrust him out of the Temple yea he himself hasted to go out 2 Chron. xxvi 20. And the expression is remarkable concerning the Angels which kept not their first State they left their own Habitation Jud. verse 6. for though Michael and his Angels fought and cast them out Rev. xii 7 8 9. Yet they were soon weary of Heaven and of their Holy Habitation and ready enough to leave it of their own accord when they had made themselves so unlike to it And what ever they think who look upon Heaven as a reserve when they can stay no longer in this world to be chosen rather than the place of Torment and phansie it like a Tuâ—kish Paradice a place of ease and sloath to eat and drink and gratifie their sensualities from an absurd misunderstanding of some allusive and Figurative expressions yet if an unsanctified man with his heart full of his present Antipathies against the Holiness of that place should step in thither it would certainly be the most irksom and disagreeable place he ever came in and more like a Purgatory than a Paradice and never was he so uneasie as he would be there nor was ever creature so much out of its Element as such a man would be And how strange or surprizing soever this may seem its easie to convince you of its Truth by Principles of Reason For likeness is the cause of liking and Satisfaction ariseth from the sutableness of the Object to the Subject that receives it Many things have an intrinsick Excellency in themselves and are very desirable to those to whose capacities and dispositions they are suited which are not so at all to others Hony is very sweet to an Healthful Pallate but bitter to the Tongue which is dryed and scortched with a Feaver Meat and drink are very pleasant to an hungry Stomach but their sight or smell will make him Sick who is troubled with a nausea or loathing Musick and Songs greatly delight a chearful airy spirit but to him that is of an Heavy heart are like the taking away a Garment in cold weather Prov. xxv 20. And to him that 's tyr'd out for want of rest one hours Sleep would be more welcome than the best Melody of Voice or Instrument We are never well but when we are where we would be and we would never be out of our own Element The Worm in the Earth the Bird in the Air the Fish in the water not only live but each in his Place doth grow and sing and play But change their Element and presently they languish and dye Sin and this World are a sinners Element and put him into Heaven whilst he continues such and his Heart would dye within him as soon as he found where he was The Air of that purer Region that Holy Climate would be to him as Ireland is said to be to Spiders Toads and Vipers His Conversation must be in Heaven whilst he lives Phil. iii. 20. to whom Heaven would be Heaven indeed that is a place of Bliss and satisfaction when he dyes Secondly The Company And this makes an unsanctified person more unfit for Heaven and would render his being there yet more uneasie to him Can two walk together except they be agreed Amos iii. 3. And there is just such agreement betwixt a wicked unsanctified sinner and all the Company in Heaven as there is betwixt Light and Darkness Christ and Belial the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent You may find what Company there is in Heaven by that short yet full Muster-Rowl of that Heavenly Host Heb. xii 22 23 24. The sum of which is this that in the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem there are God the Judg of all Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant an innumerable company of Holy Angels the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and the spirits of just men made perfect Now if amongst all these a more narrow search be made then was amongst all the creatures for an help for Adam The return must be made us then non est inventus There was not found for Adam a meet help Gen. ii 20. So amongst all these will not be found a meet Companion for an unsanctified sinner Not God for he hath been used to say to him Depart from me I desire not the knowledg of thy ways What is the Almighty that I should serve him Job xxi 20. And God will take him at his word they 'l never come together nor will he now be served or injoyed by him Not Christ for of him he said this man shall not reign over me Luke xix 14. What therefore should he do in his Kingdom Or how can he have Fellowship with him who trampled his blood under his Feet Not the Holy Spirit whom he always resisted grieved vexed fretted and did despight unto whilst he was striving with him to render him a meet Habitation for God Not the Holy Angels for he never caused their Joy in Heaven by his Repentance and they can not be glad to see him there Not the Spirits of just men made perfect for the beginnings of that perfection in the first lineaments of Christs Image on their hearts and lives and the initial participation of the Divine Nature made them the Objects of his scorn and hatred Whom tho his Brethren by Nature he loved just as Cain did Abel and for the same reason 1 John iii. 12. Or as Ishmael
attain to what he can not do In order to be ready for Christ some thing a man can do some thing he can not do He can Read Hear Pray Consider stir his Natural affections Love Fear Hope Desire by weighing what he knows Some things as yet he can not do Repent turn to God believe Savingly for these are the gifts and work of God Now God hath set the first in the way to the second as it were in the middle betwixt what he can do and what he can not that by doing what he can at present he may gradually come to ability to do what he cannot yet do and by degrees may ascend thither whither he could not reach per Salâ—um at once I will make this plain by an easie comparison A man cannot at one stride step up into the Room above him ten foot higher than the floor he stands on but if there be a Pair of Stairs he can set his Foot first on the lowest than on the second third and by degrees ascend a second third fourth Story tho ten or twenty Foot above the place from whence he first began Just thus there is a Jacobs Ladder of many Rounds set up between Heaven and Earth We cannot step at once from Nature to Grace from Earth to Heaven but we may begin at the foot of this Ladder and climb from the first Round to the second and then the third and so to the top and gradually by the help of this Ladder and the hand of the Spirit leading us up we come to that which without this we could not reach by the means of Grace we attain Grace and by Grace as a means we attain Glory I therefore again press you to Read Hear Pray Meditate with honest industry and an humble expectation of Gods blessing upon his own Institutions and thy labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Sixthly Allow your selves due time and leisure for these things Be good Husbands of time no thrift is more commendable Eternity depends upon it And as I would specially commend unto you the strict Sanctifying the Lords day a thing much out of use which is one of the most visible Causes why the power of Godliness withers and dwindles so much away For 't is easily observable that Religion thrives and prospers proportionably to the improvement of this day and flourisheth or is troden down according as this Fence is kept up or neglected So let me earnestly commend to you the setting apart some Portion of time every day for God and your souls That as God hath the Tribute of a Day-Sabbath out of the Week He may have as it were an Hour-Sabbath out of every Day As there was a continual Morning and Evening Sacrifice dayly under the Law so there should be at least Morning and Evening time allowed for Spiritual Sacrifice under the Gospel And here I cannot I dare not forbear to caution you of this great City against the over lavish spending of whole Evenings in Publick Houses and at your Clubbs Tho 't is easiy to foresee it may offend both those whose guilt and whose interest it toucheth for both these are teachy things not that I am so rigid as to censure moderate Diversion and Friendly Conversation But I fear yea I greatly fear there is a fault yea a great fault in this matter If after your Shops your Counting-House and Business and the Change have taken all the day the Coffee-House the Tavern and the Clubb shall take up all your Evening What 's left for God for Souls and for Eternity And thou returnest home so late that thy Family is in Bed or half asleep and thy head full of Stories and News at least if not of something worse How slenderly cursorily and uncomposedly is God like to be served in Family and Closet if not shut out of both And what if Christ should come and find you doing thus Could you expect his Euge bone serve well done good and faithful servant or not rather his frown with why hast thou served me thus Seventhly If thou wouldest be ready for Christ get thy heart furnish'd and prepared as that Room was where he eat his last Passover Mark xiv 15. Cast out all thy Lusts and cast off every weight but above all keep thy self from thine own iniquity foster no bosome sin enter into league with none Tho 't will be hard enough to get rid of others yet thou'ld be easilier quit of twenty others than of such an one A darling sin a bosom sin a peccatum in deliciis is of all sins most offensive to God most dangerous to our selves One Dalilah was too strong for Sampson himself and he could not stand before her before whom a thousand men fell at one time but she cost him his Eyes and his Life Every sin is a snare and a cord to intangle men but none so much as his Own sin His Own iniquities there 's the Emphasis his Own shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the Cords of His sins Prov. v. 22. Whether it be the sin of thy Natural Constitution or thy Calling and Profession of life or the time and place thou livest in or that long usage and custom hath indeared to thee For from these four quarters this blasting wind usually blows upon men and made as a right Hand or a right Eye or as the spots to a Leopard or skin to an Ethiopian This sin what ever it be is the plague of thy heart the most Mortal Disease of thy Soul and thou must set thy self with all thy might both to find it out and cast it out and mortifie it 'T was Davids Argument for his uprightness that he kept himself from his own iniquity Psal xviii 23. I was also upright before him and I kept my self from mine iniquity And so must thou if ever thou expect acceptance with God 'T is bad to be forced or ravished by Sin and Satan 't is worse to yield consent to one act of defilement or Spiritual Uncleanness but 't is worst of all to be married to them and this thou art by fostering a Bosome darling sin This yields the constant use of Soul and Body to his impure embraces This keeps Possession for him and opens the Door as often as he knocks and he enters in and dwells there Davids lust to Bathshebah tho very foul is called a Way-faring man and a Traveller 2 Sam. xii 4. But where a darling sin is harboured there Satan is at Home in his own House This makes thy condition almost desperate and nothing but a speedy Divorce can prevent its being altogether so Eighthly Disintagle and unchain thy heart from the inordinate love and cares of the things of this world Account thy self a Stranger and a Pilgrim here Know that this is not thy rest thou hast here no continuing place But especially take Gods Counsel to Hezekiah Isa xxxviii 1. Set thine house in order for thou shalt die
and not live Prevent in time of Health the distractions the unsetledness of thy worldly Affairs may and will give thee in the last Stage of thy life leave nothing which may hinder thy following Christ readily without once looking back when he is about to lead thee out of this world Remember Lots Wife Luke xvii 32. Readiness to go into another world Supposes Readiness to go out of this Lastly Call in the assistance and help of others 'T is the Character of a wiseman that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquisitive When John Baptist came Preaching Repentance and shewing them their danger that the Ax was laid to the root of the tree And that every tree that brought not forth good fruit should be hewed down and cast into the fire Luke iii. 9. They all fall to asking verse 10. The people asked of him what shall we do then verse 10. The Publicans Master what shall we do ver 12. And the Souldiers likewise demanded of him saying What shall we do verse 14. Also Christs Hearers John vi 28. said unto him What shall we do that we may work the works of God And the afrighted Jayler cryed out Sirs what must I do to be saved Act. xvi 30. But where 's the man that moves such questions now adays Or asks the way to Zion If you feel the least grudging of a Distemper in your Bodies the Physitian is sent for presently Or fear a flaw in your Estates you run to the Lawyer but every man thinks himself Physitian skilful enough for his Souls Distempers and Lawyer good enough for his Title to Heaven And tho The Priests lips should preserve knowledg and the people should enquire the Law at his mouth because he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. ii 7. Yet tho he be A Messenger one of a thousand an Interpreter to shew to man his uprightness Job xxxiii 23. To declare to him whether his Spiritual condition be good and safe and such as makes him ready for Christ yet may he sit in his study till he dye before any come to interrupt him with such business It 's true indeed it may be you will send for him when you are Sick I blame not this better then than not at all provided it be not too late as too oft it is When the Physitian leaves you and gives you over as hopeless and you are drawing on and have scarce any use of Sence or Reason left As the Foolish Virgins beg for Oyl when sickness and the approaching pangs of death gave them that smart Alarum Behold the Bridegroom cometh go ye forth to meet him And then you would be getting when you should be using it what your whole life was lent you for And then you would be taught in one quarter of an hour and when the indispositions both of Body and Mind have made you past learning or at least very unfit to learn what is a Lesson hard enough for many years even the calmest and least disturbed of them and when thou didst injoy a sound Mind in a sound Body I beseech you friends resolve me nay rather resolve your selves if it be good to consult your Spiritual Guides then is it not better to do it sooner whilst you are capable to take their Counsel and have time to follow it and if they may do you good then may they not do you more good in a fitter season Why then will you chuse the less before the more and the worse before the better I therefore with repeated importunity again intreat you call in all the help you can both from experienced humble Christians who make it their business in good earnest to be ready for Christ themselves And also from your faithful Pastors Who watch for your souls Soloman tells us twice that in the multitude of Counsellors there is safety Prov. xi 14. xxiv 6. and hath a vaeâ—soli woe to him that is alone Eccl. iv 10. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool Prov. xxviii 26. And he that trusteth to it is little better For besides its deceitfulness and our Natural Partiality to our selves Our ignorance and inadvertency needs much help from the prudence and fidelity of others Chuse therefore some ferious Soul-friend to whom thou mayest with modesty and freedom lay open thy Spiritual state And as I told you before that nothing is worse than a Bosome-sin So nothing is better than such a Bosome-friend to help thee into Abrahams Bosome and the Arms of Christ And this for the first Use of Direction which I have enlarged much beyond my first intentions and therefore will be very brief in the two that follow next Second Use Reprehension I shall name three sorts only to be reproved for sinning against the Truth we are handling First Those profane ungodly sinners who are so far from endeavouring to be ready against Christs coming that they rather live without any sence of Death and Judgment and Christs coming at all saying at least in their hearts and in their lives with those Scoffers walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. iii. 4. Where is the promise of his coming As if they had made A Covenant with death and were at an agreement with hell As the Prophet describes them Isay xxviii 15. Who rather work out their own damnation with security presumption and provocation than their Salvation with fear and trembling But such monsters of men under the disguise and shape of Christians are fitter to be abhorred of all than reproved of any These Leviathans esteeming our Scripture Artillery as he in Job lxi 27.28 Doth Iron Brass and sling-stones as stubble straw or rotten wood Tho God can make these feeble weapons mighty in his time to pull down the strongest holds of Satan Secondly Those who tho they believe these things in general and approve them and commend others for making ready for Christ yet neglect the practice and performance of them resting in some common hopes some faint desires some outward observances some ineffectual half endeavours and rather wish they were ready for Christ than take care to be so and will rather put it to the venture than be at the pains of any Spiritual Industry to be ready in good earnest which is the very case of multitudes of common Christians Thirdly Those who tho they are convinc'd they ought and also resolve they will get ready and stick at nothing which may make them so yet put off and delay from day to day and year to year Semper victuri as Seneca calls them all way about to do it but never do it always learning but never coming to the knowledg of the truth Stick in the birth and therefore are unwise Hos xiii 13. And indeed nothing makes a man a greater fool or more proves him to be such than this to know what should be done and to resolve to do it and yet never set about it And therefore God brands them with this reproachful Character
the stream which was at first but Ankle high or to the Knees and fordable at least will become impassible and in the deep waters they shall not come nigh him The longer thou art going from God the farther off thou 'lt be and the more difficult will thy return be found Rooted Habits are hardly eradicated and Custom in sin becomes a second Nature And as easily may the Leopard change his spots or the Ethiopian put off his skin as he learn to do good who is accustomed to do evil Jer. xiii 23. Custom in sin will take away the sence of sin and harden the heart like the neather Mill-stone Therefore Exhort one another dayly while it is called to day yea rouse up your selves lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. iii. 13. Nemo repente fit turpissimus no man arrives at height of wickedness all on the sudden but by degrees Even depraved Nature hath some modesty left to restrain it and that must be bafled to make it impudent in sin and braze its fore-head to be past blushing A fresh water-Souldier dops his head and shrinks at the discharge of single Muskets but he that 's flusht with often coming safely off despiseth Vollies and marches erect where the Bullets fall like a storm of Hail and at last will run upon the mouth of Canons Experience breeds hope in evil as well as in good and because men have long continued unready for Christ and yet found no danger in it they flatter themselves they never shall And Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Eccl. viii 11. And so what was always hard to do at length becomes next to impossible to be done Especially confidering Fifthteenthly Thy strength declines as well as thy work grows more difficult and according to the old Verse Qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit He that 's unfit to day will be more unfit to morrow for besides the decays of Nature which are not to be despised where the work is wholly to begin the offers of Grace will be more rare and faint the motions of the Spirit will be less frequent less importunate He hath neither delight nor list to knock at that door which hath been barr'd so long against him nor to expose himself to new repulses where he hath been so often grieved and his help rejected and ere long he will be gone for ever and woe be to thee when he departs from thee Si ter pulsanti nemo respondet abito The Courts on Earth Record the third contempt for contumacy and proceed to Sentence And doth the Court of Heaven keep no Records He seals up thine iniquities in a bag and are not these things written in his Book What folly is it to lay the heaviest burden on the weakest beast to leave that care and work to thy decrepid Age When the Grashopper shall be a burden which the vigour of thy youth can scarcely struggle with Sixteenthly Thou wilt not be served thus thy self do as thou wouldst be done to How irksome to thee is a loytring servant As vinegar to the teeth and smoak to the Eyes so is a sluggard to them that send him Prov. x. 26. Thou expectest thy servant shall attend on thee before he serve himself Which of you having a servant Plowing or feeding Cattle will say unto him by and by when he is come from the field go sit down to meat And will not rather say unto him first make ready wherewith I may sup and gird thy self and serve me till I have eaten and drunken and afteâ—ward thou shalt eat and drink thou'lt rid thy House of him who will serve himself before his Master and make him stay his leisure and what shall God do to such an one His are a willing people and all delay implies unwillingness We would never do what we are loath to do if we durst omit it not love but fear begets such motion and 't is love to our work which makes our working acceptable God had as lieve you should do nothing as do what you do without or against your heart Seventeenthly Nay You do not only hate delays in men but you cannot bear them at the hand of God if you be in distress in pain or danger you cry out O God make speed to save us O Lord make hast to help us answer me speedily Lord tarry not and if he do you grow importunate Make hast O God to deliver me make hast to help me O Lord Psal lxx 1. Make hast unto me O God O Lord make no tarrying verse 5. if not half impatient Hear me speedily O Lord my spirit faileth Psal clxiii 7. My soul is vexed but thou O Lord how long Psalm vi 3. How long wilt thou forget me O Lord for ever How long wilt thou hide thy face from me How long shall I take Counsel in my soul dayly How long shall my enemy be exalted over me Consider and hear me O Lord my God Psalm xiii 1 2 3. If not quite so and desperate with that wicked King Why should I stay or wait for the Lord any longer 2 Kings vi 33. And if God should when thou roarest for horror of Conscience or art as on a Rack with exquisite pains of Gout or Stone or but the Tooth-Ache answer thee with such delays as thou dost him and say why such hast all in good time I am not at leisure forty years hence or twenty years hence I 'le help and ease thee be content I can't come yet but when I have nothing else to do I 'le help thee How would this hope deferred make thy heart sick And 't is well if thou refrain Blaspheming him as one that mockt thee and yet God must suffer all this at thine hand be provoked and grieved forty years long yea fifty threescore years and wait and call and cry and reason with thee and intreat thee to return to get ready for him but all in vain thou turnest a deaf Ear to him and art as the deaf Adder which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer charming never so wisely And wilt neither dance to his piping nor weep at his mourning to you Consider this you that forget God how how unkindly you take it to be forgotten of him and you that delay so many years to be ready for him how ill you can bear his delaying but a week or day if he be not ready to relieve and help you in your fears and sorrows Eighteenthly You 'l not deal thus with others as you deal with God as if 't were only safe and faultless to despise him not with your betters good manners will not suffer that you say 'T is fitter you should stay for them than they for you Not with a Friend or Neighbour but will rise at midnight to lend him what he needs or but to light
may be spar'd or will prove useless and must be lost But if it appear very Hard and Difficult but yet Hopeful and Possible to be attained and withal most Necessary and very Excellent and Advantageous This will Excite and Raise that Soul that hath any Principles of Prudence Generosity or Care of its own Good First Account not this Work so Easy as 't is most evident too many do who under fullest Convictions and profess'd Acknowledgments that there is such an Heaven and Hell as the Bible describes and that it so infinitely concerns them to obtain the One and escape the Other as is there declared yet Live so securely and negligently that they proclaim to all the World they think it next to Impossible to miscarry and swear by their Hopes of Salvation as the most Sacred Asseveration while they are running headlong in the Broad-way that leads to Destruction Surely these must think God's Work very Easy who flatter themselves that they can carry it on sufficiently while they are serving the Devil and their Lusts with both Hands greedily It may not be impertinent to mind such Men of the Romish Fryar's Lenten Sermon which before many Cardinals and Great Men of that Court he began abruptly thus St. Peter was a Fool and St. Paul was a Fool and all the Primitive Christians were meer Fools who took such a deal of Care and Pains to please God and save their Souls and thought the Way to Heaven was by Self-Denyal and Mortification Prayers and Fasting by Severities and denying the Pomps of this Wicked World And You at Rome indulge your selves in Ease and Sloth live in your Lusts and Luxury and spend your Time in Pomp and Pleasure and yet account your selves very good Christians and doubt not but you shall be saved But at last You 'll be found the Fools and They the Wise Men. For 't is the part of Wisdom to proportion the Means to the End and 't is great Folly to waste Time and Strength and make a great Stir and Bustle about that which may be done as you say with a wet Finger and 't is so also to act coldly and faintly in that which cannot be accomplish't without great Industry I beseech you therefore beware of such an Opinion as will greatly tempt you to be Remiss in the Work of God and remember who bid Strive to enter in at the Streight-Gate withal telling you That many of those who strive shall not be able to get in What then shall become of them who strive not The Violent take the Kingdom of Heaven As he that Asks faintly bespeaks a Denyal so he that Acts faintly will be surely Disappointed Besides what was said before it were easie to add many Evidences to prove this Work to be Hard and that 't is very Reasonable it should be so The Way is Steep and Slippery 't is hard to climb it the Enemies are Many and Mighty that Oppose thee thy Skill and Strength is small Nature will recoyl and draw back and single Nature is hardly overcome and Custom of Sinning is a Second Nature and doubtless the Difficulty and no Discipline is so hard as for him to learn to do Well who hath been accustomed to do Evil. Self is a bold Competitor with God and must be used Roughly or it will be serv'd before Him and set up above Him And for thy own Dear Sake thou wilt be prone to cry as David for his Darling Absolom Deal gently with it for my Sake And by a strange Fondness thou wilt spare the Traytor which watches to destroy thee Though Christ Rejected the Temptation Favour thy self with a Get thee behind Me Satan yet when such Sugar'd Words are offer'd thee thou 'lt hardly discern the Poyson that 's mixt with them And there are many Reasons why God hath made his own Work hard that those who Wear the Crown may Win it first For a Man is not Crown'd unless he strive Lawfully That he may appear Impartial in Rejecting Loyterers and Rewarding Labourers That his Servants may have Opportunity to exercise those Graces which else there would be no occasion for That Rest may be sweeter after Labour And that God's Grace may be Magnifyed in assisting their Weakness and Satan may be more Confounded in the Disappointment of all his Stratagems Believe therefore thy Work to be hard that thou betray not thy self to Sloth and Remissness to thy own Eternal Ruin Secondly Yet run not into the other Extream while thou avoydest this and dash not against Scylla while thou avoydest Charybdis Conclude not 't is Impossible to finish it by Labour because it is so to accomplish it without Labour Despair of Success kills all Industry and a supposed Impossibility of Attainment naturally produces Despair When once we say There is no Hope the next word will be Why should I wait any longer Why should I strive any more But Be not Sloathful but Followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises Faith and Patience will do that which Sloth and the want of them can never do And watch carefully against that Snare Satan layes in the way of so many If I be not Elected all my Labour will be in vain I cannot alter God's Decrees Vain Creature What hast thou to do with God's Decrees Who made thee of His Council Mind thou what is written in the Word Which is nigh thee in thy Mouth and in thy Heart Not what is written in the Secret Records of Heaven Read Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God But those things which are Revealed belong to Vs and to our Children for ever that we may do all the Words of this Law And Deut. 30.11 12 14. This Commandment which I command thee this Day is not hidden from thee neither is it far off It is not in Heaven that thou shouldst say Who shall go up for us to Heaven and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it But the Word is niâ—h unto thee in thy Mouth and in thy Heart that thou may'st do it See I have set before you this Day Life and Good Death and Evil Compare Rom. 10.6 9. This is the Word of Faith which we Preach If thou Confess with thy Mouth and believe in thine Heart thou shalt be saved Not if thou be Elected thou shalt be Saved whether thou believest whether thou workest out thy Salvation or no This is to begin at the wrong End as if a Man would begin to Build a House at the Roof and Build downwards Build the Roof in the Air before any thing were laid on Earth to bear it up St. Peter teaches another Method 2 Pet. 1.5 Giving all Diligence add to your Faith Vertue c. For if these Things be in you and abound they make you that you shall be neither Barren nor Vnfruitful c. And Vers 10. Giving Diligence to make your Calling and Election sure First Calling then Election and
chiefly to this Great Work And this will be yet more evident if we consider it in the several Parts All the Scripture may be reduced to these Seven Heads The Doctrines the Precepts the Exhortations the Promises the Threatnings the Examples and the Prayers therein Recorded And I shall give an Instance or two how every one of these is chiefly designed to be Subservient to this End This is the Total Sum plac't at the Foot of the Account when the Wisest of Men had Cast it up exactly Let us hear the Conclusion of the whole Matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the Whole of Man For God shall bring every Work to Judgment with every Secret Thing whether it be Good or whether it be Evil Eccles 12.13 14. As if he had said When we have said all that can all that may be said this is in one word the Sum and Substance of the Whole All the several Lines from how different Points soever they are drawn terminate and end in this as their Centre Be Diligent in God's Work What doth the Doctrine teach us but To deny Vngodlyness and Worldly Lusts and to live Righteously Soberly and Godly in this present World Looking for that Blessed Hope and the Glorious Appearing of the Great God and our Saâ—iour Jesus Christ That there is a God Infinitely Glorious in all Perfections who hath made all Things for His Glory and Man especially to pay Him that Tribute of Glory which is due to Him from all His Works That Man hath an Immortal Soul more worth than all the World And that there is an Eternal Estate after this Life an Heaven and an Hell And that Man 's great Business is to attain the One and escape the Other That there shall be a Resurrection both of the Just and Vnjust That God will bring every Work to Judgment and render to every Man according to their Works That They who have done Good shall go into Eternal Life and They who have done Evil into Everlasting Punishment That the Good and Faithful Servant who was Diligent in God's Works shall receive his Master's Euge and be Advanced But the Wicked and Sloathful Sâ—rvant shall be bound Hand and Foot and cast into Vtter Darkness for his Neglecting it What do the Precepts enjoyn us but To Love the Lord with all our Heart and Soul with all our Strength and all our Might To Serve Him with a Perfect Heart and with a Willing Mind To Glorify Him in our Spirits and our Bodies To Work out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling To Seek for Immortality and Eternal Life by patient Continuance in Well-doing To Strive to Enter the Streight-Gate To Give all Diligence to be admitted into Christ's Kingdom In a word The Sum of them is to Command us to Honour God and be Wise to Salvation And Thou hast Commanded us to keep these Precepts diligently Psal 119.3 As to the Hortatory Swasory Argumentative Part of the Scriptures 't is chiefly imploy'd to allure us to this Work To draw us by the Cords of a Man or to fright us out of our Negligence and drive us as with Whip-Cords To Convince us by the Clearest Light To Advise us by the Wisest Reasons To Beseech us by the Sweetest Mercies To Warn us by the Sorest Dangers To Perswade us by most Cogent Arguments To Oblige us by most Indispensible Engagements In a word To Prevail upon us by what-ever the Frame and Constitution of our Nature is capable of being moved by to mind our Work in Earnest or to leave us for ever inexcusable if we slight it or trifle at it As to the Promises 'T is said in general That Godliness hath the Promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come And these Promises are for Number many Some who have reckoned them up affirm them no fewer than Six Hundred For Naâ—ure Great and Precious For Certainâ—y Immutable being bottom'd on the Truth of Him who cannot Lye He is Faithful that hath Promised And the Sum of them all is to give the strongest Assurance that God will Reward them that Diligently seek Him and that with exceeding great Rewards A Crown of Glory an Eternal Kingdom an Incorruptible Inheritance Fulness of Joy and Everlasting Life And the Threatnings which are as Terrible as the Promises are Comfortable the severest Wrath of God being Reveal'd from Heaven in them are all Levell'd against those who prefer the Devil's Work before God's or are Remiss and Careless in it How shall we Escape Great Damnation if we neglect so Great Salvation Vpon the Wicked He shall rain Snares Fire and Brimstone and an Horrible Tempest this shall be the Portion of their Cup. A Cup of Trembling indeed a Cup of Bitter and Poysonous Mixture and yet the very Dregs of it shall be wrung out to them and they must suck them up What hot and burning Thunder-bolts are such Sentences as these charg'd with Cursed be the Man that doth the Work of God deceitfully He that Believeth not shall be Damned Vnless ye Repent ye shall all Perish The Ax is laid to the Root of the Tree every Tree therefore which bringeth not forth Good Fruit shall be Cut down and cast into the Fire unquenchable If any Man love not our Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha The Lord Jesus shall be Revealed from Heaven with His Mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking Vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be destroyed with Everlasting Destruction from the Presence of the Lord and the Glory of His Power And Hundreds more which sound and signify as dreadfully as these Thou canst not hear such Sentences pronounc't without Affrightment unless thy Heart be like Leviathans hard as the Nether-Mill-stone And How wilt thou bear the Execution when thou comest to feel it The Histories and Examples to which I Reduce the Parables which are seigned Histories the Scope of all these is to shew God's Care of good Men and the Pleasure He takes in those who delight and love to do His Work with Diligence Such as Abel Enoch and the Holy Patriarchs Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Joshua Caleb and after David Jehosophat Hezechias Josiah c. with the Holy Apostles and Saints Recorded in the New-Testament Or His Wrath against Wicked Men and the Vengeance He inflicts upon Ungodly and Unfaithful Ones such as Cain and Cham and the Ten Spyes who brought up an Evil Report on the Good Land and discouraged their Brethrens Hearts from seeking it such as Nadab an Abihu who offered Strange Fire and were paid in their kind with as Strange a Fire which devoured them Such as Hophni and Phineas those Sons of Belial who polluted their Priesthood and caused Men to Abhor Oh horrible Wickedness the Lord's Service Such as Judas Ananias and Saphira Demas the Foolish Virgins Dives and the Slothful Servant and abundance more all
pray for Grace To do God's Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven we either ask we know not what or we do but mock God if we endeavour not to Serve Him with the same Diligence as near as we can attain it where with the Host of Heaven serve Him constantly Lastly The Example of God Himself Blessed for ever whom we are so oft required to imitate Be ye Holy for I am Holy Be ye Perfect as your Father in Heaven is Perfect This beyond all should constrain us to shew forth our utmost Diligence Shall God be so Sollicitous to promote our Salvation and Shall we sleight and despise it as if it were not worth Regarding God the Father imploy'd His Blessed Thoughts about it from all Eternity devising Means to bring home His Banished that they should not be Expelled from Himself to Reconcile His Mercy and His Justice to Punish the Sin and Spare the Sinner and made all his Glory pass before Him in the Accomplishment of it display'd all His Attributes in their brightest Lustre and in a word gave His Son the Dearly Beloved of His Soul in whom He took Infinite and Everlasting pleasure to be made a Man and then to be made a Curse And God the Son came down from Heaven for us Men and for our Salvation And having done so spent His time in the World according to the Ends for which He came into it which was to Glorify His Father do His Will and do Good to the Souls and Bodies of Men and He did it all with a Zeal that even Consumed and Eat Him up and made the Foolish World say He was Mad or Besides Himself as they are ready to do of all that follow Him And at last after a Life spent in preaching whole Dayes and praying whole Nights and Working mighty Miracles He Finish't all with a Willing Obedience to the most painful shameful and accursed Death and even now He is in Heaven He is as Diligent as ever making Intercession without Intermission and watching and ordering all things for the Good of those who shall be Heirs of Salvation And the most Holy and most Blessed Spirit is as busie and sedulous as either of the Former knocking calling striving warning wooing Sinners to return to God to be so Wise as to be contented to be Happy upon God's Terms which in one word are That you Work out your Salvation with Fear and Trembling and improve your Seasons with meet Diligence while you have them Working while 't is Day before that Night over-take you in which no Man can Work Which that we all do The Good Lord vouchsafe us that Grace and Wisdom which may Assist us and Direct us to do accordingly Amen FINIS A DISCOURSE SHEWING The sinfulness and danger of unfruitfulness under the Gospel containing the substance of some Sermons Preached upon St. Luke xiii 6 7 8 9. A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his Vineyard and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none cut it down why cumbereth it the ground And he answering said unto him Lord let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it And if it bear fruit well and if not then after that thou shalt cut it down AS time is measured out to us by the revolution of days and months and years so is Gods patience magnified towards us by multiplying the returns of them And as his Patience is magnified so is our Account increased and Impenitency aggravated according to the number of the portions of time which pass over us and the more we have wasted and sent home empty to him that expected fruit from us in them all the more we have cause to expect and fear that every next and new one should be our last for God will not always bear the disappointment of his expectation but tho he bear long will not forbear always but will at length curse to a with'ring or cut down for burning the barren Tree which bears either none or no good Fruit year after year This consideration hath induced mee in the beginning of another year to chuse this Parable to discourse of to press you with all the earnestness I can after so many years of provoking unfruitfulness to tempt Gods long-suffering no longer by impenitency and barrenness under the Gospel lest if being let alone this year also you continue only incumbrances of Gods Vineyard He continue no longer to spare you nor Christ to interceed for you that you may be spared nor good men be able to prevail for you nor your own Consciences have any plea left but that ye be cut off without pitty on Gods part without remedy on mans and without excuse on you own There is not a place in all the Holy Scriptures wherein Repentance and that both sound and speedy is more vehemently urged and more emphatically enforced than the beginning of this Chapter For as those who heard our Lord urge the similitude of the Creditor and Debtor laid down in the two last verses of the preceeding Chapter against procrastination may seem to have taken occasion thence to tell him the story of the Galileans Whose blood Pilate had mingled with their Sacirfices so our Lord takes occasion further to improve that his Doctrine against neglect and deferring Repentance by applying that story now told him and another of eighteen men on whom the Tower of Siloam had fallen and destroyed them which were both true and real Stories of things which had actually and lately hapned and were fresh in all mens memories and mouths Now these being very awakning examples and startling instances of sudden and surprizing Judgments Our Saviour according to his great wisdom and faithfulness will not let slip so fair an opportunity to press his hearers from them to speedy and sincere Repentance As if he had said these were not greater not more flagitious sinners than their Neighbours no nor then your selves and yet these things you hear and know hapned unto them and as bad or worse may happen unto you nay will unless you Repent and now especially since God hath given them to be such warnings to awaken you If you do not now repent ye shall all likewise perish Your impenitency aggravated by slighting such an alarum as their fall gives you will provoke God to meet with you some way or other and if in any case he cut you off before you have Repented truly you perish unavoidably and that for ever Little did the Galileans think when they went to offer Sacrifice they should themselves be made a Sacrifice Little did the Eighteen men who were in or nigh the Tower of Siloam well and safe and secure from fear think to be crusht to death in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye and yet these things befel them both And so may it be
pains but will do all that Art and Industry can perform he will dig about it and dung it do the best and the most he can to make it fruitful First The express Prayer for the barren Tree Lord let it alone this year also c. In which the first branch is for more time The second for leave to bestow more cost and pains upon it Note hence 1. 'T is the duty of Gods Ministers to Pray for the people yea even for the unfruitful and impenitent amongst them Isa lxii 6 7. I have set watch-men upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth 2. They must not excuse their faults tho they may and must beg pardon for them that would rob God of the Glory of his Mercy and harden them in security against repentance and amendment He tacitely acknowledges the culpableness of their past unfruitfulness and confesseth Gods goodness in suffering them to stand so long while he Prays it may be let alone this year also it was meer Mercy to let it stand so long and it will be more Mercy to let it alone a little longer therefore O Lord Let it alone this year also even for thy Mercies sake 3. He asks not three years more but one year after three years barrenness and disappointment they must ask modestly who would prevail one years forbearance more is a great Mercy to them who have sinned away many already Every day every hour should be pretious to a Reprieved man to sue out his Pardon and make his Peace He is now upon his good Behaviour this is his last tryal if he continue and persist in his old wont Execution proceeds as against one of whom there is no hope of proving better The Second Branch of his Prayer is for leave to bestow more cost and pains upon it Till I dig about it there 's labour and pains the Ministerial Office when truly and faithfully discharged is really very laborious We beseech you brethren know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly for their Works sake 1. Thes v. 12 13. Those who labour in the Word and Doctrine 1. Tim. v. 17. Tho the Ministry be a great dignity yet it takes denomination from duty and service We Preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake 2 Cor. iv 5. And our Lord himself gives his Apostles both a rule against exercising Lordship and sets himself as an example of it Lu. xxii 26 27. It shall not be so with you but he that is greatest among you shall be as the youngest and the chief as he that serveth For I am among you as he that serveth 'T is well known the word so often used in the new Testament for the Ministry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the most painful labour Such as of those who sweat and by their speed in their Travel raise the dust and digging is one of the hardest kinds of labour such as the unfaithful Steward openly confesses too hard for him I cannot dig Luke xvi But tho Ministers should labour where-ever they are they may not labour where they please Paul and his Companions in labour were forbidden of the Holy Ghos◠to Preach the Word in Asia And when they assayed to go into Bithynia the spirit suffered them not Act. xvi 6 7. They are Labourers but 't is together with God 1 Cor. iii. 9. And must have their station assigned by him And as the Lord of the Harvest must be prayed To send forth Labourers into his Harvest St. Matth. ix 38. So his leave must be obtained to continue and bestow more labour in what field soever he assigns them to work in and when his Vineyard hath provoked him by disappointing his expectation and not answering past labour and charge bestowed on it He passes this Sentence against it it shall not be pruned nor digged And I 'l command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it Isa v. 6. As 't is not a small Mercy to have faithful and painful Ministers so 't is one of the greatest Judgments to have them removed and to be put under such as are described Zech. xi 16. and therefore God should be sought by earnest Prayer to vouchsafe the Mercy and avert the Judgment Next he asks to bestow cost as well as pains there must be dunging as well as digging 't is chargeable mending barren Land yet we must not stick at this See 2 Cor. xii 14 15. Parents must lay up and lay out too for their children I will gladly spend and be spent for you Secondly these words imply a promise on his own behalf as well as contain an express Prayer on behalf of the people Lord if thou wilt be intreated to let it alone this year I will dig about it and dung it I will do all that Art and Industry can do I will not be wanting on my part to perform the most the best All that I can to make it Fruitful Note first in general they who would prevail with God must add endeavours to their Prayers 't is but a tempting and mocking God to do otherwise Ora Labora and 't is a good direction the Adage gives Manus ad Stivam oculus ad Coelum The Hand on the Plough and the Eye lift up to Heaven is the Emblem of the thriving Husbandman And Soloman hath both these passages in one Chapter Prov. x. 4 and 22. The hand of the diligent maketh rich and The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich He tempts God who only Prays and labours not He despiseth God who only labours and Prays not But he honours and pleases him and shall be blessed of him who joyns both together Remember how Moses concludes the nintieth Psalm Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us yea the work of our hands establish thou it The Prayer for blessing on their work shews the concurrence of their Works and Prayer The hard Heart and the soft Hand are both hateful to the Lord but the soft Heart and the hard Hand are his delight my meaning is an Heart that melts in Prayer and an Hand that is grown callous and brawny with industrious Constancy in diligent Labour Let me close this with what I judg a very necessary and seasonable advice When your Ministers visit you in time of sickness to exhort you and comfort you and pray with you 't is usually one part of our exhortation that if God spare you and restore you to health you would shew forth the truth of the repentance you profess when you are like to dye by bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance if God restore you and suffer you to live
And 't is one part of our Prayer that God would vouchsafe to restore you and afford you more time to perfect your Knowledg your Faith your Repentance and what ever else may make you more fit to dye with safety and with comfort Now if God be pleased to hear our Prayers and to spare you and restore you doth not this lay as great an obligation upon us Ministers as may be to apply our selves to you when you are so recovered to put you in mind of the promises you made whilst you conceived your selves in danger of death And as great an engagement upon you to expect from us and accept at our hands willingly and thankfully our bâ—st endeavours to assist you and provoke you to be such as you wish you had been when you thought you should have dyed If the Vine-Dresser here promise that if God will spare the barren-tree one year more after he had threatned to Cut it down he will on his part do all that Art and Industry can do to make it Fruitful applying his care to it particularly besides the general Husbandry he bestows upon the whole Vineyard I think no inference can be drawn more clearly than that when God hath threatned to cut you down by death and the Prayers of your Minister and others have prevailed with God to defer the Sentence and spare you a little longer it is incumbent on you both to desire and accept his help and on him to offer and afford it you and to do alâ— his Christian Charity and Minâ—sterial-Offâ—ce can help him to do that those ends may be attained for which God spared you If he spared you in his Mercy And you should be as willing to send for your Ministers when you are recovered and they as ready to attend you as when you were in danger how much this is practised I know not but how necessary it is that it should be I appeal both to your Consciences and to this Text. And therefore exhort with earnestness it may But I must give the meaning of this place or expression till I shall dig about it and dung it more particularly because much of the Application I design will have dependance upon it Donec ablaqueavero stercoravero It is an allusion to what is most usual and most useful to be done to barren trees 1. Open the Roots remove the clung Earth and the hungry Loam the cold and binding Clay from about them lay them open to the Weather let in the Sun and Rain and expose them to the influence of Heaven the nourishing Dew and refreshing Air cut the stunted and starved and bark-bound Roots that they may sprout afresh put out young Fibres shoot out new Suckers and draw nourishment to feed them and lay good Mendment mellow Dung some richer Soyl and Earth that 's tender well prepared to warm and nourish them that the Roots may have fit nourishment and may be made fit to attract it and receive it And if any thing can this will make the Tree bear Fruit 't is all that Art and Industry can do and it is capable of What could have been more Isa v. 4. So a Minister that interceeds for a people or person that they may be spared must add to his Prayers all that Spiritual wisdom can teach him and Holy industry can assist him in to make them better that they may bring forth the desired Fruits of Righteousness But to be more particular I find much said concerning both these expressions but I confess nothing which gives me satisfaction I shall therefore passing by all others confine my self to one Interpretation which appears to me most proper and pertinent of any I meet with in others or occurred to my own thoughts But before I name it I must premise one Caveat to prevent an indecency and to preserve a decorum that you may not take offence at the comparison I am about to make as unseemly or rude the word Dung is even of a noysom sound as being in itself a loathsome stinking and defiling thing but it is not to be look'd on under that notion in this place but in a more benign acceptation drawn from its usefulness which is to warm to mellow and communicate a prolifick vertue to the Earth and the Plants to make them Fat and flourishing and exuberant in bearing Fruit. And tho Dung on your Cloaths or Bodies in your Houses or your Walks would be loathsome and a foul annoyance yet in your Fields and Orchards it looks well and smells not ill but is desirable and even comely because 't is necessary and very useful And suppose yet to prevent indecency and harshness to the Interpretation I am about to give we mollifie the very word till I may manure it and lay mendment to it for in the scope of this Parable not the bad but the good quality of the Dung is to be considered not how it marrs by its foulness but how it mends by its fatness This premised to prevent prejudice I now tell you that by Digging and Dunging I conceive may most properly be meant applying the Law and the Gospel the Threatnings and the Promises Gods Judgments and Mercies and the most earnest terrifying sinners impenitent bold and daring sinners by the first to bring them to repentance towards God and the alluring wooing and persuading broken-hearted awakened trembling sinners by the other to Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ First Digging breaks the Ground the Spade of the Law the Plough of the Law breaks up the fallow Ground of the Heart as the Prophets phrase is Gods wrath revealed from Heaven against the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men in his terrible threatnings and awakning Judgments startles the obdurate sinner rends the rock he is planted on tears in pieces his hardned security and bold presumption turns up the tough the cold and clungy Soyl in which the very roots of his Heart are shut up and fastned and which chill and stunt his growth that he cannot thrive or bear Fruit. And then the Dew and Rain then the kind and benign influence of the Sun may reach and cherish him then the good Soyl the fresh mendment the prolifick Manure and the mellow tender Mould may be applyed and come near Even the tender Mercies of God and the warm blood of Jesus Christ and the pretious promises of Pardon Life and Grace by which these are offered and applyed 'T is observed and practised that to apply blood to the Root of a Tree a Vine especially is the best and most proper means to make it fruitful And Historians tell us that the Vallies and Gardens about Jerusalem were rendered Fertile beyond expression almost to a Miracle by the abundance of blood which flowed down by the Vaults made on purpose to conveigh it away under the Temple from the multitude of the Sacrifices which were offered there And I am sure there is nothing comparable to the blood of the great Sacrifice of our Lord
neither allow you to kill your King nor eat your God nor purchase Heaven for your mony nor flatter you with hopes that you may go to Paradise in the broad way and have that done for you by others when you are dead which should have been done by your self while you were alive In a word a Religion not made up of Tricks and Artifices of Pomp and Pageantry of a Fardle of unaccountable Rites and Ceremonies and unintelligible mystesteries and contradictions to comply with all mens humours tempers constitutions Severities for the Sowr and Melancholy Carnivals and Stews for the Airy brisk and Sanguine Whips and Austere Discipline as sharp as the Lancets of Baals Priests for the sullenly Superstituous And easie Indulgences and Commutations into gentle Penances for the soft and delicate A Religion tho profest and owned by many sinful men yet neither invented nor headed by the man of sin But a Religion holy and undefiled like its Author plain and simple like the Gospel which contains and teaches it Spiritual and Heavenly like the place it leads them to who love and practise it sincerely Such is the Religion we yet injoy through Gods great goodness but he threatens to bereave us of for our sins against it Let me therefore beseech you and adjure you by all that 's dear to you be zealous and repent speedily sincerely that you force not a jealous God to cut down this Tree to remove his Kingdom and take away his Candlestick because you would not bring forth the Fruits of the one nor walk in the Light of the other and deprive your selves and your Posterity of the greatest blessing God ever did or can bestow on this or any other Nation on this side Heaven But I shall rather chuse to inlarge my self in that Application of this Parable which is more sutable to so private an Auditory tho I cannot deny neither can any man deny the former in our circumstances to be very seasonable and therefore very necessary I shall therefore in what remains consider the Fig tree as a Figure and Type of particular persons Under which notion every individual man and woman is sentenced to be cut down and cast out of the Vineyard of the Church by some Temporal or Spiritual Judgment who hath been planted and admitted into it by Baptism and stands and grows in it injoying all the advantages and priviledges which belong to a Member of it under the Gospel and yet continues Fruitless or bears no good Fruit. Gets no saving Knowledg no true Faith no sound Repentance nor sincere Amendment of Life No real sence or favour of the things of God in a prevalency of Religion in Godliness and Holiness against and above Formality Prophaneness or the love of this present world No Justice Righteousness Truth and Honesty against Defrauding Cousenage Oppression Lying and Slandering of his Neighbours No Temperance Sobriety subduing of his sensual Lusts and Appetites against Uncleanness Drunkenness Debauchery and other defiling pleasures and sensualities in a word who are not foundly Converted and turned from placing their happiness and hopes in sin and creatures to fix them on God and Christ as their only blessedness and satisfying portion Or in St. Paul's express Language who will not learn that great Lesson which the Grace of God that is the Gospel was revealed from Heaven as the clearest light to teach the Sons of men that is To deny all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Righteously Soberly and Godly in this present world in hope of a blessed immortality Nor heartily and in good earnest endeavour to become such as they are by their Baptismal Vow and Covenant obliged to be To every such man to every such woman I denounce this day in the name of the great the dreadful God of Heaven and Earth if thou turn not and that speedily and throughly That God the Lord of Hosts the supream the Omnipotent the Irresistible judg of all the Earth Hath prepared for thee the instruments of death He hath whet his Sword he hath bent and made ready his Bow his Arrows are upon the string suddenly will he shoot at thee and not spare or miss his mark The Ax is laid to thy very Root to cut thee down for fire unquenchable God already despiseth reproacheth and upbraideth thee for cumbring of his Ground hath actually pronounced the Sentence against thee to cut thee down the word is gone out of his mouth only in admirable Patience he hath reprieved thee one year more a little longer to try whether thou wilt yet at last sue out a Pardon return repent amend that thou mayst live Yet if thou do it not quickly he will compensate the former disappointments of his expectation whilst year after year he came looking for Fruit and found none together with the aggravated abuse of his long-sufferance which vouchsafes another year with a severer vengeance with a greater Damnation As for our parts who are Gods Ministers it is no pleasure nor delight to us to be Messengers of so heavy tydings to come on so harsh and terrifying an Errand We had rather be sent on Embassies of Peace and speak what might be more welcome and pleasing to you provided it might also be profitable for you But we must not chuse our own Message but the Word God puts into our mouths that must we speak What we have received from the Lord that must we deliver to you according to our Commission and our Instructions written in his Word must we proceed in the discharge and execution of our Office We must not sow Pillows under your Armpits nor dawb with untempered mortar at the Price at the Peril of our own Souls Nor promise Life where God hath threatned Death Nor speak Peace where God saith there is no Peace And there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa lvii 21. This were but to betray you and ruin our selves To lead you blindfold into the Ditch and plunge our selves in together with you into the Lake of fire and brimstone and to have the guilt of the blood of your souls added and heapt up upon that of our own to sink us deeper in the bottomless Gulph What we may do and what we can do that by the Grace of God we will do We will Pray to God to let you alone this year also Spare thy people good Lord spare this and that other Fruitless-Tree one year more try them O Lord a little longer it may be they will consider it may be they will bethink themselves it may be they will yet bear Fruit. And then it shall be no grief of Heart to thee O blessed Lord that thou didst not cut them off suddenly in thy sore displeasure Many have made some amends for an unfruitful youth by bringing forth more Fruit in their Age. Great Sinners have become great Saints What had thy Church lost what had thy Glory lost if thou hadst struck Saul dead when thou didst
strike him down and he rose up a Paul Lord let us humbly claim what thou hast so gratiously Proclaimed and thou hast Proclaimed thy Name thy own Name to be the Lord even the Lord gratious and merciful long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Exod. xxxiv 6. Yea so long-suffering that thou Wouldest not that any should perish but that all should come to repentance 2 Pet. iii. 9. to prevent their perishing In this Sence we will and to this Sence do all good and faithful Ministers interceed with God for their people But we must not only interceed for you but we must also interceed with you in Gods behalf For we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we beseech you therefore in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. v. 20. And we must not only intreat you but we must treat with you argue debate and reason out the case with you Why will you dye Why will you not return why will you forsake your own Mercies Why will you lay out your mony for that which is not bread and your strength for that which satisfieth not Why will you prefer a broken Cistern which will hold no water before the Fountain of living water it self Why will you chuse the puddle of the impoysoned pleasures of sin which are but for a season Before the Healing Crystal Streams Those Rivers of Pleasure and fulness of Joy which are at Gods Right-Hand for ever more Yea we must add our hardest Labour to our softest Prayers And our dearer Cost to our cheaper Requests We must dig about you and manure you You are Gods Husbandry and Building And we must Till and Dress you and Build you up to the utmost of out Skill and Industry And tho this be not the Work of an hour or a day but of our whole Life and Ministry Yet suffer me to attempt it so far as the time will bear And first I must Dig about you that is loosen and remove the clung the cold the hard and clutchy Loam and hungry Earth from about your Roots which chil and stunt and starve you that you bear no Fruit in Gods Vineyard That is your indulged Lusts and inordinate Love of the World which by gnawing at your Hearts spoyl both your growth and fruitfulness Your Carnal security your ignorant and bold presumptions your trusting in your outward priviledges and false confidences in your formal duties and customary performances and self-flatteries as to the sufficiency of your attainments and good progress you reckon you have made All these and many more have an unhappy aptitude to hinder your bearing Fruit and make you barren in some the hardness of the Rock prevents the taking Root In others the Thorns draw away the good nourishment or growing up about it Shade and over drop it keep away the Sun and Weather and stifle and pinch it up it hath no room to spread The cares of the world the love of riches and the lusts of other things choak the seed and the Plants that they bring no Fruit to perfection Mark iv 19. In others the overvaluing of their outward priviledges as those Jews Jeremiah writes of Chap. vii Who cryed The temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord. And those in our Saviours time St. John viii We are Abrahams seed we have Abraham to our Father Or the Opinion of their attainments Like the Church of Laodicea Rev. iii. Who said she was rich and increased in goods and had need of nothing Or boasting in their formal duties as that Pharisee Luk. xviii I fast twice a week I pay tithes of all I possess Or proud comparing your selves with some notorious flagitious sinners I thank God I am not like such an one nor do like such an one nor like that Publican Some of these or somthing like these lies at the Root of most mens Hearts and chils or starves or binds or choaks them that they bear no Fruit nor answer Gods expectation tho they have a standing in his Church So many now a days and it may be some of your selves are prone to say we are good Protestants we are no Papists no nor we are no Phanaticks But we are true Sons of the Church we have been Baptised we keep our Church we say our Prayers we receive the Sacrament As if the outward washing would save you without the answer of a good Conscience toward God and making your Covenant with God without the keeping of it Or coming to Church without learning or practising what you are here taught or calling upon God without departing from iniquity and lifting up your hands tho they be full of Blood Bribes or Oppression Or receiving the Sacrament without discerning the Lords Body or considering what you do Or standing in the Vineyard without bearing Fruit. When that is the very ground of Gods Controversie with you and the thing that hastens your ruin and you might stand longer in an Hedg-row or on a Common than in Gods inclosure Now as when the Gardiner digs about a Tree it is to loosen the clung Earth take away the bad lay open the Roots that he may lay better to them as was toucht before such must be the end of our Spiritual our Ministerial digging about your Hearts And as I conceive this expression is equivalent to that of breaking up the fallow ground of the Heart to Plow up the Weeds and Thorns and make it mellow and tender to receive the Seed as that must be done by the Plough of the Law so must this with the Spade of the Law Docendo monendo convincendo redarguendo by teaching admonishing convincing reproving threatning as a good Expositor expresseth it which are all the proper works of the Law That we may therefore apply our selves rightly to this work In the 29th of Deuteronomy verse 18. we read of a root bearing gall and wormwood very bad very bitter Fruit and the next verse describes him to be one that blesseth himself in his heart and saith he shall have peace tho he add drunkenness to thirst and the 12. verse before and the 25. after seems to intimate the grounds or occasion of that his confidence because he was entred into Covenant with God As if that would secure him from danger Now I beseech you observe with what Spade Moses himself digs about this Root verse 20. The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoak against that man and all the curses that are written in this book shall lye upon him And the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the Tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the Covenant that are written in the Book of this Law Read what follows at your leisure as also Deut. xxviii more largely from verse xv to the end which contains 54. verses and many more
which are apt to kindle and are fit fuel for those corruptions God will leave yon to your own choice Isa 66.3 4. They have chosen their own ways and their soul delighteth in their abominations therefore I also will chuse their delusions and will bring their fears upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they would not hear but they did evil before mine eyes and chose that in which I delighted not There is scarce one passage in all the Bible repeated so often over in terminis as that dreadful Sentence first denounced from the mouth of God by the Ministry of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 6.10 and to which he was prepared with so great and awful Solemnity By a Vision of the Divine Majesty upon the Throne of his Glory and an Angel touching his Lips with a coal from the Altar and with a special Commission to send him on this Errand Go and tell this people hear ye indeed hat understand not see ye indeed but perceive not make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed Which we find repeated as the Margin of your Bibles will shew Matth. 13 14 15. Mark 4.12 Luke 8.10 John 12.40 in all which places our Lord himself applies it and with such variety as would afford us very useful remarks but I leave them to be made by your own Observation then Acts 28.26 S. Paul improves it very fully and having rehearsed the words at large draws a sad inference from them verse 28. Be it known therefore to you that the Salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and they will hear it Than which nothing could have been spoken more cutting to the Jews who so despised and hated the Gentiles and implies that God's Salvation that is his Word Truth the true Religion should now be taken from them for hitherto Salvation was of the Jews John 4.22 for their obstinate unfruitfulness and given to the Gentiles who would receive it and is but the interpretation and confirmation of our Saviours own words before touch'd The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof And we find it again Rom. 11.8 they were blinded according as it is written God hath given them a spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see c. Nothing can be more terrible and affrighting than this threat to any man who will consider and weigh it and the inforcing it so oft may awaken even them that are asleep in the deepest security if this doom be not already executed against them and it hath actually seized upon them And I might refer you to many more of the like dreadful import in both Testaments but I 'll content my self with one in each Ezek. 24.12 13 14. She hath wearied her self with lyes and her great scum went not forth out of her In thy filthiness is lewdness because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee I the Lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and I will do it I will not go back I will not spare neither will I repent according to thy ways and according unto thy doings shall they judge thee saith the Lord God Words so exaggerated so keen so pungent they will pierce your hearts and move you if they be not harder than the nether Mill-stone yea may penetrate the heart that is so hard if the head if the mind of the man in whom it is will dwell a little upon the meditation the consideration of them The place in the New Testament I would refer you to is that pathetick word of our Saviour recorded in the end of the Chapter where my Text is O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together as an hen gathereth her brood under her wings and ye would not Behold your house is left unto yon desolate I have met with as improper Allusions and Paraphrases tho I will not avow such an one as it would be should I gloss upon these words thus O sinners sinners who have killed your Ministers with their study pains and travel to bring you to repentance and yet you would not rerepent who have broken the hearts of them whom I sent to you by the stonyness of your hearts how often how fain would I have gathered you to my self have turn'd you from your sinful courses and ye would not therefore I 'll now trouble my self no more with you I 'll give you up to your own hearts lusts fill up the measure of your iniquities that wrath may come upon you without measure even to the utmost Lastly To add no more God will sharpen the edge and envenom the point of his Sword of vengeance by joyning contempt to his wrath and scornful derision to the soreness of his fiery indignation laughing at your destruction and mocking when your fear comes upon you And a great mind can bear smart better than reproach and pain more easie than derision Reproach will break those hearts with vexing sorrow which all the words of God could not break with Godly Sorrow He that sits in heaven shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision Psal ii 4. The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming Psal xxxvii 13. And there is nothing more astonishingly sad than Gods laughing when with a just insulting he cryes Ah ha I will ease me of my adversaries I will avenge me of my enemies Isa i. 24. These are some few of those many Righteous Comminations of those affrighting menaces by which the Spade of the Law is steeled to dig about your Roots and remove the cold and hungry Earth from them which causes your barrenness in Gods Vineyard These are the Share and Coulter of that Plough by which we must breaks up the Fallow-ground of your Hearts to kill the Thorns and Weeds which choak the good Seed of the Word Any one of them might and should suffice to do the work yet that they may profit you jointly which have not done it singly Take them in one view it may bean whole volly may strike down that security which would not fall before a single shot I exhort you I beseech you I adjure you therefore by all these put together and by what ever else God's Holy Spirit may suggest to your own Consciences of greater force and cogency Repent and bring forth fruits meet for Repentance speedily readily faithfully under those abundant helps God affords you by the Gospel and his Patience which you have almost tired out yet continues a little longer to you For I assure you in his name 1. God will do no more
in in them Sixthly He that is the Amen the true and faithful one the God that cannot lie gives you many great and precious promises which are founded upon his word that is more firm than the mountains than the foundations of the Earth than the Ordinances of Heaven than the course of day and night in their Seasons That he will abundantly pardon that he will heal your back-slidings and love you freely that he will blot out your iniquities as a thick cloud that he will cast all your Traâ—sgressions into the depth of the Sea even that Ocean of Mercy which hath neither shore nor bottom that whosoever comes to him he will in no wise cast him out And hundreds more of the like endearing and sweetest signification Seventhly As if it were not enough on his part to give us leave to be happy he hath made it our duty to be so and obliged us by the strictest commands to that which will infallibly render us so He commands all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 This is his commandment that we believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ 1 John 3.23 and that believing we might have life by his Name John 20 31. And who dare question his sincerity as if he did not heartily desire what he so earnestly injoyns Eighthly He steps down from the Throne of the Imperative Mood to the humble Foot-stool of the Optative 'T is a sign of weakness to fall to wishing and an argument of impotence to cry O si O si to sigh out our Options And yet the Omnipotent God disdains not to appear to us thus to shew and express the pathos of his blessed mind the vehemency with which he desires our good and wellfare Oh that there were such an heart in them Deut. 5.29 Oh that they were wise Deut 32.29 Oh that my people had hearkened unto we Psal 81.13 Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments Isa 48.18 Whose heart would it not break with shame and sorrow to hear an holy God breathing out the longing desires of his heart in this wise that we may he assured of his hearty readiness in accepting us when we perform what he wishes with such assumed passions that we would perform Ninthly He stoops yet lower and does what is infinitely indecent I will not say for him to do but I must say for us to occasion him to do and more to suffer him to continue to do but most of all to suffer him to do in vain that is to intreat us pray us woe us beseech us to accept his mercy to pity our selves to be reconciled to him and to accept his pardon which he offers ready sealed and to touch that Golden Scepter which he reaches out from Heaven to us Abraham sent but once to take a wife for his Son Isaac from amongst his Kindred and a short woing by a servant serv'd the turn when they saw the Bracelets and the Jewels and the Ear-rings and heard the rest reported how soon do they yield and send away Rebeckah Gen. 24. Yet God sends one Embassador one Paranymph and Spokes-man after another to woe to court us to be Brides to the true Isaac the Heir of all things who is become our Kinsman and hath all the right imaginable to claim us to himself and offers more Dower than we can ask to joyncture us in the whole Land of Promise to settle upon us the inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled which fades not away reserved in Heaven to give us an eternal Kingdom yea the eternal King himself to be our everlasting Portion and is it possible to doubt his willingness to conclude the Match after all this Tenthly But to make all sure beyond all possibility of any rational ground to remain to stick and scruple at his heartiest reality in designing our happiness he adds to all the rest his Oath which puts an end to Controversies God being willing more abundantly to shew unto the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel confirm'd it by an Oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie we might have strong consolation Heb. 6.17 18. Two things that is his Promise and his Oath upon his promise or two things the two by which he swears his life his holiness as if he had said as true as I am a living God as true as I am an holy God I will pardon you I will yet spare you if yet at last you bring forth good fruit let me never be esteemed a living God never accounted an holy God more if I do not or two things I use this only allusively I urge it not as the proper meaning of the place God swears by the two Sacraments for a Sacrament is an Oath As truly as this water which I now touch and lay my hand upon will wash what is foul and make it clean soak what is hard and make it soft quench what is kindled and put out its burning refresh what is scorched and make it fruitful and slack his thirst who drinks it and chear and revive his spirits so shall the Blood and Spirit of my Son which I will pour out upon all who thirst for it and are willing to receive it do for them proportionably in their Souls cleanse soften quench satisfie and make them fruitful and as truly as this Bread will nourish them who eat it and become the staff of their lives and as truly as this Wine will chear the hearts of them that drink it so truly so certainly shall the Body and Blood of my Son which I here freely and heartily offer to you nourish and cherish you unto eternal life if you will indeed by faith receive it and feed upon it Eleventhly He will make your Estate as happy as if you had come sooner provided you come now in earnest without more delay They received every one a penny and there are last who shall be first Twelfthly He 'll not twit you or upbraid you with your coming late He giveth liberally and uphraideth not Nay he will himself be thy Apologist and against them who reproach thee for labouring but one hour he will plead thy Cause Friend I do thee no wrong is thy eye evil because I am good Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own I will give to this last as unto thee Matth. 20.14 This is a little of the much that might be said upon this Argument a little of that mellow prolifick earth to be laid to your Roots God Almighty set it home by the hand of his own Spirit and in his name I do assure you if either this digging or this dunging these threatnings or those promises either singly or both joyntly prevail to make you yet fruitful God will assuredly spare you and repeal his sentence given out against you But then you must do it quickly Agree with thy Adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him Look
Blind and the Lame with many other Expressions which imply Neglect and Sleightiness in his Service Vers 14. But Cursed be the Deceiver which hath in his Flock a Male and Voweth and Sacrificeth to the Lord a Corrupt Thing As much as to say who had Opportunities and Abilities to serve God better yet through Sloath and Negligence presumes to serve Him worse The Servant who hid his Talent in a Napâ—in when he should have traded for his Master with it is first punish't with the Loss of his Talent Take the Talent from him And then with sorer Vengeance Bind him Hand and Foot and cast him into utter Darkness Not only those who rob'd and spoyl'd them but those who neglected to Relieve Christ in His poor Members Shall go away into Everlasting Punishment And other Negligence in what God requires will meet with a Proportionable Doom Secondly Negligence in God's Work casts a great Damp upon others weakens their Hands discourageth their Hearts The World is exceeding prone to be taken with such Examples as gratify their Lusts and indulge their Ease Now when Men who are too ready of themselves to be Slack and Remiss in these Matters see you who are their Betters Sleight and Sloathful How will they argue from and improve so bad a Precedent and say to themselves 'T is safe to do so as the Apostle argues in another Case 1 Cor. 8.10 Shall not the Conscience of him that is weak be emboldned So may I in this Shall not others be imboldned to be as Careless as thy self And so thou wilt destroy thy Brother for whom Christ Dyed And sin against his Soul and sin against Christ and against thy own Life all at once And I appeal to your own Consciences What is it that makes Forwardness and Zeal in Religion and Diligence in God's Work be look't upon with so shy and suspicious an Eye in most places Yea with Disgrace Reproach and Scorn as if it were more ado than needs But the general Coldness and Deadness of Men call'd Christians and professing themselves the Servants of the true God And if any do tacitely reprove them by being more forward they 'll Revenge themselves with the Lowdest Reproaches and Infamous Reflections of Affectation of Singularity Hypocrisy Hair-brain'd Zeal and what not And so when their Spiritual Interest urges them and Conscience urges them to Diligence in their Great Work they dare not endeavour it for fear of Jeers Scorns and being laught at for their Singularity and as Men who would pretend to be wifer than their Neighbour and are either cog'd out of the Power of Godlyness by the flattering Example of the Lazy or Bug-bear'd out on 't by the Reproaches of Singularity But Woe be to him by whom such Offences come It were better a Mill-stone were hanged about his Neck and he were cast into the Sea than that he should offend one Little One who believes in Christ St. Matth. 18.6 If it be so dangerous to be Partaker of other Mens Sins What is it to be the Author of other Men's Sins And if no Murderer of Men's Bodies hath Eternal Life What shall become of those who thus Murder Souls Consider our Lord's Words St. Matth. 23.13 Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites Ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men for ye neither go in your selves and them that were entring in ye hinder Thirdly Thy Sloathfulness in God's Work greatly dishonours Him not meerly as it disobeys Him but by the Sinister Reflections it makes upon Him as if His Work deserved no better 'T is Natural to us when we see any Design pursued Remisly to conclude 'T is not worth the while to bestow more Pains about it and consequently it greatly provokes him For He that despiseth Him shall be lightly esteemed God regards the manner of our Duties as much nay more than the Duties themselves 'T is not the doing Good pleaseth Him so much as the doing of it Well Not only Eat but so Eat Let a Man Examine himself and so let him Eat Not only Read Pray Hear but Read Considerately Hear Attentively Pray Earnestly So Read so Pray so Hear or else thou may'st do all these more to thy Hurt than Benefit As the Apostle speaks of some Mens Eating and Drinking their own Damnation Not only serve God but Keep thy Heart diligently when thou art about it And be not Sloathful in this Business but Fervent in Spirit serving the Lord Rom. 12.11 The Luke-warm is the worst Temper God will spew such out of His Mouth Rev. 3.16 The Fourth Head from whence we may draw Moitves to excite our Diligence in this Work is by making Comparisons And this will yield us several very Cogent Ones First Compare God and the World and thy Self with thy Self in reference to These thy Worldly Self with thy Religious Self And Alas What vast odds appears even at the first View What are all the Things yea and all the Men of the World put together in Comparison of Him To whom will ye liken God or What Likeness will ye compare to Him Behold the Nations are as the Drop of a Bucket and are counted as the small Dust of the Ballance he taketh up the Isles as a very little Thing All Nations before Him are as nothing and they are counted to Him less than nothing and Vanity Isa 40.15 17 18. What miserable Comforters what deceitful Helpers when their Breath goeth out and their Thoughts perish Yea before that while they Live and are in their Best Estate they are altogether Vanity How Weak how False how soon Weary are all the Men in the World in Comparison of the Almighty All-wise All-sufficient most Faithful and Unchangeable God How Empty how Unsatisfying how Perishing how Deceitful what Lying and Vexing Vanities are all the Honours Profits Pleasures thou can'st pursue or hope to catch in Comparison of Him who is the only full pleasing satisfying Object of the Heart of Man Now argue hence If Men if thy Self yet seek for these with so great Warmth and Heat with so much Life and Vigour and Rise up Early and Sit up Late and Wear out themselves and Labour as in the Fire to grasp these Shadows What Zeal what Diligence should we use in the Work of God that we may please Him and enjoy Him for Ever Solomon observes That Many seek the Rulers Favour Prov. 29.26 How will Men fawn and flatter and crouch and debase themselves and comply with the Humours nay the Lusts of them who can Advance them Though the Psalmist who was a Mighty Prince himself bids us not to Put Confidence in Princes nor in the Sons of Men in whom is no Help Psal 146.3 And giving the Reason for it ver 4. directs us ver 5. shewing us in the Enjoyment of whom true Happiness Consists Happy is the Man who hath the God of Jacob for his Help whose Hope is the Lord his God who made Heaven and Earth and keepeth Truth for
ever And Psal 118.8 9. It is better to Trust in the Lord than to put Confidence in Man than to put Confidence in the Greatest or the Best of Men. And if Men will be so Diligent to please a Landlord a Justice a Master or a Father How much more Careful should we be to please the Great God of Heaven And the Apostle argues Heb. 12.9 We have had Fathers of our Flesh and we gave them Reverence Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live And God himself Mal. 1.6 And so for the Things of the World No Study or Contrivance of the Head no Labour nor Travel of the Hands or Feet is thought too much How did Jacob Serve for Rachel See how he describes his Diligence Gen. 31.40 In the Day the Drought consumed me and the Frost by Night and my Sleep departed from mine-Eyes And 't is easier to find an Hundred following him in this than Two or Three in his Wrestling with God and not letting Him go till they obtain the Blessing Most Men being serious about Trifles and only trifling and dallying about this Serious Work The One Thing necessary Spending their Money for that which is not Bread and their Labour for that which satisfies not Isa 55.2 Forsaking the Fountain of Living Waters and hewing out broken Cisterns that will hold no Water Jer. 2.13 Being wise to do Evil but void of Knowledge to do Good Compare thy Self with other Men How many Younger than thy Self have got more Knowledge How many Poorer than thy Self can spare more Time to Read and Meditate and Pray How many of weaker Parts and under smaller Helps and intrusted with fewer Talents yet have far out-stript thee in your common Master's Work And thou wilt say 'T is like 't is well done of them And thy Judgment approves and praises them For shame then Practise thy Self what thou canst not but applaud in Others Yea let Shame to find thy Self out-stript by so Many that were once behind thee and are so still in many Respects quicken thee to double thy Diligence till thou recover and over-take them yea get again before them Again Compare thy Self with GOD if thou be not afraid to entertain a Thought of so unequal a Comparison Lord What is Man a Worm a Clod a Bubble a Shadow Yea Man in Honour is like the Beast that perisheth and in his best Estate is altogether Vanity And yet as Mean and Inconsiderable a Thing as thou art thou standest upon it thou wilt have it thus and thus and thy Will must be done with Diligence and thy Work with Care and with Exactness and art presently upbraiding those about thee for the least Neglect with What do I keep you for And wilt rid thy self of such unprofitable Incumbrances and wilt not retain an Idle Faithless Servant in thy Family a Jade in thy Stable a Barren or Unthristy Creature amongst thy Caâ—ttle or a Fruitless Tree in thy Orchard And How darest thou be such towards the Great King of all the Earth as thou wilt not suffer any of thy Fellow-Creatures to be towards thy self who art so far below Him so Inconsiderable a Nothing in comparison of Him Once more Compare the Sweet and Easie Indulgence the Gospel hath provided for thee in the Work of God with the Hard Service imposed and exacted under the Law and the Gracious Assistance offer'd and communicated under this Dispensation with the little Help afforded then How Chargeable and Costly were the Sacrifices How Long and Tyring the Journey 's up to Jerusalem How Insupportable the Yoke of those Observances And How small the Aids afforded What would'st thou have done then if thou stickest if thou grudgest if thou repine at what is now expected and shall be accepted As Naaman's Servants said wisely to their Master My Father if the Prophet had bid thee do some great Thing Wouldst thou not have done it How much more when he saith unto thee Wash and be Clean 2 King 5.13 If God if Christ had bid thee do some Harder Work Wouldst thou not do it to save thy Soul for ever How much more when he hath made the Way more Easie than of Old and offer'd and assur'd greater Help than then to enable thee to do it Lastly Compare thy Work for the True God with what Idolaters and Hypocrites perform to False Ones or to the True One Falsly That you may be moved to Jealousie with those which are not a People and provoked by a Foolish Nation Deut. 32.21 How do the Worshippers of Baal cry whole Dayes and Cut themselves with Knives and Lances till the Blood gushes out How do the Profelytes of Rome Whip themselves pour out their Money to their wily Priests which make Merchandize of them for Masses Indulgences c. How do they Lavish out Gold and Impoverish themselves and Families to inrich the Shrines of Dead and Dumb Idols and undergo hard Penances and tedious Pilgrimages And all in vain led only by a False Opinion of Meriting by what God will despise And How Profuse will Hypocrites be Thousands of Rams and Ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl Yea what is Dearer still The First-Born of their Bodies for the Sin of their Souls Mich. 6. How Shall not only the Queen of the South but the Great Whore of the West Rise up against you and Condemn your Sloath Fifthly We are under many Great and Indispensible Engagements to Diligence in this Work We are bound in Conscience and 't is our Duty that we must We are bound in Gratitude upon receiving so many Talents and Opportunities by which we may We are bound in point of Interest our own Safety and Happiness depends upon it and 't is our Wisdom if we will thus work A word of every one of these may serve First 'T is our Duty and we are bound by His Authority who is our Lord. He hath commanded us to keep His Precepts diligently The First and Great Command is To Love the Lord our God which is the very Soul and Life of this Work with all our Heart and all our Soul with all our Might and all our Strength Every Step in this Way must be trodden heedfully See that ye Walk circumspectly not as Fools but as Wise Not at Peradventure Keep thy Heart with all Diligence Prov. 4.24 Joshua's Words are very pressing Chap. 22.5 Take diligent heed to do the Commandment and the Law which Moses the Servant of the Lord charged you to Love the Lord your God and to Walk in all His Wayes and to Keep His Commandments and to Cleave to Him and to Serve Him with all your Heart and all your Soul As we must agree quickly with our Adversary so we must give Diligence to be delivered from him We must not only Work at but Work out our own Salvation As we must Receive the Word with all readiness so we must take most Diligent heed to the Things we have heard lest at any time we